Writer/director Blake Edwards died yesterday at the age of 88. He is best known for crafting some of the most eclectic comedies in the history of cinema, including Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther series, 10, S.O.B. and Victor Victoria. His career was one of the hit or miss variety, but Edwards wasn’t afraid to tread controversial ground or criticize the business he spent over 50 years working in.

I first discovered Edwards as a teenager with the John Ritter farce Skin Deep. It would be one of the last big screen efforts he would direct and featured Ritter as an unemployed writer who finds himself embroiled in all matter of drunken womanizing antics. It was a decent laugher, but one scene in particular stands out from the rest. It perfectly embodies the creative boldness in Edwards’ writing. It needs no further introduction.

RIP, John Ritter. RIP, Blake Edwards.

A-Team

If any film demands to be graded on a curve, it’s The A-Team.

Simply consider the notion of making a big-budget movie from of one of the cheesiest television shows of a cheesy TV era.

It’s a crafty plan to lower your expectations. As long the movie isn’t two hours of punching grandmothers and kicking puppies, you’re likely to turn the DVD player off saying, “That was better than I expected.”

Guess what? It works like a charm.

The A-Team, against all odds, is one extremely entertaining film. It puts pedal to metal about 90 seconds in and never lets up. That’s also savvy because it’s also kind of a mess that would collapse under its own weight if it slowed down for more than two minutes.

Director Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces, Narc) isn’t taking that chance. Action scenes come flying at you hard and heavy from start to finish. The results are mixed: Some sequences are choppy and confusing, others thrilling. But like a comedy that never stops pitching jokes, content if only half of them stick, The A-Team pitches action, action, action, with a side of action and a little action to wash it down.

The plot follows the general concept of the TV series with a few tweaks. A (very) lengthy credits sequence set in Mexico shows us how the team of former Army Rangers comes together: Leader John “Hannibal” Smith (Liam Neeson), his right-hand man Templeton “Face” Peck (Bradley Cooper), powerful Bosco “B.A.” Baracus (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson) and loony pilot James “Howling Mad” Murdock (Sharlto Copley).

We jump ahead several years, where the A-Team is now an Army covert operations crew with dozens of successful missions under their belts. But when they’re set up for a fall by a variety of villainous forces, the boys have to break out of jail and fight to clear their names.

That’s pretty much all you wanted to know about the plot, right? Because it gets pretty confusing from there and doesn’t matter in the slightest anyway. It’s only there to support – that’s right – action.

Before I tell you why A-Team is worth your hard-earned cash, I should lay out its many faults.

The special effects are wildly uneven, especially in the climax. It looks like the usual Hollywood problem of the CGI being “just good enough” to make a locked-in release date. This time, it’s nowhere near good enough.

But then, The A-Team is a nitpicker’s dream, if you really want to go there. Jessica Biel’s casting seems like an inside joke – “we’re not taking this seriously, and neither should you, so let’s cast a good looking but astonishingly wooden actor in this role.”

Maybe you’re wondering whether she’s really that bad. Look at it this way: This is the first major film role for “Rampage” Jackson, an MMA fighter. He’s not great, but he’s not too bad – and that’s high praise for a non-actor stepping into the iconic role. Yet he’s a good bit more believable than Biel.

So with those issues, what makes The A-Team so entertaining? The rest of the cast, actually. If you can look past Biel (actually, look right at her, that’s what she’s there for), the film is jam-packed with colorful, charismatic performances.

Neeson seems a bit odd at first stepping into George Peppard’s shoes as Hannibal, being considerably taller, leaner and tougher. But that’s appropriate for the movie, which is basically the TV show on (lots and lots of) steroids. No attempt is made to explain his Irish accent, nor that of Copley, who is South African. It doesn’t matter: Somehow in this film, it works.

But the film decides early on to focus on Cooper, hot off his success in The Hangover, and it’s the right choice. You’d never have guessed the guy who played eighth fiddle on Alias would be front-and-center for a star-making performance, but it’s true.

The A-Team shows off Cooper’s buffed-up physique almost to the point of absurdity – he’s shirtless on screen more than Mark Wahlberg in Date Night – but Cooper’s charisma carries the day throughout.

A well-rounded supporting cast also delivers. Patrick Wilson and Brian Bloom, as potentially shady characters related to the A-Team’s troubles, steal every scene they’re in. (It probably doesn’t hurt that Bloom, a veteran actor mostly relegated to TV work, gets co-writing credit.) Their wonderfully brash characters bring welcome levity to the pounding machine of gunfights and explosions that propels The A-Team.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t note the drinking game that by all rights should be born from this film: Drink whenever a guy with icy blue eyes is on screen. You’d pass out halfway through the film.

There’s Cooper and Neeson alone, plus Bloom and Wilson, with a little Gerald McRaney – yes, Major Dad himself – thrown in for good measure.

If you’re really into dudes with bright blue eyes, The A-Team is like porn. If you’re into nonstop action and lots of male bonding, The A-Team is like porn. If you’re into deep, fully-realized female characters – well, look elsewhere.

