After 2021’s “Dune” was relegated to the small screen in the wake of pandemic related theatre closings, this weekend, the long awaited “Dune Part 2” brings the thunder, debuting on screens suitable for the story’s epic scale. The sci fi saga starring, well, almost everyone, in a sprawling cast headed by Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and the giant sandworms who are literally and figuratively the film’s biggest stars, will play exclusively in theatres.
Wrestling novelist Frank Herbert’s expansive story of a psychedelic drug called Spice and reluctant messiah Paul Atreides, into a comprehensible movie has confounded filmmakers for decades. Most notably, David Lynch adapted the 1965 novel into a noble 1984 failure. The story is complex, with many characters and big, brainy concepts.
As a result, the spectacle of “Part 2,” on its own, isn’t for casual viewers. The last movie ended with Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya) saying “This is only the beginning,” which means the new film isn’t a sequel, or a reboot. It’s a continuation, the second part of the story director Denis Villeneuve began in 2021, and to understand the story, you have to see the first film.
Equal parts action packed and philosophical, “Part Two” picks up where “Dune” left off. Set 8,000 years in the future, Atreides (Chalamet) son of an aristocratic family, and once heir to the planet of Arrakis, a desolate, almost inhabitable place, but rich in the lucrative, and psychedelic Spice, that is home to the Indigenous Fremen people.
Betrayed by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), the former steward of Arrakis, the family is all but wiped out, with Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), left in the desert to die. If they are to survive it will be with the help of the Fremen—including Chani and Stilgar (Javier Bardem), leader of the Fremen tribe at Sietch Tabr—who call Atreides “The Chosen One” and believe he is a prophet with the power to bring peace to their world.
“Part 2” sees Atreides embedded with the Fremin in a mission of revenge against the House Harkonnen, the treacherous Baron, his sinister nephews, the brutish Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), who Atreides holds responsible for the death of his father. Fighting gallantly alongside the Fremin, he’s mostly unconcerned with their belief that he is their messiah. His feelings for Chanti and his thirst for creating a conflict that will place him within striking distance of Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), his daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), and Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and the Emperor’s Truthsayer, Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), are top of mind.
As the reckoning approaches, Atreides is plagued by terrible visions of the future.
There is so much more, but that is essentially the peg on which Villeneuve hangs his epic vision of Herbert’s tale. The director gives voice to the author’s study of vengeance, spirituality, fanaticism, liberation and conquest, articulating the story’s humanist nuances in the framework of a film that can only be described as a spectacle. It’s a bigger, wilder vision, an answer to the stately elegance of the first film.
The action sequences fill the screen. Villeneuve overwhelms the senses with grand images of desert warfare and Atreides sand surfing courtesy of giant “grandfather sand worms.” It’s blockbuster filmmaking writ large, exciting and laced with high stakes. Perfect for IMAX screens.
But the action sequences wouldn’t mean much if the film’s world building and characters didn’t set the stage. Arrakis is a sand swept hell, so immersive you’ll think you have sand in your underpants by the time the end credits roll. The vision of the planet is aided considerably by Greig Fraser’s gorgeous cinematography.
The devil, though, is in the details. On an arid planet, the Fremin syphon water from the bodies of their vanquished enemies to use in their cooling systems. Minutiae like this, and more, give the story depth, creating an exciting world for the characters to inhabit.
The stacked cast of a-listers deliver. Chalamet’s character comes of age on his hero’s journey, shedding any boyish traits Atreides may have had, to become a worm riding warrior and leader of armies.
Also making a mark is Butler as the eyebrow-challenged Feyd-Rautha (the part played by Sting in the Lynch’s adaptation). He maintains the rock star swagger of Elvis, his best-known role, but brings the danger as the sadistic nephew and heir.
It’s good stuff that showcases Villeneuve prowess, even if it feels rushed in its last act.
What Villeneuve isn’t good at, are endings. His first “Dune” film left audiences hanging, finishing up with no definitive ending. The end of “Dune Part 2” doesn’t dangle in quite the same way, but tensions are still unfolding as the end credits roll. Looks like we’ll have a “Part 3” coming in a couple years.
Despite the open-ended conclusion, however, “Dune Part 2,” with its stunning visuals, deep emotional core and good performances, suggests “Part 3” will be worth the wait.
Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today he talks about how Mick Jagger singlehandedly made the Tequila Sunrise a staple on drink menus everywhere. Then they talk about “Dune” and “The Harder They Fall,” now playing in theatres.
“Dune,” the latest cinematic take on the Frank Herbert 1965 classic, now playing in theatres, is part one of the planned two-part series. So be forewarned, the two-and-a-half-hour movie doesn’t wrap things up with a tidy bow. For some, the film’s last line, “This is only the beginning,” will be a promise of more interesting movies ahead, for others, who prefer tighter storytelling and a clear-cut finale, it may come off as a threat.
Director and co-writer Denis Villeneuve benefits from the parceled-out storytelling. Where David Lynch’s ill-fated 1984 version attempted to cover the complexity of the entire book, Villeneuve is given the time for world building, to explain the various and complex spiritual sci-fi elements that make up the story.
Here are the Cole’s Notes.
Set 8,000 years in the future, the story focusses on Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), son of an aristocratic family and possibly, just maybe, a prophet. His father, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), has been bestowed stewardship of Arrakis, the desert planet also known as Dune. His mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), is part of the Bene Gesserit, a social, religious, and political alliance who can magically control enemies by modulating their vocal tones.
Their new domain, Arrakis, is a desolate, almost inhabitable place that is home to the Fremen, a group of people who have lived on the planet for thousands of years. It is also the universe’s only source of mélange, also known as “spice.” It’s a drug with the power to extend human life, facilitate superhuman planes of thought and can even make faster-than-light travel possible. It is the most valuable commodity in the universe and those who control it, control everything.
When Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård doing his best impression of Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now”), the former steward of Arrakis, double crosses the Atreides clan, Paul and his mother are left in the desert to die. If they are to survive it will be with the help of the Fremen—including Chani (Zendaya) and Stilgar (Javier Bardem)—who call Paul “The Chosen One” and believe he has the power to bring peace to their world.
There’s more. Lots more, but that’s the non-spoilerific version.
Villeneuve lays out the information methodically, allowing the various story points and character motivations to seep into the fabric of the film and make an impact before moving on. There’s a lot to get through, but it doesn’t feel onerous like so many origin stories do.
Also effective are the large scale, and I mean large as in you need three or four eyes to take it all in, action scenes. The entire movie is big. So big it makes even the giant humans Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista, who play swordmaster Duncan Idaho and warrior Glossu Rabban respectively, look puny by comparison. As for the action, Villeneuve pulls out all the stops, staging world ending battles with elegance. Often major battle sequences can be muddled, a blur of colours and glints of metal, but Villeneuve delivers clear cut, tense sequences with a clarity that is unusual for modern action.
“Dune” is big and beautiful, with plentiful action and a really charismatic performance from Momoa. It is unquestionably well made, with thought provoking themes of exploitation of Indigenous peoples, environmentalism and colonialism.
So why didn’t I like it more than I did?
Partially because it’s an epic with no payoff. The cliffhanger nature of the story is frustrating after a two-and-a-half-hour wait. As good audience members we allow ourselves to be caught up in the world, humourless and bleak as it often is, to get to know the characters and then what? Wait for two years for the next movie? Apparently so, and the ending feels abrupt.
Nonetheless, “Dune” is formidable. It’s a grim, immersive movie that doesn’t shy away from the darkness that propels the story or the high-mindedness of the ideas contained within. Eventually, when we have a part two, it will feel like one piece, much like “The Lord of the Rings” franchise, but right now, despite its scope, it feels incomplete.
This week on the Richard Crouse Show Podcast we get to know Rob Lindsay, director of “No Responders Left Behind,” a documentary about the fight waged by former “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, social activist John Feal and FDNY hero Ray Pfeifer to get health benefits and compensation for 9/11 first responders. The film is now streaming on Discovery Plus in Canada.
Then, Rebecca Ferguson, star of the much anticipated sci fi movie “Dune” stops by to talk about her character Lady Jessica, and why she described reading the book to be like doing a crossword puzzle.
