Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2007 > October
October 2007
Owen Wilson opens up to Wes Anderson
Owen Wilson, often seen in and around Austin, has given his first interview since his reported suicide attempt in August. The interview was done with his friend and writing partner, director Wes Anderson. The interview will be posted online at midnight tonight on MySpace.com as part of the social networking site’s Artist on Artist series, according to USA Today.
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Weekend picks
Saturday and Sunday
Sunday
All weekend
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Gov. Rick Perry reviews ‘Bella’
Not every day does the governor’s office call to offer a guest movie review. But Gov. Rick Perry is such a fan of “Bella,” he delivered this for your edification. — Michael Barnes
“Not only will ‘Bella’ give you hope that Hollywood can still make an inspirational movie, it might also renew your faith in humanity. Free of the pessimistic worldview that so often darkens today’s movies, it is a simple story about a woman who faces tough choices and experiences the impact of one broken man’s kindness.
It has been a long time since a movie has made such a deep impression on me. Watching the story of José (Mexican star Eduardo Verastegui), a man with a dark past who spontaneously supports newly pregnant and recently fired ex-coworker Nina (Tammy Blanchard), I saw a portrayal of human kindness and its power in the face of hardship and trial.
I have to agree with the voters at the Toronto Film Festival who gave ‘Bella’ their People’s Choice Award: Alejandro Monteverde has set a tone with his directorial debut that inspires us to ratchet down our selfishness and instead look for opportunities to help our fellow man.
I encourage Texans to watch this film, not only as a reminder of the simple beauties of life but also to encourage Hollywood to produce more films that uplift and encourage. Simply put, ‘Bella’ will warm your heart and brighten your life.”
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Wanted: skinny boy for harrowing dramatic film
There’s an open casting call Nov. 3 in Austin for a lead role in the new feature film “The Road.” They’re looking for white boys, ages 7-10, with a thin/slight build.
The film stars Viggo Mortensen and will be directed by John Hillcoat (“The Proposition”). It’s an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.
The film will shoot in February 2008, with location to be determined. No experience necessary to audition. Auditions are at The Clarion Inn & Suites, 2200 IH-35 South Austin.
For more info, or to submit a photo in advance, email Vicky Boone at vickyboone@gmail.com. Or call 786-6271.
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‘Blade Runner’: back, beautiful, and here
After seemingly nine previous “director’s cuts,” Ridley Scott has settled on “Blade Runner: The Final Cut,” which recently played New York and Los Angeles to big biz, and the crowds weren’t all fanboys and cultists.
And don’t expect only the Ain’t It Cool crowd to materialize when the super-spruced “Final Cut” plays the Paramount Theatre for 10 screenings Nov. 18 — 23.
Four minutes of unseen footage have been added to the seminal sci-fi opus. It now runs 12 hours.
Dystopia never sparkled so indelibly, so incredibly.
UT’s Brazil Week gets a shot with a free screening of Joel Zito Araújo’s 2004 drama “Filhas do Vento (Daughters of the Wind)” at 8 p.m. Friday in the Texas Union Theatre at UT.
About the movie:
A multigenerational cast of talented black actors to explore, among other things, the obstacles facing black performers in Brazil’s film and television industries. While race is the film’s central theme, this sexy drama also looks at sexual values, family relationships, and the cultural divide between urban and rural Brazil.
New Orleans filmmaker Rebecca Snedeker screens and discusses her doc “By Invitation Only” — which looks at “the insular world of the elite, white Carnival societies and debutante balls of Mardi Gras” — at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14 in the CMA Auditorium (2.320) at UT. It’s free.
The film premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS stations nationwide. The film recently won Best Documentary at the New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival.
Short films give life to los muertos
Cine Las Americas dishes up a bunch of short films from Brazil and Mexico in its program “La Hora Fria” from 7 to 8 p.m. Nov. 2 at La Zona Rosa. They’re part of Rock y Roll Dia ‘07, a big bash marking Dia de Los Muertos featuring music, art and film.
Get more HERE.
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Austin movies on DVD
We’ve been scooped again!
Our pal Slackerwood got word that the Austin-made cult and fest hit “Dear Pillow” arrives on DVD next month. Read it HERE.
Meantime, Kat Candler’s Austin-made hit “Jumping Off Bridges” just came out on DVD. Get it HERE.
