jk simmons Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Juno director Jason Reitman has been busy hopping the globe, with his film showing at more festivals than you can count as it nears its big premiere date. Oscar sugarplums have got to be dancing in Reitman's head as his second feature film continues to do well with critics and audiences alike. Reitman is keeping a blog as he travels around for Juno, and he's rumored to love getting comments from fans who read it. In a recent entry, Reitman rants about Saturday Night Fever, which he recently saw for the first time in his hotel room in London.

Criticizing a classic can be dicey, but Reitman bravely takes on the disco drama, breaking down the film's high (and low) lights and telling readers exactly why he thinks this film is a piece of crap:

Am I the only one who thinks this movie totally blows? All that wide angle shooting is really wonky. Everyone's acting like they're on a bad rip-off of "All in the Family". The love interests are not that attractive. The highlight is perhaps a cameo by Fran Dresher... which says a lot.

I checked out Saturday Night Fever's Rotten Tomatoes rating and found it sits at an impressive 97% -- not too shabby, which surprised me, as I've never been enamored of it. Juno is sitting pretty too, with a 100% fresh rating, so I don't think Reitman's suffering from professional jealousy. Reitman also talks about getting the news during his daughter's first birthday party that Juno had won at the Rome Film Festival. The film swept three categories -- the youth jury, the adult jury, and ... a psychologist's association. Well, that's cool -- I guess that means that watching Juno won't screw you up for life or anything.

Oh, and Reitman also talks about meeting up with Darjeeling Limited star Jason Schwartzman when he was in London ... how would it be for Schwartzman to star in a Reitman film? Go check out Reitman's blog for yourself, and be sure to leave him a shout-out.

When we commit acts of terror in the name of fighting terrorism, have we in fact become as bad as the bad guys we're supposed to be fighting? That's the question director Gavin Hood addresses in Rendition, which tackles the controversial practice of "extraordinary rendition," whereby suspected terrorists can be whisked off to other countries where "enhanced interrogation techniques" (electrocution, beating, and the ever-popular simulated drowning) are considered acceptable, so as to glean information from the suspected terrorist that might end up thwarting plots and saving countless lives.

The basic premise of Rendition: Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is an Egyptian citizen with a green card who's been living and working in the United States since he was 14 years old. He has a lovely American wife, Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), a cute little six-year-old kid, and a baby on the way. He coaches his son's soccer team. He's a chemical engineer with a $200K salary and a nice house in the suburbs of Chicago. He could be you or me or someone we know. And one day, on his way home from a business trip to South Africa, Anwar is taken aside by security at the airport and secreted away for questioning about his alleged involvement with a terrorist whose cell phone number has been traced making phone calls to Anwar's cell phone. How does Anwar explain this? Unfortunately for him, he can't.

Sony Pictures has just launched Stage 6 Films, "a label that will acquire and produce films for theatrical and straight-to-DVD release." The Variety announcement reports that Stage 6 will focus mostly on the DVD market, and on films budgeted at $1 to $10 million dollars. They've got a lot of movies on the horizon, with some pretty big stars involved. Conspiracy is an action flick starring Val "Iceman" Kilmer, Gary "Lumbergh" Cole, and Jennifer "Hot" Esposito. Thomas Jane is acting in and directing Dark Country (hope it's not a punisher!). The Stone House is a horror film starring Shane West and JK "Schillinger" Simmons. The Lodger stars Alfred Molina, whom I always picture in his underwear singing "Sister Christian." And Felon brings us even more Kilmer thrills, with Stephen Dorff and Harold Perrineau in tow.

And you know when you're talking direct-to-DVD, you're talking about some really random sequels. Stage 6 has announced a prequel (a prequel?) to this year's pretty cool horror flick Vacancy. There will also be a second Starship Troopers sequel -- Starship Troopers: Marauder, with Casper "Van Dien" Van Dien, Boris Kodjoe, and Jolene Blalock. Wesley Snipes will star in a sequel to the absolutely terrible action movie The Art of War, which I will refer to as The Art of War 2: Seriously? And Center Stage 2 will capitalize on the public's love of melodramatic teen dance dramas. I must confess a special place in my heart for the original Stage, because it led to a memorable high school back seat rendezvous. Put that quote on your poster, Sony! "Stage 6 will also continue to leverage our vast library of studio films, as we have done with Daddy Day Camp and the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise," threatens a Stage 6 executive.

