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Dan Owen reviews

DAN'S   MOVIE   DIGEST

I s s u e   # 1 4 5

1 0   A u g u s t   2 0 0 5

Movie News
Interview
US & UK Top cinema listings
In the Pipeline

Cover
MOVIE NEWS

ERAGON
'Moziplussz.hu' has revealed that Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty) is set to play the villain Durza in Eragon, based on Christopher Paolini's best-selling fantasy novel.
Filming started on 1 August in Hungary, with lead actor Ed Speleers. John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou and Carlyle will arrive in Hungary at a later date. Malkovich will shoot for only two days, and will arrive later this fall.
Eragon is being directed by Stefen Fangmeier from a Peter Buchman script, and concerns a farm boy who learns he is the last of a breed of benevolent Dragon Riders, whose magical powers derived from their bond with the beasts.

THE HIKER
A remake is being planned for the cult classic thriller that starred Rutger Hauer as a psychotic hitch-hiker, with Sam Rockwell rumoured to up for the role.

THE RETRIEVER
'The Hollywood Reporter' has revealed that Vin Diesel will star The Retriever, about a one-man army fighting to save the world from nuclear apocalypse when a doomsday device smuggled out of Chernobyl is captured by terrorists.

INTERVIEW

'Coming Soon' interviewed cult director Terry Gilliam (Brazil, 12 Monkeys) about his upcoming movie The Brothers Grimm.

Q: The Brothers Grimm is a project you've been working on for quite some time. Why has it taken so long for this to see the light of day?

"It started way back in 2002, and I finished shooting at the end of November in 2003. I have two films in the next year. I finished off Grimms and went off and did Tideland and then came back and tidied both films up. I literally had to go off in the latter half of last year and go to Canada to shoot another film, so Grimms was put on hold for a bit, and then I came back and finished Grimms and Tideland together."

Q: How did you first get your hands on the Ehren Kruger's script for The Brothers Grimm? Did he write that even before writing The Ring?

"Well, I don't know exactly. Chuck Roven, who produced 12 Monkeys, he was trying to get me to do something again. He gave me this script, and it was intriguing, because I grew up with Grimms' fairy tales and thought it was an interesting way to take advantage of these decent, hard-working good German people who've brought us all those great fairy tales. In effect, they've been trapped in a fairy tale of someone else's making."

Q: Was it made completely outside the studio system or did you have studio backing?

"No, this was done with Dimension. We began this project with MGM, and we were in pre-production in Prague--everybody just turned up--when we got this call that MGM had pulled the plug on it, so everybody had to get on their planes and go back to wherever it was they were. Within about 24 hours, we got a call from Dimension that they wanted in, so I came out to L.A., met the Weinsteins, talked about it, and basically, off we went."

Q: Between Baron Munchausen, Don Quixote and now this, you've built your reputation on deconstructing folklore and fairy tales. What about doing that intrigues or appeals to you?

"In this particular instance, it's really about two brothers, one who is a cynical pragmatic, and the other who's a romantic dreamer and in many ways, who is going to win? There are two different views of the world, and this particular instance, magical enchanted fairy tale aspects of the world rears its ugly head, and that's what's going on in it. To me, fantasy and reality, I wouldn't say they were two sides of the same coin unless it happens to be my life, and that is two sides of the same coin. (chuckles)"

Q: How did you end up choosing Matt Damon and Heath Ledger to play the two brothers and how did you decide which one of them would play which brother?

"Well, I actually think both are doing different roles, because Matt normally is doing the more introspective character until he started doing Bourne Identity, but even in that, he's still quiet and is introspective to his actions. In this one, he's the extrovert, the big mouth, the guy who charms women. And Heath, who's often playing the leading man is now playing the twitchy, funny brother, who's sort of vulnerable. Basically, it was about casting against type, as usual. I just like putting people through things they haven't done before and the same goes for the audience, trying to give them a different ride where they can see these people as actors, and not just extensions of one particular aspect of their character."

Q: In some ways, the Brothers seem like Baron Munchausen's personality split in half, each with their own take on reality and fantasy. Did you see any corollaries between the two films?

"My wife keeps accusing me of making the same film but just changing the costumes. (chuckles)"

Q: The movie looks absolutely amazing, and I think the team you put together was great. Can you talk about creating the look for the film?"

"Yeah, Guy Dyas, it was the second film he's ever designed. He was quite incredible. He had done X-Men 2 and he's just this fantastic artist. He draws beautifully and quickly, and it was just a joy working with him. I got Gabriella Pescucci back, who had done Baron Munchausen. She's spectacular. It was a really fantastic team. The trick was trying to create a world that is both magical and totally realistic at the same time, rather than escaping what I see in a lot of fantasy films where the feet are no longer on the ground. I wanted to keep our feet firmly on the ground, so that when it does become clear that we're in an enchanted forest that it's a real forest suddenly coming alive in different ways then you normally see. I just thought that was essential, so everybody involved, even in the computer generating animators, I kept trying to destroy their good work, because they tend to make things beautiful and floating around the place, and I just wanted to make it more realistic. Hopefully, I achieved that."

