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Restored and Revisited: Godzilla (1954) Celebrates 60 Years

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Godzilla has long stood as a universal symbol of destruction – a mighty metaphorical monstrosity whose roots are embedded so deep into the cultural zeitgeist that few corners of the world would be caught unfamiliar with the city-toppling beast. With over 28 films featuring his prehistoric personage, countless pop culture references and a slew of television, comics, video game, and toy appearances featuring the original kaiju, generation after generation have been clued into the lasting impact of this reptilian icon. But even with such a long line of successors, no film in its pantheon – or in the monster movie oeuvre at large – has left as large a footprint in the world of film and pop culture as Ishrio Honda‘s original 1954 Godzilla. Today, you may be able to pick out a man in a rubber suit but the satirical and tragic symbolism live on in robust, fiery glory.

Rialto Pictures have spearheaded this latest restoration in junction with the film’s 60th anniversary. Their previous endeavors have included such films as Breathless, The Battle of Algiers and The Third Man and have earned them the title of “gold standard of reissue distributors”. With their latest clean-up, the Godzilla of the past looks fit for the big screen again.

As all films age, they lose their original sparkle and dazzle. Not only does a shift towards new groundbreaking technology date older films in the context of the latest and greatest but the original material itself loses its cinematic punch over time. Sound gets stuck in its throat, pictures fuzz and skip, the film becomes washed out. Like a debutante out of her prime, it sags. You’ll be happy to hear then that this newest makeover of Godzilla looks and sounds, quite simply, rip roaring. The bellows have bark, the black-and-white cinematography has bite and the picture, all captured in gloriously old-fashion Academy ratio, is as epic as ever. Though some larger scale set pieces look like they could have been filmed in a sudsy bathtub, the chaotic swirl of Honda’s camera locks you tight in the moment. Dated or no, Godzilla is still a behemoth to behold.  

For those who’ve never actual seen the film, a quick plot synopsis. When a skiff full of fishermen sinks into the sea under mysterious circumstances – with a bubbling vortex reminiscent of a Kraken’s turning the crew to screaming jetsam – authorities are left baffled, and wives and children are left to cry and swoon. As the town seeks an answer, only an elderly islander can rightly identify the beast lurking in their waters. Godzilla, he mutters. Godzilla.

As the buzz of rumors swarm the town, Godzilla finally reveals himself a fire-breathing menace to the scurrying populace of Japan’s coastal regions and greatest cities. A tangential subplot involving young Japanese maiden Emiko and her beloved, but not betrothed, salvager, Hideto Ogata, takes us through the human end of this larger-than-life saga. As Hideto and Emiko flirt around revealing their forbidden love to Emiko’s archeologist father, Serizawa, to whom Emiko is engaged, invents a weapon capable of bringing down the beast that’s bringing down their city. Young love lives in one corner while mass destruction is pondered a few doors down. The juxtaposition of such youthful hope against calloused calamity feeds the tension to Serizawa’s conundrum. If he is to use the likes of such a catastrophic weapon, it would unveil a new level of destructive prowess to the world’s already thirsty superpowers. But the alternative involves the likely death and destruction of his entire country. Decisions, decisions.


This junction of themes of war-time morality, superstitious mythology and thoughtful historical reflection are set against a Japan decidedly haunted by Big Boy. Godzilla even looks like a nightmarish atomic bomb personified. Unnaturally pot-bellied and rounded out like the ghastly hourglass of the world’s most destructive weapon, his figure itself portends destruction.

As a metaphor for WWII-era America, the beastly, thoughtless rampager seems less a condemnation of Japan’s former enemies than an admission of invitation. Honda’s is a film that doesn’t place blame on the enemy for Japan’s history. Rather, Honda takes head-hanging responsibility for Japan’s great calamity. Godzilla is a dark beast awoken, his vengeance hot, his destruction wanton but warranted. Honda’s song is solemn and ponderous, his voice rings through Serizawa’s soulful mantra. There’s a remorseful sense of deservedness to Honda’s waxing morality.

Gojira (Japan’s word for Godzilla) is a hybrid of two Japanese words: gorira, meaning gorilla, and kujira, meaning whale. Originally, Godzilla was seen as a whale-like figure come to roam Japan’s shorelines after a bout of radioactive alteration. It seems a far cry from the spiny, T-Rex-like monster we’re familiar with today, but Godzilla does live on as a whale of a property. With a new version to hit theaters on May 16 of this year and who knows how many more on the horizon, we’re left hoping that the spirit of Honda’s brooding black-and-white monsterpiece can be replicated, or at least properly homaged going into the future. For those who are longtime fans or still unfamiliar with this original classic, be sure to make it out to see Godzilla roam the big screen. Otherwise, you might have to wait for the 75th or, God forbid, 100th anniversary.

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Weekly Review 45: DEVIL, PARANORMAL, DIVING, WOLVES

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A relatively light week at the theaters in which I saw Chef (review to follow), Paul Walker‘s last completed project Brick Mansions (buhuh) and a half-way decent horror movie that’s failed to make much of an impression at the box office, The Quiet Ones. Aside from those you’ll find below, I also revistied The Amazing Spiderman at home to prepare for the screening this week and will briefly say that aside from the the smart casting of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, it really has very little to offer. The screwball plotline, Glasgow-grinnin’ Lizard and henious score alone are enough to retire this to the anals of the unnecessary (and thank God that Denis Leary‘s character is dead). Oh and I also quickly became obsessed with Comedy Central‘s Review, a brilliant comedy series in which Andrew Daly plays a man that reviews not food, books or movies but life experiences. Definitely check it out.

I SAW THE DEVIL (2010)

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A deliciously devious tale of revenge, Kim Jee-woon‘s I Saw the Devil shows South Korea for the bold cinescape it truly is. Kaleidoscopically epic, hopelessly violent and ruthlessly vengeful to a fault, this two-and-a-half revenge saga tells the tale of a special ops agent, Kim Soo-hyeon (Byung-hun Lee) who seeks retribution against the twisted serial killer (Mik-sik Choi of Oldboy) who raped and decapitated his pregnant wife. As he becomes a bona fide hunter of the criminally lecherous, Kim loses himself in a battle with his own soul. The blood drips bright stripes of red, complimenting the engrossing, challenging and yet playful story from Hoon-jung Park. With each new South Korean film I encounter, I get more and more addicted. Next up: The Man from Nowhere, New World andThe Good, The Bad and the Weird.

