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Sunday, March 15, 2009
Bruno special screening
Sacha Baron Cohen addressed an Austin audience at the Alamo Sunday night via videotape to introduce the first-ever selected clips from his new movie. Security was tight, the footage was rough and the crowd was howling. The movie opens July 10.
Here’s what we saw:
Bruno is a gay Austrian cable TV reporter on fashion, and he’s a bit out there. And when he gets fired from his job, he decides to head to Hollywood to become the “biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler.”
As a fashion accessory, he adopts a baby from Africa, in hopes of getting that Madonna cachet. He also wants to use the baby to stage a crucifixion scene, but he has only one baby to put on the cross, so he begins to interview “stage parents” to see if their babies might be suitable to portray the two thieves on either side of his baby.
The interviews with eager parents are beyond belief. He asks them whether their babies are comfortable with dead or dying animals, and they all say yes. He also wants to know whether their babies are accepting of such things as Komodo dragons, and they all say their babies are fine with such things. One of the babies weighs 30 pounds and Bruno thinks she may be a bit chunky, so he suggests liposuction, and the parent seems to think that’s doable.
Before long, Bruno has dressed up his baby in a “gayby T-shirt” and taken him to a TV talk show in Texas, which is filled with African Americans. Let’s just say they don’t look kindly upon the adoption, and things turn ugly.
When the baby thing doesn’t turn out as Bruno had hoped, he morphs into another person, Straight Dave, the host of a TV wrestling show called Man-Slamming Maxout.
But it seems as though Straight Dave still has a few latent urges lingering below. Let’s just say that the Straight Dave fans are in for a disappointment.
It’s not clear whether Cohen has really continued to find clueless audiences who will fall for his antics. But it appears that he has. The movie is bound to stir up just as much controversy as Borat. And that’s the point.
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Panel wrap: Jan Harlan discusses Stanley Kubrick
He died 10 years ago this month, but legendary director Stanley Kubrick still draws a ton of interest from film geeks, as evidenced by the relatively-full conference room at the Convention Center Sunday afternoon.
Multi-platforming film critic Elvis Mitchell discussed Kubrick with Jan Harlan, Kubrick’s brother-in-law who also served as executive producer on some of the director’s biggest films (“Barry Lyndon,” “The Shining,” “Full Metal Jacket”). Harlan spoke of his enigmatic brother-in-law’s perfectionism and artistic vision and his role in helping some of the best of Kubrick’s best films come to life.
Some snippets from the talk:
- Although “Eyes Wide Shut” was initially panned by many critics, and audiences in small towns in America killed the film, the Japanese audiences loved it. A studio rep. actually told Harlan that Japanese couples actually left the theater holding hands, a show of affection that is generally unheard of.
- Not surprisingly, Kubrick did not enjoy the role of the critic in cinema. He was confounded by the fact that he could spend three years working on a film, only to have some critic see the movie in the morning and then write a review that afternoon. He seemingly had no use for critics, as is the case with many filmmakers and moviegoers.
- In discussing the casting process for “Full Metal Jacket” and Kubrick’s desire, borne from perfectionism, to cast 18 year-olds to play the roles of the young soldiers, Harlan said that they reviewed 2,500 casting tapes to try and find the right seven actors for the main parts before relenting and hiring actors in their twenties. “Like everything, he took it (the casting) incredibly seriously,” said Harlan.
- Kubrick, as has been well documented, hated to travel. So, when the production team needed American tanks to shoot scenes in London for “Full Metal Jacket,” they “rented” three old American tanks from the Belgian army. Apparently the Americans were reluctant to help out the team, holding a slight grudge from “Dr. Strangelove.”
- Kubrick had a brilliant memory and would concurrently play matches of chess against three different people. However, he was a much less skilled table tennis player.
- The director loved sports, and one time, after watching a semi-final between John McEnroe and Boris Becker, Kubrick turned to Harlan, exhilarated and exhausted, and proclaimed to Harlan, “No film could ever be so exciting.”
- Harlan’s biggest regret about “Eyes Wide Shut,” and the film’s biggest problem, was that the film needed two viewings to be fully understood.
- Kubrick turned over the “A.I.” project to Steven Spielberg because he believed the dark fantasy would be done better by Spielberg and be entirely too dark under his own direction.
- With regard to “A.I.,” while Harlan says Kubrick was an “optimist in his daily life,” the director believed that we were “digging our own grave” and that the human race had “no chance of survival.”