Then, Elaine Taylor Plummer stops by. She is a former actress. You’ve seen her in comedies like “Diamond for Breakfast” and “Half a Sixpence,” and she was even a Bond girl in 1967’s “Casino Royale.” She dropped by the show today to talk about her husband of more than 50 years, the late, great Christopher Plummer and a new commemorative stamp issued by Canada Post in his honour. The couple met while filming Lock Up Your Daughters in 1969, and were together until the actor’s death in 2021 at age 91.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.
Listen to the show live here:
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Reminders of real life were all around us at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. From the digital screenings we watched at home to half empty, socially distanced screenings at venues like The Princess of Wales Theatre. But when my mind wanders back to September 2021, I won’t be thinking of having to show my proof of vaccination or the social distancing in theatres.
What will linger?
The images of Anya Taylor-Joy in “Last Night in Soho,” crooning an a cappella version of the Swingin’ Sixties anthem “Downtown,” and “Dune’s” Stellan Skarsgård doing his best impression of Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now,” come to mind immediately.
Those moments and others like them are the reason the movies exist. They transcend the vagaries of real life, transporting us away from a place where masks, vaccine passports are the reality.
And boy, did we need that this year.
Here a look back at some of the moments that made memories at this year’s TIFF:
“Night Raiders,” a drama from Cree-Métis filmmaker Danis Goulet, draws on the historical horrors of the Sixties Scoop and Residential Schools to create an unforgettable, dystopian scenario set in the new future. It effectively paints a somber portrait of totalitarian future, packed with foreboding and danger. The story is fictional but resonates with echoes of the ugly truths of colonization and forced assimilation. Goulet allows the viewer to make the comparisons between the real-life atrocities and the fictional elements of the story. There are no pages of exposition, just evocative images. Show me don’t tell me. The basis in truth of the underlying themes brings the story a weight often missing in the dystopian genre.
I asked Danis Goulet about having many of her characters in Night Raiders speak Cree: “It is everything to me,” she said. “My dad is a Cree language speaker. He grew up speaking Cree. He learned to speak English in school. His parents were Cree speakers. And coming down to my generation, I’m no longer a Cree speaker and there are entire universes, philosophies and poetry and beauty contained in the language. When we think of where our heritage lies, maybe some people think of museums. For me I think it is in the language. I think that richness doesn’t just offer Indigenous people something. I think if others looked closer at what the language tells us about the history of this land, they would be incredibly amazed. My dad has looked at references in the language that talk about the movement of the glaciers, so, foe me to have the Cree language on screen is everything. I’m in my own process. I go to Cree language camp to try and learn back the language and the language gives back in a way that is so healing and incredible. It is one of the greatest gifts in my life. So, the opportunity to put my dad’s first language on the screen, and the language of the Northern Communities where I come from, and my language that I lost, is the best. It’s incredible.”
From Twitter: @RichardCrouse Was just sent this: “Wanted to check and see if you’d be able to either send proof of vaccine OR a negative covid test prior to your interviews with the talent.” I sent my proof in, but added, “Will the talent be providing me with proof of vaccination?” #TIFF21 #fairquestion 4:48 PM · Sep 9, 2021· 8 Retweets 3 Quote Tweets 206 Likes
There is no mention of COVID-19 in the Jake Gyllenhaal thriller “The Guilty.” But make no mistake, this is a pandemic movie, A remake of 2018 Danish film “Den skyldige,” it is essentially a one hander, shot on a just a handful of set with strict safety protocols in place. Gyllenhaal, as 911 operator Joe Baylor, may be socially distanced from his castmates, but his performance is anything but distant. Played out in real time, “The Guilty” builds tension as Baylor races against a ticking clock to bring the situation to a safe resolution for Emily. Director Antoine Fuqua amps up the sense of urgency, keeping his camera focused on Gyllenhaal’s feverish performance. The close-ups create a sense of claustrophobia, visually telegraphing Baylor’s feeling of helplessness and his crumbling mental state.
The sound of an audience laughing, applauding, crying, or whatever. Just being an audience. The big venues were socially distanced, and often looked empty to the eye, but when the lights went down and folks reacted to the opening speeches or the films, it didn’t matter. Roy Thomson Hall, with its 2600-person capacity, may have only had 1000 or so people in the seats, but for ninety minutes or two hours they formed a community, kindred souls brought together after a long break, and it was uplifting to hear their reactions.