A-

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (2014)

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There’s not much to say about this newest installment/first spin-off of the Paranormal Activity camp aside from mentioning the fact that if you’ve liked/put up with the earlier installments, this is just more of the same. It fleshes out some of the mythology but in no concrete or truly satisfying way. It’s like the ending of a lesser Lost episode that just leaves you with more questions than answers. There are moments where it seemed like director Christopher Landon dared to go in a whole new direction (the Chronicle-esque subplot was easily the film’s best moments) but eventually turned into your standard, if not subpar, PA movie.

C-

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2007)

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Somber and brave, much like the film’s subject, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly takes the perspective of Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffered a massive stroke that resulted in a rare case of “locked-in syndrome”. If the name “locked in syndrome” sounds kinda shitty, you don’t know the half of it. Bauby didn’t lost any mental acuity but became so deeply paralyzed that he became unable to speak or move – that is, all but his left eye. With only the power of blinking, Bauby learns to communicate through long-winded sessions with a caring therapist. Julian Schnabel’s film charters the many lives he touched and how he went on to write a touching memoir, all through opening and closing his one bloodshot eye. More similar in tone and style to The Sessions than My Left Foot (and glisteningly ripe for a parody title of My Left Eye) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a deeply soulful and philosophical venture that explores what it means to be human in wonderfully simplistic terms yet it never quite offers the caliber of showmanship, in front of or behind the camera, to muster up the tears – or emotional gut punching – you might expect it to elicit.

B

BIG BAD WOLVES (2014)

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Quentin Tarantino named this Israeli thriller/black comedy the best film of 2013, earning it a place on many a movie buff’s radar. Perhaps the expectation of greatness and Tarantino’s stamp of approval led to my ultimate disappointment with the film but I’d like to think that it has more to do with quality issues than my going into it with preconceived notions. The story is certainly one that would catch Tarantino’s eye: a teacher framed for raping and murdering little girls is kidnapped and tortured by a victim’s father and a roguish detective. But the film runs aground a slew of narrative issues and is saddled with mostly poor performances from the Israeli crew, most notably from Rotem Keinan who plays “is he or isn’t he?” rapist/murderer Dror. Watching a man’s fingers gets smashed to bits by a hammer or his sternal charred by a blow torch should be torture to watch but Keinan always looks like a man who’s stubbed his toe. It just didn’t work for me. There’s enough intrigue and tension to keep affairs interesting throughout but it’s certainly not a film that I would run out to recommend to anyone unless they’re dying of curiosity.

C

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Out in Theaters: BRICK MANSIONS

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A silver lining to Paul Walker‘s death: the world has been spared a Brick Mansion‘s sequel (2 Brick 2 Mansion?). This rat-faced nincompoop of an actioner begs for franchise play with hands outstretched like a Cambodian child with a nub for a leg, hawking tin whistles and salivating for a hot bowl of gruel. You pity it, look down on it, wish that someone out there in the world had the decency to clean it up, give it a good meal and place a little Grinch pat on its misshapen Cindy Lou Who head. If someone served up this movie to the Grinch, you better believe his heart would have shrunk three sizes. Had Brick Mansions been my sad, dilapidated child, I would have never let it leave the house dressed like such a drunken buffoon and whoever did was borderline abusive (to its unsuspecting audience most of all). Like the inhabitants of the eponymous Brick Mansions (a walled in ghetto distinct of Detroit), everyone involved in making this failing, flailing, faltering deuce of a movie must have been on mild to “Chase the dragons!” amounts of sweet black tar heroin.

Brick Mansions is a movie so discordantly dull, so mindlessly thickheaded, so enduringly tongue-tied that bounding from plot point to plot point is an exercise in parkour itself. From a French man, who is over and over again referred to as such, trying his (half-hearted) hardest at an American accent (WHY?!) to Wu Tang Clan’s finest actor, RZA, slicin’ and dicin’ up red pepper after red pepper (don’t ask), there’s just no amount of yarn to string together the many cacophonous plot elements. And RZA? Seriously?

From the performance to the character itself, RZA is everything wrong with the film. He enunciates through a mouthful of marbles, the well-manicured fine-point beard that is his face drooping like a guy hopped up on Vicodin and about seven bong rips deep. His “performance” is the equivalent of purple drank – it’s mind numbing and will fill you with regret. Watching him act is like being roofied. It’s supposed to hurt so good but leaves you clutching at your hind parts. How anyone keeps handing this guys roles is a mystery for the likes of the Twilight Zone.  

Co-star David Belle, as the incessantly dim but limber-legged Lino, is equally as interesting as a pet rock. For a man who all but invented parkour, Belle’s acting abilities couldn’t be more out of line with his impressive physical feats of physics-defying gymnastics. As he zips and flips off walls, crawlspaces, and rooftops, he’s like a firecracker in action. When he’s poised to spit out a line, he’s a man who trips over his shoelace at the report of a starting pistol. And even his “amazing” ventures of athletic prowess are edited down to footloose irrelevance.  

Parkour loses its “kour” – read: core, as in hardcore (*guitar solo*) – when it’s split up into millisecond by millisecond snippets. A sequence involving a guy who sprints off a building grabs a ladder, swings down that ladder and smashes through a window would look patently hardcore if captured in one fluid shot. Having said that, I would pay good money to see Alfonson Cuaron’s Brick Mansions. What we get instead is a sharp series of events shot from different angles, smashed together so haphazardly and so mindlessly that each piece of the puzzle looks rehearsed to death and wallpapered with safety nets. Anyone can edit a sequence together to achieve the unreal but few people can actually achieve the unreal. Camille Delamarre‘s hackneyed direction robs any and all thrills from what would be otherwise breathtaking entertainment of the simpleton variety, the likes of a daring YouTube video or a David Blane stunt.

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Oh Jesus, we haven’t even gotten to the plot. Just imagine Fast and Furious snuck Dredd into a showing of Dances With Wolves. All the horrid cliches are there, waving their hands over their heads like fools, begging to be recognized and called on.

Roguish undercover cop playing fast and loose with government resources? Check. Misrepresented noble savage in the form of heroine-shooting ghetto dwellers? Check. Bringing only fists to a gun fight? Check. Oh, and unlikely duo. Double check!

We’re so many layers deep in the knock-off assembly line that Brick Mansions doesn’t mind stealing from ANOTHER FUCKING PAUL WALKER MOVIE – the original Fast and Furious, which in turn stole from Point Break which probably ripped off a caveman’s painting somewhere down the line. There’s so little to the plot developments that explaining it is just a waste of your time and mine. Just take my word when I say that after Brick Mansions, we’ve now witnessed one of the dumbest movies of the year.

