Actor George Clooney once confessed to Oscar-winner Michael Moore that he used the filmmaker’s debut Roger & Me as a dating litmus test. Or so Moore told an audience at the Walter Reade Theater in New York, where the hit 1989 documentary had a special screening Tuesday night. Moore laughed when recalling the story at an event hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which screened the documentary as part of its lead-up to the 50th anniversary edition of the New York Film Festival in September. The director explained how Clooney shared with him years back that, “I use Roger & Me for dating. By the first or second date, they have to watch [your film]. If they get it, they get a [follow-up] date. If they don’t… they don’t.” Then Moore added rhetorically: “This story will only stay in this room, right?” Moore gave insight and, not surprisingly, his opinion about Roger & Me and how it figures in the present economic times Tuesday night, and didn’t hold back. “We’re in some deep shit,” Moore said about the condition of the country today compared to when he made Roger & Me for $150K back in ’89. “I had hoped that what we have now wouldn’t have happened.” Moore, who sat through the screening with his wife, said that he hadn’t seen the film in years because doing so is personally difficult. He noted today there are only 4,000 GM workers left in Flint, Michigan where Roger is mostly set, compared to 50,000 at the time he made the film. “Five minutes into the film, my wife started crying,” he said. FSLC program director Richard Peña praised Moore — dressed in a brown hoodie and Tribeca Film Festival baseball cap — for ushering in a “golden age” of documentary beginning with Roger & Me which screened at the New York Film Festival in 1989. “I was nobody in the business then,” Moore responded. “I was unemployed at the time. We screened it around the same time as Sex, Lies and Videotape was showing. The Warner Bros. people were in the audience that night and saw it receive a standing ovation and they bought it.” Roger & Me was the first documentary to hit multiplexes, eventually grossing nearly $8 million worldwide. “I never liked documentaries growing up, they felt like medicine,” Moore said. “I wanted this film to be structured in a way that can be enjoyed with popcorn in a theater, but at the same time, making sure all the facts are in fact — true.” Moore added that he takes pride in helping to “kick the door open” for doc filmmakers that have also had success with theatrical releases. But when it comes to making his movies including his blockbuster Fahrenheit 9/11 and Oscar-winner Bowling for Columbine , he said that he finds the root-cause of his films depressing. “I dread making these movies,” he said. “When we solicited stories from people for Sicko , it was very emotional. We couldn’t help crying.” Now, more than two decades after making his debut, Moore gave himself a pat on the back for Roger & Me , noting the film stood above the rest for him personally. “I wouldn’t change a frame of this film,” Moore said. “It’s probably the favorite of all my films. I was learning how to make a film as I was doing it.” Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . [Photo: Julie Cunnah/Film Society of Lincoln Center]
Are the Central Park Five the next West Memphis Three? The teenagers wrongfully convicted in the vicious 1989 rape and beating of jogger Tricia Meili — and only released after the actual attacker came forward in 2002 — will be showcased in a forthcoming Ken Burns documentary entitled, appropriately enough, The Central Park Five . And while the film was funded in part by Burns’s longtime patrons at PBS, the two-time Oscar nominee and four-time Emmy winner (who co-directed the project with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon) is taking the film to Cannes next month with the hope of finding a theatrical distributor: “We want to do it [theatrically] because the running time makes it manageable, and there’s something urgent about it,” he told TV Guide this week. This sounds… familiar? At least a little familiar, anyway: Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky made the festival rounds last year with their HBO-produced documentary Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory , another chronicle of miscarried justice made right-ish with the release — if not the exoneration — of wrongly convicted “West Memphis 3” murder suspects Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin. After arranging a qualifying run for Oscar consideration (and helping prompt Academy rule changes ), the film went on to lose