Lauren Damon, Author at MediaMikes

Tom Hiddleston and Susanne Bier Premiere AMC’S The Night Manager

Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman in “The Night Manager”

“The Night Manager” recently completed its first series run in the UK to much critical acclaim and strong ratings throughout. Fortunately for American viewers, the series gets its stateside premiere tonight on AMC. Based on John Le Carré’s 1993 novel of the same name, “The Night Manager” follows Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) an ex-soldier-turned-titular-customer-serviceman in a posh Egyptian hotel. He’s presented with the opportunity to help British Intelligence agent Angela Burr (Broadchurch’s Olivia Colman) take down jet-setty guest and illegal arms dealer Richard Roper (a superbly sinister Hugh Laurie) from the inside of his operation out. Outraged by Roper’s behavior, and with some very personal motivations as well, Pine swiftly accepts. What follows is a taut spy thriller that features an amazing cast that also includes Elizabeth Debicki and Tom Hollander.

The series premiere screened this weekend as part of the Tribeca Tune In series celebrating television. I caught up with Hiddleston and director of the series, Susanne Bier, for a quick chat on their red carpet.

Susanne Bier is an Oscar winning director (2011’s Best Foreign Language film, In a Better World) who was eager to take on this project in any capacity. “Well I mean, this project I would have done had it been a puppet show!” Bier enthused, “Because I love John Le Carre and I love the novel. But I was also very tempted to do TV. I mean the format of doing six hours as opposed to two hours was just really tempting and really interesting and compelling.”

With the show having already gone over so well in England, Bier was looking forward to opening it up to a new audience and maybe a new perspective on it: “I think there’s always different perspectives. I mean American audiences are responding just as [excitedly] about it up til now, so I hope so!”

One of the chief changes made from the novel to the series was the switching of British Intelligence agent Burr from a male to a female character. For Bier “Part of it was updating it. Part of it was the fact that by updating it we could take it out of the sort of public school white heterosexual world and maybe actually have a bit of the diversity which is where the world is actually at.” And of the brilliant Olivia Colman, the director added: “And she was absolutely the right choice for it!”

Tom Hiddleston

With Tom Hiddleston‘s Pine reporting to Olivia Colman’s Burr, I wondered if the actor saw a pattern of his recent projects whereby his characters’ fate was in the hands of his strong female leads (Such as Jessica Chastain in Crimson Peak or Tilda Swinton in Only Lovers Left Alive) . Hiddleston—who, it must be said gave thoughtful answers to the entirety of this NYC press line— took some time to reflect on those roles before answering “I haven’t thought about it consciously in the work. I mean…it seems very true to life, doesn’t it? For men to be in relationship to women? [laughs]” He paused again, “I don’t know that they are, how was it you phrased it? Their ‘fates were in the hands of women’–it’s an interesting interpretation!…It rings true to me that each character would have specific relationships to women, but I would never—I would have to think about it longer to think of it whether his fate were in their hands…It is a new interpretation and I’m not disagreeing with you. My point is I think everyone is responsible for their own actions and that responsibility in each of those characters is shared out. I think Pine’s responsible for what he does and he would never discredit Burr by saying that [the mission] was her idea. He does things on his own volition that he’s responsible for and Pine’s fate is in Pine’s hands.”

As for looking back on his recent characters, he did stipulate: “The only instance who I would say that you brought up is [Crimson Peak’s] Thomas Sharpe who is governed by a very toxic relationship with his sister and out of the sense of duty and codependency he feels trapped. But again, his fates not in her hands, I just would question…I suppose I’m being pedantic about phrasing. But I think everyone’s fate is in their own hands.”

Hiddleston not only stars in “The Night Manager” but he took on the more demanding role of executive producing as well which he “loved,” adding “It recomitted my engagement with the material in a very serious way. I loved the extra responsibility. Responsible for the story, for the script, for the thing running on time and it just gives you greater–to me–the extra responsibility made me give even more commitment. So yeah, hoping there will be more of that.”

The Night Manager premieres tonight at 10pm on AMC.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Interviews, Headlines, Interviews, Misc Interviews, TV, TV Interviews Tagged With: amc, Hugh laurie, interview, Olivia Colman, Susanne Bier, TFF2016, ...

Film Review “I Saw the Light”

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Bradley Whitford, Cherry Jones
Directed by: Marc Abraham
Rated: R
123 minutes
Sony Picture Classics

Our score: 3 out of 5 stars

There was a big fuss made last fall by Shenton Hank Williams over the casting of classically trained English actor Tom Hiddleston as his grandfather Hank Sr. Hank3 asserted the country legend should be played by an American who had ‘soul’. It is therefore a smart move that I Saw The Light frees audiences’ doubtful minds about this casting in a gorgeous opening performance of his classic “Cold Cold Heart”. Bathed in a spotlight and shadows, Hiddleston’s Hank is backed by no instrumentals as he croons the classic with all the soul you could ask for. Unfortunately, from this smooth opening, writer-director Marc Abraham launches into a biopic whose rhythm is at times overly choppy. Still, as a showcase for the versatile Hiddleston and fiery Olsen, I Saw the Light impresses.

The structurally episodic film launches straight into Williams’s first marriage to fellow aspiring singer Audrey Mae (Elizabeth Olsen) at a gas station in 1944 before bouncing onto scenes at local dive bars and radio gigs. Abraham skips over Hank’s formative years and we see him with eyes already set on the Grand Ole Opry. That is when they’re not wandering to other women or to the bottom of a bottle. The briefly happy pairing of Audrey Mae and Hank is immediately threatened by Williams’s overbearing mother (Cherry Jones) and Audrey Mae’s desire to share in Hank’s career despite her own lackluster voice. Abraham piles on these personal problems that beset Williams early and heavily before he gradually works in the mentions of Williams’s spina bifida pain which further drove his drug addiction. The trouble with this onslaught of darkness in I Saw the Light is it makes Williams’s untimely passing at age 29 feel like a foregone conclusion with little relief found in his musical achievements.

Thank goodness then for Hiddleston. No stranger to darkness (fresh off of Crimson Peak and about to engage in tv spy thriller “The Night Manager”), he’s magnetic in scenes that require him to rein in his demons–or let them loose. Pity the New York reporter who tries to raise tabloid rumors with Hank or the Hollywood exec who wants him to remove his iconic cowboy hat. He’s particularly chill inducing when invoking Hank’s on stage alter ego “Luke the Drifter,” in a scary recitation to some confused picnic goers. More importantly though he can mine the joy to be found in performing Williams’s work. Yodeling and gyrating–for all intents and purposes flirting with the audience–his striking stage presence goes a long way to selling Williams’s enduring charm despite the emphasis Abraham’s script puts on many terrible relationship choices.

In this arena at least, for most of the film Hiddleston is ably matched by Olsen’s Audrey Mae. A divorcee herself already at the time of their marriage, Audrey Mae is wont to serve Hank the divorce papers when his screwing around becomes too much. Their heated arguments make for some of the most charged interactions in the film, each nailing their southern twangs. More importantly, their tender moments–Hank’s charming as hell plea for Audrey to come back to him, his finding out about impending fatherhood–are truly touching and give the film the heart it needs. As Hank and Audrey Mae drift apart, the chemistry with Olsen is sorely missed. Wrenn Schmidt as Williams’s friend-zoned fling Bobbie Jett briefly rekindles sparks later when Hank’s regretting being a “professional of making a mess of things.” Schmidt is as world weary as Hank in their shared scenes and brings a welcome sense of humor to the ever encroaching darkness of the latter stages of the film.

Said latter stages become riddled with odd choices from Abraham such as increasingly frequent black and white “interviews” or a sudden audio narration whose presence suggests a documentary format we haven’t been privy to for the majority of the film. It undermines the brilliant work of his actors. Here, Hiddleston’s rendition of “Your Cheatin’ Heart” will make you weep. He undoubtedly gets to the heart of Williams’s appeal even as I Saw The Light struggles to illuminate it properly.

I Saw the Light is now playing in New York, LA and Nashville, it expands nationally this Friday.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Reviews, Movies Tagged With: Elizabeth Olsen, film review, Hank Williams, I Saw the Light, marc abraham, Tom Hiddleston, ...

A Conversation with Deadpool’s Greg LaSalle

If you’ve made the right decision this Valentine’s Day weekend and have checked out Deadpool then you may not have heard Greg LaSalle but you definitely saw him. Sort of. LaSalle is one of the tech wizards behind the Academy Award winning MOVA Facial Performance Capture system used in bringing Deadpool’s X-men reinforcement, Colossus, to the screen. While Colossus’s body and voice were provided by actor Stefan Kapicic, LaSalle stepped in front of the MOVA cameras to give the metallic facial performance.

The morning after Deadpool made its New York debut amidst a Deadpool fan costume contest, I sat down with LaSalle for a conversation on Deadpool, other Marvel films and this amazing process used to bring characters such as the Incredible Hulk and Thanos to life.

Lauren Damon: Did you go to the fan premiere last night?
Greg LaSalle: Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun.

How many Deadpools showed up?
LaSalle: Oh you mean the people who dressed up? Oh I don’t know, I think there were quite a bit. I think they chose like seven of them or something, it was pretty funny. One in a tutu, I mean…it was hysterical.

Are you someone who goes to conventions in general seeing that?
LaSalle: No–
“Avoid them like the plague!”
LaSalle: [laughing] No, it’s not that, you know it’s just I have so many things to do. I don’t get a chance to do that very often.

Can you talk about what MOVA Facial Performance Capture is?
LaSalle: I’ll start by telling you first a little bit about what motion capture actually is–which is where you would wear the reflective markers. And that system, those systems were actually developed to deduce where a skeleton is moving. So as those cameras became higher resolution, people started shrinking the dots and gluing them to people’s faces. The data set you get from that is only like 200, 250 points. So a friend of mine in the bay area decided that he would fund the development of research to find out how to actually capture the entire surface of the skin deformity and that’s where MOVA comes from. That development.

So it’s super high resolution, it captures about 7000 data points, all the wrinkles, all the subtlety of the performance is captured. So it’s basically like capturing a scan per frame of the film of the actor. And then about two years ago Digital Domain developed a technique to take those and apply them mathematically to a computer generated character. So the entire performance gets carried over so it really looks, you know, all the performance is captured.

I heard that it’s captured through paint instead of dots?
LaSalle: We apply, it’s invisible makeup in white light that just is applied as a random pattern and then the system has strobing black lights and white lights. So certain cameras take a picture when the black lights are on and all they see is this random pattern makeup. And that’s what’s used to create the scans and track the points across the face.

Seeing as you worked on both Avengers and Age of Ultron and a couple years had passed between them, did the process for capturing the Hulk change? If you worked on the Hulk?
LaSalle: I did, in the first Avengers that’s what it started out as actually, it was before filming was working with Industrial Light and Magic to capture Mark [Ruffalo] to see how he would move as the Hulk. On set they used a bit of different technology so this new technology that we used for Colossus is actually the first time it’s been used. This mathematic transferring of the performance. Things like in the past, like in Avengers, we surveyed the actor. We’d get all the information about how the actor’s face would move and then companies would build a rig which is just a way of animating and when you run a slider, the lip goes up and it goes up as if it was the actor. But it doesn’t have all the subtlety and nuance of the variation in a performance. The new technology the does.

Did you have any hand in that Hulk-smashing-Loki scene?
LaSalle: Well we only specialize in the facial stuff, so only the expressions part of–but that was my favorite part of the first Avengers movie. That ‘boom boom boom!’ [LaSalle does some pretty accurate Hulk smashing motions] It’s a shame though to see Tom Hiddleston beat up like that because he’s such a nice guy.

