Archive for the ‘CINEMA’ Category

Summary

Touch times on and off the screen

Article

With two Satellite Awards for best actor, plus a film coming out this Friday, this could and should have been a good week for 41-year-old Mark Ruffalo, whose acting career was threatened six years ago when he underwent surgery for a brain tumor that was found to be benign.  

Instead this week will go down as one of the worst in the life of the actor in front of You Can Count on Me, In the Cut, Zodiac and this year’s underappreciated Blindness, when his younger brother, Scott Ruffalo, died Monday night after living on life support for a week since he was found shot in the head outside of his Beverly Hills condominium, Dec. 1. Scott was 39.

One of the two Satellite awards was for Mark’s performance as Stephen, a conman, in Brothers Bloom. The other was for his performance in the upcoming and ill fated-titled film, What Doesn’t Kill You.

Based on the life and screenplay of Mark’s buddy — the film’s writer-director and actor, Brian Goodman — Mark plays Brian, a drug addicted hoodlum, husband and father who almost went over the edge living and working with his partner in crime, Paulie (Ethan Hawke), on the streets of working class Boston.

As more and more details come out Scott’s death – the narrative has moved from random robbery to a drug-induced Russian roulette mistake – What Doesn’t Kill You, Mark’s performance in the film, and what he said below in a pre-Thanksgiving interview takes on an extra layer of meaning.

Why did you want to make this film?

Mark Ruffalo: The true story aspect of it makes it completely different. In my memory I can’t remember a lot of films that are quite like this, that deal with drug addiction and crime and just rising out of it in a really, kind-of-honest way. It gets glorified or it gets so sappy with 12-step stuff it becomes like a preachy kind of thing. I knew if I could play Brian that would be a pretty great and interesting role.

Amanda Peet, who plays your wife in the film, said she didn’t want to think too much about the relationship and how they got together. Did you take that same approach in keeping in the moment or did you want to think about what brought them together in the first place?

MR: I would probably tend to want to know, get a deeper cut on it. But in those seven years Brian and I became very good friends. I was going to do the movie in the beginning, but we couldn’t get it made with me. We remained friends and so during that time I just got to know his stories intimately so I knew about that young couple who starts off. A lot of it is hormones. A lot of it is sexual attraction. Her caring for him, setting up his bed (in her family’s basement) and all those things; but then they’re throwing themselves together because their family’s lives are so bad and it becomes messy. Ten years later they’re two totally different people. They’re not those kids who fell in love at first love.

How did you approach the accent?

MR: I kept saying to Brian, “I need a BostonBoston accent in a movie it’s too much.” He just hated it. But what I did was tape about a 30-second clip of him speaking and then memorized that. Then he would come up and say, “Dude, that word’s not like that at all.” [Laughs]. accent and accent coach.” He said, “Nah, no you don’t need that shit. If you hear a

As an actor how important is the technical stuff?

MR: As you can see, I like to hide. For me it’s just a way to hide behind a character more. And it’s fun.

What kind of research did you do for the junkie and addiction?

MR: I went out and got like an eight ball [Laughs]. I’ll never forget when I showed up and some guy said, “Hey, Mark, let’s go hit a couple of crack houses. I know a couple.”  I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s do that.” And he was like, “Seriously.” As far as addiction, I have a saying: “Either you are one or you love one.” I’m not. I don’t have that gene, but I have a lot of people in my life that do, unfortunately. I know people that I’m very close to who are in the clutches of that. Part of why this movie meant so much to me was to be able to tell that story in a way that were some like rising above it.

What do you think you have in common with the character of Brian?

MR: Probably my love for my kids. Not his relationship to his wife or his mom or his family. His love for his boys is what really pulled him through in the end. When his son, Markie (Nathaniel Smyth), says to him, “Just stay sober,” that’s what made Brian stop doing what he was doing. As a father you become acutely aware of your shortcomings. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re not around for them. Also, I come from a blue collar family, Kenosha, Wisconsin. My family were immigrants. Not as deep as Brian, but I know that world very well – just the Italian version of it. It’s a world where you’re either like a plumber or you’re a tradesman or you’re like a criminal and all of them are equally respected. Being a smalltime criminal is like a trade, and there’s a certain code of ethics that go around that thing. That’s probably as close as I got to him. Fortunately I am not an addict. I didn’t get into a life of crime. Brian always said, “I can see your pain. That’s why I know you can play the part” after I repeatedly said, “Dude, I can’t play this part. You got the wrong guy. I don’t think I can pull it off.”

Do you bring your work home with you? Can you turn it off at the end of the day?

MR: I’m getting better at just letting it go. My wife thinks I’ve changed. “The way you walk, the way you talk – your rhythms.” I don’t think I have. When you go into that world it sticks with you a little.

Did you bring Detective David Toschi from Zodiac? You were so immersed in that character.

MR: A little bit. I don’t feel it, but my wife says I do. Your focus becomes that world so you start to think about it. You’re thinking about it. You’re in it all the time. It’s probably no different than some guy building some mid-century modern place. If you’re working a piece of literature or reportage you sort of carry around with you.

Why do you think Zodiac did not take off?

MR: It’s fucking with the genre. It’s a serial killer movie where you don’t catch the serial killer. A lot of people don’t know what to make of that. They only get frustrated by that [Laughs]. “That movie’s frustrating. They don’t even catch the guy. I can’t recommend that.” It’s also the time. We’re in the middle of a seven-year war. It’s a time when people just don’t want to be faced with that kind of stuff. There are a lot of cultural things in that movie, too, that says a lot about our culture…Raging Bull was a flop, but that movie endures. Maybe when I’m older I’ll just do a bunch of comedies that rip on characters I did. It will be the Dave Toschi Comedy and I’ll make a bunch of money and I’ll open up a hotel. [Laughs].

So what role are you bringing home to your wife next?

MR: I’m directing a movie now so she gets to see all my crazy neurosis. The film’s called Sympathy for Delicious. It’s really a quirky social satire about a guy in a wheelchair who gets the gift to heal, but he can’t heal himself. So he starts Heal-lapallozza. It’s a big “fuck you” to God and religion and all this stuff, but then it comes around to an interesting, nice ending. I’m going to be in it, too. I play a Jesuit Priest who’s a homeless activist.

