taking woodstock Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Maybe it's because I saw De Sica's classic Umberto D. again over the weekend, or maybe it's because I'm excited for tomorrow's release of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Cujo on DVD and Blu-ray, but I've got movie dogs on the brain. Last night I even randomly spent some time watching YouTube clips of my all-time favorite movie dog, Asta, from the Thin Man franchise (played by Skippy, who also appears in Bringing Up Baby and The Awful Truth).

So it was coincidentally fun this morning learning that the Fido Awards happened over the weekend. The ceremony, nicknamed the "canine Oscars," occurred in London Saturday, when trophies were handed out in five separate categories. To my surprise, the Fidos don't exclude animated dogs, as the talking dog, Dug, from Pixar's Up won the Blockbuster Bowser award, beating out pups from Gran Torino, Inglourious Basterds and another animation, Coraline, in the category.

I'm grateful for this Friday, because that's the day that The Men Who Stare at Goats comes out and I can stop seeing its trailer relentlessly attached to anything and everything I see (and given that I try to see most anything and everything out there, it's really only a 'me' problem, I suppose). One night, I had myself a triple feature and saw the preview not one, not two, but three times; as a pal put it, he had "more than a feeling" that I was getting sick of it.

Before that, it was a summer of Taking Woodstock time and time again, and it would already seem that Shutter Island's move to February will insure that I'll be sitting there, trying to piece the thing together for the next three months when not perfecting my New England Leo impersonation.

So, whether currently or in your own formative years, what trailers have you been just absolutely burnt out on? Did you and your friends quote along with them as they played? Were you actually ever turned off from seeing a film because you had it advertised to you too much? Come on, let it all out...

So here we have it, the summer movie season finally winding down, and maybe it's just us, but a couple of peculiar trends have cropped up since May that we thought were worth bringing to light. For starters, we've only further elaborated on Eric's early indicator that puking was 'in' this year (seriously, it's gotten to be a pretty considerable theme), and as for the rest, you can check them out after the jump. Some spoilers follow. And if there are any corrections or additions to be made, please pipe up in the comments, and do so gently.

In the last few years, Emile Hirsch has become a go-to resource for directors of all sorts of films: After starring in Sean Penn's Into the Wild, Hirsch took on the reins of Speed Racer, a massive, effects-driven action film from The Matrix's Wachowski brothers, and then collaborated on screen with Penn again, in a supporting but essential role in Gus Van Sant's Milk. In his latest project, Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, Hirsch tackles yet another period character, this time playing a young Vietnam veteran who regains a little bit of his humanity when the iconic music festival descends on his hometown.

Cinematical recently spoke to Hirsch in an exclusive telephone interview about his role in Taking Woodstock. In addition to discussing the challenges of bringing a character to life whose behavior, if not very identity, has become as familiar to audiences as the imagery of Woodstock itself, Hirsch revealed some of the sources of inspiration he took for his portrayal, and talked about the futility of coming up with a strategy for one's acting career.

Cinematical: The character you played in Into the Wild had his own tragic past, but the way that he dealt with it was with a greater degree of serenity. Did you see any parallels or similarities when you took on this role in Taking Woodstock?

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.

Downsizing in Hollywood isn't the same as downsizing for you or me. Four A-list directors decided to downsize their latest productions by choice, according to Rachel Abramowitz in the Los Angeles Times. And to hear Sam Mendes (above, right), Ang Lee, Sam Raimi (above, left) and Steven Soderbergh talk, they made the choice in order to save their own artistic souls after working on creatively-draining big-budget projects for years.

• Sam Mendes (Away We Go): "I loved having to work fast again ... You can get into the habits when making bigger films where you sort of expect everything to be there for you. You don't have to work for it ... there was even less conspicuous consumption ... There aren't as many people, and you feel less guilty because you're not spending as much money." Estimated budget: $17 million.
• Sam Raimi (Drag Me to Hell): "I realized all these toys I'm used to are wonderful but not always necessary ... All I really need is the actress." Estimated budget: $30 million.
• Ang Lee (Taking Woodstock): "I faced a lot of pressure [making Lust, Caution] . . . It gets to be too much ... Spiritually and philosophically I was yearning to do something warm." Estimated budget: $30 million.
• Steven Soderbergh (The Girlfriend Experience): "Employing non-actors, by design you are building the piece around them ... It's a good way to work, you're constantly adapting to what's in front of you."Estimated budget: $1.7 million.