You captured his face for that? Wasn’t it just grunting?
LaSalle: Yeah yeah…It’s so many years ago now and we’ve done so many things that I can’t remember exactly what we did. If I remember correctly, they put a pipe with some foam on the end and they kept [jabbing motions, laughing] like they’re pushing the back of [Tom’s] head so that he’d [jerks his head]…It was very strange!

What did you work on for Age of Ultron?
LaSalle: Actually I only did the–Thanos. Working with Josh Brolin.

Also on Guardians of the Galaxy too?
LaSalle: Mhmm.

I don’t know if Marvel would let me ask you but when is he coming back?!
LaSalle: That’s really funny because I was convinced while we were filming Age of Ultron that they’re gonna–I just have this feeling that something will happen. I mean he’s like the baddest dude in the whole universe and they have to do something–

Yeah coming up of course we have [Captain America] Civil War, that’s Earth-bound but [Thor] Ragnarok is coming and that’s out there! He’s waiting in the wings…
LaSalle: I mean I wish I could say. I’m not privy to those kinds of things to begin with. But it would be really cool to see a bad ass movie with Thanos. I mean they have so many characters and so many things to do. Kevin Feige–he’s the president of Marvel–knows this universe probably better than Stan Lee and he has this all mapped out in his head. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

Do you keep up with the other projects in between what you’re working on?
LaSalle: I don’t actually like actively keep up. I look for within the industry, what we could work on and how we could pull things off.

So working as Colossus, you’re performing his scenes and they just transfer your face into his?
LaSalle: Yes, in simple terms, yes. It creates a scan first and then this fancy math transfers that by figuring out where–you teach it ‘Okay, this is where the center of my cheek is and this is the center of where Colossus’s left cheek is’ and it mathematically calculates what else is going on in that area. It transfers it.

How did it come to be this split performance where you’re on the face and Stefan Kapicic provides the body and voice?
LaSalle: Tim Miller understands this technology really well, so he figured he could take the best of what different people had to offer and Frankenstein all that together. And he was adamant about having an authentic Russian voice. I believe he even recorded another and he just didn’t like it and then he found Stefan. And I think it works extremely well. It’s a pretty cool way of using the technology.

What was the most fun about being Colossus?
LaSalle: Well I’ve known Tim for a long time and I just like working with him. He’s fun, he’s actually a lot like Deadpool in his comedy and the way he’s sarcastically funny. So I enjoy working with him on that. But I also did the tests which we did like six years ago so it’s been really awesome to see it finally get made. So just the general overall feeling of being happy about that.

Was Tim involved at all in how Deadpool was treated in [2009’s] Wolverine?
LaSalle: No

Was there discussion about just getting away from that entirely?
LaSalle: Tim is a huge comic book fan. He reads a ton, he likes graphic novels. He knew that he wanted to take what’s on the page and have that be what’s in the film. He wasn’t going to mess with it, he wanted to–as a fan he knew that that’s what everybody wanted to see. That’s what he wanted to do.

How instrumental was Ryan Reynolds also in getting this?
LaSalle: I think it was a collaborative effort because they all have their understanding of the character so they–and Tim is great that way. I know he had people that they discussed it: ‘This is what I’d like to see, this is what you’d like to see’ and then they figured out a way to get that all to happen.

This is your second time in front of the camera [after an appearance Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb] is this what you’d like to do more of?
LaSalle: Well I think it’s fun, I’ve been acting for a while and that’s why Tim gave me the part. But I like to do both. I think it’s fun to play the computer generated characters because you get to do really wacky stuff. And then but I also like really small, intimate type live action things. So I’ve been shooting a few short things.

What’re some of your favorite films this past year?
LaSalle: Oh, I liked the Big Short, I liked Trumbo if you’ve seen that. I thought Trumbo was really good.

Yeah, it was weird to watch that in the context of “Award season” since there’s so much of Oscar in the storyline…
LaSalle: I know! You gotta block all that stuff out. Well it’s so interesting too. I mean it’s doubly cool that it’s true.

Do you have more acting roles coming up?
LaSalle: I just finished filming, ironically with Blake Lively [married to Reynolds]. A movie with her called All I See is You which there’s what we call invisible effects. It’s a live action movie but they wanted to use this new technology to drive her newborn baby being born and a character that she sees in her head. So I played both of those parts.

Playing a fetus?!
LaSalle: Not the fetus! As soon as it’s born I had to do the scenes of taking the first breath of screaming and crying and opening the eyes and looking around. They wanted all this subtlety. They figured a live performance would do that more than trying to animate all that subtlety into it.

[This next question features discussion of a specific Deadpool moment, so for the SPOILER-shy, skip down past this one!]

Does that mean you had anything to do with Deadpool regrowing a baby hand? [A brilliant moment after Deadpool cuts his off to escape Colossus’s handcuffs]
LaSalle: (Laughs) No! No. It’s so funny because I’d known that he cuts his hand off for a very long time but I never go to see anything–I only knew because Colossus ends up with his hand. And I never knew what happened. So when he cut his hand off, the first time he saw the movie it was like ‘OK now how does it grow back? How does it grow back?’ And then they even made that funny, it was awesome. I didn’t know what to expect because I don’t like to see the movie until they’re completely done because there’s just so many things that pull you out of it, you know? So I wanted to wait til it was done and I think that all this talk–the blood and the guts and the R-rating, it’s perfect. I don’t care!

It would be weird if you had this much violence and then just no blood, it’s annoying when PG-13 movies do that–
LaSalle: Plus it’s there because it needs to be, a couple of short seconds and it’s not gross. It’s just real.

[Spoiler over!]

Back to Deadpool , considering there are so many films now in the ‘Marvel Universe’, what do you think is most appealing about this character, what does he bring?
LaSalle: Well I think his authenticity to the original character. And the comedy. I mean I think there’s a lot of funny stuff in the Avengers movies and some of the other stuff, but that’s what Deadpool’s character is built around. And I think that that just makes it’s different and stand out.

If Deadpool had to be pitted against any of the Avengers, who do you think would win out?
LaSalle: Oh…This might sound bad but I think Deadpool is way smarter than those other characters. So I think he’d win a lot of stuff. Because he thinks differently than they do.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Headlines, Film Interviews, Interviews, Movies Tagged With: avengers, colossus, deadpool, Greg LaSalle, interview, marvel, ...

Blu-ray Review: “Crimson Peak”

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam and Jim Beaver
Directed By: Guillermo Del Toro
Distributed by: Universal
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Release Date: February 9th 2016

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

Universal did a disservice this past fall in marketing Guillermo Del Toro’s gorgeous gothic romance Crimson Peak as straight up ‘horror film’. It has its share of ghosts and oozes atmosphere but it’s far from the slasher genre. Hopefully this Gothic romance will find a larger audience as it makes way onto Blu-ray and DVD today.

Synopsis: Mia Wasikowska stars as Edith Cushing an aspiring ghost story author in 1901 Buffalo, New York. She’s won over by mysterious English baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) who, along with sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain), is seeking to do business with her father (Jim Beaver). Upon the brutal death of her father, Edith is off to England to become the Lady of the Sharpe’s ancestral home, the ominous Allerdale Hall. There, Edith contends with the decaying architecture, ghostly warnings and the Sharpes’ own secrets coming to light.

Blu-Ray Review: Crimson Peak was one of my favorite films of 2015 (you can read my full theatrical review here). Hiddleston and Chastain make for a formidable brother-sister duo opposite Wasikowska’s tenacious Edith whose character only grows stronger as the film progresses. The real achievement of the film however is Del Toro’s impressive production design team. From Tom Sanders’s meticulously detailed sets, especially the built-from-scratch rooms of Allerdale Hall–to Kate Hawley’s fairytale-ready costume designs, the film is visually jaw dropping. All the better then to see it again on blu-ray now where I was excited to pore over more details than I could catch quickly on the big screen.

In this regard the special features on this disc definitely deliver. Several featurettes cover every aspect of Peak‘s world particularly “A Living Thing” which sees the sets of Allerdale Hall worked and reworked from scale models to the final product over a five month period. Tom Hiddleston then offers a walking tour of “the biggest and most extraordinary set [he has] ever seen” in “Beware of Crimson Peak” as we see how functional the set was in action. His commentary adds somewhat wistfully that this was the last day the set was up, but what a relief this release sees them so fully documented.

Del Toro’s commentary track finishes off the extras and, as expected, is filled with the director speaking about influences and inspirations for the film whether from art or film history. The whole thing is worth a listen, but if you’re not so into commentary viewing I gleaned my five favorite trivia bits (spoilers, of course):

The ghostly appearance of Edith’s mother in the opening of the film was based on Del Toro’s own mother’s experience in seeing his grandmother’s ghost on the very day of her funeral. Del Toro also speaks about having stayed in his own haunted hotel room in New Zealand when scouting locations for The Hobbit (when he was still attached to direct).
In the New York party scene, Del Toro had to restructure the waltz performed by Thomas and Edith to be only performed by Hiddleston and Wasikowska, lest the production have to shell out over a million more dollars in upgrading his acting extras to ‘dancers’.
The hallway of Edith’s childhood home is patterned in the same way as Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, a favorite of Del Toro’s.
Del Toro decided he wanted to flop the gender norms of the Gothic Romance in Crimson Peak. In this spirit, he cast Charlie Hunnam’s Dr. Allan as ‘the damsel in distress’ in the latter sequences of the film (to which Hunnam eagerly agreed) and flipped what GDT dubbed ‘the nudity quotient’ in the intimate scene between Hiddleston and Wasikowska.
As Edith gets further into danger at Allerdale Hall, the actual props around her were scaled up in proportion to Edith. Things like a wingback chair and the ominous teacup were made roughly 30% larger than they originally appeared. (No doubt inflicting some Wonderland deja vü for Wasikowska!)

Crimson Peak is available on Bluray and digitally now. Meanwhile, you can check out a look at some of the set featurettes from Universal Home Video below:

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Movies Tagged With: blu-ray review, Crimson Peak, Guillermo Del Toro, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, ...

Black Sails’s Ray Stevenson on Playing Blackbeard

When Starz’s Emmy-winning series “Black Sails” returns for its third season, the usual inhabitants of Nassau are set to be joined by the iconic pirate Black Beard. Black Beard (real name Edward Teach) cut an striking figure on the seas of the 17th and 18th century, often relying on theatrically in his attacks to further intimidate his enemies. Many of his flourishes were the basis for the way piracy was portrayed in pop culture thereafter. At 6’4″, Irish actor Ray Stevenson (HBO’s “Rome”, Punisher: War Zone, the Thor films) can certainly fill the shoes of that scary scallywag on screen while being completely affable and a joy to chat with when he sat down with me at this year’s New York Comic Con.

Lauren Damon: I’m a huge Marvel nerd, so of course I’ve seen you as Volstagg [In the Thor movies]–
Ray Stevenson:You saw a lot of me! [laughs]
So I was wondering going from that to Black Beard, have you nailed down the ‘beard acting’ between these characters?

Stevenson: Well you know it’s more about beard preparation. That you just sort of you know like abandon hope as you go into the makeup room. Just like say ‘alright…‘ Yeah ’cause it was about the same time. Cause again, that magnificent Volstagg beard was like this one, was individual pieces. And it’s almost like strand by strand it’s laid on. But the horrible thing is that you’re up at four in the morning, and you get in there about half past four or something and it’s still dark. And it’s just your body’s screaming that nobody should be up at this time. You should be going home. And you lie down and the first thing they do–you’re obviously clean-shaved–so you’re shaved. And then they slap glue on your face. They basically paint your whole face with tacky tacky glue and it just…never feels good. You never get used to that. And then it’s this sticky sticky stabby process.