See a flat-chested Russian brute fight two men leaping around like flying squirrels, a vaguely foreign woman chained to a ticking bomb that’s in turn hogtied to a USSR-era Russian nuke and car chases that sprout out of thin air … .because Paul Walker (*guitar solo*)!!! Also, acting on par with The Canyons.

Precariously balancing on Walker’s already not-so-gilded legacy, this is nothing short of an embarrassment for all involved. Brick is so recklessly conceived and shoddily written that by the end of it, it’s as if the writers entirely forgot what movie they were making in the first place. Plot resolutions are such an afterthought that pretty much everything wraps up with a shrug and a “Nah, JK!” In all its detestable glory, it’s a shining example of cocktail napkin scribbles gone horribly wrong, now complete with a happily ever after ending so flat and lifeless that you’ll be pining to watch a Rush Hour marathon in its stead.

It’s a ton of fun, if your idea of fun is wasting an hour and thirty minutes of your life. Brick tries out a few jokes here and there – mostly backflip-centered – but the real joke is on you for seeing the damn thing. This is a movie destined for the recycling bin, begging to be forgotten after it earns its keep, and crossing its fingers at Walker’s legacy equating to box office bucks. The sad reality is that the execs behind it are probably doing a smug little victory dance since this probably would have gone straight to Redbox if not for Walker’s early exit.

D-

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Talking with Fernando Coimbra of A WOLF AT THE DOOR

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2014 looks to be the year of the twisted headline movie. With Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, we saw the real life story of a doomed Japanese misanthrope come to America and damned to stubborn and horrifying resilience. The Monument’s Men and Cesar Chavez brought horror to the screen for all the wrong reasons (*yawn*). Fernando Coimbra‘s A Wolf at the Door (“O Lobo atrás da Porta”) is similarly based upon a true story of relationships gone terribly awry, charged by a headline that will leave you in shock and awe. To be any less than stunned, stupefied and all but weeping in a depressed pile of nauseous disgust is less than human. Intrigued?

 

Then you might want to look into A Wolf at the Door, which opened at last season’s Toronto International Film Festival before moving to the Zurich Film Fest, The Brazil Film Fest of Paris and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. During its journey around the world, it has left viewers largely haunted. I chatted with Fernando to talk about his TIFF success, Greek tragedy, Brazilian film, women’s rights and murder. Be warned, spoilers are included in the interview.

You mentioned that you see ‘A Wolf at the Door’ as kind of a twist on the Medea story. Do you see it more as a modernized take or a distinctly Brazilian take on that Greek tragedy?

Fernando Coimbra: Yeah, the film was inspired by a true story that happened in Rio De Janeiro. And I had read about this story, and there are similar narratives to Medea the Greek tragedy. I thought that was interesting because of the drama, and details, and then the tragedy at the end. But the inspiration was this true story. It’s not an adaptation because a lot of things are different in the story. The way she killed the girl, the way she got close to the mother. It’s very similar to what happened in the true story.

Wow I didn’t even know that it was a true story.

FC: It repeats sometimes. Before shooting the film there was another story that was very similar to this story.

And this is in Brazil as well, the more recent story?

FC: Yeah, it was in Brazil and it was in Rio De Janeiro. Same town, same place.

Do you see this as a distinctly Brazilian/Rio De Janeiro film? This story, do you see it as something that could only happen here?

FC: No, I think the story could happen anywhere. It talks about very basic instincts and very basic emotions that I think every human being has. That’s why I wanted to tell the story. When I read about the story, the old newspapers and all the press treated Bernando like a monster, like a beast, like a kind of non-human being. I think it’s a passionate crime. It’s something very close to us. I want to tell the story to understand how humans could behave like that. I think it could happen in any culture. Medea is a Greek tragedy that is very basic to all human beings.

Was the forced abortion part of the real story as well or was that something you added?

FC: I decided to make the film from two different points of view because they tell different stories. The men never thought about the abortion because originally he had never harmed her. But in court she said it happened in a very similar way as it happens in the film.

Wow. So, one of the things you play with very early on is this idea of the unreliable narrator. From the get-go we’re getting these three different tellings of the same story that don’t necessarily make sense in the context of one another. We know that somebody is making something up. As we go on, Rosa becomes the main narrative thread and her tale becomes almost a reality. From my initial reading of the film, not knowing that it was based on a true story, I felt there was room for doubt in her version of the story. Was that at all intentionally on your part? For instance, maybe the whole abortion thing was made up or maybe, in the context of this film, she never committed that heinous final crime. Or do you see it as more cut and dry than that?

FC: Yes, I want the audience to doubt. I begin the film at the police station and I present all the characters because you don’t know at this moment who’s telling the truth, who they really are, if they’re telling their version of the story. You haven’t seen their lives and their relationships. People sometimes think, ah this is true, but you never know because of the two points of views. He could be lying, she could be lying. We don’t know what’s happened between them.

The film deals with some rather dark subject matter: the murder of children, forced abortions. Do you see that as an obstacle to getting the film into larger markets or do you think this is a film that people are prepared to see?

FC: I think when you are ready to screen the film to film professionals it works very well with that audience. But for bigger screenings, you worry if it’s gonna be a problem. But once you get into the story and understand it, you aren’t as shocked by the crime. It’s a challenge because when you tell the story, you get a little bit afraid. It’s so brutal. But when you see the film you see that it’s not so bad.

The way you film it, it’s like this John Steinbeck moment where she’s putting the child down in almost the nicest way possible. She takes it like, “Oh just look at the ground honey, everything will be ok”. She’s not doing it out of hostility but it seems to her like a necessity. Obviously the film relies heavily on the actors because it’s more about characters than anything else. I was wondering what your approach was to directing your actors. Did you leave them alone for most of it to do their work or were you more hands on with them?

FC: I worked a lot with them. We did a lot of research before shooting. We worked very hard on the rehearsals and they’re really great actors. We had to work together and find forms of acting that are very intimate. I used to be an actor. I’m not an actor anymore because I’m not a good actor. (Laughter) It would’ve been a lot different if I didn’t have the right actors for it.

Absolutely. So, one of the things that the film deals with is this issue of women’s rights. It’s one of the subtexts that continues throughout the film, giving a voice to women who maybe in other situations would be more demonized. Were you trying to make any particular statement about women’s rights or was that more incidental?

FC: It was not the main thing in my mind. I know that I talk about forced abortions, rape, when the child has problems, money problems, and the rights of the woman to have an abortion or not. Men kind of dominate the mind of society about these things. This is part of society but I know that it’s become part of the subject of the film.

