July 22, 2003

The Irish & Scots and British are coming!

Last week saw an invasion of great filmmakers from “over there.” I might say they all came from the U.K., but Stephen Frears was kind enough to remind me that Jim Sheridan might gut me if he heard me mistakenly including Ireland as a part of the U.K.

One of the things that was quite clear in conversations with all three men (the third was Scotsman Peter Mullan), is that they aren’t from 'round these parts. They are politically aware, though Frears seems to have the least activist blood running through his veins. Mullan and I chatted about everything but his movie – which I admire greatly – including the homeless situation in Santa Monica, which he found absolutely shocking. And Sheridan has the relaxed demeanor of a man who has lived through it all, his eyes lighting up when the spark on interest takes him.

They have lived a variety of lives. Mullan didn’t start acting until his mid-thirties. Sheridan didn’t direct for the screen until he was 40, after spending decades honing his skills in the theater, both in Ireland and here in the U.S. Frears spent a decade in television before making the transition to feature films.

One thing the three men share that seems to separate them from all but a few Hollywood directors is a lack of preciousness. Sheridan and Mullan both went five years between their prior directing projects and the ones coming out this year. But neither spent their time waiting for the right deal with a major movie star and nine-figure financing to come through. The results for both men are films that are intensely intimate and deeply emotional. Sheridan chose a semi-autobiographical story that could allow him to slide the powerful themes of family, live, death and rebirth. Mullan chose to tell a tale of disgraceful hypocrisy in the most expectedly sacred of environments. Frears’ work, this year and forever, is more eclectic and more the work of a master craftsman than an artist purging his soul. On the count, he makes no apologies.

The three films these men made are all likely to make my Top Ten for 2003. Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things is a masterful personal thriller, using the backdrop of European/African migration to fuel the fire. Frears challenges us by telling the story through the eyes of actors we are not overly familiar with, but who bring us to their side. It is no prettier a picture than The Grifters or even Dangerous Liasons. But Frears does have a hero to work with this time. He is among the walking wounded, but he is the purest hero, perhaps, of Frears’ entire directing career.

In many ways, Sheridan’s In America is the phoenix that arises from the ashes of Scorsese’s failed Gangs of New York. Indeed, the men of Five Points may have been the people who built New York. But the majority of immigrants have not been gangsters, just regular people looking for a better place in this world. Sheridan’s film brings us that journey through the eyes of one family, damaged by the loss of one of their own and seeking a better life in the toughest city in the world.

Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters is reminiscent of religion itself… demanding, painful, but ultimately fulfilling for those who believe. The true tale of three girls who are stripped of their freedom and have their spirits raped by the very church that is supposed to save their souls is harrowing. Among the most horrifying moments is one left to a cameo by the director himself, as a father without a hint of compassion for his child who is simply in need of his love. The hardest ride of the three movies, it remains unforgettable.

It is easy to forget what all of this is really about. These three are great reminders. All three are seasoned pros. All three have an undeniable passion for the work, more so than for industry status or the massive dollars. (No doubt, they would like the cash. But given the choice between a million and final cut, I imagine at least two of the three would go for the artistic freedom.) And of course, all three talk funny. God bless `em, every one.

ANIMATION DREAMING: Last week, a bunch of us spent an afternoon wandering around DreamWorks Animation, offered a sneak peek at the next four DreamWorks Animation projects and a television series due on NBC in 2004. I am sure that some of the other sites will provide a lot of detail about storylines and specific characters and the like. Enjoy them.

The most extensive presentation was a start-to-finish look at next summer’s Shrek 2. The only major vocal performance that we didn’t get a taste of was The Fairy Godmother, voiced by Jennifer Saunders. But rest assured that cast newcomers John Cleese, Julie Andrews and Rupert Everett fit right in… and that Antonio Banderas will be following up his Broadway triumph in Nine with an animated triumph as the voice of the Puss-in-Boots, who is to Shrek 2 as Yoda was to Attack of the Clones. (I’ll let you put that together.)

The story of Shrek 2 is kind of like every sequel in history… literally every one. There is a new locale, the very L.A.-lie Far Far Away. Shrek faces his own version of Meet The Parents. And remember how you enjoyed all the fairy tale characters , re-imagined by Dreamworks/PDI? Well, now you get to enjoy all the fairy tale villains.

Most importantly, Shrek 2 asks and seems to follow faithfully a road to the answer of a single, focused question… what would happen if the “happily every after” that everyone expected was turned upside down by a fighting, farting, loving green ogre and a talking donkey?

