Outside The Frame

Screed vs. screed

Peter Keough — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:50:00 GMT

Enough with the polls. Maybe the only reliable window into the souls of American voters is what they’re willing to line up for and pay $10 to see on a movie screen. In which case last weekend’s box office provides an excellent test case, with two politically antithetically movie satires playing mano-a-mano.

On the right is David Zucker’s “An American Carol,” which, as noted in previous posts, is a variation on the Dickens’s classic featuring a Michael Moore stand-in serving as punch bag for patriotic icons like Gen. Patton, John Kennedy, George Washington and Bill O’Reilly. On the left is Bill Maher and Larry Chrles’s “Religulous” in which believers like George Bush, a theme park Jesus and assorted televangelists, Jews for Jesus and one US senator provide kindling for Maher’s anti-faith auto-da-fe.

A look at the box office numbers shows, that, on the face of it, the right has eked out a narrow victory, with “Carol” taking in $3.8 million to “Religulous”’s $3.5 million. However, “Religulous” appeared on a third as many screens, so the per-screen average comes to $6,972 for “Religulous” and $2,234 for “Carol.”

Conclusion? The election is too close to call!

Unless you concur with what the pundits -- i.e, critics -- have to say. There, “Religulous” wins in a landslide. “Rotten Tomatoes” gives it a “Fresh” rating of 65% while “Carol” stinks up the joint with a truly rotten 15%

Big surprise, you say -- the critics are all a bunch of hand-wringing, God-hating left wing pansies anyway. Well, not so fast. Consider, for example, the assessments of the usually reliably right wing “New York Post.” Lou Lumenick gives “Carol” a brutal 1/2 star review, opening with the observation:

“Even if it weren't three years too late to parody Moore (ineptly played by Kevin Farley), Moore's ridiculous tribute to Cuban health care in ‘Sicko’ is far funnier than anything in this desperately laughless farce from David Zucker (‘Scary Movie 3’).”

Ouch.

On the other hand, the “Post’s” Kyle Smith gives “Religulous” an enthusiastic three star review (true, you don’t have to be religious to be a conservative -- just don’t admit it and try to run for any political office). He observes: “We know there is no God because Bill Maher is not immediately struck dead...”

But the hardcore pinko rag “The Village Voice” doesn’t agree. J. Hoberman finds the whole thing a little sophmoric, describing it as “a dog that has more bark than bite.”

Speaking of dogs, what about the film that topped the box office (“Carol” and “Religulous” were #9 and #10, respectively)? “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” took in over $29 million, and the irony of a comedy about a spoiled rich pet unleashed in the mean streets of Mexico City being released the same week that the nation’s economy collapsed was not lost on astute reviewers.

Notes Nathan Lee in that pillar of the Liberal press, The New York Times:”

“As multimillion-dollar frivolities about the pets of the ruling class go, ‘Chihuahua’ is reasonably diverting. As one that happens to be opening in the middle of an economic meltdown, its mere existence feels utterly insane.”

But Anne Hornaday in that other Liberal pillar, “The Washington Post,” is not so sure:

“The economy is in freefall. Congress is a circus of dysfunction and demagoguery. The White House is under investigation for violating the Constitution. Things are heating up in Pakistan.
What we need now is a talking Chihuahua movie!

“Okay, the concept for the movie is admittedly lame, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with watching a passel of adorable pooches wrinkle their brows and bark while human voices come out of their mouths.”

As for Smith in the “Post,” he pretty much sums up the whole relationship between moviegoers and Hollywood, if not the electorate and politicians, with what might be the best lede of the week:

“The film is ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua.’ The audience is the fire hydrant.”

Paul Newman on "The Road to Perdition"

Peter Keough — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:03:00 GMT

Many of the eulogies for the late great Paul Newman have focused on the saintliness of the man, an aura of goodness that emanates from him both on and off the screen. “Someone Up There Likes Me,” indeed. Truth be told, he always had a knack for playing an asshole, whether an outlaw or a rogue or an outcast or a downright villain, that twinkle in his beautiful blue eyes could just as easily evince malice, irony, corruption or anarchy as benevolence and beatitude. “The Left-handed Gun” (1958), “The Hustler” (1961), “Hud” (1963), “Hombre” (1967), “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), “The Sting” (1973), “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994)... I think most fans would prefer these over, say, “The Silver Chalice” (1954).

Overlooked also has been his last on screen film role, “The Road to Perdition” (2002), Sam Mendes’s adaptation of the Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner’s graphic novel about a Depression era Chicago hit man, played by Tom Hanks, on the lam from the mob. Newman plays the ruthless but avuncular mob boss, who is also serves as Hanks’s ambiguous father figure. Newman got his tenth, and last, Oscar nomination for the role, for Best Supporting Actor.

Coincidentally, it was also the last film shot by Conrad Hall, who died in 2003. Hall won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, his third, the other two being for Mendes’s “American Beauty” (1999) and “Butch Cassidy” (1969).

Unsurprisingly, the best parts of the movie are Newman’s performance and Hall’s stunning images. Hanks is pretty good, too.

I was fortunate to have attended a press conference with Newman in Chicago when he was promoting the film. As might be evident, he is ironic, mischievous, anarchic, with a definite aura of saintliness.

PN: [Looking incredulously at the tape recorders assembled before him] It looks like somebody’s ready to declare a war. [laughter]. My God.

Q: is this project your swan song?

PN: No, it’s probably closer to a vulture than a swan song. I keep trying to retire from everything and discover that I retire from absolutely nothing. I was gonna get out of the racing business, and I’m back in the racing business and I was gonna let someone else handle this spaghetti sauce and I’m back with the spaghetti sauce…I just finished the first play that I’ve done in 35 years [he played the narrator in a Broadway production of “Our Town”], which is like sticking a rifle in your mouth. So, um, I don’t seem to be able to retire. Maybe if you get me a different swan.

Q: anything else you’d like to do?

PN: I’d love to do another film with Joanne [Woodward, his wife of 50 years], and we’re looking at something down the pike [presumably the HBO TV-movie “Empire Falls” (2005)]. I can’t really discuss it right now, but there’s still a little vinegar left in the old dog yet.

Q: [Something to the effect of... “Tom Hanks, blah blah blah?”]

PN: Strangely enough you know, Tom and I, the majority of the work that we did was not with each other. The trouble with these interviews is that you get asked the same question, and by the end of the day you feel like a real moron because you have such a limited perspective of things. So the question that was just asked me, I feel like I’m repeating myself, so should I try to say something different about Tom, so I don’t sound repetitious, or should I just give the same answer? He has the quality of not dodging things, which is as true off-screen as onscreen. and there’s no fancy footwork, there’s no approaching things sideways and what you’re lookin’ at is what you get. And that’s refreshing.

Q: Do you approach a role differently to hide Paul Newman the icon?

