Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Page 2 of 3

How to Interview: The Girls of “New Moon”

Published on November 19, 2009 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: .

I feel SO sorry for Kristen Stewart, to be caught in a love triangle between buffed Taylor Lautner and swoon-worthy Robert Pattinson. Must have been difficult to drag herself to the set. Actually, one journalist during the press conference asked her if the slate were wiped clean, would Bella have gone for Jacob instead of Edward since Jacob is just too damn fine, to which Stewart replied, “I know, trust me. I feel you completely.” I’m sure she does; whether Stewart and Pattinson have the hots for each other in real life or not, you can’t deny Lautner’s appeal as Jacob. Personally, if I were Bella, I might go for Jacob just in looks alone – I like dark-haired guys – but once Edward kissed me, I’d buckle. If I were Bella, that is. Let’s just say, it looks like he knows what he is doing.

But I digress (apparently into my own personal la-la land in which I’M the star of the movie. What is WRONG with me?) Here’s what the girls have to say about their continuing Twilight experiences (and by the way, those Cullen babes have way too much fun):

Step 1: Did we mention how fine Taylor Lautner is as Jacob?
Kristen Stewart: “He becomes a man. There’s an entire [thing]. It’s not just a physical transformation. He really becomes an adult. I mean, I always knew that Taylor could do that but we just needed to make sure because it was so important. So once he actually proved himself, which wasn’t hard to do, even seeing him walk around on set was like a different experience. He’s literally become a different person. He’s just grown up. He’s so confident and the nicest guy that I’ve ever met. I know that I’m using this grammatically incorrect, but he’s the funnest guy I’ve ever hung out with. So he’s great. I’m so proud of him.”

Melissa Rosenberg [Screenwriter]: “I wish I could take credit for the moments of Jacob pulling off his shirt and Edward pulling off his shirt. They are in the book and it seemed unwise to leave them out.”

Step 2: Enjoy being part of the Twilight saga
Stewart: “I think my favorite thing about this is the fact that I can keep it personal. It’s still something that if the saga didn’t become a franchise, and it was literally was just a series of movies that I had done, they would mean just as much to me. That’s also the best part of it, the fact that it isn’t like that, the fact that so many people are affected by it and are invested in it just as much as me if not more. Like I said about [director] Chris [Weitz], if you don’t like people and if you don’t want to make movies because you care about people then you probably are just wanting to be just rich and famous. So the fact that this is so important to so many people makes me so happy. That’s it. I think that’s it.”

Ashley Greene [who plays Alice Cullen]: “I think this go-around we were all a little bit more prepared, which was nice. In the first film, we were kind of all going, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?’ And you know we had the support of the fans behind us. In the first one, again, we were going, ‘Oh, God, we hope they don’t hate us.’ And they completely embraced us, so going into the second one, I think it was a much more fun, relaxed experience, at least for me.”

Rosenberg: “… the objective is you have to take the audience on the same emotional journey they had in the book. That’s the primary objective and, in order to take them on that journey, there’s certain plot points you have to hit. You have to have, obviously, Edward breaking up with Bella. You have to Bella discover the wolves. You have to have Edward attempting to kill himself – all the things that are crucial in the book. So you start with those scenes and then you condense and expand on some things.”

Step 3: Breaking up is indeed hard to do, especially if you’re Bella and Edward
Stewart: “That was the scariest thing. I was almost as worried about messing it up than I was about what I actually should have been thinking about which was the issues that Bella is dealing with. Reading it, it’s so iconic. I know what’s it like to get broken up with, but I don’t know what it’s like to get broken up with by a vampire who I’ve now been physically and chemically altered by. Suddenly, you take an addict, you take whatever they’re addicted to away from them and there’s withdrawal. So that was the most intimidating scene in the entire movie. I don’t know how to explain how I did it. Chris really helped me out. I mean, the breakup scene [itself], that’s not where I was intimidated. That was still, like she doesn’t even believe it yet. It’s when he goes, the absence of him, that I was scared of. I was like, ‘How am I going to be by myself in the woods with a hundred guys standing around me, filming me, die?’ Basically, literally having the equivalent of like a death scene but stay alive and get up and keep walking. It was hard. I still don’t know. I’ve seen the movie. I really like the movie, but I don’t know if anyone ever really would’ve been able to bring that to life the way that Stephenie [Meyer] writes it.”

Robert Pattinson [on his take of the breakup scene]: “There’s something weird about it. One of the main things I felt doing that and what really helped was people’s anticipation of the movie, and the fans of the series’ idea about what Bella and Edward’s relationship is and what it represents to them. It’s some kind of ideal for a relationship. And so, just playing a scene where you’re breaking up the ideal relationship, I felt a lot of the weight behind that. Also, it took away a fear of melodrama. It felt seismic, even when we were doing it. It was very much like the stepping out into the sunlight scene, at the end. You could really feel the audience watching, as you’re doing it. It was a strange one to do.”

Step 4: To be immortal or not to be immortal, that is the question
Stewart: “I can only relate to that as Bella can because she is still human. I think that’s an interesting question for any one of the vampires because they actually [deal with that]. The way that I consider immortality from both my perspective as Kristen and my perspective as Bella is that it’s so completely unknown but that given the right motivating factor I’d be willing to explore it. She’s very willing to acknowledge that she doesn’t know but that she’s willing to give it a chance because of Edward, because she’s willing to sacrifice anything for him basically. A big thing for Bella is change. She’s so terrified of change because she’s been thrust into this world. It’s not a necessarily healthy way of looking at things … Immortality is almost more scary in our story than mortality. To live forever seems on the surface like a really cool thing, but in our story it’s terrifying and means taking your soul – or at least it does to Edward. Like the lines of personal belief and literally theology and your faith, what you think is going to happen after you die, these are things that we think about incessantly in the movie and things that Edward and Bella even argue about. I know that was really everywhere but there you go.”