Sharkslayer is the next film coming from DreamWorks. Directed by Shrek co-director Vicky Jensen, it is n underwater comedy about an underdog fish hero who gets caught up in a lie – that he is a sharkslayer – until he eventually becomes the here he was pretending to be.

Any thought that this is just another variation on Finding Nemo should be put to rest right now. The design of this film is anthropomorphic in a way that Nemo is not. And while Nemo stretched the real ideas of its fish to somewhat extreme characters, Sharkslayer is a story that could be told with a different group of animals or even in live action.

What little we actually saw of Sharkslayer was very clever, reminiscent in some ways of the animal kingdom of The Flintstones, on a far more sophisticated scale. I’ll be looking forward to the remake of the classic “Car Wash” for the “Whale Wash” sequence.

Production on Madagascar, a film about Central Park Zoo animals left to their own urban devices in the wild and Over The Hedge, based on the comic strip of the same name, are in the very early stages, so there was little more to learn than storylines and some casting. The design for both films is fascinating. And then there was the NBC TV project starring the voices of John Goodman and Carl Reiner and featuring Sigfreid & Roy (yes, that Sigfreid & Roy!!!), called Father Of The Pride. Funny stuff.

But all that said, I would say that there was a small bit of misreporting by Laura Holson in her New York Times piece yesterday. The most interesting thing about the entire day was Jeffrey Katzenberg, who did not write off “traditional” animation, but boldly suggested that the feel of traditional animation will soon be doable on the computer. Each film, by his reckoning, is taking the medium of computerized animation a giant leap forward. The effective detail of Shrek in Shrek 2 is amplified “by a magnitude of 10.”

That is the digital future for live action film as well… digital technology as a tool that is flexible enough to do anything, not just create a new style of images. It wasn’t long ago that fill-in artists drew every image in an animated film by hand. Computers have long since taken over that responsibility even in “traditionally” animated films. Every one of those animated films that were not CG 3-D and flopped has had at least some major computer animated elements.

It should also be pointed out that the fact that DreamWorks’ next four animated films will all be made digitally has nothing to do with the box office failure of Sinbad. Perhaps this is why DreamWorks brought us to the studio when they did. It is virtually impossible to follow trends in live action movie making. It is literally impossible in animation, where three years is the threadbare minimum to make a film, even when, as in Shrek 2, much of the development work is already done and characters are well established visually.

The future of animation seems strong. DreamWorks is pushing in its new directions technically, while sticking with tried and true formulas of storytelling. Pixar has its own thing going. Chris Wedges’ Blue Sky adds yet another voice. Then, of course, there is DreamWorks’ partnership with Aardman Animation, which will soon bring new Wallace & Gromit films. Warner Bros. Animation is going great guns on TV and launched both a new Looney Tunes movie and a new series of shorts later this year.

Phew…it’s good to know that creativity is alive and well in Hollywood… well, Burbank…

READER OF THE DAY: THE EMBALMED ONE strikes again!: “You know, George Lucas really screwed me over. No, not by creating Jar Jar or any such prequel quibble some people might have, but by creating Star Wars. It is Star Wars (A New Hope-actually), the first film I ever saw in a theatre, that truly enthralled me with film. Ever since, films have altered my perception of reality, and I do not find it a totally bad thing.

This altered perception has led to me learning several valuable lessons about life from movies, these include: how to disarm a person pointing a gun at you (Rush Hour), how to use your boss' time away from the office due to an injury as a way to give yourself a chance at a career (Working Girl), how to successfully defeat a zombie (Dawn of the Living Dead), how to not play in traffic (The Program), how to survive in the desert (Lawrence of Arabia), how to spy on a woman, and then make her your girlfriend (There Is Something About Mary), how to get a start in the porn industry (Boogie Nights), how to get paid for likeness rights (Chasing Amy), how to survive riding a tank of a cliff (Indian Jones and the Last Crusade), and to flee to Mexico when anything gets too bad (Too many films to count).

Those lessons aside, what I value most in film, is the fact that everything will work out in the end. That by the time the last bit of credit has rolled, everything has worked out in that 1 and half to 3 hours or 4 if QT could have gotten his way. Life seldom has film like closure or resolution, no matter how hard I look. Yet, the power this concept has over me I do not find a curse, but a pleasure. Because, who doesn’t want it all to work out in the end?”

E ME: Interesting, Can you work it all out by the end? How excited are you about Shrek 2? Sharkslayer?

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