Scenes from the Austin Film Fest
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Austin Film Festival winners
The audiences voted and the winners are in. During the Austin Film Festival, Oct. 22 — 29, audiences numerically rated certain films by ballot. They’ve spoken:
Out of Competition Audience Award Winner: “Up in the Air,” written by Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner and directed by Jason Reitman
Comedy Vanguard Audience Award Winner: “Herpes Boy,” written by Byron Lane and directed by Nathaniel Atcheson
Narrative Feature Competition Audience Award Winner: “Happy Ending,” written and directed by Atsuhiro Yamada
Documentary Feature Competition Audience Award Co-Winners: “My Run,” directed by Tim VandeSteeg and “Torey’s Distraction,” directed by Tisha Blood
Narrative Short Audience Award Winner: “Love Bug,” written and directed by (Austin’s own) Kat Candler
Narrative Student Short Audience Award Winner: “Adelaide,” written and directed by Liliana Greenfield-Sanders
Documentary Short Audience Award Winner: “Mr. Okra,” directed by T.G. Herrington
Animated Short Audience Award Winner: “The Incident at Tower 37,” directed by Chris Perry
Get more, including next year’s festival dates, HERE
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Interview: David Lang, composer for ‘(Untitled)’
Does Adrian Jacob’s character compare at all to your life?
I guess a little bit, yeah. The way I set it up is it’s sort of unfolding; he’s learning how to do things, he has a small audience and then he figures out a bunch of things by doing a lot of things in public in front of almost nobody. That’s definitely something I’ve been through, but I wouldn’t say that I got into a relationship and then got dumped and then all of a sudden I was a good composer. I’m not exactly sure that I believe that people who suffer make better art.
So with your music, especially Bang on a Can, it seems that the physical performance is as much a part of it as the auditory and I see a lot of crossovers between that and “(Untitled).” Was this intentional, since they’re both experimental forms of music?
I really wanted to make it so that it wasn’t just like the music was described, but you actually see it being made and you’d actually not just see people doing things with classical instruments, which is sort of secret and arcane, you know, how do you scrape a piece of horse hair across a box and come out with a beautiful sound. There’s something mysterious about that. I really wanted it to be everyday things that people would understand, like ripping paper and dropping glass so that there’s an attempt to make music out of things that are in everybody’s lives all around them. Again, that’s very much like Bang on a Can. The physicality of making the music should be part of the appreciation of making the music.
I also think of Bang on a Can, the actual name of the organization, and then the whole kicking the bucket as correlated? Was that intentional?
Actually it was not part of the original thing and it was not my idea to have the character kick the bucket, that was the director’s idea.
Why did he want that, do you know?
I think he was trying to think of some action which was ridiculous. He was trying to think of a musical instrument that would be ridiculous and I think that’s how he thought of it.
So how were you approached by the director?
The director got in touch with me and his idea was that this composer would write this really idiotic music and then he would have this experience and be changed and that he wanted to see him going through this crisis moment out of which comes this little piece of piano music. And he came to me and said, ‘I heard this piece of piano music of yours and I want to license that for the film, I want him to go through this experience and come out the other end and I want real music there and I want it to be your piece.’ So I had him describe for me what was going on in the rest of the movie and I said you can have all this silly music; I can write the silly music, too. You know, I’m a professional. So I sort of talked him into letting me do the rest of the score, I had never done one before. It was really kind of a leap of faith on his part.
Did you work with Adam Goldberg in helping his performance?
We did a bunch of dummy performances. I wrote a bunch of music that was essentially the same music that they played on screen with the paper and the dropping things and kicking and screaming and yelling. I did all that in a recording session as a kind of model for what they should do and Adam came to that. He watched that whole recording session take place and sort of saw that music and listened to it. I didn’t work with him in that I was sitting there on screen going, ‘Okay, well now at this moment why don’t you try to yell higher or something.’ … But one of the things I did in the recording session, which I thought was so useful was that I recorded him yelling a bunch of stuff. I just made up a bunch of stupid stuff with him yelling, which is what he ends ups doing on screen and so I thought if at the beginning of this exercise of letting him know what this character is about, I’m going to make him yell this stuff and it’s going to be so embarrassing that the only way you’d be able to do it is with complete conviction. So I think very subtly it sort of told him the attitude that he needed to have for the rest of the music, although he’s a musician so he understands all this anyway. He was really great and he really understood what he was supposed to be doing.
I know that you had your initial ideas with how you wanted the score to be written. How much of it changed from the beginning to the end, or did it change at all?
The interesting thing for me about this film was that having never done one before is that the music was used in all these different ways. Music is usually used, in film at least to my untrained, unobservant background, as a helper. … So what’s interesting is that exists in this movie, there is that kind of underscoring that tells you their emotional lives, but there are all these other layers of music. There’s music that’s played on screen that’s supposed to be in a live concert; there’s music that’s composed on screen, where you see him actually writing music; there’s things where he’s assembling the sound through sampling to make a piece of music and there’s also a concert where there’s a real piece of music that gets played. … There’s a lot of music in the film which I wrote really for concert, so I felt that I had all these different kinds of uses for music and I would go back and forth between each world and go, ‘well, which category is this? Is this underscoring, is this live concert, which actually also tells you their inner life.’ It was interesting because the categories could all get blurred. The thing that surprised me the most was that the least satisfying part of it was writing the music that works the way some music works normally. So those things that actually are … okay well here’s 10 seconds where no one is supposed to be listening to the music but you’re supposed to see what is in his mind, or her mind. You know that stuff turned out to be, because it was the most normal, the least fun.
So what did you think of the final film?
I enjoyed it. I thought it was really funny. The weird thing for me was that I’d only seen it really on a computer monitor at a certain size and then you see those things over and over again and you’re writing music to them, so none of the jokes are very funny after you hear them 10,000 times. So what was really great is that I went out to the opening with my wife in Los Angeles at the LA County Art Museum and I got to walk down the red carpet … that was really fun and then you go into this room and there’s 600 people watching this film and a little joke comes on and everyone laughs. All of a sudden I felt like I saw the movie for the first time, because when you see it with other people around you, all your little impulses get completely magnified and I thought that was really beautiful. I had sort of forgotten how funny it was.
At that premiere, what kinds of responses did you get afterward? Were people coming up to you?
Yeah, people really liked it. The music is such a big part of it.
It’s a character in itself.
It is really a character. And again that’s why I was trying to make sure it had a shape from beginning to the end; that it was really kind of respectful to the idea that music and musicians are important.
It seems like a great first film for you to work on as a composer.
