Mike Ryan2013-06-19T08:40:55-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=mike-ryanCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mike RyanGood old fashioned elbow grease.'Monsters University': The Simplest Movie Of The Summertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34565502013-06-18T12:22:45-04:002013-06-18T12:41:07-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
The idea of seeing Monsters University did not appeal to me. Here's what I remember about the first film in the series, Monsters Inc.: (A) I liked it and (B) I paid to see it only because the trailer for Attack of the Clones would be shown before the movie started. Other than that, the details are hazy. (Perhaps I did not pay attention as much as I should have because I was overwhelmed by anticipation, tragic in hindsight, for Attack of the Clones.) Regardless, its prequel, Monsters University, is a delight for no other reason than its plot is so simple.
There's an interesting piece over at Badass Digest about how convoluted a lot of this summer's blockbusters have been. I agree, yet it doesn't bother me. A convoluted plot did not stop me from enjoying Man of Steel, and a convoluted plot did not prevent me from enjoying Star Trek Into Darkness. Though, the lack of a convoluted plot did make Monsters University stand out as something special.
There are no world engines in Monsters University. There are no villains pretending to be someone with a much less interesting name in Monsters University. At no point in Monsters University does a daughter poison her mom, turning her mom into a bear. (I threw this Brave reference in here just to prove that animated movies can be complicated, too.) Nope, it's just Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sulley (John Goodman) going to college with the hopes that they will learn how to scare children. That's it. Thank God.
(To be fair, I did enjoy Man of Steel's world engine. And I love that this term is now part of our lives.)
In a nutshell: Mike and Sulley (who are strangers at this point) are both accepted into the scare program at Monsters University. Sulley is a natural and is also a legacy to the program. Mike doesn't have the raw talents, but works extremely hard. The two learn from each other along the way over a series of challenges reminiscent of something from the last half of Old School. Again, the characters drive the story, not an overindulgent plot.
There is a point to be made here: if you have lovable (or at least interesting) characters, just having them need a reason to be around each other and watching them interact can be enough. I mean, this was pretty much the basis for nine seasons of Seinfeld.
Please, please, please remember that I said the characters have to be lovable or interesting. Once we get past the heavy back-story, After Earth is a relatively simple movie. Unfortunately, the two characters that we spend any amount of reasonable time with are boring. I am starting to fall asleep just typing about them.
The thing is, before seeing Monsters University, I didn't realize that our brains needed the rest. Not that the other movies are so smart that we need to pay close attention to follow them, but it's nice to not have to be constantly questioning why characters are constantly choosing the more difficult of two paths without finally admitting, "Well, if they had used the blood from one of the bodies on board the Enterprise, I suppose there would be no need for a climatic fight."
I am positive that Monsters University will be a huge success and doesn't need to market itself as "the simplest movie of the year" to make money. (To be fair, I have no idea how one would go about determining if one particular movie is the simplest or not. What would be the parameters? For the sake of argument, let's just agree that, of this summer's big studio movies, Monsters University is the simplest.) But, I know there are people out there like me. There are people who have no real interest in seeing Monsters University, yet, might just like the idea of a simple story with a simple plot that leaves you in a good mood.
And, as an added bonus, the trailer for Attack of the Clones does not play before the movie starts.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>'Man of Steel': An Interview With A Resident Of Metropolistag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34550152013-06-17T13:23:26-04:002013-06-17T15:53:45-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
Man of Steel opened to a triumphant box office take over the past weekend, though there are still some lingering questions about the end of the movie. (If you haven't seen Man of Steel, this might be a good time to stop reading.)
At the end of Man of Steel, Superman and Zod stage a very long and very costly battle that leaves much of Metropolis in ruins. Here, to talk about what it was like in Metropolis on that day, we interviewed a resident of Metropolis, U.S.A.
How long have you lived in Metropolis?
As of this August, I will have lived in Metropolis for 12 years.
Is there anything you'd like to say to publicly thank Superman?
Sure. Thanks for destroying my apartment, Superman.
I realize that it's a difficult time, but I don't think Superman meant to destroy your apartment.
I was in my apartment watching a rerun of The King of Queens when, out of nowhere, this man -- I believe his name was Todd ...
His name is Zod.
Right. Well, Todd was thrown through my kitchenette. Then, outside of my window, I watched Superman and Todd slap each other. This went on for about an hour.
That all sounds very exciting.
It was surprisingly not that exciting. After about 10 minutes, I turned The King of Queens back on. It was the episode in which Doug tells everyone that he climbed Mount Everest.
Is your apartment insured?
I do have renters insurance, but, unfortunately, "collateral damage caused by roughhousing aliens" isn't covered under my policy.
Why were you still at home? Didn't you evacuate when the world engine was released?
What is a world engine?
It was that gigantic machine that was hovering over Metropolis.
Sorry, I'm not familiar with the world engine.
It had a laser.
Oh, that thing. I thought that was viral marketing for Pacific Rim.
Didn't you notice when Earth's gravity intermittently stopped working?
Admittedly, I did think that was odd. But, if I tried to find an explanation for all of life's little mysteries, well, there certainly wouldn't be time to watch The King of Queens.
When did you first realize that something was amiss?
It was a few hours after Todd interrupted our television programming with that message about that alien or whatever.
Why a few hours later?
Well, at first I thought it was a commercial for Falling Skies. I thought it was Noah Wyle.
Zod doesn't really resemble Noah Wyle.
I know, but Noah Wyle is one of the greatest actors of our time. He's a chameleon. I mean, look how he disappeared into the role of John Carter last year...
I think that you might be getting Taylor Kitsch confused with Wyle's character from ER.
I'll go on record: If a movie is ever made about Superman, Todd should be portrayed by Noah Wyle.
After the damage to your apartment, did Superman come back to rescue you?
No. I waited for a while, but he seemed to be busy necking with a girl.
How is life in Metropolis right now?
It's pretty bleak, to tell the truth. From what I can tell, most of the city has been destroyed.
Has any semblance of normal life returned?
Well, our local newspaper, The Daily Planet, started conducting job interviews pretty much the next day, which some thought was insensitive.
Insensitive because of the lack of time that had passed?
No. More because they hired Superman as a reporter.
Wait, how do you know that they hired Superman?
Counting Superman, there are only 16 people in Metropolis who survived. So, it literally has to be him.
Plus, it also might not be insensitive because you're fictional?
That, too.
What do you do for a living?
I work for my older brother's company, LexCorp.
Your brother is Lex Luthor?
Yeah. I know, I know ... I've heard it my entire life, "Mitch Luthor will always live in the shadow of his brother." I'm used to it.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today, Mitch. Is there anything else you want to add?
Yes, there is. Go to hell, Superman.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.]]>'Star Wars Episode VII': Jedi Are Boringtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34422222013-06-14T12:44:10-04:002013-06-14T12:44:15-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
Earlier this week, a sketchy Star Wars rumor made its way around the Internet. In a nutshell, the rumor claimed that casting calls were put out for the twin sibling characters of Jaina Solo and Jacen Solo, two young Jedi in training. Along with it came a complete breakdown of what would happen to these characters over the course of Episode VII, Episode VIII and Episode IX. Sure.
The director of Episode VII, J.J. Abrams, is the same director who still won't admit that Khan is the villain in his Star Trek movie that came out a month ago, yet he's going to mail out the synopsis of three Star Wars movies to who-the-hell-knows? Anyway.
Not to mention that the Solo twins -- children of Han Solo and Princess Leia -- are Expanded Universe characters, something we've already been told won't be used as a reference for the new films. (For what it's worth, Hitfix's Drew McWeeny fairly convincingly debunked this rumor.) Regardless of all that, telling a story of young Skywalker children training to be Jedi would be a mistake for a few reasons. The main reason being that Jedi are boring.
Yes, Jedi are boring. Boring!