this year’s Best Documentary Feature to the stirring football doc Undefeated . That theoretically cleared a path for the Peter Jackson-produced WM3 doc West of Memphis , recently acquired by Sony Pictures Classics , to cruise to the front of the preliminary 2013 Oscar pack. Meanwhile, Burns and Co. have cited some canny timing of their own: The Central Park Five’s wrongful conviction lawsuits brought against New York City, which plaintiffs Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam are expected to finally bring to court in “the next year or two,” according to TV Guide’s Gregg Goldstein : One of the main financiers, PBS, has tentative plans to air the doc next year, but is open to a 2014 broadcast depending on its theatrical rollout. “We’d hope for some kind of harmonic convergence, where this story could be spread on the eve of the trial and potentially affect the outcome,” says McMahon, a producer/writer on Burns’ 2010 PBS doc Baseball: The Tenth Inning . “It would seem only fair, given that media coverage affected the outcome of the original trial.” The idea for the film came in 2006, two years after Sarah Burns began writing her May 2011 book, The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding . When production began three years ago, it was planned as a feature produced by the trio and directed solely by Ken Burns. “In the end, those ultimate decisions made in the editing room were all of ours, so it became clear we should all be directors of the film,” says Sarah Burns, who’s been involved with the case for nine years. She met two of the men during a college internship at a law firm and also wrote her undergraduate thesis on the case. The film marks the 29-year-old’s first effort on any documentary, McMahon’s first helming duties, and has several distinctions from a typical “Ken Burns film.” Goldstein explains those distinctions in his piece, but for our own radically speculative purposes, is there any more distinct difference than Oscar-readiness? Burns hasn’t earned a nomination since 1986, when he shared a nod for his Statue of Liberty centennial doc, and if a guy like Harvey Weinstein — the Oscar-doc incumbent who might as well kiss his awards chances for Bully goodbye — can get a hold of this, there’s no telling what the 2013 race might look like. Just throwing it out there… [ TV Guide ]
Where have you read this before ? “In December, Paramount made the unconventional decision to release Ghost Protocol exclusively in IMAX theaters five days before broadening its release. The move, which Mr. Bird advocated, helped catapult the film to the No. 1 spot when it went wide the following week on the way to becoming the highest-grossing Mission Impossible installment yet. For Mr. Bird, the point is that the typical multiplex theater lacks excitement. When he was young, he says ‘if you wanted to see a brand new movie, the only way was to see it perfectly projected in a really big theater with the bulb turned all the way up and an attentive projectionist.'” Adds Christopher Nolan: “These were cameras that had been to the top of Mount Everest, to the bottom of the ocean and into outer space, but people thought we couldn’t make a feature film. It was absurd.” [ WSJ ]
I don’t find Jennifer Lawrence interesting or more importantly hot…but I am for watching girls do various things in tight clothing…whether it is dancing erotically….skipping rope….hullahooping….pretty much anything….They don’t have to be hot, famous, or sell out actors chasing the billion dollar franchise….they just have to be in tight clothes moving….I am perverted like that…. So today’s new obscure fetish is bitches doing Archery in tight dresses….that bitch demonstrating just happens to be an overrated billion dollar franchise acting who was once a real actor nominated for academy awards..if that counts as being a real actor…since it is all staged…. Enjoy…
I mean, being plucked from the Harry Potter supporting wings and the odd pre-fame arthouse pic for eternal teen vampire glory aside, signing on for David Cronenberg ‘s Cosmopolis looks more and more like the best decision Robert Pattinson has ever made. Now that the edgy adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel is heading for a Cannes debut — and with the fearlessly cold, cynical swagger RPattz displays in the latest Cosmopolis trailer — this is shaping up to be the career-changer the erstwhile Edward Cullen has been looking for. Close Pattinson-watchers already gleaned as much while keeping tabs on the project as it filmed, and devoted fans have been championing his turn as a rascally womanizer in the