‘Bridges’
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Three new poppin’-fresh ‘plexes
Dust is settled, new seats bolted down and ovens fired up at the Alamo at the Ritz, which at last opens its doors and quickens its screens Nov. 1 for a grand opening bash.
The two-screen theater, located in the classic old Ritz building at 320 E. Sixth St., marks the reincarnation of the first-ever Alamo Drafthouse that vacated its Colorado Street digs earlier this year due to rent hikes.
“We have brought back all of our signature shows and events, replete with celebrity appearances, goofy gimmickery and potentially dangerous stunts,” co-owner Tim League says. Fare will alternate between mainstream and smaller boutique films, as well as the Alamo’s infamous far-out bookings.
Proof of that is the evening’s movie line-up, a mix of trash-fun and Hollywood prestige: “Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People” with a five-course mushroom feast; a sneak preview of the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men”; and a special unannounced horror movie at midnight for the venue’s maiden Terror Thursday program.
Grand opening tickets go on sale at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Ritz. Any leftover tickets will go on sale online at 6 p.m. www.drafthouse.com.
Cinemark opens two multiplexes in the area this month:
A 12-screen theater with all stadium-seating in Cedar Park pops its doors Friday at the 1890 Ranch Shopping Center (1335 East Whitestone Blvd.).
A 14-screen theater — again, with all stadium-seating — opens in the new Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave (12800 Hwy. 71 West at FM 620 S.) on Oct. 26. Look out for some special opening events here.
Tickets and info: www.cinemark.com.
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As one festival closes, two pop up this weekend
As the Austin Film Festival wraps on Thursday (with the superb “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”), this mad movie town gears up for two more film bashes this weekend.
- The second Austin Polish Film Festival screens the regional premieres of four Polish pictures — including “Komornik,” with director Feliks Falk in attendance — as part of its theme New Directions in Polish Film. A Polish movie poster exhibit shows in conjunction. Films play Saturday and Sunday and Oct. 27 and 28 at the Alamo Lake Creek. Complete details HERE.
The 2006 Polish film ‘Jasminum’ also plays the festival
- The fourth Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival presents a student film competition, the classic 1993 animated short “Blindscape” and two great classics about disabled people, “Coming Home”, with Jon Voight and Jane Fonda, and “The Station Agent.” The fest runs Friday and Saturday at the Alamo South. Details HERE.
‘The Station Agent’
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A combative panel goes down as one of the best
I knew that the Austin Film Festival/Screenwriter’s Conference panel “In the Trenches: Writing the War Film” with war-film veterans Oliver Stone and John Milius would be terrific, bloated with virile bluster, yet incisive, nuanced, edifying.
It took place Saturday at the Paramount, with Stone (“Salvador,” “Platoon,” “Born on th Fourth of July,” etc.) and Milius (“Apocalypse Now,” “Conan,” “Red Dawn,” “The Wind and the Lion,” etc.) perched in the spotlight on-stage before a decent-sized crowd. It was excellent: smart, funny, sardonic, sad, mean, educational.
I couldn’t absorb it all — I was forced to shut my lap top by a kindly volunteer — and my note-taking skills with a pen long-ago eroded to stick-in-sand curlicues. I did what I could, but mostly sat back, smiling, during one of the best panels I’ve been to.
I arrived a wee late, just in time to hear Stone call “Saving Private Ryan” “absurd.”
“I would have shot Tom Hanks,” said Vietnam War vet Stone, who broke down how phony the film’s story is, how counterintuitive to anything you learn in combat Hank’s character’s actions were.
Stone flat-out does not buy “all that ‘Greatest Generation,’ Tom Brokow b———.”
World War II fighters weren’t heroes for the reasons Spielberg and the media claim they were. “It was a (cruddy), hard existence for them,” Stone said. “They were heroes just for surviving.”
Milius chimed in that WWII vets he’s talked to told him, “I was just doing my job.”
Both men pointed to WWII movies in which the heroes were cowards as the most realistic, and best, such as “Attack” with Eddie Albert.
Other bits, bites:
Both filmmakers love Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line.” Stone called it “a most poetic movie … War was a fever” (as depicted in the movie).
Both men believe every American should have to serve their country, especially in the armed forces. “They should have to have their lives interrupted,” because “it tells you there’s something bigger than you,” Stone said.
“Kids just want to sit at their computer,” Milius said. “They are not engaged with the world.” (Stone didn’t entirely agree with that statement.)
The Bush administration, said Stone, is “Madmen acting sane.” It’s time to get off the blogs and hit the streets in physical protest against the Iraq war, he added.
