Trailer for Scorsese and Leo's THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

June 17, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/browbeat/2011/09/29/hugo_chavez_caption_contest/Wolf_Of_Wall_Street.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg

Adapted from the personal memoirs of Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street is a true story of excess, greed and goopy morals in the corporate world that’ll play all out in the fifth collaboration from Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. Undercut by Kanye West’s “Black Skinheads,” this first look seems more like a fast-paced, star-studded satirical comedy than the Oscar-bait many were expecting.

Personally, I’m happy to see Scorsese tackle something more light in nature, seeing as it it’s going against the grain of his last offering, Hugo. From this first look, we can expect some high-brow comedy from one of the great kings of cinema and a manic performance from a cast that includes DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Matthew McConaughey.

Bring it on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iszwuX1AK6A

The Wolf of Wall Street is directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Kyle Chandler, Jean Dujardin, Rob Reiner and Spike Jonze. It hits theaters November 15.

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Out in Theaters: MAN OF STEEL

June 14, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters

“Man of Steel”
Directed by Zack Snyder
Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Antje Traue, Richard Schiff, Christopher Meloni and Laurence Fishburne
Action, Adventure, Fantasy
143 Mins
PG-13
With a first half that focuses on exposition and a second that’s all about the explosions, Zach Snyder and Christopher Nolan have done it… Superman is finally cool. With the whizkid pyrotechnics born of Synder’s directorial hand and the tenderly crafted narrative laid out by Nolan and David S. Goyer (the team who wrote Batman Begins) this modern revamping gives the Man of Steel a much needed update into the post 9/11 era with intelligent panache.

What Nolan and Goyer have added to the franchise is a sense of stakes that have never existed before within the context of Superman, particularly on film. Supes has always been too immaculate, too shimmery, and too invincible but with Man of Steel, we meet a very flawed and isolated individual putting on a brave face. Rather than downplay that reclusive nature, it’s the forefront of the piece.

Kal-El (or per his Earth name, Clark Kent) is a character with tremendous duality. Not only does he have a bi-planetary passport but the ideals passed on to him from his two fathers are at odds with each other. Having sent him from the dying planet of Krypton, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is Clark’s biological father while goodhearted Midwestern, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) takes up the mantle of being Clark’s adoptive father when Clark crash lands on Earth.

While restraint in the presence of menace is of paramount importance to Jonathan Kent as he’s raising young Clark, strength in the face of fear is the message preached by his real father Jor-El. While Jonathan urges Clark to keep his super gifts secret, Jor-El encourages him to be proud of being different, but let’s skirt around any underlying political subtext here and leave that debate for later.

Crowe and Costner are both Uncle Ben-esque in their obligatory moral guardianship but the act of passing wisdom on, that has become a staple of the contemporary superhero film, subverts the standard with their two polarized stances. Both genuinely care for Clark and want nothing but the best for him. The differences arise with regards to whether or not they think the people of Earth are ready to accept change or not. Would humans accept an “alien” as their own or would they reject him? It’s no surprise that the Midwestern one shouts “Nay” while the ultra-tech savvy, cape-wearing, intergalactic man of science leans another way. This underlying battle of progressive versus conservative stirs Clark – ultimately pulling him in opposite directions, between secrecy and disclosure. It’s this metaphorical dichotomy that makes Clark the compelling character that we haven’t seen before in a Superman film.

Nolan and Goyer have written in an admirable foe for Superman in their character, Zod. Zipping around and smashing into each other, Zod and Supes have been matched equally – breaking the film free of that dulling sense where we find ourselves thinking, “Well of course Superman is going to win. He’s Superman.”

As Superman, Henry Cavill may be British but he fits the bill for the iconic American well. Instead of the impervious beacon of light, this is an immigrant struggling with his identity and battling his own wicked urges. As commendable as the Christopher Reeve iteration of the character is, Cavill does more heavy lifting than the fluffy, Americano poster-child that Supes has been known to be. Albeit a quiet force, he is brimming with broody angst. But instead of letting his kettle boil, this hero is afraid of becoming angry, as his limitless power is sure to make any fight a lesson in masochism. Instead he learns to temper that rage and channel it for the greater good. He’s a fledgling of an icon, the first block in a pantheon, but getting to see the rivets along the walls before they are all smoothed out makes the process of construction more interesting than the final product. Luckily, we’re there to witness the transformation.  

