It’s the kind of fantasy Hollywood has always celebrated: Out of nowhere comes a writer-director with a low-budget winner that changes everything. It really happened to Greg Mottola with his debut feature, the 1996 ‘The Daytrippers’ — airing on the Criterion Channel this month in a new 4K transfer overseen by the filmmaker and on Blu-ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection. I spoke with Mottola about making this terrific comedy and its amazing cast: Stanley Tucci, Liev Schreiber, Anne Meara, Parker Posey, Hope Davis and Campbell Scott. It’s a startling story of continual good fortune, luck, timing — where a 32 year old film school grad with virtually no insider status gets a leg up from Steven Soderbergh and Oscar winning writer-director-producer James L. Brooks (‘Terms of Endearment,’ ‘Broadcast News,’ ‘As Good As It Gets’).
Q: Looking back at this debut, where were you? Did you film this in ’96 or ’95?
GREG MOTTOLA: Actually we filmed at the end of 1994 and beginning of ’95. It was a long road.
Q: Where were you in your life to get to that point?
GM: I’d gone to film school at Columbia University. I graduated in ‘91 and I was broke and working various jobs to pay the rent. I wrote another script but it was not as low-budget as this one. I had readings with actors who were attached but it became clear to me that no one would give me the money to make that movie. So I set about writing ‘Daytrippers’ during the course of one month. I knew Steven Soderbergh, he had seen my student thesis film. I became friends with him right at the exact moment when ‘Sex Lies and Videotape’ was about to come out. I gave the script to Steven and he very kindly said, ‘Let me help you get this made. I think we can do it really cheaply.’ And we raised, you know, about $60,000 to shoot it and Steven got us a lot of favors — he got Kodak to let us have the film at a huge discount. Things like that.
Just thinking, I had no connections in the film business, I just made my luck and tried to make something. And then this idea came to me: Oh! I know these people [in his script], they’re the people I grew up around. That’s where I was, living in this tiny little apartment on Thompson Street which we shot around.
Q: One of the remarkable aspects here is the cast which 23 years later still looks so spectacular. Talk about who came first, were they all willing to work for nothing basically? How did that all work?
GM: I knew Hope Davis socially. A friend of mine was a good friend of her sister’s. We were hanging out as a group and doing stuff together. She hadn’t done any movies yet and I had never seen her act.
I just had a good feeling about her. And Campbell Scott had done table reads with her and told me he thought she was terrific. Campbell was someone who had wanted to do my prior script. I met him through a mutual friend.
So Campbell and Hope were involved very early on. One of my school friends was dating Rick Linklater [‘Boyhood’]. And she met Parker on the set of ‘Dazed and Confused’ and said to me, ‘You have to meet Parker.’ And Parker said, ‘I just did a movie “Party Girl” with Liev Schreiber and you should meet him.’
Campbell was old friends with Stanley Tucci. I asked if Stanley would ever play this part. He said, ‘Well we can ask him.’ Virtually no one auditioned for this movie. And the two women who did casting, Sheila Jaffe and Georgianne Walken, they knew Anne Meara. I met with Anne and I was thrilled she wanted to do it and understood what a thorny person this was. She had no ego about being (a laugh) likable. Really, it was almost entirely cast on luck and intuition.
Q: Anne Meara, now gone, this must be her defining screen performance. How was it exactly you got to her?
GM: Sheila and Georgianne who would go on to cast ‘The Sopranos’ knew Anne and asked her to consider it and if she would meet with me. I do think it was more Anne sizing me up rather than the other way around. What I do remember asking her — obviously I’ve written this person to be rather difficult. In typical Anne Meara way, ‘Oh honey,’ she said, ‘I know this woman. Don’t you worry about it.’ It was a joy to watch her. She was afraid of nothing. The scene where she’s chasing the taxi down the street – on one take she completely wiped out on the sidewalk. She was about 65 then and I thought, ‘Oh god, I’ve killed Anne Meara.’ The next thing, she was up, ‘What are you assholes doing! Let’s do it again.’ She was indomitable.
