Normally we don’t discuss television, but when the show in question has a pilot directed by Martin Scorsese, you start to pay more attention. The show is titled Boardwalk Empire and was created by Terence Winter, writer for The Sopranos. The show is centered around Atlantic City, New Jersey during the time of Prohibition, and is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Nelson Johnson. The trailer can be viewed below courtesy of HBO.com (via CHUD) Read the full story

Hue Rhodes (left of the photo with Saint John of Las Vegas producer Mark Burton) is a fascinating filmmaker to speak with. I had the pleasure of talking to him the other day about his debut feature film, Saint John of Las Vegas, which will open nationwide this Friday. It has an amazing ensemble cast and a lovable lead actor in veteran Steve Buscemi. Rhodes talked with us about his film, his thoughts on social media and what it’s like to light a guy on fire.

TFS: How does it feel to have you movie open nationally?

H: It’s overwhelming, you know. I’m definitely thrilled at this point.  I’m hoping that people like the movie. These kinds of films are so dependent on opening weekend box office, so I’m hoping people go. I’m thrilled to be in the situation but I still have anxiety.

What do you think about traditional theatrical release?

H: I’ve watched this movie on a TV screen and I’ve seen it in a theater full of people and there’s a communal experience to watching a movie, an energy. I don’t think you can deny that even if you quantify it.  We’re social animals and hopefully we find a way to preserve that communal aspect as we explore new channels. Having said that, if theatrical isn’t available it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it.  I just want people to see it. I think if you can get people in the theater it’s great. If you don’t want that and prefer the smaller screen great. There’s a lot of other options available to you, and if small screen’s the only thing available well then you do that too.

What do you think of social media in independent film?

H: I think the real change will come when people who’ve grown up in social media use it; when people who use it start making decisions. Because what you have right now is people who did not grow up in this environment adding it onto their old metaphors. So I think social media isn’t a channel to reach customers, I think social media reflects a new leap. The generation that grows up with social media expects to be heard. They have something to say.  They may have a small audience but it’s their audience and I think you can expect people to expressively contribute. Everybody gets to play a little bit. For me social media has been effective because people use the content of this movie to communicate to their peers that they like the movie, they like the trailer. It doesn’t have to even do with me. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with my movie. It’s the content they are using to reach their audience. And I respect that.  If they’re using our content to  reach their audience and that helps us to promote the film, great. If people post the trailer, write their opinions about the trailer or the movie on their website, I comment. I thank them. If they have a negative opinion I try to address it because the important thing is they’ve created a little community around that content, that I can go and visit.  I can’t make that community look at me, I can’t make that community pay attention to me by going ‘ooh look at me, follow me.’ That’s not what they care about.  They care about themselves. But I can go join that community for a little bit, chop it up, talk, and get them interested.  I think the way social media works is that the people doing all the twittering and the blogging are the ones who are generating content. I don’t know if that makes sense but that’s sort of how I feel about it.

How was the transition from software product manager to filmmaker?

H: I always loved movies but not the way a cinephile would. I feel like movies are where people learn how to be adults, in a way. I grew up in a multiplex but I didn’t have any refined sensibility and I certainly didn’t know what any of the people were involved in filmmaking did. [As] the co-founder of BlueLight.com, I worked as his product manager. I was responsible for the online music and DVDs. By selling DVD’s online I learned a little bit about the business. And from learning about the business, I thought ‘maybe I could make one of these.’  I started researching books on film, in my spare time, and I liked them. I just liked everything I was reading. I went and a bought a camera, I started taking pictures, I liked all the parts. One of the things I’ve learned from business is that success in the long run goes to the person who doesn’t get tired. You don’t get tired if you’re interested in something. The devil is in the details. For example, there are a lot of people involved in the internet and software who don’t really like technology. But ultimately the people who love technology excel in that business because they love the details. I knew that was true in technology and I thought it might be true in film. And, fortunately, I love the film details.  I took a bunch of community college classes on filmmaking, at Berkley extension. Anything in the film catalog, I took. I took photography, storyboarding and filmmaking and writing.  And I just loved it.

What inspired you to write a story inspired by Dante?

H: In between BlueLight and film school I sold software to insurance companies. Insurance is a surreal industry.  I couldn’t get my head around it. It was so crazy, and so perfect for a surreal setting for an office movie. And I always loved Dante.  I just liked that Dante would make a perfect structure.  Reading Dante is a great ride and I just thought that writing a screenplay about Dante would be a great one.

What is the main theme of the film?

H: The theme of the film is the evolution of the accepting of yourself as you are for better or for worse. I think the traditional structure of a hero’s journey is that you think you’re nobody but then through some ridiculously stressful event you find out that you were more than you thought you were ever going to be. Our theme is a little bit different in that the purpose of the hero’s journey is a kind of exhaustion – in the end John gets to just settle down. That’s what happens to everybody in high school. You show up with these ambitions of who you want to be and it’s exhausting; just relax and you’ll finally get to be cool because you’re relaxed.