“Flee” is a rarity, an animated documentary. A mix of personal and modern world history, it is a heartfelt look at the true, hidden story of the harrowing life journey of a gay refugee from Afghanistan. Except for a few minutes here and there of archival news footage, “Flee” uses animation to tell the story but this ain’t the “Looney Tunes.” Rasmussen used the animation to protect Amin’s identity, but like other serious-minded animated films like “Persepolis” and “Waltz with Bashir,” the impressionistic presentation enhances the telling of the tale. The styles of Rasmussen’s animation change to reflect and effectively bring the various stages of Amin’s journey to vivid life. It is suspenseful, heartbreaking and often poetic.
I asked “The Survivor” star Vicky Krieps about working opposite Ben Foster: “The first day I came [on set] I was very intimidated,” she said. “I wouldn’t say scared, but it felt like a wall to me. It began like this. There was no small talk. There was no, ‘How are you?’ He was already in character and it was very clear. I thought, ‘OK, I have to play his wife.’ And then, something really interesting happened. I like having a challenge and this felt like a challenge. So, I needed to find a way [to relate to him] because I knew I was going to be his wife. How do I do that? Imagine it as a wall, but then in the wall there are eyes. I used those eyes and I felt like I could open a window, and inside of those eyes was a horizon where I could go. I liked to say to Ben, ‘And then we would dance.’ Sometimes I wrote to him and said, ‘It was nice dancing today.’”
“Last Night in Soho,” from director Edgar Wright, is a love letter to London’s Swingin’ Sixties by way of Italian Giallo. Surreal and vibrant, and more than a little bit silly, its enjoyable for those with a taste for both Petula Clarke and murder. It begins with verve, painting a picture of a time and place that is irresistible. A mosaic of music, fashion and evocative set decoration, the first hour brings inventive world building and stunning imagery. Wright pulls out all the stops, making visual connections between his film and the movies of the era he’s portraying and even including sixties British icons Rigg, Tushingham and Stamp in the cast.
I asked “Dune” star Rebecca Ferguson why she said reading Frank Herbert’s novel was like doing a crossword puzzle: “Sometimes I wonder what comes out of my mouth,” she said. “My mother and many of my friends sit and do crosswords, but I have never been in that world. There is a way of thinking around it. It’s logical, mathematical. You need to be able to see rhythms. Whatever it is. Reading “Dune” was quite dense and I think for people who are immersed into the world of science fiction, they understand worlds and Catharism and this planet and that planet. It is just another picture, which, not to stupefy myself, I am intelligent enough to understand it, but there is a rhythm. I think it is me highlighting the fact that people who live and breathe science fiction, they get it at another level.”
“Dune,” the latest cinematic take on the Frank Herbert 1965 classic, now playing in theatres, is part one of the planned two-part series. “Dune” is big and beautiful, with plentiful action and a really charismatic performance from Jason Momoa as swordmaster Duncan Idaho. It is unquestionably well made, with thought provoking themes of exploitation of Indigenous peoples, environmentalism and colonialism.
Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve and I are talking about how technology impacts our lives, when technology impacts our interview. The phone goes dead.
“Sorry about that,” he says back on the line. “There was another call and I didn’t want it to be distracting but I pushed the wrong button. I was doing an interview with someone who was not understanding a word I was saying! Then I realized, I’m not talking to Richard anymore. I’m talking to an unknown person. That says a lot about where we are now.”
Villeneuve, the Oscar-nominated Trois-Rivières, Que.-born director, saw the original Blade Runner when he was 15 years old.
“It was a hybrid of film noir with sci-fi,” he says. “The world that was depicted in the first movie, it was the first time I felt like I had seen a serious vision of what could be our future. There was so much poetry involved in the characters. There is strength in the vision. It is very singular, very unique and at the time I was a science fiction addict and for me it became an instant classic.”
A self-described dreamer, Villeneuve says the movie lit his imagination on fire.
“In those years my strength was dreaming,” he recalls. “I spent the first years of my life more in dreams than in reality. There are a lot of dreams I had back then that are inspiring me today.”
Thematically the new film harkens back to Ridley Scott’s original but instead of being a reboot or a remake it grows organically out of the 1982 film. Like the original it is about discovering what is real and what it means to be human and how technology fits into that puzzle.
