Paul Dano

Interview: ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ Director Spike Jonze With Stars Max Records, Catherine Keener

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:22:01 -0600

CHICAGO – From the looks of things, you’d think “Where the Wild Things Are” director Spike Jonze is more than just Max Records’ director. You’d think Jonze was his 12-year-old star’s father, too.

Max Records, who briefly appeared in 2008’s “The Brothers Bloom” with Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, sat cuddled up beside Jonze in our interview. Chock full of pride, Jonze kissed Records on his cheek as the boy spoke surprisingly intelligently about his breakout role.

Director Spike Zonze (front) and Max Records on the set of “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Sonny Geras

Rating: 4.0/5.0

In the HollywoodChicago.com interview with Jonze (“Adaptation,” “Being John Malkovich”), Records and star Catherine Keener, we discussed the film’s deft ability as one of the best films for how imagination can be used for more than escape. While fantasy films often have kids bouncing off walls and escaping reality, “Where the Wild Things Are” goes much deeper.

This film, which also features voice work from James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose, finds a way to allow real healing and coping to be byproducts of imagination.

We also discussed the various interpretations and metaphorical explanations of the creatures. While I viewed two creatures in particular to be father (Carol, voiced by James Gandolfini) and mother (KW, voiced by Lauren Ambrose) figures for Max Records’ Max character, Records had a different viewpoint from a child’s perspective.

“I always viewed all of the wild things as sort of like individual emotions that are isolated into these big, furry creatures. It can be taken so many different ways,” Max Records said.

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Matt Nettheim

Records added: “One of the weird things about doing that is you’re not sure which is which. Probably if you were going to map it out, Carol is sort of love, you know? He’s shaky and unstable and about to lash out and eat your head off. But he’s so sweet. They’re all sort of parts of Max.”

“We never did a one on one like ‘this is this’ or ‘that is that’. It’s more feelings and emotions than a specific ‘this is that person’. It’s a little more like a dream in that the emotion is what you connect with,” director Spike Jonze said.

“I agree with you,” Catherine Keener said. “I think I had my own feelings about Carol and KW, but we all sort of projected our own experiences.”

As the three discussed their different interpretations, it became clear that Jonze’s intention was to leave these questions up to the moviegoer to answer.

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Matt Nettheim

“I don’t find life to be that simple. I’m more interested in trying to capture what life is like. Life isn’t simple. Life has a lot of grays. Things can be contradictory. Relationships have a lot of different sides to them,” Jonze said. “You’re just trying to put in everything you can. If you’re exploring a theme, you’re going to try to approach it from all sides of that theme as opposed to just ‘it’s like this’.”

The film “Where the Wild Things Are” is Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s children’s book of the same name. While family films often “talk down” to their audiences, this film doesn’t. The film, which opened everywhere on Oct. 16, 2009, was initially slated to open in 2008 and was pushed back due to challenges with the studio.

“It starts with Maurice [Sendak] and his work. His work doesn’t talk down to kids. That’s why I loved it as a kid. When I see something that felt like [blank] … I recognize that feeling,” Jonze said. “Those were the things I was attracted to. It wasn’t a book that was like: ‘If you behave this way, then…’ Those were the ‘easy-lesson books’. They didn’t stick in my head at all.”

He added: “The ones that had some strange feeling that I recognized … those are the ones that stuck in my head. Like the first Willy Wonka movie with Gene Wilder. He’s compelling. I want him to like me, but I’m also scared of him. I want to be Charlie. I want him to give me the factory, but I’m also really scared of him and charmed by him. He’s mysterious.”

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Matt Nettheim

As the film was pushed back to 2009, Jonze and his crew were given more time to make changes until their budget ran out. But that doesn’t mean he made the film less dark.

“It was my goal just to make it better and use the time. We pushed it back one year. It was really frustrating and difficult because I had been working on it so long already, but I just tried to stay productive. I used the time and money to make the movie better. In the end, I feel like we did use that time to discover things,” Jonze said.