Step 5: Tap into your own eeeevilness
Dakota Fanning [who plays Volturi member Jane]: “I think the highlight of playing Jane was getting to wear that costume and to have the red contact lenses — I was really excited about that – and getting to play an evil character.

Michael Sheen [who plays Volturi leader Aro]: “We had to tone Dakota down. She was too evil. Her natural personality is too evil and we had to tone the volume down on the evil.”

Fanning: [Laughs] “Yeah. It was fun to get to play a feared character, you know, something different than what I’ve done before. And also, she uses her power not for good, which was another thing that was kind of interesting to me.”

Step 6: Remember those crazy Twihard fans again
Stewart: “The funniest thing in the world just happened to me in Brazil. I’ve had a lot of really varying experiences. Some absolutely touching and overwhelming and daunting. Some just like crazy. Then sometimes they’re really funny. I was in Brazil with Taylor, and Rob was in Japan. That’s just how it goes sometimes. We’re sent all over. This guy was chasing after us. There was a huge crowd anyway, but this one very persistent fella was like, ‘Where is Robert!? Where is Robert?!’ I couldn’t stop laughing and I felt really bad because he was distraught and emotional, and I was like, ‘It’s just Robert.’ It was really funny.”

Step 7: Remember your own crazy obsessions
Fanning: “I’m obsessed with baby names, with what people name their children. Just like friends, anybody. I know a lot of people’s baby names. [Laughs] But I just love names in general. I’ve been planning my children’s names since I was like four. I have lists of girls, boys, and I have them from all different ages. It’s really fun.”

Nikki Reed [who plays Rosalie Hale]: “I loved the Spice Girls. No, I’m serious. When I was 11, my brother told me if we took a bus, we would find the Spice Girls. And this is a true story. In Culver City. And we got on the bus with a suitcase, my brother and I, who was a year older than I, and we took the bus all the way down to the beach. And the Spice Girls weren’t there. But he was watching the news or something and it said they were on some highway and he thought he could put it together. My mom found us. That didn’t work out.”

Greene: “I just pretended to be a Spice Girl in high school. Or not high school, middle school. Oh, God.”

Kellan Lutz [who plays Emmet Cullen]: “I’m just obsessed with candy and animals. I love safaris now; I can’t go to a zoo. When I was in Africa I went to a safari and giant white lions and tigers were walking right by our place. Baboons just, you know, trying to break in our car and steal my candy, which isn’t nice. But no, I’m a huge animal advocate. And I just love animals.”

Elizabeth Reaser [who plays Esme Cullen]: “I don’t know, I’m currently obsessed with Jay-Z [laughs] If that makes sense. That’s all I can listen to.”

Step 8: What the Cullens do at night
Greene: “Alice plans parties. Alice plans lots of parties.”
Reed: “I look at myself all night.” [lots of laughter among them]
Reaser: “I think Esme goes out and like tears apart a mountain lion every other night.”
Reed: “We hunt together. We don’t speak. We hunt.”
Reaser: “Yeah, like we don’t have all this chitchat. Like I think Alice and I hang out and we maybe go shopping and do all this girly stuff. This one and I, we just hunt.”

Step 9: Hug a Cullen babe, if you dare
Reed: “Seriously, the scenes that we’re in, like, they’re lacking warmth. I mean, for obvious reasons, but it’s nice when you see like the wolf pack come in because it’s needed. You need it. They wrestle around like a bunch of kids and you want that. It doesn’t feel natural like to watch all of us [Cullens]. Just know that it is intentional and we’re not retards. Like the fact that we don’t touch in the scenes and we’re all like we don’t touch ourselves. I mean, we’ve got white makeup from here to here [indicating arm from elbow to fingertips]. It’s a skill on its own to learn how to function in our hair and makeup and also knowing that we’re like cold stones. You know what I mean? I just want a hug all the time.”

Step 10: Tell us more about the third installment, Eclipse
Stewart: “Yeah, Eclipse … Just as soon as you think you’re going to get the same story, it’s sort all of a sudden completely changes. Bella is much more back to herself. She’s content now. She’s comfortable and self-assured in a way that she wasn’t in New Moon. I think what I really love about Eclipse, what was interesting for me to explore, was different levels of love and acknowledging that the ideals that you maybe had a little while ago aren’t true. Bella is innately honest. That’s something that I feel she is. In Eclipse, she lies to herself and she lies to everyone around her about the fact that she’s in love with Jacob, just not as much. It’s not that extra thing that you can’t really even describe. I loved watching the three of them. I loved playing with the three characters together. There’s literally a scene where Edward and Jacob who are mortal enemies are in a tent with a sleeping Bella in between them. It’s a ridiculous circumstance to find yourself in. We had so much to work with. Then the FX as well were even more. There’s a big battle that happens and that was more than we had to deal with on New Moon. So it was cool. I’ve always gotten to do things for really short periods of time. To follow a character this long surprises me every time. I can’t wait to do the fourth one because I’m sure that I’m going to come in and say that everything I said this time was wrong, that I actually know Bella more now. And actually we have such established dynamics. The way that I know Bella deals with Edward, you sort of can’t mess with that. I know how she deals with him. I know how she deals with Jacob. I know how she deals with Charlie, her dad, and to have people come in and help that process out is only cooler. You always get a different perspective. So working with David [Slade] was like, ‘Okay, lets see what you’ve got,’ because he came up with a lot of stuff that I would’ve never thought of, and he’s quite good at the whole technical aspect of movie making, which is so completely over my head. So I got to feel safe that he had that handled and me and Rob and Taylor just sort of did our thing.”

