Michelin Man: The Movie

Recently, Michael Eisner's company announced that they would be bringing Bazooka Joe to the big screen, and I wondered if Hollywood has any perception of the future they're creating.

Check IMDb: there are movie versions of Stretch Armstrong, Battleship, Monopoly and Ouija Board in development, along with an updated take on Clue. Over time, they've also tried to make Slinky, Super Soaker and Hot Wheels into movies, and of course we've succeeded in gracing theaters with Bratz, Transformers, and the 1980's gem Mac and Me, which regardless of the blatant E.T. rip-off, was clearly a movie about McDonald's. Really?

The point of adapting an existing, established brand name is that you have a built-in audience, but what exactly is the audience for Bazooka Joe comics? How many people out there love Joe so much they'll leap at the chance to see a movie with his character? But more importantly, do we really want to look forward to a future where all we've got coming out is licensed properties? I mean, we're pretty much already there: seeing Star Trek a second time this weekend, they played the trailers for Land of the Lost, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra and Transformers: Rise of the Fallen. And these are at least properties with established fans, who are going to go see the movie adaptations in question. I can't imagine people lining up for Stretch Armstrong, and even if people would, I don't think I want to see it.

It's easy to complain about established franchises and the growing commercialization of Hollywood, but I wonder if people even think about what they're missing. Instead of a Beverly Hills Cop for the 21st century, we're probably going to end up with a literal new Beverly Hills Cop movie. Instead of any Die Hard-level action movies, we're going to have to a third Transformers or future X-Men prequels. Our generation won't get a Ghostbusters or a Back to the Future, we're just going to get more of what we've already had, whether that means sequels, reboots, or adaptations we don't want, like the unfortunate Bazooka Joe.

But I'd like to be wrong. Let's hope summer 2010 brings us a blockbuster of surprising scope and exhilarating invention, and that no part of the idea came off of the back of a bubble gum wrapper.

Re: Are These the 20 Best Films of 2008?

This was first posted on the film ick Fightback on December 17th, 2008. Since film ick itself is currently offline and The Fightback only has three posts -- all by me -- I'm going to repost it here for the sake of preservation.

I don't know if this is still my top 10 of 2008 (I saw a few more films that aren't included), but I figured I'd save the article anyway. Additionally, my criteria for including a film on a yearly list is that it received its widest US release during that year (which is why The Signal is included, among others).

Obviously, I didn't see every film released in America in 2008, but of the ones I did see, here are my top 20 picks (up from 10) with a little added commentary.

01 The Wrestler (2008)
A tragedy to its very core. Some have criticized that The Wrestler is cliche, but it's the sincerity of the film that's so powerful, and Mickey Rourke is nothing but sincere.

02 Synecdoche, New York (2008)
I only saw this movie once, so I'm not entirely sure what it means. But I do know it features a stellar ensemble cast doing remarkable work in service of something truly, absolutely original.

03 Let the Right One In (2008)
There's something magical about the way kids regard one another, and it's captured perfectly in this Swedish vampire story. A couple strange missteps (including CGI cats) can't deter the charm of the film's two leads.

04 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is getting a lukewarm reaction from American critics because the film doesn't have much of a statement to make, about life or otherwise. It is simply the portrait of two people, and as far as that goes I was enchanted the entire time. The last shot is sorrowful.

05 Funny Games US (2007)
Either you love Funny Games or you hate it. There's not much more to it I can add -- the experience is so subjective, you just can't know anything about it until you've seen it.

06 Doubt (2008)
The acting is uniformly excellent in Doubt, perhaps the best of the year. I'd have ranked it higher, perhaps, but I was struck by how off-putting I found the last minute of the film.

07 The Signal (2007)
Taken by itself, The Signal might seem pretty slight or unremarkable, but it's the first three-director anthology I've seen that really worked (perhaps because this film tells one consecutive story instead of three short ones), had sharp horror-comedy, and was made for less than $50,000. Underrated and highly entertaining.

08 Burn After Reading (2008)
The first time I saw this movie, it just flew way over my head. I thought the Coens had let me down. When I saw it again, I couldn't stop laughing.

09 Gran Torino (2008)
The joys of Clint Eastwood are captured easily by the man himself in this well-acted action thriller that perfectly demonstrates how a film can have dramatic resonance and still be a pure crowd-pleaser.

10 In Bruges (2008)
A perfectly-scripted comedy thriller that contains a surprise gem of a performance from Colin Farrell and very funny, ludicrous gags. Good thing a friend of mine saw it or the bad Lock-Stock style American ads would have kept me away.
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11 Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Joyous and exciting, with a great cast.

12 Pineapple Express (2008)
Slightly twisted action film all but stolen by Craig Robinson.

13 The Dark Knight (2008)
See the bottom paragraph.

14 JCVD (2008)
Endearing and funny, with a great performance by Van Damme.

15 City of Ember (2008)
A solid family adventure that features some of the most beautiful production design of the year.

16 Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)
The best film Kevin Smith has made since Dogma, which uses Seth Rogen and a Live song to perfect effect.

17 WALL-E (2008)
A visual masterpiece. Like most, I would have preferred more of the first third of the movie, but still a great film.

18 The Lucky Ones (2008)
All three of the leads are good, but this corny, even TV-level drama is elevated incomparably by Rachel McAdams, who deserves an Oscar nomination she isn't going to get for her work here.

19 Get Smart (2008)
A sharper and wittier action movie than it got credit for. I'm sure of all 20 picks, people will question this the most, but I stand by it.

20 Ghost Town (2008)
The performances make this one, and Ricky Gervais' touches to the writing are excellent.

I (like many) have to disagree with Brendon about The Dark Knight. An unbalanced and overlong film, sure, but also often very exciting and highly entertaining. I can agree to disagree, Brendon, but you said that we've had "the wool pulled over our eyes" -- how can a film dupe us into being entertained?

Downloads and Blu-Ray

This was first posted on the film ick Fightback on January 5th, 2008. Since film ick itself is currently offline and The Fightback only has three posts -- all by me -- I'm going to repost it here for the sake of preservation.

This is something I posted on another website in response to a) the suggestion that Blu-Ray will never be more than a niche format and b) the suggestion that digital downloads are the forseeable future.
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You say that laserdisc didn't catch on, well, not only was technology, that exponential mover and shaker, exponentially more expensive back in the mid-'90s, but as we invent more gadgets and doo-dads your average Joe ends up with more technology in his house (computer, HDTV, DVR, DVD player, surround sound, iPod, digital camera, game system, projection screen, hi-def DVD, Sirius/XM/satellite, On Demand, whatever) than he did 15 years ago. Not to mention the fact that a laserdisc was the size of a vinyl -- time has shown that people like their technology conveniently sized.

With the digital signal change in February 2008 I think people are just looking to upgrade. Neighbor Bob goes over to Neighbor Dan's house and sees his brand new 50" crystal-clear LCD or plasma screen hooked up to DTS 6.1 and he runs out and gets one. Plus, both Joe and Bob's 20-something kids are twice as techno-savvy and they don't even need to see their neighbor's display to know they want an HDTV. Even if you don't have waves of people snapping these up yet, people know what they are, and if a TV breaks these days, why go for the diminishing selection of $200 25" tube TVs when you could drop $200 more and get something much nicer?

And if HDTV is the way of the future, then Blu-Ray is the next step. People buy an HDTV and they grab the TiVo and start watching the HD channels and then, lucky them, it turns out the game system the kids want is also an hi-def DVD player, and that's all it takes.

Now, sure, I don't see Blu-Ray stomping or even thumping on the SD-DVD behemoth. But to think that this format couldn't easily be ten times as big as it is now by the end of 2009, much less 2015, is ridiculous.

The thing about downloading is that the majority of the people who currently download movies just watch them once and delete them, not to mention the fact that they're probably pirates and want stuff for free. Sure, digital downloads could easily erase, say, the video-rental market in the forseeable future, but try to imagine a world where the Best Buys and Circuit Citys of the world don't carry physical media -- it just doesn't seem possible, and until we're in flying cars I don't think it's a real risk. If Blu-Ray, an easy-to-understand next-gen format that's basically like what we have and love but better, is not going to top SD-DVD, then how can we possibly suggest that digital downloading, a somewhat foreign non-format that easily alienates or disinterests potential users will somehow dwarf both SD-DVD and Blu-Ray, not to mention material media in general?

