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Interview: Will Smith Talks ‘MIB III,’ Coming Back To The Screen, And Future Projects

Laura Aguirre — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:14:48 +0000

Will Smith might just be the biggest movie star there is. His TV show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, made him a household name, and before his three-year hiatus he made a decade’s worth of blockbusters. Now, he’s back as Agent J in Men In Black 3. We recently got the chance to talk to Mr. Smith. He told us what he learned during his time away, why he chose to revisit the MIB franchise, and shared details about some of his future projects.

Check out our interview with Will Smith…

Your act got to be a little more serious this time around. How was that?

Did you see my acting transition? Look, I think that the surprise at the end of the movie was the thing that got everybody excited to want to make this movie. It was a little bit beyond just getting together and having some fun. It was an interesting way to tie up the series and get you all the way back to the beginning. I like that people are surprised. No one really sees that coming. Well, some people see it coming, those amongst us that are so far ahead, but it was beautiful to come back together after so many years. And even the new guy, Josh Brolin, was able to deliver on the same energy that people are used to experiencing in these movies.

Describe your chemistry with Tommy Lee Jones and how you translated it to get that same effect with Josh Brolin?

That’s what was crazy because that was all Josh Brolin. As actors, when you’re in a scene, it’s like a tennis match. You’re going back and forth. Me and Josh have very different chemistry than me and Tommy Lee Jones. And what you do as an actor is you try to find the lanes and develop the chemistry. So I was expecting to make an adjustment from Tommy Lee Jones to Josh Brolin, but Josh studied Tommy so thoroughly that it was almost identical, like just the way that the interactions were. It was absolutely stunning and it’s crazy because you don’t even notice how good his acting is because it’s so good. It feels like you’re watching Tommy Lee Jones. You don’t know that’s Josh Brolin. People thought that Tommy did the voice for the Josh Brolin character. That’s how thoroughly Josh delivered it.

Were you surprised that the story was slightly more serious this time?

Look, we’re all ten years older from the second movie and different things are important to us in our lives. We’re growing and you want to have the same kind of dumb, the same kind of silly that the first two movies had. There’s an appreciation of the silly that the comedy delivers, but it was really important for us to also have some meat to chew on and create something. Toy Story 3 did a really great job of advancing it, but also creating the underlying depth. So if you’re going into the third part of something, it was really important to deliver emotionally.

Why did you want to revisit this franchise?

The idea of a secret government organization that polices alien activity on and off planet Earth, is so unique. You don’t say that this movie is just like Men In Black. There’s nothing that’s just like Men In Black. You can look at other movies and compare them to things, but Men In Black is a very distinct, very unique thing. It’s difficult to have a fantasy comedy that works on that level. They tend to feel not smart or there is something in the DNA when it’s those two things that sort of dissipates. So for me, I was excited about the degree of difficulty. Also, I haven’t worked in three years, so I wanted to put on some shoes that I knew fit. [Laughs]

You’ve been producing though. Is it a totally different creative exercise when you produce a film that you’re not in?

I’ve been producing with the kids and with [wife] Jada [Pinkett-Smith]. I think it’s where I’m most natural, at my most natural lane. I think that the wide view of seeing everything that’s going on, and helping, and pulling people in comes very natural to me. But when you stay away from acting for a while, it’s like a muscle. You get out there and you look stupid, so it’s like you got to warm up a little bit and I’ve been away from it. The time was well-spent. There is a little bit of a blend.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons on The Karate Kid. Working on a remake is interesting in that you start with hindsight, right, so that was an interesting thing. You can spell out and see the patterns of why people cheer in a movie theater much more clearly and you get to experiment with your idea. So for me, that was very informative. And just coming back to Men In Black 3 felt like home.

Can you talk about coming back? What’s changed in the last few years?

Well, it’s a thing that I’ve been paying attention to for a lot of years. I was in Australia in 1990 with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis and they were opening Planet Hollywood. So I was out there while I was just in my first year of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. I’m down there, I’m like, ‘Yo, this is crazy.’ So they’re sitting around and I go in there and I’m sitting there with those guys and Arnold sits there and he says to me, ‘Young man, I want you to know, you cannot be a movie star only in the United States. You’re only a movie star if they know you around the world.’ Right? And then, Bruce talked about it for a little and I was like, ‘All right.’

So they put that idea into my mind very clearly and then, from that point, that’s when I started making it a point to open new markets. We went into Russia with I, Robot, we went into Brazil, and the idea is that you create that around the world and that’s when you hold a movie star. There used to be a time where you could just have hit movies in the United States, but that’s not the case anymore. And as you can see, the world of cinema is opening up even more, so to me, it’s just about taking those laps around the world to maintain that.

Is it surreal that some of the younger generations are recognizing your early work?

You know what’s crazy for me is that The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air is the biggest thing I’ve ever done. Like when I go around, I’m the Fresh Prince everywhere in the world. People scream, ‘El Principe!’ It’s just amazing how that television show, and it was really sort of a stroke of luck, it’s because of the amount of outlets for the show that a nine-year old kid thinks it’s new. A nine year-old kid in Moscow watching the Fresh Prince thinks it’s brand new, so when I show up, it’s as if it’s brand new. So The Fresh Prince has been a huge gift for me in that sense.

Do your kids ever give you grief for some of your earlier work?

Jaden can’t figure out how people thought it was OK for me to wear the clothes I was wearing on Fresh Prince. That’s his thing. He was like, ‘Dude, that shouldn’t even be on TV.’ Willow gets it and understands. But with the kids in the house, it’s really great for me because they help me stay aware. They help me stay current, and follow trends and things like that. Even the idea of something as simple as Instagram is an entirely new outlet. It’s like the fans are consuming entertainment differently and if you miss on that, you turn into a dinosaur really quickly.

What, personally, did you learn from your time off?

It was just that, I was a child of Dallas, so I’ve dreamed about this life my entire life, right? So on Dallas, they had South Fork, the property had a name. And Sue Ellen would come to breakfast and J.R. was there and it was like the whole family and everybody worked the family business. That was my vision of my family. But I’m actually surprised that other people got their own vision. Like Willow made a huge hit record, “Whip My Hair”, then she cut her hair off. It’s like, ‘Hey! What are you doing?’ So it was like, for me, the last three years of seeing just how much everybody has their own opinion and everybody has their own ideas and everybody has their own lives that may or may not fit in my Sue Ellen vision.

What’s your favorite gadget from Men In Black III?

It has to be the time dial. Somebody needs to come up with a Time Jump app. That idea, I’ve always loved time travel. And I started, because of this movie, to actually dive into it and thinking about it and talking about it. I realized, for black people, you don’t want to do too much jumping into the past. Right now is the best it’s ever been. It was like, yeah, maybe the time dial, if can go forward with it, that would be a great thing. [Laughs]

This is your first 3D movie. How was your experience with this new technology and what did you think of the final product?

Well, my first concern with being in 3D was my ears, because I could see these things pretty much taking over the whole of the screen. But when I first saw and they were cool and it was like “Alright.” They didn’t have me looking like satellite dishes. But then, with special effects now you can see anything. There’s no limitations with special effects. In the last five or six years, there’s no limitation of what you can see on screen anymore.

It’s funny, because the same thing happened with the music business. When the music business went to digital, when you can do anything, when you can record anything, a number of tracks, as soon as it exploded, it has a weird opposite effect where it gets worse for a while, which is really strange. It’s like as soon as you get all the tools to do anything, all of a sudden, now the movies aren’t as good, and it’s like “how the hell does that happen?”

So I think we’re about to turn that corner with the 3D specifically and Men In Black. I think what [director] Barry [Sonnenfeld] did was he found the balance of not throwing things at the audience. The 3D is the screen and back, which he went for depth, which makes it more pleasing to the eye. He decided to go with the conversion. We tried to work with the actual 3D cameras, but he went with the conversion and I think it just gives you a greater opportunity to dial it in and make it more pleasurable.

How was it filming in New York?

Anytime you shoot in New York, it’s always hectic because New York actually becomes a character in the movie. But that’s an important part of the Men In Black series. We were back there, I think we shot four months in New York and then the rest was on the streets and some of the stuff was on stage.

Can you tell us anything about Uptown Saturday Night?

Uptown. Well, me and Denzel [Washington], we’re working on it, trying to get it together. That would be a great thing, considering the material has to be right to deserve all that manpower. We would try to figure it out as we got into it and see who’s more comfortable doing what. Because when I first asked Denzel, he was like, ‘I’m not funny, man.’ And I’m saying like, ‘That was funny, that you said that.’ So he was a little concerned about the comedy and I’m like, ‘Man, come on. It’s going to be fantastic.’

If you could go back in time and change the success of anything, what would it be?

The thing that I have learned in my extensive study of time travel is that if you change one thing, you change everything. So I am absolutely ecstatic about where my life is right now. I wouldn’t mess with anything. Everything I’ve experienced, everything that’s gone right or wrong in my mind has turned out to be alright. So I feel like that’s the nature of energy. I get to decide whether it’s right or wrong or good or bad. My life, as I sit here today, is absolutely perfect, so I’m messing with nothing.

Is another Bad Boys a possibility?

I love making those movies. It’s Miami, it’s the tight T-shirt, and fast cars and it’s just at this point in my career though, the material has to be right. Just because it’s a popcorn movie doesn’t mean it doesn’t have something to say. And that to me, that’s hugely important. I’m 43 and I’m probably looking at seven more years where I can run and jump a little bit and then I’m going butt and gut for the rest of my career.

Do you think you’ll do SNL anytime soon? What do you think of Jay Pharoah’s impression of you?

I met him a few months ago. He’s got Denzel down. He doesn’t exactly have me perfect. I should spend some time with him so he can get me just perfect. I’ve never done SNL, we have to figure that out. The timing’s never been perfect for that. I’ll go on there and I hear everybody say it’s great and it’s a tough week that’s fantastic. But I’ve never done it. Maybe, we’ll see, next flick.

Do you ever think that there’s a generation of kids who know you best as Willow and Jaden’s dad?

In Philly, the kids were like, ‘Mr. Willow! Mr. Willow!’ [Laughs]

Do you think it’s important to attract a younger generation?

