* *

Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Rosie Perez, Gary Cole, Kevin Corrigan, Craig Robinson, Amber Heard, Ed Begley, Jr., Nora Dunn. Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Directed by David Gordon Green. 110 minutes. Sony Pictures.

Your tolerance for Pineapple Express, the new stoner comedy featuring Seth Rogen and James Franco as a pair of bumbling potheads accidentally on the lam from drug dealers and corrupt cops, may depend on how funny you find two actors who find themselves very funny. I didn’t.

Hapless subpoena server Dale Denton (Rogen) has a crappy job, a high-school girlfriend (Amber Heard) and an addiction to marijuana, fed by equally out-of-it dealer Saul Silver (Franco), who trafficks in special strains of weed with names like Snicklefritz and Pineapple Express (a.k.a God’s vagina).

When Dale inadvertently witnesses a murder committed by a dirty cop (Rosie Perez) and a small-time hood (Gary Cole), the pair finds themselves on the run, pitted against a ruthless drug lord.

Along for the ride is inept middleman Red (Danny McBride), leading to a mildly amusing sequence involving a trashed apartment. Two bizarre henchmen (Kevin Corrigan, Craig Robinson) are also in pursuit, featuring a lisping, unfunny stereotype.

Directed by—surprisingly—David Gordon Green, the observant creator of George Washignton, All the Real Girls and this year’s Snow Angels, Pineapple Express shares none of his trademark subtlety or taste.

However, he does manage one clever scene in a B&W prologue testing dangerous “Item #9”, set in a secret government facility and resulting in a campy, Reefer Madness tone. And a car chase involving a no-nonsense cop, a Slurpee and a foot through a windshield offers a few laughs.

The Judd Apatow cannon of geek-as-leading-man movies is growing tiresome, and co-writer Rogen (winning in Knocked Up), who screams in a monotone through much of the film, grates. Franco fares better as a contemporary Jeff Spicoli, liberated by comedy in a breakout turn.

A contemporary Cheech and Chong film that oddly descends into a routine shoot-em-up and yep—more Hollywood explosions—Pineapple Express forces viewers to play designated driver to freewheeling rants loaded with crude dialogue and obvious improvisation.

If your idea of fun is watching two actors make fools of themselves leapfrogging around a forest in slow motion, knock yourself out. Pineapple Express gives new meaning to the term mindless entertainment.

* * *

Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Luke Ford, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, John Hannah. Written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Directed by Rob Cohen. Rated PG-13. 105 minutes. Universal Pictures.

Want a good time at the movies in the middle of a hot summer day? Look no further than The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the loopy third installment of the undead franchise featuring Brendan Fraser as explorer Rick O’ Connell again unearthing an ancient mystery. It is, by far, the series most entertaining installment. And I don’t even want to hear from those who label the film “dumb” as some sort of misguided superiority—of course it is, and everyone involved knows it. Now let’s move on.

This time out, there are a few key changes and additions which make the third time a charm for a series that previously relied on CGI at the expense of magic. They work, and the results are an enjoyable, colorful B-movie not pretending to be anything other than a good time.

Directed by action helmer Rob Cohen, replacing Stephen Sommers, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor opens with an extended, expository prologue set 2000 years ago in feudal China.

We learn that the Emperor Han (Jet Li), in pursuit of immortality, falls in love with beautiful sorceress Zi Juan (Michelle Yeoh), who holds the secret to eternal life. However, she does not share his affections and bears a daughter, Lin (Isabella Leong), with General Ming (Russell Wong). This leads to some double-crossing and an ancient curse leveled at the emperor, in one of the narration’s funniest lines: “She cast a spell in Sanskrit, an ancient language that the emperor did not understand.” Both mother and daughter share the gift of immortality, and Zi Juan guards the emperor’s tomb for 2000 years.

Flash forward to the present where fledgling explorer Alex O’ Connell (Luke Ford, likable), the son of Rick and Evelyn (Maria Bello taking over for Rachel Weisz), accidentally unearths the tomb and awakens the Dragon Emperor, who vows to—of course—dominate the world with his legion of 10,000 awakened soldiers.

Rick, Evelyn and Luke team up with Evelyn’s reluctant brother Jonathan (John Hannah) to stop him, aided by Lin’s knowledge of his lore and tomb, which the film of course has fun with in terms of booby trapped set-ups, etc. As Alex and Lin dance around a courtship, their attraction leads to a funny mother-son campfire scene expertly played by Bello and Ford. The paradox here is that there are thousands of years difference in age between the “young” lovers, but you wouldn’t know it from Leong’s performance, which is delightfully youthful.

The film moves quickly with tongue-in-cheek silliness that everyone seems to be enjoying, and the cast sells funny—intentionally and otherwise—dialogue. A few snippets:

“I’m sorry I blamed you guys for raising the emperor.”

“It isn’t size, it’s stamina.”

“I hate mummies—they never play fair!”

“Oh no, his powers have been restored!”

“He’s taking her back to his tomb to raise his army! The Yeti—they’ll help!” (my personal favorite)

Director Cohen keeps things moving at a fast clip, and the film looks great, from a glossy Shanghai chorus line and street chase to a gorgeous avalanche in the Himalayas to the splendor of Shangri-La. I was reminded of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom during these sequences, a film that got the look and feel right but wasn’t half as much fun as this one. One fantastic shot involves a slow-motion avalanche behind one of the characters, and it is a stunner.

Maria Bello replaces Rachel Weisz this time out as Evelyn, sporting a fun British accent and irreverent comic timing. It is a departure for the superb dramatic actress, and she has gutsiness to spare. Fraser, more fun in Journey to the Center of the Earth, has his usual knack for comedy deadpan, never losing his cool. And Luke Ford is effective too, particularly in a nice late scene where the father, son and mother reunify.

Yeoh and Li, the international martial arts stars, add a touch of class and superb choreography to the film, and both actors are clearly having fun. Yeoh, saddled with mouthfuls of mumbo jumbo, plays it straight, much like her Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon character, and gives her scenes a bit more heft. And Li, as always, is an inventive physical presence, clearly relishing the chance to play a mummy who is also an ace martial artist.

The film’s CGI, unlike the previous films, does not overshadow its scale and comedy while finding many different ways for Yeti to stick their faces into the frame, and resurrecting a wonderfully imagined skeleton army that pays homage to Ray Harryhausen, albeit in a newfangled, digital way.

So the bottom line with a movie like The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, is how many thrills per minute, fun locations, intricate sets and silly humor do you get? In this case, plenty, and while highbrow moviegoers may laugh at its lovable nonsense, obviously not in on the joke, this is one entertaining movie that goes down great with Cherry Coke and extra butter. None of them are good for you. But you can forgive yourself anyway.

- Lee Shoquist

lee@atnzone.com

Moving Doc Reveals A Year in the Life of the American Teen: Colin, Megan, Jake and Mitch on the Politics of High School, Friendship and New Beginnings

By Lee Shoquist

You can dispel any concerns about the youth of America after you see American Teen, a winning new documentary following the senior year of high school for several different teenagers in the small town America of tiny Warsaw, Indiana.

Eradicating cynical Hollywood cliches by featuring an appealing and thoughtful collection of teenagers with more on their minds than parties and hijinks, filmmaker Nanette Burstein spent nine months following their dreams and heartbreaks. The result just may be the most compelling “characters” onscreen this year, and we like each of them tremendously while we share in their ups and downs.

Billed as a modern-day The Breakfast Club, the iconic 80s classic about the bonding of five disparate teens who transcend peer groups, American Teen is a moving and often surprising glimpse into the lives of a handful of genuinely nice kids dealing with college, family and emotional pressures.

I caught up with four of them recently—Colin Clemens, the fledgling basketball star under pressure, Megan Krizmanich, the popular achiever, Mitch Reinholt, the handsome, high-school leading man and Jake Tusing, the lonely outsider—to discover what has transpired in their lives since graduation, their thoughts on being a teen today and what it feels like to be sudden movie stars.

LS: What does it mean to be an American Teen today?

Mitch Reinholt: I think it means something very similar to what it meant twenty years ago. Obviously technology and things have changed. But through the movie and people talking to us after the movie, it seems like a similar experience. People struggle with the same things now that they did twenty years ago. High school is a timeless thing.

LS: How representative is the film of your actual year of school?

Jake Tusing: It is a condensed version of the major points of our lives.