Paramount and HD-DVD

This was first posted on the film ick Fightback on August 21st, 2007. Since film ick itself is currently offline and The Fightback only has three posts -- all by me -- I'm going to repost it here for the sake of preservation.

It's been widely reported that Paramount has joined the HD-DVD camp and I am almost gobsmacked by what a poor choice this is. On AICN someone from Paramount suggests that Blu-Ray is only "allegedly" winning the format war, mere weeks after sales of 300 skewed Blu-Ray by a great margin.

The most baffling thing about the decision is that there appears to be no upside for anyone. Blu-Ray customers who want Paramount movies will not switch to HD, they will merely be frustrated by the unavailable movies and will probably buy them in standard definition. Paramount doesn't exactly have a boatload of super blockbusters on slate aside from Transformers, and it sounds like the title may not end up exclusive after all (after hearing that Spielberg supports BR, I was prepared for this announcement and suspect there might be at least a couple more of them). Paramount may have netted in the range of $150 million to jump the Blu-Ray ship, but even if HD-DVD stays afloat, Paramount will probably end up losing a considerable portion of their revenue if nobody buys their HD titles (since it looks like they'll be able to get the good ones on BR and stuff like "Blades of Glory" isn't going to benefit from hi-def). Meanwhile, HD-DVD will sink further because they just blew a massive amount of cash on a deal with gaping holes in it. On top of all that, I'm sure word will spread that Spielberg is a Blu-Ray supporter and that might cause at least a handful of hardcore fans to adopt. And, of course, if HD-DVD fails during the Christmas season Paramount is just going to look really, really stupid.

Paramount suggests that the format is cheaper for consumers and is therefore better. This is ridiculous, although it has some ground in reality as I have heard several people state that they've gone for HD over Blu-Ray simply because HD players are cheaper. By Christmas, however, I expect PS3s to go on sale and Blu-Ray players to drop, and even if Blu-Ray fails to crush the competition, assuming their sales hold up that's still approximately a 70/30 margin in favor of Blu-Ray. It is again, puzzling that Paramount chose to make this decision now when in a mere four months we'll have a great idea of where the format war is going (not that we don't already).

In any case, I expect something big to happen very soon. It seems like people are beginning to sound off on the format war, as both Universal and Microsoft have made controversial statements to suggest they're keeping it alive for no reason. It would be particularly impressive (and probably deadly to HD-DVD) if Blu-Ray used a similar cash bid to buy Universal's format neutrality -- surely they see the negativity getting thrown at Paramount for making this decision (not to mention Universal owns at least a couple of Spielbergs), this is their opportunity to look like the good guy by finally buying their way out of being the last man standing.

UPDATE
So it seems that Michael Bay has retracted his statement about wanting Transfomers to go format neutral. We'll see. Again, this is based on the silly assumption that the cheaper player is undoubtedly what's best for the consumer. You can buy a lot of cheap standard-def DVD players at any old Wal-Mart, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

A few other notes worth making: Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits has lots to say here and here (both posts). Most intriguing are his suggestions about why Microsoft has jumped into the game, and the way Paramount staffers feel about this decision.

From forums I've surfed I hear a lot of negativity towards Hunt and The Bits about their decision to support Blu-Ray. Perhaps they're seen as one-sided. I do happen to agree with them, but if HD-DVD is willing to make a good play towards being competitive, then so be it. I don't think this Paramount deal is it, however. I'd also like to stress that I don't think the format war will be over after Christmas 2007, but I think it will be the writing on the wall. Certainly Paramount and Universal will continue to support and produce HD-DVDs for at least a couple years to come but should Sony move a million PS3s and Blu-Rays this Christmas and Toshiba and Microsoft sell a mere 20,000 units each, then it will be hard to argue that those numbers aren't indicative.

I'd also like to add that I work in retail and I don't think losing Transformers as an HD-DVD will mean a lot to consumers anyway. People will complain but in general I expect (as they often do) they will simply settle with the SD-DVD -- my point remains that no single title, no matter how big, is likely to sway someone into dropping down $300 to get a new technology (especially since you also need a hi-def television).

An Interview with Actors Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson

This interview took place on or around July 15th, 2006 at a hotel in Seattle, to promote Kevin Smith's return to the View Askewniverse with Clerks II. It was posted on both the ComingSoon.net and View Askew message boards, but I'm reposting it here for the sake of preservation.

Tyler Foster: What, in the past, would you have said, not when Kevin brought you the script, but before, when fans would ask about a Clerks II?
Jeff Anderson: I wasn't a big fan of doing a sequel to Clerks, when Kevin came to me with it, we had lunch, I didn't want to do it. You know, Clerks is a weird movie, it's had a lot of odd things going for it, and somehow caught on, and it's not a movie that screams for a sequel, you know, and Kevin coming off Jersey Girl, I was curious what his intentions were, it didn't seem like a good move on his part. It was...the whole thing was kind of odd, I didn't immediately warm up to it.

Tyler Foster: Do you think maybe the existence of the cartoon maybe helped the fans feel that you could go back to this universe without doing injustice to the original film?
Jeff Anderson: I don't know, 'cause the cartoon is so different...
Brian O’Halloran: Separate worlds...
Jeff Anderson: ...it's like it's completely different, you're doing stuff in the cartoons that you could never do, you know, shoot live-action, so, it was, I think it was kind of a different animal.
Brian O’Halloran: Yeah, it was something that had no effect time or storyline to the originals, and the other parts of that world, it was just something that reminded people of these characters, is pretty much about all. I mean, when he approached me to do it, you know, I was, being a working actor, wanted more work, I was like, "Yeah, sure," you know, just having faith in Kevin and his writing, that he'd be able to tackle it. When we were doing the cartoon, I remember he was telling me about some of the ideas, that some of the future episodes, if it had gone on, where he was drawing some of the ideas for the sequel from, which I thought was pretty funny.

Tyler Foster: Just as a curiosity, what exactly was it like auditioning for the infamous, apparently horrible live-action "Clerks" TV pilot?
Jeff Anderson: You know, that was really weird...that came about...I don't think any of us even knew about it.
Brian O’Halloran: Yeah, I found out, I was actually meeting with different agents at the time, out in L.A., and I remember this one agent I was having a meeting with, I was interviewing with, said, "So you're going in for the "Clerks," you know, the Clerks TV sitcom, right?" And I thought she was kidding, like, "Ha ha, yeah, wouldn't that be appropriate," And this agent is, "No, there is," and she brought out the treatment, she's like, "Look." I'm like, "No, this is the first time I'm hearing about this." "Well, would you like me to send you in on this?" You know, trying to gain my business, so to speak, so I was like, "Yeah, sure, set it up." And I had called Kevin and Kevin didn't even hear about it at the time, either. And I had called Kevin, going, "Kevin, what's going on," he wasn't involved with it at all, because Disney owned Miramax, they had the rights to it, and Warner Brothers came and wanted to get the license to do it, and they were given the permission to do it, and that word got around this circle of us, and we were like, "Did you hear about this?" "No, I didn't hear about it," and they started sending us in, and we were like, late into the audition process.
Jeff Anderson: Yeah, when I went in there, it was again, it was already...my part was cast already, and it was a TV show, and I don't know what we were doing, some sort of publicity thing I was doing with a film crew, and they thought it would be funny to film me going in and auditioning for this, and I was like, "But my part's already taken." So I actually went in and auditioned for Dante, and I read the script and thought it was horrible, and I'm like, A, I'm not going to go here because it's horrible, but B, I'm going to audition as Dante? That's a little bizarre. And they were like, "It's going to be fun for TV." So, I went in and did the audition, but really had no interest in being part of it, and actually when I saw it afterward, it was a couple years later, I think Kevin got a copy of it, and it was like "Saved by the Bell: Clerks," it was just horrible.
Brian O’Halloran: It was the production value like that. That's just the thing, it's a television thing, if you're going to make a sitcom for Clerks, it's gotta be something like, on HBO...
Jeff Anderson: The Randal character, he worked in an ice cream parlor, it was an ice cream parlor attached to a convenience store.
Brian O’Halloran: And I remember Kevin just flipping out, going to the production company, going, "You can do anything you want, but you can't have Jay and Bob, the Jay and Bob characters," and he arranged it somehow so they couldn't do...they had no intention to, apparently, but yeah.
Jeff Anderson: Well, it was kind of funny when it came about, because Kevin didn't know about it, right, and then all of a sudden, he became the executive producer on it, and then when I was going to audition, I was literally walking onto the lot as Kevin and Scott were walking out, and I was like "So, you're both producing it?" and they went "No. We're out of here." And I was like, "Well, I'm going to go in and read for Dante for these TV guys and then I'm out of here too."