It was very important for me, having been away that long to come back in a way that was comfortable for me, and to come back with a project that was kid-friendly. And that was something that Eddie Murphy had said to me a few years ago. He said, ‘Man, if you’re lucky enough to be in this business, every 20 years, you got to go back and get the kids. Go get the kids every 20 years.” With Dr. Dolittle and The Klumps and everything and the idea of maturing and then you go back and drop something.

And what’s great for me is that target audience is in my house, so I get the scene-by-scene, screenplay-by-screenplay, run it by the judges. Jaden is probably the one of my kids who looks at me like I’m meat, like, ‘I’m coming for you. You just have no idea. He’s looking across the dinner table at me. Jaden is extremely competitive. I tell him all the time, ‘You know what, son, listen, I’m going to teach you everything I know and you’re going to work hard and you’ll be the second biggest movie star in the world.’ [Laughs]

Men In Black III opens Friday, May 25th.

Interview: Josh Brolin Talks ‘MIB III,’ Impersonating Tommy Lee Jones And ‘Gangster Squad’

Laura Aguirre — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:24:11 +0000

In Men In Black 3, Josh Brolin plays the 1960′s version of Tommy Lee Jones‘ Agent K. His cool, charm and optimism offer a new side to a character we all knew to be otherwise grumpy. We recently got the chance to talk to Brolin. He told us why he chose to join the Men in Black, the terrifying process of impersonating Jones, and his first impression of Will Smith.

Check out our interview with Josh Brolin…

How do you go from an impression of Tommy Lee Jones to an entire performance?

It started with a bad impression that I used to do for Barry. I got to know Barry a bit through the Coens and was re doing Nick Nolte and Tommy Lee Jones, but really bad versions of them. And then somebody calls you and says, “Hey, you want to do this mega-movie and play young K for a billion people to judge?” I said, “Um, can I think about it?” It’s putting your ass on the line – especially when it’s somebody you know. I still don’t know if Tommy liked it or not.

You do get to add a smile to the performance, a smile that we hadn’t seen before.

Good. I think I’m most happy about that. I saw it in its entirety in 3D last night, which I hadn’t seen. The last time I had seen it, about 20% of the special effects were done. But I think I was most happy about that because Barry and everybody had an opinion on it. “I think he should be really happy” or “I think he should be depressed.”

And so, you’re figuring all this stuff out the whole time and at the same time, you’re playing Tommy Lee Jones. There’s a lot of hives that start to happen. I was so pleased that it seemed seamless and that’s what was so great as an experience and watching the film as objectively as I can watch it. I’m very lucky in that respect where I don’t watch a movie I’m in and go, “You’re so bad. Your nose looks so weird.” That whole cosmetic thing, I can really look back and say, “Does this work or does this not work?”

The intention was within ten minutes when you are watching the movie, you’re not watching me constantly do this Tommy thing, some kind of caricature of Tommy. I think it was really important to allow the chemistry to work and all that stuff and not do too much makeup. We did just enough, I think. And the voice goes up into that extreme lilt sometimes, but then goes back into more of a generic thing.

The voice was dead on, what was you process for that?

A torturous one. I was down in Mexico, and I went and rented a little motel room down and went on my computer and went through it. What happens is like with a play: you go, you get together, and you do the first reading. This would be very similar to this and you do the first reading of a play and it’s usually great. And then it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse and then you come back around so you feel like you’ve earned your way back to what the initial reading was. That’s what it was like.

So I went down to Mexico, and got totally frustrated, wanted to quit, wanted to call Sony and say, “You’re wasting your money doing this because I can’t do this.” You know, all the actor stuff that people go through. And then you start to go, “Oh my God, that’s one thing that sounds good.” The tough thing about Tommy is that the “u’s” will all be alike and the vowels will all be alike. When he’s doing his thing and the breathiness of all that stuff. Tommy’s all over. Tommy’s improvising his voice and it’s still cultivating into something we won’t know until later. It’s like an instrument that’s been played by nobody that somebody says, “Learn how to play this, but make an album in two months that everybody will hear.” It’s like, “Why, I can’t do that. I just started.”

Can you talk about your chemistry with Will Smith?

Chemistry with Will was either going to be there or not. I think that was just luck. You can act it. I remember acting with an actor I didn’t like so much and he says, “I feel like you don’t like me,” and I said, “I don’t have to like you. I can act it,” which wasn’t a nice thing. But the truth was I hadn’t met Will before I said yes to this, and we went into rehearsals right away. I had a lot of nerves about getting it right and listening to the iPod and having watched Men In Black fifty times and all that. But the minute I got together with Will, it was seamless and it was like, “Thank you, God, Thank you God.” And it was professional, too.

We don’t know each other personally that well. It was very professional and we were always talking about the story and how we could make a moment better and ad-libbing and going back and forth. From my point of view, I was very happy with the outcome because it was organic.

What appealed to you about this big mainstream project?

It’s not a business decision. I don’t think “I bet the audience wants to see me in Men In Black now.” It’s totally selfish and personal. I like to have fun. I’m a total goof. And honestly, as a whole, serious movies are much more fun to work on than comedies because you’re compensating for the drama, so people usually have a brilliant time. When I did Flirting With Disaster, it was one of the gnarliest movies I ever did.” Everybody was like, “Oh, my God! This is not funny, And I’m not funny. It was like “Wow, this is gnarly. I want to do dramas.” And I liked Flirting With Disaster and I saw how it came out and it was like, “Wow, it’s a great movie.” So for me, it sounds so cliché, but I just want to keep challenging myself.

My goal isn’t to do as many mega-films as I possibly can. That’s just not my own personal goal. My goal is to be on my deathbed and to look back and kind of chuckle. And I’m starting to chuckle a little bit right now. It’s a really nice feeling. Like the guy from No Country For Old Men did Men In Black, who also did Milk, who also did W. That’s a nice feeling for me.

What are you looking for from a director?

It’s different. You work with The Coens and you get nothing literally. I’ve told this story a million times, but we’re doing No Country and I would finish a scene and look at Ethan [Coen] and Ethan would be silent and that meant, “Awesome, we got it. It was amazing.” It was like, “Really, that’s it?” The first two weeks, Javier [Bardem] would go, “Oh, my God! He’s going to fire me. He hates me.” [Laughs] I’ve had the most amazing stories about Oliver [Stone] and this and that. I had an amazing experience with him. I heard Gus [Van Sant] was quiet and fragile, and I didn’t experience that at all. So I’ve been very lucky.

Directors know the biggest talent a director can have, from a actor’s standpoint, is casting. If you cast it right, they won’t have to do much. And beyond that, they know when to tweak and when not to tweak. If they feel like they have to get in and say something because they have the title of director, that’s usually a massive problem.

When did you first realize you had a gift for vocal mimicry?

When I got kicked out of class a lot, that’s when it starts, you make people laugh. And I remember the first time I ever took an acting class was in high school and it was kind of an accident and I did an improv class and I created a character and everybody laughed. So it first came in humor and it was like, wow, making people laugh is really fun, this feels right, and creating stories. I wrote from the word ‘go’. I have all my journals, still from the beginning. So writing short stories, writing poems, writing scripts, writing plays, writing that, so storytelling has been a massive thing in my life. And then, I found out you can maybe act what you’re doing, like Mike Nichols or somebody in the beginning. And I liked the prospect of that.

Everybody imagines, your dad was an actor, so you became an actor. Your dad can’t get you a job. And my dad wasn’t in a position to give me a job. He didn’t run a studio or something. My dad was trying to get his own jobs. So when I became an actor, he was like, “Are you sure you want to do that?” And now my daughter’s into it and it’s the same thing. She has much more talent than my father and I, for sure, put together. I’ve seen her on stage and she just blew my mind, but if it’s in there, it’s in there.

Did you try to stop her?

The thing is, you look at your kid and you go, “What do you want to do with your life?” And they go, “I want to be rejected my entire life.” “Go for it!” It’s not something you wish for your kids, but even in the greatest of successes, you’re always going to have people slamming you. It’s constant, especially now with the Internet and all that. But she’s got the skin, she’s got the heart, and she’s got the talent, so why not.

What surprised you about working with Will?

The first time you meet Will, he’s like, “Hey!!!” You’re like, “Wow, serious?” It’s like waiting for rehearsal and try this voice and talk about it and whatever and he’s like, “M-I-B!!!” And you go, “OK.” So that was the whole movie. It’s just funny, man. It’s like going to an insane asylum. You have Will doing that and you have Barry going (imitating nasal voice), and telling stories about his mother calling him Madison Square Garden when he’s 16. And I’m like, “There people are crazy.” I thought I was crazy, but these people are nuts, which, honestly, makes it fun because you have both sides, which I understand very well.

You can have a lot of fun and you can have a lot of fun on the set, which I think is very important, and you can also bang away and say, “Look, what’s the best story here. Let’s never get lazy about our work. The professionalism comes first and then, we can have a blast.” There’s a lot of people that just want to have a good time and there’s a lot of people that I’ve work with, not a lot, but some, that just love the title, man. They’re in Hollywood and they can get good blow or something, I don’t know. What I loved about working with Will is that he is into it. I don’t know why he didn’t work for four years, which was a choice. I thought that was pretty amazing after four years. I like to work a lot personally. I like to just keep challenging myself and all that, but maybe, that would change in the future, I don’t know.

What do you key into when you’re doing a period piece like Gangster Squad?

You know, honestly, first and foremost, I’m proud of L.A. and I’ve really tried to embrace California, hence our California skit on SNL. I try to embrace California a lot because I remember as a kid, being an actor was going to New York and studying in New York. Everybody was kind of ashamed to be from California or especially from L.A. And I really made a point about turning that around, because California is pretty fricking great, man. So this was a movie about California and about Los Angeles and I loved the idea of that first and foremost. Secondly, Sean [Penn] and I were looking to do another movie together. We really had a great time working together and we’ve been friends for a long time. We had a great time working together on Milk, so we were looking for something else.

There was a great moment I had – I was just interested in the era. It was an interesting era that I didn’t really know a lot about, and especially about Los Angeles and learning the history of Los Angeles. But my dad came to the set one day, which he usually doesn’t do. And he came on to the set where O’Meara’s house is and he’s out on the porch, and we were looking out, and it was basically one of the streets that has not changed, the houses hadn’t changed, and we put all the old cars. And my dad sat, and he usually doesn’t do this, I don’t come up to him and say, “What was it like?” Because he denies his age or whatever.

