When the credits rolled on The Master , I found myself thinking two things: Joaquin Phoenix is going to be nominated for an Oscar , and damn, I could use a drink! Watching Phoenix as feral Freddie Quell make moonshine from torpedo fuel, paint thinner and what appeared to be darkroom chemicals garnished with a mangy citrus fruit reminded me how inspiring it is to see a good mixologist at work. And that spurred me to find one who could invent a proper high-alcohol homage to Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie and Phoenix’s character that would not require masterminding a heist on The U.S.S. Curtis Wilbur. My search led me to Rachel Sergi (right), who first caught my attention with Dario Argento-inspired The Suspiria , a potent little number she worked up using grain alcohol, which, by the way, was used as torpedo fuel by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Sergi, who studied film at San Francisco State University, is Beverage Director at Jack Rose Dining Saloon in Washington D.C., and, after seeing The Master , she created the (Not So) Slow Boat to China exclusively for Movieline. She says the also-powerful cocktail, pictured at top, was inspired by the movie’s maritime references and that weird little moment at the end of the movie where Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd sings Frank Loesser’s “(I’d Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China” to Freddie. Without further adieu, here is Rachel’s most excellent recipe, complete with instructions on how to make the Pink Peppercorn tincture and White Pepper Syrup used in the drink. Now, get out your cocktail shakers and enjoy one. (NOT SO) SLOW BOAT TO CHINA 1.5 oz. Smith & Cross “Navy Strength” Rum – 57% alcohol by volume (abv) .75 oz. Kronan Swedish Punsch .5 oz. Lime Cordial .25 oz. Pink Peppercorn Tincture (made with El Dorado 151 white rum) .25 oz. White Pepper Syrup Build drink in mixing glass with all ingredients and ice. Stir to incorporate. Pour into rock glass with fresh cubed ice and garnish with lime peel (not flesh). Pink Peppercorn Tincture 1.5 cups pink peppercorns – lightly smashed 3 bottles 151 White Rum (El Dorado red label) Add the peppercorns to the 151 (in a plastic container) and stir. Allow to sit for 5 days, agitating each day to incorporate. After 5 days, strain the liquid into clean, glass bottles with either a cork or screw top. For use: Pour tincture into small tincture bottles for service. Yield: approximately 75 ounces White Pepper Syrup 1 cup white peppercorn – cracked 1 dry, large saucepan 6 cups sugar 4.5 cups water Bring saucepan to med-high and add peppercorns. Toast lightly…do NOT overtoast or burn. Take off heat. Add sugar and water. Bring to boil, then reduce by 1/4. Be careful doing next step: Strain syrup through chinoise into clean container. Allow to cool then place in quart containers marked with the item’s name and date. Keep in fridge. Yield: approximately 30 oz. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Rachel Sergi on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Love, Marilyn and Silver Linings Playbook are opening the Hamptons International Film Festival followed by a slate that includes a number of premieres. As the festival gets into full swing, ML is featuring a snippet from the world premiere of Oscar-nominated Griffin Dunne’s The Discoverers . The film centers on washed-up history professor Lewis Birch (Dunne) who takes his begrudging teenage kids – Zoe (Madeleine Martin, Californication ) and Jack (Devon Graye, American Horror Story ) – on a road trip to a conference in hopes of putting his career back on track. But, when Lewis’s estranged father Stanley (Emmy Award-winning Stuart Margolin) goes AWOL on a Lewis and Clark historical reenactment trek, Lewis is forced to make a family detour. The Birch family find themselves on a journey of discovery and connection as they make their own passage west. Added log line: The Discoverers is a bittersweet comedy and moving debut feature from writer/director Justin Schwarz led by Dunne’s striking comeback performance. This engaging tale of family dysfunction and rediscovery also features a talented ensemble cast including David Rasche, ( In the Loop ), Dreama Walker ( Compliance ), Ann Dowd ( Compliance ), Cara Buono ( Mad Men ), Becky Ann Baker ( Girls ), Scott Adsit ( 30 Rock ), and John C. McGinley ( Scrubs ). Watch the video on YouTube