How was it working with well-known actors like Steve Buscemi?

H: It was great. When you deal with people who are professionals in a vocational sense they’re easier to work with because they’re so good. Steve [Buscemi] was great because he’s been in so many movies. If you bring Steve in the edit [room] for voice over he drops it in his mouth like he’s saying it for the first time. Steve is great. It’s a real, real luxury to work with people of this caliber because they all really knew what they were doing.

What was the toughest scene to shoot?

H: Logistically, we lit a guy on fire in a flame suit. We had to inter-cut that with footage of acting because we couldn’t light John Cho on fire. The script calls for him to be lit seven times. We could only afford to light him four times because its extremely expensive.  I didn’t know this before the morning of the shoot. Stunt people charge by the amount of time they are lit on fire, and the duration. We could only light our stuntman on fire four times for up to 10 seconds. We had to block the scene with cameras and anticipate what the live action would be, and what Jon Cho would do, and then light him on fire so that the cameras couldn’t see each other while they were filming different parts of the scene, simultaneously. We had to face the camera so that one was capturing the second, fourth and sixth burn and the other camera was capturing first, third, fifth and seventh burn, which is extremely difficult blocking-wise. Extremely difficult blocking. We couldn’t do it again if we didn’t get it the first time. That was the hardest and most intense scene to shoot.

What other influences did you have for the film? You reference William Eggleston and Harold Pinter on your blog…

H: We watched a lot of Ozu. Very square plane, simple action straight at the camera, and 90 degree cuts rather than 180 degree cuts. The purpose of that kind of cutting is less about accelerating time, more about establish space. We did that pretty religiously, with pretty huge benefits, because it adds to the overall style.  It also turns out that if you shoot geometrically, you don’t always have to shoot a master shot. Because if the framing is really consistent then even if the audience does not know what the room looks like, they know what the movie looks like. It has a geometry that makes us uncomfortable. So we have several scenes in the movie with no master shot and you wouldn’t know it. On a tight budget and schedule, not shooting a master can save you 1-2 hours. Master shots are exhausting to light …and you end up shooting something which you hope you don’t have to end up using, anyway. So by not having to shoot a master shot, every frame of the film had more attention.

What do you think about film festivals and the Cinevegas demise?

H: I think film festivals are really important for a couple reasons. First, they help you believe. I went to festivals before I brought a movie to one. To the outsider, movies are this impossible thing to make. Film festivals deconstruct them a little bit. ‘Oh, there’s a short. I can do that.  There’s a feature that came from a short…’ – it maps out steps people can do. It’s also a wonderful community of people, investing their psychic energy in films. It’s also a great environment to build momentum for a film.

I had a wonderful time at Cinevegas. it was a dream premiere in a huge auditorium that held 1200 people. The festival also put on a fantastic show. I watched Yellow Submarine projected on a jumbotron while sitting in the beach of Manderlay Bay. It was the best! I think everybody loved Cinevegas and hopefully they’ll come back soon.

Last 3 films you saw:

Invictus

Up in the Air

Avatar

Top 3 Directors:

Paul Thomas Anderson

Francis Ford Coppola

Matteo Garrone

Check out the trailer for Saint John of Las Vegas here:

To stay up to date with Mr. Rhodes, follow him on his Twitter as well as the official Saint John of Las Vegas Twitter.

Oscilloscope Pictures | USA | 105 min

Films portraying U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq have a bit of a bad reputation save for The Hurt Locker and a few others. Most are loaded with ideology and preach no more coherently than a cable-news pundit. Those that examine the reintegration period when soldiers return home have not had as much of a chance to shine.

The Messenger, from first-time director Oren Moverman, is about post-Iraq as much as it is about any war. The film refrains from flashing to gritty warfare footage and from dwelling on soldier’s stories until it’s absolutely necessary. There is wrenching drama in observing the aftermath of war on all those directly or indirectly connected to the U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Despite weak pacing in the second hour, The Messenger articulately provides fascinating profiles of two men forever scarred from fighting on the front lines – with a more concentrated focus than other post-Deer Hunter coming-home fare. Read the full story

Dimension Films | USA | 90 min.

These days it almost seems like a hip, wise-ass, teenage angst flick would be remiss to not have Michael Cera in the lead. Cera’s shtick has been played over and over and its reckless use has started to take its toll on the audiences and critics alike. Following the disappointment of Year One it seemed like ‘The Era of Cera’ had been finally put to rest — or so we all thought. Cera’s hilarious rendition of Nick Twisp in Youth In Revolt has enough Cera trademark awkwardness shtick to be recognizable as the kid we all know and love but also has enough twist and originality to remind you that he is still a viable actor and he has not turned in his skinny jeans just yet.