The always lovable Amy Adams plays Lois Lane, a character who’s always been more of a damsel in distress than a heroine of any kind, but this is a Lane that even the feminists can stand behind. Rather than a reactionary woman in need of saving, she’s a caution-be-damned, no frills kind of girl, willing to stand up for a cause and Adams is the perfect fit for the role. Her infatuation with Superman is not a schoolgirl crush, as she actually deserves the attention she gets from him rather than their romance being based on coincidental happy accident.

Although Clark’s home planet of Krypton is destroyed, there is something left standing from his previous life: an outcast military leader from his home planet by the name of General Zod (Michael Shannon).. With Superman, Zod, and crew – the last remaining vestiges of their now extinguished planet – Zod comes to Earth seeking Supes’ assistance in rebuilding their fallen brethren. Upon hearing Zod’s ideas for how to save their lost race, Superman faces his greatest challenge in Zod and, thankfully, it’s Kryptonite-free. The whole Kryptonine conceit is something of a MacGuffin that is most likely impossible to play to great effect and I’m glad to have seen it ditched here.

As a fan of Shannon’s work, Zod is an apt villain but he doesn’t have a ton to work with outside of shouting his lines and being generally angry. At times, I wished Shannon would play with volume a little more and not crank everything up to 11 but it’s hardly as over-the-top as many of his comic book compatriots and we are talking about an Academy Award nominee here.

Zipping around and smashing into each other, Zod and Superman are on the same page in the power book which breaks the film free of that dulling sense of, “Well of course Superman is going to win. He’s Superman” because it’s really Superman versus about six people with the equivalent of Superman’s powers.

From a technical aspect, the film is brilliant. The truly epic set pieces are indulgent but inventive and go to show that Synder is willing to reel in his heavy-handed flair for slo-mo theatrics to let the story shine when it matters most. Synder’s special effects team flawlessly incorporate the actors in the massive set pieces by juxtaposing intimate shots with massively panned-out shots that create a crisp and vibrant sense of realism.

As the final hour is one mounting action sequence, the smashing and zooming somehow manage to remain fresh, thanks in large part to Hans Zimmer and his string section’s thumping score that confidently guides the film. Like Snyder, Zimmer shows that he too can tune down the dramatics, as his work is able to lay low for the quiet bits of the film and crescendo to epic heights for the compulsory action sequences.

  Contrasting Man of Steel to Bryan Singer‘s Superman Returns, it is head and shoulders superior. DC Comics continues along the path set out for them by Nolan where a sense of reality is more important than easy comedy. I’m willing to say that I am now very much invested in the franchise and the plight of the iconic hero at its forefront. In this world, there is no assumed familiarity with the franchise but neither is the mythos spoon-fed. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a good Superman movie.

B+

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Wrapping Up the Seattle International Film Festival

June 13, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews

46 Days and 447 Films

From Thursday, April 25 (with an official start date of May 16) to Sunday, June 9, the Seattle International Film Festival has screened 447 films, 31 of which I had a chance to watch. From opening with Joss Whedon’s Shakespearean piece Much Ado About Nothing, which I called “a one-and-done modernized adaptation proud to bear its fuzzy flaws,” to Sofia Coppola’s teens-on-a-tear, The Bling Ring, this festival had diversity and volume on its side more than anything.

Bending between the genres of drama and horror, sci-fi and coming-of-age, thrillers to a wealth of documentaries, hearing stories pulled from France, England, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, America, Paraguay and Denmark from new filmmakers and seasoned veterans alike, we walked the world within these films.

From the emotional powerhouse that is What Maisie Knew to the lame-duck that was Last I Heard, these films embodied the meaning of cinema: the good, the bad and the ugly. The purely effervescent delights of Populaire and Frances Ha rocketed above the stale-blooded, bottom-of-the-barrel horror found in V/H/S 2 and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. In the experimental and proudly indie department, Drinking Buddies stood head and shoulders above David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche and even A Hijacking was more muted than it ought to have been.

Coming of age in The Spectacular Now was sweeter than The Kings of Summer and The Way, Way Back but none quite challenged our presumptions as much as the under-dogging Blackbird. Things got truly nuts behind the closed doors of Evangelical churches in Eden and intrigue brewed in the streets of Cambodia in Wish You Were Here as Cockneys Vs Zombies tried to capitalize on the zombie craze to varying success. Andrew Mudge backpedaled into a simpler time with The Forgotten Kingdom and 7 Boxes ganged us up with a young delivery boy hauling unknown contents around a bustling city overrun with corruption. While Ain’t Them Bodies Saints was too busy looking important to actually be important, The East managed to sneak a viable message into a mainstream film.