PN: No, you say I’m an icon. My grandchild is not thinking I’m an icon. He’s three years old and he came to the door the other day and said, “I am OBSESSED by ‘The Yellow Submarine’!” What will he say when he’s six? So the [Newman's Own] spaghetti sauce is good to think about. Morning, noon and night. Think about spaghetti sauce. Think about hustling other people to buy the spaghetti sauce.

Anyway, I don’t think about any of that [icon] stuff. What you’re able to achieve on the screen has nothing to do with you. the only thing sometimes I think is you pick up certain mannerisms from characters you play and they become part of the way you present yourself. the only two things that ever stuck to me were, unfortunately, from Rocky Graziano [the boxer he played in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” (1956)]. I never used to spit in the street. I was with Rocky for about 9 weeks before the picture began filming, and I spit in the street. It sickens my wife. And I never used to swear. I never used any kind of foul language. Now it’s not worth being in the same room as me. It’s funny, of all the attributes that could have stuck to me that those were the two that stuck the strongest and the longest. But, I really don’t take much of it seriously, I really don’t.

Q: Nice work with the piano. Is that you playing?

PN: the piano is great fun and we worked very hard at it actually, cause it's not really about playing the piano, it's about doing something together.

Q: What will the audience get out of performance?

PN: I don’t know. I just hope it will have the ring of truth about it somehow.

Q: How do you prepare for the role?

PN: I insist on two weeks of rehearsal, which I give for nothing. And that has happened in almost every picture I have done since 1954.

Q: why do you insist on it?

PN: You discover a lot of things on your feet, and if you don’t have any rehearsal that anything that happens on screen is by accident.

Q: How did the loss of your son [Newman’s son Scott died of a drug overdose in 1978] impact your performance [his character in the film has a troubled performance with his real son (played by Daniel Craig] and his surrogate son played by Hanks]?

PN: well that was a very long time ago…I don’t think at all. But it obviously has impacted me in other ways. In outside work that I do.

Q: I have you noted any changes in your acting acting style over the years?

PN: well, I certainly wasn’t on the cutting edge of Stanislavsky or the Actors Studio. I came in late, I had a fairly long and detailed formal education in the theater at Yale. Almost everything that I learned about being an actor came from those early years in the Actors Studio. There’s not a performance that I can look at comfortably until after, oh , the late 70s, without any sense of satisfaction. The other interesting thing is that the Actors Studio has bled overseas to England and I suspect they do it better now than we do. I also suspect they have a very formal training in classics, which our actors don’t have.

Q: What’s it like playing in a gangster movie?

PN: The film unlike other gangster films, is not really about explosions, it was about family. But not even in the sense of Mafia family, but it was really about family and vengeance and I can understand that, and not only understand it, in some cases admire it. That they happened to occur within the confines of the Irish mafia is what’s different. I just found everything that happened in that film compelling and promising and it gave me chance to deviate from the kind of stuff I usually do.

Q: Did you continue to fulfill your reputation as a practical joker?

PN: Uh, that’s part of my life that thank God, no longer exists. Actually, Bob Redford and I had a series of confrontations. He was there first with something, and after he pulled it I said, ‘you made a big mistake Bob, for two reasons. One, because I’m richer than you are, and two, because I have more time that you have.’ I pulled one on George Roy Hill and it frightened him and we had a terrible confrontation and he said, ‘behind every practical joke there is an element of malice’ and that pulled me up short. So, I’m trying to regulate to like one or two a year.

Q: To what do you attribute the longevity of your marriage?

PN: I don’t know what she puts in my food.

Q: What’s your favorite flavor among the [Newman’s Own] salad dressings?

PN: Italian family dressing.

Q: You don’t consider yourself an icon, but who are the icons and legends for you?

PN: Brando, Olivier, there’s really too many...I really should not have mentioned them because by forgetting somebody you’re beating them out of a category in which they belong. I’d have to go through all my books, and it would take me five days to figure it out really. And I’m not being sloppy about it, there are just too many people that I admire. Joanne’s in there somewhere too — I would’ve been killed if I didn’t say that.

Q: As a celebrity is it part of your responsibility to help people?

PN: This is not a celebrity issue. This is a political issue, and the concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn’t hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some institutions and some people. Bewildered by it. You can only put away so much stuff in your closet. In 1987, what the average CEO earned against someone who is working in his factory was 70 times. It’s now 410 times. If you eliminate the middle class, which we are slowly doing, incidentally, Aristotle said the greatest government is the government that has the least amount of people on each end. I don’t think there’s anything exceptional or noble in being a philanthropist. It’s the other attitude that confuses me.

Q: What made you go back to stage work?

PN: Joanne is the artistic director of Westport country playhouse. She was putting on “The Trojan Wars.” No, “The Trojan Women”…thank you! He got it late, but he got it!

Q: What did your father do and what was your relationship with him like?

PN: My father was a partner in the sporting business store. probably the best sporting goods store west of the Appalachians. he was the oldest seller of radio in the us. during the depression, 85% of the sporting good businesses went out of business. In the middle of the Depression, he came to Chicago incidentally, and got $100,000 worth of goods from Spaulding, and $100,000 worth of goods from Wilson on consignment. The reason he got $200,000 worth of goods was because both of those companies knew that if he sold a baseball glove for $4.25 that there would be a check in the mail for $2.18, which they were entitled to. I learned a lot from that. He survived because his reputation was impeccable.

Q: what do you love most about your career as an actor? and dislike?

PN: I’m in one of those positions where I have too many on both ends of the spectrum...I don’t know. I suppose the best actors are children. So, to that extent that you can maintain that childlike part of your personality is probably the best part. The worst part? This. (laughs)

Q: What’s it like being here in Chicago?

PN: We shot “Color of Money” here, and Joanne shot a wonderful 16 mm film here. I’ll never forget, we were shooting “Color of Money,” and we were staying in a hotel and the Chicago bears had just won the Superbowl and I had to get up at 5 in the morning, and the cars were streaming down the streets with their horns blaring and I couldn’t sleep and I looked out the window, and 15 floors beneath me the streets were still slippery from the snowfall, and there, splayed out on the hood of a car, up against the windshield was this football enthusiast, and the car was going about 50 miles an hour, and I’ve always wondered whether that guy survived. Listen, 25 years ago, if you’d asked me what the 5 greatest cities in the us were, I probably would’ve said New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, and now I’d say Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New York. So, Chicago’s a wonderful city to be in and it’s a great time for the people who live here. Its vibrant, its got art and culture, a couple really feisty left wing newspapers.

Q: What does it take to get you to do a movie since you’re so picky about roles?

PN: I haven’t the slightest idea. and it changes from year to year too.

Q: Why this movie?

PN: Well, I thought it was a pretty showy piece of work. and I also knew that the movie was going to be wonderful . I haven’t seen it, but I would bet my bottom dollar that the movie itself is wonderful.

A debate alternative?

