Film Review “The Theory of Everything”

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, David Thewlis, Harry Lloyd
Directed By: James Marsh
Running Time: 123 Minutes
Focus Features

Our Score: 4.5 out of 5 stars

To many people, Stephen Hawking has been so long physically associated with his wheel-chaired silhouette and computerized voice, that just seeing him as a young British student will come as the first of many revelations in The Theory of Everything. James Marsh’s film is remarkable insofar as it not only illuminates the very human story of the iconic astrophysicist, but also explores the unconventional relationship between young Hawking and first wife, Jane (Felicity Jones). It’s a fascinating story that’s additionally buoyed by an outstanding performance from Eddie Redmayne as Hawking.

At 21, Stephen Hawking was just beginning to unlock his theories regarding the universe, when he was given the devastating diagnosis of Motor Neuron Disease. The result of the disease would be Hawking’s total loss of his motor skills. He faced the nightmarish reality where his brilliant mind would no longer have a voice. Fortunately at this time, Stephen had begun a relationship with equally brilliant Jane Wilde. Wilde resolutely would not allow Hawking to give into his despair. That we’re still speaking of Hawking in the present tense, this film postulates, is as much down to Jane’s rejection of his two year prognosis as Hawking’s. Crucially, she pushed for the life-saving tracheotomy when doctors advised against it.

As Jane, Jones gives a magnetic performance. She imbues Wilde (later Hawking) with a steely resilience to the obstacles they face while displaying amazing vulnerability and chemistry with Redmayne. Particularly in moments where Stephen is struggling most.

Finally though, Redmayne, who always delivers solid supporting performances, is at last front and center. Physically, he runs the gamut from the first inklings of the disease—subtly playing moments of confusion—to the truly advanced stages where Redmayne must rely solely on harsh facial contortions and the vitality in his eyes. Beyond the uncanny physical resemblance, Redmayne also navigates a vast emotional journey from ambitious student, through the depression of his diagnosis and finally maturing into husband and father. If the film tends to give short-shrift to the scientific accolades Hawking received in his lifetime, it makes it up in spades by examining Hawking’s extraordinary personal relationships with sensitivity and respect.

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Author Naomi Novik Talks “Temeraire” at NYCC

Naomi Novik has in the past several years taken her readers literally across the globe in her best-selling Temeraire novels. Beginning with the first, His Majesty’s Dragon, the fantasy series is set during the Napoleonic Wars in an alternate history where talking dragons comprise a valuable aerial force for their respective nations. More specifically they follow the adventures of William Laurence, a British naval captain whose capture of an enemy ship bearing a rare dragon’s egg leads him to a new life as an aviator with this hatchling he names Temeraire. Novik’s dragon is intelligent, witty, intensely loyal to his human captain and often defiant of the society of his time. And he is just one of many in a hugely diverse cast of humans and dragons. Such vivid characters thrown into Novik’s rich reworking of actual history really make this a standout story.

The books are scheduled to wrap up with its ninth installment,  League of Dragons, hopefully sometime next year while director Peter Jackson currently holds the screen rights to the series (More on that below). With all of the above going for it, and the fact that it’s a personal favorite book series of mine, I was so excited to get to speak with Naomi at New York Comic Con while she signed books for her fans.

Lauren Damon: When planning the novels, because they’re centered around the Napoleonic Wars, do you have an outline of what history is going on or do you start with your plot?

Naomi Novik: Oh I definitely check the history first and sort of look into the details. I have a general sense of where the plot is going because I know where the Napoleonic Wars go and I know how I modify the Napoleonic Wars so in that sense I know before I go in. But in terms of figuring out how the details of my plot are going to dovetail the details of history, it’s sort of like a back and forth. I generally get the broad strokes of the historical events first, make sure my plot works with that and then as I write, I generally check on the more specific details to make sure that I’m not contradicting something.

 

LD: Have you ever hit a snag because history went a different way than your plot?

Novik: You know I’m sure that happens on a routine basis and I just don’t remember all of them…I can’t think of a specific historical event example, but what I can remember is one time I was writing a scene set in Istanbul describing a place and it turned out that that place just didn’t kind of exist. But while reading about that I discovered about a location called the cistern—which was sort of this underwater cistern of the Byzantine era that used to store water for the city and then later on was abandoned and people would still be able to reach it through the basements of their homes. And would occasionally throw things down there. Sometimes bodies disappeared down there and I thought, that’s fantastic! So I put it in. So it actually worked out for the best.

 

LD: When it comes to the battles sequences, which read as hugely cinematic, how do you plan out just the logistics of those?

Novik: The battles are almost always heavily influenced by actual Napoleonic battles. I mean it depends. The actual battles that take place in the course of a military campaign, then the individual scenes that are about sort of—you know there’s the battles in a war and there are fights that are sort of an adventure sequence, right? And those are more just out of my imagination and the battle scenes are—I have a wonderful book called The Military Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars which basically shows…you can watch the movement of all the companies. It breaks up battles over several days. So you see here’s how they were, sort of setting themselves up, here’s where they were this day, here’s the terrain they were moving on, here are the ways that this person didn’t know what this person was doing and they misunderstood one another. And they got bad information from their spies. And all sorts of details like that which I tend to use as kind of, not exact—because of course my battles are quite different—

LD: They add the aerial level.

Novik: Yes, exactly, because there’s a third dimension going on which changes the tactics and  also just the historical locations but yeah, I mean I try to keep that same scope. That scale.

 

LD: When it comes to certain characters, fans love to pick up on certain expressions or character tropes that repeatedly pop up in your stories—Like Laurence’s concern for his neckcloth or Iskierka [a truly fiery fire-breathing dragon] saying “See if I don’t!”—When you become aware of fans grabbing onto these things, or sort of catchphrases, do you get self conscious about it?

Novik: No, not really. You know, I feel like that’s part of the—In a way I feel like finding those things is part of the pleasure as a fan. I like it myself as a reader. I like recognizing a character’s vocal tics, the character’s all definitely have their own, quite distinct voice in my pen. And I feel like if I tried to…if I became self-conscious and tried to muck with that in a way, I’d probably lose my own internal sense.

 

LD: Are there certain characters that you really enjoy writing their voice, their dialogue?

Novik: Yeah, I mean Temeraire, obviously. Temeraire is just always fun. Iskierka is always fun. I love writing the dragons voices. I feel like the dragons voices are always really cool. And there’s that pleasure of writing a voice that’s not quite human so I really like to do that.

 

LD: I love how you even include sexuality into the discussions that the dragons and the humans have because I feel like you don’t often see that associated with the fantasy genre:

Novik: I do feel you know it’s an interesting thing, that in that period there was simultaneously more prudery in a certain sense. Like you didn’t talk about certain things. But at the same time you lived with it a lot more. You lived with death a lot more. And in a way, living with death, I mean you lived in much closer quarters—especially on ships and you sort of had to pretend it wasn’t there. But it really was. And I mean, with dragons especially, I feel like dragons don’t have shame in the same was that human beings have shame. You know, they don’t cover themselves for warmth, so they don’t have any of that body stuff going on. So Temeraire just kind of doesn’t get what’s going on a lot of the time. So his perception is very fun. But I feel like it’s very much that that’s a thing that happens that’s part of life and I don’t know…I feel like I don’t want to pretend that’s not there.