In Twenty Feet From Stardom, we learned the stories of the talent who’s names we don’t know while we were exposed to the shifty nature of Julian Assange and lead to question his politics in We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks. The Crash Reel presented the devastating and inspiring story of snowboarding Olympic hopeful Kevin Pearce and Blackfish took a similarly sensitive approach even though its subject was a killer whale named Tilikum.

Evergreen: The Road to Legalization in Washington took us on a well researched and unbiased journey through the debate on weed legalization while Tom Berninger abrasively pulled back the curtain on brotherhood and The National in Mistaken for Strangers. Dead Meat Walking took a shortcut to making a documentary on zombie walks and came up short while Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton and Her Aim is True both took aim at the influence of great underground artists and their impact on their beloved craft. Each was told with loving dedication even though the subjects aren’t quite mainstream enough to attract a far reaching audience.

I got a chance to sit down with James Ponsoldt and talk about the through-line of alcoholism in his films and the Pans Labyrinth-esque sci-fi flick he’s working on and he and Tom Berninger both talked about the strange and trailblazing state of our generation. Tom and I also debated heavy metal vs. indie music and he spilled his aspirations to make a Johnny Appleseed film in the traditional of Tarantino historical revisionism. Eric Slade, Stephen Silha and I talked queer politics and “following your weird” while Kieran Darcy-Smith and Felicity Price gave me the low down on making a film on the cheap and the friendship with Joel Edgerton that made Wish You Were Here possible on such a large scale. Karen Whitehead shared her love for rock’n’roll music and the art of the photograph as Matthias Hoene established his own affection for the good old fashion horror genre and just why people are so fascinated with the supernatural. Clark Gregg gave an update on the Marvel movie universe and Andrew Mudge talked about his affinity for modern day Africa and the endless wealth of stories of journey and perseverance that sit untapped there.

When all was said and done at SIFF, Harmony Lessons, Our Nixon and the David Sedaris-based C.O.G. receive competition awardswhile Fanie Fourie’s Lobola and Twenty Feet from Stardom took home the Golden Space Needle Audience Awards. James Cromwell of Still Mine and Samantha Morton from Decoding Annie Parker split up a pair of Golden Space Needle Acting Awards and The Spectacular Now won the Futurewave competition for “embodying the teenage struggle in a realistic manner.”

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SIFF Review: THE BLING RING

June 13, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews

“The Bling Ring”
Directed by Sofia Coppola
Starring Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Emma Watson, Leslie Mann, Claire Julien,
Taissa Farmiga
Crime, Drama
90 Mins
R

In a funny way, The Bling Ring is Sofia Coppola‘s most accessible film to date. As cognizantly distant and empty-headed as the teens-on-a-tear at the center of the film are, Coppola takes aim at the celebrity-woozy, status-driven ethos of the eGeneration and blasts a cartoonish hole in the midst of it. At the center of this distorted “me, me, me” psychology is a generational confusion of money for fame that we’ve all grown accustomed to, and likely sickened by, since the proliferation of reality television. Behind the mass thievery in the film of designer clothing, excessive jewelry and cold hard cash and beyond the drivel of faux-postmodern wisdom, competent and unexpected camera work from the late Harris Savides drives Coppola’s picture towards a lingering statement on the despondent emptiness of a life pursuing status and fame.

Based on the Vanity Fair article “The Suspect Wore Louboutins” by Nancy Jo Sales, The Bling Ring tells the mostly true story of a group of high school students who rob the houses of celebrities with whom they are obsessed. Our gateway to this band of bandits is Marc, in a breakout performance from Israel Broussard, who on multiple occasions tells us that he’s got self-confidence issues. When he transfers to a new school for dropouts and flunkies, Marc meets Katie Chang‘s Rebecca. From the moment we’re introduced, there’s no dreamy facade to Rebecca’s opportunist persona. This bitch likes to rob and steal while blowing lines of pow-pow.

If anyone’s the antagonist here, it’s Rebecca. Cavalier to the bitter end, she tests how far she can push the envelope, breaking into Paris Hilton’s house a total of six times, all the while tugging her gang of cohorts along by their brand-possessed principles. Hung on that leash is Nicki, played by valley girl accent sporting Emma Watson, who at home is fed Adderall like they are Skittles and schooled by her mother, in an airy bit role by Leslie Mann, in the teachings of ‘The Secret’.