“I felt it had the potential to tell a very strong story about the human condition,” he says, “about our relationship with technology. These are timeless questions that were already present in the first movie but I thought it made sense to bring back those questions today, 30 years later when our relationship with technology has evolved so much. When Blade Runner was released it was the time when we were starting to see personal computers in homes. It was the very beginning of the electronic revolution and now it is a different world.
“When you make a science fiction movie it is a mirror of today. It is nothing else than that, an exploration of today.”
Blade Runner 2049 is a mix of old and new, of Scott’s classic vision and Villeneuve’s new ideas. A throwback to the first film comes in the form of Harrison Ford, who recreates his role of retired blade runner Rick Deckard. To find someone who could carry himself against the screen legend Villeneuve brought in fellow Canadian Ryan Gosling.
“I needed that taciturn quality; quiet and strong,” he says. “I needed someone with charisma, big enough to be in front of Harrison Ford and not melt. A real movie star. I knew at some point he would be face-to-face with one of the biggest stars of all time.”
Reinventing a beloved classic like Blade Runner takes guts. When I ask Villeneuve if he looked to Scott for guidance he laughs. “His advice was, ‘Don’t f-— it up.’”
BladeHeads hoping to learn intimate details about Denis Villeneuve’s continuation of Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci fi detective masterwork will be disappointed by this review. I’m treating “Blade Runner 2049” like a high tech “Crying Game.” Remember that? “The movie everyone is talking about… But no one is giving away its secrets.” Spoilers for the flick will likely be available on twitter roughly 0.0001 nanoseconds after the film’s first public showing so check there. You won’t find them here.
I will say the new film is set thirty years after the events of Scott’s film. Ryan Gosling is Los Angeles Police Department’s Officer K, a blade runner who hunts down and eliminates rogue humanoid androids called replicants. When he makes a startling discovery in the field his supervisor Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright) sends him to track down the only person who can help save humanity, retired blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). “You’re a cop. I did your job once. I was good at it,” he says.
I will also say that Jared Leto plays a replicant manufacturer named Niander Wallace, that David Bautista makes an appearance and that it rains a lot. But that’s it.
“Blade Runner 2049” is a beautiful looking movie, simultaneously lush but austere. Villeneuve’s frequent collaborator, cinematographer Roger Deakins, creates eye-catching tableaus that blend moody film noir, desaturated dystopia, vivid neon cityscapes and more. Each setting in every scene has its own unique palette that has echoes of the original film, but feels fresh. It’s a movie that visually doesn’t slavishly adhere to Scott’s vision but grows organically out of it.
Thematically it harkens back while creating a new story. Like the original it is still about discovering what is real, and what it means to be human but it expands on the search for self and the coming to grips with what you find, touching on real life issues like false memories and fear of progress.
Keeping it grounded are reverberations from our lives. A hologram that keeps K company is simply the logical extension of Siri, a comforting voice that tells you what you want to hear. Our brave new world of self-driving cars and machines that replace human interaction is simply the analogue “Blade Runner,” a prototype of the world we see on screen. Virtually everything we see is futuristic but not outside of the realm of possibility. These touchstones from our present lives and the primal search for self ensure the humanity of the story doesn’t get lost amid the technology.
Fans of the original will find much to like in “Blade Runner 2049.” It’s a skilfully made movie that works as a companion piece to Scott’s film and as a detective mystery. What it isn’t is easy. It’s a ponderous two-and-a-half hours long, grappling with ideas rather than simply allowing characters to physically grapple with one another. There is the odd combat scene but the real action here happens internally.
As the sun sets on a busy summer film season I wanted to hit pause and take a look at why we fell in love with movies in the first place.
My film education began at the Astor Theatre in Liverpool, N.S. Located just blocks from my house, I practically grew up in front of that screen. I don’t remember the first movie I saw in there — I was likely just a babe in my mother’s arms — but I have vivid memories of drinking “Swamp Water,” a sugary squirt of each of the flavours from the soda fountain and getting hit with an usher’s flashlight when I put my feet up on the seat in front of me.
Mostly though, I think back to the movies. My dad and I watched as The Sting filled the screen and, along with my pals Chris and Neil, I stared agape at the watery disaster of Poseidon Adventure and I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I killed watching Bruce Lee high kick his way through martial arts epics.