Colin Clemens: I look at it as a summary. Obviously they could not touch on everything with each of us, otherwise we would each have ninety minutes. You have to focus on the important things. I think Nanette captured it well and at least our personalities if nothing else. I’m more than just a basketball player and an Elvis dad. There are other things that she could not get in.

LS: Mitch, what are we not seeing about you that was shot? You do not emerge until the film’s second half.

MR: A lot, but I am not one of the featured characters. I sort of help to tell the four other ones. You see me and who I am, but it doesn’t go deep into my character.

JT: I think you are a lot nicer than the movie.

Megan Krizmanich: You’re a heartthrob!

MR: I don’t consider myself a heartthrob so I’m not crazy about that title. But I think that is kind of my focus in the movie.

LS: Are you going to tell us what was the deciding factor to send Hannah the infamous break-up text?

MR: There were a lot of things that factored into it. Some of it was peer pressure and I admit that. I am not proud of it. Also, it was a relatively short relationship. We only dated for about a month. It was never really serious. It was at the very end of the year. We were about to go to college and there was a lot of change about to take place in our lives. I just didn’t feel like it was a great time to jump into a relationship when there was so much unknown.

LS: Did you ever have a conversation with her to reconcile after?

MR: Yeah. We did talk. We really are good friends now.

LS: Megan, explain how Nanette gained your trust enough that you agreed to participate.

MK: I actually said no several times before I said yes. I was the only one who didn’t audition. I gave her an initial tour of Warsaw and just got to know her and loved her and her other work. She really made a true effort to be our friends and integrate herself into our lives and make it as comfortable as possible when we were away from the camera, so when we were on camera… I think it was after about a month we could all say that we were very comfortable in front of the cameras and able to be ourselves. It was like another friend was in the room.

LS: Jake, how much reality is there actually in the film? Did you forget the cameras were on after a certain point?

JT: That’s pretty much how it was for me. Like she said actually, the first month or so you tune them out. And having Nanette there and the rest of the crew, it felt more like friends and that was their job. I felt comfortable talking to them and like I developed a strong trust with them and nothing reserved anymore. I think that is what I was looking for to begin with was a relationship where someone would be there for me if I needed it and people who would listen to what I had to say, and give me constructive criticism. It was like having an adult friend that wasn’t a parent. For me, that was a first.

LS: Colin, talk about your relationship with your father. There is one scene at the dinner table where you speak up to him and say, “Parents are supposed to pay for college.” I have to imagine that thought characterized your relationship for quite some time.

CC: There was a lot of pressure. He is more negative sometimes than what the film showed. He can be negative at times without really realizing it. It’s not like he intentionally did it. But sometimes if I came home with a twenty point, ten rebound game—a good game for myself—I’d come home and he would say, “Oh, you could have gotten twenty-five.” Just little things like that, instead of saying “Good job.” But it was never really intentional. And for the most part, you can see that he was very supportive. He can be overbearing, but he has always had my best interests at heart.

LS: How is school going for you? I hear you have a 3.7, right?

CC: It’s actually 3.8 now! Academics are going well. I’m finally starting to actually get into studying and getting good grades. I went through high school…

MK: Schlumped through high school…

CC: …Schlumped through it, yes.

LS: How important is it, really, to get good grades in high school?

CC: I would say that it’s important. I had a 3.3 or a 3.4. That is not terrible, but at the same time it was enough to get me some help financially.

LS: How about you Megan? You had a lot riding on your Notre Dame acceptance.

MK: I think it is important to learn to study and be disciplined in high school so that you have that when you get to college. I didn’t study at all in high school and when I went off to college, I wasn’t adjusted to that.

JT: Getting good grades in high school is pointless. If I can achieve all As and Bs without ever doing homework or having to try, what is the point of having the schoolwork in the first place? If I have to put no effort into it in the first place, how important can it be? That is how I think of it.

LS: Megan, you took some risks by participating in an act of vandalism. Yet you had no trepidation about having it filmed, which really surprised me.

MK: I think it was definitely the comfort level. In high school you think you are invincible. And doing that was very high school. I don’t know why I did it in front of a camera. I think the comfort level with Nanette just got extreme, at least I did, about doing anything in front of the camera.

LS: I read that you are living life more drama free now. What does that mean?

MK: (laughs) I think just the initial going to college and the responsibility and having to grow up almost instantly. I am in pre-med, so I study a lot. I don’t really have time for drama. I have close friends that I try to stick with, and try not to create any more drama.

LS: Where do you see yourselves career-wise in the next five years? Megan, you mentioned you are pre-med.

MR: I am also pre-med. I want to be an eye doctor.

LS: Why eyes?

MR: Great question. I don’t know. Just because. I like eyes.

MK: I think you ought to be a gynecologist.

MR: That’s your job.

MK: I want to be a gynecologist.

MR: We could be in a partnership.

JT: I have no idea what I want to do, so I am taking a year off and see where that takes me. And just enjoy my freedom while I have it.

LS: Colin, what are your thoughts?

CC: I’m majoring in marketing. However, right after college I am going overseas to play. I’m going to start in Australia and hopefully work my way over to Europe if I can. That is the goal, but there will be a day that comes when I can’t play anymore. And when that day comes, I will have my marketing degree.

LS: What do you love about playing basketball?

CC: Some people see sports as entertainment. But I see it more as a professional and obviously there are professional basketball, baseball and football players. I look at it as maybe some guys are good at sales, some guys are good at business and I’m good at basketball. That’s what I do. I love it. It is my passion and always has been. And I’m really good at it. I like the fact that I can have something that I do well and enjoy watching.

LS: Jake, are you still in love?

JT: No. The girl I took to prom ended up breaking up with me in August.

LS: Not by text, I assume.

JT: No, not by text. In person, after I flew her out to California. I think that is a bigger slap in the face that I spent a week with her and she was like, “I don’t think that we should see each other anymore.”

LS: Was that a big heartbreak?

JT: It was. I was in tears for a couple days. It was bad. But she is engaged now and happy down in Texas, where she moved. But I’m still looking.

LS: What is your social life like now?

JT: Non-existent.

MK: You can’t say that! Look at the last month and a half!

JT: But this is my job, not my social life. Well, yes, these guys are my social life.

CC: We’re your friends now.

MK: What about day-date girl?

JT: You just told me not to see day-date girl!

CC: What about in-and-out?

MK: That’s day-date!

JT: I know that sounds really bad—in-and-out on a day-date. I’ve talked to people. I am hoping back home things develop with other people.

MR: You have to admit it is better than it was.

JT: Yes.

LS: But on tour now there must be a lot of options.

JT: I am hoping they are positive. I am hoping people don’t just come to me saying, “Hey, you’re in a movie. Want to hang out?” I don’t want it to be because of that. I want it to be because, “I saw who you were in this movie, and you are a pretty cool guy. Let’s hang out.”

LS: Colin, you mentioned that you are all friends now. Obviously you are going through an intense period traveling together and the film has bonded you in many ways. How about a few years from now?

CC: I can definitely see me being friends with Mitch and Megan because we have grown up together and are buddies. We were probably going to have that anyway. And through this I now have that with Jake and Hannah. I figure, this is something that we have gone through together. I am sure that somewhere down the road we will have a reunion thing, and that will be fun and interesting to see where we are at that stage, whether it is ten or twenty or whatever, just looking back on the experiences we had.

LS: I grew up in small-town Michigan, in a place even smaller than Warsaw. What are the great things about growing up in a small town, and what is not so great?

MR: For me, it was the family aspect of growing up in a small town and the comfort. I always felt supported and that made a big difference for me growing up. But negatively, everybody knows everything about everyone. If something happens, the whole town knows the next day. That is frustrating. You are also known by your family name.

CC: Negatively, everybody knows your business all the time, especially when you are in high school. If something happens it is pretty much going to be known by everyone quickly. Positive would be like Mitch said—family and friends. You get to know a lot more people because you are barricaded in. You are stuck there. So you get to know people and I really enjoyed that. We don’t have a mall, so we just hang out at each other’s houses spending time with friends.

JT: I like living in a small town community because you know where everything is. It is good and bad. You know everything going on and it get predictable. We missed out on the fair this year, and that was like a big thing. Everybody waited all summer for it. Missed out on the fireworks. So the typical summertime things I didn’t get to participate in. Warsaw is growing now.

MK: I hated the small town, especially being the fifth out of six children. It was impossible to go through school and have my own identity without the teachers saying, “Oh, another Krizmanich!” I felt like I could never get away from my name, and like I always wanted that anonymity. So I am going to live in a big city.

