Terry Gilliam comments on the use of CGI in The Brothers Grimm

I'm not sure if my question is audible, but we had learned from producer Charles Roven that Gilliam had wanted to use animatronic trees for the movie and that they didn't work out. The production had to use CDI and Gilliam wasn't too thrilled at first. This is what Gilliam had to say.

Matt Damon talks about the unique experience of working on a Terry Gilliam movie

Another set of questions I didn't ask, but I thought Matt's answers were interesting.

Matt Damon gives an update on the next Jason Bourne movie

I didn't ask this question, but I thought it might be of interest to some.

The Brothers Grimm

VISIONARY DIRECTOR RETURNS

By Sandra Kraisirideja

Director Terry Gilliam tears into a room at the Four Seasons Hotel like the Tasmanian Devil and can barely sit still as he talks about his first film in seven years, “The Brothers Grimm.”

It’s a fitting introduction as many in the cast talked about Gilliam’s enthusiasm during their interviews.

“He's got the greatest energy and it's totally infectious,” said Matt Damon, who plays Will Grimm. “You have 200 people—we had a huge crew because it was such a big movie—and all of these people were literally feeding off of this guy's energy.”
Gilliam, however, insists his get-up-and-go attitude is a complete act.

“I can summon up enough adrenaline to do a few days of this sort of public activity. Then I go back home and I become the curmudgeon that my wife and children know me as,” Gilliam said with a grin that spanned from ear to ear.

Set in 19th century Germany, during the French occupation, “The Brothers Grimm” has a visual framework that is reminiscent of Gilliam’s pervious works, such as “Brazil” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

The film also stars Heath Ledger as Jacob Grimm, Monica Belluci, Peter Stormare and Jonathan Pryce, who also starred in “Brazil.”

The movie casts the Grimms as nothing more than charlatans who travel from town to town ridding villages of supposed spirits and ghosts that they painstakingly created themselves. Popular Grimm fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Rapunzel” are woven throughout the film as real-life events.

Gilliam was attracted to the movie’s darker possibilities.

“Modern children’s material is so lightweight. It’s like we don’t want to frighten children; they’re delicate little creatures. That’s a big lie,” said Gilliam, who learned more about the Grimms during filming, like the fact that they actually didn’t write the fairy tales.

“They were concerned about the oral tradition in Germany, that these tales were all gonna disappear. The grandmothers and grandfathers were dying; it was all going to be lost. This great German heritage was vanishing. And they started writing down the stories; they transcribed them and got their friends to do it. That’s why they’re there. But they’re ancient tales that resonate on many, many, many levels,” Gilliam said.

Based on a script by Ehren Kruger, “The Brothers Grimm” is part fairy tale, part love story and part comedy, which suits Gilliam just fine.

“I can only do what I know how to do and what makes me laugh, what makes me excited. I like making a film with lots of stuff in there,” said Gilliam, using a food analogy to further explain his point. A lot of people “like their meals served up very simply, but I end up with a little bit of sushi, a little bit of cordon bleu there. Why not a little taco over there? Let’s stick it all together.”

Gilliam’s imaginative sets and wide angle shots can create a challenge for actors. “When you sign up to do a movie with him you're basically signing up to be one of 11 elements in a shot. So you could have a great take, but if the geese aren't right in the background or the smoke coming up in the chimney,” is not right then the whole take is scrapped, Damon said.

For “The Brothers Grimm,’ Gilliam felt the script was the kind that “gets made in Hollywood, but to me it just needed a lot more fairy tail enchantment, magic,” he said. “There was a lot of brilliant, clever stuff in [the script,] but I thought I’d seen a lot of it before. So we degraded the whole project and brought it down to the kind of movie that normally doesn’t get made.”

Gilliam is often mistaken as an Englishman because of his long association with Monty Python (Gilliam created the animated sequences used during the show), but he was born in Minneapolis and raised in Los Angeles.