Since Thanksgiving is approaching, what are you thankful for?

MR: A lot. My family, my god, my career, just the fortune I’ve had.

Summary

Dark Streets, U.S.A.

Article

Thin and silk skinned pawed, Bijou Phillips amicably sits across from me. Looking kind and being busy, Phillips has had no fewer than three films out this year.

Phillips starred opposite Sam Rockwell in the amusing independent film, Choke, and portrayed Lorna Doom of the seminal, yet quite silly, punk band, The Germs, in What We Do is Secret.

In her latest film, Dark Streets, Phillips plays Crystal, a woman who is addicted to drugs and her ex-boyfriend, Chaz (Gabriel Mann), the struggling owner of a nightclub with more cultural anachronisms than a Kevin Costner film.

The daughter of songwriter-singer John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas (“California Dreamin’”; “Monday, Monday”), Phillips took the role to heart and song, writing some and performing all of her songs for the role.

JEsther Entertainment: Why did you want to be a part of making this film?
Bijou Phillips: When I read this script I thought it was so great. It doesn’t have the traditional happy ending. They needed a couple of songs so I wrote “Let’s Be Nice Some More.” That was fun writing some music for it. It was an awesome experience.

JE: In what ways do you identify with your Crystal?
BP: It’s not so much that I identify with her, but like my parents used a lot of drugs. I drew on a lot of my family. I have been that girl who likes the guy but it’s not going to work out. He likes someone else and it’s sort of like that unspoken thing. I’ve been there and it sucks. It’s not hard to figure out what that’s like. It’s unrequited love. I got to flush that out with Gabe. A lot of acting is just flushing that stuff out.
JE: You have been busy with three films released this year. How has that been for you?
BP: It’s been fun just spending a couple of years making movies. Now I have spent this year just promoting them. It’s hard work.

JE: How do you feel about promoting your work and these interviews? Do they serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?
BP: That’s a good thing to think about. I don’t know. What do you think?

JE: It depends on what the interviewee has to say but, generally speaking, films, like any art, are texts given to a certain time and place. What the intentions behind the text are important, certainly not the final word.
BP: That makes sense, too. The important part about this is that someone who may never have heard about the movie will run by this interview and go, “Oh, this sounds interesting; I’ll go check that out.” Normally, they would have never heard about it.

JE: There is a marketing value to the interviews.
BP: Yeah, it’s getting people to know about it.

JE: What do you think the film says about the politics of the time?
BP: It’s sort of similar to the time we are in now. There are the people who are in power. There are the people who have money. There are the people who run everything and everybody else is just sort of suffering. It’s like what we’re especially going through now.

JE: To borrow a “proverbial” theme from Dark Streets, do you see a light at the end of the tunnel?
BP: No. I definitely voted for Barack. I love Barack. I’m totally for him. I just don’t think the president has really any control over what’s going on. The countries are not the United States, England, Germany and Russia; the countries are now Wal-Mart, IBM and other corporations. Those are the powers that be. We are not. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
JE: Perhaps to change to a light subject, what do you have upcoming?
BP: I got a movie called Made for Each Other coming out. It’s a really, really funny sex comedy movie about this couple.

JE: And what are your upcoming plans outside of work?
BP: I got a bunch of horses so I’m at the barn every day doing my horses. You know, riding and cleaning, mucking their stalls and giving them their buckets, and loving on them, taking them for walks and making sure they’re okay, wrapping their legs and the whole thing. So I’m like heavy into that and I love that. It’s my favorite thing.

Summary

A Special interview

Article

Native New Yorker Michael Rapaport sits across from me on the balcony of a West Hollywood hotel. He looks tired yet enthusiastic to talk about his work.  

A versatile and continually working actor since his first screen acting role on the television series, China Beach, in 1990, Rapaport has racked nearly 80 acting credits to his name. His more memorable parts were in the films Zebrahead, Higher Learning, Bamboozled, Cop Land, and Beautiful Girls, plus his television roles as Dave Gold in The War at Home and Donald Self in the obnoxious current-running series, Prison Break.

Often Rapaport is the best thing about his films or television shows, but his greatest performance in what may be his best film yet (actors can be auteurs if directors can), is that of Les Franken in co-director/writers Jeremy Passmore and Hal Baberman’s quirky yet highly intelligent film, Special.

Les works as a parking enforcement officer. A quiet, unassuming guy who reads comic books and eats microwave food alone in his crummy apartment, nobody notices Les unless he is handing out, or trying to hand out but does not, parking citations. Les could die tomorrow and the only people who would probably show up at his funeral are two comic book reading, stoner dudes (Josh Peck and Robert Baker).

Rather than overcome the inertia of a meaningless existence, Les does no more than take a new drug, Specioprin Hydrochloride (“Special”).

But the drug is more than Les bargained for in life. Now Les thinks he has superpowers and he is going to use them for the good of society. Or at least he imagines this is happening. And Les does not want to quit the junk to find out if he is wrong, despite advice from his friends and doctor (Jack Kehler).

A film with a lot of things going for it — drugs as both self-realization and self-destruction; deconstruction of the comic book narrative; the fantasies of the working class person; paying and playing to advertise brand names as an act of hero worship and identification (albeit false); working class dupe as guinea pig and wild horse; as much as you push down the working class person, he will eventually rise (along with other genders); special as in stupid  – although it has taken three years to see the big screen, this is one of the special films of the year.

In this exclusive interview, we spoke to Rapaport about being Special.

Why did you want to make this film?

Michael Rapaport: I responded to it. It was so well written I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t care the budget was so small and people attached to it were not that experienced.

Is there something beyond a well written script that motivates you to pick a role?

MR: It’s always good to get paid well. My first inclination is always the creative process of the role. It excited me to play a part like this. When you do a movie with first time filmmakers with a small budget you’re rolling the dice and this just happened to work out.

What do you think you have in common with Wes?

MR: I related to his insecurities and his feeling alone and feeling like an outsider.

