The Stars of Cabaret Reunite to Celebrate the Film’s 40th Anniversary

Its been forty years since Bob Fosse’s classic musical Cabaret walked away with eight Academy Awards. Warner Brothers is celebrating the film’s anniversary with its release of a fully remastered Blu-Ray book set on February 5th.

The stars of the film, Joel Grey, Michael York, Marisa Berenson and Louise Quick, along with Bob Fosse’s daughter, Nicole, and Warner Brothers’ Vice President of Mastering Ned Price, gathered in Manhattan, where the film originally premiered to discuss their memories of the movie as well as this new release.

Ned Price, the Vice President of Mastering at Warner Brothers Technical Operations oversaw the actual restoration process of the film.

Media Mikes: What was the biggest challenge about this remaster?
Ned Price: The technical challenge on this particular film was that one of the film reels was literally scratched right through the emulsion. I can tell you basically how. It happened back in the late eighties and I know that it was on a film cleaner…and it’s meant for newer negatives but somebody put it up with an older negative. And on older negatives, dirt becomes embedded into the emulsion, so what it did was it picked up a piece of dirt that was in the emulsion and it rolled as it went through the cleaner all the way down. And it wasn’t a fine scratch to the point where you could just paint it out with a wet gate and it wasn’t fine enough where you could just say ‘okay kind of meld the image a little bit’ it was large enough where you would have to paint…by eye frame by frame. We tried to create a digital process, new software where it could identify information in between the scratch and replicate the material, but all we really succeeded in doing was warping things and it wasn’t good enough. So ultimately we ended up painting.

MM: Seeing the restored version was there anything you noticed that struck you and you didn’t see before your work?
Price: Color design. My experience had been seeing the film with rather poor prints commercially before I was with the studio…When we started to pull in prints that were technicolor made which means that they didn’t fade, we started weening through those and found about three or four which really looked accurate and good for color. I saw amazing color design. You know, you’ve got green nails against purple and just beautiful color design that were not necessarily apparent in the poor prints. Which were more blue, more green, just kind of muted and polluted in terms of their color values.
Also, the Kit Kat girls! Man…We were going shot by shot and you see these women in these impossible poses and you think ‘oh god, how many takes did they take?’

One such dancer was Louise Quick, who talked about her experience of being a Kit Kit dancer.

Louise Quick: I never thought of it as tough because it was…exciting is kind of a plain word–there was so much electricity, the air was so alive and the work is hard but you don’t think about that. That’s not important.

In one of the film’s most iconic musical numbers, “If You Could See Her”, Quick, dressed in a gorilla suit, dances with Joel Grey’s Master of Ceremonies.

Media Mikes: How did you wind up being in the gorilla suit?
Louise Quick: I don’t know! I didn’t know until right before we started doing it. It wasn’t decided before hand.
Nicole Fosse: I’m going to take a guess and say it was there were only two Kit Kat dancers that spoke English and it was Kathryn Doby and Louise Quick. And Kathryn was much taller–[laughs] not that it would have been Kathryn had she been shorter! But you have two who speak English, how do you communicate? So, Louise, get in the suit!
Quick: Her mother, Gwen Verdon, brought that mask back from New York to Munich on a plane with it on her lap I heard, she would not part with it because it’s a beautiful mask.

Joel Grey won an Academy Award for best supporting actor in his role as the Kit Kat Klub’s MC, a devilish character we never see outside of the club environment. When asked about his favorite scenes from the film, he discussed “If You Could See Her”:

Joel Grey: I like the Gorilla number of course. It’s so mean, seductive, beautiful melody and it’s just a big idea. I wanted to make him as vile as I possibly could and that gave me that opportunity late in the film. To not be charming but to be evil.

Media Mikes: Did you have a backstory for the MC?
Joel Grey: Of course!
MM: What is it?
Grey: You can’t know! It’s reeeeally gross. I made a whole life for myself since there was no text and no really description about who he was. I was terrified because I thought it was gonna be a musical comedy–four, five numbers– and I wanted it to be horrifying and important and capable of saying many things. Not just a song and dance number. So I dug and dug and dug and looked at German expressionists paintings and listened to music…and he came. One day, he came.

Michael York played Brian Roberts, a British language teacher who enters the world of the Kit Kat Club when he meets Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) in their German boarding house. His character isn’t in any of the musical numbers and fittingly, York selected a quieter scene as his favorite:

Michael York: It’s easy for me, it’s a scene that was unscripted. We’re at the Baron’s castle…and Maximilian von Heune [Helmut Griem] has invited us to stay in this threesome. There was no scene written, you just turn up at 8 o’clock in the morning trying to be awake. And there was this beautiful room where they lit fires on each end. And we started to improvise. And it ended up where there’s a shot in the movie where they start dancing around each other and the heads go in and out. They’re looking at each other and it’s this sort of, I don’ t know, it’s a microcosm of all that’s been going on, that is going on, that will go on.

Grey: I thought you looked like you were enjoying that a little too much.
York: It was exciting. You’re right it was exciting.

Grey: Tell the truth!
York: Yes, it was one of those rare days you don’t know what you have. But what they did cutting it together, David Bretherton and Bob between them, edited this film in such a brilliant way that you never see too much. You’re always left wanting more. And so that was a good day.

Finally, actress Marisa Berenson who took on the role of Natalia Landauer discussed what it was like working with the other actors on what was only her second role.

Media Mikes: You were a newcomer when you did Cabaret, were the other actors welcoming to you?
Marisa Berenson: Immediately. Because they’re all the most generous, wonderful people…they made me feel instantly comfortable…which is rare because not everybody makes you feel like that. It’s a rare thing and it’s a wonderful thing.

MM: What was it like doing scenes with Liza Minnelli?
Berenson: We became close friends very early on and the minute we met we became–you know how you immediately meet someone and you connect with them? And Liza and I have that connection all our lives now…I learned so much from Liza just watching her as an actor. Seeing the way she worked. I have such respect for her as an actor, her talent, and she was so funny. She was so intelligent too. She’s such an intelligent person.

Cabaret 40th Anniversary Blu-Ray is available to own on February 5th

Click here for our review

 

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Blu-ray Review “Cabaret: 40th Anniversary”

Starring: Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Michael York, Marisa Berenson, Helmut Griem
Director: Bob Fosse
Rated: PG
Studio: Warner Brothers
Run Time: 124 minutes
Own it on Blu-Ray: February 5, 2013

Film: 5 out of 5 stars
Extras: 4 out of 5 stars

Musical and film fans will be pleased to own Warner Brothers’ blu-ray release of Bob Fosse’s 1972 classic, Cabaret.