Peter Keough — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:04:00 GMT

It looks like the big showdown between Barack Obama and John McCain won’t be taking place since McCain refuses to participate until all the economic problems go away. In the meantime you might want to drop by the Brattle Theatre which will be hosting a panel discussion that I’ll be moderating (okay, I admit it -- all that snarky self-righteousness is just a smokescreen for my own shameless self-promotion) for the United Nations Association Film Festival.

Among those participating are filmmakers Iris Adler, Sam Kauffmann, Jamil Simon and Ian Slattery. Slattery’s powerful documentary “Soldiers of Conscience,” an even-handed and provocative look at troops serving in Iraq who have opted for conscientious objector status, screens as the Festival’s opening film tonight at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Adler’s poignant “Hidden Wounds,” about veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, screens Sunday also at the Kennedy School. Simon and Kauffmann will probably be screening shorts at the panel discussion.

The subject? “A Call to Action: Making Powerful International Documentaries.” It would have been a useful tie-in to the debate, which was supposed to focus on international issues and answer the question as to which candidate would be better equipped to handle foreign policy. Another question comes to mind: would anyone watching the debate know the difference? It’s not exactly like there’s a glut of information in the media on the subject. Newspapers have cut back or eliminated their foreign bureaus. Cable and network news programs feature celebrity gossip, sensationalism and fulminating blowhards. So maybe that leaves documentary filmmakers as the best alternative source of news about the rest of the world. That is, of course, if anyone really cares.

If you do, you might want to drop by.

Simon Pegg interview, part two

Peter Keough — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:56:00 GMT

What happens when two geeks get together? They talk about geeks and superheroes and how they are very much the same as Brett Michel and Simon Pegg demonstrate in this second part of the interview.

BM.Moving on, superhero films – I’d imagine you’ve been keeping up with them?

SP: Yeah. It’s interesting, actually. There’s been a parallel – this is something that I’d like to write about – the evolution of the hero from the kind of superman from the 80s; the bodybuilder there, and the 90s; the Van Damme, the Schwarzeneggar – to a degree that that hero has been – and this is after John McClane – the hero has become more and more ordinary, more geeky, so that you have Seth Rogen as a leading man, and, you know, Steve Carell. People who are just kind of regular guys have become like the heroes of film. “Superbad” is a great example: two geeky guys. But then, running parallel to this, you have also the rise to prevalence of superhero. But it’s interesting that all these superheroes are, to a degree, geeks. You know? Tony Stark, Peter Parker, even Bruce Wayne. Even Clark Kent. I mean, he is a geek. They’re all kind of…it’s brilliant. There’s definitely a sensation in there somewhere about how we are perceiving the male…

BM So, “Ant Man?”

SP: I mean, Edgar [Wright, Pegg’s collaborator and director of “Shaun” and “Hot Fuzz,” who is planning to bring the somewhat obscure Marvel superhero to the screen]just chose that. I’ve got nothing to do with “Ant Man,” but…

BM. Really?

SP: That’s Edgar’s project. He’s developed that with Joe Cornish. But, I would hope for a cameo.

BM: Back when you spoke of ant man when you were in Cambridge with “Hot Fuzz”, I got the impression that you would be playing Ant Man.

SP: Well, we were kind of joking there…I’m too old to play Ant Man, I think. Edgar needs to get, he needs to get Hank Pym. He needs a young guy. I would hope to play something in the movie, just to keep an ‘in’ with my boss, but Edgar – and this is Edgar down to a ‘T’ – is that he specifically picked a lower-level Marvel character, a sort of…a less than popular Marvel character [laughs] and I have no doubt that he will make it better than any previous Marvel film, because he is that good at what he does. But, yeah, he’s one of the kind of lower-tier heroes. I’m sure the film will be about that: the ‘small man’ complex.

BM: It didn’t quite work out in “The Incredible Hulk.”

SP: I didn’t mind…I kind of enjoyed that movie, but I’m a big Ang Lee sympathizer. I like that “Hulk.” I thought that the Hulk himself in it was brilliant – the closest thing that I’ve ever seen to the comic book – a big, dumb, thick, scared-looking anger machine.

BM: I appreciated the climax of that film on an intellectual level, but good god, there was no way to make that work onscreen.

SP: No. That’s where it fell down. But that sequence in the desert is better than anything that was in the new Hulk film. The whole thing with how he gets around, jumping about? That’s what he used to do in the comics, just jump around! [laughs]

BM: I would love to see the motion capture footage of Ang Lee acting out the Hulk’s performance on that film.

SP: Yeah, yeah! I just remember his face, you know, his eyes fill with tears like that. It kind of did justice. It was brilliant.

BM: Have you been following the Democratic Convention at all?

SP: I’m behind Barack, absolutely. Just because, I think it would be just this fabulous, poetic thing for him to become the President. I think, for this country, it would be monumental.

BM: Sidney Young, your character in your new film, is based on Toby Young, who I see is now working as an associate editor for the rather conservative weekly, the “Spectator.” Seems like a strange position for him.

SP: Well, the thing is with Toby – well, Party politics in the UK are slightly different now, anyway. I mean, it is similar to this country, in that the parties sort of jostle for position, so much where they’ve kind of ended up at a middle ground. But Toby’s quite, he’s pretty middle class. He’s not exactly a working class hero. He has enough disregard for what people think of him to avidly support the conservatives. [laughs] We had a mayoral race recently in London, and our mayor was Labor affiliated. He was very much a left-wing man. He had done a lot of fuck-ups. Some of the transport issues were just bad, and it felt like it was time to change things, but his opposition was a conservative man. And even though I was pissed off, I still couldn’t bring myself to vote that side of the line. It just felt wrong. I hope Obama gets it, I really do. Just the beauty of him as a black man. If he does get in, it’s taken 200 years from enslavement to him being the leader of the country. Which, when you think about it, is fucking ages! It is a long, long time. It’s taken 200 years for a black man to be the President of the United States. That’s too fucking long! But, it will be brilliant, if it happens.

[a knock comes on the door; the publicist briefly enters, saying she’s sorry, but that we’ll need to wrap things up.]

SP: Oh, come on! We’re talking about politics here! [laughs]

BM: And we haven’t really spoken about the film!

SP: Ah, it’s really good! It’s out on October the 3^rd and it’s got Megan Fox and Kirsten Dunst in it.

BM: One last question, then! Toby’s attraction to American celebrity culture, which was followed by his eventual disillusionment of its vanity and superficiality – have you experienced this yourself?

SP: I distrust that world so much, anyone who takes it on…

BM: Well, your fan base seems to be rooted in the ‘fanboy’ culture.

SP: Yeah. I’d really like to keep it that way. I’d just like to stay there, because I think they’re in it for the right reasons. Their enthusiasm is entirely honest, and not fickle, and I think, if…to keep working towards pleasing people like that would be great, because you never want to let them down, you never want to short-change them. You would continue to do the best work that you possibly could. But, the larger world is a fickle kind of…

BM: Are you interested in getting the sort of “Entertainment Weekly” level of attention?