How can an actor be insecure?

MR: I don’t know one actor that’s not completely secure. There’s a lot of insecurity. Probably, actors are able to mask it better. Everybody has insecurities and people have different ways of covering them up and dealing with them.

Les is this working class guy who wants to be a hero. We are seeing a few of those right now in American cinema — high profile; heroic, but not superheroes — such as Che, The Wrestler and Milk. Why are we seeing those right now?

MR: It’s a global appeal to see the everyman in these big struggles, but in reality they’re also getting over little things; these internal conflicts. It’s what makes Rocky still a great movie. It’s about getting over the little humps, not jumping off of buildings. The thing about Special that’s really good is that Les has sort of both those paths. He thinks he’s doing something really big, that’s helping the world; and he sort of comes to terms with that. I really love the dialogue in the voiceover where he talks about there not being any bad guys to fight, any great wars to fight, and superheroes and villains. It’s just you waking up in the morning, getting coffee, do your laundry, you go to work. I like that he’s just coming to terms with that. I think the movies you mentioned are dealing with the same thing – internal fears instead of these big made-up ones.

What is the film saying about drugs and self realization and promise?

MR: The reality is that you need to be careful with what you put in your body. Whether it’s pharmaceutical or whatever, you can’t fuck around with that stuff. People making their bodies into like science experiments and they’re not scientists. It’s a dangerous thing.

What can we draw from the fact he injures himself yet does not realize it?

MR: That has to do with drugs. You can do a lot of damage to yourself if you’re not having your senses working the way they’re supposed to be. You can fuck yourself and, by the time you realize it, real damage can be done.

I was trying to tie in the working class condition where people think they are empowered when actually they are being worked over.

MR: I agree.

The first time I saw this movie I laughed a lot more than the second time.

MR: That’s good. I like that the movie starts off like, “Oh, this guy is crazy. Look at him.” Then it gets serious. That’s the way the script was constructed. I like the turn it took. When you realize this guy was really going crazy it becomes a little bit sadder. That’s what makes it sometimes an uncomfortable movie to watch.

The film was shot in a sparse environment which makes it look like a comic book narrative.

MR: Right. It’s isolating and him being alone. We talked about those things when shooting.

How does this role compare to Donald Self on Prison Break, who has a lot of control?

MR: They’re very, very different. Donald has a lot of control. He’s on top of his shit. He’s confident and assertive where Les is not assertive and, you know, can’t assert himself in any situation until the end when he realizes that it is possible to stand up for yourself.  They’re very different characters with a very different approach and that’s the fun of being an actor.

You have done a lot of roles over the years. Are you still hungry to work? Are there certain roles you’re looking out for to do?

MR: I’m extremely hungry to work, to do diverse parts and to try to push myself and push the perception of what I can or can’t do as an actor. It’s challenging and frustrating but also very fulfilling at the same time.

Lastly, what do you think about interviews where you talk about you and your work? Do they serve the work? Should the film speak for itself?
MR: Nah, this is part of the business, man. I’m happy to have the opportunity to do this. I’m happy to do a movie where it’s worthy of discussing and I’m happy to do a movie I feel proud to talk about. We’ve been talking about this movie for three years. If I didn’t feel good about the movie I wouldn’t be here. All that “work speaks for itself” shit; this is part of the business. You get paid to do a job and this stuff here is all part of it. Hopefully you can stand behind what you’re promoting. In this case I am so proud of this movie I’m going to ride it out until it gets seen the way I feel it deserves.

Summary

Femmes talk film

Article

Sisters, as well as mothers, daughters, aunts, nieces and other women, plus three guys, got together to discuss the condition of contemporary cinema for for the treated-unfairer sex this week over breakfast.

Hosted by Glamour Magazine and Suave at the Simon LA restaurant (good fruit) located in the Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills, talks focused around the filmmakers behind the lenses of the short film series – Glamour Reel Moments.

On hand were Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith (Legally Blonde; House Bunny); Leslie Russo, Glamour Executive Producer; Francesca Silvestri, Producer, Freestyle; and Jean Lee, Associate Brand Manager, Unilever.

The conversations between the panelists and the attendees were healthy; aspiring female filmmakers heard firsthand what it takes to make it in Hollywood as a woman: luck, perseverence and, most importantly, a completed script (not just a plan for one).

Short films in the series can currently be viewed at http://www.glamalert.com/reelmoments

Summary

Hurling a Brick Lane

Article

In director Sarah Gavron’s Brick Lane, Tannishtha Chatterjee plays Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman who finds her freedom through loss.

Based on the popular book by Monica Ali, Nazneed was forced into marriage at a young age. Years later she exists with her husband, Chanu (Satish Kaushik), and their two daughters, 14-year-old Shahana (Naeema Begum) and 10-year-old Bibi (Lana Rahman), in London’s East End. A docile wife to a buffoonery husband with illusions of grandeur, Nazneen finds flight from the daily humdrum through the letters she receives from her younger sister back home, Hasina (Zafreen).

As her husband sinks lower in the social status-phere her passion for romance goes hight when she meets Karim (Christopher Simpson) a younger man who embraces a more radical form of Muslim as a result of increased attacks against his community pursuant to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

As both men and her daughters vie for her love, Nazneen begins to find the courage to shake off the shackles of patriarchal oppression and find her own identity.

A superb performance by one of India’s few popular-and-serious actors, the very sweet and smart Chatterjee sat down with us recently to talk.

Los Angeles Journal: Why did you want to play the lead in this film?
Tannishtha Chatterjee: What appealed to me the most was that it was a universal story. Although it is set in a particular culture, milieu, it doesn’t have to be specific to a South-Asian story. It was more of a love story and story about a woman’s journey to find her identity. The second thing that was that Nazneed was a character very introvert and shy so to find ways and communicate herself without saying much and without expressing much; it’s all inside. As an actor I found that very challenging. How do you play a character who doesn’t talk much or express much? Also a lot of times with woman stories like this it ends with her becoming more westernized and Nazneed doesn’t do that.