LS: Where do you think you will end up?

MK: Chicago. I think New York is too big. I may live there for a little bit. But when I have a family, I will live in Chicago. There is never sh*t to do in Warsaw either.

LS: What is the biggest misperception about teenagers today in Hollywood or the mainstream media? Everything is so cynical and feels different than the time of The Breakfast Club. But you guys are not. And the film is refreshing because of that.

MK: I think most of the movies just take it to the extreme and run with it. As Mitch said, high school is high school and though technology has changed things, for the most part I think it is the same struggles and experiences. I feel like they make it out to be this horrible generation that is getting into all this trouble and I don’t feel like we are that.

MR: I agree. Drama sells. So Hollywood wants to focus on the negative part of high school. Not necessarily the worst of it, but that is entertaining and people want to see it. And that sets the benchmark for what high school is like, which is a very small percentage.

CC: Most high school movies always have a bully. At least at Warsaw, we did not have a bully or a guy going and giving wedgies and stuffing kids in lockers. That is just dumb and I don’t think it happens too often. Usually if there is a fight it is an actual fistfight. Another thing I notice is that Hollywood wants to focus on the negative. For example, in Superbad, all the kids want to do is drink. There is so much more to high school than stupid things like that.

LS: Jake, do you ever see experiences from your life in Hollywood teen movies?

JT: I haven’t.

MK: Charlie Bartlett?

LS: That one was funny.

MK: I don’t like how they compared it to Ferris Bueller.

JT: I haven’t seen anything I can identify with. I think a lot of characters in movies have a lot more confidence than I did. They seem to have a pretty strong sense of self. I was always unsure of who I wanted to be and where I fit in. Maybe it will be a new take for people who watch this movie—that they are not alone.

LS: Megan, I want to know what you love about Ferris Bueller.

MK: I love his free spirit. He reminds me a lot of Hannah. And I admire Hannah for how she was in high school. I feel like my life was always so planned out. I always have goals and wish I could have had some of that free spirit and not worry about my future. I am always worrying about something.

LS: Does Hannah know that you feel that way?

MK: Yeah, I have told her.

LS: Do you feel like movie stars now?

MR: I respect what movie stars do now. The press is exhausting.

MK: I have a new respect for celebrities having to do this all the time!

CC: Waking up and traveling just wears you down.

LS: What is the dumbest question you have been asked?

CC: “Are those your real parents?”

JT: Or if the Erica pictures were available!

LS: Do you get asked for autographs?

JT: Three times.

LS: Is that surreal?

MR: It is embarrassing. We’re not special. We just went to high school.

Special thanks to Colin Clemens, Megan Krizmanich, Mitch Reinholt and Jake Tusing for this interview.

lee@atnzone.com

Kevin Costner, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, Stanley Tucci, Madeleine Carroll. Written by Joshua Michael Stern and Jason Richman. Directed by Joshua Michael Stern. PG-13. 120 minutes. Walt Disney Pictures.

* 1/2

The fanfare surrounding this year’s presidential campaigns surpasses anything in Swing Vote, a disappointing political satire about the importance of a single vote.

Down-on-his-luck, single dad Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) struggles to make ends meet with a factory job in Texico, New Mexico. Raising astute, 5th grade daughter Molly (graceful Madeleine Carroll) in a ramshackle trailer, politically disenfranchised Bud fronts a Willie Nelson cover band when he’s not drunk, fishing or both.

Political idealist Molly attempts to cast dad’s presidential ballot, hampered by a polling snafu rendering his vote incomplete. But when the election hinges on New Mexico’s electoral votes, the presidency will swing left or right based on—you guessed it—Bud’s decision.

Both Republican incumbent (Kelsey Grammer) and Democratic rival (Dennis Hopper) dispatch their campaign managers (Stanley Tucci, Nathan Lane) to woo Bud, treating him as a yokel to be pandered to, bought and otherwise manipulated.

The screenplay concurs, requiring Bud to describe Air Force One as a “trailer with wings”, encouraging us to laugh in superiority at a common man. Exacerbated by Costner’s too-broad depiction of a simpleton, Swing Vote blows the opportunity to address issues that impact Bud’s life—healthcare, jobs, economy—and add much-needed substance to the movie.

Instead, the film offers a tired satire on hypocritical, flip-flopping politicians, taking cheap shots at gay marriage, immigration, abortion and the environment—not funny, not fresh.

Iraq doesn’t merit mention in a film cluttered with half-baked subplots about journalistic ethics and responsible parenting, wasting the great Mare Winningham in a melodramatic misfire of a scene.

Just in time for a Capra-esque sermon about personal responsibility, Bud becomes inexplicably articulate and socially informed while everyone else develops a conscience, drowning the film in unearned sentiment.

Media pundits abound—Matthews, King, Huffington, Brown—the gang is all here. Bill Maher, questioning America’s obsession with a “dumb ass”, gives Swing Vote a moment of truth.

In an era of candidates slamming shots in Pennsylvania or gas-taxing from the back of an Indiana pick-up, election campaigns pandering to win working class votes—or one vote, in this case—is hardly eye-opening.

- Lee Shoquist

lee@atnzone.com

They Did It Their Way (Again): The Duplass Brothers Challenge Movie Conventions in Baghead, a Love Letter to Struggling Actors

By Lee Shoquist

If you haven’t seen The Puffy Chair, the Duplass Brothers’ inventive, comic, romantic, dramatic, independent road movie… Wait, can I start again? Simply put, you owe it to yourself to catch their little start-up gem, a movie that defied categorization but made us laugh a lot and feel a bit, all with a wholly original sense of humor.

Their new film, Baghead, about a four struggling actors/filmmakers who hole up in a wooded cabin to pen the Great American Screenplay designed to launch their flailing careers, begins as a knowing satire of the indie film world before turning into an unpredictable, romantic…horror film? You read that right.

In Hollywood it is rarely popular to pitch a film that cannot be digested (and passed) in a nanosecond. High concept works great. Genre films? Green equals go. Original and offbeat? Don’t even go there.

And while genre horror films are de rigeur line items for the resumes of sophomore directors looking for easy box office, the brothers shunned studio meddling to create Baghead, fronting the cash, doing it their way, all the way.

Working alongside a committed skeleton crew of about ten (including actors) and with Jay on camera and Mark performing boom duties, Baghead is a homemade production in the best sense. No rehearsals, minimal lighting changes and few aesthetic indulgences, the purity of Baghead—both minimal design and fluid screenplay—is in its irreverent spirit of independence.

I recently caught up with Jay and Mark Duplass to chat about Baghead’s intriguing genesis and mix of tones, the liberty of shoestring cinema and of course, what really scares them.

Lee Shoquist: Baghead is a truly “indie” film in a declining genre. You had the option to make the film with a studio, but opted not to—almost unheard of actually. Take me back to that time.

Jay Duplass: We started writing it in the middle of 2005, right after The Puffy Chair, and that is when all of the Hollywood interest started to come. We had sold some pitches and scripts, and those things move slowly; at least slower than we do. So there just came a time when we were just like, “Why should we not make this movie? It’s cheap to make. We should own it. We might actually make more money by owning this film than if we got a little budget from a studio.”

Mark Duplass: But then pretty quickly, when we got some interest from Hollywood about investing or doing it with studios, it became pretty clear that they wanted a genre piece.

LS: So if they had invested, what would Baghead have been?

JD: It would have been straight horror and probably had famous people playing non-famous people trying to get famous.

MD: And it wasn’t about a franchise. It would have been about having two or three sequels and have foreign (distribution) and all that stuff.

JD: You could see the dollars adding up and it would not have even been the same movie. We might as well have written a full-on horror movie.

LS: Do you have an affinity for that genre?

JD: Not particularly, no! We were more excited about the possibility of making one of our movies that feels and looks kind of real, and then some scary things happen to those people, and hopefully that would mean a lot more to the audience because you actually care about the people and see them as you. The stakes are real.

LS: The set-up of Baghead takes some very funny swipes at struggling actors and filmmakers in the low-budget world. Obviously you know this milieu.

JD: That just came from us literally living on the festival circuit—our whole life after The Puffy Chair—and Mark and I wanting to stick to making movies about stuff we know. At screenings, I would be up there talking about brilliant I am while everybody the audience was trying to ask questions that show how brilliant they are, and that they understand our brilliance! It was traveling around at festivals with lots of desperate people like us, who want to have a career in entertainment that is probably not going to happen for 99% of them. That was our world.