Tyler Foster: Do you think a new live-action show could be done following the events of Clerks II if Kevin was involved?
Brian O’Halloran: I don't know, I don't think so.
Jeff Anderson: I think pretty much the live-action Clerks stuff is over.
Brian O’Halloran: I mean, if there was any interest, I mean, if they threw boatloads of money, and even then it would be hard...it would have to be on a cable format, it just could never work on mainstream TV.

Tyler Foster: Will you return to the cartoon show?
Brian O’Halloran: Well, that's actually in the works. Not so much as a series, but as a direct-to-video unrated movie. I think Kevin has talked in other interviews about how he's working on that in, I think, 2008.
Jeff Anderson: That animated stuff was hard to believe we were paid to be there. We would be in there crackin' jokes, some of the stuff that was going on in some of those recordings...
Brian O’Halloran: Yeah, it was just so much fun. Exactly, it was great just to meet some of these great guest stars that we had, they were just so hysterical. Michael McKean, he was a pisser to work with, Dana Gould, he's executive producer of "The Simpsons" now, he was funny as hell, you know, all those guys...it was just like, God, so much fun, I think he had a suggestion where we should do an episode where we're all just in our underwear, and record it that way, and that was like, "Well...okay...", but to think that we could do that...no one would ever know, just so funny.

Tyler Foster: Well, there's always the example of "Family Guy," and do you think if the cartoon movie was a big success and another channel offered, you'd be willing to do a new incarnation of the cartoon show?
Brian O’Halloran: I'm already reserving my seat at that microphone already, I've been crying about that cancellation ever since 2000. I mean, I was thinking, I'm set, this is the job where I can do other projects, and then just come down and lay down tracks, not even be in the city and lay down dialogue tracks. As a kid, I've always had a fantasy and a dream of working on cartoons, I've always been into voices, and stuff like that, that was my dream job...you'd just have to tell me when and where, and I'd do it.
Jeff Anderson: Yep. Animated, I'm there.

Tyler Foster: Do you think if the animated series had continued you still would have done Clerks II?
Brian O’Halloran: Hmm, that's a good question. I don't know if we'd have needed to do a Clerks II at that point.
Jeff Anderson: I think the animated series, the way it was, helped put it back in Kevin's mind, to do the movie was sort of back there, but, that's a good question, if it had kept going, maybe we wouldn't have come back to this. I think maybe he would have exercised some of the stuff that he wanted to tell in an animated fashion.

Tyler Foster: How much, if any, of the version of this film that turned into Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back made it into the finished film? Did you ever see a script for that version?
Jeff Anderson: I don't know, that wasn't...I very rarely keep up on any of this...
Brian O’Halloran: Yeah, I don't think any of this came out of Jay and Bob at all, I mean, he had ideas, what if, he were ever to do a sequel, he had, I think just three elements, that eventually made it into the film, that he was like, I definitely want to do it, you know, I want this in it, I definitely want to have something like this in it, and I kinda want it to wind up where they're like this, and the rest was all done... 'Cause the idea came to actually do it after, when we were working on the ten year anniversary DVD, we went into the studio to put down the vocal tracks for the missing scene, which was the funeral scene, in which we animated similar to the style of the cartoon, and I guess after coming off an underperforming Jersey Girl, and hearing these characters, and reminding himself of a time when we just had a fun, fun time shooting a very funny script, he just wanted to do it again, and he came to us, "what do you think, do you want to a Clerks II," and then after we said yes, and Jeff saying, "Well, you know what, let me see a script first, and we'll see what happens," when he pounded that out, I think it was only within 30 days or 40 days that he pounded out Clerks II, and then us reading it, but I was like, "Wow, this is great," and so the elements from the other world and the other films, there wasn't much in it.

Tyler Foster: What, if any, was the one element you felt you had to preserve from the original Clerks?
Jeff Anderson: I don't know if there was a specific element...I mean, even when Kevin came to me, like, trying to sell me on the idea of doing it, even in my own mind, I didn't really know what it had to be, the sequel. That's why I couldn't figure out why he was so set, like "I know what it has to be." It didn't seem that obvious to me, and I wasn't quite sure what needed to happen in II, but I was sure it was something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, so I was just curious to read it like that. And I think some of the stuff that helps it, the new one, is the emotional stuff that's in it, and I wouldn't have thought that that's what it needed. Like, if you had asked me, I would have said, "I don't know what it needs, but it can't be just us sitting behind the counter making fun of people again." I wouldn't know what it is that it needed, but I think the surprise thing, the thing that's going to catch people off guard is the emotional levels this time around as opposed to the first time, where it's similar that it's a day in the life, but there's stuff going on with these guys this time, so I think that's what was needed.
Brian O’Halloran: Exactly, I couldn't have...I wouldn't have been able to pin it. I mean, yeah, you're going to want to have one or two customers being shouted at, or whatever, because people love that, that type of shit, but yeah...he tackled it, I think, brilliantly.

Tyler Foster: Kevin has always said that if Clerks is his life at 20, then Clerks II is his life at 30...
Brian O’Halloran: Absolutely, I mean, all his films are that way. I mean, it's definitely...every one of his films is pretty much where he stands on life and what he's questioning about life at that moment, you know, religion in one sense, relationships with best friends and a lesbian thrown in, and Jersey Girl and Mallrats, I mean it's pretty much you can see it going on, so now he's in his 30s, and he felt like he could see where these guys would be, where their fears of where they're lacking are to be, I think it was something that he could totally pull from his heart, and get the best of each film and plop it into there.

Tyler Foster: Well, do you think you also needed to be where you are now to make this movie?
Brian O’Halloran: I think so, I mean, you know, if he wrote these characters as they were in their 50's, I think it would be hard for us to relate in a sense...it's helpful to be playing characters that you are age appropriate for, so you can play it identifying with their problems and their fears.

Tyler Foster: Was anything major cut out of the film?
Brian O’Halloran: Well, actually, there was this really funny one scene, which is a second half of the driving scene, coming back from the go-karts, which was Randal's, which was hysterical, which I'm kind of upset to see go, because it was just so hysterically funny.
Jeff Anderson: You're upset to see go?
Brian O’Halloran: Well, yeah, you had to memorize seven pages of dialogue.
Jeff Anderson: Seven pages, and he cut the scene out. You'll definitely see that as a deleted scene, and it's gonna be a deleted scene, and I hate to start hawking the DVD already, but that scene alone is worth the price of a DVD, it's a scene coming back from the go-kart track, whereby, I in a quite convincing fashion, I try and convince Dante how he could in fact impregnate his own mother through masturbation. It's a seven page scene in which I lay out every possible argument.
Brian O’Halloran: It's funny as hell, all during this drive. And then there's another scene with Wanda Sykes and this other stand-up comic by the name of Earthquake, who are two customers waiting for food, and there's a scene going on between me and Rosario while making the food, and then there's their little side conversation, where Kevin just said, you know, talk amongst yourselves, just make it look on camera like they're talking, and it was so funny that he immediately flipped the camera around and said, "Just go," for a full eleven-minute mag of film, and we just let them riff, and that was just so, so splitting, so I'm sure you'll have that customer rant on the DVD as well.

Tyler Foster: Did the Miramax/Weinstein split interrupt the film?
Brian O’Halloran: It delayed it, it delayed it by about a year and a half, I know that much, between that happening, and Kevin getting involved with and being cast in a film called Catch and Release, which comes in out in January, with Jennifer Garner, between that, the pushback that Miramax, with the Weinsteins leaving Miramax, and then also him being cast...year and a half. I remember I was putting things on hold for quite awhile, thinking, "oh yeah, we're going to do it this month," or "Oh, we're gonna do it in two months."
Jeff Anderson: That actually almost caused more trouble than anybody knew, because in that push time: my feet were cold. And Kevin got a few phone calls during all the time pushing it and pushing it, where I was just like, "You know...still not convinced. This isn't a good idea." We went to dinner a few times, he had to talk me off the ledge a few times.

