“Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place,” the molasses-and-whiskey voice of Sam Elliott says of The Dude in the Coen Brothers’ 1998 cult classic, The Big Lebowski . And thanks to filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig , the time and place for the actual Dude who inspired the Dude will span a good 40 years at least. The Atlantic today posted a link to The Dude (Director’s Cut) , a 2011 documentary (in its entirety) by Feuerzeig ( The Devil and Daniel Johnston , The Real Rocky ) that traces the history of Jeff Dowd, a 1960s antiwar activist-turned-independent-film-promoter, who not only inspired Jeff Bridges’ accidental philosopher character in The Big Lebowski but helped the Coen Brothers distribute their first film, Blood Simple , in the 1980s. Dowd’s first taste of notoriety came in 1970 when he made headlines as one of the “Seattle Seven” — members of the Seattle Liberation Front who were indicted on charges of inciting a riot at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Seattle where 20 people were injured and 76 were arrested. (His arrest is cited in The Big Lebowski .) Dowd and his fellow defendants turned their fall trial into a media circus by hurling catcalls at the judge, and staging a courtroom walk-out. The judge eventually declared a mistrial but cited the Seattle Seven for contempt and they ultimately served three months in prison. In Feuerzeig’s film, Dowd also talks about how he landed in the film industry where he worked with Robert Redford on the embryonic stages of the Sundance Institute. According to IMDB, Dowd served as producer’s representative on Madonna’s breakthrough movie Desperately Seeking Susan and as a producer of the 1992 film Zebrahead . Check out Feuerzeig’s film and the real Dude below: THE DUDE (Director’s Cut) from Jeff Feuerzeig on Vimeo . Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Are exorcisms culturally specific? The concept behind The Possession , a solid, Jewish-inflected B-movie riff on The Exorcist from director Ole Bornedal , can’t help but leave you wondering. Sure, a Catholic priest can attempt to take care of a demon, but when your child’s inhabited by a dybbuk — a malevolent spirit from Jewish folklore — you might need someone who can specialize. At one point in the film, frantic father Clyde Brenek ( Jeffrey Dean Morgan ) drives a few hundred miles from the suburb in which he, his ex-wife Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) and two children live to Borough Park, Brooklyn, to locate a rebbe who can help his family. It’s a supernatural argument for the benefit of living in more diverse communities. The dybbuk in question has been captured and imprisoned in the old, engraved box that Clyde buys at a yard sale for his youngest daughter Emily (Natasha Calis). The audience has already seen the muttering entity, which is able to inflict physical harm regardless of whether its victims open the box, wreak havoc on its previous owner, but Emily sees only a mysterious find with which she can furnish her empty room in her dad’s new house. Bornedal is a Danish director who’s gone back and forth between Hollywood and his homeland. He ended up remaking his own theatrical debut — a 1994 thriller about a Copenhagen law student working as a late-shift watchman at a morgue — into the identically titled and inevitably not as good 1997 film Nightwatch with Ewan McGregor. His specialty is putting an arch, unexpected twist on genre in films such as The Substitute, in which a 6th grade class realizes their chipper new teacher is an alien, and Just Another Love Story, a noir in which a married man allows himself to be mistaken for the fiancé of a wealthy woman who’s suffering from memory loss after an accident. The narrative running alongside the paranormal events unfolding in The Possession is about divorce and how it can affect children. While teenager daughter Hannah (Madison Davenport) deals with her parents’ breakup and her mother’s subsequent new relationship with orthodontist Brett (Grant Show) with disaffected detachment, Emily still holds on to a tremulous hope that the two will get back together. When she does figure out how to open the box, which turns out to be filled with strange keepsakes, dead moths and a creepy, foggy old mirror, the behavioral changes brought on by the dybbuk are interpreted by those in her life as an adolescent response to the domestic shakeup. Emily grows moody and distant, she spends a lot of time in her room and she acts out at school. Her mother takes her to a child psychologist, not an exorcist. The Possession is produced by Sam Raimi, and, at its best, has some of the throwback appeal of Raimi’s last theatrical release, Drag Me to Hell . Its intent is not ironic, but its