I’ll admit to not knowing too much about Brazilian cinema. Can you give me some examples of works from Brazilian cinema that have inspired you, or that you grew up on?

FC: There are some directors from the 60’s and 70’s that I like a lot. One of them is maybe the best director that we have: Wagner Rocha. He was a great director, very different than my films. He has inspired my films. There’s another director that has a name that does not look Brazilian. It’s Leon Ishmael. He did a film in the suburbs in the 60’s based on a Brazilian play-writer that was all about passion and relationships and tragedy. He really inspired me about the way to shoot this film.

Do you plan on continuing to make movies in Brazil or do you think you’ll ever try Hollywood on for size?

FC: I have a lot of projects in Brazil that are starting to develop. But I have talked about some projects in Hollywood. The film Wolf at the Door got a great reaction so agencies and managers are talking about some new stuff. I cannot say now because we never know. What I have now… it’s perfect in Brazil and I’m starting to write some new projects. I hope it goes far.

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Out in Theaters: JOE

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Joe populates a stretch of XL bible belted, confederate flag-waving backwoods Texas with rapists and murders of the worst degree, painting a picture so unrelenting bleak that a repeat drunk driver that spends his days in whore houses and/or dog fighting is our closest thing to a hero. It’s a place where slavery may as well have been yesteryear, where molestation lurks around every corner, where hope goes to die. It’s a small nowheresville of inexplicable evil. Like a flash sideways where Jack didn’t cork the Island’s malevolent juju (“Lost” reference alert). Joe lives in a land where morals come to roast on skewers and are snacked on by open-mouthed buffoons. This is Kentucky Fried hell. But even hell must have its fallen angels. Read More

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Out in Theaters: TRANSCENDENCE

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Every once in a blue moon an unsung talent breaks out of their wheelhouse to extraordinary results.  Quentin Tarantino famously emerged from a video store, learning his craft at the film school of VHS rentals. Ron Howard was a can-kicking child actor before stepping in to direct acclaimed films like Apollo 13, Rush and Academy Award winner A Beautiful Mind. Even Japanese auteur and samurai-lordship himself Akira Kurosawa trained as a painter before ever stepping behind a camera. The lesson is: great directors can come from pretty much anywhere. Wally Pfister, longtime cinematographer for Christopher Nolan (another cinebuff who did not receive formal film school education) and head hancho of Transcendence, has spent the better part of two decades behind a camera. But this is the first time he’s sat in the black foldout chair etched with the word “director.” In this 100 million dollar dry run of his, he’s all but sullied the name.

Pfister directs Transcendence with the style of a National Geographic cinematographer. He looms on intimate nature shots – drops of water claim close ups like they’re signing off Sunset Boulevard – before casting panoramic crane shots of jumbled mountains cloaked in forest or tumbleweed-kicking stretch of desert lit up by solar panels as far as the eye can see. Pfister’s settings are beautifully lighted and wonderfully scenic but they still feel like the work of a DP showing off in full masturbatory fashion. Any certifiable director would have slashed wasted minutes lingering on Kodak moments without blinking.

While Pfister flexes his eye for topography, the story beats from screenwriter Jack Paglen quickly become the biggest point of contention. Paglen’s plot follows Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp), a brilliant scientist on the verge of breaking new ground on AI technology that will forever change the world. Talked into a presentation to secure grant money by wife and partner Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), Will (Paglen’s cipher) brings up some interesting questions about our relationship to technology. Since SkyNet, we’ve had a general distrust of technology overtaking their human creators. The threat lies in supremacy. While human minds are capped by biological limitations, machines face no such boundaries (a theme that Spike Jonze‘s Her explored in much simpler and yet more compelling and grandiose terms). This goes on to become the central theme of the movie: can we trust technology that outgrows us?

As one might expect, not everyone in Paglen’s tale thinks an all-powerful machine is a good thing so anti-technology, terrorist network Rift, lead by an inexcusably bleach blonde Kate Mara, are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a future that involves Terminators, the Matrix, and whatnot. Cue an assassination attempt on Will that proves slowly successful (radiation poisoning FTW!). Will’s ticking clock leads Evelyn to take the next step in their research by “uploading” Will’s consciousness into the existing model of AI, code name PIMM. While his body withers and dies, his “self” is transferred into a super computer. Colleague and trusted friend of the Crasters, Max Waters (Paul Bettany), says that the thing in the computer ain’t Will no more but Evelyn just won’t hear it. Like Joaquin Phoenix, she’s seduced by Depp’s Him.

And speaking of Depp, can we all just finally own up to the fact that he’s just not a good actor? He depends on hairdos to express his emotional status (also, why does every movie scientist need at least one scene with frazzled bedhead?) and not caked in makeup or prancing around a Tim Burton set, he’s just dull to watch. Even without the weird, he’s still oppressively meh. It doesn’t help that his lines and those of his co-stars sound like they were scrawled into a napkin hours before shooting. Some of Paglen’s philosophy masks itself as high concept but with dialogue this trawling, Paglen reveals his cupboard isn’t filled with China. Pfister, likewise, proves inept at directing his actors, a cast that by all means ought to bring more to the table than they do. As things are, they’re like the guests who all cheaped out and brought baguettes to a wine party.

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Pfister’s begged and borrowed a cast from cohort Nolan only to have nothing to do with them. Morgan Freeman only seems here to give a brief voice over (that adds nothing to the film). Otherwise, he looks confused and is always a few minutes behind the other characters. He looked more engaged in his infamous Now You See Me interview than he is here. Cillian Murphy, on the other hand, just has absolutely nothing to do. He might be an under-appreciated talent but not so much that he would sign off for such a flat and lifeless role ad nauseum. Are production re-writes to blame or was Pfister cashing in favors across the board? I guess we’ll never know.

Act one and two have their issues but are by-in-large competently compelling bites of fiction, especially in the context of the ghastly third act. When Pfister, Depp and Co. round the bases and start the journey to home plate, everything gets totally sacked. Rome wasn’t build in a day but it sure could burn in one. Like Will’s late stage admission that “There’s not enough power!”, the internal logic of the film goes haywire in a thoughtless ending that I still can’t make heads or tails of. Instead of offering up an earned and earnest conclusion, Pfister and Paglen eschew explanation like a student who’s “dog ate their homework”. It’s as unsatisfying as one pringle, as tasteless as a whole wheat bun.