Jason Reitman's second feature film, Juno, turned out to be the surprise hit of the Telluride Film Festival, before moving on to Toronto. Reitman took time out of his last day at Telluride to sit down and chat about his film, why it works, and why guys just don't want to grow up.

(NOTE: This interview is a discussion of the film that contains spoilers, so if you don't want to know anything about it before you see it, stop reading now.)

Cinematical: Let's talk about how you found the Juno script to begin with and why you wanted to film it.

Jason Reitman: I was fortunate enough that I had Mason Novack (Diablo's manager) found Diablo, and I knew Mason, and so I had a copy of the script as soon as it came out.

Cinematical: And what did you like about the script? What did Diablo do right?

JR: What she did right was this: She took a very tricky piece of material and made interesting decisions at every turn. Every time a character had a line of dialog, every scene, she made the interesting, unexpected decision. Not the usual decision, but that was not precious, but that was honest and real and sometimes very funny. That's what I liked about Thank You for Smoking. That film turns on the world of cigarettes, and Chris Buckley makes those kinds of unusual, hilarious decisions at every turn. Diablo does the same thing, and she's very good at it.

I usually attend four or five film festivals a year, and my assignments usually fall firmly within the 'genre' category -- especially the scary stuff. If it's a horror movie, a blood-soaked action-fest, a sci-fi thriller or a Japanese story about creepy undead children -- that's the stuff I'm assigned first. So how do we explain this weird aberration? There were several cool horror flicks at Sundance '07, and yet my favorite film (by far) was a sweet little chick flick called Waitress. And then today, after enjoying some solid old-school splatter from Dario Argento AND Stuart Gordon, I was most blown away by an off-kilter, low-key and wonderfully original comedy called Juno.

Sometimes (and particularly at film festivals) you like a movie so much that you want to get the word out there as soon as possible -- but with time being very tight you don't really have the time to give a film the thousand-word love letter it deserves. And so, because I'm as busy as I am lazy, I'll give you a surface-level plot synopsis and then just dole out some bullet points on Juno's most excellent components.

The story centers on an acerbic-yet-lovable 16-year-old (yes, named Juno) who gets knocked up by her boyfriend and then decides to follow through with the pregnancy and give the infant to a loving yuppie couple who can't have a baby of their own. That's pretty much it, god bless the whip-smart, snarky and powerfully funny screenplay by blogger / author / former stripper Diablo Cody.

First-time screenwriter Diablo Cody was the "Cinderella story" of the Telluride Film Festival. A former stripper who got her first break writing a book about her experiences in that line of work, Cody's first script, Juno, made the rounds of Hollywood, got a deal, and then got director Jason Reitman, fresh off his successful feature debut, Thank You for Smoking, hot to make it into a film. Cody took time out of a whirlwind schedule at Telluride to hang out at the gondola station, catch some rays, and talk about her script -- and what it's like being the writer of the film everyone is talking about.

Cinematical: Your film is getting the best buzz I've heard so far at Telluride.

Diablo Cody: It's just amazing. I was surprised, to be invited to this festival. It has a reputation for being a sort of highbrow fest, heavy, a fest for cinephiles. I think people are enjoying it because it's kind of an alternative to the heavier stuff that's being offered. For me to even be here to see all these amazing films is a real privilege. But, yeah, I think that Juno is kind of a lemony palate-cleanser in between all the paralysis and Holocaust stuff.

Cinematical: When I interviewed Jason after Thank You for Smoking, we talked about how he didn't feel comedy was respected enough, especially at film festivals – that comedy can be just as artistic as drama, and he wanted to prove that. It seems Juno is a step in that direction.

DC: I think Jason has a lot to do with that. He's really elevated the material. I know a lot of people feel it was a strong script, which is a great compliment and I'm really happy about that. But to me, Jason just came in and took the script and he really built on the material. Jason and I, we come from very different spaces, I tend to be the one who's, you know, making the joke about the condom making the guy's dick smell like pie. I tend to be a little more ... well, and Jason is a trained filmmaker, and some of his points of reference are more impressive than mine. Well, that's not really what I mean. What I mean is that's good that he and I are different and that we balance each other well.