But I am–I wasn’t freaked out by it. I was kind of used to it. Yeah so as far as ‘beard acting’ is concerned, yeah. The only thing I did this time was that it was my mustache. Which was fine when you’re shooting and then when you’re not shooting, walking around with this massive sort of handlebar mustache which I’ll never do again [laughs] because it was neither one nor the other. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t the character. So it was fine when we were shooting. So this time they’ll have to provide that as well. I tried it.

Playing one of the most notorious pirates of all time, what steps did you take to make it unique and what steps did you take to research so you’re true to the character?

Stevenson: There’s a lot of research available, a lot of material on the character itself. Which is a double-edged sword as well because like all these things, history is a thing that is written by the victors…It’s like the American cowboys, that whole civilization of ‘the Wild West’ and all this that was sent back east to titillate over and get excited about and stuff like this. So there’s a lot of that going on at that period. They were writing about you know, “Ye Olde Pirates” and cutthroats and all this. So in amongst that, there’s a thread that you can glean.

And obviously there was some serious historians trying to put this stuff together. There comes a point where, with everything, you have to push all that sort of general knowledge aside sort of thing and concentrate on the script. Because ultimately you’re playing the script. And what you could bring to it was there was–and what’s beautifully portrayed I think in the series–is it’s much more about the man. The myth and the legend has already been established. So he’s coming in as ‘Blackbeard’…This is not about him establishing his legend.

He’s…it’s like if you have Keith Richards walk in a bar, and there’s guys there and they go like ‘He used to play the guitar…’ You know what I mean? It’s like he walks in and there’s guy in the tavern going [hushed voice] ‘He used to be a pirate, you know what I mean?‘ It’s just, he has that effect. He has that charisma. You wouldn’t actually lock eyes with him. He just carries that with him. And carries from, not out of bluster I think, because that’s it. He’s earned it.

And so you’ve got a guy who’s–you’re trying to play somebody who has got that presence and that charisma. It’s like unleashing a kraken, he just turns up. If he looks at you, you sort of…it puts you straight on edge. You go ‘well, why is he lookin’ at me? Am I glad he’s looking at me? Or am I not?’ I mean…so a lot of it is done in subtleties and in the writing. And then when he engages with the likes of Rackham and Vane and what have you, he knows what he’s bringing with him as well. And also he’s got quite a bit to say.

So the research and all this is great to a point, but obviously you have to avoid the fact that he was from Bristol. And so that heavy Bristolian accent unfortunately is the big cod accent that most people they think about when they think ‘pirates’. That sort of you know ‘ARRR‘ and all this sort of stuff. Whereas the Bristolian accent is wonderful and rich, BUT it would lend itself towards you know perhaps that sort of assumption of you know, getting a little too cod piratey. But that’s not what it was about. But it was the essence of the man from Bristol, who was actually a tremendous strategist and seaman and captain. And knew all about the power of display. And that’s why he would dress the way he did. He was 6’3″-6’4″. In the 1720s, that man was a colossus, he was a giant. So he basically knew about the theatre of putting that effect on so that the other ships they were after would just hopefully capitulate. Because there was no loss of life and they’d get all the booty and everybody’s happy, there’s no bloodshed, he didn’t lose any crew members living off the legend. And maintaining his prowess. It’s a strange thing to try to make that balance but ultimately you’re playing you know, you’re serving the piece. You’re playing the drama itself.

Between this and “Rome”, Thor and other roles, you have all this weapons training. At this point do you have a preference? Do you feel more comfortable with one or…

Stevenson: [Laughs] The one’s that win! No, because they all–it’s amazing working with the weapons guys. Like on Punisher[:War zone] we worked with the Marines and also with some Force Recon guys and they were just…I mean I wanted to make sure we didn’t have those, you know the old Hollywood guns that never ran out of bullets. So I mean–and GI Joe as well–there were mag reloads and all sorts of stuff. You want to do it enough times so that it becomes automatic. Because sometimes, like with Punisher especially, a lot of the people that watch it, maybe they’re going to be the army guys. Who are training and training and training and they’re going to see something like, even your hand position on your weapon, the use of the weapons, the reload, and they’re gonna say ‘Do you know what, that’s we’ve been doing…‘…So they’re not thinking like ‘Ehh he knows nothing.‘ That sort of authenticity.

The weapons training obviously with things like [The Three] Musketeers, thigh-killing training. Because it’s a certain type of sword fighting. Which anybody who goes to the gym I think they dread, ‘And now, lunges!’ Well that’s what it all is. But it’s lunges with intent. I think when you’re working with weaponry, I work harder than when I ever work at a gym. Because it’s fun. And you’re basically working on a choreographed dance as well. So you’re doing all this extra work. At the end of the day, you’re just shaking like jelly. I never– I’m never at the gym like that. But because you’re rendering your hand and you’re learning these set pieces and moves…I mean ultimately the person is the weapon. That’s what you learn throughout all the weapons training, no matter what period it is, the real weapon is the person behind it. And you know, if you get that right, then how you handle the weapons is just second-nature.

How is the dynamic between Blackbeard and the other alpha male characters–Vane and Flint–but also if you go deeper than that with some of the other characters?

Stevenson: Well he does because coming back to Nassau, after such a protracted period away, he’s got his own reasons for coming back in. I think it’s a lot to do with the lack of a son and an heir apparent. Even after eight marriages, eight wives, there’s no son. And the closest thing he has to any of that would be this pirate captain who he mentored, which is Charles Vane. And to see if there is–is there anything left? Is there any relationship? Because in this period in history–because there were nothing like the numbers of people we have on the planet now and a man’s standing and his status and his legend that he leaves behind was the most important thing. If you lost status in life, pffft! That was it. You may as well throw yourself off the top of your rock. So to see if there was any spark of something that you know, could be reignited.

But what happens when he arrives back in Nassau, he sees that–and this is what he says to Rackham and Vane–he looks around and he says ‘I see what you’ve done, you’ve basically done the worst thing ever, you’ve made it prosperous You’ve turned them soft, there’s no pirates around’ Because they’ve all got their money…He basically comes back and holds them right up and says ‘What?!’ And of course, because it’s him, this sets in motion a sort of–it’s a real dressing down. And we’ll see the dynamic as to whether or not–because this is very much a kind of father-son relationship, or you know heir apparent with Vane, and how that plays out. And that’s what I love about…couched in all this world of ships and the huge set pieces and the galleys and a the fights and the battles, and all this sort of stuff, there is this real human condition of father-son, mentor, founding member, one of the original drafters of the pirate charter and walking living sort of legend. That people sort of stop their breath, the last thing they expect to see is this guy walking into a tavern or walking down one of the streets. He has that effect which he’ll use to great effect. And if challenged, he’ll meet it out swiftly…

And then the relationship with Flint is dealt with very well. Like they’re kept at a kind of distance initially because we’re establishing other things and Flint’s away…And then there is a coming together, ultimately, of course, right? And that’s all I can tell you about that. We’ll see!

How about some of the female characters?
Stevenson: How about some of the females? Aren’t they great! How about those girls? [laughing]
I mean, you know, look, he’s from a different era and he has his own, he has a long standing sort of thing with one woman who you get to meet. And where he’s off the island of Nassau and he’s actually on some spit of land or some island somewhere…it’s probably only on his maps where he goes with his crew. Where he–he basically sees these islands as launchpads not as new states or new societies. Next thing you know, he says these pirates will be farming, they’ll be setting up law-courts, they’ll be setting up judicial…and then where are you? He basically lives by example and shames people around him and with the Guthries, he’s got no love lost with the Guthries.

Black Sails season three premieres on Starz Saturday January 23rd at 9pm.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Interviews, TV, TV Interviews Tagged With: Black sails, Blackbeard, interview, pirates, Ray Stevenson, starz, ...

A “Hateful” Conference with Quentin Tarantino, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and More

Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film, the aptly titled Hateful Eight, is now open in its limited release ‘Roadshow’ engagement for the next two weeks across the US and Canada. For film lovers, Tarantino is harkening back to a style of movie presentation in ultra wide 70 millimeter film that comes complete with a musical overture and intermission. It’s a must for Tarantino fans and I can’t wait to revisit this shocking murder mystery in the old west very soon.

Hateful Eight centers around ‘Hangman’ John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter chained to his bounty, the devious Daisy Domergue (played with absolute venom by Jennifer Jason Leigh). The angry pair’s stagecoach is stranded in a blizzard in the mountains of Wyoming en route to Domergue’s date with the gallows. They take shelter at the only inn midway to their destination where they are locked in with a host of other shady stragglers bearing their own secrets. Tarantino ratchets up the claustrophobia and tension from an extremely strong screenplay in the hands of a brilliant cast.

Seven of the Eight joined director Tarantino and moderator Josh Horowitz (MTV) prior to the film’s release at their New York press conference where the enthusiastic director discussed his thoughts behind the roadshow format and basically received high praise from his all-star cast including Russell, Leigh, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Demian Bichir and Walton Goggins.

Tarantino, an emphatic supporter of film over digital described how he and The Weinstein Company set up the Roadshow:

QUENTIN TARANTINO: The Weinstein Company has done an amazing thing–Just to put it in perspective, Warner Brothers put their entire weight behind Christopher Nolan when he did Interstellar. Never the less, they only played in about 11 venues in the course of his 70mm run, we are playing in 44 markets in 100 theatres with our roadshow. And not only that, they literally are some of the biggest and funnest big movie palaces still left. Like you know, The Music Box in Chicago, The Hollywood Theatre in Portland…I think it’s the Fox Theatre in Detroit, Cinerama Dome for 2 weeks in Los Angeles…It’s just really wonderful. And the places that didn’t–all the places that have 70mm capabilities we utilized them, but then other places we just moved the screens in. And moved them in and created it and I remember even talking about it when we first had a discussion. It was like ‘We should be like Neil Diamond coming into town…we should be like Book of Mormon coming into town!’ We go into big venues and maybe they don’t even show movies anymore but we’ll set up our big screen and we’ll set up our projectors and we’ll let ‘er rip! And I mean it has been a herculean effort but they pulled it off. We are screening in 100 theatres between US and Canada. I’m very very proud…

We’re trying to do this like the old school roadshows where…the normal version of the movie that plays, the normal release version–which, by the way when you think of movies like Laurence of Arabia or Ryan’s Daughter or anything, we’ve all probably seen the regular release version–but the roadshows had an overture, they had an intermission and they were a little longer. Ours is about 7 mins longer just for the roadshow version. But you also get…really cool programmes. And they all come with their own pin up ready for your locker of different Hateful Eight people.

Past Oscar nominees Bruce Dern and Demian Bichir were thrilled to be working with Tarantino for the first time and spoke about the opportunity to do so:

DEMIAN BICHIR: I think you know, the first that you’re curious about [is] how everything is gonna work out. Not only because you have this huge director’s name in front of you but with this amazing cast of actors. I remember the first time we had this table reading, you always want to one day say a Tarantino line on film, so I was already very happy and excited about it. But then to listen to every single line in the mouths and bodies of all this group of fantastic actors, that was beautiful. And not only that, I remember at the first reading that we had at this hotel back in Los Angeles, going back home and telling my girl everyone is so damn fucking nice! Because you know, a small fish can be lost in a big ocean unless they embrace you, unless they treat you well. And the first thing that made me very happy when I actually met Quentin was to find a warm man, a very generous loving man, and then you know, the whole thing was a confirmation of whatever I’d thought always. You know, the biggest artists are the nicest.

