Paul Newman 1925-2008

Paul Newman's summation speech at the end of THE VERDICT. Thanks for it all, Mr. Newman. Rest in peace.

Read Robert Redford's tribute to Newman, below.



Robert Redford remembers Paul Newman

I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn't want me for the film it wanted somebody as well known as Paul he stood up for me. I don't know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers. The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its genesis in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craft and focused on digging into the characters we were going to play.

Both of us were fundamentally American actors, with the qualities and virtues that characterize American actors: irreverence, playing on the other's flaws for fun, one-upmanship but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the core of our relationship off the screen. Paul was very engaged at work. He was there. He liked a lot of rehearsal. But he was fun too. Whenever he'd make a mistake on set, he would enjoy it more than anybody. I'd look at him, and he'd look at me, and I'd say, "You're not fooling anybody. You're not staring at me intensely; you've lost your line." And he'd roar with laughter.

We shared the belief that if you're fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back he with his Newman's Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are gravely ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn't see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events. And then we'd give each other a hard time. Whatever success one of us would have, the other would knock it down. If you're in a position of being viewed iconically, you'd better have a mechanism to take yourself down to keep the balance. I think we did that for each other.


Newman and Katharine Ross in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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Talia Shire: The Hollywood Interview

Talia Shire as Connie Corleone in The Godfather.


TALIA SHIRE REMEMBERS THE FAMILY BUSINESS
By
Alex Simon

Talia Shire was born Talia Rose Coppola April 25, 1946 on Long Island, New York, the third, and youngest, child of orchestra conductor Carmine Coppola and his wife, Italia. Young “Tally” grew up immersed in the arts, and attended the prestigious Yale Drama School, in addition to studying with renowned acting guru Stella Adler in New York during the 1960s. After making her debut in the Roger Corman production “The Young Racers” in 1968, she appeared in several other low budget films into the early 1970s, during which time she wed composer David Shire, taking his surname. Around this time, older brother Francis was casting a gangster picture he was reluctantly directing for the money. It was called “The Godfather,” and Talia Shire’s turn as Connie Corleone, the lone sister of the world’s most famous mafia clan, is now the stuff of cinematic legend, and earned her an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for "Godfather II" in 1974.

Shire continued her contribution to cinematic history with the role of Adrian, love interest to Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky” in five of the film franchise’s six installments. She was again tapped for Oscar, this time as Best Actress, in 1976. Talia stepped behind the camera to direct the Corman-produced “One Night Stand,” starring Ally Sheedy, in 1995 and has watched with pride as her sons Jason Schwartzman (star of indie favorites “Rushmore” and “I Heart Huckabees” to name a few) and Robert Schwartzman (a composer and musician) have carved out successful careers of their own (their father, producer Jack Schwartzman, succumbed to cancer in 1994).

Paramount Pictures Home Video releases The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration on DVD September 23, a magnificent five disc set containing remastered editions of all three “Godfather” films, along with two bonus discs of supplements that detail the films’ production. Talia Shire spoke to us recently about what it’s like being a member of film fact, and film fiction’s, most famous families.

It’s amazing watching all the retrospective documentaries in this new box set. “The Godfather” literally had everything seemingly going against it in the beginning.
Talia Shire: Francis was 32, and owed a lot of money, and really wanted to make small, personal films, and really he took the job because George Lucas and the others at American Zoetrope convinced him that with the money he made directing this, they could all make their little pictures. (laughs) It’s really funny, if you think about it. So Francis didn’t even want to cast me as Connie, in the beginning. I was dealing with something on my own at the time, which was an enormous amount of stage fright after Yale Drama School. I felt sort of like Humpty-Dumpty. I asked Francis for an audition, and he said “no,” at the time, and he was quite right, because I was so green. My manager then was named Fred Roos, who I introduced to Francis, and I think he and Mario Puzo, after a month, convinced him to let me audition. The audition was held in New York, and in that room, waiting their turn, was Martin Sheen, Pacino, and most of the actors in the cast were there. Francis gives you an honest-to-God actor’s audition. He doesn’t do it in an office where the telephone rings. I knew my audition was terrific and I was picked by Robert Evans’ office. I used the name “Shire,” not “Coppola,” so they had no idea Francis was my older brother. After I was picked, Francis and I had a long talk, because he was very concerned about the politics that go on in studios. You know “I’ll give you one little sister for two cousins,” that kind of thing. Looking back on it, I realize how hard it was for him to have me on that movie. It wasn’t like “Okay sis, you got the job!” (laughs) His casting choices were extraordinary, and they went against most of the studio’s casting choices, but ultimately, they allowed him to do what he wanted.

Connie and Carlo (Gianni Russo) in happier days.

The fact that his choices were, for that time, so offbeat, gives the film the feeling of authenticity it still has today.
You said it. Diane Keaton, I remember I had known her way back in New York, and she had been doing this great commercial, I forget for which product, but it was getting a lot of play on TV, where she was just adorable. Mario Puzo came up to me and said “Oh, I just love Diane. She’s perfect for Kay.” So this was a major break for her. Then John Cazale, who played Fredo, and Al Pacino, were both already big stars in the New York theater world, both had won Obie Awards, I think, but nobody had heard of them in Hollywood. But young actors were talking about them all the time.

That was really the first time in years that East Coast actors were brought to Hollywood because prior to that, it had been two separate worlds.
It really was at that point. Again, that was Francis’ doing. You have to remember that Francis was a theater major as an undergraduate, so he came from a different tradition and had enormous respect for actors, and his writing and Mario’s writing was really up there, in terms of dramatic text.

It was Shakespearian.
Yes, very Shakespearian with the first one, then the second one was very Greek, so Francis really understood the scale, dramatically, and wasn’t afraid of that literature, just like Orson Welles wasn’t afraid to bring that in, so you have this extraordinary blending visually, and in terms of the other traditions.

The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration DVD box set.

I know the first couple weeks of part I being shot were rather nerve-wracking, because everyone was afraid Francis was about to be fired. What was that like for you?
Francis was great to all of us, but it was awful for him. That’s when I felt, personally, that I wished I wasn’t there. I felt so awful for him, and that’s when you don’t need your sister hanging around, you know what I mean? I really was watching my P’s and Q’s, because I didn’t want to cause him any more grief than what he was going through. Plus his wife, Ellie, was about to give birth to their daughter Sofia on top of everything else! So they were just enormously dramatic, those times. It took about two weeks before the studio saw how good the footage was that was coming in, before we all realized he wasn’t going to be fired. But before that, it was a hair-raising couple weeks, let me tell you. I think they even had another director ready to go.

Shire and James Caan as Sonny.

I think there was a guy on-set who was even doing his best to sabotage Francis, so he could take over, is that right?
Yes, absolutely. The thing is, the great Gordon Willis, who shot all three films, had a visual intuition that he and Francis would collaborate on. Initially, when they sent in the dailies, the studio executives didn’t know what to make of it, because they’d never seen a color palate like the one he and Francis were using. It just looked really dark, and really weird to them, and in pieces, they didn’t know what to make of it. As time progressed, those pieces started to come together, and then they understood.

Apparently the turning point was after the scene where Michael shoots Sollozzo and McCluskey. When the studio chiefs saw that, they left well enough alone.
I think that was true, and what I found out later, was the scene where Carlo beats up Connie, that was such a tough scene to shoot, and when they saw how well Francis brought it off, they were impressed.

Connie and Carlo's battle royale.

You bring up a question I’ve been dying to ask: were either you or Gianni Russo really hurt during that scene? It was a single, continuous take, and it really looked like you were smashing things and he was beating the hell out of you.
No, neither one of us were hurt, but I was so worried that Gordon, who was right in the middle of it, was going to get hurt with all the dishes and things flying around, and if I had blown it, they would have had to clean up and start over from scratch, which they couldn’t afford to do because the budget was very tight. I remember that my shoe fell off at one point, and I just kept running, and thinking ‘Please feet, don’t fail me now!’ Gianni and I worked very hard on the blocking of that scene so neither one of us would get hurt, but he told me something later that was very interesting, which was that scene was very difficult for him because his mother had been a battered wife, and it was very hard for him to play that out.

Let’s talk about how the feeling of the shoot progressed with each film. Was there a different feeling on the sets of parts II and III than there was on part I?
It’s interesting because many of the actors had become great stars by part II, and you mentioned earlier that great scene where Pacino commits the murder in part I, and that’s where you really see Pacino emerge as an actor, I think. It’s based on “The king is dead, long live the king,” I think, so there’s enormous tradition there. But during that scene, I think Al starts to go through this enormous transition, both in the role, and as an actor. You see his aesthetic changing, and he becomes extremely empowered, on every level. Then on the second one, we all worked together, and there was an enormous sense of affection for each other. We were a family at that point. The second one was so stunning, which rarely happens with a sequel, but Mario and Francis were always working to up the ante. Now you have Greek literature, because you have the death of a mother, and a brother killing a brother, which was a very hard scene for us to shoot, because we all loved Johnny Cazale so much. We didn’t want to lose him, and then we did for real a few years later. That was a very painful loss for us.

I think when he did “The Deer Hunter” he was dying of cancer, and had passed away prior to its release in 1978.
Yeah, I think you’re right. That was a tough one, boy. Actors are really good people, on the whole, and have a sense of kinship, and when they’re actors like Johnny; they also have great compassion and humanity that they bring to the table, so it was a major, major loss on many levels. A real tragedy. John was a great acting partner. He made your performance better.

You can see in all of his work, particularly in “Dog Day Afternoon,” how present he was in every scene.
Yes, he was amazing in that, and Al was devastated by his death. They were very close.

Tell us about working with Brando.
Oh, God! We were all so blown away to be working with him. Just to watch him work, was such a treat. He was a professional. He knew everything about film craft, how things cut together. He knew how everything worked, and was very kind and generous to all these young actors, just terrific. Brando would put ear plugs in his ears, because his teacher Stella Adler, who was also my teacher, had this thing called “active listening,” where you really listen to your partner, because your partner is you. So he’d put in ear plugs so that he’d have to strain to hear the other actors, and really pay attention. When we tried it, we just couldn’t hear, and missed our cues. (laughs)

The lesson there is that you can’t mimic God!
(laughs) Yeah, he was just a great craftsman, and wasn’t some “method mumbler” like so many naysayers had tried to make him out to be in his youth. This was a great actor, in any tradition.

Even in the bad movies he did, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. That’s the sign of a great actor, I think: he or she can still be brilliant with substandard material.
That’s just God’s gift of charisma. I just think that’s the way he was designed. But when you marry that incredible charisma and that incredible mind with great choices, that was Stella Adler’s thing about the choices you make, the shape of that just took it to another level and would illuminate not just that character, but the text of the entire piece.

Shire and Sylvester Stallone in Rocky.

Let’s talk about the metamorphosis of your character, Connie Corleone. If you look at the “arc” of Connie and that of Adrian, your character in the “Rocky” films, they’re very similar: both start out as shy, mousy women, who grow into these forces to be reckoned with.
Well, I guess I’m very much like Adrian: terribly, terribly shy and very censored, for various reasons. Adrian blossoms through love and partnership, whereas Connie is sacrificed, so her development in terms of her power is very distorted, almost like the “Sunset Boulevard” character by part III, where she’s just been terribly sacrificed. But they both come from a place where they have been dismissed.

Yes, and Adrian becomes empowered, while Connie becomes corrupted.
Yeah, well for heavens sake, her husband’s been murdered by her brother after he plotted to kill her other brother, so in many ways, she becomes like her father, like The Godfather. Although, she emerges when her mother dies, “long live the Queen,” although she’s not happy with Michael’s idea of becoming legitimate.

Shire as Connie in The Godfather Part III.

When one looks at the Coppola family, I can’t think of another Hollywood dynasty except maybe the Hustons, who keep this amazing tradition in the arts alive.
People ask about that, and I’ve always said that we’re in the tradition of a circus family. And what I mean is, we kill ourselves for our work. Francis did a creative camp at his place in Napa about twelve years ago, for only family members. He directed a play, Sofia directed a play, Jason wrote a play…because Francis had been a camp counselor in drama. So that’s what we do: we pass on those traditions in theater, and we’re very proud of it, and we don’t like lazy people, and there’s no free ride. We may be competitive, but as in great circus families, we never drop the other members, so we can do what I call “the dangerous tricks.”


The climax of The Godfather, with Talia Shire as Connie Corleone.

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Christian Slater: The Hollywood Interview

Actor Christian Slater does double-duty as suburban dad and superspy.



CHRISTIAN SLATER IS HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
By
Alex Simon

Editor's Note: This article appears in the October issue of Venice Magazine.