Tyler Foster: And Jeff, your film is still scheduled to come out on DVD from them this year?
Jeff Anderson: Scheduled to come out on DVD by the Weinstein Company, should be out alongside Clerks II.

Tyler Foster: Well, the sequel is great, and it's pretty amazing how close you guys have stayed to the characters even after 10 years, watching Clerks and Clerks II, it's almost identical...
Brian O’Halloran: Yeah, that carbonite really helps us out. We're well preserved that way, Kevin's like "Okay! Here you go, Bri!" "Ohh, what year is it?" "Ten years later. Boy, carbonite really fattened you up." "Well, what do you want me to do, it's edible."

Tyler Foster: And lastly, just another curiosity...how many members of the Hicks family do you think there are?
Brian O’Halloran: I don't know...they're very well inbred, that's for sure...the name alone, "a bunch of hicks..." I dunno, there's probably like 20 or 30 of them, take over a town...I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Mayor Hicks out there somewhere as well, the mayor of Leonardo.
Jeff Anderson: There's only one Graves.
Brian O’Halloran: Yeah, he killed everyone else.

An Interview with Director Michel Gondry

This interview was conducted on June 18th, 2006 at the W Hotel in Seattle, WA prior to the release of Gondry's film The Science of Sleep. It was previously posted on the forums at ComingSoon.net, but for the sake of preservation, I'm posting it here as well.

I would really love to see the White Stripes project he mentioned happen. It sounds amazing.

Michel Gondry: Hold on, you need to push the microphone, it pops up, somehow...there.

Tyler Foster: Have you been to Seattle before?

MG: Yeah, I been a bunch of times. Let's see, once was for wedding, and I was here for, it was Charlie Kaufman, to promote Eternal Sunshine.

TF: I notice your movies and your music videos all have a circular, mathematical logic to them. Is this something you shoot for?

MG: Yeah, very much so, I like mathematics. Not that I was really good at it, I was good at geometry, I liked the thinking of mathematics, and I like to try to find patterns in nature, and in life and in storytelling as well. I like to find shapes in the storytelling, try to represent the flow, the continuity of the story as a graphic, and actually I always did sort of a map of the movie before I started to shoot.

TF: Was the movie written in all the many languages it's performed in or did that happen when you were shooting?

MG: Ah, initially, I wrote it in French, and then in American, in English, and then I did a version with the two languages together.

TF: I mean, say, you cast Gael Garcia Bernal, did his character speaking Spanish come from casting him, or...

MG: Well, yeah, it came from casting him, but I cast him like one year before we started to shoot, so I had time, all this year. I worked on the last draft, having him in mind, and we knew, Miou-Miou, that, we knew she played his mother, we knew she didn't want to speak English, and we said, "Okay, with her, he's going to have to speak French." Sometimes obstacle like that, like, you get an actress you really want to work with but she refuse to speak English, so we have to make it work, but sometimes it's for the best of the project, because it made it good that he has to speak with her in French, it makes it really makes sense for the story. And so, I had to resolve these issues, but I tried to make it believable as possible.

TF: Is this related to why you decided to shoot it in France, because your other two films have been essentially American productions.

MG: Yeah, it's a French production, it's because it's really personal, and I wanted to have the background I knew. Like, for Eternal Sunshine, I did three months of research around New York to find how people live, and to make it real. And this one, I didn't want to spend this time, and I really want to make it from what I had in mind originally. So we actually end up to shoot in the building where I used to live ten years ago, two floors above, and all the streets of the location, I know them, so it saved a lot of time, and as well, I wanted to have this emotional thrill, when you come back to a place you've not been for awhile, and you come back there, and you feel something, and I wanted to take advantage of that.

TF: Again, leading in, is this why you decided to use more of your "homemade" physical effects and prop gags and stop motion instead of CGI, because you used a lot of CGI on Eternal Sunshine.

MG: Well, I suppose...I'm doing a video for Beck now, it's going to be a lot of computer effects, but we have done some effects as well in the camera, and for this, The Science of Sleep, especially since everything like, Stéphane's creation or Stéphanie's creation, I think it makes sense it's all handmade, because I don't want to feel when you watch the film, you think you are going into the world of a crazy art director or director, you're just going into Stéphane's world. If you assume Stéphane is me, then you're going into my world, but before all you're going into Stéphane's world, and the different landscape of the dream could be all different, or contradictory, [but] they all match, because you feel he made them himself, it was important for me. Even though I was not really aware of this element, it was important that it was his production.

TF: Had you written Charlotte Gainsbourg's part for her?

MG: Ah...the part was written for someone I knew, and I knew by hiring Charlotte, it would bring some humanity, because it could have been a harsh...with some other actress, could have been much harsher, and I didn't want this character to come off as being unfriendly, and I think Charlotte brings so much humanity, and it's interesting, I didn't give her direction in the sense of...I didn't know if Stéphanie is in love or not with Stéphane, and I told her, "I'm not going to tell you, because I don't know it, so I give you the dialogue, and you make the intention you want." Obviously, I gave her some direction, but overall I would not say what was in her mind, and I asked her many times, "Well, do you think she likes him?" Obvious, I was taking it for me, but at the end she says, "Of course she loves him," so I was happy, but I think she was talking more about Stéphane Gael than Stéphane Michel.

TF: Do you know when we'll be seeing an American trailer for the film?

MG: Oh, the first one, it's going to be in the coming weeks. It's coming out very soon. And there's going to be a website, called www.howdoyoudream.com, and we're going to ask people to share their dream, and I'm going to do a journal of my dream, with my videotape, and I'm going to explain them in my own way. And I did interviews with people, I did interview with Beck, and he told me his dream, so it's going to be fun. It's going to be related to the film, but not completely directly, we're trying to create a community website.

TF: Moving onto some of your other projects, how did Dave Chappelle's Block Party get made? Did Dave talk to you, or...

MG: Well, lately we're joking around, we are doing some festival together, and he said, he tried to call Spike Jonze, so then, because he wasn't available, he asked me, so I was not serious and I joke I want to do a documentary with Chris Rock but he wasn't available so I asked him. But we had the same agent, and when he saw my DVD he was a fan, and when I saw his TV show I was a fan, and as much as we are different, we have a lot in common in the creative process, and as well, he, suppose, at an adequate place, he wanted to give back to the people who helped him with the show, because all the musicians came to play on his show when he was nobody. Now he was becoming a big star, he wanted to give something back to them, and I liked his suggestion so I wanted to be part of it.

TF: Speaking of that, what do you think is the most rewarding thing you've gotten out of your relationships with your constant collaborations with Björk and The White Stripes, and would you ever do a film with them, whether that's a fictional film or a concert film like Block Party?

MG: Yeah, I think so, I have a project I wrote for The White Stripes, and then it was put on the side, and it was a biographic project, and basically, I was really happy with the project, and I hope it's going to happen someday. I wanted to interview them, with a stage, with some people re-enacting what they're saying, and we would bring more and more props, and I would have two actors to play Jack and Meg, and Meg and Jack would be there to play their music to illustrate what...I think the idea was that, I would play them their music, and they would tell me, listening to their music, what they had in mind when they wrote the song. Then, we would illustrate these moments with two actors, one for Jack and one for Meg, while they are doing the same music. So it would build up like that. Each time we would have some interview or voice over, and we see people re-enacting as they were playing the next song, and it would build up like that. And Björk, at some point, maybe it was Björk, it would be a different medium, maybe we would do a big exhibition together, maybe we would do it next year. I don't think she wants to be an actress, ah...

TF: Yeah, that's what she said after Dancer in the Dark.