He added: “We never made the movie less dark. We never changed our intention. I feel like the movie is the same movie we started making. It’s the same movie we screened that the studio was anxious about.”

Jonze continued: “In the end, the studio came to accept the movie. They realized I wasn’t going to work on something for five years and then – because they were anxious – change it and go against what I set out to do. I would never do that. Why would I? Why would I spend that much time on something I cared so deeply about and then – out of their anxiety – question that?”

James Gandolfini as Carol in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Ben King

Max Records recalls this story being read to him when he was an even a younger kid. In a paternal frame of mind, Jonze launched into interviewing Records inside our interview with the cast. Jonze said: “Do you remember it being read to you when you were young?”

Records said: “My parents read it to me. It was probably read to me first when I was a year-and-a-half old or something. Possibly younger. It’s just different. As Spike says, it’s not a moralistic, easy-to-follow thing where you do something and there are consequences and that’s that.”

Jonze continued to Records: “Do you remember being three or four?”

Records said: “Not at all. I’m guessing at what I felt.”

Jonze said: “What is the earliest age you remember?”

Records said: “Mostly, I just remember brief memories and a couple of images from when I was like three or something. Then I start remembering stuff in detail when I was probably six.”

Jonze said: “When you were six, do you remember reading the book still?”

Records said: “I probably still did. Yeah.”

Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Warner Bros.

Now Records, who clearly has been entrenched in this Max character since he was a kid and then in the film when he played him, only said he “related to Max just as much as any kid does” without being completely consumed by him.

“We all get pissed off and stand on the counter and yell at our mother,” Records said. “‘Feed me, woman!’ It’s just different instances of stuff like that. One of the things that makes the film so great is that Max (the character) embodies a child between the ages of six and 10 or even beyond that.”

Because the film took so long to come to fruition, Jonze and Keener commented on how the film ran like a well-oiled machine.

“The group that Spike works with – all of the friends and I’m part of it, too – would kind of burn out and take their day and hit the wall. There was always somebody there,” Keener said.

“We don’t work that departmentally,” Jonze said. “If I was faded one day, then Lance (Acord, the cinematographer) would jump in and take over. Or Keener. It was everybody.”

“It was such a long time that everybody got very real. If you were just sort of done, people would understand it and pick up for you,” Keener said.

James Gandolfini as Carol (back) and Max Records as Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
Image credit: Warner Bros.

“They wouldn’t just stop,” Records said.

“No. They wouldn’t stop. You couldn’t stop. We could not afford to stop,” Keener said.

Max Records also commented on how “Where the Wild Things Are” director Spike Jonze filmed as compared to “The Brothers Bloom” director Rian Johnson.

“Rian Johnson knew exactly what he wanted whereas Spike knew exactly what he wanted … and 50 other things he wanted, too,” Records said.

“But that’s what it was like with the range of emotions in these characters. It was a range of everything on this movie within each person. There was so much scope,” Keener said. “Spike went out to make this movie and Max went out to do his journey. And they come back and there’s acceptance at the end.”

Records concluded: “My job was to go to Australia and help make a movie and then come back to make sure these two don’t make up lies about me.”

“Where the Wild Things Are,” which is directed by Spike Jonze and writte by Jonze and Dave Eggers based on the book by Maurice Sendak, stars Max Records, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo with voice work by James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose.

The film, which is rated “PG” for mild thematic elements, some adventure action and brief language, has a running time of 101 minutes. “Where the Wild Things Are” opened everywhere on oct. 16, 2009.