Q: Your movies tend to have a look and vision that people automatically relate to you. If Gilliamesque were an actual word, how would you define it?

"I don't know. I mean, that's my problem. Everyone keeps talking about a Gilliamesque quality or a Gilliamesque look. They start seeing a movie or a trailer and they realize immediately that it's me. I honestly don't know what they mean, because it's just the way I see the world. It's very hard for me to get outside of my view of the world and look at it objectively. I just do what I do. Pretty much everything I do I'm fairly instinctive about the way it looks and feels. I do think whatever they've got, whatever else happens in my films, there's always a lot of humor that punctures some of the potential pretensions that I have."

Q: Lately, there seems to be a lot more movies that have that sort of feel from Pirates of the Caribbean or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Do you feel that way, too?

"Well, I just think that the big, heavy macho action stuff is now becoming very repetitive. We've seen so much of it for so many years that I guess people are bored with it. When I go to the cinema and watch trailers, I swear I've seen that trailer twenty times already. They feel like the same films and they tend to take themselves so seriously, and it's nonsense. The real world isn't like that. Also, I tend to think if you spend too much time making macho movies of people shooting each other up, it starts infecting the real world."

Q: Are you almost done finishing Tideland?

"Yeah, I mean Tideland is finished now. We just finished it last week, and it opens in the Toronto Film Festival on September 9th. It's quite different than Grimms. It's nice, because one's big and beautiful and fun. I keep saying Grimms is designed to scare the children, and Tideland is designed to scare the adults."

Q: Who's going to distribute that?

"We don't know yet actually. We made it completely outside of American money in any form, and the opening in Toronto is the moment that Jeremy Thomas is selling the movie, so hopefully, by the end of that week, we'll know who's distributing it. I quite like the two films, because they're balancing each other in an interesting way."

Q: Just to show how times have changed, the musical Spamalot based on the Python movies is now the biggest hit on Broadway. Would you be interested in directing a film version of that like they're doing with The Producers musical?

"No, to me Spamalot is great, and it's fantastic that it's a success. I think there is talk about making a movie of it, but I don't know where that's got to yet, but I can almost guarantee that I won't be directing it."

Q: Not into musicals anymore?

"No, I really don't like going back. We learned a lot about filmmaking when Terry Jones and I directed that, and it's a wonderful film, and it's in the past as far as I'm concerned. The fact that Eric [Idle] has reinvented it for Broadway is clear that there's an audience out there for it. That's fantastic, but I don't know, I want to just keep moving forward rather than reinventing the past."

Q: Over the years, there's been a lot of talk about you directing movies based on well-known books like Alan Moore's Watchmen, Neil Gaiman's Good Omens and even the first Harry Potter for a while there. Tom Stoppard, who wrote Brazil, has adapted the fantasy book His Dark Materials for the screen, and they seem to need a director. Is that something you might consider doing?

"It was actually very funny when I heard about Dark Materials being made into a movie. I kept raising my hand at the back of the class saying Me, sir! Me, sir! but nobody's seen my hand, I guess. (chuckles) I know my agent was following it very closely. It seems to have gone to various people's hands at the moment. It's a big project and I'm not sure the studio really understands what it is, which may be why it seems to be languishing at the moment."

Q: From what I've seen in Brothers Grimm, it definitely seems like you can handle it.

"The thing is that I know how to do that kind of movie. I can do big movies with a lot of effects, but it doesn't mean that I really enjoy them that much. It's a very different way of working. It's hard work. You're running an army and on the other hand, when I did something like Tideland, it's a cast of four people, it's a small budget, and it was really refreshing to be able to work quickly. Guerilla filmmaking is sometimes a lot more fun than the big stuff. The big projects, I really gotta believe in them totally and utterly before I immerse myself in them."

Q: Going back a bit in time, it's been twenty years since Brazil, but it still has a lot of resonance, especially with what's going on in England today. Are you surprised by how much of the things you depicted in that movie have come to pass?

"No. The problem, particularly in America, is that people have lost any sense of history. They think that history began this morning when they woke up. When I made that film, there were a lot of bombings going on. The I.R.A. were busy working in London. They were at the end of their campaign. There were terrorists in Germany, the Red Brigade in Italy, so terrorism was alive and well. What I was interested in was a response to big bureaucracies where their job is terrorism, how that even if there aren't terrorists, for bureaucracies to survive, they need to invent terrorists. Now, maybe we're in that situation now. All I know is that the Bush administration is very much closer to the Ministry of Information in Brazil than anything I've seen before."

