Film School Rejects » Adam Sweeney

Fantastic Fest Interview: Ride with ‘Broncos’ Author Dr. Ronald Chevalier

Adam Sweeney — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:23:09 +0000

Press junkets can tend to be a drag. Having said that, we were particularly excited to get to interview Dr. Ronald Chevalier, most notable for his extensive corpus of stately science fiction novels. Chevalier was in Austin for the premiere of Gentlemen Broncos at Fantastic Fest, where actor Jemaine Clement portrays him.

Chris Tilly from IGN UK and I teamed up during a chat outside to talk with Chevalier about the film, the state of modern video simulations and the joys of science fiction.

Adam Sweeney: Can you give me three items that I could write a book about?

[In that deep, faux-British accent] Wellll….The conflict, the deep inner conflict between human and robot has always been a fascinating problem and one I’ve explored in forty-three novels. I still don’t think I’ve solved that conflict.

Chris Tilly: What are your favorite sci-fi films, Doctor?

Well, as you probably know, I abhor cinema. I loathe it. I wish I could enjoy it. My favorite cinema would be anything featuring the wonderful Jane Seymour. I originally chose her to play Gorgana, the Cyborg Queen. She turned it down because of her commitments to “Dr. Quinn” at the time. I won’t allow it to be made until she has agreed to do the part.

AS: Have you heard of any rumors of Kevin James being the lead in your next film, Bisontennial?

Who is this Kevin James?

AS: Paul Blart.

I am sorry. I do not step inside the multiplex.

CT: Do you play video games at all?

I don’t think of them as video games. I think of them as simulators. And, yes, I have been in a few simulations. Do you know Geo Defense on iPod? That is one I recommend. You defend a base of lives and you have laser types to protect bases.

AS: Speaking of saving lives, you’re a doctor…

I am an honorary doctor. I got my doctorate from a university I started online.

AS: Have you considered going into the medical field to cure the masses?

[Scoffs] Again, I harken back to the cyborg field. The medical practice would be helped with robotic body parts, particularly noses. Robotic noses.

AS: It’s an important science.

It’s an important sense! I dedicate whole paragraphs to the particular fragrance of a character.

AS: If you came up for science fiction nicknames for us, what would they be?

Chris Tilly would be…Chris Till-odious. And you are?

AS: Adam Sweeney.

I would call you The Proton Kid.

Be sure to check out our interview with Jemaine Clement.

Fantastic Fest Interview: Ride with ‘Broncos’ Star Jemaine Clement

Adam Sweeney — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:41:44 +0000

Press junkets can tend to be a drag. Having said that, we were particularly excited to get to interview Jemaine Clement, most notable for his hit band/television show “Flight of the Conchords.” Clement was in Austin for the premiere of Gentlemen Broncos at Fantastic Fest, where he steals the show as Dr. Ronald Chevalier, a critically acclaimed science fiction author that has run out of fresh ideas.

Chris Tilly from IGN UK and I teamed up during a chat outside to talk with Clement about the film, the pressure that comes with working on “Flight of the Conchords” and the recent news that FOTC will be featured on a Rock Band game in the future. Along the way, we ran into a scheming crow while the humble and always clever Clement let us into the world of Dr. Chevalier.

Chris Tilly: What was it like seeing the film last night?

I didn’t see but about the last twenty minutes. We all went and had a dinner reunion because we all live in different places

[As Jemaine speaks, a crow approaches the table.]

Look at this ominous crow just spying. He’s probably from The Omen. He does have a beautiful color though. He’s sort of blue. I don’t know why he’s so angry.

Adam Sweeney: He’s probably going to steal all of the good parts of this interview. [Laughter]

Yeah, he’ll take it to a witch. [Laughs]

AS: How did you prepare for this role?

I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of authors because the words are already there in the script. You’ve got how they talk, how they walk and what they were. Jared and Jerusha [Hess] are so specific about the characters. All I could decide was my hairstyle and my voice, just a little bit.

CT: As a Brit, I was hearing a little bit of James Mason and Michael York.

Michael York was a big influence. I am pretty sure Jared wanted Michael York to play the part. When you read it, it describes Michael York. He’s a guy in his 60s with silver hair in the script. So I didn’t really envision myself playing it when I read the script.

CT: Is it hard to do the voice?

Yeah, I could hardly do it last night at the screening. I was like, ‘how does it go?’ You have to imagine a plum is in your throat.

CT: Were you looking for something different than your “Conchords” character?

I guess so.

CT: What was it about this script that particularly drew your attention?

Well, do you read scripts?

CT: Yeah.

Then you’ve probably read scripts of movies that are made. There’s another level of scripts that aren’t being made and they’re quite bad. But I don’t think I read them well. Sometimes I think they’re going to be terrible, and they’re excellent. This one was just really different in their detail for the characters. I know this style of filmmaking isn’t for everyone. It’s in a different universe. The characters aren’t quite real. I really liked that. So many films are just boring real life versions. This takes real life and adds to it. But some people say, ‘That’s not real. It wouldn’t happen.” But that’s what makes me like this script.

AS: They tend to highlight the eccentricities of people.

Right but they’re real. Like the guy who makes the films in the movie. Jared has a friend who does that stuff. He makes these films with terrible lasers. He does hundreds of these things. A lot of real life is in there. Some people think it’s too much. I think it’s perfect.

AS: You’ve written before. Do you have any plans on writing a screenplay in the future?

Yeah. I am working on one right now. At the time, I could really relate to Chevalier because we were right in the middle of Conchords and writing for the next season. I was like, ‘I have to come up with twenty more songs and ten ideas!’

CT: Was it nice playing such a bastard?

Yeah, it was fun. I try to make him sympathetic. I wanted him to just be a guy who tries to make people inspired. But it was really fun picking on the kids in the class.

CT: That look you gave the girl was great.

You mean the troll girl? [Laughs]

CT: Yeah. You could feel the tragic side of him. Could you do a spin-off of Chevalier?

I don’t know. [Speaking in the Dr. Chevalier voice] It would be very interesting. [And back to normal] But I’d like to see a Bronco and Brutus one. Those guys would be great to team up.

CT: Well, we know Sam Rockwell can handle two characters.

Right, Moon. I haven’t seen that yet. I am so interested in it that I couldn’t help but read things about it. They were hidden things.

AS: How have you dealt with the success of “Flight of the Conchords” given that the joke is–

That we’re not successful?

AS: Right, but then you have a party at The Highball for this film and you’re doing a reading at Book People.

Isn’t Book People a really small store? [Laughter] I wouldn’t take that as a huge success to be in a small store, right?

AS: Well, I am sure it will be packed, right? [Laughter]

I was actually quite nervous doing the reading last night. I haven’t done anything like that since school plays.

AS: If it goes bad you can start reading from The Crucible.

[Laughs] Only certain people watch the show, but I mean, I can walk around this place and nobody will recognize me. It’s only a small subsection of the TV watching populace.

CT: What’s the status of the “Conchords?”

We don’t know yet. We may do a short season or a sort of special. Like a Christmas special sort of thing. Maybe nothing.

CT: A friend of mine was interviewing Rhys Darby the other day in London and he was talking about the possibility of a movie.

He’s uncontrollable. [Laughter] We created a monster. But we’ve been thinking about a movie. But it goes in stages. I’ve been doing this for five years and there are times where I say, ‘I am never going to do this again. I’m not going to sing another silly song!’ Then time passes and we say, ‘ya wanna do another? Hmm, maybe…’ It goes on, I do it and enjoy it, hate it. Never going to do it again. Do it again. I think of Larry David and how each season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ you have to take it one at a time because a hundred episodes is daunting. Right now I am in ‘I’m not going to do it again’ mode.

CT: I think of all the directions you could take into a film.

By all means, email them to me. [Laughter]

AS: Would you consider a dramatic role?

I love comedy but it’s more as a fan of comedy. That’s how I got into it, watching it. But I like taking on challenges. I wish I had come up with a more interesting word than challenges. [Laughter] But when you’re scared of something, you have a reason to do it.

AS: It motivates you.

Yeah. You take steps to get over it. But yeah, I would do that. I haven’t been actively looking for a dramatic part though.

CT: I had a question about Rock Band. You guys are going to be on Rock Band in the future, right? Do you know what songs are going to be on there?

We’re open to suggestions. I’d love to see what the results are. I hope they don’t choose obscure ones. But I would love to get the payout for the “Stairway to Heaven” royalties.

AS: We will talk to Jimmy Page about giving you that part.

He has enough money already.

AS: Well, thanks for the interview.

Sure thing.

Be sure to check out our interview with Dr. Ronald Chevalier himself.

Exclusive: Brea Grant Talks Halloween 2

Adam Sweeney — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:00:55 +0000

A little less than a year ago Brea Grant was still relatively under the radar, making her debut on Heroes as the speedy Daphne Middlebrook. How the times have changed. Grant and brother Zane have their own zombie comic, We Will Bury You, coming out in 2010, Brea has been featured in Elle Magazine, and she will appear as Mya Rockwell, Laurie Strode’s best friend, in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2. If you’re not on the Brea bandwagon yet, now would be a good time. There isn’t much room left.

