I wouldn’t brag were it not Monday morning and it’s the only thing keeping me from walking in front of a bus, so: The final piece of Movieline’s Sundance 2012 Bidding-War puzzle has fallen into place, with director James Ponsoldt’s boozehound relationship drama Smashed going to the estimable Sony Pictures Classics. Five-for-five! High five? Smashed is the last of the year’s projected Sundance darlings to officially find a distribution deal, with The Surrogate , Bachelorette , Arbitrage and Red Lights all spoken for in the month-plus since the festival came and went. Moreover, its showcase for Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a young teacher battling the vicissitudes of alcoholism may yet prove to fall in line with SPC’s recent underdog awards tradition — the one that found Melissa Leo ( Frozen River ) and Jacki Weaver ( Animal Kingdom ) coming out of late-summer platform releases to compete with the mainstream favorites at the Oscars. (A press release sent to Movieline HQ did not specify a release date.) “The role asks Winstead to run the full gamut, from game good-time girl and stimulating teacher to shell-shocked morning-after casualty and adamant survivor,” wrote Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy from Park City. “She’s terrific at it all, far surpassing the promise she indicated in Death Proof and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World .” Probably not coincidentally, recently crowned Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer and Breaking Bad Emmy-winner Aaron Paul co-star. Everybody in the awards pool, etc. Or not, just throwing that out there. Either way, congrats to Team Smashed ! Morning hours notwithstanding, surely this calls for a drink? Whatever, I’m having one anyway. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
It says something about how far Ice-T has come since his gangsta rap days that his directorial debut, the hip-hop documentary Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap , premiered at Sundance to a house packed with hip-hop heads and white older moviegoers who likely know Ice better from Law & Order: SVU than “New Jack Hustler.” And it says something about the film itself, which explores the historical landscape of hip-hop in intimate detail with over 40 of Ice-T’s fellow rappers, that even the L&O -watching grandmas in the audience were bopping their heads the whole way through. Taking a fresh approach to the music documentary, The Art of Rap sees Ice-T as a tour guide of sorts, navigating the viewer through home and studio visits with fellow MCs on both coasts as he has wide-ranging discussions about the roots of rap, what hip-hop means, and the skills and talent required of a truly great MC. (Among the hip-hop titans appearing in the film: Chuck D, Grandmaster Caz, Afrika Bambaataa, KRS-One, Melle Mel, B-Real, Mos Def, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, MC Lyte, Q-Tip, Redman, Immortal Technique, Nas, Common, and Kanye West.) As he travels from New York City to Los Angeles — with a detour to Detroit to see Eminem, described as one of the greatest rappers of all time — Ice asks his subjects to spit “something no one’s ever heard before,” resulting in a tapestry of astounding, off the dome freestyles and rare rhymes from some of the best rappers alive. With the intention of keeping the film feeling fresh and present, Ice-T forgoes include archival or concert footage as he revisits hip-hop’s colorful past, a choice that turns The Art of Rap into something of a communal, if dense, oral history of the genre. The doc could be a bit brisker with further edits and more complete in its comprehensiveness (he began with a three hour film before shaving off an hour for Sundance, but has dozens of hours of footage left; an Art of Rap series has been suggested, though Ice-T declined to discuss the possibilities), but with legends like these on hand speaking comfortably to one of their own – spilling their vulnerabilities as artists, exposed beyond the typically hard façade of the genre – it’s all utterly fascinating. Following the film’s premiere Movieline caught up with Ice-T as he and wife/reality TV co-star Coco breakfasted in Park City, where the rapper-turned-actor-turned-filmmaker explained what motivated him to grab his Rolodex and a tiny crew in the first place, why rap needed an Ice-T film more than another album, why the genre doesn’t get the respect it deserves, and how the film’s success or failure will determine his future directorial aspirations. How do you think things went at your premiere? I wasn’t breathing the whole night before, I was so nervous. I put a lot of time and work into it, but you never know. Sundance was our goal when we made the movie — I only wanted to make it to Sundance. This was it for me. And if I could make it here, I was in the right company of good movies. Why Sundance? It was interesting to see it play well here for a crowd of predominantly white, older viewers, and last year Beats, Rhymes, and Life also did quite well. Well, I didn’t know what films would be here when we submitted the film and got accepted. When you think about it, I’m an indie artist; I started out making hardcore records, so I wanted to make something that was raw. I