As a dueling critique of Hollywood’s dazed home life and a featherbrained alibi for the perps, Copolla withholds judgment on these dazed socialites, challenging her audience to pinpoint the first stone tossed in innocence lost. At some point down the rabbit hole, society has shuffled responsibility over to this new brand of child, educated in hokey spiritual nonsense and babysat by TVs, instead of casting the blame on the real problem: these oblivious and detached hill dwelling parents. While Mann is the only parent of the group we get to spend any time with, her fruitless optimism and bloated self-righteousness is a obvious poke towards these part-time Hollywood parents.

Outside the house, these kids want all the glitz and glory without any of the hard work, just like the pop icons they envy: Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, Brian Austin Green, Megan Fox, and Orlando Bloom (with no hard feelings towards Orlando who is definitely the odd one out here). With no shortage of burglary sequences, Coppola uses repetition to reconcile the commonplace custom that this ritual has become for Rebecca, Marc, Nicki and Co. and set up their hubris that leads to their ill-fated downfall.

The crimes of vacuous hoarding may only be piled on the young burglars but taking a second look at these undeserving, inherited celebrities, it is really them who have piled high their riches like modern day sultans. Paris Hilton is the prime example of the root of the problem.

Her gaudy omnipresence is one big show, an advertisement for herself, and with her each and every world-trotting party broadcasted, it’s no wonder no one pulled off this stunt beforehand. Her paparazzi-heavy public persona and apathetic accent to fame are the chief inspiration for these events. For Hilton, from nothing comes everything. All these kids want is a taste of that sweet nectar too. Even a partial bystander can’t entirely dismiss the teen’s stance: when Hilton can’t even notice a pair of shoes gone missing amongst a room dedicated entirely to shoes, where is the great loss?

This quandary is a most popular debate topic in philosophical ethic classes. If you were incapable of providing food for your family, would it be acceptable to steal from the rich in order to do so? How do you quantify or measure the hedonic utility acquired from the loaf of bread gained or on the other side of the “equation,” the loaf of bread lost… etc. While there’s obviously no bone-protruding starving kids here, the parallel utility, although on a much more superficial scale, they’re intriguing.

Part of the irony undercutting the film lies in Hilton’s willingness to become a part of the feature as well as offering up her actual house and belongings for the film to shoot in. Whether or not she was attempting to garnish sympathy is unclear but her gratuitous lifestyle hardly warrants any empathy from a civilized audience. While Coppolla refuses to cross the line into aggrandizing, she comments silently on the naivety of the unwarranted wealth, dissecting the ludicrous notion that one is more deserved than the other. Any commentary here is soft-spoken but still leaves a lasting impression.

Obviously there is a moral line to tow about the thievery bit but at what point do we say enough is enough? Culturally, we’ve encouraged this Bonnie and Clyde lifestyle from the legends of Robin Hood to the much more recent Now You See Me but socially, it is still a damnable offense. Regardless of our infatuation and rooting for these infractions in fictional situations, we still scoff when it goes down in real life.

It’s hard to weigh in entirely on the central issue of who is to blame because it’s not entirely clear whether Coppola’s aim was to remain impartial or if she was just empathetically out in left field but the film, like the court that throws the book at them, is almost unsympathetic to these high-school aged children branded as criminals and hauled off to federal prison. They are not heroes, they’re just dumb kids taking selfies and bragging to their schoolmates about their spoil who are sent to rot in jail. We’ve all reveled in the downfall of those elitists in our lives riding on high but, paradoxically enough, we can’t help but pity their fall.

B-

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Trailer for Weinstein Sci-Fi SNOWPIERCER

June 12, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers

Look past the grimy quality of this trailer for Snowpiercer and you might see a standard sci-fi. But why then are the Weinsteins picking this up for distribution? Well let’s just say they say faith in the director. Adapted from a French graphic novel, Joon-ho Bong‘s Snowpiercer follows a group of survivors as they race towards a safe haven after the world has been devastated by global warming.

With a star-studded cast including Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris and Octavia Spencer, Snowpiercer is highly anticipated following Bong’s critical success with The Host. Check out the trailer below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPBQ-dGbO8I

Snowpiercer is directed by Joon-ho Bong and stars Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Alison Pill, John Hurt and Ed Harris. It’ll fly into theaters on August 1.