But if you had to ask me what I would want a big-screen take on a really silly TV show to be, The A-Team more than fits the bill. It’s ridiculous, sure. But it’s also a ridiculous amount of fun.

Despicable Me

What a year it has been for animated films. So far in 2010 we have had three great films from three rival studios. DreamWorks kicked things off with the surprise sleeper hit How to Train Your Dragon and animation juggernaut Pixar countered with the hotly anticipated Toy Story 3. Now Universal’s Illumination Entertainment has released the audaciously titled Despicable Me and while it may be the “worst” of the trio, it is certainly the most purely entertaining.

The strengths of Despicable Me lie within veins commonly found in animated features, but his entry simply utilizes them extremely effectively. Along with jumping on the 3-D bandwagon (my theatre was screening it in normal dimensions) Despicable Me boasts an impressive voice cast, a ploy first used with Robin Williams way back in the days of traditional days of animation with Aladdin, superbly executed slapstick and what I will call the sidekick factor. Whether cute or wisecracking, you would be hard-pressed to find a film in this medium that does not employ this tactic. Even so called “art-house” animated pictures like WALL-E follow the trend (in fact, that particular film contains two such supporting characters) and Despicable Me ups the ante and adopts thousands.

The villainous central character of Gru (voiced my Steve Carell) operates his evil lair with the aid of a multitude of adorable little yellow workers, and along with their “awwwee” factor, are the subject of a healthy portion of the aforementioned slapstick. Nestled in between the easy laughs however is ample heart and if you are prone to do so, you may very well shed a tear or two. This warmth is generated by three orphan girls, Margo, Edith and the doe-eyed Agnes, but perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.

All Gru has ever wanted is to be accepted, and what better way to achieve that goal than by resorting to supervillainy. After a fresh- faced rival villain Vector (Jason Segel) outdoes Gru by stealing a pyramid from Egypt, he devises a plan to obtain a shrink-ray from a government testing facility and use that technology to shrink, and then steal the moon. Things do not go according to plan after Vector steals the shrink-ray right out of Gru’s spindly clutches. What’s a supervillain to do? Devise another plan of course, this time using the three aforementioned orphans to infiltrate Vector’s lair by selling cookies. It’s all very complicated in writing but works very well on screen.

Steve Carell does an admirable job in the lead voice role, and his Russian accent helps us to forget it is an A-list star nestled behind the animation. Russell Brand gives an unrecognizable performance as Dr. Nefario, the brains behind Gru’s operation, and Kristen Wiig is hilarious as the head of the orphanage. The most disappointing is certainly the great Jason Segel whose underwritten character fails him as does his voice. Half of the allure of Segel is his physical presence and that is neutered in a voice-only role. While the physical humor will no doubt please the kids, there is perhaps even more for adults and if a movie is able to make me double over in the isle, then it must be doing something right. With Shrek Forever After being the one misstep for this medium, I look enthusiastically forward to the remainder of the year. What I know for certain is I (and the audience I joined) had an absolute blast with this flick, that is despicable in name only.

The Other Guys

Just when you think you’ve seen one Will Ferrell movie, you’ve seen them all, think again. Try this on for size: Usual Ferrell comedy plus crazy action plus subtle political and economical commentary plus excellent soundtrack. The Other Guys is a surprisingly hilarious and surprisingly action-packed movie that will keep you entertained throughout without actually dumbing you down. Unlike most Will Ferrell movies, you don’t have to shut off your brain in this one; you actually have to pay attention because aside from the comedy, there is a complex crime to solve. Adam McKay delivers his best writing and directing performance, while the excellent cast ranging from Ferrell to Wahlberg to Keaton provides plenty of laughs, plenty of one-liners, and plenty of entertaining moments that propel this movie past the slowest of scenes.

The Other Guys is about two mismatched behind-the-scenes paper-pushers (Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg) quietly investigating a series of suspicious events stemming from a unique bank robbery. Along the way they try to defeat their personal demons and try to figure out how to get along with each other. Unlike most Ferrell movies, in which it’s a simple concept and improv provides the filler material, this movie actually has a mildly complex and heavy script, but still gives the cast a chance for a little improvisation. Written by the director and also Chris Henchy, I’ll even go as far as to say that this among the best comedic scripts since last year’s The Hangover. To add to that, McKay and Henchy pull a neat trick by slowly feeding you some commentary about big business and its mannerisms. The last mainstream comedy to attempt this was the mildly underrated Fun with Dick and Jane remake with Jim Carrey.

While this movie does not have the extensive magical gathering of comedians like Anchorman (then again, what movie does?), the cast still does an excellent job bringing the comedy from the script to the screen. Will Ferrell is a little more toned-down this time, but still has his usual moments (screaming like a girl, random quotes, random singing, quirky one-liners). Mark Wahlberg however, steals the show with his angry lines, his bitter delivery, and his outbursts. The only thing hindering Wahlberg is the PG-13 rating; who knows what more classic lines he could have pulled off if he was allowed to go uncut (Remember him in The Departed?). Smaller roles fill the bill in the laughs department, including Eva Mendez (beautiful as always), Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, and the cameos.

