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Adam Wingard and Cast Talk THE GUEST

by Posted in Interviews Tagged , , , , , ,

TheGuestCast.jpg

I’ve added another of my favorite films from Sundance, The Guest, to this delightful series of Q&As that’ll give you a peek into the process of how these great works are pieced together as well as what you can expect when these films eventually hit theaters. If you appreciated Adam Wingard‘s early work (You’re Next, V/H/S) be sure to slot The Guest high on your anticipated movies list, as it’s easily his best yet and a snarky splatterfest thrill ride from start to finish. Listen to Wingard and his cast, including Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens, talk about writing the piece, inspiration from 80’s movies and getting pierced by exploding shrapnel.

 

Adam Wingard: We actually explored doing an action film in South Korea, and we went down the road of that a little ways, and it didn’t really work out because the whole film is just one nonstop action scene, we thought that would be kind of the experiment of that movie. Ultimately, it just never came together because, you know, when you’re doing a nonstop action scene there’s not really character development, things like that.

Simon Barrett: I said I’d wasn’t able to make it.

AW: So this one night I was just sitting around, I had a stack of Blu-Rays at this new office, and I just happened to watch Terminator and Halloween, the original, and I was watching it and I called Simon up the next day, I mentioned I’d seen those two, and I told him I wanted to do a Sci-Fi, action kind of thing, with an android and stuff like that. And Simon’s like, I have an idea that could fit into that. Maybe you can pick up from there…

SB: This is actually unique to our process, because usually Adam comes up with the type of movie he wants to make and I come up with the story. I’d started an old script that was going to be a really depressing drama, with kind of the same premise as this film, but it was a PTSD drama. Ultimately, we’re pretty big believers in the idea that art, unless the point of it is not to be entertaining, that art should be entertaining. So I stopped at around page 35 because I was like, literally no one in the world wants to see this film. (Laughter) I’m not enjoying writing it, and it’s not good. It was about this guy who comes back from the war and kills his friends and family. Ok, cool. And so Adam called me up and I was like “You know, if for some reason he was kind of bit of a malfunctioning robot, suddenly that script is actually awesome.” Not only awesome, but it’s funny, if we’re playing it for the laughs of it, and it’s not just like punishing. And then I just completely started at page 1.

AW: Well, no, it was literally like, we had that discussion, I mentioned that stuff to Simon, Simon said all that stuff, he’s like and then we’ll call it “The Guest”. I said, “Ok do you want to write that?”, and he said “Sure.” And he just went off and did it. It was like suddenly after all this time we spent on this other idea, when we really sat back and said what kind of story do we want to tell, not just saying we want a bunch of cool crazy shit, you know, it was like, you know, it was just took like a little moment, to kind of rest, and there it was.

Q: How long did it take you guys to film it?

AW: It was a thirty one day shoot, I think.

SB: And we did a 2 day reshoot in Los Angeles. Because of corporate stuff.

Q: I’ve noticed that music is pretty essential in a lot of your movies and it seems like with “You’re Next”, you have a little bit of a sort of Carpenter-ish driving electronic music, and with this it was just like a totally different kind of grittiness. I was just wondering, do you curate that or do you work with someone who does the music?

AW: Well, “You’re Next” was a totally different group of composers. It was a little bit more hodgepodge. One guy did the synth stuff really well, and one guy did atmospheric stuff. This film, for me, just spoke to me that it was like an 80’s Cannon action film, as a matter fact we wanted to actually just put the Cannon logo at the beginning of the film, you know, that’s why we do the Snoot logo kind of in that style. So, it tried to process the way to go about that. I feel like after Grindhouse there’s a lot of really good imitations of 80’s films and 70’s films. I really like Grindhouse but the post effect of that is that it’s become a sort of parody almos.? And that’s exactly the opposite of what I wanted from the music out of this. Actually going back to my very first film I did, called Homesick back in 2003, I worked with a band called Zombie. And we had a really good experience working together, they’re very prog rock, very Goblins inspired, John Carpenter stuff. Since then, one of the members of Zombie, Steve Moore, he started a solo project, and the solo project is still kind of him doing that old school thing, because Steve uses all vintage synthesizers and all that stuff. The interesting thing is that he’s just making his version of whatever music he wants to make. It’s a very modern kind of thing, but since he’s using vintage synths, then it has that quality to it. But it’s still something new and it’s not pretending to be it. From the beginning I called Steve up and we had a lot of conversations. A lot of the soundtrack, the starting point was basing it on Halloween 3 and the original Terminator soundtrack, both really great, incredible 80’s synth scores. And it kind of just went from there.

Q: In a couple of scenes, it seems that the camera angle is just really focused on David’s stare. Did you intend to make the audience feel like he was trying to break through the fourth wall in a way?

AW: Um…no, not really, I mean, I felt like those are just key moments that stood out to me. To me, I just wanted to be able to watch David process, because we never really know what goes on in his head. And I felt like I liked the idea of picking these moments where the movie’s not telling you what he’s thinking ever, but I wanted to give the audience that moment to be able to kind of put that on there. I think Dan has such brilliant physical acting that he can hold on screen just a bit longer than necessary, or would normally be done. That just kind of came out of that.

Q: Actors of course have to have physical training. Was there any other physical training, like martial arts, involved?

Dan Stevens: Yeah, there was actually, training for well over a month. Doing like weights and stuff in the morning and martial arts in the afternoon. It was a big old transformation for me actually.

