Shared Darkness

I had a chance to speak to noted character actress Lin Shaye last week one-on-one, about her work in The Signal. The chat is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read, if you’re so inclined.

I had the chance to speak to director Will Eubank one-on-one last week, about buzzy Sundance Film Festival sci-fi title The Signal. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Maybe it’s the slightly patrician demeanor, maybe it’s the hair. Whatever the case, Griffin Dunne has a visage and persona that seem built to entertainingly sustain indignity and exasperation. This trait was in rich evidence all the way back in 1985, in Martin Scorsese’s offbeat, underrated After Hours. And it’s on display again in writer-director Justin Schwarz’s debut feature, The Discoverers.

Dunne stars in the film as Lewis Birch, a washed-up history professor whose plans for a two-birds-with-one-stone vacation/academic conference getaway with his teenage children (Madeleine Martin and Devon Graye) are undone when his mother passes away suddenly and his estranged father (Stuart Margolin) stops speaking and goes AWOL on a Lewis and Clark historical re-enactment trek. Grasping for reconnection, Lewis leads his kids into a world of playacted discovery that ends up triggering some of the real thing. On the film’s opening weekend, I had a chance to chat one-on-one with Dunne in Los Angeles, about sibling rivalries, family frailties, history, starting fires and more. The conversation is excerpted over at Paste, so click here for the read.

Swedish-born poet and novelist Lukas Moodysson made a splash with his film debut, Show Me Love, in 1998, and has since then delivered a number of controversial and experimental films. His latest movie, the adventurous romp We Are the Best!, centering on a group of tomboyish tweens in 1982 Stockholm, is a return to the more optimistic and loose-limbed vibe of his early work. I recently had a chance to speak to Moodysson one-on-one, about his movie, punk music, religion and being a “self-critical amateur.” The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

I had the chance to speak one-on-one with Beau Knapp on Tuesday, about the moody, low-budget sci-fi flick The Signal, which worked up a buzz at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and hits theaters on June 13 from Focus Features. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

If heroism endures, so too does villainy, as Maleficent proves. After all, the titular enchantress was the principal antagonizing force in Disney’s animated Sleeping Beauty more than five decades ago. Now she’s the focal point of her own movie — a fanciful feminist re-imagining of the same basic tale starring Angelina Jolie in the title role. At the film’s recent Los Angeles press day, Jolie said words in a roundtable conversation with reporters. Excerpts of those words are over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Did I take part in the Los Angeles press day for Maleficent the week before last? Yes, yes I did. A roundtable chat with director Robert Stromberg is excerpted over at ShockYa, if you feel the need to check it out.

Elle Fanning has been acting in movies for so long, it’s hard to believe she’s still only 16 years old. And then one meets her in person — with her open eyes and open heart, frequent giggles and huge grins littering any conversation — and she seems even younger, of completely guileless expression. In the new family fantasy adventure Maleficent, which puts a spin on the old Sleeping Beauty story, Fanning co-stars as Aurora, the naive 15-year-old princess who knows nothing of the curse put on her by the titular enchantress (Angelina Jolie). I recently had a chance to take part in the film’s Los Angeles press day; a conversation with Fanning is excerpted over at ShockYa, if you’re interested.

Did I have a chance to participate in the recent press day for Maleficent, and chat with Sharlto Copley? Yes, yes I did. The roundtable conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, if you’re interested.

For his third film, writer-director Joel Hopkins (Last Chance Harvey) re-teamed with Emma Thompson, casting her opposite Pierce Brosnan as one half of a divorced couple who reunite after the financial future of their retirement years is thrown into uncertainty by an unscrupulous businessman. A screwball-tinged heist flick that not so much feeds “eat the rich” feelings which might be surging in the zeitgeist at the moment as offer up a divergent, flight-of-fancy caper for the middle-aged, The Love Punch plays out like a reimagining of The Parent Trap by way of Ocean’s Eleven, and minus the kids. Last week, I had a chance to speak one-on-one with Hopkins about his working relationship with Thompson as well as the legendary actress he has in mind for his next film. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Australian-born director Fred Schepisi has a varied filmography, spanning Roxanne, Six Degrees of Separation and Fierce Creatures, among other credits, but one of the steadiest through-lines in his work is a keen grasp of human imperfection. It’s interwoven into his latest effort as well, Words and Pictures, which stars Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche as New England prep school teachers — he’s a rakish if blocked writer and functional alcoholic, she’s a prickly abstract painter stricken with rheumatoid arthritis — at odds over which mode of expression can convey greater meaning. I recently had a chance to speak to Schepisi one-on-one, about his movie, the educational inspiration he found in a monastery, and the keys to directing on-screen drunkenness. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Did I have a chance to participate in the recent press day for Maleficent, which included Sam Riley? Why yes, yes I did. The roundtable conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read, if interested.