Q: At this point in your career, do you think that Hollywood is finally starting to understand you and what you do?

"I really don't know. I'm hoping that there's a lot of people that were fans of my early work who are now running studios. Maybe they'll remember how much pleasure I gave them when they were young. That's the best I can hope for! (chuckles)"

Q: Incidentally, the trailer was very well received at Comic-Con last month and The Brothers Grimm was picked as the top movie for August in ComingSoon.net's monthly readers' poll.

"That's quite interesting, especially since you haven't seen much in the ways of advertising for Grimms yet. I mean, that hopefully will start this week, and I hope they do a TV blitz, so that a few other people out there get to know about it before it opens."

Q: So what do you think? Is the world ready for another Terry Gilliam movie or even possibly two?

"Well, I think we'll find out in a month's time. (chuckles) Let's hope!"

The Brothers Grimm opens in the US on 26 August, while Tideland should open the 'Toronto International Film Festival' on 9 September.

US TOP 10 (CINEMA)

All figures are weekend box-office gross.

1. The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) ($30.7m)
2. Wedding Crashers ($16.0m) (total to date: $169m)
3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) ($11.0m) (total to date: $169m)
4. Sky High ($9.01m)
5. Must Love Dogs ($7.36m)
6. La Marche de L'empereur ($7.12m)
7. Stealth ($5.92m)
8. Fantastic Four (2005) ($4.27m) (total to date: $144m)
9. War of the Worlds (2005) ($3.55m) (total to date: $225m)

10. The Island ($3.12m)

UK TOP 10 (CINEMA)

1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (�4.44m)
2. Madagascar (�0.85m)
3. Wedding Crashers (�0.84m)
4. Fantastic Four (2005) (�0.82m)
5. Herbie: Fully Loaded (�0.77m)
6. War of the Worlds (2005) (�0.57m)
7. Stealth (�0.52m)
8. The Skeleton Key (�0.43m)
9. The Devil's Rejects (�0.32m)

10. Batman Begins (�0.07m)

** IN THE PIPELINE **

All the following are U.K. release dates, and are subject to change.

12th August 2005: The Island, Fever Pitch (2005), The Rising, Supercross, Crash (2004), Primer

19th August 2005: Bewitched, Paradise Now, R-Point, Danny the Dog, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Bewitched (2005),

26th August 2005: Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), Bad News Bears, Intruder, The Cave

2nd September 2005: The Business, The Honeymooners (2005), Red-Eye, On a Clear Day, Vital

9th September 2005: Cinderella Man, Land of the Dead, Rock School, The Man, The Longest Yard

16th September 2005: Four Brothers, Must Love Dogs, Pride and Prejudice (2005)

23rd September 2005: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Revolver

30th September 2005: Goal!, Corpse Bride, A History of Violence, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Aeon Flux, The Perfect Man, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, The History of Violence

7th October 2005: Night Watch, Oliver Twist (2005), The Constant Gardener, Serenity, The Kinky Boot Factory

14th October 2005: Wallace & Gromit Movie: Curse of the Wererabbit, Lord of War, The Dark

21st October 2005: Nanny McPhee, Murderball, Elizabeth Town, Syriana, Sky High, Broken Flowers

28th October 2005: Doom, Flightplan, The Legend of Zorro

4th November 2005: V for Vendetta, The Exorcism of Emily Rhodes,

11th November 2005: Everything is Illuminated, The New World, Hustle & Flow, In Her Shoes

18th November 2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2nd December 2005: Tickets

9th December 2005: Hey Mr DJ, Just Like Heaven, The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Shopgirl, Brokeback Mountain

14th December 2005: King Kong (2005)

16th December 2005: The Hawk is Dying

30th December 2005: Stray Dogs

TBA: The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D, Domino, The Pink Panther (2005), Halloween 9, Final Destination 3D, Noel, The Tiger and the Snow, Underworld: Evolution, Walk the Line

All the following are U.S. release dates, and are subject to change.

AUGUST: The Skeleton Key (12), Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo (12), The Aristocrats (12), Red Eye (19), Valiant (19), The Cave (26), The Brothers Grimm (26), Undiscovered (26)
SEPTEMBER: Birth Of The Pink Panther (23), Legend Of Zorro (23), Serenity (30), Spy Hunter (30)
OCTOBER: Wallace & Gromit (7), The Fog (14), Land Of The Dead (21)
NOVEMBER: Cars (4), Harry Potter 4 (18), Brother Grimm (23)
DECEMBER: Chronicles Of Narnia (9), Underworld 2 (9), King Kong (14), The Producers (24), Zathura (21), Mad Max Fury Road (31), Die Hard 4 (31)