Problem is, Stone said, and a huge reason we are entangled in the war, is that “Americans worship violence. They worship shock. They worship awe.”
Milius, famously right-wing, hawkish and board member of the National Rifle Association: “I love the Bomb,” which made Stone wince, hard.
When Stone called “Starship Troopers” one of the best war movies of recent years, I clapped loudly and the director said, “Thank you.”
When Milius said he was “never a big fan of ‘The Deer Hunter,’” a man in the audience shouted at him using expletives, then at Stone, and the moderator had to tell him to “please calm down,” which only provoked the nut-head further. He finally shut up.
They despise Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” — Stone for the message, Milius for the craftsmanship.
The Vietnam movie “Hamburger Hill” was “much too pro-American,” failing to show the Vietnamese side, Stone said.
About “Apocalypse Now,” which he likes, and of course Milius wrote, Stone said: “I wish Brando would have done his homework and would have learned his (expletive) dialogue.” Said Milius: “He did the best he could. He hated it out there.”
“Gen. Westmoreland was a stupid, terrible commander,” Stone said. “And we are still not getting at the hearts and minds” of the people during this war.
Stone’s favorite war film ever: “Dr. Strangelove.”
When Stone lavished praise on “Forrest Gump,” Milius was asked if he liked it. “Oh, sure. I like it when he runs down the street. I like how he sits on a bench.” We are pretty sure he was being brutally sarcastic. The frown on Stone’s face said it all. The audience laughed. Milius responded: “I’m not a big fan of Tom Hanks. I would have fragged him, too.”
Weekend winners
Austin Film Festival competition winners are here:
- Narrative Feature Jury Award Winner: “Shotgun Stories,” written and directed by Austin filmmaker Jeff Nichols. Next show: 9 p.m. Thursday, Alamo Lake Creek
2007 Narrative Feature Jury winner Jeff Nichols (‘Shotgun Stories’) with 2006 winner Mike Akel (‘Chalk’) — photo courtesy of Austin Film Festival
Special Jury Mention for Dash Mihok’s performance in “Superheroes”; Special Jury Mention for Comic Vision in Mike O’Connell and Peter Kline’s script for “The Living Wake”
Narrative Short Jury Award Winner: “Deface,” written and directed by John Arlotto. Next show: 7:15 pm Thursday, Alamo Lake Creek
Special Jury Mention for Emily Cries; Special Jury Mention for Samantha Weinstein’s performance in “Ninth Street Chronicles”
Narrative Student Short Jury Award Winner: “Salt Kiss,” written and Directed by Fellipe Barbosa. Next show: 7:15 p.m. Thursday, Alamo Lake Creek
Animated Short Jury Award Winner: “Over the Hill,” directed by Peter Baynton. Next show: 7:15 p.m. Thursday, Alamo Lake Creek
Special Jury Mention: “The Chestnut Tree”
Documentary Feature Winner: “Hijos de la Guerra (Children of the War),” directed by Alexandre Fuchs. Next show: 7:15 p.m Wednesday, Alamo Lake Creek
Special Jury Mention: “First Saturday in May”
Documentary Short Winner: “Absolute Zero,” directed by Alan Woodruff. Next show: 7:15 Thursday, Alamo Lake Creek
Laughs, liquor and langour: Austin Film Festival, days two and three
The funniest thing I’ve seen so far at the Austin Film Festival this weekend wasn’t a great movie comedy or the sight of writer-director John Milius, who wrote “Conan” and “Apocalypse Now,” merrily eating an omelet wrapped around a full beef steak at 11:15 p.m. Friday at the Driskill Hotel.
It was screenwriter Scott Alexander — who co-wrote “Ed Wood” and “Man on the Moon” — standing in the Driskill Bar holding a gaudy alcoholic beverage that was almost as tall as him. He looked flummoxed, wondering what this thing was and how it wound up in his hand.
Alexander was with director Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”), who had just screened and answered questions about his new film “Reservation Road” at the Paramount to a large audience that seemed split between liking it and really not liking it.
George is an affable, funny Irishman with an inviting spirit and laidback mien. He joined us in teasing Alexander about his ludicrously fru-fru drink that the diminutive Alexander apparently hadn’t ordered but got anyway. It was a vodka concoction spiked with sour, a huge slice of orange and a cherry.