Even though Farrell has been hit-and-miss with the public and the critics, his best work always has been with Adam McKay. Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers were their previous collaborations and those three clearly top anything else Farrell has pulled off. The Other Guys in terms of directing and pacing dethrones them all. McKay does more than just handle the camera and let the actors mouth off; he stages some great action sequences and does a fantastic job directing a slow-motion bar sequence that displays the coolest slo-mo effects since Zombieland. The first half was so overloaded with funny scenarios, the audience very often was laughing so hard they missed the next couple of jokes while trying to recover from the last two. One scene in particular had the audience nearly drown out the sound of the audio coming from the movie.

The first half was absolutely spectacular and downright comical; the second half never had a chance to duplicate the magic of the first hour. This is where Adam Mckay’s biggest issues have been: in the final third of the flicks. All of McKay’s movies lose steam and slow down towards the end, preventing them from becoming eternal comedic classics. In the case of The Other Guys, he improved a bit by still providing some of the laughs, even though you will still feel the momentum slowly die down. The cop clichés, while not taken seriously, still mildly hindered the moments leading up to the climax. There were some unnecessary scenes; a little bit of editing could have really helped this movie. But, unlike the other movies, the third act stays afloat thanks to the Wahlberg/Ferrell mix, as well as the continuing mystery that was slowly unfolding. Then stay tuned for the credits, when the commentary rushes at you full-force.

Bottom Line: Honestly, I never thought that Will Ferrell would be involved with Mark Wahlberg, a creative script, hidden commentary (that unveils itself when you least expect it), and a soundtrack consisting of Rage against the Machine. Nonetheless, the combination worked like a great mixed drink that has you asking for seconds and thirds. The one-liners are flying all over the place, and so are the bullets. The Other Guys is the funniest movie of the year so far, and clearly the best surprise we’ve had this summer. Adam McKay continues to claim the throne as the best comedic director in the business, and this movie is more evidence. All McKay needs to do is cut back on the overall running time. This is the first Will Ferrell movie that you must pay close attention to (in terms of visual humor and crime-solving), and is overall one of his best movies.

For the six of you that give a crap, Love & Other Drugs is playing at theaters across the land. It’s a dramedy about a Viagra salesman who falls in love with a chick suffering from early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Sounds amazing. And by amazing I mean bland and cliched in every way. Despite Anne Hathaway being kinda sorta hot, I don’t think I’ll be coughing up eight bucks to see this turd.

Besides the sappy plot, one of the things that irks me most about this flick is the stupid title. It’s not just about love, but other drugs too. Oh, I get it, love is a drug. It makes you feel elated and loopy and on top of the world. That is until it, meaning love, goes horribly awry; then those feelings of unbridled happiness turn to soul-crushing depression and never-ending bitterness.

The movie is based on the non-fiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. Obviously you can’t use such a wordy moniker for the big screen version, but one would think the creative minds responsible could come up with something better than Love & Other Drugs. Why not Hard Sell? Okay, I’ll admit, that sounds like a documentary about advertising… or a porno about advertising.

Hmm… maybe something like Prescription for Love. Nah, that might be dumber. Love for Sale? The Love Dealer? For Better or Worse? The Chemicals Between Us? Wait, that last one is a song by the band Bush. Shake, Rattle and Love? Probably a little insensitive. Love of a Salesman? Too literary. Geesh. I guess this isn’t as simple as I first thought.

Whatever the case, Love & Other Drugs is still a ridiculous title. Imagine you and a co-worker are hanging out at the water cooler or coffee maker or soda machine and he/she brings up the movie. It would go something like this:

Co-worker: Have you seen Love & Other Drugs?

You: Huh? Am I taking any other drugs?

Co-worker: No, Love & Other Drugs.

You: Do I love other drugs?

Co-worker: The movie, Love and Other Drugs.

You: I don’t like what you’re insinuating, so I’m going to leave.

Awkward and confusing. By contrast, here’s how the same conversation would go when said move has a good title.

Co-worker: Have you seen Inception?

You: Not yet, but I hear it’s awesome.

Co-worker: Oh man, you gotta see it. It’s a trip.

You: Damn. Then I’m going tonight.

Co-worker: Trust me. You won’t be disappointed.

You: Cool.

See how smoothly that progressed. A quality title slips easily into everyday conversation. Charlie St. Cloud — bad. The Expendables — good. Skyline — awful. The Social Network — terrific. As for Love & Other Drugs, well, it’s just not up to snuff. After careful deliberation, I think I have a suitable alternative. Drum roll, if you please. The new and improved title is… Love Story 2. Wink, wink.

]]> http://flicksided.com/2010/11/stupid-movie-titles-are-annoying/feed/ 0 http://flicksided.com/2010/11/better-wizard-harry-potter-vs-gandalf/ http://flicksided.com/2010/11/better-wizard-harry-potter-vs-gandalf/#comments Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:00:01 +0000 Scott Tunstall http://flicksided.com/?p=12476

Everyone’s favorite boy spellcaster will once again grace theaters on Friday in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part I, the penultimate chapter in the cash cow franchise. The suddenly sexy Hermione, the perpetually awkward Ron and the eternally evil Lord Voldemort are also along for the ride, but it’s all about Harry and his quest to vanquish the Dark Lord and his nefarious minions.