The unshakeable bond between a shy nerd from the ‘burbs and his faithful dog is the heart of Frankenweenie , the black and white stop motion picture (in theaters today) Tim Burton refers to as a “memory piece.” Drawn from his own childhood memories of growing up in Burbank, California, it’s an ode to the kooky neighborhood kids and adults Burton knew, the monster movies that shaped him, and, as Burton told Movieline with a smile, his way of teaching kids about one of the toughest facts of life: Death. “It was originally such a memory piece for me, in the sense that it was personal,” Burton told Movieline at Fantastic Fest, where Frankenweenie debuted as the opening night film. “I think it started with that MOMA show, I saw a lot of the old drawings that I’d done, and there was something about the drawings that I wanted to try to recapture.” Frankenweenie brings Burton back to his roots, a feature-length extension of the live-action short film that jump-started his career and earned him cult status – and famously got him fired from Disney. Taking the story of Frankenweenie and fleshing out his nostalgic vision of his old stomping grounds, Burton added characters (including the heavily accented Japanese-American kid Toshiaki, “my favorite”) and texture, and a healthy dose of movie geek references, from Frankenstein to Godzilla and beyond. “[I added] other kids that I remember in school, and teachers, and the geography of Burbank — the real setting,” he explained. “I tried to make everything more personal — even if it was a couple of kids mixed together. For me it made it feel more natural. I didn’t feel like this was just a short, that I was just going to pad it out with something. There were other monsters and other things I’d been thinking about over the years. I tried to treat it as expanding on those feelings and those memories of that time.” In keeping with Burton’s oeuvre, Frankenweenie is playfully macabre. But moreso than his other films, especially those aimed at children, it deals openly with the difficult subject of kids and death. “For me it was a way to explore the concept of death in a slightly abstract but safe way,” Burton offered. He pointed to his own childhood experience that inspired the tale. “My dog, whom I loved, they said he wasn’t going to live — he had this thing called distemper so he wasn’t supposed to live very long, but ended up living quite a long time. So there’s always this weird specter of death hanging over which I didn’t quite understand.” “At the same time I love Frankenstein and I learned about it through those movies, which deal with abstract things and things that are quite hard to explain to children in a slightly safer way,” he continued. “I grew up in a culture where death was very negative, but you see certain Hispanic cultures that have Day of the Dead and they treat it in a more positive way. For me it was an attempt to show death in a different way that’s not negative.” Yes, but is Burton prepared to see the potential increase of copy-cat “science experiments” in young Frankenweenie viewers with dearly departed pets of their own? “Better that than most of the kids that I knew who were torturing animals!” he laughed. “If it takes kids away from that, it’s probably for the best.” Read more on Frankenweenie and read Movieline’s review . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Heidi Montag is doing what she is meant to be doing…or at least dabbling with what she is meant to dabble in….as a bitch who bought herself G-Cup tits with a face of a ragged retired pornstar…there was really only one direction for her career to take…and that was to the pole….. I figured there woulda been more college party hosting, and maybe other events that pay her to appear…but she fell off fast… Now, Crazy Horse is paying her 25,000 dollars to appear, which is more than she deserves, I woulda expected her to get 50 bucks and the door….or some shit..but I guess she’s still high enough profile…but the only issue is she’s not getting naked….but she will…give it time…she’s not even 30 yet…but already rock bottom…so much to come like overdose and porn….and I’m pretty ready for it.
Facebook has released a new commercial, and it’s … interesting. Having just garnered its one billionth user – there are “only” 7,070,437,029 people on Earth – the social media behemoth is celebrating with this ad. Take a look: Facebook Ad Chairs, doorbells, bridges, airplanes . These are things that people use to get together and connect, Facebook tells us in the ad, titled “Things That Connect Us.” Or allow us to talk about how CRUNK u got last nite! Werd . The idea Mark Zuckerberg stole from the Winklevii and turned into a transformative network has become part of the fabric of 21st Century life. Point taken. The point of this ad? A little less clear. Is it that we should use Facebook more? That we should no longer use chairs, doorbells, bridges or airplanes? We honestly have no idea. The ad and the milestone come as Facebook continues to face pressure from Wall Street and the public about its disappointing IPO (Zuck’s adjective). When the company first sold stock on May 18, it offered a price of $38 per share, but the stock quickly fell by about half. Yesterday, it closed at $21.83. Be glad Mark and all his buddies took all the shares and largely shut small time investors out of the company. Blessing in disguise, people.
