For all of film’s cultural preeminence and the great insight and
immediacy that it affords, it has historically had a hard time
capturing musical trends of the moment, or telling practical and
convincing stories about bands. What’s most
difficult to convey about music, and thus fold into a proper narrative,
is its careening catharsis. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, though, captures
with such full force of personality the swagger, unchecked id and
playtime allure of music that it reminds you – albeit in garish,
heightened strokes – of why one falls in love with music in the first
place. “For me, Tenacious D is about what you are and what you wish you were,” explains Liam Lynch, the film’s director. For the full feature, from CityBeat, click here.
Asked about the working model and narrative template for his star-stuffed ensemble pic Bobby at a press day at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles some two weeks back, writer-director Emilio Estevez held forth on some of his inspiration, which — not surprisingly — included multi-arc maestro Robert Altman.
“Robert Altman and P.T. Anderson are two of my favorite filmmakers,” said Estevez.
“I admire their audacity, their boldness. I mean, the falling frogs in Magnolia? I thought it was outrageous. And
as outrageous as I thought it was, I thought it so courageous as well. But Altman
is certainly an inspiration for me. I’d love to meet him. He doesn’t know he’s
my mentor, but he is. I’d like to meet him someday and tell him that.”
“Altman
has the luxury of having final cut,” Estevez continued, “and with that comes the length of a picture
that he determines, which is why Short
Cuts is three hours and 10 minutes, and he allows every character to be
fully realized. I don’t have the experience or the cachet to have final cut,
but had I on this one it might have been three hours, and each character would have been more fully realized than they are.”
Here Estevez pauses and laughs. “But, you know… alas.”
While his dream of meeting Altman unfortunately wasn’t realized, in a twist of kismet, Estevez did befriend Nashville writer Joan Tewkesbury a number of years back while directing an episode of The Guardian. He credits her with helping him smartly whittle down his original draft of more than 160 pages.
I caught The Nativity Story Monday evening, and one of Joseph’s lines (“I wonder if there’s even anything I’ll be able to teach him”) got me thinking about the parts of Jesus’ life that we always read and hear about, and see on screen — and those we don’t. What about Jesus’ awkward pubescence, for instance? Is there a great comedy (or, OK, more likely mediocre comedy born of a great concept) that I don’t know about? Hell, you know, I’d even I’d even settle for a Gospel-style Muppet Babies, with Jesus and his little cousin John the Baptist navigating the “terrible twos.” Who’s with me?