Step 11: Go from playing Bella to rocker Joan Jett
Stewart: “… I got to know Joan not only as her now, but I feel like through footage and just through the script and the story, everything, I feel like I got to know who she was in such a whole way. I was really concerned about details being right, gestures and stuff. I really wanted to do a good impersonation, but I also didn’t want it to be imitation. I wanted it to be natural. Playing Joan Jett had nothing to do with Bella. It was a small period of time that I had to do it, but it was an opportunity that I jumped on. I would’ve liked more time [between movies], but like I said about walking on set, seeing all the characters and Rob and Taylor, it’s instantly easy to get right back into the right mindset. That’s vague but I what I do is so vague. Literally, what I do is so oddly ambiguous.”

How to Interview: The Boys of “New Moon”

Published on November 18, 2009 in Interviews. 0 Comments Tags: .

Without going into it in great detail, the two Twilight movies have so far tapped into my inner-squeally 15-year-old pretty succinctly. For a few hours, it’s a great place to be. New Moon focuses on the growing friendship and affection between Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Jacob (Taylor Lautner), after Edward (Robert Pattinson) mysteriously leaves Bella, as well as the realization that Jacob is turning into a werewolf, ready to run with his fellow Native American wolf pack. Yes, there is a lot of shirtless-ness and rock-hard abs, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

Even though I had to sit through four hours of press conferences with the New Moon folks – from the three leads, to the Cullen family, to the Volturi to the wolf pack, to director Chris Weitz – it was worth it just to see all the hunky men parade through the ballroom. So, without further ado, here’s what the boys had to say [the girls will get their turn tomorrow]:

Step 1: Team Jacob or Team Edward?
Chris Weitz: “Making Jacob too appealing… It’s a balance, isn’t it, in terms of how he’s written and how Edward’s written, and how they’re shot. I think that for the diehard Twilight fans, nothing will ever beat Edward and so you’ve got this kind of very strong, simple fact that they know that he is the one, which allows you to push as hard as you possibly can and make Jacob as winning as Taylor has been able to be. Which gives me a lot of latitude. We didn’t have to suddenly have a scene in which Jacob acted like a creep so that we’re reminded that we needed to love Edward. It’s just a love-fest.”

Taylor Lautner: “Honestly, I think it depends on what kind of girl you are, what kind of guy you like. Edward and Jacob are complete opposite guys. They’re hot and cold, literally. I personally love Jacob and Bella’s relationship, how they begin as best friends and it starts to grow into something more and more. Both guys are in love with Bella, both guys are always going to be there for Bella and they’re protective. I just think it’s what kind of guy you like.”

Robert Pattinson: “It was weird because I hardly did any scenes with Taylor. We just did the scenes at the beginning and the scenes at the end, and he had his entire storyline develop without me being around, which is interesting because I had no idea where his performance was going. It wasn’t really a competition or anything. It was independent. Whereas, in Eclipse, we did scenes together, all the time, with Bella. It really shows the dynamic in that film.”

Step 2: This isn’t just for girls … well, at least Robert Pattinson doesn’t think so
Pattinson: “It’s weird. I keep getting told by people, ‘Pump up all the stuff about the action, so the guys will go and see it,’ but it’s ridiculous. It’s like saying that guys can’t appreciate romance. I don’t think you can say that about Gone with the Wind. I’ve watched Titanic and I didn’t think, ‘Oh, this is a girl’s film.’ Especially in New Moon, and actually in the whole series, I’ve never played it thinking, ‘Oh, I’m in a series of girls’ films and I’m doing something just for girls.’ I don’t feel like I’m doing an animated Tiger Beat every week. I like doing romantic scenes. I felt like a lot of the storyline in New Moon is very heartbreaking and true. I didn’t think I was doing something, just for the sake of romance. I thought, in a lot of ways, that it was a really sad story.”

Weitz: “I think that there’s this wonderful audience that appreciates what we do, wants us to do well, and really wants to engage in an emotional experience. And so to me it made sense to be unashamed of the emotionality of the piece. And there’s werewolves fighting each other, vampires fighting each other, vampires fighting werewolves, and all sorts of great stuff for boys as well, but the girls needed to be given their due. And we, I think, deliver.”

Step 3: Focus on the role, Taylor, and it will be yours
Weitz: “I’d say there was a big possibility [Lautner wouldn't get the role of Jacob], but I was always convinced that he was going to be able to do it. The doubts came up because he had very few scenes in the first movie. Also because he’s described as being 6’5″ in the second book, some reasonable facts that we had to come to grip with. But I like the sort of sweetness of this character in the first movie, and I knew that it was easier to take an actor in the direction of anger and rage than it was to find someone who is kind of a hunk or 6’5″ Native American and somehow turn him into that very sweet-natured persona that Taylor brings out so well.”

Lautner: “Honestly, I knew where my character went in New Moon and that’s all I tried to stay focused on. I couldn’t control the things outside, I couldn’t control the media, but I could control what I was doing to portray Jacob Black correctly, and that’s what I stayed focused on the entire time.”