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Indulge in Slo-Mo, Ripped Dudes, and Cersei Lannister in 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE Trailer

June 12, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers

As long as you expect more of the same with 300: Rise of an Empire, you’ll be sure to be in good hands as this sequel looks to deliver more slo-mo sword swinging, impractically beautiful (and doubtlessly nude) women amidst comic book-esque landscapes and impossibly muscular men doing implausible physical feats.

While the original crew of 300 are now all dead, 300: Rise of an Empire follows the Greek general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) and his not quite as trained army as they take on the stretches of Xerxe’s Persian army which naval fleet is under the command of Artemesia (Eva Green). I’m not quite sure where Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) fits into these but apparently she’s a queen (who would have guessed?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgSpvelFC4

300: Rise of an Empire is directed by Noam Murro and stars Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headley, Rodrigo Santoro and David Wenham. You can be sure it’ll open big when it comes to theaters on March 7, 2014.

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Naomi Watts is Princess Di in DIANA Trailer

June 12, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers

Naomi Watts has been circling an Oscar for a while now and this biopic may be her best shot at scoring gold. Chartering the final two years of the iconic “princess of the people,” Diana draws from the novel “Diana: Her Last Love” by Kate Snell which brings Diana’s secret love affair with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan into the light.

From Oscar nominated director Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall), Diana brings together Lost‘s Naveen Andrews who has not yet had such an opportunity to prove himself outside of the television realm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPRXf9LxRU

Diana is directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and stars Naomi Watts and Naveen Andrews. Although it is still without an official release date, it’ll be sure to hit theaters in the heat of this year’s Oscar season.

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Trailer for THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

June 11, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers

Following up on yesterday’s poster, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has unleashed a trailer before it launches in front of Man of Steel this weekend. The scope looks equally grand and the visuals will hopefully be eye-popping but not eye-straining like it was with the supercharged 48 FPS launch to the trilogy.

Whether Jackson and company will get a hint from the universal rejection of this fledgling technology is yet to be seen but considering the extra expenses put into the use of the technology, I would personally be more surprised if they did abandon the jarring technological “advancement”.

In this newest look at the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, we see Martin Freeman return as Bilbo, Ian McKellan back as Gandalf as well as some good ol’ Orlando Bloom elfing it up as Legolas alongside Lost‘s Evangeline Lilly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnaojlfdUbs

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is directed by Peter Jackson and stars Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, Luke Evans, Cate Blanchette, Evangeline Lilly, Richard Artmitage, Elijah Wood, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis and Stephen Fry. It hits theaters over this holiday season on December 13.

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First Poster for THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

June 10, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Movie Posters

After adapting the tomes of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s Lord of the Rings series into three massively scaled films, Peter Jackson made the folly of trying to do the same with the 276-page The Hobbit. Splicing the minor film into three films seemed like a poor choice from the get-go so it was no huge surprise that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was a big letdown.

If the sequel, the smugly named Desolation of Smaug, has anything going for it, it’s low expectations- exactly opposite to what An Unexpected Journey had working against it. While I can’t help but admit that my faith level in the franchise as it exists is hardly soaring, there are worse things in the world than hanging out in Middle Earth for a few hours.

This first look at The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug cues us into the fact that Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), and his layer, will indeed play a large role in the film. Oh and we’ll probably see Legolas chilling somewhere too.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is directed by Peter Jackson and stars Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, Luke Evans, Cate Blanchette, Evangeline Lilly, Richard Artmitage, Elijah Wood, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis and Stephen Fry. It hits theaters over this holiday season on December 13.

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Talking With Kieran Darcy-Smith and Felicity Price of WISH YOU WERE HERE

June 10, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews

Curled up in leather chairs by a sputtering fireplace, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Felicity Price and I had a chance to talk about their new film Wish You Were Here. Director/screenwriter, Kieran, and leading lady/screenwriter, Felicity, worked through making a distinctlyAustralian film that is also universally human and found success.

With acting as divine as it is challenging and confident, unsettling directing from Darcy-Smith, Wish You Were Here has taut and introspective independent flair. For our full review of the film, click here or read on to learn more.

From Kieran talking about falling into a sewer on day one of the shoot, to Felicity recounting her youthful experiences as a traveler, this husband and wife duo really highlight the truly collaborative nature of their work and serve as an inspiration for working couples in the industry.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

What was it like for you guys as a husband and wife duo working on the film? Was it at all taxing on your relationship or was it a fun experience to work together day-in and day-out?