Youth In Revolt is a book-adaptation film and its main problem is rooted in exactly that — it is a book-adaptation film. C.D. Payne’s 499-page novel is a tough feat to compress into a coherent 90 minute film, but the material they were able to transfer is hilarious and definitely close to the best, if not the best, performance of Cera’s career. It’s weird, it’s smart, it’s shocking and it’s just enough for Cera to reclaim the throne of teenage sex comedy king.

Nick Twisp is a smart-ass kid with trashy parents (Jean Smart and Steve Buscemi) that has little direction or joy in life. Living in Oakland with his mother and her current boyfriend Jerry (Zach Galifianakis),  Nick deals with his promiscuous mother who has a complete disregard for what it takes to be a proper parent. Nick is brought along on a kind of long term “vacation” to a weird and seedy trailer park in Ukiah and is forced to deal with his mother’s shitty parenting and not-so-subtle exposition of her awkward sex life in the close quarters of a caravan. There is an ultra-conservative christian family living in the trailer park as well, and like every family that seeks to socially repress and morally program their children, the kids are exactly the opposite, privately, than their parents wish them to be. Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday), the publicly obedient and privately rebellious daughter of the neighborhood religious fanatic family, is exactly the kind of smart and seductive girl that could complete Nick’s incomplete life, make him fall hopelessly in love and trigger his uncontrollable obsession.

Nick ultimately shoe-horns himself into a ‘relationship’ with Sheeni even though she technically already has a boyfriend. Over the summer their relationship develops and Nick’s obsesssion and desires reach boiling point. Unfortunately, Nick eventually has to return to Oakland and being 14 years old it leaves few options for the relationship to continue. Sheeni convinces Nick, with little effort, that he must do two things to save their love: 1) Get his father a job in Ukiah, and 2) Do something bad enough to get kicked out of his mother’s house so he can leave Oakland to live with his recently relocated father in Ukiah. While Nick is definitely a back talking wise-ass kid, he rarely actually steps out of line to do something about his angst. Confronted with an unquestionable desire to get back to Sheeni and his complete inability to do more than just talk, Nick does what any sane person would do — create a smooth talking no-bullshit alter ego named Francois Dillinger. Francois smokes cigarettes, scoffs at risks, swoons women and never blinks in the face of danger — actually never blinks any other time either apparently with his piercing gaze of badassery. Francois takes Nick by the hand whether Nick wants to cooperate or not and does all the things Nick wishes he could do but never could. Laws will be broken, neighborhoods caught on fire and Nick’s cautious and timid sensibilities will be cast aside as Francois teaches Nick that when you want something, you better damn well get it.

Youth In Revolt succeeds in one-upping it self with one ridiculous plan after another to win Sheeni’s affection. Nick failing at avoiding the crazy plans and their ultimate consequences created by Francois, both of whom are played by Michael Cera, escalate hilariously throughout the film and deliver solid and memorable laughs on screen. The laughs are just one aspect of the film though, as Cera successfully delivers the aimless emotional impact of the situation without over doing it. The audience laughs at the situation Nick finds himself in, but we know under the surface he’s just a poor kid striving for a real connection. Seeing the way his family acts towards him and life in general sets the stage for the sweet desperate innocence that Nick has to break out of uncontrollably into rebellion — or a slightly more mentally unstable method of creating a rebellious alter-ego. Nick found his connection in Sheeni and will do what it takes to retain it. When Nick tells Sheeni, “I’ve been alone my whole life,” it’s obvious that all hilarity and jokes aside, Nick has had a rough life and he’s not going to sit on the sidelines anymore.

Much like the source material, the film is sharp and clever. Utilizing a well-timed voice-over throughout the film, the pace of the narrative is smooth and engaging. If you have lost hope in the golden child of hip comedy, fear not, for Michael Cera proves in fact he is a legitimate actor and not a one-trick pony on his way out of a possibly too bright career. Portia Doubleday does a great job of bringing the written character of Sheeni Saunders to life as well with exactly the right amount of quirky intelligence required to fit the bill. If you are a fan of the book, you may find that too much of the story has been cut out to your liking but what they were able to adapt makes for a great, only sometimes feeling rushed or short, screenplay regardless. In any case, if you’re a fan of the book or just a fan of well made teen comedy, the film is definitely a hit and you should seek it out at your local cinemas.

Youth In Revolt will hit cinemas nationwide January 8, 2010.

8 out of 10

The teaser trailer for Dennis Dugan’s new ensemble comedy Grown Ups has been released by Columbia Pictures.  The film has a massive cast including Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Maria Bello, Gary Busey and David Spade. Check out the trailer below via Yahoo.

Read the full story