Official Synopsis: Flamboyant and eccentric American entertainer Sally Bowles (Minnelli) sings in Berlin’s decadent Kit Kat Club, even as Nazism rises in Germany in 1931. She falls in love with a British language teacher (York) – whom she shares with a homosexual German baron (Griem). But Sally’s insular, carefree, tolerant and fragile cabaret world is about to be crushed under the boot of the Nazis as Berlin becomes a trap from which Sally’s German friends will not escape.

Even forty years later and amidst modern movie musicals such as Les Mis and Chicago, Cabaret still maintains its edge. It’s perhaps because of Joel Grey’s disturbingly impish Master of Ceremonies that we never quite get to know while his Kit Kat Klub performances are all too aware of, if not concerned by, the dark times brewing outside. It was not for nothing that one of this film’s eight Oscar wins was for David Bretherton’s film editing, which among other structural coups features Grey doing a gleeful German slap dance as we watch a man beaten by Nazis.

Bridging the gap between the club and the outside world at the center of the film is Liza Minnelli’s brash American entertainer Sally Bowles. Bowles may seem at first to be the manic-pixie-dreamgirl to York’s straight-laced Brian Roberts but she’s much more than that. On top of the powerhouse performances Minnelli gives to such classics as “Maybe this Time” and “Mein Heir”, she is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as Sally’s eccentricities expose a loneliness and desperation for attention that she may finally get from York’s charming Brian.

Some of the major themes explored in the film such as homosexuality and abortion, though far more taboo at the time of the film’s release, still hit home today. Cabaret sharpened the edge on movie musicals in a way you’d be challenged to find in the big bright musicals of the sixties. That impact is more thoroughly discussed on this set’s new featurette “Cabaret: The Musical That Changed Musicals” which features the film’s stars as well as additional commentators. Most notably director Rob Marshall, whose Chicago was the most direct benefactor from the structure set in place by Cabaret.

As for the Blu-Ray remastering, which apparently involved the manual removal of a thousand foot scratch on the film’s original print, the film looks stunning. The effects of the remastering, the first done to the film in over twenty years, are most evident when you compare the feature presentation to the clips of the film utilized in previously produced (1997) featurettes “Cabaret: A Legend in the Making” and “The Recreation of an Era” which are also included here. Additional features included many of the cast sharing fond memories from making the film and are welcome additions if perhaps not new to any die-hard fans out there.

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Adam Scott, Amy Poehler & Mike Schur talk about this season of “Parks and Recreation”

Last week’s episode (October 25th, 2012) of NBC’s Parks and Recreation managed to do something fairly rare in television these days with a genuine surprise for its audience. For those of you not caught up with your DVR, you may want to click away now.

Granted the episode was titled “Halloween Surprise” but viewers would be forgiven for thinking that Jerry’s “fart attack” was surprise enough. That was until Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) reappeared from his political travels to propose to Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) in their new home. It was heartfelt, funny, and definitely one of the series best moments. Poehler, Scott, and show creator and executive producer, Mike Schur, held a press conference  to discuss this big development in Pawnee:

What the vibe was on set that day and what you all were feeling as you were shooting that scene?

Amy Poehler: When I read that scene I cried because I was so happy that I had my job at Parks and then I got to do that scene with Adam and that Mike Schur wrote it because I knew it would be great.

And it’s very rare, you know, as an actor when you read a scene and you know it’s going to be great, you can just kind of see it. And so when we were shooting the scene I was really excited that we were getting to do it because I was – had really just been looking forward to doing it.

And I was really happy for Leslie, so I think the mood on set was a really kind of joyous one. I know even though it was kind of a sweet scene I know Adam and I were really just happy to have such a well written scene to get to do.

And we care about our characters so we were kind of excited that this was happening for them.

Adam Scott:   Yes, I feel the same way, I mean I also just kind of felt like, you know, this was a really big deal for all of us. I mean we of course are well aware that these are fictional characters that we are playing on television.

But I think we also want them to be happy and want them to be all right and we all care about them. I can say, speaking for myself that I care about them, you know, quite deeply and so, you know, knowing this scene was coming, you know, it was – maybe a little nervous about it but mostly just really happy about it.

And happy to be able to do it and happy for the characters and, you know, so the day we were doing it it was – it was like Amy said very kind of joyous but also there’s a real feeling that this was very special and we wanted it to be special for the fans and for he characters and we were all – it was exciting.

It’s so hard to keep a secret these days. So how did you guys all keep it under wraps?

Mike Schur:   Well there’s a lot of things, you know. We were extra, extra, extra careful not to – when we shot outside and you know, and there’s may paparazzi lurking around, we always would hide Leslie’s engagement ring and although a couple shots of it did get snapped a while ago.

We titled the episode Halloween Surprise and then we built it around what you think is the surprise, which is that they – Leslie and Anne surprised Jerry and he has a devastating fart attack. So that was meant to sort of throw people off the scent.

And I don’t know, we just didn’t – we just tried to telegraph where we were going to much, you know…In the first four episodes we tried to build in, you know, that – like that Ben was having a good time and was working really hard at this job in Washington that he cared about.

But also that there were things about the job that sort of annoyed him, like that the politician that he was – the politician he was working for who was kind of a robot who didn’t really care about anything. And that was contrasted when he called Leslie at the end of that episode and she was so revved up and just wanted to just put boots on the ground and kind of – and fix this problem in her town.

And you saw on his face and in his delivery that he just liked that better, you know. So we just tried to – just not to telegraph in the storytelling where we were going but the goal is that once it happens you think back and you think, oh yes that makes perfect sense.

So it’s just very meticulous, you know, writing and re-writing and story breaking and a lot of discussions with the actors about, you know, where we’re going so that they know how to play different things and how to kind of give certain clues without giving everything away.

And then just, you know, asking everybody on our production staff not to leak stuff to the Internet.

Amy Poehler: And you know, the fans of the show are always – we have such great fans. And they – I think some of them kind of found out or dug deep and they were kind of excited to know but they also I think were respectful and kind of like keep things like, you know, like letting people know about spoilers and just kind of trying to keep it adrift because I think they were as excited as we were.

Mike Schur:   Yes, it’s funny that you say that because I kind of snooped around yesterday before the episode aired and I saw that a lot of our fans had kind of called that it was actually maybe happening tonight…and they were, you know, really cool about it and not trying to spread it around and just kind of talking to each other and not wanting to like spoil it for others.