SP: No, I don’t know. I can’t…It just seems to me like a sort of a necessary…I mean, obviously, “Entertainment Weekly” is a cool magazine. The idea of being on the cover, you think “Wow, I’ve achieved something.” But at the same time, you’re entering into an arena which is entirely unpredictable and, you know, hard to manage. And, for me, I always look at it as being like “fame,” for want of a better word, or the attention that it brings you when you do a job like this. It’s the equivalent of what radiation is to people who work in a nuclear power plant. It’s a hazard of the job, in a way. It’s not altogether necessarily a good thing. There are no perks with radiation, obviously. You don’t get to go to parties and things.

BM: But what about the radiation you might be exposed to from “Aint It Cool News?”

SP: Well, you get radiation that turns you into a superhero. That kind of radiation. But, otherwise, I find it daunting and scary.

Pegg of my heart, part one

Peter Keough — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:55:00 GMT

My colleague Brett Michel recently interviewed Simon Pegg, who was in town publicizing his big Hollywood breakthrough movie, “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People,” Robert Weide’s adaptation of Toby Young’s sardonic memoir about being a successful if dissolute journalistic hack in London who tries to make the big time in New York at hoity-toity “Vanity Fair.”

A parallel to Pegg’s own career? In fact he’s already made inroads into the American audience, establishing a cult following with “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” and creating excitement with his plans to play the young Scotty in the upcoming “Star Trek” movie. Some had turned onto Pegg as far back as his “Spaced” TV series in Britain, in which he played a benighted “Star Wars” and superhero geek, something Pegg is in real life as his perennial appearances at Comicon Conventions will testify.

At any rate, Brett is a big fan, and so was willing at the last minute to fill in for me when I was unable to interview Pegg. In this first part they discuss an interview with Brett’s other [former] hero, Harrison Ford, after which they descend into the black hole of “Star Wars” and postmodern aesthetic theory, from which they emerge only after turning to the requisite discussion of Krzysztof Kieslowski.

BM: I hope this goes better than the time I interviewed Harrison Ford…

SP: I’ve heard stories. What happened?

BM: Long story short, it was the single worst interview I’ve ever conducted. truly painful. I was scheduled to speak with him for a half-hour, and the film he was promoting – “Firewall” – wasn’t very good, and didn’t provide many talking points. turns out, it didn’t really matter, since no matter what I asked him, he’d either give clipped, one-word answers – y’know, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – or he simply wouldn’t answer at all. Honestly, I had run out of topics within about 15 minutes. Plus, even though he was sitting directly across the table from me, he was turned sideways, facing the door. The only time he actually looked at me was to shoot me an icy stare as if I was an idiot, based on something I said – and it’s easy to come off as an idiot when you’re funmbling as bad as I was. Still, this was Harrison Ford, for chrissakes – one of my boyhood idols. Han Solo! Indiana Jones! and he completely emasculated me. It was fucking awful. anyway, the publicist had said she would give a ‘five-minute warning knock, indicating that we should begin to wrap things up. when that knock came, he jumped up out of his chair and exclaimed, “Saved!” – and that was it. the interview was mercifully over.

SP: Wow. I always say that the promotion side of the job is what you get paid to do and the acting you do for free. But, you do it with good grace, you know what I mean? [laughs] I think it’s important to kind of enjoy it.

BM: My readers will appreciate that. moving on… A little background: an hour and-a-half ago, i was lying on my couch in my underwear…

SP: Wow! That’s a great image to plant in my head. [laughs]

yeah. You’re welcome. I didn’t know I’d be conducting this interview until then…

BM: Congrats for getting here fully clothed.

what makes you think I’m wearing underwear? It was only an hour and-a-half ago, remember, and I hadn’t yet prepared any questions…

SP: So, did you slide down a pole and jump into a fast-moving vehicle and get here in your Brett-Mobile?

BM: Ha! Yeah -- but it was a rather ventilated ride. Before that, though, I scribbled down as many questions as I could think of and… actually, I cribbed the questions from my editor!

BM: Well, let’s get in as many as we can before the dreaded warning knock! I just finished watching “Spaced” on dvd…

SP: Oh, you did? You got the “Region 1”?

BM: Yup. At the close of the pilot episode, you were about to masturbate to Gillian Anderson’s photo. and now on your new film, you got to work with her…

SP: Which is the first thing that Bob Weide – the director – brought up when she stepped into the rehearsal room. We’ve met a couple of times before, and I think the first thing he said when Gillian sat down – with me having said, “Please don’t mention it to her” – was “So, have you seen the episode where Simon wanks to ya?” I don’t think I’ve ever been as embarrassed. But, she is such a good sport, Gillian is. She’s a boy’s girl. For someone as stunningly beautiful as she is, she’s a bit of a lad, which makes it all the more easy. You know, she could be sort of stuck-up about it, but she was so not. And we had such a good time. We’ve become good pals now, which is bizarre for me; someone who idolized her and crushed on her enormously, and still do, within the bounds of what my wife allows me to crush on. Having said that, she has certain crushes as well, which I’m fine with. But yeah, she’s super-cool. She’s great.

BM: Is she also aware that in another episode, you had her “X-Files” action figure sitting on your face as you slept?

SP: Yeah. Her husband Mark is such a sweet guy. He’s a real cool guy, and she’s having her third baby now, and it’s so safe. I can just be like: I’m out! I’m a Gillian Anderson appreciator and there’s no shame in it whatsoever, and she’s really cool with it. And it’s hilarious how when I met Piper, her first daughter, her first child – Piper’s like 13 now, and she was conceived at the beginning of the second season of “The X-Files,” and you could see how Gillian grew on screen. And the first thing I said to Piper was, “Ah, you must be the ‘bump’ from season two,” which she must have thought was half-geeky, half-hilarious.

BM: Speaking of geeky and (sadly) hilarious, my notepad, as you can see here, is the one I used while taking notes for my review of “The Clone Wars.” Have you…

SP: I haven’t seen it yet, to be honest. I um… is it a terrible thing to say that I just don’t care anymore?

BM: No. I’m completely there with you.

SP: I kind of think, if you’re going to do that – there’s no question for me about the beauty and artistry of what those animators do; it’s incredible and aesthetically, it’s a massive achievement and they should be applauded. But, if you’re going to do it, do the OLD characters! Do the sequel that we’ve always wanted to see, you know? Let’s pick up with Luke and Han and Chewie and I mean, Jesus! I would care sooo much then, you know?

BM: Yes, but then how would you reach the lucrative ‘tween girl demographic?

SP: That’s the kind of crap that... they’re not going there, are they?

BM: Yup. And they’re using cutesy nicknames. ‘Anakin’ becomes ‘Sky-Guy’…

SP: Oh, God. Have you seen Patton Oswalt’s material about the prequels? It’s sooo funny. He’s like [in a Southern accent]: “D’ya like Darth Vader? Y’get t’see him when he’s a kid!” It’s so funny. I don’t give a fuck where they come from!