creepiness, which includes eyeballs rolling back in their sockets, clouds of insects appearing around the house and a little girl suddenly speaking like a guttural adult, is the kind that provokes nervous giggles and the clutching of the person next to you, not nightmares. When Clyde tracks his feral demon-daughter through the bowels of a hospital, the audience at my screening let out a knowing sound as he approached an open door leading to a dark room — and let out pleased laughter when he used the paltry light of his cell phone to see just what sort of worst-case stuff was stored in there. Morgan gives a sturdy performance as a man whose career as a college basketball coach has taken precedence over his family, and who’s only now realizing that he’s about to lose those he loves as a result. But it’s Calis who steals the show as the possessed girl: She moves between ominous, dead-eyed glares and flickers of vulnerability, letting slip some foreboding tears right before the dybbuk makes her do something awful. Also showing off an unexpected screen presence is the musician Matisyahu, who plays the soft-spoken and slightly unconventional son of the rebbe from who Clyde seeks help. Tall, thin and quietly authoritative, Matisyahu’s character Tzadok comes with Clyde when no one else will help him because he believe it’s his duty to save a life when given the opportunity. He provides a nice alternative to the Father Merrin type — you know, the kind of guy who has no patience for hugging things out until the whole getting-the-dybbuk-back-in-the-box ceremony is taken care of. And there’s no better time to watch Matisyahu try than the current dog days of August. This variation on the demon child subgenre has enough of the familiar and the new to be a decently good time at the movies. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Ryan Gosling is graduating from actor/coloring book muse to writer-director with his directorial debut, How To Catch A Monster , from his own script – and he’s recruited Drive co-star Christina Hendricks to play the lead. So what’s the Baby Goose’s first foray behind the camera about? Described as a “modern day fairytale” with elements of “fantasy, noir, and suspense,” Monster sounds like a cousin of sorts to Nicholas Winding Refn ‘s Drive , which followed Gosling’s coiled-up Driver in a seedy tour through Los Angeles. Hendricks co-starred in Drive as Blanche, the pouty femme fatale who gets wrapped up in a job gone wrong before taking a memorable powder in a motel bathroom. Monster , produced by Marc Platt and Adam Siegel (two of the producers on Drive ), will be courting buyers at the Toronto Film Festival next month, with filming to start next spring. Per press release, via Indiewire: ” How To Catch a Monster weaves elements of fantasy, noir, and suspense into a modern day fairytale. Set against the surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city, Billy, a single mother of two, is swept into a macabre and dark fantasy underworld while her teenage son discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town. Both Billy and Bones must dive deep into the mystery, if their family is to survive.” [ Indiewire ]
Robert Zemeckis’ Flight starring Denzel Washington will screen as the Centerpiece of the Austin Film Festival & Conference . The 2012 event, taking place October 18 – 25 revealed some details of its upcoming event Tuesday including 10 films that will join this year’s lineup. AFF annually hosts over 180 film screenings and events, while the Conference welcomes over 100 speakers in its panels and roundtables. Among the films screened during the festival are numerous world and US premieres in a wide range of genres, from comedy to documentary, horror to drama. Also on tap for this year, X-Files creator Chris Carter will receive the event’s Outstanding Television Writer Award at AFF’s annual Awards Luncheon on Saturday, October 22nd. Carter will join Paul Feig and Brian Helgeland as part of AFF’s new “Guest Programmer” section of the festival, giving “highly regarded filmmakers” the chance to screen and discuss films they found influential. Carter will also participate in – fittingly – “A Conversation with Chris Carter,” where he will share stories from his long career in television and film. Carter will also present special retrospective screenings of The X-Files and Millennium episodes. There are also plans to screen an X-Files marathon at the Alamo Drafthouse. AFF will release the rest of its lineup in September. Details of AFF’s early 10 films follow with details provided by the festival : Flight – Centerpiece Film Writer: John Gatins Director: Robert Zemeckis In this action-packed mystery thriller, Academy Award winner Denzel Washington stars as Whip Whitaker, a seasoned airline pilot who miraculously crash-lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe, saving nearly every soul on board. After the crash, Whip is hailed as a hero, but as more is learned, more questions than answers arise as to who or what was really at fault, and what really happened on that plane? Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the highly anticipated new film also stars John Goodman, Don Cheadle, and Melissa Leo. Free Samples Writer: Jim Beggarly Director: Jay Gammill A Stanford law school dropout named Jillian escapes to the anonymity of Los Angeles to figure out what she wants to do with her life, and on the day of her college boyfriend’s birthday, she finds herself stuck running an ice cream truck fending off locals and oddball friends alike. This one day spent in a truck on the streets of LA will wake Jillian from her aimless daze and make her see that life doesn’t stop just because you want it to. Starring Jess Weixler, Jesse Eisenberg, Halley Feiffer, Jason Ritter, this great new comedy is directed by Baylor University film school grad Jay Gammill. It’s A Disaster Writer/Director: Todd Berger Four couples meet for Sunday brunch only to discover they are stuck in a house together as the world may be about to end. StarringJulia Stiles, America Ferrera and David Cross. Julia Stiles and America Ferrera will present the screening at AFF. Last Will & Testament Directors: Laura Wilson, Lisa Wilson US Premiere This documentary explores the ongoing debate about the authorship of the works attributed to Shakespeare. Writers and critics, actors and scholars, including Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Charlie Chaplin, and many others have struggled to reconcile England’s “Star of Poets” with the grain dealer from Stratford. Why? – Featuring interviews with Vanessa Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, Mark Rylance, and other highly regarded Shakespearean actors. Pictures of Superheroes World Premiere Writer/Director: Don Swaynos A young maid is asked by her employer to pretend to be his wife as part of a highly questionable business scheme. Meanwhile, she meets the comic book superhero artist living in her employer’s home (seemingly without the employer’s knowledge or permission), and she begins to wonder if there is something more to life than fake marriages and carpet cleaners. Produced by Kelly Williams, and starring Kerri Lendo, John Merriman, Byron Brown and Chris Doubek. Rising From Ashes Director: T.C. Johnstone Two worlds collide when cycling legend Jock Boyer (first American to compete in the Tour de France) moves to Rwanda and teams with Tom Ritchey (inventor of the mountain bike) to help a group of struggling genocide survivors pursue their dream of a national team. As they set out against impossible odds, both Jock and the team find new purpose as they rise from the ashes of their past. Narrated by Forest Whitaker and directed by Austin native T.C. Johnstone, this remarkable story culminated at the 2012 Olympics in London when one of the subjects of the film, Adrien Niyonshuti, competed in the Games and became Rwanda’s first Olympic cyclist. Shadow Dancer Writer: Tom Bradby Director: James March Single mother Collette McVeigh is a Republican living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bomb plot in London, an MI5 officer (Mac, played by Clive Owen) offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison for 25 years or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. With her son’s life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in Mac and return home, but when her brothers’ secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are raised and Collette finds both herself and her family in grave danger. Starring Clive Owen, Andrea Riseborough, and Gillian Anderson. Spinning Plates World Premiere Writer/Director: Joseph Levy Spinning Plates is a feature documentary film about three restaurants, extraordinary for what they are today as well as the challenges they have overcome. A cutting-edge restaurant named the seventh best in the world whose chef must battle a life-threatening obstacle to pursue his passion… a 150-year-old family restaurant still standing only because of the unbreakable bond with its community… a fledgling Mexican restaurant whose owners are putting everything they have on the line just to make enough to survive and provide for their young daughter. Features Chef Grant Achatz of Chicago’s Alinea and Chef Thomas Keller of California’s The French Laundry. To Kill A Memory World Premiere Writers: Dustin Rikert, William Shockley, Philip Tiboni Director: Dustin Rikert A respected US Marshal is imprisoned after being suspiciously involved in a bank robbery gone wrong. When he learns that the other bank