SB: Our action choreographer, Clayton Barber, who worked on “You’re Next”, worked out with Dan. They like hit you a lot. We don’t really know what happened.

DS: I don’t want to talk about it.

Q: Dan, did you have a favorite action sequence to shoot in the film?

DS: Yeah I had my ear pierced by a door.

SB: Yeah, when Dan is running by things that are exploding, that’s not a stunt double sometimes.

AW: Yeah, early on, we did some shots were Dan is running by some splintering wood being shot to pieces. For some reason, I felt like that was important that you be in that shot. And that was the last time, because a piece went through Dan’s ear. It basically made a perfect little piercing in your ear.

Q: Where did you find this guy (Dan)?

AW: On this little known show, Downton Abbey. When going through the casting of the film, I knew I wanted someone who had a very calm, cool aesthetic to them, but who was naturally likeable. I talked to a lot of actors going through the casting. And Dan was actually one of the first people I talked to. He was just so nice. I could just see the character in him. From the very get-go he was my top choice.

Q: How long did it take to write?

AW: Probably two months.

Q: There’s a lot of scenes that you guys got laughs for, that, if done a different way, could have been straight up creepy. How do you find the balance between those two?

AW: Yeah man, it’s hard to say. I don’t know, it was weird. Going into it, I wasn’t sure. The first few days of shooting, how much I did want to play into the creepy side or more the humor of it? Because when I first read the script I was laughing my ass off the whole time, especially when it got to the bar scene the first time. I just really enjoyed going through that. It was just one of those things, as soon as I saw Dan on set and everybody interacting. Because the very first scene that we shot was, you know, the sequence where he gets the guns from the guy and ends up shooting a long distance, impossible missile shot. But it just instantly kind of clicked that it was a funny movie to me, and that’s the direction that we took. And the movie kind of plays homage, by the end of the film, to our roots, coming from horror and stuff, there’s even a jump scare but it’s a manufactured way. It wasn’t se-f referential but more, yes, this is where we come from but now this is a different context. Instead of playing out a horror film throughout, now suddenly we put you in this ridiculous haunted house at the end.

SB: I’d also say that everyone, and definitely our producers, we all have a sarcastic sense of humor. Finding jokes that aren’t really winking at the audience, just kind of assuming you’re smart enough to get it.

Q: For the ladies, or for all the actors really, what was it about Adam that said ‘Yes I want to work with this guy’?

Sheila Kelley: Just so much about him. I was offered the part and I got on the phone with him. He’s not a simple director. He has a lot of layers for the way he wanted the character played and how he wanted the film to unfold. And that was really exciting for me, personally.

Maika Monroe: I went through the auditioning process and I remember the first time meeting Adam. I think Jess was in the room, one of the producers and, just how he would work on the scenes with me, how he would direct me and change things I would never have even thought. There was just something so special, I was like I have to work with this guy.

Brendan Meyer: I was huge fan of Adam and Simon for a long time, so working on this was a huge dream for me, it was really surreal. It was so much fun, I had the best time. Adam’s the best what can I say.

Leland Orser: I can’t add much more than that, Adam was really really good. He really knew what he wanted and the direction was really specific and great but not in the way that he was giving you a ‘No’ or you felt like you were doing it wrong. But in a real collaborative way and you could tell he had a vision. It was really exciting and cool. You could tell he could see the movie in his head.

Lance Reddick: The funny thing for me is that I don’t remember exactly what it was about, because I was also offered the role. I was in New York at the time so Adam and I met on the phone and I told him one of my hesitations was, I don’t want to be the same Top Cop in a suit because I’ve done that for so long. I didn’t want to be the guy just doing exposition and on the page I wasn’t sure if it was going to play like that. I remember we talked a lot about film. I can’t remember exactly what it was that he said, all I remember is we ended the conversation and I said “Let me sleep on it, I’ll get back to you.” As soon as we got off the phone, I called my agent and said, “I’m going to do this film.”

AW: I just told Lance you’re going to wear a really cool trench coat and he said “Alright man, that sounds good.”

DS: Adam just cast a spell on me man. It was one of the funniest scripts I ever read, I was laughing my ass off. As soon as I read it, I made phone calls, some to people who mattered, some just phone calls. And within days we were talking, and I saw You’re Next and watching You’re Next blew me away. I was like I wanted to work with that guy. And I realized it wasn’t that guy, it was these guys. All these guys, the whole Snoot team is unbelievable. Really special bunch to work with. Obviously I didn’t know that at the beginning but I know now.

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Adam Wingard and Crew Talk THE GUEST

by Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , ,

TheGuestCast.jpg

I’ve added another of my favorite films from Sundance, The Guest, to this delightful series of Q&As that’ll give you a peek into the process of how these great works are pieced together as well as what you can expect when these films eventually hit theaters. If you appreciated Adam Wingard‘s early work (You’re Next, V/H/S) be sure to slot The Guest high on your anticipated movies list, as it’s easily his best yet and a snarky splatterfest thrill ride from start to finish. Listen to Wingard and his cast, including Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens, talk about writing the piece, inspiration from 80’s movies and getting pierced by exploding shrapnel.

Adam Wingard: We actually explored doing an action film in South Korea, and we went down the road of that a little ways, and it didn’t really work out because the whole film is just one nonstop action scene, we thought that would be kind of the experiment of that movie. Ultimately, it just never came together because, you know, when you’re doing a nonstop action scene there’s not really character development, things like that.