BM: Well, let’s get the hell away from “Star Wars,” then.

SP: Yeah, before we get bogged down.

BM: You wrote a dissertation on “A Marxist overview of popular 70s cinema”?

SP: I did – with “Star Wars”-related works.

BM: I think we’re bogging down…

SP: It was a dismantling of consent, which was forwarded by an Italian Marxist philosopher called Antonio Gramsci. It was all about the fact that if you watch a movie without critically objectifying yourself, you consent to the inherent prejudices within the film. So, if you’re watching a film which is very sexist, if you don’t think “Hey! That’s pretty sexist,” you are being sexist by watching it. And “Star Wars” and “Raiders [of the Lost Ark]” embodied a certain amount of late-seventies neuroses: bomb fear and subjective stereotypes and it was all about that!

BM: You also had a quote in the “Guardian,” which said that “an awareness of the postmodern condition is still the intellectual bedrock” of your comedy…

SP: Did I say that? Man, I must have had a couple of cups of coffee! Yeah, I think you can’t not be aware of popular culture and what’s gone before you now; you can’t not be postmodern. The stamp of popular culture is such an important part of day-to-day life for modern human beings that it’s hard not to refer to it. You can’t just pretend that you’re starting from scratch these days. You’re part of a huge legacy of expression that is fun to refer back to.

BM: Like “Star Wars.”

SP: There I go again!

BM: I’ve actually seen you a couple of times before here in Boston, sitting in the audience during both your promotional tour for “Shaun of the Dead” and for “Hot Fuzz…”

SP: Always a pleasure to return.

BM: …and the first time I ever heard of cornetto was at that screening of “Hot Fuzz.”

SP: Apparently, McDonalds are doing a Cornetto now. It’s coming to the States. So by the time we do the third film, it will be a known quantity.

Oh, ok. At that screening, you guys went off on a whole riff about King cone, cornetto’s american ice cream cone equivalent…

BM: That’s right. “Shaun,” “Hot Fuzz” and an upcoming film will make up the “three flavors cornetto trilogy,” I believe?

SP: We decided to call it that because “Shaun” featured a strawberry one, heavily; “Hot Fuzz” obviously features the blue original; and the last one is the mint chocolate.

BM: Why mint?

SP: We don’t know yet. We just will.

BM: You’ve already decided on a title?

SP: Well, we have a title that we’re kind of playing with and Edgar [Wright, director of “Shaun” and “Hot Fuzz”] kind of announced it as if it’s the actual thing, and it’s not.

BM: So you’re not willing to go on record with it?

SP: We are! The working title is – they were so desperate to announce that deal with Edgar, that they pre-empted our working title for the movie – “The World’s End.”

BM: Care to elaborate on what the film might be about?

SP: We know what it’s about, but I cannot say.

BM: Ok. I think that I might be able to kind of intuit…

SP: You think? [laughs]

BM: Ok, maybe not. although, if you’re painting an ‘end of days’ type of scenario, you’ve kind of covered that ground already.

SP: Well, our standard line at the moment is that the third one will be like the first one, times the second one. It will be the answer to that equation: “Shaun of the Dead” times “Hot Fuzz” equals The World’s End.”

BM: Is the ‘three flavors cornetto trilogy’ a reference to Kieslowski’s ‘three colors trilogy’?

SP: Yeah, but only in a very flippant way! [laughs]

BM: That’s ok.

SP: Yeah, we’ve reduced a masterful trilogy to an ice-cream snack. And isn’t that the very crux of what we do, as filmmakers. We’re reductionists. [laughs]

BM: Like George Lucas.

SP: Hey! Don’t lump me in with that guy! You started off so well… [laughs] Keep going!

BM: Better filmmaker: Kieslowski…or Lucas?

SP: I think we both know.

Next: What movie are you promoting, by the way?

"Hounddog" unleashed

Peter Keough — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:42:00 GMT

The box office demographic for the rest of 2008, usually dominated by the male 12-24 year-old perpetual adolescent crowd, might be switching genders. So suggests Steve Mason writing in the “Hollywood Wiretap” website, where he speculates that the fourth quarter of 2008 will belong to the “below 25 female” audience. Among the upcoming films he sees as drawing big box office from this group are “Beverly Hills Chihuahua,” “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” and “Twilight.”

He might also have included “The Secret Life of Bees,” in which Dakota Fanning plays a lonely 14-year-old girl in the South who finds solace and wisdom with some local beekeepers.

But he probably would not have included another Dakota Fanning vehicle, Deborah Kampmeier’s “Hounddog,” in which Fanning plays another young Southern girl seeking solace. It will be opening nationwide on October 3 [which is when my review will be coming out]. First premiered at the Sundance Festival in 2007, it earned the moniker the “Dakota Fanning rape movie” from the outraged and the titillated. Critical response was universally disastrous, focusing as much on the hamhanded cliches as on the alleged exploitiveness. Which strikes me as odd since critics at the same festival largely adored “Black Snake Moan,” in which Cristina Ricci plays a nymphomaniac chained in her underwear to a radiator by a wise old bluesman played by Samuel L. Jackson.

I mean, isn’t that kind of clichéd and exploitive, too? In fact, having seen both films, I’d have to give the edge on odious racial and sexual stereotypes and solaciousness to “Moan.”

Maybe I’m alone in that opinion. Not to pick on Ebert-beater Lou Lumenick of the “New York Post,” but his reviews are a case in point. “Hounddog” he dismisses with one star and the phrase: “trailer trash of the worst kind.”

His three star review of “Moan,” however, opens with the lede:

“I could practically smell the sex and sweat while watching Craig Brewer's arty exploitation film, ‘Black Snake Moan,’ even as my jaw was dropping repeatedly to the floor.”

Maybe that’s what struck Ebert, and not the festival binder that Lumenick is said to have hit him with in the notorious Toronto Film Festival incident. That or something else. Anyway, it seems to me that perhaps he liked “Moan” more than “Hounddog” because Ricci is sexier looking in her underwear than Fanning.

And also older. The main reason “Hounddog” got panned, no doubt, was because it showed a prepubescent girl who displays sexual curiosity and is sexually assaulted. Nobody wants to think about these things happening. Certainly not the good people from the Concerned Women for America (CWA) of North Carolina, who are especially peeved because the film was shot in their state and with the approval of the North Carolina Film Office.

Donna Miller, “a CWA Prayer/Action Chapter Leader for the Fayetteville area and No More Child Porn Campaign Director” is leading the campaign to get citizens “to fight this graphic movie from being shown in their local theater.” Quoting disdainfully from the director’s statement in the film’s press kit, Miller says, “This movie is about a nine-year-old girl, not an adult woman. She should be outside skipping rope or riding her bike, not ‘celebrating the power and creative force of her sexuality.’”