Grant chatted with us about her experience working with Zombie, her time at this year’s Comic-Con and why Halloween 2 will stand apart from the rest of horror films today. Also, be sure to check out Brea Grant’s blog. She keeps you posted on everything going on in her world, including suggesting great music and philanthropic causes. How many actors or actresses do you know that do that without gloating about it in the press?

FSR: You were at Comic-Con. What was that like?

Brea Grant: It was really fun. I went last year for like a day and Heroes hadn’t aired yet, so nobody really recognized me. Maybe a few die hard fans did. This year was a little different. (Laughs.) A lot of people recognized me and wanted pictures taken but it was really fun to see all the fans. We talked about the comic book I have coming out and stuff.

Awesome. We talked to you a little less than a year and things have really picked up. Do you want to talk about your comic a bit?

Sure. It’s called We Will Bury You and it will be out on IDW next year. I collaborated with my brother. Kyle Strahm is doing the art. It’s a zombie comic set in the 1920’s. It’s super fun. As an actor you get to sit around a lot and wait for someone to call us and say, ‘Hey, come be in this movie.’ It’s one of the reasons I got into it but it also kind of sucks. This comic is something I can control, you know?

Yeah.

I’ve always written stuff. I read a lot of comics and it seemed like it’d be maybe less time consuming than to write a novel. Not that writing a comic is easy! It’s actually very hard. Anyone who does it for a living, my hat is off to them. It’s very hard.

It makes sense because I think as an actor you are essentially a cog in the wheel. It’s somewhat organic but creating your own story, I won’t say is more fruitful, but it’s a different form of creativity.

Right. Unless you’re in acting classes or at home doing monologues, which I’m definitely not, there is this creative part that you only get to use during auditioning or filming something. And maybe I should be at home learning monologues every day but it feels like I should try different things. Writing is something I have always done in my spare time. I have plays I wrote when I was eight years old. I actually feel more comfortable sitting behind my computer and coming up with ideas instead of being in front of the camera. I don’t know what that means for me in the future. (Laughs.)

(Laughs.) Well you seem to be doing okay. You also recorded a synth-pop zombie album.

Yeah, well we knew we were going to Comic-Con and didn’t have anything coming out until next year, so we decided, in the spirit of our punk rock roots, to record an album like super lo-fi on computer software and make them all about zombies. Each song would be told from the point of view of a character in a zombie film that we really love. Our comic is a zombie comic so we just made people trade us something for it.

That is awesome. I mean the album is partially titled Zombi 2. Any time a zombie fights a shark, well you know it’s epic.

Right. And the album is all very made in fun. I mean it’s called Brea and Zane Sing Their Greatest Hits. You know we don’t have any hits. I mean I hope people get that. I’m not sure everyone understood it was a joke. (They laugh.) People were looking at us like we were crazy. Eventually Zane and I started walking around the floor to comic artists we liked and asked, ‘Do you want to trade us for our CD?’ I mean they didn’t know we were and thought we were crazy. But kudos to them because they traded us art and some things.

That’s great. You have appreciate the irony of a fanboy smugly asking, ‘Who are you,” as they wait in line to get a comic autographed. So you’re in Halloween 2. I can’t say many people have heard of the franchise or who this alleged Robert Zombie is but I hear it’s a pretty big deal. (They laugh.) How did you get involved with it?

I auditioned while I was on Heroes. I knew I was going to be off Heroes. I may have been shooting my last episode but I went around that time. Rob was already prepping so they put me on tape. It was great. My manager and I really pushed for that movie because it was my first big feature. I’d never done something that would be released in theaters. (Laughs.) I mean I’ve done lots of indies but I wanted something like that under my belt, and there’s nothing better than Halloween! You grow up with it, right? It’s part of my childhood so that was exciting. To go from Heroes to that was nice. It was sad to leave Heroes but to go from one thing I loved to another was really exciting.

Halloween is hands down my favorite horror franchise so I’ve been excited to see what Rob Zombie will do with it. It looks like he is finally telling his own story. Everything in horror has been so watered down. There’s so many remakes that we don’t need a John Carpenter tribute and it’s a waste of Zombie’s talent to do that.

Right. I mean John Carpenter is a genius and one of my favorite filmmakers of all-time. But Rob took creative license with this one and made it completely different than the original, unless the same characters and same week make it the same. This one is much more psychological. In a lot of sequels I’ve seen, you know, I don’t see this. I mean if your family was killed in front of you in real life, you’d be pretty messed up. I mean you’re fucked. (AS laughs.) So he kind of addresses what happens to her fucked up life. It shows Laurie’s downward spiral, her psychological downward spiral and the people she is hanging out with aren’t that good for her. I play her best friend. It’s how she is dealing with all this trauma in her.

As much as I like the original Halloween 2 it’s like so many films just have characters blandly reacting by saying, ‘Oh well, I guess we will miss that date with Ben Traimer.’ What was it like to prepare and work with Rob, but also to work on a horror film. I mean is it different than being on Heroes?

It is and it isn’t. For one, Rob is very open to input and ideas. He likes improvising. He wrote the film and wanted to know what we thought the characters would be like. TV isn’t like that. The Heroes writers were cool and wanted our input but it went so quickly. I mean we never even rehearsed on Heroes. You showed up to the set and had to know what you were doing. Out here we had time. I mean it was a quick shoot, only five or six weeks. But Rob was cool about anything we wanted to try. He trusted his actors to fulfill his vision. That’s sort of a rambling answer but it is different. There’s more blood in horror but actually not as much as on Heroes! There was a lot of blood on Heroes. But it felt like a different process.

It seems like it’s going to be a good film. One of the things that stood out to me about his first Halloween is that he pays tribute to the original without pointing to the camera and winking. Like Danielle Harris comes back and if you’re a fan of the Halloween films, or I guess Don’t Tell Mom’s the Babysitter’s Dead, you get to see her.

She’s in this one too.

Yeah, I saw that. Very cool. We definitely need something different than what the Friday the 13th remake was, for example.

Rob is such a different director. It’s funny looking at his monitor and seeing what he is doing. He kept saying, “We’re just trying to make it not look like a movie.” He did not want it to look clean. He doesn’t want his characters to look clean. We hardly wore make-up at all. He wanted it to look very real and gritty, and I think that adds to the fear factor. It makes it scarier when things are a little less polished because it looks like real life. People don’t have flawless skin in real life. They have bags under their eyes when they’re tired. He focuses on that. That is what makes the movie different than a lot of the other horror movies out there.

I can agree with that. I think a lot of Hollywood has forgotten that the success of a horror film is largely based on the audience’s ability to relate to it. Even though Michael Myers represents this somewhat unrealistic form of evil, the situations Laurie and her friends are put in with him are very scary.

Yeah, Rob is such a visual director. I mean Tyler Mane, who plays Michael Myers, is such a huge person. Like I saw a scene and he doesn’t even look like a normal human being. He’s that big. And that’s scary to me. It’s scary to think about someone twice my size coming after me with a knife. (Laughs.)

It is definitely overwhelming. Speaking of another classic franchise, Robert Rodriguez, another Austinite, is setting up Predators. You mentioned before that you loved Predator. Are you going to go after that?

Yeah, I didn’t even know he was doing that.

Yep, apparently he is going to produce it and have it set on the Predator’s homeworld.

That’s really cool. I saw that he is doing Machete and I thought that’s really cool. I really like him as a director but I don’t really know him. So I can’t call him up and say, ‘Please let me be in Predators!’ I auditioned for Shorts but I didn’t get it back before I even got Heroes.

That’s cool. In the future, how can people check out your stuff? You have a blog that has a lot of interesting stuff on it. I saw the link to The Dirty Projectors video. They were in Austin a few weeks ago.

Oh they were?

Yeah. I want to see them when they come back around.

Yeah, I like them.

How can people learn more about your projects?

My blog is the easiest way. I am on Twitter (@breagrant) more than any person should be. My web publicist has been getting onto me for not having a mailing list, so I have that now. I do a lot of random stuff. I’ll do random interviews. I have two web series coming out soon. If you want to know more, and I know mailing lists annoy me, but you can totally join that.

Sounds good. Well if we don’t see you survive in Halloween 2 then maybe we can talk about your shocking role as the Predator soon.

That would be amazing. Please tell Robert Rodriguez I want that part.

(Laughs.) That’s exactly what I’ll do. As soon as I see him I will walk up to him and say, ‘Hi Robert. You have no idea who I am but you know who’d be a great Predator? Brea Grant.’

(Laughs.) Do it. I mean I’m not intimidating at all but I think it could work.

You know what though? You put some platforms on and you’d at least be taller than Jean-Claude Van Damme.

You know, I am actually pretty intimidating so this will totally work.

That’s why we have to do the phone interviews, it’s too intimidating in person. Well thanks for your time, Brea.

No problem.

–

You can see Brea Grant in Halloween 2 on August 28th in theaters.

Exclusive: Bill Kong Talks ‘Blood: The Last Vampire’

Adam Sweeney — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:00:14 +0000

When you are taking on the production of one of the most popular anime series ever, Blood: The Last Vampire, there is understandably some pressure. The animated film is a cult classic and has been deemed one of the greatest anime projects of all-time. Luckily for the live-action version of Blood: The Last Vampire they have Bill Kong attached to it.