Simon Barrett: I said I’d wasn’t able to make it.

AW: So this one night I was just sitting around, I had a stack of Blu-Rays at this new office, and I just happened to watch Terminator and Halloween, the original, and I was watching it and I called Simon up the next day, I mentioned I’d seen those two, and I told him I wanted to do a Sci-Fi, action kind of thing, with an android and stuff like that. And Simon’s like, I have an idea that could fit into that. Maybe you can pick up from there…

SB: This is actually unique to our process, because usually Adam comes up with the type of movie he wants to make and I come up with the story. I’d started an old script that was going to be a really depressing drama, with kind of the same premise as this film, but it was a PTSD drama. Ultimately, we’re pretty big believers in the idea that art, unless the point of it is not to be entertaining, that art should be entertaining. So I stopped at around page 35 because I was like, literally no one in the world wants to see this film. (Laughter) I’m not enjoying writing it, and it’s not good. It was about this guy who comes back from the war and kills his friends and family. Ok, cool. And so Adam called me up and I was like “You know, if for some reason he was kind of bit of a malfunctioning robot, suddenly that script is actually awesome.” Not only awesome, but it’s funny, if we’re playing it for the laughs of it, and it’s not just like punishing. And then I just completely started at page 1.

AW: Well, no, it was literally like, we had that discussion, I mentioned that stuff to Simon, Simon said all that stuff, he’s like and then we’ll call it “The Guest”. I said, “Ok do you want to write that?”, and he said “Sure.” And he just went off and did it. It was like suddenly after all this time we spent on this other idea, when we really sat back and said what kind of story do we want to tell, not just saying we want a bunch of cool crazy shit, you know, it was like, you know, it was just took like a little moment, to kind of rest, and there it was.

Q: How long did it take you guys to film it?

AW: It was a thirty one day shoot, I think.

SB: And we did a 2 day reshoot in Los Angeles. Because of corporate stuff.

Q: I’ve noticed that music is pretty essential in a lot of your movies and it seems like with “You’re Next”, you have a little bit of a sort of Carpenter-ish driving electronic music, and with this it was just like a totally different kind of grittiness. I was just wondering, do you curate that or do you work with someone who does the music?

AW: Well, “You’re Next” was a totally different group of composers. It was a little bit more hodgepodge. One guy did the synth stuff really well, and one guy did atmospheric stuff. This film, for me, just spoke to me that it was like an 80’s Cannon action film, as a matter fact we wanted to actually just put the Cannon logo at the beginning of the film, you know, that’s why we do the Snoot logo kind of in that style. So, it tried to process the way to go about that. I feel like after Grindhouse there’s a lot of really good imitations of 80’s films and 70’s films. I really like Grindhouse but the post effect of that is that it’s become a sort of parody almos.? And that’s exactly the opposite of what I wanted from the music out of this. Actually going back to my very first film I did, called Homesick back in 2003, I worked with a band called Zombie. And we had a really good experience working together, they’re very prog rock, very Goblins inspired, John Carpenter stuff. Since then, one of the members of Zombie, Steve Moore, he started a solo project, and the solo project is still kind of him doing that old school thing, because Steve uses all vintage synthesizers and all that stuff. The interesting thing is that he’s just making his version of whatever music he wants to make. It’s a very modern kind of thing, but since he’s using vintage synths, then it has that quality to it. But it’s still something new and it’s not pretending to be it. From the beginning I called Steve up and we had a lot of conversations. A lot of the soundtrack, the starting point was basing it on Halloween 3 and the original Terminator soundtrack, both really great, incredible 80’s synth scores. And it kind of just went from there.

Q: In a couple of scenes, it seems that the camera angle is just really focused on David’s stare. Did you intend to make the audience feel like he was trying to break through the fourth wall in a way?

AW: Um…no, not really, I mean, I felt like those are just key moments that stood out to me. To me, I just wanted to be able to watch David process, because we never really know what goes on in his head. And I felt like I liked the idea of picking these moments where the movie’s not telling you what he’s thinking ever, but I wanted to give the audience that moment to be able to kind of put that on there. I think Dan has such brilliant physical acting that he can hold on screen just a bit longer than necessary, or would normally be done. That just kind of came out of that.

Q: Actors of course have to have physical training. Was there any other physical training, like martial arts, involved?

Dan Stevens: Yeah, there was actually, training for well over a month. Doing like weights and stuff in the morning and martial arts in the afternoon. It was a big old transformation for me actually.

SB: Our action choreographer, Clayton Barber, who worked on “You’re Next”, worked out with Dan. They like hit you a lot. We don’t really know what happened.

DS: I don’t want to talk about it.

Q: Dan, did you have a favorite action sequence to shoot in the film?

DS: Yeah I had my ear pierced by a door.

SB: Yeah, when Dan is running by things that are exploding, that’s not a stunt double sometimes.

AW: Yeah, early on, we did some shots were Dan is running by some splintering wood being shot to pieces. For some reason, I felt like that was important that you be in that shot. And that was the last time, because a piece went through Dan’s ear. It basically made a perfect little piercing in your ear.

Q: Where did you find this guy (Dan)?

AW: On this little known show, Downton Abbey. When going through the casting of the film, I knew I wanted someone who had a very calm, cool aesthetic to them, but who was naturally likeable. I talked to a lot of actors going through the casting. And Dan was actually one of the first people I talked to. He was just so nice. I could just see the character in him. From the very get-go he was my top choice.