upcoming period pic Bel Ami as a move against type. (Whether or not they’ll turn out come opening day is another story.) But the new Cosmopolis trailer and Cannes announcement achieves something no mainstream romantic vehicle could do for Pattinson: It suggests to the uninitiated that there’s something more to him than teen idol fare. That was evident in the 30-second teaser released last month, but the full trailer reveals a clearer peek into the psyche of Pattinson’s protagonist Eric Packer — rich, cynical, destructive. Knowing danger is right around the corner, he launches himself into a chaotic 24-hour Manhattan bender filled with sex, gunplay, and anarchic shenanigans. “It makes me feel free in a way I’ve never known,” he says. I’m sure it does, RPattz. Now, Pattinson aside — the trailer also gives us Kevin Durand as Packer’s bodyguard Torval and Jay Baruchel as Shiner, his tech consultant, both of whom make this even more intriguing for me. Cosmopolis will screen at Cannes . [ Allocine via The Playlist ]
An MTV VP recalls his first TV job working for the late pop-culture icon. By Jonathan Mussman Dick Clark in 1988 Photo: Getty Images Jonathan Mussman, vice president of production at MTV News and Docs, got his start in television working for Dick Clark Productions. Below, he recounts what it was like working for the pop-culture legend, who died at age 82 on Wednesday (April 18). You may know Dick Clark just as the man who counted down the few seconds to the New Year, however he was truly an icon across TV, radio and music. Dick Clark was also a mentor for me personally, as he gave me my first job in television out here in Los Angeles many years ago. Known for his continued youthful appearance, the “world’s oldest teenager” was the quintessential on-air personality. In my year-plus working for him and on his shows, such as “Super Bloopers & Practical Jokes,” American Music Awards, “The Challengers,” Golden Globe Awards, Daytime Emmy Awards and numerous pilots for the broadcast channels, I developed important producing skills that I still use in my TV job today here at MTV. Dick was passionate, dedicated and creative and one of the nicest bosses I’ve ever had. Without question, working at Dick Clark Productions in one month equaled the experience you would get over years at other companies. You kept busy while working on many amazing projects. Photos: The life and career of Dick Clark Some personal memories include the days that he and his wife, Kari, would bring their dogs to the office in Burbank — you’d always hear shouts from stolen food off people’s desks during lunch hour as the dogs made their daily rounds. I also remember one American Music Awards where Vanilla Ice was hosting and stormed off in some tirade during a rehearsal the night before the live show. Dick taught us all how to remain cool and collected while dealing with overinflated celeb egos as he responded to the production team without missing a beat: “And the show will go on.” He was an award-winning pioneer in introducing and promoting new artists, new sounds and new music to millions of listeners and viewers through his career on local radio stations and the well-known TV series “American Bandstand.” He helped revolutionize TV production as well, blending his skills as an on-air personality and producer. His “Super Bloopers & Practical Jokes” — where he would place celebs in surprising situations — helped pave the way for our very own “Punk’d.” Dick Clark Productions (under new ownership) is still a powerhouse production company producing popular hits including “So You Think You Can Dance.” I look back fondly on my years at DCP and will always cherish the memories I had learning the business under his direction. You will be missed, Dick Clark — a man who created such a TV and music legacy. Share your condolences for Clark’s family, friends and fans in the comments below. Related Photos Dick Clark: A Pop-Culture Icon