Kong earned an Academy Award nomination for his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero is another great film he was behind, so fans of Blood should be excited to see where Kong takes this version. We talked with Kong about what fans can expect from the new Blood, the pressure he feels to please the fans and why people are infatuated with the vampire mystique.

Adam Sweeney: What got you interested in doing a live-action version of Blood: The Last Vampire?

Bill Kong: I saw the original animated version of Blood in 2002. I think the original forty-eight minute version really attracted me. I was attracted to the character and the action, It was so well made. I thought it was the perfect vehicle to make into a live-action film.

Obviously the action sequences will be amazing. You’re known for that. What do you think will separate Blood from other vampire films right now?

I think what’s different is that vampire movies rarely have this much action. Most have more suspense but there’s never been a vampire movie with so much action. Normally you only need a certain amount of time to make a film like this but we spent six months. Some people ask, ‘Why six months?’ Well every scene, the action scenes took a month and a half for each one, so that makes a big difference. I think nobody has ever seen a vampire movie like this with this much action.

I was watching some of the behind the scenes clips and it looked like Gianna Jun took quite a beating. She seemed to do well with it. She has a nice acting pedigree. What made you choose her to play Saya?

First, we needed to find an Asian girl that had a charismatic grace that would attract an audience. Second, she needed to speak good English and it was very important for her to be able to handle the action scenes. I had worked with her before so I knew she was popular and had a pretty face, but one day I showed her the anime and asked her if she wanted to take on the challenge of learning English and spending months to prepare for action sequences. After 24 hours she called me and said, ‘I saw the anime last night. I liked it and I want to do it.’ I was so happy that the anime attracted her. She spent so much time for the movie.

You have to respect her for taking on the challenge. Did you feel pressure to please the rabid fan base that Blood has?

Yes, we do. We’re fans also so we feel the need to make them happy. We’re big fans too. When I showed the film to Mamoru Oshii, he was so happy that the film was true to the original. I never expected that we could be so faithful to the original. Yes, we feel pressure to the fan base.

What do you think it is about vampires that brings this continued ability for fans to gravitate to their story? It’s interesting.

I don’t know why either. I love vampire movies because they never stop. People like the idea of the vampire. It’s about the imagination and there is a great creative power behind the idea of the vampire. They can’t be stopped.

True. You had a lot of say in choosing the cast for the film. Was it easier to do on this film than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because of the source material or was it more of a challenge?

We had a great variety of people to choose. We got lucky to cast Alison Miller or Liam Cunningham, for example. There’s a lot of great English speaking actors but in a Chinese film it can be difficult.

I think it’s cool that you’re taking an unconventional route, which Blood did originally by doing English translation and then putting a subtitle over it. Does that make it more accessible in the U.S.?

Yes, it does. People in the U.S. have apprehension about reading subtitles.

Right. I have heard a ton of my friends say they have hesitation.

Crouching Tiger was successful in Chinese and it was very successful in America. But we did a survey of people who watched Crouching Tiger and ninety-five percent of Americans chose the English language over subtitles on the DVD.

Hmm.

So they would rather hear it in English. But there are many places in the world where people don’t mind subtitles.

I always think without it that you run the risk of losing something in the translation. What do you want fans to take from this adaptation of Blood: The Last Vampire?

We spent a lot of time and effort in making a special vampire story. I think when people watch the anime that they want to see Saya fight more and show us more action. We are giving that to the public. I hope people do enjoy the fights. Gianna Jun trained very hard to do it and we spent a lot of effort to make it happen.

The original had a unique spin on it and I think you’re doing a good job of taking it to a new level. Thanks a ton for the interview, Bill.

Thank you.

Blood: The Last Vampire is out today in limited release. If it’s not in your area, check out the anime version at your local video rental store. You won’t regret it.

Exclusive: ‘Creative NonFiction’ Auteur Lena Dunham Gets Real

Adam Sweeney — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:02:28 +0000

There aren’t many chances that you get to watch an artist progress in front of your eyes. How many of us would love to see David Fincher’s first productions in a festival? We get that chance with Lena Dunham’s Creative NonFiction, which was selected for screening at SXSW as part of the fest’s Emerging Visions category.

The 22-year-old Dunham wrote, directed and starred in her first feature film as Ella, a liberal arts student writing a screenplay about a mysterious wanderer trying to escape from her relentless professor. At the same time Ella is struggling to find her way through the relationships around her. We sat down with Dunham, who is definitely a talent to look out for, and she was nice enough to walk us through the process of her selection to SXSW, as well as her future ambitions.

FSR: Lena, tell us a little about how you got Creative NonFiction into SXSW.

Lena Dunham: Well I made the movie. It was a long process and something I basically did on my own. It wasn’t like we had a tight crew and an editor. We shot for about four weeks and did post-production for six months. It was very touch and go because I was doing it on my own, so it was a two year process. I shot and then edited for year because I was at school. So I edited and then I took a little break, then I went back and did more changes. I actually applied last year to SXSW with a rough cut that did not get in, because a friend had seen it and said I should give it a shot. That was tough just because getting rejected is disheartening. But from that I learned that submitting a rough cut is something you only do if you feel that the ultimate product is evident in the rough cut that you’re sending. For me, I didn’t feel that the project was done yet, so maybe I shouldn’t have exposed such a young child to a cruel world. A year later, I had a really fine cut and I submitted it. I’m glad I did because Janet Pierson was so supportive. I found out when I was babysitting. One of the things I do is babysit to make money. Believe it or not, making low-budget sixty minute films is not the most lucrative thing.

Really? Because I thought you were big balling.

I know! Aren’t you shocked! But I was babysitting when I got the call and I was almost hyperventilating. A lot of my favorite movies premiered at SXSW so I was really jazzed. The little boy I was babysitting was like, ‘What’s wrong,’ and I was like, ‘Nothing. Nothing!’ Then he stabbed me with a pencil. So if I even had a moment where I was getting a big head, getting stabbed by a seven-year-old with a pencil took me out of that.

(Laughs) I think you could make a short film out of the acceptance. Just have the kid stab you Mike Myers style.

Right, except I was crying for a different reason then, mainly because I had lead in my arm and the kid was a little jerk.

I think it’s cool that you submitted it again. There are some filmmakers that if they had been rejected would have said, ‘To Hell with this,’ and give up the dream.

Well I went to Oberlin College and transferred there because I was originally rejected. So I’ve always had this attitude of, ‘Oh ya don’t like me? I’ll be back in a few months and we’ll see how that works.’ It doesn’t always but I try not to be too offended. But I have a few friends who are programmers and they torture themselves because there are so many more worthy movies than you can find slots for. It’s like college admissions. There are so many amazing kids but it’s about making quotas and politics. You have to trust that the rejection wasn’t a flat out dismissal of what you’re doing.

What was the difference between Ella and yourself. Obviously it’s not an autobiography, but you put what you know into it. Without getting too personal, what were some things you went with and what were some that you said, ‘Okay I will keep this for myself?’

That’s a really good point. Sometimes there are things you want to keep and others you want to share. Sometimes I have trouble with that line. I should probably keep more things for myself. I think the character was very much like me but the great thing of film is that you can take the more ridiculous, comical or naive part of you and shed this light on it. She was very much me but it was part of me that was a little bit more naive and anxious. When I wrote the script it was like me looking back on myself six months ago. When I wrote it I didn’t plan to play the character, but the idea of explaining a character that had so much of me in her to another actress, that was going to be a really challenging process. So if I had the desire to do it, why not? I only understood that the character was so much like me in the sense that I didn’t feel like anybody else could play her.

You’re very self-aware to know that six months for a college student is essentially a lifetime. You look at freshman year as a sophomore and you realize how unbelievably naive you were. You had no clue. We see this in reactions and decisions in Creative NonFiction. For me, I thought Ella writing the script was a way to make sense of her world and escape the world around her. Why did you have her do that?

I had actually had a previously frustrating experience writing a script similar, but less stylized, to the one Ella was writing in the movie. So I know it’s hard to leave your own reality and create another one when you’re in college, this nexus of drama. I think it becomes this exercise to get away from your life but your life keeps seeping in. So it was sort of a comment on that but I don’t think the main character understands how much it mirrors her own life. The rest of the characters are like, ‘Are you kidding? You’re writing your own life but in goofier terms.’ So I think for her she’s like, ‘I am writing this total fantasy sequence.’ To me it was funny and echoed the experience of trying to make work in this extreme kind of turbulence in your life.

You see that in Ella. In the script you see her always dying her hair. She’s trying to radically change the effect the world has on her. And you see that in the relationships she has. She goes from really caring about a guy and seems to hold onto something personal in her virginity, but then when her faith is broken you see her lose it. It’s shocking but it’s real.

It’s sad. For lack of a better world, she says fuck it. Her trust has been broken so she doesn’t feel the need to hold on to that.

I think that’s what a lot of college, I won’t say mainly girls, kids do because you can’t take a survey.