Step 4: Then rip those shirts OFF, especially when Bella’s head is bleeding
Lautner: [laughs] “I start laughing every time I see that scene. ‘Oh, you’re bleeding? Let me fix that …’ Here’s the thing: There’s a reason [Jacob] is not wearing many clothes in the movie. 1) When he transforms, his clothes get shredded, he can’t help it. And when he goes into the woods to put something one so he’s not naked, it’s a ripped pair of jean shorts. 2) He’s also hot, he’s 108 degrees, so that’s another reason. I love this character, this story and putting on the weight and not wearing much clothing was required for the role. In a year’s time, if I love a story and a character that required me to lose 40 pounds, I’m ready to do it.”

Weitz: “I like to say it’s all essentially economics. You see, the Quileutes [the Native American tribe in the film] don’t have very high average income and they can’t afford the T-shirts they would need, given the amount of times they turn into wolves on short notice and their clothes burst. So, really, they’d have to go to Wal-Mart every 10 minutes. They just go around in shorts for that reason.”

Step 5: Join a werewolf boot camp to get those six-pack abs
Chaske Spencer [who plays Sam, the leader of the wolf pack]: “It was an hour of training, they got us a trainer. We went in, it was a guy who helped out on 300. It was a lot of circuit training and muscle confusion. We also ate a lot. We ate six meals a day, three protein shakes a day.”

Lautner: “I was in the gym about five days a week because it was important to get your recovery time. And not overworking yourself. I was trying to put on and if I was in the gym too much, I would be burning the calories I was trying to take in. The most important thing was the eating side. Everyone thinks it’s the gym but that was the easy part for me; I was motivated. But the eating was pretty hard. We found out I needed to eat at least 3,200 calories a day just to maintain, but I needed to gain and not just maintain, so I had to eat more than that, putting something in my mouth every two hours. And I’m busy, going downtown L.A. for meetings, so there wasn’t any time for me to eat. So I’d carry around a baggie full of meat patties, raw almonds, sweet potatoes. It’s not like every two hours I was eating ice cream. It was difficult.”

Pattinson: “I didn’t see Taylor until just a little bit before we started shooting, so when he came back, I had the same reaction as everybody else. I was like, ‘Now I have to go to the gym.’”

Alex Meraz [who plays wolf pack member Paul]: “It was definitely crucial to the bonding, too. That’s really what helped out with building the chemistry on set and even during filming, I think it really helped out a lot. We had a blast. We supported each other, we even made fun of each other - you know, like who could do the most push-ups or whatever. It really helped out with our characterizations.”

Spencer: “We helped [Jacob] phase. He doesn’t want to become a werewolf. No one wants this. It just happens, this is what we’re dealt. When the Cullens came around, that’s when we started phasing. My character, he was the first one to phase, so my relationship to these guys - I’m sort of the big brother, the mentor, the father figure to help them. We are like a band of brothers, like a rock band, and suddenly Jacob starts to phase, and he has some choices to make and he has to join us. We surround him and tell him it’s not that bad.”

Lautner: “It was a lot fun. Did you talk to them already? Oh boy, that must have been a fun room. They are great guys, and they each fit their characters perfectly. We had lots of fun on set, they made it exciting.”

Step 6: Throw down between Edward and Jacob, who would win?
Pattinson: “I don’t know. I think it’s actually a fact that Edward would win, if I read the books correctly. So, I guess I can hold onto that, for my ego.”

Lautner: “We were actually discussing this on set, like who WOULD win? Because there’s a scene outside Bella’s house in which Edward grabs Jacob’s shoulder, he’s mad and Jacob doesn’t take that, rips his arm off. At that moment, Jacob would transform into a wolf, but we’re having this discussion and get really deep, ‘If I were to poof into a wolf right now, what would happen? Who would win?’ Our discussion points were like, usually I’m with my pack so if I’m without my pack, am I going to be weaker? That discussion is still up in the air. You could probably get Stephanie Meyer on the line and ask her.”

Step 7: Throw down between Rob and Taylor, who would win?
Pattinson: “I did hear, the other day, that Taylor had agreed to an interview where the interviewer was going to fight him. I don’t think I’d ever agree to that. And, after looking at Taylor’s martial arts videos from when he was like nine, I wouldn’t really want to do anything. Maybe if I had some kind of weapon.”

Lautner: “I don’t know about Rob. He actually does a lot of boxing in his time off, so it could be a good match.”

Step 8: Appreciate how TORTURED Edward is
Pattinson: “When I read New Moon, it gave me ideas about how to play him in the first film. It’s the one I connected to the most, and the one that humanized Edward for me the most, as well. In the first one, he still does remain, from beginning to end, an idealistic character. But, in the second one, he makes a mistake that’s acknowledged by everybody, including himself. Also, he is totally undermined by more powerful creatures, and he’s undermined emotionally by people as well. That’s what humanized it. Since I read that book, I always liked him as a character, and I’ve tried to play that same feeling throughout the films. He’s the hero of the story that just refuses to accept that he’s the hero, and I think that’s kind of admirable.”

Step 9: Understand that vampires definitely dress better
Michael Sheen [who plays Aro, head of the Volturi, the vampire government and who also played the werewolf Lucian in the Underworld series]: “The tailoring is so much better as a vampire. I’ve been observing vampires for some time now and I finally got to give my own fang, although we don’t have fangs, do we? But no, it was great to be on the other side for a bit … I lose days just with my Lucian figure and my Aro action-figure fighting. They have their tea parties together. They like to fight and then they come back. I’m losing jobs because of it.”

Step 10: Be part of the Twihard fan machine
Pattinson: “Recently, I have less direct interaction with people because there’s way more security and stuff on set. But I always find it funny when older people come up. There was a woman who came up to me the other day who must have been in her 90s. It’s very unusual. And, they say exactly the same things as 12-year-old girls. That is kind of bizarre.”