 

LD: Iskierka in particular in regards to her Captain, Granby’s homosexuality is just kind of  like ‘Yeah, of course that’s how he is!’

Novik: I mean to a dragon it’s like what’s the difference between these two—it’s like two action figures, you know?

LD: Or dress up dolls? [Note: The dragon’s frequently make fashion decisions for their humans.]

Novik: Yes, exactly, that’s from Iskierka’s point of view absolutely!

LD: Peter Jackson holds the filming rights to these books—what’s happening there?!

Novik: Basically what happened was you know, after Guillermo Del Toro dropped out of The Hobbit and [Jackson] took over, that essentially put a stop to all his other projects. He’s finishing up the last Hobbit now, and I know he’s going to take a well deserved break and then we’ll see, you know?

LD: Did you see the giant Smaug up on the floor and think eventually?
Novik: I hope so. I hope so. I mean it’s amazing.

 

LD: Now you wrote the first one in 2006?

Novik: I wrote the first one in 2004 and then they didn’t publish it until 2006 because they asked me to write two more so they could bring them all out one month after another. So I wrote the first three in like 2004-2005, so it’s been about ten years writing it.

 

LD: So back when you were writing it, or at any point since,  have you ever head-cast actors you’d like to see in any of the parts?

Novik: No, no…I don’t. Although I will say I thought at one point—I actually think Tom Hiddleston could make a great Laurence.

[Note: At which point I showed Naomi my Loki iPhone case as a sign of support.]

Excellent! I mean I say that like I’m a huge Tom Hiddleston fan, I mean I love Loki he’s such a fantastic character, I love him…But there are many actors of whom I’m a huge fan who I would say would not make a good Laurence. But I think he actually would.

 

Famously fan-friendly, Naomi is a co-founder of the Organization for Transformative Works, “a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the fair-use rights of fan creators” and has written her own fan fiction.

LD: Being here at NYCC and just kind of in general are you happy to see that fan fiction is something you hear more about in public discussion, do you think it’s coming sort of out of just something you see online?

 

Novik: I hope so. You know, in fact we had this panel about fairy tales and of course 95% of fairy tales and fairy tale retellings are fan fiction. It’s the same impulse as fan fiction. It’s using characters that other people recognize to tell your own stories in a way that allows you to communicate and form a community around fiction. So there’s nothing actually new about the fan fiction impulse, it’s just that we’re doing it about media of a different form, right? Which is quite interesting.

LD: Speaking of fan communities–you just opened your own fan forum, is that a convenient way to consolidate your fans?

Novik: It’s not even that, it’s more that you know there are a lot of fans who don’t feel like they know where to find the place to talk. And I love giving them a place to talk now. And a lot of people said that they wanted one, so we went ahead and put it together. But I love–one of the things that I love about the fannish community in general is that it’s so widespread. There’s so many different places and proliferating conversations and I love that. It’s not like, I would never want everybody to come to feel like that they had to come to my site. It’s more like here’s another place to talk if you want to hang out and talk about Temeraire.

 

LD: Do you have a memorable first fan encounter, or when you became aware or your series having fans?

Novik: I fortunately, the year the Temeraire books came out, I went to like seven conventions that year. And I went to a lot of smaller science fiction conventions first which was a good kind of ramp up. And I mean it’s just really wonderful you know. For me it’s a completely positive experience. I mean I get tired and sometimes I lose my voice. There’s just something wonderful about coming out here and feeling this kind of fannish energy all around you. And it’s not a sort of, I don’t know, it’s such a thing that I myself would do. I feel like I’m just meeting my people from the other side!

The 9th and final Temeraire novel, League of Dragons, is aiming for a release sometime next year while Novik will also be releasing an entirely new fantasy novel, Uprooted, on June 30th 2015.

 

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New York Film Fest “Birdman” Press Conference

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s reality-bending Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) closed the 52nd New York Film Fest this past Sunday. The film which opens on October 17th stars Michael Keaton as Riggan Thompson an actor trying to distance himself from an iconic superhero film franchise by starring and directing his own broadway production. Keaton’s huge cast of co-stars includes Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Amy Ryan, and Andrea Riseborough, all of whom joined the director at a press conference after the film at AMC Lincoln Center.

Much of the film revolves around Riggan’s struggle with his own identity versus his public image. Specifically he’s faced with a particularly vicious theatre critic whose sole objective is  to destroy Riggan’s show with her pen. Michael Keaton however maintained that he keeps himself in the dark when it comes to critics now. “This is where I’m really a dope” laughed Keaton who looked at reviews in his early days but not so much recently.  “I thought originally…you should be courageous and read everything and I did that a couple of times and I thought ‘well I’m not doing that anymore!’  Although he did add “Admittedly if someone says ‘hey you had a got nice review’ I’ll read it. I’m open to making myself feel better!” Addressing an entire auditorium of NYC critics he concluded “I think I’ve been treated basically fairly, I know I’m the wrong person to ask…There’s probably a lot of you out there going “Oh no you haven’t!”

           
British theatre actress Andrea Riseborough, who plays Riggan’s co-star also avoids critical reviews “because [she finds] them debilitating, not because [she doesn’t] respect them” Riseborough added that there’s a certain element of fear when it comes to actors encountering critics, rather than hostility, especially in the world of theatre. “You know, they saw Gambon doing his bit back in the day and now they’re going to come and see me. It makes me just want to shit myself!”
 Zach Galifianakis confidently chimed in “I’ve never had a bad review, so I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. It sounds familiar. I’ve heard people talk about it. But I’ve never had one” cracking up his cast and the audience.

Naomi Watts compared some of her theatre experience to the unorthodox way Birdman was shot: “I can say, I haven’t done a huge amount of theatre, but just from back in the days when I was studying and you know, doing plays then, a lot of my nightmares revolve around being on the stage; And forgetting my lines, or having the wrong clothes on or no clothes at all. So it is that classic recurring nightmare. A lot in the way this film was shot, with this speed and the high stakes and the technicalities and the dependency on each other and the, also the effects, you know the props and things, the cameras, the lighting and the removing of tables and putting them back, you know all those things sort of created this high level intensity and pressure that felt sort of emblematic sort of how it feels on the stage.”

Soon to be joining Watts in stage experience is Emma Stone, who in November will replace Michelle Williams in the current broadway revival of Cabaret. I asked her how she felt between making this film about a movie star entering Broadway and now actually facing that in reality.
“Well, you know, I did write the character of Sally Bowles and I’m directing the production”  the Amazing Spider-man star laughed, then added  “No, I you know, of course this movie brings up a lot of horrible fears of coming into the broadway community and having a Tabitha [the film’s villainous critic]…it feels very different. But I will say that making this  movie and kind of what we had to contend with, as actors, in making something like this, all of the pieces that Naomi was talking about had to–you know, having the table moving out and needing to rely on each other  the way the company does, I think is incredibly helpful now going into theatre in that way and realizing that you’re you know you operate very much as a unit. We all operate as a unit. And in a lot of films it’s not that way at all. It’s a very separate experience. So yeah, I’m nervous as hell. I’m shitting myself!”