- Harlan briefly touched on a fact that I was alerted to by one of my film professors in college and a former colleague of Peter Sellers, ‘Dr. Strangelove” was initially to be made as a straight-ahead drama. The dark comedic elements were added later. My professor in Rome told me that the idea to shift the tone was one he had offered Kubrick at a dinner party … I did not get the chance at the panel to verify the veracity of that claim.
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A winning ‘Winnebago Man’
If someone didn’t like Austin filmmaker Ben Steinbauer’s hilarious and surprisingly poignant doc “Winnebago Man” we have yet to hear from him or her. A capacity house Saturday night at the Alamo South riotously greeted the movie and its improbable, endearingly cantankerous star and former Winnebago pitchman Jack Rebney, who is alternately known as the Winnebago Man and the Angriest Man in the World in the viral, YouTube and tape-trading universe. (Google that stuff. Now. Please.)
Steinbauer’s movie delves deep and sincerely into Rebney’s wounded soul, smartly veering from what so easily could have been a glib and selfish ha-ha look at this crusty coot who made an ass out of himself! piece of pandering pop poop. The filmmaker went the distance, locating Rebney, befriending him and gingerly discovering what makes him tick and tantrum.
Rebney’s appearance at the premiere proved what a good sport he is, how thoughtful and articulate and (seriously) kind he is. He quoted Andre Gide: “The man without anger is no man at all.” He seems to accept and embrace the strange cult adoration that’s enveloped him, and it makes you happy. From online ignominy to legitimate love — it’s a great story peeled back in a sensitively conceived film.
Actor Jeffrey Tambor was in the audience, as was Beastie Boy MCA (Adam Yauch), whose Oscilloscope Films, as well as IFC, are reportedly circling the movie for a deal.
We asked Tambor what he thought of the movie. He gushed, “I LOVED it. It’s more than the sum of its parts. It is all of us.”
More “Winnebago Man” screening times HERE.
Director Ben Steinbauer and his famous subject Jack Rebney meet adoring, autograph-seeking fans after the show. Yes, that’s a Winnebago behind them.
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Lack of laughs in ‘Splinterheads’
Writer/director Brant Sersen had a festival hit on his hands at SXSW in 2004 with the ridiculous “Blackballed,” a movie that featured the comedic talents of Rob Corddry, Rob Riggle, Jack McBrayer and others. Unfortunately, Sersen’s cinematic offering this year did not offer the laughs as his previous effort.
In “Splinterheads” (which screened at Alamo Ritz Saturday night), Justin Frost (newcomer Thomas Middleditch) is in a mild state of arrested development. Unable to get his life on track, the young 20-something is stuck in a rut in his sleepy New York town, fiddling with delusions of karate expert gradeur while toiling aimlessly as a yardboy with his friend Wayne Chung — a name that is a decent indicator as to the humor in the film, simple and expected.
Still living at home with his widowed mother, the apron-strings of whom he is afraid to detach himself, Justin is a bit of a manchild, full of whimsy and insecurity. His safe little world is shattered by the appearance of Galaxy (Rachel Taylor), a beautiful con artist and carnival worker who eventually introduces him to a world of mild adventure (in the form of geocaching) and risk-taking.
Middleditch, a pretty solid ringer for Seth Meyers, with a tinge of Jonathan Richman, is at his best when he is playing the more high-status comedic character — lampooning Chung and his mother’s ex-boyfriend, a local police sergeant played by the ubiquitous Christopher McDonald. It is the nervous bumbling would-be romancer of Galaxy and the target of her unsavory boyfriend’s wrath, a nice turn by Dean Winters (most recently Tina Fey’s “Beeper King” boyfriend on “30 Rock”), where the character is less believable.
Maybe Middleditch is too old, maybe he is too handsome, but he is just not believable, or very likeable, as the nervous mamma’s boy. Additionally, the entire conceit of a boy meeting a carnie (actually a “splinterhead,” the difference which is unneccesarry to quibble over here) who teaches him how to let go and get on with his life just seems a little too absurd to swallow. It feels like a teen movie stuck between goofy adolescence and 20-something self-discovery, not quite here and not quite there. It’s also hard to see a comedy in a festival setting and see so many intended laugh lines fall flat. The script just seems a little rushed, like jokes that didn’t work were left in instead of reworked or heightened.
The movie does have a certain charm — Middleditch gives a nice, if at times awkward performance and Taylor is serviceable, although far too beautiful to be a believable “splinterhead” — but it struggles too often, forcing the wrong comedic note and losing the audience’s interest with its fairly ridiculous storyline. If a plot line is going to be as cute and absurd as that of “Splinterheads,” it either needs more of an adolescent feel or needs to deliver more laughs.