The original Star Wars trilogy had very little to do with Jedi. We heard about the myth, but we didn't know a lot about them. The original trilogy was about the Rebel Alliance's struggle against the Galactic Empire. Sure, to help defeat the Empire, Luke Skywalker went through Jedi training, but he doesn't become a Jedi until Return of the Jedi. Not coincidentally, Luke didn't become boring until Return of the Jedi. I mean, sure, Luke whined a lot in Star Wars, but at least he had a personality. (Luke Skywalker was only legitimately cool in The Empire Strikes Back. He made out with girls -- yeah, it was his sister; whatever, he didn't know -- and wore cool beige fatigues.)
Now, the prequels are littered with Jedi. Most of the main characters are Jedi. Not surprisingly, there are very few interesting characters in the Star Wars prequels. I have nothing against Jedi, I just liked them better when they were all dead. Jedi were always better left up to the imagination. I mean, the original trilogy is about a scrappy group of freedom fighters who, against insurmountable odds, defeat their much larger enemy. The prequels are about god-like characters with super powers who live by a code that removes pretty much all fun from their lives. I wouldn't want to spend my Friday night hanging out with a Jedi, let alone watch three more Star Wars movies about these people.
In the original Star Wars, there is barely any Jedi nonsense. Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone loves that movie. Think about it, not one object flies through the air through any sort of Force power at any time during Star Wars. Ben Kenobi tricks a Stormtrooper and Darth Vader chokes an Imperial officer, that's pretty much it -- and at the time, before we learned more about Jedi in later movies, both of those things could have been considered mind tricks. Even when we hear Ben talking to Luke during the assault on the Death Star, we're not 100 percent sure if that's actually Ben or just a voice in Luke's head. It wasn't until The Empire Strikes Back that we started to see some real Jedi power. Anyway, my point: less Jedi is more Jedi.
The conventional wisdom about the new films still seems to be that it will be about the offspring of characters from the original trilogy. So, yes, a Skywalker descendent trains to be a Jedi, turns to the dark side, then becomes a Sith (which, spoiler alert, is what happens to Jacen Solo in the books). This is already the plot of the prequels; there is no way that the next movies will resemble anything remotely like the prequels. (The now Disney-owned Lucasfilm already seems to be distancing themselves from the prequels as we lead up to Episode VII, but that's a subject for another time.)
I am not going to sit here and tell you that I know what a perfect plot to the next three Star Wars movies should be. I do know that I want to see Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia again. I do know that I want to see the Millennium Falcon fly again. And I do know that I would rather hear about the Jedi than see Jedi. (Well, other than Luke. He gets a pass.) I do not need to see another snotty kid being trained to be a Jedi. If you want to see hundreds of Jedi flipping around, go watch the prequels again. I have become convinced that's there just no way to make a Jedi interesting. (Yes, Alec Guinness' Ben Kenobi was interesting, but he was playing more of a wise sage in Star Wars, as opposed to a full-fledged Jedi.)
The original Star Wars movies worked because we related with Han, Luke and Leia. It's impossible to relate with a Jedi. Also, who would even want to relate to a Jedi? They're boring.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.]]>What Superman Can Teach Today's Ultraviolent Superhero Moviestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34297022013-06-13T10:16:59-04:002013-06-13T10:17:08-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
There is a scene in 1978's Superman where a young girl's cat gets stuck in a tree. The cat's name is Frisky, which seems to be a common cat name, though I have never met a cat named Frisky. (For that matter, I have never met a dog named Fido, either.) Luckily, Superman happens to fly by. He retrieves Frisky and returns her to the girl.
All's well that ends well -- for Frisky, at least. We watch the young girl and Frisky disappear back into her Metropolis townhouse. The camera doesn't follow her inside, but we hear her voice as she excitedly tells her mother what just happened: a flying man saved Frisky! Then we hear the girl's mother sternly reprimanding her daughter for lying, followed by the sound of a very loud smack.
I laughed at this scene when I was a little kid. And when I re-watched Superman this week, I caught myself laughing again, for very different reasons.
As a kid, I laughed because I related to the girl. Something similar would have happened to me if I'd been "caught in a lie." As an adult, I laughed in disbelief, because this scene would never appear in a movie today -- unless the subject of the movie were child abuse. In today's superhero movie, you will see untold destruction and staggering casualties, but you will never see (or hear) a parent physically strike her child without suffering grave consequences.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that the original Superman is seriously dated -- for better and for worse. (Put it this way: Larry Hagman's Superman scene will not appear in any "in memoriam" montages this year.) It's certainly time for a fully rebooted version of Superman (2006's Superman Returns wasn't technically a reboot), but it's also true that Superman could teach the modern superhero movie a thing or two.
It had been a few years since I'd last watched the original Superman -- not nearly as long as it had been since I'd seen Superman III but long enough that the whole Marvel Phase 1/Avengers revolution that started with 2008's Iron Man hadn't begun yet.
Somewhere along the line, it was decided that every superhero movie had to end with a big blowout battle scene. Perhaps this was a response to criticism that 2006's Superman Returns was boring. There's no real battle; it's just Superman lifting a giant island of Kryptonite into space. Since then, filmmakers have opted for more and more destruction. The ante keeps being raised, to the point where apocalyptic, Earth-in-the-balance violence now seems normal. In the same way that we don't notice how tall little Johnny has gotten until he stands next to that pencil mark from last year, it's startling to compare any recent movie to the original Superman.
One scene in particular stands out, even if it is from Superman II, a movie that was mostly filmed at the same time as Superman. It's the battle scene where Zod, Ursa and Non realize that Superman cares about the lives of us Earth people. The battle takes place in the middle of Metropolis, and while there is comparatively little damage, it still feels more dangerous. Even today, watching chunks of building fall into the crowd, my reaction is, "I hope no one gets hit!" And in the first movie when a missile causes the San Andreas Fault to break apart, Superman is so distraught that he literally turns back time to prevent it from happening.
In today's movies, my reaction to seeing entire cities destroyed while superheroes fight is to shrug. That doesn't seem right. I feel that I should be offended, or at least disturbed -- but I've seen it so many times now that I just don't care. We've raised the stakes so high, they've effectively lost their meaning. How much more destruction can the next villain cause that this last one didn't? As an audience member trying to relate to what's happening onscreen, there's a point where I think, "Dead is dead. How much more dead can I be?"
Don't get me wrong: I liked Man of Steel a lot. Having watched the original Superman again, I wish Man of Steel had resisted the urge to blow everything up, but I also think the new franchise has great potential.
If you ask me, Superman is still the most important superhero movie ever made. Without it, I'm not sure we'd be in the midst of this golden age of superhero movies. Now that it's had its Avengers moment, I hope the next installment in the Man of Steel franchise can explore how we got from 1978 to here.
Because I'm glad that we no longer live in a world where little girls don't get slapped for comedic effect -- but I'm sorry we've forgotten that, sometimes, it's the little things that mean the most.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>'Man of Steel': Is This The Best Superman Movie? (And 24 Other Urgent Questions)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34045802013-06-10T23:00:21-04:002013-06-10T23:00:09-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
This Friday, Superman returns to theaters after a seven-year hiatus. For Man of Steel, director Zack Snyder (Watchmen) tapped British thespian Henry Cavill to play one of the most iconic American characters of the past 100 years. As a service to you, we answer every question you could possibly have about Man of Steel.
Q: What is a Superman?
A: Seriously, go away.
Q: Wait, didn't we just have a rebooted Superman story?
A: Superman Returns, which was released in 2006, wasn't technically a reboot.
Q: But that was a new Superman, too, wasn't it?
A: It's true that Brandon Routh was cast as a brand new Superman for Superman Returns, but that movie technically took place in the same timeline as the Christopher Reeve films, a few years after Superman II.
Q: Does Man of Steel have anything to do with the past Superman movies?
A: No. Man of Steel is the first completely rebooted, theatrically released Superman story since 1978's Superman.
Q: Will I have to watch the entire origin of Superman again?
A: Again, it's been 35 years since you've had to watch Superman's origin story. We live in a world in which you watched a second Spider-Man origin story only ten years after the first one. If anyone deserves your renewed attention, it's Superman.