Indeed she should, even though in the movie the character is more like eleven or twelve than nine, though the age is never specified. And if Miller had seen the film, she’d realize that the only thing “graphic” about it is David Morse’s (he plays the redneck father) bare butt. That, and Fanning impaling her hand on a nail during the assault. If anything, it’s the opposite of child porn -- an earnest attempt to depict the vulnerability of children and a cautionary tale for parents and children alike about the dangers of pedophiles. Not that that necessarily makes it a good movie.

Come to think of it, it’s not unlike the brouhaha disingenuously stirred up by the McCain campaign about the Illinois legislation Barack Obama supported for “age appropriate” sex education to teach children to avoid potential predators. Yes, there’s definitely something obscene going on here, but it’s not on the movie screen.

"American" way

Peter Keough — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:44:00 GMT

Even some Republicans were skeptical about the box office potential of David Zucker’s conservative satire, “An American Carol,” in which, as I’ve mentioned before, a Scrooge-like Michael Moore-ish filmmaker is taken through a tour of American History by George Washington and other patriotic spooks. But maybe the success this Spring of Nathan Frankowski's anti-evolution documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” changed some minds, because Vivendi plans to release the film on October 3 on 2,000 screens. On the other hand, last weekend another right wing documentary, Nathan Frankowski’s “Proud American,” took in the lowest per screen average ($180 on 750 screens) of any film in Hollywood history. Perhaps not coincidentally that was the same weekend that Lehman Brothers folded and caused the Dow to have its biggest decline since 9/11.

Nonetheless, the jolt of energy that the Sarah Palin nomination has injected into the right wing has convinced the “Carol” people that this is the perfect time for releasing the movie. Plus, according to producer Steve McEveety (he was also behind “The Passion of the Christ” ) the film is a comedy in the mold of previous, non-political Zucker farces as “Airplane!” “Sure, it takes a position, but it's fun,” McEveety told the “Hollywood Reporter.” “Can’t we have a little fun during this election?”

I guess it depends on whether or not your idea of fun is Dennis Hopper as a judge gunning down ACLU lawyers trying to take down the Ten Commandments from his courthouse. Or whether this trailer leaves you rocking with laughter. What do I know? Lots of people seem to think this is as much fun as a barrel of monkeys.

Speaking of Palin, the people promoting “Carol” are taking a hint from those marketing the VP nominee by keeping the film away from the press. There will be no preview screenings of “An American Carol” before its opening. However, the press is invited to interview Zucker and other members of the cast and crew beforehand. Without seeing the film, that is.

This is a first in my experience. Say what you will about Michael Moore, but at least he has enough backbone to let you see his movie before you interview him about it.

"Post" traumatic stress disorder

Peter Keough — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:24:00 GMT

Because we make a living sitting in dark rooms and writing about it, people think film critics are sissies. Not so, as Lou Lumenick, he-man critic for the New York Post, never tires of proving. Back in 2006, he was one of the few critics with the guts to squash “Ant Buddy” , an animated children’s film, calling it out as commie propaganda. Last year he struck a blow for all-American heterosexual horniness by saying he wished that Diablo Cody had won the New York Critics Circle screenplay award so she could demonstrate her stripper talents at the ceremony.

But Lou’s tough guy act isn’t just talk, as he demonstrated the other day at a press screening at the Toronto Film Festival. When some jerk sitting behind him touched him on the back, Lou told him off. “Don’t touch me!” he said. Again and again! Finally, Lou turned around and smacked the guy on the knee with a festival binder!

Turns out that his assailant was none other than renowned "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert. The cancer survivor and Pulitzer-Prize-winner can’t talk and is partially immobilized as a result of his cancer treatments and was trying to get Lumenick’s attention because he was blocking the subtitles for the film they were watching. No wuss himself, Ebert remained to the end of the screening. Luckily, his famed digits were unharmed during the fracas and he gave the film, Danny Boyle's "Streetdog Millionaire," a thumbs up.

He also wrote about the incident on his blog, noting that his wife, Chaz, offered to “get a no-neck guy from the West Side to break his [Lumenick’s] knees.”

Watch your back, Lou. Remember what Sean Connery in “The Untouchables” said about "the Chicago way."

White knuckle drill ride

Peter Keough — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:45:00 GMT

People have been sniping at John McCain for the quality of his backgrounds for delivering speeches -- A green screen a few months back and more recently the blue screen at the Republican Convention. Well, pipe down. As all movie buffs know, these are screens for the CGI special effects that will be included in post production before the campaign enters theaters everywhere. The finishing touches have yet to be polished up, but here’s a link to part of it, a kind of trailer for what we might expect in November. Check the video here.

A specter is haunting Hollywood...

Peter Keough — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:01:00 GMT

As noted below, there doesn’t seem to be a burning desire on the part of fans for another “Poltergeist” movie. And do we really need another “Ghostbusters,” especially after the brilliant remake featured in Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind, Rewind?” Since the 1984 original grossed $292 million and the 1989 sequel took in another $215 mil, Sony Pictures apparently thinks it's the franchise to call. Bringing it up to date will be the Judd Apatow/ “The Office” writing team of Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.

So what is it with the spirit world and Hollywood these days? As a character says about New York City in the upcoming “Ghost Town,” the place is lousy with ghosts. You’ve got the ghosts as avenging spirits as in “Poltergeist” and as embodiments of evil seeking to possess the living as in the Ghostbusters movies. And then you’ve got the “Christmas Carol” template with the ghosts as harbingers of guilt, haunting miscreants with reminders of their misdeeds (see “An American Carol” below ) or deeds undone, which is how it works out in the “Ghost Town” formulation. And sometimes the person haunted and the ghost are one and the same...

Sounds like the perennial problem of guilty consciences and fear of punishment and the terror of mortality to me. But why does the phenomenon spike periodically? “Poltergeist” came out in 1982 and “Ghostbusters” in 1984, “Poltergeist III,” “Ghostbusters 2,” “Ghost”and “Jacob’s Ladder” all appeared from 1988-90, and “The Sixth Sense” and “The Others” came out in 1999 and 2001. There seem more these days than usual, too — some other recent examples include “Ghost Rider,” “Over Her Dead Body,” “The Life Before Her Eyes.” I’m sure I’m missing some. And don't forget the ghost hunting shows on TV.

Is this cause for spirited discussion? Or just a dead issue?