“Splinterheads” screens again March 17 at The Paramount at 1:30 p.m. and at noon on March 19 at the Alamo South.
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‘Artois’ got our goat at SXSW
Yes, it’s called “Artois the Goat,” this pleasantly weird, ineffably odd bucolic farce that’s snazzily disguised as a profound reflection on love, the indomitable creative force, wild passion, dream-juiced vision and the pursuit of cultivating meaning in our flyspeck lives.
It’s also about dairy products. Dilate those holes and sniff in the deep, sybaritic ecstasy of luscious, creamy, fragrant … goat cheese. We are so totally lactose tolerant.
The Alamo serves a special goat cheese plate in honor of “Artois the Goat.” Background, the cast and crew bask in the ovation at Sunday’s premiere.
An accomplished, beautifully shot, directed and musically scored art comedy, “Artois the Goat” got its world premiere Sunday at the Alamo Ritz. It’s an Austin affair, written and directed by UT film alums Cliff Bogart and Kyle Bogart and filled with familiar local talent. (See the recent stage production of “An Ideal Husband”? Much of its sharp cast appears here.)
The Bogarts are young newbies, but they know how to make a movie. Unlike, say, Joe Swanberg, they understand that time and care and thought (and talent!) are required to create a full-bodied film that doesn’t reek of juvenile navel-gazing. They understand cinema, that it’s a visual medium. They can write, even if some of the jokes fall flat. They can direct actors. Art direction — they have that down. Music — completely.
“Artois” follows one man’s erupting passion to create a wonderful new goat cheese. He has a girlfriend, always a distraction in the aim of art. Much more bubbles and bounces about the movie. Some things don’t work — the comedy can be awfully broad — but a lot does work — genuine ideas exist here.
During the post-show Q&A, the brothers cited the Coen brothers, Douglas Sirk’s “All That Heaven Allows” and Indiana Jones as influences. That’s a party as richly complex as a tangy camembert.
More on “Artois” and its upcoming screenings HERE
The Bogart bros
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Allman and ‘Little Dizzle’
Marshall Allman, who graduated from Austin High School six years ago and headed to Hollywood just a couple of weeks later, has already made a name for himself on television, as LJ Burrows, the son of Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell).
And it looks like the 24-year-old is well on the way to becoming a movie star, too. He has the lead role in director David Russo’s “The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle,” which screens Sunday night at the South by Southwest Film Festival and will show again on Thursday and Saturday.
As Dory in “Little Dizzle,” Allman cleans bathrooms and toilets at a Seattle office building where a company is experimenting with the ingredients of cookies. He and a motley crew of outcasts discover the cookies in the trash and start eating way too many of them each night.
The result?
Chemical changes begin to occur within their bodies, causing unusual developments. During a recent conversation at an Austin hotel before the local premiere, Allman discussed his life in L.A. and how he came to star in what is one of the most unusual movies of the year.
It must have been scary to move to Hollywood right after graduating from high school. Can you talk about that?
In hindsight, it was risky and scary, But at the time, I guess it’s the way I’m made up. I get a vision and then I go for it. I remember my mom (Austin resident Idanell Allman) helping me make the transition. She had to teach me how to do laundry once I got to Hollywood. She had taught me before, but I didn’t pay attention because she was always there to do it for me. She came out and helped me get settled. I already had a job and a manager for my acting career.
Before you moved?
I’d been to a talent search and met a manager there. And when I moved to Hollywood, I was working at the Gap. I had a job at a Gap store here in Austin, and you can just transfer a Gap job to L.A. So I had a job, and my manager helped me find a place. It was awesome. I lived in West Hollywood at the time, which was a total trip. I was right off the Sunset Strip near the Viper Room and Tower Records. It was the biggest culture shock. Have you ever heard of Angelyne, the Billboard Queen?
Yes.
Well, she lived in my building. So I’d come home and see this pink Corvette pull in with Angelyne on the license plate, and this woman looks completely like … what is going on? (Angelyne is quite busty and blonde.) I told friends about it, and they said, ‘You live by Angelyne!’ And I said whatever, you know. And they said, ‘She’s famous!’ And I said, ‘Famous for what?’ And they said, ‘She’s famous for being famous!’
There’s a lot of that going on in Hollywood. How long did it take to get an acting job once you were out there?