It was really great because the music actually was present. The thing I thought was interesting that I didn’t really understand while I was working on it was that it pokes fun of so many things. It pokes fun of art, music and people who aren’t really commercial. Some of those are really easy targets and some you don’t really know exactly where it’s going, but at the end it’s really clear that this composer … after two hours of making fun of everybody, it’s actually really serious.
In your work, “Cheating, Lying, Stealing,” I feel like there’s two different kinds of voices, you know you have your stringed instruments met with the percussive instruments and they each tell a different story. But in the end they come together and complete a whole picture. How much of your emotional input goes into your work?
I never set out to say, ‘okay today I’m really miserable so I’m going to write a really miserable piece, or I’m just going to sit and think about the problems of my life and how I can translate that into high art.’ I never do that although that’s a very kind of traditional way for people to think of what they’re doing. Certainly in the media that’s the way a lot of art is portrayed. In this film the way it’s shown how he goes and has this hard experience and that hard experience makes him better. It makes him a more sensitive artist. I don’t really like that. I don’t really think that that’s the way it works and if it works that way it can’t work that way that directly. What’s interesting about music is that it is about a certain kind of emotional expression, it’s not like working with language where you tell somebody something specific. This is actually something else. It goes some place else other than language. It uses these emotional vibrations and that way it sort of enters people on this emotional level. It comes out of you on this emotional level, whether you want it to or not. So I do spend a lot time thinking about what interests me and what I believe in and what music I love and what sounds I love and about being honest about making sure that all those things are satisfying to me. I do think there’s something fundamentally expressive about that act. And I think that because music doesn’t come in mediated by intelligence or language that’s the place where it goes inside you when you receive it.
Would Adrian Jacobs’ character make a good fit in Bang on a Can since the mission of the organization is for people who are trying things that don’t necessarily have an easy fit in any other art world?
Bang on a Can’s mission has always been to support people who are pushing some boundary, who are experimenting in some way. It’s not really about finding a style of music that we like and saying this is the best style. So a lot of the pieces which I get interested in as a presenter for Bang on a Can are pieces that may not even be great pieces. They may be things, which are just about a great vision. And so I think one of the weird things about Adrian is I wrote that music to remind me of a certain period of music history. … Let’s break down the barrier between instrument and non-instrument, the barriers between sound and noise and I associated that so much with a historical period that anybody working in that mode now, I wouldn’t be interested in presenting their music. I would be interested in presenting the music from the early sixties, which does that by the composers who are figuring that out for the first time.
So how would you describe the music of Bang on a Can now and where it’s headed?
I think it still has the same mission. I think what’s been interesting as a presenter, we started with classical music because that was our background, but we were primarily about looking at the boundaries around contemporary classical music and so over the years, what we’ve been able to do is look at the people in all the other disciplines of music … who’s pushing the boundaries and we’ve been able to expand the area that we’ve been looking at, but the criteria for judgment has always been then same. We don’t want to find a traditional thing in a traditional culture. The mission hasn’t changed at all, but the area that we’ve been applying it to has changed. As far as where it’s going, I don’t know. And I also feel like I don’t want to know where it’s going.
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Zac Efron joins Linklater at the Paramount
Richard Linklater’s terrific period drama “Me and Orson Welles” will have its official Austin premiere (it had a special sneak at SXSW this year) at 7 p.m. Nov. 30 at the Paramount Theatre. Linklater and stars Zac Efron and Christian McKay, who does a mean Orson Welles impression in a star-making turn, will be at the show. It’s presented by the Austin Film Society.
Society members can buy tickets during a member pre-sale starting Tuesday. Tickets for the general public go on sale at noon Nov. 10 through the Paramount box office, ProTix and the Austin Film Society website HERE.
Pricing: $125 VIP seating and official after-party with Linklater, McKay and Efron. $50 (Orchestra), $35 (Mezzanine) and $15 (Upper Balcony) for the screening including a Q and A.
More about the film HERE.
Efron and Claire Danes in ‘Me and Orson Welles’
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Noteworthy DVDs released 11/3/09
PICK OF THE WEEK “The Claudette Colbert Collection” (Universal): Six films starring one of the greatest screwball heroines, easily found online for a cost of under $6 per film. Contains “Three-Cornered Moon,” “The Maid of Salem,” “I Met Him in Paris,” “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife,” “No Time for Love,” and “The Egg and I.”
OTHER TOP PICKS “The Dead” (Lions Gate): John Huston could hardly have picked a better last film as director than this elegiac James Joyce adaptation starring daughter Anjelica.
“Columbia Pictures Film Noir Collection Volume 1” (Sony): Old noir favorite “The Big Heat” joins four titles (like Don Siegel’s “The Lineup”) that have never seen DVD before, all introduced or dissected by afficionado-practitioners like Martin Scorsese and James Ellroy.
“Food, Inc.” (Magnolia): An effective and engrossing primer on the ecological and health issues raised by modern agriculture, Robert Kenner’s documentary may convince you to change the way you shop.
“Say Anything” 20th Anniversary Edition (Fox): Standing outside your beloved’s window with a jambox: heartbreakingly romantic, or cause for a restraining order? Decide for yourself on Blu-ray.
“The Taking of Pelham 123” (2009) (Sony): The new one’s fun and all, but couldn’t Sony pair it with the original for a home video double feature?
“Wings of Desire” (Criterion): Wim Wenders’s potently romantic view of angels among us gets the Criterion treatment in both video formats.
“Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live” (Time-Life): A whopping nine discs full of live performances drawn from 25 years of the HOF’s existence.