Chagrined, he finally ditched it, and everyone tried it. After he downed a vodka tonic, he ordered another drink. We looked over and there he was holding yet another of the fruity spring break drinks. The bartender just wasn’t getting what Alexander wanted.
Again, the writer stood there puzzled holding the giant drink. We razzed him and my friend Jeff, a former writer for “Beavis and Butt-head” in from New York for the conference, had Alexander pose hoisting both of the “girlie” drinks he never ordered.
As everyone wondered where festival honoree Oliver Stone was, the director skulked into the Driskill restaurant with no fanfare but with a stunning woman on his arm. No one bugged him.
Later, at a festival party at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, director Jason Reitman made a quick appearance. His new comedy “Juno” screens at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Paramount.
Right now, Reitman is conducting a panel with the screenwriter of “Juno,” former stripper and author Diablo Cody. He’s interviewing her. He wears jeans and sneakers. She wears black knee-high leather boots over blue jeans. Peroxide streaks run through her dyed black hair. Both are quick and funny.
Diablo is used to writing in her native Minnesota. Her first trip to Los Angeles, where she now lives, was unnerving, she said.
“You can read about it. You can Google it,” she said. “Diablo Cody,” freaked-out,” “Paramount lot,” “Xanax.”
Cody said that writing in L.A. is less “pure” than writing in the Midwest, but it’s all good “as long as I stay a trashy person at heart, which I am.”
She’s currently working on a series for Showtime and recently pitched Universal with “my female response to ‘Superbad.’”
“My heart’s not in it. It’s a money-grab,” Cody quipped.
Diablo Cody
As I type this in the Driskill Bar at around 3 p.m. Saturday, winners of the various screenwriting competitions drift through lugging bulky typewriter trophies to wherever they’re going. John Milius is holding court in a panel upstairs and Scott “Silly Drink” Alexander is doing the same on this floor.
Everyone looks slightly ragged with unwashed hair and baggy eyes. It’s those late-night parties and early panels. That’s the first weekend of the festival and screenwriters conference: indulgence with a purpose.
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Film festival, day one
Things feel mellower, smaller, this year at the Austin Film Festival. Maybe attendees for both the films and the Screenwriters Conference haven’t settled in, because a dominating groove has yet to be cut. Lots of people at the opening night party, but the usually swarming Driskill Bar was a ghost town Thursday night.
Turn out was respectable at the fest’s opening night movie at the Paramount, “Chicago 10,” a blistering historical docudrama about the riots surrounding the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. Surviving Yippie Paul Krassner, who’s in the film, did a post-movie Q-and-A, but we left for a last-minute party at Cedar Street Courtyard in the (dreadful) Warehouse District.
Screenwriter Robin Swicord with Paul Krassner at the opening night screening of “Chicago 10.” (Picture from the Austin Film Festival.)
Director Thomas Mignone threw the bash for his first feature “On the Doll,” a harrowing drama about child abuse, screening at 7:30 tonight at the Dobie. Mignone has made videos for Tool and electronica act The Crystal Method, who was there to lay down the buzz-saw soundtrack to the outdoor wingding. The party was hardly packed, but people, especially extremely stylish women, danced and shimmied to the occasionally melodic racket. Someone had found their groove.
Got a sneak peek today of the fest’s closing night film, Sidney Lumet’s bleak and brilliant “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.” Easily one of the year’s best. Go HERE to find out how you can see it next Thursday.
‘Before the Devil … ‘
So many Rs, so little time
Robert and Rose, forever?
Can it be true?
Do we really care?
At all?
Read all about it, them, whatever … RIGHT HERE.
Them. Again.
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Capsule review: AFF Opening Night Film ‘Chicago 10’
Docmaker Brett Morgen (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”) returns with another livelier-than-usual entry in the non-fiction field, a portrait of ’60s activism that mixes vintage footage with cartoon-animated reenactments. Two tracks run parallel throughout the film: News footage and interviews show us the lead-up to and eventful execution of anti-war protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, material that Morgen intercuts with his recreation of the legendary trial that followed. Depicted in crude animation that’s less aesthetically pleasing than it is dramatically useful, the courtroom scenes boast the vocal talents of actors like Liev Schreiber and Mark Ruffalo, who read from courtroom transcripts so outrageous (both in the defendants’ behavior and the court’s reaction to it) that the action is sometimes hard to believe. Lurking unspoken beneath all this is a commentary on current events, a yearning for a new crop of activists willing to risk jail and scorn to bring an end to this generation’s defining quagmire.