BRUCE DERN: I’ve been very lucky in my career but this guy, he does a couple things the others of the people I’ve worked with didn’t do: He has the greatest attention to detail I’ve ever seen…The other thing he does is he gives you an opportunity as an actor and everybody behind the camera as well a chance to get better. A chance–his material is so good, so original, so unique if you will, that the big part of it is you’re so excited that he chose you and NOT Ned Beatty or Jimmy Caan [laughs] So that you’re excited to go to work every day. And like with Mr Hitchcock for a few days, I had this every day with Quentin. You’re excited to go to work every day because he just might do something that’s never been done.

Later DERN added: I think that if there’s one thing I might say, the man obviously has a magnet. And what the magnet does to actors is you’re so drawn to him. And we haven’t brought up my main reason why is his reverence for what went before. His respect for the industry…is just mind boggling. And he means it. And if you dared question him, he will put you in your place and tell you facts about stuff that you never even knew was made. And that was the delight for me. And there’s that kind of thing you don’t get very often.

Joining Tarantino again were former Reservoir Dogs Tim Roth (also of Pulp Fiction) and Michael Madsen (featured in both Kill Bills). These ‘vets’ talked about re-teaming with him.

TIM ROTH: Well, I mean the man is the same. But yeah, I was around sort of at the very beginning and then I have this huge break from working with him. So I did get to see in a highly impactful way how his world has changed. How his, the set has changed…and the kind of circus atmosphere that kind of exists on his set. The crew has so much more knowledge of cinema and how to tell his stories. So I saw that big leap. And that was very exciting. It’s different, when we made Reservoir Dogs, I think we made it in about five weeks or so.

TARANTINO: In particular the case of Reservoir Dogs, I was probably the–along with the PAs–I was the least experienced person on the set. Tim and Michael both made a lot of movies by that time. I was just getting through the process.

ROTH: Well you did pretty good!

MICHAEL: Thanks Quentin, I wouldn’t even have a career if it wasn’t for you.

MADSEN elaborated on how he viewed his role as the shady ‘cow puncher’ Joe Gage: I read a biography of James Cagney and he said that if you play somebody who’s very noble, you should probably try to find a mean streak in that person. Or something dark that they’re carrying around. And if you play somebody who’s very evil you should probably find something good in that person. So there’s always a duality of what you do. And the best thing about making a picture for Quentin is that he let’s your character have a duality. If you’re capable of doing it.

Death Proof‘s KURT RUSSELL spends much of Eight chained to Tarantino newcomer JENNIFER JASON LEIGH, Russell explained working within this dynamic.

KURT RUSSELL: Well, first when Jennifer and I started to rehearse, we didn’t really think there would be much of a problem with the chain. We didn’t think it would represent anything much either and nothing could have turned out to be further from the truth. Everything that we did was informed by how that chain was dealt with. And so we had to learn to sort of get the Fred and Ginger of it all together. And that informed their relationship. So for me there was John Ruth and for Jennifer there was Domergue and together we were gonna be this team. Which we felt there was, like anything else, if you’ve been chained together for a week-week-and-a-half, 24/7, you’re gonna know about that person. And the Stockholm syndrome’s gonna set up pretty fast. And it did. In fact over a five month period of time, the Stockholm Syndrome between Jennifer and I set up. It informed everything that we did…
I just want to say one other thing and we haven’t said this but, it was an unspoken thing, this will be the first time she’s heard me say this: Because of who John Ruth was, everything when that clapper goes bang, shouts ‘Action’, that chain is MINE. I own it. Because of that, I felt that as soon as ‘Cut!’ that chain was HERS. We had to have a balance. And boy, I’ll tell you something, I really appreciated what she was going through. You turn that chain over to the other person, it wasn’t easy.

JENNIFER JASON LEIGH: I’m not as good a dance partner!

THE HATEFUL EIGHT

LEIGH elaborated on delving into the character of Daisy:
So much of it obviously is on the page because you’re dealing with such a great script and such a great character. With Daisy there’s a lot that’s mercurial and we had to find. And we wanted to find it together. And so much of Daisy is informed by John Ruth because she is always reacting with him because of what he’s done–The chain, the hits–what might she get from that. Where, you know…she thinks she’s a lot smarter than John Ruth, and actually she is. [Laughter] But there was–she kind of feels like she’s playing him a lot of the movie but there’s this one moment in the movie– and this is what’s so great about doing a Tarantino movie and what’s so great for all of us actors is that we’re always being surprised by everything–There’s a moment where it all shifts. Where John Ruth isn’t just a putz. You know, like a fool that she is just so much smarter than. He’s suddenly very smart and very dark. When he goes and gathers all the guns from everyone. And then she has to rejudge him, just like everyone else in the movie. Everyone in the movie is terrible and hateful. Everyone in the movie you also care for, they have their…maybe their weakness is the good part of them in a certain way…And I just remember the day we shot that scene ’cause Daisy is having a blast. I mean, yeah, she’s going to the gallows but she knows she’s not going to the gallows. She’s got it figured out. But in that moment, it’s not so clear anymore. And that was so exciting as an actress, to not know that was coming. To read it on the page and yet when I felt it happen in the room, I swear my blood went cold. And it was just like phenomenal.

WALTON GOGGINS, who plays Chris Mannix, the new Sheriff of the town (and in my opinion the MVP of the Eight if we had to choose one) also praised Tarantino’s scripts when asked if there was ever any improv of alternate line suggestions:
GOGGINS: There’s no improv in this press conference. He wrote everything. [Laughter] No, no, why would you mess with perfection? You know, we say that because it is. You know it’s every actor’s dream to get an opportunity to say a Quentin Tarantino monologue. Or a line of dialogue. But there is no need to change it. Even to add a ‘the’ or an ‘and’ or a comma, it really is perfect the way that it comes out of his imagination.

Eight actually went through a few drafts, especially after a live read was held in 2014 featuring much of the cast. I asked Tarantino how that live read affected how the film ultimately turned out:
TARANTINO: Well we altered a lot because it was only the first draft. And one of the things about the movie is I wanted to actually do three different drafts of the film. And so this live read was just from the first draft. Which is different than I normally do. Normally I write these big, long unwieldy novels and there’s the beginning and here’s the middle… And the middle’s always great because now you’ve committed to writing so much now you know more about the characters than you ever could before you start writing. And then there’s the end and kind of, by that point the characters have just taken it. So they always dictate the ending to me.
I mean, I’m doing genre movies, so I have an idea where I’m going at the end. I mean at the end of Kill Bill, I thought it was very possible she would kill Bill, alright? [Laughter] But how? Why, exactly? How you feel about it, that was very open to question. But that’s the good thing–one of the reason’s I like genre is because I can explore a lot of different things, but I still kind of have a road that I’m traveling to some degree or another. But this one I wanted to do differently. I wanted to spend time with the material. More time than I normally spend ie through the beginning, middle and end. So I wanted to you know, even go through the process of telling the story three different times.
And I can just give you an example: In the first draft, the Lincoln letter, which is a motif that plays out through the film, it was only dealt with once. And it was in the stage coach. Now, I knew I wanted to do more with it but I wasn’t ready. And I didn’t have any obligation to have to do it in the first draft. I could kind of find it on my own. And then in the second draft, it appeared at the dinner table scene. And in the third draft, it appears later the way you see it in the movie.
But just to give you another example, Daisy’s end in the third draft–which is what is in the movie–was where I thought I wanted to go in the first draft. But something stopped me from going there with her in that first draft. I almost felt I didn’t have the right to do that to her yet. Because I didn’t know her well enough. Not by just the first draft. So the second draft, and not in a tricky way almost just in an emotional way just as far as I was concerned, I wrote the whole second draft from Daisy’s perspective. Alright, just emotionally. Not in a tricky prose way, but just an emotional way. So I could really get to know her. I wanted to be on Daisy’s side for an entire draft of the story so I could really feel I knew her. And then after I feel I knew her, I could do what I needed to do to her.

To find out just what Tarantino did to Miss Daisy Domergue, go catch the roadshow while you can. It’s a thrilling movie mystery experience and one of my favorite films of 2015. Tickets and more information are available at: Tickets.TheHatefulEight.com/
Meanwhile, the regular release goes wide on December 31st.

Director Todd Haynes and Stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara Speak about ‘Carol’

CAROL

The works of author Patricia Highsmith have been crafted into some truly great films including Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. This weekend, Todd Haynes’s latest film Carol from Highsmith’s The Price of Salt adds to these successes with brilliant work from a cast lead by two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and Oscar-nominee Rooney Mara. Blanchett plays the Carol Aird, a wealthy soon-to-be-divorced socialite in 1950s New York who begins a complex relationship with Mara’s younger shop girl Therese. The two navigate their feelings for one another while being challenged by the social norms of that time period. I attended Carol’s New York press conference this week where they, along with screenwriter Phyllis Nagy and fellow castmates Kyle Chandler and Jake Lacy joined moderator and WOR Radio film critic, Joe Neumier to discuss the film.

Director Haynes began the conference by discussing his approach to Highsmith’s work and this powerful romance at the center of the film:

Todd Haynes: I really was taking it on, as if for the first time, looking at the love story. Something that I felt I hadn’t really ever accomplished directly in my other films. And that really began with reading The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith’s beautiful novel, and the gorgeous adaptation of Phyllis’s script that first came to me with Cate attached. So it was quite a bundle of incentives when it first landed with me in 2013. But love stories are, you know unlike I guess war which is about conquerring the object, love stories are about conquerring the subject. And so it’s always the subject who is in a state of vulnerability and peril at some level. And through much of Carol that is the character of Therese who occupies a much less powerful position in the world in Carol…is younger, is more open, is sort of experiencing this woman with a freshness that is different from Carol’s life and experience. But what I loved about this story was how what happens between the two women really moves them through a series of events which change them both. And ultimately by the end of the film, it’s shifted sides. Carol is the one who comes to Therese with her heart on her sleeve at the end of film. So all of that made a lot of the smaller elements of looking and who’s being looked at and who is doing the looking and all of those questions, something that was very conducive to the cinematic language.

I asked Cate Blanchett, who had a supporting role in The Talented Mr Ripley in 1999 if she had studied Highsmith’s work in preparation for that film and how her perception of Carol changed upon revisiting it for this role:

(L-R) KYLE CHANDLER and CATE BLANCHETT star in CAROL

Cate Blanchett: Yeah it’s one thing entirely reading a novel and quite another when you’re then reading it again when you’re going to play a character in the book. I mean I read everything of hers I could at the time we were making Ripley. It was actually, much to shame, the first time I’d ever encountered her work. But I also was very interested in you know all of the sort of filmic incarnations of her work as well…And there’s some wonderful observations and parts of internal monologue–well more internal monologue that Therese has–but observations of Carol that’re in the novel that were really really useful to read. I just read at the time, the first time I read the book as a reader but to then to try and make that stuff manifest was really exciting.

Screenwriter Phyllis Nagy actually got to speak extensively with Highsmith before she passed away in 1995. Moderator Neumier followed up with Nagy as to whether Highsmith was nervous about this novel becoming a screenplay for film:

Phyllis Nagy: Well she was dead by the time this came to me. So we didn’t have that conversation…[laughs] I’ll have it with her later tonight. She didn’t like many of the film adaptations of her work.
Cate Blanchett: Didn’t she?!
Phyllis Nagy: Oh no, she couldn’t stand them. Especially Strangers on a Train.
Cate Blanchett: Oh what does she know!?
Phyllis Nagy: You know from her perspective–the guys trade murders in that book and in the film of course they don’t and it was one of the first arguments we had when I said ‘Oh, I love Strangers on a Train!’ she said [frowning] ‘Hmmm’ really with disgust. But she liked aspects of the films, Robert Walker she loved and she thought Alain Delon was extremely attractive, of course. So I hope that she would find this entire enterprise extremely attractive. I think she would. I think we are all of us not betraying the intent and the tone of the work. Which, really I think is the only thing you can do to be reverent to a source material. Everything else is up for grabs.