Christian Slater first entered the public eye with his turn in the genre-shattering classic Heathers in 1988, playing a teenage rebel who evolves from smokin’ in the boys room, to bumping off his sadistic classmates, to becoming a homegrown terrorist by the film’s conclusion. Slater was instantly dubbed “the new Jack Nicholson” by press and public alike, and soon found himself to be not only in demand as an actor, but also fodder for the tabloids, a fate that hasn’t been kind to many young actors throughout Hollywood history, particularly in the past year. However, Christian Slater decided he was a survivor somewhere along the line, and has grown into an actor of range and skill after successfully navigating the rocky road of early success.

Born Christian Michael Leonard Slater on August 18, 1969 in New York City, Slater is the son of actor Michael Slater (aka Michael Hawkins), and casting director Mary Jo Slater. Growing up surrounded by the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd rubbed off on young Christian, who was discovered by veteran Broadway director Michael Kidd and cast in a revival of The Music Man in the late ‘70s. He scored his first major film with The Name of the Rose in 1986, and has also appeared in such lauded titles as Tucker, Pump Up the Volume, True Romance, Interview with the Vampire and The Contender. Slater was part of the ensemble cast of Emilio Estevez’s critically-acclaimed Bobby in 2006, and has kept busy doing stage work recently, including a heralded turn as McMurphy in the London revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Christian Slater brings his unique brand of talent to television this Fall with NBC’s new series My Own Worst Enemy, where Slater does double-duty as Henry Spivey, a seemingly-ordinary suburban dad and husband who also leads a secret life as intelligence operative Edward Albright. The catch: neither personality knows about the other, until both find their single life very much in danger. The show premieres October 13th on NBC.

Christian Slater sat down recently at The Beverly Hills Hotel’s legendary Polo Lounge to discuss his career past, present and future. Here’s what was said:

My Own Worst Enemy marks your first TV series as a star. Is it a different process than working on a feature?
Christian Slater: Well, the primary difference is the speed at which you work. You work much faster in television. We took 14 days shooting the pilot, and we’re creating this whole new world here, so it was just this incredibly creative environment. When the pressure is on, great ideas tend to spring forth, and I think they have in this case. We’re close to finishing the second episode now, and I’m just having a great time, one of the best times I’ve had in my career, actually. It’s edgy, it’s interesting, and they’re delving into some really interesting areas. We’re all getting comfortable around each other, and becoming creative together on the set. It just feels like there’s a real focus, and the train is rolling out of the station now. It’s just going to be crazy. It’s a crazy, crazy show.

A lot of the actors I’ve spoken with in the past who have gone from features to television, say that the idea of doing a weekly series is really comforting, because you never lose that little voice in back of your head that every job could be your last.
You do have that fear and anxiety, no question. But being part of this particular show with this network (NBC), their support has been amazing. The Olympics alone gave us such amazing publicity that it really helped put wind in our sails. I should thank Michael Phelps for keeping it all so interesting, and keeping people tuned in as they were! So when you have that kind of support from “management,” so to speak, going into it, it lessens the anxiety—a lot!

Promo for NBC's My Own Worst Enemy.

Not only is shooting a television episode more time-constrained, but you’re playing two completely different characters who are in virtually every scene. It must be exhausting as well as exhilarating.
I never stop, and there’s not much time to myself, that’s for sure. It’s me talking to myself from one angle, then me talking to myself from another. We should also be clear that it’s not two different guys. It’s just me! (laughs) There’s sometimes some confusion that there’s a twin, or a clone or something. It’s all me: two guys in one body. There’s a microchip in my brain that separates the two personalities.

I’d imagine one advantage from an acting and a writing standpoint is that since with TV you’re really making a series of short films, rather than a single feature, it allows you to go much deeper into the characters and situations than you would in a traditional movie.
God, yes! Each episode really ends on a cliffhanger, and goes into the next episodes. I hope they keep that formula going. The other great thing is that I get to live in two worlds: one normal world, and then this world of incredible adventure.

You’re basically living out every boy’s fantasy: what boy didn’t grow up wanting to be James Bond?
Exactly! And some of the scenarios are really wacky and out-of-control, where I get to live out some of those fantasies.

It’s kind of like the ‘60s all over again: James Bond gave birth to great shows like Man From UNCLE, I Spy, Mission: Impossible, and now the reinvention of the Bond series and the Bourne films have really given new life to the whole spy genre, that’s transferring over to television.
Yeah, we’ve been talking about that quite a bit on the set, especially I Spy because Robert Culp and Bill Cosby had such great chemistry. We really let ourselves sort of go crazy and play. This is definitely one of the more fun sandboxes I’ve ever gotten to be in.

Let’s talk about your background. You were born and raised in New York.
Yeah, my dad’s an actor, he was the first Jack Ryan on Ryan’s Hope and was a pretty big soap star. My mom’s a very well-known casting director. I would make my dad take me to work with him when I was little, and watch him do his thing. He was creative, and funny, and just this wild actor. He had a real command of the stage.

It’s in the DNA, you could say.
Yes, absolutely. I started auditioning for things and got discovered by the director Michael Kidd, who saw me on The Joe Franklin Show, and cast me as Winthrop in The Music Man.

Was there one particular moment you knew that you were an actor? Was there one play, or movie or performance you saw that crystallized it for you?
This might sound strange, but it was probably more recently that I realized I was really an actor, when I was doing some stage work in London, on the West End. As a result of making some choices to work with a teacher, it really brought a lot of things to light for me. For years, I felt like I was just kind of winging it, and that any moment this committee was going to show up and discover that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. So I worked with a great acting coach named Larry Moss, who’s just the best, and I learned a lot and rediscovered what a gift it is to be an actor, and that it really is a lot of fun. You get to escape from your own life for a couple hours a night when you’re doing a play.

The play was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, right?
Yeah. I played McMurphy, at the Gielgud Theater. It was like doing a rock concert for eight months, really amazing.

Slater (center) with the London cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

So you got to assume the mantle of McMurphy, the role which most people would argue made Jack Nicholson, whom you were often compared to right after breaking out in Heathers. Was it tough to play a part that’s so heavily identified with one iconic actor’s interpretation of it?
It was tricky, and obviously I was scared of unconsciously imitating Nicholson’s performance. So I stayed away from the movie. I’d seen it of course, but not in years. I read the book, and that really provided me with my own source material for that character, and it’s a great character. Plus the book and the play are quite different from the movie, in terms of it being from the Chief’s point-of-view. I realized after doing it that Jack Nicholson has built a career out of doing that character. And why wouldn’t you? The guy’s heroic, he’s funny, he’s incredibly smart, just a great character.

What was your interpretation of him?
I didn’t play him as a lunatic, certainly. I played it more like it was all a big misunderstanding, and he was in this situation and trying to make the best of it, but he was in a totalitarian scenario, and his passion and ability to rally the troops and get the guys on his side was the thing I really identified with, and his ability to take on the system created a great sense of passion. The guy just wanted to have fun, and there was someone constantly standing in the way. He’s also a Christ-like figure who’s got his disciples and has to be sacrificed at the end in order to get these guys to rally.

It’s especially topical for the times we’re living in.
Oh yeah! It’s a universally identifiable story, and you can’t help but get caught up in it. We’d have nights where the audience would get so caught up in it that they’d be cheering for us to watch the World Series! One night people got into fights in the audience. Everyone really got into it. There was a sense of reality. Once the lights came up, I think they all felt like they’d been in the asylum with us.

Slater and Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose.

The first film I saw you in was The Name of the Rose, where you got to play opposite the great Sean Connery. Heady stuff for a kid?
Sean Connery was great. I grew up watching the Bond movies, and working with him at 16 was like having a master class in acting, life, all sorts of things. He’s an incredible professional, a real gentleman, a man’s man. He also didn’t take any shit from anybody. He had earned his right to be who he was, and things moved along according to his plan. He was concerned about every element and how everything was treated on the set. He didn’t even want to see the horses mistreated. There was a horse wrangler on the set, and Sean didn’t like the way the guy had hit the horse with his riding crop. So he grabbed it from the guy and said (in Connery’s voice) “Don’t hit the fucking horses!” (laughs) I watched the film recently on cable, and really got emotional because it took me back to that time, and everything I was going through. It really is an absolutely astoundingly beautiful movie. The work that Jean-Jacques Annaud did…I don’t think I had a clue then what a special film it was. Every once in a while there’s a special project you get to be a part of, and that was one. I was always a sensitive kid, and I remember that wrapping that film was really hard for me. It was five months in Germany and Rome, and it was hard to say good-bye.

You got to work with Francis Coppola soon after on Tucker.
Another great experience. Francis was great, and Jeff Bridges, Joan Allen…God, those cars were amazing! I got to drive one of the Tuckers on this track where we were shooting. We were shooting on these stages at Paramount, and I walked around and saw some of the other things that were being filmed. I walked onto this one stage, and there was the Starship Enterprise! Only it was little. It was tiny. It was in a weird shape, and I was like “What the hell is this?” And it turned out they were building the ship for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then they were filming the ending of Witches of Eastwick, and they had that anamatronic Jack Nicholson there, which was really weird and scary to see, and just thinking “God, the movies are cool!” (laughs) I also remember working with Fred Forrest on Tucker. Fred’s got a real laid-back, kind of Nicholsonian drawl, and I remember being very aware of that, and really liking that. He was a big influence on me, Fred Forrest. Really interesting guy. The whole film was like a big family. Coppola sets that kind of mood. It was another instance of me looking around, age 18, thinking “Jesus, what the hell am I doing here?” (laughs) It still amazes me when I look at some of the films I’ve been a part of, and some of the people I’ve gotten to meet and work with. I also look back sometimes and realize that I was lucky to have lived through them and even to have survived them, at times. It’s certainly a testament to whatever I have in me that has that instinct.

I can imagine at that age, and through your early 20s, it was like sensory overload at times.
Yes, exactly. The overwhelm of being in these places, as exciting as they were, and dealing with different personalities, the intensity of this business, and the egos involved, dare I say it. It’s wild to be a kid and have those kinds of experiences.

Slater as pirate DJ "Hard Harry" in Pump Up the Volume.

But you also had two parents in the business who could help put it in perspective for you, certainly more so than if your dad had sold insurance and your mom was a schoolteacher.
Absolutely true. They certainly are passionate people, as well, and are colorful in their own ways, but they were always there to answer questions. As I said before, my dad was always the kind of guy who was willing to take me with him to work, and my mother being okay with that and with me being introduced to that life, it says a lot. My mother was casting Hair when I was about six, and I remember being downtown with that whole crew, and watching everybody rehearse, and just being involved in that world at that age was pretty rich. I remember that was the year of the big blackout, and we had to figure out how to get out of there in the dark…there were some really cool moments.

Heathers was the movie that changed everything for you. 20 years later you look at it, and you realize that nobody realized how fortuitous a film it was ten years before Columbine. It seemed so far out at the time, and now it plays much more disturbing than funny.
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. As time goes on, perceptions change. Everything’s changed, particularly after 9/11. It’s scarier and sadder, and not that I claim to know anything about politics, but certainly the last eight years have been difficult for everybody, and confusing and scarier than they were the previous eight years.

When we were growing up, there were certainly bad things that happened in the world, but nobody ever thinks they’ll look back on their childhood as being times of innocence, and now I feel like we really did come of age in a more innocent time.
It’s true. It was pretty simple. Reagan was this sort of father figure, and the ‘80s were a fun time, and now we’re in this warmongering period. I can only have hope for the future, that things are going to move in a more positive direction.

Slater with Winona Ryder in Heathers, his star-making turn.

Did you all feel at the time that Heathers was exploring uncharted territory for a “teen” film?
I think we all felt that it was pretty interesting and unique, yeah. I think everything works in retrospect. You don’t really know what you’re working on when you’re working on it. You have ideas what you’d like it to be, what it could be, but you never know until the end result. Nobody sets out to make a bad movie. (laughs) It was actually a really creative, fun shoot.

All the Nicholson comparisons started after that film. I’m sure it was flattering to an extent for you, but it must’ve gotten old eventually, especially considering I’m sure you were just being yourself.
Well look, if you’re going to be compared to someone…(laughs) Like I said, Fred Forrest has a lot of Nicholson qualities, as does my dad, so I’m sure a lot of that rubbed off on me. I’d seen Easy Rider and thought Nicholson was the coolest guy on the planet. When I saw Witches of Eastwick being shot, I just identified with Nicholson, and thought he was the greatest. When I read the script for Heathers, I guess I saw some qualities in the character of Jason Dean that I could identify with, and everything just kind of jelled into something that allowed people to make that kind of comparison. I was certainly playing a character. If they’d shot Jason Dean’s room in the movie, he probably would have had a poster of The Shining or Easy Rider because he was just that guy. So were there qualities in that character that were Nicholsonian? Absolutely!

