Blogcritics Author: Adam Fendelman

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Harry Potter in IMAX 3D: An Interview with IMAX Filmed President Greg Foster

Adam Fendelman — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:37:11 EDT

“If you didn’t watch the film and looked at people watching it, you’d see they’re constantly ducking and grabbing at things,” said IMAX Filmed President Greg Foster. “IMAX 3D is at the bridge of your nose.”This between-your-eyes, in-your-face acronym Foster hypes from the helm of the uber-modern film company likely isn’t anything new to you. If you haven’t been IMAXed lately, though, times have changed. The enormously encompassing 3D injection is a new kind of happy pill.On July 11 at Navy Pier in Chicago, the fifth Harry Potter iteration – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – takes center stage in IMAX. Its goal is to please your brain, tease your body, and tickle all the nerve endings in between so you’re just on the brink of prophylactic shock.Michael Gambon plays Albus Dumbledore. “I’m in my 40s,” Foster said, who in 2007 is being invited as an Oscar-voting member, in an interview with Adam Fendelman. “When I was a kid, the studios knew they had the 12- to 24-year-olds on opening weekend. They’re more elusive today. They’re home watching DVDs, playing video games or hanging out on their parents’ 70-inch plasma TVs.“They’re not going to the multiplexes to the same degree. You have to give them something they can’t replicate at home. IMAX 3D takes you somewhere you dream of going but probably won’t ever get to.”Short for Image Maximum, the IMAX you likely know best is its older DMR technology. It’s 2D. After being created nearly 40 years ago as an exploratory film format for short and expo films, only about five years ago with Apollo 13 did IMAX technology ramp up to truly cerebral feats.Our two eyes instinctively zero in on a single focal point that’s viewed from slightly different positions. Two slightly different images result. IMAX 3D exploits this. It actually consists of two separate strips of film projected simultaneously onto a screen.The brain fuses these images into one through the process of stereopsis. Polarized glasses – not the red-blue glasses of anaglyph yesteryear – are deftly aligned with the light from mega-powered IMAX projectors. These 15,000-watt lamps are so bright you could see the light on the moon from Earth with the naked eye.Techno-babble aside, for Harry Potter junkies this translates into an “explosive,” 20-minute finale that has been converted into IMAX 3D. The preceding 118 minutes are 2D. Despite all its money, manpower, and grandeur, IMAX can’t rip out a feature-length, non-digital film entirely in 3D.Yet.Once you’ve hit the 118-minute mark, the film will flash green Harry Potter glasses on the bottom of the screen. This is your signal to get nerdy. With glasses armed, Harry Potter and his gang of almost-adult miscreants will barrel with omnipresence into your body.Previous to its moment in Harry Potter history this July, family films like Happy Feet and Night at the Museum came to moviegoers in IMAX with incremental success. The film 300 was especially “a big deal” to IMAX, Foster says, who acknowledges that it did 10 percent of the business on only one percent of the screens.The creation process is one that’s “not free but also not going to break the bank,” Foster says, adding that he only has eight slots a year to time his prowess around blockbuster films. Foster targets visionary filmmakers like George Lucas, Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Zach Snyder, and Chris Nolan.As technology refines, conversion fleets. He says Apollo 13 consumed three months of conversion time, The Matrix Revolutions abridged to three weeks and Spider-Man 3 whizzed by in 10 days.“Down the road, the vast majority will be in 3D. We’ll see some kind of enhanced, interactive experience,” Foster said. “I’m constantly pushing the envelope of invention. I have all the confidence in the world that what will take place in the home, in 3D or in theaters will be at the forefront of innovation, imagination, and invention.”

Adam Fendelman is a Chicago journalist, film critic, editor and publisher. He is the editor-in-chief of MidwestBusiness.com and the publisher at HollywoodChicago.com.

For Blogcritics, he writes film under the series banner The Silver Spotlight. Realizing you likely care less about what he thinks, his strength is in interviewing the filmmakers and actors who make the films what they are.