Plot mechanics are omnipresent and omnipotent until the script demands it not so, characters unfold incompatible reveals without satisfying explanation, and by the end… well it’s hard to even say how the thing even ended but I’m pretty sure the Apes won? It’s like if Inception had forgone the spinning top for a closing shot of a grinning Leo clone. Keep the WTFs in the can of worms please. Pfister’s shown he can replicate Nolan in broad strokes but, like an AI’s inability to prove its self-awareness, he misses the inexplicable piece that makes a story feel human… oh, and good.

C-

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Out in Theaters: DOM HEMINGWAY

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Bozer, loser Dom Hemingway may be renown for his safe-cracking fingers, but they don’t get an entire soliloquy dedicated to them like his little Dom does. In riotous, far-out hyperbolization, a madcap Jude Law as Dom describes his lowers bits with the candid immodesty of a Manson Family member. The camera jammed tight in his spittle-frothing face, he professes his undying love for his nethers. His Johnson is his fleshy David, his uncut Mona Lisa, his pube-riddled Sistine Chapel. It’s his masterpiece. You don’t hear of screenwriting lessons that teach starting a movie on a three minute penis-focused speech but after Dom Hemingway, they should. It’s a glorious beginning, a magnificently off-kilter snickerfest and character magnification that showcases Law’s brilliance in the role and the boldly misanthropic directions writer/director Richard Shepard is willing to take us. Oh and it turns out that during this whole sequence, Hemingway is being orally pleasured by a dude with a cheap mexistach. The movie could have ended there and been an A+.

After Hemingway receives prison-grounds fellatio, talking through the whole sexventure, we’re given a rock-hard idea of who he is and the extent of his unscrupulousness. He’s the kind of guy who answers phone calls during sex or cuts you off and then gives you the finger or waxes philosophy on his junk while his prison bitch is forced to satiate him. That meticulously claustrophobic, tantalizingly verbose opening scene is our window into Dom’s mordant soul. In his eccentric vernacular, everything is a delicious metaphor, a roundabout simile caked in cusses and c-words.  In another world, he may have been a poet. In this one, he’s getting blowies from dudes in lockup. Such is life.

Outside the prison walls, he dresses like a booze cruise skipper and stomps around town with the purpose of an avenging cuckold. The first thing he does after release is clomp to the auto shop to brutally beat down the man who married his ex-wife. Dom’s actions are that of a world-class megalomaniac with a chip the size of a hatchet on his shoulder. There he stands with bloody hands over the man who raised his bastard daughter and took care of his heart-broken wife. 12 years waiting didn’t work for her so she moved on. Dom, in this and other matters, has not.

He’s a man out of touch with the world. From iPhones to women’s rights, he’s can’t seem to navigate what has become of the world he once was the cream of the crop of. From one scene to the next, it’s Hemingway’s inability to cipher the world of prison rules from outside civilization that gets him so quickly into deep doo-doo. His uncaged loquaciousness is both his charm and his worst enemy, a truth known by colleague and unlikely friend Dickie (Richard E. Grant). While Dom whittled away years in the joint for keeping his uncommonly large trap shut, Dickie whispers assurances of fortune and glory upon his release. Cue a wonderfully tense meeting of the minds as Dom comes face-to-fact with would-be benefactor, Mr. Evan Fontaine, played by the always terrifying Demian Bichir. As Hemingway helplessly unleashes volleys of libelous offense, we see just how much of a big fish in a small pond he is. In everything, the Dom Hemingway model is outdated.

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All that transpires up to here makes for a riotous first half but there’s a notable turning point where penance starts to take hold and everything that makes Dom such an parasitically compelling character start to fade to lighter hues and knee-bending. Law never loses hold of his commanding presence but the script steers him in directions that we would have rather it forsaken. We’ve seen the man trying to win back his family back (even if their family doesn’t include a tragically-hip-haircut-sporting Emilia Clarke) and it fits the ravager Dom like a three-dollar suit.

Suffering from my ‘daughter hates me’ woes, Hemingway looks like a Cocker Spaniel with junk clogging its eyes. He’s a pitiable lunk whose legacy will measure up to his effusive tenure in prison and a propensity to crack out-of-date safes. In the age of electronic everything, even his specialization has outdated him.

As Shepard weaves the character of a bygone criminal braggart into a head-hanging old fool “alone and full of regret”, the bittersweet lark loses its bite. But I guess that’s the point. At some junction, we reassess life, and usually only in circumstances forced upon us. We can’t fight battles of the future with the weapons of the past. Regrettably, Dom Hemingway’s life reassessment feels a bit too much like a guy getting a vasectomy but at least it allowed Jude Law the most daffy, bombastic and peculiarly distinguished performance of his career. For a movie that starts about a guy spewing about the glory of his ding-dong, by the end, everyone’s got him by the balls.

B-

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SIFF 2014 Unveils African Pictures Lineup

by Posted in Reviews Tagged , , , ,

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Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton in Half of a Yellow Sun

The Seattle International Film Festival has released details on their first bout of films set to span the further reaches of cinema the world over. Putting the “international” in International Film Festival, SIFF takes a decided stance to represent more than a handful of foreign films amongst a smattering of domestic films. Just as many, if not more, films come from around the world and nothing is a better example of this than their African film series. Take a look through the list of eclectic African pictures including World and North American premieres. Full screening details to follow on May 1.

 

 

African Metropolis

d: Marie Ka, Philippe Lacote, Ahmed Ghoneimy, Vincent Moloi, Folsakin Iwajomo, Jim Chuchu, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa 2013, 92 min

Filmmakers from across the African continent paint a vivid picture of a new, urbanized Africa through innovative short stories featuring six fast-growing major cities: Abidjan, Cairo, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi.

 

B For Boy

d: Chika Anadu c: Uche Nwadili, Nonso Odogwu, Ngozi Amarikwa, Frances Okeke, Nigeria 2013, 118 min


In Chika Anadu’s award-winning debut film, Amaka, a 40-year-old Nigerian woman, is expected to produce a male heir. But when the baby dies in utero, she desperately searches for a solution that would keep her husband from taking a second wife.

 
Difret

d: Zeresenay Berhane Mehari c: Meron Getnet, Tizita Hagere, Ethiopia 2014, 99 min

After being beaten, assaulted, and kidnapped, 14-year-old Aberash shoots and kills her attacker in an act of self-defense, pitting herself and her tenacious lawyer against Ethiopia’s long-standing tradition of marriage by abduction. Based on an extraordinary true story.

 
Electro Chaabi

d: Hind Meddeb, Egypt/France 2013, 77 min

They started as performers in the poorest neighborhoods of Cairo; now they’re among Egypt’s fastest-rising stars. Unlikely musical celebrities, their electrifying version of Arab hip hop has flourished across social classes to become the inspiring soundtrack to a tumultuous time.