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu elaborated on the challenge he and DP Emmanuel Lubezki faced in shooting Birdman in mainly long contiunous shots. “Basically all the camerawork, all the blocking and all the lighting was pre-assigned in advance, months in advance. So there was no improvisation everything was precise, meticulously…Without the editing everything has to happen in the flow and then so you have to really get everything together…So the difficulty was the point of view–where this camera would be located to tell the story right. Who has to be in frame or not. Who has to be the listener…The challenge of that was that there was no lights, shooting film lights. Everything was practical lights and sometimes it was 360 degrees in tiny cooridors with guys with microphones. So all that thing that they’re talking about–the things moving and the ‘you have to be behind him’ and then you go under the legs of somebody and then crawl over the other side. It was kind of the kids playing a theatre play and the camera going around with this 17mm lens which is a wideshot. So every bit, every line, every open door has to be performed exactly the same…it has to be right.”

Actress Amy Ryan described this process as causing a “happy accident” whereby Keaton’s character had to be laying on a dressing room counter top in order to accommodate the camera manuevers “That was the only place really that worked best for every moving part in the scene, boom operator and [Lubezki], myself, Michael. And now I can’t think of a better choice for that, that’s exactly where he should be in that moment.”

Of course with a past Hulk, a Gwen Stacy and an iconic Batman in the room, the idea of the Superhero Film had to be raised with the cast and although the film is definitely not that, it doesn’t entirely shy away from some CGI effects. Keaton was pleased with this “When the special effects come in, I mean it’s just outta nowehere! And I totally dig it. I go yeah, there’s a little treat…A little megaplex action superhero movie dose for you right there…”
He and Edward Norton previewed some footage at New York Comic Con the evening before.  “Michael and I went over to New York Comic Con last night to do a little panel there,” said Norton, “and in the dark right before we went on I looked at Michael and said ‘do think this is the ultimate bait and switch?’ Can you imagine if you go to this actually thinking it’s a superhero movie?”

Birdman is now in limited theatrical release.

 

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Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: birdman, conference, emma stone, fest, film, michael keaton, ...

Film Review “Kill the Messenger”

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rosemarie DeWitt
Directed By: Michael Cuesta
Running Time: 112 Minutes
Focus Features

Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars

“Kill the Messenger” follows the fallout experienced by reporter Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News of his 1996 article “Dark Alliance.” The article linked the US’s own CIA with rampant dealing of crack cocaine in California for the eventual funding of Nicaraguan contras. Director Michael Cuesta’s version of it, thoroughly from Webb’s point of view, skillfully balances the political thriller with the family life of the reporter.

The first half of the film plays a bit like a television procedural episode with Webb going from source to source in chasing his story. If it’s a little by the numbers in that respect, it does give us the opportunity to enjoy scenes with Andy Garcia in a south American prison and Michael Sheen as DC insider who warns Webb of the dangers of chasing this particular story.

It’s just before Webb publishes his story however, where the film really picks up steam. In an ominous meeting with government suits, it’s hinted that Webb’s family could be ‘affected’ by his work, enraging Webb and spurring him on to complete his article. It’s a thrill to see Renner take the lead here as Webb after the last few years of supporting work in franchises and last year’s American Hustle. He plays him as a passionate family man with a slight sense of humor that he attempts to employ as defense to the very serious people he’s up against. Though he is not without his breaking points. At home he’s given strong support by Rosemarie DeWitt as his wife and Lucas Hedges as his 16 year old son who Webb strives to be as truthful with at home as he is when reporting. Even if his wife would rather he didn’t.

Much of the film after the published story focuses on the ripple effect of exposing the truth whereby the closer Webb gets to it, the more threatening his world becomes and the more viciously personal the media gets with Webb himself. Nathan Johnson’s score subtly increases the tension throughout while Cuesta powerfully weaves in actual archival media to show just how far reaching Dark Alliance’s impact was.

If the film seems a bit one-sided with Webb as the straight up hero, it’s devastating closing title cards will likely send you to seek out more about the story for yourself.

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Film Review “Gone Girl”

Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens
Directed By: David Fincher
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 149 minutes
20th Century Fox

Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

It’s the most wonderful time of the year here in New York. Everything’s pumpkin flavored, the tourist crowd is momentarily lighter and last Friday David Fincher’s diabolical new thriller, Gone Girl, kicked off the 2014 New York Film Fest starting the ‘Oscar Season’ in earnest. Fincher’s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name is a genuine roller coaster of a film in the best sense of the word. With it’s time-bending structure, strong cast, yellow tinged scenes and another powerful Trent Reznor score, Gone Girl has everything we’ve come to expect from the director of The Social Network and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, while offering its own set of shocks.

Gone Girl begins as Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) contemplates violently opening the back of his wife Amy’s head. What’s going on in there? Turns out it’s a valid question, albeit phrased threateningly by Nick, as Amy (Rosamund Pike) vanishes on the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary. Amidst signs of a struggle. Unsurprisingly a gorgeous blond, on whom it turns out a beloved children’s book series is based no less, the disappearance of “Amazing Amy” kicks into gear the type of journalistic circus we’ve seen play out countless times in American media. The prayer vigils and self-righteous angry moms come out in full force and Amy’s parents crop up with a website uncomfortably quickly for such a sudden loss don’t you think?

Amidst the chaos is Nick who, like many husbands I would guess in this situation, isn’t PR savvy. As such any fleeting smile of Nick’s is immortalized in a selfie and plastered on every TV screen in the country as proof that he is surely a sociopath. But whether or not he is is something much of the film hinges on and watching Nick being trained how to appear not guilty while we’re also not quite sure of his innocence is a fascinating line that Affleck and Fincher tread together.

By all accounts Fincher and writer Gillian Flynn had a monster of a book to adapt in Flynn’s popular novel and what’s stunning is not just how well the adaptation works but on how many levels it successfully operates on. We begin with a compelling love story that evolves into a dissection of marriage in all its facets, a thrilling possible-murder mystery, a scathing indictment of American national media and…well to go much further I’d wade into spoiler territory and honestly, this film is best experienced without them. People usually say the book is better, or read the book first, but if you’ve made it to the film’s release as I had, save the visit to the library till afterwards when you’ll be dying to find out more anyway.

What I will say is that the massive supporting cast is uniformly incredible from Casey Wilson as the Dunne’s busybody neighbor to Missi Pyle’s vicious TV ditz Ellen Abbott. Poor Pyle, how much Nancy Grace did she have to subject herself to? I shudder to think. Carrie Coon too as Nick’s sister Margo deserves praise for having the difficult task of balancing her love of her brother with a seemingly endless parade of damning information. Her Margo along with lead investigator Detective Boney (played by Kim Dickens) give the audience some desperately needed level-heads to rely on on the constantly shifting field Fincher constructs.

But the main attractions here are Affleck and Pike. The evolution these two must go through from well-integrated flashbacks of their romance to the harsher recent times is as believable as it is chilling. I would say this isn’t the best ‘date movie’ for couples, but then hopefully that’s not what one looks for in the director of Se7en. Pike in particular has the difficult task of selling much of Amy’s story in voice-overs from her journal but she completely owns it. Amy’s actual fate too allows Pike to turn in a jaw dropping performance that even those familiar with her career so far, will find themselves seeing her in a whole new light.

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Filed Under: Film Reviews Tagged With: Ben Affleck, David Fincher, Gone Girl, nyff, NYFF 2014, review, ...