Q: You had limited film stock, not much money. What was your approach to getting stuff in the can and how did you work with your cast? You have so many people in scenes so often.
GM: I knew we had to work really fast so I rehearsed a bunch of key scenes. I’d grab actors when they were free and would rewrite them a bit. For instance, stuff I was doing with Stanley and Hope, even though Hope hadn’t been in a movie and she had a lot of theater experience and Stanley had a ton. It helped enormously to improve those scenes by workshopping them. Then we shot the whole film in 14 days and held back a little money for reshoots because we knew things would go wrong. So we actually put a quick cut together and then went back for a day and a half. Thank God we did because I showed it to a couple of people. Not only to Soderbergh but also to of all people James L. Brooks who came into my life because a friend of a friend of a friend sent him the screenplay to this movie. This woman had read it and liked it and Jim was always open to reading things young filmmakers were doing. He’d always been a mentor to people like Wes Anderson and Cameron Crowe and he read it and he literally called me two days before we started shooting. He had no idea we were making a film. Brooks liked the script and thought he might get involved. Then I told him we were doing it for $60,000 and 14 days and I’d cast these indie actors. He said, ‘If you did it with me, you’d have to stop. I think there would be some rewriting and a different cast. It would be a different process and a different kind of movie. But I don’t want to screw you up, you have a bird in hand. So why don’t you sleep on it?’ I called him the next day and said I do have to do it for better or worse. James L. Brooks bless his heart said, ‘Well, $60,000 isn’t enough to make a movie. I’ll send you $10,000 and make me a silent partner.’ And he sent me a check for $10,00! Literally, I’d never met the man in person and believe me that was a lot of money to help us. He’s exactly the mensch you’d think he is. Then he came in and saw the cut and gave me fantastic notes because he’s a great director. As did Steven of course.
Q: Do you look back at this as a charmed, once in a lifetime opportunity a filmmaker gets when despite the struggle everything works out?
GM: I would. After the experience I thought, I hope I have more money or time the next time. But I learned over the next 20 years it’s probably the most creative freedom I’ve ever had. Not that I haven’t had really great experiences elsewhere but I’ve had tricky experiences too. I haven’t written as much as I would have liked so I’ve set this year to get back to writing — not to catch lightning in the bottle again but go back to the spirit of where I started, something small, character driven, under the radar. But I probably won’t get as lucky.
Q: Can you talk about the surprise as a first-time filmmaker to see your material brought to life by the actors?
GM: I knew I was going to work fast. I knew I was not going to make a particularly careful cinematic, you know, Terrence Malick piece. It was going to be about the characters, it was going to be about the acting and that was the trade-off — if I could get this great group of actors for a short amount of time to make it. I leaned heavily on them. Liev was young, a Yale-trained actor, and probably the most on top of tracking his character from moment to moment. I love actors. For me the best part is being on set. Not in the cutting room because there, there is a lot of buyers’ remorse.
Liev took it super seriously and taught me a lot about what my job was: To keep everyone oriented on the moments before we were shooting and right then. They all sort of got the comic tone of it. They were these, how would I put it? Middle-class crazy people the way that any family is sort of middle class crazy people. Filled with a hothouse of a family. A lot of irrational behavior occurs but not so to drown the movie in quirkiness but be recognizably human with behavior we’ve all seen in our lives. They were all interesting and at times I felt like I was in an acting class with them. It was really fun to cast Campbell as a cad. Up to that point he’d been earnest nice guys. He had to have it in him — he’s George C Scott and Colleen Dewhurst’s son! Campbell had a lot of other sides and I knew him well. I regret I haven’t been able to work with him again but we’re friends and still stay in touch. Parker being Parker she had a lot of input into her wardrobe and makeup. I wanted the character to be offbeat and I didn’t really know what that meant. But Parker did. She decided this character should have layer upon layer of clothes. There’s the scene at the book party and she’s like a nesting doll. In her own way she’s this tiny little person who’s a force of nature. Even though her own upbringing was the least like the family in the movie ‘cuz she’s from the South. I just remember Kurosawa saying, ‘You don’t really direct Toshiro Mifune, you just point him in a direction.’ And it’s a little bit like that with Parker. She has her own rhythm but also grounded it in the movie. I didn’t write in the original script the two sisters had this silly Tennessee Williams-esque thing where they talk like Southern belles. That came out of how siblings have things to do to survive family life. So we created that as a way for them cutting thrpuhj the tension with everything.