I think more girls in college are comfortable admitting it. I think there are a lot of male virgins but they won’t admit it. They’re like, ‘I’ve had sex with twenty, no thirty girls!’

Yeah, I had sex with my entire creative writing class! Didn’t you know? (AS and LD laugh.) Are there any filmmakers that you look to for inspiration?

I don’t consider myself this super-visual director. Some people like Wes Anderson or Michel Gondry are so focused on production design and shot composition that is so much their own, and I don’t think that is really ever going to be me. I am more story and character oriented but I definitely respect and admire it when I see it. I’m a total movie nerd so there is a ton that gets me excited. It’s such a great medium, whether it’s a superhero film or a cheesy comedy. A filmmaker who I admire for his honesty is Andrew Bujalski. He has taught me to believe that i can make good movies in a low-budget way. I like Nicole Holocener. She’s made Walking and Talking and Lovely & Amazing. She makes great character driven comedies that I appreciate. She’s a great writer. So is Noah Baumbach. Then there are the Gods. I love Woody Allen and others.

A lot of the ones you mentioned started out low-budget. I think you have to start out with character. You don’t have money to blow things up and so you can’t forfeit character. The story has to ring true. I think you were able to do that with your film. Where do you want Creative NonFiction to go next?

I didn’t come here expecting my film to sell to a distributor. At sixty minutes, it’s in no man’s land for a distributor. So if I do release it, it will probably be a self-release that I sell on my own, unless someone wants to snatch it up. I’m fine with that. I’m just happy to show it to whoever wants to see it. But now I am working on another feature so I am psyching myself up to do the next process. This has definitely been a blast from the past.

Well thanks for talking to us.

LD: Absolutely. I’ve never applied to film school but I totally feel like I’d belong in the Film School Rejects category.

Well I don’t know if any of us are literal film school rejects (Editor’s Note: Some of us are). Maybe we will be film school successes.

Film School Superstars.

I think we may have to change our website’s name to that. Thanks.

You can check out more of Lena Dunham’s work at www.pistolskillponies.com

Check out the trailer for Creative NonFiction below.

Exclusive: We Crack ‘Ninja Turtles’ Co-Creator Kevin Eastman’s Shell

Adam Sweeney — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:17:01 +0000

If you’re a comic or cartoon fan like myself, Kevin Eastman’s name is up there as one of the cult classic creators. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been going strong for 25 years, a pretty amazing run. You can grab the Season 7 DVD of the animated series in stores now (or just click that link and head to Amazon). Before you do, check out our interview with Eastman as he talks about TMNT’s past and future, what it’s like introducing his sons to the Turtles and the future Heavy Metal film he is producing that will be directed by David Fincher.

The DVD of the seventh season is out. How excited does it make you to still be involved with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

It’s phenomenal. Just the fact that we’re doing an interview twenty-five years after the original Turtles comic came out is phenomenal. I remember when I told my mother and father around the age of eight that I wanted to be a comic book artist. They said, ‘Well that’s nice, Kevin. Get a real job too.’

The first comic that I did that really took off was so phenomenal back in the day. We did the first issue, we never thought we’d do a second issue. Then we kept getting calls from distributors asking when we’d be doing a second issue, so we were like, ‘I guess we should do a second issue!’ I remember to this day that in January of 1985 we started getting fifteen-thousand advanced orders for a second issue. Pete [Laird] and I were like, ‘Oh my God, if we make 6 of these a year we could make two grand per issue! We could actually pay our rent and survive making a living drawing comic books.’ That was really for us when the dream came true. We fulfilled the fantasy.

I think I was 21 or 22 and we were drawing comics for a living. I didn’t think it could get any better. The fact that it went on a year or so later and we had Hollywood agents telling us it could be a great kids’ show and make great movies, and we were like, ‘No, no. It’s a comic.’ Because of the fact that we owned them, we had the trademark and copyright, we were successful and making some money, so we got a little cocky. So we said the only way we’re going to work with these guys is if we have full say over what these look like, if we have full approval over what they look like, what the stories are like, and what’s done with them period. That’s how we began working on the Playmates toy line and the original five-part episode. The fact we were able to do almost three-hundred episodes of the animated series and do twenty-six episodes for season seven, that’s awesome. (Laughs)

Oh yeah. I love the Turtles. I remember watching them. My friends and I had the Bebop and Rocksteady action figures. We loved Casey Jones. I write and I noticed that whenever you write, there are certain characters you gravitate towards or feel like they represent you. Are there any particular characters you were close to?

Oh, for sure. I always felt like I related to Raphael the best. I was always a little hot-headed. I was very passionate and driven as a kid, so I related to him the most. It’s interesting because Pete is more like Donatello, who is more level-headed and Zen-ish. So we balanced each other. I could get excited and Pete would say, ‘Well calm down. Maybe we can do it this way.’

But Casey Jones was by far my favorite secondary character. He’s obviously one of the main characters with the four turtles, April O’Neill and him. Actually the final story I worked on was a hundred page epic called “Body Count” with Simon Bisley. That featured him and Raphael. I always paired them together because more ideas came together with them. You write so you know that the voice comes to you naturally. It flows and that’s the moment all writers strive for.

Yeah, and with Raphael and Casey there was this take no prisoners attitude. So they work well and it’s interesting to watch the dynamic they have together because one of them is going to have to stand down for a little bit or else they’re going to butt heads, and that doesn’t work too well for Casey or Raphael.

(Laughs) One of the most exciting things is that they were almost more brothers than the other turtles because they were so similar. It’s like putting two Geminis together. One has to stand down and it won’t be an easy process getting there. (Laughs)

For sure. That’s what I loved about the Turtles. On the surface, people can buy into a lot of things, but below that you’re dealing with zen methods. You have the opportunity for rich stories and sometimes you don’t get that in comics or a children’s cartoon.

Well thank you. I think one of the advantages we had is, if you think about it, the absurdity of the story. We had turtles living in a sewer that were ninjas, which isn’t even a remotely honorable art. So we set up an art form where almost anything was possible. You hated to go too silly, and in many cases we did, but it was a pretty wild playground to be creative in. As long as you kept the characters true to a certain personality, you could have a lot of fun.

You’ve had both a live-action and animated film made out of the story. Did you prefer one over the other?

For sure. There were certain enjoyable aspects to each of them. The original comics were so enjoyable because it was two guys in a room drawing whatever they wanted to. When we entered the animated part, it was cool because we had to work with certain limits for the broadcast. But when so many people that had read the original comics, it was essentially a give and take. It was similar in the original sense because you could pace out, have a multi-part story, especially with a thirteen or twenty-six episode season, and have something build to the seventh episode and pay off in the nineteenth episode. That was enjoyable.

By the time we first moved to the live-action movie, the first one especially, that stands out as one of the most incredible moments in Turtle stuff, because it was such an impossible hill to climb. We were like, ‘How will we ever bring these to life in live-action?’ But we had the great fortune to work with Steve Barron, who was the director and such a visionary. Steve brought Jim Henson to the table, who created probably 99.9% of the technology used to make the turtles emote and look real. It was created specifically for that movie. I remember so clearly the first time we came onto the set. It was in New York where they have this street scene and you came around this corner to see the four Turtles in full gear doing jumping jacks in the suits. For a split second you say, ‘Oh my God! They’re alive!’ That was pretty awesome.

With the animated movie we did with Imagi, that was a whole different enjoyable level. The technology had advanced so much that we could highly stylize the Turtles and give them a new look, new movements that weren’t possible in traditional cel animation at the time. Both had their pluses and minuses but the pluses far outweighed the bad.

It makes sense. You watch the live-action films and it’s amazing given the time you made them. It still holds up. A few weeks ago I was watching The Dark Crystal and you see things Jim Henson did. He was so far ahead of his time. You are producing Heavy Metal. What’s it like working with David Fincher?

Well first off, he’s cool as fuck. He’s really an amazing guy. I look back and I bought Heavy Metal, the first edition comic, in 1977. Back then U.S comic books were getting boring. It was the same old comic book approved rehash of Batman and Spider-Man. I still loved comics with all my heart but it was the first time I realized you could do more with it. You could do adult, science fiction, edgy. You could go all over the map. It led me to discover the European artists and lots of American artists that were self-published. I didn’t want to work for Marvel or Disney. I wanted to be a self-publisher. Heavy Metal helped me reap the benefits of the success of the Turtles, which oddly enough allowed me to buy Heavy Metal. (Laughs) I got the first Heavy Metal movie, the Ivan Reitman classic, re-released. Then Heavy Metal 2000 was a single storyline and the technology was up to what I had hoped, so it’s been a long seven or eight years waiting for the opportunity to do justice to the Heavy Metal brand. Along comes David Fincher and he’s like, ‘We’re going to make a fifty million dollar epic Fantasia story. This is going to be the coolest movie ever.’ His excitement is as big as Tim Miller’s from Blur Animation Studios. We tried to get another Heavy Metal anthology for years before Fincher came on board, so the fact you can get us three in the same room, it’s great.