NEW ON BLU-RAY “A Christmas Carol” (1951) (VCI); “Forrest Gump,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” (Paramount); “Godzilla” (Sony); “Howards End” (Criterion); “Love Actually” (Universal); “North By Northwest” (Warner Bros.); “Two Girls and a Guy” (Fox)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX “Aliens In The Attic,” “I Love You, Beth Cooper” (Fox); “The Answer Man” (Magnolia); “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” (Paramount)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN “Before the Fall,” “Lemon Tree” (IFC)
DOCUMENTARIES “Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart” (Docurama); “The Ister” (First Run / Icarus); “Unmistaken Child” (Oscilloscope); “The Way We Get By” (The Way We Get By Productions)
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE… “Christmas Story” (2007, with John Turturro) (Anchor Bay); “Home for Christmas” (VCI); “One Christmas” (Vivendi); “Scruff: A Christmas Tale” (Image); “White Christmas” (Paramount)
BEST OF TV Doctor Who: “The Black Guardian Trilogy,” “The War Games”; “Edge of Darkness” Complete Series (BBC); “The Donna Reed Show” Season 3 (Virgil Films); “G.I. Joe: Resolute,” “Mission: Impossible” Final Season (Paramount); “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero” Season 1.2, “Merry Sitcom!,” “Spin City” Season 3 (Shout! Factory); “Here’s Lucy” Season 2 (MPI); “The Rockford Files: The Movie Collection Vol. 1” (Universal); “The Shield” Complete Series (Sony); “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Season 7 (Lions Gate); Walt Disney Treasures: “Zorro: The Complete First Season” and “The Complete Second Season” (Walt Disney); “Will Ferrell: You’re Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush” (HBO); “Wolverine & the X-Men” Volume 3 (Lions Gate)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE Almodóvar’s “All About My Mother,” “Law of Desire,” “Matador,” and “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (Sony); “Rocky: The Undisputed Collection” (MGM); “Transformers” Gift Set (Paramount); “Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut” (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO Dolph Lundgren in “Direct Action” and “Command Performance” (First Look); “InAlienable,” directed by Walter Koenig, aka Chekov of “Star Trek” (Anchor Bay); Robin Givens in “A Mother’s Prayer,” Vincent D’Onofrio in “The Narrows” (Image); John Leguizamo in “Where God Left His Shoes” (IFC)
KIDS’ STUFF “Dora the Explorer: Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure” (Nickelodeon); “Fraggle Rock: A Merry Fraggle Holiday,” “LeapFrog: Learning DVD Set,” “Thomas & Friends: Holiday Express” (Lions Gate)
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On your mark, filmmakers, get ready, set …
UT’s Texas Student Television — the (interesting factoid alert) only FCC licensed student-run television station in the country — is doing one of those make-a-movie-as-fast-as-you-can contests, in which participants breathlessly, sometimes heedlessly, write, shoot and edit a short film in a devilishly restricted bracket of time.
The hitch: Competing filmies have to feature specific elements into their pix that are chosen by outside parties and only revealed at the start of the race. Go!
The actual movie-making jam, the 24-Hour Film Race, happens Nov. 13. A screening of the hasty artworks happens Nov. 19 at Spider House.
For both the race and screening, go HERE
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An adventure in movie-talkers at the Alamo
Mixed within the Alamo Drafthouse’s usual pre-movie cartoons, old movie clips and trivia is a stern, though friendly, warning to shut your yapper. The Alamo has a protocol in place (that other cinemas should follow) to report people who treat the theater like their personal living room. You raise a flag, the wait staff warns the offender, and everyone moves on. At least that’s how it usually works.
Tim League, the founder of the Alamo Drafthouse, himself experienced some movie-talkers at a recent showing of “Where the Wild Things Are.”
League, in a blog post on the Alamo site, says he followed the normal protocol and flagged some rude customers.
The move-talkers did stop talking once warned, but complained to management after the movie. The confrontation that ensued in the Alamo parking lot between this obnoxious patron and League is like something you normally only see on the screen while drinking a beer and eating nachos.
League’s open note to this hot-head is something we can all cheer:
“You sir are exactly the type of patron that I never want to see at an Alamo Drafthouse ever again. People who continue to talk when the movie has started are impolite, self-absorbed losers who were never taught common decency by their parents.”
Right on, Tim.
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‘Zombie Girl’ to air on TV
Austin-made doc “Zombie Girl: The Movie” — a heartening and hilarious and damn cool chronicle of 12-year-old Austinite Emily Hagins’ successful attempt to shoot her own feature-length horror film — will make its boob-tube debut on Dish TV’s Documentary Channel on Friday.
Full details and air dates HERE.
Read our interview with the makers of “Zombie Girl” HERE.
Emily Hagins, the ‘zombie girl’
Speaking of Central Texas-made horror flix, Carolyn Banks’ Bastrop-shot “Invicta,” a genre mash-up crackling with romance, comedy and killer fire ants, will be available on DVD in time for Xmas.
Go to the “Invicta” meme HERE, where you will also be able to snatch up the DVD in the next few weeks.
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Capsule review: ‘The Messenger’
One does not need to witness battles on the screen to understand the horrors of war, as evidenced by screenwriter Oren Moverman’s (“I’m Not There”) incredible directorial debut, “The Messenger.”
Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) has returned from the war in Iraq a decorated hero, but with multiple injuries, he must serve out the final three months of his tour. Relegated to the bleak and thankless work of casualty notification, Montgomery must visit families who have lost a loved one in the theater. His robotic commanding officer, Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), explains to the disciplined soldier that his new job is about “character” and one that must be done “before you can understand it.”
Reeling from the loss of his girlfriend he left behind to go serve his country, and haunted by the vivid images of war, Montgomery’s sole companion is a pager that goes off at all hours to alert him to his latest assignment. Throughout the movie, its piercing beep acts as a sword of Damocles hanging over his head, an audible device that leaves the audience on the same edge as the soldier.
As Montgomery and Stone enter each residence to notify families of their tragic loss, the camera enters behind them, offering the soldiers’ perspective on this horrible journey of endurance and duty, as they gut-wrenchingly deliver news that will forever change the lives of the people they visit.
Montgomery battles to reconcile his humanity with the emotional detachment required of the job, a function that Stone has assimilated so deeply that he seems to have no connection with his fellow man. As the cold relationship between commanding officer and his charge softens, Stone begins to reevaluate his understanding of war, people and himself.
Montgomery finds a kindred spirit in the form of Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton), a grieving military widow and mother of one, who is trying to come to terms with the death of her husband, a man whose soul she felt had already been lost to the brutality of life at war.
The script, co-written by Alessandro Camon, offers a loose framework for a movie that features some amazing improvisational work by the actors. The movie unfolds slowly and organically, with lengthy scenes that allow the open wounds of its characters to breathe, as they attempt to repair themselves organically.
Harrelson and Foster are outstanding in roles that should garner both of them Academy Award nominations. The relationship between these two men both dealing with their service and sacrifice in different ways, shifts seamlessly from adversarial to fraternal. While its subject manner is dark and discomfiting at times, the movie has a warmth, robust humor, and eventually, a hopefulness that left me moved unlike any movie I have seen in years.
Moverman and his cast and crew have created a stirring masterpiece that allows the viewer to inhabit a world we almost never see, and reveals the endurance of the human spirit and our need to find solace, love and fellowship in our fellow man even when we feel most isolated.
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Capsule review: ‘The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia’
Inspired by director Jacob Young’s cult documentary, “Dancing Outlaw,” a movie that featured the eccentric tap dancing Appalachian phenom, Jesco White, “Jackass” producers Johnny Knoxville, Jeff Tremaine and director Julien Nitzberg decided to follow the entire White clan for a year.
