“In the Director’s Chair” Archive
Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
When you hear about a film called Submarine, you expect a war movie, perhaps set during World War II.
Action! Suspense! Water! Dive! Dive! Dive!
But Submarine, directed by Richard Ayoade and adapted by the filmmaker from the first novel by poet Joe Dunthorne, is something totally unexpected. This wonderfully acted, richly textured coming of age saga set in Wales concerns an awkward, dictionary-reading teenager named Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) who falls for his classmate, a cute pyromaniac with skin problems named Jordana (Yasmin Paige).
While Oliver tries to figure out exactly how to lose his virginity, he has other things on his mind, like saving the marriage of his parents, Jill (Sally Hawkins) and Lloyd (Noah Taylor). Oliver is concerned that Mum is having an affair with her old boyfriend Graham (Paddy Considine), a TV psychic / dance instructor / guru who lives nearby.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
The independent film trenches are fraught with war stories.
Some have unhappy endings, with directors overwhelmed with the demands they encounter, and the finished film—if it gets completed—sometimes turns out nothing like their original version. One common scenario has a film getting finished but having trouble finding distribution.
Then there are the others: Happy endings, in which the filmmakers deliver the film they made to the masses—or at least a select audience in theaters or on DVD.
Happily, Lebanon, PA is of the latter camp. Sure, the film took five years from conception to distribution to hit theaters, following a difficult six-days-a-week schedule using a RED digital camera on an extremely limited budget. Let’s not forget an editing process which took several months to complete. Finding distribution, even after kudos at several film festivals, was no picnic either.
But when all is said and done, writer-director Ben Hickernell is a happy man. And who can blame him?
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Twenty-eight years.
That’s how long Robert Platshorn spent behind bars, a prisoner for smuggling marijuana in and out of South Florida.
The length of time makes him a candidate for entry into the Guinness Book of World Records: Longest time spent in the pokey for moving pot.
Today, the Philadelphia-born Platshorn, now grey and in his late sixties, is a free man.
He’s also one of the key people featured in the movie Square Grouper: The Godfathers of Ganja, now on DVD, an insightful, highly entertaining look at South Florida weed smuggling in the 1970s. The film’s directed by Billy Corben, who also helmed the acclaimed Cocaine Cowboys and Cocaine Cowboys 2, about coke dealing in the Sunshine State.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
He’s eaten nothing but McDonald’s food for a month (in Super Size Me), travelled to dangerous hot-spots in the Middle East to track down the most wanted man in the world (in Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?) and spent time in a tough Virginia prison (in the TV series 30 Days).
But in POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Morgan Spurlock tackles what could be his greatest challenge yet: Product placement in Hollywood.
In his new documentary, Spurlock sets out to learn how placing subtle and not-so-subtle ads in movies works, and then sets out to make his own film in which he shills products for promised cash. Audiences follow the loquacious West Virginia-born filmmaker as he calls on scores of companies in hopes of securing corporate tie-ins for their goods in his project, and journeys behind closed doors to boardrooms where big-time marketing decisions are made. In the meantime, a very lucrative and once clandestine part of the movie business is revealed.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Move over Jason Reitman, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. A new generation of filmmakers is about to rule the indie roost.
And out from the new stable ride Max Winkler and Matt Spicer, former pals at University of Southern California’s legendary film school. They’re young, they’re talented and they already have highly praised scripts in various stages of development around Hollywood.
Oh, yes, they also have a new movie out in theaters: Ceremony, which Winkler wrote and directed and Spicer co-produced. The film stars Michael Angarano (Sky High, Snow Angels) as Sam, a 22-year-old aspiring writer of children’s books who talks his old friend Whit (Reece Thompson) into joining him on a trip to a beautiful estate in Long Island. Little does Whit know that Sam’s intention is to crash the wedding party of his older ex-girlfriend, played by Uma Thurman, who is about to marry a pretentious filmmaker (Lee Pace of Pushing Daisies).
Buoyed by sharp, snappy dialogue, fine performances and humorous romantic complications, Ceremony firmly establishes Winkler and Spicer as two fresh talents on the rise. The project, which Jason Reitman co-produced, received enthusiastic response at such film festivals as Toronto and South by Southwest.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
It’s taken him close to ten years, but writer-director James Gunn finally has his superhero film under his belt with a big capital letter insignia.
The movie is Super, a wild and wooly take on the comic book hero, starring Rainn Wilson as Frank D’Arbo, a short order cook who goes ballistic when his wife (Liv Tyler) dumps him for a local drug dealer (Kevin Bacon). Donning the makeshift guise of a wrench-wielding superhero, “the Crimson Bolt,” D’Arbo is soon joined in costume by a young female comic book geek (Ellen Page), clobbering not just bad guys, but people who simply annoy him.