I saw hundreds of movies there but one in particular made me fall in love with the magic of film. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean stars Paul Newman as an outlaw turned unconventional lawman. A character is shot in the chest and as the camera pans down we catch a glimpse of the judge’s reaction through the hole in the guy’s torso. I haven’t seen it since, possibly because it’s probably cooler in my imagination than it is in life, but it taught me anything was possible in the worlds created on screen. From then on I was hooked.
Christopher Nolan, director of Dunkirk, says Star Wars was the movie that opened his eyes.
“I saw that when I was seven years old and it still stands today in my mind as a demonstration of the absolute potential of cinema to create an immersive experience, to take you away to worlds you’ve never even imagined. That screening was followed pretty rapidly by the rerelease they did of (Stanley) Kubrick’s 2001. Watching that as a seven-year-old, I didn’t understand it. I don’t understand it any more today but the experience of it was pure cinema. You felt the opening up of the screen, this larger than life quality of the screen, you were able to pass through that portal into other worlds.”
Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve also cites the Kubrick masterpiece as a potent example of the kind of movie that lit his imagination afire.
“The biggest impact was 2001: A Space Odyssey,” he says. “The first time I saw it was on television. I remember vividly the vertigo that movie created. Even though I saw it on TV I still think it is one of the most significant cinematic experiences I have had.”
Legendary stop motion filmmaker Ray Harryhausen told me it was King Kong that changed his life. “I saw it when I was 13,” he said, “and I haven’t been the same since.”
If not for that movie, he joked, he might have become a plumber and not a filmmaker. “It took you by the hand from the depression of the 1930s and brought you into the most amazing, outrageous fantasy that’s ever been put on the screen.”
As the calendar turns the page to 2017 let’s have a look back at the great people I met, wrote about or chatted with in 2016. Warren Beatty gave me his home telephone number, I drank cranberry juice with Denzel Washington, had Elvis’s girlfriend and JFK’s mistress on my radio show and fulfilled childhood dreams by hanging out with Iggy Pop and Cheap Trick. On stages, studios, in hotel rooms, on phones and even in the back of taxis, they spoke and I listened. Here’s some of the best stuff I heard this year:
Casey Affleck on throwing himself into the role of a depressed man in Manchester by the Sea: “It’s what you have to do. You have to go there, show up on set and be prepared to play the scene with the right feelings, the way it is supposed to be. I’m just not good enough to show up in a great mood, say good morning to everybody, check in with the kids and read the paper and then walk into the scene and be believably gutted in the way he is supposed to be. He carries around all this guilt, he’s devastated and filled with self loathing so I have to start way back in preproduction and try to slip into these bad feelings and stay there for as long as I can. If you just showed up and tried to walk through it or do anything but give 100 percent you’d really look like a jackass.”
Warren Beatty talking about casting Lily Collins in Rules Don’t Apply: “I believe very much in what I call ‘the blink,’” says Beatty. “That is the superiority of the unconscious knowledge as compared to conscious knowledge. The knowledge that when we sit and we really give it some thought, the thought we feel it is due. That thought can be misleading when we could have trusted our initial instinct, the blink. I think the unconscious has a lot more intelligence in it than the conscious.
“It was a blink with Lily. I can only say I loved the way she looked. I loved the way she sounded. I loved the way she talked. There was an integrity about her I felt I could believe in this circumstance and at the same time she looked like someone to me who Hollywood would want to exploit.”
Director Uwe Boll on why he’s quitting filmmaking: “I’ve been using my money since 2005 and if I hadn’t made the stupid video game based movies I would never have amalgamated the capital so I could say, ‘Let’s make the Darfur movie.’ I don’t need a Ferrari, I don’t need a yacht. I invested in my own movies and I lost money.”
The Magnificent Seven director Antoine Fuqua on casting Denzel Washington: “I wanted to see Denzel Washington on a horse.” AND “My idea was, if Denzel walks into a room, the room stops. If Clint Eastwood walks into a room, the room stops. Is it because he’s a gunslinger or is it because of the colour of his skin? We’ll let the audience decide.”