And he was sat back and for like 45 minutes, he goes, “God, I remember when your uncle got hit by a thing there,” and he was like telling me all these stories. It was like he was in a full regression. It was innocence in his eyes. And I was like, “That’s why I’m doing this film. That’s why I love this. There was an innocence, even though it was hard, it was severe, all the gun battles, all that kind of stuff, there was an innocence to it that I really, really want to experience. So I did, through my pop, as much as through the movie.

What did you think about the 3D?

I loved it because it was a new 3D that I had never seen. I talked to Barry about it. In my experience, 3D is usually very invasive. It’s like scratch and sniff, whatever it is. And I felt like it was in the movie. It made the movie more beautiful. And as Avatar was an incredible experience, it’s so surreal. There is heart, but there’s no humanity in it. You’re watching these things flying and dragons and all this and this is a very different experience. And I thought this is a better movie because it’s in 3D. And I hadn’t seen it, I hadn’t seen any 3D. And Barry was like, ‘Can you watch 12 minutes. Come on.’ And I saw the movie as an entirety, which I was very happy about.

What do you think of the Rick Baker make-up?

It’s incredible and it’s always incredible. And not that this means what you think it means and seven Academy Awards and regardless, the guy, he is the beginning and he is the end. Because when he’s not around anymore, people are only going to be doing what they’ve been taught by him or the precedents that he set. Period. And Christian Tinsley, who is my makeup guy and did the makeup for Men In Black, and did for Jonah Hex and did it for W., and did it for a lot of things, he’s going to do it for Old Boys, he’s going to do it for Labor Day. He’s an incredible guy and Rick has a lot of respect for him, which I think Christian is very happy about, but no, there’s nobody like him, truly, and what a great grounded guy, too. And he was one guy who came and gave me – compliments are weird. I got used to The Coens, so I’ve gotten used to nothing and he was very complementary on the set. It was nice.

Men In Black III opens Friday, May 25th.

Interview: Barry Sonnenfeld Talks ‘MIB III’, Casting Josh Brolin And Technology

Laura Aguirre — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:08:42 +0000

It’s been 10 years since Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones were seen battling aliens as Agents J and K. This week, the iconic duo returns in Barry Sonnenfeld‘s Men In Black III, with Josh Brolin playing a younger, slightly more optimistic version of Jones’ K. We recently got the chance to chat with director Sonnenfeld. He told us about the process of casting Brolin, why he refused to shoot in native 3D, and how technology made everything much easier for him this time around.

Check out our interview with Berry Sonnenfeld…

What was the biggest challenge on MIB III that you didn’t have in others?

Barry Sonnenfeld: Technology made it easier. It’s always the story on any movie. The hard part is getting your story together. Until you have your story, it’s really hard to finish propping a movie. It’s hard to figure out who to cast. It took us a long while to get the script right. I kept saying to Sony, “What a director needs is a script.”

One day Will [Smith], who really is my partner and best friend and ally on these movies, said, “Hey Baz, they know what a director needs. They know you need a script, we just don’t have one yet.” My wife would say, “Barry, if you tell one more person that what you need is a script, I’m going to throttle you.” The good news is that you can look at the movie that we made and not say, “Wow, it sure looks like they didn’t know what they were doing.” We got along great – Will, [Josh] Brolin, Tommy [Lee Jones] and myself.

You have a situation where the actors totally trust the director. The director loves the actors. We had a fantastic first act and we knew what our ending was suppose to be. We had a great ending. Most movies run into trouble in the second and third act when you’re writing a script. A lot of reasons that happens is you keep fixing the first act. You run out of time and you never get the second and third act right because you keep going back. I would say our biggest challenge on this movie was story. Least challenging was the casting, shooting or technology. I loved what we did with the 3D. I knew how I was going to shoot the 3D. I feel our 3D is unique to any movie you’ve ever seen in 3D. I was very confident about all that.

Did you ever worry that the project was going to fall apart?

I’m trying to think of a film I didn’t worry that it was going to fall apart. When we did Get Shorty we were ready to go, everything was set. This was after seven years of getting someone to let us make Get Shorty. No one wanted to make it. Right before we were shooting the studio said we had to lose $250,000, which was a lot on that movie, or they weren’t going to make it. There were a few days of horror on that. What I did on that movie was that I volunteered to take out what I knew was their favorite scene. I said, “We’re back on budget, we’ve taken out the scene with Ben Stiller, Gene Hackman and John Travolta.” They said that they loved that scene and we couldn’t take it out. I said, “You can’t have it.” They said, “We have to have it.” I said, “You cannot have that scene, it’s too much money.” The president said, “I’m the president of the studio, what is going to take to have that scene?” I said, “$250,000.” He said, “You got it.” [Laughs]

And by the way, the scene is not in the movie and it is the best scene, but it came out after several other scenes that were similar and the audience, I think, was getting bored. I took it out. You can see it at the end of the DVD. My point is, there were a lot of big challenges because the movie is about time-travel. What happened is we started the movie on a certain date because we wanted a) this to be Will Smith’s next movie and he was circling some other movies, and b) we didn’t know if the tax investment credit in New York State was going to continue. If we lost that, we lost tens of millions of dollars making this movie not able to be made for the right budget.

We knew we had a great first act, we knew we had a fantastic ending and we shot and went on a long hiatus. Now you’re in panic mode because you gotta start up again. I remember reading nothing but horrible stories about Titanic. I remember people going to see Titanic just to see how bad it could be. So, all these movies are hard. This movie was harder than a lot of them because there was a lot of pressure. We were reinventing a franchise and we’re doing time travel. What if we screw up and Josh Brolin is no good and the audience hates us for breaking up a fantastic and iconic duo which is Tommy and Will? That was my single biggest concern.

We never felt this was a one-hander. We always felt Will is only as funny as Tommy allows him to be. Gracie Allen-George Burns. We’re now taking Tommy out in the middle of the movie. We have to replace him with someone who feels equally perfect as Tommy, but on the other hard, isn’t Tommy. It was my suggestion to hire Brolin. The second I saw him I said, “I can’t wait to see what your head looks like in 3D.” He’s got the largest head, only second to Tommy Lee Jones of any actor in America.

It was hard. They were all hard. The only one that wasn’t hard for me was Big Trouble. 59 great nights of shooting, but it didn’t make any money. 11 days before it opened The Towers went down and we had to guys that had stolen a suitcase with a nuclear bomb so that wasn’t going to go anywhere. This one was hard, but not harder than others.

Was there ever any consideration of not casting a younger actor and maybe doing the Tron: Legacy technology by having Tommy play a younger version of himself?

Never. I felt the joy of going back in time was to make it feel like a different movie. If we had Tommy doing that it would start to feel like the other MIB movies. I think that going back in time and seeing young K and it not being played by Tommy Lee Jones was the best choice.

Did you try to direct Josh Brolin the same way you directed Tommy Lee Jones?

Well, I direct all of the actors the same way which is basically saying “flatter and faster,” except for Will where I would go, “flatter and more urgency.”

A lot of the Josh Brolin direction happened before we started. Josh and I spent a great deal of time saying that this couldn’t be an impersonation. It had to be an interpretation. What is amazing about Josh’s performance is that he looks like Tommy, he’s wearing prosthetic ears and a prosthetic nose to look a little more like Tommy, but they look very similar. If you look at Tommy when he was in his late-20s, he looks similar to Josh Brolin. Brolin can sound a great deal like Tommy. Everyone thinks Tommy has this flat voice, but it’s actually quite musical. There’s a real lilt and beauty to Tommy’s voice that you guys have probably never experienced.

The challenge for Josh and myself was to figure out to what extent is he a different guy because he’s 40 years younger and the event that changed him hasn’t happened yet. Josh and I felt it should be old Tommy, but a little bit more optimistic. Not a totally different guy, not like he’s Jerry Lewis. Before we started, some people felt the whole joy was to see a very different guy. I was very fearful that if we did that, the audience would immediately say, “I miss Tommy Lee Jones.” Brolin and I were in total agreement that there would be more optimism, but he was basically the same guy. The studio realized we had made the right decision. I do very little directing on the set. My direction is mainly about pace, syntax and urgency. I’ll just say, “Let’s do one take where you’re less mean and more amused.” I don’t go back to the chair and talk about your childhood.

Was telling Tommy that he wasn’t going to be in a large part of this movie a good experience?

I wasn’t the one to tell him. I was the one to fly down with the producers to Palm Beach and talk to him about being in the movie. Tommy’s initial reaction was that he wasn’t in the movie enough and that he loved working with Will and myself. He said, “We have a great time together.” I said, “We absolutely do, but the truth is we need to make a different movie. We don’t want to make MIB3 and it’s just another caper. We need to add something to make is very different. It’s not out you Tommy, it’s about what would work best for the film.”

After 10 years we felt we needed to re-engineer it a little bit. I was not the one to tell him. I think he’s extraordinary. I love spending time with him. I remember I was a producer on Lady Killers. I said to Joel and Ethan Coen, “You gotta hire Tommy for that role, he’d be perfect.” They were too afraid to, but I love Tommy and he loves me. I have pictures of me and Tommy smiling happily together.

Has your comfort level with technology improved?

The technology has exploded. For me, where the technology has gotten much better is in set extensions, like that we built all of Shea Stadium and we built 90% of Cape Canaveral. All those big digital set extensions you would never have done them in Men In Black I. We would have had to build them and we couldn’t have done that so that wouldn’t have been in the script. What you can do, in terms of creating worlds and all that, is fantastic. Magic is fantastic.

What still is the hardest thing is you really want actors to act to actors. You don’t want them to act to blue screen dots. I don’t like motion capture because I find it weirdly plastic and scary and spooky. I mean if I was going to do an all motion capture movie, I would just animate it. The challenges on this movie weren’t explosions, not rocket ships, but subtle things. Sometimes we use Avatar J or Avatar K in the shot and making them still feel as human as possible. That hasn’t changed.

We had a really great crew on this movie. It was all Image Works which is all owned by Sony, but that’s not the point. In spite of having a great crew, I stayed away from trying to create CG aliens interacting with actors. CG aliens can’t ad-lib, you can’t change things. What’s great about working with real actors is someone says something a certain way. One will say, “Drop dead,” while another can say, “Drop dead?” Technology has improved profoundly. I think I’ve convinced Sony that it’s actually a better way to go. We’ll see.