Terry Gilliam and Lucas Hedges Work Out “The Zero Theorem”

Now available on VOD and in limited  theatrical release, Terry Gilliam returns to his Brazil-dystopic roots with Zero Theorem. The highly energetic director and member of Monty Python gleefully joined young actor Lucas Hedges to discuss the film at length in New York.

Zero Theorem finds Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) in a neon-lit Orwellian nightmare. He is a cog in a massive corporate machine, Mancom, who is desperately awaiting a phone call that will reveal the meaning of his life. Counterproductively his menacing boss, referred to simply as Management (Matt Damon) charges Qohen with proving the Zero Theorem which states that the entire universe will eventually collapse in on itself rendering all existence meaningless.

While Zero Theorem arguably completes a trio of dystopian films after Gilliam’s own Brazil and 12 Monkeys, it now joins a host of modern future-set films that are increasingly Orwellian or apocalyptic rather than hopeful, I asked Gilliam what he thought of this trend of humanity not exactly looking towards The Future as idealized. The director cheerfully threw his arms open and “defended” Zero Theorem’s busy, candy-colored vision of the future:

Terry Gilliam: “This is not a dystopia! It’s Utopia. It’s a wonderful world! C’mon! Everybody’s out there, they’re dressed smartly, they got a lotta color. They’re bouncing around the place, cars are zipping back and forth–Shopping is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week–what more do you want?! I mean, the workplace, Mancom is FUN. Roller blades, scooters, zippy clothes, lots of primary colors. It’s a fantastic place. There’s only ONE guy who’s the dystopic element [laughs], miserable guy, called Qohen. And he needs a kick in the ass. And [Lucas] is one of the kicks!”

Lucas Hedges: “Yes.”

Gilliam: “It’s really that. I mean everyone keeps referring to it as dystopia. If you think the world we’re living in now is a dystopia, then you may be right! But we’ve been looking forward to this time for so many years! We got all the goodies.”

Hedges: It’s a matter of what perspective we see it from. And we see it from Qohen’s perspective and he has a–I guess his perspective is very much nihilistic and dystopic and sad.

Gilliam: “That’s really it. He’s the odd man out.”

Hedges: “I’m sure there’s a way of looking at the world we’re living in now from a certain perspective that makes our world look dystopic. I mean, maybe it is or maybe it isn’t but it depends on whose eyes you see it from.”

Gilliam: “I mean my tendency in films is to see the less good things in society. And the world we’re living in. Because at least those are the things you can criticize and possibly comment on and possibly it might change something in some small ways. Not likely [laughs] but we can pretend we have some potency in our ability to help change the world. [Lucas has] got to believe things like this . He’s got a whole life ahead of him, I’m old, I know the truth! [Laughs]”

Gilliam later elaborated on the world as it is today, where the amount of clutter is not exactly far off from his designs in Theorem.

Gilliam: “My complaint, it seems we’re becoming more and more infantile in the fact that ‘Oh! there’s something interesting! I’ve got to put that in my mouth!’ We don’t, but it’s effectively that ‘I WANT IT NOW’ not, I’m not going to work towards it, I’m not gonna wait. I need it now. And that’s in fact infantile. But that’s what we’ve become. I mean a lot of the film is a resistance to that, to escape it. I mean for me, coming to New York, it’s like Qohen going out his front door. I mean it’s just like WHAT?! In London we’re overwhelmed with stuff but it’s provincial and pissy-small compared to walking into Times Square.

And you think, ‘what is this about?’ and where do we fit in to it. I mean are we just these little dots that connect around the way? Are we just becoming social insects like worker bees? You  know our job is to keep tweeting and connecting, spreading those pheromones, they sort of go through the ether as opposed to antenna going [wiggles fingers at Lucas]…So nobody really has to have an individual opinion, people are sort of constantly communicating ‘Should I say that? Is that right? Have I gone too far? Have I offended? Am I rude?’ All these words keep coming up and mine are just FUCK THIS! People have got to start being individual and offensive.

I’m obsessed about offending people [laughs] Because it’s when you get a discussion going now, maybe. You might start talking about things rather than ducking and diving. I’ve watched my daughter say ‘oh that was very rude’ AND? [laughs] What do you think about that thought? You wanna talk about it?”

Hedges plays Bob, Management’s teenage son who is there to speed along Quohen’s progress. From this press conference, it was obvious that teenage Hedges and Gilliam were so pleased to be working with each other, and they elaborated on how he was cast in the film:

Lucas Hedges:  “I sent in a tape to Terry as an audition and then a week later I got cast. Which is very strange. Especially for a role of this proportion…that doesn’t happen. And we arranged to talk on the phone and [Terry] called me up…we spoke and it was–his energy was absolutely incredible. It was absolutely incredible! And he was insane! Absolutely insane and he was going on about what was going on in [Bucharest, Romania, where the film was shot] and about Vlad Tempish and about Dracula and it was lovely. And it was clear right off the bat that this is a man who doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. Really. And he’s an individual artist and I guess that’s my origin with Terry…Meeting Terry–I mean hearing [him] for the first time was something I’ll never forget.”

Terry Gilliam: “When I saw him in Moonrise Kingdom, there was one guy that kinda popped off the screen for me. And it turned out to be this one. I’d never seen him before or anything and then [he] sent that tape in. I had only taped one kid in London. There was one kid who was kind of interesting, he was the only person I started putting on tape. And Lucas’s tape came in and I said that’s it! Done. Magic. It was simple as that. I didn’t have a single doubt. He just cracked it, boom. That’s the character. Then I called him and I tried to frighten him off and I failed. [Laughs] And it was wonderful I mean [he] was really thrown in the deep end with someone like Christoph.”

Hedges: “Yeah and it was a scary transition both from Brooklyn to Romania to working with Christoph and in a world that was very foreign. Both from a filmmaking standpoint and a social standpoint. But it really became a home and it really worked out.”

Up next for Hedges is playing Jeremy Renner’s son in Kill the Messenger.
Meanwhile, the internet has recently stirred up a renewed interest in Gilliam’s long-gestating Don Quixote project which was last addressed in the 2002 doc, Lost in La Mancha. Unfortunately, this conference took place just a couple days too late for hopeful news:

Gilliam: “Today, I don’t know. I knew two days ago. Today I don’t know anymore. I got an e-mail the other night. So I’m not gonna say anything. Things are [Gilliam wavers his hands in the air]…gone liquid again. We shall see. It’s something for me to think about when I don’t have a job. That’s the important thing. A man’s gotta keep the mind occupied. And pretending is the best way there is to go through life.”

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Kevin Kline and Israel Horovitz discuss new film “My Old Lady”

Israel Horovitz is a veteran playwright and stage director who at seventy-five years old is bringing one of his plays to screen for the first time with the film adaptation of My Old Lady.

My Old Lady stars Kevin Kline as Mathias a down on his luck author who is brought to France when his father dies leaving him a Parisian flat in his will. Mathias dreams of profiting off the sale of said-flat however are crushed when he finds the flat comes with a tenant (Dame Maggie Smith) to whom Mathias owes money to under a peculiar French real estate arrangement called a “viager.”

Horovitz and Kline were in great spirits when they sat down recently in New York to discuss adapting the play to film after its successful stage life.

 

How familiar were you with Israel’s play before you got involved with the film?         

Kevin Kline: I read it in French.