Sheen: “I haven’t really experienced much of the Twilight fan stuff yet. But I did go into a store in L.A. to buy a pair of jeans and I went into the little cubicle to try my jeans on. It’s always a quite nerve-wracking time when I come out of the cubicle to look in the mirror anyway and I like that to be a private moment. As I came out, there was a woman shaking, going ‘You’re Aro, aren’t you?!’ and I just hid in my cubicle again. Whooo! That’s been really my only experience with that. Apart from also going into my daughter’s bedroom — she’s just got pictures from Twilight and New Moon everywhere — and seeing my own little picture, which I think she did out of pity. Have Dad up there as well.”

Lautner: “I don’t think there is any way to prepare yourself for this phenomenon. None of us expected it. When we were filming Twilight, we didn’t expect anything. We were just making a movie we wanted the fans to enjoy. And then it kind of blew into this whole other world. You can definitely say I felt a little bit of the pressure to bring Jacob’s character and Jacob and Bella’s relationship alive for the fans. This movie builds that relationship and sets up the love triangle, so it’s a very important story.”

Step 11: Just say the craziest thing you can think of about these Twilight stars
Lautner: “Honestly, I try and stay away from what’s been written about me because if you let that stuff get to you, that’s not true, it can drive you crazy. One thing that I have heard recently, which is NOT true, that I didn’t say, was that I’d never take off my shirt for a movie again. I didn’t say that. If I have to, if the character requires it, I will. Who knows in 10 years, I’ll do it. Like I said, if a character requires me to lose 40 pounds, I’ll do it. That was interesting to see.”

Pattinson: “Recently, some magazine had on the cover that I was pregnant. I was just like, ‘Wow!’ And, it was without a hint of irony or anything. I didn’t really know what to make of that one. I don’t even know if that qualifies as libelous because they can just say, ‘Well, it’s obviously fiction,’ but it’s written in a non-fiction magazine. I saw a couple comments under the article saying, ‘That’s why he always wears jackets. He always wears layers to hide it.’”

Step 12: Gives us a glimpse on the next Twilight movie, Eclipse
Lautner: “Eclipse was my favorite book, so I was really excited about filming the movie. I just love that it’s the height of the love triangle. Twilight develops Edward and Bella’s relationship; New Moon develops Jacob and Bella’s relationship, and in Eclipse, the three of them are PHYSICALLY together. It has one my favorite scenes in that movie – the tent scene, where Edward is forced, and I guess it was a choice of his, to let me to sleep in the same sleeping bag as Bella just so she doesn’t die because she’s shivering to death. And I’m warm and the only thing that can keep her alive at that moment. It’s a funny scene, there’s a lot of ribbing going on between Edward and Jacob. It’s going to be a really good movie, and visually stunning, [director] David Slade is incredible visually.”

How to Play “Grown Ups”

Published on November 17, 2009 in Movies and Trailers. 0 Comments Tags: .

That is, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Chris Rock, Kevin James and Rob Schneider playing Grown Ups. Here’s the trailer to their new comedy:

This looks like a giant excuse for a bunch of real-life friends to hang out and laugh their asses off. And why not?

How to Reinvent an Awards Show

Published on November 16, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: .

Start by shaking things up. Again. It seems each year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences grows more and more desperate to make their Academy Awards show a ratings hit. This year they got the ball rolling early by announcing in June they were expanding the Best Picture category from five to 10 nominees. It looks like they don’t want to repeat the same mistake they made last year when they neglected to nominate The Dark Knight. More room now for crowd-pleasers such as Star Trek or District 9, I suppose. And even though last year’s more musically-minded telecast, hosted by the affable Hugh Jackman, actually gave them a boost in ratings for the first time in many years, AMPAS isn’t going the song-and-dance route again (besides, Jackman declined to host a second year in row).

Instead, AMPAS hired two first-time producers to helm the 82nd Annual Academy Awards: director/choreographer Adam Shankman (Hairspray) and producer Bill Mechanic (Coraline), in hopes they’ll bring a fresh perspective to the proceedings. And a new perspective it will be. Shankman and Mechanic have asked Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to co-host, who coincidentally are also co-starring in the upcoming romantic comedy It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep. Hmmmm.

Then, the AMPAS gave out some early honorary Oscars at the inaugural non-televised Governors Awards Saturday night. The recipients were B-movie king Roger Corman, legendary actress Lauren Bacall and cinematographer Gordon Willis. Producer and studio executive John Calley also got the coveted Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given for the first time since 2001, when it was presented to Dino de Laurentiis. Apparently, the event was taped and parts of it will be shown during the Oscars telecast March 7 – but those acceptance speeches will not have to be endured in total during the show.

What other changes do the co-producers have in mind? The Envelope’s Pete Hammond cornered Mechanic at Governors Awards and got a few tidbits on what’s to come, including their plans to scrap the use of five presenters in the acting categories, introduced last February. Pity, I thought that kind of worked. Instead, Mechanic wants to pair up presenters who have a “real significance,” rather than just pairing co-stars pushing their films. Mechanic told Hammond they’ve already secured directors Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar to present the award for Best Foreign Language Film – and then said he wanted to “bring a lot of comedy” to the show. If Tarantino and Almodovar make me laugh, I’ll be impressed.