At the opposite end of the movie wizard spectrum is Gandalf from the The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. He’s taller, older and wiser, but is he the best of the best in the world of fantasy and magic? Or is the pint-sized, bespectacled teenager the champion of conjurers?

There’s only one way to solve this riddle for the ages. It’s time to go to the tale of the tape. Which wizard wins out: Harry Potter or Gandalf? (Click to enlarge)

It’s close, but the victor in this enchanting engagement by a score of 5-3-1 is the man in white/gray, Gandalf. Playing an integral part in saving Middle-earth from total destruction was just too much to overcome for young Harry. Don’t feel sorry for him, though. I’m sure cute as a button Ginny Weasley will comfort him in defeat.

Few things bother me more at the movies than cliched characters. See one unstable cop, vengeful father, lovelorn single woman, understanding best pal, outcast teen, you’ve seen them all. These tiresome persons can be found roaming one or more of the offerings at the local multiplex on a weekly basis, and unfortunately they don’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

When it comes to perturbing personalities that cause my eyes to roll whenever they appear on screen, I find the “douchebag boyfriend” to be most aggravating. Ya know the type. He’s usually a buttoned-down selfish prick with a fat bank account who treats the Miss Perfect female protagonist like sh*t, but Miss Perfect is too stupid or insecure to cut him loose.

You’ve undoubtedly seen these grade A asshats in movies such as Crocodile Dundee, Edward Scissorhands, Can’t Hardly Wait, Titanic, Van Wilder, Wedding Crashers, The Wedding Singer and countless other titles spanning multiple genres. They have annoying names like Richard, Glenn, Cal and Zach and clean-cut faces screaming to be punched repeatedly.

They’re written to be easily hateable — especially when placed beside the likeable male protagonist — which makes them one note and disposable. Their existence within the plot structure lets the audience know early on that a happy ending is all but assured.

Rarely, if ever, does the douchebag end up keeping the girl because nobody wants to see the nice guy or the heroic guy or the romantic guy get the shaft and be left to pine away for what could’ve been, while Mr. Jerk walks away with the dreamgirl. The Last American Virgin would be one notable exception; its downer ending is all too real for any sad sack who’s had his heart stomped on by the chick who prefers the company of bad boys.

But I digress. The worst part of the douchebag boyfriend is the fact that everyone can discern right away he’s a problem. Well, everyone but the girlfriend. She’s oblivious to his boorish behavior and/or turns a blind eye to his dickish antics. Which of course opens the door for nice guy to swoop in and win her affections by exposing the douchebag’s true nature.

Even though the a-hole beau normally suffers some sort of hilarious indignity, like being elbowed in the jaw or dosed with super-laxative, they are nonetheless unoriginal and largely uninteresting. Is it so wrong to make the boyfriend character a decent guy? A guy who treats his chick right? Someone who makes the girl look like she has a modicum of taste when it comes to men?

To me, it makes more sense thematically to craft reasonably intelligent characters. I mean if the girl has to struggle to choose the guy that makes her happiest, doesn’t that add more drama to the proceedings? If the boyfriend isn’t a controlling POS, doesn’t that mean the audience is allowed to have a vested interest in him? Is it absolutely necessary there be a obvious “villain” in every relationship comedy/drama?

I think you can build conflict in these types of stories minus the douchebag. All it takes is a little ingenuity. Cliched characters are a product of lazy writing. And if there’s one thing Hollywood doesn’t need more of, it would be lazy writing.

In the past two-and-a-half years, Christopher Nolan put all directors under the age of 45 in check with his one-two punch of The Dark Knight and Inception. In following up The Wrestler with Black Swan (which I was lucky enough to see at the awesome Austin Film Festival), Darren Aronofsky not only pulled a piece back to block the impending attack, he also put Nolan’s own king in check. The film world now has the equivalent of the Fischer-Kasparov dream match the chess world never got. When you consider the entire filmography of each young director, this chess game has been going on longer than we previously realized.

After Black Swan, there is no doubt that Aronofsky is a grandmaster. He effortlessly went from directing a story about a roided-up, has-been pro wrestler who reveals a sensitive side, to one about a perfect little ballerina who goes from Snow White to the Evil Queen. Who else can go from wrastlin’ boots to The Red Shoes? If Nolan has updated the Hitchcockian style for the 21st century, Aronofsky is without a doubt neo-Kubrick. His films are all vastly different; the lone similarities being his visual style along with his uncompromising willingness to take his audience to very dark places in order to reveal truth.

Swan is Aronofsky’s best film. Where Requiem for a Dream made you squirm when you expected it, Swan often made you squirm when you least expected it and was never predictable. The Fountain didn’t have the story to  match its own spectacle. The Wrestler (very much both this film’s companion piece and its polar opposite) didn’t have the scale to match its own story. In Swan, the scale and the story are magnificently equal, resulting in the director’s most accomplished work to date.