L to R: Michael Rapaport, Patricia Arquette and Slater in True Romance.

Another groundbreaking movie we have to discuss is True Romance.
At the time I got the script, nobody had really heard of Quentin Tarantino. He’d made this little independent movie, Reservoir Dogs. I saw it with Patricia Arquette at the CAA screening room. It really affected me. I laughed, I was horrified, it was something new. I thought Quentin was great, and loved him and his passionate personality. The cast just kept getting bigger and bigger with more and more interesting people. The scene between Dennis Hopper and Chris Walken was one of the first scenes that was edited together, and Tony Scott showed it to us on the set, and we were all just blown away. So yeah, great experience, great script but again, you never know what a film is going to be until you see the final product. In this case, it was another one of those really special experiences that resulted in an equally amazing movie.

Slater in Interview with a Vampire, playing the role originally intended for the late River Phoenix. Slater donated his entire salary to charity.

In Interview with a Vampire, you took over the role that River Phoenix was originally cast. Did you know him at all?
Not really. We’d met before and I respected him, and his work tremendously. That was so tragic, and it was really awkward to be stepping into that kind of scenario. But I think I eased my own discomfort by not accepting money for it and donating my salary to his charities. It was great to work with Neil Jordan, and Brad Pitt was great, and that was the second time we’d worked together, of course, after True Romance.

Slater in John Woo's Broken Arrow.

You got to work with the great John Woo twice.
Amazing filmmaker. He’s a very cerebral man, very sweet, but very quiet, much in the same way Neal Jordan is. I don’t know where John’s English is today, but at that time, he didn’t speak English that well, so our communication was limited. Basically, he told me I was supposed to be playing Steve McQueen and I forget who he said John Travolta was supposed to be, but that was all the direction I really got. (laughs) But what a genius he is, a real master of the medium. Also, when I did Windtalkers, it was a real treat to work with Nic Cage. He’s one of our greatest actors. Everything he does, every choice he makes, it just blows my mind. I just watched Face/Off again the other night. What an unbelievable movie that is! And Nic and Travolta are amazing in it. I could watch that movie all day.

Slater and Heather Graham in Emilio Estevez's Bobby.

Recently you were in Emilio Estevez’s Bobby, which I thought did a beautiful job of capturing a time and place in history.
Yeah, it really did. Emilio did a phenomenal job and to be a part of that incredible group that he assembled…I mean Anthony Hopkins, William H. Macy, Sharon Stone, Martin Sheen, Harry Belafonte. It was like a who’s-who of talent. Everybody showed up on that giving 150%, we were all so proud of Emilio who, in my opinion, knocked it out of the park. The audience reaction was amazing in Venice, where it premiered. There was a ten minute standing ovation. What’s even more amazing, is that the film wasn’t even produced by Americans, but by Russians! In terms of acting, it was fun to sort of immerse myself in that character, who was so part of another time, and another mindset. Being on the set of the film was like going back in time. It was really powerful, very realistic, especially recreating those last moments. It’s funny, we shot at The Ambassador Hotel, where it all happened, right before they tore it down, and I’ve shot a couple other things there, including True Romance, and it was a really creepy place. But I’m very happy we got to shoot the film there while it was still standing.

You mentioned River Phoenix earlier. In the past year, we’ve lost a couple talented young actors tragically. You’ve been through a lot professionally and personally in this business, and you’ve survived. Is there an outlook one has to adopt to be a survivor or is it just something you choose?
What can I say? It’s a wild world. It takes a certain amount of denial sometimes just to wake up and get through the day. (laughs) But we try to show up, do our best, do our job, and try not to be an asshole in the process. If you can do that, then you’re ahead of the game.

That’s the magic word, isn’t it?
Amen, brother.

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Cybill Shepherd: The Hollywood Interview

Actress Cybill Shepherd.


CYBILL SHEPHERD: THE COMEBACK KID
By
Alex Simon

If you’re a man (or to be fair, a woman) of a certain generation, odds are that Cybill Shepherd was one of those women that gave you some of your earliest, yummiest impure thoughts that left little question as to which side of the sexual fence you lay. Born February 18, 1950 in Memphis, Tennessee, this southern belle was named Model of the Year in 1968, and was one of the country’s leading cover girls when, after seeing one of those covers, director Peter Bogdanovich plucked Shepherd from the modeling world and made her an overnight sensation with her turn in his classic “The Last Picture Show” (1971). Shepherd’s portrayal of a manipulative small town beauty queen won her accolades from audiences and critics alike. Shepherd followed “Picture Show” with another terrific turn in Elaine May’s “The Heartbreak Kid” the following year, and scored big in another classic, Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” in 1976.

But Shepherd has also had a Phoenix-like ability to survive some disastrous careers choices, such as turns in former boyfriend Bogdanovich’s legendary misfires “Daisy Miller” (1974) and “At Long Last Love” (1975), the former which caused the dissolution of The Director’s Company, a seemingly-can’t lose partnership between Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin, then the three top directors in Hollywood. In the late '70s, Shepherd left L.A. for a return to her native Memphis following her split from Bogdanovich, where she married and gave birth to her first child, daughter Clementine Ford. Shepherd didn’t appear in another film for four years, until the TV-movie “The Yellow Rose” in 1983, but hit paydirt with the seminal ‘80s TV hit “Moonlighting,” which also made a sensation of co-star Bruce Willis. Shepherd very skillfully reinvented herself as a glamorous comedienne, of the Carole Lombard mold, with her portrait of Maddie Hayes, a former model-turned-private eye.

Once “Moonlighting” ended in 1990, Shepherd followed with a string of feature films, some good (“Chances Are”) some not so (the ill-fated “Picture Show” sequel “Texasville”), but found redemption once again on the small screen in 1995 with “Cybill,” a semi-autobiographical look at Shepherd’s own life, with a screwball comedy spin that combined the antics of “I Love Lucy” with a daring progressiveness in dealing with women’s issues such as sexuality, menopause and childbirth that pre-dated “Sex and the City” by three years. It also got Shepherd (who co-exec produced the show) and her creators in continual hot water with CBS censors. That, combined with other issues discussed below, got the show axed by the network, quite unceremoniously, when “Cybill” was at the peak of its popularity. Never released into syndication, the first season of “Cybill” arrives on DVD September 16 from First Look Studios. Shepherd published her very funny, and very frank, memoir “Cybill Disobedience” in 2000, to big sales and warm reviews, many praising her for the warts-and-all portraits of herself, and those she’s worked with.

The past year has been another busy one of reinvention for Shepherd, whose recurring turn on Showtime’s hit series “The L Word” has earned her an entirely new fan base. She also has three feature films in the can, and a new website (www.cybill.com) to her credit. Cybill Shepherd sat down with us recently to discuss her remarkable career as one of Hollywood’s greatest continual comeback stories.

Let’s start off by talking about “Cybill.” I know it was semi-autobiographical. In the beginning, did you sit down with the writers and tell them specifically what elements of your life you wanted to include?
Cybill Shepherd: Well, it was a collaborative decision to base it on my life. The original series that I conceived as my comeback to television, was not at all like this. A woman had written a script, where my character had no female friends; all her friends were guys. So I said that I wanted two women at the center of this story. I want a great friendship at the center of this story, and I wanted my character to be different from Maddie Hayes, and from a lot of the characters I’d played in the past: all glamorous, and perfectly coiffed and gussied up. So I thought it would be great to have someone as my sidekick who would embody that, which would allow me to fall in the mud, take pies in the face, that kind of thing. Ultimately it would be Michael Patrick King, who was one of our writers, who said that Maryann was the razor, and I was the heart.

That was one of the things about the show that was so “shocking” initially was that your character actually had bad hair days, and was very de-glamorized. No leading lady had really done that since Lucille Ball.
Yes, exactly! I remember I called up (writer/co-exec producer) Chuck (Lorre) and said ‘Why don’t we have my character have her first grand-baby, and we’ll do an episode about that?’ He said “God, you’re so brave!” (laughs) We broke a lot of rules, and we got smacked down for it too, which is why the show didn’t run for as long as it should have.

Shepherd and guest star Morgan Fairchild in a clip from "Cybill."

You broke major taboos for the mid-‘90s, in terms of how honestly you portrayed women. And this was three years prior to “Sex and the City,” which had the freedom to be on uncensored HBO, as opposed to a commercial network like CBS. The fact that you guys always pushed the envelope is what always kept me, and I’m sure viewers like me, interested.
The Valentine’s Day episode, which was before Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues,” I had come across this idea that Valentine’s Day was originally for “vagina.” So we went in with a very funny script about that, and the censors said “You can’t say ‘vagina.’” So we said to him, “How about ‘vulva’?” And he said “Okay.” And we’re all like “Holy fucking shit! Does he not know what that is?” (laughs) And he didn’t! So then we got in front of a live audience, and I go to the head writer and say ‘What if they don’t know what it is? Then they won’t laugh.’ “Well, let’s give it a try.” It was one of our highest-rated episodes and CBS said “Never do anything like that again!” (laughs) That will never be seen again on CBS. But it’s on the DVDs. That was the first nail in our coffin, really. We started to get buried after that. People started to really be over-vigilant. I was doing an episode on menopause, which is one of the funniest things to talk about in the world, and the network said “You cannot use any word to describe women’s biological functions except ‘Women’s biological functions.’” ‘So can we say “menopause”?’ “Yes.” ‘Can we say “menstruation”?’ “No.” ‘Can we say “period”?’ “No.” So during the first menstruation episode, we were throwing that shit around, like women do! So I said to the studio, ‘You’re going to have to go to the network, because I can’t do this episode unless I can refer to this in some way.’ They said “Okay, you can say ‘period.’” And that wound up being part of women’s health history and Time Magazine: the first time the word “period” was used in that way on network television.

"Cybill" volume one DVD.

You raise another interesting point. The woman I was dating at the time, we used to watch the show together, and she said to me “This is the way women talk when we’re together,” which most men never realize, that women can get every bit as down and dirty, if not more so, than men.
No, they don’t realize that, and yes, we do! (laughs) It was the first time it had ever been done.

You guys very cleverly combined that progressive sensibility with that of “I Love Lucy.”Yeah, it was my first chance to do broad comedy, and have the hair funny, and the shirt wrong, and the jeans that wouldn’t pull up over my butt. (laughs)

Just like Lucille Ball: prior to “I Love Lucy,” she was a glamour girl, just like you were. And then she got “goofy” and reinvented herself, just as you did.
Exactly, and that was my intention. If fact, there was a lot of criticism towards me, from one of the producers, who said that he was only trying to stop me from doing the “broad, Lucy-esque takes.” And the show was a hit! So we had to have a parting-of-the-ways because it was impossible to work with someone who was fighting you constantly because they had some sort of “Moonlighting” ideal that I had to be Maddie Hayes.

You started out as a model, and for a majority of your career, you were a glamour girl, Maddie Hayes allowed you to branch out a bit, but did you feel objectified when you were younger, as if people didn’t really see “you,” only how pretty you were?
Yes, also I remember seeing films like “His Girl Friday,” “My Man Godfrey,” and “Bringing Up Baby.” These women: Rosalind Russell, Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn, these gorgeous women, were falling down, doing shtick. And I remember thinking ‘I can do that, too.’ But it took forever (for other people to see me that way).

Shepherd and Bruce Willis in a publicity shot from the '80s hit "Moonlighting."

I always felt that Maddie Hayes was a Carole Lombard character. “Moonlighting” was a throwback to that era of screwball comedy from the ‘30s that you’re describing.
Well, actually when I first read the 50 pages of “Moonlighting,” I went to (series creator) Glen Gordon Caron and said ‘You know what you’ve written?’ He said “What?” ‘A Howard Hawksian comedy!’ So we ran those movies. We studied those movies. With Bruce (Willis) on board, and that incredibly fast-paced dialogue, it was magic.

In fact, those scripts were so dialogue-heavy that they were the longest TV scripts written up that point, right?
Yes, because we talked so fast, that’s why we had to put ends and beginnings on all the scenes.