said, I know Sundance is artsy but if I can get accepted there, then I’m on the right track. White people, black people, it really doesn’t matter. It’s just a matter of is it good? So when the movie came on and people started cheering and laughing and bobbing their heads, it was like oh my god – we got it! It’s kind of like not a normal documentary, it’s like a performance experience, an intimate concerts with a lot of the artists that people love. I was just happy. You’ve said that once you decided a documentary on rap should be made it was easy to just call your friends to be in the film, but in terms of the actual filmmaking what was your approach? Did you study documentary form to develop the style you eventually used? Not really. I mean, I’ve been watching movies and I’ve been in the film business for 20 years so I know what’s good. I wanted to shoot it, but I wanted to blur the lines of the filmmaking and behind the scenes. If the mic was exposed, that was good. A lot of the stuff, you see me talking to people; I wanted you to get the idea of what it was like to make it, not just watch it. People are into reality right now so this was like real reality; you’re with me, you’re on the set, I’m going to walk up to this guy and ask him a few questions. So as I edited, I just wanted the camera to feel like it might be anywhere at any moment. There are times people are talking and you’re showing the wall, or his hands, or his shoes. And then we shot with a Super 8 to kind of break up the cleanness of high definition. And we shot the big cinematic shots because I felt that if you just shoot the talking heads the movie becomes claustrophobic, so it’s just like, listen, listen, listen, breathe. Listen, listen, listen, breathe. Those sweeping overhead cinematic shots, of the cityscapes over New York City and Los Angeles and the places you visit in between, also do well to connect visually to a sense of place and geography… even though that also makes it conspicuous when you don’t visit, say, the Bay Area or the South. That’s what Mos Def said in the movie — the music is dictated by the geography, and that’s why New York sounds different than Detroit, different than L.A. And you know, I couldn’t go to the South; the biggest problem I ran into with the movie was once we started, just the lack of time and the amount of film we shot. When I got the nod for Sundance I had a three-hour film and they said the longest they’d run them here is two. We had interviewed 54 [musicians]; even to make a three-hour cut we had 47, and I had 25 people waiting to be filmed when we had to wrap shooting! So like Chuck D said [at asked why this person wasn’t in it and why that person wasn’t, and you know what? The movie’s not about that, it’s not about ‘Come see your favorite rapper.’ I feel every form of rap, every style, was represented. Are you currently considering extending this two-hour film somehow into something else, perhaps a series? I won’t speak on that, only because we don’t want to lower the integrity of this as a film. We want it to be a film, and once it does its dance as a film, whether it’s a theatrical release which looks like it’s about to happen… I’ll put it like this: We’ve got two hours on each artist. Wow. That’s pretty incredible considering that many of the rappers we only see for a minute or two at most. [Laughs] I have two hours! So you look at KRS-One; KRS-One talked about so much stuff, but my job is, let’s show the part where KRS talks about being vulnerable, like the moment where he got dissed. I want you to see the different dynamics of these artists. See, when you take young artists, right, young artists have their guards up. They never want to show any weakness, they’re scared. They’re worried about their persona. When you talk to people once they’ve been down the lane, they’ll tell you the story. They’ll say, ‘Wow, man — I’m Public Enemy and Mel was dissing us!’ Now they’re comfortable with themselves. Even the stories, WC was talking about how I would use kids as teleprompters. Early in my career I wouldn’t have said that, but now I’m like, let’s laugh about it! I think that’s part of this film’s charm, too. There’s a segment where you’re talking with Ice Cube and 50 Cent is referenced; Cube jokes that you don’t want to get rich and die trying. Was that a jab at Fiddy, or just an offhand remark? No, that’s not a diss -– it’s more like saying, this is my play on what you said. I don’t want to get rich and die trying. 50 Cent said ‘Get rich or die trying,’ but you can get rich and die trying. So once you made it now, let’s not fuck it off. That would be part two of Fifty. The next one is Get Rich AND Die Tryin … I just think that the way that rappers speak about each other in the movie is very endearing, how they speak about how they were inspired by this one, and also I think really showing Grandmaster Caz as one of the unsung heroes. Grandmaster Caz wrote “Rapper’s Delight!” It’s important shit. That’s a nice quality to the movie; it engenders appreciation not only between the artists that you interview, but having MCs spit live, directly into the camera without music really highlights rap as a performance and an art form. And you’ve got to remember this: Nobody knew they were going to rap. That’s part of being a rapper. Nobody knew they were going to rap. It’s like at the [Sundance premiere Q&A] the guy said, ‘Ice, can you quote a rhyme?’ Yeah, I’m a rapper – I’d better know how to fucking quote a rhyme! I pulled Rakim outta my ass, and that’s it. But during the interviews I said, ‘You want to spit something – you got anything in the head, want to say something no one’s ever heard?’ And bam! They just, bam! I didn’t tell anyone, ‘You’re going to rap.’ I didn’t tell Kanye he was coming over to rap. But you knew they could, because that’s what they do . Exactly! That’s what they do. You can’t interview a basketball player on a basketball court, with a basketball within his reach, and he won’t take a shot. It’s just what they do. He’s going to want to dribble the ball – he’s at home! So when you get a rapper in a comfortable situation with one of their friends and say, ‘Spit something,’ they might go, ‘Aww, come on Ice!’ Then they might go, ‘Hold on…’ bam! And another thing I did in the movie, if you really watch — some of the rappers in their rhymes kind of fuck up. They kind of slur words, because they’re connecting two rhymes together. That’s the art. You know, what you hear on records is something different. But when you hear it live, that’s all good. I mean, hopefully none of the rappers are so vain that they’re like, ‘Ice, you saw me fucking up.’ But that’s just what they did. That’s real shit. Which of your interviews was the most challenging to pull off, or to break through to? None. None of them. Every interview was just as easy to do, the only hard part was getting Ice-T, them, and a camera crew from London in the same place at the same time. How did you find your crew? When I came up with the idea, my manager said ‘I’ve got somebody who might be interested in doing it.’ We hooked up with a guy named Paul Toogood, he does a TV show called Songbook where they interview singers and they break down a song. It’s right up his alley. He said, not only do I want to do it, I’ll get the money to do it. I had to find somebody who was as passionate about it as me, and thank god – these guys are incredible cinematographers… the thing about this film is there were only five people that made it. There’s Paul, the cinematographer, myself, my guys that helped me wrangle the artists, Coco, Little Ice, and the sound crew. It’s apparent how small your crew is in the film when you have trouble fending off onlookers and fans while interviewing Q-Tip in New York… We just grabbed Q-Tip on the corner and we started shooting, I’ve got one of the homies out there blocking, I’ve got a camera guy and a boom, and we just go. So it’s very guerrilla, but I think that’s part of what makes the movie good. That comfortable distance of time and age that you mentioned that allows you to be more open with your experiences – do you feel like the impetus for making this film came from a desire to revisit where you’ve been in your career, to reconnect with your roots after transitioning into acting and television and beyond? I think it’s trying to do something for hip-hop, but do something that I am the only one who’s really capable of doing it. It’s kind of like, Ice-T could make another record, but we all know that. Now Ice is in another lane, he’s moved up, he’s got different credentials. So now it’s my job; I’ve got to make a movie. I’ve got to give hip-hop something they didn’t even know they wanted. Right now you make records and people don’t listen to them. You write a book and some people read. But people go to movies! And I wanted to direct; I have a lot of films that are in my sights, but I always learned in business that if you’re going to start a new business, go for the lowest hanging fruit. Start with something you know the best, first. And this is what I know the best. So I said, let me do something that’s important, that’s my way of giving back to hip-hop, and if it’s successful I’ll move on with my filmmaking career. If it’s not, I’ll re-assess my mistakes, maybe try again, or I’ll stop. But what is your barometer for success with this film? When will you be happy or satisfied with the results? It’s really just the response of the people. I never go by the critics, because critics’ jobs are to criticize. So a critic will look at you and how well you’re dressed but they’re looking for something they don’t like. Film journalists, I respect. But anyone who uses the word ‘critic’ in their description, I don’t fuck with them. But I can tell from the fans. Now, the internet and all the ways people can get back at you… you’ll know if you did something good or not. My first barometer is the hip-hop community. If they love it, and they’re like, ‘Man, you did something great. Thank you, Ice…’ That’s the first thing. Secondly will be the people and how they respond to it. So far, I went home last night and went through 30 reviews and didn’t get one bad, not one. I’m speechless! In the movie, we ask the question ‘Why don’t you think hip-hop is respected?’ Well, to have this film respected kind of says it is respected. It’s maybe not vocal, but it is, because people loved the movie. So it is respected. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . Get more of Movieline’s Sundance 2012 coverage here .