Q: How does Man of Steel handle Superman's origin differently than Superman did?
A: Without getting into too much detail, Man of Steel sticks mostly to the traditional Superman story, with a few twists.
Q: Does the story still open up on Krypton?
A: Yes. As before, Krypton is doomed and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is determined to save his son, Kal-El, by shipping him off to Earth. General Zod (Michael Shannon, as angry as ever) is opposed to this idea for a few reasons -- and in the end, Zod and his cronies are imprisoned in the Phantom Zone.
Q: The Phantom Zone? Is that where Billy Zane lives?
A: Billy Zane once played The Phantom in a 1996 movie. It is not clear one way or another if Zane has ever visited the Phantom Zone.
Q: Are Jor-El and Zod friends.
A: No. The opposite, actually.
Q: And after all of this, then we watch Kal-El grow up in Smallville as Clark Kent?
A: After the scene on Krypton, Man of Steel smash-cuts straight to a confused and lonely adult Clark Kent, wandering North America in an effort to discover who he actually is.
Q: There are no scenes in Smallville?
A: We learn about Clark's childhood and his relationship with Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) via a series of flashbacks spread throughout the film.
Q: Does Russell Crowe's Jor-El appear to Clark the way Marlon Brando's did in 1978's Superman.
A: Not exactly. Let's just say that, thanks to computer technology, this post-Krypton Jor-El has slightly improved interactive capabilities.
Q: Wait, is Russell Crowe playing the same character that he did in Virtuosity?
A: At no point in Man of Steel is Russell Crowe referred to as SID 6.7.
Q: Am I safe in assuming that this Zod fellow comes back to take his revenge on the son of SID 6.7 Jor-El?
A: This is a very safe assumption.
Q: Is Man of Steel better than Superman?
A: That's not really a fair comparison, considering how revolutionary the original Superman movie was in 1978 -- and how profoundly it impacted popular culture and superhero movies. The original Superman is by far more important -- and, as an overall movie, still better. That said ... Man of Steel is excellent.
Q: Is Man of Steel better than 2006's Superman Returns?
A: I still like Superman Returns, but the two movies are night and day. Man of Steel is much better.
Q: Please tell me that Superman doesn't have an illegitimate child in Man of Steel?
A: In Man of Steel, Clark doesn't even have any friends, let alone a mystery child.
Q: How is the Clark Kent of Man of Steel different from other versions?
A: He's not the folksy, "gee, guys" square Christopher Reeve portrayed. This is brooding -- but not unlikeable -- Clark, who knows he's an alien and has no idea what he's doing on Earth.
Q: What had you never thought about until watching Man of Steel?
A: How Clark dealt with his hypersensitive senses, which is done well in Man of Steel.
Q: What about Amy Adams as Lois Lane?
A: Adams' Lane is a Pulitzer Prize-winning news reporter on the trail of a mysterious man who, at times, has shown the ability to perform remarkable feats of strength. Thankfully, she's far more than just Superman's love interest.
Q: What's your biggest complaint about Man of Steel?
A: For as careful as Man of Steel is to build a sense of realism (at least, as much realism that can be had in a story about a space alien with super powers), the long final battle gets sucked into the "bigger is better" trap of cinematic storytelling. The characters we've met are so interesting (and well acted) that I would have rather spent more time with them and less time watching people throw each other into buildings.
Q: How many songs from the Singles soundtrack are featured in Man of Steel?
A: One.
Q: Who does the absolute most with his limited screen time?
A: Kevin Costner.
Q: Will people be happy with Henry Cavill as Superman?
A: Very much so.
Q: Between one and ten, where does Zod rank on Michael Shannon's rage scale?
A: A solid nine, somewhere right below his epic outburst in Take Shelter and above his anger while reading that sorority letter.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>'Superman III': Rewatching 30 Years Latertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34174662013-06-10T16:45:05-04:002013-06-11T10:08:40-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
Superman III (which turns 30 years old on June 17) is the only Christopher Reeve Superman movie that I saw in a movie theater. Like any nine year old at his first Superman movie, I remember enjoying it very much. As a result, I've been afraid to re-watch Superman III ever since.
Time has not been kind to Superman III. The first film was epic. The second was fun. The third is neither. To be fair, it's not an absolute disaster, like Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Superman III is basically the answer to the question "What would happen if we put Superman and Richard Pryor in the same movie?" Again, as a nine year old, I liked the answer to that question very much.
To mark the release of this weekend's Man of Steel -- and against my better judgment -- I decided to re-watch Superman III for the first time since 1983 and hopefully not destroy a little piece of my childhood in the process. Along the way, I've committed to keeping a running diary. So here we go. (Sorry, childhood memories.)
0:00:37 I had completely forgotten this movie opens with Gus Gorman (Pryor) at the unemployment office. Anyway, he has a yo-yo -- which endears him to me but probably not the unemployment agency.
0:01:12 I still want to like Gus Gorman, but he seems like a terrible employee.
0:01:57 Gus Gorman is no longer eligible for unemployment benefits. I wish this were how all Superman villains were created.
0:02:32 Another thing I misremembered: I thought Gus was a computer genius to begin with, not someone who responds to advertisements on the back of matchbooks. I feel perhaps I should just turn this movie off right now.
0:02:55 The opening credits are already disappointing. Instead of swooping names from space over John Williams' score, we are watching Pamela Stephenson walk through Metropolis while slapstick pratfalls happen around her. Yes, I have made a poor decision.
0:03:54 A blind man thinks he's walking his dog, but instead he's walking a road-painting machine. I should remind you, this is happening during the opening credits of a Superman movie.
0:04:29 Clark Kent dresses a lot like Don Draper.
0:04:52 The blind man just walked into a tree and said, "Excuse me." At least he doesn't have to watch this movie for the next two hours.
0:05:05 Yes, I've turned on Superman III that quickly. I knew this was a mistake.
0:06:19 To save a man drowning in his car (long story, a fire hydrant is involved), Superman just flew from one side of the street to the other side of the street. This seems like showing off.
0:06:57 For no reason whatsoever, an old man with a paint bucket on his head caused a gumball machine to topple over, causing a mime to fall down. Enough, already, Superman III, I get it -- the tone has been set.
0:07:10 The opening credits are still going.
0:07:14 The blind man is back and there's a large painting being carried across the street right in front of him. Shouldn't be too much of a surprise what happens here.
0:07:15 Yep.
0:07:32 Clark Kent just pied a man in the face. Now the tone has officially been set.
0:08:29 We are back to Gus Gorman taking a computer class, and it turns out that he is a natural. Which is really hard to do on a DOS system, but he's doing it.
0:08:33 This should have been the plot to The Internship.
0:09:49 The Daily Planet has a Bingo cart.
0:10:30 Clark is pitching a story to Perry White about returning for his high-school class reunion. I'm not sure how that's a "story," per se, but I think I would rather read that then watch the rest of this movie.
0:11:21 I'm starting to think I was a stupid child.
0:11:49 Lois just left for a Bermuda vacation. When this film was being written, I would like to have been a fly on the wall.
"So, how do we explain that Lois is barely in this movie?"
"How about a trip to the Bahamas?"
"Nah."
"Bermuda?"
"Perfect."
0:13:07 One of Gus' new co-workers is explaining the concept of the half cent. Little did this actor know that he's giving a plot idea to two movies.
0:14:31 Well, this is disappointing. It seems that all that the computer genius Gus Gorman had to do to steal the half cents was to type the words "channel half cents from all webscoe salaries into above expenses account." Let's try this ...
0:14:33 "Channel all Huffington Post bonus payments into Mike Ryan's back account."
0:14:39 That did not seem to work as well in real life as it did in Superman III.
0:17:30 On the way to Smallville, Clark and Jimmy Olsen come across a chemical plant fire. I forgot how out-of-left-field this scene seems.
0:18:43 Superman has just been informed by a very calm scientist that the fire might cause an acid cloud.