Notorious for their drinking, drugging, violence and illegal behavior, the White family of Boone, West Virginia is a petri dish of dysfunction and amoral behavior.
The documentary, “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia,” opens on a shot of a muddy puddle behind a chain-link fence, an apt metaphor for a family rolling around in slop, trapped by its history and genetics.
Using an animated family tree, the audience is introduced to one bad seed after another. The cameras follow various family members on an apparently typical year in the life in which they battle the law, their addictions and each other.
I’m always a little leery of a documentary that appears to exploit its naïve and foolish characters, but the Whites are more than willing participants in this quasi-sociological excavation of their sins. And the filmmakers don’t exactly seem to be overtly judging their subjects, for whom it seems they have a bit of an affinity. Whether that makes it OK to laugh and guffaw, I am not certain.
At times the movie almost feels like a snuff film, but instead of watching someone get killed, the audience must endure the shock, perverse humor and brutality of a family that is slowly killing itself.
A few glimmers of hopefulness appear in the bond and commitment the family members have to one another and the act of one White mother to try and get clean in order to save herself and her baby. But generally it is a darkly comic and unsettling look into a family set to self-destruct.
In the midst of the madness, Jesco White attempts to philosophize about the fate of this family that is a product of its geography and history. His massive back tattoo, one that features the visages of both Elvis and Charles Manson, may best encapsulate their burden — For as evil as they seem to be, there is a certain charisma to this band of country outlaws.
As the credits roll, the audience can shake its collective head in awe and disgust at the display of grotesque humanity in this unrated version of “The Jerry Springer Show” and then move on with their safe, comfortable lives, but, sadly, for the Whites, there seems nothing left to do but ponder the losing battle they half-heartedly wage against their demons.
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Capsule review: ‘Tenure’
Navigating the politics of college bureaucracy can be a tricky path. After bouncing around small liberal arts colleges in the Northeast, Charlie Thurber (Luke Wilson) finds himself nearing the end of yet another academic rope. He’s been at small Grey College for three years and his time to get tenure seems to be now or never.
Adrift in loneliness and dealing with a father waging a battle to be removed from his early placement in a retirement home, nothing seems to be going right for Thurber. When he is not agonizing over the future of his career at Grey or his family, he spends most of his spare time suffering his eccentric Bigfoot-chasing colleague (David Koechner).
When a cute, young, seemingly qualified professor, Elaine Grasso (Gretchen Mol), arrives from Yale, offering a threat to Thurber’s position in the English department and his White Whale of tenure, he goes into overdrive to protect his turf, haphazardly and comically plotting to keep his academic aspirations alive.
Wilson is likeable as the put-upon but charming Thurber trying to hold his family and career together, and Koechner successfully tones down and humanizes his over-the-top shtick in his role of lovable but hair-brained sidekick (think a more mellow and slightly less paranoid version of Walter Sobchak), but the film is a little too restless. Many of the scenes feature clever bits of dialogue, but they aren’t given time to develop, leaving a somewhat forced feel to the narrative.
Rosemarie DeWitt (“Rachel Getting Married”) steals a couple of scenes as Thurber’s rented date, and BobGunton (“24”) brings seriousness and heart to the role of Charlie’s dad, William Thurber, although his parallel story line at times seems contrived.
With his entertaining and at times touching feature debut, writer-director Mike Million shows promise as a filmmaker who understands the humor and heartbreak inherent in the human condition, although his first effort feels slightly too familiar to consider him a refreshingly unique voice.
“Tenure” screens again Wednesday night at 7 at the Arbor.
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Interview: ‘Pocket Full of Soul’ filmmakers Marc Lempert and Todd Slobin
Slobin: Mark and I were working a screenplay a while ago that had to do with some harmonica-related stuff. … As part of our research we ended up at this harmonica convention called the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica. We went in with a couple of cameras and realized that there was an amazing culture right there and just turned the cameras on them.
Lempert: It was really an accident. We set up a camera to ask maybe five questions and the next thing we knew we had something like 40 hours of footage. The questions that we originally asked turned out not to be the focus of what these people wanted to talk about. It ended up being this major passion play about the emotional connection to this instrument.
Slobin: I think we saw a unique passion in the players that was different than other instruments. The instrument is really a part of you when you’re playing the harmonica, which is what all these people kept telling us.
One of the things you bring up early on in the film is the fact that people don’t give the harmonica much respect as a musical instrument. Where does that come from?
Lempert: There is a certain degree of disrespect to the instrument, not so much the player, although when someone is associated with the harmonica it takes them down a peg. … They have to say “Hey, I’m a real musician, and this is not just a toy.”
Slobin: It wasn’t even classified as an instrument until 1948 when it was recognized by the musician’s union. In vaudeville it was a joke. People saw the Harmonica Rascals and thought it was just silly stuff with the harmonica. It wasn’t until the union realized that these guys were making money that the harmonica was taken seriously and these guys were invited to join the union.
John Popper really comes across as an encyclopedia of knowledge about the harmonica. Are all harmonica players that knowledgeable?
Lempert: I think almost all harmonica players that get to that level have really given a lot of thought to the instrument because of some of the negative connotations around it. They do this research because everyone who hears good harmonica playing wants to go talk to that person. It’s a phenomenon unto itself.
Slobin: Yeah, Popper was a great example. We actually recorded that bit with him here in Austin.
There are a lot of great harmonica players in the film, but the guy that impressed me the most was Jason Ricci. Where did you find that guy?
Lempert: We met him the second year we went to the harmonica convention. We had a camera set up, and as I’m panning around the room I see this young guy with bright red hair in the middle of all these older guys. Something told me we had to find out about this guy. … When he hit the stage that night, he was a mixture of Robert Plant and Jimi Hendrix with all this other stuff going on. He just oozes soul.
Popper also mentions in the film that harmonica players are notorious for wanting to battle each other. Is that true?
Slobin: It’s weirdly competitive. In America, the conventions usually don’t have a formal competition like they do in Asia, but when these guys gather around in circles you can see that it gets very competitive. … Some of these guys just start dueling. You don’t see that so much with guitar players for example.
Lempert: It happened a lot on the streets in Chicago in the ‘50s, Maxwell Street in particular. Guys like Little Walter, Big Walter and James Cotton were around … these guys would whip out their harmonicas and see who could do it better; who could get a bigger crowd gathered around them.
Was it hard to get these people to tell their story, were they open to the idea at first?
Lempert: The first year they were feeling us out, but by the second year we were brought into the inner circle.
Slobin: There definitely was a brick wall when we started this thing, but we came in and established a credibility with them and maintained contact, giving updates as to what we were doing. We not only broke down that wall, but we made a ton of friends.