 
Finding Fela

d: Alex Gibney, USA 2014, 120 min

Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s magnetism reverberates through time. The social and political significance of his life’s work is considered through historic clips and scenes from the Broadway musical FELA!


Four Corners
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

d: Ian Gabriel c: Brendon Daniels, Irshaad Ally, Jezriel Skei, Lindiwe Matshikiza, Abdurahman Adams, South Africa 2014, 114 min

13-year-old chess prodigy Ricardo gets caught between two long-warring gangs, the 26s and the 28s of the pitiless Cape Flats of South Africa, just as the father he’s never known is released from prison.

 

Half of a Yellow Sun

d: Biyi Bandele c: Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Boyega, Anika Noni Rose, Joseph Mawle, Nigeria/United Kingdom 2013, 106 min

Based on the eponymous novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun follows the lives of two Nigerian sisters in the 1960s who return home after receiving educations in England. The tumultuous Nigerian Civil War is the backdrop to this author-approved drama adaptation.

Leading Lady

 

d: Henk Pretorius c: Gil Bellows, Katie McGrath, Brumilda van Rensburg, Bok van Blerk, Eduan van Jaarsveldt, South Africa 2014, 96 min

From the director of Fanie Fourie’s Lobola, winner of the SIFF 2013 Golden Space Needle Award for Best Film, comes this uplifting tale of a teacher and struggling actress who enlist a South African sheep farmer in helping her prepare for a make-or-break film role. 

Rags and Tatters

d: Ahmad Abdalla c: Asser Yassin, Atef Yousef, Amr Abed, Yara Gubran, Mohamed Mamdouh, Egypt 2013, 87 min

A nameless fugitive fights his way through the chaos of revolutionary Cairo to deliver cell phone footage of police brutality from his dying friend to the outside world. Hailed as “a touchstone of post-revolutionary Egyptian cinema.” 

 

 

The Rooftops

d: Merzak Allouache c: Adila Bendimerad, Nassima Belmihoub, Ahcene Benzerari, Aïssa Chouat, Mourad Khen, Algeria/France 2013, 92 min

Algeria’s most beloved director weaves the story of five Algiers neighborhoods organized according to the five calls to prayer over the course of a single day.

 

 

Salvation Army

d: Abdellah Taïa c: Saïd Mrini, Karim Ait M’hand, Amine Ennaji, Malika El Hamaoui, Frederic Landenberg, Morocco/France 2013, 82 min

Inspired by the director’s own experiences, the film recounts the journey of a gay Moroccan teenager who uses his sexuality to advance his position in, and eventually escape, the society that shuns him. A brave, provocative film that tackles taboo issues to offer a new vision of the queer Arab experience.

 

 

Under the Starry Sky

d: Dyana Gaye c: Marème Demba Ly, Ralph Amoussou, Souleymane Seye N’Diaye, Maya Sansa, Babacar M’Baye Fall, France/Senegal 2013, 86 min

Through three emotionally charged story lines, taking viewers from Senegal to Italy to America and back again, the destinies of three far-flung sojourners connect in this transcontinental drama that’s a richly realized examination of the African diaspora and the often fractal nature of contemporary emigration.

 

White Shadow

WORLD PREMIERE

d: Noaz Deshe c: Hamisi Bazili, James Gayo, Glory Mbayuwayu, Salum Abdallah, Germany/Italy, Tanzania 2013, 115 min

In Tanzania, young albino Alias is on the run after witnessing his father’s murder. He finds city life as fraught with danger as the bush in this intense and stunning feature debut centering on crime perpetrated because of superstition.

 


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Weekly Review 44: CHEAP, ESCAPE, GATTACA, BARTON, DRUG, JESUS

by Posted in Weekly Review Tagged , , , , , , ,

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I’ve realized that for every movie I cross off my To Watch list, I add three more. The sad reality: I’ll never watch all the movies. Nevertheless, I can try. In theaters this week, I caught Oculus and Dom Hemingway but skipped screenings of Heaven is for Real, Neighbors and Draft Day. As is, I’ll still have another chance to see Neighbors before it hits theaters and although it’s getting fairly high praise, I’m still not sold that it’ll be anything better than slightly entertaining. At home, I had a chance to hack through a few more films that I’ve had sitting on my list, including the earlier Fast and Furious movies (I’ve finally seen them all now) and another viewing of the joyous 12 Years a Slave.

You won’t find those included here though as there’s really nothing to say about them other than they exist. 2 Fast 2 Furious isn’t as embarrassing as the name suggests, Tokyo Drift is an absolute nightmare and the near “here we go again” Fast and Furious come noticeably shy of the seduction of the last few installments. Somehow, the Rock really changes the dynamic for the best (didn’t ever expect to say that one.) Anyways, onward to some films to discuss in more detail.

DRUG WAR (2012)

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A certifiable thrill ride through the Hong-Kong underworld, this tasty piece of Chinese cinema lines up just the right amount of standoffs, fireworks and nail-biting tension and snuffs it up clean. Drug War follows a captured meth manufacturer who flips sides and helps the police take down the top dogs of his former organization over a period of 24-hours. Though Chinese film hardly makes much of a splash overseas (financially or culturally), this is one of the finest examples of Chinese filmmaking from the past 20 years. It’s China via Tarantino Bay, a one-way trip from Hong Kong to LA. Irresistibly balls-to-the-walls, Drug War charges 100 miles an hour until the brooding, bruising final moment.  

B+

BARTON FINK (1991)

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One of the more contained Coen Bros films, Barton Fink explores the creative process while confronting Judaism, New York angst and a dastardly murder. Far be it for anyone to call one of John Turturro‘s roles “normal” but this is probably the closet we get to having him playing a straight character. Cranked up on his own instinctual discontent and self-loathing ways, he’s a vessel for the Coen bros to voice their own insecurities. Hollywood’s a bitch, their film screams. It’s where creativity comes to die. Thankfully, the Coen Bros, unlike Fink, don’t bend over and take the proverbial sacking of the studio system. It’s films like this, even though it’s not their greatest work, that make us thankful that these sardonic siblings exist.

B

CHEAP THRILLS (2014)

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Fear Factor left behind the rule book in E.L. Katz‘s ultra-violent parody on American economic desperation that mixes murky morality with a heavy twist of sadism. Pat Healy puts in a monstrous performance as the film’s lead, a man on his last financial leg who runs into old buddy Vince the same night he meets a man with deep pockets set to change his life… if he’s willing to go the distance. Unlike anything else, Cheap Thrills is an unrelenting descent into the depths of how low humanity will go for money. Whether it involves fisticuffs, B&E, sex, or even auto-cannibalism, Katz’s film asks, “What is your limit?” Anchored by rock solid performances all around and a general sense of happily suspended disbelief, Cheap Thrills is over-the-top alright but in the very best of ways.