Dan Fogler is best known to big screen audiences for his work in a string of comedies like School for Scoundrels, Good Luck Chuck, Balls of Fury, Fanboys and Take Me Home Tonight, most often as the voluble best friend or a disrupter of normalcy. Of course, he’s also won a Tony Award for his performance as William Barfee in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and last year he helped anchor the indie film Scenic Route, a spare, streamlined psychological thriller that doubled as a study in masculine relationship drift.

Now, with the psychedelic comedy Don Peyote, Fogler has added another feather to his cap. A rollicking, ramshackle slice of insanity with a deep roster of recognizable faces (Anne Hathaway, Topher Grace, Jay Baruchel, Annabella Sciorra, Wallace Shawn and Josh Duhamel are among those who pop up in cameos and supporting roles), the 2012-set film stars Fogler as Warren Allman, a New York City graphic novelist and stoner who, with his wedding looming, becomes fixated on various Doomsday theories and embarks upon a careening documentary project to inventory his obsessions. I recently had a chance to speak to Fogler one-on-one, about his film’s inspiration, his wife’s reaction to it and more. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Noël Wells is wrapping up her first season as a featured player on Saturday Night Live, but she won’t have long to exhale. Presently in talks for some supporting roles in a couple movies, this summer she’ll also be busy writing and enjoying rekindling relationships put largely on hold for the last nine whirlwind months. Wider distribution of an indie effort shot in 2012, meanwhile, will give viewers a taste of Wells’ long-form talents. In co-directors Molly Green and James Leffler’s Forev, a shoe-gazing comedy that inventories twentysomething folly, Sophie (Wells) acquiesces in shrugging fashion to the joking marriage proposal of Los Angeles apartment-mate Pete (Matt Mider), and then sets out with him on a road trip to Phoenix to go pick up his sister (Amanda Bauer) from college.

In advance of Saturday Night Live‘s season finale this coming weekend, I had a chance to chat one-on-one with Wells, about her movie, her favorite profanity, umlaut absolutism, the impression she thinks everyone should be doing, and more. The conversation is excerpted over at Paste, so click here for the read, and to gain full contextualization for the quote, “Nobody likes butt-fucking, I guess.”

I recently had a chance to speak to Matt Mider, about the indie film Forev, honing his improvisational skills, his favorite mock-curse word and making out with 60-year-olds in commercial auditions. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the chat.

Director Zack Parker has a knack for marrying unnerving incident to shifty, hard-to-pin-down characters. His latest film, the psychological thriller Proxy, could sort of be described as a sociopathic lesbian love triangle… and yet it’s more than that, even. I recently had a chance to speak to Parker one-on-one, about what sort of storytelling excites and drives him, making films in his native Indiana and being a stay-at-home dad, and the unlikely inspiration of the California Raisins. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Most films have a fairly prescribed audience, or certainly unfold in a manner that makes their intentions clear. At Middleton is not most films. Co-written by Glenn German and director Adam Rodgers, the movie puts a pleasantly bewildering spin on existential life crisis, tossing lighthearted adult romance, slightly goofy pre-college ensemble comedy and something a bit more barbed and bittersweet into a blender, and hitting puree. While their respective headstrong kids (Spencer Lofranco and Taissa Farmiga) take a school visit and disengage from their parents, two strangers with different personalities, George (Andy Garcia) and Edith (Vera Farmiga), disengage from the official campus tour and tumble into an afternoon that leaves its mark on each of them. I had a chance to chat with Garcia recently, about the film, the various inspirations for his character, his penchant for song, and his long-gestating next project behind the camera as a director. The conversation is excerpted over at Paste, so click here for the read.

He’s not yet 40, but director David Gordon Green has successfully juggled an interesting collection of studio comedies like Pineapple Express, The Sitter and Your Highness with more esoteric and independent fare like All the Real Girls and Prince Avalanche. His 10th feature film, Joe, is an adaptation of Larry Brown’s gritty yet lyrical novel of the same name, and stars 17-year-old Tye Sheridan as an impressionable kid who, desperate for some adult guidance and attention, finds an unlikely mentor in the form of Nicolas Cage‘s ex-con title character. I recently had a chance to speak to Green one-on-one, about the film, casting and working with non-professional actors, the keys to a good Terrence Malick impersonation and his next movie, Manglehorn. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here.