“I call the film Napoleon Dynamite meets Taxi Driver,” says Gunn, and, you know, it’s an apt description.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Ground Control to Duncan Jones…
Ground Control to Duncan Jones…
Duncan Jones, the son of rock icon David Bowie, is obsessed with science fiction. In a good way.
With a background in making commercials. Jones, 39, made his 2009 directing debut with Moon, an attention-getting indie for which he also fashioned the story. Sam Rockwell was nearly the only actor in the entire film, playing an energy miner who experiences psychological problems as he nears the end of a three-year stint on the moon. Kevin Spacey supplied the unnerving voice of a mobile computer named Gertie who sports more than a passing resemblance to the Hal 9000 of 2001 fame.
The critical reception for the crafty, intelligent, low-budget Moon got Jones—aka Zowie Bowie—the assignment of directing Source Code, a crafty, intelligent $25 million Hollywood production. And once again, science fiction plays an important role in the story.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Thomas McCarthy is a man who likes to wear different hats.
As a busy character actor, McCarthy has appeared in films like Meet the Fockers, 2012, Flag of Our Fathers and Good Night, and Good Luck and in such TV series as Law & Order, Boston Public and a year-long stint as a reporter in the last season of The Wire.
As a writer, McCarthy has done uncredited rewrites and polishes for several films, and shared an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for 2009’s Disney/Pixar animated smash Up.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, McCarthy has helmed such high-profile independent movies as 2003’s The Station Agent and 2007’s The Visitor.
Now, McCarthy has a new film to add to his writing and directing resume: Win Win, a comedy with serious concerns involving a high school wrestling coach grappling with his own conscience over an uncharacteristic deed done out of desperation.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
A few people walked out, scared as hell. A burly radio producer kept looking over his shoulder, wondering if people were following him. A publicist was shaking in her UGGs.
Other members of the audience at a recent screening of the new horror film Insidious had similarly unnerved responses. The movie is that scary.
Surprise, surprise—the film’s also rated PG-13. That should not deter fans of horror, who are guaranteed goosebumps from this story of a young boy who mysteriously falls into a coma when his family moves into a charming new home. Weird visions, disturbing and eerie sounds—including Tiny Tim’s ever-chilling rendition of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”—haunt the boy’s parents, played by Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne. So what’s a family to do? Move, of course. And what’s a family to do if the spirits they encounter are unwilling to stop? Call on some parapsychologists to investigate the apparitions.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
It seems that wherever Andrew Jarecki goes, trouble follows.
Take the director’s first film, 2004’s Capturing the Friedmans. Jarecki intended to make a documentary about entertainers at children’s parties. While focusing on popular kids’ clown David Freidman, he discovered that brother Jesse and father Arnold has been convicted of child abuse. Jarecki’s audacious film went into great detail about the family, as Jarecki gathered testimonials from alleged victims and used incredible home movie footage to tell the unsavory true-life story. The film elicited controversy, an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary and a host of international awards in the process.
Since Friedmans’ release, Jarecki has had his share of difficulties regarding his feature film debut as well. All Good Things, now finally in theaters, is a true crime thriller that plays like a crackling mystery writer’s tale.
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
When he was a kid, Theodore Thomas got to have dinner every night with Walt Disney.
Well, not quite in the literal sense. Ted’s father was Frank Thomas, one of the Walt Disney Studio’s fabled “Nine Old Men,” a legendary animator who worked on such classic features as Bambi, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella.
“I got to meet him a handful of times in social situations,” recalls Thomas. “In most cases, it would be my father saying, ‘That’s my son,’ and Walt saying, ‘How are you doing, young man?’ To me, he seemed like an adult who had a lot of things to do but wasn’t in a hurry.
“While I only met him a few times, he was at our dinner table every night. My father talked a lot about him. He was such an influential personality, and those who stayed with him over their careers realized they were doing something they wouldn’t be able to do anywhere else.”
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Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
The first thing that strikes you upon meeting Edward Zwick is that he is whip-smart.
The other thing you get just by chatting with him for a few minutes is that he has a strong work ethic.
Consider his most recent films. He’s fought the Nazis in Eastern Europe with Defiance (2008), journeyed to Africa to depict the struggles over much-wanted gems in Blood Diamond (2006) and he’s cast his cameras on Japan in the 1870s to depict a Civil War veteran fighting against and for the country’s top warriors in The Last Samurai (2003). Then there are the small screen productions he’s been involved with, from the highly praised TV series Once and Again and My So-Called Life to the internet show Quarterlife.
So, it would seem like a natural that the seemingly indefatigable Mr. Zwick would chill every once in a while. And you would think an example of taking it easy would be helming a romantic dramedy called Love & Other Drugs on location for a few months in Pittsburgh. But even this project was no walk in the park.
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