Kieran Darcy-Smith: It was the best thing that could’ve happened to our marriage. It was doomed prior to that. (Laughs)

Felicity Price: Basically, it was marriage counseling.

KDS: A lot of people anticipate that we would be admitting that there were tons of arguments and difficult but it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been more positive on a creative-level and a relationship-level. We’re kind of joined at the hip and the thing about this film is we were coming from exactly the same place. We had the same intentions and ambitions with it and things that we wanted to commit to and felt obligated to do so we were on the same wavelength which is important. Often, when you’re working collaboratively with someone you might be kind of jostling.

FP: I’ve attempted collaborations before and the projects very quickly kind of cave in because you’re just not seeing things eye-to-eye and you realize you’re making a different film. For us, it was the opposite of us fighting all the time. For people who are a couple and one’s in film and one’s not, suddenly they’re surrounded by how all-consuming it is and the other one is left out and also you’re surrounded by this kind of family that becomes your everything. For both of us, because this was Kieran’s feature debut and it was my first lead role in a film, it was both of our first produced feature length film so it’s been a wonderful journey to go on together. We’re also both sort of people who like to get completely absorbed in whatever kind of creative project that we’ve involved in so we are exactly the same in that way so we could talk about it all the time. It meant that we were brainstorming together and didn’t have to call up your writing partner on the phone.

All you’d have to do is turn next to you and there they were. So when you guys were writing this, were you, Felicity, always going to be Alice or was that something you figured out as you were going?

FP: No, I put her in the story from the beginning for myself. I had the idea for this treatment and when we sat down to write, we thought it was gonna be low-budget and I wanted to make it within the next 5 years rather than 10. So we knew it needed to be low-budget so we could raise the finances and I knew that I wanted a role for myself. Those were the two starting points.

KDS: Originally, the intention in the beginning was to make this film for 100,000 dollars. We were somehow going to scrape together five grand per friend and I was gonna play Dave and Felicity was going to play Alice and we were gonna rent a house in the suburbs.
FP: We were gonna rent the house, live in the house while we wrote the film and then shoot the film in the house. I was pregnant with our first child so we were gonna have Alice pregnant in the film and that’s where that kind of came from. In the film, I wasn’t pregnant but we originally were going to use the real pregnancy. It’s probably even harder to raise five grand from each friend then to raise the finances the way we did which was through the Australian government. Australia is a country where film is subsidized by the government so we were financed largely by Screen Australia.

In the opening shot of the film, we have Alice and Jeremy sitting on the beach and you ask the question, “If you could stay anywhere forever, where would it be?” and he says, “Here, or somewhere near here. Somewhere in Southeast Asia.” So had you guys been in Southeast Asia beforehand and is that what inspired you to set the story there?

FP: The inspiration for the film was kind of inspired by a true story that happened to a friend of ours. Kieran had gone to drama school with this girl and she knew the story fairly well and for me, it was something I vaguely knew. But this girl, probably about 20 years ago now, went traveling to Southeast Asia with her boyfriend at the time and another couple and the guy of that other couple went missing and to this day, he has never been found.

So it wasn’t as definitive as the ending of your film?

FP: For a couple of drafts, we also didn’t know where the character of Jeremy went but I think the thing is Southeast Asia is very close to Australia so a whole lot of Australians travel to Southeast Asia. Over there, your dollar is worth a lot so you come into town and you’re a king and you can stay in a nice hotel and dine out all the time and party. It tends to be a first port of call for young Australian travelers.

I lived in Thailand for a year and you would see Australian travelers on the beaches and all around more than any other nationalities. What made you guys want to set the film in a country like Cambodia rather than Thailand or Indonesia or these other highly visited tourist destinations?

KDS: We looked at everything. Originally, it was Bali.

FP: It moved around in the script for a long time.

KDS: Then I had a bit of a personal connection with Cambodia because my sister actually lives over there with her family. They’ve only been there about five years so they’d only been living there about a year before we started to write the movie. I’d been there a couple of times researching another movie and I’d always been incredibly attracted to the Cambodian history and was interested in the conflict there. When I first went there in the mid 90s, the war was still on but it was very quiet and sort of still a peaceful place. Phenom Penh was just a village with bicycles.

FP: It still is one of the wilder places of Southeast Asia.

Yeah it’s got a very different feeling from night to day in Cambodia even up around Siem Reap, where I visited.

KDS: When I went to Siem Reap the first time, it was a dusty little tiny village without a building over two stories.