Evening Challenges Chick Flick Stigma: An Interview With Director Lajos Koltai

Adam Fendelman — Mon, 9 Jul 2007 12:54:35 EDT

Evening, which failed to materialize in two previous attempts, was finally filmed in the hands of Hungarian director Lajos Koltai. In his inaugural English-speaking film, he confronts two double-edged swords: the stigma associated with an American “chick flick” and a story that’s uplifting while simultaneously depressing.The film is fixated on the deathbed of a woman who reflects decades back on the few golden moments of her life. Despite two bad marriages, Koltai – who speaks with a thick accent from Budapest – hones in on just two days. He says the film pays homage to the up-and-down nature of life and the big decisions we make.“Everyone is trying to belong to someone,” he said in a Chicago interview with Adam Fendelman. “This life is not without problems. Even though there weren’t many golden moments, at the end she goes back to them because she was so busy living her everyday life. Don’t forget to ask the important questions at the end.”Koltai, who willingly accepts all the blessings and the burdens of life, has designed this film so people can realistically relate.“We had a beautiful, red carpet opening in New York. Yesterday, though, I was waiting at the airport for five hours with canceled flights and everything going wrong,” he said. “Now I’m having a good time with you. In an hour, I’m going to Minneapolis and who knows what will happen. Life’s always up and down.”He encourages audiences to realize that, accept it, and let it be. With great intention, you learn very little about her typical years. In the last two weeks she’s alive, she announces to her two daughters a name they’d never heard before. It’s her memory of being in true love even though he wasn’t the man she ended up marrying.Shot with picturesque aesthetics and due to the topics covered, you’d be quick to tag the film as a chick flick. Only recently learning the meaning of the phrase, Koltai sensitively disagrees: “It’s not a chick flick.”It is. Despite many critics and moviegoers who scoff at the concept, though, there’s no shame in admitting it and there can be great virtue in exploiting it. He added: “People are unsure about their lives. They go to the cinema to have important questions answered. I’m giving them some answers with this film.”Choosing between a relationship that’s romantically fated and one that’s necessarily stable is often one of life’s loftier decisions. Though it’s unclear whether she regrets the choice she made, Koltai wants you to question your own life and the choices you’ve made.Based on the novel by Susan Minot and adapted for the screen by Minot and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham, its timing the third time around finally fit. Cunningham said in the film’s production notes: “It came along at a time when my own mother was very, very ill, which made it feel like providence.”Koltai says he only shot what was needed. While many first film cuts range between three and four hours, Koltai says his first version came in at two hours and 19 minutes.Utilizing very little CGI and original structures that weren’t built for filming, it was edited to one hour and 52 minutes. A devout art history buff, Koltai says he typically dreams up his movies before seeking real-life images. He describes the house used in the film, for example, as nearly identical to what he imagined.As the story centers around a mother and her daughters, it was important for Koltai to cast two pairs of mothers along with their real-life daughters. The film, which was shot as an independent with a $14 million budget, surprisingly featured a star-studded cast.He says the film came in under budget. While Koltai isn’t against the film making money for the benefit of the studios, he says cash wasn’t his first priority. He wants to give people answers.Koltai says big names like Meryl Streep and Glenn Close – who played big roles with very short screen time – didn’t sign on for the money. He added: “The actors were there for almost nothing. They just wanted to do the film.”Claire Danes plays the childhood version of Vanessa Redgrave during her golden two days with the suave, charismatic Patrick Wilson. Koltai added: “Claire plays a very straight, complicated, and believable character. She’s not at all sideways. There are lots of secrets inside Claire. You just have to open them up. She was a big surprise for me.”She’s forced to unnaturally keep a stiff upper lip.“My character is having defining experiences and starting to make life choices. It’s always exciting to play somebody undergoing a transformation. It’s a seminal weekend for Ann,” Danes said in the film’s production notes. “By the standards of the high society world she is visiting, she is unconventional.“She is very idealistic and ambitious. She is negotiating her desires to be independent and her desires to have a family. She is drawn to motherhood but also to performing.” She added: “The film considers the question: ‘What makes a life?’ We are all human and searching [for that answer].”On working with Koltai, Danes said: “Lajos is always there by the camera. He’s never off by a monitor. He created an absolutely secure environment for all of us to be as vulnerable and expressive as we needed to be.” Close added: “Lajos comes from a very rich tradition of Hungarian filmmakers. Many of them cut their teeth when there wasn’t a lot of film stock. They would have to edit more in their heads.”With such a veteran cast, the Oscar conversation is expected. Koltai, who is a member of the academy, is hesitant to answer the question.“Not one second did I think about the Oscars. You just have to make a movie,” he said. “I don’t want to name names. Though an Oscar would have to be given to one person, I think of Vanessa and Claire like one body. If [the academy does consider this film], I think it should for the whole ensemble.”