ROONEY MARA stars in CAROL.

Rooney Mara praised Haynes’s film for portraying Carol and Therese’s romantic relationship honestly without preaching:

Rooney Mara: I think one of great things about the film is that it’s not a political film, it’s not a film with an agenda, it’s not preaching to the audience. So people are allowed to just watch it for what it is which is a love story between two humans.

Later, she addressed whether or not Therese having an older female lover lessened the chances audiences would see the age gap as something Carol was exploiting.

Rooney Mara: …Would it ever feel predatory? It’s not like I’m 17 years old. You know, Therese is younger than Carol and she certainly is–they’re at different stages in their lives but I don’t think that she’s so young that it would be…it never felt predatory to me and I don’t think it ever really would have, male or female.

Rooney’s character at the start of Carol is already in a relationship with an over-eager boyfriend Richard, played by Jake Lacy who spoke about Richard:

Jake Lacy: Todd spoke a little when we first met about the idea that, for Richard the world is there to take, you know. He’s young, he’s in New York, he’s first generation American. He’s smart, he’s handsome, he has a job and a girl. You know, the world is his for the taking and yet it slips away from him. And sort of without knowing it, thank god that it does because otherwise…he’s fifteen years or ten years earlier than Carol and Harge and that world if he and Therese stayed together and created a life like them. It wasn’t a life anymore, you know?…To me, for Richard the idea of a dream that then falls apart, or that someone is not willing to be a part of that dream and trying to wrangle them into it…

Kyle Chandler plays Harge, Carol’s husband who is grappling with losing his perfect family in his divorce from Carol. Chandler spoke about the importance of playing his character without making him stereotypical:

Kyle Chandler: …It allowed me, I think at some point I realized that it could be a stereotypical character very easily. And [to] portray what you would imagine Guy from the Fifties under these circumstances…but what happened was at some point, the worst possible moment in a man’s life or a woman, when they’re in love, and they realize they’re not in love anymore. And this character never realized he wasn’t in love anymore. He was always in love and he was intensely in love. And he also had this little child. Not just his wife, not just his child, but his family unit. So important to him, and so important to say nothing of his social status and what he was. But he refused to give that up. So that…allowed me I think, to stay within that and never lose love or respect; But still be very confused on what is going on. Which goes back to that one direction that [Haynes] gave me when [Sarah Paulson’s character, Carol’s ex-lover Abby] is walking in the room and I look across and I go, ‘Who ARE you?’ basically.

SARAH PAULSON stars in CAROL

Paulson as Abby, Carol’s ex-lover, is one of Carol’s strongest bonds in the film, who she actually calls upon to pick up Therese when they hit some obstacles. Paulson spoke about her character being in this tricky situation.

Sarah Paulson: …I do think, I wonder what I personally would do if someone I loved and still had feelings for, if I was called upon to come in and rescue the person that she currently loves…I don’t know, I don’t know. It was to me a very big testament to her friendship and her love and I think the desire to be around Carol and in Carol’s orbit no matter what. I think that Abby’s sense of society–and I don’t mean literal society but her community, her friendships, you know they were probably quite narrow at that time. So to lose something like that would be…the consequences of that would be too enormous. I just started thinking about things like that…

Haynes also commented on how a modern audience views all of Carol’s female relationships versus how people within that time period in the film would have seen it:

Todd Haynes: There are also things that a modern audience has to keep reminding ourselves we’re quite different at this time, counterintuitively. Where an older woman could invite a younger woman to lunch and it was absolutely totally appropriate. Where she would have never invited the head of the ski department to lunch. Or they could check into a motel together as two women but if they were a heterosexual unmarried couple, checking into a hotel at this time would have been a scandal. So there’s ways in which the morays and the codes of the time are also things that we’re learning and reading against their actions and gestures.

Carol is now in theaters, you can read my 5-star review here.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Headlines, Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: carol, cate blanchett, interview, Jake Lacy, Kyle Chandler, Phyllis Nagy, ...

Film Review “Carol”

Director: Todd Haynes
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy
Running Time: 118mins.
The Weinstein Company
Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

At the outset of Todd Haynes’s latest film Carol, two women meet up in a restaurant in 1950s New York City before they are interrupted by a good natured young man. He ultimately escorts the stylish younger lady off to a party and then we drift back in time. It’s a simple start to a beautifully crafted romantic drama which spends the rest of its runtime loading up this and many other minute interactions with infinite complexity. Working from Phyllis Nagy’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s groundbreaking novel The Price of Salt, director Haynes (of 2002’s lauded Far From Heaven) once again showcases the 1950s as the backdrop for simmering social tensions and stellar work by his lead actresses.

As with everything in Haynes’s gorgeous film, the beginning of Carol and Therese’s relationship is sold in loaded small talk. Carol Aird (Blanchett), looking every bit the glamorous fifties socialite, inquires after Christmas gift suggestions from shopgirl Therese (Mara, saddled with a management-enforced goofy Santa hat). Carol eventually settles on a train set, providing Therese with all her relevant contact info to ship her order. She then sashays away with a compliment to the Santa hat. To the outside shopper, this was just a cordial transaction between two ladies but the dialogue sold through Mara and Blanchett’s eyes screams of a mutual attraction. Not to mention the lingering shots of Carol’s perfectly manicured hands that hint at a world struggling photographer Therese can only aspire to be part of. Conveniently Carol forgets a pair of gloves at Therese’s counter, offering Therese an excuse with which to follow up with this intriguing customer. Under the guise of gratitude, Carol is enabled to take Therese to lunch and from there they’re off and running. Or rather roadtripping.

It’s fitting that a trainset and a roadtrip are at the crux of Therese and Carol’s encounters with

(L-R) CATE BLANCHETT and ROONEY MARA star in CAROL

one another because Haynes’s film is so much about these women in transitions. It’s unclear what exactly Carol sees in Therese at first except that Carol knows where her desires lie at this point in her life (a past girlfriend in the form of Sarah Paulson’s Abby remains Carol’s strongest bond besides her young daughter) and she will soon be officially divorced from her husband. Her world’s seemingly coming apart and she’s trying to grasp onto something new. Meanwhile Mara is simply heartbreaking as the younger Therese. Navigating this time period, Therese doesn’t even know how to articulate what she wants from Carol or why. A stunning Mara, who won Best Actress with this film at this year’s Cannes festival, is magnetic as her quiet turmoil eventually spills over into a teary outburst before Therese can reform into something stronger.

The leading ladies are capably supported by their would-be male counterparts who are at a loss as to what to do with these women. Kyle Chandler as Harge, Carol’s ex-husband-to-be, launches an attack of sorts on Carol’s ‘morality’ with his legal team in a move that smacks more of desperation than maliciousness. Meanwhile, Therese fends off the over eager advances of Richard (Jake Lacy) and her peers with indifference. To add to it all, Haynes is in his element with period production design along with costume designer Sandy Powell (coming off this year’s triumphant work on Cinderella) and the result is an all around marvelous drama to behold.

Carol was screened as a part of the 2015 New York Film Fest.
I got the chance to speak to Blanchett at Carol’s NY Press Conference, which you can read here.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Reviews, Movies Tagged With: carol, cate blanchett, film review, Kyle Chandler, nyff, NYFF 2015, ...

Paul Bettany discusses “Shelter” with stars Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Mackie

Paul Bettany may be known as one of our finest English actors, with roles in such major films as A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander, The Da Vinci Code and of course, Marvel’s Avengers franchise. What he also is however is now a fifteen year resident of New York City with Oscar-winning wife (and Beautiful Mind co-star) Jennifer Connelly. The city, which Bettany loves, is currently facing a homeless crisis which sees 60,000 people seeking public shelters nightly. The majority of them families.

The actor had been developing a story about judgment and redemption for his feature directorial debut, but it wasn’t until Hurricane Sandy hit his home city that Bettany honed in on filtering his story through the lens of the homeless experience. The result was Shelter, which Bettany describes as a “moving optimistic story,” and stars Connelly as Hannah and Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Civil War) as Tahir, a pair of homeless people from completely different worlds now residing in New York City. They come together to help each other face their pasts and the everyday trials of living on the streets. An impassioned, opinionated Bettany joined Connelly and Mackie this week at the New York press conference for the film.

One particular homeless couple focused Bettany on where his story would go:

Paul Bettany: “I live in a really nice apartment I moan about because I’m now a New Yorker…outside this apartment was this homeless couple. A black man and a white woman, she was blonde. And I would see them, we would see them, we would pass them on the school run. My children would say hello to them, they’d say hello to us, and that was kind of the extent of it. And I have to, I’m ashamed to say, that day by day, their poverty became more and more acceptable to me and they became invisible. Before they actually disappeared. And then Hurricane Sandy hit and we never saw them again. There was a mandatory evacuation of our area of Tribeca and they used to live in a tiny little piece of like a ‘park’–it’s laughable, it’s smaller than this room–on the corner of Canal Street and the West Side Highway. And they used to live under a plastic tarpaulin and I noticed that they seemed to complain a lot less about their circumstances than I did and I admired that. And then I really couldn’t see them anymore and I felt the instinct to write about them. But I didn’t know who they were. And then I thought, well wait a second, maybe that would be a really good way to discuss judgment because I find our response to homelessness really puzzling. It’s a peculiar response that people have.”

This “peculiar response” was loudly voiced this week by New York’s own Police Commissioner Bill Bratton who had advised city dwellers to ignore panhandlers and not spare them any change in order to get them off the streets. At the press conference Bettany, who spent three years developing the script for Shelter and by extension working with and researching organizations that support the homeless, was asked to address this idea, firing back:

Bettany: “I’m not one to say anything rude about anyone else but, that’s a fucking stupid idea. To ignore a homeless…The homeless. Especially when there’s 60,000 of them on the streets—staying in shelters—in a city that’s home to more billionaires than any city on Earth, you know…I can’t believe that someone would say ‘ignore homeless people.’ And frankly, it’s absolutely the reason I feel it’s urgent. Obviously I spent three years bleeding it into a movie that’s trying to talk about exactly that. So forgive me if I get a little bit heated about it. Because that sort of mentality just drives me up the wall.

They’ve been ignored for too long. I’ll just tell you this, if you are a family on the brink of eviction, you’re 80% less likely to be evicted If you have legal counsel. But there is no right to legal counsel in a housing court. It would cost the city $12,500 to grant that family legal counsel. The average stay in a shelter for a homeless family once they have been evicted costs the city $45,000. So not only does it seem to be morally the right thing to do, it also just seems fiscally a smart thing to do, right? You’re thinking outside the box…

All of these figures that I have my head you know because I’ve been really thinking about this for a long while, I say them in front of audiences and I can just—I know that they’re mind blowing and then kind of numbing and that’s the interesting thing about narrative. Narrative can breath life into those figures that can be baffling. And peculiarly they become more meaningful the smaller they get. Which is why Shelter is just about two people. And two people who need forgiveness and who are deserving of forgiveness. Cause you know what? It’s not just those 24,000 children [staying in shelters] because when I say it, I always I feel the audience go ‘[gasps] Not children!‘ but actually we’re all innocents. We’re all worthy of forgiveness. And we’re all fundamentally deserving of a home”

For Connelly and Mackie, working on Shelter refocused their perspectives on the struggles people face.

Jennifer Connelly: “There’s no group of people that isn’t entitled to the same basic human rights as the rest of us…It reminded me how much I need to strive to remain aware and to keep seeing those people. And to keep seeing what’s happening around the world. And to keep you know, to be conscious of how blessed we are to worry about the silly things that we worry about most of the time. When people are worrying about where they’re going to sleep and how they’re going to feed their kids and will they make it through the day. Important to think about.”