0:20:45 I'm not trying to nitpick here, but I am confused as to why, in an effort to keep the acid cool, Superman is using his super cold breath to freeze a lake and carry that lake back to the chemical plant as opposed to just using his cold breath to keep the acid cool.
0:22:50 Superman graduated high school in 1965. I guess this is the all-important 18-year high-school reunion?
0:24:10 Even in a sub-par Superman movie, Christopher Reeve is still really good.
0:24:37 Lana Lang's ex-boyfriend, Brad, is drunk. I'm not sure Brad knows what he's getting into here.
0:25:10 Brad just made fun of the fact that Clark wears glasses. Honest question here: When did it go out of style to make fun of a person for having bad eyesight? I can't remember the last time I heard someone refer to someone as "four eyes." I feel it should be brought back ironically.
0:26:36 Gus Gorman (whose full first name is August, by the way) just received a check for more than $85K.
0:29:53 I have nothing against Robert Vaughn, but I'm not sure he should be on the shortlist of "potential Superman villains."
0:31:27 I get the sense that the makers of Superman III don't want you to know where this version of Smallville is located. First, Clark took a bus there from Metropolis. Second, there's a scene at a bowling alley and there is a kid wearing a Michigan T-shirt who is friends with a kid wearing a Baltimore Orioles shirt. In the background, there are pennants hanging on the wall for both Dallas and Oakland. So, that pretty much covers every region of the United States.
0:32:45 Clark Kent just sneezed a strike. I think I'm starting to remember why I liked this movie so much.
0:34:31 Robert Vaughn just said, "What do the young people say today? 'I dig where you're coming from, brother.'"
0:36:43 I completely forgot that this movie's plot centered on Colombian coffee beans.
0:38:50 For reasons that I don't completely understand, Gus Gorman is now in Smallville (wherever that may be). I think a weather satellite is involved.
0:40:53 I really like the fact that Clark's Smallville wardrobe includes a sweater tied around his neck.
0:45:15Of course Brad is the maintenance man that Gus has to get past in order to pull off whatever it is he's trying to pull off. Sadly, Brad succumbs to the temptations of Gus' alcohol. I feel Brad's alcoholism is the real story of Superman III.
0:51:06 I am legitimately confused. Somehow, Gus using this computer in Smallville to cause havoc all over the world -- from messed-up traffic lights to a couple being overcharged for a cruise. (An added note: when the husband got the bill, he smashed a grapefruit into the face of his wife for reasons I don't quite understand. Then again, this movie featured a mime at one point.)
0:54:20 I do remember this skyscraper rooftop ski slope. Why hasn't anyone tried to emulate this set-up in the last 30 years?
0:58:45 Gus Gorman just skied right off the side of the building. Perhaps that answers my last question. If nothing else, Superman III is a cautionary tale about rooftop ski slopes.
0:59:30 Gus Gorman survived his fall from what appeared to be at least a 50-story drop. Sure. Why not?
1:02:20 Not only is Gus a computer genius, he also knows how to make his own almost, sorta Kryptonite.
1:04:43 I have to admit, I used to love the scene in which Gus pretended to be an Army general. I'm not sure I can still say that today.
1:05:48 I love how the whole purpose of this scheme is to present Superman with a gift that looks exactly like Kryptonite -- and Superman just says, "Thanks."
1:08:06 The effects of the sorta Kryptonite are starting to set in. I will admit, I still love "dick" Superman.
1:09:33 You know, the people of Smallville are kind of dicks, too. Superman arrives one minute late to a bridge accident, asks what he can do, then -- after all Superman has done in the past -- the local cop says, "Not much of anything now," in the most passive-aggressive tone imaginable.
1:10:00 Still filled with passive-aggressive grief, Superman randomly flies to Italy to fix the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
01:12:33 Superman just blew out the Olympic torch for no reason other than spite. I really like dick-Superman.
1:18:43 I also love that Superman now has a five o'clock shadow and seems very interested in sex.
1:21:01 Superman is now acting very much like Don Draper, too. He just slept with Robert Vaughn's assistant. I completely forgot that happened.
1:22:38 So, the gist of this movie seems to be that Robert Vaughn wants to control the world's oil (which seems reasonable) and Gus Gorman wants Robert Vaughn to build him a super computer (which ... whatever).
1:24:35 I could watch Superman be a dick all day. He's just sitting at a bar, drunk, flicking peanuts and it's fascinating.
1:26:07 I'll say this: I might not want this version of Superman to have to rescue me if I were in trouble, but he is a much more interesting person.
1:27:13 OK, here we go: the infamous fight between Superman and Clark Kent in the junkyard. As a nine year old, I had many, many, many questions about this scene.
1:28:27 Superman just called Clark Kent "chicken."
1:32:27 Superman has put Clark Kent into a machine that crushes cars. He has upped the ante since that whole "chicken" incident.
1:33:12 Clark Kent just choked Superman to death. Say what you want about the quality of Superman III, but that is still one really bizarre scene.
1:37:56 Gus' new "ultimate computer" has been revealed at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I wish there were someone here to give me one of those "Your iPhone has 1,000 times the power of Gus Gorman's ultimate computer from Superman III" type facts.
1:39:37 My favorite thing so far: The ultimate computer, as it fires missiles at Superman, uses the music from the Atari 2600 Pac-Man cartridge. (I'm also a little sad that I know that particular piece of information.)
1:41:05 Seriously, how long is this movie?
1:42:38 So, Superman is confronting the ultimate computer. It's also the first time that Superman has seen Robert Vaughn's assistant, Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson), since he slept with her back when he was dick-Superman. (I want to point out again: Superman slept with her!) Here, when Ambrosia says hello, Superman responds, "I don't know you, lady." When pressed further, Superman continues, "I'm sorry, but that wasn't me." Superman is Don Draper.
1:46:20 Gus just disabled the entire computer by removing a screw.
1:47:40 The computer is now alive again on its own.
1:49:24 The computer just transformed Robert Vaughn's sister into a robot. I cannot stress to you enough how disturbing this scene was to me in 1983.
1:41:35 I stand corrected about an earlier scene. Superman went back to the chemical factory to get some acid to use against the ultimate computer. So, yes, foreshadowing.
1:53:44 Superman and Gus are now friends.
1:54:53 So, let's add up all of the things that Gus Gorman did wrong in this movie. He embezzled money, hacked a weather satellite, used that satellite to almost destroy Colombia, poisoned Superman with sorta Kryptonite, endangered the world's oil supply and built an ultimate computer that almost killed Superman. What is Gus' punishment for all of this? His punishment is a job recommendation from Superman.
1:55:45And Gus gets to refer to Superman as "Supes" - to Superman's face, I should add.
1:59:53 Clark managed to get his high school girlfriend, Lana Lang, a job at The Daily Planet and now Lois -- a woman for whom he gave all his powers away in the previous movie -- is back. I am not sure that he is fully recovered from his "dick-Superman" illness.
2:00:50 The Leaning Tower of Pisa leans once again as Superman flies into space and smiles at us. Smiles because he knows Superman III is over.
2:01:00 And, with that, my fond childhood memoires of Superman III have been obliterated. Though there are enough good scenes to entertain a nine year old, Superman III is a not a particularly good movie. Something deep down that I knew, but I didn't want to know.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>'The Purge' Box Office: Here's Why You Probably Hated 'The Purge'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34153842013-06-10T11:08:54-04:002013-06-10T12:21:48-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
Over the weekend, The Purge -- a movie with a minuscule $3 million budget -- took home a staggering $33.7 million at the box office. If there's a negative to be taken away from that success however, it's that The Purge earned a C-grade from CinemaScore -- a company that tallies the audiences' reaction to a movie. Now, a C might not sound that bad, but it is when it comes from Cinemascore.