Orlando Cruz has become the first professional boxer to publicly reveal himself as a homosexual. Said the 2000 Puerto Rican Olympian today: “I’ve been fighting for more than 24 years and as I continue my ascendant career, I want to be true to myself. I want to try to be the best role model I can be for kids who might look into boxing as a sport and a professional career. I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud gay man.” Cruz holds a record of 18-2-1 with nine knockouts. The featherweight has been a professional since December 2000 and is scheduled to face Jorge Pazos on October 19. In his statement, Cruz said he was sick of hiding his true identity. “I want people to look at me for the human being that I am. I am a professional sportsman that always bring his best to the ring. I want for people to continue to see me for my boxing skills, my character, my sportsmanship. But I also want kids who suffer from bullying to know that you can be whoever you want to be in life, including a professional boxer, that anything is possible and that who you are or whom you love should not be impediment to achieving anything in life. “I want to thank my family, especially my mom, who’s my inspiration and my best reason to continue to live and my brother and my sister. I want to thank my friends for their love and support. And I also want to thank my team for believing in me and being so supportive not only in this decision, but throughout my career. I am and will always be a proud Puerto Rican gay man.”
Karrueche Tran and Chris Brown are over. Done. Splitsville. With rumors swirling around Rihanna and Chris Brown this week, the R&B singer confirmed that he has broken up with his model girlfriend of over a year. Chris said earlier today , “I have decided to be single to focus on my career. I love Karrueche very much but I don’t want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna.” “I’d rather be single allowing us to both be happy in our lives.” The announcement comes after Chris Brown and Rihanna stepped out at a Jay Z concert in Brooklyn last night, and made out at a club two nights before that. Chris and Karrueche weathered rumors about Rih pretty much the whole time they were together, but Brown pretty much stopped trying to hide his feelings this fall. Rihanna gushed about him on Oprah, calling him the love of her life, and the two kissed out in the open at the VMAs – all before hooking up in public twice this week. Karrueche Tran had posted a series of cryptic tweets in recent days, including one saying she prefers a man to a boy, and another last night reading, “Bye baby.” Indeed. She may have dodged a bullet here. Just saying. Chris and Rihanna getting back together: Yay or nay? YES! They’re a great match! NO! Are you insane??? View Poll »
AFI Fest released more details for its L.A. event. Selections in its Young Americans and New Auteurs sections highlight emerging U.S. first and second time global filmmakers. As previously announced, the World Premiere of Hitchcock will open the festival, while Lincoln will close out the event, which takes place November 1 – 8 in Los Angeles. “Our New Auteurs competition section is an opportunity for us to highlight some of the strongest filmmaking by first and second time directors this year. These are films that have been garnering acclaim and winning awards at festivals all over the world and are now being showcased together for the first time,” said Jacqueline Lyanga, Director of AFI Fest via a statement. “Last year this section included Michael Roskam’s Oscar- nominated Bullhead and Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet . Every year, it’s exciting to see the talent that emerges from this showcase of new narrative feature filmmakers.” Announced titles with film descriptions provided by AFI Fest : Young Americans Selection All The Light in the Sky : Jane Addams stars as an insomniac actress facing the waning days of her career when her niece pays a visit to her house on stilts overlooking Malibu. DIR/SCR Joe Swanberg. CAST Jane Addams, Sophia Takal, Lawrence Michael Levin, Kent Osborne, Larry Fessenden, Ti West. Ape : Trevor is the poster child for post-adolescent malaise. His sole ambition of being a famous comedian leads him to madness when he makes a deal with the devil. DIR/SCR Joel Potrykus. CAST Gary Bosek, Teri Nelson, Joshua Burge, Benjamin Riley. Electrick Children : Rachel is a 15-year-old Mormon girl who finds herself miraculously pregnant after listening to a rock song on a cassette tape. DIR/SCR Rebecca Thomas. CAST Rory Culkin, Julia Garner, Liam Aiken, Billy Zane, Bill Sage, Cynthia Watros, John Patrick Amedori. The International Sign for Choking : When a commissioned filmmaker arrives in Argentina in search of a film subject, he finds the camera turning