robbers may be going after his wife, the Marshal must escape prison and catch them before it’s too late. This low budget indie Western features an astonishing lead performance from country western singer Kix Brooks of Brooks and Dunn. Kix Brooks will present the screening at AFF. Paul Feig Presents: The Human Tornado and Bringing Up Baby This year, AFF is excited to introduce an all new Guest Programmer section, which invites some of our highly regarded panelists and guest filmmakers to program and present films that inspired them. Paul Feig (director of Bridesmaids , creator of “Freaks and Geeks,” also directed episodes of “Arrested Development,” “The Office,” “Mad Men,” “30 Rock” and more) has chosen two very different films: the blaxsploitation Dolemite adventure The Human Tornado and Howard Hawks’ immortal screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby . Don’t miss an opportunity to hear how these two wildly diverse films influenced one of the most in-demand directors in Hollywood today.
As rollicking and rough as a drive down a dirt road with no suspension, Lawless is a tale of three-bootlegging brothers from Prohibition-era Franklin County, Virginia, who are, in the words of one character, some “hard-ass crackers.” Directed by Australia’s John Hillcoat ( The Road ) and written by musician Nick Cave (who’s adapted Matt Bondurant’s historical novel The Wettest County in the World ), Lawless is, like their last collaboration The Proposition , a kind of remixed Western at heart. It’s a story in which the law and the outlaws are equally outsized and dangerous — and a world in which the fighting has nothing to do with keeping order and everything to do with displays of strength. “It is not the violence that sets men apart. It is the distance that he is prepared to go,” declares oldest brother Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy), the hardest boiled of them all. To say that Lawless (or The Proposition ) romanticizes violence isn’t quite right — every tommy-gun bullet wound and knife wound is sickeningly visceral, and when a character gets his throat cut the man doing the deed has to saw through resisting flesh. But the film does relish and find lyricism in these tribal philosopher psychopaths who use force with the measured anticipation of an oenophile savoring a sip of wine. The sheer appreciation Lawless has for its characters and its setting makes it a pleasure to settle into, even though the film can be carelessly formless and feel like a rough draft that was never sculpted into something more meaningful. As Jack Bondurant, the youngest of the three brothers and the one most eager to prove himself, Shia LaBeouf, is both the primary focus of the film and its narrator — an unfortunate thing, since he’s also the character we least want to spend time with. Forrest is so tough he’s developed a mythology around him, that even he might believe, about being invincible — and given the ordeal he survives in this film, there might be something to that. Middle sibling Howard (Jason Clarke) is huge and half-feral, especially when he’s on one of his benders. But Jack’s been kept on the outside of the family business, allowed only to be the driver as the brothers travel the county, dispensing corn whiskey. That changes when an act of aggression by two out-of-towners gives him the opportunity to make a deal with gangster Floyd Banner (a gleeful Gary Oldman) after almost dying at his hands. At the core of Lawless is the escalating conflict between the Bondurant brothers and a corrupt Chicago lawman named Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) who’s coming down hard on the county to get protection money from its many moonshiners. But there are plenty of detours taken: Jack woos preacher’s daughter Bertha (Mia Wasikowska) and starts up his own stills with the disabled Cricket (Dane DeHaan). Forrest makes sparks with dancer-turned-waitress Maggie (Jessica Chastain). Lawless is really about the adventures of the Bondurants and their friends and foes during Prohibition, and the characters are so compelling it would really be enough to just spend time in their presence. Forrest in particular is a memorable contradiction: Aside from his flashes of savagery, Hardy maintains an almost grandfatherly air. Clad in cardigans and prone to muttering, he refuses to step down to anyone and yet, is utterly undone by Maggie’s arrival in his life. As Rakes, Pearce is almost too outsized for the film to contain him. With his blackened, immaculately pomaded hair, parted dramatically down the center, and his pale eyebrows, he looks like a cross between Crispin Glover and Voldemort. He wields his vague sexuality — “You’re a peach,” he croons to Jack before punching him in the face — like a threat, mincing