LAJ: I imagine there was a lot of communication with the Sarah and director of photographer Robbie Ryan so you could rely on the camera to pick up these nuances.
TP: Absolutely, John. I enjoyed a very intense and collaborative process with Sarah. We worked out those things during rehearsals and arrived at a certain point in ever scene.

LAJ: What do you have in common with Nazneen?
TP: [Laughs]. That’s a tough one. Human beings are trapped in some ways or another.  We all strive to find our voices and our freedom. I like the last scene. She’s free but there’s a sense of loss and melancholy. When we achieve that freedom we strive for there’s that sense of loneliness.

LAJ: Is there anything more specific than the existential angst?
TP: [Laughs]. Not specifically her experience. I had to do the research. I had to meet women in Brick Lane who’ve gone through similar experiences: who were married at 16; who came from small villages in Bangladesh; who came here and didn’t understand the language; and who were trapped in a particular flat for many years, to scared to go out due to a fear of the unknown.

LAJ: You mentioned freedom. One of the leitmotifs of the film is that everybody lives in their own prison.
TP: Right. Chanu lives in his own world where he thinks he’s the greatest master in English, he knows more than everyone else, but they get the better job. Karim is trapped in his own world where Islam is his own identity. In that sense Nazneen is a far more balanced character. She thinks through herself. That’s why I like the ending.

LAJ: Another aspect of the film is that people are always searching for love, even when they appear to have it. This search leads them toward a new prison.
TP: That’s true. In a broader sense this film is about different love stories. There is spousal love, immediate love, maternal love, Nazneen’s love of her sister, love for one’s old country, and romantic notions of love.

LAJ: The film also addresses dichotomies between different types of cultural strains, or restraints: England and Asia; man and woman, freedom versus tradition, education versus religion, generation gaps. As a professional actor working both the east and west how are these worlds coming or departing for you?
TP: The good thing about artists is that we do travel a lot and we do communicate a lot with different artists from all over the world. We watch films and theater, listen to music. We probably communicate far more than other people do. For us the worlds are less apart. Obviously there are cultures and people and there are political boundaries and history that does give specificity to different places. But in the last seven years I am traveling a lot and more and more I see airports, shopping malls, multiplexes, etc., looking the same. In a way it’s like you feel comfortable everywhere but in another way the specificity of culture is diluting. The whole charm of visiting a country is not like it used to be. If I enter a shopping mall in Los Angeles, London or New Dehli it doesn’t really look any different. You have the same shops, clothes and the same American films [Laughs].

LAJ: The notions of race and geography are becoming diluted as well.
TP: Yes, it’s becoming more multicultural, mixed races. It’s still demarcated so it will probably take another couple of generations. English as a language is becoming more universal. When I land in France I might not speak French but I can have my way around.

LAJ: What are the primary differences for you between working in India and Europe?
TP: For films here I need more prep time. I need to study the characters. For Nazneen I need to research and meet people. It wasn’t an experience I was acquainted with. Whereas most roles in India I have more in-depth experience about those characters. In terms of acting there are distinctive styles. India directors demand far more louder expressions and melodramatic forms than European directors.

LAJ: Lastly, what do you think about interviews where you talk about your work? Do they serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?
TP: The work should speak for itself. This is just a part of one film promotion we have to do. It’s so competitive out there so we have to do it. If you have to push your film. But why is the life of a star seems much shorter now? Maybe one of the reasons is that we overdo the publicity. As an actor you lose the enigma if you’re in the newspapers all the time, talking about yourself, talking about the actor you met, which one you dated. With that you will get about three years [Laugh].

Summary

Beastie Boy and filmmaker shoots basketball documentary

Article

Nearly two years ago, the top 24 or so high school basketball players in the nation followed in the hard paved steps of Wilt Chamberlain and Dr. J when they hit the Harlem pavement of Rucker Park for the inaugural Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic.

To capture the momentously historical event Adam Yauch, Beastie Boy founding member and filmmaker (Awesome, I F***ing Shot That), followed renowned players (some eligible for the NBA draft yesterday) Jerryd Bayless, Micheal Beasley, Tyreke Evans, Donte Greens, Brandon Jennings, Kevin Love, Kyle Singler and Lance Stephenson to offer quick glimpses into the lives of these young men behind the hoopla.

In this exclusive interview we spoke to Yauch about Gunnin’ for that #1 Spot

Los Angeles Journal: Why did you want to make this documentary?
Adam Yauch: It kind of happened my way. A friend of mine was putting this game of all-stars together. He was looking for advice on how to document it. It was interesting learning about this world of elite-high school basketball and what their world is like.

LAJ: How did the project change from what you originally envisioned?
AY: I guess I envisioned more trash talking; high school players a bit more rough around the edges. They were more refined in their interviews than I expected.

LAJ: Do you think that works –
AY: It was fine in the context of the doc. You get a sense of who they are, but who they are is a little bit different than what I imagined. Beasley talks a lot of trash on the court, but in the interview he was more conservative. A lot of them have different personas on the court than they do in the interviews. Brandon was more serious during his interview where he was having a lot of fun during the game. Jarrod was a little lighter during the interview, but dead serious during the game.

LAJ: Which of the eight guys did you identify with the most?
AY: They were all interesting in different ways. In terms of their style of play I probably enjoyed watching the point guards (Bayless; Evans: Jennings; Stephenson) a little more than the big guys. I enjoyed seeing someone handle the ball.

LAJ: I imagine you also identify with them by their great experience at a young age. The Beastie Boys were making tunes when you were in still in high school.
AY: A bit.

LAJ: Did you have any advice about how to handle success?
AY: I don’t know if it’s my place. Nobody’s asking for advice. Most of these kids are too young to know who Beastie Boys are. I’d be a bit of an asshole if I were to pull them aside and say, “You know, I think…” [Laughs].

LAJ: Some of them were unaware of who you are in music?
AY: Maybe their coaches would tell them. Some of the kids were up on it.

LAJ: Why did you let the players shoot some of the footage?
AY: That’s actually a minor part of the film. We gave handheld cameras to some of the layers.

LAJ: Was there a possibility of self-editing?
AY: Maybe. Some of the kids wouldn’t give their cameras back, but when we got the cameras back, they were blank.