Anthony Mackie: “The level of judgment and the lack of humanity I saw in myself was disgusting. Every time I would walk past a homeless person I’d be like ‘Get up, get a job! Get off drugs!’ I never took into account what that person had been through or what happened to get that person to that place. And it just really blew my mind, you know, learning what I learned about homeless shelters and just the idea of finding a warm place to sleep at night, it reminded me of the prison system. And the idea or the lack thereof of rehabilitation in the prison system. You know just trying to get a good night sleep within incarceration… And it was just troubling and eye opening. And I never really took into account the number of families.

You know when I was a kid we used to do this feeding the hungry at my church every other Saturday and it blew my mind one day when I was you know, like scooping out food and this kid from my school was there. I was like ‘Holy sh—shibbity jibbit! That dude we go to school together!’ And somewhere between that moment of realization and appreciation for what my dad sacrificed for us to have and me becoming ‘Anthony Mackie’ I lost it. And this movie really made me realize. And it was very humbling and very sickening to see that within yourself. And so now I make my kids go and scoop chicken on the weekends. And if they don’t do the right thing, I take their shit from them and give it to other kids. [laughs]”

Connelly immersed herself in organizations that reached out to those struggling:

Connelly: “Coalition for the Homeless, that group of people were really helpful to me. I spent time with them, talking to them and visiting shelters and going out on their food runs. Which, every night they deliver meals and stop at set points around the city and people rely on those meals so you can meet people coming in. And I heard a lot–I met and watched and learned from a lot of people. There’s a place called the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, which started out just as a needle exchange program, and it still is and also has health support services and outreach programs, and overdose prevention and a number of other programs. I spent a lot time there at their location, and going on their walkabout talking to people. Yeah, people were very generous with their stories and with their time. So I was really listening to people, watching people and hearing their stories.”

As for the actual making of the film, Bettany made the considerable leap from acting to directing. I asked him if he’d turned to any of the impressive directors he’s worked with in the past (a list including Joss Whedon, Ron Howard and Peter Weir) for advice when he began this project.

Bettany: “No. No I didn’t but they were the biggest resource for me in showing them early cuts of the movie. Ron Howard, Darren Aronofsky, lots of people that I know–David Koepp, and not just directors, Joss Whedon, Johnny Depp…Just loads of people that I’ve worked with and trust and really whose–who I really admire. But I did that afterward.

You know, I really kept my eyes open as an actor, I’m really interested. You know I see it, you see it when you meet a young actor first day on set, you can see whether they’re gonna be the sort of actor who’s gonna bullshit that they know what they’re doing [laughs] or asked loads of questions. And I was really inquisitive and I wanted to know ‘hey, what’s that do?‘…I was that sort of an actor when I was them at that age. And so I’ve been watching and one of the things that I’ve really noticed with the great directors and actually I first saw this, recognized in Peter Weir, is he knows who’s telling the story. Whether it is the actors holding the responsibility or whether it’s the camera crew holding the responsibility. And if it’s the actor holding the responsibility, every take is the actor’s. And by that I mean there is no complicated techni-crane move that’s going to move in on you during your speech and come in and catch a tear rolling down your cheek and eight out of ten of them are out of focus. ‘Cause all of those takes are for the crew, because there’s this complicated camera. Every scene that is held by the actors is just simple simple camera work. Nothing can be out of focus, every take can be going to you the actor. Just generous, every take. Every take. And then when it’s the camera crew, you better be on your fucking mark. Because they’re the ones telling the story, right, they’re the ones responsible for it. So I thought about that a lot and tried to figure out who was the most important. (It was me. [laughs])”

Connelly was asked if she’d like to turn the tables and direct Bettany eventually, but it seems unlikely:

Bettany: “Do you want to direct me? I can’t imagine anything worse, I’m very difficult.”

Connelly: “I have no eminent plans to direct anything although I’d imagine it’d be something that I’d find–it intrigues me but I’m not nearly ready to, I don’t think–”

Bettany: “I’d be terrified!”

Shelter opens in limited release and on VOD November 13th

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: Anthony Mackie, film interview, interviews, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Press Conference, ...

The Cast of “Blindspot” Speaks at NYCC

One of the new tv hits of the season is NBC’s “Blindspot”. The mystery show created by Martin Gero focuses on a Jane Doe (Thor’s Jaimie Alexander) recovered from a duffel bag in Times Square. Jane didn’t know who she was or how she got there, but she was found covered head to toe in new tattoos that seem to offer some clues. The most obvious of all is the name ‘Kurt Weller’ on her back, a specific FBI agent. Kurt (played by Sullivan Stapleton) and his team are now working with Jane–whose knack for fighting skills and foreign languages is intact despite her identity crisis–to crack the codes all over her body. In recent episodes it’s becoming clearer that Jane may be more connected to Weller than originally thought. Fortunately for the creators and audiences, the show was just picked up by the network for a full season so there’s hope for solving Jane’s past after all.
Gero, along with series stars Stapleton, Audrey Esparza, Rob Browne, Mariana Jean-Baptiste and Ashley Johnson joined me in the press room of this year’s New York Comic Con. Though they were mum on spilling any spoilers, they were more than enthusiastic to talk about their characters and the making of the show.

Lauren Damon: How much research did you do into actual memory loss when creating Jane’s character?
Series Creator, Martin Gero: I’ve been obsessed with this drug that this is kind of based on that’s being designed for you know people that have traumatic experiences which will basically gently erase memory. So if you’re–like let’s say you’re in the army and your car gets blown up, and you see your friends die, it’s literally this thing that you would administer immediately and you would–it would make it difficult for that memory [to be retained]. So you wouldn’t be traumatized by it. And then there’s another version where as you–memory is really interesting in how it gets unpacked and packed, and so there’s a lot of people working to erase trauma. Again, to ease kind of like traumatic memories. It’s to like kind of delude them. It’s hard to talk about in like sound bite sort of way…I’ve talked to a lot of neurologists and I mean, like listen that’s the kind of science fiction-y part about the show is the drug, but it is based on some very real research that is going on.

LD: The character of Patterson often has to deal with a ton of techno-jargon, do you ever look at your script and just go ‘Wow…’?
Ashley Johnson (plays Forensic Scientist “Patterson”): Every time. [laughs] Every time whenever we you know, we get the scripts maybe a week in advance? I don’t know maybe sometimes a little bit more and every time I sort of read through it–it’s just panic sets in. Every time. And the episode that we’re doing now…just everytime I see the new stuff I just, I panic a little. But then, you know, we don’t have a choice. We have to do it. And it’s fun.

LD: Do you go out and research the same as Patterson does?
Johnson: Yeah. A lot of the time…with a character like this you have to do a lot of research, but it’s fun because I’ve learned so much. Just with all of the stuff I’ve had to talk about…I have to do a lot of research [laughs] it’s like I’m in school.

LD: When you have a major mystery at the center of the show and then you’ve wound up being picked up for additional episodes, are you constantly fighting bringing closure to that mystery too soon?
Gero: No, because I was a little arrogant and I designed the show to go a while…So like if we had only done 13, it would have been really not that exciting for fans to be honest, because there would have been no resolution…No but like I know what all the ‘tent pole’ episodes are for the first couple seasons and so like I know what [episode] twenty-two is already…And episode ten which is the last episode of the first half of the season, so it’s the mid season finale, like is a huge twist on the show that propels kind of like a new energy into the back half of the season.

For the actors, are you the type of people that prefers to know the secrets that are going to be revealed on the show to help with how you act or not? Do you ask Martin about it?
Marianne Jean-Baptiste (plays FBI assistant director, “Mayfair”): In certain instances, there are certain things that will impact a character that I think you need to know. And you need to be alright with. And there are other things that–it’s like you’re picking up the script and you’re just really excited because you want to know what’s going on…Because you’re not going to play it regardless of whether you know about it or not. You’ve then gotta sort of act as if you don’t know it. So it really depends on what it is. For me anyway. It really depends on what the thing is.
Johnson: Right. I would agree. I think that there’s a lot of things that you need to know for the character’s sake–because your character would know–but I think for me, like I’ve had the option to sort of know sort of what the end goal is. Sort of who she really is, I don’t want to know. I want to sort of find out when everybody else finds out or as the show goes along. And I want to discover along with Paterson and it keeps it fun that way, yeah.
Audrey Esparza (Plays FBI Agent “Zapata”): I have a little ‘Martin chat’ before every episode and ask him dumb questions. So I do. But I actually don’t ask too far ahead unless I feel like it’s a question that needs to be answered for me in that episode. I kind of like working from scene to scene, moment to moment. So if it doesn’t affect that particular episode, I try not to grab to much. I think you can only play with the moment.
Rob Brown (Plays FBI Agent “Reade”): Same. We trust Martin. He gives us what we need to know to execute. As a fan of the show that I’m on though, every now and then I’ll kind of tug at him, ‘hey hey hey…’ and he’ll oblige, usually. And you know, sometimes we can snag a little more out of him…

Were there any training courses for you when you got the part?
Esparza: Oh my god we’ve been doing so–we did, we did, after. It was so much fun. First of all we have some incredible FBI and DEA men on the set helping us. And Sullivan Stapleton is an incredible asset. if I’m holding a gun wrong, he’ll definitely let me know. We went to the shooting range, we learned tactical skills. The boys came in knowing a little bit more than me, I’m getting better every day. It’s really important for me, from my dance background, to understand the physical vocabulary of somebody who’s trained that way and yeah, every episode try and get better.
Brown: Everybody in the cast is a really really good athlete, so we just pick shit up as we go along. Anything physical after this, we’ll probably be fine.
Esparza: And we’ll probably absolutely do it ourselves.

LD: Sullivan, do you have more gun experience?
Sullivan Stapleton (Plays FBI Agent “Kurt Weller”): [Laughs] Yeah. You’re in big trouble, Esparza! Yeah it’s just I think I’ve had years of working with weapons. So it is like funny seeing–sometimes they’ll tell people if you’re firing an M4, some people said to portray some of the kick-back of those weapons…they don’t do that. Unless you’re not holding it! [laughs]

LD: Jaimie and Sullivan get into a whole lot of action, do you guys ever get to do stunts?
Baptiste: Yes, stuff is coming up where you know, people who don’t necessarily go out of the office go out of the office and are involved in field stuff.
Johnson: Yeah we may go out into the field a little bit every once and a while. I know for me, I’ve found that I’m very bad at walking and talking and doing other activities [laughs] So you know, I’ll have the dialogue and then they’re like ‘Ok! So you’re gonna walk over here and then you’re gonna type some stuff on the computer and then you’re gonna point up to the screen!’ and I’m like ‘Okay, woah woah woah, I don’t know if I can do all of this at once!’ Which sounds ridiculous but I think with the dialogue that I have it can be a little rough. So those are my stunts. Basically just walking and talking [laughs] is a stunt for me!
Esparza: Yeah.
Brown: We can do more. I’m happy to run around with a gun, we’ve had plenty of that.
Esparza: Lots of running, lots of guns and helicopters.
Brown: There’s action and blowing stuff up, New York.
Esparza: I’ve got a fun fight thing that happens in [episode] 8.
Brown: You’re really showing off
Esparza: I am. I’m just gonna show off all day…
Brown: It’s been very fun.

LD: When it comes to shooting, do you find you go in with any different mentality on the days you’re shooting the action sequences versus the dramatic days?
Stapleton: No. No, just going in there to do the action and the stunts, I’ve got to wipe the smile off my face and you know, pretend like that’s what we do every day being agents. Yeah, there’s no challenge, it’s just fun.