Israel Horovitz: Oh that’s right, I gave it to you in French or somebody–

Kline: Some crazy French producer who thought I could actually speak French well enough to play it when it was done in Paris.

Horovitz: You didn’t see it in New York though?

Kline: No.

 

In that version, was Mathias French?

Kline: No, he was American. That’s what was so–they wanted me to play this American but who spoke French. In the film version, the idea that he couldn’t speak French, this was something new.

Horovitz: The play was done in, I don’t know, fifteen or twenty languages around the world but it was most popular, or very popular in France. It was done in a 1200 seat theatre and played for a couple of years.

 

Mathias is a very sort of world-weary character, was it difficult to get into that mindset?

Kline: [In hilariously World-Weary tones…] I can’t believe you’re asking me this, same old, tired old question! World-weary? I do world-weary very readily. In fact I’m sick of that question! I’m weary of all this nonsense. [Losing the weariness]… World weary? Well he’s just a mess!…I never quite understood him. Nor did I wish to. I think it’s a good thing for an actor not to–I’m always wary of actors and directors who say ‘I’ve got an idea about Hamlet, here’s the deal, here’s what his problem is’ or ‘Here’s an idea I’ve got for Lear’ Or if an actor’s saying ‘You know what I’m playing? What my subtext is?’ I don’t wanna know! No. There’s a certain point to, a degree of ignorance which I’ve maintained precisely.

 

Horovitz also spoke at length about bringing together his main cast:

Horovitz: Kevin was the first–I didn’t want to do a movie that had, I don’t want to say unknown actors, but less-than-great-actors. Because some years ago the pope came to Paris and there was a big to-do with French writers saying you must know the division between church and state. They went out to the airport with signs protesting and the pope was this little old man about to die and the first thing he said, got off the plane and there were microphones, he said, “It’s a pleasure to arrive somewhere in this life as an unambitious guest.” And I directed this movie as an unambitious guest. Because I wasn’t trying to build a big film career…I just wanted to make a beautiful movie and I settled on that story because I thought the story could be funny and it could be serious at the same time. It could be possibly the kind of movie that I would love to see if I didn’t do the movie. And we’d shoot in Paris and like, what’s wrong with that? And my daughter would be the producer and what’s wrong with that?

…And I asked Kevin who was famously “Kevin Decline” and he said YES and then I roped him in. And he did the reading and we’re both theatre rats, so we did readings at my house and really, he really knew who he was playing and helped me you know, refine it. And then Maggie said yes and I flew to London and had a lunch with her and she said “I had twenty-five scripts offered to me and I’ve chosen yours, do you want to know why?” And I thought ‘Oh my god, do I really want to know? Okay, why?’ and she said “Because I don’t have to die at the end of your movie.”

 

What was it like to work with Maggie Smith?

Horovitz: Oh, she’s lovely. She’s Maggie Smith

 

Had you worked with her before?

Kline: No, no no no no. She’s probably the first dame. No I worked with Dame Joan– actually Lady, The Lady Olivier, Jane Plowright, who’s may be one of her best friends.

Horovitz: Judi Dench is Maggie Smith’s best friend. They’re both 79 turning 80 and they’re both terrified to turn 80. They talk to each other on the phone every day of their lives.

Kline: She was great she’s ..when I stopped finally boring her, pleading with her for more theater stories, you know I wanted to hear about all of her experiences in the theater. But, oh, consummate professional. Remember the day where she had to–she faints in the movie. Even if a thirty-year old faints, they say ‘okay, there’s a mat here and you’ll fall out of frame onto a nice, soft mattress.’ This was like the first take, um, she just fell on the floor!

Horovitz: She scared the hell out of–

Kline: All of us! Could have broken a hip, but no, was fine.

Horovitz: I did three takes and she would have gone on and I thought, ‘I can’t be the man who killed Maggie Smith.’ And I said “I’m very impressed, that you could do that Maggie” and she looked at me with this kind of sexy voice and said “You’d be amazed at what I can still do.”

 

When did you first encounter the concept of a “Viager”? And what was your reaction to it?

Horovitz: Well I had fifty something of my plays translated and performed in France. I spent tons and tons of my life there and I couldn’t believe it when I first heard about it. And then I started to research it and I saw these real estate agents that specialize only in viager apartments. It’s much more complicated than I made it in the movie. Because you can buy a viager apartment that has, they say “deux tete”, two heads. And you’re buying the husband and wife and you have to outlive both of them. So at first I thought, ‘man this is the most barbaric thing I’ve ever found!’ and then I realized, you know, it’s not so bad. If somebody’s old and they have no money–

Kline: Gives them a new annuity.
Horovitz: And they don’t have kids to leave their apartment to…If somebody gives them a bunch of money and pays them to stay in the apartment, pays them a little something and then they know they’ve got a roof over their heads for the rest of their lives, it’s fine. It’s not so much a gamble for that person, it’s a real security.

 

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Film Review “My Old Lady”

Starring: Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristen Scott Thomas
Directed By: Israel Horovitz
Running Time: 104 minutes
Cohen Media

Our Score: 2.5 out of 5 stars

By all accounts My Old Lady has had successful runs in its various stage iterations, so how does it hold up as a film? Unfortunately it’s something of a mixed bag. Director Horovitz, adapting his own play to this film, seeks to open up his three person play by adding some supporting characters, not to mention the actual gorgeous Parisian background, but the film itself never seems to rise above it’s central contrivance and weighty melodrama.

Kevin Kline plays Mathias Gold, a failed novelist from America coming to France to claim and sell a gorgeous Paris apartment that he’s inherited from his dead father. The catch on this particular flat is it comes pre-packed with the elderly Mathilde (Maggie Smith) under a French real estate arrangement known as a “viager”. Under this arrangement, the elderly tenant collects an annuity from the buyer so long as they live. Basically the buyer pays less on the place should the seller of the property pass away sooner rather than later. Naturally this makes Mathias’s introduction to Mathilde quite awkward. Complicating matters is Mathilde’s live-in grown daughter, Chloe (Kristen Scott Thomas in her third outing as Smith’s daughter) who naturally dislikes a disgruntled American with a vested interest in her mother’s death.

The film is stronger in its earlier acts with Mathias and Mathilde engaging in their subtle battle of wills–“to long life” she quips when toasting at dinner. Meanwhile Mathias schemes behind her back by investigating her medical records and whisking away furniture to pawn as an alternate way to turn a profit. He also engages in some minor blackmail against Chloe who, as it turns out, is also a woman damaged by her parents’ indiscretions. Kline is infinitely more charming when playing at being a scoundrel rather than when he’s saddled with lengthy monologues later in the film likely lifted directly from the play.

And here is where the film begins to wade into melodrama. Of course Mathilde’s lengthy stay in the flat of Mathias’s absentee father can only give way to a past affair whose shock waves were felt by both Mathias and Chloe on either side of the Atlantic. And as the film’s cast is essentially this trio, you can probably already guess who Mathias and Chloe will turn to when the revelations come pouring in.

I do give credit to Horovitz’s script which, if anything is unusual for using Paris as the backdrop of what is by all accounts the fallout of a long past love affair rather than the setting for the impassioned blooming of a youthful one. Additionally it is not often in film when we get to see older skilled actors such as Scott Thomas and Kline forge a romance however one wishes it didn’t come with quite so much baggage.