For the 14th consecutive year, the folks at Time Magazine have once again passed me over when considering their annual roster of the world’s 100 Most Influential People . Heretics! So be it — even an incomplete list is worth visiting judgment upon. Let’s check out (and rank, naturally) the film personalities included this year. And to my publicist: You’re fired! 10. Chelsea Handler * 9. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy 8. Asghar Farhadi 7. Claire Danes 6. Jessica Chastain 5. Viola Davis 4. Kristen Wiig 3. Louis C.K. 2. Tilda Swinton 1. Harvey Weinstein As for the rest of the list? I defer to Harvey . *: As long as Chelsea Handler makes terrible ethnic jokes at mainstream movie junkets, she will be a film personality. And the least-influential to boot. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Grainger David’s The Chair is the only American filmmaker to make the shorts lineup cut for this year’s upcoming Cannes Film Festival, though U.S. territory Puerto Rico also made the list for the first time with Mi Santa Mirada by Alvaro Aponte-Centeno. The Chair debuted last month at South by Southwest where it won the Short Film Jury Prize. The 12-minute film revolves around a mysterious outbreak of poisonous mold in a small town and one boy’s attempt to understand his mother’s death, his grandmother’s obsession with a discarded recliner and the roots of this mysterious plague. In all, 10 films will compete for the Short Film Palme d’Or in Cannes this year, selected from 4,500 submissions. Drop back by Movieline on Thursday for the Cannes 2012 feature-film competition lineup. 2012 Cannes short films in competition : Mi Santa Mirada by Alvaro Aponte-Centeno (Puerto Rico) Gasp (Souffle) by Eicke Bettinga (Germany) Ce Chemin Devant Moi by Mohamed Bourokba (France) Waiting For P.O. Box by Bassam Chekhes (Syria) The Chair by Grainger David (United States) Night Shift by Zia Mandivwalla (New Zealand) Chef de Meute by Chloé Robichaud (Canada) Yardbird by Michael Spiccia (Australia) Cockaigne by Emile Verhamme (Belgium) Silent by L. Rezan Yesilbas (Turkey)
This should be interesting (or completely familiar, depending on how they play it): According to Deadline, Vince Vaughn is set to star in a feature adaptation of The Rockford Files , the ’70s-era detective series that starred James Garner as a disheveled Los Angeles private eye. The involvement of scripting duo David Levien and Brian Koppelman ( Rounders , Ocean’s Thirteen , Solitary Man ) is somewhat promising, though Vaughn hasn’t shown any desire to move away from his tired Vince Vaughn shtick of late — and do audiences really want a Vince Vaughn-ified Jim Rockford? Besides, if Steve Carell and David Shore couldn’t make a Rockford reboot work, how will Vaughn & Co. fare? [ Deadline ]
On the last day of her twenties, Nellie McKay paused to contemplate the milestone before her — or not. Taking a deep breath that soon escaped as a halting laugh, the singer/songwriter/actress and all-around pop polymath brought to mind another benchmark that loomed in her decade past. “In P.S. I Love You ,” McKay began, citing the 2007 film in which she co-starred, “we go over to my sister, played by Hilary Swank, and we surprise her. And she’s really down and out. So I hold up a ‘Happy Birthday’ sign, and I say, ‘You’re 30!’ It’s a big laugh line — or it’s supposed to be a big laugh line. I don’t know if it landed. So that’s kind of surreal to have done that. But I don’t know if…” She trailed off. “Who knows?” McKay finally asked. ” I don’t know.” McKay’s feelings about 30 are reflected in her art, a trademark blend of genuine wonder and calculated mystique enveloping myriad styles and influences — musical, historical, cultural and otherwise. Eisenhower-era gloss? Check. Nixon-era rage? Check? Jazzy, postmodern feminist fusillades against the crises of capital punishment and environmental wreckage? Er, check ? The sweet irrepressibility of following your dreams, even if the path detours into fetching your next meal from a dumpster in Brooklyn? Check — at least for Ramona, the spunky songstress played by McKay in this week’s microindie Downtown Express . “It’s the land of plenty!”, Ramona coos with ironic relish to her new bandmate and beau Sasha (Philippe Quint), himself a Russian immigrant and subway busker whose forthcoming classical violin recital conflicts with his more rockin’ aspirations for the good life in America. The almost obsessive balance of passions and principles that has characterized McKay’s work since her 2004 breakthrough album Get Away From Me undergirds much of director David Grubin’s Express , but it’s the consequences — the privation, the insecurity, the searing frustration of it all — that stand out in McKay’s haunted screen persona. For all the creative and romantic capital that Ramona and Sasha may accrue, her eyes reflect the bitter awareness that utopia is out of reach. McKay is reticent about Ramona’s ghosts. “I have my own theory,” she said, “but I don’t want to interfere with what anyone might think while watching it. I guess I think there is something like that, but I think people should just invent it for themselves.” And McKay knows a few things about invention. The daughter of a British director and an American actress, her mythology