We actually didn’t want to make a movie about filmmakers—the whole meta concept. But at the same time, it was more a product of the people in our lives we began to fall in love with—the perfect, lovable losers who want it so badly and keep trying to get it, all based on their dreams.

LS: There is a very true moment early in the film where the group brainstorms an idea for a script and comes up creatively bankrupt. Autobiographical?

JD: Oh, dude. Absolutely. Our entire 20s in college were, “No one is leaving until we make a movie.” It never worked. Ever.

MD: Knowing what we know now, we might be able to have a little more success with that having been through it quite a few times. I think the flaw in that thinking is the desire to have made a piece of art, as opposed to the desire to make a piece of art.

JD: The desire to be famous. The key is you have got to just make bad sh*t. Get your ass kicked.

MD: And do it cheaply when it’s bad.

JD: And reckon with it when it is bad. Don’t fight that fight that is like, “No, they just don’t understand.” If everyone you know has seen the movie and they are not responding to it, it’s not working. Quit trying to figure out why. There is taste, but then there is a certain benchmark about why the film works. It’s really hard to make a movie that even works at all—adds up, holds attention and is believable before it can be even judged for taste.

LS: It’s daunting when you think about the number of films that are shot that go direct to cable or video and never get any distribution.

MD: And do not even get seen or even get into a film festival. And that is going to happen more and more by the nature of the technology we have now. It is going to create tons of bad stuff. But you’ll have many more gems that get lucky and break through.

LS: Baghead is a homegrown production all the way. How did you manage to get such a rugged quality to the film yet such interesting and true performances? Never mind the fact that you are both technicians who have to shoot and run sound. It must be tough to get the film polished.

JD: It’s interesting. Mark was describing it the other day like thrift store shopping, where like you have to work ten times as hard to make it shaggy and like you have had it forever. That being said, when it comes down to having a moment between two people in a room, the way that we shoot we feel is the easiest way to get that genuine thing that is going to go down; that emotional thing. It really is all about them and we are documenting it together. But when it comes time to run around the woods doing anything cinematic…

MD: …or maintaining all of those plot points within the improvisation. Baghead is a pretty intricate plot that needs to stay on course. Yet we needed to allow the breathing room to have lighting strike in improvisational moments.

LS: Both Baghead and The Puffy Chair are efficient and economical in pacing.

MD: Our editor, Jay Deuby, is really amazing, and a lot of the pacing happens in the editing.

LS: Do you shoot a ton of footage and then find the film from there?

JD: We rarely shoot more than ten takes. It is usually six or seven. If it is going over ten, usually Mark and I will step out and say, “We obviously don’t know what the f**k we are doing right now. Let’s come back tomorrow and think on this tonight.” We do shoot lots of different versions. Sometimes we reshoot during production because our editor says, “You didn’t get it.” But we also shoot different versions of scenes with different trajectories because we are adapting. Usually our instincts are good.

MD: We shoot in chronological order and that helps us build the story as it goes because we know right where we are in the moment. You wake up the next day and you know where you stand.

LS: Baghead is surely a challenge to market. How do you mainstream a film like this? What are the options?

MD: Two different ways. Misrepresent the movie, take it out with Lion’s Gate, go 3000 screens and be like, “Baghead is a horror movie that will f**king blow your mind.”

LS: Just like Lion’s Gate did with William Friedkin’s Bug, which was a good film that pissed a lot of people off who thought it was going to be a traditional horror film.

MD: Exactly. Make a ton of money on opening weekend, and people will get pissed. Or try the slow crawl, which is what we are going to do—we don’t want to piss people off—so we are marketing it “as is.”

The movie poster, I think, says “relationship, comedy and maybe a little something creepy” going on there too. But the real hope for this movie is the best viewing experience when people know very little about the movie. So we are just trying to raise a little bit of a mystery as to what it is. That can often be doom for your movie. If you don’t give them enough, they just won’t come. But then when they find it on DVD they will love it. That was sort of the fate of The Puffy Chair. It really gained its life on DVD.

JD: All we had on The Puffy Chair, and on this movie, were good reviews and people who appreciate our stuff and are passionate and write about it.

MD: But there is more of a push from Sony this time than for The Puffy Chair. There are movie posters all over New York City and LA. It is a step above what we did last time. Maybe people will remember us from The Puffy Chair.

LS: The idea for Baghead himself came from a former crew member’s idea of what scared him. What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you?

JD: Making a terrible movie at the cusp of being 30! We made a lot of bad movies in our 20s. And towards my late 20s, we made a movie. I made some money in a corporate job and we threw it all into that movie. It wasn’t good. It was like, “I’m not going to be a filmmaker.” Six months later we made This Is John, this little $3 movie that changed everything. I don’t know if that is the scariest thing has happened to me, but in the context of movies for sure!

MD: I was at the gym in our hotel in D.C., just watching Oprah doing the elliptical machine. And Jay came in behind me and thought I had heard the door, and at the top of his lungs, said “Wassup dawg?!” I almost sh*t my pants! He said, “I’m sorry! I thought you heard the door! I didn’t know!”

LS: That’s on a security cam somewhere.

MD: Yes! That noise, in that context, in there alone…

LS: The independent film scene has been diluted by the need to make marketable products. It has really changed since the days of Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape. There is more calculation and much less purity.

JD: We’re having that experience and I feel like we may be having it in a bubble, because everyone is talking about how it is falling out. But we went to Sundance with a tiny movie and had a bidding war, and then within two days of our premiere, we sold it. And then Hollywood offered us a script. So it was awesome.

MD: That’s what happened in the early 90s. And we have spent the last ten years basically with everyone convincing us that doesn’t happen anymore.

LS: Almost a retro concept.

JD: It really was! It was like, “This is happening. This is happening.” It’s funny because a lot of times in our lives we feel like important things only happen once we give up on them. But even beyond the fact that we were fortunate this year, it is a firm belief of ours is that your only job as a filmmaker is to make the best movie you can possibly make. If you do that, they will always come and you will always be fine. If you can make an inspired piece of art, you are going to be fine. There are enough people out there from the hedge fund world to help.

LS: But now the point seems to be to sell, which does make sense given the personal investments that go into production.

MD: Absolutely. There is a lot of that going on. A ton of that. Or based on the promise of what you have previously delivered.

JD: And we are aware of that too. Mark and I come up with ideas and think, “This is awesome, but there is no way we are walking into an office and trying to describe it to someone.”

LS: Give me your pitch for Baghead.

MD: It’s horrible.

JD: Four desperate actors go out to the woods to write the Great American Screenplay to make themselves famous. There may or may not be a dude with a bag on his head once they get there, stalking them. It sounds like a B-movie.

MD: We don’t like pitching it.

JD: Well, we had problems pitching The Puffy Chair.

MD: Our movies don’t make good trailers or pitches. They are slow builds. By the time you pitch it, you have spoken three paragraphs.

LS: It must have been complex to balance romance, satire and a little horror.

MD: Halfway into shooting we were trying to manage the tone and it seemed very difficult on set; very scary. There were definitely times where we were like, this could be a huge pile of sh*t. It was going to take all of our skills just to make it work, let alone make it good.

LS: Describe your sense of humor. Offbeat, yes, but something else.

JD: Hilarious!

MD: We use the word “tragicomedy” a lot. Sort of like the plight of the middle class. In light of the fact that there are no real life issues going on for these people economically speaking or things like that, they sort of create problems for themselves that in turn become no less grand than any other great tragedy for someone else. Because of that, if you have a little perspective on it, it becomes—a little—hilarious.

JD: At the moment, we kind of see it as like are you supposed to cringe, laugh or both? That is what we enjoy.

LS: What is the best part about your jobs?

MD: It’s fun.

JD: Probably exploring the worlds that we get to explore.

MD: I like the on set stuff the best. I like getting close with a group of people. As you get older, those experiences are less and less when you get married, and your life closes in a bit. It’s a way to really expand your life experiences and you are there for three weeks with this new family.

JD: And it also has this extremely intense tone. It’s like the greatest demarcation of life. People seem to be at their best on our sets. It doesn’t bring out the maniacs in people. The integrity factor goes up. It’s like we are all trying to make a good piece of art and realizing it is probably not going to happen and chances are you are going to make a bad one. You are all kind of fighting the good fight.