The film also heavily draws upon an outstanding cast, but it is Natalie Portman who does most of the heavy lifting, err, dancing. Much like how Vincent Cassel’s choreographer Thomas doubted Portman’s ballerina Nina could pull off  the dark side of the Swan Queen, I came in wondering if Portman could muster the intensity needed to carry this film. Well, I was surprised a night earlier when James Franco strapped 127 Hours to his back, and I was surprised again tonight when Portman made herself a shoe-in for a Best Actress nom. It appears both only needed an opportunity to “stretch” under the right helmer’s direction.

What makes this movie so brilliant isn’t that the ballet company inside the film is performing the famous ballet Swan Lake. It’s that the story they are trying to make spreads beyond the stage and into Nina’s life. The story about ballerinas trying to perform Swan Lake literally becomes Swan Lake. I don’t want to give any more away than that, even though very few of you are likely to be real familiar with Swan Lake anyway. Let’s just say I had high expectations — just like Cassel’s Thomas. And like Thomas I was both equally surprised and shocked when the curtain closed.

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of watching a little movie from 2008 called Happy-Go-Lucky. Directed by British auteur Mike Leigh, it tells the story of a 30-year-old single schoolteacher named Poppy (brilliantly played by Sally Hawkins), who skips through life with a glass-half-full attitude. She parties with friends, signs up for driving and flamenco lessons and dates a handsome social worker. That’s the movie.

Now, some people, maybe even most, might find a film like this boring. There’s no subplot involving a serial killer, secret agent, superhero or animated troll. There’s no wild and crazy trip to Vegas or outrageous scenes involving bungee cords and porta-potties.

Instead, we are presented a simple portrait of a young woman living her life day-to-day. It’s funny, poignant, thought-provoking and most importantly, ordinary. Writer/director Mike Leigh has made a career of crafting stories about ordinary people. Movies like High Hopes, Life is Sweet, Naked, Secrets & Lies and Career Girls all focus on working class folk dealing with everyday problems. The subject matter isn’t particularly sexy, but it is authentic and relatable.

Ken Loach, another British filmmaker, also specializes in realistic themes and characters with such titles as Riff-Raff, My Name is Joe and Bread and Roses. Leigh and Loach will never be confused for Spielberg and Nolan when it comes to box office success, but both filmmakers have managed to carve respected niches without the aid of grandiose special effects, costumed crimefighters and adorable extraterrestrials.

More so than ever before there seems to be a concentration in Hollywood on creating larger than life personas to populate their big screen productions. Cops, lawyers and doctors are common enough, but not in Tinseltown. In Tinseltown, the cops, lawyers and doctors do battle with maniacal terrorists, invading aliens and flesh-eating zombies. Rarely do we see a cop shuffling paper at a desk, a lawyer arguing a shoplifting case or a doctor reviewing stacks of charts. Why? Because it’s not very entertaining.

Batman and John McClane are easier to sell and market than Bob the plumber and Jane the cashier. Spaceships and car chases are cooler than bicycles and bus passes. Talking cartoon toys are much more amusing than lower class families struggling to make ends meet. After all, movies serve as a vessel to escape to a time and place that differs greatly from the mundane one we reside in daily.

This doesn’t mean there can’t be room for the trials and tribulations of everyday life. One of the best recent examples of this kind of filmmaking was Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road. The nuanced, incredibly well-acted and ultimately tragic tale of a dissolving marriage won’t leave you smiling or high-fiving as the end credits roll, but it’s proof that ordinary people can make interesting subjects. It went on to gross $75 million, which is impressive for an R-rated drama set in the 1950s.

A more classic example would be Charles Burnett’s 1977 Killer of Sheep. A compelling portrayal of a poor African-American family living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, the film utilizes a minimalist, neorealistic style to paint a unromantic, yet fascinating picture of urban strife. Although far less polished than Revolutionary Road – due to a meager budget of $10,000 – Killer of Sheep does an equally, if not better, job of displaying a pedestrian existence that is both intriguing and memorable.

It’s absurd to suggest Hollywood change its moneymaking model because that will never happen. Superhero actioners, tentpole franchises, big budget sequels, animated adventures and high concept comedies rule the roost and will continue to do so as long as they earn mountains of cash. However, when told through the lens of talented artists, films that detail the conflicts of ordinary people are worth putting into multiplexes as well. They may not break any box office records or wow the critics, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a place in today’s cinema.

]]> http://flicksided.com/2010/10/the-lost-art-of-making-films-about-ordinary-people/feed/ 0 http://flicksided.com/2010/10/ny-comic-con-final-saw-3d-poster/ http://flicksided.com/2010/10/ny-comic-con-final-saw-3d-poster/#comments Wed, 06 Oct 2010 03:21:03 +0000 Steve DiMatteo http://flicksided.com/?p=12145

We all like to make fun of the Saw series as one of those never-ending horror franchises, but to be honest, I actually enjoy these movies. The kills are inspired and the insane, weaving storyline that continues throughout each film actually makes it fun, a necessary tactic when making a seven-movie horror series. Go ahead and watch the last few movies in the Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th series and look at the quality of those films. You’ll at least appreciate the effort that those behind Saw are putting forth.