‘Chicago 10’ screens tonight at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre. Check AFF’s Web site for information on tickets, badges, panels, screenings and more.
Burnt Orange burns it up in Fort Worth
Four films by Austin’s Burnt Orange Productions and the UT Film Institute are playing the Lone Star International Film Festival, Nov. 7 — 11 in Fort Worth.
Films are the family thriller “The Quiet,” directed by Jamie Babbit and starring Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle, Edie Falco and Martin Donovan; “The Cassidy Kids,” directed by Austinite Jacob Vaughan; caveman comedy “Homo Erectus,” which was picked up by National Lampoon; and the romantic fantasy “Elvis and Anabelle,” starring Max Minghella, Blake Lively, Joe Mantegna, Keith Carradine and Mary Steenburgen.
More on the festival HERE.
More on the UT Film Institute HERE.
‘The Quiet’
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The Monday grab-bag
Don’t forget the special screening of “Nanking” at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Alamo South as part of the Austin Film Society’s Documentary Tour.
Writer-directors Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman will be there to discuss their film, which recounts Japan’s invasion of China during WWII.
Get tickets ($4-$6) HERE.
There’s a great idea here, but it’s a little involved to explain. You can get more about The 1-Second Film project, a sprawling non-profit effort described as “The World’s Biggest Shortest Film,” right HERE.
The project and its filmmaker leader Nirvan Mullick swing through Austin to drum up support at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Brentwood Tavern.
Kiefer Sutherland has given The 1-Second Film $600 of his own cash.
We really think you should be keeping up with the tons of super film classes, from acting to writing, being offered at the always reliable Austin Film School. And you can do that right here.
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Still milking the ‘Halloween’ cash cow
I smell a big DVD push here. The studio behind the “Halloween” flicks presents a one-night double feature of “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” and “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30 at the Metropolitan (901 Little Texas Lane).
Um, are these the best “Halloweens” they could scrape up?
Anyway, the show also includes a pair of (totally DVD-ready) featurettes, “Halloween: Faces of Fear” and “Meet the Michaels,” screening in high-def.
Get your $10 tix at the theater box office or at www.FathomEvents.com.
Film teacher extraordinaire Steve Mims checks in with this:
Austin FilmWorks’ PRODUCTION ONE, Mims’ highly evolved intensive 14-week filmmaking course is now enrolling a limited number of students for spring 2008.
Mims’ course is fabled in these parts, and you should see his roster of former students who still boast about his instruction to this day. (Can you say “Robert Rodriguez”?)
Get the low-down and get to work at www.austinfilmworks.com
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War horrors, poetically
Next up at the Austin Cinematheque is Ichikawa’s lush 1959 war drama “Fires on the Plain” at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Texas Union Theatre at UT.
The film’s “beautiful island vistas provide a shocking contrast to the horrific details and harrowing experiences endured by a battle-wearied and sunken-eyed foot soldier during the final days of World War II.”
It’s free. More HERE.
Bang.
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Flaming Lips plan to debut film at SXSW
“It is coming,” Coyne tells Billboard.com. “In fact, it’s better than ever. Because it’s taken so long, we’ve become better filmmakers. There’s better computer effects. I think it will be much better.”
From Billboard.com:
Coyne says the Lips are currently working on final editing and transferring the film into a High Definition format, adding “some in-depth special effects” in the process. Once it’s premiered, he envisions taking “Christmas on Mars” on a kind of “tour;” rather than simply showing it in theaters, Coyne wants to hold special screenings to give fans “a Flaming Lips experience of another kind.” “I want the Flaming Lips audience to shape this,” Coyne explains. “It’ll be like our live show, which evolves as it goes. We’ll show it to the audience and let them talk out there on message boards, and then maybe we’ll take that and go back and change it and put it out there again and see what they think. It’ll be a different experience than sitting at home and watching a DVD, for sure. I don’t know if a lot of bands can do that, but the Flaming Lips sure can.”
For those of you who are not famous rock stars, SXSW Film is continuing its call for entries, accepting submissions of feature-length and short films in categories including narrative, documentary, animation, music video and experimental. The early submission deadline is Nov. 16 and the final submission deadline is Dec. 7.
Phot by Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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Two types of heartbreakers (the Tom Petty kind and the Wilson brothers kind)
The Tom Petty rock-doc by Hollywood vet Peter Bogdanovich (“The Last Picture Show”) gets a one-night stand at 7 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Galaxy Highland 10 before it goes to DVD.