I’ve got breaking news that Fincher and James Cameron are going to be Co-Executive Producers on the film. Fincher will direct one. Cameron will direct one. Zack Snyder is going to direct one and Gore Verbinski is going to. Mark Osborne and Jack Black from Tenacious D are going to do a comedy segment for the film. Three other directors have agreed but we haven’t signed them, but they’re equally as jaw-dropping. So we’re on cloud nine to be working with such an amazing amount of talent.

Awesome. It’s basically a who’s who of badass directors. You could do worse than James Cameron. (Laughs) But you’re like, ‘We will balance it out by having Uwe Boll in there too.’ It’s amazing the way Fincher can handle such dark subject matter but can also have a poignant story. It sounds like it’s going to be great. Have you had a chance to introduce the Turtles to your children?

(laughs) I have and it’s sort of a weird thing. My oldest son is eight and he has been around me so long that he’s like, ‘Well that’s what Dad does!’ It’s not until his mates come over from school and are like, ‘Oh my God, your Dad drew the Turtles!’ that Pete’s like, ‘Well yeah!’ I think he gets excited that other kids are excited about it. We have guy time every night between 7 and 8 after he does his homework. We put on Clone Wars and he gets out his sketchbook. We sort of, I draw clone troopers and battle droids and he draws battleships, so we just fuck around for an hour. It’s fun. He’s like, ‘That’s what Dad does. He draws.’

Most kids are like, ‘What’s your Dad do,’ and you say, “He’s a construction worker. Your kid is like, ‘Well my Dad only created one of the most badass comics for an entire generation. No big deal.’ What are the next big plans for TMNT? Where do you go from here?

We went to the Tribeca Film Festival and the original film was shown for the first time on the big screen since the early 90’s. This cool remembrance and that it still resonates with the fans. To see dads coming to Comic-Con with their kids and they say, ‘I love it as a kid and my kid does now!’ It’s a compliment, then you feel old, and then it’s a compliment again. (AS and KE laugh.) Galen Walker and Scott Mednick just announced that they’re doing a new live-action Turtles movie. They’re going to go back to the real suits, obviously they’ll be enhanced suits with CG. I mean look at Iron Man. I am excited to see how it turns out.

Maybe you can get Corey Feldman some more voice work. That’d be a plus.

(Laughs) You never know. I’ve lived in Hollywood for a while and I’ve run into Corey at The Playboy Mansion. I keep thinking of him as the guy who did Lost Boys, then I’m like, ‘Oh right! You did Donatello and then heroin!’ No, but he’s a funny guy. Funnier yet, Elias Koteas played Casey Jones in the first movie and I joined this new gym ten or eleven years ago, and I see Casey Jones on the treadmill. I was like, ‘Elias!’ It’s neat to run into the characters. Elias is one of the sweetest guys ever and was like, ‘Casey Jones was one of the most fun characters I ever did.’

And he did Zodiac, which Fincher directed, so it all comes full circle.

Yeah. He’s the clockmaker in Benjamin Button and I asked Fincher what it was like to work with him. He told me it was so frustrating to work with Elias because he offered him one of the main roles in Se7en and Elias was just Elias. He takes the roles he wants and doesn’t take the ones he doesn’t like. He is a phenomenal actor and should be much bigger and more famous than he is.

It’s interesting. You have so many people killing to get the big roles, but you have to respect guys who enjoy character work. Sometimes those are the people you remember the most. In the first live-action Turtles film, I still quote one-liners like, ‘A Jose Canseco bat? Tell me you didn’t pay money for this.’ That line holds up even more now.

(Laughs) It’s so true.

Well thanks for the interview, Kevin. We wish you the best of luck and hopefully will get to talk to you again.

Absolutely. Any time, please feel free. I don’t know if you can make it out to the San Diego Comic-Con but come by and say hi. We’ll have the Heavy Metal area set up and the 25th anniversary of the Turtles. It will be an awesome show, so you should make it out.

A Lesson Learned: There is Still Hope For the Summer Movie Season

Adam Sweeney — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:09:58 +0000

Has there ever been a more disappointing set of movies in May than X-Men Origins:Wolverine and Terminator:Salvation in terms of expectations? The Phantom Menace ranks up there as an individual low blow but I don’t recall being as let down. This May felt to me like Hugh Jackman was jabbing me in the crotch with one of his CG adamantium claws.

Thank God we have Pixar to look to. The films they put out seem to almost be invulnerable to critics or flaws. One day we will have to creep into the studios and find out if they actually have superpowers like The Incredibles, because there isn’t a studio that has had a longer and more successful run without slip ups.

It may be easy to point to the box office success of Pixar by saying they make children’s films, thus they have a larger demographic. Very true, but they also make films that translate to the humor of adults and imagine this, they actually improve with every film they make. Can you believe it, a company that strives to be the best at what they do? Who knew it was possible? The reign of Pixar is one of the most impressive feats in film, whether you like their work or not.

It’s only natural to think a movie like Up is going to make more money than the likes of Terminator:Salvation. Other than the fact that it is obviously a superior film, it’s uplifting and inspiring, something a lot of us need currently.

Drag Me to Hell had a decent opening, even if they made a huge error in putting the film against Up. What the Hell were they thinking? Get it, Hell? Cough. The opening weekend numbers aren’t what concerns me about Drag Me to Hell. I am just happy that some love is being shown to Sam Raimi, who had a bit of a fall from grace. By all accounts, even with the venom spewed by our resident reject, Rob Hunter, critics loved the film and it is being called Raimi’s return to his roots. Can he get the next Spiderman right, though? Fanboys everywhere are still raising a skeptical brow, I can assure you.

The smashing success of Up and critical acclaim of Drag Me to Hell means that there is still reason to be optimistic about this summer movie season. I don’t have the erection for Transformers 2 that some do, even if Megan Fox is in it, but you know it is going to draw the crowds in. Let’s hope they have another dog peeing on an Autobot’s leg. Now that was art! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince looks to be an entertaining installment and will have Hogwarts’ homies everywhere chomping at the bit to see the last two films.

This past weekend did a lot to restore faith in this summer. So put the claws away, Judgment Day isn’t here. We still have a fair share of blockbusters, as well as films that will be lifted up for quality. 500 Days of Summer, Moon and The Hurt Locker all make the cut. Don’t call me George Michael but it’s all about having faith. Well maybe you can call me George Michael from Arrested Development. That’s fine.

What do you think?

Exclusive: Dance Flick’s Christina Murphy Show Us Her Moves

Adam Sweeney — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:17:09 +0000

Members of the media focus too often on the negatives of actors and actresses, highlighting their insincerity or one-dimensional skill. You’d be hard-pressed to do that with Christina Murphy, one of the stars of Forgotten Pills and Dance Flick, which opens May 22nd. In Dance Flick, the latest film from the unstoppable comedic force that is the Wayans family, Murphy plays Nora, the catty dancer out to ruin the chances at success of Megan, the film’s heroine. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, the charming and incredibly talented actress took some time to chat with FSR about her humble beginnings, the Wayans family army and why she can’t get cast as the good girl in spite of her down to Earth personality.

FSR: Christina, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. I appreciate it.

Christina Murphy: No, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. You’re my first Texas interview, so I’m excited.

Well, cool. I’m glad I could be the first. Speaking of Texas, you’re from Austin. I was led to believe that Matthew McConaughey was the only actor to come out of the town.

(Laughs) That’s not true. When I first moved out here, my friend from high school, Mehcad Brooks, is on Desperate Housewives and I remember running into him and thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s impossible to make it out here. It’s insane.’ But now I watch TV and I see my friends doing stuff. But we have Farrah Fawcett and don’t we have Marcia Gay Harden?

Oh, Marcia Gay Harden for sure. She’s amazing. Also, there’s Owen and Luke Wilson, right?

Yes. Owen Wilson, who also worked at The Container Store. Before I moved out here, I had work three jobs to make money to move out here. One of them was as a specialist at The Container Store and I heard Owen Wilson worked in warehouse too. I was thinking, ‘Gosh, we are so connected.’

(Laughs) That’s awesome. If you see him you should tell him.

He’d be like, ‘Who are you again?’

You’ll be like, ‘Don’t forget your roots, baby!’

(Laughs) I know. For a while there, I kept updating The Container Store because they had my back. I should probably write them and tell them to go see my movie. I hope they make it there.

I’m sure they will. Talking about the movie, you get to play the bad girl in Dance Flick. How much fun was that?

It was so much fun. My outfits were insane. Some days I would be head to toe in pink. Other days, I had so much jewelry on that I could barely stand, but it’s so much fun to play the opposite of you. You get to bring out sides that people don’t necessarily get to see. I bitch slapped a few people around. I’m kind of malicious in the movie.

I bet that’s how you got the part. You just went up to the Wayans Brothers and gave them a few good bitch slaps.

(Laughs) No, I walked in. I had six auditions for this part, so it’s not like it was just handed to me. I had to really work hard for it. So I walked in as this upbeat and smiley girl, then all of the sudden I had to turn into this catty brat, so it was fun to show them two different sides. Afterwards, they were like, ‘How did you walk in one way and now you’re so mean?’

It seems like those are the roles that most people remember from films like this. You watch Pretty in Pink and I always remember James Spader. To be honest, I could give a damn about Andrew McCarthy in that film, you know?