Rebecca Hall on playing Christine Chubbuck in Christine: “I don’t think I have given [a role] like it before and I probably won’t again because it is one of those jobs that if you are incredibly lucky you get maybe three of them in a career. And that’s only if you are incredibly successful and lucky and often only if you were a man.”
Jonah Hill on how some people respond to his morally ambiguous characters: “A lot of times Wall Street bros will come up to me as if [Wolf of Wall Street] is their Goodfellas or Scarface. People see what they want to see. It is a little scary sometimes when people misinterpret.” And how he reacted after a crew of South African arms dealers approached Hill in a restaurant after seeing a trailer for War Dogs: “You don’t want to make it an overly uncomfortable environment while that is happening,” he says, “but you also don’t want to lie and be dishonest that you are agreeing with them. You don’t want to make them feel bad about their misinterpretation. It’s an unusual an awkward situation to be sure. In the end, we all want to be seen as heroes in our own story, I guess.”
Isabelle Huppert on the unique tone of her film Elle: “Sometimes you are in a Hitchcock thriller. Sometimes you are in a psychological study. Sometimes you are in a comedy and at the end of the day you are in none of those; you are in a Paul Verhoeven film.”
Riley Keough on what she learned while making American Honey: “I learned not to drink too much.”
Spike Lee on casting Jennifer Hudson as the mother of a slain child in Chi-Raq: “Do you know Jennifer Hudson’s history? It is known knowledge that Jennifer’s mother, brother and nephew were murdered in Chicago. I think that’s extra gravitas that you have with Jennifer Hudson in this film. This is not an act for her. She got hit directly by gun violence on the South Side of Chicago. I didn’t want her to think that I was exploiting her. I knew I wanted her for the part but there was some length of time before I got the courage to approach her. Also, when we did meet I was babbling. She said, ‘Spike, I know why you want me to do this film, so just stop. I’ll do it.’ I was trying to be sensitive and I turned out to just beat around the bush. I said, ‘I’ll just shut up and say thank you.’”
Stan Lee on naming his characters using alliteration —think Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Matt Murdoch and Reed Richards: “It’s because I have a bad memory. If I could remember one of the names like Spider-Man, if I could remember his first name was Peter then I knew his second name began with a P. That is really the only reason. I have a terrible memory for names and by making the first and second letter the same, if I thought of one name I had a clue as to what the other was.”
T.J. Miller, star of Office Christmas Party: “Let’s talk comedy in a time of tragedy. I have a political obstacle to my social mission statement,” he says. “The social statement was, tragedy permeates our everyday lives, people are lonely, they’re scared, they have death anxiety, they don’t know how to attribute meaning to their own existence, so through comedy we can provide an opiate or distraction that permeates our everyday lives. Through satire we can hopefully frame the world in a way that people can laugh at. Also I aim to help people, through my stand up, to release the death anxiety. I aim to help people not take themselves so seriously.”
Queen of Katwe star David Oyelowo on working with nonactors on the film: “I actually took a bunch of the kids to see Jurassic World while we were doing the film and Madina (Nalwanga), who plays Phiona, sat next to me and was clutching me the whole time, terrified by the movie. She turned to me and said, ‘Is this what we are doing?’ I asked her if she had ever seen a film before and she said no. We were halfway through shooting a film in which she is playing the lead.”
Snowden co-star Zachary Quinto on how says working on Snowden made him think differently about even simple Internet searches: “I had this experience the other night. I was shopping for a washer and dryer online. I was Googling the consumer ratings. I left that search and went to another website and immediately the pop up ads on this other website, which had nothing to do with consumer reports or shopping, were about washers and dryers. What we are willing to sacrifice in our privacy without even thinking about it for convenience sake, what we’re willing to give up in our own freedoms and interests just in sitting down at our computers is shocking. You can take precautions. You can take steps to enact two-step verifications and put tape over your laptop (camera) and strengthen your passwords but all you need to do is shop for appliances and you are exposing yourself to some kind of tracking, a collection of data.”
Arrival director Denis Villeneuve on filmmaking: “It is a privilege when you can take a camera and ask people to sit for two hours in a theatre,” says Villeneuve. “It is nice if you take that privilege to explore something out of our reality, to bring some poetry to it.”