Undoubtedly, co-hosts Martin and Baldwin will provide some witty and hilarious banter, but if it’s REAL comedy you want in an award show, be sure to watch the Golden Globes in January. British funnyman Ricky Gervais – who is always hysterical when he either presents or accepts an award — is hosting the event, the first time in 10 years the Globes has had a host. He should be spectacularly brilliant at helming the proceedings. I just know it.

How to Make Cash: Party Like It’s “2012″

Published on November 16, 2009 in Box Office and Movies. 0 Comments

Leave it to a disaster flick to boost overall box office revenues. Yes, 2012 opened easily in the top spot this weekend, but making $65 million domestically and record-breaking $225 worldwide is just icing on the cake.

Here is the top five at the box office this weekend:

1. NEW! 2012 (Sony) - $65 mil; 3,404 theaters; $19,095 PT
2. A Christmas Carol (Buena Vista) - $22.3 mil; 3,683 theaters; $6,062 PT; $63.2 mil cume
3. The Men Who Stare at Goats (Overture) - $6.2 mil; 2,453 theaters; $2,528 PT; $23.3 mil cume
4. Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire (Lionsgate) - $6 mil; 174 theaters; $35,000 PT; $8.9 mil cume
5. Michael Jackson’s This Is It (Sony) - $5.1 mil; 3,037 theaters; $1,679 PT; $68.2 mil cume

Looks like the other success story this weekend was Precious – a dark, urban indie about an abused young woman and her chance to break out of her circumstances. The young lead, Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe, and the movie are gaining some serious Oscar cred, and it seems like word-of-mouth is spreading rapidly. Need to see this movie, to further my Oscar watching education.

On this coming weekend, it’s another no-brainer: The Twilight Saga: New Moon should sweep the competition under the rug and reap all kinds of cash. I wonder how much it’ll make, probably at LEAST 2012‘s $65 million, but most likely more. Anyone want to make a guess? But for those of you who want something else besides a vampire-werewolf-girl romance triangle, there’s two other openers, including the animated Planet 51, which looks cute and fun, and The Blind Side, starring Sandra Bullock as a no-nonsense Memphis housewife who takes in a African-American teenager and turns his life around. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m taking my 10-year-old daughter to see New Moon. Here’s the latest trailer:

How to Watch: “2012″

Published on November 13, 2009 in Movies and Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , .

2012-2Step 1: Throw in bits and pieces from all other disaster movies, up the global destruction ante, turn on the waterworks (literally and figuratively) and you’ve got 2012.

Step 2: Revel in the preposterous-ness of the plot. I’ve never had a problem suspending my disbelief when it comes to a disaster movie. I mean, I even clenched my teeth when they had to outrun freezing ice in Day After Tomorrow, for chrissakes. So, in that regard, 2012 is yet another popcorn-fueled implausible thrill ride. There’s some mumbo jumbo science reason on why the earth falls apart Dec. 21, 2012 – something about solar flares, the earth’s core heating up like a microwave and the earth’s crust displacing itself – and then there’s the mythical hoopla that the Mayans predicted this would happen (which I have to admit does scare me a little). In any event, a disaster movie has to have its main characters you hope make it through the mayhem. This time it’s Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a struggling novelist; his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet); their two kids; a geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor); the U.S president (Danny Glover); his art historian daughter (Thandie Newton) and more. Sadly, not all of them make it, but the ones who do, well, think of Noah’s Ark in terms of their survival. If they could just cut out the sappy, I’ve-always-loved-you, Dad moments, it would have worked just fine.

Step 3: Revel in the disastrous-ness. Seriously, with 2012, master disaster filmmaker Roland Emmerich has paid homage to almost every calamitous film ever made — from The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, Airport, Deep Impact, to Emmerich’s previous global warming disaster flick Day After Tomorrow. Of course, the destruction level in 2012 is turned up to, like, 11 – and dammit, if L.A. doesn’t once again get pummeled. It must just be fun to destroy the place where movies are made, especially by Emmerich, who has had it blown up by aliens, ripped apart by tornadoes and now, of course, split it into pieces by The Big One, with those pieces then falling into the ocean (you’ve all seen the posters, so you know). Washington D.C. gets it again, too, as well as Las Vegas, Rio de Janeiro, Honolulu, Yellowstone National Park, the Vatican and the Himalayas. New York is spared this time, at least onscreen.

2012_movie_still_john_cusackStep 4: Wonder why John Cusack would revel in any of it. It’s not that he’s copping out or anything by starring in 2012. On the contrary, he’s one of the few characters who doesn’t kneel knee-deep in the schmaltz and rarely elicits an eye roll. Same goes for Woody Harrelson, as a pickle-lovin’ pirate radio host, who has been preaching the government conspiracy to cover up this impending calamity. But knowing how Cusack picks thought-provoking films for the most part, a disaster flick seems like an odd choice – unless he read something more in the script than what ended up onscreen. Frankly, his participation was one of the things that intrigued me about 2012 – that and the mass destruction, of course. Maybe Cusack has a thing for disaster films, too, and if that’s so, I tip my hat to you, sir.

Level of difficulty in watching 2012: Pretty seat-grabbingly easy. Plot, schmlot, if the end of the world happens like this, let’s hope Roland Emmerich can film it.

How to Cast: Ashley Greene

Published on November 12, 2009 in Casting and Movies. 0 Comments

Get her to go from vampires to ghosts. The cutie Twilight star – who will be reprising her role as the spirited Alice Cullen in the upcoming New Moon – is in talks to star in The Apparition, a supernatural horror film from the production company who did Orphan and Whiteout, according to the Hollywood Reporter. That’s not necessarily an endorsement, I’m afraid. Greene would play one half of a couple who are haunted by a supernatural presence that is unleashed during a college experiment. Hmmm, methinks they want to jump on the Paranormal Activity band wagon.