That being said, here is the final animated poster for Saw 3D, the inevitable and fitting way to end this above-average series of horror films.

Recently, I was invited – along with a few other San Francisco-based journalists – to sit down and talk to Jesse Eiseberg (Zombieland) about his starring role in David Fincher’s latest film, The Social Network. Read on as he discusses the challenges associated with playing a real person, Fincher’s directing style and his tendency to be a bit neurotic.

What are the challenges in playing a living person [Mark Zuckerberg]?

Obviously, he’s not involved in the movie, so I wasn’t able to meet him. My cousin, Eric, who is a great computer programmer, works at Facebook. He got a job there while we were shooting the movie, so he works up here now [the San Francisco area]. So, I’m hoping to someday meet [Mark], if for nothing else, to meet my cousin’s boss.

I treated the character like I would any other character in any movie. He was a character created – the character of Mark in this movie is really Aaron Sorkin’s version of Mark, so that’s what I was asked to play. We were explicitly discouraged from doing impressions or mimicking [the actual people]. I was going primarily off of Aaron’s script.

But, before each role, I try to do as much preparation just to be comfortable on set. To feel like I’ve done everything possible to be in the position to be acting in this big movie. It’s a great opportunity, so I read everything I could about Mark. I took fencing lessons because he’s a fencer. I had every video of him converted to MP3’s so I could have him on my iPod to watch before each scene. This was all to kind of help me focus. I don’t know what direct impact it has on the final product.

Can you talk about some of the internal logic in some of the choices Mark [Zuckerberg] makes throughout the film? Obviously, you can’t know for sure…

I don’t think he necessarily neglects social interaction, I think he just feels alienated by it. I think he feels kind of uncomfortable interacting in the way he sees everybody else interacting, especially in college. Especially at Harvard. I think he views the exclusivity of these Final Clubs that he feels that he secretly wants to [be a part of].

Of course, there’s the dramatic irony of this guy who feels alienated by society creating his own society. He’s finally able to interact in a way in which he feels comfortable. Which of course is online. Not only online, but kind of in a way that doesn’t fully account for all of the nuance of actually being in a room with somebody else.

So, in that first scene, when he’s with this girl and he can’t understand why she doesn’t want to be there or why she’s upset – because he goes to a “superior” school and he’s promised her that he’ll involve her in these activities, which will of course be more exciting than the activities she’s going to be involved in. With Facebook, his creation sort of mirrors that “checklist” relationship a bit. You know, “I like the Beatles and you like the Beatles, we’re friends.”

That’s how he feels comfortable interacting.

Did you feel any sort of responsibility to your character’s real-life counterpart when portraying him?

Umm…no, because I felt my job was so limited to acting in the movie. I wasn’t one of the producers who has to answer to Facebook or the writer who’s creating the situation for the character to be in.

In retrospect, I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t feel a sense of anxiety about playing a real person – because I feel anxiety about everything else in the world. One would think that playing a real person who’s not only a contemporary, but who’s actually younger than me.

My job acting in the movie as that character was to defend that character’s behavior and actions. So, even though he’s acting in a way that’s hurtful to the other characters, it’s my job to understand and justify all of those behaviors. I have a great sympathy for the character and the person. That’s primarily why I don’t feel the added pressure of acting as a real person: I defend that person.

You mention that you feel anxiety about a lot of things in life, and a lot of the characters you play are very nervous people. Even Mark who projects confidence is still a very neurotic character…

Right.

I’m wondering,do you see some part of yourself in these types of characters, or what draws you to them?

Yeah, to me those characters are the one’s that feel the most authentic. That may be because I share some of those qualities or because the movies that I’m sent are from people who see that in me.

I also assume that everyone is neurotic in some way – or at least everyone interesting is neurotic. So, why would I want to play anything else? What other layers would there be besides neuroses?

With somebody like Mark, as you say, he projects this kind of confidence. Not infrequently, it comes across as arrogance in the movie, most specifically in the courtroom scenes. Of course, that has to be masking something! If it’s not, then it’s just uninteresting. For Mark, it’s masking a great feeling that the gulf between himself and comfort is vast. The gulf between him and other people feels vast – even if they consider him a friend. Eduardo [Saverin, Facebook co-founder] considers him a friend, but Mark, I think, considers him as a guy in the room.

The pivotal choice that Mark makes in the film is when he is encouraged to cut out Eduardo. What was your own take on what was going through his mind at that moment?

I think Mark kind of places a greater emphasis on the creation of and expansion and maintenance of Facebook. I think he values that more than he values any of the personal relationships he has in the movie.

So I think when Eduardo is trying to take the company in a different direction, and you know, Mark views Sean [Parker] as the way to go. I think it’s kind of a inevitable and quick decision that he makes, to have Sean handle it in whatever way Sean wants to handle it.

