Daily Archives: March 30, 2007

Tyler Bates on Halloween

Interviews

I had a chance to speak with composer Tyler Bates recently, about his work on 300, and the subject of Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboot — for which Bates is also providing the music — came up. Bates has worked with Zombie before, and had some interesting things to say about their working style, his take on the script and tackling such an iconic score.

“Rob came to me when I believe the Weinsteins first tapped
him to see if he would be interested in making a Halloween movie,” says Bates. “Rob gave me his idea for the script and he asked
my opinion of it, which I appreciated, and then asked if I would mock up our
version of the theme for a presentation to the studio. So we had a dialogue
going, and through The Devil’s Rejects
we had definitely creatively bonded immediately. Rob pretty much leaves me to
my own devices, musically. He doesn’t really speak in musical terms to me about
anything. And that’s probably because as an artist and a musician himself he
knows it would be horrible to have your A&R guy saying, ‘Yeah, write
another one like “Living Dead Girl.”’ You know that’s not going to be so good.”

“Going into Halloween
I’ve had the opportunity to develop a palette of sounds that are going to be
applicable to the film, texturally,” Bates adds. “And being very familiar with Rob’s filming
style, and the script, and having taken a look at a couple of examples of
cinematography that reflect the attitude he wants to capture for the film, it’s
given me a lot of info. He’s in his third week of filming right now. I imagine
that I’ll start looking at an assembly of dailies next week. Rob lives pretty
close by, and so we’ll have a chance to get together and talk. Rob’s visual
style is so intense that the music really has to become part of the film
itself. It can’t accompany the film, it has to become part of the fiber of the film itself. That’s the challenge.”

“As far as the Halloween
aspect goes, first off I think he’s written a great script,” continues Bates. “He’s telling the
story, in my opinion, in a way that fans are really going to love. …And one of
the pleasures of getting a chance to do this movie is getting a chance to do
the John Carpenter theme, but kind of get back to the way that Carpenter did
it — at least that attitude. There’s not going to be a sweeping, orchestral
version of the theme happening. This is hopefully going to be the most
disturbing version ever created. That’s our objective, to really get into the
darkest corners of your mind, and I feel that Rob is definitely going to
accomplish that, in a really classic way. I think you’re going to see this
movie as something that really delivers on a psychological level and a dramatic
level. It’s probably going to be violent as hell, I’m sure, but that’s not his
main point.”

Copying Beethoven

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Copying Beethoven draws a
lot of inspiration from the soaring notes of the music itself, and comes packaged
with a powerhouse performance from Ed Harris, an inspired casting choice. Still,
Copying Beethoven can’t help but feel
very contrived at certain key moments, and the falseness of these impertinent devices
weigh heavy on the film.

Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, The Secret Garden), Copying
Beethoven aims to impart its lushly photographed drama through a romanticized
shorthand of the mercurial nature of brilliance and an awkwardly constructed
mentorship. Set in 1824, years since Beethoven’s last success, the movie
focuses on the time in the genius composer’s life when he is most plagued by loneliness
and personal trauma. As he’s aging and functionally deaf, a copyist is urgently
needed to help Beethoven finish his symphony in time for its scheduled debut performance.
Young conservatory student Anna Holtz (National
Treasure’s Diane Kruger) is recommended for the position, and the stubborn
battle of wills ensues, leading up to the symphony’s grand unveiling.

Harris is definitely no stranger to bringing larger-than-life
figures to the screen, having jumped behind the camera and tackled the title
role in 2000’s Pollock, which earned costar
Marcia Gay Harden a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Truth be told, the intensity
of Harris’ mesmerizing performance here notwithstanding, that film was a much
more interesting and adept exploration of an artist’s torment. Written and
produced by Stephen Rivele and Christopher Wikinson (Ali, Nixon), Copying Beethoven has the rich sense of period
detail you might expect from such accomplished big-screen biographers, but the movie
lacks subtlety to an astounding degree. Kruger is game, and certainly attractive,
but having her correct key musical mistakes in her employer’s work and, in the
end, co-conduct the material from the orchestra pit, gives off the decidedly misleading
impression of Beethoven as a doddering senior citizen. It rankles and rings
false, even without knowing a lot about the time period. Matthew Goode (Match Point, The Lookout), Ralph Riach and Bill Stewart, meanwhile, all co-star.