How does being “tech-obsessed” inform what you do? There is no state of the art anymore, it’s changing all the time.

BS: I’m not nearly the same level of “tech-obsessed” as David Fincher or James Cameron or those guys, but it sort of moves or stays the same. It does move but you still don’t want your aliens to be animated. There has been amazing stuff. What Peter Jackson did in Lord of the Rings was pretty great. There has been great stuff, but it’s unusual.

Do you keep all of the devices you review for Esquire?

No, I’ve left Esquire. After eight years I was too obsessed. I don’t keep what I review. I end up buying a lot of stuff.

Is there another one of these films in you with maybe Jaden Smith playing a young version of Will Smith?

I said to Will that we should do one when we go back and get Jaden just so I wouldn’t work with Will. [Laughs]

Can you talk about the 3D?

I think it’s the best use of 3D I’ve seen in a movie. We decided to convert. I knew we were releasing 3D. I knew we were intending to shoot in 3D. I did a series of tests with a reality rig, a pace rig, and I also shot on 35mm film and converted it. Then looked at all three.

It’s really stupid to shoot native 3D. First of all, native 3D, at the moment, the MapBox is very wide. I use wide angel lenses. When I tried to get a shot of Will Smith aiming a gun at the screen, the MapBox got in the way. The technicians are not set savvy. They are not fast. Every time you change a lens, you have to change both lenses. You have to calibrate. It’s a disaster. You can’t shoot on film, you have to shoot digital. I still prefer the look of film. When we took all the footage to release print, Rick Baker’s alien makeup didn’t look as good when you originated it on digital. It’s slower on the set. Also, here’s the other weird thing: When you shoot in native 3D, you have to choose and lock the interocular separation for that shot, which determines the depth. But since you don’t know your cutting pattern when you’re shooting, if the depth changes too much from shot to shot, people get headaches.

What 3D directors do is they have very narrow interocular separation. They put all the convergence at the screen and in most 3D movies you see, the convergence is at the screen and the 3D-ness is back there somewhere. It makes sense because Jim Cameron has reinvigorated 3D. His way of seeing is getting into a submersible, going down 7 miles and looking through a porthole at the world. I, on the other hand, am an only child. I use wide angle lenses. I want the audience close to me.

I feel, unlike Michael Bay, Michael Mann, the Scott Brothers, who use long lenses, whose movies are very handsome, very beautiful, but slightly absorbed. My feeling, from what I did with the Coen Brothers and Danny DeVito, I want to grab the audience and say “C’mon, let’s go watch this movie.” Because I use a 21mm, you unconsciously feel you are in the room with the actors. If you look at MIB3 again in 3D, I would say 80% of the movie is actually in front of the screen. If you see closeup of Will or even over the shoulders, they’re slightly in the audience. Not like we’re throwing darts at you or anything. None of that could have happened if we had shot native 3D. I feel for the way I shoot with wide lenses, on film, with the pace I want, converting was the best choice.

One last thing, when you shoot native 3D, it’s like a recording device. There’s no art to it. The amount of 3D is the amount of 3D. That’s set. The 21 mm lens shooting a closeup of Will Smith, which is what I do. Will’s ears are in Philadelphia and his nose is in Los Angeles. He’s got small ears and they are far away from the rest of his face. In 2D conversion, I actually control the depth and volume of his head in every single shot. We’re always cheating that. We’re always taking Will’s head and doing that to it. It’s imperceptible, but we knew what we were doing. We did a lot of tests. I think MIB3 is going to change the way studios and filmmakers think about how they shoot their 3D movies. You can use small rigs and shoot film, what could be more perfect than that for your movie?

How do you feel about the push for 48 frames coming out of Cinema-Con 2012?

I didn’t see it so I can’t comment on it technically. To me, anything that makes something shot on film or something that’s an art, a fantasy, look more like video, more like reality, you don’t want it. I once at a Sony store in midtown Manhattan and I was looking at something that looked like the making of Avatar, but it was Avatar. I said to salesmen, “Say is there something wrong with this television?” And the guy said, “You mean cause it looks like General Hospital?” And I said, “Yeah.” And then he presses a button that increases the refresher rate to 60. Don’t do it. It’s really this magical device that make anything turn into General Hospital.

I haven’t seen it, so I can’t comment on it, except to say I like the film look. I like it looking like art. I’m not saying I’m an artist, but I do feel anything that makes anything seem more like video doesn’t sound like such a great idea to me. You might as well stay home and watch the weather channel – which is my favorite thing to do, I admit that. [Laughs]

Men In Black III opens Friday, May 25th.

Will James Cameron Become the Next George Lucas?

Joseph Doherty — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:57:23 +0000

Love him or hate him, director James Cameron has never been one to play it safe. But Cameron just announced that he is not open to developing any projects, original or otherwise, in the near future. Instead he will focus entirely on directing sequels to his groundbreaking 3D epic Avatar. This is cause for concern. In the past, some directors opted to coast off huge successes and ended up irrevocably damaging their reputations. The most notable of these being George Lucas with his Star Wars franchise. Will James Cameron follow in his path?

In analyzing the careers of George Lucas and James Cameron, there are similarities, and it was Star Wars was the film that inspired Cameron to quit his truck driving job and go to work at Roger Corman Studios. Both are notorious gear-heads. The two men also hit tremendous creative highs after difficult first films with American Graffiti and The Terminator.

George Lucas’ second feature, American Graffiti, was and remains the director’s most personal endeavor, touching on many elements from his teenage years, including small town living, troubled relationships, and cruising. To tell his story, Lucas employed the use of several daring and innovative devices like crossing-cutting narratives, title cards, and a musical score comprised entirely of period rock songs. American Graffiti helped revive interest in the 50s era. After that, Lucas was viewed as being one of Hollywood’s brightest talents, a young artist of seemingly unlimited potential.

Like Lucas, James Cameron experienced overnight success with his second directorial effort. From its inception, everything about The Terminator screamed ‘B-movie trash’. After selling his original screenplay for $1 dollar and an agreement to direct, Cameron was able to muster a paltry $6.5.million budget and cast relative unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead. Against all expectations, Cameron came out on top. The Terminator was a taut, tense, and supremely intelligent thriller that was miles beyond most of the mindless action fare released in the mid 80s.

It was what George Lucas and James Cameron did after hitting it big where their careers diverged. For Lucas, America Graffiti was a revelation. Unfortunately, the film was swallowed up by the phenomenon of Star Wars. Many felt that Lucas reached new artistic peaks with Star Wars‘ elaborate costumes, creatures, and production design, but all those were cosmetic. In terms of storytelling, Star Wars was really a classic coming-of-age tale played against the backdrop of war. While the narrative was certainly well-structured, it lacked the originality and emotional resonance of Lucas’ earlier efforts. After Star Wars, Lucas was either unwilling or unable to recapture that ambition and creativity which led him to create American Graffiti. Instead, he milked the Star Wars brand for all it was worth, releasing an endless stream of toys, games, books, television series, inferior prequels, and a horrid holiday special. Today, the franchise has become something of a running gag even among the most loyal fans.

James Cameron took the high road after The Terminator, directing a series of epic, yet diverse, blockbusters that always managed to push the envelope in terms of visual storytelling. After a 12 year break from film-making, he returned in 2009 with Avatar, a film which was very much in the same vein as Star Wars, and there’s where they begin to interest again. Both were overly hyped sci-fi epics with young stars, groundbreaking visuals, and shopworn plots. In addition to becoming the highest-grossing films of their time, they were also wrongly praised as being their respective directors’ finest achievement.

Right out of the gate, James Cameron expressed a desire to helm an Avatar sequel. Evidently that desire has morphed into something else with Cameron’s proclamation that he will just be in the “Avatar business” from now on and is developing three more installments. But isn’t this creative wheel-spinning? Unfortunately, this may very well lead to his downfall based on George Lucas’ history with Star Wars. Currently James Cameron deserves some benefit of the doubt based on his body of work. However, the day he announces plans for an Avatar holiday special, I’m heading for the hills.

Do you think James Cameron will become the next George Lucas?

The Avengers: Movie Review

Damon Houx — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:00:13 +0000

The Avengers is here, and it’s the film Marvel has been planting the seeds for since Iron Man hits screens in 2008. In that time we’ve had films featuring Hulk, Thor, and Captain America to help get audiences in the mood and in the know about these characters. And knowing the characters is important for Joss Whedon’s film, because character development and – for the most part – motivation is kept to a minimum. You’ve got an all–star cast facing evil, and it all builds to a blockbuster conclusion. But too bad it’s such a rocky ride to get there.

The Players:

Written and Directed By: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlet Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Colbie Smulders, Clark Gregg
Music By: Alan Silvestri
Cinematography by Seamus McGarvey

The Plot:

Loki (Hiddleston) is sent back to earth to find the Tesseract (which will open a portal for invasion), and has the power to turn humans into slaves. He invades SHIELD headquarters, and that sends Nick Fury (Jackson) Agent Coulson (Gregg) and Black Widow (Johansson) to gather Captain America (Evans) Iron Man (Downey Jr.) and the Hulk (Ruffalo) to help stop Loki. Eventually – along with Hawkeye (Renner) – they become a team to fight the alien invasion (the Chitauri).

The Good:

That Third Act: New York is in the crosshairs, as The Avengers must stop an oncoming horde of aliens from taking over the planet. This is what you paid to see and it delivers some great moments of the Avengers fighting bad guys and doing cool stuff. The Hulk is a stand out here.
The Cast: It’s hard to be as excited about some of the returning actors who are doing their well-defined characters, but this is a muderer’s row of talent, and it’s the people who get something new to do who shine. Johansson gives as good as she gets, and has some of the best moments in the film, while Mark Ruffalo as Banner and as Hulk steals the movie.
Quips: It’s Joss Whedon, and they’re mostly funny.