(Laughs) I actually tested for the lead role, the one Shoshana Bush has. She plays Megan. So when I was auditioning for Nora, the mean girl, I was also testing for the all-American girl, but they just didn’t see it, which is funny that they couldn’t see me as the nice girl. Nora was like she was on PMS every day. Her moods were so up and down. I had to have a lot of colors.

That’s funny because everything about your background screams all-American girl. (CM Laughs.) That’s interesting that they would cast you as that.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to convince people that I’m a sweet girl. I mean all I do is be myself and it still doesn’t work. I don’t know what that says about me.

That’s hilarious. Who knows, every actor loves to play the opposite. It’s cool that you get to do it in such a big film. What was it like working with the Wayans Brothers? It seems like they have every cast member from In Living Color aside from Jim Carrey in this film.

(Laughs) I know! When you see the movie poster, scroll down to the bottom and it’s like Craig Wayans, Keenon Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans. They had cousins, aunts and uncles in this movie. They honestly embraced each and every one of us like we were family. You show up to set and you’re getting huge bear hugs. It was the time of my life. They let us do improv. We really didn’t have to worry about continuity on this movie because once we did one take one way, they wanted you to do something different the next one. We were surrounded by comedic geniuses. Sometimes you felt the pressure because you had to be funny when you came to the set. When you weren’t there were like crickets in the background. It was definitely a blast.

I heard that Damon Wayans just supplied crickets so that he sounded funnier. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

(Laughs) When I first Damon Wayans Jr., I told him, ‘Dude, you are going to blow up.’ He can make a toothpick funny. I can not wait for people to see him in this movie. He’s all the Wayans family wrapped up into one and he’s got another level to him. Then there’s Keenan. He was the one on the set you wanted to make the most proud. If you can make Keenan laugh then you know you’re funny.

They really do have a long comedic pedigree. It will be great to see Damon Jr. do his thing. When In Living Color started, it was about Keenan and Damon, then Shawn and Marlon came along.

Yeah. I asked them how they were so funny, like everything they do, because we all have little jokes that make us laugh once in a while. These guys though, they can make anything funny. They said when they were growing up, that’s how they entertained each other. If you wanted to be the top Wayans, you had to think of the best joke. You can tell that they have been practicing for years. I was crying on the set. I was in stitches.

Another brilliant comedian on the film is Amy Sedaris, who plays Miss Cameltoe.

It’s Cameltoe (puts an accent on the name), Adam. Get it right. (Laughs) Oh my God, that woman was insanely funny. I don’t think they gave her a script. When she came on, she was so funny that I think they said, ‘Just do whatever you want.’ She improvised a scene in the ballet dance. There is a shot behind us where we were uncontrollably laughing. We couldn’t hold it together. I think Damien, our director, was like, ‘Hey Christina, can you wrap it up?’ That woman is insane.

Have you ever met any Miss Cameltoes in your dancing career?

(Laughs) I think my dance instructor when I was five had a cameltoe. But Amy, she had some props in her tights to become Miss Cameltoe. She walked around sporting her cameltoe like no other. She would lift her leg and put it on the ballet bar. She was trying to make us laugh while we were filming. I can’t wait to see her again.

I’ve always been of the belief that if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

(Laughs) I think the audience is going to have a great time. I don’t know how much you get to see since it’s PG-13, but we tried to push the limit. It will definitely be worth buying the DVD for the unrated version.

For sure. Shifting from the comedy, Forgotten Pills is another film you’re in. It looks like the feel good movie of the year.

(Laughs) Yeah, it’s an indie I did and I really wanted it bad. I read the script and it seemed like a great chance for an indie actress to delve into the darker side of how people are. Here I have this really lighthearted film coming out and then this dark one. I love both comedy and drama. This was a really cool idea. Four friends take four pills and forget everything in that four hour period, so all this drama ensues. There’s a murder and you’re not sure who’s done it. There’s a framing. It is definitely the feel good movie of the year.

It looks awesome. I watched the trailer and it’s such a polar opposite from Dance Flick.

Totally When you do indies, you know, you’re not sure how the lighting will come out. This did not have a big budget. The cast, we were watching it a few weeks ago and were blown away. We’re hoping to come to SXSW. The L.A. Film Festival definitely wants us. We hopefully will hit the festival circuit and get distribution, because our director was a genius. For the budget he had, he’s a genius.

Well he started out making it as a short before turning it into a feature, right?

Right! It was a short and I think he edited this whole movie on his Mac computer. I have a Mac and love them, but this looks so professional. It goes to show that anyone can edit a fantastic movie on a Mac.

That gives me hope. You got your Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Texas-Austin in Theater and Dance. Now that you’re getting into bigger films, are you going to continue to do theater?

This is almost shameful. I studied Theater at UT and had the time of my life. I took the best classes but I didn’t once do a play at UT. I always knew I wanted to do TV/film. I knew it was going to be really great training, because if you can learn your lines for something that is two hours long, then you can definitely learn your lines for TV and film. I’ve always seen myself doing theatre later in my career, so I’ll come back to it. Right now, I am so enthralled and passionate about TV and film.

Well my background is in acting and screen and stagewriting, so one I day maybe I can cast you as–

The all-American girl. (Laughs)

Absolutely! That or the heir to the Cameltoe throne. One of the two. Well thanks so much for the interview. If you get to SXSW, let us know. We’re stationed out here.

For sure. I’d let you know for sure. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much. Thanks for picking me up.

For sure.

You can see Christina Murphy in Dance Flick on May 22nd.

TV Review: The Office – Company Picnic

Adam Sweeney — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:46:18 +0000

The Office, NBC, Airs Thursdays 9/8c

Synopsis: The company picnic offers a chance for Michael (Steve Carell) to win back Holly and the Scranton branch to go for volleyball glory.

Review: The Office finished an incredible 5th season by dividing the lines between corporate and the Scranton crew. Is there anything that gets the competitive juices flowing more than the chance to kick your bosses’ ass? What’s sad is that I have seen uber-competitive douchebags like Dwight (Rainn Wilson), Charles Minor (Idris Elba) and Andy (Ed Helms) at picnics that should be for fun.

Amy Ryan and Steve Carell’s chemistry as Holly and Michael has been missed greatly, even if their Slum-Dunder Mifflin Millionaire skit bombed. It happens. All that matters is they went for the gusto. If the Buffalo branch can’t accept that, that’s their loss.

The Office, when it wants to be, can be one of the most charmingly romantic shows on television. Company Picnic was a perfect mix of drama and comedy, appropriate since Michael aspires to find the perfect match. Holly seems to be that woman.

I’d give up a month’s pay to see Amy Ryan return to the show for good, by the way. She has become one of my favorite actresses.

I finally feel bad for Michael’s romantic futility, but love to see how much he’s grown. When has Michael ever shown restraint? Yet this time, he didn’t spoil the chance at a future reconnection with his typical impulsive stupidity. As Michael grows, so does the show.

Jim’s (John Krasinski) reaction to Pam (Jenna Fischer) pointing at her chest and saying, “You don’t grab these for balance,” was classic. This summer, Jim Halpert stars in Vertigo 2.

What an exceptional choice to have Pam’s pregnancy revealed through silence. For a show that makes its name on raucous behavior, it is nailing the little things. Give credit to John Krasinski for being able to handle the subtleties of such a heavy moment. Quality work, good sir.

We all could use a Rolf (James Urbaniak) in our lives to get back at the jerk ex-lovers, right? Where do you sign up for that?

What an incredible ending to a season that has turned all the members of Scranton into more than two-dimensional characters. It had been a while since we got to the heart of our favorite characters, but The Office has returned to what made it a must see in Season 2. These are honest and passionate people looking for happiness and we get to laugh at the awkward journey they embark on to find it. If Season 5 isn’t the best volume so far, it’s right there with the best.

Up Next Week: Summer time and the living’s easy. No new episodes for a while, ladies and gents.

TV Review: Lost – The Incident

Adam Sweeney — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:55:27 +0000

Lost, ABC, Airs Wednesdays 9/8c

“The Incident, Part 1” (Season 5, Episode 16)

Synopsis: Locke (Terry O’Quinn) continues his quest to kill Jacob (Mark Pellegrino). Jack (Matthew Fox) aims to set off Jughead and Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) set out to stop him.

Review: Jacob DOES exist! He does exist! And people hate him! Okay the last exclamatory sentence was overkill, but isn’t it great to finally put a name to a face? The Lord works in mysterious ways and so does Jacob apparently. His manipulation of the islanders before Flight 815 was gripping, to say the least. Mark Pellegrino’s performance was subtle but noteworthy.

The relative ease in which the show handles multiple storylines blows me away. Most shows can only handle one timeline. Try inserting multiple ones, as well as flashbacks and jump cuts to the present and future. Is there any other show that is capable of doing it? If you say Quantum Leap, you lose an eye.

And thank God for Lost taking me back to the good old days when I used to steal New Kids on the Block lunchboxes. I mean… I swear there isn’t a Donnie Wahlberg poster on my wall. Damn you for judging me! I kid.