LD: Jaimie comes from a lot of action roles and how much of that helped like just with her walking onto set and having to function as this amazing fighter?
Gero: Oh yeah…I mean you couldn’t have done it with somebody that had no fighting experience before and Jaimie has an amazing stunt double, Ky Furneaux, who’s just like literally one of the best in the world–recognize game, internationally. So she brings so much to the show and we just take it really seriously. You know what’s exhausting I think for Jaimie and Sullivan is even though they’re done filming some days, they have to go immediately into fight rehearsal. Because these fights are like incredibly complicated and hard to do on television shows. Which is why most television shows don’t have a giant fight sequence every episode. They’re smart, they figured it out, it’s a lot of work. But it’s important to us…So her being able to do action was incredibly important.

Did you know from the beginning that you wanted Jaimie for the role?
Gero: I didn’t know from the beginning, but the second I met her like there could never be any other Jane. It was her or I was just gonna be terribly disappointed. And she kind of felt the same way. So it was like one of those really exciting meetings when we met. We were like ‘Okay this is gonna be great.’.

Being at Comic Con, do you guys have any favorite superheroes? Ashley are you partial to Captain America? [Johnson plays a waitress Cap rescued in the 2012’s Avengers]
Stapleton:Han Solo.
Johnson: [laughs] Um, oh man.
Baptiste: Oh my gosh, that’s a tough one man! I love Batman.
Johnson: Yeah you love Batman
Baptiste: I love Batman.
LD: Which Batman?
Baptiste: I like the Dark Knight stuff. That’s the stuff I love.
Johnson: Daredevil is awesome, I think
Baptiste: What’s his power?
Johnson: Have you never seen it?
Baptiste: I’m not sure. Red. Red outfit?
Johnson: Oh, Marianne…
Baptiste: Is it good? I’m gonna–you’ve got me watching X-Files again, so…
Johnson: I am also such a Deadpool fan. I wanted to see the Jessica Jones stuff because I love–I mean that is exciting. Oh god there’s just so many. I do love Captain America, he’s a little bit too straight laced for me. But he’s great…There’s just so many.
Baptiste: Batman.

Blindspot airs Monday nights at 10pm on NBC.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Conventions, Interviews Tagged With: ashley johnson, audrey esparza, blindspot, jaimie alexander, marianne jean-baptiste, martin gero, ...

New York Film Fest Review: “Steve Jobs”

Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Seth Rogen, Michael Stuhlbarg
Running Time: 122mins.
Universal Pictures

Our Score: 4.5 out of 5 stars

No one removes a limb nor falls in a pit beneath an Indian outhouse in Danny Boyle’s new awards-season biopic Steve Jobs, but I do suspect many people will accuse it of dragging the late Apple CEO through the mud. Working from a fast-paced script by Aaron Sorkin (aren’t they always?), the film pulls no punches when it comes to Jobs’ pseudo-Machiavellian pursuit of his Mac computer. Unlike Sorkin’s previous computer-minded outing, The Social Network, Steve Jobs feels even harsher for the span of time in which we’re tuning in. We stay with Mr. Jobs’s and his collateral damage, the loved ones and colleagues frequently left floundering in his wake, over the course of fourteen years and three epic product launches. It pits Jobs’s minor launch glitches against far greater interpersonal struggles and the suspense lies in what will finally warrant his attention. The small acting ensemble revolving around Michael Fassbender’s fierce portrayal of Jobs–including Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels and Michael Stuhlberg–ensures that it’s a fair fight. In this highly focused fashion, Boyle has delivered not the complete biography of Jobs, but an energetic strong impression of the man behind the curtain. And the iPod.

The three ‘acts’ that occupy the real-time action of Boyle’s film see Jobs as he successfully launches Macintosh, then outside of Apple with the disastrous NeXTCube and as the prodigal son returning with 1998’s iMac. To see the launches go off without a hitch is Jobs’s goal but through Boyle and Sorkin’s film, Steve’s launch is like a juggling act where more balls keep getting thrown into play. The major crisis with the first Macintosh is that Andy Hertzfeld (Stuhlbarg) can’t get the demo computer to say ‘hello.’ And Steve is much scarier than Yoda in the “there is no try” department. Hovering on the sidelines of the epic hello struggle is Joanna Hoffman (Winslet), Apple marketing guru and the only person able to wrangle Steve’s attention for any quantifiable amount of time. She doesn’t see why the computer must say hello, oh and also Steve should do something about his daughter and her mother waiting for Steve in the wings. The daughter he’s so publicly denied fathering, and half blames for his losing Time Magazine’s Man of the Year title. Priorities. Meanwhile Steve Wozniak (a deeply touching Rogen) just wants Steve Jobs to say thank you to the Apple 2 guys, an earlier model that the company thrived on. And for good measure, a stoic Jeff Daniels as exec John Scully steps in to remind Steve of his own parental issues (he was adopted) at exactly the wrong times.

These basic components are tossed in and out of focus over the course of the launches, with Boyle slyly throwing in the occasional additional flashbacks in time to further flesh out Steve’s relationships–especially with Wozniak and Scully. As a fiery Fassbender plays young Jobs, it’s easy to see how he sold his team of people on going on these technological ventures under his leadership. Important for us to see considering present-Jobs can so often be despicable. Jobs’s chief struggle in most of his interactions, whether he admits it or not, is with common human decency. Long-suffering Wozniak seeks only acknowledgment while Joanna is frequently going to bat on behalf of Jobs’s daughter Lisa since her mother (Katherine Waterston in a small but effective part) is drifting further away. In this core struggle, Winslet emerges as the film’s heart when its protagonist doesn’t have time for his. In Joanna, Winslet is both fearless and vulnerable. She knows Steve the best, she’s knows she’s too valuable to his enterprise to be cast off and she uses this to stand her ground. If audiences find it hard to root for Steve as he is ruthlessly scripted by Sorkin, they will definitely side with Joanna who only wants Steve to be a better person. It’s clever and Winslet is no doubt as awards-worthy as Fassbender is in this film.

Boyle and Sorkin shy away from actually showing their version of one of Jobs’s epic announcements–we have youtube for that–but at every juncture the Mac masses are omnipresent. We see stamping feet and full theater lobbies of faceless groupies which only serve to amplify Steve’s power in these spaces. While other realms of Jobs’s life were out of his control, at least at these launches every minute detail could be dictated by him. To situate the whole story around these launches is to show Jobs at his most intense. The resulting film is a vibrant, unsympathetic portrait of a man whose work continues to evolve how humans connect with each other whether or not he ever mastered that skill in his own life.

I saw Steve Jobs at this year’s New York Film Fest, the film receives its nationwide release on October 23rd.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Reviews Tagged With: Aaron Sorkin, Danny Boyle, film review, Kate Winslet, Michael Fassbender, nyff, ...

Nick Robinson talks about “Jurassic World”

Nick Robinson made the leap from the critically acclaimed indie Kings of Summer (2013) to starring in the number one movie of this past summer, Jurassic World. The smash hit features Robinson playing teenager Zach, one of the nephews of park operations manager Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard). Zach, along with his brother Gray (Ty Simpkins), are left to fend for themselves when Jurassic World is overrun by the escaped Indominus Rex. After a quick visit with promotional raptor “Zulu” on the show floor, Zach sat down with me at this year’s New York Comic Con to discuss making the blockbuster.

Lauren Damon: What were your favorite scenes to film?
Nick Robinson: I think my favorite scene to film–one of my favorite scenes to film just on like a practical side was the moment when we open the doors to the old visitors center. Just because that was so cool to see what they were able to think up…Like all the set decoration was like so specific and it was cool to see 22 years later what kind of damage had ensued in this place. And then also the scene where Gray and I are in the back of the veterinary unit and we have to fight off the raptors. That was really fun to shoot just because I felt like an action hero. The whole thing was shaking and we had to like roll a barrel off and stab ’em.

LD: The movie is twenty-two years old and you’re only twenty can you remember the first time you encountered the original?
Robinson: I don’t know if I remember the exact first time that I encountered it but pretty young. I’d probably say–I remember like at least by like seven or eight having seen it a few times and it’s just a great film. Like all of Spielberg’s stuff, Amblin films, it’s just got real timeless qualities and you know as soon you’re getting into it you’re just going to see something good. You know, John Williams knows how to throw some notes together…it’s just a great movie-going experience.

LD: Did you spend a lot of Ty Simpkins when you guys were cast as these brothers?
Robinson: Yes we did. I think it was by design…From the first day we got to set to when the first day we actually shot it was like about a month and so Ty and I got to just hang out just without any pressures of a camera rolling, and we just got to know each other so that helped a lot.

If you could make a hybrid dinosaur, what kinds of animals would you throw in there?
Robinson: That’s a good question. Maybe a pterodactyl and a raptor with some like falcon and tiger thrown in there for good measure. Just make like the deadliest thing of all time.

When the sequel eventually gets made, how do you see your character fitting in?
Robinson: Maybe Zach goes into train under Owen [Chris Pratt’s character] to be a Navy SEAL and then you know he gets trapped in a love triangle [laughs] between someone and someone so we’ll see what happens. Just an idea…it’s brainstorming.

Working with Chris Pratt was there a lot of jokes being pulled?Robinson: Yes. Yes. That man is like a–he’s a machine, he’s got like an improv brain like nobody I’ve ever met before and he’s…It’s just you never know what is gonna happen. And every day it’s just really fun because he makes it that way. He kind of leads by example and so it was yeah, pretty fun.
Any examples you can share?
Robinson: Um…an appropriate example, I mean, he ate a bug one time. For twenty bucks he ate a bug. Yeah.
Who’s twenty bucks?
Robinson: Who’s twenty bucks? Uh, not mine!

Being we’re at Comic Con, are there any superheroes you’d ever like to play?
Robinson: Maybe Iron-Man just because he’s got a bad ass suit and that would be fun…
Not Star Lord?
Robinson: Well okay I don’t wanna take that–That’s…that’s Chris. But yeah I’d probably say Iron-Man. This is my first time at Comic Con and I’ve seen a lot of the films killing it right now.

Jurassic World is available to own on blu-ray on October 20th.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: Chris Pratt, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Nick Robinson, NYCC 2015

Film Review “Crimson Peak”

Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver
Running Time: 119 mins.
Legendary

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

If you’re looking for a getaway this Halloween season, you can probably do no better than the red oozing walls of Allerdale Hall. This ominous edifice nicknamed “Crimson Peak” for the bloody looking clay that stains the snowy terrain outside the mansion is the home of Guillermo Del Toro’s latest haunting tale. More beautiful than terrifying, Crimson Peak is a sumptuous Gothic romance that throws viewers neck deep into a storybook world from the unique director behind Pan’s Labyrinth. It takes a lot of time immersing us into his heroine’s world but our eyes are dazzled even as we wait for any real chills to kick in. Del Toro’s vision is suitably matched by his small cast of characters lead by a positively ferocious Jessica Chastain.

In 1901 Buffalo, New York, the young Edith Cushing (Wasikowska) is struggling with a misogynistic publisher to get her ghost story manuscript to print. He believes the lady needs a love story while she’s striving to be the next Mary Shelley. Edith herself is no stranger to real ghosts as her own cholera-stricken dead mother reappeared to her as a child. Into her bookish world sweeps the tall, dark and angsty Sir Thomas Sharpe from England (Hiddleston) seeking an investment from Edith’s father (Beaver). Apparently the ore deposits in the red clay of Crimson Peak are worth money if Thomas could just get investors to help him complete the machinery he needs to mine the place. Publicly humiliated by Edith’s father, Thomas turns his attentions on Edith herself, sweeping her off her feet with a waltz in front of all society and especially rankling her would-be suitor Allan (Hunnam). Conveniently Thomas’s are the only nearby arms Edith can run into when Edith’s father is mysteriously murdered soon after and it’s off to become Lady Sharpe she goes!