And I just kind of second that that we have the greatest fans of any show – I really just – we feel very, very lucky.

How connected is your staff in general to the internet?

Mike Schur: Well, I mean I’m – comparatively speaking I’m about to turn thirty seven and there’s a bunch of little whipper snappers on this writing staff and in the cast who are, you know, in their twenties. And I don’t understand anything they do.

There was a line that Leslie had in season two where she said ‘the thing about youth culture is I don’t understand it’. And that came right out of my brain because I don’t have any idea how these people, what they’re doing with their time.

I don’t understand it, it doesn’t make sense to me and I work out my own anxieties about the fact that I’m getting old by having young people do things that I don’t understand and then having Ron Swanson [played by Nick Offerman] scold them.

So, yes they’re incredibly connected, I mean it is absurd, the level to which twenty-five year-olds have merged with their electronic devices.

How much of an influence the supporting actors like Aziz Ansari (plays Tom Haverford) or Retta (as Donna) have over their characters?

Mike Schur: Well the story line last night [Donna live tweeted the Parks Department’s Halloween viewing of Death Canoe 4] obviously came out of real life because Retta has been doing this insane thing where she like live Tweet’s season two of Buffy and it’s hilarious, we all find it hilarious.

And so we just decided to work it into an episode. It’s a common theme on this show that we take aspects of the actor’s real life and kind of weave them into their characters and that seemed very much appropriate for Donna somehow.

So, you know, I think that – I think we do that with all the characters but maybe Aziz and Retta more than – and Nick [Offerman] I guess more than almost anybody else because they just do things in real life that we find funny and the writer’s room and then we try to find ways to work them in to their characters.

But that’s – everyone’s character has some aspect I would say of their real life persona. And it just seems funny to have Donna live Tweeting a terrible horror movie from 1986, so. It was also another extra in joke that the guy who complains to her about it was played by Joe Mande who’s one of our writer’s who is like – essentially lives on Twitter. So it was our little nod to the obsession with Twitter that exists in this – on the writing staff right now.

How are we going to see the proposal really impact the Parks Department?

Amy Poehler: Well, you know that no matter what Leslie will involve and include everyone in her plans all the time. This engagement will be said of everybody’s engagement.

Adam Scott: America’s engagement.

Were there ever any alternative ideas for Ben’s proposal?

Amy Poehler:  I loved that the scene is about everything to come, you know. It’s an empty room, which is – which can be depressing in some respects for some people but in this context it was all about hostility, you know, that nothing had filled that room. That that room was empty and open and ready to be filled with like the future.

And it was really cool that Dean Holland our Director and Mike Schur picked that it happened in front of the fireplace of the empty room, which is just really nice because it was like warm but, I don’t know. I just loved that Leslie looked around to see what was around here and there was just this big empty room, which was like basically the idea, you know, it’s basically what happens when you’re thinking about committing to someone.

It’s just the future seems really wide and open and clean and so that ended up being what it was and I thought it was perfect. But were there other ideas?

Mike Schur: The original original idea was that he was going to sing ‘It’s Not Unusual’ by Tom Jones next to a white tiger.

Adam Scott: Which I was lobbying for.

Mike Schur: Yes, you were really into that. And then we kind of scaled it back, we decided, you know, let’s make it a little, you know, classier and kind of quieter.

Amy Poehler: We couldn’t get – we couldn’t get the rights to the song.

Mike Schur: We couldn’t get the rights or the white tiger so we just used – all right well maybe he just proposes, you know.

Adam Scott: Mike I told you I had a firm connection to both of those things I totally could have made it happen.

Mike Schur: If showing me pictures on the Internet of Siegfried and Roy’s Vegas show does not mean you have a firm connection to anything.

Adam Scott: That is exactly what that means.

New episodes of Parks and Recreation air Thursday at 9:30pm on NBC.

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Glenn Howerton & Rob McElhenney chat about new season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”

Season eight of FX’s hit “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” kicked off on October 11th with the discovery that Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) was in the possession of an original painting by Hitler while Dennis and Dee Reynolds (Glenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson) mulled over whether or not to pull the plug on its previous owner, their dying Nazi grandfather, Pop Pop. Sounds like things are just about normal for the gang at Paddy’s pub. Creators, and two of the stars of the show, Rob McElhenney and Howerton, discussed writing the heightened world of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia starting with that season-opening artwork.

Glenn Howerton: That painting was actually in Charlie’s apartment during the second season of the show. That was basically just set decoration in the second season. Interestingly enough, we actually were the ones that when we got into editing and we were watching the show—all the episodes of Season 2, that painting stood out to us so much, too much, it was too distracting. We actually said we never want to see that painting again. Take it down. Get rid of it because it’s just a shining, white, weird painting in the background of every Charlie’s apartment scene.

Rob McElhenney: We had so many fans and so many comments, asking about it. When we took it down, people were irate.

Howerton: Yes. They were like, what happened to that dog painting? We loved that dog painting. We kept thinking, the scenes aren’t supposed to be about a painting of a dog in the background. We just felt like it was too distracting, but we always wanted to bring it back in some way.

Another recently solved series mystery was the revelation of Mac’s real name.

From the last season finale, did you always know that ‘Mac’ was going to be Ronald McDonald, or is that something that just occurred to you? Will you have a similar revelation with The Waitress?

McElhenney: We’ve been talking about that for a while.

Howerton: We’ve been talking about what ‘Mac’s’ name is for a long time. I think we came up with the idea that his real name was Ronald MacDonald a while ago; like a couple years ago. We also thought it was so ridiculous we weren’t sure if we ever really wanted to reveal it or if we did that it would ever actually be that. So, we finally decided to do it. As far as The Waitress goes, we don’t have any plans as of now to ever tell anyone what her name is. Although she does have a name and we do know what it is.

The Waitress, played by Charlie Day’s real-life spouse Mary Elizabeth Ellis is one of several recurring characters that fans have seen develop (or in many cases, regress) over the past eight seasons. Among some favorites we saw in the eighth season premiere were Brian Unger’s The Lawyer and David Hornsby’s Rickety Cricket.

Was it more of a gradual development or was it just planned that you would start adding more supporting characters in the show, and open up what was a little more of an insular world with the three leads?