Man, Spike Lee sure has a potty mouth: Spike Lee had a message for the Sundance festival crowd at tonight’s world premiere of his new film, “Red Hook Summer”: “Please tell them that this is not a motherf**king sequel to ‘Do the Right Thing’!” That’s what people had been saying, mostly to fill the vacuum of information surrounding the movie. All anyone seemed to know was that it was set in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, that it followed a 13-year-old boy (newcomer Jules Brown) and his preacher grandfather (played by ‘The Wire’ veteran Clarke Peters), and that it featured the return of Mookie, Lee’s pizza-delivering character from his trailblazing 1989 movie about tensions boiling over in the summer heat. Lee, who took the stage for the post-screening Q&A draped in New York Giants regalia and immediately declared that the audience had “doubled the black population of Utah — maybe tripled it,” prefers to think of “Red Hook Summer” as “another installment in my great chronicles of Brooklyn,” a series that includes “She’s Gotta Have It,” Do the Right Thing,” “Clockers” and “Crooklyn.” “We never went to the studios with this film, I told you!” he shouted. “We said, ‘Were gonna do this motherf**king film ourselves and show it at Sundance…. This whole thing was planned out.” Of the studios, he added, “They know nothing about black people. And they gonna give me notes about what a young black boy and girl gonna do in Red Hook? F**k no! We had to do it ourselves!” Make sure y’all support Spike and his film! Source More On Bossip! Rocky Road: A List Of Couples That Might Not Make It Past 2012 Black Casts Ain’t Extinct Yet: A List Of Some of The Best All African American Films Real Is Overrated: The Most Notorious And Beloved Fake Celebrity Bodyparts Of All Time ChitChatter: Beyonce Speaks For The First Time Since Having Baby Blue Ivy About The Loss Of Etta James
I ran into Salt Lake Tribune critic Sean Means tonight at Sundance in a packed RV decked out with a mini tiki bar, neon lights, and a booming sound system — also known as the RVIP Lounge and Karaoke Cabaret , a tricked-out mobile karaoke mecca and the jammingest place you’ll find in Park City all week. Since the word’s out ( read his account of the karaoke madness ), here are my two cents: You can have your Drizzy Drake concerts and Bing Bar bashes, but for my money there’s no better way to thaw out from the snow and mingle with Sundance strangers than while belting a karaoke jam or two. The thing about socializing at Sundance is that it can be incredibly frustrating and annoying if you do it the old-fashioned way. Park City imports non-film folks every year who show up to ski by day and get past velvet ropes at night, turning Main Street into douche-infested waters at sundown. Bars are overcrowded and parties all look the same after a while, so thank goodness for alternatives… like recreational vehicles outfitted with karaoke rigs and loud microphones. The RVIP Lounge hails from Los Angeles, courtesy of master KJ/party hosts Kestrin Pantera (pictured above), Jonathan Grubb, and Eva Kim where it zooms from place to place picking up eager singers. When the RVIP folks announced they were Park City bound this year, my heart leapt; no film festival, at least stateside in my experience, is complete without some sort of karaoke. (And while I haven’t quite figured out why movie people love karaoke so much, it’s an inarguable constant in this world, the social lubricant that unites many folks in the film community at large.) Friday night the Tim & Eric crowd sang as the intrepid RVIP navigated the icy mountain roads of Park City, but Saturday the mobile karaoke lounge held court near Sundance HQ. Look for them there Sunday as well – they’ll be the ones in the RV illuminating the night sky with bright colored lights. (Make sure to check their whereabouts on Twitter , this week in Park City and back in L.A.) Inside the RVIP you’ll find a cross-section of Sundance-goers – industry