In England, Edith quickly realizes her father’s reservations regarding the Sharpes–Thomas shares his mansion only with severe sister Lucille (Chastain, back to her in a bit)–were not unfounded. Thomas is as terribly off as Mr.Cushing said, with a sinking house that would be optimistically listed as “a well ventilated fixer upper.” It’s got “character” in spades! Did I mention the walls bleed? Still Edith soldiers on because, well did I also mention tall, dark and angsty? Hiddleston wears that (and an array of Victorian era finery) well. Like, maybe-a-couple-ghosts-in-the-bathtub-isn’t-a-deal-breaker, well. The real delights in the move to Crimson Peak however are a tie between the cavernous home, with its creaky accompanying sound design and Lucille Sharpe.

As Lucille, in her restrictive gowns and with her deader than deadpan voice tone, Chastain sinks her teeth into the considerable scenery. Her grim presence looms over her brother and his bride in that fun Mrs. Danvers kind of way. Most of the best scenes are the ones with her and Thomas holding tense discussions in the shadows. Their formidable history simmers just below the surface and as in the best Gothic stories, reflects the decaying environment around them. She desperately clings to their status quo while he, with Edith now in the picture, seems to glimpse a change in the winds, but is it too late?

And that’s Crimson Peak’s best achievement really, the oppressive atmosphere that the very walls inflict on everyone. And fortunately for us, young Edith is so apt to explore. Her endless curiosity to seek out all the nooks and crannies of the home to learn their secrets go against all reasonable horror movie rules. She shouldn’t follow that noise, talk to the ghosts or poke that red goo with a stick and yet I too wanted to know everything about the place. The production design and costumes from Thomas E. Sanders and Kate Hawley, respectively, are simply to die for and go a long way in filling in the gaps that the story leaves out. For better or worse, I suspect the house itself warrants repeat viewings of Peak. As for the true horror moments, Del Toro certainly does not shy away from ghouls or gore, but set in Allerdale Hall, they’re more the norm than cause for shock. This is a classic Gothic romance being wholly embraced by everyone on screen.

Crimson Peak is now open and you can check out interview with Doug Jones, the actor behind many of Peak’s ghosts here.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Reviews Tagged With: Charlie Hunnam, Crimson Peak, film, film review, Guillermo Del Toro, Jessica Chastain, ...

Film Review “Truth”

Director: James Vanderbilt
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, Topher Grace
Running Time: 121mins.
Sony Pictures Classics

Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars

It sets a high standard to go ahead and give a politically charged film a title like Truth but that’s exactly what James Vanderbilt, making his directorial debut, has done. I expect the film will be targeted by leftover George W Bush supporters as its protagonist says, “for asking the question” once again of GW’s National Guard service time but the fact is he still won out in the 2004 election despite this scandal and that result is not the concern of this film. Instead Vanderbilt delves into the high stakes of questioning extremely powerful people and more than once the dangers of confirmation bias by even the most experienced of journalists. Whatever your politics, this is an often compelling film that is driven by another strong performance from Cate Blanchett.

Based on her own memoir, Truth and Duty, the film tells the story of Mary Mapes (Blanchett) an ex-producer for on CBS’s “60 Minutes” whose career, along with famous newsman Dan Rather (Redford), was ended when they dug into the dodgy military record of President George W. Bush and whether or not strings were pulled to not only keep him out of the Vietnam war, but to also cover for his being AWOL from even his National Guard duties. On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, the story was make or break material whose impact relied on the timeliness at which it could be delivered to the public.
Working from her own memoir, it’s hard for the film to be anything but sympathetic to Mapes and Rather’s side. I don’t think Rather can feel too badly about this chapter of his life being played out large again when Robert Redford is portraying him. That said, Vanderbilt still manages time and again to highlight the flaws in Mapes relentless fight to get this story out. In order to make her deadline to air, she naysays concerns raised by some of the experts her own team has assembled which eventually comes right back around the bite her later. Once the story blows up and is challenged by Bush’s right-wing supporters in the media, the film picks up. More and more tiny technicalities rip apart Mapes’s reporting if not the actual truth about Bush’s service. Vanderbilt even wrings stress out of the nuances of Microsoft Word fonts, quite a feat outside of resumé creation.

Along the way, Cate Blanchett is electric to watch. In the beginning she is secure and untouchable in light of her success in breaking the news of atrocities at Abu Gharib and her close partnership with the iconic Rather. In Blanchett’s Mapes you can see why a network would bow to her command despite some doubts. It’s a performance that only gets more layered as Mapes weathers her attacks. At first keeping her defenses up and then slowly you see her gears start to shift from denials to justification, despair, and eventually to remounting up her full defenses against a harsh inquisition lead by a surprisingly intimidating Dermot Mulroney. Blanchett is capably supported by the likes of Dennis Quaid and Elisabeth Moss (I could have done without Topher Grace shouting a speech in the film’s later acts), but her charisma is only truly matched in the relatively small role Redford plays. Redford avoids impersonation of Dan Rather, but exudes the stoicism of the long-serving anchorman well and serves as a needed calm counterpoint in Mapes’s political storm.

Perhaps what’s most interesting about Truth is to see an internet-powered scandal from over a decade ago and how even in just this short span of time, news has evolved (or devolved? Depends who you ask). Twitter, among other outlets, wasn’t around yet and by that standard, I began to wonder if this story would have died in the ever-shuffling 24 hour news cycle or if it would have simply come to the same end results in days rather than months. And whether Rather could have better ‘survived’ an even more sped up timeline. In a film all about raising questions, I was satisfied to come away with still more.

Truth is on limited release from October 16th and will expand to more theaters later this month.

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Headlines, Film Reviews Tagged With: cate blanchett, film review, james vanderbilt, robert redford, sony picture classics, truth, ...

NYCC: Doug Jones on Crimson Peak and Hocus Pocus

Doug Jones is one of the busiest performers in Hollywood, but he’s often hard to spot under creature makeup. In the Hellboy series he played Abe Sapien, while in Pan’s Labyrinth he played the alluring Faun and completely terrifying Pale Man (You remember the one…big bloody hands, eyeballs in the middle of them? Yeah. He’s actually a super nice guy!) Both these projects saw Jones collaborating with director Guillermo Del Toro, a successful pairing that will be returning to movie screens this Friday in the gothic horror romance, Crimson Peak. Jones will once again be deep under cover as two of Peak‘s resident haunts. The film is holding its NYC premiere today and I caught up with Doug this past weekend at New York Comic Con to discuss his ongoing collaboration with Del Toro and, seeing as it’s the Halloween season, the enduring appeal of the Disney classic Hocus Pocus in which Jones was the benevolent zombie, Billy Butcherson.

Lauren Damon: How many films have you done with Guillermo Del Toro?

Doug Jones: This is my fifth feature film with Guillermo Del Toro, Crimson Peak is, but I also am a recurring ancient vampire on his TV show, “The Strain”. Then there’s more in the works for other projects coming down next year too.

LD: What was your first project together?

DJ: Mimic. I worked a couple days doing reshoots as their long john bug creatures that took over the New York subway system. You know, as they do! [laughs] A big cockroach will do that. And then that was five years before–that was 1997–and then in 2002ish is when I got a call about Hellboy one. And that’s when our relationship was really cinched in. From working on that. And then he came back around to get me for Pan’s Labyrinth and then after that Hellboy 2, and then after that we had plans for me to be in The Hobbit when he was directing that but then he had to pull out. So I was gone too. Had plans for me in…that HP Lovecraft story, At The Mountain’s of Madness, then that ended up not happening either. So we had a couple near-misses, and then Crimson Peak came along and he threw me in there as couple of his ghost ladies. I’ll be the first ghost–I’m the mother ghost and the bathtub ghost. It’ll all make sense if you’ve seen it.

LD: Now when you see the part are called “Mother ghost” and “Bathtub ghost”, are you just like “What??”

DJ: It’ll make sense, I promise! [laughs]

LD: Do either of these ghost have particular quirks that you can talk about?

DJ: Well first of all playing ladies was interesting. And the other lady ghosts are played by Javier Botet–another tall skinny guy from Spain. He was the mother–or Mama ghost– in Mama. And so between he and I, Guillermo likes tall skinny guys playing women, apparently! So we’re gonna do that.

LD: Now are these characters actually on set or added in post-production?

DJ: No I was on set, filmed it on set. They probably had CG people –like the visual effects people were on set to supervise a couple of moments because, as you saw in the trailers, the ghosts are kind of see-throughish. So we’re kind of like made out of vapor yet we were filmed practically on set.

LD: Speaking of tall skinny guys in the film, how was working with Tom Hiddleston?

DJ: Taller than I expected! Yeah when I met him, I was like “Oh my gosh!” But oh yeah, delightful. Now we only brushed by each other briefly in one scene, had a near-miss. But Mia Wasikowska was my main focus. Both my characters interacted with her almost exclusively. But someone asked me recently–because Tom Hiddleston has quite a following as you know…so you might appreciate this question–Someone asked me recently in an interview ‘What does Tom Hiddleston smell like?’ Isn’t that precious? And you wanna know! Cause when I met him, I hugged him hello, he’s a very sweet guy, he’s very very accommodating and very sweet. Now mind you, when I met him I was dressed and made up in a five hour makeup job as the Bathtub ghost, my face is covered with latex foam rubber so unfortunately he smelled like latex foam rubber…because everybody did that day to me.

LD: Now, have you seen the completed film?

DJ: I have not yet. I am gonna see it when you do. I was going to be coming back here to New York for the premiere [today] but…I’m filming Quiji part 2 out in LA so I have to be back for filming. So I’m like, ‘ahh! curses!’ Yeah.

LD: Now moving on, last month I was in Walt Disney World where their Halloween party is Hocus Pocus themed…

DJ: Isn’t that wonderful? I know, I saw a clip of that! Yes!

LD: Why do you think that film has caught on and has such life now?

DJ: I don’t know the whys, I’m just very happy that it does. That it has any life. I think…it’s family-friendly, that always sells, it’s Disney, that always sells, it’s Bette Midler, she always sells, right? And it’s—the witches are not glorified, it’s a good winning over evil story told with lots of humor, lots of visuals and it’s timeless. The styling of the film even, it still holds up today…so it can go on and on. I think it’s only grown in popularity over the years instead of fading like most movies do. So I’m very tickled pink about the home video market. I’m tickled pink about the ABC Family Channel running it multiple times every October and its become like the Wizard of Oz. It’s a sit down event film that the family gathers for so now our original fans are all grown up and have kids of their own. so the audience is only getting broader and broader every year. So I’m very happy. I did not expect that.

Crimson Peak opens this Friday, October 16th. You can read my review here.
Thanks to Doug for taking the time at NYCC to speak with me!

Read Complete Article

Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: Crimson Peak, Doug Jones, Guillermo Del Toro, Hocus Pocus, nycc, NYCC 2015, ...

« sdf

Page 5 of 13

Author: Lauren Damon

Tom Hiddleston and Susanne Bier Premiere AMC’S The Night Manager

Film Review “I Saw the Light”

A Conversation with Deadpool’s Greg LaSalle

Blu-ray Review: “Crimson Peak”

Black Sails’s Ray Stevenson on Playing Blackbeard

A “Hateful” Conference with Quentin Tarantino, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and More

Related Content

Director Todd Haynes and Stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara Speak about ‘Carol’

Film Review “Carol”

Paul Bettany discusses “Shelter” with stars Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Mackie

The Cast of “Blindspot” Speaks at NYCC

New York Film Fest Review: “Steve Jobs”

Nick Robinson talks about “Jurassic World”

Film Review “Crimson Peak”

Film Review “Truth”

NYCC: Doug Jones on Crimson Peak and Hocus Pocus