Put it this way, After Earth -- a movie that was widely panned and is currently sitting at 11 percent on Rotten Tomatoes -- earned a CinemaScore grade of B. Another critical flop, The Hangover Part III, also earned a B-grade. It seems that as long as the audience gets about what they expected from the film's marketing campaign, they will hand out a solid grade. It's when the audience feels that they've been tricked that we get into trouble with these CinemaScores -- which is where The Purge comes in.
One of the worst CinemaScores in recent years was the George Clooney vehicle The American. Now, The American is a serviceable enough movie, but it is purposely slow and introspective. Unfortunately, The American, which debuted as the number one movie at the box office in September 2010, was sold as an action movie. The American is a lot of things, but it is not an action movie. Not surprisingly, audiences hated The American -- earning it an unheard of D-minus from CinemaScore.
The same thing happened to Drive in 2011. Drive -- beloved by critics -- earned a C-minus on CinemaScore because it, too, was sold as an action movie with a lot of car chases. Funny thing: for a movie called "Drive," there isn't a lot of driving -- but there is a lot of gory violence. Again, audiences felt tricked, hence the bad score.
The Purge has one of the more interesting concepts for a movie to come along in quite some time. One night a year, for a 12-hour period, all crime is legal. I am not what most people would consider a fan of horror movies, but even I was sold on that premise: it was unique and, yes, I wanted to see what happens when there are no laws for a 12-hour period. I wanted to learn more about The Purge -- and so did a lot of other people this past weekend.
The disappointing aspect of The Purge and all of its endless possibilities is that the narrative of The Purge takes place almost entirely inside the home of a man named James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) who is trying to defend his family. Now, with its minuscule budget, this small-scale approach makes sense -- but the fascinating concept of The Purge is used as a backdrop only to what is basically a home-invasion movie. The problem is that the movie was sold on the idea of The Purge, but audiences didn't get to see much of The Purge. Audiences got to see Ethan Hawke defend his family against some college punks. (In the sure-to-happen sequel, now that there will be some money to work with, I hope we will get to see more of the actual Purge and learn more about the politics that were hinted at during this first movie.)
In a summer cluttered with more sequels and more remakes, the success of The Purge is a nice story. It's the little movie with a big idea -- it's just a shame that it did such a good job of selling that idea without delivering on that idea. Audiences don't ask for that much. In a world where a bore of a movie like After Earth can earn a B, the lesson from CinemaScore is: you can deliver a mediocre movie -- or even a bad movie -- just don't trick the audience into seeing your movie.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>Henry Cavill, 'Man Of Steel' Star, On The Future Of Superman, Justice League And His Love For 'World Of Warcraft'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-06-10T10:00:06-04:002013-06-10T11:16:09-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/a little more weary bravado than what we've seen in the past.
Here, Cavill -- who endearingly refers to himself as a "geek" (and if you don't believe him, wait until he starts talking about the Superman villain Brainiac or discussing "World of Warcraft") -- looks ahead to his future as Superman, both as a character (ahem, Justice League) and what it will mean to his own personal fame and, more importantly, his personal privacy.
I read that after getting the role that you stared into a mirror repeating "I'm Superman!" I have a hard time believing that expletives weren't involved.
Well, I may have censored the statement for the sake of the interview.
What's the uncensored version?
[Laughs] As I said it in Details is exactly how I said it, of course.
You lost roles in "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" to Robert Pattinson. Were you worried at all Zack Snyder was going to call and say, "So, we decided to cast Robert Pattinson as Superman."
[Laughs] I wasn't worried about any particular actor getting the role -- I was prepared, and expecting, "no." I mean, of course I wanted a "yes," but as soon as he told me "yes," I wasn't ready for it. I really wasn't prepared for the answer to be "yes." So, it was a bit of a like "I don't know how to feel" moment. But, yeah, it wasn't like I was there going, "Oh, someone else is going to get the role."
Was there any hesitation? In the sense that for the rest of your career, this will be mentioned as something that you did.
Not for a second was there hesitation. Not for a split second. It was such an opportunity to tell the story of this amazing character -- and with amazing people like Snyder, [producer Christopher] Nolan ... and what turned out to be an absolutely epic cast.
Have you seen all of the other Superman movies?
I have seen them. But, I didn't use them for research.
I was thinking that you might want to watch them for the opposite reason. In that this is such a different interpretation, you might want to watch them in an effort not to do what they did. Does that make sense?
It makes total sense. Because the important thing for me was to go to the source material and with other movies or live action stuff that's happened, that's another actor's interpretation of the source material -- which are the comic books. And I wouldn't want someone else's interpretation influencing my own. I wanted this interpretation to be purely mine and just pure -- and not sort of hints of someone else's performance in there. Because it would make the thing more disjointed and it was special to me that I do this direct from the source material and as me.
You even watched "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"?
No. I didn't. I didn't.
You were going to play Superman in McG's version, then you were dropped when Bryan Singer came aboard. I'm sure that was heartbreaking then, but do you feel it's better to play this character now, rather than then?
I couldn't agree more. And not to say anything about the script or anything that was going on then with anyone else, but, just personally, I've got more experience now. I've acted for that much longer -- it's like two-thirds of my career, almost, I've acted now, on top of what I had already done. I've lived more of a life. I have experience more in the way of ups and downs and goods and bads -- so I could more accurately represent this incredible character.
But also, you were closer to 20 then, now you're 30. Do you think that back then you could have handled the fame that comes along with this role?
I haven't thought about that. But, I don't know, to be honest. I don't know how it's going to happen now, to be honest. Because when the movie comes out, I've been told that everything is going to change -- and I have no idea what to expect, really.
Have you noticed any differences so far?
Yeah, there's definitely a difference. You know, people will stop me and ask for a photo. Going to Starbucks, I definitely feel that thing of "any minute now someone is going to say something" -- then it will be photo bedlam. But it hasn't quite hit with its full force yet, but it's definitely changing.
Are you dreading that? Perhaps that's too strong of a word.
You know, it's a tough one to say whether I'm looking forward to it or not looking forward to it. Of course it's nice to have a movie which everyone enjoys and loves -- absolutely, because that's the whole point. I love telling stories and if everyone loves the story, then I've done my job right and that's a great feeling. But, at the same time, sometimes you don't want to have someone put a picture of you on Facebook for the world to see -- you're not feeling great or you've got a cold or something or you just had a fight with your family and you're in a bad mood. You know, just the normal stuff, which we generally take for granted. You know, if you're in a bad mood walking down the street, people are like, "Oh, wow, he's in a bad mood." But if you're in a bad mood and you're in the public eye, then you're almost not allowed to be in a bad mood.
I like that you've already been theorizing on a Justice League movie.
Yeah, it's important to me that this thing -- I mean -- I love telling this story: I loved working with the guys and it was an amazing job to work on. And I'd be very happy to do many more movies with all of those people again. And, you know, we were so excited about stuff, you did start thinking about future movies and what the storylines would be. And, also, this is the kind of stuff I like to read! So, it's a story which I'm going to keep on imagining how it may continue.
When you were filming "Man of Steel," were the words "Justice League" ever mentioned?
Not officially. Not like a producer saying, "Oh, by the way, this could lead into 'Justice League.'" It was always us fanboys or geeks saying, "Oh, I wonder if they'll make a Justice League out of this," and what that might involve. It was just people geeking out basically.
You seem to like Brainiac. If someone let you decide, is that who you'd go with next?
I think Brainiac is a great character. [Pauses] I'm not going to answer that because I would need to think about it more seriously to give an official answer in an interview.
That's fair.
I think Doomsday is an awesome character as well. There are plenty of awesome characters, but I like the idea of Brainiac because he's got the city of Kandor in everything, so that's an exciting prospect -- to reintroduce an idea of Krypton back to Earth. And that opens up a whole bunch of new possibilities.
Who would you cast to play the Bizarro Henry Cavill Superman?
Ideally it would be me -- just with a whole bunch of prosthetics and CGI.
Are you contracted for more Superman movies?
How Hollywood works with these kind of things, when you are doing a screen test, before the screen test, you will sign a contract saying, "OK, yes, I'll do the movie if you guys want me." And, in that, it's standard procedure to do two options beyond the movie.