McElhenney: As we built out the show and built out the characters, we realized that what we were creating was a bit of an alternate universe. Certainly, the stakes are just as high as real life, but the results are a little bit different. These people—I was counting how many major car accidents my character has been in over the last seven years. I think I’ve had five or six head-on collisions. I don’t seem to have any—maybe some brain damage, but the character doesn’t seem to have any physical scars. Clearly, we’re creating a heightened reality. When we started joking about who else lives in this universe, who else lives in this world, it just made us laugh. That helped broaden our scope, which I think only adds to the comedy.

Howerton: Maybe more of a parallel universe that an alternate, a completely alternate one; slightly heightened reality, yes.

Asked what guest stars viewers can expect to see popping up in this alternate universe Philly, Howerton and McElhenney had some exciting names for the new season:

Howerton: We’ve got a really fun guest star role for Sean Combs this year; P. Diddy. I’m excited for people to see it. I think it’s very, very different from anything that, at least I’ve ever seen him do, on anything. We’re excited about that.

McElhenney: Guillermo del Toro.

McElhenney: Yes, Guillermo del Toro, the director, writer, producer is also, we found out, a big fan of the show. Charlie just did a movie with him [Pacific Rim] so he really wanted to do a guest star so we wrote him in this year, too. It’s really funny.

McElhenney and Howerton also offered some insight into their writing process for the show.

When you’re writing your episodes, do you have favorite teams that you guys like to work with? The gang is so often shifting alliances, even within one episode.

Howerton: We do try to keep tabs of that, actually, to a certain degree. We try to mix it up as much as possible, so that the same pairing isn’t happening all season long.

McElhenney: Sometimes we’ll find that, too. Where we’ll break three or four episodes in a row and realize that we have ‘Dee’ and ‘Frank’ together for those three or four episodes and we’ll realize that we’ve got to break them up a little bit.

Are there a certain set of criteria that do go in to breaking a story, that you find that you have to have a certain set of criteria?

Howerton: Most importantly, what we’re always talking about is, for as unbelievable as some of the storylines may seem, we have to believe that the characters believe that what they’re doing gets them what they want. That’s the most important aspect of breaking a story, so it doesn’t just feel like a series of funny events. That we really justify why these characters are acting the way that they do. That’s the major criteria that I follow. Of course, we like to tie things up and tie things together. That’s good story writing.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia airs every Thursday at 10pm on FX.

 

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NYCC 2012: Yakko’s Modern World?

Media Mikes was lucky enough to catch up with emmy-winning voice actor Rob Paulsen on the floor of NYCC this past Friday. Paulsen can currently be heard in Nickelodeon’s new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as Donatello alongside Sean Astin’s Raphael. However he was equally ready to talk about one of his most iconic roles, Yakko Warner, of “Animaniacs”.

Children of the 90s will remember the impressive and catchy “Yakko’s World” in which Paulsen sang the names of the nations of the world. As political lines have shifted since 1993 when the song first aired, Paulsen revealed that he and the writer are hoping to be back to get an updated version recorded:

“I don’t know if I’m recording it for sure, Randy Rogel who wrote Yakko’s World–and all the other cool stuff on Animaniacs, by and large–told me a couple weeks ago that he updated Yakko’s World to reflect the Soviet Union no longer being around and all the ‘-stans’. Uzebekistan, Kazahkstan, Tajikastan…so yea, apparently there is a new, updated version of Yakko’s World and I hope that we can record it one day and release it!”

Great news! Now, all together, “Uuuunited States, Canada, Mexico, Panama…“

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Blu-ray Review “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 7”

Actors: Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, Kaitlin Olson, Danny DeVito
Directors: Matt Shakman, Randall Einhorn
Rated: Unrated
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Release Date: October 9, 2012
Run Time: 286 minutes

Episodes: 4 out of 5 Stars
Extras: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Official Synopsis: In season 7 see the Gang prepare for the apocalypse, hit the beach at the Jersey Shore, produce a child beauty pageant, and take a walk down memory lane at their high school reunion. As they say, some things never change. So prepare for more depraved schemes, half-baked arguments and absurdly underhanded plots to subvert one another.

First airing in 2005, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has never failed to tackle timely subject matters through the uniquely twisted eyes of the Paddy’s Pub gang. Season seven, which kicked off with a dead hooker (“Frank’s Pretty Woman”) and covered everything from social networks to child beauty pageants, was no exception.

If Sweet Dee’s (Kaitlin Olsen) pregnancy was the notable addition to the sixth season, season seven was the year of “Fat Mac.” Series creator and executive producer Rob McElhenney put on fifty pounds for the sake of trying out its comedic possibilities. While McElhenney has shed the weight in the current season which began on October 11th, the decision paid off in spades in episodes on this set such as “How Mac Got Fat” and “The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore” (where Mac and Danny DeVito’s Frank introduced the world to getting drunk off of Rum Ham).

The Jersey Shore episode was definitely a season highlight in a year where the gang was so often found outside of their base at Paddy’s pub–a major leap forward for Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day), who up until this season just couldn’t seem to make it out of the city limits successfully. Other season highlights include “Chardee Macdennis: The Game of Games” featuring a twisted combination drinking-board-physical-challenge game that only the Always Sunny gang could devise, and the two part High School Reunion finale. The latter of which corralled, for all intents and purposes, the rogues gallery of Always Sunny nemeses from past seasons including guest stars Judy Greer, Jason Sudeikus and my personal favorite David Hornsby as downward spiraling Rickety Cricket.

This season does find some weaker moments than earlier years of Always Sunny such as the flashback-heavy “Frank’s Brother”, however I can’t think of another show that is as consistently hilarious and surprising, especially after seven years. As far as sitcoms go, it also has one of the highest rewatchability factors as the writers continue to flesh out this alternate universe Philly with supporting characters and callbacks to past plots.

The extras on the Blu-Ray set are not as extensive as some of the previous sets, featuring four episode commentary tracks (of thirteen episodes), an enjoyable blooper reel and a drunken tour of Philly with recurring character Artemis. One misses the behind the scenes featurettes from past releases. On FX, the show is aired in HD and continues to look and sound great on this Blu-ray transfer.

 

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Barry Sloane talks about joining ABC’s “Revenge”

This month when ABC’s hit show Revenge returns it will be welcoming English actor Barry Sloane as Aiden, “a mystery man from Emily’s (Emily VanCamp) past”. Previously seen by American theater audiences in Broadway’s Jerusalem last summer, Sloane comes from acclaimed turns on British tv shows such as Hollyoaks and Holby City. Along with “Revenge”, Barry talked to Media Mikes about his upcoming film roles in “Penthouse North” and Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah”.