Q: ‘Daytrippers’ captured a disappearing moment in New York time. This Soho is long gone. We see a place when it was still large artists’ lofts and few stores.
GM: I moved to my tenement apartment in ’89 and lived there for about 12 years and this was kind of at the eve of the transformation. There were still bookstores and hippies and old Italian people on the street in folding chairs. I had a neighbor who was like a low low-level Mafia guy, I’m sure he was the guy who would get coffee for the Mafia guy and had no respect from the Mafia, but he liked to talk a big game. Then I watched it turn into a mall – and I left. So when we were color-timing it for the DVD and I looked back, it was lovely and nostalgic to see grungy old Soho the way it was with cool spots you thought only you knew about. Tribeca? Forget it, a real no man’s land. That’s where I live now which is like a baby carriage factory.
Q: Having become a player what have you found out since this breakthrough?
GM: I’ve learned that it’s important to have a take, a way in, which I felt I had with ‘Superbad.’ I didn’t see myself making teen comedies but we put together a great cast and the script was really funny. I stuck to my idea of what it should be but stayed open from all the people around me. Not just the cast but also Judd [Apatow] and I’d go back to Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] and 90 percent of the time Seth would say, ‘It’s good but not our movie.’ The big part of the job of being director is sticking to your guns but at the same time to being open to all the possibilities of making it better. That’s a tricky path.
NEW DVDs:
BRAD! OH BRAD! Brad Pitt is expected (though he hasn’t yet been nominated) to win his first-ever Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood’ (even though he’s really the lead alongside Leonardo DiCaprio). That said, Pitt followed his comeback with this moody, action-oriented, expansive sci-fi space saga, ‘Ad Astra – Ultimate Collector’s Edition’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code), which is Latin for ‘To the Heavens’ or the stars. A collaboration between director-co-writer James Gray and Pitt, ‘Ad Astra’ is genuinely spectacular in its vision with several action sequences designed to literally take your breath away.
Pitt’s astronaut, we learn, is being manipulated into taking an epic space journey that will not only save our planet but answer a son’s question: What became of my astronaut father (Tommy Lee Jones) 30 years ago? Blu-ray Special Features: James Gray’s audio commentary, deleted scenes with Gray’s optional commentary, featurettes on Pitt’s character Roy McBride, the film’s art direction and effects,
BEFORE ‘BOMBSHELL’ The sordid Roger Ailes Fox News sexual harassment saga is being recreated on screens nationwide this week with Charlize Theron playing Megyn Kelly in ‘Bombshell.’ But Showtime got their first with ‘The Loudest Voice’ (CBS DVD, 7 episodes, 3 discs, Not Rated), taking more time, a more detailed and offering a different point of view with a galvanizing Russell Crowe as Ailes. It’s epic in its sweeping look at the man who didn’t just create Fox News, he ‘created’ Donald Trump and ruled the Republican Party – until he didn’t. Co-starring an unrecognizable Sienna Miller as Mrs. Ailes and Naomi Watts as Gretchen Carlson. Bonus: Creating ‘The Loudest Voice’
BEETHOVEN HAD HIS FIFTH ‘Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood’ (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital, R) Advertised as ‘The 9th film from Quentin Tarantino,’ ‘Hollywood’ turns out to have been a critical and popular success, earning plaudits for its meticulous recreation of 1969 LA, for its stars – Leonardo DiCaprio as a boozing, self-pitying, neurotic fading TV actor, Brad Pitt as his loyal stuntman and buddy and Margot Robbie as a luminous Sharon Tate – and its celebrated supporting cast (Margaret Qualley, Al Pacino, Bruce Dern, Dakota Fanning, Timothy Olyphant, Kurt Russell). Like ‘Inglorious Basterds,’ Tarantino plays with historical facts – hence the fairy tale title – and indulges in a ruminative consideration of fame then and now. The Blu-ray has 20 minutes of additional scenes (!), behind the scenes featurettes on ’69 fashions, cars, design and profiles of cinematographer Bob Richardson and the auteur who created this memorably unique landscape.