in his flawless suit right before delivering a ruthless beating, then ceremoniously peeling off his blood-stained leather gloves. It’s a unique performance, albeit so mannered it almost rends the already accommodating fabric of the film. Factor in the prevalence of international actors in the cast and the unfocused nature of the narrative,and Lawless seems to take place in an impressionistic space rather than a historical one. It’s Charlie and Forrest that we want to see have a showdown, though it’s Jack who more often ends up in the former’s crosshairs. It’s not LaBeouf’s fault that his character is the flimsiest. The story keeps giving him foolish things to do to bring around more action, including accidentally leading the police to the family’s stills. His role as catalyst eventually becomes irritating because we don’t want the story to move along. The world that Lawless presents is so vivid and pleasing that we want to linger over the details. It’s a film that finds delicate beauty in the image of someone bleeding out in the snow, and turns a drunken, impulsive visit to church service into an overwhelming sensory experience. The appeal of Lawless is not the story it tells but rather the world that it creates. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
It’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility to think that LeBron James innocently Tweeting his love for the 1996 Looney Tunes-NBA hit Space Jam might perk up the ears of some Hollywood suits out there looking for the next bygone property to rescuscitate. If the world loves Space Jam as much as LeBron, who knows how soon we could have Space Jam 2 on our hands, starring King James as the new Michael Jordan ? RT @ Parletoo : @ KingJames do you love space Jam ?(I love that movie. Wish I could do Space Jam 2!)— LeBron James (@KingJames) August 26, 2012 For those of you whose Space Jam memories are a little fuzzier, let me bring you back to the ’90s: Jordan joins Bugs Bunny and his Looney Tunes b-ball team in space to play against a team of baddies who have stolen the skillz of terrestrial NBA stars Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, Charles Barkley, Muggsy Bogues and Shawn Bradley. Jordan wins the Space Jam, hitches a ride on a spaceship to his minor league baseball game as R. Kelly sings “I Believe I Can Fly,” and comes out of retirement to return to the NBA because, well, baseball was never really his thing. And then we all have a booty bass dance party to the sounds of the Quad City DJs. Questions raised herein: A. Do you love Space Jam ? B. Innocent Tweet-love, or does LeBron have some inside info on a sequel? Did the Monstars tip him off?? C. Would Bill Murray reprise his role as Bill Murray? Because if so, I’m onboard. [ @KingJames via ScreenJunkies ]
While the GOP gathers in tropical storm-plagued Tampa to Do That Thing They Do, this week’s new DVD selections feature a rallying cry against the status quo and an overblown, flag-waving spectacle based on a board game that, all things considered, is still pretty fun to watch. HIGH: #ReGeneration (Virgil Films; $19.99, DVD) Who’s Responsible: Written and directed by Phillip Montgomery; narrated (and produced) by Ryan Gosling; appearances by Noam Chomsky , Howard Zinn, Talib Kweli. What It’s All About: The film’s marketing suggests it’s a documentary about the Occupy movement, but it’s got a more ambitious agenda than that. #ReGeneration feels less interested in the economic roots of the protests than in the cultural underpinnings of Occupy (mass media manipulation, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, corporatization, the crumbling educational infrastructure, our interactions with computer and TV screens instead of each other). Interview subjects include activists, intellectuals, high school students, the founder of Adbusters magazine, and just plain folks who feel somewhat helpless about their ability to change the world. Why It’s Schmancy: Packing such ambitious subject matter into 81 minutes leads to a certain lack of focus, but the movie ultimately stands as a rallying cry for the new “Me Generation” to rediscover a sense of community and to fight back against being turned into wage-slave drones controlled by shadowy figures on high. It’s also probably one of the few documentaries you’ll ever see that features critiques of the media from both the legendarily leftist Chomsky and Libertarian Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson . Why You Should Buy It: The bonus features are relatively meager, but the deleted scenes include more thoughts from the late Zinn ( A People’s History of the United States ), some interesting interviews with Japanese teens and their parents (who seem to be dealing with the same cultural issues as their North