Lauren Damon: So you’re joining into “Revenge” cast which you’ve done before on other established TV shows, how is that?
Barry Sloane:  It’s great, it’s a really cool show and  when the opportunity came up to be a part of it, I was very excited, you know.  It’s got a fantastic cast. Great actors, isn’t it? I knew it was going to be a fun part. From what I was told about the character , it’s going to be a cool character to play and there’s a lot of mystery to the guy, We’ll do some interesting things.

LD: All I’ve read is that he’s a ‘mystery man’ from Emily’s past, but a lot of times her people from the past don’t do so well, is that a concern for you?
BS: (Laughs) Well these things, you know, you come in and I think the main thing is you’re going to be involved in with Emily, Emily VanCamp’s story, so getting to work with her quite closely is going to be great because she’s fantastic and she’s a great girl as well. We’ve had a couple of scenes so far that have gone really well so you kind of come in to these things and you never as an actor, you never kind of say ‘oh I’m going to be here three, four, five years’, you know. You kind of come in and the first thing, you do an arc or something interesting like that. So with these types of shows it’s always interesting because you get as much as the viewers most of the time because you’re kind of getting scripts very close to when you’re filming it. So you never get any  information so when I’m doing this type of show I always enjoy it because I kind of open the script and it’s like ‘Oh, that’s what I’m doing this week!’  It’s always an exciting moment when you get that and especially when we all get around and do the table read and you get to hear it for the first time. So who knows what’s going to happen but I’m excited to get the next script, that’s for sure. (laughs)

LD: The finale of the first season was a crazy, sort of white knuckle episode, are you working on anything that compares?
BS: They set the bar very high.  And that’s why you know, when you’ve got a great following viewing, they’re very passionate about the show, the fans of the show. I think Mike [Kelley]’s got some great ideas to keep everybody hooked and there’s so much more that can be told with the story and what Emily’s going to go through—or Amanda, should I say?— so there’s going to be loads of twists and turns and intrigue and drama, all the things you expect, you know? It’s going to be fun.

LD: “Revenge” has been getting the kind of ratings that “LOST” used to get, are you excited for that level of viewers?
BS: I don’t know that I’m entirely prepared for the level of exposure that will come with the show but I kind of, as with anything, it’s all about the character and the job really. And you know, anything else that comes with it will be fun I’m sure. But it’s only good to have that many viewers if you do a good job, so I intend to do a good job! (laughs)

LD: No pressure, by the way!
BS: No, that’s cool!

LD: Is it different working here than in England?
BS: Well, the weather’s fantastic, and the people are great and there’s an ocean.  The locations I’ve filmed at so far have just been beautiful,  just amazing places. You’re getting to work along a lot of the coastline of  Los Angeles, so it’s…yea, I’ve got no complaints! Let’s put it that way.

LD: Are you allowed to say if you’re kind of more of a bad guy? Or are you in the middle?
BS: Again, the information that’s out, he’s a character that’s linked to when Amanda was becoming Emily so they kind of went through a lot of the same things, they’ve got a history together.  I’m the kind of guy that gets things done in the same sense that she does so I think he’s as perfectly  as dangerous as  she is.

LD: She seems kind of like a revenge sniper, she picks her target and she gets it done…
BS: Yea, she’s quite dark and dangerous, she can hold her own, she could probably take him. But I’m having a good go. (laughs)

LD: I see you’ve got movies coming up as well like “Penthouse North”?
BS: Yea, “Penthouse North is due for release”, I think, November time. Got a screening coming up soon with Michael Keaton and Michelle Monaghan, should be viewing that with them soon. And I’ve just been, prior to this, just before I flew out to LA I’ve just filmed the new Darren Aronosky film, “Noah”.

LD: That’s huge…
BS: Yea, yea, it’s going to be epic. I was working with Russell Crowe, so that was cool. He’s a cool guy.

LD: What’s you role like in that?
BS: I’m playing a poacher who—obviously Noah’s keen on animals and I’m playing a poacher. I’m playing a poacher, he’s trying to kill animals. So you can work out how that’s going to end up! (laughs) It’s a fantastic script, it’s such a good script and with Darren Aronofsky directing and stars like Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connolly, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, you know, with a cast like that it’s just going to be a huge huge movie and it’s not going to come out til 2014 so I’ve kind of got a few years to wait to watch it. But just to be part of it is really exciting and I hope to work with the guys again.

LD: Where was that filmed?
BS: We filmed in Iceland.

LD: A lot of things are filming in Iceland recently…
BS: Yea, well it’s because you get twenty-two hours of daylight, it’s just good for filming. When I arrived I was given like a welcome pack with an eye mask and I was like  ‘Hmm, that’s odd, why am I given an eye mask?’ and then having come out the bar late and then I was like ‘Ah, because I won’t be able to sleep!’

LD: And then “Penthouse North” looks to be a heist movie, are you also kind of bad in that one?
BS: In Penthouse North? Yes, I’m quite an unsavory character in that shall we say.  I’m kind of Michael Keaton’s associate so, he plays a guy called Hollander, who’s a very very dangerous man shall we say. And however dangerous I might be, he is a lot more dangerous than that. Again, getting to work with that guy was amazing.

LD: He’s Batman…
BS:  Exactly. Exactly, you know it’s not so bad. Yea,  it was quite funny because I did that with Michael Keaton—so I’d just worked with Batman and then I got a pilot called Gotham, which was strange, so I thought this is becoming very Batman-themed.

LD: How did it go with “Gotham”?
BS: Gotham’s done, yea we made it for ABC, and we didn’t get picked up unfortunately. But it was a fantastic pilot and Francis Lawrence directed and he’s now doing the Hunger Games sequel and it was Michael Green who co-wrote The River and Heroes and Kings. So the script was incredible, so I’m sure Michael is going to get something huge very soon and hopefully I can be a part of that.

LD: And obviously ABC kept you on for “Revenge”.
BS: Yea. Yea, I must have done something right! (laughs)

LD: Do you think you’ll ever get back to theater after your big “Jerusalem” run?
BS: Yea, absolutely. I mean, it’s kind of difficult to top the whole “Jerusalem” experience because  that was just like an epic dream theatre job, you know? …The whole cast was just golden and the whole experience of doing it was wonderful and just the quality of the piece as well. I mean when I get back to the UK that’s the first thing I want to do is maybe work at the Royal Court again or do some theatre when I get back just to get back into it and get the live audience.