LS: Then what makes a good movie?

MD: It is being patient enough to wait for inspiration and the lightning to strike, and not trying to force a scene. If it takes five minutes or three days, we are going to wait until we get a spark.

JD: It’s a cheesy word, but it is inspiration. That is what we are looking for. We really don’t care what form it takes.

Special thanks to Jay and Mark Duplass for this interview.

lee@atnzone.com

* * * *

Matthew Goode, Emma Thompson, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Michael Gambon, Greta Scacchi. Screenplay by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Block, based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. Directed by Julian Jarrold. Rated PG-13. 120 minutes. Miramax.

Brideshead Revisited, Julian Jarrold’s terrific new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel of class and lost ideals, is the summer’s most welcome surprise—a gripping tale of ambition, desire, tragic love and guilt. No doubt some purists will question the film’s streamlining of the novel’s themes and characters for the screen, but the essence of the doomed story is firmly intact.

The film opens during World War II, as British soldier Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) is stationed at a regal estate, the former home of an aristocratic family now abandoned and used as a military outpost. The mansion brings back memories of his past time there, and the family who inhabited the estate and his life for several years. He reflects on his guilt over a series of events and relationships, and the film movies back two decades.

Nineteen-year-old, middle-class, aspiring painter Ryder, raised with little affection by a working-class father, enters Oxford circa 1920s and significantly expands his world upon meeting flamboyant, embracing Lord Sebastian Flyte. A gay, uppercrust dandy, Sebastian immediately sizes up simple Charles and latches on to his refreshing sincerity, seeing the handsome youth as an antidote to the cynical society circles of his world. The two men bond as schoolboys in a world of men, striking up a fast friendship in the film’s most thrilling section, a romantic, lush and evocative courtship.

Sebastian introduces Charles to his home—a sprawling, magnificent mansion named Brideshead, and then to his family, which includes alluring sister Lady Julia (Hayley Atwell) and stern matriarch Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson, in an electrifying performance), a woman so devoted to God that Charles, a confirmed atheist, arouses her suspicions. Soon Charles discovers the depth of this allegiance has cost Lady Marchmain her husband (Michael Gambon), who has relocated to Venice with a mistress (Greta Scacchi), as well as her own children’s happiness. She is, of course, oblivious to these consequences.

While the two young men swim naked in the family fountain, cavort on the lawn and sip wine to the sunset, their soul-mate relationship remains chaste but for a kiss. And Charles begins a dance of courtship with comely Julia and the Flytes’ world of leisure.

Yet neither of these relationships is to take the direction they may have, due to Lady Marchmain, whose fundamental dedication to God informs the fabric of every decision in the family’s lives. She rules over the children with manipulation and guilt, and two spare scenes illustrate her control. When Lady Julia suggests going to Venice for the summer, she receives a most chilling reaction. In another moment, Charles eavesdrops on a mother and son confessional in which she explains to her guilt-ridden son that he (his sexuality) cannot disappoint God, or his mother.

Yet Charles, an outsider in class and theology, becomes well-liked by Lady Marchmain, who requests he watch over her children’s well-being on a trip to Venice that ends terribly after Sebastian discovers a clandestine kiss between his sister and his love. The second half of the film details the fall of the family, most terribly Sebastian’s self-imposed exile to a Moroccan opium den, a ghost of his former person.

The film’s best scene comes when an ailing Lady Marchmain visits Charles with a request, and their history and ideologies clash, and they realize a kinship in their mutual desires to be loved. Thompson absolutely aces this role, tearing up the screen with eyes ablaze, making every world and inflection matter, a regal presence and a performance that haunts and informs the entire film.

Lady Julia takes her own path away from Charles, marrying a brash American while Charles marries himself and becomes a moderately successful artist. And then when happiness does seem within reach for the tragic lovers, and individuals between them no longer matter, there is a much greater obstacle, perhaps, that cannot be moved.

Whether Charles’ ambition leads to his downfall is debatable. On one hand, he does everything required of him as a friend to Sebastian, a tragic character stifled by time and religion, his homosexuality a badge of shame to his mother and God. Whishaw (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) is compelling in the role, a tormented soul set upon by the antagonizing forces of devotion to his mother and his own, opposing nature.

Matthew Goode, in a performance of immense and impressive stillness, makes Charles a complex man both sincere and calculating. “I wanted too much,” Charles muses much later, and indeed he holds the screen with a mystery at times, and we are never exactly sure how much he wants Julia, or if it is Brideshead he desires.

After a string of impressive performances in Match Point, Copying Beethoven and his breakout as a career criminal planning a bank job in The Lookout, the young actor does an about-face as Charles Ryder, reinventing himself onscreen, releasing himself from his natural confidence and allowing himself to be, to react and to observe the world around him. It’s a trick actor’s proposition to be so reactive, but he consistently draws us to Charles, keeping us guessing about the character’s real intentions.

Director Jarrold, who helmed the underrated Becomes Jane last year, makes an almost magisterial film, a Merchant-Ivory-esque epic, an adaptation that succeeds, with understated taste, as a literate, passionate, sexy and haunting movie.

Highly recommended.

- Lee Shoquist

- Lee Shoquist

Matthew Goode Delivers Career Performance in Brideshead Revisited’s Epic Journey of Love and Loss

By Lee Shoquist

Matthew Goode has arrived.

After a star turn in last year’s crime drama The Lookout and noteworthy performances in Woody Allen’s Match Point, Imagine Me & You and Copying Beethoven, the handsome, disarmingly candid and delightfully ribald young actor will likely never be confused with his latest screen incarnation, Charles Ryder.

In Brideshead Revisited, Julian Jarrold’s devastating new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel, Goode stars as the underclass, aspiring artist whom fate—and Oxford circa 1920—thrust into the graces and tumult of the doomed, aristocratic Flyte family.

He develops very complex relationships with soul and schoolmate Lord Sebastian (Ben Whishaw), comely Lady Julia (Hayley Atwell) and stern family matriarch Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), who has strangled her children with strict, equal measures of class and Catholicism.

In a performance driven by immense attention to inner life, Goode is memorably still and enigmatic, holding the screen with observation and later, with passion.

As our guide through decades of uppercrust decadence, disillusionment and despair, the actor invests Ryder with equal amounts of sincerity and ambition to create arresting portrait of a young man opening up to a world of privilege just out of reach, and at the center of a romantic roundelay that calls into question the family’s—and his own—ideals and principles.

I recently caught up with Matthew Goode to chat about the challenges of Charles Ryder, the complexities of Brideshead Revisited’s tragic loves and the underpinnings of family guilt and religion that betray its young idealists.

Lee Shoquist: When we last met, I described your role in The Lookout—a hardened, career criminal planning to pull a bank job—as a departure from your previous work. And now, with Brideshead Revisited, we have another departure in a completely different direction. Charles Ryder is a career-making performance.

Matthew Goode: I’m still looking for a career, so that would be good! I was very scared, really, and it was definitely my biggest challenge so far. And there is obviously the elephant in the room with the other adaptation with Jeremy Irons, and I didn’t have the benefit of having a voice over to explain my thoughts. In The Lookout, it was all there in the script.

The challenge is that you strive to have your characters liked. But because of the script and the people involved, it was an easy decision to say, “Christ, I’d love to be involved with this.” Also, what I found challenging with this epic is that it goes on over the decades. So I start at 19 and end up somewhere in my 40s, and quite literally in the 1940s!

LS: The first half of the film depicts the life-changing relationship between Charles and Sebastian. Charles is very withdrawn in a way, though there are clues as to why in his background. This would have been the deepest relationship in his life to date.

MG: It is the greatest love affair, but in a platonic way. If you look at the psychology of Charles when he is growing up, his mother died when he was very young and she would have, in post-Victorian society, provided the love. All of the guidance came from his father, and he is this incredibly lonely guy who would have been sent away to boarding school and had male friends, and never have been around women. Sebastian himself is lonely because of his homosexuality and being involved in a very small gang of Catholic aristocrats.

But that summer they spent, obviously there is more- Sebastian thinks of him in a different way than does Charles back. But it is two people who are in love with life, particularly Sebastian, who realizes that youth is not going to last and he is going to have to go back and have one hell of a f**king future that is not very nice.

LS: Yet their relationship becomes very difficult later in life.