MG: Well, yeah. She did with her boyfriend, but that is different, she was just being herself. Working from A to B, and she was not having to pour emotionally. I'll do anything they want me to do, basically. And it's great to have met those people, I mean it's, it's like you wish for any director, with my background, coming from being a video director, doing music directing, that you get on board on a project that's taking off. You never know, you get on board many projects, whether it's a band or artist, and a lot of them are going down, and you don't know it, and you jump on one that's going *boom*, to the sky, and it happened to me with Björk and the White Stripes, it's your best luck, because you travel with them and they help you...you help them and they help you at the same time. Like The White Stripes at some point, they consider me a third member of the band. It's very flattering, and they have never been disappointed by anything I did for them. And when you work again, again with the same artist, you have an enormous pressure, which is to make it better than before, not disappoint them, and it's really a pressure you put to yourself, but it's a good one; when some other artists are...give you...make your life difficult, then you have a pressure that makes it not as good.

TF: Do you think you'd ever collaborate on a single project, like a movie where you co-directed, with Spike Jonze?

MG: We did some stuff together, we did like a Kadavasky's little film. We are like, hanging out with one of those fast cameras with a little screen, so it was starting a story, and we would carry on after another, and we didn't know what was going on, because we just see the last frame. I don't know, maybe, but I don't know, maybe we are too close, and I think he's more willing than me to collaborate and stuff, I'm more individualist, I fear too much to lose my individuality, I feel my personality is maybe not so strong, so I really want to establish myself. And maybe selfish.

TF: Well, then, do you know when, if ever, you'll be doing another installment of the Director's Works Series you did with him?

MG: Yeah, I want to do another, but Palm Pictures, they didn't pay me yet, so I'm a little...[laughs] I mean it, this thing was the best thing that happened to me, to put out this DVD, because after that people started to think of me as a creator, as before they said, "Oh yeah, he's a video director, so he's just like the visuals, doesn't care for the story," but once they look at that, they, people from the movie business, who are a little bit close-minded, started to open to me. And they say, "Oh, you can do good videos, actually, he did some good ones, so, maybe these are not so bad," And that helped with a large amount of Eternal Sunshine, so I'm really pleased on the way it turned out, with the book, and all the menus, everything was exactly the way I wanted, and it was very nice, and I wish it was always the case. The only thing is, we sold like two or three hundred thousand copies, but it's okay, I'm [trying with] the next one to have more right on it, and get some...I have already, like, 15 to 20 videos lined up to do it, and I'm doing a subject on my auntie this summer, who has been a schoolteacher all her life in countryside, little town, and my son, the documentary will be called Paul Gondry, he's my son, and it's going to be about his painting, and he's grown up a lot since the DVD. (The planned third wave of Director's Works DVD were never released, but Gondry released a second volume of his work on his own, through his official website.)

TF: The DVDs showcase a lot of your animations. Have you ever considered doing an animated film?

MG: I'm not sure I would want to do all animated...I was thinking, like today, I would like to do an animation, that I would do every day, would do five seconds, for one year, then see where it goes, but completely improvised. I just did a video for this guy where I just did like, an animated doodle. It's very satisfactory, it's like, just very relaxing, doing your little drawing and then it comes to life. So maybe I will do something, like, the other day I was interviewed for TV, and I took a notebook, and as I was doing the interview, I did the figure, and then the one, and then the one, and I said, "Okay, you have to take all the shots, and cut one frame on each, or two frames and it's going to be animated, and I did this guy with a small foot and a big foot, and he's trying to walk, boom, boom, boom, boom." (mimics the character walking in a circle) And I said, "ah, I should do something like that in a bigger size."

TF: Just as a curiosity, did you get offered Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

MG: I don't know, I think Spike had it, I didn't remember, I think I was probably working.

TF: Do you have plans to do a science fiction film?
MG: I don't know, I mean, I'm trying to do science fiction, I'm working on Rudy Rucker's book [Master of Space and Time], with Dan Clowes, but it's complicated, because we like all the quirkiness of the book, and the producers, they like, they try to make it more mainstream, to be able to raise the money, so it's complicated, science fiction, and I think it's why, except maybe for, Philip K. Dick, it has been very hard to adapt, because he's had history about being paranoid, maniac, and messy, disorganized, and this is not a quality that allows you to make money for a movie, and you need a lot of money for a science fiction movie, because you have to reconstitute the whole world, but...so, I don't know how to make a science fiction movie that excites me, it certainly would not be like Matrix or Ridley Scott, but I think...Blade Runner is a masterpiece, but I...it's been in France, shown for too many years now, and I don't know where movies can go. I mean, I think, Verhoeven has done new stuff of science fiction with RoboCop or Starship Troopers, really great movies, but you need a lot of money to do a science fiction movie, and sometime, like Starship Troopers or Mars Attacks!, truly great science fiction movies, they are not so accepted by the audience because they are too, too edgy.

TF: Well, in here [Gondry's Director's Works DVD booklet], you mention Back to the Future.

MG: Yeah, it's quirky, and it is some darkness in it, but it's not slick.

TG: Well, it's just not a space movie, I think too many people think space when they think science fiction.

MG: Ah, yeah. But I think in a space movie you could do something quirky. I mean I guess, Galaxy...Guide, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was like that, but there was something, I don't know what it is, too...mainstream and clique. I don't know, it's hard, I don't want to judge other person's film.

TF: Finally, on your highly publicized next project, do you think Be Kind Rewind will be stylistically more like Science of Sleep or Eternal Sunshine?

MG: I don't know, I'm going to try to shoot a wider format, anamorphic, the letterbox, and it would be a contrast with the way we shoot the movies, which is video, and completely crappy, and the way the film is going to look, which is going to be a little more slick, so we'll see. I put myself in a different situation, like, the last film I did, the two last films I did, it was all handheld camera, and this one I think I will put my camera on a tripod, or crane.

An Interview with Writer/Director Rian Johnson

This interview was conducted via email around March 13th, 2006 with writer/director Rian Johnson about his stylized film noir/high school debut feature Brick. The interview was originally posted on the ComingSoon.net message boards, but I am reposting it here for the sake of preservation.

Tyler Foster: First, the basics. How long ago did you write this film, and how did the project and cast finally all come together?
Rian Johnson: I wrote Brick just out of film school, back in '97. We shot it in December of '03, so it was a six year process from script to screen. Part of that had to do with my lack of both industry contacts and social skills, part of it was due to the sheer weirdness of the script. But most of it is just that it's really hard to get the money together for any indie movie. It came together and fell apart multiple times, and all we could do was keep chugging along and hope that all the pieces would line up eventually. Finally, bit by bit, they did. I found a great casting director who helped us pull the cast together, and an amazing producer who knew how to get movies made for very little money. Then with those pieces in place, I had the confidence to pass the hat to friends and family and scrape together our tiny budget.

Tyler Foster: How's it been taking the film around?
Rian Johnson: It's been totally energizing. After finishing the editing process it's easy to get burned out on your own movie, but now that I'm getting to show it to audiences and see how it bounces off of people, I feel like I'm seeing it through fresh eyes.

Tyler Foster: I could ask you what your influences were in making Brick, but that might be too easy. Has anyone seen an influence in your film that wasn't there?
Rian Johnson: Yes, and those are always much more interesting than the ones I know about! My favorite is the "Dark Shadows" connection - a sharp eyed viewer pointed out that the Pin bears a striking costume resemblance to Barnabas Collins from the vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows." Coincidentally, Joseph played a part in the 1991 remake of the show. Weirdness abounds.

Tyler Foster: Looking at IMDb, I see you not only edited Lucky McKee's debut feature May but he also starred in a short film you directed called Evil Demon Golfball from Hell!!! How did you two meet?
Rian Johnson: Lucky and I met in the dorms at USC. You can track down the Golfball short pretty easily online, and see a quick shot of Lucky in his glory days. There's also a pretty big visual May reference hidden in Brick, which at all our screenings I've only had one person catch.

Tyler Foster: You think he'd work on a project of yours in the future?
Rian Johnson: I hope so - he's actually a pretty fantastic actor. He just finished a movie called Roman which is sort of a companion piece to May. He made it with Angela Bettis, but they flipped roles - Angie directed it, and Lucky starred in it. I did a bit of editing on it too, it's a very cool little movie.

Tyler Foster: Any chance that Evil Demon Golfball From Hell!!! will end up on the Brick DVD? Do you know what other supplements there might be?
Rian Johnson: I thought about it, but because it's a USC student short they technically own the rights, so it would be a headache. But I am going to put a short that my friends and I made in high school called Origami Master which is fun. I've also put together a bunch of deleted and extended scenes, and some commentary and behind the scenes pictures that will hopefully give a good feel for what the shoot was like. We're working on the commentary track too -- I'm not a huge fan of commentary tracks where the director just babbles for two hours, so we're trying to figure out how to do it so it's a little more structured and interesting.