LD: Now when you’re in England, are you based in London?
BS: I had been but I moved back to Liverpool to be close to family for a while and then obviously when you do that you end up getting a job in LA (laughs) So we were close to family for about a month and a half.

LD: I’m sure they appreciated it.
BS: Yea! Yea, a month and a half with me is enough for anyone I think they were kind of happy for me to leave (laughs). But yea, so it’s all good and I’m excited for this season on Revenge, it’s going to be fun and hopefully the viewers are going to enjoy it and they’re going to enjoy the character.

Revenge” stars it’s second season on September 30th at its new time slot of Sundays at 9pm on ABC.

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Filed Under: Interviews, TV Interviews Tagged With: abcs, aronofskys, barry, darren, films, joining, ...

Tribeca Film Festival Review “One Nation Under Dog”

Directed by: Ellen Goosenberg Kent, Amanda Micheli, Jenny Carchman
Producers: R.J. Cutler, Julie Goldman, Allyson Luchak, Danielle Renfrew, Ellen Goosenberg Kent
Tribeca Film Festival
Running time: 73 minutes

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s difficult to say who One Nation Under Dog, which screened last week at the Tribeca Film Fest, will appeal to when it makes its debut this summer on HBO. Dog lovers, of which I include myself, will undoubtedly find it at times unbearable and those who swap over channels when they see Sarah McLachlan’s SPCA ad starting up might mistakenly do so again. However, to do so would be needlessly dismissive to an extremely well made look into the conflicting relationship this country has with man’s best friend.

In three parts derived from the doc’s subtitle, ‘Stories of Fear, Loss and Betrayal,’ directors Kent, Micheli and Carchman show the various ways in which a population so obviously in love with dogs comes to euthanize millions of them every year. ‘Fear’ gives a fascinating view at the ins and outs of how dogs, in this case a New Jersey family’s pack of Rhodesian Ridgebacks with a history of violence, come to be legally defined as ‘dangerous’, ‘potentially dangerous’ and ‘vicious.’ The distinctions sound small but they do determine whether a dog lives or dies after biting a human. ‘Loss’, arguably the most sensitive third of the film, delves into how people cope with their pets’ passing. It may surprise some to watch an adult dog-loss support group in progress, but to anyone whose lost a significant pet it’s not hard to see the benefits of such a place and the filmmakers never once look down on them. Neither is the funeral of a terrier at a pet cemetery treated with any less sincerity than that of a human friend.

It’s in the last third of the doc, ‘Betrayal’, where the film turns from the stories of individual lost pets to the outright slaughter that occurs on a daily basis for preventable reasons. Betrayal hammers home the importance of spaying or neutering pets and the merits of adopting the shelter dogs so desperately in need of homes. Some of the footage in this chapter comes with a warning about its graphic nature and it is indeed brutal to the point I felt physically unsettled but ultimately a documentary on this subject would have been incomplete without going this far.

To those who watch this documentary, you will need tissues at the ready for the obvious lost dogs but thankfully, also for the inspiring stories of dogs saved from the brink of death by the numerous rescuers who stand up for those who can not for themselves. Watching one such trainer turn some left for dead, terrified animals into loving members of new family’s was one of the most astonishing things I saw amongst Tribeca’s docs this year.

One Nation Under Dog: Stories of Fear, Loss and Betrayal premieres on HBO June 18th at 8pm

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Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: dog, festival, film, nation, review, tribeca, ...

Tribeca Film Festival Review “Burn”

Directed by: Tom Putnam, Brenna Sanchez
Producers: Tom Putnam, Brenna Sanchez
Tribeca Film Festival
Running time: 85 minutes

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

“Burn”, winner of the Heineken Audience Award for Documentary at TFF, takes a look at the firefighters of Detroit, a city where abandoned buildings are everywhere and arson is rampant. More specifically, directors Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez, reveal the ups and downs of fire fighting in the Motor City through the eyes of Engine 50. Ultimately Burn is a heartfelt and character driven documentary, that doesn’t lose sight of the larger picture of a struggling US city.

The directors of “Burn” introduce us into the company through a good cross section of figures within it. We first meet Dave Parnell, a field engine operator on the eve of his retirement after 33 years of driving the truck. He opens the film with the sage sounding “I wish my mind could forget what my eyes have seen.” It’s a beautiful and sincere statement but also brilliantly connects him to his younger colleagues who in quick edit repeat this mantra they’ve obviously heard during Parnell’s many years. The camaraderie among the ladder company is immediately recognizable here and the directors smartly establish the whys of these men’s chosen occupation when the risks are so great. The ladder company is their home away from home, they bicker and eat together like family and when the time comes they admittedly get an adrenaline kick from the actual fire fighting. Burn includes footage actually shot from the firemen’s helmets that is incredibly impressive.

Being able to capture the bonds between Engine Company 50 early on is crucial to the rest of the film, as we turn to how many sacrifices these men make and just how much help they still need. For all the dedication of the firemen, they are severely underfunded and often their equipment is in need of repair that’s not in the budget. In a city full of abandoned buildings, an ethical dilemma arises in the form of deciding whether or not it’s worth the hazards of saving a building “designed to kill firemen” or to just let it burn. The latter option is brought in by a new executive fire commissioner, Donald Austin, who to the film’s credit is treated really fairly despite clearly being seen by the Engine 50 men, as an outsider. Austin was born in Detroit but spent 30 years in Los Angeles. The let-it-burn policy will of course save on the company’s equipment but it reveals to us the dedication of the E50 men whose instincts it goes against. It’s hard to choose either well meaning side and the film rightly doesn’t try to.

A third focus shows explicitly what these men can face when we meet Brendan “Doogie” Milewski who at age 30 became paralyzed from the waist down after a wall in an arson fire collapsed on him. Putnam and Sanchez get an intimate look into his physical therapy process and he is completely candid about the struggles he now faces both physically and mentally. Doogie is grateful to have survived but neither him nor the filmmakers downplay the lost plans for his future.

At 85 minutes, “Burn” moves swiftly and yet in an amazing balancing act still manages to engage us in so many personal amongst the story of a city in need. These men give so much to the city they care about, it’s about time this dedication was shown to a larger audience.

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Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: burn, festival, film, review, tribeca

Tribeca Film Festival Review “Off Label”

Directed by: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
Producers: Anish Savjani, Vincent Savino
Tribeca Film Festival
Running time: 80 minutes

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

“Off Label”, a new documentary from Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, draws its power from getting personal with those most affected by the pharmaceutical industry’s usage of humans as guinea pigs. For some, it’s a financial choice, while for others it’s as a last ditch effort when other means have failed them.