Adam Fendelman is a Chicago journalist, film critic, editor and publisher. He is the editor-in-chief of MidwestBusiness.com and the publisher at HollywoodChicago.com.

Rescue Dawn Resurrects Real-Life Vietnam POWs: An Interview with Actor Steve Zahn

Adam Fendelman — Sun, 8 Jul 2007 10:20:56 EDT

Haunted by the non-fictional ghost he was portraying, Steve Zahn – who previously had been typecast by Hollywood as a comic reliever – lost 40 dead-serious pounds for Rescue Dawn to walk the same footsteps of a POW four decades earlier.“Once you get past the wheat detox, losing the weight was more mental than physical,” Zahn said in a Chicago interview with Adam Fendelman. “I weighed myself for the first 20 pounds and then stopped. The closer I got to the movie, the more it became about Duane.“I had his picture all over the place – on my fridge and everywhere – so I was always reminded. If I wanted to cheat and eat, I had to look at his face. I didn’t cheat because I wouldn’t be telling the truth. It’s a weird state when you get to that spot where your body has changed that much. It’s like you just woke up.”Though safely nestled in our Chicago hotel room, you could tell Zahn wasn’t acting when he delivered the words “his ghost is still out there, man” with eyes lost in the distance and his mind evoking the impenetrable Laotian jungle that was his set. It was as close as an actor could get to war-inflicted, post-traumatic stress.With the jungle the cast’s true prison, director Werner Herzog made the environment just as much the film’s main character as Zahn, Christian Bale, and Jeremy Davies. Zahn added: “There were thorns and bugs and snakes [galore]. I’d be on set looking at a banana spider and think: ‘If that thing bit me, I’d really die.’ In many of Werner’s films, the environment is the main character.”Bale portrays Dieter Dengler, the only American to escape a POW camp in the Laotian jungle. After months of calculating his death-defying getaway through some of the planet’s most ferocious wilderness, the renegade blazed his own route to freedom. He exploited the most primal qualities of evasion, endurance, tenacity and courage to find his way home.Zahn, whose character mirrored Bale’s side by side, says he was inspired to haul himself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. every day in large part because of the opportunity to work with Bale.“Christian is the real deal. He’s all those things you’re supposed to be when you’re a great actor. He’s simple, direct, intense and one of the funniest mother (sic) I’ve ever worked with. Damnit he’s funny,” Zahn said. “What we were doing could have been difficult. We didn’t need to be reminded that we were hungry and barefoot and POWs when the camera was rolling.“That’s our job. It was easy to stay in it. Werner was adamant about no distractions on set. There weren’t M&M bowls, chairs and bored crew members playing high school grabass. It was the most difficult and grueling movie I’ve ever done. I was exhausted daily. As hard as it was to get up every morning, though, I couldn’t wait to hang out with Christian.”Zahn says the role for this biopic film required very little research.