Liev Schreiber Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's no accident that at the very beginning of the movie, the title shows up broken into three words, one on its own separate line: Taking. Wood. Stock. The immensely likeable comedian Demetri Martin plays Elliot Teichberg, a menschy young guy who is spending his summer at his parents' ramshackle motel in the Catskills in yet another attempt to stave off their foreclosure. He has a life back in NYC, sure, but his work as an interior designer and painter isn't going so well, and his friends are all leaving for San Francisco. Elliot, or Ellie as his parents call him, is the consummate Good Jewish Boy – he runs the local Chamber of Commerce, helps around the hotel, and withstands his Russian mother's browbeating (played by Vera Drake's Imelda Staunton).

It's only sheer luck and desperation that leads him to call the Woodstock folks after a nearby town decides they don't want a hippie invasion after all. The rest, as they say, is history, much to Elliot's bemusement. Obviously, though, the free love and plentiful drugs help grease the wheels of his own individuation, as the Summer of Love draws to a close and the darker era of Altamont and Manson creep closer.

For a guy who's a successful stand-up and burgeoning actor, it's hard to imagine a performer with as slight a presence as Demetri Martin. The comedian began his career just a few years ago with appearances and writing gigs on both The Daily Show and Conan O'Brien, and moved on to a special and eventually a series with his namesake. In his latest role, as the main character in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, he plays a young man inadvertently caught up in history-making events when he agrees to host a music festival in his hometown of Bethel, New York. Perhaps appropriately, his performance is a study in modesty, but it's one that will no doubt define him as an actor and establish his presence among mainstream audiences like never before.

Cinematical recently spoke to Martin in an exclusive telephone interview about his participation in Taking Woodstock. In addition to talking about the conception and creation of his increasingly familiar, but surprisingly featherweight persona, Martin talked about tapping into what director Ang Lee wanted for his period piece, and looked back on the legacy of Woodstock, particularly in the context of contemporary pop culture.

Cinematical: What was the process for you of developing this character? In a way it seems not completely dissimilar from the persona you have in your comedy, but at that same time it's not supposed to be you.

In the early 1980s I was an "X-Men" fanatic, eagerly devouring every comic book I could get my hands on. But my favorite, and it remains my favorite to this day, was a 1982 four-issue mini-series written by Chris Claremont, drawn by Frank Miller and devoted exclusively to Wolverine. In it, Wolvie goes to Japan to find out what happened to his true love Mariko. He's a magnificent warrior and he understands Japan's ancient codes and rules but also understands his own raging animal instincts and his need to abandon the rules. He constantly battles these two sides, and in one sublime image, after a fight, he smoothes the disturbed pebbles in a Zen garden, making the connection between chaos and order.

Sadly, there's nothing in the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine even remotely as good or as interesting as that one image. This Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) no longer struggles between his two sides. He's smack dab on the side of good, and beholden to the unwritten Hollywood rule, which says that no hero can kill anyone in cold blood (only in self-defense, or in response to senseless acts of cruelty and violence). Sure, he can rage and howl from time to time, but he must pull back at the last second -- to set a good example for the kiddies, I guess. To spur him to action, the film brutally dispatches everyone who's nice to him, from his kind-hearted father/guardian in the opening flashback to the sweet farmer couple that gives him refuge, to his own sweetheart Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). So there's some bad foreshadowing for you: if you help an old lady across the street or tell a romantic story about the moon, you're toast.

I love a good movie poster. I've collected them, often paid way too much for them, and even once managed to snag one of those subway ads for Interview with a Vampire (don't ask). II know a lot of you out there couldn't care less about a new poster (it's just advertising< right?), but I also know there are plenty of you out there who are just like me, and can be found slowly meandering along a row of coming soon posters at your local theater, mouth open, day-dreaming .... mmmm. But anyway, let's start with the very good and work our way down to "the other stuff."

Where the Wild Things Are:
Damn if this new poster isn't another jaw-droppingly beautiful image; cute but with an edge. We've got the monster front and center, beautiful colors, and all of the small detail adds up to something I'd be proud to hang in my living room. Granted, most of us were probably sold on Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic as soon as that first bar of Wake Up in the trailer started, but this new poster is another cherry on what looks to be one hell of a cake. Image included in gallery below.



The Box:
Sometimes you almost feel sorry for Richard Kelly. He was supposed to be the next big thing until Southland Tales happened, and he's never heard the end of it. Things haven't gone much smoother for his 'ode to Twilight Zone' either, but hopefully the bad part is over and now we have our very first glimpse at the one-sheet. So how do you make a poster for a movie that nobody knows all that much about? Well, it turns out you make a Hitchcockian poster, because nothing says suspense like a little touch of the man himself. Personally, I like it, but if you have a thing against 'big head' posters you might feel a little differently. Image included in gallery below.

20th Century Fox has issued a press release stating that it plans to drastically "re-calibrate" the narrative of Gavin Hood's Tsotsi follow-up, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, while still maintaining its scheduled opening in theaters everywhere on May 1st.

"Look," said CEO Tom Rothman in a prepared statement, "[expletive] those weaselly little mother[expletive]ers that couldn't hold onto their [expletive]ing horses to see this film and pay to do so. This is our way of sticking it to the so-called 'fans' who managed to show up for three of these flicks and purported to be willing to show up for this one, even though the last one was a total piece of [expletive]."

Directing duties on the new footage have been split between three helmers: actor Liev Schreiber has reportedly filmed a nineteen-minute tracking shot that has each and every member of the project's cast and crew extending their middle fingers towards the camera (save for Ryan Reynolds, already occupied by preparations on Julie Taymor's The Proposal: The Musical).

Here it is, the final X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer you will ever see, courtesy of USA Today. There's some new character shots too, and all is collected here for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, the trailer embed ridiculously tiny, so you'll want to play it full screen for all the explosive, SNIKT-y goodness.

The final trailer isn't radically different than the first one, except that it's bigger, louder, gives a lot a way and yet manages to be more confusing. There's more Deadpool (who goes from Ryan Reynolds to the freaky man glimpsed in the action figure) and more Cyclops. I am completely thrown as to how young Scott Summers fits in, and this trailer really makes it seem as though the entire plot revolves around him. I'm at a loss. But I am happy to see there's hints that Logan's choices may not have been so very free. Still ... Cyclops?!

If you don't like it, blame Hugh Jackman, who's taking full responsibility for this film as its producer: "[I wanted] to own up to the responsibility of this character. I wanted to put myself into this movie in every way possible. This is the movie that I've seen in my head for a long time." He's also determined to make the character badass again, because he just doesn't care for the way he's been portrayed so far. "I'm not mad about it, but I thought he had gotten a bit soft. I thought we had gotten away from the essence of who Wolverine really is: a bad (dude) who wants to live his own life." Who knew it was so chock full of mutant friends ... ?



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