CRABBY DOC IS LOVED We now know Martin Clunes is versatile enough to be commanding in docu-style dramas, comedies and the light-hearted ‘Doc Martin: Series 9’ (Blu-ray, 8 episodes plus bonus, 3 discs, AcornTV, Not rated) which has brought him international fame. The caption on the DVD box says it succinctly: He’s surly, tactless, self-centered and uptight – but he’s the only doctor in town. And Doc Martin proves that curmudgeons are lovable despite their faults – as long as we can enjoy them on a screen and not in real life. This season finds the Doc still under a cloud – he has blood phobia which means he’s being monitored by officials and forced to attend refresher courses. Despite the support of his wife Louisa (Caroline Catz) and aunt Ruth (Dame Eileen Atkins), Doc remains troubled. Louisa, a child psych major for her imminent job change, decides (thanks to her studies) their son James needs a sibling or he will become the image of his dad. Guest stars Danny Huston and Tom Conti. Bonus disc: featurettes about filming in picturesque Cornwall, the characters, the Large family business. Trivia on ‘Real or Rubbish,’ and ‘Flip the Script’ with Ian McNeice (he’s Bert Large) and Joe Absolom (who plays Al Large).
SIMPLY GLORIOUS GUINNESS Ronald Neame’s 1960 ‘Tunes of Glory’ (Blu-ray, Criterion Collection, Not Rated) has two British titans – Alec Guiness and John Mills — squaring off in a drama that uses the military and its rules and rituals to comment on British class hierarchies and life in general. Set in a post-WWII Scottish Highland regimental barracks, ‘Tunes’ has been given a new 4K digital restoration. The vulgar, hard-drinking, make merry, be one of the boys Guinness here as Major Jock Sinclair was then at the height of a career that encompassed David Lean’s ‘40s ‘Oliver Twist,’ Lean’s ‘50s ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ and Lean’s ‘60s ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ not to mention Obi-Wan Kenobi in the 1977 ‘Star Wars.’ Guinness was originally offered to play Sinclair’s upper-class, orderly nemesis. The Blu-ray Special Edition features a truly informative 2003 interview with Neame who had directed both actors years earlier in ‘Great Expectations,’ an uncomfortable 2002 audio interview with Mills who though he ranks the film among his favorites obviously was maneuvered to an interview he didn’t really want to do.
There’s a revealing 1973 BBC-TV interview with the very private Guinness, already knighted, who is asked about his earliest days and life. He’s surprisingly charming and, despite the body language, seemingly at ease. There’s also an essay by film scholar Robert Murphy on this now-classic high point in British cinema.
IT’S SETH & MORE SETH Two of Seth MacFarlane’s current hit series have released new DVDs, ‘Family Guy: Season Seventeen’ (DVD, 20 episodes, 3 discs, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Not Rated – Parental Discretion) which boasts 14 uncensored episodes, and MacFarlane’s space adventure series set a mere 400 years into the future: ‘The Orville: The Complete Second Season’ (DVD, 14 episodes, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Not Rated). ‘Family Guy’ has crazy plot twists involving shrinking (a nod to Matt Damon’s ‘Downsizing’?) and a new White House press secretary alongside celebrity guest voices – Sam Elliott, Sarah Paulson, Mandy Moore, Niecy Nash. The Special Features: Deleted scenes, an alternate episode of ‘You Can’t Handle the Booth’ with or without commentary and 20 years of ‘Family Guy’ cutaways.
‘Orville’ is the name of the series, a comedy drama with MacFarlane as star, and the spaceship that lets our crew of humans and aliens explore the universe. Special Features range from deleted scenes and a gag reel to character recaps on Adrianne Palicki’s Comdr. Kelly Grayson (MacFarlane’s ex who is his second in command aboard the Orville) and Lt. Cmdr. Bortus, an alien whose race [FUN FACT!] only urinates once annually. ‘The Orville’ is slated for Season 3 on Hulu in 2020.