The Bad:

Marvel: This is the big film they’ve been building to for years, and they decided with this one that they were going to shoot it flat (1.85:1) – instead of scope (2.35:1) as they have every film they’ve been behind previous. Not only does that break continuity, but it robs the film of an epic feel. It makes the movie that much smaller. On top of which it’s just a very small feeling film. Not intimate, but none of the early set pieces feel epic. Everything comes across as if it was done on a budget until New York – and even then that’s kept contained.
Nothing to Do: Loki shows up and then gets arrested in a sequence that lays out what little is going on under the surface of this movie (good versus evil, maybe a little anti-fascism) and spends the middle section of the movie waiting for things to happen. Captain America is here because he’s a soldier, and does nothing in the film all that memorable, while Tony Stark also seems to be here because they asked him (and because he’s a little curious about SHIELD himself), same with Bruce Banner. Black Widow and Hawkeye are company men, and Thor joins the group just because – and this was Nick Fury’s big plan? To have people like Thor just show up? No one is acting like they’re trying to stop the end of the world, and the moments where these iconic figures of comic book world finally meet for the first time and then decide to work together seems as powerful and iconic as a coffee date. There was a lot of wrangling that went in to getting this film made, but it seems the film doesn’t find its iconic footing until the last section, when it realizes you want to see the team together. When Banner shows up in New York to fight along side his compatriots, there’s a sense that he’s showing up more because the plot demands it than him feeling like it’s the right thing to do.
It’s a Godzilla Movie: This has been a complaint of mine for a long time with super hero movies, and – to be fair – this is more Destroy All Monsters than Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, but it never really functions as a team movie because at no point during the course of anything that happens during the first two thirds of the film do they work together as a team. Seriously. And when they do, they rarely work as a group so much as co-ordinate their assaults. But it’s not about using skill sets so much as random butt-kicking. The set pieces don’t build in the early sections of the film, so much as get things into place for the final act. Which delivers, but still. When they do work together – like Hawkeye and Iron Man – it’s where the movie really soars.

Overall:

If you are just happy to see these characters together, you will love this film, and the idea of this film feels unimaginable. Unfortunately, the imagination that went in to bringing the characters together and what they do once they are together is severely limited by budget and creativity. Once again, it’s an origin story with familiar characters where it feels like it’s all building to an awesome conclusion. But since there’s no real main character or thematic heft or even interesting motivation to latch on to, it’s empty spectacle.

Rating: 6.5/10

The Avengers opens May 4.

Photos:

Trailer:

Tribeca Film Festival 2012 Winners!

Mali Elfman — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:56:11 +0000

There are a number of ways to win a film festival, for many of these filmmakers having their films seen for the first time with packed houses is enough for them to call themselves winners, for others it’s getting a standing ovation by a well respected director (Michael Moore after Searching for Sugar Man screening), the ones we at ScreenCrave loved, happened to be the exact same ones that won the Audience Awards, and of course there are the ones that juror members decided were worth giving some money and accolades to. Find out all of them below…

Our Top Picks:

Heineken Audience Awards:

Any Day Now – Best Narrative Feature – Directed by Travis Fine

“We had a wonderful experience here two years ago,” said Fine. “We are absolutely thrilled and honored that audiences responded so strongly.”

Burn – Best Documentary Feature – Directed by Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez

“We were told time and time again that there is no audience for a film about firefighters,” said Sanchez. Added Putnam, “We are so grateful for this honor and we hope it will help raise the profile of the film and let people know what’s going on in Detroit and across this country.”

Each award comes with a cash prize of $25,000. Any Day Now receives the sculpture Ascension courtesy of Nathan Sawaya and BURN receives Jacobs #16 “Blue Skies” courtesy of Peter Dayton & Winston Wächter Fine Art.

TRIBECA JURY AWARDED FILMS:

The Jurors:

The jurors for the 2012 World Narrative Competition were Patricia Clarkson, Dakota Fanning, Mike Newell, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Jim Sheridan, and Irwin Winkler.

The jurors for the 2012 Best New Narrative Director Competition were Camilla Belle, Whoopi Goldberg, Susannah Grant, Zach Helm, Courtney Hunt, Kellan Lutz and Leelee Sobieski.

The jurors for the 2012 World Documentary Competition were Julia Bacha, Kim Cattrall, K’naan, Michael Moore, and Lucy Walker.

The jurors for the 2012 Best New Documentary Director Competition were Stuart Blumberg, Jared Cohen, Rachel Grady, Bethann Hardison, Sal Masekela, Ricki Stern, and Olivia Wilde.

The 2012 Best Narrative Short Competition jurors were Maureen Chiquet, Hugh Dancy, Aline Brosh McKenna, Bridget Moynahan, Drew Nieporent, Mohammed Saeed Harib, and Shari Springer Berman.

The 2012 Best Documentary and Student Short Competition jurors were Scooter Braun, Robert Hammond, Brett Ratner, Susan Sarandon, James Spione, Shailene Woodley, and Susan Zirinsky.

The Winners:

The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature
War Witch
Directed by Kim Nguyen (Canada)

Jury Comments: “This indelible character study of a girl who becomes a woman before our eyes in the midst of harrowing war gives words to the unspeakable. Riveting, heartbreaking, vivid, and eloquent, the movie balances scenes of crazy enemy hatred with moments of luminous private love.”

Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film
Dariel Arrechada and Javier Nuñez Florian as Raul and Elio
Una Noche, directed by Lucy Mulloy

Jury Comments: “We give the award for Best Actor in a Narrative Feature to Dariel Arrechada and to Javier Nuñez Florian in Una Noche, for potent individual performances that together are even greater than the sum of their parts. Playing Raul and Elio, young Cuban men who goad each other on in a dream of fleeing Havana for a fantasy of Miami, Dariel locates Raul’s danger and sexual power as precisely as Javier taps into Elio’s essential sweetness. Both young actors are nonprofessionals who took great risks to tell a daring story. Each won our hearts.”

Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film
Rachel Mwanza as Komona
War Witch, directed by Kim Nguyen

Jury Comments: “A nonprofessional actress, this remarkable young woman—barely a teenager when the movie was shot—so fully inhabits her role that there are no borders to her stunning performance, no distance at all between the actress and the unforgettable character Komona.”

Best Cinematography in a Narrative Feature Film
Una Noche
Cinematography by Trevor Forrest and Shlomo Godder, directed by Lucy Mulloy

Jury Comments: “Una Noche reveals a Havana we could never otherwise see, in its jumble of vibrant life, decay, and making do. There’s a ‘you are there’ documentary immediacy to the picture, shot on the fly and in the streets, that keeps us enthralled.”

Best Screenplay for a Narrative Feature Film
All In (La Suerte en Tus Manos)
Written by Daniel Burman and Sergio Dubcovsky and directed by Daniel Burman (Argentina)

Jury Comments: “We are impressed with the movie’s elegant and thoughtful balance of comedic lightness and deepness of soul; its ability to locate universal issues regarding families, lovers, kids, and running a business within the tangy specificity of an Argentinean Jewish poker-playing milieu; and its ability to cram vasectomies and rock ’n’ roll rabbis into the same story without breaking a sweat. Comedy is hard; All In handles it with ease.”

Best New Narrative Director
Una Noche: Lucy Mulloy (UK, Cuba, USA)

Jury Comments: “Lucy Mulloyʼs Una Noche rang the bell inside all of our little director hearts. We simply thought the film was awesome, and it only grew in our esteem as we spoke of it after. It is a film that immediately connects any audience member it can find to the undeniable, hopeful, and naïve intentions of the young. It is so rich in its motivations, and so breathtaking in its outcomes, it is thoughtful and entertaining in perfect balance. Mulloy pulled us through social portrait to family drama, to true crime, to thriller, all with skill, grace, the realized intent of a sophisticated filmmaker, and deep love for humanity. So, Lucy, we would like you to accept the 2012 Best New Narrative Director award, and please consider us for your next picture.”

Best Documentary Feature
The World Before Her
Directed by Nisha Pahuja (Canada)

Jury Comments: “With unprecedented access, great compassion, and a keen eye for the universal, this year’s winner takes a hard and clear-eyed look at the trials of growing up female in today’s fast-changing world. Following young women who have taken diametrically opposed decisions on how to tackle the influence of global forces in their communities, the filmmaker takes us on a journey to examine how the pressures of faith, fashion, and family are bringing up a generation of women who are desperately searching for meaning amidst a reality of few real choices.”

Best Editing in a Documentary Feature
The Flat (Hadira)
Edited by Tali Halter Shenkar and directed by Arnon Goldfinger, (Israel, Germany)

Jury Comments: “For a story so skillfully told that even though we thought this subject had been covered already by many great films, to our surprise a new story emerged that took us by surprise, left us on the edge of our seat, and will stay with us. The story is based on a complicated and murky journey into the unknown; however, thanks to the sure-handed and deceptively simple editing, it unfolded so clearly and powerfully that even a scene of the filmmaker and his mother lost in a rainy graveyard becomes beautifully climactic and memorable. This is a lesson in how a modestly shot family history can transcend its personal nature and become universal in its insights into human psychology thanks to great filmmaking craft.”

Best New Documentary Director
Wavumba: Jeroen van Velzen (Netherlands)

Jury Comments: “A modern day ‘Old Man and the Sea’ tale, set off the coast of Kenya, this lyrical film depicts the story of Masoud, a legend of shark fishing who, along with his young protégé, strives to end his days with one last grand catch. We the jury especially appreciated this new director’s confidence of style, his restraint and his deep relationship to a culture fast disappearing. It is a hypnotic story of man and nature, unafraid of silence, and full of a terrible beauty. We look forward to his next endeavor with great anticipation.”

Best Narrative Short
Asad
Directed by Bryan Buckley (USA)

Jury Comments: “Asad is a lyrical, moving and beautifully realized portrayal of a world we rarely get to see in cinema. Every shot of the film is well thought out and specific to this unique world—a fishing village in Somalia. Yet Asad’s most astounding achievement is boasting an array of brilliant performances by a cast of Somali refugees. Congratulations to writer/director Bryan Buckley and his amazing cast on making a short film that is rather large in spirit, ambition and accomplishment.”

Best Documentary Short
Paraíso
Directed by Nadav Kurtz (USA)

Jury Comments: “This film is a beautifully crafted portrait of a group of men with a sense of humanity and a very unique view of the world. In 10 minutes we were drawn into a story that told us about human nature, quality of life, economics, race, the importance of family and mortality. The men may be invisible to the world rushing below them, but they see through the windows they’re washing—deep into the lives and souls of the people behind the glass. It’s cinematically exquisite, with light so rich it’s thrilling to watch.”