I remember the last episode of “Cybill” ended on a cliffhanger. Someone’s boat had blown up…
It said “To be continued…” Yes, and it was going to be so great how we continued it in the next episodes. They said we weren’t picked up because our budgets were too big, which was a lie. It was really about our deal that we had with the network, and somebody had to bite the bullet, and the network wasn’t going to do it because they’d been paying for everything. The studio had gotten this amazing deal with the network, one that no studio will ever get again, where they didn’t pay for anything until the show went into syndication. So what does that tell you? It’s never going to go into syndication, because why would they want to pay the network better? I thought this show was going to be buried in the salt mines, so the fact that it’s finally going to be available on DVD, it really moves me. My representatives and I have been fighting for this for ten years.

Was it just about the numbers, or was that just the final straw in addition to the fact that the show was making the censors nervous?
I think it was primarily about the numbers, that the studio would have to pay back this enormous amount of money, and the conflict with the censors didn’t help. But it was mostly about the money, which it usually is. Sometimes people don’t do the right things, you ask them why, and the response is because they could.

L to R: Eddie Albert, Charles Grodin and Shepherd in "The Heartbreak Kid."

I interviewed Lauren Bacall last year. Like yourself, she’s a strong woman who spoke her mind, and it seems that, male or female, in this business if you speak your mind, you’re automatically labeled as being “difficult.” If you’re a wet noodle in this business, do you notice how they tend to rise quickly, whereas if you’re the sort of person who puts their foot down and says “Bullshit,” it’s a tougher road? Miss Bacall said that’s really been the theme of her career: having to reinvent herself after being penalized for standing up for herself. Is that the key to surviving in Hollywood, continual reinvention?
(laughs) That’s really interesting, and I agree. It’s tougher if you want to be treated with respect. You have to get back up and start up the mountain again. There’s a great gospel song that goes “I’m goin’ up the rough side of the mountain.” It’s so ironic and sort of extraordinary, this year is my comeback, with “Cybill” coming out on DVD, and my role on “The L Word,” and gradually it’s started to pay off wonderfully well. I’ve built this whole new fan base. I got guest spots on two other shows, and right now I’m working on my third feature film. I’ve been struggling the past decade. I’m not saying I’m poor, but it’s been a struggle to find something interesting to do.

A lot of people don’t understand that you can be financially solvent, but if you’re an artist, someone who thrives on the creative process, it’s devastating if you’re not allowed to use those muscles.
Yes, exactly. And I really disappeared the last ten years. I talk at length about this in my book, actually. But yes, if you aren’t able to create, or find some outlet that’s a fulfilling way to create, it’s tough, it’s painful.

Shepherd in her film debut, "The Last Picture Show."

Let’s talk about some of your other work. When Peter Bogdanovich discovered you for “The Last Picture Show,” did you have aspirations at that point to be an actor, or were you satisfied being a model?
No. I hated being a model, in fact. I felt that people treated me like an object. They’d be really nice at the beginning of the photo shoot, and afterwards it was like I didn’t exist. Plus, I was so curious. I wanted to study. So when I was modeling full-time, I also went to college, first to Hunter College, then to The College of New Rochelle, then I went to NYU, and whenever I’d get a job, I’d finish a few classes, and then I had to leave. My final year was at USC, where they consider me an alumni. I never got my full degree, but I loved learning, and still do.

Shepherd in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver."

What was your primary course of study?
First it was art history, and then English literature.

What was the “Picture Show” shoot like from the point-of-view of a 20 year-old kid?
Well, it was amazing. Peter was my first acting teacher, and I was surrounded by this extraordinary cast. I was completely unencumbered by acting lessons. Every model in New York wanted to be an actor, except for me. I came to Peter completely un-messed with and un-self-conscious, and he was brilliant. I fell in love with making movies. During the shoot, I wouldn’t go home. I would sit on the set no matter what scene they were doing all night long. When you think that Robert Surtees photographed that, the man who the Academy Award for “Ben-Hur”! And then my next acting teacher was Elaine May on “The Heartbreak Kid,” who said to me “We’re going to improvise.” I said ‘What’s that?’ I didn’t even know what it was. So I had great teachers.

Shepherd and Charles Grodin in "The Heartbreak Kid."

When you did “Taxi Driver” was it just another job at the time you were doing it, or did you know you were all creating magic?
Oh no, it was love, love, love, love! We all knew. I never wanted it to end. We all made five thousand dollars for the movie, and shot with this skeleton crew. I’ll never forget the scene riding around New York in one of those old-style, big New York taxis, with Scorsese in the front seat and sound man in the trunk and the photographer…it was just magic, like we were stealing it. I had the same feeling on “Picture Show,” too. When they were both over, I just wept.

Shepherd with Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver."

What was Scorsese’s process with actors?
He always told me “Do less.” He’s a great fan of Hitchcock, and I talked to him about that, Hitch’s famous line to actors was “Don’t put a lot of scribble on your face.” Jason Robards said that once, too, when we worked together. He said “Acting is with your eyes, remember, not your face.”

And Spencer Tracy really invented that, didn’t he?
Oh, absolutely! God, I had some amazing mentors: Orson Welles…I was there for the end of the greats, for a world that’s gone now. I don’t know why Peter Bogdanovich doesn’t have a show on TV every week where he just talks to people, because when he’s gone, it’s really the end of an era. This town is rough.

There aren’t any filmmaker/historians left like Bogdanovich.
No, there aren’t.

We’ve still got guys like Scorsese, and Spielberg who are students of film, film history and history in general, but there’s this whole anti-intellectual movement happening in our country right now that trickles down into pop culture, and is evident in the films that are being made. They’re anti-intellectual, anti-thought.
Yeah, I just saw “Hamlet 2” the other night, and I totally agree with you.

Any final thoughts about “Cybill” arriving on DVD?
I thought “Cybill” was dead, and it turns out she’s alive. I had the chance when “Moonlighting” came out on DVD to watch all the episodes again years later and to comment on them. I found that nothing mattered except the work, and how brilliant it was, and thank you that I had the chance to be a part of it. When people start to see “Cybill” again, they’ll start to see that it was a great show, and the fans will have it back. And I’m back, not buried in a salt mine anymore in Utah!

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Jamie Kennedy: The Hollywood Interview

Comic Jamie Kennedy.

JAMIE KENNEDY TALKS BACK WITH HECKLER
By
Alex Simon

Jamie Kennedy entered the world of standup comedy in the 1990s, after first becoming interested in acting at age 15. Born May 25, 1970 in Upper Darby, PA., Kennedy was the youngest of six children, and moved out to Los Angeles to pursue his dream, after scoring a job as an extra in the classic "Dead Poets Society" in 1989.

Kennedy paid his dues for years on the standup comedy circuit before breaking through, leading to film and television work alike, most notably “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment” from Warner Bros. Television, which ran from 2002-2004. In addition to over 50 TV and movie appearances, Kennedy authored the book “Wannabe: A Hollywood Experiment,” detailing his early years of struggle in Hollywood.

Kennedy makes his documentary film debut with “Heckler,” directed by Mike Addis, which arrives on DVD from Echo Bridge Home Entertainment on September 9. “Heckler” initially takes a pointed look at the abuse standup comics must face while they’re onstage, then goes into a much deeper look at how critical our culture has become across the board. Jamie Kennedy spoke to us recently about “Heckler,” and the ups and downs of being in the spotlight.

How did the idea for “Heckler” come about?
I had been doing standup and comedy films for a while and sometimes when I’d go onstage, hecklers would interrupt the show. I started filming it, and when I sat down to watch it, I realized I had something really funny. My buddy Michael Addis and I thought we should make a movie about how other comedians dealt with hecklers. Around this same time, I started reading the reviews of my films and thinking ‘Wow, those are some pretty bad reviews,’ and it just all came together. (laughs) It just all came together how we’re all a part of this really critical culture.

It was interesting how you broke it up into the different categories of hecklers, critics, and so on, and it also said a lot that you got a who’s-who list of people to participate in the film, from Mike Ditka to George Lucas.
Yeah, any movie with Ron Jeremy and George Lucas in it has to be pretty interesting, right? (laughs) And if I’d kept going for another five months or so, I bet I could have gotten even more people to take part. Most we got to interview by calling up and asking them. I really did try to get Tom Cruise and Brittany Spears, it’s just hard to get through those camps, but they all have stories about what it’s like to be abused by some of these people.

Let’s talk about the different categories and start out with your basic heckler. What do you think motivates your basic heckler in an audience at a comedy club?
Basically, they’re drunk and most of the time if they are drunk, the heckler is a woman. And if they’re drunk, they like to shout out things. Maybe they work hard during the week, and when the come into the club on the weekends, they get drunk and go nuts. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re obnoxious, and sometimes they’re downright belligerent. That’s just the booze talking. The other time is that people want to “help” you, by shouting out the punchline before you can get to it and participate in your act, so to speak. And sometimes it is funny, if you play it off right. Some guys get really upset by those kinds of hecklers, others just play it off. I’m more of that kind, the loosey-goosey school of just letting it roll off my back.

The DVD of Heckler.

You showed the one clip of a comic bashing his guitar over the head of a heckler who wouldn’t shut up.
That’s a legendary clip. Everyone in the comedy world knows that story. There are those very rare times when people really challenge you. I find that in the beginning of your career, people give over to you more, and then as you get more established, people can get more harsh. About a year ago, this guy got really belligerent and jumped on the stage and was like “You call this funny?” And he started air-punching, and then walked out. I don’t know if he was drunk or trying to get attention, or what. Very strange.

The one Asian comedian you interviewed actually did get punched out onstage.
Yeah, that’s rare. Nobody’s ever gotten physical with me.

Let’s talk about the critics. You talk about how they’ve gone, in the past 25 or 30 years, from being thoughtful advisors about what you should and shouldn’t go to see, to being really nasty, as if that’s their entire purpose: to show you how clever and mean they can be.
I try not to bash the critics, and we try to show both sides with Richard Roeper, and Leonard Maltin, but the real critics are the old school ones like those guys, who don’t do that. But there’s this new breed of people who make a point of going after you and never showing their faces, a lot of them are bloggers. I think a lot of the best feedback you can get is peer-to-peer feedback. But even if you look at some of the comments people make on sites like Amazon.com, some of the people on there consider themselves self-appointed, brilliant critics. The problem is that they go after you personally, which is kind of upsetting.

Do you think they realize how hurtful they’re being towards the people that they attack—that they’re actually dealing with real people?
Not at all. I don’t think they view the people they’re going after as real. It’s like if you see a picture of something it’s not real. The first time I saw the Universal Studios tram, I couldn’t believe it was real. Sometimes people will want to come up and get a picture with me, and it could be really obvious that I’m having a bad day, like I’ve got a bloody nose or something, and they just don’t care. It’s like they don’t see me as a regular, normal person like they are. It’s like I’m an object. I really wanted to explore who these people are.

What do you think has caused the rise of our critical culture over the past 25 years?
Definitely what Andy Warhol said about people wanting their 15 minutes of fame, it’s accessibility, now that everyone has access to the Internet to post whatever films they shoot or write whatever they want anonymously, I think people are starting to feel empowered, as opposed to having some sense of respect for those in the public eye. Now it’s like people get really angry at you if you’re in the public eye. Everyone should absolutely go for their moment in the sun, but you don’t have to put out someone else’s flame in the process. I think most people at their deepest core have no idea what their real talent is, and we all have something to give. But those people make up for that empty feeling by tearing down others. It’s the little man that belittles.

I thought Leonard Maltin put it best.
Yeah, it’s like you start to take seriously what you read on the bathroom wall, and that wall gets read by 30 million people. Then people start believing it! But they don’t care, that’s the whole thing. No one checks their facts, does any research, checks out the backstory. If you have a scar on your face, suddenly you were in a knife fight. You didn’t fall down the stairs. Like, I have no idea what really happened with Christian Bale and his family, and I don’t care. That’s his business. But it was all over the news like some international incident that was going to affect the security of the world. It’s ridiculous. The poor guy is starring in the biggest movie of all time, then all of the sudden somebody starts spreading rumors, trying to take him down?

Interesting timing, wasn’t it?
Yeah, very interesting. It’s like “You’re riding too high. Gotta take you down.” No matter what the facts are, people assume you’re guilty. That’s just our society: we always go negative first. I think if you go through enough of that, people will then accept you. People like Brittany Spears, I think she’s really making some legitimate strides, and now people want her to come back. It’s like people want you to prove yourself, to see how much you can take, before they’ll really accept you.

Kennedy interviewng critic Richard Roeper for Heckler.

I thought it was interesting that most of your really harsh critics, primarily from the Internet, that you confronted were complete pussies in how they wouldn’t acknowledge how mean they were to you. But you also had the one “critic” who came off as a complete sociopath, admitting he was getting off by causing you pain.
To me, he was more sad because he knew what he was doing. He wants to act like he’s crazy and this and that, but he also couldn’t admit one thing positive. I tried to get him to make a single positive comment about someone, or something, and he couldn’t. That said it all to me. I could find positive things about if I looked hard enough. We all have positive qualities.