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David Mackenzie, Jack O’Connell and Rupert Friend talk about “Starred Up”

David Mackenzie’s transfixing new UK prison drama, Starred Up, is now available on demand as well as in theatrical release in New York. The film made its initial NYC  premiere this past spring at the Tribeca Film Festival where I got a chance to speak with Mackenzie as well as the stars Jack O’Connell and Rupert Friend.

O’Connell stars as Eric Love, a 19 year-old inmate who has been deemed too dangerous to serve in a juvenile facility and has been “starred up” to the adult penitentiary. Friend plays a prison counselor who seeks to rehabilitate the inmates through non violent group therapy. The shooting of the film itself took place over four weeks in an actual prison which the filmmakers credited with helping to develop the film:

“You feel it,” said director David Mackenzie, “You feel the strength of those walls and the strength of the metal bars and the doors. It kind of pens you in a bit. It’s perfect for recreating the atmosphere you need for the movie. But you can definitely feel how oppressive that architecture is.”

Consequently, the actor’s substituted trailers for jail cells. “There was nothing else to be in” Rupert Friend described the setting, “and it’s freezing and the walls hadn’t been cleaned or painted since the last occupants so there’s kind of bodily secretions…don’t touch the walls. And the feeling of isolation and frankly, terror, was pretty powerful for everyone. And it does, it plays into the psychology of the thing. It really does.”

Jack O’Connell had a similar feeling “because we spent our downtime in cells too it meant I had the opportunity at any point to just imagine it. So our trailers were effectively cells. So if at any point I wanted to research or just be as Eric for a bit, I was in his setting.” Although he also went on to say the prison itself he didn’t find scary, “not when it’s not functioning. From what I can gather from the graffiti and the history of [the jail] itself, it’s had scarier days. Much scarier days than when we were there.”

The cast also had the fairly unique experience of shooting the film sequentially over the course of four weeks which encouraged an improvisational take on the story. O’Connell described this as “a total luxury. I mean I could turn up on set without knowing my lines and kind of just blag it, you know? Sort of story unfolding as we told it and if I ever get to repeat that same sort luxury I consider myself very privileged and I’m sure David Mackenzie, our director, shares those sentiments.” In fact Mackenzie shared on the red carpet that he hoped to repeat the experience on an AMC pilot he was readying to shoot at the time, “I’m asking them at the moment whether they’re prepared to let me do it in this method…we’ll see what happens. But actually because the pilot is set in a very limited number of locations so you don’t have to kind of do all the moving that would normally make it problematic. So if I’m lucky maybe I’ll get away with it.”

The improvisational atmosphere was most evident in the group therapy sessions overseen by Friend’s character Oliver, whom the writer Jonathan Asser based on his own experience with inmates. If there’s levity to be found in the film, it’s here and unsurprisingly Mackenzie described those shooting days as  “a joy” saying “because we shot the film sequentially–So you know, we’d have like four or five days and then we’d get a group scene and…there’s quite a big page count. So the schedule gave me like three hours rather than two hours, so it was like ‘Wow! A luxury here!’ and the way we shot it with those scenes was we had the text but we improvised at the head of the scene and we improvised at the tail of the scene. And we allowed the guys to kind of play with it. So we really felt like it wasn’t written. It had to feel like it was alive. And it was great what they did was you know a real joy.”

For Friend it got especially real in a fight scene, “We just kind of went for it. You know one of the scenes these guys, you know there’s a lot of fighting and we didn’t choreograph any of that…and I won’t say who it was, but I got punched so hard in the eye I wound up in the eye doctor.” Although for Friend, “the most interesting part” was remaining a nonviolent character amongst all the tension. “How is it that this one mild mannered, middle class guy was able to diffuse that tension and make it constructive? That’s what was fascinating” he said on the red carpet,  “Not just theoretically, but actually in the room when this lot are all going crazy.”

Director Mackenzie reinforced this sentiment on maintaining control in the violent group. “It was fascinating to watch how…you often see the escalation of things but the deescalation of things is never like a straight deflation. It’s like you know it’s jagged, jagged deescalation and that was really interesting. But it’s fun and also he’s building connections with these guys and I think that’s where the socialization I guess of Jack’s character is really at the fore.”

When specifically asked what O’Connell brought to the role of Eric, the director had nothing but praise for the up-and-coming actor. “What he really brought to it was a fearlessness and the kind of cojones to really go as far as he could with that character. Without holding anything back and that was what a director dreams of. And because we shot the film sequentially he only needed to worry about the scene he was in. He didn’t have to worry about where it fits in in the jigsaw puzzle…so he didn’t. He tried to kind of forget about the rest of the film apart from the scene he was in. And it was just about the immersion into that moment. And I think it’s great. I’m very happy with what he did.”

Jack himself credited his background for aiding him in bringing rougher characters like Eric to the screen, “I don’t want to offend people here, but I do find that you know your typical actor doesn’t necessarily have you know that sort of life experience, you know in scrapes and you know, I haven’t been in a drama school for a significant amount of my adult life. I was out and about trying to be an actor and also trying to survive I guess and have fun at the same time. So that kind of gave me a bit of a wealth of life experience and I think directors like David distinguish the difference between someone with experience in that field and an actor who’s trying to pretend. And so it certainly was to my advantage that the majority of actors you know aren’t working class individuals from Darby. I mean that meant approaching a role like this, I kind of know the difference between acting hard and perhaps being hard. You know, being intimidating. It’s a fine line but very decisive one way or the other.”

Despite it’s grim setting, when Mackenzie was asked what message he hoped the film conveyed, he responded “Somebody said something about a film that kind of suggests that everybody has a chance, a shot at redemption and the idea that you know, this character has obviously done very bad things but you know, he’s obviously come from circumstances…I think it’s about shining a little bit of humanity into the situation. There isn’t much.”

Starred Up is available on VOD and in limited NYC release. Jack O’Connell can next be seen starring in Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut “Unbroken”.

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Film Review “Frank”

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Directed By: Lenny Abrahamson
Running Time: 95 minutes
Magnolia Pictures

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

Frank stars Domhnall (that’s pronounced “Doe-nuhl,” everyone) Gleeson as Jon, a struggling songwriter and keyboard player who chances upon a gig with quirky band, The Soronprfbs (don’t ask me to pronounce that one), when their keyboardist goes off the deep end. That is, he tries to drown himself. When Jon’s asked to join the band by its frontman, he’s undeterred by both that suicide attempt and said frontman, Frank (Michael Fassbender), having a large papier-mâché cartoon head on at all times.

Jon leaves his boring office job when the band drives far out into the Irish countryside in order to record their next album. A process that involves making their own custom instruments as well as the occasional bout physical violence. Meanwhile, Jon catalogues their musical development across his various social media platforms so that even in seclusion, The Soronprfbs have a growing audience.

That this audience is unbeknownst to rest of the band is at the heart of the problem between outsider Jon and the rest of the band. Frank’s passion for being creative while sheltering himself from the outside world both geographically and within the head is supported by his band mates who are resentful of Jon, hilariously so in the case Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Clara the hostile theremin player, and ambivalent about completing their album in any sort of timely fashion. Jon pushing them to perform for the web saavy crowd at Texas’s South by Southwest festival is what ultimately brings their problems to a head.