Part 1 raised a lot of questions for those religious zealots out there who blindly follow a leader/God without questioning the tragedies in their life. (This isn’t an editorial on religion, by the way. Just an opinion Locke’s comments to Ben (Michael Emerson) about his motivation for killing Jacob.) As ruthless as Ben has been, he has dealt with a pretty bad hand dealt to him. It makes you wonder how virtuous we’d be in his situation.

Is there a better way to build suspense than to write a box into a scene and not show the audience what’s inside said box? It worked perfectly in Se7en, it did wonders for Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction and Lost struck gold again with it.

I get that Sawyer doesn’t want any communication with the submarine, but was it necessary or wise to shoot the speaker? Wouldn’t a simple smash with a pistol do? Let’s not forsake being smart for trying to look like a bad ass, guys.

You have to feel for Juliet. No matter what she does, she can’t compete with Kate. Let’s just face it.

The underlying theme of Part 1 seemed to be that the islanders needed to be grateful for what they had in the moment. I remember a friend once telling me that the meaning of life was time, and that we spend so much energy focusing on the past and future, but never embracing the moment we are currently in. It seems to fit in with Part 1, not to mention it might be the foreword for Memoirs from Yoda.

Part 1 set up a showdown between Jack, Sayid, Hurley, Miles and Jin and Kate, Sawyer and Juliet. Who wins? We do! Okay, that was a tease. Deal with it. Not like you didn’t see the episode. Didn’t you?

“The Incident, Part 2”

Synopsis: Juliet gives new meaning to the song “You Dropped the Bomb on Me.” The Dharma Initiative prepare to kill Jack and Locke brings Ben to meet his island maker.

Review: The actions of a person aren’t so important so much as the motivation behind the action. This and many more lessons in life, this week on Lost.

Just when you think you have Lost figured out, they break out a fake Locke on you! What a spectacular surprise. But who is the fake Locke, aside from Jacob’s old enemy? Will we see the true Locke come to life, and why didn’t we know what was coming from the Dead is Dead episode 12 title.

Damn Jack has a twisted sense of romance, doesn’t he? He isn’t willing to simply apologize to Kate in the present, but he has no qualms about blowing up a hydrogen bomb in the name of love. Someone needs to see Dr. Phil.
On the flipside, Juliet is willing to go with Jack’s plan to save herself from heartbreak. Both of these plans worked out pretty much how they wanted, huh? Cough. Love has its say in everything and it is enough for me to forgive the change of heart Juliet has in deciding to help Jack. It also brought one of the most tragic moments the series has seen.

FINALLY we get to see Sawyer and Jack get in on! I haven’t seen fisticuffs that brutal since Roddy Piper in They Live. Okay, yeah I have but that’s not the point. Sometimes you have to let out some aggression.

Questions were raised about free will and how we interpret the events in our life in the second part of the season finale, or basically we saw a much more interesting church sermon. Could this be a metaphor for the battle between good and evil? If Ben isn’t the prodigal son, then I don’t know anything anymore.

It’s clear that the islanders are connected and destined to be together, no matter how hard they try to divide. They’re loyal. You have to give them that.

So did Juliet detonate the bomb or did the energy pocket explode? If it’s the former, then we would destroy the timeline the islanders are on. If not, they die, right? Maybe both events are connected and we get some alternate story to begin Season 6 with. Either way, it was an explosive ending to arguably the best season of Lost ever.

Up Next Week: Not a damn thing! Well, reruns probably. We take a break and puzzle over what the season finale means.

TV Review: Lost – Follow The Leader

Adam Sweeney — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:00:55 +0000

Lost, ABC, Airs Wednesdays 9/8c

Episode: “Follow the Leader” (Season 5, Episode 15)

Synopsis: Jack (Matthew Fox) and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) are at odds over the direction to take to save their fellow island survivors, and Locke (Terry O’Quinn) further solidifies his stance as leader of “The Others.”

Review: What a lead into the season finale Follow the Leader was. There probably weren’t very many people that thought Eloise (Alice Evans) would team up with Jack and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) to try and alter the past, or that Locke had a connection with the island that Ben (Michael Emerson) didn’t. Funny how being resurrected from the dead will do that you.

Locke’s new found confidence may go over well with “The Others”, but if there’s one guy you don’t mess with, it’s Ben. somehow I doubt Locke is going to have an easy ride on his way to kill Jacob, who some of our readers suspect is Locke himself. What say you, fine FSR readers? Is there even a Jacob at all?

Hurley’s (Jorge Garcia) comedic relief never disappoints me. His exchange with Dr. Pierre Chang (Francois Chau) cracked me up, and his math skills are almost as bad a McLovin’s in Superbad. Good thing he didn’t make a fake I.D.

It’s a bit odd to see how quickly Jack has turned over a new leaf. A few episodes ago, he was unwilling to even help save a child. Now he is willing to blow up a hydrogen bomb? Yeah, that didn’t go over too well with Kate, especially when he more or less implied that their relationship wasn’t worth remembering.

There were a lot of memorable scenes that changed our perspective on the story, like Miles (Ken Leung) realizing that his father was actually trying to save his wife and Miles’ lives, not abandon them. Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) continue to forge a relationship that you want to cheer for, but Kate always seems to find her way into things.

Season 5 has been fantastic and set us up for a great season finale. All the roles we have held on to for so long have been reversed. Ben and Richard are at Locke’s mercy, Sawyer is trying to move past Kate, Jack is the one with delusions of grandeur and Kate is the logical one that is now determined to stop him from a potentially disastrous decision. Tell me you aren’t entertained. After 5 seasons, Lost is still the ruler of the television island.

Up Next Week: Jack’s decision to set things right on the island is met with some strong resistance by those close to him, and Locke assigns Ben a difficult task.

Lesson Learned: Don’t Expect Perfection from Superhero Films

Adam Sweeney — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:27:40 +0000

X-Men Origins: Wolverine clawed its way to an outstanding opening weekend, proving that fans love the X-Men franchise, and that it’s best to lower our expectations for comic book films.

“It may sound absurd…but don’t be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed.”

“Superman”- Five for Fighting

When I first heard word that there was going to be a Wolverine origin film, I was thrilled, maybe even a bit giddy. Any comic book lover can tell you that Logan’s story is one of the true treasures of the fanboy. They’d also likely tell you that the X-Men films so far have been a mixed bag. How you go from Bryan Singer to Brett Ratner is beyond me, but then again some people would point out that Superman Returns wasn’t the second coming of The Usual Suspects, so I digress.

In spite of the fact that the original X-Men film already brought a sort of Wolverine origin tale, because you have to admit that the film centered around him, X-Men Origins still raked in $85.1 million this past weekend, good enough for the 5th best comic book opening ever. I’d like to credit a lot of that to Hugh Jackman, but most of the allure was in the adamantium laced character himself. If you have a character that people love, they’ll go see the film even if it has second-rate special effects. I submit Spawn as evidence that a character can overcome a horrible film. It had a 19 million dollar opening.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was ripped by critics for being cliche and overly complicated, the latter of which I would argue is a reason we love Wolverine to begin with, but maybe we should accept the fact that the Wolverine story is better the less we know about it. Wolverine’s story is kind of like that girl or guy at a party that stands in the corner of the room while everyone else parties and acts obnoxiously. You wonder what is so special to them. What makes them different? Then you take them on a date, find out that they live at home with their mother, they cut themselves and are almost religiously devoted to watching Friends episodes. At some point, you say, “Okay, I wish I didn’t know. Please go away and return to your My Chemical Romance/Lady Gaga led paradise.

But should some of the blame be placed on us, the fans, for our expectations of comic book adaptations? How many truly great comic book films have ever been made? I could probably name 10 to 15 that I would watch again. How may could you name, and be honest with yourself. Films like Spiderman 2 qualify as great, in my opinion, but the original Spiderman doesn’t. Were any of the X-Men films truly exceptional now that we have had time to digest them? I’m not so sure.

For every The Dark Knight, there is The Spirit, and that isn’t likely to change. It’d be great if the movie industry would take a lesson from Christopher Nolan or the depth of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man in finally understanding that comic book films can actually transcend the genres and, gasp, just be flat out amazing films. Instead, it is more likely that Hollywood is going to suck the genre dry until it has bled it and us of our money and originality. Maybe I’m wrong, but the more times I see adaptations of my favorite characters botched, the less naive I become, but I don’t blame the characters. Part of me doesn’t even want to blame the comic book companies, though I should know better.

In a perfect world, I’d say that we should boycott bad comic films and only give our money to the cream of the crop. The Dark Knight nearly became the top grossing film of all-time, and I’d gladly give another 20 dollars to it if they re-released it…again. It’s just that good. But we have to be realistic. The majority of Americans are going to keep going to see films like The Fantastic Four because they don’t necessarily care about quality. They want to just see superheroes, the ones they have grown to love, even if they’re less than perfect. In the end, the characters on-screen are only as good as the imprerfect creators of them. Even with superpowers, they’re just human. That’s the main reason we gravitate to them. Maybe it should be the reason that we shouldn’t expect too much out of them.