American peers) and the use of the phrase “Coca-Colonization,” which I kinda love. LOW: Battleship (Universal Studios Home Entertainment; $34.98 Blu-Ray, $29.98 DVD) Who’s Responsible: Written by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, “Based on Hasbro’s Battleship”; directed by Peter Berg; starring Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Liam Neeson, Rihanna What It’s About: Nefarious aliens follow a beacon signal sent out from Earth — stupid science! — and the planet’s only hope to repel the invasion is a cocky, trouble-making Naval officer (Kitsch) and his plucky crew. Will they save the day? Will Kitsch win the hand of girlfriend Brooklyn Decker over the objections of her dad, the admiral (Neeson)? Will this ludicrous but entertaining action extravaganza find an audience on home video after tanking at the box office? Why It’s Fun: Granted, a big, loud, stupid and expensive movie based on a board game pretty much encapsulates everything that’s wrong with Hollywood these days. But as big, loud, stupid summer movies go (and the fact that it’s on DVD before Labor Day tells you something about its fate in theaters), Battleship is surprisingly entertaining in its silliness. Despite its illogical story line, the hackneyed characters and the movie’s unapologetic, join-the-Navy bursts of jingoism, it never lags. That sounds like damning with faint praise, but how many other elephantine high-concept explosion-fests in recent years can make the same claim? Why You Should Buy It: The DVD includes the requisite making-of and meet-the-cast extras, and the Blu-Ray throws in a few additional ones, including the previsualization of an alternate ending and a look into the special effects and the legendary USS Missouri (which plays a key role in the film). If you’re looking for something to throw into your home theater system to show off the booming sound and the crisp hi-def images, this one will hit the mark. Alonso Duralde has written about film for The Wrap , Salon and MSNBC.com. He also co-hosts the Linoleum Knife podcast and regularly appears on What the Flick?! (The Young Turks Network) . He is a senior programmer for the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles and a pre-screener for the Sundance Film Festival. He also the author of two books: Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men (Advocate Books). Follow Alonso Duralde on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Well, another power couple have locked lips and the result may be nothing short of earth-shattering. No longer relegated to the sidelines in this Summer filled with Batman and Spider-Man hoopla, Wonder Woman and Superman have hit the headlines with a snogging session that has turned the super-hero universe into a flutter – or at least some raised eyebrows and a little good-old fashioned gossip. Could their off-screen romance some day even make it to the big screen? The smooch took place in the final throes of issue No. 12 of DC Comics’ year-old Justice League series which introduced new stories, costumes and even origins of the members of this longstanding super posse. (The publisher introduced the Justice League of America as they were called then in 1960, three years before rival Marvel unveiled its equivalent, The Avengers.) DC Comics co-publisher Jim Lee told A.P. via ABC News that the kiss is not a “stunt or an alternate reality smooch.” “This has been in the works for some time and we certainly wouldn’t have pulled the trigger without there being great creative benefit to the liaison,” he said in an email to A.P. “Beyond the joy and sorrows of new love, there are potentially huge ramifications and dramatic ways this single relationship between these iconic characters will change the entire political and interpersonal landscape of the DC Universe.” All of that from a kiss? What happens when they finally hook up? This is not the first time the super-hero power duo have had a fling, by the way. In the ’80s they had a short-lived moment of passion, but Superman ended up with Lois Lane. They also canoodled in Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Strikes Again a decade ago. Beyond the smooch heard around the world, Wonder Woman has some other news to boast since her last foray into the headlines. Her costume has changed and she is now the daughter of none other than that zenith of Greek Mythology, Zeus. You go grrrl! Given Hollywood’s penchant for hot power couples and the lure of box office dollars that often follow super heroes generally, when will Wo-Supe (or maybe it’s Super-Wo?) share that kiss on the big screen? Tell us what you think…. [ Source: A.P. via ABC News ]