Q: How long did it take to write?

AW: Probably two months.

Q: There’s a lot of scenes that you guys got laughs for, that, if done a different way, could have been straight up creepy. How do you find the balance between those two?

AW: Yeah man, it’s hard to say. I don’t know, it was weird. Going into it, I wasn’t sure. The first few days of shooting, how much I did want to play into the creepy side or more the humor of it? Because when I first read the script I was laughing my ass off the whole time, especially when it got to the bar scene the first time. I just really enjoyed going through that. It was just one of those things, as soon as I saw Dan on set and everybody interacting. Because the very first scene that we shot was, you know, the sequence where he gets the guns from the guy and ends up shooting a long distance, impossible missile shot. But it just instantly kind of clicked that it was a funny movie to me, and that’s the direction that we took. And the movie kind of plays homage, by the end of the film, to our roots, coming from horror and stuff, there’s even a jump scare but it’s a manufactured way. It wasn’t se-f referential but more, yes, this is where we come from but now this is a different context. Instead of playing out a horror film throughout, now suddenly we put you in this ridiculous haunted house at the end.

SB: I’d also say that everyone, and definitely our producers, we all have a sarcastic sense of humor. Finding jokes that aren’t really winking at the audience, just kind of assuming you’re smart enough to get it.

Q: For the ladies, or for all the actors really, what was it about Adam that said ‘Yes I want to work with this guy’?

Sheila Kelley: Just so much about him. I was offered the part and I got on the phone with him. He’s not a simple director. He has a lot of layers for the way he wanted the character played and how he wanted the film to unfold. And that was really exciting for me, personally.

Maika Monroe: I went through the auditioning process and I remember the first time meeting Adam. I think Jess was in the room, one of the producers and, just how he would work on the scenes with me, how he would direct me and change things I would never have even thought. There was just something so special, I was like I have to work with this guy.

Brendan Meyer: I was huge fan of Adam and Simon for a long time, so working on this was a huge dream for me, it was really surreal. It was so much fun, I had the best time. Adam’s the best what can I say.

Leland Orser: I can’t add much more than that, Adam was really really good. He really knew what he wanted and the direction was really specific and great but not in the way that he was giving you a ‘No’ or you felt like you were doing it wrong. But in a real collaborative way and you could tell he had a vision. It was really exciting and cool. You could tell he could see the movie in his head.

Lance Reddick: The funny thing for me is that I don’t remember exactly what it was about, because I was also offered the role. I was in New York at the time so Adam and I met on the phone and I told him one of my hesitations was, I don’t want to be the same Top Cop in a suit because I’ve done that for so long. I didn’t want to be the guy just doing exposition and on the page I wasn’t sure if it was going to play like that. I remember we talked a lot about film. I can’t remember exactly what it was that he said, all I remember is we ended the conversation and I said “Let me sleep on it, I’ll get back to you.” As soon as we got off the phone, I called my agent and said, “I’m going to do this film.”

AW: I just told Lance you’re going to wear a really cool trench coat and he said “Alright man, that sounds good.”

DS: Adam just cast a spell on me man. It was one of the funniest scripts I ever read, I was laughing my ass off. As soon as I read it, I made phone calls, some to people who mattered, some just phone calls. And within days we were talking, and I saw You’re Next and watching You’re Next blew me away. I was like I wanted to work with that guy. And I realized it wasn’t that guy, it was these guys. All these guys, the whole Snoot team is unbelievable. Really special bunch to work with. Obviously I didn’t know that at the beginning but I know now.

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Sundance Review: FISHING WITHOUT NETS

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

“Fishing Without Nets”
Directed by Cutter Hodierne
Starring Abdikani Muktar, Abdi Siad, Abduwhali Faarah, Abdikhadir Hassan, Reda Kateb, Idil Ibrahim
U.S.A./Somalia/Kenya
109 Mins

FishingWithoutNets.jpg

No name cast recreates Somali pirates premise, the left-field zeitgeist du jour, exploring themes of hubris and self-preservation in its slack-lined narrative that sporadically delivers emotional welts. With a hook of a first act and a gut-wrenching conclusion, the middle bits of Fishing Without Nets are left a little undercooked but by the time we get to the tail end of it, we’ve all but forgotten any moments of ennui. We’re too busy collectively picking our jaws up off the floor.

Expanded from the 2012 short film of the same name which won him the Sundance Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking, director Cutter Hodierne returns to the high seas of pirating. Abdi, who through years of working as a fisherman is a veteran navigator of international shipping channels, is hard won into the gun-totting pirating industry. But what can you expect of a young family man whose aquatic resources have seemingly swum towards better waters? With the influx of more and more tankers disrupting a once lively ecosystem, the supply and demand chain has been forever shifted, perhaps forever tainted, and the salt of desperation has the power to force even the most ethical of hands.

There’s something a bit fishy about the fact that the writer/director, Cutter Hodierne, of this Somalian-perspective drama is a white American. Attempts to adopt another culture’s perspective can read ham-fisted but when you take Hodierne’s dramatic background into consideration, it’s no wonder the man is sea-obsessed. Before his birth, his parents left behind their lives, jobs, and families and took to a 32-foot sailboat, for which he was named, subsequently raising him aboard the craft for the first three years of his life. Accordingly, salt water must run deep in his veins.