With subjects spanning across the country, some of the most devastating accounts come from Andy Duffy, a 22-year-old army medic stricken with PTSD from being stationed at Abu Gharib, and Mary Weiss, the mother of a man who killed himself while in a medical study. At 17, Duffy could not believe that he was being deployed as a medic to one of the war’s most notorious locations and Off Label’s directors rightly make no effort to shield its viewers from the horrors he faced there. Understandably Duffy returned to the country in a real need of psychiatric help. What he found was doctors giving him a plethora of medications for various symptoms and off label prescriptions that fit under their medical plan better than more expensive, perhaps more appropriate, drugs. They’re basically throwing anything at him to see what works. In any case, Duffy is the not the only interviewee who presents a massive stock pile of little orange pill bottles in this doc and that’s the trouble. “I don’t need medication. I need help,” Duffy says. This loss of humanity in the search for the most effective drug mixture is at the heart of the problem examined in the doc. Duffy ultimately turns to other war veterans for more effective support, but other subjects lack such groups.

For me, the film’s most powerful figure is Mary Weiss. Weiss committed her 26-year-old son, Dan Markingson, for psychiatric help. Though he was committed, his personal consent to be put into a closed clinical study for anti-psychotics was irreversible by Weiss as he was not a minor. What resulted was Weiss being incapable of pulling her son from the drug study even though she could tell he was much worse off and eventually he committed a grisly suicide. Weiss became dedicated to fighting corruption within the drug testing system and in the film she is a striking and passionate interviewee. When she speaks to the filmmakers she is composed but the rage she has felt since losing Dan is palpable. Her account of her son’s death is haunting and I suspect will have many viewers rally to her cause. She is truly remarkable.

To counter the stories of those directly affected by prescription abuses, Palmieri and Mosher have also smartly included an ex-pharmaceutical rep, Michael Oldani, to detail the mechanics of getting various drugs into the public’s minds. Reflecting on his past occupation, Oldani dubs the role of drug reps as shady and some of the tactics he reveals to get a patient to prefer one drug over another are eye opening in their simplicity.

Besides Weiss’ fight, Off Label isn’t so much about directly confronting the rampant drug marketing in the United States as examining the human cost of such a culture. Beautifully shot footage of each of their interviewees in their day to day lives—Duffy practicing with his rifle, two of the “human guinea-pigs” celebrating an unconventional wedding— contribute to an intimate look at a massive problem.

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Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: festival, film, label, review, tribeca

2012 Tribeca Film Festival Reviews

The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal & Craig Hatkoff as a response to the attacks on the World Trade Center. Conceived to foster the economic and cultural revitalization of Lower Manhattan through an annual celebration of film, music and culture, the Festival’s mission is to promote New York City as a major filmmaking center and allow its filmmakers to reach the broadest possible audience. Since the inaugural festival, Lower Manhattan has become a thriving cultural and economic center.

Over the course of 12 days, the Tribeca Film Fest exhibited 89 feature films and 60 short films to over 116,000 movie-goers.

Media Mikes was fortunate to screen and review a bunch of films throughout the fest.  Check out our reviews below, but don’t worry if you missed the festival many of these features hopefully will be distributed soon to a wider audience. Stay tuned!

Check out the following link for the 2012 schedule and film guide


As Luck Would Have It
Burn
Downeast
Journey to Planet X

Mansome
Off Label
One Nation Under Dog

The Revisionaries
Side By Side
Take The Waltz

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Filed Under: Film Reviews Tagged With: 2012, festival, film, reviews, tribeca

Tribeca Film Festival Review “Mansome”

Directed By: Morgan Spurlock
Producers: Jeremy Chilnick, Meri Haitken, Michael Rushton, Morgan Spurlock
Featuring: Morgan Spurlock, Zach Galifianakis, Will Arnett, Paul Rudd, Jason Bateman, Judd Apatow
Tribeca Film Festival
Running time: 84 minutes

Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Morgan Spurlock’s newest documentary, Mansome, isn’t so much about what it means to be A Man in the modern world as it is a chance for a group of eccentric subjects and celeb commentators to riff on the level of manscaping that’s going on. And as it involves a reunion of Arrested Development’s Bluth brothers, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman (also serving as executive producers), I’m pretty much fine with that.

Arnett and Bateman’s interactions frame loosely themed segments of the film focusing on things such as beards and hair products. The two men are having a spa day where they ponder the question of masculinity while they also take turns taking comedic jabs at each other. In a standout bit, they hold an impromptu challenge as to who can withstand the rougher massage. Other celebrity interviewees who aren’t exactly taking the subject at hand seriously include Paul Rudd and a hilarious Zach Galifianakis. All of Galifianakis’s answers drew big laughs and he later dominates the over-credits footage after the film. One can only hope there could be more, from all parties really, on the eventual dvd/blu-ray.

When not watching talking heads, the film follows a few men whose lives seem to center around maintaining their hair. Jack Passion is the World Beard Champion (that exists!) and we’re privy to one of their competitions (pageants?) in Germany. Shawn Daivari is a TNA wrestler whose quest to keep up with the hairless culture he works in means he must call in a buddy to shave his “ass shelf.” Ass shelf. Manscaping. This film’s educational value seems to rest on introducing new phrases to a wider audience. Though I could have lived without the creator of Fresh Balls ruining the term “bat wing” in this pre-Dark Knight Rises spring.

If neither of these sides of the doc sound like they appeal, or if you’re looking for the deeper cultural implications of well groomed men, perhaps it’s best to avoid Mansome. But it’s a light, amusing film that’s definitely worth checking out for comedy fans and anyone else who wants to gawk at some really elaborate beards.

Upcoming TFF Screenings of Mansom
Fri. 4/27 – 9:30pm, SVA-1
Sat. 4/28 – 3:00pm, AV7-1

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Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: festival, film, mansome, review, tribeca

Tribeca Film Festival Review “The Revisionaries”

Directed by: Scott Thurman
Producer: Pierson Silver, Orlando Wood, Scott Thurman
Featuring: Kathy Miller, Don McLeroy
Tribeca Film Festival
Running time: 83 minutes

Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

Before seeing “The Revisionaries”, I would have been hard-pressed to identify a more noxious sound than that of a dentist’s drill at work. I now know that if the dentist behind that tool is also interrogating the patient on their thoughts on god, or badly singing “For the Bible Tells Me So” as he works, the auditory punishment is that much worse. Talk about a captive audience. It’s a perfect introduction to one of this great, often startling, documentary’s most polarizing figures, Don McLeroy, former head of the Texas State Board of Education.

