Paul Weitz has gone from teen farce with AMERICAN PIE to sophisticated and thoughtful slices of social commentary with ABOUT A BOY and IN GOOD COMPANY. With AMERICAN DREAMZ, though, he’s created a tidy synthesis, combining inspired silliness with a satire that cuts to the bone of American culture. When I talked to him on… Read More »
CRASH With Ryan Phillppe and Paul Haggis
CRASH represents a sea change in careers moves for many of the people involved, not the least director and co-writer Paul Haggis, a veteran of television sitcoms. The provocative story of anger, fear, and race relations in contemporary Los Angeles also provides Ryan Phillippe with one of his best roles in years, maybe the best… Read More »
Bill Condon Studies KINSEY
A word of warning. Like KINSEY, the film he wrote and directed, Bill Condon is direct when discussing the research that his title character carried out on human sexuality. Also like the film, it’s done with erudition, insight, and spiced with a pointed wit. When we spoke on October 28, 2004, the converstation naturally turned to… Read More »
Zach Braff Visits GARDEN STATE
GARDEN STATE was that most welcome of surprises, an accomplished film whose quirkiness delivered a thoughtful look at modern alienation without glorifying it. Its writer/director/star, Zach Braff, proved to be as thoughtful as his film. Our conversation on July 1, 2004, covered the importance of visual images in conveying a story, the lessons of working with… Read More »
Jay C. Cox Reveals LATTER DAYS
LATTER DAYS is a film that is funny, moving, and that far exceeds expectations. So does its writer/director, C. Jay Cox. I’ve rarely chatted with anyone so engaging and so wickedly funny. But don’t be fooled, this is an inteligent, thoughtful guy who has the worldview that can only the found in a gay Hollywood screenwriter who… Read More »
Simon Barrett & Adam Wingard Say YOU’RE NEXT
Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett take the art and craft of the horror film very seriously. And when I spoke to them on April 28, 2013, it was not all fun and games. They were refreshingly cerebral about horror, and about what they wanted to accomplish with YOURE NEXT. In little things, such… Read More »
Ursula Meier Finds A Brother for SISTER
Ursula Meier knew she had found her muse in Kacey Mottet Klein when she discovered him in 2008, casting him in her film HOME. When I spoke to her on October 29, 2012, we talked about his evolution as an actor, and how she managed to keep that unselfconscious quality that he had shown in… Read More »
Michael Hoffman at THE LAST STATION
Idealism and living those ideals in the real world is only one of the intriguing issues that screenwriter/director Michael Hoffman wrestled with in adapting THE LAST STATION from the book by Jay Parini to the screen. When I talked to Michael Hoffman on January 6, 2010, he explained how he used Anton Checkov to get… Read More »
Dylan Kidd and ROGER DODGER
With ROGER DODGER, writer/director Dylan Kidd has taken the war of the sexes in a whole new direction, one that disempowers the male of the species. It’s anti-hero, the cynical and glib Roger, fancies himself a major player in that war. Yet in the course of one awful day which culminates in Roger trying to help… Read More »
Tate Taylor & Octavia Spencer Bring THE HELP to Life
Click here to listen to the interview. Tate Taylor and Octavia Spencer have a special insight into THE HELP. The novel on which Taylor based his script, which he also directed, was written by his lifelong friend, Kathryn Stockett. Spencer was Taylor’s roommate when she got to know Stockett, and was the inspiration for the… Read More »