Joe Mantegna said it best when he described most of these guys as guys who live in their mother’s basements. They’re like the guys who go to “Star Trek” conventions who’ve never kissed a girl—and they’re 38!
I know! (laughs) That’s so funny. What’s weird is that culture is becoming bigger and bigger: all these angry, disenfranchised guys who live through video games and comic books. I’m going to ComicCon this weekend, and I’m sure I’m going to encounter a lot of these people. I was never into any of that stuff, to be honest.

It’s like the Travis Bickle character from “Taxi Driver” now has a voice.
Yeah, totally. And they’re really going nuts.

Let’s talk about the other group you address in the film: focus groups, who are groups of people that aren’t experts that are given power to control the destiny of something, like a movie, that experts in that field have worked on for years.
I know, and I understand the point of what they do in terms of a commercial standpoint, to see if the audience is going to “get it,” so they can recoup their money. The thing is, they may be testing it for the wrong audience. It’s like Eli Roth said: “This one fat girl in Cleveland doesn’t like your movie,” and the executives take her word as gospel. Maybe she isn’t your audience, is that possible?

On that point, you and many of the other comics you interview mention that the movies you guys make aren’t meant to be highbrow entertainment, yet they send these critics to review them who like movies by people like Meryl Streep and Woody Allen. That’s not what “Malibu’s Most Wanted” was meant to be. It was meant to be a crazy, goofy comedy.
Right, it’s aimed at 14 year-olds and people into rap culture. When a critic from The Boston Herald doesn’t get it, well what a shock! (laughs) I get it now, but I didn’t at the time. If it happened again, I wouldn’t be mad about it. If that film were reviewed by The Eighth Grade Weekly, it would get four stars.

In many ways this film can be seen as a companion piece to your book “Wannabe,” which was about your struggle to make it in the world of comedy. What “Heckler” addresses, is that once you get to that successful place, there are a whole new set of problems you have to face as a celebrity, which many people don’t think about when they’re on their way up.
That’s true. It’s interesting, I’ve learned a lot over the years and now when I get involved with something that I can’t quite grasp, I have to write about it. This was an emotionally charged subject for me, the idea that being successful doesn’t solve all your problems like you thought it would when you were struggling.

Do you have any favorite salad days stories, of when you were struggling?
Probably one of them was when I was at this place called The Soup Plantation, in L.A., which was sort of an all you can eat place. I remember grabbing a piece of pizza off someone’s plate, because I was completely broke and so hungry! (laughs) Also, sleeping in your car for a couple weeks is pretty intense. One time this guy owed me $100 and I was on the phone to him at The Beverly Center, and he told me he didn’t have my money. I just remember crying, because I was so broke. This lady saw me crying, came up, and gave me $100. That was really amazing. I’ve always been very lucky with people helping me.

Theatrical trailer for Heckler.

What was the worst heckle you ever got?
I’d say the time when someone yelled out “Jamie, how long before you start doing infomercials?” That was a pretty good one. And I said “I don’t know. What do they pay?” (laughs)

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Tom Holland: The Hollywood Interview

Filmmaker Tom Holland.


TOM HOLLAND GOES BACK TO THE SANDBOX
ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF CHILD’S PLAY
By
Alex Simon

Tom Holland has seen the film business from virtually every angle: from actor, to writer, to director and producer, Holland’s career spans over 40 years. Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Holland attended Northwestern University’s renowned theater program, then went to New York where he soon found himself an in-demand television actor, performing under the name Tom Fielding. The peak of his acting career came in the late ‘60s, with roles in Jacques Demy’s “The Model Shop” and Guy Green’s “A Walk in the Spring Rain,” with Anthony Quinn and Ingrid Bergman. After discovering that his true calling lay behind the camera, Holland began writing voraciously, getting his first produced credit in 1978 with the classic television chiller “The Initiation of Sarah.” This was followed by “The Beast Within” (1982), “Class of 1984” (1982) and “Psycho II” (1983), which bumped Tom Holland into an elite group of Hollywood screenwriters after it’s successful box office and critical reception, expertly recreating Alfred Hitchcock’s signature blend of macabre humor and full-throttle horror. It’s a signature that Tom Holland adopted as his own, and maintained in all his work since.

Holland made his directing debut with the hit “Fright Night” in 1986, from his original script, and followed that with the classic “Child’s Play,” which arrives on DVD September 9 in a 20th anniversary edition from MGM/Fox. A clever variation on the “living doll” horror story, “Child’s Play” opens with a vicious serial killer (Brad Dourif) dying in a shootout with police in a Chicago toy store. Before he expires, he wills his soul into that of a Good Guys doll that’s nearby. Later, a young boy named Andy (Alex Vincent)’s single mom (Catherine Hicks) buys him a coveted Good Guys doll for his birthday. Guess which one Andy winds up with? 20 years later, “Child’s Play” plays every bit as well as it did in 1988, even more so when one realizes how today’s horror films have been dumbed down into torture porn or watered-down PG-13 snoozefests.

Tom Holland sat down with us recently to discuss “Child’s Play,” and his remarkable career as one of the most unique voices in the genres of horror and suspense. Here’s what was said:

The first thing that struck me upon watching “Child’s Play” again is how well it holds up 20 years later. The animatronic effects still look very real, plus it mixes humor and horror as well as any film since "An American Werewolf in London."
Tom Holland: It’s interesting; I just did a Q & A with Diablo Cody (Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Juno”) at The New Beverly Cinema where they showed the film. I hadn’t seen it with an audience in years, and I found it very funny up until the third act, then I thought it got really dark and scary. But for 2/3 of it, I thought it was hilarious. (laughs) The biggest challenge in making the film was making Chucky. That was tough.

At the time, that technology was groundbreaking, right?
Yes, and the toughest part was how the doll manipulated the knife, and getting it to seem like the knife was actually being held in Chucky’s hand. What we wound up doing was making a tin foil knife, and taping it to his hand, so when he thrust the knife at people, it looked like he was really holding and manipulating it. There was nothing about him that had any tensile strength that could grip anything. I mean, we had a dozen puppeteers working him, spread out underneath the set, which was built about four feet off the ground. I divided up the features on the doll, so one guy did the mouth, one the legs, and so on. They all had TV monitors so they could see what the doll was doing in response to their movements. It was very complicated.

I noticed you pulled a Hitchcock a couple times in the film, also: it was your picture in the apartment as “dad” and you did the voice-over for the Chucky ad on TV.
Yes, I did. Good eye, and ear.

The 20th anniversary DVD of Child's Play.

Did you go into it knowing you wanted to do a mix of humor and horror?
Yeah, once we got the doll working, then I knew that we needed a blend. And the biggest laugh in the film, and it’s not an elegant laugh, is when the elderly couple walk out of the elevator and the woman looks back at Chucky and says “What an ugly doll,” and Chucky responds “Fuck you.” (laughs) It gets a huge laugh from the audience. But you could only do that if the doll was working.

You came to the film with a script already written, right?
Yeah, the original script was by Don Mancini, but you didn’t like anybody. What happened was, the little boy went to sleep and his alter ego, the doll, would wake up and kill people: his dentist, his teacher, so you didn’t like the little boy. There was no hero. The mother didn’t figure out what was going on, I think, until the very end. It was more like an elongated “Twilight Zone” episode. There was no real villain, either. Without a villain, you can’t have a hero, so I invented the character of the strangler, Charles Lee Ray.

Which combined the names of three of the most notorious killers of the 20th century: Charles Whitman (the University of Texas sniper), Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray (assassin of Martin Luther King).
Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. Then once we had that, the pieces started to fall into place. I could go into more detail, but it would sound like I was slamming the other writers. In those days, everyone who worked on the script got credit. You had to have written something like 60% of the script if you were also the director to get credit as a writer. So I did get a writing credit, but I shared it with the two other guys who worked on the script. The WGA vote to change the rules regarding producer/directors getting writing credit just changed, to I think 30%, because now so many writers also direct and produce. They were getting screwed out of writing credit. The rule was originally put in to protect writers against the producers giving credit to their relatives, but writers have become much more powerful.

You know the legend about the meeting that Irving Thalberg, head of MGM in the ‘20s and ‘30s, called among all the heads of the major studios at that time about what to do with writers?
No, but I can only guess.

Thalberg, supposedly, said “We’re all in agreement that the writer is the most important part of the creative process, right?” They all agreed, to which Thalberg answered “It is our job to make sure they never figure that out.” (laughs) I believe it, and I still feel that it’s that way, to a large extent. I still feel that writing is more difficult than directing, because somebody has to face the blank page initially. It’s the initial creative act of getting something down out of nothing, and in this case that was Don Mancini, who deserves a huge chunk of the credit, at the very least. What happens with film is that the director is the authorial voice, for better or for worse. It’s their voice that gives the picture its final stamp.

Alex Vincent and "Chucky" in Child's Play.

You’ve always had a taste for blending humor and horror in all your work, as Hitchcock did, and you really proved that with your screenplay for “Psycho II,” which audiences and critics alike were ready to hate when it came out, but it wound up a critical and commercial success.
Yeah, I got to work on that with a great director named Richard Franklin, who was a brilliant guy that was unfortunately undervalued and is now no longer with us, due to prostate cancer. He died very young. Richard was probably the leading Hitchcock scholar to come out of USC. So when we did “Psycho II,” we ran every Hitchcock film and designed sequences that echoed Hitchcock. When I was writing that film for him, I got an education in Hitchcock probably unlike anybody else. So I don’t know how much subconsciously I absorbed in terms of designing suspense sequences. The rule of thumb was you tried to have three to five visual set pieces per picture. The sequence in “Child’s Play” that starts it off is where Dinah Manoff is reading the book, and in soft focus behind her, you see Chucky run by. By the way, that was Alex Vincent (who plays Andy)’s 4 year-old sister, dressed up in the doll costume, running across the archway. It was amazing serendipity that she happened to be on the set that day, because we kept trying to get the animatronic doll to do the movement, and we couldn’t do it. So anyway, the payoff comes when Dinah gets the hammer in the head, and goes back, and that’s a handheld camera on her face, going with her. You’ve also got the fingers across the counter top, and a few other shots. So it’s a montage sequence, that kicks off with her reading the book, and you see the doll run by.

So you came into “Child’s Play” with a Hitchcockian sensibility that you picked up from working on “Psycho II.” Yeah, and there are other touches like that, as well: Cathy Hicks finding the batteries, and realizing that Chucky has been powered by something else. (laughs) And that leads to the doll attacking her, another extended visual set piece. It’s one suspense moment that leads to another. It’s all deliberate.

I noticed on the 20th anniversary DVD, almost everyone involved with the film, cast and crew, is on the commentary track, and all the retrospective documentaries and featurettes yet you’re conspicuously absent. Why?
Simple: nobody asked me. You’ll probably find that they claim they did ask me, that they contacted my representatives and they never replied, but that’s not true. I could say more about this, but I think I’ll bow to discretion being the better part of valor! (laughs)

Were there any other influences you had in terms of your screenplay and direction?
Yeah, there was that great “Twilight Zone” episode with Telly Savalas and the doll, and the title of the episode escapes me, but it was really creepy. Then there was Dan Curtis’ “Trilogy of Terror,” written by Richard Matheson, where the final episode of the trilogy was about the African tribal doll that terrorizes Karen Black in her apartment, all shot from the doll’s point-of-view. Dan Curtis invented the Steadicam with that film, and it’s still one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen—hard to believe it was made for television.

You also did some contemporary research at the time in terms of popular toys.
I went to a toy store and found a My Buddy doll, which I used as the prototype for Chucky, whom I originally called Buddy, by the way. I changed it to Chucky after legal questions about rights came up.

Watching the film also made me long for the days of smart, R-rated horror films. Now you’ve got two choices in the genre: so-called “torture porn” which are all about being gross and rarely about being scary, and watered-down PG-13 so-called horror films, that are rarely scary.
That may be passing, actually. The last few entries into the torture porn genre really bombed at the box office. There’s this loop between Asia and here. If you look at a film like “Ichi: The Killer,” you see high levels of violent sadomasochism, and this is a film that’s ten years old, coming out of Asia, that predated torture porn here. “Audition,” also from Japan, was another film like that, so Asia really upped the ante with graphic violence in horror films. Then it moved to Europe with films like “Irreversible,” with Monica Bellucci, with that ten minute rape scene that was so disgusting I couldn’t watch the rest of the film. So then, it came to Europe and then it came here. America is late to the game now, following the rest of the world, whereas it used to be the other way around. In terms of the PG-13 horror films, the studios have lost the young males. They’re not watching TV anymore. They're playing video games and are on the Internet for entertainment, but they can still reach adolescent girls via TV, therefore they are doing PG-13 horror, slanted toward young women, like “The Grudge,” “The Eye,” and so on.

