It was the end of a grueling day for Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright when I talked to them on April 3, 2007. Fatigue notwithstanding, these guys were primed for a chat filled with banter and philosophy as they trekked from the heights of filmmaking in theory and in practice, to the silliness,… Read More »
Leila Conners Peterson on THE 11TH HOUR
When I talked with Leila Conners Petersen on August 8, 2007, the thing I most wanted to discuss was how her film, THE 11TH HOUR, >wasn’t< a rehashing of AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Both deal with humankind’s effect on the environment, but Petersen and her filmmaking partners, Nadia Conners and Leonardo DiCaprio, wanted to do more… Read More »
Andrew Niccol on Creating SIMONE
In S1M0NE, Andrew Niccol (GATTACA, THE TRUMAN SHOW) presents an intriguing and, for SAG members, a somewhat disturbing glimpse of what the future of entertainment might be. In it, a computer-generated actress becomes a pop-culture sensation for a public that doesn’t know that she’s a collection of pixels. What that says about reality and perception is something worth… Read More »
David Cronenberg & Viggo Mortensen Make EASTERN PROMISES
Click here to listen to the interview. When I talked with Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg about EASTERN PROMISES on August 24, 2007, it was just a matter of time before the steam bath came up. In one of Cronenberg’s most audacious sequences, Mortensen, wearing only his manly pride, engages in a brutal knife-fight with two assailants. I saved… Read More »
The ATONEMENT of James McAvoy & Joe Wright
The power of words, the questioning of received wisdom, and the reasons behind a recurring porcine motif were all on the table when I talked with James McAvoy and Joe Wright about ATONEMENT on November 28, 2007. They were by turns philosophical and whimsical while discussing how to use naughty words in an elegant film, filming the… Read More »
Marjane Satrapi Creates PERSEPOLIS
When I talked with Marjane Satrapi on December 12, 2007, the national news was full of the latest example of gun violence in the United States. Before getting down to talking about PERSEPOLIS, based on her autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, she asked me why the pundits were talking about the shooter’s psychology… Read More »
Tony Gilroy Pulls the Strings on MICHAEL CLAYTON
Tony Gilroy is no stranger to the inner workings of law firms. He researched how things operated while writing the screenplay for THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, but with MICHAEL CLAYTON, which marks his directorial debut, he kept things strictly out of the supernatural realm while still exploring the evil at work in the world. When we… Read More »
Mitchell Lichtenstein Sharpens His TEETH
If there is any truth to the old saying that any publicity is good publicity, Mitchell Lichtenstein is on to something with his feature film debut, TEETH. The writer/director and erstwhile actor decided to go beyond the metaphor of the vagina dentata, and deal directly with that myth, the one that has haunted men though… Read More »
IN BRUGES with Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh has the same sort of dark, yet whimsical sense of humor with which his film IN BRUGES, is rife. When I talked with him on January 30, 2008, the twisted way in which he examines morality was top of my list of thing I wanted to discuss, as well as the redefinition of… Read More »
Brett Morgen and the CHICAGO 10
The Yippies at the 1968 Democratic Convention gave themselves body and soul to protesting the injustice. The same can be said of Brett Morgen’s determination to make his documentary about the riots and the trial that resulted from them more than just a look back at an interesting moment in American history. When I spoke to him on February 21, 2008, the relevance of those… Read More »