What we found a little bit different was there are some people want to let the harmonica grow, to develop it, but there a lot of people who want to keep it to themselves. Most of these people didn’t have someone teaching them to play and didn’t know any other harmonica players. So when they get together at these conventions, some of them are very protective of their craft.
Lempert: There’s a gentleman in Chicago named Joe Filisco. He’s kind of the keeper of the faith of the harmonica trust and he was very hard to get through to. We finally went up to Chicago to interview him in this dark room, and halfway through the interview he turned the light on and says, “You guys have really done your homework. I’m proud of you. Let’s keep going.” Then he turned the light back out and let us continue the interview. So it was tough to convince some of these people, but I’m glad we stuck with it.
Do either of you of you play now?
Lempert: I do.
Nice. Can you bend a note? After watching the film, I went home and pulled an old harmonica out a drawer and tried. Nothing doing.
Lempert: It will happen for you some day. People talk about the day that they first learned to bend a note as the moment they really started playing. But, yes, I can bend notes. Not very well, but I can.
“Pocket Full of Soul” screens again Thursday at 10 p.m. at the Texas Spirit Theater.
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Live Webcast of premiere of Michael Jackson movie, ‘This is It’
Can’t wait until Wednesday to get a taste of the Michael Jackson concert documentary, “This Is It”? You’re in luck.
The movie premiers in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and the event will be streamed live on Thisisit-movie.com and crackle.com at 6:30 p.m..
According to a release, “viewers can interact by commenting and discussing on these pages during the live coverage.”
The U.S. coverage will be hosted by radio personalities Big Boy and Luscious Liz.
More on the movie from the release:
Michael Jackson’s “This It,” to be released on October 28th, will offer Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place beginning this past summer in London’s O2 Arena. Covering the months from March through June, 2009, the film is produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more than 120 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing numerous songs for the show. Audiences will be given a privileged and private look at Jackson as he has never been seen before. In raw and candid detail, Michael Jackson’s “This is It” is the last documentation of Michael Jackson in action, capturing the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius, and great artist at work as he and his collaborators move toward their goals of London, the O2 arena, and history.
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TXMPA’s big fall bash
Update: This event has been postponed until December. We’ll have new details later.
Live music, dinner, drinks, dessert, a silent auction and hobnobbing with local film folks animate the Texas Motion Picture Alliance’s second annual Spaghetti Western Fall Fundraiser Party at sunset Sunday at Star Hill Ranch in Bee Cave.
Dubbed the biggest local party of the year for film, TV, commercial and video-game makers, the soiree boasts music by The Tiny Tin Hearts and Erik Larson & Peacemaker, dinner by Ciao Chow and a big crowd of industry pros and state leaders.
Tickets are $60 general, $50 for TXMPA members. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
Details and tickets HERE
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Wednesday free screening: ‘An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story’
Earlier this fall, the University of Texas announced that the acquisition of Pulitzer Prize-winning photo-journalist Eddie Adams.
Adams made history with his 1968 photo of a South Vietnamese general executing a Viet Cong prisoner. “Saigon Execution” is widely considered one of the most influential images to come out of the Vietnam War.
The continuing story of the Saigon photograph became the subject of “An Unlikely Weapon,” directed by Susan Cooper and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. A free screening of the film will be offered Wednesday followed by remarks by photojournalist David Hume Kennerly Alyssa Adams (Adams’ widow).
‘An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story’
6:30 p.m. Wednesday
Blanton Museum of Art Auditorium, Congress Ave. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Free
See a slide show of UT’s Eddie Adams collection.
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Capsule review: ‘American Cowslip’
I imagine co-writer/director Mark David had the best intentions to make a wildly absurd yet humanistic film with “American Cowslip.”
Unfortunately, he did not meet his aim. Instead, the movie comes across as an obnoxious aesthetic blend of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” music video weighted down with melodramatic themes about our desire to feel love and a connection with those around us.
Trapped inside his house and his addiction, heroin junkie Ethan Inglebrink (Ronnie Gene Blevins doing his best Chris Ellliott-as-Beetlejuice impersonation) surrounds himself with the old ladies of the neighborhood who act as naive enablers, letting him win at poker to help pay his rent and support his addiction. The grotesque cast of characters are shot up close and painted in clownish make-up that would make them feel surreal if they weren’t so obnoxiously overdone.
Next door, his neighbor and landlord, an angry septuagenarian holding on to lost football glory (an over-the-top and buffoonish one-note Rip Torn), threatens to evict him while constantly chastising him and challenging his manhood. And when he finally gets a moment of peace to indulge in his addiction, Inglebrink must deal with the worshiping of his born-again brother (Val Kilmer).
Outside of maintaining a constant state of heroin-induced bliss, Inglebrink has one other passion — tending to his garden, and specifically his American Cowslip, a flower he loves because of its potential for growth and beauty. It is a heavy-handed metaphor that is as difficult to swallow as the relationship Inglebrink struggles to form with the 17-year-old girl across the street. The conceit is that both feel alienated and alone in their small California town, but in each other have found a strange sort of soul mate to help shepherd them to a more fully realized life.
By the time the dramatic conclusion of the rolls around, one could care less about the fate of any of the characters.
There is a message in here somewhere about acceptance, self-love, fear and addiction, but it gets lost in a trite script and a visual aesthetic that annoys more than it transports.
“American Cowslip” screens again on Wednesday night at 9:15 at the Arbor.
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Capsule review: ‘Youth in Revolt’
Michael Cera (“Juno,” “Superbad”) has seemingly become the one-valve Miles Davis of the acting world. He plays one note, and he plays the hell out of it. But even if the great Miles could only play one note, the tune would eventually become tiresome.
With his role in the new darkishly comic “Youth in Revolt,” many wondered if Cera would show a little more dexterity and range and break out of his twee cinematic mold. The answer is kind of.
Based on C.D. Payne’s 1993 novel, the film tells the story of young Nick Twisp, a bon vivant (at least in his mind), who prefers the works of Frank Sinatra and Federico Fellini to the immature predilections of his peers. But he does share one obsession undoubtedly similar to those of all adolescents — he wants to lose his virginity.
When his low-brow mother (Jean Smart) and her boyfriend (a woefully underused and unfortunately predictable Zach Galifianakis) head to a Christian RV park for a summer trip, young Twisp’s life takes a turn for the titillating when he meets Sheeni, an intellectual Lolita, played by Portia Doubleday in a sweet breakout leading role.
Determined to win the heart of the peaches and cream young temptress who is a lover of all things French, Twisp develops an alter-ego, Francois Dillinger, who dares the nervous sexual neophyte into a world of arson and bold adventure, promising to “rescue him from himself.”