MG: Sebastian was a petulant child and drunk, and people forget that he shat on Charles, thinking that Charles f**cked Sebastian over in Morocco. Well, he didn’t. He went to Morocco and he tried to bring him back. He did everything he could do, really. He could have stowed him away on a ship and forcibly brought him home. But that is the love in a friendship. You hurt the thing you love the most.

LS: Charles takes a great risk for him by lending him money to buy alcohol, against the wishes of his mother, the matriarchal Lady Marchmain.

MG: He does everything he is ever asked and he never asks for anything. When he is at university, he gives all of his money away to Sebastian. He gets f**ked over all the way and still has this integrity. He never forces the issue on anybody. Even with religion at the end, and the father.

LS: Charles is a complicated man. He could be described as ambitious, although I am not sure if he is intentionally so.

MG: On my initial reading, he felt very cold. I thought, “Where is the center of this character?” He’s not a deeply ambitious, Patricia Highsmith character. Looking back later on, he says that he was ambitious and wanted too much, and made mistakes. But he’s not a cold, calculating person. That is certainly not how I see Charles and never will, as making a mess of people’s lives.

LS: I was torn in the film, which I think is one of its great strengths, as to exactly how he felt. At times he seems like a babe in the woods with this family. And at other times, I found him calculating and maybe ambitious, yes.

MG: Ambitious in a way that we all want to make ourselves better. While he comes from this background, he is intelligent, literate and he sees a world that yes, he could possibly get into, but that you have to marry into. There are all these complications. So he doesn’t set out to marry Julia straightaway. It is only years down the line. So he is not that ambitious, but he wants to get ahead.

After Sebastian dumps him, in the book he goes off to Paris to better himself. He is always about bettering himself and trying to get a better knowledge of himself really, I think. He is after the full appreciation of life. Basically to understand love is what he is after. He is no different from anybody. I think that is why it is such a beloved novel—we can see any of ourselves in those characters.

LS: Yet he never seems truly happy after his break with Sebastian. At times, there seems to be a real emptiness in him.

MG: I think his marrying Celia after being dumped by the Marchmains is because of this loneliness. And she had a title as Lady Celia, so he was able to be part of the Chelsea set, and he was able to sell his paintings. But he has a huge talent as well. It’s not like he could get ahead as an artist if he just (painted) a stick man with a big penis.

LS: Charles is enigmatic in a way because he is so still. Much of the performance is observational and reacting, almost even passive. There seems to be a lot going on inside him, if not outside. It must have been tricky.

MG: Exactly! When you make a film like this, you wonder if it’s going to suffer from that. It’s one glimpse here or there. There are these peculiar ambiguities we wanted to have remain ambiguities. It is so weird that the lead character doesn’t really show much of himself. That is the challenge with Charles, to try and get all that over and not make him a rose, or too cold.

When he first sees Julia on the boat, he says it was like taking possession of the free hold of the house. You’re like, “That’s cold!” But that is what he turns into. He is suddenly very cold, as you might be if your life wasn’t going as you wanted it to.

LS: The film very clearly indicts Lady Marchmain’s strict, fundamental devotion to Roman Catholicism and its influences on the lives of her children. They certainly cannot remove it from the fabric of their adult lives, and it comes at a great expense.

MG: I think this is a very important issue. The film comments more about parenting and how bad parents can f**k you up, especially if you are conditioning your children to believe in these things.

Religion is far more complicated in the book. It doesn’t suggest that religion is bad. One of the ambiguities of the novel is that there are a few things that do seem to suggest that- Charles has a line, I think, where he says “I said a few lines of a prayer, newly learned.” That is about two lines of the entire f**king novel. So you have to really look for it. But the whole thing about the end is, and his strict purpose for going to the chapel was nostalgia and closure.

At that point in our film, he has deeply sort of f**ked up relationship with God. He can’t dismiss it because it helps them, and it is a guide for people, so you cannot diminish that. And it is him saying, “Okay, time to go on with the rest of f**king life.” He is extinguishing the past by trying to extinguish God and getting on with it.

LS: Do you see Lady Marchmain as a villainess?

MG: I think in the hands of a less experienced actor, she could have become quite two-dimensional. What Emma does is incredible and you have a huge amount of sympathy for her, like the scene where she is dying and she comes back and says, “All I ever wanted was for them to love me.” And she has told Charles, “You’re so desperate to be liked.” It is more like, “You are so desperate to be loved by your own f**king family, the lengths that you will go to, you have no grasp of the effect that you- how much you have f**ked up your children.”

There is too much humanity in there for her to be seen as a villain. It’s too dimensional. She is a member of the aristocracy and Catholic. She is manipulative, but wanting the best. Things don’t work out, but they are set up with the best intentions. She comes from an older school.

LS: And yet she is in such denial about the truth of her own son. Her love for God supercedes maternal love for her children, almost. Obviously Sebastian would come into his own at university. Or perhaps he never does.

MG: What I love about Sebastian is that he would have known that he was gay from a very young age. And Ben’s performance is not fey; it’s not gay. But he owns it straightaway. And it would have been that flamboyant back in those times with these boys together and away from their homes and families, having fun, expressing themselves and experiencing new things. And he sees Charles as this sort of delicious, open being who is nice, so why wouldn’t he want to take him and spend time with him, get outside the confines of that very small, upper crust bullshit? Charles is open to all of those things.

LS: Have you ever had a relationship that was undefinable as theirs is?

MG: As far as men with men? Absolutely. It’s quite an English schoolboy thing to have. I think it must translate to most countries. Maybe not America. I’m pretty f**king sure it does! I had a lot of friendships like that. I didn’t have a girlfriend until I was in my mid-twenties. You spend hours and hours, days and weeks when you are at university, and then one of your friends suddenly gets a girlfriend and it’s like, “Why am I so f**king jealous? Why do I hate her so much? Oh, my god—am I gay? Uh, no, because I can’t imagine having his d**k in my mouth. So that means I am not gay.” But there is that amazing thing where you would take a f**king bullet for your friend if you had to. So yeah, absolutely.

Special thanks to Matthew Goode for this interview.

lee@atnzone.com

The Closer Star (and Working Actor) G.W. Bailey at Top of Game in Unexpected Hit Series

By Lee Shoquist

The Closer, TNT’s smash procedural detective drama about a no-nonsense LAPD homicide division, led by Kyra Sedgwick as an unorthodox Georgia detective transplanted to the City of Angels, has broken ratings records by amassing a legion of more than 12 million faithful viewers in just a few short seasons.

Sharp writing, human characters, complicated relationships—The Closer has been decorated with Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe nods since its 2005 premiere, featuring an impeccable ensemble and fresh approach to TV’s crime solving genre.

As old-school, curmudgeonly Detective Provenza, veteran character actor G.W. Bailey gets to be the team’s tough guy who is, just maybe, a little tender underneath, if anyone could ever get there.

Like every character on The Closer, he is interesting enough to drive his own series with this salty dog of a detective, portrayed by Bailey with quirks, foibles and uncommon realism. He’s also very funny when he wants to be—a concept very familiar to a guy who hit big at the cineplex two decades ago in a couple of zany, beloved little movies.

Today, G.W. Bailey joins me in the restaurant of Chicago’s posh Four Seasons Hotel to herald the premiere of The Closer’s fourth season. I’ve admired him for decades as he delivered workmanlike performances in classic television, from M.A.S.H. to St. Elsewhere.

But his calling card may always be his rash of popular 80s films, including Police Academy and Mannequin, two broad comedies that he hit out of the park with inspired and memorable slapstick turns that made him instantly recognizable.

Ushering in a third act of his career, the warmly engaging actor traded stories about what makes his Provenza tick, the serendipity of The Closer, his early movie days and the life of a working actor across the ups and downs of an unpredictable business.

Lee Shoquist: The Closer has just entered its fourth season and has an unheard of number of viewers—12 million! Did you know during season one that you had a hit? And what is the X factor that has made the show such a runaway success?

G.W. Bailey: By the end of the first season, it looked pretty solid. People had really bought into it. I like to think that it has to do with smart writing and a balance between plot and character that it’s not all a soap opera. It stays on its procedural drama legs. There is a murder that is solved, very smartly. But it’s also smart writing to populate it with people and not with interchangeable characters where you can’t keep straight.

LS: Speaking of smart writing, Kyra’s character, Brenda Johnson, is a complex woman both professionally and in her messy personal life.

GWB: She is a very interesting woman. Some of the things that make her interesting are not terribly flattering. This is not all sweetness and roses with her. She does some things that are very questionable in terms of their ethics. She has lied and manipulated. One could argue that she walks the line.