Tyler Foster: Speaking of DVDs, I think pretty much every Focus DVD I've popped in over the past three months has had the trailer for Brick on it. How has Focus been going about marketing this film and how much were you involved?
Rian Johnson: I've had very little involvement, just because I haven't felt the need to get involved. Focus has done a great job so far, they really believe in the movie and are doing a great job of spreading the word about it.

Tyler Foster: Lots of directors these days post blogs. Is the message board (http://www.rcjohnso.com/forum) your version of the blog?
Rian Johnson: Absolutely. I'm a big internet geek, I'm constantly trolling the web, and it would always frustrate me to see people asking questions on various random sites around the web, and getting either no info or misinformation about the movie. So I'm trying the message board out as an experiment really, a place on my own personal site where people can talk about Brick and I can give answers when I have them.

Tyler Foster: What was it like, getting the Originality of Vision prize at Sundance?
Rian Johnson: It was quite a thrill. Going into Sundance, I had spent seven years of my life working on this movie and nobody had seen the finished product, so I was very very nervous. Getting that kind of creative validation was an amazing feeling, for me and for the whole crew (and my family, the investors!)

Tyler Foster: Did you see anything cool at Sundance that hasn't hit theaters yet?
Rian Johnson: The bad thing about having a film at a festival is that you don't have any time to see movies. I only got to see Mysterious Skin, Me and You and Everyone We Know, and The Squid and the Whale. Although after Sundance I saw a great movie called The Puffy Chair, which I think just got distribution a few weeks ago. So that's my hot tip.

Tyler Foster: Clear up the release dates for me, plus throw in your two cents on when maybe the film will open wide?
Rian Johnson: We open in LA and NY on 3/31, then will spread out very quickly in the weeks following. If you live in a major market in the US, chances are Brick will be coming to a theater near you. I'm going to be posting the exact cities and release schedule on the main site and on my message board, that's the best place to get the most current info.

Tyler Foster: Anything you're working on for the future?
Rian Johnson: Absolutely - a con man movie called The Brothers Bloom. It's a globe trotting con man adventure romance fairy tale. I cheated a bit, and wrote every location I've ever wanted to visit into the script, so we end up hitting most of Europe in 120 pages. Grab for the brass ring, right?

An Interview with Director Jason Reitman

This interview was conducted around March 12th, 2006 at a hotel in Seattle, to promote writer/director Jason Reitman's adaptation of Chris Buckley's book, Thank You For Smoking. It was originally written for a college newspaper, and because it is a roundtable interview, the majority of the questions are not by Tyler Foster.

Question: So, do you consider this film to be the biggest challenge of your career so far?
Jason Reitman: Oh, yeah, I mean, I wrote this thing over five years ago, so, I had opportunities to make other films in the interim because of my short films, because I was directing commercials, but this is what I wanted to say as a filmmaker, as my first step into a professional career. This is the kind of filmmaker I wanted to establish myself as, so I could kind of continue down a career line of making smart comedies. It was a big challenge, it took five years, it was a challenge just to get the job originally, it was a challenge to find someone to actually put up the money and make it. What was amazing was once we finally had the rights and the money, how quickly the cast came together and how quickly we got it to its premiere in Toronto.
Question: Is that like your anti-pigeonholing exercise, to get your first film out there and have it be what you want to do, so if people try to lump you into certain categories, then --
Jason Reitman: Yeah! Certainly! Well, you're gonna be lumped into a category no matter what, and I think that's important to understand if you want to be a filmmaker, and I just didn't want to be lumped into the category of high-school teen romantic-comedy director, which was basically what was available to me before I wrote my own script.
Question: How much of a part did the writer of the book play in the production?
Jason Reitman: A lot! You know, it's funny, there were previous writers to me who took stabs at writing this screenplay, and they never spoke to him, so the day I called him, he was really surprised. I left a message on his machine, and I said 'Hi Chris, this is Jason Reitman, the guy they hired to f--- up your book.' He called me back, and we started this fantastic relationship, and we're now good friends, and I would send him drafts of the screenplay, and he would send me notes, and he actually came to set, and he's in the film. It's a small part, I'm not sure if you remember it, but at the point when Heather Holloway releases her article, we go across the city and we see people reading it, and there's one guy in a subway station, an older guy -- well, I shouldn't say older guy, cause now Chris will be pissed -- there's a guy in the subway station, and he's reading the newspaper, and he just frowns and shakes his head, and that's Chris Buckley. He showed up at Toronto and he showed up at Sundance, and I think he's very proud of the film, and proud to have ownership over it, and he and I are constantly talking about what we could do together next.
Question: You mentioned your short films...I noticed they're all sort of hot-button topics, so are you interested in controversy, is that something you sort of look for in making a film?
Jason Reitman: You know, I think if you look at my short films, you look at my feature, what it really says about me is I don't like authority, I don't like being told what to do, so a lot of my films deal with that subject. As far as controversy...[laughs]...my feature has certainly found its own controversies, but my short films have generally been accessible and always been more entertaining actually than normal short films, which usually are the thought-provoking rantins of a college student. And that's not bad, but when I went to film festivals, I noticed that, and it was my desire to come back and make...bring entertaining comedies that could really break from the norm in the film festival world.
Question: You think those short films will be on the DVD or anything?
Jason Reitman: Uh, they probably won't be on the DVD, they are available online at www.atomfilms.com, and I probably...you know, we're entering into a really interesting time as far as short films go, in that...there's all these available ways to watch short films now, on, if you have a Video iPod, if you have Video On-Demand through a cell phone, the short film is actually going to become a necessary part of the marketplace, and you can tell by the amount of email clips we all send our friends. And right now, it's goofier stuff, it's like a bear falling out of a tree, but that will develop, and the bite-size entertainment will be a meaningful thing, and at that point I hope to finally make a fortune off my short films. [laughs] No, I just they become a part of the marketplace.
Question: When did you actually finish writing it, you were saying five years ago?
Jason Reitman: Yeah, the actual writing process was only three or four months, it happened end of 2000, beginning of 2001, we didn't shoot this film until the beginning of 2005.
Question: It's uniquely appropo, especially in Washington with our anti-smoking laws that just went through, that this is what you were thinking of five years ago.
Jason Reitman: Right. Well, it's funny, throughout the process of this, even when I just found the book in the late '90's and the book was seven years old, the question I would always be asked was, 'well, is this still relevant, is this still relevant?' There was a big tobacco settlement in '98, and does the film still mean anything after that, and it does, because people continue to want to tell other people what to do. And I know I'm sitting at a table of Seattleites or Washingtonians, where you have passed this kind of ban on public smoking, so I hope I don't offend any of you, but I think that's ridiculous! I'm not a smoker, I don't like smoking as much as the next guy, but I don't think as long as it's a legal product, I think there's something very wrong about telling people they can't smoke outside, and it's just as ridiculous as telling people they can't drink Coca-Cola outside.
Question: That's next.
Jason Reitman: That'll be next, and then next will be the Whopper.
Question: Burger King's almost gone anyway. Going along this line, what's the message of the film you want people to get, because you're not really promoting or being negative about cigarettes. You're kind of saying people should choose for themselves, that's the message I got.
Jason Reitman: Yeah, I think the message of the film is about personal responsibility, you have the freedom to do very dangerous things in life, and if you're going to do them, that's fine, but you have to take responsibility for those actions. Look, if you want to kill yourself, that's okay, you have the choice to shoot yourself, that'd be faster, you smoke cigarettes, it will take 20-30 years, but don't go blaming the tobacco industry at this point. Or at least don't talk to me about that, because I just don't buy it. I have a hard time believing that you went into this habit unknowing, unless you're 80 years old, and you have to take responsibility for that. And it's a message to parents, you know, there's a big father-son relationship in this film, and there's a parenting message in this film, which says we have to prepare our children so that they can make these types of decisions when they get older, and that's not the responsibility of corporations and not the responsibility of the government.
Question: So you're not worried that Katie Holmes is going to overwhelm your movie?
Jason Reitman: [laughs] No! You know, it's funny, because I made a political comedy, so there's a very specific audience for that, and I presume up until Katie Holmes, we were gonna find people who normally like indie films, political comedies, smart comedies, and she has opened us up to the 14-year-old boy demographic, so I'm thrilled.