Director Miguel Arteta spices the film with clever animation (best used in the psychedelic montage of a sex manual) and unexpected plot twist that provide a fresh twist on the well-trodden ground of the horny-boy-goes-on-adventure-to-get-sexed story.
As for Cera, his Twisp is a similar but slightly more confident version of his previous incarnations on the big screen, imbued here with a sense of righteousness not seen in his other work. But his snide, contemptuous, cigarette-smoking Francois is a side of the actor we have not seen. Cera’s deadpan delivery of the imagine Frenchman’s acid lines makes one hope that maybe the young star will eventually end up in a Neil LaBute or Todd Solondz film.
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Tuesday highlights at AFF
‘The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia,’ 10 p.m., Texas Spirit Theater.
Julien Nitzberg directs this late addition to the festival’s documentary lineup. It deals with the White family of Boone County, where the Wild West lives on. During a year of filming, the family goes through a stabbing, criminal sentencing, attempted murder and other assorted problems. From MTV Studios and executive producers Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine.
Other screenings:
‘Myna Se Va,’ 5 p.m., Arbor
‘Floored,’ 6 p.m., Texas Spirit Theater
‘Stoner,’ 7 p.m., Alamo Lake Creek
‘William Kuntsler: Disturbing the Universe,’ 7 p.m., Rollins Theatre ‘Earthwork,’ 7:15 p.m., Arbor ‘Herpes Boy,’ 7:30 p.m., The Independent at 501 ‘Warlords,’ 8 p.m., Texas Spirit Theater ‘The Vicious Kind,’ 9:30 p.m., Arbor ‘Punching the Clown,’ 10 p.m., Alamo Lake Creek ‘Thor at the Bus Stop,’ 10 p.m., The Independent at 501
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Noteworthy DVDs released 10/27/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Sam Fuller Collection” (Sony): Beloved B-movie auteur (“Shock Corridor”) Fuller is featured in this very welcome box collecting seven underexposed features (some familiar here from Austin Film Society screenings) like “The Crimson Kimono” and “Underworld.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Z” (Criterion): Costa-Gravas’s tense1969 drama about a political leader’s assassination in Greece struck chords for viewers who saw in its real-life subject an echo of coverups and government misdeeds all over the globe.
WARNER ARCHIVE
A fresh batch of WB’s new no-frills, manufacture-on-demand DVDs is now available at www.wbshop.com, with highlights like the “Joe McDoakes” short film series, Michael Caine hunting “Jack The Ripper,” Cary Grant in “Every Girl Should Be Married,” and Eve Arden’s “Our Miss Brooks.”
“Monty Python: Almost The Truth” (Eagle Rock/IFC): A new six-hour doc about the groundbreaking comic troupe pairs new interviews with appreciations from such fans as Eddie Izzard and Dan Aykroyd.
“Death In The Garden” (Microcinema): The first DVD release of this little-seen Luis Buñuel film starring Simone Signoret.
ON BLU-RAY
“The Prisoner” (A&E); “The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue” (Blue Underground); “Highlander: The Series” Season 1 (LegendaryHeroes); “Stargate” (Lions Gate)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (Fox); “Nothing Like The Holidays” (Anchor Bay); “Orphan” (Warner Bros.); “Whatever Works” (Sony)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
John Malkovich in “Afterwards” (Weinstein Co.); “Il Divo,” “Fear(s) of the Dark” (MPI); “Don’t Die Without Telling Me Where You’re Going,” “The Saragossa Manuscript” (Facets); “Sauna” (IFC)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans” (K-Man Productions); “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins” (Indiepix); “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox” (Passion River); “Election Day,” “Lioness,” “Soldiers of Conscience” (Docurama); “You Weren’t There: A History Of Chicago Punk 1977-1984,” “High School Record Starring Members Of No-Age And Miko Mika,” “All The Way From Michigan Not Mars With Rosie Thomas And Sufjan Stevens” (www.factorytwentyfive.com)
BEST OF TV
“The Barbara Stanwyck Show” Vol. 1 (E1 Entertainment); “Battlestar Galactica: The Plan” (Universal); “The Diary of Anne Frank” (2009) (Well Go USA); “Expedition: Africa” (A&E); “The Fugitive” Season 3, Vol. 1, “The Guardian” Season 1, “Mannix” Season 3, “Tales from the Darkside” Season 2 (Paramount); “Hell’s Kitchen” Season 2 (Visual Entertainment); “Monty Python: Almost the Truth (Eagle Rock)
CULT CORNER
“I Can See You” / “The Viewer” (Kino); “Night of Death!” (Synapse); “Night of the Creeps” (Sony); “Stan Helsing” (Anchor Bay)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken, and William H. Macy in “The Maiden Heist” (Sony); the “Daily Show“‘s Wyatt Cenac in “Medicine for Melancholy” (MPI); “The New Year Parade” (Carnivalesque); F. Murray Abraham in “Perestroika” (Strand)
KIDS’ STUFF
Two volumes titled “Saturday Morning Cartoons,” one for the ’60s and one for the ’70s, plus “The Secret Saturdays” Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.); “Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure” (Walt Disney)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Adult Swim In A Box,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (Warner Bros.); “Monty Python: The Other British Invasion” (A&E)
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Panel highlights: TV development
“Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof, “Freaks and Geeks” creator Paul Feig and late-night comedy writer Chuck Sklar met Saturday afternoon in the ballroom of the Driskill Hotel to discuss how pilot scripts written on speculation become successful prime-time television shows.
It turns out the panel’s premise was kind of faulty: While Sklar has sold three pilot scripts, none was ever produced; as Feig pointed out, “freaks and Geeks,” while a cult favorite, could hardly be classified as successful, having been cancelled after it’s freshman season; and “Lost?” Lindelof called it “an unmitigated disaster.”
Here are some highlights of the discussion:
On “Lost”: “Lost” was an unmitigated disaster. I am the worst person to be on this panel,” Lindelof said. Outgoing ABC Entertainment Group President Lloyd Braun decided to make the most expensive pilot ever as a (expletive) you.” The network had a pilot script called “Nowhere,” that was basically pretty, shirtless people romping around on a beach, Lindelof said. ABC liked the idea of a plane-crash, island show, but wanted it re-written. “Our idea was that it would be a mystery show. Heavy serialized and supernatural.” He says the show wasn’t his and co-creator Carlton Cuse’s idea, but they tried to make it their best. “They tested it and it tested well; they picked it up,” he said.