WORKING CLASS BLUES American labor issues have never been exactly red hot box-office and ‘Blue Collar’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, R) even with Richard Pryor top-billed had to struggle to find its audience in 1978. Directed and co-written by ‘Taxi Driver’ scribe Paul Schrader, ‘Blue Collar’ is a bleakly arresting portrait of fed-up workers (Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto) who opt to rob their corrupt union office and find their small take becomes a descent into darkness. Fear. Betrayal. Murder. Bonus: Audio commentary by Schrader and journalist Maitland McDonagh.
DOC, KITTY, MARHSAL MATT Until ‘Law & Order: SUV’ went to Season 21, ‘Gunsmoke’ reigned as the longest-running network series. Back when Marshal Matt Dillon saddled up for the last time in 1975, it seemed perfectly reasonable. Today, it might continue for 30 seasons! ‘Gunsmoke: The Sixteenth Season’ (CBS-Paramount DVD, 24 episodes, 6 discs, Not Rated) and ‘Gunsmoke: The Seventeenth Season’ (CBS-Paramount DVD, 24 episodes, 6 discs, Not Rated) continue this wise Western’s way of commenting on contemporary issues thru the lens of America’s often violent history. All the episodes have been digitally remastered and restored for picture and sound.
Season 16 has Dillon chasing Chato (Ricardo Montalban) from Taos, NM, to the Black Hills of Custer, South Dakota. Season 17 presents a three-episode cliffhanger with Marshal Dillon’s life in the balance. To compensate for the absence, necessitated by a hospitalization of long-running star Milburn Stone as Doc, ‘Gunsmoke’ cast Pat Hingle (‘Splendor in the Grass’) as the (temporary) ‘New Doctor in Town.’ There are episodic previews on every episode as well as ‘Ben and Becky Talk Gunsmoke: Seasons 16’ and ‘Season 17.’
JUST 34 YEARS LATER Dolph Lundgren illustrates that looking good will, for the very lucky, simply continue. Sleek and as formidable as when he was fighting Rocky Balboa in 1985’s ‘Rocky IV,’ Lundgren propels ‘Acceleration’ (Blu-ray, Cinedigm, Not Rated) as the classically named Vladik Zorich, a (what else?) Russian mobster/crime lord who decides to avenge the double-cross by his trusted Rhona (Natalie Burn) by kidnapping Rhona’s kid and demanding that for the tyke’s safe return she eliminate his (many) enemies in LA. A control freak, Vladik presents Rhona with the rules of his malevolent game. As she strives to follow orders and kill depraved delinquents, ‘Acceleration’ show how momma knows best as well as that other truism, ‘Don’t mess with a mad mom.’
SKARSGåRD AGED IN ‘WINE’ Stellan Skarsgård has been a star since he was 18 – that’s long before American recognition came with ‘Good Will Hunting’ or ‘Mama Mia!’
In 1985 Skarsgard starred in ‘Noon Wine’ (DVD, Kino Classics, Not Rated), a Merchant-Ivory production for PBS’s American Playhouse series. An adaptation of a novella by Katherine Anne Porter – the ‘Ship of Fools’ writer – ‘Noon Wine’ tells of Royal (Fred Ward) who hires Skarsgård’s Olaf, a Swedish immigrant to work on his small Texas farm at the turn of the century. It’s a mood piece chronicling destruction and disaster. The magnetic Ward, a first-rate actor whose credits include ‘The Right Stuff’ (as astronaut Gus Grissom), ‘Silkwood’ and ‘Tremors,’ dominates. Bonus: Writer-director Michael Fields’ audio commentary.
"Mine" - Google News
December 16, 2019 at 10:33AM
https://ift.tt/2PmQU1g
Stephen Schaefer’s Hollywood & Mine - Boston Herald
"Mine" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2NLPUTy
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Stephen Schaefer’s Hollywood & Mine - Boston Herald"
Post a Comment