LAJ: What do you think about these interviews where you talk about your work and yourself? Does it serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?
AY: It would be nice if the work could just speak for itself. Most people if they saw this film would probably find it interesting, because it’s kind of a cool look into that world. Unfortunately, nobody’s going to the film unless you go out there and do press. Sometimes it’s strange, just the redundancy of having to talk about being asked the same questions can be strange. It’s part of the process and sometimes you meet interesting people during the process. If you’re going to spend two years on a film you should do what you can to make sure it doesn’t die on opening weekend [Laughs].

Summary

Russian writer-director discusses Mongol

Article

Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, Sergi Bodrov’s Mongol is a sweeping epic covering the early days of Genghis Kahn (1142-1227) that challenges the myth behind the man known to many around the world as a monster, especially in Russia where myth had turned into historical truth for many.

According to Bodrov and co-writer Arif Aliyey, the child Temudjin (Odnyam Odsuren) was a tough kid who withstood a lot of abuse from people after his father was assassinated.

Beaten, boarded up, and ostracized for much of his youth, the child who would be king grew up to be the fierce and revered outsider Temudjin (Japan’s Tadanobu Asano) a military genius instilling fear in his enemies.

Guided by a sense of nationalistic purpose and love for Börte (the fascinating looking yet not very convincing actor Khulan Chuluun), his first wife and personal confidant, Temudjin seeks bloody revenge on those who crossed him while bestowing rewards on the loyal.

Filmed with grand shots of reclusive parts of Mongolia, filled with frank violence and framed with loving eyes toward its subject, the 126-film stops off where Temudjin, now Genghis Kahn (amongst other names and different spellings thereof), went on to unite a great part of Asia through many mean means as necessary.

Although its historical “corrections” seem plausible, if not admirable, Mongol remains a questionable piece of filmmaking where nationalism and military might are hailed as virtues.

An internationally acclaimed director, Bodrov’s films include Bear’s Kiss, The Quickie, Kavkazskiy Plennik and Nomad.

In this exclusive interview we spoke to Bodrov about Mongol.

Los Angeles Journal: Why did you want to make this film?
Sergei Bodrov: It’s an interesting story about a guy who’s almost always known as an evil monster. In Russia he’s one of the most unpopular names. We blame Mongolians for all our problems. It was nice to go against stereotype.

LAJ: How have Russians responded to the film?
SB: They were surprised when I said I would make this movie. “Why are you doing this? What good did the Mongols do for us?” Good or bad, it’s part of our history.

LAJ: Have you found that it changes the perspectives of many Russians?
SB: Yes, yes, yes, it’s changed better than we expected. Movies are emotional and there’s a great story; they work especially for the younger generations.  They have more hope.

LAJ: What do you have in common with Temudjin?
SB: That’s an interesting question [Laughs]. Production was extremely difficult. It was a war, a battle, fights. I couldn’t give up because he was a warrior with such a very strong spirit.

LAJ: He also has a very nationalistic and traditional spirit. What concerns did you have that here would be a character who promoted nationalism at the expense of those whom wanted to break off on their own?
SB: He was very loyal to his people and people were very loyal to him. His war was not about religion – he believed in his Mongolian god, but he was also surrounded by Buddhists, Muslims and Christians; plus Mongolians were never occupants like Russia. He established his rules. You like it or you don’t like it. Some rules we’re still using now. For example, it was the Mongolians who first said, “Don’t kill my messengers. Don’t kill my ambassadors. I’m sending people to talk with proposals.” He said, “I will punish for this.” And the punishment was tough. People learned their lessons. Now people don’t kill ambassadors, diplomats. He invented this.

LAJ: Do you plan on making a sequel?
SB: I’m thinking about it.

LAJ: What kind of hostilities have you encountered from historians who have an investment in maintaining this myth about Genghis Kahn?
SB: Absolutely. Some historians don’t like my take; like the ones from the old school. They say, “It couldn’t happen that he was captured.” I said, “Prove me wrong.” What did he do from this year to that year? We don’t know. They say, “Maybe he was hiding.” Maybe, but I have one source that [claimed] he was captured. I said, “Look you don’t understand the logic, you don’t understand the character.” Some pieces of his life are missing. Some historians were arguing with me then [after they saw the film] they said, “You are right.”

LAJ: Do you see any leaders on the world stage like Genghis Kahn?
SB: No, he is on his own. He is one of the great leaders. He was a military genius. They still study his battles.

LAJ: Do we need a military genius on the world stage?
SB: Maybe not. Look, the worst century in human history was the 20th century. World War I, World War II, Nazis camps, Stalin’s camps, Holocaust, nuclear weapons…this is like insane. The hypocrisy is that we’re judging a guy from 800 years ago. He fought looking into the eyes of his enemies. We’re such insane people. We love to judge people, but not thinking about what we’re doing now.

LAJ: Lastly, what do you think about interviews where you discuss your work? Do they serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?
SB: The work has to speak for itself. The movie has to talk, but if you ask me to talk about the film I have to talk. The movie has to talk. That’s enough for me.

Summary

in the mercy seat with a death row veteran

Article

When one mixes in with the ignorant aspects of the working class and the discussion of capital punishment arises, typically, one hears callous cries like “I’d have no problem pulling the switch myself,” “Hang ‘em high by the nearest tree” or “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”

Not only is this sentiment ironic, since rich people do not receive the lethal concoction administered by the state, the bravado is suspicious since most of us are as far away from the behind-the-bars, non-televised, state-sanctioned executions of American citizens as the Vietnam-dodging, pro-war, chicken hawks dictating foreign policy are from an Iraqi battlefield. As many a man or woman who has seen state executions up close and personal will tell you, administering death, even in the name of so-called justice, is no small deed.

It is an unholy deed as well. Just look at the spiritual and political journey of Rev. Carroll Pickett as captured in Steve James and Peter Gilbert’s outstanding documentary, At the Death House Door.

The former prison chaplain who witnessed 95 executions while serving at Texas state prison in Huntsville, Pickett was once for the death penalty. He had seen those close to him brutally murdered and had no qualms about those vicious killers, seen from a distance, although Pickett had a closer view than most of us, getting their comeuppance in the name of justice, or revenge.