Having Jon as the focal point for the film is a clever move as he, like us, gradually learns Frank’s head is not merely a quirky affection of an eccentric artist but a real crutch for a man with serious issues. Gyllenhaal’s Clara too gains more dimension as someone who may really just be trying to protect Frank from himself after all. Meanwhile Fassbender’s one of those actors who I could watch read a telephone book to be honest, and having a huge expressionless mask over his head for 98% of the running time is about as impeditive as that setup however he works all his remaining faculties to the advantage. From Frank’s curiously dorky wardrobe to Fassbender’s distinctly odd muffled voice–we’re told he’s from Kansas–Frank’s a fascinating character. The fleeting moments without the mask are truly compelling and Fassbender maximizes this screentime with a strangely damaged song performance.

None of the above not to say the film isn’t hilarious as advertised, which especially during their countryside training, it is. Rather that it treats its characters as real humans rather than caricatures. It’s a bizarre gem of a film that’s worth seeking out.

Frank opened today in New York and Canada with additional screening locations to be added in the coming weeks.

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Film Review “Happy Christmas”

Starring: Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Joe Swanberg, Mark Webber and Lena Dunham
Directed By: Joe Swanberg
Running Time: 88 minutes
Magnolia Pictures

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

Generally speaking, I’m not too fond of ‘Christmas in July!’ but thankfully Happy Christmas is far from A Holiday Film. Joe Swanberg’s light slice of life comedy starring Anna Kendrick and Melanie Lynskey is currently available on VOD and opened theatrically today.

Kendrick plays Jenny, the sister of Jeff (director Swanberg), she’s just had a bad breakup and is bunking in Jeff’s basement ostensibly there as an in-house babysitter for his two year old son while piecing her life back together. Jenny makes a terrible first impression with Jeff’s wife Kelly (Lynskey) by getting blackout drunk on her first night in town. At first viewing I was concerned that this would become a clichéd feud between the housewife and the messy sister-in-law, but refreshingly, Swanberg doesn’t go there. The result is a couple of thoroughly authentic female characters at very different points in their lives. While Kelly is at first wary of finding Jenny once again drinking with friend Carson (Lena Dunham) in their basement, the two convince her to share a beer with them and begin one of many of the film’s brilliantly natural conversations.

Not much older than Jenny, Kelly seems to everyone to be an actual grown up but Kelly is revealed to be reluctant about taking on the role of the stay-at-home mom. Her position has in many ways prevented her from pursuing her novelist career and she finds the younger women to be an outlet to which she can finally voice her concerns. For their part, Jenny and Carson see their presence as the opportunity Kelly needs to share some of her responsibilities and finally pursue her own goals. Despite some naivete about being a working writer, Jenny actually does reignite some inspiration that Kelly needed.

Swanberg is also charming as Jeff, whose laid back demeanor is finally stretched to its limits by his younger sister but the film truly belongs to its leading ladies. Your enjoyment of Kendrick’s performance may vary by your tolerance for the over usage of the word “like” in sentences, as for me, Jenny feels completely authentic to like, many people I know. Lynskey too is impressive for the vulnerability she brings to Kelly when she may have been a stick-in-the-mud. All of the cast are additionally helped out by Swanberg’s two year old Jude, who wholly steals the screen from his adult co-stars just by being an unscripted little kid.

None of the characters’ difficulties are ever completely fixed per se by the film’s conclusion, but there’s a genuine sense of warmth within this family unit not often felt in actual holiday films.

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CD Review “Snowpiercer” Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Snowpiercer
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Composer:Marco Beltrami
Varese Sarabande Records
Tracks: 20
Running Time: 56 minutes

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

Releasing on July 22nd is Marco Beltrami’s score to the fantastic Joon-Ho Bong film, Snowpiercer. Snowpiercer is the name of the post-apocalyptic train which shelters all remaining life on Earth in a dystopian society arranged from the haves in the front of the train and the haves-nots in the back of the train. Chris Evans’s Curtis leads a rebellion from the back to the front and Beltrami’s score excellently compliments his struggle.

Most of the tracks feature heavy metallic percussive beats that emulate the chugging along of the train as well as the battles along the way. Most notably in the “Blackout Fight” track. Fitting for one of the most exciting sequences of the film. Similarly “Steam Car” manages to maintain this train soundscape while also layering in the steamy atmosphere.

Frequently Beltrami lets up on the action to make way for eerie, sparse piano and orchestral work to accent the more decadent cars of Snowpiercer as in “Sushi”. He also manages to work in the thumping club music of the “Seoul Train”–so different visually in the film–into the forward motion of the rest of the score.

I will admit I enjoyed the action score much more in the context of driving the film, but the haunting piano work it kicks off with and spread throughout is more than enough to recommend giving this a listen on its own. Also, much to my amusement the final track also throws in the charmingly terrifying propaganda anthem from the classroom car (Sample: What happens if the engines stops? We all freeze and DIE!).

Track Listing:
1. This is the End
2. Stomp
3. Preparation
4. Requesting An Upgrade
5. Take the Engine
6. Axe Gang
7. Axe Schlomo
8. Blackout Fight
9. Water Supply
10. Go Ahead
11. Sushi
12. The Seven
13. We Go Forward
14. Steam Car
15. Seoul Train
16. Snow Melt
17. Take My Place
18. Yona Lights
19. This is the Beginning
20. Yona’s Theme

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Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. at Discovery Times Square

Photos by Liz Phillips
Note: There are spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier within this article.

For New York City-bound Avengers fans looking to bridge the Marvel Cinematic Universe gap between April’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and August’s Guardians of the Galaxy, they needn’t look any further than Discovery Times Square’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. Located in the heart of midtown, the exhibit replicates an actual SHIELD base with state of the art interactive exhibits and Marvel artifacts. We got the chance to tour this unique experience during its preview period in late May and were glad to return last week to see its completion and test whether we were worthy of our newly-issued SHIELD ID cards.

Upon entry into the exhibit, “probationary” level agents are scanned and welcomed with an official message from none other than Agent Felix Blake (Titus Welliver). After Blake’s message, the entry room gives way into the further secret headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. It should be noted for anyone reading this in confusion in light of what occurred in The Winter Soldier that this exhibit hails directly from Phase 1 in the MCU timeline, right after the events of the Avengers. Though it begs the question: How awesome would a HYDRA station be? Bring on the digitized Dr. Zola and his databanks brain, Marvel! But I digress.

After briefing, each Avenger gets highlighted starting with beautiful costume displays of the SHIELD agents Black Widow and Hawkeye (even if the mannequin’s arms don’t hold a candle to Mr. Renner’s). Beside them are the suits of SHIELD higher-ups Agent Phil Coulson and Director Nick Fury. Like most all of the props on view throughout the exhibit, the costumes are accompanied by touch screens giving in-depth info on the items on display. Other noteable props we encountered on our tour included Loki’s infamous helmet and scepter, the Tesseract portal device and of course, Captain America’s iconic shield.

What makes this exhibit special however, beyond its wealth of actual props and costumes, is that ID everyone was issued. As the station’s staff move recruits from the designated rooms of Captain America, The Hulk, Thor and Iron Man, would-be agents can scan into interactive exercises that test their skills versus the Avengers. Spoiler alert: None of us are stronger than Steve Rogers. It also allows users to share some of their results with Facebook if they chose to connect with the social network upon registering their ID.