Thurman’s film focuses on this small board, fifteen members in all, because as one of America’s top purchasers of high school textbooks, the standards they approve for the writing of those books dictate what the nation’s students will be reading for the next ten years. Following Abraham Lincoln’s quote, “the philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next,” the members of the board have become increasing politicized. Particularly in the realms of science and history. McLeroy enters into the film on the side of the religious far right. A young Earth creationist since he was 29, McLeroy would swear up and down he doesn’t let his personal beliefs enter into his role in education while simultaneously insisting that “science is great, but it doesn’t deserve the plateau [sic] that they put it on”. If it were up to him he would teach kids that dinosaurs walked alongside man and rode on the ark 6000 years ago. There is something profoundly disturbing about a man with, as he described it, a “mind boggling” amount of power chanting to his followers that they must “stand up to the experts!” where education is involved. This type of disgusting anti-intellectualism continues to pervade the political debate today. Just look at failed presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s recent college-is-for-snobs rhetoric for evidence. McLeroy’s stance is backed by other board members like Cynthia Dunbar, another one who will say at the Board meetings that she’s not pushing a theological agenda, but she’ll start a State board meeting with a Christian prayer. If these peoples’ views, ignorance and downright hypocrisy are all infuriating, to director Scott Thurman’s credit, it’s not through any cinematic trickery that this impression is achieved. Thurman gives McLeroy and his cohorts plenty of screen time in which to calmly lay out their beliefs in talking head segments.

On the other side of the debate is Kathy Miller, leader of the Texas Freedom Network, an organization aimed to stop the hijacking of America’s classrooms for political gain. On her side would be the aforementioned experts such as anthropology professor Ron Wetherington and Eugenie Scott, the executive director at the National Center for Science Education. They’re tasked with having to deal with powerful board members who got there via election, not nearly as much education as the experts needed to get to their respective titles. I suppose that’s what makes them experts. Occasionally debates among the panel actually have to pause to have scientific phrases explained to board members. Thurman’s camera does a brilliant job of capturing the moments of silent shock on some of the more level headed commentators in such instances. Wetherington in particular has a wonderfully expressive face when caught off guard. These slips are in great contrast to the restraint the professor shows when dealing with McLeroy in a one on one debate that gets so overly polite it starts to rival Warner Brothers’ Goofy Gophers.

The first half of the documentary focuses on the hot button debate over evolution, with the right wing side pushing for textbooks to accentuate the “weaknesses” of a “theory.” Such petty wording will have a profound effect that should not be underestimated. For me though, the more startling debate appears in the second meeting we see regarding America’s history books. The Board actually seeks to downplay Thomas Jefferson, only the writer of the Declaration of Independence, and emphasize John Calvin in the founding beliefs of the United States. (Calvin being of the belief in predestined eternal damnation or salvation.) It’s an interesting switch for such fervent self-proclaimed patriots to propose but as said before, these people are no strangers to hypocrisy. It is worth noting that while Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence he’s also been quoted many times in connection to religious skepticism. Famously writing to John Adams,“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being…will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter.” Thurman does not delve into such motivations behind the voting panel’s anti-Jefferson attitude, but that was not far from this viewer’s mind.

For a film that centers largely on votes taking place in a boardroom setting, “The Revisionaries” is riveting. Particularly in the sequences regarding amendments to history books which can be swiftly proposed, rejected, reworded, and re-spun as entirely new ones at the speed of a tennis volley. Some of the phrase nitpicking and absurdity had me recalling Armando Iannucci’s brilliant political satire “In The Loop”.  Thurman’s doc is well timed too as November 2012 will see the election of all 15 spots of the Board of Education. Voter turnout for the McLeroy chair as shown in the film was only 20% and hopefully with enough exposure, Thurman’s film can rally more to chime in on this shockingly influential yet tiny group of people. It’s an important film to bring attention to a vote that might otherwise be overshadowed in this presidential election year.

Upcoming TFF Screenings of The Revisionaries:
Wed. 4/25 – 6:00pm, CCC-7
Sat. 4/28 – 6:00pm, AV7-1

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Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: festival, film, review, revisionaries, tribeca

Tribeca Film Festival Review “Journey to Planet X”

Directed by: Josh Khoury and Myles Kane
Producer: Trisa Barkman
Featuring: Troy Brenier, Eric Swain
Tribeca Film Featival
Running time: 78 minutes

Our Score: 3 out of 5 stars

Josh Koury & Myles Kane’s documentary on two friends making DIY sci-fi films in Florida has the great fortune to be debuting at Tribeca at the same time as Chris Keneally’s Side by Side (read my review here.) The latter bringing home the point that the digital revolution in filmmaking is democratizing who can get movies made while the former is a case study in exactly that.

Eric and Troy are the two men behind these films, ones that could not have existed without the advent of the consumer level video cameras as seen in Keneally’s doc. Armed with a blue screen-painted space and local talent, they churn out films under the impossibly titled Ginnungagap Filmwerks banner. Eric sees it as a fun hobby while Troy in this upcoming project’s case, is striving for something more.

The film’s central tension between the two men is Troy’s pushing on Eric to take their weekend moviemaking as seriously as he does. Such improvements include their blue screen being painted green (easier to work with on video) and Eric replacing his seven year old PC with a new iMac.

It’s an interesting documentary insofar as Troy’s ambitions for his movies to be taken more seriously does not, for better or worse, go to the extremes of say, the delusions of the men in 1999’s American Movie. Nor does the pair’s film budget pose as much of a problem. There’s one mention of Eric footing a lot of the Home Depot bills, but it’s not a make or break point of the process. The fun in watching this documentary is in Koury and Kane’s unironic, nonjudgemental approach to documenting people enjoying making something together. Despite the friends and family screening of Planet X garnering unexpected–to Troy at least–laughter, the filmmakers are pleased to bring enjoyment to any audience. At 78 minutes, it’s a nice, lightweight look into amateur movie making.

Upcoming TFF Screenings of Journey to Planet X:
Mon. 4/23 – 8:00pm, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 4
Sat. 4/28 – 1:00pm, AMC Loews Village 7-2

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Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: featival, film, journey, planet, tribeca
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