Copying Beethoven
is presented on a double-sided, single-layered disc, in 2.35:1 anamorphic
widescreen transfer that preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical
exhibition, but only delivers a so-so job on color-matching; some scenes seem
washed out, and not by artistic choice. Audio comes in a 5.1 Dolby surround sound
track that makes rich, evocative use of its rear channels for a symphonic fullness;
a Spanish language Dolby surround track and optional English and Spanish
subtitles are also included. DVD special features consist of an audio
commentary track with Holland and
Harris, folded together from discrete recordings; a collection of five deleted
scenes with optional commentary by Holland;
and a 10-minute making-of featurette that focuses almost entirely on the orchestral
ensemble scenes. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Fantastic Four Sequel Gets Weekend Polish

Ephemera, Interviews

It seems Ioan Gruffudd (above, second from left) got in trouble with 20th Century Fox a while back for saying that Galactus wasn’t part of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the sequel to 2005’s $330 million-grossing worldwide comic book superhero hit.

Since then, however, director Tim Story has more or less confirmed that the appearance of fan favorite Galactus would come in the third act, feeding into a storyline for a potential third film in the series. Still, during interviews for the forthcoming The TV Set, from writer-director Jake Kasdan, the charming, easygoing Gruffudd isn’t taking too many chances, and he’s clearly having to fight the impulse of sharing more. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says with a smile, responding to the scenario as laid out above. “And I’ll add that whatever Tim says is correct.”

Gruffudd does offer that the cast is doing two or three days of re-shoots on the film this weekend, but it’s less work than on the first movie, which he says is “a good sign. And in this film I’m more masculine and in control… I’m not floundering about.”

And are the re-shoots in Los Angeles or do they involve outdoor location work up north in Vancouver? Gruffudd almost answers, then catches himself, and shakes a finger disapprovingly. “You’ll be there with your bloody camera, won’t you, looking for Galactus!”

Mark Wahlberg Shoots to Thrill

Interviews

Hollywood prides itself on reinvention. After all, it has plenty of experience in
neatly packaging such tales of underdog uplift, personal transformation
and professional rebirth, selling them to the public in compact,
pre-formed celluloid patties 12 months a year.

The career trajectory of
Mark Wahlberg, though, has been a particularly unusual one, and a
lesson in the art of the makeover. From successful if unlikely Bahs-ton-born hip-hop musician to roughneck (and allegedly homophobic) Calvin Klein underwear model to hipster Entourage
producer and, now, Oscar nominee, Wahlberg’s acting career might best
be described as a blue-collar shooting star. It’s been characterized by
a solemn, hard-edged determination, commitment to professionalism and
incremental betterment. So it’s no surprise that
Shooter, his latest film, finds him playing an idealistic ex-military man who has to take matters into his own hands. Whether in Boogie Nights, Rock Star, Four Brothers or I Heart Huckabees, Wahlberg is at his best when he’s able to showcase his convictions, to convey the depth and strength of his beliefs. For the full interview feature, from FilmStew, click here.

On Jenna Fischer

Ephemera, Musings

The Los Angeles Times has a profile piece in today’s paper on The Office‘s Jenna Fischer, who also has a role in this week’s Blades of Glory, and it doesn’t exactly come as a shock that she took secretarial work after graduating from college with a degree in theater, and that she worked in Los Angeles in the same capacity and didn’t give it up even when her husband, Slither writer-director James Gunn, hit it big as a screenwriter.

It’s a nice, gentle-cycle bio piece that mentions Fischer’s casting in Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard, opposite John C. Reilly, and The Office executive producer Greg Daniels nails it when he says of her, “She’s very subtle and very smart and makes very interesting comic
choices. She has the brain
of a great British comedy actor in a beautiful woman’s body.”

Still, despite having a really brilliant smile and an innate relatability, it’s the melancholic qualities that Fischer most nails on The Office, as beleaguered secretary Pam, and there’s little in any of her other performances to suggest that she can necessarily cross over into leading lady comedienne territory with any sort of mass critical following, and certainly not commercially. (If it didn’t happen in lasting fashion for someone as brassy as Téa Leoni,
it ain’t happening for Fischer.) So can she go sexpot? Or even rom-com vibrant, something for which Hollywood is totally (and rightly) desperate? That’ll be tough, though the latter will require a pinch of the former, if only for differential shading.

All of this isn’t a dis so much as an observation. Obviously Fischer remains totally crush-worthy, and will continue to get comedy work, given her crack timing and instincts. How much any of those hiatus roles allow for any measurable distance between her and her Office character, however, remains to be seen. For the L.A. Times piece, click here. For a review of Fischer’s low-fi, Troma-bred directorial debut, the canted mockumentary Lollilove, click here. For a nice picture from Blades of Glory, meanwhile, of Fischer in lingerie, click here, and enjoy.