A-

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (2013)

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A subversive project shot guerrilla-style in the manicured “paradise” of Disneyland tries to spin a nightmare out of regulated happiness, but ends up nightmarish for all the wrong reasons. From the drooping special effects to the unbearably written and acted characters – lead by an incessantly nagging wife/mother and her drunken hubbie with rapey eyes for a pair of Parisian tweens – there’s so much to turn you off that it’s hard not to turn the movie off itself. The fact that it all adds up to pretty much nothing doesn’t help either. A failed experiment that hardly justifies the risk.

D

JESUS CAMP (2006)

 

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Captivating and horrifying in equal measure, Jesus Camp is the epitome of Christianity gone wrong. Not to bring my views on religion into the mix, but the situations depicted in this documentary are exactly the reason why any kind of full blown commitment to an ideal can be absolutely terrifying. Hearing children talk about “the enemy” (Muslims) or crying out in tongues is surely provocative footage and works like a crowbar to unsettle an audience, even if the edit is a little too much of a one-sided portrayal to really gleam much other than shock and awe. Like the Westboro Baptists, surely this sect is the exception rather than the rule. It’s still a scary reality and one that deserved to be put under the microscope for one hot minute. In the end, it’s hard to walk away from this not thinking, “Fuck Becky Fisher. Fuck Fred Phelps. Fuck Jim Jones.” The fact that the documentary lead to the closure of this particular brainwashing camp though is more than enough to legitimize its existence as a potent exposé with surprising real-world application.

B-

GATTACA (1997)

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Gattaca may be dated but the racial analogies are still as pertinent and timely as ever. Ethan Hawke plays a natural born child in an age of gene manipulation that churns out genetically superior children. Since the technology exists to shape a fetus into their most perfect possible self, those born of natural causes are considered lesser and forced to take on the underling roles in society. Its thinly veiled take on eugenics and racial inequality may be too on-the-nose but it’s an incredibly thoughtful and risky sci-fi film, especially considering it was released the same year that Starship Troopers and Batman & Robin were trolling the box office. Add to that provocative performances from Hawke and Uma Thurman and a wonderful turn from Jude Law and you have a keeper. Minus points to House Gattaca though for brazen use of shameful voiceover. New Zealand director Andrew Niccol has gone to make such smut as The Host and In Time, making this the sure pinnacle of his creative spirit. It’s just a shame that after such a victory, he would pump out work that makes us question whether he himself is an “in-valid” after all.

B

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Talking With Nick Frost of CUBAN FURY

by Posted in Interviews Tagged , , , , , ,

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You might know him as the schlubby, stoner, best friend burnout from Shaun of the Dead or the hoodwinked, adolescent dunce of a cop in Hot Fuzz but you don’t know the real Nick Frost. Sensitive, kind and sharp as a katana, Nick dreamed up an unlikely passion project in Cuban Fury, a workplace/sports comedy orbiting around the world of salsa dancing. As the film’s hero and salsa dancing extraordinaire, Nick may not be the first person you’d think of with a name like Cuban Fury but, according to him, that’s the point. It’s all about going against expectations. After all, there’s something inherently funny about watching a man of his stature throw his body around like a 120 pound Latina woman.

 

Nick and I sat down to discuss the process of making the film, working with best friends Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, what they might all do next, cameos, writing, Ant-Man, and the big Fox pilot he’s filming this month.

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The press notes claim that the roots of the film came from a drunken email you wrote pitching the idea of you doing a dancing movie. But when did that idea come to you and made you think it would make a great movie?


Nick Frost: I think I had that idea about three years ago, but it could have been five fucking years. I think after doing Shaun of the Dead and then Hot Fuzz and Paul, the genre specific, fanboy films, which I’m very proud of and that is me, I always kinda wanted to do a dance film where I was a dancer. If you want to do something completely different and out of left field of you as a performer, doing a dance film is it for me. So I harbored that idea and my gut instinct was that it was a good idea. Because it was a good idea, every time that it knocked on my consciousness, I would say, “Fuck off” cuz it’s a good idea. I’d drive it away with a pitchfork or a flaming torch back into my subconscious. I got back from a party at like 2am and sat there and was a bit belligerent  and was like, “I’m gonna do it,” and just pitched. I wrote what I imagined the film would be in a big long email and pressed send. I woke up the next day and didn’t remember but had this weird unease that one might have if you’d french-kissed an aunt. “What have I done?” So I put my computer up and saw a message in my inbox, essentially saying, “This is a great idea. Let’s have a meeting.”

So you came up with the idea but you did not want to write the screenplay. Why was that?

NF: I couldn’t be bothered, to be honest. The thing about writing a screenplay is that you are taken out of circulation in terms of acting. Paul took so long to write. It was bitty and piece-mealy. As much as I did like writing Paul, and I’ve written two since, I found my love for it again but the thought of sitting in a room on my own writing a screenplay held noi joy for me at all. So we found John Brown who wrote the thing and we sat down and I gave him a little bible of what the story should be and my character and potential other characters and that was it. John just went and did it, he was amazing. I don’t want to overestimate my part in that, it was not much at all. John went off and delivered a great first draft and we’d give it notes or not, because it was so nice. I’m not sure I could have been like this as a younger person but if you’re getting people like John Brown in, you let him write it. You don’t fiddle with it. He’s a craftsman, a skilled writer. You have to trust these people or shut up and write it yourself.

Do you see yourself writing another screenplay in the future sometime soon or are you kind of turned off from the writing process?


NF: I just finished. I guess you never really “finish” but I’ve finished the first draft about a thing called Cockney Lump, which is about a British wrestler being induced into the hall of fame.



Are you gonna play the part?

NF: Yeah. So that’s something I’ve been working on with Studio Canal for a year or so now. There’s a nice script now. I was in Boston over Thanksgiving this year and last year and I was shooting a film with Vince Vaughn and James Marsden and I have eight days off from shooting. I don’t know anyone in Boston. I’m in a hotel like this with a bar downstairs. What I didn’t want to be doing is everyday at lunchtime going out for something to eat and a drink. What kind of life is that? You’ve got eight days off in Boston. I set up alarm at 6am and I got up and wrote for ten hours every day. I just sat there and wrote. It woke up in me the love of doing that. Since that point, I’ve kind of finished a children’s book that I was doing and I’ve written a short film that I’m gonna direct later on in the year. Just kind of got it going again.