You got to work with one of the great D.P.s of all time, Bill Butler, on “Child’s Play.”
I love Bill. He’s still mean as ever! (laughs) I saw him at a party a few years ago, and he must’ve been close to 80, complaining he wasn’t working. “This goddamn business sucks! I’m not working!” (laughs) I hope I have that kind of fire in my belly when I’m his age. He was no spring chicken when we did Child’s Play, and he was ornery then, but brilliant. Great guy, great cameraman. On that note, I’ll tell you, the business is as bad as I’ve ever seen it. It’s harder than ever to break through, although every once in a while an original voice like Diablo Cody will break through. And she’s a truly lovely gal, the sort of person your mother would want you to marry. And unlike so many people in the business today, truly loves, appreciates and has a working knowledge of film. She wouldn’t have been running her own film festival at The New Beverly if she didn’t have that sensibility. But I can’t say enough good about Bill Butler. I think he’s up in Santa Barbara now.

Catherine Hicks in Child's Play.

How do you like to work with your D.P.?
I always look for the master shot first. Once you find your master, then you can do your coverage. But if you don’t find, and then shoot, your master first, you’re going to get fucked up. I don’t really look through the lens much anymore and I don’t like using a viewfinder. I can look at a scene, put it on its feet, and usually know where the master is. Sometimes the D.P. will have a better idea, although it’s usually the operator who has a better sense of it. Your D.P. is your lighting guy. That’s what you’re looking for there. Your operator is just as important, if not more important. Camera operating is an instinctual art. I find that today, since I’ve been working so much with digital, that most of what I do in terms of the look happens in post-production, not during the shoot. I don’t want to devalue D.P.s, but with the advent of digital, it’s making a lighting D.P. less important. You still have to get within the mid-lighting range when you shoot, but once we get to post now, I can do most of color correction in post and Telecine. I could talk about this all day, but I think the business is going through its most enormous changes in years because of digital.

The film spawned several sequels, none of which you were involved with.
And you know something? I did everything I could to kill that goddamned doll—I cut its head off, I burned it, I shot its heart out, so it wouldn’t be set up for a sequel at the end! (laughs) But, that’s Hollywood.

You weren’t involved with the “Fright Night” sequel, either.
No, and in those days, I don’t know what it’s like now, they never wanted to pay you for the sequel, because your price had gone up, so they would do it with a different director, different crew, and for less money, instead of getting the same people they had for the first one, which is where the magic happened. The grosses on the second one, it opened huge, and then died. And I like a lot of the people they used for the sequels of those films, but the deck was stacked against them most of the time going into it.

Actor Chris Sarandon and Holland on the set of Child's Play.

It’s like if you change the lead singer of a band.
Right, it’s not the same band. It’s always fascinating, because Hollywood has always done it that way, and it’s almost always turned out the same every time. Every successive sequel is done cheaper and cheaper, and turns out to be worse and worse, until the franchise is milked dry. Then twenty years later, they’ll do a remake, put a ton of money into it, and start the process all over again.

Let’s talk about your background. You grew up in upstate New York.
Yeah, my dad was a haberdasher, and my mom and I worked in the store with him. I was an only child, and dad eventually moved over into selling women’s wear, because the markup was higher. If you were a small mom and pop retailer, you worked six days a week.

Growing up in a small town, when did you realize you were an artist?
Oh God, I don’t know that I ever have. (laughs) I guess it all began when I got accepted at Northwestern and took theater classes. I tried, but just couldn’t get interested in the stage. I got hold of a 16mm camera from the film department, which was fledgling at that time, and shot a film that I obsessively shot forever. Milton Katselas got hold of the footage and tried to help me cut it together. God only knows what’s happened to that footage since, but that’s how it all started.

Then you were an actor through the ‘60s and early ‘70s (under the pseudonym Tom Fielding) in New York, and studied at The Actor’s Studio.
I left Northwestern, went to New York and became a soap star on “A Time for Us aka A Flame in the Wind,” which is no longer on the air.

Was acting something you loved doing, or just a way to make a living until you could make your own film?
Honestly, it was a way to meet girls. (laughs) I never really liked acting that much, but I was a very good-looking kid, and everyone kept saying “You should be an actor,” and it seemed like the path of least resistance at the time. So I studied under Lee Strasberg, who’d lecture for six hours at a time, and I mean everyone was there: Bruce Dern, Shelley Winters…Jim Bridges became a friend. I started being an actor in the playwright’s wing, and started working with writer/directors like Jim. That’s where I finally put it together in my head that if you were a writer, that would lead to directing. Jim was writing an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” at the time. Then I became friends with Stewart Stern (“Rebel Without a Cause”), who really helped teach me how to write. When I transitioned from acting to directing in the early ‘70s, Stewart was among the great screenwriters in Hollywood. Stewart is in his 80s now, still going strong, and still urging me to write more personal stories. I love him.

Then you went back to school at UCLA.
Yeah, I tried to go straight and got a BA in Political Science and a law degree. There was a period where I just wasn’t comfortable being an actor. It wasn’t enough, whatever that is, or I wasn’t good enough, and I thought I had to have something more solid in my life. I finished the first year of law school, and realized I’d made a horrific mistake, talk about being a fish out of water. But the first year is the hardest, so I figured I might as well finish up, and just kept writing while I got my JD. I passed the bar the first time I took it, but never practiced. But I’m very proud that I did that. It was a way of writing, and not feeing guilty about it, so when people asked me what I was doing I could say I was going to law school, or I was an attorney. With middle class values, my psyche could accept that. (laughs) Then I wound up getting my script optioned before I got my bar results. The script was called “The View from 30,” which I wrote at 29, and optioned to Dick Berg, who I later wrote “The Initiation of Sarah” for. So it does come around. I think I got about $1500 for the option, which wasn’t bad money back then. So I also figured since I made a little money from writing, I might as well pursue it and see. So I kept on writing.

As an actor, you were in Jacques Demy’s “The Model Shop.” What was that like?
Jacques was a very sweet, very gentle man. He was married to Agnes Varda, who’s still alive. Harrison Ford was originally cast by Jacques to be the lead in the film, and Columbia wouldn’t let Demy cast Harrison, so they cast Gary Lockwood instead. So Harrison was so angry about that, he was dropped from his contract by Columbia, and he left acting and went into a ten year stint as a carpenter before he got “Star Wars.”

You, Harrison and Ted Danson were sort of The Three Musketeers for a while, right?
Yeah, although Ted was a little younger than us. But Ted was in that group through the late ‘70s. Then Ted got “The Onion Field” and exploded out of that.

You acted with Anthony Quinn and Ingrid Bergman in “A Walk in the Spring Rain.”
Quinn was an interesting egomaniac. (laughs) He was very jealous when, during a scene in the film where I tried to rape Ingrid Bergman, I French-kissed her and she French-kissed me back! I didn’t understand it at the time, but apparently they’d had affair years earlier. I remember Ingrid Bergman telling me how wonderful Gary Cooper was, and how they’d ride back from the set together singing off-color, bawdy songs. She adored Hitchcock and Cary Grant. Wonderful lady, I can’t say enough good things about her. If she felt something, it read on her face instantly. Her talent was astounding. It was like a silent movie actor, the expressiveness of her face. And she was a beautiful, lusty woman. She cut quite a swath when she was young, and when I met her, she was still stunning, but just starting to look more matronly. So here I was, this small town kid, and had this incredible journey of ups and downs where I came across all these amazing, talented people.

And what’s the latest stop on that journey?
I’m doing a lot on the web now. I’ve got two original series I’ve developed: “5 or Die,” which is a horror series, and “Driven,” which is more suspense, more Hitchcock-influenced. I think the Internet is a place that’s wide open, in terms of creative possibilities, whereas I feel I’ve never seen the traditional movie business so starved creatively as it is now. And it’s hard to say whether that’s born out of my age, out of bitterness, or just out of a reality check (laughs), but I really think that the corporatization of Hollywood, which began with Coke buying Columbia back in the ‘80s, has taken things to where they are now.

The original theatrical trailer for Child's Play.

The truth is that the creative part of the Hollywood community really aren’t the ones with the power, particularly since the business has become more “corporate,” as you pointed out. This business is run by the studio execs, the managers, and the agents. How do you keep the faith in this kind of environment?
One of the things I’ve always been aware of is that nobody is going to remember those people, “the suits.” They might be the ones who walk away with the money, but they won’t leave any sort of real legacy. They might even be the ones with the power, but I think that’s fading, too. What I’ve also seen is that even as the creative people cycle up and down, more often than not, they come back, and have fourth, fifth or sixth runs. Whereas, you’ve got a huge turnover of executives that changes every five to ten years, and I couldn’t tell you what has become of them. So at the end of the day, I think the creative community has the last word.

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5 OR DIE...a new kind of horror from director Tom Holland!

WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT!

Click this link to sign up, and watch the premiere episode!
http://www.myspace.com/5ordie

At the beginning of August, several of the major horror web publications all received a mysterious video spot hinting at something called “5 OR DIE”. It turns out that “5 OR DIE” is actually the new short film from writer/director Tom Holland, which debuts exclusively on-line at the STRIKE TV website this September. STRIKE.TV is the new internet platform for Hollywood talent that was created during the Writer’s Guild Strike. Holland says the purpose is to give professionals a creative outlet other than the studios and networks.

Holland is no stranger to the horror genre, having penned the screenplays for PSYCHO 2, THE BEAST WITHIN and later writing and directing horror classics FRIGHT NIGHT, CHILD’S PLAY and the Stephen King adaptations for THINNER and THE LANGOLIERS. “5 OR DIE” marks Holland’s grand return to the genre and introduces genre fans to a brand new killer unlike anyone you’ve ever seen cinematically thus far.

The short (shot in Studio City earlier this year) is about three high school friends who get caught in the middle of deadly chain email that instructs them to forward the letter in 5 minutes or die. As two of the friends watch the third get slashed and brutally murdered by a mysterious man in black, they desperately search for a way to protect themselves as they watch their time quickly run out.

Holland says one of the great things about the net is that there are no rules, and he intends to walk the edge in both horror and violence, hopefully falling over into the abyss of bad taste from time to time. There will be a message board on Strike.TV “5 OR DIE” page where fans can communicate with him and let him know if he has succeeded or not.

He hopes regardless, the show will be great fun for the fans and newcomers to the horror genre.

While STRIKE TV preps to premiere the short exclusively on their website in September, the My Space page is officially live now at: www.myspace.com/5ordie. Fans are encouraged to log in to their My Space page and add the profile to your friends list. You will have access to exclusive production stills, screen grabs and teaser trailers for “5 OR DIE”, and anyone that adds the profile will receive a code on August 18th to watch the short a full month before everyone else!

5 OR DIE was written & directed by Tom Holland and produced by Dennis DeFrehn, special effects by Vine Guastini and stars Brandon Fobbs (The Wire), Madeline Zima (Californication), James Snyder (Crybaby on Broadway) and Kevin Daniels (Their Eye were Watching God).