“As we were writing the pilot, the network wanted us to create the show’s ‘bible’, but until you’re actually doing it you don’t know what’s going to work and not work,” he added. “That’s like asking somebody on the morning of their wedding day, ‘How are you going to raise your kids?’ One of these days we’ll let the public see this ‘bible’ and they can see how quickly we deviated from it.”
On “Freaks and Geeks”: Feig wrote the “Freaks and Geeks” pilot as a spec script. He had sunk all of his money into making an independent film “that never went anywhere.” While he was shopping it around, he decided to write a spec script to kill time. That became “Freaks and Geeks.”
“Over two weeks of driving around the Midwest, it just poured out of me,” he remembered. One of Feig’s best friends was current comedy golden boy Judd Apatow. Feig’s wife said the “Freaks and Geeks” spec was right up Apatow’s alley. He took it to Dreamworks, who bought it. A pilot was made and the series got picked up. “I went from worst year of my life to suddenly having this thing,” Feig recalled. “I told Judd, ‘tell NBC we’re not going to cast this with beautiful people. And I don’t want geeks with tape on their glasses’.”
Sklar’s story: “My advice would be ‘get a famous comedian and then set up a meeting’,” Sklar joked (he wrote for the sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris”). “I’ve sold 3 pilots over the past 7 or 8 years. I’ve been lucky, I’ve sold some pilots, I’ve written them. None of them got made, but they have all served me well as writing samples.”
On writing “safe”: “Nobody knows what safe is,” Lindelof said. “If anybody knew, there would be no pilots and no failures. People are always asking me, ‘Do you have another “Lost” in you?’ That completely ignores that (‘Lost’) was a fluke. People are always saying something is the the next ‘blank’ to create an illusion of safety.
“The public and television executives all say ‘we want something new,’ but (the executives) anesthetize it — make it the same,” he added. “If you can get your pilot made without compromise you’re good.” He uses “Lost” as an example … one character was a torturer, another a fugitive, the hero cries all the time and he’s a man. These are all things that would have been changed had the series beginning followed the original spec script, pilot, pickup route.
“Really be original, don’t be beholden,” Feig said. “Don’t mute your voice; write what you’re passionate about. If they love the idea, it blasts through. (TV executives) are not ultimately creative people, but they know what they want, and they want good content.”
On television vs. movies: “If I were you guys I would concentrate on TV,” Feig said. “It’s an amazing place right now. Think of how many good shows are on. The people taking over cable stations want prestige shows. They can bring in a much smaller number of viewers and get attention. That’s the place to do edgy stuff.”
“If you can come up with the show that puts Starz on the map like “The Shield” did for FX, you’re golden,” Sklar added.
Lindelof agreed. “We have ten times as many jobs as the movies,” he said. “Your odds are much higher of being successful in the television business. The movies are now looking to TV and asking, ‘Do you want to do a movie?’ (Lindelof co-wrote this summer’s hugely successful “Star Trek” reboot).
We really need to break the old prejudice we have against TV,” Feig added. “Because it got so crappy, but it’s not anymore. There is crap, but there’s crap everywhere, in movies, too. People get much more attached to something like a television series that goes and goes. You’re creating a world that people are invested in and it keeps going and going.”
On casting: “We did not have a script when we started casting (‘Lost’); we just had an outline. Yunjin Kim came in to read for the character of Kate … we just had to create a character for her. We made a suit tailored to the body. That’s entirely different than pulling suit off the rack and trying to find most perfect fit. If I ever do another TV show I’d do it the same way.
Feig talks about a youngster coming in for an audition. “Smart show runners go, ‘this kid is so great, there’s nothing in the script that’s so good that we can’t change it’. It makes it easier to write the show. You need the blueprint, but then you need to be open to the human beings who are bringing it to life. There’s nothing worse than the inflexibility of saying, ‘well, this is how I heard it in my head’.”
On opportunity: “Every great success story has 2 things in common: right place, right time — also called luck, which you have no control over; and you knew somebody — that you do have control over,” Lindelof explained. “I was in LA for 5 years building up my network of somebodies. Talented is the other important part, of course.”
Feig suggested creating a variety of content. “Don’t just walk around with that one thing you have,” he advised. “Have the goods. You want to be undeniable. Have a voice, have content, make them need you. If you want to write … write, write, write! Generate as much as you can.”
On the Internet and the democratization of technology: Lindelof pointed to the Internet as a useful tool to find out what’s working with audiences. “The only way you used to be able to tell was by ratings,” he explained. He said it’s easier now to know when a mistake has been made. He uses the unpopular introduction of “Lost” characters Nicky and Paulo as an example. “We realized we messed up and we were already fixing it. It’s hard to say we made a mistake, but we all make mistakes.” He compared the debacle to Clark Griswold’s itinerary in “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” saying that movie would be less interesting if everything went Clark’s way. He says today’s TV viewers are still the water cooler generation, but that blogging or twittering or updating Facebook pages replaces standing in front of the water cooler.
The point came up in this panel, as in many, that just about everyone in the room had access to the technology to create their own pilot — to produce a more or less finished product to use in a pitch. There was some disagreement amongst the panelists about the wisdom and efficacy of that strategy. Sklar talked about a Web series he had created called “Come to the Net” and suggested that he might have been more successful pitching an idea instead of a completed video. “If you show (the executives) a finished thing, they’re like, ‘Where do we come in?’ ” he said. “They want to hear your ideas first, and then ruin them.”
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A full ‘Moon’ with Austin’s Tim McCanlies
Austin filmmaker Tim McCanlies was smiling like the birthday boy in the lobby of the Paramount on Sunday, 30 minutes before the afternoon premiere of his new family-friendly drama “Alabama Moon” during the Austin Film Festival. He was awaiting the unveiling.
McCanlies is always smiling — his good cheer and bonhomie are famous — but this was different. He glowed. He looked jazzed, antsy with the nervous excitement of watching one’s movie for the first time with an audience. Many in the crew were there, as was co-star Clint Howard, who was also at the festival for Saturday night’s marquee screening of big brother Ron’s “Apollo 13.”
“Alabama Moon,” based on Watt Key’s 2006 young adult novel, is an unabashedly old-fashioned coming-of-age story shot through with action, comedy and a gut-punching melancholy.
Lushly shot by UT grad Jimmy Lindsey in the bright and shadowy woodsy splendor of Louisiana (where tax incentives for filmmakers are irresistible — hear that Texas?), the movie chronicles the swirling, funny and heartbreaking adventures of 12-year-old Moon Blake (Jimmy Bennett, who played young James T. Kirk in this year’s “Star Trek” reboot). Moon grew up in the forest with his stubborn papa, a recalcitrant anti-government survivalist who thinks he’s raising his boy right but is really robbing him of a childhood. Living off the land, fishing, trapping and hunting, Moon, a feral, shaggy-haired kid who resembles a preteen Dave Grohl, doesn’t realize his isolation until his father dies and he has to meet civilization head on.