Things changed. Once the machine of death was in motion there was really no way out for Pickett and those he walked to their deaths. Racked with pain, guilt and the overwhelming experience at being unable to cease and desist the violent apparatus, after each execution Pickett recorded a cassette tape about each one he had accompanied to the death chamber

Over the years, as he became closer to his lowly fellow human beings, a transformation gradually occurred. Pickett was now against the death penalty. This was due in large part to witnessing guilty as well as innocent people systematically executed by a society that is supposed to be above those who act against it.

Of the 95 executions Pickett accompanied, the one that perhaps gripped him the most was that of Carlos De Luna, a man executed at the age of 27 for a murder he was convicted of at the legal drinking age of 21. In addition to Pickett’s experiences with someone whom he was convinced was innocent, two reporters for the Chicago Tribute, as well as others, have made an essentially irrefutable argument for De Luna’s innocence.

Now airing on IFC, At the Death House Door puts America in the hot, mercy seat. We are killing innocent people. What are we going to do about it? One American now knows his true calling.

We recently caught up with the documentary’s primary subject, Pickett — the author of Within these Walls: Memoris of a Death House Chaplin — to get his thoughts behind the scenes.

Los Angeles Journal: How do you feel that there is a documentary about you?
Carroll Pickett: I never expected to do anything like this in my life.

LAJ: How did the directors gain your trust?
CP: I gave them four weeks when they first came down.  In my mind — I didn’t tell them. I wanted to see which way they were going to go because I had so much confidential information. Peter and Steve just showed me they were honest people. I checked them out. And I decided I would go with them.

LAJ: Were you familiar with their previous work?
CP: Yes.

LAJ: Do you watch a lot of documentaries?
CP: Sure. I stay away from the stuff that’s almost TV. These things today, I just stay away from it.

LAJ: How do you think documentaries can change people’s opinion toward the death penalty?
CP: Of course if I didn’t think it wouldn’t have done some good I wouldn’t have done it. We’ve been working on it for over two years. If people watch documentaries and listen and learn something on a subject like this they can listen to facts instead of what’s been told or what they’ve felt all of their life or had been misled by some television stations.

LAJ: How did making the documentary change you?
CP: It changed me 180 degrees. First of all, these things drew things out of me that I had kept repressed for a long time. I had never listened to the tapes before. They did a lot of what I would call psychotherapeutic questioning. Where they were going I didn’t know, John, really. I trusted them but I didn’t know what they were going to do with this subject.

LAJ: Why did you record those tapes?
CP: Emotional necessity. I have a doctorate in Clinical Pastoral Education and a degree in Psychology and I have been counseling all my life, including convicts. I’ve been taught that every life is a bubble, like a glass, and everything goes in it and what you might do when the bubble or the glass is full. This doctor — we were just friends – said I needed to talk to somebody, but the material I had I just felt like nobody could ever understand. A lot of it was really sensitive. So I just talked to get it out of the way. I knew if I ever needed it I could go back. But I never went back to any of them.

LAJ: Were they allowed to listen to them without your supervision?
CP: Yes. After 4-6 months they began to give me an indication where they were going with their documentary. Not just with Carlos. So we drew up a contract and I don’t have them any more.

LAJ: When you started out you were for the death penalty. As time passed by you became increasingly against it.  How have people changed toward you as you changed?
CP: They’ve found I have become a lot more peaceful. When I preach I preach better and I don’t mean that egotistically. A lot of my friends have noticed the change in me and they want to know what it is. It has made me a much more dedicated person. Not only doing God’s will but also serving people and caring about the injustice and the immorality that goes on in our judicial system.

LAJ: I imagine there were some who agreed with you when you were for capital punishment but now you have changed. Has it been hard for you to carry on relationships with those people?
CP: Sure. I just want people to listen. I’m not going to preach. I’m not going to be an activist. I am not going to walk up and down the street and raise the flag and scream and holler. I will talk to people who want to talk about it, but one of my best friends I have known for, gosh, 70 years, he is very much in favor of the death penalty and we are still good friends. He has gone to the movie three times but he still feels very strongly that he is right; not that I am wrong because I have been there and seen.

LAJ: There is a moving part of the documentary where they discuss the lack of outrage that Carlos De Luna, an innocent man, was systematically killed by the state of Texas. Why do you think there is so little outrage when we discover innocent men have been put to death? Certainly Carlos was not the only one.
CP: You’re right. He wasn’t the only one. Out of those 95 I was with I know 15 were innocent. I will always believe that. But Carlos’ was a news story; it’s an old story. We can’t really do anything about Carlos. The only thing we’ve been able to do is get rid of the prosecutor who lied, who called Carlos Hernandez “a phantom.”

LAJ: In such cases as Carlos De Luna, why are police and prosecutors so eager to go with the first person they suspect, or just find?
CP: They want it solved. They want a star on their record. They don’t even look at everything.

LAJ: So it is by ambition?
CP: Sure. The District Attorneys in Harris County (Houston) used to brag how they put more people on death row than any state.

LAJ: In these cases where innocent men are put to death, the powers-that-be hardly ever pay for that. Do you think the powers-that-be will pay for that in the afterlife?
CP: Certainly. Thou shall not kill and these are people who are deliberately killing. An execution is a murder. If they know [the inmate] is innocent, which many times they did, they are going to have to answer for it. But I’m not on the judgment committee [Laughs].

LAJ: Now that the documentary will finally be aired, what are your plans for the future?
CP: I am working with the states. We got many states that are getting close to getting rid of the death penalty. With a few more states putting the pressure on Texas – I know I’m going to have trouble at home. That’s life. I’m going to go wherever I can to tell them the truth.

Summary

Finding the Foot Fist Way with the actor-writer-director

Article

Anyone out there ever wanted to see someone like Frank Burns or Napoleon Dynamite open up a cup of whoop booty under the direction of someone who worships cinematic skewing a la the late film director Robert Altman (MASH; Nashville). Then Meet writer-director-actor Jody Hill and his film, Foot Fist Way.