Now you go down to the main drag and there’s just so many bright, neon lights that the electricity pops off every night.

KDS: And massive hotels, it’s changed so much.

FP: When I first went traveling in Thailand and Bali, it was such a different thing and now it’s really changed. It used to be so cheap but now it’s not, especially in the more high profile areas.

Cambodia does seem somewhat like the last refuge in everything being so dirt cheap.

KDS: There’s also a darkness there. There’s a tragic history and there’s a lot of lurking reminders of that. But on the flip side, you have these extraordinarily positive people who are letting all that go and just recreating their country. It’s a wonderful dichotomy. I think it’s as alluring as the first time I went to Thailand back in the 80s, it’s still maintained it’s danger and mystique. It’s slightly untapped, there’s been a couple feature films shot there over the years but not the many.

FP: Also shooting there was gonna be easy to get in and get out. We had a friend who was shooting ads there and in Vietnam. If you’re gonna make a film and you want to do it cheap, Cambodia is a great place to go. We had all the permissions to shoot in the areas but there’s not many permissions you need to get. It’s kind of just shoot whatever you want. You can use the whole country. It’s not like every street you shoot, you have to get a release form.

KDS: It’s very free. You just go over there with a camera and grab anything you want.

FP: Even in Thailand, they’re much more savvy about that kind of thing now.

Where did you guys shoot in Cambodia?

KDS: Phnom Pehn and the travel down there- that little montage down the road. We thought that the cast would basically step off the aircraft in costume and we’d be rolling. We just shot everything we could all the time.

What was the biggest difference shooting in Australia compared to Cambodia aside from the expense?

FP: So many. Every time you shot even the side of a building in Australia, you have to have permission from all of those people.

KDS: There’s no real infrastructure in Cambodia. There’s not even really a local movie industry.

FP: Nor do they have very experienced film crews. These guys are like farmers coming in and swinging a light around. They don’t have that sense of pace. We didn’t take a make-up artist when we went to Cambodia and we got one there, who was probably the best in Cambodia, but he was so achingly slow. Also, the aesthetic was very different because their sense of television and movies are very different but we wanted to go for something realistic with hardly any makeup.

KDS: Everything was shot on location and things were just constantly evolving. Something would be pulled down and something new would come up. We’d been over there on a location scout a couple months earlier and locked in all of our locations and guaranteed they were gonna be fine and when we came back they were all gone and no one knew why so we had to start from scratch on locations. In Sydney, we were shooting with a very light on its feet crew so we could keep things small and flexible and spontaneous. Your camera department in Cambodia has about 30 people standing around.

FP: When you’re shooting in Australia, there’s always someone on your back about hours and regulations whereas in Cambodia, it was us, actors, heads of department, and we were all super keen about shooting whenever. It was more like everyone having a great time and being on holiday.

KDS: We had all local gear too. The lighting and everything was just old and falling to pieces plus we were really sick while we were there. Incredibly ill from dysentery. I fell into the sewer up to my neck on day one. I couldn’t even get washed down, I was covered in you can’t imagine for ages.

Kieran you said that originally you were going to play Dave, how did you wrangle the great Joel Edgerton into the production?

KDS: Full disclosure, he’s my really close friend. He was the best man at our wedding and is the godfather of one of our kids. We went to drama school together and then we moved into a house together so I’ve known him forever. Even when we decided to make this properly and go through all the hoops with the Australian government to finance it, we needed to get someone on board to play the role properly. I never considered that Joel would want to do it because it’s a low budget Australian films and at the time, we was filming these monstrous movies out in LA and I didn’t want to be rejected or put him in a position that was difficult. I was discussing with him all these other actors and he said, “Dude, what about me?” So he kind of volunteered himself.   FP: Joel had seen every single draft of the script as a collaborator too.

Being his friend, what was that you for you Kieran to direct him and for you Felicity to act against him?

FP: He’s just such a great actor so it was so much fun.

KDS: As a director, I’m really big on performance. I’ve taught a lot of acting as well and I know that all good performance comes down to trust. If your actors trust you and you trust them and you have that total faith in one another and you have faith in the material then you’re gonna get a spontaneous environment where you’re gonna get great stuff. They’ll break their back for you but they’re not gonna do that if they don’t trust you. The great thing with Joel is we’d spend three years in drama school together, had lived together, had been in each other’s short films together. We knew each other intimately and what each other were capable of so trust was just there. Felicity also had trust in me purely because she knew me and I knew what truth was for her. I’d worked on movies where there are like five or six people in the lead and the actors weren’t trusting the director and so all the actors were directing themselves and doing their ego-driven version of the film.