Unsurprisingly, the most interactive room is that of Tony Stark himself where visitors can watch themselves get suited up on screen and maneuver Iron Man in his virtual garage or operate an actual robotic arm.*

The largest space belongs to Thor, whose costume from the first film is cleverly displayed as a gift from Asgard to Midgard. Beside it, S.T.A.T.I.O.N. boasts apparently the largest holographic projection in North America, that of Thor’s legendary hammer, Mjolnir. Across from these artifacts, agents can virtually manuever through stars in a program the center developed in collaboration with NASA. Jane Foster would be proud.

Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N.  at Discovery Times Square is now open and you can find ticketing information on their official website. 

(Special thanks to Heather for being our model agent!)

*Our team discovered an amusing Easter egg in regards to this arm, clearly the exhibitors know their NYC audience! Head on over to our TUMBLR page to enjoy our short video as well as additional photos from the exhibit.

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Titus Welliver Talks About “Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N.”

 Titus Welliver first joined the Marvel universe in the short one-shot, “Item 47”. Taking place in the aftermath of the Battle of New York in 2012’s The Avengers, Welliver played SHIELD Agent Blake. The short saw Blake sending Agent Sitwell (later of “Hail HYDRA” fame, boooo, hiss!) to recover a lost Chitauri weapon from a pair of common criminals on a bank robbing spree. There it was implied he was previously the superior agent to Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson. No surprise then, with Coulson’s resurrection, Blake too cropped up on ABC’s Agents of SHIELD.

Now that SHIELD has a temporary NYC home at Discovery Times Square’s Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. with Agent Blake inducting new agents on a daily basis, Welliver dropped by for a tour with his family last week. He gamely tried out several of the interactive exhibits and visited with some important Marvel props (including Item 47 itself). I was happy to get to tagalong with them, along with the exhibit’s executive director, Mark Smith. Both men were extremely knowledgable on their Marvel comics and it was a pleasure to see the exhibit in the company of these enthusiastic fans.

Lauren Damon: When you did Item 47, did you know Agents of the SHIELD could be happening?
Titus Welliver: No, Agents of SHIELD was probably in the works at that time, I didn’t know that they were going to do an Agents of SHIELD show. So when I did Item 47, it was just–I flipped out. I was so excited to do it. Because Blake and in that he’s kind of a Walter Mitty character, you can kind of tell he’s just champing at the bit to get out in the field and do something.

LD: Agent Blake’s background is having been a superior officer to Agent Coulson, did you and Clark Gregg have any discussion on their roles before the Avengers?
TW: No, I mean we didn’t. Clark was my roommate in college, so we’ve known each other for a really long time so he sort of hinted after I did Item 47 that there was stuff coming down the pipe. So when we actually got to work together it was pretty funny for us because we were such total goofoffs in college and now we’re like these Agents of SHIELD being all serious standing on the helicarrier so it’s really fun.

LD: Your SHIELD episodes aired prior to The Winter Soldier premiering, after those events, where does that put Agent Blake?
TW: Well they’ve got to reconstruct SHIELD now from the ground up now that’s it’s been so heavily compromised and destroyed. So it will be interesting to see how they resurrect SHIELD within–and as you saw on the show, it ended on a pretty bleak note. So…those writers are so good. They’ll find a way to bring it back up and I’m just happy for the show because I think it’s a smart show. I don’t think we’ve had anything like that you know, maybe The X-Files sort of the closest comparison I could come up with. And that was a phenomenal show. But with the science and the whole
Marvel universe, because everything is so interconnected, the places they can go are kind of endless.

LD: Finally, who is your favorite Avenger?
TW: My favorite Avenger? Captain America.
LD: Alright!
TW: I mean…ahhh that’s hard! I mean, I like them all. But yeah, I’m a huge Captain America fan from way back and I have probably about eighty-five percent of the original Captain America comics. So yeah, I’m a big geek.

Fittingly, in Captain America’s space at the Discovery Center, I asked Mark Smith how they went about choosing which of Captain Rogers’s props would be placed within the exhibit:

Mark Smith: It’s based on the storyline really. So with Captain America, the rebirth pod was a big part of that. The initiation of the super soldier program itself so we wanted to make sure we had real props and costumes and pieces from the movie to be able to then blend into the storyline about how Captain America is the super soldier.

Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. is now open at 44th street in New York’s Times Square, you can read more about visiting the center at its official website . In the meantime, Titus Welliver can currently be seen in “Transformers: Age of Extinction”.

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Filed Under: Interviews, TV Interviews Tagged With: avengers, marvels, station, talks, titus, welliver, ...

Film Review “Snowpiercer”

Starring: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer and Ed Harris
Directed By: Joon-ho Bong
Running Time: 126 minutes
The Weinstein Company

Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

Hoards of filthy apocalypse survivors line up to be counted and doled out their daily glob of protein under hostile guard. Two small children are ripped from their parents and a father loses an arm in the most torturously imaginative way possible for throwing a shoe. Welcome to Snowpiercer.

 Or rather the tail section of Snowpiercer, the massive ark-like train that rattles through the frozen wasteland of 2031 Earth in Joon-ho Bong’s wildly inventive adaptation of French graphic novel, Le Transperceneige. By turns hilarious, repulsive and heart-wrenching, Snowpiercer is the ride this summer needs.

The front of the Snowpiercer, we learn, is inhabited by the smaller, richer class, rather like a hellish horizontal Titanic. It’s the front where Chris Evans’s Curtis aims to lead a rebellion to with the help of Jamie Bell as Edgar and elderly mastermind Gilliam, played by John Hurt.

Tilda Swinton rounds out this strong cast as the villainous Mason who early on deigns to visit the tail-dwellers to remind them of their proper place. Mason is a cinematic joy every moment she’s on screen, really laying the groundwork for the type of people running the train and rallying the audience to Evans’s side. Swinton has a ball as Mason who genuinely sees nothing wrong with The Order of the train and she chews the scenery with relish (and grotesque false teeth).

When the rebellion is up and running in earnest, director Bong has a flawless grasp on pacing the big action confrontations with the smaller marvels of exploring a train literally encompassing all life on Earth. The battle set pieces themselves escalate as though the audience is along for a really satisfying video game, with all the pitfalls of slicing through armies of minions only to have the level shift before you, revealing a surprise big boss. I recommend seeing this film in a packed house for the sheer number of Oh Shit! Moments this film packs in.

Finally though, not enough can be said of Evans’s performance here. Likely in the beginning of this rebellion to have been involved for physical strength, his Curtis attempts to resist leadership at every turn. And yet the more he loses as he progresses through the train, the more his will is honed and Evans’s eyes gradually give way to a man who has nothing to lose. A third act speech regarding Curtis’s early days on Snowpiercer is devestating and classically told without flashbacks. It’s all Evans’s reading of some truly nightmarish details, not unlike the Indianopolis speech in Jaws. I’d put money on this film having the single most repulsive sentence you’ll hear on screen this year. Incidentally, after 2007’s Sunshine and last year’s role in The Iceman, Evans is increasingly becoming my goto for the anti-summer blockbuster when he’s not Avenging. When he puts down Cap’s shield, audiences really need to pay more attention.

Snowpiercer is currently playing in five US cities with plans for expansion listed on the film’s official website , check it out when it gets near you!

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Filed Under: Film Reviews Tagged With: film, review, snowpiercer
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