It’s no wonder then that the most chilling sequences of Fishing Without Nets comes from the harrowing uncertainty of ocean living. Plowed in by waves and surrounded by endlessness, there is visceral fear in the assumed serenity of the sea. Seeing that fear translate to desperation and then added to the high stakes of pirating makes for some incredibly compelling and emotional viewing.

Filmed entirely in Somali, we can only imagine the behind-the-scenes language barriers Hodierne and his cast had to fight through. According to Hodierne, the heavy physicality and frequent improvisation made for light-footed scene work, “I relied on the translator and the actors for ideas and culturally relevant conversations and scenes so working with them was a collaborative process. They brought cultural and linguistic elements to the film that I could not.” Though this set the stage for some scenes that stretched on past their dramatic limitations, the glowering scowls beading from Abdi Siad‘s Blackie is enough to keep us on the edge of our seats and drive the tension to skyward heights.

B-

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Sundance Review: LIFE AFTER BETH

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

“Life After Beth”
Directed by Jeff Baena
Starring Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Cheryl Hines, Paul Reiser
U.S.A.
91 Mins

LifeAfterBeth.jpg

The scales may tip all over the place on this zom-rom-com but even with all its tonal inconsistency, we’re dumped in a place of smirky satisfaction and forgiving admiration of intent. Life After Beth is narrowly shoddy, but still an easy crowd-pleaser and an affable experiment in reckless absurdity.

As Tomboy one famously said, Dane DeHaan could sell a ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves, so even though his chemistry will Aubrey Plaza might be hard sold, it’s impossible not to believe the earnestness evidently pouring from his drippy soul. Plaza, that beloved goon, is no certifiable dramaturge and rides her quirky shtick hard here but, for what it’s worth, seeing her strapped to an oven, face peeling away with rot and sauntering towards brains is worth the price of admission alone.
 
Beth (Plaza), for whom the movie is cleverly named, met her end at the tip of a raddler’s fang solo hiking at night. The film opens on her funeral which sets the stage for a rather dour half hour with DeHaan almost over-committing to the conceit that his star-crossed lover has met her end. His performance oozes grief, demanding the likes of the Beth’s parents, John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon, who help keep things frothy as the film boils towards full-blown satire.

Without announcement, Beth reappears as if nothing had happened and overwhelmed with the miracle that is her revival, all are willing to overlook how this Beth isn’t quite the same as the one they put in the ground a week prior. Like the changing tides of puberty, Beth begins to undergo a new transformation, budding into a full blown zombie.

Leaps and bounds away from the breed of zombies George Romeo has familiarized us with, these Z’s suffer a case of super strength and amnesia but lack the malevolent, herdish brain-gobbling qualities. At least, at first. It’s during these introductory “zombie” moments when director Jeff Baena experiments with his own, unique faction of the obnoxiously popular iconography that the movie proudly rears its creative head and is at the top of its game for it. With zombies’ unnatural penchant for smooth jazz and love of reassurance-laden chatting, Life After Beth proves fitfully riotous. But when chaos breaks out and everything goes to piece, that flair of individuality and precision of vision falls apart as well.

More of a fun experiment than a certified success, this zillionth installment in the zombie niche has its share of dicey moments but it’s also riddled with guffawable zingers and crafty physical comedy. Plaza goes for broke and will surely be remembered for one of the strangest performances this year while DeHaan is rarely off the mark and it’s their unlikely chemistry that rounds Life After Beth round the bases, even if it occasionally limps its way across home plate.

C+

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Sundance Review: CALVARY

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

“Calvary”
Directed by John Michael McDonagh
Starring Brendan Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen, Dylan Moran, Marie-Josée Croze
Ireland/United Kingdom
100 Mins

Calvary.jpg

A preist struggling with his faith and desperate for purpose in the murk of fog-blanketed, 21st century Ireland receives a death threat from an abused alter boy from his past. He has one week and then will be gunned down at the beach, he is told, so he’s got just enough time to get his affairs in order. Although Brendan Gleeson‘s Father James Lavelle may have never touched a fly, much less an alter boy, that’s exactly why this abusee wants to strike out at him, “I want to hurt someone good. Someone who has never hurt anyone.” With exact knowledge of who this man is, Father James chooses not to turn him in, instead he’ll try to change the man. While this selfless choice might inevitably lead to his demise, it’s the only righteous path that his Catholic worldview and personal pathos allow for.

Decidedly more serious and bleak than his debut effort, the well-received The Guard, John Michael McDonagh treads in a whole new direction, though remaining in the lavish playground of his native Ireland. While The Guard allowed Gleeson a chance to flex his comedic muscles playing a racist, half-witted police officer with a semi-solid set of morals, Calvary gives him ample room to breathe as a dramatist.

Knowing he only has seven days to live, we see Father James amble through the five stages of grief and Gleeson is rapturous through it all. At first, he goes about his daily life as if nothing has changed, humming from the threat but keeping it wrangled to the back of his mind. Soon, he’ll begin to strike out at those close to him, embodying the anger of a man watching his life tick away. Onto bargaining – he cuts deals with local elite alongside God – depression – his ancient history with the bottle begins to resurface – and finally the cool serenity of acceptance.

Offering Gleeson a chance to shift masks like a Jungian headcase, Calvary is a showcase of acting prowess but also has a rich beating heart in the rich texture of landscape and the girth of questionable characters that surround Father James’ final days. He may know the identity of his to-be killer but that’s never a fact we’re privy to. As we’re watching, each character, big and small, seems to carry an ulterior motive and McDonagh cranks the suspicion so high that we wouldn’t blink if the perp was Father’s James own daughter (Kelly Reilly).