Andrew [Garfield], who plays Eduardo, and I were talking after the movie – we kind of viewed the relationship between Mark and Eduardo very differently. I was viewing it through Mark’s eyes, which didn’t place that great importance on their relationship or on the emotional attachment that they had for each other and the bond that they felt. Whereas Eduardo thought of Mark like a brother.

Because of the nature of the narrative, there had to be times where you felt like you were playing someone else’s perception of the character, as opposed to your own.

Yeah, I know what you’re saying, although it never felt that way. I never thought of it that way. I think because the movie is kind of told from three different perspectives. Three people get to tell their stories.

But every time we did a scene, even if it was part of Eduardo’s telling of the story, David Fincher would come up to me between each take and say, “You know, you’re right in this scene. You’re the right one.”

And then he’d go up to Andrew and say, “You know, your character’s right in this scene.”

So we all thought we were right. I think that’s probably why – aside from that being Aaron Sorkin’s idea for the movie, that all these characters are right in their own story-lines – it’s really the brilliance of David Fincher’s direction of the actors. Because if we all believe we are right, it makes the story that much more interesting and the characters that much more nuanced.

The Social Network opens everywhere this Friday, October 1.

Recently, I was invited – along with a few other San Francisco-based journalists – to sit down and talk to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (best known for creating and writing The West Wing) about writing his screenplay for The Social Network. Read on as he discusses writing about real events, his creative partnership with David Fincher and his thoughts on the real Mark Zuckerberg.

Go ahead, beat me up.

(laughs) I’m sure this will probably be put up for, and get, a nomination for Adapted Screenplay, but you technically didn’t adapt the book. You worked in parallel with Ben Mezrich. Can you talk a bit about that process and what you felt was important to research?

Sure. I wouldn’t want to reduce Ben’s role. I don’t think there would be a movie if Ben hadn’t come along with a 14-page book proposal for The Accidental Billionaires. That book proposal – his publisher was shopping it around to the studios to get a simultaneous film deal – that’s how it ended up in my hands. I think I said, “yes,” on page three or something.

But, you’re right. I assumed the studio would want me to wait until the book was written before I adapted it – that I would start my work in about a year. They wanted me to start right away, so Ben and I were researching at the same time, writing at the same time. I really had no idea what he was going to write; he had no idea what I was going to write. We met two or three times to share some information, just to tell each other what we knew.

I approached it from a slightly different angle, I think, than he did. But, like I said, if Ben hadn’t done what he did, we wouldn’t be sitting here today.

What was most important to you in terms of research, as opposed to using your imagination based on the facts that were already in front of you?

There was two different kinds of research. There was the available research out there that anybody could get their hands on, and then there was the first-person research – talking to the people who are characters in the movie, talking to people who aren’t in the movie but were very close to the events or close to the subject.

What became clear was that there were two lawsuits brought against FaceBook at roughly the same time. The defendant, the plaintiffs and the witnesses came into the deposition room and swore an oath and what we came away with were three very different versions of a story.

So, instead of picking one and deciding, “I think that’s the truth, that’s the story I’ll tell,” or picking one and deciding, “I think that’s the juiciest, that’s the story I’ll tell.” What I liked was that there were three different versions of the story and that I would tell all three. I would keep moving from point-of-view to point-of-view – whether it’s the Winklevosses or Mark or Eduardo – and have the movie not take a position on what the truth was. I’d let those arguments happen in the parking lot.

There was nothing in the movie that was invented for the sake of making it sensational. There was nothing in the movie that was “Hollywood-ized.” There were a couple of cases when it didn’t matter at all, where I conflated two characters. There are three cases where I changed a character’s name. One of those characters we never actually see, it’s an offscreen character. In the other two cases it’s just that there was no need to embarrass the person – we’d have the exact same movie and the exact same truth if we didn’t do that, so we didn’t do that. And that’s it.

The rest is what anybody does when they’re writing nonfiction. If you look at The Queen, Peter Morgan wrote a brilliant script there, but Peter Morgan wasn’t there in Queen Elizabeth’s bedroom when she was talking with her husband about their daughter-in-law. You have to be a writer there and write a scene. Speaking of Peter Morgan, the same thing with Frost/Nixon. Or William Goldman writing All the President’s Men – he didn’t even know who “Deep Throat” was, much less what he said. So, you imagine those scenes in the garage.

We – I and then we, when David Fincher came along – actually had much more factual information than in any of those movies that I just mentioned. In fact, I’ll give you a very small example.

Early in the movie, we have the breakup scene with Erica and Mark in the bar. Then Mark goes back to his dorm room and he begins drinking, blogging, hacking and creating FaceMash. FaceMash goes viral and crashes the Harvard computers. All the while we’re cutting to this punch party at the Phoenix house that, sort of is in Mark’s mind – “that’s what’s on the other side of the glass that my nose is pressed up against.”

I have Mark’s blog from that night, which we hear almost verbatim in the movie as a voiceover as he’s typing. I say almost verbatim because I didn’t change anything, I just shortened it a little bit so that it would fit in the space that I needed. We know that he’s drunk because he tells us so. He says in his blog, “I’m pretty intoxicated, I won’t lie to you. So what if it’s only ten o’clock?” and so on.