This being a dance movie of sorts, obviously you had to cut some dope moves on the rug. How much dance rehearsal did that demand of you? I’m gonna go ahead and assume you didn’t pull the front flip off the car?

NF: I did not pull the front flip, but that’s not technically dancing. I would say that 98% of all the dancing in the film is me. I trained for six or seven hours a day for seven months before we shot a roll of film.

So are you really comfortable as a salsa dancer now?

NF: We shot that before World’s End to be honest. I had a week between wrapping that and starting World’s End and I’ve done bits and pieces here and there too. If you’re doing it seven hours a day everyday, you’re an expert for that point. But it’s like language, the longer you don’t use it, the rustier you get at it. In terms of specifics, I’m kind of pretty bad at this point. But the fiery heart of beating Latino culture is kind of there for every.

It’s just the technical aspects that fade away.

NF: Yeah, I think I’d be better than most but I couldn’t do the dances I was doing.

So you’re not gonna go do Dancing with the Stars next?

NF: I wouldn’t want to to be honest.

I wouldn’t want to see you there.

NF: On a Saturday night my mother-in-law and father-in-law will come over and my baby loves it and the whole family will just sit there and eat a curry and watch Dancing with the Stars. I think it would spoil if it had my fat, horrible fucking face gunning over an American smooth.

Talking about The World’s End, that’s the last film that you’re doing in the Cornetto trilogy with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. I know that you guys had this idea forever of doing the three satire, action, genre movies and now that you’ve finished that out, I hate the idea of you not collaborating again. I’m sure that you do as well since you guys are such a fantastic team. Have you tossed around ideas of when you’re gonna work together next and what it might be on?

NF: Yes, we had a great idea on the plane, as we often do. Flying from Wellington to somewhere else or Sydney to here. I’m not gonna tell you what it is, but it’s a good idea. The fact is, Simon has Mission Impossible and he’s gonna do that this year. Edgar is doing Ant-Man. I’m doing a Fox pilot with Justin Long. If that gets picked up, I’ll be out of the game for a little bit. We could of made a decision just to make a film a year that go down in terms of quality because you’re just pumping shit out because you need to feed an audience’s expectations or you can sit on an idea for four years. If we only make a film every five or six years but it’s something that people really dig, I think that’s probably better than people going off you because you do too much.

Would the next thing that you guys work together on be a sort of thematic sequel to this or would it be a whole new direction?

NF: I think it’ll be completely different.

I’m so curious. I would have to see what you guys do next. Speaking of Simon, you guys have this great onscreen chemistry but in real life, you’re also dear friends.

NF: (Shows tattoo with SP (for Simon Pegg) and EW (Edgar Wright).

Well that is just fantastic. Anytime when you’re doing a movie, you other one cameos. Is that an unspoken agreement or is that a pact. Like, “If I’m in the movie, Simon is showing up.”



NF: This just seemed kinda right for it. It took us a while to shoot that you know because we did a bunch of different versions of it. There was a version where he slowed down and said to me, “What are you doing here? Who are all these people?” And you could see the crew. I think in the edit we looked at it so many different way and the best way was the fact that he quickly drifts through frame.

It seems like you’ve got a lot on your platter coming up. What are you most excited for?

NF: Well working with Justin Long. I’ve been a fan of his and we’ve known each other for a bit. I got sent this pilot script and it was great. This is something completely different for me. I’ve never done anything like this before.

So what’s the character?

NF: His name is Robert and he’s a high-functioning alcoholic who happens to be a powerful lawyer.

Lovely.

NF: He does something quite bad and is assigned a sober companion for 90 days.

Played by Justin Long?

NF: Yeah. And this is the story.

So are you still in the development stage?



NF: Well we’re shooting the pilot at the end of the month. It’s part of the pilot season machine and then we’ll find out in May if it gets picked up.

I’m assuming that that’s also more on the comedic side?

NF: Yes it is, absolutely but when the main character is a struggling alcoholic, you can’t ignore the fact that that destroys life and affects people around him. That will be given the screen time it deserves and not just do a wacky, balls-to-the-wall “here comes the drunk guy again.” I think it’ll work if both are.

Will you be playing a Brit?

NF: Oh yeah, I’m English.

Yeah, I’ve never seen you do an American accent.

NF: “Hey man, you want a hamburger” (in an “American” accent).

It just wouldn’t feel right.

NF: There are a million America actors if you want to give it to an American actor. This is probably a limitation in me as a performer but I kind of have that weird belligerent streak of “I’m an English actor!” I think if something is set now, there’s no reason in the world why they couldn’t be English. I get if it was set in 1860 but it’s now.

Have you ever thought about going straight drama, for example Chris O’Dowd, who you co-starred with in this, just did Calvary which was very dark and grim.

NF: Absolutely. I never was trained as a comedian. I’m not a comedian, I’m just someone who has always been a funny dick and now I just get to do that as a job. In terms of people and human beings, you can be both and that’s where a lot of truth is. The crossroads between tragedy and comedy. I call it putting the fun back into funeral. A lot of the funniest times I’ve had in my life are at funerals and after funerals. One minute, you’re crying because your grandmother has died and the next minute, a group of relatives are drinking Jamesons and howling at her memory. That’s real and that’s a really real place to be.

Obviously your collaborator who you’ve worked with quite a bit, Edgar is going off to Ant-Man. There was some talks that Simon might be in a leading role there. Did they ever approach the two of you?

NF: No, it was all bullshit. We knew that it was just Edgar’s thing. When we were doing press tours for The World’s End, the joke that the three of us would share is whenever someone would ask Edgar about Ant-Man, I would take the question. “I’ll take this Edgar. I’m really pleased to be playing Hank Pym.” It would really make him laugh. But it’s Edgar’s project really. Scott Pilgrim wasn’t a lesser film because me and Simon weren’t the vegan police.

Maybe it was…

NF: That film was fantastic without us in it and the same with Ant-Man, it’ll be fantastic without us in it.

Would you do maybe a high-budget, tentpole, Marvel-type situation? Could you ever see that in your future?

NF: Who would that be, if I’m just being pragmatic about it.

Well maybe not necessarily in the starring role.

NF: Well yeah, absolutely and I would love to do it. It would be a lot of fun. But in terms of playing a lead in something like that, who would it be? The Rhino?

Paul Giamatti’s already got that one.

NF: I think I need to be aware of my limitations as a human being and Hollywood’s expectation of what they’re willing to spend $150 dollars on.