An Interview with Writer/Director Andrew Niccol

This interview was conducted on or around August 28th, 2005 via telephone to promote Andrew Niccol's film movie Lord of War. There actually aren't a lot of questions about Lord of War itself in the interview, because he did a Q+A after the screening of the film, and answered the majority of the movie-specific questions during the Q+A. For whatever reason, I don't have a transcript of the Q+A, so all that remains is a short interview about more general topics. This interview was originally posted on the ComingSoon.net message boards, but I'm reposting it here for the sake of preservation.

Andrew Niccol: Hi.
Tyler Foster: Thanks for doing this interview.
Andrew Niccol: No problem.
Tyler Foster: I notice that as a writer, you seem to like to take an idea you can expand to all corners of the world you set the movie in. Is there something about that that you enjoy studying and its effects on all sorts of people?
Andrew Niccol: Well, I guess it's a style I have that...I don't consciously think about it like that.
Tyler Foster: Then, how do you approach writing a script? How do you take --
Andrew Niccol: It's a very haphazard process, I'm afraid. [chuckles] You'd be frightened. 'Cause it's...you know, I'm interested in a lot of areas and I just sort of start collecting...reference on it, and then either a story will occur to me from that, or it won't, and...or a character will emerge from that, or it won't, and if it does, I'll write a script, but...as I say, it's rather chaotic process to getting there.
Tyler Foster: Celebrity seems to be at least somewhat interesting to you. What is you find most interesting or most disturbing about celebrity?
Andrew Niccol: Ah, well, just when you know more about Paris Hilton's life than you do about your own uncle. There's something wrong there.
Tyler Foster: [laughs] Someone pointed out to me that The Truman Show is almost the opposite of S1m0ne. What do you think of that evaluation?
Andrew Niccol: Yeah, I never thought about it at the time, but I think it's true, that S1m0ne is The Truman Show inside out. You know, you have one real person in a fake world and a fake person in a real world.
Tyler Foster: Do you find it more or less interesting to direct your own films as opposed to seeing how others interpret them, such as Spielberg's take on The Terminal or Peter Weir's take on The Truman Show?
Andrew Niccol: Well, they're sort of different cases, I always write to direct. In the case of Terminal, though, I felt I'd explored that theme before. I felt I was kind of going over old ground in a way, 'cause I had another another prisoner in paradise, and I wanted -- you know, I was happy that someone else wanted to take it and see what they would do with it. And in the case of The Truman Show, it was the mistake of writing my most expensive script first. Nobody gives you $80 million dollars for your first movie.
Tyler Foster: I heard you shot footage for The Truman Show with Gary Oldman. Does that footage still exist somewhere?
Andrew Niccol: Somewhere. Yeah, but it was more of an exercise in some ways, because ultimately, when you have Jim Carrey and you have Peter Weir and it's your first attempt at a feature, it's unlikely to happen.
Tyler Foster: What's your next feature film about?
Andrew Niccol: I don't know yet. I'm working on a couple things, but it's been a challenge to get it off the ground.
Tyler Foster: I heard you had done a sci-fi script that you were letting someone else direct, involving water?
Andrew Niccol: Oh, no, that -- you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. That's actually, a friend of mine, Shekhar Kapur, mentioned it. He wanted me to write this film for him, and I think he said it at Cannes or somewhere, and it ended up on the internet. It sort of mushrooms from there.
Tyler Foster: Are there are any TV shows or movies that interest you right now?
Andrew Niccol: Yeah, well, I think I'm sort of more drawn to, I guess, non-fiction than fiction, becuase the world is sort of entertaining enough, or absurd enough on its own without having to fictionalize it.
Tyler Foster: Lastly, do you think there's an idea you'd like to write about in a script but you think there's too much information to cover?
Andrew Niccol: Too much what to cover?
Tyler Foster: Information.
Andrew Niccol: No, I don't think of it like that, it's just more just looking at the human condition, but more...I guess I'm looking at the inhuman condition, and what we're doing to each other with technology, and just the way the world's going, and I'm more interested in stories in that area.
Tyler Foster: Alright, well, thank you very much and have a nice flight back to wherever you're headed.
Andrew Niccol: San Fransisco, actually.

An Interview with Director Edgar Wright and Writer/Actor Simon Pegg

This interview was conducted on September 3rd, 2004 by telephone between Atlanta and Washington, prior to the release of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s film Shaun of the Dead. It was previously posted at a fan site I made to earn points on the “Shaun Squad” Street Team website (which is how I got in contact with Edgar in the first place), and the now-defunct entertainment website Funk Diggity Fresh. Sadly, the “Shaun Squad” site was not left up as a fan community, which is a shame because the trio wrote highly entertaining blogs about their trip across the country that don’t seem to have been saved anywhere. In any case, I’m re-posting the interview here.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t interview Nick, I didn’t know he was there. This is also one of my earliest interviews, so I didn't know that "What's your favorite and least favorite horror movie?" is a terrible, insipid question that the interviewee has already endured two and a half billion times.