“I’ve seen all the war movies a million times. I had planes in my room when I was a kid and my dad thought I’d have a military career. I’d watch World at War in third grade. I was fascinated with memoirs of soldiers who had crystal-clear experiences that one year in a bush. For Rescue Dawn, I thought: ‘Okay. It’s 1966. Vietnam. POWs. He’s in Laos. That’s bad.’ I kind of just knew it all.”Though he pitches the role as a natural, it bucks a clear trend his career has taken thus far.“Perception is interesting to me. I’m just an actor. When I was doing theater, I was an ingénue. In film, you do something funny and become the funny guy. I just go from job to job and don’t have a big plan. I like doing comedy. I don’t feel a need to change it up so people respect me. A 20-year-old drunk-ass, stoned dude is funny. At 40, it’s not.“People expect me to be a standup guy. I don’t do standup. I’m not really that funny when I’m hanging out with my friends in Kentucky who aren’t in the business. What’s funny to me is people who take themselves seriously and aren’t what they think they are. Also, POWs are funny. Just kidding.”Though the part didn’t seem to fit in his career mold, Zahn says he zealously sought out the role. He describes the film as one that depicts a human’s true will to survive and defends Herzog by saying he’d be the last director in the world to politicize this topic.“Surviving is fascinating to me,” Zahn said. “I don’t know where I’d break, if I would or if I’d succeed. All I know from all my reading and watching movies is that people with faith – some kind of faith – have historically been the ones to make it. There’s something outside them – some belief – but with Rescue Dawn, we never talked about that.”With the implication that he didn’t make much cash on this project, Zahn did talk about the personal side of shooting such a taxing film both on himself and his family. Living on a farm with kids, sometimes he’s gone and sometimes they come to work with him.“I’m sure not going to take them to some banana spider [set],” Zahn said. “You know what I’ve done for the past eight months? Honestly? I’ve been to every field trip with my kids. I drive them to school every day and make them breakfast. I pick her up from school and take her to ballet, drive her home and take her to gymnastics.“I pick him up at 2:30 p.m., bring him home, give him a snack, watch a little SpongeBob and then we play outside. Right now, we swim every day for at least two hours. I have lots of time off. My kids really miss me when I’m gone. Though I’m going to Bulgaria for four weeks soon, then I come home and I get to play with them. Not a lot of dads get to do that.”When he goes to work, though, he goes to work. He says something in him switches on when it’s time to mean business – funny or otherwise – and he’s always on his toes. He says Rescue Dawn, which for the most part didn’t utilize much “magic or fake stuff” (CGI was only used in plane scenes), is like no other Vietnam film.“You can have all the ingredients for the cake but you still have to bake the thing right,” Zahn said. “The hardest thing in film is to have a consistent tone for two hours.“Whatever realm of realism you put it in, it’s got to make sense. This film has a clear message. Yes, there are monster holes in it – some things don’t make sense – but the tone is right. When you have the right tone, you don’t notice the mistakes. You don’t care because you feel something.”