Having labeled the 1990 sci-fi Total Recall “ cheesy ,” it was only a matter of time before the makers of this summer’s lackluster Colin Farrell-starring remake had the tables turned on them by Paul Verhoeven , the original film’s director. And so, Friday at a sold-out screening of the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Verhoeven seized the opportunity for a little payback, a good-natured gleam in his eye. “Colin Farrell called it in an interview ‘kitschy,’” he declared with a smile. “So I dare to say that his version was not good.” Verhoeven revisited the making of the film over 22 years ago over the course of an hourlong Q&A, joined by screenwriters Ron Shusett, who first optioned Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” and co-scripted Total Recall and Alien with the late Dan O’Bannon, and Gary Goldman, who came on to help flesh out a third act and penned many of the film’s memorable one-liners. The trio shared memories of the film’s long journey to the screen, the difficulty in adapting a writer as brilliant as Philip K. Dick, and the unique challenges and benefits of writing for a star like Schwarzenegger. Scroll down for these and more highlights from the evening, including Verhoeven’s favorite scene! Why he cast Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct ! The connection between Total Recall and Alien ! (Plus: an update on his Winter Queen adaptation, which was to star Milla Jovovich but, he says, “fell into the wrong hands.”) 1. VERHOEVEN ON THE TOTAL RECALL REMAKE “Arnold being there made the movie a little light, and I think that’s very important for these Philip Dick stories,” he said. “I think if it would have been done in a straight way, I’m not so sure that it would have worked – at least, not at that time. And recently [in the Total Recall remake], it did not. I get to say that because the producer of the new one said that this was cheesy or something. And Colin Farrell called it in an interview ‘kitschy.’ So I dare to say that his version was not good.” 2. THE LONG ROAD TO TOTAL RECALL A notoriously long and troubled development saw Total Recall nearly derailed many times, as Shusett recalled. “Sets were being built in Germany, in Australia, and Mexico City — all over the world — and being cancelled. At that time it was the most expensive movie ever made… it was cancelled so many times that when I asked if they would save it, they said the only way we could do this was if we called it Partial Recall .” Once Schwarzenegger signed on, he lent his star power to supporting collaborators behind the scenes. Shusett, who’d written and was producing the project, was nearly removed from the film until Schwarzenegger stepped in on his behalf; the actor also handpicked Verhoeven to direct, as the filmmaker remembered. “Arnold picked me,” said Verhoeven. “Arnold was after this project for a long time… they had started to shoot in Australia and then [Dino De Laurentiis’] company fell apart and went bankrupt. Then Arnold convinced Mario Kassar of Carolco to buy the script out of the bankruptcy. And at the same time he said to Mario, ‘I want Paul Verhoeven because I have seen RoboCop .'” Even with Verhoeven onboard, the script was missing a conclusion. “I felt that something had to happen in the third act that would also be also a little bit philosophical or ambiguous or something, but that was not there,” he said. “And I really got scared – there were like 40 drafts where it was not solved. I thought, it’s unsolvable! It can’t be done! But I had signed already.” 3. THE PHILIP K. DICK CHALLENGE “The other Philip Dick movies all failed for one reason,” declared Shusett. “He’s so brilliant with his set up, he paints you into a corner, he has no ending, there’s barely a second act, and if you don’t match his brilliance with a third act the audience is disappointed. You have to go to extreme length, talent and luck, and come up with an ending that’s worthy of his brilliant set up. That’s why it took six years to get a third act!” Verhoeven’s ambiguous ending leaves open both possibilities that Quaid is either experiencing real life or a fantasy. “I felt that it should be both. I thought in retrospect this is probably the first post-modern film,” said Verhoeven, adding that “the producer of the new one asked me [if it’s real or not]. I said no it’s both, and he said, ‘That’s nonsense.’” 4. SHARON STONE: FROM LORI TO BASIC INSTINCT “For me, casting Sharon was very handy because I started to realize during the shoot what she could do,” revealed Verhoeven. “There’s this beautiful moment when they kick the shit out of [Schwarzenegger] and Rachel [Ticotin] comes out of the elevator and starts shooting. Sharon is on the ground and looks at Arnold … and it was exactly these 5, 6 seconds that made me decide to take Sharon Stone for Basic Instinct . It was based on the fact that she could do that so fast and so believable and she is so mean and so nice and charming, one after the other, that I thought she would be perfect for Basic Instinct .” 