New surge in war movies

Peter Keough — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:36:00 GMT

Now that we’ve gotten war off our TV screens, we can put it back where it belongs, in movie theaters. Because it looks like the war movie is back, repackaged and marketed anew, just like the war we used to see on TV. So observes “The Hollywood Reporter” after taking a look at the upcoming films now being showcased at the Toronto Film Festival. Among those featured are Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna,” which is the war movie as vindication of overlooked African-American history and Paul Gross’s “Passchendaele” which is the war movie as reminder of the mind-numbing and pointless slaughter of thousands of Canadians on a blood-soaked hard to pronounce Belgian WWI battleground. And sneaking in too is the now untouchable Iraq War Movie, called “anything but an Iraq War movie.” Such as an action-adventure movie that just happens to take place in Iraq like Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” or a romantic comedy involving goofy, attractive folks who just happen to be Iraq War veterans on stateside leave in the US like Neil Burger’s “The Lucky Ones.” "Iraq is a dirty word in film marketing right now," explains Roadside Attractions co-topper Howard Cohen, who is distributing "The Lucky Ones." The "Reporter notes that Cohen is planning a Sept. 26 release for "Lucky" "in hopes that the zeitgeist might change, making the film more marketable.’

And let us not forget the war movie as Tom Cruise movie, “Valkyrie,” or as Quentin Tarantino movie, “Inglorious Bastards,” (both of which apparently are raising controversies with German critics, who are still soreheads more than 60 years after the war ended)..

But the real sign that the war movie is making a comeback is the Hollywood script-like story of John McCain as processed into his presidential campaign narrative. As another Hollywood Reporter article comments about the just-concluded Republican Convention and its nominee (and you can just imagine these words being spoken by the late voice of Hollywood trailers, Don LaFontaine) “A prisoner of war who beat the odds during five years of brutality in a Hanoi jail cell, John McCain beat the odds again Thursday night when he accepted the Republican nomination for president. The story of McCain's youth was told in the 2005 TV movie "Faith of Our Fathers." But walking up to the podium at the Xcel Energy Center, the now 72-year-old McCain turned another page in a new script that brought him from nearly failed candidate to a possible Hollywood-style triumph as president of the United States.”

And if they can’t do it in real life, there’s already the movie version. "The Guardian" has been calling on readers for casting suggestions for all the leading figures. The leading candidate for the role of McCain is, no surprise, neo-Republican Jon Voight.

"Poltergeist" resurrected

Peter Keough — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:46:00 GMT

Who says movies don’t offer a window into the truth, a mirror of the zeitgeist? The titles, anyway. A tip of the hat to the people at Mudflats.com, a site dedicated to “tiptoeing through the muck of Alaskan politics,” for this update on what’s playing at the local movie house in Wasilla, Alaska, Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s hometown.

Meanwhile, I’ve been at a loss trying to come up with movie-related items stranger and more implausible than the recent developments in the Presidential election. Maybe this will do. “Poltergeist,” the 1982 Stephen Spielberg-produced,Tobe Hooper-directed horror film about evil spirits entering a suburban household through their TV screen, a smash hit that spawned two sequels, is being remade with Vadim Perelman (“The Life Before Her Eyes,” “House of Sand and Fog”) directing. That despite the alleged “’Poltergeist’ Curse,” which supposedly resulted in the death of at least four and as many as six of the cast members.

One of these was the waif-like star Heather O’Rourke, who died on February 1, 1988 at the age of 12 after making "Poltergeist 3." As fate would have it, I was one of the last journalists to interview O’Rourke, spending a day on the set of the Chicago production for the “Chicago Sun-Times.” Perhaps the “Curse” extends to my efforts on mustering up a copy of my article on line; I’ve been completely stymied trying to “register” to read it. All I remember about the experience is that Zelda Rubinstein, who played the dwarf exorcist and whom I also interviewed, was nasty and abusive. And also that they glued a fake moustache on my lip so I would resemble Tom Skerrit’s stand-in double..

At any rate, perhaps the only curse Perelman and company need fear is from fans of the original film. Here’s what “horrorchick81” has to say about the remake:

“u gotta be shittig me......like i said NOOO NEED TO REMAKE THIS. i hope everyone dies on this set.”

Good luck, Vadim.

"Antichrist" update

Peter Keough — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:09:00 GMT

So Barack Obama has been nominated as the Democratic candidate for president, which inevitably raises the question -- is he the Antichrist? The McCain people have been sort of suggesting that with their “The One” commercial though they didn’t come right out and admit it when David Whittenberg, a blogger for the “Washington Post,” confronted McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers about it. He “didn’t give a straight answer,” Whittenberg writes of the response from the Straight Talk Express. ‘"The Obama campaign has said that they don't believe that to be the case. IIf you really want [the ad's] secret meaning," he added, "play it backwards at half speed," said Rogers.

Whittenberg might be working on that, but in the meantime he did what any other journalist would do -- make a Google search. He entered “Obama and Antichrist” and got 1.3 million hits. Sloppy research! I refined the search, putting “Barack Obama” in “exact wording” and “Antichrist” in “all these words” and only got half as many. Though I’m still sifting through the 501,000 hits, some have stuck out, including one in which Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, authors of the “Left Behind” series of Apocalypse/Rapture novels, express skepticism. "I can see by the language he uses why people think he could be the antichrist," LaHaye is quoted as saying, "but from my reading of scripture, he doesn't meet the criteria. There is no indication in the Bible that the antichrist will be an American."

Or IS he an American? Nonetheless, even though there is an "Obama is the Antichrist" website, the general consensus seems to be that he’s not.

What a relief! But then, what if...John McCain was the Antichrist? I pop his name and “Antichrist” into the Google advanced search and get 452,000 hits!. True, many of these are items about the John McCain people insinuating that Obama is the Antichrist, but there are also observations like this on the web forum “abovetopsecret.com”:

“Look at his name John, Jaan, A name in Arabic which is another name for the Devil. Cain, Remember the bible story of Cain slaying his brother Abel?, Cain, A Black devil that had to go live in Southern Iraq in the wicked city of Nod. All of the Evil Aliens from other galaxies used to meet their at the first Nudist Camp on this planet; Nod/Nuwd. John McCain does have a Reptilian shapeshifting appearance about himself, Would you not agree?. The AntiChrist.”

Sounds reasonable to me. But just to be thorough, I pop some more names in. Hillary Clinton? 342,000! Many , however, seem to be preoccupied with her Antichrist-like fashion sense. Britney Spears? 148,000, but no doubt her alleged claim to be the Antichrist at the time of her suicide attempt might have upped the numbers. The biggest shock was when I punched in “Bill O’Reilly is the Antichrist” -- only 8 hits tallied. Compared to when I punched in my own name, which was 59!

One of those Antichrist hits under my own name, by the way, was a blog item back in 2007 about Lars Von Trier being incapacitated by depression while working on his new movie called “Antichrist” -- which was the subject I was originally going to write about in this posting before being distracted by all this political stuff. It seems Von Trier is feeling better and “Antichrist” is back on track. It takes place in a world which has been created by Satan, and not God and a couple played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbrough hide out in a cabin in the woods (surrounded evidently, judging from the pictures on the website , by cute woodland creatures)after their daughter has been killed in an accident and await the apocalyptic news that the Antichrist, Ralph Nader, has been elected President.