I loved Drag Me to Hell and enjoyed Away We Go, so maybe they've got the right idea. What other big-budget Hollywood directors should consider doing a downsized project for the sake of their own artistic souls? McG? Brett Ratner?

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
It seems like forever ago since the teaser for this one hit, and at long last we've got a new full-length trailer for the animated comedy sequel. All of our prehistoric friends are returning and this time they've discovered a subterranean world populated by dinosaurs. Anachronisms aside, this looks to be a lot of fun and the movie hits theaters on July 1.

Astro Boy
OK, if you're going to build a high tech robot boy why would you give him a permanent cowlick? I hadn't been giving much thought to this new CGI version of the classic anime, but this new trailer got my attention. The action and design look awesome, and this one is out on October 23.

Where the Wild Things Are
Judging by the high level of anticipation for Spike Jonze's Wild Things adaptation, I must be the only person in the U.S. who's never read Maurice Sendak's classic book. That said, I really like the creature costumes, even if they do give me H.R. Pufinstuff flashbacks. Wild things will be everywhere on October 16.

When I last posted about Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, I called it a "gay-themed project" and speculated that the film might be about how the main character's involvement in Woodstock "served as redemption for giving up his own artistic ambitions and living most of his life in the closet." Now that I've seen the trailer, which you can watch below, that pompous description seems laughably wrong-headed. This won't just be "lighter" than much of Lee's previous work, as I also wrote; it's a full-on slapstick comedy, complete with a classic underdog storyline, and showdowns between hippies and uptight old fogeys.

Mainstream comedies tend to be under-directed. Even the Team Apatow films, while generally outstanding, don't exactly distinguish themselves formally or stylistically. But Lee is so damn deliberate and meticulous, with every shot and every cut calculated just so, that I'm really curious to see how he handles something this lightweight and apparently raucous. It certainly looks like a new Ang Lee mode; his last film that could be called a comedy was 1993's wistful Eat Drink Man Woman, and Woodstock seems to be worlds away from that film. Before that, Lee made a Taiwanese film called The Wedding Banquet that sounds like it might be closer, but I haven't seen it.

Anyway, I think Demetri Martin, who stars and introduces the trailer, is an extraordinarily funny guy (anyone seen his show on Comedy Central?), and how awesome is it to see someone other than Christopher Guest cast Eugene Levy in an actual movie as opposed to the latest direct-to-DVD American Pie "sequel"? This looks like fun; it's set to be released August 14th.

When Demetri Martin joined the cast of Taking Woodstock, it was set to begin production in late August. In a nice change of pace, the movie is still on schedule, and will begin shooting at the end of the month, SAG strike be damned. But that isn't the only reason to anticipate Ang Lee's project. Variety reports the ensemble cast has been set, and it's insanely good. Get ready for a film that includes the likes of Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eugene Levy, Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Dan Fogler, Mamie Gummer, Henry Goodman, and Jonathan Groff.

Martin stars in the memoir adaptation as Elliot Tiber, a closeted gay man and aspiring interior designer who gives up his Big Apple dreams to run the family business in a Catskills motel. In 1969, he offered the hotel as home base for Woodstock organizers while his neighbor Max Yasgur (Levy) offered his farm. Staunton and Goodman play Tiber's parents, Groff will be festival organizer Michael Lang, Hirsch will play a Vietnam vet just back on American soil, Schreiber is in talks to play a transvestite named Vilma, Morgan will be a closeted married man having an affair with Tiber, Dano and Kazan play a hippy couple going to the concert, Fogler will be the head of a local theater troupe, and Gummer will take on the role of Lang's assistant.

I have a feeling this will be so very, very good.