And I think with Justice League, people look at what Marvel did with "The Avengers" and get excited about the possibilities on DC Comics side.
Yes. I'm sure it does and it's a development to the story, which is interesting -- the combining of different worlds. Whether it happens or not, I just don't know. I just don't know.
You're a big fan of "World of Warcraft." If you could pick a character to play in the movie, who would you play?
Oh, oh! Well, there are so many stories. There are so many different stories it would be tough to choose one character. And I haven't played "World of Warcraft" in so long now, you've caught me slightly off guard.
I got you with a hard hitting question.
It is a hard hitting one! I mean, Varian Wrynn would be a great character to play. And the name completely escapes me, but the guy who is the Lich King would be awesome -- Arthas Menethil.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>Justice League Movie: Let's Make a Flash Movie Firsttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.33923412013-06-06T09:59:24-04:002013-06-06T16:41:21-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
With the release of Man of Steel next week, it's hard not to think of the much-rumored and much-maligned Justice League of America movie.
If you don't know what Justice League is, it's basically The Avengers only with DC Comics characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. It's crazy, by the way, that we live in a world where The Avengers are more popular than Justice League. Until recently that was never the case (think of all of the iterations of Super Friends there have been, which is a watered down version of Justice League). With Man of Steel, however, the framework is certainly being set for an entire world of DC Comics movies. But if we're looking at Marvel's blueprint, something seems missing. And what's missing has everything to do with The Flash.
When Marvel decided to build their own little empire that would eventually lead to last summer's The Avengers, they started with Iron Man, of all people. Iron Man, now, is one of the most popular superheroes in existence. Before the release of 2008's Iron Man, he was a second tier character that the average human being did not have a vast awareness of. Now, to be fair, Marvel didn't have much of a choice: Sony owned the rights to its flagship character, Spider-Man. Which, when you think about it, makes the lack of a Justice League movie even more crazy: Warner Bros. hasn't licensed out all of DC's best characters, yet they are still having a hard time getting a Justice League movie off of the ground.
Anyway, back to Iron Man. As you are aware, the part of Iron Man/Tony Stark went to Robert Downey Jr., a perfect match of actor and role. Today, Iron Man is arguably the most popular theatrical superhero around.
Growing up, I read a lot of Iron Man comic books. What Marvel did well here was talking a relatively lesser-known character, keep his story close enough to the source material to keep its built-in fans (me) happy, and then craft what would become our point-of-view character throughout the Avengers' buildup. (Of the five pre-Avengers movies, Stark appeared in three of them and Stark's father appeared in another.) In other words: Tony Stark could be whatever Marvel wanted Tony Stark to be. To work properly, we need a point of view character in the DC universe as well, and the only character that really works is The Flash.
Let's take a look at DC's "big five," if you will. The two biggest names here are obviously Superman and Batman. Their stories are so well known that there's not much tinkering that can be done without fan outrage. Also, since Superman is an almost indestructible alien, it's hard to relate to him from an audience perspective.
Batman has a couple of problems, too: First, the character himself, though mortal, is a dark guy and kind of likes to keep to himself -- which is not the type of host we need throughout these movies. Second, the question of whether Christian Bale should return to play Batman or Warner Bros. should cast a new actor is just too complicated and won't be sorted out anytime soon. If it's a new Batman, well, we'll have to wait and see if audiences accept whoever that may be.
Wonder Woman isn't an alien, but she's an Amazon princess with super powers, so, she might as well be an alien (on a relatable scale, she's similar to Superman in a "larger than life" sort of way). And, like Superman and Batman, her backstory is fairly well known ... well, at least compared to, say, someone like Green Lantern. Oh, yeah, that guy ...
If you had asked me five years ago, I would have told you that Ryan Reynolds would have made an excellent Flash. I just never saw him as Green Lantern, but, whatever, what's done is done. Anyway, it's besides the point, because making a Green Lantern movie at that point was just a huge tactical mistake. It would have been like Marvel starting with a Guardians of the Galaxy movie instead of easing us into a story about interstellar superhero team. Green Lantern was just too much: "Here is this superhero with a magic ring that you probably don't know very well and there are 7,200 others out in space just like him, let's introduce you to all of them."
Like Iron Man, I read a lot of The Flash comic books in my childhood. (And, yes, I cried when the Barry Allen version of The Flash died during Crises on Infinite Earths.) Here's the thing: I care a lot about The Flash, but, as long as he runs fast and has a cool costume and is interesting, I could not care less what DC does with his character theatrically. ("Interesting" is a key word here, which is the biggest fault of the ill-fated 1990 television series.)
If you don't know The Flash, well, that's basically the point here. There are a few characters who have used that title, but the main guy, Barry Allen, is a normal human being who, after being struck by lightning-charged chemicals, can now run very fast. Actually, pretty much the same thing happened to Wally West, who went by Kid Flash for a while, then became The Flash after Barry Allen died. (There's also a character called Reverse Flash, but I'm starting to make this more complicated than it needs to be.) Whatever: the gist is The Flash runs fast. The other gist is that Barry Allen's Flash is a scientist -- which already has me thinking about how fun the scenes are of Tony Stark in his laboratory. Though nothing alike, both characters thrive in their simplicity: Iron Man has an armored suit; The Flash runs fast. Less is more.
Look, they can use the Barry Allen version or the Wally West version -- I really don't care. The Flash is a basically a blank slate that DC could use to guide us through their superhero movies. The Flash could be DC's Iron Man. And, yes, in a perfect world (along with world peace and the cure for cancer), Warner Bros. would have made The Flash instead of Green Lantern. (Which could have happened. And there is still a Flash screenplay floating around at Warner Bros. written by David Goyer, the same man who wrote Man of Steel.)
As for casting, remember, Robert Downey Jr. was considered an "outside-the-box" choice back in 2008 -- and he doesn't exactly have the physique we think of when the word "superhero" is tossed around. Well, how about we try something equally as weird: Jesse Eisenberg. Look, the guy is charming, he's fun to watch on screen, he already talks fast (a plus), he can crack wise (another plus) -- and he just proved that he can carry an ensemble team-up movie in this past weekend's Now You See Me. But Jesse Eisenberg doesn't look like a superhero? Stop it. Neither does Downey. In this case, charm and wit are more important than physique. He's the one who will sarcastically snap at the more earnest and/or stoic members of the JLA.
Yes, I really want a Flash movie, which is obvious. And, no, this doesn't seem to be Warner Bros. plan at this point -- though he does seem to be a part of every Justice League movie rumor. (And, maybe the point I'm trying to make about this character can be accomplished in a self-contained Justice League movie, I just have my doubts.) But, beyond my own selfishness, this does seem to be an opportunity wasted: To adapt a character that will be better known for the movie version than the comic book version -- to craft our "host" for this series, if you will, from a recognizable, but not widely known character: This was a huge key to Marvel's success. There's no shame in Warner Bros. trying to emulate that.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>Kevin Costner, 'Man Of Steel' Star, Looks Back On 'Bull Durham,' 'Waterworld' And The First Time He Made A Million Dollarstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-06-05T07:43:59-04:002013-06-05T11:40:54-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
Costner plays Jonathan Kent, the Earth-bound father to Clark Kent, a.k.a Kal-El a.k.a Superman, in the new film "Man of Steel." The 58-year-old star has been acting now for close to 35 years, and he is exactly what you would expect and hope for: polite, engaging and, at this point in his career, a straight shooter. Ahead, our longer-than-expected conversation fluctuates from refection on two of his bigger career disappointments -- "Waterworld" and "The Postman" -- to highlights that include "Bull Durham," "The Untouchables" and the time he called parents to tell them he got paid a million dollars.
No actor has the ability to make me cry more than you do. You did it to me again in "Man of Steel."
Oh, no! [Laughs]
I mean that as a compliment.