TV Review: Lost – The Variable

Adam Sweeney — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:45:03 +0000

Lost, ABC, Airs Wednesdays 9/8c

Episode: “The Variable” (Season 5, Episode 14)

Synopsis: Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) sets out to get the islanders off the island for good as Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Jack (Matthew Fox) and the rest of the Dharma Initiative transplants choose a course of action now that their cover has been blown.

Review: For anyone who has been complaining that Lost had been too slow lately, here you go. Those who watched The Variable saw more action than Wilt Chamberlain. They, and by they I mean we, also got a clear explanation of how the islanders got onto the island. You wanted answers, you got them.

The 100th episode was one to remember, as if anyone could remember everything that has happened in the series. Sawyer’s best laid plans blew up in his face, well more in Radzinky’s (Eric Lange) really. What are Sawyer and Juliet going to do now?

Daniel Faraday’s life story was told through flashbacks, as if there is any other way to do it on Lost, and what a tragic life it was, that is if you assume that Daniel is dead, which we don’t think is the case. Davies’ acting was the high point of the episode, and reminded us why he made such an impact in Saving Private Ryan. Who knew that his mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), could be more brutal than Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), his dad. You’d be crazy too if you had parents like that.

Why did we have a new actress playing Ellie? Can someone explain this to me?

Faraday flipped his “whatever happened, happened” theory on its head and figured that the variables, the islanders, could change the past because technically it was the present. That didn’t work out too well for him, and it was ironic that Eloise already knew he was coming to detonate Jughead, the hydrogen bomb. It does, however, make things more interesting, now that we know anyone in the past is mortal. So what wins out, free will or the fundamentals of time travel, ones that that state you can not change the past? We’ll find out.

Can we see Jack play a more significant part? I continue to hear about how Matthew Fox is phoning in his performance this season, but what has he had to do? If the script calls for your character to say, “No, I’m not going to help,” and then sit there defiantly, well that’s what you do. He’ll become a major part of the story, I’m sure, but it’s a little surprising to see him sit back and watch everything happen. Sometimes you have to just let go, I guess.

Before the Oceanic 6 reunited, Jack said they had to go back to the island. We still technically haven’t seen the group all together at their beginning point on the island. If the writers want to continue their theme of returning where you came from, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where the series ends. I really hope, however, that they don’t end it by returning everyone back to their normal lives, as was Daniel Faraday’s plan. That would be the ultimate “Why the hell did we watch this series?” ending.

Before we go, we have to ask this: do you love or hate Kate? It seems like she has played Jack and Sawyer like two fine tuned fiddles. Even Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) sees it. We’re fond of her but wonder at what point are one of the two main guys going to take a stand and say, “Hey, could you stop banging us or screwing with our heads?”

Up Next Week: Jack and Kate are at odds over the direction to take to save their fellow island survivors, and Locke (Terry O’Quinn) further solidifies his stance as leader of “The Others.”

TV Review: The Office – Casual Friday

Adam Sweeney — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:00:46 +0000

The Office, NBC, Airs Thursdays 9/8c

Episode: “Casual Friday” (Season 5, Episode 24)

Synopsis: Michael has to mediate a dispute within his new sales team. Meanwhile, trouble brews in the office when several employees take the term “casual” Fridays too loosely.

Review: The chickens have come home to roost, y’all! Michael (Steve Carell), Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Ryan (B.J. Novak) returned to Dunder Mifflin but haven’t lost the bond that was forged with the Michael Scott Paper Company, resulting in the alienation of the rest of the Scranton branch. A mutiny is on the rise, my lads and lasses! Michael found out that his push against corporate backfired, hurting his Scranton family’s feelings, which is really what is important. So he had to give the employees back the clients MSPC stole, and make a “difficult choice” of whether to keep Ryan or Pam as a sales client, which really isn’t that difficult of a decision when you really think about it. It’s only the fact that Michael is so misguided that there was a real risk of Pam getting fired. I will admit that I thought she was gone. Don’t fake fire people, Michael. You fake fire a piece of our heart when you do. Wasn’t that A Pat Benatar or Janis Joplin song?

It’s cool to watch how Michael is learning from his mistakes. In the past, he would have gone crazy and made everyone look like idiots. He did that to a lesser degree, but handled the situation relatively maturely, displaying the progression of his character after leaving and running his own business. Well played, The Office writers.

“Don’t read the secret memo” is the new “Don’t eat the yellow snow.” Mark it down.

I am pretty sure that I have had a boss send me to the complaint department, a trash can, the same way Michael did to Dwight (Rainn Wilson). It’s good to know that insulting Dwight comes so easily for him. It’s like riding a bike really.

Why do people keep dogging on Pam’s looks? Are they looking at the alternatives?

Did anyone ever think Pam and Phyllis (Phyllis Smith) would wear the same clothes? That’s a very strange coincidence. I will say this. Pam better not cross her again. Phyllis will cut a bitch, straight up and put them on ice in a Vance refrigerator.

Maybe I’m alone on this one, but Meredith’s (Kate Flannery) Paris Hilton imitation is hot. Just saying. Okay, I am joking. Hot? Probably not. Hilarious? Hell yes.

When Jim (John Krasinski) admitted Pam’s tendency to be shrill when she’s sleepy, I could have sworn that Michael was going to run and tell her, causing a big blowup between the perfect couple. Wouldn’t that have been classic Michael Scott? When did he learn to keep a secret?

Casual Friday lacked the depth that the previous three episodes had, but maybe the show needed a break from serious behavior. You have to find a balance between the grave and goofy. Where the next obstacle will come from is anyone’s guess.

Up Next Week: Michael enters the cafe-disco business. Meanwhile, Pam and Jim decide to take a secret trip.

Did you check out Casual Friday? If so, what did you think? If not, well why the hell not?

A Lesson Learned: We Love Crazy Bitches

Adam Sweeney — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:43:09 +0000

In an effort to better understand the psyche of the beloved moviegoer, we analyze last week’s box office numbers. We found out nobody wants the good girl. America loves a good catfight.

Last weekend, America had the chance to watch Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. take a tag team approach to getting an Oscar in The Soloist. We could have even gone green by seeing Earth, where Disney promised to plant a tree for every ticket sold. Instead, and we should have known this was bound to happen, we wanted to watch a mild version of Fatal Attraction in Obsessed. We didn’t even get a remake of the whip cream bikini Ali Larter rocked in Varsity Blues. The film was ripped apart by critics, so what gives? Is Beyonce really that fierce? Let’s check out the stats and try to find out.

This is Beyonce’s (who I call Bizunchay for fun) 6th major film release. While she has had relative success, with 3 films grossing more than $80 million, we’re not quite ready to call her a leading lady yet. No real disrespect to Knowles, but she is at her best when she is belting out a tune and not belting women in the mouth. Still, this was her best opening since Austin Powers in Goldmember, her first big screen role.

Ali Larter isn’t being confused for Kate Winslet by anyone either. In fact, she wasn’t even listed in the index for Box Office Mojo. Ouch. Someone needs to do something about that. Hasn’t she been in enough movies?

The film echoes the likes of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Fatal Attraction, two films that did really well. Hmm, all three psychos were blondes. Maybe there’s something to be said for that.

So we have a cast of relatively unproven big screen actors, though Beyonce is a household name, and it scores $28 million in the opening weekend. Maybe we should turn to TV to understand how this happens. The Hills, starring Heidi Montag and Lauren Conrad, is one of the most dull shows on television today, yet it continues to draw viewers. Why? People love drama… and watching rich snobs make pensive faces as well, I guess. But we only need to look back at The Jerry Springer Show and know that America loves to watch a train wreck. We don’t really care about substance sometimes, so long as we get to see two hot girls claw each others’ eyes out. And what guy doesn’t want two women fighting over him?

The success of Obsessed comes from three truths: 1) It gives a chance for women to see a character like them assert their loyalty to their lover, while letting out the inner panther that society asks them to keep caged. 2) Most men think Beyonce and Ali Larter are hot as the Texas weather and are suckers for watching girls fight or have sex. Watch a frat boy nearly cream himself when you mention lesbians and tell me I am wrong. Of course, they don’t consider the fact that most lesbians look like Ellen Degeneres, who I am not saying is hideous, and not Jenna Jameson and Jenna Haze. But that’s neither here nor there. Back on track? Great. 3) We love drama, and Obsessed gives us the chance to shake political correctness for a couple of hours. The film could have been called Bitch, That’s My Man! and it would have made just as much money, maybe even more.

The majority of us have had to deal with a crazy ex or dated someone who had one, but the law and our reasoning say we can’t do anything but grin and bear it. Movies allow us the chance to change that notion. If a dude goes psycho on your daughter, you can push him to his death a la Mark Wahlberg in Fear. Is a girl stalking you on Facebook or boiling your bunnies? No problem. Drown her and shoot her between the eyes like Michael Douglas did in Fatal Attraction. Hell, the psycho may even win an Oscar for it. Obsessed succeeds, well at least financially, because it hits close to home while taking us out of the burdening restraints of reality when we deal with psychos at home. We say that we hate psychos. We’re lying. It’s time to admit that we love crazy, especially when it’s crazy beautiful.

Film School Rejects » Adam Sweeney

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