toward his own aimlessness and discontent. DIR/SCR Zach Weintraub. CAST Zach Weintraub, Sopia Takal, Roger Delahaye, Barbara Cameron, Mariano Blanco, Ximena Brun, Ezequiler Etcheverry. Kid-Thing : Annie is a young girl leading a lonely existence in Austin, Texas, whose life takes a fascinating turn when she hears a plea for help coming from the bottom of a well. DIR/SCR David Zellner. CAST Sydney Aguirre, Susan Tyrrell, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner. Only the Young : Best friends Garrison and Kevin are equally passionate about the gospel, their girlfriends and the half-pipe in this non-fiction look at teenage life in America. DIR Jason Tippet, Elizabeth Mims. CAST Garrison Saenz, Skye Elmore, Kevin Conway, Robin Levy, Kristen Cheriegate. Pearblossom Hwy : Friends Corey and Anna drift through life – he longs to appear on a reality TV show and she sells sex for money in order to gain her citizenship. DIR Mike Ott. SCR Mike Ott, Atsuko Okatsuka. CAST Atsuko Okatsuka, Cory Zacharia, John Brotherton. Somebody Up There Likes Me : After Max discovers his wife in bed with another man, he tries to get a grip on his life with the aid of a mysterious suitcase that might just hold back time. DIR/SCR Robert Byington. CAST Keith Poulson, Nick Offerman, Jess Weixler, Kevin Corrigan, Jonathan Togo, Stephanie Hunt, Kate Lyn Sheil, Alex Perry, Marshall Bell. Starlet : The unlikely friendship between a young, rootless porn actress and a prickly octogenarian results in a combative, yet tender mother-daughter bond. DIR Sean Baker. SCR Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch. CAST Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson, Stella Maeve, James Ransone, Karren Karagulian. Sun Don’t Shine : Crystal and her boyfriend Leo embark on a mysterious road trip across the haunting Central Florida landscape, her disturbing past riding close behind. DIR/SCR Amy Seimetz. CAST Kate Lyn Sheil, Kentucker Audley. Tchaopitoulas : This dreamlike documentary from the brothers Ross follows three young boys across the Mississippi into New Orleans’ French Quarter for a kaleidoscopic night of revelry. DIR Turner Ross, Bill Ross. New Auteurs Selection After Lucia : After arriving in Mexico City, a girl is brutally victimized by bullies and disappears, pursued by her heartbroken father. DIR/SCR Michel Franco. CAST Tessa Ia, Hernan Mendoza, Gonzalo Vega Sisto, Tamara Yazbek Bernal, Francisco Rueda, Paloma Cervantes, Juan Carlos Berruecos, Diego Canales. Mexico. Antiviral : When the frantic obsession with celebrity leads to the trafficking of stars’ diseases to their fans, death is sure to be waiting in the wings. DIR/SCR Brandon Cronenberg. CAST Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Douglas Smith, Malcolm McDowell. Canada/USA. Clip : Writer/Director Maja Miloš makes her directorial debut with this searing portrait of a rootless Serbian teenager who captures clips of life with her camera phone. DIR/SCR Maja Miloš. CAST Isidora Simijonovic, Vukašin Jasnic, Sanja Mikitišin, Jovo Makisc, Monja Savic. Serbia. Eat Sleep Die : Raša, a Montenegrin-born factory worker, loses her job in rural Sweden, runs a gauntlet of job-seeking disappointment and bureaucracy and defies the odds. DIR/SCR Gabriela Pichler. CAST Nermina Lukac, Milan Dragišic, Peter Fält, Ružica Pichler, Jonathan Lampinen. Sweden. Here and There : Winner of the top prize in the Critics Week section of Cannes, Antonio Mendez Esparza’s directorial debut brilliantly captures the complex homecoming of a loving father and a family’s journey to normalcy. DIR/SCR Antonio Mendez Esparza. CAST Pedro de los Santos, Teresa Ramírez Aguirre, Lorena Guadalupe Pantaleón Vázquez, Heidi Laura Solano Espinoza. Mexico/Spain/USA. A Hijacking : When Somali pirates seize a Danish cargo ship in the Indian Ocean, high-stakes, life-or-death negotiations commence in this work of fiction inspired by today’s headlines. DIR/SCR Tobiaas Lindholm. CAST Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling. Denmark. In the Fog : In Nazi-occupied Belarus in 1942, a man and his captors come under fire, forcing all to make radically divergent, but equally harrowing choices. DIR/SCR Segei Loznitsa. CAST Vladimir Svirski, Vlad Abashin, Sergei Kolesov, Vlad Ivanov, Julia Peresild, Nadezhda Markina. Germany/Russia/Belarus/The Netherlands/Latvia. Not in Tel Aviv : A repressed high school teacher loses his job, kidnaps one of his female students, kills his invalid mother and reconnects with a former high school crush. DIR/SCR Nony Geffen. CAST Nony Geffen, Yaara Peltzig, Romi Aboulafia. Israel. Simon Killer : A young college graduate travels to France where he becomes involved with a prostitute. DIR/SCR Antonio Campos. CAST Brady Corbet, Michael Abiteboul, Constance Rousseau, Lila Salet, Solo. USA.