“Runnin’ Down A Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,” we are told, “focuses not only on the Heartbreakers’ inspiring ride to the top but the story of what they did when they got there, as artists, as a band, as people.” Interviews include Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, George Harrison, Jackson Browne, Rick Rubin and Johnny Depp.
This one’s for you, Wilson brothers lovers:
The Austin-made comedy comes to DVD on Oct. 30. Details and pretty pictures HERE.
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‘Barbarella’ smelling sweet as a Rose?
Has Robert Rodriguez really, after snickers over its precipitous inevitability, cast sweetheart Rose McGowan in the lead of his remake of “Barbarella”?
So say, or at least wishfully prognosticate, the online gossip-mongers. Start HERE.
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Mucha suerte y buen viaje, Lacey Pipkin
Lacey Pipkin will be leaving her position as public relations manager with Cine Las Americas, an organization with which she has worked for four years, to manage print traffic for Mexico City’s FICCO Contemporary International Film Festival. The UT graduate student, who told me she will continue writing her final reports/thesis on the Mexican film industry and international film marketing for her masters in Latin American Studies, admits that, while she is very sad to leave behind so many great friends, she is nonetheless thrilled about her new opportunity.
“Working with FICCO will be a good challenge and a great opportunity to work with filmmakers and distributors from around the globe, and I’m thrilled to get a chance to see and study the Mexican film industry from the inside,” Pipkin told me today at lunch.
Related note: Pipkin will be playing her penultimate gig as harmonies vocalist and keyboard player with Honor Farm (listen on SoundCheck 360) this Wednesday at Jovita’s at 9 pm. She’ll be back briefly for a CD release party Oct. 27 at the Scoot Inn.
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John Milius, Hollywood tough guy, says Stiller and Ferrell are the ‘best’
Legendary writer-director John Milius is famed for being a burly, gun-toting, war-happy, right-wing, self-described “zen fascist.” He’s best known for writing “Dirty Harry” and “Apocalypse Now” and for writing and directing “Big Wednesday,” “Conan the Barbarian” and “Red Dawn.”
Don’t make John Milius mad
Some of his most famous dialogue includes the “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” speech in “Apocalypse Now,” Captain Quint’s “USS Indianapolis” soliloquy in “Jaws” and Clint Eastwood’s immortal “Go ahead, make my day” in “Sudden Impact.”
Milius will accept the Distinguished Screenwriter Award, a lifetime achievement deal, at the Austin Film Festival the weekend of Oct. 12, where he will screen “Big Wednesday.”
I interviewed Milius last week. He said most film writing is crap — hardly news from the bluff maverick. But we also talked about what he likes. You (as I was) might be surprised what flips his switch.
Milius: “The Departed” was very well-written. A movie I thought was really well-written was “Kinsey.” Really well-directed. A really good movie across the board. Really made you think and consider the nature of science and behavior. Oh, and I like anything Will Ferrell has to do with. He’s just terrific.
Me: For real?
Milius: He’s the best. He’s the best that ever was.
Me: No, you’re lying.
Milius: I love Will Ferrell. I love “Talladega Nights.”
Me: But the films are so sloppy, so messy. But I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s funny.
Milius: I love “Talladega Nights.” I love “Blades of Glory.”
Me: Are you actually saying this?
Milius: Yeah! I think some of the best comedy guys around right now are Ferrell and Ben Stiller. I love “Dodgeball.” But my favorite of all is “Zoolander.” I think “Zoolander” is just genius, genius.
Me: You’re kidding me.
Milius: It’s better than “Caddyshack” and “Animal House” or any of that stuff. Much better, much better!
Me: Why?
Milius: It’s just great. It’s so insightful. These guys are really good, really interesting.
Me: Are you looking forward to the remake of “The Heartbreak Kid” with Ben Stiller?
Milius: No, because that’s not a real Ben Stiller (movie).
Me: That’s very true.
Milius: It has to be a real Ben Stiller. There’s only a few real Ben Stiller movies.
Me: Yeah, where you can tell he’s been riffing on the material.
Milius: Yeah. And also, a little bit of him goes a long way. It has to be just right. Like in “Dodgeball” he almost overdoes it. But he’s good. “Dodgeball” is good. “Talladega Nights” is a masterpiece.
Me: That’s hilarious.
Read the full interview with Milius in next Tuesday’s (10/9) Statesman and online at Austin360.com/movies.