So in writing the scene – the “I’m intoxicated” part – I had him, in the script: he walks into his dorm room, walks into the frame, turns on the computer, walks out of the frame, comes back, a glass goes down, ice goes in the glass, vodka goes in the glass, orange juice goes in the glass and he begins typing, “Erica Albright is a bitch.”

Shortly before – right before – photography started, we found out that it was beer that he was drinking that night, and specifically what kind of beer he was drinking. So David Fincher said, “Okay, we’re not going to do that, he’s going to go to a little mini-fridge in his dorm and he’s going to take out a beer.”

I said, “David, come on. Drunk is drunk. That’s the important part: that he was drunk. The screwdriver is just more cinematic, with the ice cubes going in, than just opening up a beer, which isn’t particularly interesting.”

He said, “I don’t care. If we know that it was beer and we know that it was this kind of beer, that’s what it’s going to be.”

Two things you can take away from that story. One, that’s how much we cared about not making stuff up. Two, it should tell you something – the fact that we know what kind of beer he was drinking on a Tuesday night in October seven years ago – should tell you how close our research sources were to the subject and the event.

Can you talk about writing the character of Mark Zuckerberg? Obviously about writing an actual person who’s still alive and making him compelling to the audience, even if not always sympathetic.

With a character like that, you want to try to- He’s an antihero, or – this is an important distinction – he spends the first hour and 55 minutes of the movie being an antihero and the final five minutes of the movie being a tragic hero. To be a tragic hero, you have to meet two requirements: you have to have paid a price and you have to feel remorse.

I was sent an excerpt from an online review the other day, it was a very positive review that ended with the reviewer saying, “the movie made me want to egg Mark Zuckerberg’s house then help him clean it up.”

I thought that was perfect. That’s exactly what we’re going for.

When you’re writing an antihero – or at least what I try to do with a character like that is write it as if they’re making their case to God as to why they should be allowed into heaven. In other words, you can’t have them twirl their mustache. You can’t think they’re a bad guy, you just have to put obstacles in front of them. You can think they’re a lonely guy. You can think they’re incredibly angry because they’re lonely. You can make them ambitious.

If you can break yourself of the habit of telling the audience who a character is, and instead show the audience what the character wants, you can avoid those traps.

Then there’s the actor’s perspective too.

It helps that Jesse Eisenberg is playing the part. He’s a sensational young actor who never asks the audience to like him. There are a lot of actors and directors and studios who would have [protested], “Hang on, this character isn’t lovable. We like the cuddly nerds from the 80s. This guy isn’t that. At the very least you need to open with a scene where Mark is ten years old and his father is beating him with a stick, so that we’ll forgive him later.”

There was never any of that from Jesse or Fincher or the studio. We were just going to own this guy and the situation.

What do you think of the real Mark Zuckerberg?

First of all, you should know that I’ve never met or spoken to Mark. So, I wouldn’t be able to answer that question.

What I can tell you is that I don’t think there’s any one of us who would want a movie made about the things we did when we were 19 years old. Well, for you that might have been last year. Or next year. (laughs)

He’s a very young man, and if FaceBook were a country it would be the third most populous country in the world. In terms of assets, it’s as big or bigger than General Motors or CBS. He’s at the head of this whole thing. He’s awkward in public and he knows it, because he’s been told it so many times. He doesn’t care all that much about money, so I don’t think his billions of dollars are making things that much easier for him. So, I actually feel affection and respect and empathy for him. I really do.

What about FaceBook?

I don’t know much about FaceBook now. All of my knowledge is of FaceBook in 2003, 2004. Whether you’re on FaceBook or not, whether you care about social networking or not – it has nothing to do with whether or not you’ll enjoy this movie.

Just like how Sports Night wasn’t about sports,The Social Network is not about people “friending” each other or “poking” people or falling in love on the internet.

Maybe I just give things the wrong title. (laughs)

Well, “The Social Network” is one of those titles that’s supposed to mean more to you after you watch the movie than before.

Screenwriters have varying degrees of involvement with actual production of the film – often less than more – but it sounds, from they way you’ve been talking, that you worked pretty intimately with David Fincher in bringing your script to the screen.

Because I came up as a playwright, and still consider myself a playwright even when writing movies or TV shows, I’m used to the culture of writing a play. That’s one in which everyone is there to serve the vision of the playwright. So, you’re actually the one who hires the director; you’re doing the casting with the director; you’re sitting there everyday during rehearsal, whispering in the director’s ear, making changes. And on a television series, I’m not just the writer, I’m the executive producer and the showrunner.

So, I just take that attitude with me on a movie set too. The things I write aren’t written to be read; they’re written to be performed, so my work doesn’t stop when I’m done writing. I think it’s important that I’m there for casting, rehearsals and shooting. I think David [Fincher] liked that relationship and I think it bore fruit.

The Social Network opens everywhere this Friday, October 1.