Indie auteur Joe Swanberg has established himself as the reigning poster child of mumblecore, for better or worse , but as the most surprising filmmaker contributing to the Sundance hit horror anthology V/H/S (in theaters Friday) he begins branching out of his comfort zone with a newfound energy; his entry, The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger , was filmed using Skype — and a script! — and is also one of the more memorable and inventive shorts in the midnight crowd-pleasing omnibus. Between his V/H/S segments (he also acts in Ti West ‘s road trip gone horribly wrong) and the forthcoming Drinking Buddies , which blends his improvisational style and mainstream stars Anna Kendrick and Olivia Wilde, Swanberg says he sees 2012 as a turning point in his creative evolution. “I feel like I’m ready to be a filmmaker,” he declared to Movieline. Read on for more with Swanberg on how he and West accomplished a lot with very little for V/H/S , why acting in Adam Wingard’s Your Next reinvigorated him as a director, and how his Drinking Buddies stars took to the Swanberg method. You’re involved in two of the segments that most scared me, so well done. How did you first get recruited for V/H/S as a director and as an actor in Ti West’s short? I might venture to say that you out of the entire slate of filmmakers are not so much, or at all, thought of as a horror filmmaker. I would agree! One of the cool things about V/H/S is I think it’s one of the first times it’s actually visible how interconnected the independent film world is, and how easily it crosses genres. I think there was a perception for a long time of mumblecore being this very inclusive little group of [Andrew] Bujalski or Aaron Katz and the Duplasses and I or something, and that the horror world did its own thing and the documentary world did its own thing. But all of us have been friends for a really long time and we just make different kinds of movies. I think Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard went to bat for me as a director for V/H/S , and it helped that [producer] Roxanne Benjamin had seen some of my other films. But I acted in Ti [West]’s first, so that was my first involvement in the project. He shot his in May and I didn’t shoot mine until August, so it was a while where I feel like Adam and Simon were lobbying for me to get the chance to do one of these. Simon wrote your segment, which makes your V/H/S segment the first time you’ve directed something you haven’t written yourself. Not only is it the first time that I’ve directed something I haven’t written, it’s also the first time that I’ve directed something that was scripted. My own films are all improvised. So it was really fun for me to play with somebody else’s material. And Simon wrote it knowing that I was going to direct it and I think he expected that I would just throw the script away once we started, but I actually really loved his script and thought it was a good first chance to go ahead and do that. Your segment uses a Skype chat as its set up for tension; we watch as Emily (Helen Rodgers, pictured with Swanberg above) experiences something strange as she chats online with her boyfriend. How did you fake it, or did you? For V/H/S we actually just used Skype, we didn’t fake it. I did a bunch of research into the best way to fake it and I realized the best way was not to fake it. We were going to build this crazy, elaborate rig with multiple cameras that were connected to each other, and the more I looked at it and researched screen capture stuff I realized we could do high definition screen capturing and actually record live Skype conversations. So it’s a film made without a camera – laptops were our cameras. But you used lighting rigs and such? Adam Wingard DPed my segment and I wouldn’t describe it as a typical lighting set-up but it was modified for our purposes. Adam was usually moving with Helen – the other funny thing is because it’s a real Skype conversation, Helen was the camera operator, essentially. She not only had to act, she was in charge of what was seen and what wasn’t seen. So we had to do pretty elaborate choreography about where and when to turn the computer, when to set it on the bed, all these sorts of things, and Adam was usually following her off-camera with lights. The computer gives off a decent glow so we had some light motivated by the computer but we also had back-up lights, and the cool effect of that is, because it’s a real Skype conversation, one of the reasons we decided it had to be real Skype was that every time it gets bright on Helen’s screen you actually see that reflected on Daniel’s screen. If it wasn’t a real Skype conversation it’d be really difficult to get those lighting rigs set up right, but it’s fun to watch and it adds to the realism because when Helen turns