Adam Fendelman is a Chicago journalist, film critic, editor and publisher. He is the editor-in-chief of MidwestBusiness.com and the publisher at HollywoodChicago.com.

Taika Waititi's Geeky, Deadpan Eagle vs. Shark is Antidote to Slapstick

Adam Fendelman — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 22:07:10 EDT

“Playing out extreme or unusual characters in the straightest of ways is what makes deadpan serious so funny,” said Eagle vs. Shark director Taika Waititi. “It is the antidote to slapstick.” As for the million-dollar question to a comic about what makes funny really flippin’ funny, he says it’s about letting loose and being real.“It’s about not trying to push the funny,” Waititi said in a Chicago interview with Adam Fendelman. “It’s looking at truth in human situations and having empathy. I especially love the funny that comes out of tragedy. I like situations so uncomfortable that you produce that nervous, cringe kind of laughter.”Known professionally as Taika Waititi - he's also known as Taika Cohen (he’s Kiwi, not Jewish) - the New Zealand independent film Eagle vs. Shark is the first feature-length film for the young comic star. It was shot for $1.35 million in 25 days using a homegrown crew of 35 close-knit people.The film, which opened in Chicago on June 22 and heads to the U.K. and New Zealand in August, harmonizes a story that’s wrapped in dead-serious droll with how cool it is to be geeky. Two dominant animals – the eagle and the shark – represent sky and water. In the animal kingdom, they live in worlds that would never meet. Just as both animals are loners, the main characters are also outcasts who bridge a wide divide.“Though the characters are weird and the situations extreme, everyone can relate because it’s about family dysfunction and the tragedy of day-to-day living,” Waititi said. “Being a human is being a geek.”Jemaine Clement plays Jarrod and Loren Horsley plays Lily, which is a role she created after wandering the streets of Utah completely in character. Horsley said: “The test worked. I took Lily out for a trial walk and the Red Sea parted. No one wanted to be near her.”“Creating Lily was a cathartic process,” Horsley said in an interview with Adam Fendelman. “Being a human is strange. Lily was about finding that vulnerable, awkward feeling. Growing up, I was a loner who was raised by hippies in a conservative place. I was weird. I know that feeling very well.”While his project embraces a style that decidedly parallels Napoleon Dynamite, Waititi says that film wasn’t an inspiration for his. The script for Eagle vs. Shark was written before becoming acquainted with its smash-hit brethren, which has grossed $46 million in worldwide receipts on a $400,000 production budget.While Clement’s expressionless character is strikingly akin to Napoleon Dynamite, it was Horsley’s that really took the cake from this critic. The magnetic eccentricity in her eyes, the gawky facial expressions, and her innocently peculiar mannerisms were distinctly charming. She’s someone you’d want to befriend.Jarrod, on the other hand, isn’t. Waititi added: “He’s all the very worst traits of every male you’ve ever known – including myself – all plonked into one package.”“He represents danger and adventure. She represents peace, compassion, and acceptance,” Waititi said. “He’s fighting to get out of his circumstances to be better than what he is. It’s a relationship built on those conflicting ideas. They cross over, she becomes more confident and the powers shift.”To Waititi and Horsley, telling such a story inspires people to reflect upon what it does to them emotionally. They speak of intense disappointment with many films Hollywood has been pooping out over the years and find themselves yearning back to 1970s films in particular.“In the 1970s, Hollywood was making really good, smart films about human behavior. Then someone realized you can make hundreds of millions of dollars,” Waititi said. “I’m sure McDonald’s was a pretty good restaurant when it had one. Now it’s like a hideous beast no one wants to touch. That’s what has happened to Hollywood.” Echoing the perks realized today by many indie filmmakers across the globe, Waititi craves the freedom, creativity, and control achieved through independent film.“A small film can be your film. The studio can really muddy your vision,” Waititi said. “Our actors know they’re not going to get paid much money. They do it for the love of filmmaking, the story, and the chance to work with creative people. That’s why so many movie stars these days are dying to get into indie films.”He added: “They can’t stand being in such big franchises. They get depressed when they’re done. Sure, they make millions, but that doesn’t satisfy them creatively.”While in his hotel room for the Chicago junket, Waititi says he couldn’t find a film on TV that’d keep him glued for two hours. Like you’d expect from indie talent, Waititi and Horsley were overwhelmed by the grandeur of Chicago’s Four Seasons setting.“It’s surreal,” Horsley said. “Right before this interview, we were running around the room – doing laps – and laughing at how huge it is. About 0.1 percent of people actually live like this.”“I don’t feel like a star at all,” Waititi said. “I feel like a guy in a band just starting out. I feel like a Beverly Hillbilly. Soon we’ll return to New Zealand and go back to paying rent in our little apartment with five other people. We’ll be fighting over bills.”While many Americans who aren’t rich could quickly figure out what to do with gobs of dough if it fell from the sky, Horsley says she can’t conceive of how to handle millions of dollars. For Waititi, he says living life ideally would be making films like this, traveling, frequenting the festival circuit, viewing evocative films, and making just enough loot to pay the man. He says his films don’t have to tip the scales so long as people connect with his message.Beyond box office receipts as a barometer of a film’s success, Waititi understands that the mark of a good film is one that is timeless. When asked what he thinks Eagle vs. Shark will look like in 30 years, he said, “Its feeling is already clumsy and archaic. The technology is already obsolete. Setting it here and now automatically dates it.”Rather than a fine wine maturing with age, Horsley said, “It’s more like a strange cheese. While you don’t know if it’ll mold or dissolve, it will be delicious.”

Adam Fendelman is a Chicago journalist, film critic, editor and publisher. He is the editor-in-chief of MidwestBusiness.com and the publisher at HollywoodChicago.com.