Gilliam began filming “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” in 2001 with Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort, but production was halted just a few days into principal photography due to Rochefort’s health and other assorted disasters.

The difficulties surrounding the production were detailed in the documentary, “Lost in La Mancha.”

Does Gilliam find it tough to be the kind of director who only wants to make original films?

“The only tough part is getting somebody to say yes. Once they say yes, I’ve got control. And that’s the hardest word to squeeze out of the mouths of Hollywood executives, because it’s the moment they lose control. And that’s why ‘No’ is the word you normally hear, because once they’ve said yes, the director is off and running,” he said.

Source: Entertainment Today

“WHERE THE TRUTH LIES”

Toronto, Canada – August 22, 2005 – THINKFilm announced today that the company will appeal the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) “NC-17” rating of the suspense filled mystery, WHERE THE TRUTH LIES. Academy-Award-nominated writer-director Atom Egoyan will speak on behalf of the film at the upcoming appeal. An “NC-17” rating from the MPAA restricts access to the film to audiences under the age of 17. An appeal date is being set.

THINKFilm chairman Robert Lantos, who is also the film’s producer, notes: WHERE THE TRUTH LIES is a sophisticated and intelligently provocative film. The NC-17 rating will unfairly limit people's access to it because of the number of theaters in America which will not play an NC-17 rated film. This film stars some of the most talented actors in the movies today, is based on a popular mainstream novel and is written and directed by a filmmaker known for his artistic integrity and achievement. The film has not encountered this kind of restrictive rating anywhere else in the free world. Only in America will many be deprived of access to it."

The film tells the story of what happens during a ménage a trios that leads to a girl’s death and it is the ménage a trois scene which has yielded the NC-17 rating. Continues Lantos, “This scene is done using a single sustained mastershot in order to allow the actors the most conducive environment for intimacy and intensity, and in order to best communicate what happens in the film’s pivotal scene. It cannot be cut without compromising the central scene of the narrative and thus rendering the mystery of the film incomprehensible. It remains more than a bit absurd to me that this scene would garner an R if shot exactly the same but from just torso up, but becomes an NC-17 because the mastershot reveals full bodies."

In WHERE THE TRUTH LIES, based on Rupert Holmes' acclaimed novel of the same name, Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth star as Lanny Morris and Vince Collins, the country’s hottest entertainment duo. Lanny and Vince are knee deep in all the wealth and power that comes with such fame. That is, until a beautiful girl (Rachel Blanchard) turns up naked and dead in the pair’s hotel suite after a night of wild partying. Years later, an intrepid reporter (Alison Lohman) sets out to discover what happened that night, only to be lured into the seductive games of these men.

The film received its world premiere in competition in Cannes this year and will have its North American premiere as an official gala of the 2005 Toronto Film Festival. WHERE THE TRUTH LIES marks the sixth collaboration between Academy Award nominated writer/director Atom Egoyan and Golden Globe nominated producer Robert Lantos. The film is scheduled to be released on October 14th in New York, Los Angeles with a national expansion on October 21.

Source: thedartgroup.net/mPRm/thinkfilmcompany.com

Seth Rogen and Romany Malco from "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" talk about waxing their chests

After the press conference I got these two aside to find out if they did any waxing in solidarity with Steve Carell. What they said just may surprise you.

Steve Carell and Paul Rudd interview snippet from The 40-Year-Old Virgin

At the press conference I asked Steve what his reaction was to seeing his face everywhere in the posters for the movie. He gave a really good response. Click on the link to listen.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

STEVE CARELL IS A COMEDIAN ON THE RISE
By Sandra Kraisirideja

Forget Saturday Night Live, the best source for comedic talent is “The Daily Show,” and at the head of the pack is Steve Carell, who makes his leading man debut this month in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which he also co-wrote.

Carell stars as Andy, a nice guy who’s OK in the looks department, but just happened to miss his chance in the sex arena and just gave up trying.

Carell, dressed in a khaki colored suit and dark blue shirt at the Four Seasons, is quick to point out that he lost his virginity some time ago and has two kids with wife Nancy Walls, who also has a bit part in “Virgin.”