Though sundry moments of muted comic relief courtesy of the increasingly reliable Chris O’Dowd seek to remind us that even in tragedy, life carries on, Calvary is an intrepid and deeply somber drama, soaring from Gleeson’s dynamic performance. With the capacity to leave us hanging our heads  in despair, McDonagh looks past the low hanging fruit and aims for something infinitely more powerful and soulfully infectious, a modern stance on what it truly means to sacrifice.

B+

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Richard Linklater and Cast Talk BOYHOOD

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Even if you won’t be able to see Richard Linklater’s stunning Boyhood for another five months or so, the epicly elongated process that went into making this film is undeniably amazing and certainly worth a read. Shot over 12 years as a young boy grows from age six to eighteen, Linklater’s ambitious project is truly one of a kind and the product reflects his thoughtful dedication. Alongside his cast, including Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, daughter Lorlei Linklater and debut star Ellar Salmon at his side, Linklater took to the stage at Sundance’s Eccles Theater to answer a host of questions after the world premiere of his sensational film.

Richard Linklater: We couldn’t imagine any place else to show this film to its first audience so it’s really special for us. We started this film 4,208 days ago. So thanks for coming along with us. I’m just so proud of these guys! We’re here to answer any questions you might have.

Q: Was it all your idea and script Richard, or do you collaborate with what’s going on in their lives?

RL: Very collaborative. It’s kind of outlined. But every year we would work out the scenes. The great thing of having that gestation period, roughly a year between shoots, so I could think about it, you know, fourth grade, fifrth grade, and then we would get together and just work on it, sometimes really quickly. It was very intense, like three or four day shoots every time, about a year in between to think about it. That’s the way I always work. At some point, the ideas merge, as the kids got older, at some point Ellar was writing with me much of it.

Q: How did you approach casting?

RL: Casting. Well, you know that’s the key. That was the lucky thing. I mean, I talked to Ethan first. We’d worked together and we’re friends, we run ideas by each other. So he jumped in. Do you guys wanna talk about how you came aboard?

Ethan Hawke: It all started with me. (Laughter) No, sometimes I think that Rick either has a lucky star or sold his soul to the Devil, because this movie couldn’t have worked without Lorelei and Ellar. And you couldn’t really know that they would be able to contribute the way they did. Except for the fact, for your writing question, one of the ways that Rick likes to write a movie is to invite his performers to be a part of the filmmaking process with him. It’s very clear the way he wants to make it and he lets it be incredibly open to us. So Lorelai, what’s going on in her life could inform what is happening in Samantha’s life and vice versa. For all of us, a lot of it was talking about it for us, what it was like in fourth grade, but now a lot of us are parents of fourth graders or have been. So we could benefit from having both points of view. I mean, Lorelai signed up for something…what age were you when you agreed to do it?

Lorelei Linklater: Eight.

EH: Eight. He held you to that promise for twelve years? What was the year you decided you no longer wanted to be involved in it?

LL: Maybe around the fourth year. I asked my Dad (director Richard Linklater) if my character could die. (Laughter) He said it would be too dramatic.

Patricia Arquette: Another thing that Rick did during the process, in regard to the writing thing, sometimes I think Ellar would be a little more advanced than Mason would be, because Ellar’s parents are really cool experimental artists and musicians, incredible people. Rick would say, “So here’s where Ellar’s at, but Mason’s a couple of years behind, so we’ve got to cut his hair, make him look not so cool.” So we had to uncool Ellar. Yeah, the coolest seventh grader on Earth happened to be working on our movie. But when Rick called, we met at Ethan’s hotel at a little party for ten minutes–

EH: In 1994.

PA: So he called me and said, “What are you going to be doing for the next twelve years?” I don’t know, hustling, trying to get a job, unemployed, what I’m doing now. “Ok, wanna do this movie?” Absolutely, coolest opportunity on Earth.

Q: Ellar, do you remember being cast?

Ellar Salmon: Very vaguely, I remember being a variable in an audition process. And, I remember having a distinct feeling that a large part of why I was cast was because of how cool my parents are. He knew he wouldn’t have to deal with those kind of parents. But I don’t remember it. It goes in and out. There are things early on that I watch and remember really clearly and then there are other things that I just have absolutely no memory of.

EH: It was fascinating to see Ellar develop as an actor. Because when he was a little boy, it was like playing with a kid and trying to capture moments. And when I came in, I would miss two years at a time sometimes. We had a camping trip scene, and that was the first time you had agency in the writing, bring in where he thought the character would be. You really wanted to talk about this Star Wars thing and talk about girls. So watching you learn how to act and how to collaborate as a filmmaker as a participant in this film. You learned how to improvise and how to be in character. And that just started growing. And the process of making it felt differently because Ellar was becoming a young man.

Q: With a three hour film, I’m curious if there was something that was a little difficult to cut that the audience would be interested in hearing about?

RL: All of my scenes. There was quite a bit on the floor.

Q: What was your favorite scene that you cut?

RL: Well it would be in the movie if it was my favorite. It was an interesting editing process. You got to spend all those years. Two months ago I trimmed something from Year 2. I had ten years to think about what I wasn’t totally happy about. Everything about this movie was odd. But there’s nothing. The movie’s long but it had to be. I never made a movie over two hours but this one had to be for a reason.