See more “Where the Wild Things Are” production stills.
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O pens “Where the Wild Things Are” music.
Warner Bros. to finally let “Where the Wild Things” out in Oct. 2009.
Lauren Ambrose in for Michelle Williams in “Where the Wild Things Are”.
$75 million “Where the Wild Things Are” reshoot.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief/Publisher
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

Ang Lee’s ‘Taking Woodstock’ Lays Down Too Mellow a Vibe to Be Memorable

BrianTT — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:26:05 -0600

CHICAGO – More about the vibe surrounding the three days of peace and love that would become the most influential festival in history than the actual music itself, Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” is a frustrating drama with individual elements that work but a cinematic set list that is ultimately disjointed and unsatisfying.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Late in “Taking Woodstock,” Elliot Teichberg’s (Demetri Martin) father (Henry Goodman) asks his son if he enjoyed the concert. Elliot says he made a few friends and that “It was great.” That’s the essential dialogue exchange in “Taking Woodstock,” a film about finding community, acceptance, and friendship more than one about bands, singers, or actual creativity.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Taking Woodstock” in our reviews section.

It’s a unique and interesting way to approach the legend of Woodstock but also one that feels like too much to try and capture in a two-hour drama/comedy with only one real central character. “Taking Woodstock” might have worked as a “Nashville”-esque ensemble piece but writer James Schamus and director Ang Lee focus all their energy on a lead who is, to be frank, not that interesting, and turn the rest of their characters into two-dimensional cliches for him to bounce off on his way out of town.

Martin stars as Teichberg, a New Yorker forced to return to the Catskills and take care of his parents (Goodman & Imelda Staunton) run down motel. Every summer, Elliot plans an arts and music festival, and this year there just happens to be a few musicians without a home after a nearby town runs out what would become the Woodstock festival.

Continuing reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “Taking Woodstock” review.

‘Taking Woodstock’ stars Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Henry Goodman, Emile Hirsch, Paul Dano, Kelli Garner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eugene Levy, Dan Fogler, Jonathan Groff, Richard Thomas, and Liev Schreiber. It was written by James Schamus and directed by Ang Lee. It opens on August 28th, 2009. It is rated R.

Taking Woodstock.
Photo credit: Focus Features

HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: 50 Passes to ‘Taking Woodstock’ Chicago Screening With Emile Hirsch

HollywoodChicago.com — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:50:19 -0600

CHICAGO – In our latest trippy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the highly anticipated Chicago screening of “Taking Woodstock” from Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain” and “Sense and Sensibility”). “Taking Woodstock” stars Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Dan Fogler, Demetri Martin, Paul Dano, Henry Goodman, Jonathan Groff and Eugene Levy.

To win your free pass to the advance screening of “Taking Woodstock” in Chicago courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, all you need to do is answer our question below. That’s it! The screening will be held on Aug. 27, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Directions to enter this Hookup and immediately win can be found beneath the graphic below.

The movie poster for “Taking Woodstock” with Emile Hirsch, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Paul Dano.
Image credit: Focus Features

Here is the “Taking Woodstock” plot description:

“Taking Woodstock” is the new film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee – and it’s a trip! Based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber, the comedy stars Demetri Martin as Elliot who inadvertently played a role in making 1969’s Woodstock Music & Arts Festival into the famed happening it was.

Featuring a standout ensemble cast and songs from a score of 1960s musical icons including The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and the Fish (along with a new recording of “Freedom” from Richie Havens), “Taking Woodstock” is a joyous voyage to a moment in time when everything seemed possible.

Working as an interior designer in Greenwich Village, Elliot feels empowered by the gay rights movement. But he is also still staked to the family business: a dumpy Catskills motel called the El Monaco that is being run into the ground by his overbearing parents, Jake and Sonia Teichberg (Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton). In the summer of 1969, Elliot has to move back upstate to the El Monaco in order to help save the motel from being taken over by the bank.

Upon hearing that a planned music and arts festival has lost its permit from the neighboring town of Wallkill, N.Y., Elliot calls producer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) at Woodstock Ventures to offer his family’s motel to the promoters and generate some much-needed business. Elliot also introduces Lang to his neighbor, Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), who operates a 600-acre dairy farm down the road.