Not very long. I think it took about a year before I got a meeting with a commercial agent. I went in and said, ‘You’ve probably heard this before, but I’m going to book three national commercials in a year. Do you want to be my agent?’ And he said, ‘Sure.’ And I booked three national commercials in nine months. So I did it. I felt like Babe Ruth. And because of that and some other help, I got my first theatrical agent and I just started going out on auditions. I said to myself, ‘This is going to work.’ The theatrical agent led to my first guest spot on television and all that jazz. My very first job was on ‘Without a Trace,’ and then I moved on, eventually getting the role in ‘Hostage,’ my first feature film, with Bruce Willis. I was a hostage taker. I was very nervous. I hadn’t had as much acting training so I relied totally on my raw talent, with no way to know how to bring my talent out. It was this big lesson. I learned just ow much talent I have without any help. After that, I studied pretty aggressively so that I wouldn’t get into that situation again. Then I got ‘Prison Break’ and in between the seasons of that show I did ‘Immaculate Conception’ and ‘Winged Creatures’ (2008).
How did you get the role in “Little Dizzle”?
It was through an audition, and it was pretty crazy meeting (director) David Russo. He’s a trip. He’s the archetype of the mad artist and he plays it well. I left that audition and went ‘Wow!’ (Co-star) Vince Vieluf and I did a chemistry reading, acting out a couple of scenes while David was right in there with us, filming. And we ended up shooting one of the scenes in the bathroom when Vince’s character flushes his dizzle. David fell in love with me because I reached my arm down the toilet to get it. I think he knew it was meant to be after that.
What do you mean?
It’s that I had no fear in sticking my arm down the toilet because I was trying to save dizzle. That’s a lot of conviction right there, sticking your hand down a toilet.
How would you describe your relationship with the dizzles?
The director was a janitor for seven years, and one time he found an aborted fetus in a toilet. And that’s what inspired the film. That’s what dizzle represents. … He’s not really fit for this world, and that strikes a chord with Dory. And therein lies the comedy. It’s more like an experience than a movie. It’s palpable.
What kind of religious significance do you see in this film?
Dory is trying to do all the right things. It’s almost by rote. But really it’s about a movement inside, about what I think is a relationship with God, rather than rules and regulations, doing checklist A to get the results for checklist B. That’s what I love about Dory. He has no fear. He’s willing to take the risk.
Why does he lose it all at the beginning of the movie?
He’s trying to get a break. There’s a girl he has a crush on, he tries to become a Christian for a girl. He tries to do all the right things to get the Christian girl, but gets the wrong results, and then she’s talking about a guy she wants to date who isn’t even a Christian. But she thinks she can convert him. She calls the new guy a ‘convertible with a convertible.’ Dory recognizes that he gave up everything to believe what she believes. It’s a breaking point for him.
Did you have any awkwardness in the making the movie?
Well, the shower scene was crazy, because it took 17 hours to shoot it. It’s a very elaborate scene. And it’s animated by Rosto (a digital compositry artist). And we were very happy to have him. I had to hang upside down in front of green screens for hours. You’ll notice that I was split into two at one point, and when we shot that, I was actually hanging upside down. The rest of it was me standing on a platform in front a green screen, and I had to be all wet. It was wild. You get to a certain point where you’re so focused on what you’re doing that all the awkwardness goes away. This film was a trip, man. We shot it in Seattle, in June, and the sun doesn’t go down until 10 p.m. at that time, and we shot the entire movie in 19 days. The shower scene took a whole day. Oh yeah, and this is important. I got my motorcycle license for the movie. I don’t want to forget that, because I was terrified of motorcycles.
How do your parents react to all this?
They love it. They’re my biggest fans.
What’s next?
I doing a project called Blue Like Jazz, (a best-selling book of essays about spirituality). Steve Taylor is directing. He helped adapt it from the book with Donald Miller, the author.
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Wavy Gravy does Maggie Maes
Wavy Gravy brought his fish on a leash and his ragtag entourage to Sixth Street Saturday night for a party following the premiere of the new documentary about his wild life, ‘Saint Misbehavin’.’
Lots of longtime Austinites turned out to salute the hippie icon, who MC’ed the Woodstock proceedings and went on the found the Hog Farm commune in Berkeley, Calif. Free red rubber noses were distributed to guests, in honor of Wavy’s clownsmanship.
Wavy was very upbeat and pleased with the audience reception at the premiere. Michelle Esrick, the director of the documentary, said the response was so positive that it was ‘jaw-dropping.’
I didn’t get to stay for the entire party, but later in the evening, Wavy and his gang were planning to present the Wavy Grave Basic Human Needs Award to Austinite Mikail Davenport, who contracted polio at age 2 but has gone on to compete in marathon wheelchair racing events. In 2004, he founded Disabled, Not Unable, an education organization to assist people with disabilities. His life story was featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary short, ‘The Fnal Inch.’
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