Well, you know, somebody told me once that only another man can make another man cry. It takes another man to make another man cry -- something he says where you relate so strongly to what you think he's actually going through. And then you kind of absorb that as your own idea. So, thanks.
It's interesting because both examples I'm thinking of -- this movie and "Field of Dreams" -- involves a father and son.
Well, you're alive and you have feelings and even though we bury them to do our jobs, no matter how cynical a world we're operating in -- no matter how cynical we can become -- you're still a part of what's going on out there in the world. You can feel emotions pretty deep. You can feel them. And the movies, if they have the right architecture, can surprise us sometimes that it's right there.
Are you a comic book guy?
No.
Because in a different time or place, something like "Waterworld" has a comic book vibe to it.
Yeah, I'm not tied into them. I wasn't a comic book person. You know, I loved making "Waterworld." I like that it's tied into, you know, where you have to use your wits about you. You're not able to kind of wink -- you're not able to do that. I like living by your wits. That's not to say I wouldn't do one, but I've never been asked to do one.
Did you have to be convinced to do "Man of Steel"?
I was unsure. But I was very sure that [Director] Zack [Snyder] would make something really original. I really felt that he wouldn't be making another version -- he would be making something that stood on its own. I was really hoping that was the case ... I'm taking a little bit off of what you're saying and what a few other people said. So, I wanted it to be original, I wanted it to stand alone -- those are the kinds of things you want to try to be a part of.
The original "Superman" movie is a big part of my childhood. "Man of Steel" is a very different interpretation.
And I felt that it would be, just from the color palate. I mean, he didn't run away from any of the mythology of it, but he put an absolute direct spin on it. That's for sure.
You've won an Oscar for directing. When you're an actor in a movie, can you turn your director instincts off?
Well, I really am able to divorce myself of it. Because, one, I'm glad that they have the pressure. But if a director is able to embrace me, I can just sit back there and look to make sure he doesn't step on the line. And that doesn't even mean he has, but if he would spin and asked me something, I'd say something to him. But not in the vein of, "I think he's doing it wrong." It's more of a, "I watch and I look out for my director." If they want input from me, they can get it. I won't always know what to do about a certain situation or certain problem ... I'm out there every day with them, if I think they're overwhelmed, or whatever, if they look to me, I might say something -- but I don't feel the need to.
You have a lot of big projects coming up -- "Man of Steel," "Jack Ryan," "Draft Day" -- and, admittedly, I'm probably over-thinking it, but can something like the success of "Hatfield & McCoys" lead to these huge movies after a few years where you weren't doing huge movies?
Yeah, well, I just had three kids, so I sat out for about three years. Listen, no one knew that "Hatfield & McCoys" was going to be successful, believe me. Everybody saw that as a little hillbilly movie. I wanted to be a part of it -- I wasn't trying to resurrect anything.
It killed the Brad Pitt theatrical version.
Yeah, to be sure about things, the town works in a way that perception is a really important thing in Hollywood. It's never informed me. For instance, if I thought an actor was really good and he was either out of favor or didn't seem to be box office, or whatever, that wouldn't phase me at all. I don't ever let that affect me. Now, I do think that other people do feel that way. But if I wanted somebody to be my lead because he was the very best person for it, I wouldn't give a shit about what his box office was because the story is still the thing and who fills those shoes is really important.
You have nothing else to prove at this point, but I did wonder if, during that time period, if you were going to give up acting and just play in your band. Was that ever a thought?
No ... there was no plan. It amuses me if someone thinks I'm trying to reinvent myself. Everything I do in my life, whether it's trying to solve a oil spill or something like that, it's just because I feel like it. It's just because I feel like it. People have zero idea about even what my logic is, of how I do things. About a month ago I realized that I played at the Kremlin with my band -- who would have thought that that would have come out of this thing? It wasn't trying to be relevant. It wasn't trying to reinvent myself. It was just making original music with my friends.
I never thought that you were trying to reinvent yourself. I was just getting the impression that you were enjoying music more than acting and I'm glad to see you back in movies. Selfishly, I'll admit.
I did a lot of writing -- I have about five or six movies I'd like to make. I worked on five or six movies writing that I'd like to direct as I play out the second half of my career. I will do them, but none of them link up with each other except, hopefully, in the story department -- that they're all engaging stories. So, in the second half of my career, I'd like to direct a little bit more, but people don't always have a real appetite for the kind of movie that I would direct. So, we'll just see.
I have a theory. If "The Postman" came out today instead of 1997, more people would like it.
[Laughs] Well, I always thought it was a really good movie! I always thought I probably started it wrong. I should have said something like "once upon a time." Because it was just like a modern-day fairy tale -- it wraps itself up with a storybook ending with the statue. You know, I thought it was a pretty funny movie set against the idea of a Superman -- somebody stepping up. But in this case, it's a very humble guy whose nothing but a liar [laughs] -- delivers mail and burns half of it just to stay alive. So, I like the movie.
It just seems that kind of thing would go over better today. It's a theory, I have no idea if I'm right.
I don't know either. I know that if you revisit the movie, that's a good thing to do. You can go back and revisit some movies that made well over $100 million and you might not care anything about them. And you can go back and maybe review a movie like that -- you know, it was a pretty big, epic movie.
It annoys me when I see "Waterworld" mentioned in those box office bombs lists, because it's not true. It made money. Do you ever want to speak up or write in when you see that?
Yeah, I've probably said it ad nauseum, but people don't give a shit [laughs], so, it doesn't really matter. It just is what it is. But it stands up as a really exotic, cool movie. I mean, it was flawed -- for sure. But, overall, it's a very inventive, cool movie. It's pretty robust.
I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up that we're approaching the 25th anniversary of "Bull Durham." What do you feel is its legacy?
Well, the truth is, when you have a career, you know the forensics of it. And I've had a pretty interesting career, I guess, because I've done a variety of movies. Most of these movies, people try to make the second and third one and I never made a second one. The legacy of certain things is sometimes I forgot how beloved those movies are and then understand all the people in charge, how they passed on these movies. They said, "Look, I'll make it for a couple of million dollars" -- and they were saying they didn't want to make it. And Ron [Shelton] and I basically said that we needed a little more than that. So, they made a beloved movie for $6 million. You know, not a horror film that became a cult favorite -- we made a mainstream movie for that amount of money, a boy-girl movie. And, you know, those are the movies that I'm attracted to. So, some of them are going to work and some of them are not. I've never tried to stick myself into studio blockbusters -- it's nice to be a part of them, but it's never been a strategy to just work with A-list directors, period. No. I've worked with a lot of first time writers and directors -- you know, that's what I've done.
You may not have inserted yourself into blockbusters, but you had to realize at a certain point that you had become a movie star.
I guess when you make a million dollars, you feel like you want to tell somebody. And, you know, it's kind of gross with the background that you don't ask a person what they make or how much they got paid for it. But, you know [laughs], you make a million dollars and you kind of go, "Holy shit!"
I would imagine.
And it's like, I guess, does that define it? No. But you kind of went, "God, I'm able to do this. I'm able to really do this." "The Untouchables," I remember I got that [amount] for the first time. And I remember they were only going to pay me $800,000 -- I say "only," that's not "only," they're going to spend $800,000. I made $750,000 for "No Way Out" and they came to me for "The Untouchables" and they said they'd offer me $800,000. And I said, "It's got to be a million." And they said, "We can't do it." And I said, "Yes, you can." I got the remaining $200,000 deferred at the point the movie came out, so I got to my million. And I was able to tell my parents, "Your son, the fuck up, finally did it. It worked out OK."
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>'The Internship' Should Be A Free Movietag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.33811862013-06-03T19:32:03-04:002013-06-04T11:48:10-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
When I was a kid, you had to be careful about certain comic books. Everything would be fine until, a quarter of the way through, you'd suddenly realize you're really reading a commercial. I specifically remember visiting the dentist and miraculously discovering a pile of Spider-Man comics in the waiting room. What a cool dentist, I thought. Not only were they there, but you could take one without charges being pressed. It was a free comic book! Unfortunately, the plot of this Spider-Man comic book wound up centering on a tube of Aim toothpaste, or whatever. Even then, I knew I couldn't really complain: the comic book was free because Aim had paid for it. If I put up with reading about Aim, I could get some Spider-Man in exchange.