Before he became a movie star, Carell had his share of awkward moments when it came to the opposite sex.

“Up until eighth grade I went to an all boy's school. By the time I hit high school I was a bit freaked out by women in general. As soon as I went from being a friend and started looking at a woman as a potential love interest I could not even talk to a woman. I was pretty bad,” said Carell, who once mixed together 10 of his mother’s perfumes to give as a gift to a girl next door.

“Virgin” is directed by Judd Apatow, who also directed Carell in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” Fellow alums from “Anchorman” who are also in “Virgin” include Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen. It’s surprising Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell don’t have cameos in “Virgin” since the movie continues in the tradition of “Old School” and “Wedding Crashers,” which were both rated-R comedies aimed toward men.

Carell said Universal insisted the movie be rated R and that he and Apatow “earn it” by not pulling any punches or softening the humor. “The objective wasn’t to make this more of an R. We just wrote what we thought was the funniest. We wrote for the characters and we wrote for the situations and we didn’t really think about, well, we have to make this dirtier or less dirty – we just wrote it the way we saw it. So it was nice in that…we never felt like we had to censor ourselves,” Carell said.

He pitched the idea for “Virgin” to Apatow based on “a guy desperately wanting to keep up with these other guys who are telling these great sex stories and it quickly becomes apparent that he's out of his element,” Carell said.

While Carell did not interview any real 40-year-old virgins in researching the script, he did read case studies documenting middle-age virginity that were provided by Universal.

“What we found to be the case, more often than not, was that they are just normal people who, for one reason or another, just never did it,” which is very similar to what his character experiences, Carell said. “What we found just reinforced what we had originally imagined. This is just a guy. This isn't some incredibly damaged human being. This is just a guy who for a number of reasons kind of missed the boat.

“I identify with [Andy] in the sense that he is trying. He's doing his best to get through life and keep a good aspect and disposition going, but I think there is an underlying sadness to the character, which in fact there is to me,” deadpanned Carell.

Nothing could be farther from the truth for Carell. His star is definitely on the rise. His goofy image in the poster for “Virgin”—reminiscent of a high school yearbook photo from the ’70s—is everywhere.

Recalled Carell the first time he saw a billboard for the movie: “We'd been out of town for a couple of weeks so when we left none of these billboards were up and we came back and they were every 100 yards, and I kept pointing them out to my wife, ‘12 o'clock. There's one at 2 o'clock, look at the bus!’ It's strange, it's weird and I love it. Universal is really promoting it.”

Carell realizes the future of his career may be riding on this film, but he wouldn’t change the journey.

“All the way through shooting it I just kept thinking if this is the last movie I ever do, this has been great. Being able to help create and be the lead in a movie is way beyond any expectation I ever had. So, I’m pretty happy with what has happened so far, and honestly, if this… if this it, if it all comes crashing down tomorrow, I’m still pretty happy.”

Source: Originally printed in Entertainment Today

Red-Eye

Sandra Kraisirideja
Actor Cillian Murphy has a face made for magazine covers—with cheekbones any supermodel would kill for—and a lanky figure that slides casually into a chair at the Regent Beverly Wilshire.

Dressed in a white, V-neck T-shirt and navy blue pinstripe suit jacket with jeans, Murphy, 29, doesn’t seem fazed by the increased interest he’s getting from Hollywood.

Horror fans were introduced to Murphy in “28 Days Later,” but mainstream audiences got their first glimpse of the Irish actor this summer as Dr. Jonathan Crane aka “Scarecrow” in “Batman Begins.”

Next up for Murphy is a starring role in Wes Craven’s “Red-Eye” opposite Rachel McAdams.

As Jackson Rippner—a gun-for-hire who, during a red eye flight to Florida, forces Lisa ?? (McAdams) to help with the assassination of the deputy secretary for homeland security—Murphy once again displays a natural talent for playing not-so-nice characters who waver between being creepy and charming.