Moon Zappa on how she grew up with a rock star dad: “I longed for structure. When I saw John Hughes films I was, ‘Wait! People sit at a dinner table? Wait! People say sorry?’ Even to this day when I see somebody with a sweater draped over their shoulders, or a loafer or an exposed ankle, I’m like, ‘That is so exotic.’ I think if I had grown up in the repression my father encountered I would also have put two rocket boosters on my back, but growing up like that was too much. It was like fastball pitches every single minute.”
Most of these interviews went well and were a pleasure to do… but not all. Below is the terrible tale of a day wasted waiting for Idris Elba’s phone call.
Can You Hear Me Now? Can You Hear Me Now? Waiting For Idris Elba.
Idris Elba is a busy man. He’s released seven movies this year and has several more on tap for 2017. He’s on track to join Dwayne Johnson, Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio as one of the world’s highest earning actors after turns in the mega-grossing The Jungle Book, Finding Dory and Zootopia.
If you don’t know the name you haven’t been paying attention. Rev up Netflix and check out his work on TV shows like The Wire or Luther and movies like RocknRolla or Beasts of No Nation and become a fan. You should know he was once voted one of People magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People in the World and more than one twitter friend of mine refers to him as a “pretend boyfriend.”
Not only busy but good looking as well! I was pleased to be granted a fifteen-minute phone interview to discuss his debut in the Star Trek franchise as Krall, a hostile alien who causes trouble for Kirk, Spock and company in Star Trek Beyond.
I don’t usually write questions but I thought I might ask him if he watched Star Trek as a child. Would he consider himself a Trekker? Did he have a favourite Star Trek character growing up? Did he wonder what Star Trek fans would think of the predatory new character? Are there parallels between the film—and his character—and our world today? Has he considered what being part of the legacy of the show means?
If there was time at the end I might even follow up on the rumours and ask if he even wants to play James Bond.
Then the first call came in. “Idris is running behind.” Cool. This happens all the time on press days. Then another call and another and another. My phone hasn’t gotten this kind of workout since a Nigerian Prince called over and over to solicit my assistance in moving his fortune to North America. Each time a publicist announced another delay with the assurance the interview would still happen. As the time wore on the actual length of my interview began to tumble downhill from fifteen minutes down to seven.
In all two hours passed from my scheduled start time until my phone rang for real.
“Hi Richard, I’ll connect you with Idris,” said the perky voice on the other end of the line.
Silence.
A minute passed before Elba’s familiar husky London accent filled my ear. Hallelujah! Better late than never. We talk over one another. “Hello… HELLO… Can you hear me?” It’s a bad cell phone connection. It sounds as if we’re talking through two tin cans connected by strings but I’ll take it.
I ask him about his childhood memories of Star Trek.
“It was a show me, my mum and my dad watched together,” he says. “They both liked it. It was a show that really took your imagination places. That’s my early memory of it. It was a really imaginative show that showed space travel in a way that was different, you know?”
It took him 23 seconds to speak the 50 words that told me his parents liked Star Trek. I mention this because as soon as he stopped talking and I started asking the next question I heard a strange beep beep sound followed by… nothing. The great void. No more husky voice. And like that, poof. He’s gone.
“Are you still there? I think we just lost him,” the eavesdropping publicist said. “Let me get him back for you. Just one second.”
I had visions of the actor walking around Fifth Avenue desperately yelling into his phone, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?” but in my heart I knew that wasn’t happening.
Minutes later she’s back. “I’m so sorry. We lost him. I know you only had a couple of minutes to speak with him…” actually it was twenty three seconds… “Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with him.”
My interview with Idris was over. Still born. Terminated before it even really began.
Was I mad? Not really. Frustrated? Yes. Not only had I wasted the afternoon waiting for Idris but now I didn’t have a story to file.
My friends on social media didn’t exactly see it my way. “What do you expect?” wrote one person. “He is the hottest man alive.” Another chose to look on the bright side. “That’s 45 seconds more Idris than the rest of us.” (I hadn’t yet timed the actual quote when hit facebook to vent.)
In the end it’s not a big deal. I’m choosing to look at the bright side. I didn’t get to chat with him but I do have a contender for the Guinness Book of World Records for Shortest (And Least Satisfying) Interview Ever.