Q: As far as it how it was shot, seamlessly, it looks so beautiful and has incredible the production value but I was just curious about the technology involved. Did you keep using the same camera or was it changed in post?

RL: That’s a good question about technology. That was a big issue upfront. So we shot it on 35mm, negative, I wanted it to look the same way. I knew it’d look a lot different if we jumped into the digital, hi-def formats. So I don’t know how many 35mm films are at Sundance this year, but we’re one of them. Can I give a big shout out? There’s a hero in this film. It’s the crazy guy who took a leap of faith. Obviously, this whole thing, we all took leaps of faith. It was a lot of belief in the future to commit for something for so long. But it’s the strangest proposition to ask someone to help finance something for twelve years, in our industry. So I want to really thank Johnathan Sirak, at IFC. He doesn’t make a lot of films, and as years went on, I’d run into him and he’d say “Well, we have one film in production.” (Laughs) Every year, I just had a board meeting. Everyone asks what the hell this is on the books. He had to lie, every year. But we have to thank him so much for his support.

Q: You guys wanna let me know about any other films?

EH: You’re gonna be in the next episode. This is part of the movie now.

RL: We started a reality show actually. (laughs)

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Sundance Review: BOYHOOD

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“Boyhood”
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring Ellar Salmon, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei Linklater
163 Mins 

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A monolith of cinema, Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood is a soaring accomplishment of product and process. Famously filmed over the course 12 years, Linklater’s long form approach allows for an intimacy and connection like no film before. From the time we meet young Macon at the tender age of six until he moves to college, Linklater fosters his audience’s near parental ties to this young man, making us feel for a character in unprecedented manner. It’s a masterpiece in all senses of the word; a rare trailblazer of a film with macroscopic vision that’s as uniformly jaw-dropping as the final product.

The cat has been in the bag for the bulk of filming on Boyhood but when Linklater and frequent collaborator Ethan Hawke announced last year that their yet untitled 12 Year Project would likely see the light of day in 2014, I wasn’t the only one to rush it to the top of my most anticipated films of 2014 list. While most movies film over the course of a few months, Linklater showed unprecedented patience with a willingness to craft this story over the course of a dozen years. Although the end product probably shared a similar amount of shoot time, breaking it up over that extensive period of time is wholly original (even in regard to Paul Almond‘s celebrated Up series which only checked in once every seven years.) Going into the project, Linklater had a general arc in mind but would let the times reflect unforeseeable changes, moving the direction of the film in line with the sway of culture and ethos. In that regard, the film serves as a time capsule for an ever changing American zeitgesit over the past decade.

Not above chats of Star Wars and girls, The Beatles and drinking, and the once celebratory naivety of Obama’s campaign of hope, Boyhood feels like a film Linklater designed particularly with me in mind. I wonder how many other people will feel the same way; how many will experience such a visceral gut punch and how many will find younger versions of themselves in a morphing Mason. Feeling such a instinctive connection urges questions on the universality of the human experience, it compels us wrestle with the past and acutely acknowledge the shifting paradigm that is the individual. Scientists, and stoners, say that because of our cellular lifespan, a human body is completely replaced within the span of 7 years. Looking at snapshots in time like this, we could be easily convinced this process is even more rapid. From one year to another, there’s a base consistency of character in Macon but its overshadowed by the omnipresent winds of change perennially blowing him into new directions.

Calling it a coming-of-age story feels slight as Boyhood tracks the joy and pain of growing up, one delicate moment at a time. We find ourselves in Macon, a perceptive youth, in his strength and in his weakness, in his whiny teenage angst and his youthful abandon, in his quasi-stoned prolific moments of reflection and his meekest helplessness. When he’s too young to stand up for himself, I felt the pangs of my 8-year old vulnerable self, reeling from my parent’s separation. As his hair grows long and he starts dipping into the pleasure pool, his raw arrogance is a relic I can robustly relate to.

I found myself beaming with pride at moments, disappointed in him at others and silently heartbroken and yet joyful as he reached new milestones. I watched him grow up, I witnessed him learning valuable life lessons, I feel in love beside him. To young Ellar Salmon‘s credit, there’s never a moment where we don’t fully believe the deeply personal yet universal John Doe plight of a boy coming of age. He’s an every man and an intellectual and Salmon’s maturing performance helps to auction the many faces one man can put on. When you stop to consider that Linklater had to take a half-blind shot in the dark with Salmon, casting him well before he could prove himself as a consistent and talented actor willing to put in a dozen years of his life into one performance, the fact that Salmon turned out as good as he was is nothing short of a miracle, much like the film itself.

A+

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Sundance Review: WISH I WAS HERE

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“Wish I Was Here”
Directed by Zach Braff
Starring Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Josh Gad, Ashley Greene, Joey King, Pierce Gagnon
114 Mins

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Great music can’t bandaid uber depressing bummertown that sees Mandy Patkinson slowly dying, a breadwinning wife privy to gross sexual harassment at work, and an out-of-work/failed actor in director/writer/star Zach Braff. With virtually ever b-plot revolving around a different cause for concern, Wish I Was Here is occasionally profound but always deathly dour.

Even Braff’s movie children are saturated with their own “quirky” issues. Daughter Grace (Joey King) is borderline addicted to her Jewish faith, a strange and slightly off-putting trait to see in a young girl circa 2014, while son Tucker (Pierce Gagnon) rocks a bit of an apathy problem – a generational malaise that reveals Braff’s sweeping pessimism for future generations. Tucker naps in class, monkeying around under the hot breath of Jewish academia, and generally seems disinterested in all. But he’s 10 or something so I guess we’re supposed to cut him, and by extension Braff, a break when his arc never goes anywhere.