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DVD PLAYHOUSE--SEPTEMBER 2008

DVD PLAYHOUSE—SEPTEMBER 2008
By
Allen Gardner

SALO: OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (Criterion) Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious final film (he was brutally murdered days after its 1975 release) takes the Marquis de Sade’s story of torture and degradation and re-sets it in the waning days of Fascist Italy. Arguably the most disgusting, and debated, “art” film ever made, this reviewer counts it as one of neo-realisms great masterpieces. Tough going, to be sure, but for discriminating viewers, an experience that is sure to stay with you, and a message that remains timely as ever (think about some of the images that came out of Abu Ghraib prison, and compare them to those in this film). Two disc set. Bonuses: Trailer; Three documentaries on the film; Interviews with film scholars and crew members. Widescreen. Dolby 1.0 mono.
TWO FROM MINNELLI: Warner Bros. releases two classic American musicals from one of the best directors of the genre: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS: TWO DISC SPECIAL EDITION Vincente Minnelli’s masterful blend of song, dance and visual panache, stars Gene Kelly as an ex-GI who falls hard for engaged Parisian store clerk Leslie Caron. Scored entirely to the music of George and Ira Gershwin, this classic deservedly won six Oscars, including Best Picture, and an honorary statuette for Kelly’s iconic work. Two disc set. Bonuses: Commentary featuring archival interviews with cast and crew; Short subjects and cartoons; Trailer; Documentary featuring new interviews with surviving cast and crew; Featurette on Kelly; Outtakes; Outtake song gallery; Radio promos. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. GIGI: 50th ANNIVERARY EDITION again stars Caron, this time as a young Parisian girl who captures the heart of wealthy playboy Louis Jourdan. Great score by Alan Lerner and Frederick Lowe. Two disc set. Bonuses: Commentary by Caron and film historian Jeanine Basinger; Vintage shorts and cartoons; New documentary; Original, 1949 version of the film, in French with English subtitles. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
THE BUSBY BERKELEY COLLECTION, VOL. 2 (Warner Bros.) Four of the song and dance maestro’s classics have been lovingly restored: GOLD DIGGERS OF 1937 finds insurance man Dick Powell pursuing gorgeous Joan Blondell in between spectacular song and dance set pieces; GOLD DIGGERS IN PARIS stars crooner Rudy Vallee as a band leader whose dancers are accidentally sent to Paris, where they take the City of Lights by storm; HOLLYWOOD HOTEL features Powell again, this time as a Hollywood hopeful keeping time with Benny Goodman and his band; Finally, VARSITY SHOW again stars Powell, this time as a loyal alumnus who tries to save his alma mater’s music revue. All feature vintage cartoons and short subjects, as well as music numbers from other Berkeley productions. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono.
THE ERROL FLYNN WESTERN COLLECTION (Warner Bros.) In between donning tights and swashbuckling with a sword, Errol Flynn made some of the best oaters of 40s and 50s Hollywood. Here are a few: MONTANA stars Flynn as a rancher caught up in a vicious range war, with lovely Alexis Smith co-starring as his love interest. Beautifully shot in Technicolor. ROCKY MOUNTAIN features Flynn as a former Confederate soldier who relocates to frontier-era California, only to find that the Shoshone Indians might be tougher foes than the Union soldiers he survived! SAN ANTONIO pairs Flynn again with Alexis Smith, this time as a law-abiding sort who tangles with cattle rustlers. Features one of the great saloon brawls/gunfights of the genre. Finally, VIRGINIA CITY has Flynn portraying a Union officer who goes undercover to stop a train headed for Dixie with a payload of gold that could help the Rebs win the war. Co-starring western icon Randolph Scott and (really!) Humphrey Bogart. All feature Warner Night at the Movies: Vintage newsreels, short subjects, cartoons, and trailers. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono.
THE HIGH SCHOOL FLASHBACK COLLECTION (Universal) Three of writer/director John Hughes’ films that helped define the very ‘80s genre of the teen comedy: SIXTEEN CANDLES leads the pack starring Molly Ringwald, in the role that cemented her status as the iconic face of the decade, as a love-struck girl whose family forgets her 16th birthday in the wake of her obnoxious older sister’s wedding. Anthony Michael Hall also scored big as her geeky, underage suitor. THE BREAKFAST CLUB takes a serio-comic look at the trials and tribulations of teenage life, as five high school archetypes: the loser (Judd Nelson), the princess (Ringwald), the geek (Hall), the jock (Emilio Estevez) and the nutcase (Ally Sheedy) spend a Saturday afternoon detention spilling their guts. Still quite timely, and loaded with Hughes’ signature sight gags. Finally, WEIRD SCIENCE tells the story of two hopeless high school nerds (Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith) who actually create a dream girl (Kelly LeBrock) on their computer and find their social lives vastly improved! Great fun, although nowhere near in the same league as the first two films. Fun early turns by Bill Paxton and Robert Downey, Jr. Bonuses: Retrospective documentaries on all three films, featuring interviews with cast and crew members; Commentary on Breakfast Club by Hall and Nelson; Featurettes; Trailers. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
THE VISITOR (Anchor Bay) Finely observed character study starring Richard Jenkins, a character actor of the highest order who is finely getting much-deserved recognition for his portrait of a lonely widower who becomes involved in the lives of two illegal immigrants he finds flopped in his New York apartment. Writer/director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent) weaves another quiet, beautiful human story, fully of keen observations and no easy answers. A real gem. Bonuses: Commentary by McCarthy and Jenkins; Featurettes; Deleted scenes; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
FOX FILM NOIR 20th Century Fox reaches into their vaults and restores more of their noir classics from the ‘40s and ‘50s. BOOMERANG stars Dana Andrews in director Elia Kazan’s true crime story about a small Connecticut down that is rocked by the murder of its local priest. One of the best films of the genre. MOONTIDE stars Jean Gabin and Ida Lupino as lovers in a California beach town whose happiness is threatened by Gabin’s best friend (Thomas Mitchell) who harbors a dark secret; Finally, ROAD HOUSE stars Richard Widmark as the owner of a rowdy juke joint on the Canadian border who finds himself in a jealous rage when he falls for his pal (Cornel Wilde)’s fiancée (Lupino), and she for him. Bonuses on all: Commentary by film historians; Featurettes; Photo galleries. Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono and 2.0 stereo.
SON OF RAMBOW (Paramount) Delightful coming-of-age story about two boys in ‘80s Great Britain who, after watching a video of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo: First Blood, decide to make a Rambo film of their own with the family video camera, some elbow grease, and some ingenuity that only childhood naiveté can foster. Bonuses: Commentary by cast and crew; Short film; Featurette; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
REPRISE (Miramax/Red Envelope) Fascinating drama about friendship and fate from Norway follows two lifelong friends, both aspiring novelists, who find their relationship strained after one is wildly successful and the other isn’t. Reminiscent of the best films of the French New Wave, with fine turns from its young cast. Bonuses: Five featurettes; Deleted scenes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
DELICATESSEN: SPECIAL EDITION (Lions Gate) Phantasmagorical fantasy from director Jean-Pierre Jeunet set in a post-apocalyptic world where meat has become so rare, it’s used as currency! When the local deli starts to run low, its resourceful butcher looks to other sources for its supply of meat, mostly notably human sources, in particular the new tenant (Dominique Pinon) who goes to work as the building’s handyman! Odd, but affecting, mixture of comedy, sci-fi, and Grand Guignol. Bonuses: Two featurettes; Commentary by Jeunet; Trailer and teaser; Photo gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY: SPECIAL EDITION (MGM/Fox) Excellent adaptation of Jay McInerney’s novel of ‘80s excess was met with mixed reaction upon its release in 1988, but hold up well as a real touchstone of the times. Michael J. Fox gives one of his best dramatic turns as an aspiring writer who finds himself caught up in the nightlife of New York City and the drink, drugs and fast life that go with it. Kiefer Sutherland is wonderfully slimy as his partner in after dark crime. Directed by the late, criminally underrated James Bridges. Bonuses: Commentary by McInerney, cinematographer Gordon Willis; Two featurettes; Photo gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 surround.
NOISE (Anchor Bay) Biting social satire starring Tim Robbins as a New Yorker driven to the edge of madness by the ambient noise that surrounds him on a daily basis, particularly the annoyance of car alarms. When he declares a one-man war on excessive decibels, he incurs the wrath of the city’s blowhard mayor (William Hurt, hilarious) and becomes a folk hero of sorts to the city’s fellow travelers. Bonuses: Commentary by writer/director Henry Bean; Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
THE BIG LEBOWSKI: 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Universal) The Coen brothers’ now-classic modern detective story about reluctant sleuth “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges) who scours modern-day L.A. to retrieve his prized rug that was stolen by two thugs in a case of mistaken identity. Goofy, surreal comedy almost defies description (as do many of the Coens’ films), and has become a cult classic, deservedly so. Bonuses: Four Featurettes; Interactive map; Photo gallery by Bridges. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
BEETLEJUICE: 20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Warner Bros.) Zany supernatural comedy from the mind of Tim Burton stars Michael Keaton as a freelance “bio-exorcist” hired by recently-deceased couple Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis to rid their quaint New England home of its new owners: obnoxious, yuppie New Yorkers. Eye-popping sets, make-up and effects all add to the delightful, inventive mix. Bonuses: 3 episodes of Beetlejuice animated series; Music-only audio track; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
CHICAGO 10 (Paramount) Dynamite, utterly original documentary about the infamous trial of the so-called “Chicago 10” who, according to the U.S. attorney, masterminded the riots that rocked Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention. Brilliantly blending animation, stock footage and photos, and actual trial transcripts, writer/director Brett Morgen has crafted a unique work that combines some of the most inventive filmmaking techniques ever seen in the genre. Voice talent includes Liev Schriber, Roy Scheider, Hank Azaria, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeffrey Wright. Bonuses: Chicago 10 remix video; Previews. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
THE SINGING DETECTIVE (Paramount) Inventive, surreal, wholly unique work based on (and written by) Dennis Potter’s much-lauded BBC series in which a pulp fiction author (Robert Downey, Jr.) bedridden in a hospital, fantasizes that he is his fictional alter ego: a hardboiled private eye and big band singer in the 1940s. Eclectic cast includes Robin Wright Penn, Katie Holmes, Carla Gugino, Adrien Brody and an unrecognizable Mel Gibson. Bonuses: Commentary by director Keith Gordon. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
RISKY BUSINESS: 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Warner Bros.) One of the 1980’s touchstone films (which also made an international star of Tom Cruise), tells the fable of an ambitious, about-to-graduate high school senior (Cruise) who, through unforeseen circumstances, is forced to ally with a savvy Chicago call girl (Rebecca De Mornay) and open a one-night only brothel in his parents’ swanky home, catering to his fellow horny high schoolers, while they’re away. Savage satire of American mores has only improved with age and for those of us who were there, does a beautiful job of capturing a very different, dare we say it, more innocent time. Bonuses: Commentary by Cruise, writer/director Paul Brickman, producer Jon Avnet; Retrospective featurette; Screen tests; Director’s cut of final scene; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
COOL HAND LUKE: DELUXE EDITION (Warner Bros.) Paul Newman plays a ne’er do well that winds up on a southern chain gang in the 1950s, soon finding himself in a battle of wills with the camp’s sadistic overseer (Strother Martin, as one of cinema’s greatest villains). Magnificent ode to non-conformity, with Newman turning in one of his finest performances, ably aided by (Oscar winner) George Kennedy and stars-to-be like Dennis Hopper, Ralph Waite, Wayne Rogers, Joe Don Baker, and Harry Dean Stanton. World-class filmmaking all around, one of the greats! Bonuses: Commentary by film historian Eric Lax; Documentary; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 mono.
BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF: DIRECTOR’S CUT (Universal/Focus) In 18th century France, a mysterious, wolf-like beast roams the countryside spreading terror, causing King Louis XV to assign a scientist and an Iroquois warrior willing to hunt the beast down. Bizarre, and effective, blend of horror, mystery, sex and history that must be seen to be believed. Director’s cut adds 40 minutes of footage deleted from the North American release, resulting in a much more coherent film! Bonuses: Two featurettes; Documentary; Storyboard gallery. 2 disc set. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
THE CHARLIE CHAN COLLECTION, VOL. 5 (20th Century Fox) Sidney Toler takes over the role of the titular Asian sleuth in these seven films from the 1940s: CHARLIE CHAN’S MURDER CRUISE has Charlie solving multiple murders at sea; MURDER OVER NEW YORK finds Charlie and Number Two Son, Jimmy, in the middle of a murder investigation while vacationing in the Big Apple; DEAD MEN TELL finds Chan and Jimmy solving a mystery shipboard on a vessel bound for a treasure hunt; CASTLE IN THE DESERT find Chan summoned to a castle deep in the Mojave Desert to investigate a murder that may have been committed by a member of the infamous Borgia family; CHARLIE CHAN IN PANAMA has Chan working undercover in the port city, where he discovers a plot to blow up the U.S. Naval fleet! CHARLIE CHAN IN THE WAX MUSEUM finds Chan tracking an escaped murderer, whom he helped put away, to a mysterious wax museum. One of the series’ best. Finally, CHARLIE CHAN IN RIO has Chan investigating the killing of a beautiful nightclub singer. Bonuses: Featurettes; Trailers; Photo galleries. Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono.