In other casting news: Isla Fisher is indeed desperate in her next flick. She’ll star in Desperados, a feature comedy described as a female-oriented Hangover, says the Reporter, playing a woman who sends a nasty email to a potential love interest after they have sex, and he goes MIA. She finds out, however, that he’s really in a coma in Mexico and so goes on a mad rush to the country, with a couple of her girlfriends, in hopes to intercept the email before he wakes up and reads it. Oh, hilarity MUST ensue.

Looks like they’ve decided to do a movie about Yogi Bear. FINALLY. I mean, how in the world have we survived so long without the Jellystone Park bear yelling about “pic-cnick baskets” on the big screen? Dan Aykroyd and Anna Faris are in negotiations to star in Yogi Bear, a live-action/animated feature take on the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon, with Faris playing a wildlife filmmaker who follows the antics of a bear in fictional Jellystone Park. Aykroyd will voice Yogi, and Justin Timberlake could supply the voice of Yogi’s constant companion, Boo Boo. I’m scratching my head.

How to Interview: “Fantastic Mr. Fox”

Published on November 12, 2009 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Writer/director Wes Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers, ever since Bottle Rocket, his first film. I just dig his style – the stories about broken or unorthodox family circles, the great production design, the title cards always in the yellow Futura Bold font, the eccentric soundtracks. So, when I heard he was tackling children writer Roald Dahl’s delightful Fantastic Mr. Fox – as a stop-motion animated film about a clever Fox (George Clooney), who manages to steal from three mean farmers AND maintain a happy home life with his wife (Meryl Streep) and his son (Jason Schwartzman) – I had a feeling there would be some perfect symmetry between the two. I was correct (my review of the film to come soon).

Needless to say, I was more than a little excited to meet the director whose films I have so admired, and, as an added bonus, got to speak with Jason Schwartzman as well, a long-time friend and frequent co-star in most of Anderson’s films. God, I loved him in Rushmore. Here’s what the guys had to say about making Fantastic Mr. Fox – and about the man who inspired them as kids: Roald Dahl.

Step 1: Love your original source material
Wes Anderson: “[Fantastic Mr. Fox] was the first book I legally owned in our household, that was my property. I still have it and it has a little book plate in there from the school fair with my name on it. But I also loved all the other ones. My older brother would read them and hand them to me when he was done … A certain point [he and co-writer Noah Baumbach] would say, ‘So, what should we put here? Oh, let’s look at the book.’ We were also trying to figure out how to expand because the book is short. There’s not that much plot in it. Sort of just enough plot for the middle of the movie, we had to think about what happens next. But we had to do it and come up with something good. And because it was adapted from [Roald Dahl's] work, we could sort of get into character as Roald Dahl, imagine being him and ask ‘What would he do?’ That was our method.”

Jason Schwartzman: “I knew it as a little kid. My mom read to me Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Twits, which was my favorite one. And the movie is so scary. Have you seen the movie? Whoa. I knew [Fantastic Mr. Fox] as a kid, too. It’s crazy that I could be a part of a real piece of literature, not only literature but something that means a lot to a nation, a world. I heard he was the most beloved in all of England. The country did a poll, he’s the No. 1 most loved writer.”

Step 2: If you want to get to know an author, live in his country house for a little while
Anderson: “It’s a wonderful place, that house. There’s so many details there, I’d think ‘One day I want to have THAT where I live, I want to do it like that.’ Even just simple things … for instance, the dining room table was sort of a long table with chairs. But where [Dahl] sat is unusual; it’s an armchair, with a little side table with a telephone with five lines, a notepad, all his stuff. It was like a dining room table AND his office. I really liked that. And now that’s where his wife sits, in this big chair. He was like 6’7” or something like that, big chair and she’s sort of small in the chair. But that’s where she runs the show from that spot. You really feel his personality in that place.”

Step 3: Match your own sensibilities with the material. It’s OK, Wes, it works, trust us
Anderson: “My goal was to make [Fantastic Mr. Fox] as Dahl as possible. Even though I’m American and we made all the animals American, Noah and I wrote more comfortably and thought we could be freer and hopefully funnier writing in an American way. Our own idiom or something like that worked better for us. But we fully expected to expand it the way Dahl may have done himself. And in the end, it seemed like something I would have done, but it was not deliberate. I mean, it may seem that way because I was making the decisions but not because I wanted it to feel like another thing I did. On the last movie I did [Darjeeling Limited], people said they thought it was a lot like the other movies I’ve done, but I felt like, ‘We’ve gone to India, we are on a train, it’s totally different!’ I guess it’s not something I’m able to regulate, [my style] that comes through.”

Step 4: Make that style work with a stop-motion animated film, even if it kills you
Anderson: “I have a way of thinking about staging and design and sets. Of the whole range of things you can think of, my entire range is only here [indicates a small box]. And it doesn’t go outside of that. So when something is happening over there, I find a way to make it fit over here. Working with all these talented people whose lives are dedicated to stop-motion animation and making these miniature things seem like they are alive was amazing. There are techniques they’ve learned and ways to do it that are effective, but I had my own ways that come from NOT having experience with [stop-motion animation]. And I wanted to shoot it just the same way I would a live-action movie, which in the end became extremely challenging.

“I expected to do this more like Tim Burton, write the script, design the sets, draw up the shots and then hand it over and the team of animators would animate it. I thought I would go direct another movie during that time, come back work on the score. And I realized pretty early on that wasn’t going to be possible. Which then meant for two years, it was everyday, from the moment you wake up. So if you want one long shot and not cut during it and lots of puppets animated, it’s going to take longer. But I’m happy with it, we were under budget, so we managed to figure it all out.”