folk, journalists, filmmakers. The songbook is decent, the company even better, and when the place gets packed it takes on a life of its own. “How did I get to this magical place? What the hell is happening right now?” you may wonder as the entire RV erupts in song and someone plays air guitar on a light saber as you sing ditties like 2Pac’s “California Love” or Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” It’s all part of the wonder that is the RVIP, which may have single-handedly saved the 2012 Sundance party scene. [Bonus: This week in addition to the RVIP, at least one other karaoke event is on the docket for the remainder of Sundance 2012 as CAVU Pictures hosts a karaoke throwdown Monday, January 23 for film and industry folks.] Got a hot tip on Sundance 2012 karaoke? Drop Jen Yamato a line on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . Get more of Movieline’s Sundance 2012 coverage here .
Expect Twitter to explode shortly with reactions to the Sundance premiere of Gareth Evans’ The Raid , the Indonesian actioner that blew minds at Toronto but has been kept largely under wraps until now by Sony Classics, who smartly snatched up the pic and will distribute it this March. I caught The Raid last week at a pre-Sundance screening with its new score by Mike Shinoda — yes, of Linkin Park — and can attest that the early praise was well-earned because holy crap, it’s amazing . Everything you’ve heard about it? True. I know, I just got done ranting about film festival goggles and inflated pre-release hype. But being mindful of falling into that trap, I’ve thought a lot about The Raid in the days since, and it’s stuck. Not only that — it’s the rare film that I can’t wait to see again. I’ve described it by pointing to the famous one-take staircase fight in Tony Jaa’s The Protector : It prompts the kind of rush of that scene, only for the entire runtime. Briefly, the simple premise of The Raid : SWAT agents in Jakarta, Indonesia, descend on an apartment building run by a local crime lord, only to find that the place is infested with criminals and the odds are stacked against them. The action emphasis is on gun battles and a form of martial arts called silat, which Evans previously used in his 2009 film Merantau , and to say the very least, it’s a brutal, stabby, bone-crunching kind of action pic. Pairing Evans’ film with a new electro-ish score by Shinoda works extremely well as their energies are well-matched, though I can’t say what the original score sounded like. Suffice to say it may be the best thing to come of Linkin Park, like ever, and it adds a strangely perfect universality to the proceedings — as if of course even halfway across the world in Indonesia dubstep is a thing, and folks imagine their every move underscored by a badass, grimy soundtrack. Who doesn’t? There are plot intricacies that are best left unspoiled, touching on the documented predominance of crime and corruption in Jakarta, but human relationships at the center of the chaos work well; in star Iko Uwais, Evans found a performer who can balance character while pulling off great, believable fight choreography right in front of your eyes. Even the extras seem like seasoned martial arts pros, and there are dozens, maybe a hundred who play nameless thugs and cops, battling it out in this feature-length melee. As for those fights, The Raid features some of the bloodiest, impressive, and most inventive action sequences in recent memory. It’s a movie packed with highlights and few moments of rest, full of bruising elbows and machetes and machine gun blasts and axes to the neck where most action flicks these days throw stage punches in the wind. This is the unrelenting action tour de force we’ve been waiting for, and a window into the world of silat, heretofore largely unexplored in film. Need more proof? Watch a few redband clips below. The Raid will be released on March 23. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . Get more of Movieline’s Sundance coverage here.