The movie is low-budget and often looks it, including some spotty acting among the child performers (though Bennett gives a witty, self-possessed turn). But McCanlies knows the emotional terrain of young people, the ecstasies, dreams, terrors. He kicks up what is a sometimes frustratingly simplistic story into a vaguely mythic tale rife with emotional complexity.
With a broad, cartoonish wink, Howard plays Moon’s tenacious nemesis, a bumbling, ornery southern sheriff with a vendetta for a boy who constantly foils his lame attempts at capture. John Goodman, always a pleasure, co-stars as Moon’s angelic benefactor.
“Alabama Moon,” which screened as part of AFF’s Target Family Film Series (children under 15 get in free to these shows), is McCanlies’ fourth film as director, and the first film he’s directed that he didn’t also write. (His other directorial credits: “Dancer Texas Pop. 81,” “Secondhand Lions” and “The 2 Bobs.” He also created the hit series “Smallville” and wrote “The Iron Giant.”)
Clint Howard in ‘Alabama Moon’
During the post-show Q and A with Howard, McCanlies sort of apologized for shooting in Louisiana by noting that he “brought everyone from Austin that I could.”
The movie was made in a hasty four weeks with “a TV movie budget and a TV movie schedule,” McCanlies said.
McCanlies is used to waiting years between script and screen, but because he didn’t write the film (he did do rewrites), production moved rapidly. When Howard was approached to play the heavy, he said he had scant time for contemplation, but liked the script enough to jump in.
“I’m a professional actor and gainful employment is something I’m always interested in,” he told the crowd.
Howard, wearing a Steelers jersey, said that after careful deliberation he elected to play the doofus sheriff as “Barney Fife on steroids.”
A child actor on classic TV shows like “Gentle Ben,” “Star Trek” and “The Andy Griffith Show,” Howard said he empathized with the young performers in “Alabama Moon.”
“I certainly understood their plight,” he said. “I was almost like an uncle on the set.”
And while he played many scenes with Bennett, the younger actor’s short schedule (school, etc.) forced Howard to play a lot of scenes with Bennett’s double — a young woman.
“Almost any time you see the back of Jimmy’s head,” McCanlies explained, “it’s her.”
McCanlies
In a both strange and, for what it says about contemporary film distribution, sad move, the filmmakers have posted an online petition beseeching American distributors to get “Alabama Moon” into theaters. If you’re all for that, sign the petition HERE.
See the trailer and read more about “Alabama Moon” HERE.
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Panel highlights: Script to screen … ‘Caprica’
“Caprica” pilot director Jeffery Reiner (“Friday Night Lights”) and star Esai Morales stared down a handful of “Battlestar Galactica” fans Saturday afternoon at a script-to-screen panel at the 2009 Austin Film Festival. Fielding softball questions about the “BSG” prequel series from USA Today blogger (and “BSG” fan) Whitney Matheson and tougher, more specific queries from those in attendance, the pair talked “Battlestar,” the Lakers, the series’ unusual marketing campaign (the pilot episode was released by Syfy on DVD in April although the series will not debut until January, 2010), co-star Eric Stoltz and “Glee.”
Here are some highlights:
On sci-fi: Morales says working on the series has awakened a dormant interest in the genre. “I enjoyed science fiction as a child, but as I got older, I kind of put it away; you know … like Halloween costumes.” Reiner admits he’s not a sci-fi fan, but can appreciate films such as “Westworld” and “The Omega Man.”
On the dark tone of the show: “This is Rome before the decline,” Reiner said. Morales talks about the “dread, weight and gravitas” in the show. “It mirrors a lot of what is happening today, sadly.” Neither panelists were regular “BSG” watchers. Reiner admits that he needed to have the mythology and technology explained to him while Morales gleaned details about his character from a post-series comic book. Reiner, after reading several of the upcoming seasons scripts, said he was surprised at how dark the writers were going at times.
On directing: “I could never do a mystery. It’d be all (expletive) up,” Reiner said. “You’d never know who killed who. I think abstractly. I use the script, but I’ll get way off book to get actors to find behavior, then steer them back to the script. It’s an organic way to do it. It’s being fairly brave. Knowing you’ll get back but being brave enough to find something else.”
Morales, who has directed “some short-form stuff,” would like to helm a “Caprica” episode in the future. He admits to being less-than-organized and not particularly driven to venture outside of acting, his area of expertise. He’s less inclined to direct a feature film, where you have to give up a year of your life and risk losing momentum in your acting career. Still he points to actor/directors such as Clint Eastwood and George Clooney. “I admire them because they get it done.”
Morales said that co-star Eric Stoltz was directing the episode currently shooting. Morales asked Stoltz who would be keeping an eye on Stoltz’s performance while he juggled directing chores. “He looked at me, thought, and said ‘you will’,” Morales recalled.
The pair differed on one aspect of the shooting — the sets. “A lot of it is completely artificial. That’s one thing I’d change. I’d like to shoot on live sets,” Reiner said. Morales however, said that “in a weird way, as an actor, it’s kind of liberating.”
On his character: In “Caprica,” Morales plays the father of “BSG’s” Adm. Adama (Edward James Olmos). “He starts out trying to assimilate into Caprican culture,” Morales says. “That doesn’t work. In mythology, he’s akin to Orpheus — that arc model where someone goes to Hades to find love. My character will take that kind of a journey.” Somebody told Morales that he is “channeling” Olmos’ Adama portrayal which amused him, since he didn’t study Olmos’ performance at all.
On Eric Stoltz: “I’m still getting to know him,” Morales said. “He’s very private.”
On the possibility of a musical episode: “You mean ‘BSGlee’?” Morales joked.
On the series’ originality, when it could have been derivative: “It’s the difference between being in space and being on planet Earth,” Reiner explained. “What kind of house do they live in? What kind of car do they drive? I was able to free my mind up. The fact that it wasn’t in space, that freed me up. It’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in terms of creative freedom.” He said that for club scenes, he would “harken back to ‘Sid & Nancy or my days in the LA punk scene. I wanted it to have that energy.”
On the Jan. 22, 2010 premiere: The pair claimed there would be some new stuff in the airing that we haven’t yet seen.
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thanks for the plug for The New Year Parade : )
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Rachel - You can say that again!!!! I’d pay it without the VIP seating and without Linklater and McKay at the after party. I wonder how much it would be for a private party with the young hunk. LOL
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