Fred “King of the demo” Simmons (co-writer Danny McBride) is a jerk. Fred has no idea how big of a jerk he is because he is a master of Tae Kwon Do (translated “the foot fist way”) who runs his own dojo. Fred bosses around his young male students, ogles the older female ones and could not give a flying kick to the left flank what anybody thinks of him. Even when his wife (Mary Jane Bostic) cheats on him; his hero, Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (co-writer Ben Best) screws him over, and a mother (Erica Owens) screams him a new one after he beats her son (Nicholas Stanley), Fred still thinks he is the freshest.

Fred is the kind of ridiculously-delusional idiot savant Will Farrell (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; Blades of Glory) has made some of his career out of, so it is not wonder that Gary Sanchez Productions, the company Farrell and creative partner Adam McKay founded, are backing the movie. Will The Foot Fist Way #2 feature Ferrell as Simmons’ sensei? Only box office sales will say.

An irreverent somewhat funny film co-writer/director/actor Jody Hill – who knows Tae Kwon Do – knees and elbows at the myth of the American martial artist.

In this exclusive interview, we spoke to Hill.

Los Angeles Press: Why did you want to tell this story?
Jody Hill: I grew up doing martial arts. When I was 17 I opened a Tae Kwon Do club. When I went away to film school (North Carolina School of the Arts) I gave away the memberships to this guy who opened a full size school, which is where we shot the film. We got to use his students; they’re all real people. I wanted to show there’s a business element to martial arts schools. A lot of times in movies you see martial arts as something holy/artsy/Zen-type thing. There are a lot of things like signing up new students, making your monthly lease; then it’s weird to see adults bowing to other adults and calling them “Sir.”

LAJ: Or kids, if they outrank the adults.
JH: Right, if a kid outranks you like Julio (Spencer Moreno). I’m a fan of 1970s films, those character pieces like Five Easy Pieces. I wanted to nail martial arts like Robert Altman nailed the military in MASH, the recording industry in Nashville.

LAJ: What do you have in common with Fred Simmons?
JH: [Laughs]. I was always careful not to make fun of Tae Kwon Do. The breakup. There are certain elements you get when you break up with a girl. From my experience in movies, like Swingers for example, you get dumped and then you meet the next girl and everything’s okay. It didn’t happen to me like that. It’s not like a lesson I’m trying to teach, but the main character is not going to get the girl, but he’s going to be okay.

LAJ: Have people protested at your portrayal of Tae Kwon Do?
JH: A little bit, yeah. Some people get offended no matter what you do.

LAJ: The film was a success at Sundance 2006. Why did it take so long for a release?
JH: It was pretty frustrating for me because of the [delays]. It’s different and if studios can’t pinpoint numbers they get scared of it. Something like this, which is new and doesn’t have any stars, it’s only natural they would have a knee-jerk reaction to releasing something like this. Now after all this time the film has some word-of-mouth legs it seems natural to release it.

LAJ: McBride and Best are funny guys. Did the low budget prohibit some comical material from getting into the film?
JH: I’ll tell you a little bit about that. I wrote up drafts and then those guys came on. Both of them are fans of British comedy, the droll kind. American comedy sucks. A lot of times it’s somebody saying something “crazy” and there’s a counter shot where somebody makes a face. It’s disposable, throwaway. With the budget – I put the film on my credit cards – basically we did it very raw and include the roughness and make it a part of the thing; like it was coming from somebody’s backyard, or the gutter. Overtime people will see that as a cool thing, like early punk rock bands with hissing on the tape and guitar feedback, but now it’s a style people try to get. It’s feeling over professionalism.

LAJ: You say, “American comedy sucks” but you got two well-known American comedians backing your film. How did they get on board? How did that help your film?
JH: Will Farrell and Andy McKay are the exceptions. Those guys have vision. They’re really into what we’re doing. They got the joke before most people did. At Sundance the studios didn’t get this movie. They didn’t understand like Fred isn’t telling jokes but yet it’s still funny. Will Farrell got it right away.

LAJ: Why do you think your film received an R-rating?
JH: That always surprised me. When I was growing up seeing movies I never thought of that. Out here in Hollywood you think about that. It’s cool.

LAJ: How accurate were the board breakings?
JH: We scored it. We had Ben and Danny train for three weeks. We had stunt doubles. A lot of old school stunt double tricks. We didn’t have computers.

LAJ: What can you tell us about your upcoming film, Observe and Report?
JH: It’s about a security guard who gets in a turf war with the cops when a perpetrator strikes the mall. Ray Liotta plays his nemesis. Michael Pena is in it and he’s funny. It might be a big breakout role for him.

LAJ: Lastly, what do you think about these interviews?  Do they serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?
JH: That’s a good question; probably the cool answer is “the work should speak for itself.” I grew up talking films with my buddies so as long as it’s like that and I’m not asked about “the state of independent film,” which I don’t think I should say.

Summary

Director talks about The Children of Huang Shi

Article

With a history stretching into different facets of the moviemaking medium, Roger Spottiswoode has been around the boulevard of bloated/bogus/beautiful dreams a few times.

Spottiswoode’s first film credits were as an editor on Love and Music (1971), Straw Dogs (1971), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), The Gambler (1974), and Hard Times (1975). Five years later Spottiswoode returned to the big screen scribing 48 Hrs. (1982) and Another 48 Hrs. (1990), while accumulating 25 directing credits.

Starting with Terror Train (1980) through Shake Hands with the Devil (2007), those directing credits range from such celluloid sludge as Turner and Hooch (1989), Air America (1990) and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), to the James Bond entry, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), plus better fare like And the Band Played On (1993), The Matthew Shepherd Story (2002) and last year’s Shake Hands with the Devil.

Striving for the kind of film the Academy recognizes, but in no way will it be remembered by winter, Spottiswoode’s latest film, The Children of Huang Shi, is a dramatic story with pretty photography, mawkish music, and actors chomping into their viewer-reassuring roles.

Based on real events, China during the late 1930s was fighting off imperialist Japan, while engaged in a civil war between Chinese nationalists and Chinese communists. Across the land violence is rampant. Nobody is spared, including the children.