on a light on, Daniel’s room brightens as well. It felt almost like directing dance. And we ended up editing after the fact but most of the takes are long, unbroken, four or five minute takes involving starting in the bedroom and going out to the living room, or weaving around the kitchen, so we had to light and choreograph these long 360 set-ups. That’s pretty fantastic a feat to pull off. In Ti’s segment you acted and also operated the camera, home video-style. It’s cool to see performers having to innovate and actually work with the technology, whether in laptop or camcorder form. One of the cool things about this project was the chance to do that. I’ve used Skype before in Young American Bodies , the webseries I do – we recorded a few scenes in that which were like Skype conversations – but outside of that it becomes really gimmicky if you were to do a whole feature film based around Skype or iChat. That becomes the thing. And one of the great opportunities of VHS is I feel like all the directors were liberated to play around with ideas that might not hold up for a feature running time but that work as shorts. The Skype thing was really fun when I realized that people only have to watch it for 20 minutes, and not for an hour and a half. Well, now Paranormal Activity 4 is running with the Skype thing. I’m not saying they copied you, but yours did come first… [Laughs] I know those guys, and I doubt that they’ve seen V/H/S . It’s unlikely that it influenced them. I don’t know when they shot that movie… In Ti’s segment, what did you actually shoot on and how difficult was it to be mindful of your performance and operating the camera at the same time? I forget the model of the camera we used but it was a little handheld portable – Ti did a bunch of research on cameras. We needed one with a light, because some of the real scary things about Ti’s are when the light switches on in the hotel room from the camera. As an actor it was a fun challenge to have to be mindful of that stuff, and it’s helpful in a way because one of the difficult things about acting especially when the goal is naturalism or realism is to not overthink it. You have to just be in a situation and react. So having the camera and having something to do with my hands that was occupying my brain I think made it easier for me performance wise to react to Sophia [Takal] and be in those scenes. It’s a much different experience than having a crew and a camera pointed at my face feeling like, ‘Okay, here’s the big moment – now act natural,’ with 30 people watching and we only get to do it two times so get it right. Both you and Ti seemed to pull off these segments using so few resources. These must be two of the most affordable short films ever made. Yeah, especially going to Sundance with V/H/S was really crazy – Ti’s and my segments were not the most effects-heavy of the bunch. The Radio Silence one at the end has a lot of really amazing visual effects, and David Bruckner’s, they built that monster creature and Glenn McQuaid’s has that video killer. Ours have pretty much practical effects. But all of them were really affordable. Even the super effects-heavy ones were made on moderate budgets, so it was great to go to Sundance and have the movie feel big despite the fact that it’s a low budget movie. In your career so far you’ve made so many films in such a short time – you’re one of the busiest filmmakers around, especially since you’re not only directing movies, you’re also acting in other people’s films. How do you feel like 2012 Joe Swanberg is most changed from 2005 Joe Swanberg? Starting with going to Sundance with V/H/S , I’m having the time of my life in 2012. It’s been the best, most fun year of my life as a filmmaker and it’s because I feel like I’m doing so much outside of what I’m typically known for. All the movies that I made in 2010 and 2011 when I was hyper-productive, that was sort of my last big push almost as a student; I was making a lot of work in an effort to keep getting better as a filmmaker and keep pushing myself to try things I hadn’t done before. Now I feel like with V/H/S and Drinking Buddies , which I just finished and stars Olivia Wilde and Anna Kendrick and Jake Johnson and Ron Livingston – it’s a much bigger production than I’ve done before – I feel like I’m ready to… be a filmmaker. I’m embracing being a director and what that means. Obviously I’ll be practicing and learning my whole life, but I feel like the kind of workmanlike attitude I’ve had the last couple of years is paying off now in the sense that I’m getting to put that practice into bigger productions that are being seen by more people. Do you feel like this evolution is marked in your process, or your creative choices? It’s in both, actually. A big turning point for me came when I was acting in You’re Next , Adam