Soon the Woodstock staff is moving into the El Monaco and half a million people are on their way to Yasgur’s farm for “three days of peace and music in White Lake”.

With a little help from his friends including theater troupe leader Devon (Dan Fogler), recently returned Vietnam veteran Billy (Emile Hirsch) and cross-dressing ex-Marine Vilma (Liev Schreiber) – and with a little opposition from townspeople including Billy’s brother, Dan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) – Elliot finds himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life and popular culture forever.

“Taking Woodstock” is a Focus Features presentation of an Ang Lee film starring Demetri Martin, Dan Fogler, Henry Goodman, Jonathan Groff, Eugene Levy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Imelda Staunton with Emile Hirsch and Liev Schreiber.

Casting by Avy Kaufman. Costume designer is Joseph G. Aulisi. Music supervisor is Joe Boyd. Music by Danny Elfman. Editor is Tim Squyres. Production designer is David Gropman. Director of photography is Eric Gautier. Based on the Book by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte. Executive producer is Michael Hausman. Produced by James Schamus, Ang Lee and Celia Costas. Screenplay by James Schamus. Directed by Ang Lee.

The “Taking Woodstock” movie trailer can be watched now below.

To secure your free tickets now, make sure you’re logged into your HollywoodChicago.com account. If you don’t yet have one, you can quickly register here. Having an account with a valid e-mail address is required. Then, simply add a new comment in the form below. In your comment, include an answer to this simple question:

What’s the most euphoric/trippy experience you can recall?

Like all Hookups here, this HollywoodChicago.com Hookup is simple: Just submit your comment below and we will award 50 people randomly via e-mail. Winners needs to arrive early as seats are consumed on a first-come, first-served basis. “Taking Woodstock” opens on Aug. 28, 2009.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

Screenplay Surfaces Online For Oscar-Worthy ‘There Will Be Blood’ With Daniel Day-Lewis

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 11:31:11 -0700

“There Will Be Blood” is among the best films of 2007. Period. An Oscar-worthy performance by Daniel Day-Lewis helps to make this picture Oscar worthy in its own right.

Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”.
Photo credit: IMDb
A haunting supporting performance by Paul Dano (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Girl Next Door”) isn’t one you’ll soon forget, too.

Aside from his 2005 work in “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” we last saw Day-Lewis in film all the way back in 2002 for his gritty “Gangs of New York” performance.

“There Will Be Blood”.
Photo credit: IMDb
“There Will Be Blood” is as worthy as any for him to bring the familiar character out of hibernation.

While you’d be remiss not to see this in theaters, you can read now why director Paul Thomas Anderson (who adapted the film’s screenplay from the Upton Sinclair novel “Oil!”) deserves your attention.

Paul Dano in “There Will Be Blood”.
Photo credit: IMDb
Anderson also directed “Punch-Drunk Love” and “Magnolia”. The full screenplay is below. Warning: This is a thorough spoiler alert.

Click for the full “There Will Be Blood” screenplay.
I downloaded this screenplay from this Paramount Vantage link.

Daniel Day-Lewis (left middle) in “There Will Be Blood”.
Photo credit: IMDb
Though the film only opened in limited New York City and Los Angeles theaters on Dec. 26, it will expand in Jan. 2008. Before that, 14 cities are being treated to a midnight sneak screening on Dec. 29.

Daniel Day-Lewis (left) and Dillon Freasier
on Dec. 10, 2007 for “There Will Be Blood”.
Photo credit: WireImage.com
These include Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, Seattle, Toronto and Washington, D.C. See our Dec. 23 post for more.

Daniel Day-Lewis (left) and director Paul Thomas Anderson
in “There Will Be Blood”.
Photo credit: IMDb
Other Paramount Vantage scripts are also online for “The Kite Runner,” “A Mighty Heart,” “Margot at the Wedding” and “Into the Wild”.