With two films released within several months of each other with Murphy as a bad guy, is the actor worried that American audiences will forever typecast him as a villain?

“Look, that’s distribution which I have no control over. If people decide to put these movies out that way, that’s fine. I made like 10 feature films and played the bad guy in two of them,” said Murphy, who has faith that audiences know he’s an actor who will go on to play other parts.

“Having said that, I will concede that I’ve probably done my quota now of bad guys. They were just really interesting parts and characters for me and I had a great time doing them,” said Murphy, who credits the 1973 film “Scarecrow” with Gene Hackman and Al Pacino for sparking his interest in acting and film.

Craven had seen Murphy in “28 Days Later,” but was concerned the actor would be too thin for the role of Jackson. “They kept saying this guy, Cillian, really wants to do the film. He wants to work with you. Yeah, but he sounds like an Irish man calling from the pub,” recalled Craven.

Upon hearing Craven’s concerns, Murphy got on a plane to LAX to meet the director and seal the deal. His determination worked and Craven cast Murphy for the part.

“He doesn't have the normal American leading man pretty face,” Craven said. “It's a little knobby. A little angular. A little bit like he's taken a few punches and given a few.

“I felt like [there was] something…a certain gravitas that really is interesting. I checked his resume before the meeting and he'd done Shakespeare. Danny Boyle had selected him and hinged a whole movie on him and I thought, you know what, this is worth the gamble.”

McAdams, who spent weeks with Murphy cramped in a pair of airline seats during filming, found him to be very funny. “He’s a joker,” McAdams said. “He loves to tell really bad jokes, and I’m a sucker for bad jokes, I love them.”

The two actors built up a level of trust over the course of filming, which was invaluable, McAdams said.

One scene that stands out for McAdams is when her character is confronted by Jackson in the airplane lavatory.

“He is such a good physical actor,” McAdams said. “He’s really good with the choreography. He’s so convincing when it comes to being shot at or being stabbed. He’s just so believable, yet it’s very controlled.”

When it comes to real-life high pressure situations, Murphy said he’s, “fine except inanimate objects tend to set me off when they don’t work. But, I’m pretty good with people I think.”

Murphy started acting at age 20 after seeing “A Clockwork Orange” performed at a nightclub in Cork.
“It was completely cool and sexy and brilliant and I knocked on the door of the theater company and asked for an audition. They gave me a part in a play called ‘Disco Pigs’ and they made that into a movie and then I continued after that.”

These days Murphy judges his celebrity status by “how many people can pronounce my name correctly.” (It’s “Kill-ian”).
“I live in London and you never, ever get people coming up to you. Back home in Cork or in Ireland, yeah, obviously. But, everyone is really sweet,” Murphy said.

Up next for Murphy is a science fiction film, “Sunshine,” which also marks his second collaboration with Boyle.

“I just want to improve as an actor, learn as an actor and hone my craft. I’ve never trained or anything so I’ve been learning at theater and at film. Each performance you want it to be better than the last one. You don’t want it to ever be your best because that would mean that you’ve stopped. You want to keep on keepin’ on.”

Source: Originally printed in Entertainment Today

One-on-one interview with Evan Rachel Wood, star of "Pretty Persuasion"

I spent about 20 minutes talking to Evan at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills. This is just a few minutes from the beginning of our interview.

Vince Vaughn Interview snippet from Wedding Crashers

I struck a deal with the other journalists at the round table that I would ask Vince Vaughn the first question. "Did you use a stunt crotch for the scene under the dinner table?" What was Vince's reaction? Click on the link to hear for yourself.

Pretty Persuasion

TEEN SPIRIT
Sandra Kraisirideja

Wearing blue jeans, a black shirt and green Chuck Taylor sneakers, Evan Rachel Wood looks like a regular teenager from the valley, which she is. But she’s also quickly becoming one of the best young actresses in Hollywood.

Living in Woodland Hills has helped Wood maintain some semblance of normalcy in her life.