So there is no singular direction.

KDS: Exactly, you have seven actors trying to make seven different movies. I understand that, you want to feel safe and don’t want to come off with an egg on your face with everyone watching you. So if you have that trust, you have everything.

FP: I think the familiarity between Kieran and Joel and I really helped the film. In the movie, we’re not a couple that’s in the throes of love but in a fairly worn in relationship. Familiarity really helped because there was a leap that was already made that otherwise you might do through rehearsals. We only had a 25 day shoot. We did a week or something of rehearsals, I had a six-week old baby, we did it at our house, it was just Joel and I and we were just working though some scenes. We would go out to lunch and pretend we were a couple. Also, Joel knew very much where the story came from because he knew us.

The title of the film, ‘Wish You Were Here’, has been stirring in my mind as I try and figure out exactly what it’s referring to because it seems intentionally ambiguous and could go a couple of different ways.

KDS: Yeah. It was an eleventh hour decision and we went through many different names but we weren’t happy with the title that we shot under.

What was that?

KDS: It was called ‘Say Nothing’. It was more thriller-esque and generic but I knew there was something more evocative that had these other layers. I’d always been attracted to films with titles taken from a song lyric or album cover. Something with some familiarity. The Pink Floyd song ‘Wish You Were Here’, I’d grown up playing on guitar.

Which is equally melancholy.

KDS: Yeah, the great thing about it is that cliched sign off on the postcard “Wish you were here.”

FP: It’s the irony of that.

KDS: So there’s that reference and also it refers to, more than anyone, wishing that Dave was here, back with her.

FP: And on a more on-the-nose level, wishing Jeremy was back.

KDS: It referred to all of those things and seemed to encapsulate all of it. I knew not everyone was gonna like it but for me, it was the first one that had the musicality and cross meaning in its substance.

In the film, you paint Cambodia, as well as Southeast Asia in general, as this alluring place that also has this really seedy underbelly. In part, it does have the beauty of a postcard but there’s also this footnote where this is a cautionary tale.

FP: I don’t know how much this reaches the news here but there’s been these sad stories about dumb Australians who’ve got into trafficking drugs between Australian and these countries where you get the death penalty as a penalty. You would have to be insane to do it.

That last scene really spoke to me when you flashback to the Cambodia guy who is asking them if you want marijuana or girls because that really is what it’s like in Cambodia when the lights go down. You have these people coming up and really pushing you towards.

FP: At night during the shoots, we would see these 60, 70 year old white guys with these young beautiful 20 year old or younger. There’s a lot of that kind of stuff and it’s just awful.

KDS: That last sequence that you’re talking about is all the real deal. It’s at the back of the port, this little strip of dust called Chicken Village and it’s just madness down there. It’s where the poorest of the poor fisherman and dockworkers go to procure working girls and often the working girls are 20. It’s all mafia run and is dangerous and sketchy as hell. You couldn’t go there without permission but everything you see is real and everyone we used in the movie are all non-actors.

FP: In the writing of the film we were interested in this stuff. For me, I’d traveled in Europe as a young woman on my own and some guy would come up and say, “Do you want to do this?” and I’d go off. Now I go, “The things that could have happen”. In Southeast Asia, it’s often that guys will drink too much and people will see it and think the amount of times that they’re come that close. The difference is luck. You just didn’t meet the wrong person. We were exploring that idea that when you go on holidays, you don’t have as many inhibitions and you let yourself go a little bit.

What are you guys going to work on next? Do you have anything in the pipeline already?

FP: Yeah, we’ve moved from Australia to LA and we’ve got a whole array of things that are going on. Kieran is attached to direct a couple of films that he didn’t write that are really beautiful as well as directing one that he has written. I’m in the second draft of a psychological thriller. We’re about to start writing another project together for another director.

KDS: There’s an awful lot going on and right now it’s just juggling plates. Nothing is in production really. We’re all in various stages of casting and financing really so we don’t know what will go first. We’re really, really busy.

FP: I’m now going out as an actor for a lot of things.

Are you attached to anything so far?

FP: No. I got a green card just recently so I’ve only had a working visa since February.

KDS: I will formally attach you right now to a role.

Breaking news. Felicity is now cast in Kieran’s next film.

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