LS: What makes Provenza tick? He’s gruff, but there’s more going on there.

GWB: I think that despite all of his crust and curmudgeonly ways, not having a lot of patience, five ex-wives and never having been successful, this is very much his life. I think he is trying desperately not to go gentle into that good night.

LS: What does he make of Brenda Johnson? He is rather old school, as they say.

GWB: At the end of the first season, I went to Kyra’s birthday party in New York. Kevin had a surprise party for her. Her parents were there. They asked me to salute her. And they asked me to represent the show and drink a toast to her. What I said was that the writing is such that we had great animosity toward her character the first season. We didn’t like her. We didn’t like her accent. We didn’t like anything about her. We resented her.

And I said that in honor of her parents and husband, it’s the best acting every man in that room has ever done in his entire life. Because the only day we really ever resent is when Kevin shows up and gets all the attention! Every guy in there is in love with (you). I was talking to Kyra. And it’s hard to separate all of those kinds of emotions because on a personal level, we do adore her. We’re crazy about her. We never talk about it, but the very first thing we do when we get the script is look through to see if we have any scenes with her, because we love working with her. That’s also your best shot at the scene staying in!

LS: You mentioned your writers. How do they work in terms of developing your characters?

GWB: The writers not only write but they listen. They listen to us. They walk around the set and listen to us talk to each other. Out of that came the whole relationship with Flynn and Provenza—this love/hate relationship. I’ve known (Anthony Denison) for years. The writers would hear us talking. For example, there is a whole thing in the show about him sitting on my desk. That came out of me one day telling Tony, “Get your ass off my desk!” Next thing you know, it is a whole major thing in our onscreen relationship and it became a thing about me being a neat freak that you wouldn’t think Provenza would be. That is what makes him interesting—just those little touches and texture. That is smart writing.

LS: At this point in your career, over 30 years in the business, it must be great to have a hot, hit series.

GWB: For the last several years, I have basically worked for only one director—Roger Young. We have done 15 projects over the years. He is one of my closest friends and was the king of TV movies and miniseries-formats that are basically gone. I worked for him all the time and got to a point where I assumed for the rest of my theatrical career, that was going to be it—if Roger worked, I worked. He would always find something for me. Then the TV movies started to die. I said, “Well, if I am not in a place where I can get a strong enough agent, maybe it is time for me to go back to the stage.”

Then, out of the blue, The Closer came up. It started as a guest shot and I wasn’t particularly interested. And there was a very strong possibility it would be recurring. I found out from the casting director that James Duff was the creator. I said, “I’ll be there.” James Duff is 53 years old. When he was 16, he was in my acting class. I taught him when I he was 16 years old! I was in college and he was in high school. It was a workshop drama camp for two weeks. The senior students would be hired to do various classes. That’s how I taught him.

So it was the pilot, and there was no part—just all of these cops. But this character had a little more personality, and was curmudgeonly with great lines. James didn’t know that I was coming in. And they did a test of this scene. And then they asked if I would consider making it a regular character. And James said, “Are you kidding me? This would be a dream for both of us.” I said, “Absolutely, I’ll do it.” I don’t know how long it had been since I had seen him. We had remained friends throughout the years. Life takes you to places.

LS: Did you ever think that your iconic role in Police Academy, as bumbling Lt. Thaddeus Harris, would make such an impact? You must have been surprised.

GWB: Oh yeah, it was huge! We didn’t know it would take off. We were aggravated as hell at Warner Brothers because they were going to dump it and get a quick buck out of it, then off to drive-ins and rentals it would go. But within two weeks, people were lined up! The New York Times had given it a good review. Kevin Thomas in the LA Times gave it a rave review, comparing Steve Guttenberg and me to Peter Sellers and David Niven. So Warner Brothers had no idea what they had until the public told them.

We were having a great time. It was the first feature for all of us. Guttenberg had done Diner. Kim Cattrall had done something, and I did Mannequin with her as well. I love Kim. Love her. So they had some experience. But the rest of us had not done a feature. We knew we were having a good time. And our director, Hugh Wilson, was quirky and crazy and fun. Certainly Hugh was brilliant at giving you the outline and energy needed.

LS: You are very “big” when you do comedy. Is it difficult to find that tone?

GWB: For me I find it the most difficult thing in the world. It’s a strange thing, but human beings universally all cry at the same things—loss of a loved one, death in the family, loss of a love affair. What triggers sadness is pretty universal. But we all laugh at different shit. I mean, there are people in this world that think that Howie Mandel is funny! I find that unfathomable. And I know Howie from St. Elsewhere. He wasn’t funny, either on or off! And there are certain universals.

But comedy is cultural for one thing. And verbal comedy certainly is not going to translate as well as physical comedy—banana peels and the basic, common, silent film-type, dell ’Arte comedy. It is all based on somebody else’s discomfort. You can laugh at the man who slips on the banana peel because it is not you. So there are certain kinds of universals.

In Morocco, I’m not sure anybody would laugh if they slipped on a banana peel. On the other hand, if they slipped in camel dung, they may find that hilarious. But I do know other people’s misery is the basis for humor. I can’t tell you how many times we have all said, “The guy has no sense of humor.” And what you are really saying is that he does not have your sense of humor.

LS: You have been working consistently across decades now, in classic TV, movies and now back in television. Have you ever had any down time?

GWB: Yeah! And not by my choice!

LS: Are those periods worrisome?

GWB: (laughs) I never really worried after my kids were grown. But I worried all the time when they were in high school and going to college. I wanted to provide great things for them the best I could. When my daughter got married, I had to borrow the money against the house to pay for the wedding. That’s how bad my cash flow was. But I was able to hang on to my house, and no one knew it.

LS: That is interesting to hear because the public normally thinks of actors who have “made it” as being filthy rich, living in a mansion with an easy life and nothing to worry about.

GWB: We did have a wonderful house but certainly it wasn’t a mansion by any stretch of the imagination. It was a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Both of my children were married there. They loved the house, but they knew how much money it would save. We did the reception and party there. But they knew the difference, because they knew that I wasn’t working.

I had some great years in the 80s and 90s. Even when I was started, I was very lucky. I remember when I did MASH. Alan (Alda) made somewhere in the neighborhood of $265,000 per episode. You can imagine how much that is now! I did scenes with him and I was making $1,200. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I was happy to get the $1,200!

LS: You mentioned M.A.S.H. You were part of some of the best-loved sitcoms and programs of the 70s and 80s. It’s kind of mind-boggling to think of you on Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, Lou Grant, St. Elsewhere, Remington Steele and so many more.

GWB: Maybe it was my age or where I was in my life. It seems to me that me, my friends and family wanted to watch TV and couldn’t wait to see episodes of certain things. My kids were not allowed to watch Laverne & Shirley. My ex-wife couldn’t stand it. They had an episode where they went undercover in an old folks’ home. She was always fantastic working with the elderly.

And she saw this episode where they were making fun of the elderly. Then, at the end of course, they say they have learned something and had a moral, their hearts were tugged, etc. She said, “No, you can’t make fun of them for twenty minutes and do that.” She was so angry about that episode that the kids were not allowed to watch it.

LS: TV at that time seemed like more of an event or a priority. It had a completely different role in people’s lives, I think. Or the programs were maybe more important to see because we couldn’t TIVO them or see them on You Tube the next day.

GWB: I used to know when shows were on. I can’t tell you now. Growing up in Port Arthur, Texas, we would rush home on a Sunday night after stopping in the grocery store and picking up bologna and white, Wonderbread—it was the only time during the week when we could eat bologna and Fritos. We were in heaven. We couldn’t wait to get home and watch Amos and Andy and Loretta Young. It was magical.

Special thanks to G.W. Bailey for this interview.

lee@atnzone.com

* * *

Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal. Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Rated PG-13. 152 minutes. Warner Brothers.

The deafening roar of The Dark Knight hype—fueled by Heath Ledger’s untimely death and stoked by obsessed bloggers, rabid fanboy speculation, early ticket sellouts and boffo box office forecasts—has reached a feverish pitch in the last several weeks. So when did Batman go from crime-fighting superhero to cultural touch point of such magnitude? And why?