5. THE REAL LIFE INSPIRATION FOR RICHTER’S DEATH As a child, Verhoeven played in an elevator that he briefly thought might cut off his legs as he dangled them over the side. He exorcised his lingering horror at the thought by condemning Michael Ironside’s Richter to death by elevator amputation. “I often think about it; I would have been without legs.” 6. VERHOEVEN’S FAVORITE SCENE “I came to the scene that is still one of my favorite scenes, the Dr. Edgemar scene with Roy Brocksmith, who comes to Arnold on Mars and says what we see in him, ‘You are not here.’ I thought that was such a fascinating scene to dare to do that, to say something to the audience that they have been looking at something that is completely not true, and then prove to them that it’s true again.” 7. PAUL VERHOEVEN’S CRUSADE , STARRING ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER Verhoeven spoke fondly of Crusade , the famously never-produced period epic that would have reunited Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger in 1993. “We tried very hard when we were setting up The Crusades. The script was written by Walon Green, and we were supposed to shoot it then Carolco went into Chapter 11 and the movie was never made. Certainly Ridley Scott did Kingdom of Heaven but it was, again, with Arnold, a lighter version of The Crusades but very critical of the Christians.” 8. ABOUT WRITING FOR/DIRECTING ARNOLD… The Quaid character was originally written as an accountant, but that idea (not to mention the suggestion that he could pass as an everyman) went out the window when Schwarzenegger was cast. “It seemed completely ridiculous,” Verhoeven said. “We realized we had to give him a completely different job. Jackhammer worker. We adapted everything to Arnold because I felt that you could not go around Arnold!” “We wrote it like he was just an ordinary Joe, like Jeff Bridges, one of the earlier persons who was going to do it,” said Shusett. “And you don’t know he’s a super agent but Suddenly he’s believable – so he could be a nerd, and not. But we realized everybody knows Arnold’s going to be the real secret agent … but if you can get it made, it turns your mind around.” “In retrospect,” Verhoeven added, “I’m very happy that Arnold was forced upon me.” 9. TOTAL RECALL AND ALIEN Schusett took the audience back a few decades to tell the story of how Total Recall and Alien sprang from a moment of mutual writer’s block between him and Dan O’Bannon. “He said a lot of people want to be writers – he was very blunt and could cut you down in a minute, but he was always truthful,” Schusett laughed, remembering his initial meeting with O’Bannon. “‘Can you show me something you’ve written?’ I went home and gave him something I wrote, a spec script. He said, ‘You’re good – come on over, I have a proposition for you: I can help you finish this if you can help me finish this .’ And he pulled out this thing, he had 29 pages written. He said, ‘You can’t take it with you because I don’t know you and I don’t trust you yet, sit down here and read it.’ And I sat down and read it, and it was the first 29 pages of Alien . I said ‘This is brilliant.’ He said, ‘Yeah – and I’m stuck. What I see in you, I think you’ve got a good enough mind to help me make it work. So I’ll help you fix Total Recall and make it a reality, at least the script, and you help me fix Alien .’ And that day, both movies were born.” BONUS: THE WINTER QUEEN IS DEAD Verhoeven explained why the adaptation of Boris Akunin’s Russian novel he was producing is no longer happening. ” The Winter Queen fell into the wrong hands, so it will not be made,” he said. “I think the time might have passed for this kind of lightness that was in the movie – nowadays everything is so hard and serious. It would have been a very light adventure story at the end of the 19th century, Russians – I mean, played by Americans or English [laughs] but I don’t think that’s going to be made, no. I would have loved to do that five years ago.” Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The Washington Post caught up with Jon Voight , Hollywood’s “new senior Republican,” while the 73-year-old actor was stumping for his favorite candidates down in Tampa, FL: “‘The Hollywood community is historically conservative,’ he said. ‘All the people that I so admired growing up were very patriotic and loved the country.’ But then came the left-wing ‘nonsense’ of the 1960’s, which Voight admits he also got caught up in it. ‘I’m quite ashamed of it, actually. . . I know as much as anybody about this stuff and I know how poisonous it is.'” [ Washington Post via Salon ]