Student Visionary Award
Stitches
Directed by Adiya Imri Orr (Israel)

Jury Comments: “Stitches is a well written, powerfully acted film that exposes the rawness of two life partners who have decided to have a baby and now find themselves at the precipice of their relationship. The world around them still treats them like they don’t quite belong. Every confrontation, every expression feels like you’re touching an exposed nerve. Life, as you discover in this film, is not always neat.”

Tribeca (Online) Film Festival Best Feature Film
On The Mat
Directed and written by Fredric Golding (USA)

Tribeca (Online) Film Festival Best Short Film
CatCam
Directed by Seth Keal (USA)

Tribeca Film Fest 2012: Any Day Now – Movie Review

Mali Elfman — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:35:07 +0000

Any Day Now was by far my number one pick for best film at Tribeca Film Fest 2012. It won the Heinkien Audience Award and should have won best screenplay and director. After watching many films attempt to deliver and experiment with tone and structure, it was a joy to see a real film that will stand the test of time…

The Players:

Director: Travis Fine
Screenwriter: Travis Fine and George Arthur Bloom
Producers: Travis Fine, Kristine Fine, Chip Hourihan, Anne O’Shea (EP)
Cast: Alan Cumming, Garret Dillahunt, Isaac Leyva, Frances Fisher, Gregg Henry, Don Franklin

Tribeca Synopsis:

Set in 1970s Los Angeles and inspired by a true story, Any Day Now is a poignant and occasionally incendiary drama from TFF alum Travis Fine (The Space Between) that addresses gay adoption rights issues that are as relevant today as they were nearly 40 years ago. Augmenting the touching performances from Cumming and Dillahunt is Isaac Leyva, who offers a subtle yet impactful performance as a boy who inspires those around him to fight for what is right when no one else will.

The Good:

Alan Cumming: He’s phenomenal in this film. From the subtle looks he gives over his shoulder, to the flip-flopping of emotions, to the pushing his character to the extreme without ever going over the top — he owns this film. He’s master of the screen and it’s quite clear that this was a film meant for him and he was meant for this film. Stunning, superb, give him some awards already!
The Acting: Yes, Alan Cumming made this film what it was, but it takes an army to make a film excel. The reason why this film (not just the one character) was great was because of the extraordinary supporting cast. From the subtle moments between the actors, to nailing lines that could have possibly have come off as cheesy (Ex: “we just have to keep on fighting”), to having a special-needs actor in one of the lead roles absolutely stealing every moment he’s on camera — every single actor in this film had a clear back-story, brilliant delivery and understanding that made this film truly great.
The Tone: This is a difficult film because it deals with a very serious story and yet allows for a lot of moments of subtle comedic relief. It’s extremely tricky to balance these two things without one taking over, but it does it effortlessly, making it both entertaining and impactful.
The Filmmaking: The filmmaker was extremely smart in letting the meaning of the film reveal itself through great story-telling. The director seemed to understand how to deliver an important message without preaching to the audience or over explaining himself. He focused on the characters and the story, not the subject matter and by doing so the film carried your away and made you feel involved. The result was a film that was not only important, but well made and enjoyable to watch.
The Subject Matter: It’s timely, relevant, woven seamless into this beautiful story between two magnificent men, and if there was ever a film that will get you both crying and ready to fight, it’s this one.

The Bad:

Horrible film for you if you wear mascara. Bring tissues. A lot of tissues.

Overall:

This was by bar the best film out of Tribeca Film Fest and it deserved to win far more awards than it did (best screenplay to All In and not this??). As soon as it finds a distributor and makes its way into theaters, seek it out and tell your friends. Hopefully this won’t be the last that we hear of this film.

Rating: 9.5/10

Tribeca Film Fest 2012: Searching for Sugar Man – Movie Review

Mali Elfman — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 22:57:57 +0000

After missing Searching for Sugar Man at Sundance earlier this year, it was a pleasure to finally catch up with it. Once enough people find out about the story of “Sugar Man” it’s safe to say some of the mystery (and fun) of the film will be taken away, so see it as soon as possible. That being said, this is a finely made documentary that looks to be my top pick of the festival as it nears its end. Find out more about the intrigue of the man, the myth, the legend that never was but now is below…

The Players:

Directed and Written by: Malik Bendjelloul
Producers: Simon Chinn, Malik Bendjelloul
Editor: Malik Bendjelloul
Director of Photography: Camilla Skagerstrom

Synopsis:

He was supposed to be the next Bob Dylan. Record labels loved him, everyone around him saw greatness, and yet for one reason or another ’70s folk rock musician Rodriguez never made it big. After what seemed to be a massive failure, Rodriguez slipped away and urban legends of different types of onstage suicides emerged. And as he faded away from the US’s memory, one bootlegged copy, somehow showed up in South Africa, where his antiestablishment message resonated with the youth protest movement there, and Rodriguez unknowingly became bigger than Elvis, but no one knew.Decades later, two intrepid fans decide to investigate whatever happened to the mysterious rocker….

The Good:

Great Story Telling: The bottom line is that documentaries are comprised of a lot of footage and sometimes you feel the weight of the director wanting to tell you everything. Not only did this director have limited amounts of found footage to deal with seeing as Rodriguez was barely ever in the spotlight and decades of information of to compile, but he also had the challenge of tracking down this mystery man with absolutely no help. Somehow he managed to put it all together and organize it in a way that feel effortless and is a true joy to watch. The film is more like an action/thriller than a documentary.
A Story We All Want to Hear: We all want to believe that happy endings are real. We all know that we have a better chance of being hit my lightening than having our wildest dreams come true. But we still need to believe it can happen, and it’s nice to know that this one man, who stood up for what he believed in, can finally receive the recognition he deserves. It’s nice to know that sometimes the hero wins.
Hope: Let’s face it, there’s a lot of crap going on in the world and a lot of documentaries bring that darkness to light and for good reason, BUT everyone once in a while, you watch a film like this and it gives you hope. Hope that the world is a better place, hope that if you’re patient, good things may just happen, and for the filmmaking community, hope that a story well told with a great subject will be loved by the community. This film was successful on all fronts. Not only was this the only film I attended that got a round of applause as the credits rolled, but a standing ovation for the director afterward. This is a film that’s not only needed, but wanted.

The Bad:

I really hope we don’t find out this is fake, I would be so disappointed.

Overall:

Truly an inspirational story and film. A must see film with heart and a message that many of us want to believe, that ‘maybe if I keep going, my dreams will come true.’ Don’t miss it!

Rating: 8.5/10

Tribeca Film Fest 2012: Burn – Movie Review

Mali Elfman — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:11:24 +0000

So far, it’s easy to say that Burn is leading the pack at Tribeca Film Festival. Though ScreenCrave got here for the tail end of the festival, we’re doing out best to catch up as quickly as possible and there’s no better way to kick things off than with talking about Burn, quite easily one of the most heart-wrenching, relevant, and accessible documentaries I’ve seen for some time….

The Players:

Director: Tom Putnam, Brenna Sanchez
Screenwriter: Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam

Synopsis:

Detroit has gone for booming, to burning. With massive unemployment rates, the city ha s crumbled. In the film they say “it’s like Hurricane Katrine was to New Orleans, but there was no hurricane.” Empty house everyone are left as kindling. And though the department is known for fighting fire “with balls” with ill-equipped trucks and a serious lack of funding, there’s only so much these heroes can do.

The Good:

The Heart: If there’s one thing that fire-fighters have got, it’s heart, and it would be impossible for a film to properly represent them with out. Luckily, this film has got that extra something that makes it more than just a piece of cinema, but a journey into the lives of these heroes.
The Many Perspectives: All of these men had incredibly interesting stories to follow and were all worthy of film of their own (hey, maybe that would help with their budget crisis?) but this is a film about the bigger picture and they did a great job at not only showing all the different sides of the department, but also of the entire system. Everyone had an angle and a reason for doing what they were doing, and everyone felt fairly represented.
Editing/Music: This is a heavy film, with a lot of sadness and a lot of despair, but somehow it never managed to lose momentum. Between the well paced story line that never hangs too long in the slower, sadder beats, and some much needed bursts of lively music, the film clips right along and is extremely easy to consume.
The Why: With all the challenges this film shows, from the lack of funds in the system to these men saving lives and putting their lives on the line for others, it’s hard not to wonder, why would anyone want to do this? The film does a great but subtle job at showing you a bit of why every person on the team not only loves this, but needs this in their lives.

The Bad:

Little Upside: For as great as the film and filmmaking is in Burn,the situation that they’re in is so dire and they’re receiving such little help, that you leave the theater feeling overwhelmed and dare I say depressed. There needed to be more of a call to action at the end of the film, because it makes you want to help so badly, but it doesn’t give you a way to do it. And man is that depressing.

Overall:

It’s a great film, one worthy of watching and surprisingly fun to do so at times, but it will leave you with a heavy heart. Watch, enjoy and be ready.

Rating: 8/10

Interview: Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan on ‘American Reunion’

Laura Aguirre — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:56:07 +0000

Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan are back as Jim and Michelle in the upcoming American Reunion, the fourth film in the American Pie franchise. It’s been a long time since Jim and Michelle first found each other at East Great Falls high school. Now, they’re settled down but their sex life has hit a snag. We recently had the chance to talk to very funny Biggs and Hannigan about making American Reunion as well as the new, um, ‘pie scene’. Check out the humorous interview below.

(SPOILER ALERT!) Jason, what was the conversation like about how you show your penis on-screen? And Alyson, now that two of your on-screen husbands – Jason Segel and Jason Biggs – have shown their goods, do we have you to blame for this?

Jason Biggs: She brings it out on guys. I don’t know what it is.

Alyson Hannigan: Honestly, I think with this Jason Biggs, it was about time! We spent three movies talking about it, and the pie got to see it, so it was about time we all get to see it.

JB: The penis has been a major player in the American Pie franchise. It has been its own character.

AH: It’s the Rosebud.

JB: Yeah, nailed it. So it was about time.

AH: We needed the reveal.