For how much of a milk farm Wish I Was Here turns into, the film starts on promising ground with a great opening bit that’s unorthodox, meta, and entirely intriguing. We’re immediately invested and he smartly slips into some snarky comedy that gets the laughs rolling fast and loose. Without provocation, the film sputters and nosedives when it drops the c-bomb on us. Cancer. Another fucking movie about cancer.

And though many will say that calling this a movie about cancer is reductive – that it’s a movie about confronting your fears, particularly the fear of losing the ones you love or the fear of giving up on your dreams – everything in this movie is a cancer. Aidan’s faltering career is a cancer. Sarah’s cubicle co-inhibitor is a cancer. The cancer eating away at Saul (and yes, Patkinson is named Saul) is a cancer. So even if you don’t consider this a “cancer movie,” cancer is the only catalytic backbone driving the film forward.

The chief issue is, when you already have cancer rolling around bringing everything down, there’s just no need for all this other glumness. If the center of the film is dark and dreary, you need to lighten things up around the edges. Even the moments of levity are stained with Braff’s strangely caustic musings – Scrubs alum Donal Faison is slipped in for a quick scene where Aidan passes his daughter off as dying of cancer so he can test drive a cool car. My jaw dropped. More cancer? How original. There’s nothing funny here. It’s just down for the sake of being down.

Braff wrote the script over the course of a year, collaborating with brother Adam Braff. Once they wrapped up the script, there was little to no interest from the studios. So to finance this passion project of theirs, Braff and Braff notoroiously went to Kickstarter where they would raise 3.1 million dollars, a million over their goal. And while this Kickstarter phenomenon will surely go down in history as further changing the antiquated ways of studio control and proving the efficacy of crowd sourcing, that’s likely all that Wish I Was Here will be remembered for.

Ultimately mawkish and bittersweet, Wish You Were Here is second-rate meditation on phoenix cycle that’s virtually guaranteed to drag you by the heels into a depressive state.

C-

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Sundance Review: WETLANDS

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Raunchy German picture Wetlands is graphic, poignant teen sexploration to squirm and cackle through. Helen is a young nympho with a passion for bodily fluids of all sorts and a serious case of hemorrhoids. When a shaving incident lands her in the hospital, she tries to pull a parent trap and get her divorced, and fundamentally estranged, parents back together. Read More

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Sundance Review: CAMP X-RAY

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“Camp X-Ray”
Directed by Peter Sattler
Starring Kristen Stewart, Peyman Moaadi, Lane Garrison, J.J. Soria, John Carroll Lynch
117 Mins

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Agenda-slinging, headline drama Camp X-Ray transcends expiration date glitz with universal tale of friendship. Burdened with a Guantanamo Bay premise and Twilight sensation Kristen Stewart in a headlining spot, expectations may come half-popped but Camp X-Ray manages to steer clear of inflammatory hot topic territory as Stewart and co-star Peyman Moaadi probe powerhouse territory.

Strange though it may be to imagine the perpetually dulled Bella putting in a considerable performance, her work here is undoubtedly the pinnacle of her career as it stands. Not exclusively involved in high-profile, low-quality blockbusters, Stewart has peppered her cast credits with the occasion indie film and has even gained mild praise for her work in On the Road and Adventureland, but neither carries the burden of proof that she brings to the table here.

This type of zero to sixty change spotlights a shifting celebrity ethos and proves Stewart wants to be around for a while longer. For a fantastic example of an actor turning a laughable career into a respectably credited empire, look to Matthew McCougnahey. She’s not there yet but baby steps Kristen, baby steps.

In Camp X-Ray, Stewart plays Amy Cole, a tabula rasa of an army woman. Battling gender stereotypes and the unwanted attention of her male counterparts, she exacts bottled frustration out on the detainees, a label she’s commanded to use in place of prisoner (otherewise they would be privy to Genova Convention statutes).

She’s certainly no polaroid-snapping prisoner-piler but her jaded indifference is a telling glimpse into U.S. indoctrination of a polarized world view. She’s trained to think there’s two sides to this war but learns that it’s infinitely more complex. When she meets Ali, or as he’s better known, 371, her concept of justice, goodness, and Army policy is thrown for a ringer.

Camp X-Ray could have capitalized on the good grace of one political camp or the other but it knowingly avoids falling into that pattern of tabloid drama. Peter Sattler is not fence-sitting either as he certainly gets his personal statements across. The intention is not to disgrace or discolor so much as it is to ponder and think.

When challenged to confront our biases, we come to know not just the world around us but ourselves, Sattler tells us. Cole, through her conversations with Ali, finds herself undergoing a spiritual transformation, letting go of blind judgement and trying to come to terms with the impossibility that is the current state of US affairs.

As Ali and Amy’s lives become intertwined, their relationship shifts, opening up the opportunity for conversation among equals. With this table set, a pensive and powerful exchange unfolds about what one ought to do with a caged lion that serves as the film’s bated breath highlight and a phenomenally powerful metaphorical footnote. Scenes like this, anchored by Stewart and Moaadi’s unflinching engagement with one another, give Camp X-Ray a chance to visceral body check its audience into taking a  long hard look at their own ingrained partisanship. There’s no denying, we could use more thought-provoking, if not entirely novel, films like this.

B

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