commenced with a very public battle to release her debut as a double album (“Should have signed with Verve instead of Sony,” she sang in one typically melodic lament; Verve has since rescued her from the Sony deal’s scorched wreckage) and meandered through confused reports about her age, her upbringing, her activism and even the true meaning of her songs. What ratio of caustic social criticism to earnest romanticism was to be found in a ballad like “I Wanna Get Married,” and how were listeners to reconcile such schisms with album-length tributes to the likes of Doris Day ? That’s just for starters. More recently, McKay has explored the vicissitudes of notoriety with acclaimed tributes to Barbara Graham (the murderess put to death in California in 1955; her story inspired both the Oscar-winning film I Want to Live! and McKay’s 2011 song cycle of the same name) and the conservationist and writer Rachel Carson. The latter show, Silent Spring—It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature , is touring presently, its own heroine reflecting Ramona’s brassy vulnerability in Downtown Express — and, in turn, reflecting much of McKay’s own complex, confrontational character. But ultimately, while McKay may have mellowed out slightly since her politically aware broadsides of eight or nine years ago, she seems to acknowledge that her sprawling worldview has only gathered more focus and strength when distilled through real-life subjects. “We’re just starting the Rachel Carson [show], so I’m still finding it,” McKay said. “But to be able to tell their stories and channel them some way is a relief and a pleasure. I think those shows are far superior to solo shows.” Asked what relief and pleasure she could take from such turbulent, troubled stories, McKay didn’t flinch. “Well, Rachel’s was troubled because we live on a devastated planet,” she replied. “But I think she found a lot of joy. And actually, Barbara did, too. Barbara knew how to have a good time.” Fundamentally, McKay said she cherishes the “relief from yourself” that her acting efforts have afforded her. “I don’t want to be myself,” she told me. “I have to live with her.” Yet she does hesitate when asked about the real Nellie McKay — the one Grubin cast after seeing her perform on Broadway in The Threepenny Opera in 2006, or the one who generously tips NYC subway musicians for making her commute “a beautiful thing” (as well as “to make up for the people who don’t give anything”), or the one who self-effacingly credits vodka for the chemistry shared with her Russian co-star Quint, or the one who even wants to put “the real Nellie McKay” in any kind of perspective at all. “I think you try to find what works, and that can be very elusive,” she said. “I mean, gee…” McKay paused again. “I have…” And then followed a longer, struggling pause, relieved only by invoking yet another pseudorealist icon: “I feel like Woody Allen tearing up the driver’s license in Annie Hall .” (Did I mention McKay also used to be a stand-up comic?) Which brings us back to 30 — or “57,” as McKay cheekily replies about her milestone before going a little darker about its meaning (or lack thereof). “I don’t know that any thing means much,” she said. “I don’t see that anything leads to much. I mean, I don’t really feel that things change . They just mutate. For instance, if you look through the century, certain things have gotten better and certain things have gotten worse. I wouldn’t say overall that things have gotten better. I think you could say things have gotten worse, but I don’t think you could say that things have gotten better. Overall. You can’t say that.” Does McKay — this ivory-tickling, ukulele-slinging avatar of ’50s class, millennial angst and every fraught neurosis in between — even think she was born at the right time? Another pause. “Well,” she said, “I think maybe you do choose your parents. I know I chose the right mother. But born at the right or wrong time? Gee, I don’t know. Do you think you were born at the right time?” Maybe? Would I like to have experienced the Jazz Era? The Renaissance? Sure. Slavery? The plague? Not so much. “I guess you deal with what you get,” McKay said. Indeed. And as tough and mercurial a nut as she is to crack, Nellie McKay’s art makes her mystery worth it. On screen, on stage, on record, you deal with what you get. The payoff is worth it. Downtown Express opens Friday in New York . PREVIOUSLY: Nellie McKay Plays My Favorite Scene [Top photo of Nellie McKay: Danny Bright; bottom photo of McKay and Philippe Quint: Susan Meiselas] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