When George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an English journalist arrives, he and his fellow journalist friend, Barnes (David Wenham), are appalled at what they see. After Barnes is assassinated Hogg is at a loss. There is nothing to report because nobody is going to care. After a series of events Hogg puts down his pens, and takes up the arms, legs, heads and hearts of the young Chinese hoi polloi who are caught in a conflict they cannot truly fathom. Also on his side are a medic, Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), and the leader of a Chinese group, “Jack” Chen (Chow Yun Fat).

Together the three of them rescue 60-orphaned children by taking them across hundreds of miles of nubbly terrain. Not all of them will make it but, for the survivors, the spirit of their compassion lives on through the ideas lived and inspired by one person.

Born in Canada, raised in Britain, we caught up with Spottiswoode in Los Angeles to hear him chime in on Hogg, China and special wartime circumstances.

Los Angeles Journal: Why did you want to tell the story of George Hogg?
Roger Spottiswoode: He’s fascinating. He’s 28 when he arrives there, doesn’t speak a word of Chinese. He was a very adventurous spirit. He arrived in China at a very interesting time. I wrote a rough draft of the script and I learned quite a bit about him. I knew some things about China during this period because I worked on another film called Man’s Fate, which never got made. He likes the idea of being a war journalist and then he found himself with these children.

LAJ: What is it about 1930s China that interests you?
RS: It was a country that was changing course. It was in the middle of a civil war. It was divided between the nationalists and the communists that had reached an impasse. There was the dreadful invasion by the Japanese where 8-10 million people were killed by the Japanese. There was the strange and uneasy alliance between the nationalists and communists.

LAJ: Which of the characters do you identify with the most and why?
RS: I identify with all of them. Back in the 1960s I met someone like Lee Pearson, a woman who worked as a doctor in China. She was completely self-trained, had no qualifications whatsoever. I met that character. I knew of the Jack Chen character and people like him who were educated in American and had gone back to help — idealists who decided to give up their comfortable backgrounds of wealth and comfort and help Mao. Of course, Mao decided to turn on them.  Many of them were shot.

LAJ: What do you think you have in common with Hogg?
RS: Oh, I would have just liked to have been like him [Laughs]. I don’t have anything. Well, I like to go to foreign places.

LAJ: Speaking of that, what were the shooting conditions for the film?
RS: China knows how to make good films. We used a Chinese crew so.

LAJ: You were dealing with Chinese history. How involved was the government?
RS: You submit the script and they say what is wrong with it and you change it. Or you don’t change it. They pretty much accepted our script except we had more drug scenes with the opium dealers who looked and were bandits. The official Chinese position is that there were no bandits. We had to minimize that part because they said this did not exist. They believe in a history you can modify. After that they didn’t tell us where to go or what to do. Our crew, which has made these very good films like House of Flying Daggers and Hero, showed us how to find things. The past has almost disappeared. Finding bits of old China is extremely hard — because so much was destroyed by the civil war in the 1940s and the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s — unless you were shown places that were so remote the Cultural Revolution couldn’t get to it.

LAJ: In light of China’s crackdown on Tibet, the Olympic protests abroad with the Olympic torch, along with the recent devastating earthquake in China, what do you think of the timing of your film?
RS: I don’t know. It always seemed to me this would be a good year, regardless of disaster. Hopefully people will be more interested in China. Who knows? I could have guessed about Tibet. I hoped Tibet would come up and I’m glad it has come up, but I don’t know if the Chinese government will bend. They’re very entrenched and this is a country that has never had a liberal government. It’s a country entirely without information. There are no newspapers with information. There’s no politics anywhere. Only the party can have a point of view. It’s a very strange place.

LAJ: Yes, your film, along with earthquake, manages to do what the China government has failed to do, and that is making China sympathetic.
RS: There are many sympathetic parts of China. There are many parts that are not.

LAJ: What concerns did you have about not making one of those “Great White Hope” narratives?
RS: That is a particular concern the West has. Nobody in China was worried about that because this happened. Some of these kids are still alive. They keep telling you he was an extraordinary guy and you want to honor that. It’s hard to tell s story without characters we seem to know a little bit.  To find kids to play these kids I found undocumented workers. To be in Beijing you have to have documents. A rural person who’s starving just can’t go and get money in the big city. It’s illegal. They have children and those children can’t go to school. There is this huge number of children that are outside of society. A few terrific Chinese have created illegal schools for them. Starting in the last few years, the government is not closing them down. They’re looking the other way because nobody else is teaching these schools. We went to those schools and found three generations of women who ran two schools. We found kids at these schools and picked about 15 of them. They were hard scrabbled kids but had a sense of performance, ignoring cameras and things and just being true to themselves. They must have been pretty much like the real kids – tough kids who never had opportunities.  Then this foreigner comes along and he doesn’t seem like a foreigner, only knows a little more. I don’t see it as a “White” film but…I don’t know what I can do about it [Laughs].

LAJ: How conscious were you about the fact that this guy came into a war torn country as a journalist and managed to save a few people and what is going on with the U.S. and Britain right now?
RS: [Laughs]. I thought it was an appropriate story to tell. He doesn’t pick up a gun. He doesn’t try to invade a foreign country. He just goes there and finds they are all just human beings and makes it work with nationalists and the communists. Almost with the Japanese, but nobody could have managed with the Japanese. There’s a speech in the film where Barnes tells him what the Japanese point of view is: The rules of war don’t apply here. This is a special place. It’s exactly the rationale behind Abu Ghraib. “They’re all terrorists. This is a special war and we can do what we like.” The Japanese said the same thing.

LAJ: What do you think of these interviews where you discuss your work? Do they serve the film? Should the work speak for itself?
RS: The work should speak for itself. But people want to know why I do these films and studio films so I don’t mind explaining. On the other hand, this is an independent film and the chance of it getting out to an audience these days are miserably difficult. Nobody puts money into advertising anymore. They put the films into a couple of theaters and see if anyone comes. It’s terrifying. If you spend 10 years making a film and you put your money, soul and heart into it, journalists are a way to help…if they want to.