Tyler Foster: Hello! Having a good time in America?
Edgar Wright: Uh-huh!
Simon Pegg: Yeah.
Edgar Wright: Our last day today. We've been here for a month, and we're going back tonight.
Simon Pegg: Going back to the UK in four hours.
Tyler Foster: Alright, I'll just get started then. What's the scariest thing about relationships?
Edgar Wright: [laughs] Sometimes they end.
Simon Pegg: I guess it's just the notion of longevity and commitment, and all that kind of stuff, but that doesn't neccesarily have to be a scary thing, you know? Also weird sex.
Tyler Foster: It seems nowadays that everything's a horror comedy, you know, with all horror movies having jokes, or sort of needing to poke fun at themselves, I think. Do you think that it's because it's harder to be scary, or because the horror movies don't have any ideas left, they need another form of entertainment to give the audience what they want?
Edgar Wright: We hope for too much.
Simon Pegg: I don't know if that's true. I mean, look at, for whatever it's worth, Cabin Fever, or Gothika, I mean, there's lots of films that try to be scary, The Gift, what was that one...
Edgar Wright: Oh, the Japanese horror films as well.
Simon Pegg: Yeah, like, The Ring...
Edgar Wright: The Ring, Audition.
Simon Pegg: Audition, yeah. I don't really think that that's true, I mean in our film we don't really try and make fun of the horror either, we try and sort of to keep it as real as possible, and try to maintain a serious dimension to the zombies. I just think it's that there was a kind of spoof culture that kicked in, by the first Scream, in a way, which is a very good film, but it spawned some sort of lesser sequels, and then the Scary Movie series, which is a weird kind of spoof of a spoof.
Tyler Foster: Yeah. What are your guys' favorite and least favorite horror movies? Or, horror-comedies.
Edgar Wright: Um...Favorite horror movies...I mean, obviously, Dawn of the Dead is a favorite. American Werewolf in London. Evil Dead II.
Simon Pegg: The Omen.
Edgar Wright: The Omen's good.
Simon Pegg: The Shining.
Edgar Wright: Suspiria.
Simon Pegg: The Exorcist.
Edgar Wright: The Exorcist, yeah.
Tyler Foster: Was Shaun of the Dead always planned as a romantic comedy, or was it ever straight comedy, or something else?
Edgar Wright: Yeah, it was one of the initial sort of ideas, partly because we wanted to write something about our own sort of life, and not London, but also we thought it would be quite funny, that, you know, because most British exports are romantic comedies.
Tyler Foster: Mm-hmm.
Edgar Wright: So, we thought it would be quite funny to do a sort of subversive version of that.
Tyler Foster: Now, since I'm in the US, I haven't been able to see "Spaced" [note: long since rectified], and of course, Shaun isn't based on it, but was there any of that fear of jumping from TV to the cinema, like that the humor wouldn't translate?
Edgar Wright: Well, the show that we did, "Spaced", was sort of a satire sitcom about two roommates, and it had a lot of dream sequences. But one of the things we wanted to do with Shaun of the Dead was to make a film where people didn't have to wake up at the end of a dream, where something fantastical could have happened, but it could be happening for real, and even have fate, or real consequences. Kind of born out of having that kind of TV show and wanting to tell a story that had a beginning, middle and an end.
Tyler Foster: One thing that I noticed that I really liked was the way the jokes sort of come full cycle, each scene during the relationship is sort of referenced during the zombie attack. Was that something you planned, or did it come naturally?
Edgar Wright: Some of that stuff was in the first draft, and I think on subsequent drafts we did more and more of it. We're big fans of kind of films like Raising Arizona that are sort of dense in detail, and have a lot of setup stuff. It's not something we originally set out to do, but it definitely expanded as we went along.
Tyler Foster: Simon, in an interview for CHUD, you mentioned a bunch of my favorite films and directors, such as Garden State, Eternal Sunshine, you know, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson. Would you and Edgar have an interest in doing something more serious like that?
Simon Pegg: Um, yeah, I think so. I mean, the thing is our background is from comedy, and that's something we really enjoy doing. I think if there was something that moved us enough to want to, you know, if we had an idea and we were really serious about it we'd probably follow it through. I mean, the directors I mentioned, there's a great bit of sweet comedy running through, you know, a lot of those films, Garden State, Eternal Sunshine, you know, Wes Anderson has a wonderful kind of wit to him, and I wouldn't call them comedies as such, but they certainly are...they have a great sense of humor, I think. I don't know we'd actually make something like Requiem for a Dream, as such, it depends what kind of budget there would be. At the moment we're enjoying doing comedy, and it's not just comedy either.
Tyler Foster: Yeah.
Simon Pegg: We're not just going for gags, kind of thing, we're trying to create something a little more rounded. There are moments in Shaun of the Dead that are quite serious, in a way. So I never say never.
Tyler Foster: How do you think the use of the blog on the Shaun Squad website spreads the buzz, because I mean I know Zach Braff did that for Garden State, and it seems to have had an impact with the fans.
Edgar Wright: I think it helps us remember where we were and what we were doing! [laughs] It's been a good thing writing it up, it's just such a whirlwind trip that I think that if we hadn't written some of it down we would have forgotten, it would have all bled into one. It's just such a nice thing to do because I know some of these fans on the stops that we've stopped and took pictures with and we've put them up on the site, and it's just a nice way of doing it. I think that maybe, the fans feel that --
Nick Frost: People would appreciate the effort you put into it as well.
Edgar Wright: Yeah. Update most of the days.
Simon Pegg: Yeah, and there's so little time as well, between cities, so as you're leaving a city, and I think it's nice to be able to sort of record everything, and it's a good idea, and, well, I don't know who's reading it, but there does seem to be people who are responding.
Tyler Foster: I read on the website, of course, and on other sites actually, that you guys went to see Alien vs. Predator, and you weren't very impressed.
Edgar Wright: Well, I fell asleep,
Simon Pegg: The trouble is, I think that, with those words is that, maybe in our tiredness we've been a little bit too outspoken on this. The truth is we went to see Alien vs. Predator directly after Garden State, we only went in really because we heard the Shaun trailer would be playing with it, and we thought we'd just nip in and watch that. And then we stayed, but it was so late at night, that we couldn't really get into it. It...it...it wasn't my favorite film I'd ever seen, but I think we were just a bit tired, you know?
Tyler Foster: Yeah, well, what do you think of these crossovers, the matchups, like Freddy vs. Jason, or they're talking about doing Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash now.
Nick Frost: They're going to make Herbie vs. Christine next. That's another one they're working on.
Tyler Foster: [laughs]
Edgar Wright: [laughs] I'd like to see Herbie vs. Christine. Maybe you can start the rumor, and then someone will offer it to us.
Tyler Foster: I have a copy of the soundtrack, and I enjoyed the choices you made, nice and varied. Are these just musical influences, or what you thought was right for the movie, your favorite songs?
Edgar Wright: Well, a bit of everything. Some of them are favorite tracks, like the Queen track, the whole Electro vibe, it's Simon and I's sort of bag, and yeah, it's a nice mix. I mean, you want to do stuff that's relevant to the film, like the Specials track, and the Smiths, but it's really nice to create something, I really enjoyed that aspect of the process, and mixing the soundtrack was great fun.
Tyler Foster: Actually, just another question I thought of, I know that you guys, or at least I know Simon is a huge Star Wars fan. What do you guys think of the changes Lucas is making on the DVDs?
Simon Pegg: Oh, don't remind me.
Edgar Wright: [laughs] We saw some of that.
Simon Pegg: Yeah, we did. We did get a sneak preview of some of the DVDs at an undisclosed location in the universe, and uh, I won't lie to you. Some of them are good, some of them aren't. I think -- I don't like this kind of revisionist stuff. It underestimates the audience, and it assumes that, I don't know, that it's not ours. When you give something away, it becomes the world's, and and George Lucas forever taking his ball in and pumping it up again, it's like, well, for God's sake.
Nick Frost: I say...well, why not do something else?
Edgar Wright: [laughs]
Nick Frost: Eat at a different restaurant for a change.
Simon Pegg: There's an interesting thing that they've done...I mean, I just think the Special Editions, you know, you kind of start to think, hang on, something's wrong here, some of the kind of changes he made there, and of course that was a foreshadow for the debacle that was The Phantom Menace and the subsequent Attack of the Clones...
Tyler Foster: [laughs]
Simon Pegg: Yeah, I just think he should have left it alone. I never thought when I was seven that it needed more comedy Jawas in the background. It was perfect.
Edgar Wright: It wouldn't be so bad if he was releasing the originals as well, you know, so you could choose between the two.
Tyler Foster: Exactly.
Simon Pegg: I don't like the revisioning, no.
Edgar Wright: It seems it's also like a crime against film history, because then, in twenty years time, if that's the only left, is the DVDs, it's like, well, this was done in 1977, and this crappy Jabba the Hutt bit was done in 1997.
Simon Pegg: Oh, yeah, he's redone Jabba again for these DVDs.
Tyler Foster: Yeah, I mean, and I've heard, it's not just the fans, you know, film professors, for instance, they want to have the original versions available --
Edgar Wright: Yes!
Simon Pegg: Right, definitely.
Edgar Wright: It's genuinely like a crime against the archives, it's really, really sad. At least Spielberg with E.T., when he, you know, made all the changes, at least they had the original version on the DVD as well.
Tyler Foster: Yeah. For your next project, you've mentioned that it's going to be a cop action movie, kind of like a sequel to Shaun in spirit. What was the sort of jumpstart for you guys to get going on that, because, like, it seems like 28 Days Later might have been a jumpstart to do Shaun.
Edgar Wright: No, really, cause I mean, we'd started writing Shaun before we heard about 28 Days Later, if anything, the film was sort of more inspired out by having played too many Resident Evil games, really. It's not that there's a push, really, to do any project, it's just like playing with genres, and we want to do a cop film, on the UK's not-so-exciting streets, we thought it'd be pretty funny. It was inspired by these cop films of the 70's, but it's just another way of doing a different, a sort of British take on it, this American genre.
Tyler Foster: If you do end up doing Shaun 2, sometime in the future, I have my idea for it, just a shot you should do...
Edgar Wright: Yeah?
Tyler Foster: It's like the new version of Shaun waking up as a zombie. Just gotta have the white pane, you know, and the hand comes up and hits it like Dawn of the Dead, and then it's just Shaun, wiping off his mirror after a shower.
Edgar Wright: [laughs]
Tyler Foster: Well, thank you for doing this interview --
Edgar Wright: Oh, well, thank you!
Simon Pegg: Thank you!
Tyler Foster: There's a ton of fans I know who just wanted to say hello, my friends.
Edgar Wright: Well, did you come last night, Tyler?
Tyler Foster: Oh, no, I'm in Washington State.
Edgar Wright: Oh, okay. Well, cool, thank you very much, and we appreciate it. Glad you enjoyed the soundtrack too.
Simon Pegg: And if you see the mirror gag in our next film you can't have any money.
Tyler Foster: [laughs]
Edgar Wright: [cackles]
Simon Pegg: You've given it away.
Tyler Foster: Bye!
Edgar Wright: Thanks, Tyler!
Simon Pegg: Bye!