THE HORROR, THE HORROR…MGM/Fox releases some new titles, sure to give you gooseflesh. Leading the pack is CHILD’S PLAY: CHUCKY’S 20th BIRTHDAY EDITION When a single mom (Catherine Hicks) buys her son (Alex Vincent) a Chucky doll for his birthday, little does she know that the doll contains the spirit of an escaped mass murderer! Near-perfect blend of humor and horror from co-writer/director Tom Holland (whose presence on the commentary track is sorely missed), with animatronic effects that were state of the art in 1988, and still hold up beautifully today. Fine support from Chris Sarandon and Brad Dourif, both in the flesh, and as the voice of Chucky. Bonuses: Commentary by Hicks, Vincent, Chucky designer Kevin Yagher, producer David Kirschner, co-writer Don Mancini; Scene specific Chucky commentary; Four featurettes; Photo gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. FOX HORROR CLASSICS, VOL. 2 features the great vintage scarefests CHANDU THE MAGICIAN, starring Bela Lugosi as a madman bent on destroying the world, with only Chandu the Magician (Edmund Lowe) to foil the fiend! DRAGONWYCK marks the directing debut of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring Vincent Price and Gene Tierney in this spine-tingling ghost story. DR. RENAULT’S SECRET tells the tale of a wealthy French (mad) scientist who attempts to turn men into apes to prove his theory of evolution! Bonuses: Commentary by film scholars; Isolated score track; Radio shows; Restoration comparisons; Photo galleries. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. REVENGE IS SWEET TRIPE FEATURE, has three macabre tales: CANDYMAN: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH, the sequel to the horror hit about the hook-handed specter who haunts the ghetto; JOHN CARPENTER’S THE FOG, stars Jamie Lee Curtis in a tale of ghostly sailors who come back for revenge on the townsfolk who caused their demise. TERROR TRAIN again features Curtis, this time playing a sorority girl on a train rented for a fraternity bash that turns deadly when one of the frat’s former pledges shows up for some payback! Muuu-hahahahha! Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 surround.
THE PRESIDENTS COLLECTION (Paramount/PBS) Mammoth box set collection of “American Experience” documentaries on some of the United States’ most notable leaders, and influential families, in politics. Ten volume set contains profiles of: Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, The Kennedys, LBJ, Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Five of the ten are 2 disc sets, and the films on the Kennedys and FDR really stand out, although entire series is stellar. Full and widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround.
BLU-RAY TITLES Blu-ray technology offers a new standard in DVD viewing and the home theater experience: 1080p resolution; Lossless audio, which delivers the finest uncompressed digital sound available; and Smart Menu Technology, which floats on-screen during playback so you never leave the film. Just a few of the titles arriving on Blu-Ray this month include: Disney leads the pack with SMART PEOPLE, an aptly-named dysfunctional family comedy about a self-absorbed professor (Dennis Quaid) who falls for a former student (Sarah Jessica Parker). Fine support from Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Interviews with cast and crew; Bloopers and outtakes; Commentary by director Noam Murro and writer Mark Jude Poirer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. Oliver Stone’s NIXON features Anthony Hopkins in his Oscar-nominated turn as the eponymous President in a finely-etched portrait of self-destruction. Bonuses: Documentary; Deleted scenes; Charlie Rose interview with Stone; 2 commentaries with Stone; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. TIM BURTON’S THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS follows the animated adventures of Jack Skellington, the pumpkin King who longs to put the joy in Christmas, but finds his ghostly appearance not only threatens Santa’s status, but puts fear into the hearts of kids, instead of warmth! Dazzling technical achievement, punctuated by Burton’s signature inventiveness. Bonuses: Intro by Burton; Four featurettes; Burton’s film Frankenweenie (uncut version); Short film, Vincent; Commentary by Burton, Henry Selick, Danny Elfman; Deleted scenes; Storyboards; Trailers and posters. Widescreen. Dolby 7.1 surround. THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN COLLECTION features all three Pirates films (Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End) gloriously remastered for Blu-ray, all featuring the acting genius of Johnny Depp. Bonuses: Featurettes; Exclusive Blu-ray interactive features; Bloopers and outtakes; Audio commentary; Games; Trailers. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. KILL BILL, VOL 1 & 2 are Quentin Tarantino’s masterful pastiche of grindhouse kung-fu, spaghetti westerns and ‘70s exploitation flicks, starring Uma Thurman as a wronged woman out for vengeance. Inventive, exciting and utterly original. Great stuff! Bonuses: Featurettes; Deleted scene; Bonus musical performances; Tarantino trailers. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. THINKFilm/Image Entertainment release THEN SHE FOUND ME, Oscar winning actress Helen Hunt’s directing debut about a schoolteacher (Hunt) dealing with the split of her marriage, her mother’s death, and the introduction of the woman (Bette Midler) who is apparently her biological mother! Sounds soapy, but it’s quite good, thanks to a solid script and excellent cast. Bonuses: Commentary by Hunt; Interviews with cast and crew; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. 20th Century Fox releases STREET KINGS, a so-so policier starring Keanu Reeves as a tough cop who finds himself framed for murder. James Ellroy was one of three writers credited. Bonuses: Commentary by director David Ayer; Picture-in-picture featurette; Five featurettes; Deleted scenes; Alternate takes; Vignettes; Trailers. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround. PRISON BREAK: SEASON THREE follows the continuing adventures of Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), an American who finds himself inside a brutal Panamanian prison. Bonuses: Four featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround. Lions Gate releases THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, an animated feature based on the Marvel Comics character, where Iron Man must battle the evil villain Mandarin. Good fun for the kiddies! Bonuses: Alternate opening; Six featurettes; Trailers. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 and DTS 7.1 surround. Jet Li stars in the goofy, but fun superhero/marital arts adventure BLACK MASK, a mild-mannered Hong Kong librarian who fights bad guys with the baddest moves this side of Bruce Lee. Bonuses: Two featurettes; Black Mask game; Trailers. Widescreen. DTS 7.1 surround. Sony releases MARRIED LIFE, a nuanced drama set in post-WW II suburbia that finds a husband (Chris Cooper) planning to murder his seemingly devoted wife (Patricia Clarkson) to spare her the heartbreak that his love affair with another woman (Rachel McAdams) might cause. Little does he know, his best friend (Pierce Brosnan) has designs on the young woman, as well! Punctuated with black humor and some nice twists, a sharp, sophisticated movie for adults. Bonuses: Commentary by director Ira Sachs; Three alternate endings. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. 88 MINUTES is a turkey of a thriller starring Al Pacino who literally phones in his performance as a forensic psychologist who gets a threatening phone call that he has only 88 minutes to live. Huge disappointment from a movie full of talent behind and before the camera! Bonuses: Alternate ending; Commentary by director Jon Avnet; Two featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. THE FALL is a visually stunning, but hopelessly muddled fantasy about a little girl in 1920s L.A. who, while recovering from a fall in a local hospital, befriends a Hollywood stuntman who spins a tall tale for the girl, while going through an emotional and physical recovery of his own. Beautiful, to be sure, but what it all means remains a mystery at the end. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Featurettes; Cast and crew commentary. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. Finally, Universal releases Michael Mann’s feature film of his hit ‘80s TV series MIAMI VICE, with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx assuming the mantle of Miami P.D. detectives Crockett and Tubbs, here in pursuit of a deadly drug cartel. Kinetic action, dynamic visuals. Bonuses: Picture-in-picture featurettes, technical specs, GPS, cast bios, and production photos; Four regular featurettes; Commentary by Mann. Widescreen. DTS 5.1 surround. U-571 is an exciting, white knuckle WW II submarine adventure starring Matthew McConaughey as a Naval officer who must lead his men, disguised as Nazis, to infiltrate a damaged German U-boat. Bonuses: Picture-in-picture featurettes; Commentary by director Jonathan Mostow. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround. HEROES, SEASON 1 & SEASON 2 brings one of TV’s greatest adventure sagas to Blu-ray, each set containing five and four discs respectively. Bonuses: Picture-in-picture featurettes; Never-aired premiere episode; Regular featurettes; Deleted scenes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround.
DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL! More of TV’s finest arrive on DVD this month. Paramount leads the pack with ‘90s hit WINGS: THE SEVENTH SEASON. 4 disc set. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono; THE GHOST WHISPERER: THIRD SEASON, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt as a sleuth with a knack for solving mysteries with supernatural aids. Bonuses: Eight featurettes; Animated short. Widescreen. THE UNTOUCHABLES, SEASON 2, VOL. 2 is a 4-disc set containing the further adventures of G-man Eliot Ness. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 CHEERS: SEASON 10 offers all 25 episodes of the classic early ‘90s comedy set in everyone’s favorite Beantown bar. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono; NCIS: THE FIFTH SEASON features more drama and suspense from Mark Harmon and his team of special agents. 5-disc set. Bonuses: Cast and crew commentary; Five featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround; STAR TREK: ALTERNATE REALITIES COLLECTIVE is an inspired collection of all the strangest episodes of all five “Star Trek” series, from the original “Trek” to “Voyager.” What will they think of next? Bonuses: Six featurettes; Commentary by cast and crew. Full and widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround; CSI MIAMI: THE SIXTH SEASON, features more forensic mysteries solved by David Caruso and his squad of Miami cops. Bonuses: Three featurettes; Commentary by cast and crew. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. MEDIUM: SEASON 4, stars Patricia Arquette as a psychic Phoenix housewife whose dreams often help local cops solve the seemingly unsolvable. Bonuses: Commentary by producers Glenn Gordon Caron and Larry Teng; Three featurettes; Gag reel. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. CRIMINAL MINDS: THE THIRD SEASON, follows the adventures of legendary criminal profiler David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and his team of FBI agents. Bonuses: Five featurettes; Deleted scenes; Gag reel. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. ABC Studios releases ELI STONE: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, stars Jonny Lee Miller as a Walter Mitty-like man whose strange visions and life “soundtrack” either have medical, or metaphysical, implications. Very inventive, smart, witty stuff. Bonuses: Extended pilot episode; Deleted scenes; Bloopers; Four featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: SIZZLING SECRETS EDITION, SEASON 4, has more great dirt from the seamy side of suburbia. Bonuses: Two featurettes; Deleted scenes; Bloopers. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. CYBILL: THE COLLECTOR’S EDITION, VOL. 1 stars Cybill Shepherd as a single mother dealing with divorce, parenthood and dating all in one package. Ten episodes. Bonuses: Interview with Shepherd; Cybill’s favorite episodes. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. NBC/Universal releases THE OFFICE: SEASON FOUR, with more deadpan humor from Steve Carell and co. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Four featurettes; Commentary by cast and crew. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. WILL & GRACE: SEASON EIGHT features the final season of the beloved sitcom. Bonuses: Four featurettes; Commentary by cast and crew; Outtakes. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. LIFE: SEASON ONE, stars Damian Lewis as an ex-cop/ex-convict-turned-detective looking for redemption in this clever, eccentric series. Bonuses: Four featurettes; Deleted scenes; Bloopers; Commentary by cast and crew. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. Warner Bros. releases the holiday classic IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN, featuring the Peanuts gang celebrating Halloween. Bonuses: 2 featurettes. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. GOSSIP GIRL: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, stars Blake Lively as Manhattan’s most notorious, and savvy, social blogger. Bonuses: Unrated scenes; Three featurettes; Gag reel; Downloadable audio book, read by Christina Ricci. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. SMALLVILLE: THE COMPLETE SEVENTH SEASON, features the early adventures of young Clark Kent/Superboy and life his adopted hometown of Smallville. Bonuses: Commentary by cast and crew; Unaired scenes; Four featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround. Acorn Media releases some of the finest series from across the pond: TRIAL & RETRIBUTION, SET 1, follows a “Law & Order” type formula that follows cases from the commission of the crime, to the trial of the accused. 4 disc set. Bonuses: Interview with creator Lynda La Plante; Bio of La Plante. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. MOBILE is a crackling good miniseries following terrorist attacks on cell phone towers, and murders of cell phone users, across England. Smart, and exciting. 4 episodes. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. EDWARD THE KING is a 1973 miniseries about King Edward VII, who waited nearly 60 years to become king, and reigned for only nine, after being derided by his mother, Queen Victoria. 13 episodes. Bonuses: Select audio commentary; Two featurettes; Trailers; Photo gallery. Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono. MISTER ROBERTS is a 1984 television production of the classic play, starring Kevin Bacon, Charles Durning and Robert Hays, filmed before a live audience. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono. MIDSOMER MURDERS: SET ELEVEN, tell the further mysteries of seemingly pastoral Midsomer County, in this clever detective series. Four episodes. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo. Finally, Koch Vision releases SHELLEY DUVALL’S FAERIE TALE THEATER, THE COMPLETE SERIES of 26 fractured fairy tales, acted out by some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, and helmed by names such as Francis Ford Coppola and Tim Burton. Bonuses: Lost episode; Presentation reel; B-roll promo footage; 112 page storybook; Game. Full screen. Dolby 2.0 mono.

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