and Simon’s movie. Getting to be on the set of not a big budget movie, but one much bigger than the ones I make, and seeing Adam, who I’ve worked with really closely on $10,000 movies directing a much bigger movie with a full-sized crew and 20 actors and all these elaborate action sequences, I realized I’m interested in challenging and pushing myself. I don’t just want to shoot conversations in apartments. It would behoove me as a filmmaker, I realized, to know how to do that other stuff. Even if I never make an action movie it would be useful as a director to know how to shoot an action sequence. So I came away from that acting experience feeling energized as a director, to try new things. And V/H/S was the first thing I did. After that I went with an attitude of, like, cool – here’s an opportunity for me to do something I’ve never done before and to really mess it up. Not take the easy route. Figure out how to do this camera work and figure out how to do special effects and really make something that’s going to push me out of my comfort zone. And did that extend to Drinking Buddies ? The same was true with Drinking Buddies , which was still improvised but improvised on a much bigger level, with a full crew that I had to learn to work with. I basically took the process that I normally use with three actors and two crew and do it with 20 actors and a 40-person crew. I’m looking for those challenges now. I’m looking to broaden my spectrum a bit. Drinking Buddies is your biggest movie to date, and it features mainstream actors – how did they adjust to your process? You’ve practically established your own indie subgenre working in a specific style and with regular collaborators. When you were casting did you find that many mainstream actors fell into step with your sensibilities? I went into the casting with the same attitude that I’ve used to cast all of my movies with my friends, which is, who are these people? Are they easy to talk to? Do they have interesting lives and things they’re interested in outside of acting that we can use in the movie? Are they fun to be around? It really was almost the identical process, and the result was I ended up with more people who I love and who gave amazing performances and who are totally ready to show up and figure it out every day. It’s possible they were intimidated by the situation but they never let on. They were really excited to collaborate with me and create these characters. I’m deep into editing right now, and the performances are amazing. Everybody’s going to look at these actors in a new way because of this movie – they’re all really alive in an exciting way. So it’s given me confidence to keep doing this and to feel like I can work with bigger name actors, and that the process isn’t antithetical to the kind of work I’ve been doing in the past or that they’ve been doing. What did you learn about Anna and Jake and Olivia that you then integrated into their characters? All of them, the way that I like to work is that everybody is kind of playing a version of themselves. I write characters and create a very simple set-up, and with the actors I flesh it out. There’s not one specific thing I could point to other than to say when you watch this movie you’ll be watching a really interesting hybrid of my ideas that I came into the movie with and their personalities that they brought to it. There’s a lot of acting happening, and there’s a lot of real stories being told. As is always the goal, I feel like I came out of the film feeling these people were my friends and not just actors I hired for a movie. We all learned a lot about each other during the shoot because that’s how the process works. The more everybody shares, the better the movie is and also the easier it is to create these relationships that don’t actually exist in real life. Side note: I noticed that when you announced your cast for Drinking Buddies you earned a mention on Perez Hilton. Was that the moment when you realized you’d made it in Hollywood? I actually wasn’t aware of that! One of the things about making movies that people started to watch and write about is that they also write mean things a lot of the time. [Laughs] I’ve been pretty disconnected for the past couple of years from any of the press stuff surrounding the movies, so I typically hear about it via friends. I certainly never go looking for it anymore. But now I know! V/H/S is in select theaters Friday. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Rihanna and Beyonce watch out! Cassie is releasing her first new album since 2006, and what better way for her to showcase her talents than with a super sexy GQ Magazine spread . I think it’s safe to say that no matter how bad her music is, I’m going to support her career any way I can as long as she keeps putting out photoshoots like this.