JB: It was about time. The conversation went something like – I kept pushing the guys – Jon [Hurwitz] and Hayden [Schlossberg], our writer/directors – for that pie scene. [I said], “What’s going to be the pie scene this time, guys?” Some earlier drafts felt like it was missing; I gave them carte blanche, just a blank canvas. I was like, “I will literally do anything, as long as it makes sense, in the context of the film and for the character and as long as I think it’s funny.” Jon wrote me when day and said, “Would you be willing to show your penis?,” and I said, “Yes, absolutely! If it’s funny.” I laughed out loud when they pitched me the idea. I was like, “That sounds great!”

AH: As far as the technicalities of doing the scene, which was my first day of shooting, by the way.

JB: Yeah, “Welcome back to the franchise, Alyson! Here’s my penis!”

AH: It was quite technically difficult because I had to become his eyes. He couldn’t lean down and see because then he wasn’t squishing it enough.

JB: It was not easy.

AH: There were so many positions, and we had to decide which one was the funniest.

JB: 2 o’clock or the Eiffel Tower or the Sidney Harbor Bridge or just the straight up hot dog bun.

AH: The dead insect on the windshield.

JB: Exactly. The drunk astronaut. The options were endless. I should also tell you that I use to star in Puppetry of the Penis in Sidney, Australia when it first came out so that’s why we had so many options.

AH: It was good you took out all the piercings for the scene.

JB: Two of the holes closed. Bummer. I pee through my mouth now.

AH: We’re a little punchy. Sorry.

Jason, your character is still very interested in sex. Do you feel like he has truly evolved?

JB: I love that Jim has grown up. Jim and Michelle are married now, and they’ve got a kid and he means well. In his mind, he has grown up. But, the problem is that he finds himself, much like in the first film and frankly all of the American Pie films, in a situation where he’s, once again, sexually frustrated. When Jim is sexually frustrated, he ends up making some poor decisions. When he makes some poor decisions –

AH: We make a movie.

JB: We make a film. When we make a film, we get rich. The thing that I love now that Jim is 30 years old, after that long, men still masturbate. There are still sexual problems that arise for guys.

AH: Jason do you want to tell us something?

JB: I’m masturbating right now, under the table. Is that what you meant? [laughs]

Do you think that men are naturally inclined toward young girls?

AH: It was more that this beautiful woman is aggressively coming on to him.

JB: There is that. Also, I think the fact that he used to babysit her is an element. She’s also just turned 18 and in high school, so maybe there’s something about the just legal aspect of it. I don’t know. I’m married. I’m not attracted to any other woman, ever.

AH: Good answer!

JB: I heard she showed her boobs in this movie, is that true? Did that happen? I turned my eyes.

What themes did you gravitate towards the most?

AH: Definitely balancing the married relationship with parenthood, I could relate to. My situation wasn’t as extreme as Jim and Michelle’s, of course, but when my daughter was first born, we were definitely all-consumed with just her. It was probably quite a few months before we realized, “Okay, wait, we do need to actually set aside a date night, instead of trying to fit it in between diaper changes or whatever.” You just get so wrapped up. It was brilliant and there was no problem there, but it’s like, “Okay, we can’t do this for 18 years. We still need to have our couple time.” So, we try to have a date night, every week, even if it’s just going to dinner and having a dinner that’s not interrupted by a 3-year-old. That’s just nice.

JB: For me, the biggest change in my life, personally, since the last film has been getting married. Getting married, for me, has shifted my focus in such a profound way. You just realize, “Oh, I can’t be so selfish anymore. There’s someone else.” And it’s not just about the other person, but it’s about the relationship as well. Your priorities are realigned. Now, the next step will be kids, and I can’t imagine what that’s going to do. That will be a game changer. It’s interesting to see Jim wrestle with those same big ideas. It’s not just about him anymore. If you think about the first movie, the whole movie rests upon these guys just wanting to get laid. It’s very, “Me, me, me! Get me laid.” Jim and his dad is also a great part of the film, for me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that my dynamic with my parents has changed quite a bit. A lot of my favorite moments in this movie are not really the funny ones, but the more poignant, sweeter moments. That’s always been the case with the whole franchise. I love when Jim offers his dad advice, in this movie. It’s flipped. I think that’s really, really cool, and that’s another genius thing that our writer/director guys came up with. I found that my relationship with my old man has changed considerably. As an adult, it’s a different thing. It’s like he’s a new person to me, and it’s great. We have a totally different relationship then when I was growing up, as you’re supposed to. That resonated with me quite a bit. That’s cool.

What did you think of the dominatrix scene?

JB: The dominatrix scene was in the earlier draft and I was like, “Great! I think that will be really funny, but what’s the next step? There’s more to do here.” If there was any concern that I had with the very early, early drafts, and I mean a minor concern because when I tell you that the script was in the best shape, it blew my mind. You read the script, and I was like, “Did these guys write the first American Pie?” I felt that they had done such justice to Adam Herz’s original screenplay and the character that he had originally created, and I think it comes across on screen. I feel like this movie is more like the first one then any of the other ones.

AH: They were the perfect combination of the Weitz brothers and Adam, together.

JB: The Weitz brothers directed the first film and Adam wrote it, and I’d say that’s pretty accurate. So, if there was anything, it was just me saying, “How much further can we go?” Now that you have these characters who are in their 30s, it’s tougher to credibly find these situations where you can push these boundaries and put them in these ridiculous scenarios that are believable, aren’t gratuitous, aren’t awkward and aren’t illegal, in some way. They’re older. Some of the things they did in the previous films would not acceptable for a 30-year-old. So, they had to update it, if you will. That’s why the penis scene, I think works, organically. Organ being the appropriate root word there.

Alyson, did it seem natural that Michelle would be the dominatrix?

AH: Yeah! She was in the first film.

JB: She was! You [Alyson] made me your bitch.

AH: Absolutely! He still is. So, yeah, definitely. She is feeling responsible for letting the spark fade a little in their sexual life. She’s been so focused on being a mom, so she sees this weekend as a way to reinvigorate their lives and remind themselves of where they started.

You guys are so close to this franchise and you’ve been there since the beginning, are there any characters that you wanted closure for?

AH: I loved the MILF guys storyline. We really don’t know why they broke up, but they’re back together.

JB: We’re not saying they were gay. We just means they’re buddies. We never intended for it to come off that way. People have been questioning, I heard. Maybe they had a MILF come between them.

American Reunion hits theaters April 6, 2012.

Trailer Park: 10 Clichés Of The Horror Movie Trailer

Laura Aguirre — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:46:22 +0000

We watch a lot of movie trailers here at ScreenCrave, and, as we inch closer to summer with its ever-increasing torrent of new films, we’re seeing more and more previews with each passing day. As we do so, we can’t help but notice some similarities, repetitions, and clichés among them. Here at Trailer Park, we’ll be offering a rundown of those clichés, where they come from, and which trailers share them. For our first installment, we’ll be breaking down one of summer’s most ever-present previews: The Horror Movie Trailer.

Like the movies they preview, horror trailers are loaded with clichés. The worst part about them is that they are unavoidable because they’re inevitably there, playing before the non-horror movie we paid $12 to see. Horror trailers resort to the cheapest of tricks and scares to get you all panicky and squirmy; and they make movies seem a lot scarier than they normally are. Truth is, horror trailer clichés are endless, but here are a our top 10 to look out for.

10. The Mirror Scare

Used in: The Omen (2006), Prom Night (2008), Mirrors (2008), The Others (2000), Candyman (1992), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Urban Legend (1998), The Shining (1980), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Silent House (2012), Carrie (1976)

Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the worst cliché of them all? It’s got to be this one. The Mirror Scare is a classic cliché used in nearly all horror movies and their trailers. It might’ve been cool at some point, but the poor thing has been played out one too many times now.

As Seen In: The Omen

9. Single-Word Title Cards

Used In: Everywhere

We’ve discussed these in previous Trailer Park posts: It’s when text is used to describe what is going on in the images that are already allowing us to see what’s going on. It distracts from the purpose of the trailer which is to show as many scene bits as possible in a frame of a minute and thirty seconds. Title cards aren’t helpful, they’re lazy.

As Seen In: 28 Days Later

8. The Static

Used in: The Thing (1982), Saw (2004), Saw II (2004), [REC] (2007), The Ring (2002)

I don’t know about you but static is only scary when I’m trying to watch TV and can’t because the signal’s lost. The worst part about this cliche is when it’s used without an actual TV or radio in sight, leaving us to wonder where the noise may be coming from.

As Seen In: Saw

7. The Creepy Reveal

Used in: The Woman In Black (2012), Silent House (2012), The Innkeepers (2012), The Descent (2005), Drag Me To Hell (2009), Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark (2011), The Thing (2011), Child’s Play 3 (1991), Hellraiser (1987)

It’s cowardly to attack your victims from the back, don’t you think? They have no time to defend themselves. You know this cliché, it’s similar to ‘The Mirror Scare’ and often used to replace it in trailers; it’s when we see the main character looking for the killer/ghost/alien/whatever is trying to kill it and it appears right behind them.

As Seen In: The Woman In Black

6. The White Flash

Used in: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2005), Silent House (2012), The Innkeepers (2012), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Others (2000), The Grudge (2004), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Devil’s Rejects (2005), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Shining (1980)

What is it with white flashes and horror movie trailers? The black fade out is replaced by white flashes in the horror movie trailer, and it’s always accompanied by the sound of camera flash.

As Seen In: The Sixth Sense

5. Suspenseful Music (That Builds Up Rapidly)

Used In: The Devil Inside (2012), House at the End of the Street (2012), Saw (2004), The Grudge (2004), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), My Bloody Valentine (2009), The Mist (2007), Misery (1990), The Blair Witch Project (1999), The Shining (1980)

This cliché is usually accompanied by a montage of people screaming, running, falling, crying and dying, then followed by a loud clash, then silence over a black screen. It’s used to play with our emotions, building up our panic. Little do they (trailer editors) know that we’re use to seeing this kind of thing.

As Heard In: The Mist

4. The Moment Of Silence

Used In: Silent House (2012), The Innkeepers (2012), [REC] (2007), 28 Days Later (2002), The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

‘The Moment of Silence’ is either preceded by that suspenseful-music-people-running-montage (cliché No. 5), or it’s that moment when there’s no music and we just hear the actor’s heavy breathing like in The Innkeepers trailer. Either way it’s annoying because we know a scare is coming at the end of that silence or something scary is going to pop up.