Schwartzman: “People touched it. On the one hand, you know it’s not real, that it’s animated but what gives it a feeling of reality is that it’s human. Humans made this movie, no computers.”

Step 5: Forget the sound booths, do it as a radio play
Schwartzman: “Do you know we did this movie in a very unorthodox style? Let me tell you about it. We actually did most of the recording live on location. On farms, all together. That was part of Wes’ whole concept. When he brought me in on Darjeeling Limited, he only had a small kernel of an idea: three brothers on a train in India. But parallel to this was HOW he wanted to make it. No trailers for actor, no craft services. All actors do their own hair and makeup. We are going to shoot it on a real moving train in the desert and we are going to all live together in a big house. And that is what we had with [Fantastic Mr. Fox]. He had a finished script, but he also had the way in which he wanted to do it, unorthodox, getting all the actors together and doing it as a radio play. You drive by these billboards of these animated movies and they’ve got the most awesomeness cast but then you realize, ‘Aw, they never met.’ And that’s fine. I mean, the way Pixar does it, they are the Beatles of animation, and I have a lot respect for a Pixar actor who has to sit in a room by himself and having to generate an authentic performance. Even though I hadn’t done animation before, it was fun to do it in this new, fun way, really acting it out. For instance, if there was a scene outside, we all went outside. If we had to be digging in the scene, we’d all start digging in the ground. And if we were eating, we all were really eating. The sound was recorded with just one microphone. And that’s how we could get overlapping and mistakes. It’s always an adventure with Wes, now that I think about it.”

Step 6: Realize it’s not that bad to dig in the dirt with George Clooney
Schwartzman: “It’s surreal. When you watch this, you just realize what an incredible voice he has. Because we were doing this all together, there would be scenes I wasn’t in, so I’d sit there with Wes and George and Bill [Murray] and watch. I’d close my eyes, sitting close to George Clooney, listening to his voice. I know it sounds funny, but fuck, he’s got such an incredible voice – nooks and scratches and cuts on that voice. Pretty amazing.”

Step 7: Don’t underestimate kids
Schwartzman: “I know there are brilliant people who work at the studios whose job it is to dissect society and ask people questions, do polls and all kinds of stuff. So obviously, they do know something, but … I will say a couple of things: First, that’s the great thing about Pixar, they smuggle in so much. You’re watching it, and I’m laughing and getting so much out of it. And then I look at the little kids around me and they are laughing, too. And I’m wondering, are they laughing because we adults are? Somehow, it’s soaking into their bodies, like other messages, death whatever. Like in Up, that’s a heavy movie in the beginning. I think little kids are little humans, they feel so much. I’m now an adult, and that’s a problem so many adults speaking about what they think kids feel. And now I’m not even in touch with kids. I remember when I was a kid, playing video games when my parents were having a dinner party and some like older person with glasses, walks in and I’d see them thigh down and they ask ‘What are ya playing?’ I’m like, ‘You don’t know, get out of here.’ And now I’m THAT dude. I was at a party, ‘So what is this thing, you can play tennis holding this thing?’ … we are just like little people with so many emotions, angry and confused. Why do kids go lock themselves in closets for hours and hide from people? Had I seen [Fantastic Mr. Fox] when I was little it would have helped me. I felt little and that girls didn’t like me back. I felt different, I totally was different. Made fun of all the time, never as good an athlete that I wanted to be. So, I totally support filmmakers for making movies that are a bit complex for kids.”

How to Clash Those “Titans”

Published on November 10, 2009 in Movies and Trailers. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Oh boy, I just found this new trailer to the upcoming remake of Clash of the Titans, starring Terminator hunk Sam Worthington as Perseus. The 1981 original is perhaps one of most favorite guilty pleasures. There’s a story behind this, of course (with me, always a story), but watch the trailer first:

OK, here’s the story on why I love the original: Right before I went off to college, I had to spend about a month in Lake Tahoe with my mom, who had just moved there. She lived in this little A-frame house, on top of this big hill, so she really didn’t have any TV reception to speak of. Instead, the little A-frame house came with free cable, which in 1982 was sort of rare commodity — and it meant she got a free movie channel. FREE MOVIES, UNCUT! I thought that was just the coolest thing. Of course, what I didn’t realize was that meant they’d play the same four or five movies over and over and over again, but since there was nothing else on, I watched. And watched and watched.

There was The Blue Lagoon (yesssssss), Outland (High Noon in space) and — you guessed it — the mythological Greek God-fest Clash of the Titans, starring Harry Hamlin as Perseus, half-human son of Zeus (played with relish by Laurence Olivier), who must battle many mythical creatures in order to save his lady love, Andromeda. All the special effects were done by the late great Ray Harryhausen, whose Sinbad movies I had also loved. I knew it was cheesy as hell, but I just got a kick out of it and still hold it close to my heart.

The remake looks equally kick ass but in a far more serious way, sort of like 300 meets Greek mythology. I’m already all a-twitter.

How to Add “Salt”

Published on November 9, 2009 in Movies and Trailers. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Listen, I’m always up for a good action thriller in which Angelina Jolie gets to run around, shooting guns and kicking ass. Always. Looks like her next endeavor in that arena is Salt. Check out the trailer:

She’s not bending bullets, but she could be another femme fatale. What do you think? Is she a Russian spy really good at hiding it? Or is she being set up? We’ll find out next summer.