I saw Spider-Man 3 Saturday night. It was a total mess, but the visuals were incredible, the fight scenes were thrilling, and I enjoyed enough of the film to make it worth my time. Still, it occurred to me on the way home that with a few simple changes, the film could have been a superhero classic. And

Before we begin, please know that I'm not a die-hard Spidey fan. The first two Spider-Man films were entertaining enough, but I forgot them immediately afterward. I know when you read that heading you probably thought this article would consist of complaints like "Why didn't they do such-and-such with the character of Venom like they did in Issue #231 of blah-blah-bloo?" But that's not me. This article comes from the point of view of an average guy with no knowledge of comic books who went into Spider-Man 3 with no expectations. Here's what I would have changed to make the movie more entertaining to me. SPOILERS AHEAD!

1) Kill Mary Jane in the opening scene

The Uncle stuff is played out, Peter needs something new to be upset about. And I used to love Kirsten Dunst, but now she "acts" her scenes like she can't wait for someone to yell "Cut!" so she can go and make out with one of The Strokes. Are we really supposed to believe that Peter would choose Dunst's dehydrated, negative, miserable Mary Jane over Bryce Dallas Howard's pants-explodingly hot, upbeat, and cheerful Gwen Stacey? Mary Jane is a terrible girlfriend! She spends the entire film whining about her lackluster singing abilities to a guy who spends his time keeping the city free from evil! She's dull, she's pouty, and she participates in elaborate Chubby Checker-scored cooking/dancing/infidelity montages with James Franco! Dump her!

2) Have your villains get upset before the last twenty minutes roll around

A no-brainer. I can't recall seeing a movie where the villains decided "You know, maybe we should kill the hero" so late in the game. The Sandman appeared to be thinking about what to have for dinner for most of the film. Venom doesn't even enter the picture until the last third. It's screenwriting 101, especially in a movie of this kind. By the end of Act One, you better be damn sure your audience knows who the antagonist is, and what your hero is up against. Nobody seems to have clear motives here. All the characters are confused and conflicted and don't really know who they want to kill and why or if they even want to. That's fine for a Scorsese film, but this is Spider-Man, people!

3) More J.K. Simmons and Bruce Campbell

In the few moments of screen time given to each of these fantastic character actors, they charged the movie with an energy that nearly all of the other actors lacked. As a huge Oz fan, it's always a little jarring to see J.K. Simmons in other roles – I kept expecting him to sexually assault Peter Parker. But once I got past that, the guy was hilarious. And Bruce Campbell's champagne back-and-forth in the restaurant was pure gold. Truth be told, Campbell should have played The Sandman. He certainly would have brought more life to it than Thomas Haden Church -- who must have thought he was playing the Sandman who puts kids to sleep.

The critics almost universally panned Guy Pearce's latest film, Factory Girl. Our own Ryan Stewart, in his review of the feature, said: "But as turned-on by superficiality as Warhol was, this film, coming in the age of Paris Hilton, stumbles by settling for a pair of superficial portraits." While Pearce had a wonderful stint dolled up in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, lately audiences haven't been happy unless he's dirty and dripping with angst and drama, which he does so well. So, it's probably a really good thing that he's following up Factory Girl with First Snow.

The film's official website has a trailer up for the film, and it looks a million times more fun than his big-screen take on Warhol. Pearce plays Jimmy Starks, a flooring salesman and hustler whose car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. He asks someone if the area has "interesting diversions," and finds himself getting a scary reading from a psychic who says that with the first snow, there will be no tomorrow. So, obviously, Starks gets suspicious and paranoid as bits of the reading start to come true. And, in case you think he could just hightail it for Mexico, they add a little Final Destination in -- that his destiny will find him.

Granted, you'll have to look beyond his long hair/mullet look, which I really don't understand. Or, why the cute Piper Perabo wouldn't have forced him to get a haircut yet. Nevertheless, Pearce pulls off paranoia and inner-angst to a tee, and he's helped by William Fichtner, who already sold us as a salesman in Go, and JK Simmons in the meaty role as the psychic -- a nice change from his J. Jonah Jameson. The film will be released this March, just as the snow will hopefully be thawing.

[via Twitch]