“I just go to my little, suburban, quiet neighborhood and hang out. I’m sure my mom would kill me if she saw me on the Sunset Strip at some club. I’d be dead,” said Wood.

She also has a lot of the same friends from when she was seven years old who help keep her from getting jaded.

What helps her is “keeping those people around and the people who are really your friends around to remind you of when you were seven and a dork,” said Wood, who turns 18 next month.

For her birthday she’ll be busy filming in New York and has heard rumors that the cast is going to take her out.

“Who knows what they have in store for me? They’ll probably tie me up and throw me in a taxi,” said Wood, who “can’t wait” to be in New York without her parents and in her own apartment for the first time. “I’ve been craving that for so long,” she said.

This month Wood stars in “Pretty Persuasion,” a satirical look at fame and the lengths one teenager will go through to get it.

Wood comes across as being very mature for her age, but she still finds ways to, like on a recent trip to Disneyland where she and her friends donned iPods while on the rides.

“Dude, it’s fun. Go on It’s a Small World, but have ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in your ear. It’s awesome,” said Wood.

She was born in Raleigh, North Carolina to two stage actors who encouraged her to perform as soon as she could walk and talk.

“When I was little it was all just really nonchalant and normal,” said Wood of all of the acting she did. It wasn’t until she got older that she realized how lucky she had been.

Wood said her older brother, Ira, who has a small part in “Pretty Persuasion” has been very supportive of her career and she hopes he gets the attention he deserves soon. “He’s handsome and talented,” she said.

Wood’s first big break was on the ABC series “Once and Again,” playing Sela Ward’s daughter, but it was her turn as the self-destructive Tracy in “Thirteen” that took her career to another level.

Since then Wood has continued to play interesting, challenging roles with top name directors and actors. She starred as one of Cate Blanchett’s daughters in Ron Howard’s dark western “The Missing” and followed that up with “The Upside of Anger” opposite Kevin Costner and Joan Allen.

Wood has discriminating tastes when it comes to well-written scripts and has several films she’s attached to that are waiting for funding. Her own taste in film leans toward fantasy. “Edward Scissorhands” and “Labyrinth” are among her favorites and Wood, a self-described “quoting machine” knows all the lines from beginning to end.

Of the actresses under 30, Wood cited Maggie Gyllenhaal’s career as one she admires. “She’s so different and so interesting and really found her own cool, unique style and is working with good people and doing good movies. Yeah, she’s always great, and she’s dating Peter Saarsgard. Go Maggie,” Wood said.

“Pretty Persuasion” director Marcos Siega said Wood’s performance is “as good as Nicole Kidman’s in ‘To Die For.’” It’s an interesting comparison since Wood’s character, Kimberly Joyce, has similar motivations to Kidman’s character in “To Die For.”
Both characters will do anything for fame and skillfully use their sexuality to manipulate those around them to further their own goals.

Capitalizing on the public’s insatiable appetite for public trials and the media’s need for scandal, Kimberly and her friends sue their English teacher (Ron Livingston) for sexual harassment.

The media coverage gives Kimberly the edge she needs to score a television role, but her true motivation is not revealed until the final scene of the movie.

With its strong language, racist overtones and sexual promiscuity, “Pretty Persuasion” doesn’t pull any punches and will be released without a rating on Aug. 12 by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Source: Originally printed in Entertainment Today

The 40 Year Old Virgin

I'm seeing the screening tonight in Los Angeles. I'm really looking forward to the movie because the trailer is funny. It's interesting that Spandeau Ballet's song has become a favorite of R-rated romantic comedies. (Check out the trailer for Wedding Crashers and you'll hear what I mean).

Rachel McAdams and Reese Witherspoon

I am attending the junkets this weekend for Red Eye and Just Like Heaven and just received word that I will not be able to post the transcripts of my interviews with Reese and Rachel. I found the notice to be threatening and ominous. What do you think?