As Seen In: The Innkeepers

3. ‘Based On The True Story’

Used In: The Amityville Horror (2005), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), An American Haunting (2006), The Rite (2001)

This is nothing more than self-proclaiming. Adding that the movie is ‘Based On The True Story’ isn’t doing it’s job because in reality, the movie that is being advertised couldn’t be farther away from the truth. If you want to frighten people more by adding ‘truth’ to the story, show true to life horror. And again, it’s about showing, not telling.

As Seen/Heard In: The Amityville Horror

2. The Final Scare

Used In: The Cabin In The Woods (2012), Silent House (2012), Jeepers Creepers (2001), The Amityville Horror (2005), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Prom Night (2008)

Movie titles usually mark the end of a movie trailer, but not here. Always beware of the ‘Final Scare’; this is the trick that follows the movie title card. Word of advice: it’s usually a girl screaming or the killer making a final appearance.

As Seen In: The Cabin In The Woods

1. The Scream

Used In: The Devil Inside (2012), The Cabin In The Woods (2012), Silent House (2012), The Innkeepers (2012), The Others (2000), Drag Me To Hell (2009), The Grudge (2004), My Bloody Valentine (2009), Scream (1997)

Alright so this is obvious, it’s a horror movie trailer after all, but it’s incredibly annoying. It’s always that really high-pitch scream that requires head-shaking and popped out eyes. And the screams always, always come from women as if they were the only ones who screamed.

As Seen In: Scream

And there’s a lot more where this came from.

What are some of the clichés you see? And which do you think should disappear?

Interview: Eugene Levy and Jennifer Coolidge on ‘American Reunion’

Laura Aguirre — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:20:46 +0000

American Reunion wouldn’t be right without Eugene Levy and Jennifer Coolidge. The two might’ not have been a part of East Great Falls High’s Class of ’99, but their characters are just as important as those of the teens they shared the screen with. We recently had the chance to talk to both comic actors about returning to the world of American Pie and reprising their roles as Jim’s Dad and Stifler’s Mom. Check out our interview below…

What was your reaction when you found out that your characters were going to be spending time together?

Eugene Levy: Well, I first heard it in a story pitch, when I had lunch with (writers/directors) Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, for the very first time, and they were laying out what their idea for the story was. They were talking me through the entire thing, and I was just loving everything that I was hearing. The fact that Jim’s dad is now a widower, I thought, “Wow, that’s really interesting. Shocking, but interesting.” Now, the tables are turning; Jim is giving a pep talk to his dad about the idea that it’s okay to start going out and start dating. And then he says, “You get to go to this party that they talk you into going to, and you wonder around the party and open a door and Stifler’s mom turns around.” I just said, “Wow, that is brilliant! That’s so brilliant! That’s so great!” It almost seems like a no-brainer, in a way, like Stifler’s mom and Jim’s dad, but I’ve always been married, and you never think about the fact that you’re ever going to get out of the house and you’re only taking care of your son, and that’s the deal. That was a great thing, that these two characters are now going to get together. It was so exciting, that prospect.

Jennifer Coolidge: I met Jon and Hayden, and I really liked their script, but I did fight with them. I did say that I thought I should sleep with Finch one last time before I do some other stuff. I did want that to happen, and I was very firm about it at this dinner with them. They were really cool guys, but what I liked about them was that they were in love with American Pie and knew so much about it. I was blown away at how much they knew. You could really quiz them and go, “What book was on the coffee table in #2, during this scene?,” and they know. They really are that obsessed with the movies. They said, “Jennifer, Stifler’s mom needs to evolve and she needs to grow, and she can’t just be sleeping with this young boy occasionally.” I don’t know how they convinced me because I’m very stubborn, but I remember at the end of the dinner, I left thinking – not that I wasn’t thrilled to sleep with Eugene [Levy] because we had some really fun stuff to do and we got to get high together and all of that – but, I wanted something to happen with Finch too, and they talked me out of it.

What are some of the changes you’ve noticed over the last 13 years ?

EL: From my perspective, I haven’t noticed too much of a change in these characters. They’re all pretty much the way I remember seeing them in the first American Pie. Yeah, some of them are married now, in the actual story, but they all basically look the same to me. They all look pretty good. When I was working on the first American Pie, they were all very professional actors. It wasn’t a bunch of kids. It wasn’t the inmates running the asylum. There wasn’t mayhem on the set. They were very professional actors doing a professional job. They created amazing characters so they’re really good at what they do. They’re still professional actors doing an amazing job. Even though it’s 13 years later, I’m 13 years older and they’re still that much younger than I was back then, they’re still that much younger than I am now. I don’t really notice that much of a difference except that Thomas [Ian Nicholas] has a beard, and a couple of the guys have buffed up a little bit. But, I don’t notice too much of a difference.

JC: I’ve noticed that they’ve gotten way more in touch with their sexuality. After the first movie, Eddie moved into my house, in real life, and he was this young, very pale kid that now isn’t pale. All these boys must be going to some famous Hollywood trainer because they all look like a million bucks. I had lunch with Eddie yesterday, I couldn’t believe how he’s turning into this heartthrob guy. He was this eccentric kid that read a lot of books, when he lived at my house. I don’t think Eddie’s picked up a book in – no, I’m joking [laughs]. As young, hot actors living in Hollywood, you get even more attractive.

Why do you think this franchise has been so successful and beloved everywhere?

EL: You have a premise like American Pie, it’s a very racy, raunchy movie. When I first read the script, it scared me. I said, “No, I can’t do this movie.” My manager, at the time, said, “Well, you should go and take a meeting?,” and I said, “Why? It’s just too out there for me. This is a kids’ movie. Why would I want to be in a movie I wouldn’t go see?” He said, “Just go talk to the directors.” So, I finally went in and met the Weitz brothers, and that was the turning point for me. They were really smart and really had a great sense of comedy, and they were really two young, brilliant guys. American Pie could have gone either way. It was so raw, sexually speaking, that under the wrong type of supervision, it could have crossed the line into [dangerous] territory. The fact that those guys, Paul and Chris Weitz, kept everything exactly where it should be. They were doing a movie that could have been bad taste, but it wasn’t bad taste. They kept it on the right side of bad taste. They were also character-oriented. The script was really an amazing script, and it was a smart movie. It wasn’t just a series of sex jokes. It was a movie where indelible characters were created and the movie-going public fell in love with these characters. These characters have kept the franchise going. It’s not even so much the content. Sex is always going to play with 16-year-old kids. Every year, somebody turns 16. That’s always going to happen, and sexual awareness is part of growing up. When you’re growing up, you can’t get away from sex. It’s going to be there for years. So, the content is there. The characters, people love, whether you’re a teenager, whether you’re in your 20′s, 30′s, 40′s or 50′s. The first time I saw American Pie with my wife was at the premiere and I said to her, “You’re probably not going to enjoy the movie because it’s really racy. But, I remember the scenes that I did with Jim and I think they’re kind of funny. We may enjoy those scenes, but I don’t know.” And then, the movie started and, right off the bat, I thought, “God, this is a great movie! It just really popped. It’s racy and it’s smart.” That’s what has kept this franchise going. They’ve handled very dicey material, in a very smart, intelligent way. That has now gone down here, in American Reunion. Two guys that love the franchise have put it together in a very smart way, keeping all of the sentimentality and keeping all of the characters very human and alive. That’s why we’re here doing #4, basically.

Did you have an idea, in your own head, of where your characters had gone all of these years?

JC: I always pictured myself having sex with Oz (Chris Klein). I really did. I thought Stifler’s mom would move on to some other kids. The only one I wouldn’t sleep with was Stifler because they wouldn’t go that far, but I have to say that I wouldn’t mind that at all [laughs]. But it never, in a million years, occurred to me that they would hook me up with an adult. I’m glad it all worked out, but it had never occurred to me that I could end up with Jim’s dad. Seducing Finch was great because he didn’t know what he was doing, but it’s even better to seduce an older man that doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Eugene, you’ve been in all of the American Pie movies, even the straight-to-DVD ones. Did you enjoy your character this time around?

EL: Oh, sure, it was funny. They let me out of the house on this movie. I wasn’t just sitting there, giving advice. I was able to actually get out and go to a party, and end up getting drunk and getting stoned and freaking out. ‘The fuzz’ was an old term that I don’t even know if it’s still used for the police. It took this character in very exciting directions for me, right up until the end of the movie. I thought, “Boy, I don’t know!” I had some reservations about that last scene. I thought, “I don’t know. Maybe this is one step over the line, for the character.” But I had to put my trust in Jon and Hayden because their instincts, up to that point, were pretty good. I’m glad I did because it was a fun scene to do and I think it turned out to be funny scene. So, there were new directions and that really made this movie exciting for me. That’s what American Reunion represents to me. The exciting thing about it, it’s not just more of the same, to me. This story stands on its own, as a movie. It’s not just taking what we had and stretching it to make another sequel. They did a really good job moving the characters, and giving all the character a great and interesting storyline, especially my character. I just loved what they did with Jim’s dad, and I think they had to do that. If I was just back, giving advice through the whole movie, I think people might possibly say, “Okay, I think we’ve seen it.”

JC: I requested, from Jon and Hayden, if we reverse the ending and I take the top of Eugene’s head and push him down into my lap because I thought that would be a Stifler’s mom move. I thought, “Why does it have to be me servicing Eugene? Why couldn’t it go the other way?” Did we improvise that?

EL: No we never got to the beginning of it. I don’t think. As big a problem as I had with the scene, generally in the beginning, Jim’s dad being the initiator of something like that was a bit tough to swallow, and I mean that in a good sense [laughs].

Will there be a reunion of the Christopher Guest folks anytime soon?

EL: Well, we had a little reunion at the Oscars. To answer that question, there’s nothing on the horizon. We really didn’t want to do another movie that’s a cookie-cutter movie, where you’ve got the same kind of style, but you just change the subject. Everybody is doing that fake documentary style now even TV shows are using that fake documentary style. So, there’s nothing novel about that anymore. And we haven’t really hit on an idea that moves us and that we both agree on, but we’re always talking.

American Reunion hits theaters April 6, 2012.

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