Steve Coogan interview, part 2

Peter Keough — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:39:00 GMT

Never one to pass up a chance both to kiss a celebrity’s ass and show off my feigned erudition, I wasted no time in discussing Coogan’s role in Michael Winterbottom’s “A Cock and Bull Story,” an adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s bizarro18th century novel “Tristram Shandy” in which Coogan played himself as an actor in a film within the film that also is adapting “Tristram Shandy.” Let’s listen in...

PK: You could hardly do a film that’s, in my opinion, better than “Tristram Shandy,” where you basically played yourself in a very unflattering role. Was that like a turning point in your career

SC: Not really. I’d done “24 Hour Party.” I knew that was different. Was it a turning point? No, it wasn’t a turning point. It was interesting and I found it quite enjoyable to play something in that way. I don’t normally like people playing themselves if it’s self-congratulatory and assisted. What happens when I’ve seen people play themselves is it’s sort of self-congratulatory narcissism and I didn’t want to be guilty of that when I did it, so I tried to sail as close to the wind as possible, even to the extent of almost deliberately not being funny to challenge the audience to wonder why I was doing it. I kind of just like that whole tension and discomfort. I gravitate towards it. I don’t know why. I like it. I like the awkward side of life.

PK: When did you first notice this? Was there an awkward moment that you had when you were growing up which you enjoyed?

SC: Small tiny embarassing moments. I think that the discomfort, awkwardness, embarrassment, all those moments are when we really learn what it’s like to be a human being because there’s a sort of brutality of truth in certain awkward moments and certain uncomfortableness because we have this way of communicating which is very smooth and ordered and, ultimately, it conceals, often, the true feelings.

PK: It discloses the truth

SC: Like kind of a conspiracy of communication and sort of repression. So, it’s nice to kind of bust through that and find a way of shedding light on the human condition, which is the purpose of drama. I think everybody can do that in however small of a way or big of a way and I feel like when you do comedy, when you look for the awkward things, that’s a way of finding that and shining that light.

PK: So you draw on a lot of personal experience. Did you do a lot of improvisation in “Hamlet 2?”

SC: No, not very much at all. I would do a lot of improvisation only in discussions beforehand. I might say, “Let me try this” or “Shall we try this,” those kinds of conversations before a scene, not really on camera, but a lot of the ideas I had thought up just before a scene was shot.

PK: You went to a theater school, did you drawn on any of that experience in creating your character?

SC: Yes, I did. A little bit. I’m aware of ... I’ve kind of got a strange background because it’s half comedy, stand-up background and half theatrical drama-school background, so half actor, half comic. I’m a strange weird creature. So, yes, I was able to draw upon that on the comic side of things. In terms of the drama, a certain streak of pretentious self-searching that I was very aware of.

PK: But you had no teacher who was as inspiring as...

SC: At drama school, not particularly. I mean there must have been guys...Not like that... The brutal reality is if there had been a teacher like that she would have annoyed the hell out of me.

PK: If this one is very successful, do you think they’ll be doing a “Hamlet 3?”

SC: I think that sounds terrible.

PK: People might have thought Hamlet 2 sounded like a terrible idea.

SC: Actually, “Hamlet 2” did sound terrible. That is true. When I heard the title, I thought that sounds really, really bad and then I read it and I changed my mind.

PK: Well, this is Hollywood. Anything can happen. Do you have any interest in doing something like the original Hamlet?

SC: No, not really. I’m too old. You have to be in your twenties for Hamlet. In your forties, doing that kind of angsty self-searching looks actually really tragic. Maybe you could do a mid-life crisis Hamlet, but who the hell wants to see that.

PK: What about Macbeth?

SC: I don’t think so.

PK: You do have another film coming up with Michael Winterbottom with whom you seem to enjoy a very good relationship?

SC: It’s not specific. We have 2 or 3 ideas, there’s sort of hoping it will happen but nothing’s concrete right now, which is kind of a pain in the ass, but we’re definitely going to do something, it’s just not definitely the thing you may have read about that’s all.

PK: And then there’s something called “Ed Eagle,” which is...

SC: And that again may not happen either. These people kind of throw my name into things before they’re ready and their out of the trap. It’s kind of annoying.

PK: IMDB, not to be trusted then.

SC: Yeah, well, what do you think? I’ve seen stuff on IMDB that I’m supposed to be shooting, that I’ve written a first draft of something. I’m like wow, have I? I’d like to find it. If I can find it on the internet, it will save me a lot of work.

PK: But you are doing a stand-up tour of Britain with your Alan Partridge character?

SC: I’m doing a bunch of characters on stage, like six characters. I’m sort of hesitant to call it stand up because though I do characters for stand up because I also have a live band, dancers, and supporting actors who come on stage and do sketches and stuff and a big screen and I use computer graphics. It’s like a little theater experience, rather than stand up. It’s not just me in front of a microphone.

PK: Will you do any numbers from “Hamlet 2?”

SC: No, I can guarantee there will be zero content from “Hamlet 2.”

PK: Do you find that, since you haven’t done it for about ten years, thisis like a return to the well to restore your inspiration?

SC: Yeah, it’s nice to just go in front of an audience again, no middle man, a complete lack of ambiguity there, they applaud and laugh or they don’t. It’s immediate. It’s also a good discipline because it requires absolute focus. You have to be totally unresigned, you can’t do it in half measures, you have to absolutely commit every night. So I’ve given myself that challenge, that benchmark, as something that was important for me. I’m being sort of pressured to wrap it up.

PK: Here’s a quote from Oscar Wilde that I read somewhere that you quoted once. “To be a spectator of one’s own life is to escape the suffering of one’s own life.”

SC: It’s basically not that my life is angst and suffering, because I quite enjoy it. But, of course, from time to time, things don’t go exactly the way I’ve planned, but I channel everything I do into my work. That’s a way of sometimes exorcising things. So, no excuses about experience, everything is potentially creative material.

Commercial break: The 2008 Brandcameo Product Placement Awards

Peter Keough — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:09:00 GMT

Before we get back to Mr. Coogan, I think I should follow up on a posting a few days ago about the “2008 Brandcameos Product Placement Award,” which this year, for the first time, are being selected in part by popular vote. Well, the results are in. And though the motion picture industry pretty much pales in promotional and advertising significance before, say, the Olympics, I think it’s important to keep up with the latest developments.

Here are some of the big winners:

Brandcameo E.T./Reese's Award for Achievement in Press Coverage: “Transformers.”

No contest there; how else can you refer to that movie except as a product of its product placements?

Similarly, the other film that most shamelessly abused product placementing, that high-end QVC broadcast posing as a movie “Sex and the City,” took three seemingly contradictory prizes:

The Most Mouthwatering Award for placement most likely to prompt an immediate purchase (namely its Luis Vuitton collection).

and:

The Perfect Fit Award for best product placement chemistry (The Manolo Blahniks, of course).

and also:

The Film Whore Award for movie that most “sold out” for product placement.

There can be no higher honor. Sorry for the interruption. We’ll resume with Mr. Coogan shortly...