At Wolf Kastelar Van Iden & Associates' request and BWR, all press participating in roundtables and 1:1 interviews with Rachel McAdams and Reese Witherspoon will be asked to sign exclusivity agreements-- meaning the journalist and outlet were approved for the junket and the pieces generated cannot be sold or run in any other capacity. If this is not something you have authorization to sign, please request your editor to sign off in advance of the junket. If these forms are not signed at the junket, Wolf Kastelar Van Iden & Associates and BWR will refuse journalist participation.

Broken Flowers

REDEEMING LOST LOVES
Sandra Kraisirideja

It’s better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all, but is it really worth it if your number of lost loves keeps mounting without an end in sight?

Director Jim Jarmusch explores the issue in “Broken Flowers” starring Bill Murray, an actor who has single-handedly created a new niche character for aging male stars: the dour, painfully confused gentleman over 50 searching for love and understanding.

Murray’s character, Don Johnston, receives an unsigned letter on pink stationery from a former girlfriend who confesses that she gave birth to his son 20 years ago and that the boy is looking for him.

The letter sets the story in motion as Murray embarks on a cross-country trip to locate which one of his past lovers may have given birth to his son.

Who hasn’t wondered what it would be like to revisit old flames to see what has become of their lives? Would seeing those people shed some insight into your own life? Better yet, how would the reappearance of an old flame change your life? This is the stuff of romance novels for the middle-aged.

Johnston’s neighbor, played by a humorous Jeffrey Wright, fancies himself an amateur detective and suggests Johnston keep an eye out for clues such as pink stationery and a typewriter. Johnston also has to bring pink flowers to each woman, hence the movie’s title.

Jarmusch spends a lot of time on the quiet moments of Johnston’s journey—sleeping on an airplane, driving in a car, looking out a window—which amplify the character’s isolation and loneliness. He captures the tedium of travel.

Murray may be the star of the movie, but the actresses who play his former girlfriends get more opportunity to shine. Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lang, and an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton take full advantage of the few minutes of screen time they have.

Murray’s character provides an audience for their monologues and its great to see these actresses in roles that seem written for them.

Source: Originally printed in Entertainment Today

Dukes of Hazzard

“THE DUKES OF HAZZARD” MARGINALLY ENTERTAINING
Sandra Kraisirideja
Much has been written about the slump in ticket sales at the box office this summer. Some blame the glut of remakes this year, which doesn’t bode well for “The Dukes of Hazzard,” opening Aug. 5.

Since Memorial Day, over half a dozen movies have been released that were either remakes or, as marketing departments like to call them, updates. When did going to the movies become the equivalent of watching TV Land on a really big screen?

“The Dukes of Hazzard” series aired from 1979 to 1985 and one of its most memorable elements was a bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger, named General Lee, that had a Confederate flag blazoned across its roof.

This was before the era of political correctness when the Confederate flag was viewed as decoration and not some statement about race relations in America.

In the movie the flag is still on the car and a few scenes address its perceived meaning. When cousins Bo and Luke Duke. played by Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville, drive into Atlanta the General Lee is viewed with both support and scorn by passersby.

In other words, the Confederate flag and what it represents becomes another way to get cheap laughs.
Scott’s Bo is a car-obsessed nut job who launches into fistfights at the slightest provocation (usually involving the General Lee).

Knoxville’s Luke seems to possess the brains between the two cousins and he comes across as more level-headed. Can this considered a display of acting talent since Knoxville got his start volunteering for inane stunts as creator of the MTV series “Jackass?”

Daisy Duke is played by pop-singer and realty-TV star Jessica Simpson. This is Simpson’s first movie role and she puts her best assets forward.

Mixed in with the movie’s juvenile humor are plenty of car chases and aerial maneuvers. Interestingly those sequences aren’t nearly as entertaining as the clips of all the stunts that didn’t go perfectly that are part of the blooper reel at the end of the movie.

It’s worth watching if you can stay in the theater until the end.

Source: Originally printed in Entertainment Today