The Dark Knight takes flight with a Tarantino-esque, Gotham bank robbery staged by make-up smeared, clownish outlaws led by the psychotic Joker (Heath Ledger), a frightening miscreant with a tortured past and desire to cause chaos. Right away, the comic-book tone we’ve come to expect from the genre is replaced with gritty, violent realism. When a film’s villain is a bedraggled psycho whose father slashed his face from ear to ear with a straight razor, you are as far from Schumacher-land as you can get.

Across the city, Batman’s (Christian Bale) influence on crime fighting has had an unfortunate counter-effect, triggering a ripple of copycats waging melee to the dismay of Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the new D.A. in town, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), a natural rival to Batman in, we discover, more ways than we imagined.

Principled Dent is determined to clean up the streets while romancing Bruce Wayne’s old fling, assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Having wrought more destruction than daring during his escapades, Batman is now considered a vigilante and little better than the organized crime boss (Eric Roberts) under scrutiny.

The Joker is an independent terrorist of sorts, positioned between law enforcement and the mob, with a simple goal—to toy with both sides, pitting them against each other and then later against their own ideologies. In the meantime, he delights in wreaking havoc, wagering a promise to reveal Batman’s true identity. In a great scene late in the film, he sets up two passenger yachts in a harbor, one carrying citizens and the other carrying convicts, both rigged to blow and each deciding the other’s fate.

Director Christopher Nolan penned the screenplay with brother Jonathan, and the result is a re-launching of the superhero franchise. Batman’s origins have always been dark, and The Dark Knight is fascinated by this duality—most notably in Wayne and Dent, who transforms into the villainous Two-Face late in the film, played to the hilt by Eckhart, who hasn’t had a role this juicy in years.

On the sidelines are two solid performances by Michael Caine as faithful manservant Alfred, and Morgan Freeman as Wayne Industries right-hand-man Lucius Fox. Both actors are excellent, taking stock-and-trade roles and informing them with depth and complexity in key scenes.

Bale, superb as the debonair playboy, throws a party for Dent before entering from a helicopter flanked by gorgeous women. He also displays great wit early on during an impromptu double date. Later, he hits notes of self-doubt with faithful Alfred, who shelters his boss from some unfortunate news in a critical display of loyalty. He advises Wayne to “know your limits,” and indeed Batman suffers injuries and scrapes. He is not indestructible, and his body knows the consequences of a bullet.

The Dark Knight’s action scenes are appropriate scaled, yet never quite thrill. An early shootout in a parking garage containing a cameo by Cillian Murphy and featuring several Batman imitators, is economical at best. Ditto a briefly exciting aerial sequence above Hong Kong. A car and semi chase through Chicago’s Lower Wacker Drive is exciting enough. And the high-tech monitoring device critical to the film’s climax makes little sense outside the gadgetry logic of the movie.

In an instantly iconic performance, Ledger—who deserved the Oscar for his elegiac, masterful turn in Brokeback Mountain—is a jumble of vocal and physical ticks, fractured neuroses, sadistic ego and twisted logic—sometimes all at once. In his most mannered performance, the late actor fires on all cylinders to create a portrait of a madman pushing the buttons of the city, with nothing to lose or gain, drunk on the pandemonium he stages.

Yet he never plays The Joker for laughs, fully aware of darkest implications of the wildcard derangement he’s channeling. During a crucial late scene set in a hospital between The Joker and disfigured Dent, the actor, disguised in a candy striper’s uniform and cherry wig, poses a warped ideology to a man who has undergone a great tragedy of both physical and moral loss.

Suitable to our times, there are no heroes in The Dark Knight, nor any clear distinctions between good and evil. Some are more so than others, but the film revels in the gray areas. Yet the film remains oddly cold, giving equal screen time to its many characters without emotionally connecting with any.

The Dark Knight, for all its massively mounted style, craftsmanship, accomplished performances and intriguing musings on crime and punishment, is a heavy affair. This is not a film about Batman, per se. Instead, it is a 132-minute crime epic like something Michael Mann might deliver, and the vigilante in the rubber suit with the cool car is just one of many players.

No doubt many will embrace this stark soberness, noting its faithfulness to the graphic novel’s spirit or hailing its grit as the true intention of creator Frank Miller. And while all of this may be correct and The Dark Knight may be a gripping enough sermon on good, evil and in between, the film doesn’t muster much old-fashioned fun amidst its respectably misanthropic milieu.

And shouldn’t it, at least a little?

Recommended.

- Lee Shoquist

lee@atnzone.com

* * * 1/2

Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Christine Baranski, Stellan Skarsgard, Dominic Cooper. Written by Catherine Johnson. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Rated PG-13. 108 minutes. Universal Pictures.

Displaying impeccable, giddy comedy and strong singing voice, Mamma Mia! finds Meryl Streep more relaxed, carefree and impetuously silly than she’s ever been before. The greatest actress of all time—a reputation which has kept her from an Oscar for 25 years despite a string of brilliant, vital performances—delivers a sunny, sensual and inspired turn in the ABBA musical about a wedding, a reunion and romantic shenanigans on a gorgeous Greek isle.

As Donna, the put-upon proprietor of a ramshackle, Grecian B&B preparing for a wedding and nursing romantic regrets, Streep gives a full-bodied performance, infusing what has previously been a light character onstage with a passion and joi de vive like the movies haven’t seen in some time.

As Donna’s 20-year-old daughter Sophie (the winning Amanda Seyfried) prepares to wed hunky Sky (Dominic Cooper, an eyeful), she snoops into mom’s dusty old diary. Turns out that not only did Donna front a flashy pop girl group back in the day, she got it on with three guys—at the same time—and ended up a pregnant, single mom.

The diary sparks hope that the father she never knew might attend her nuptials, and Sophie fires off letters—penned from Donna surreptitiously—to the three unsuspecting former suitors. When Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) and Harry (Colin Firth) show up on the island, Donna is thrown into a tizzy of tangled emotions. Not only are the men who spurned her back in her life, but her daughter knows of her wily ways gone by.

Enter best friends and former back-up singers Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski), on the isle for the wedding, to offer moral support. Tanya is a pampered, plastic surgery veteran and cookbook author Rosie, more practical, has a habit of falling down—a lot. The trio don platforms, Spandex and glitter for rousing renditions of “Super Trouper” and a closing credits mini-concert of “Dancing Queen” and “Waterloo.”

And that’s pretty much the story, a lark designed to set up a slew of terrific arrangements of ABBA songs. Mamma Mia is a love it or hate it proposition. Love the songs and you will enjoy it immensely. But if your taste for production numbers featuring buff guys in Speedos and fins, prancing around a dock to “Lay All Your Love On Me” is slight, you might want to think otherwise.

Mamma Mia! has its flaws, to be sure. Novice director Phyllida Lloyd, who directed the musical in London, clumsily sets up several numbers, the most unsatisfying being “Money, Money, Money,” which culminates on a yacht with—you got it—a lot of expense accoutrements.

And the frantic, energetic shrieking and giggling that accompanies most scenes (the cast has a blast with the material) may wear thin for some. And don’t even bother to work out the timeline here because decades, ages and eras don’t compute. No matter.

The trio of aging former sexpots is a hoot, with Walters stealing the picture every time she is onscreen, a masterful physical comedienne whose slapstick—trapped under a restroom stall, falling into the sea, hanging from a roof—rollicks. Baranski, essentially playing a drag queen with relish, gets off a very funny “Does Your Mother Know” to a horny young stud a third her age. You want fantasy wish fulfillment, you got it.

The scant plot is a mere excuse to throw together some broad characters in a paper-thin situation comedy. That being said, Mamma Mia! is a delightful party, a confection of fizzy music, aggressive silliness and a color palette worthy of Jacques Demy.

Streep is great fun in the role, initially in daffy mode and having a ball, decked out in sun-kissed blonde tresses and a golden tan, prancing around the village to “Dancing Queen”, leading a cavalry of local women into the surf. What is not to love?

But as the film progresses and Donna finds herself in a quagmire—regretful over deceiving her daughter and letting the love of her life go—the actress blows the roof off the theater in two emotional numbers, “Slipping Through My Fingers” and “The Winner Takes it All.”

The latter features Streep and Brosnan (in odd voice) atop a windswept cliffside, and the song becomes an emotional plea and confessional culminating with Donna scaling a steep staircase in the film’s best, most dramatic shot. Later, as Brosnan sings to her during the wedding dinner, she nails a poignancy not in the screenplay.

Mamma Mia! is flush with color, feeling and ribald tomfoolery. It is also one of 2008’s most entertaining movies.

- Lee Shoquist

Lee@atnzone.com