Writer-director Eliza Hittman’s striking debut film, It Felt Like Love, tells the story of an awkward 14-year-old Brooklyn girl (Gina Piersanti) who falls into emulating the sexual exploits of her more experienced best friend (Giovanna Salimeni), with mounting peril. I recently had a chance to speak to Hittman one-on-one, about her film, non-traditional casting, adolescent sexual deceit and gamesmanship, and more. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Seventeen-year-old Tye Sheridan made his acting debut in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, playing one of Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain’s sons. The next year, he co-starred opposite Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon in Jeff Nichols’ Mud. Now, in David Gordon Green’s Joe, adapted from a novel by Larry Brown, Sheridan adds another acting heavyweight to his roster of co-stars, starring opposite Nicolas Cage‘s ex-con title character as an eager-to-work kid looking for roots not provided by his own itinerant family and alcoholic father. I recently had a chance to speak to Texas native Sheridan one-on-one, about his new movie, the key to a good Malick impersonation and what he thinks of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

A Tony- and Oscar-nominated actress, Amy Ryan has played tough, tender, damagingly self-involved and everything in between. In real life, though, her persona runs closer to Holly Flax, the lovably good-natured if somewhat dorky romantic interest to Steve Carell’s Michael Scott on The Office. Ryan is self-effacing and peppers a conversation with laughter, but also all sorts of jokey tangential asides. In her latest film, writer-director Drake Doremus‘ Breathe In, she plays Megan Reynolds, the wife of frustrated music instructor Keith (Guy Pearce), the latter of whom develops a slow crush on Sophie (Felicity Jones), an exchange student the couple takes into their upstate New York home. I recently had a chance to speak to Ryan one-on-one, about the movie and Doremus’ unusual collaborative process, what sort of gifts she likes, and one of her fall projects, Alejandro Iñárritu’s Birdman. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Is Donald Rumsfeld, the charismatically cantankerous and contrarian former Secretary of Defense who, under President George W. Bush, presided over disastrous Iraq War policy and the torture of enemy combatants and other foreign prisoners, a dyed-in-the-wool military adventurist or a cog-in-the-machine bureaucrat and incidental prosecutor? Documentarian Errol Morris spent more than 34 hours interviewing him for his superb new film, The Unknown Known, and he still isn’t sure. I recently had a chance to chat with the Oscar-winning filmmaker and, wearing a light green sweater and a wry smile, Morris spoke deliberately, as is his wont, about his movie, its elusive subject, the art of interviewing and his first foray into fictional narrative filmmaking, set to star Bryan Cranston and Naomi Watts. The conversation is excerpted over at Paste, so click here for the read.

The title Happy Camp conjures feelings of a comedy — either an ironically named satire, or perhaps some Pitch Perfect-type summer-getaway ensemble where Glee fans labor to upstage one another against a competitive backdrop. In actuality, though, this new found-footage-framed horror thriller takes its name from the real-life small town, nestled up against the California-Oregon border, which lends the movie its setting. I recently had a chance to speak to multi-hyphenate collaborators (and offscreen couple) Josh Anthony and Anne Taylor about the film, their inspiration and work together and the involvement of Drew Barrymore as an executive producer. The slightly spoilerish conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so watch the movie first on VOD if you want to remain surprised, then click here.

“Ever since the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding thing in the 1990s, I’ve always loved ice skating,” confesses Alice Eve. It’s a pleasant enough Los Angeles morning, but small talk about the recent Winter Olympics is entirely appropriate given the downright chilly vibe that Eve’s latest film gives off. A tightly wound, character-rooted crime drama in the vein of A Simple Plan, director Tze Chun’s Cold Comes the Night is one of those crisp, engaging independent films that rather bewilderingly and frustratingly slip through the theatrical cracks every now and again, and at the heart of it all is Eve’s mesmerizingly rundown performance, a thing of damaged grace. I had a chance to chat with her recently, about the movie, what Bob Dylan song shaped the character, her career and more. The conversation is excerpted over at Paste, so click here for the read.

Did I recently have a chance to talk to Homefront director Gary Fleder one-on-one, about the movie whose source material screenwriter Sylvester Stallone originally considered using as a Rambo sequel, as well as the advantages of location scouting with Google Earth? Yes, yes I did. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.