THE DANCER UPSTAIRS is a stunning exploration of passion and delusion, and not just the romantic kind, though the power of Eros is seen here as just as treacherous as the political backdrop of the story. Set in an unnamed South American country in a time specified only as the recent past, an honest man,… Read More »
Cillian Murphy & Rodrigo Cortes Face RED LIGHTS
When I spoke with actor Cillian Murphy and writer/director Rodrigo Cortes about their film, RED LIGHTS, on June 19, 2012, the challenge was not to give too much away about what tranpires in the film, but still discuss the way it teases the audience about the limits and pitfalls of human perception. Murphy, an actor… Read More »
Armistead Maupin & Patrick Stettner Pay Attention to THE NIGHT LISTENER
The story on which Armistead Maupin based his novel and now film THE NIGHT LISTENER proves the old axiom that truth is stranger than fiction. When I spoke to him and to the director of the film, Patrick Stettner, on July 26, 2006, I was curious what conclusions they had drawn about the human capacity to… Read More »
Nev and Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost Catch A CATFISH
When a painting arrived for photographer and filmmaker Nev Schulman at his office, he couldn’t have imagined the journey it would take him on along with brother Ariel and business partner Henry Joost. The painting was a rendering of a photograph of Nev’s that had appeared in the newspaper. The artist was eight-year-old Abby, and… Read More »
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo Exposes INTRUDERS
I spoke with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo by phone on March 19, 2012, and one of the things I most wanted to discuss with him was his unconventional approach to a horror film with INTRUDERS. In it, the monster has more to do with family secrets and the misguided attempts by the parents to spare their… Read More »
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and BRICK
BRICK cements Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s transition from kid comedy star to serious adult actor, though, for those with long memories, he was doing some excellent work as his generation’s designated “creepy kid” before signing up for the absurdist shenanigans of “Third Rock from the Sun.” When I spoke with Gordon-Levitt on February 10, 2005, the conversation turned… Read More »
Dr. Sasha Bardey Knows his SIDE EFFECTS
Of all the people involved in the making of Steven Soderbergh’s SIDE EFFECTS, Dr. Sasha Bardey may have been the perfect interivew subject. The film is a psychological thriller of the first order, with the classic Hitchcockian motif of an innocent bystander being suddenly entangled in a fiendish plot that spells certain doom for that… Read More »
David Cronenberg’s SPIDER
David Cronenberg is on familiar turf with his latest film, SPIDER. The twist is that, while the film is rife with the horror, it stems from seeing the sane world through the eyes of a schizophrenic. When I talked with the soft-spoken and erudite director, I asked why he eschewed his usual trappings of blood and gore.… Read More »
The BASIC John Travolta
John Travolta has been around long enough to know how to have a good time with the press. Though our chat was all too brief, we managed to cover a lot of ground, from the resurgance of the musical, to why BASIC’s director, John McTiernan called him sparky, to religious tolerance. We started, though, with how he plays… Read More »
Joel Schumacher’s PHONE BOOTH
Joel Schumacher knows how to put on a show. Whether it be a full-blown flight of fantasy such as BATMAN AND ROBIN or the more confined space of PHONE BOOTH, in which we spend almost 90 minutes trapped in one with Colin Farrell. Schumacher may not always avoid kitsch, but he’s rarely boring. The same is… Read More »