I mention this because I cannot believe it costs money to see the new Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson comedy, The Internship.
The Internship is a two-hour commercial for Google. The deal should be: "If you put up with the fact that the movie is a commercial for Google, you get to watch Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson crack wise. Deal?"
I'm not saying The Internship is a particularly bad movie. I mean, it's certainly not a good movie. It's a disposable diversion that I would not have had a strong opinion of either way, had I not just paid $16.00 to watch a two-hour Google commercial. (On Saturday night, Fox did a nationwide sneak preview screening of "The Internship.") If I had paid money out of my allowance for that Spider-Man comic book about toothpaste, I would have been pissed.
In The Internship, Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Wilson) play two sad sacks who get laid off from their sales job and land internships at a corporation that shall remain unnamed so it doesn't look like this is a two-hour commercial for said corporation Google. Along the way, those two learn how special a company Google is. They discover that Google exists "to make people's lives just a little better" (yes, this little nugget of propaganda is spoken by a Google employee during The Internship). And they find out just how hard it is to earn a spot on Google's customer-service team, since Google hires only the best customer-service reps. All of this might be true -- according to this movie, it is! -- but I shouldn't have to pay to hear it. (I should add, this is a completely different thing than a movie like The Social Network: An unauthorized chronicle of true events, which were not always delivered in a flattering manner.)
The first time I noticed product placement in a movie was during Back to the Future, when Marty McFly tags along behind a jeep on his skateboard. The driver of the jeep is wearing a Mountain Dew cap, and I remember thinking, Wait, who wears a cap that says 'Mountain Dew' on it? Is that a thing? Maybe I want a Mountain Dew cap.. Later I was told that, most likely, Mountain Dew had paid to place that hat in the movie.
Now, I'm sure Pepsi paid to have Marty McFly order a Pepsi Free at the diner in 1955, but this didn't stand out because (a) it made for a good punchline -- "If you want a Pepsi, pal, you're gonna pay for it" -- and (b) Pepsi Free is a beverage a human being might actually have ordered in 1985, where Marty is from. If it's seamless, product placement does not bother me at all. Having a character drink a Pepsi is less jarring to me than having a character drink from a white can that reads "cola." And even the rampant product-placements in Iron Man 3 didn't bother me because they were threaded into the story in short intervals. It wasn't as if the plot had Stark Industries purchase Fios because "no company is better than Fios." (I do fear that this may wind up being the plot of Iron Man 4, or Iron Man 4ios. Never mind, forget I wrote that.)
I should add that I thoroughly enjoyed watching Vaughn and Wilson team up in Wedding Crashers. (When it came out, I had only recently moved to New York City, and I made repeated trips to the theater to compensate for my complete lack of friends.) So I want to make it clear that The Internship, even forgetting the fact that it's a two-hour commercial for Google, is not Wedding Crashers 2. In Wedding Crashers, Vaughn and Wilson played overconfident guys, but they deserved to be overconfident! They were really good at crashing weddings. Here, their overconfident banter comes off as pathetic.
I usually don't care how a movie does at the box office. And I'm certainly not rooting for The Internship to fail, if only because there are many, many people who work on these movies and do their best. I also have no doubt that both Vaughn and Wilson gave it their all and that Shawn Levy made every effort to direct the finest movie he could. But I do worry that if a movie like The Internship is successful, we will see corporate influence on movies rise to a whole new level.
If I pay for a movie, it shouldn't be a two-hour piece of propaganda for a corporation, no matter how "neat" that corporation may be. So believe me when I say that this is the last time I'm paying to learn what product Spider-Man uses to fight tooth decay.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>'Big' 25th Anniversary: Josh Baskin Made The Wrong Choicetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.33789012013-06-03T12:00:50-04:002013-06-05T17:02:49-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
I often wonder how Josh Baskin feels now, 25 years after the release of the movie "Big," which told his (fictional) story. I wonder if he ever says to himself, right before falling asleep, You know, I'd probably be running MacMillan Toys by now if I had just stayed an adult.
I was 14 years old when Big was released on June 3, 1988. No other movie had prompted me to feel such conflicted emotions: I enjoyed the movie, but I really despised the way adults reacted to it.
In 1988, the consensus on Big was, "Boy, Tom Hanks really nailed what a kid would do in an adult's body." From my perspective then, the 30-year-old Baskin, played by Hanks, behaved like a bit of a moron -- and seemed nothing like the 12-year-old Baskin (David Moscow) we met at the beginning of the movie. Even then, though, I understood that Hanks had to do something "wacky," because a realistic version of Big in which Josh, still in shock after waking up in what he perceives to be another man's body, runs off into the woods only to die from exposure probably would not tug at too many heartstrings.
I may have been the only person who was rooting for Josh Baskin to stay an adult. Certainly that put me in the minority. I didn't have a terrible childhood, but my parents moved a few times, and being an only child made this particularly unpleasant. In June 1988, we had just moved, again, meaning that I would, again, have to start at a new school that fall. The thought of being an adult and having at least some some control over such life-changing decisions appealed to me. For the life of me, I couldn't understand why people were so happy when Baskin became a child again. It was the saddest ending to a movie I'd seen all year.
When Baskin became an adult, he had no credit background, work history and very little education. And yet he made it remarkably far, career-wise, in a very short amount of time. I would say that, after turning 12 again, his chances of working his way up to an executive position at MacMillan toys by age 30 became very remote. He had his dream job, had a huge Soho apartment and was dating Elizabeth Perkins -- even in 1988, I knew that was a pretty good deal. Why anyone would want to return to a life of being mocked at the carnival and hanging out with Billy Kopecki was beyond me. I was living it and could have told you that it sucked.
Over time, movies can trigger reactions that are very different from those we originally experienced. Recently, I re-watched Big in preparation for its 25th anniversary. This time around, all it did was reconfirm that I was right the first time: being an adult is so much better than being 12 years old. And near the end of the movie, Baskin really embraces his role as an adult: he stops spitting out his food and uses less and less of his take-home pay on Silly String. It isn't until Billy Kopecki calls Josh an "asshole" that he even thinks about returning to his old self.
The truth is, Billy Kopecki is the asshole. His friend was living the dream at a toy company and he couldn't let it go, resorting to peer pressure and expletives. Without Billy Kopecki, right now, Josh Baskin would most likely be the CEO of MacMillan Toys. (I mean, sure, he would have given up 18 years of life. And there's merit in the argument that every year of life is precious. But Josh could more than make up for those years by jumping on his trampoline and drinking free Pepsi.)
Right now, Josh Baskin would be 36 years old. I imagine that, down at his local tavern every Friday night, after that one last bourbon he didn't need, Josh would still be telling anyone who'll listen about the time he had it all -- the plum job at MacMillan Toys; the spacious Soho apartment; the trampoline; the wild romance with Elizabeth Perkins (herself finishing up a prison sentence after being spotted dropping off a kidnapped child familiar from the side of milk cartons). No one wants to hear Josh tell those stories anymore. To them, he's just the crazy guy at the end of the bar who repeats the word "Zoltar" after one too many.
Josh Baskin had it all. Josh Baskin blew it. Twenty-five years later, the ending of Big is sadder than ever.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.]]>'This Is The End': Is It The Most Effed Up Movie Of The Year?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.33672152013-05-31T13:04:41-04:002013-06-13T17:53:38-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
The apocalyptic comedy This is the End will open at a multiplex near you on June 12. In This is the End we are introduced to six friends by the names of Seth Rogen (Seth Rogen), James Franco (James Franco), Jonah Hill (Jonah Hill), Craig Robinson (Craig Robinson), Jay Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) and Danny McBride (Danny McBride), who attempt to stay alive while the world ends. As always, we answer every questions that you could possibly have about This is the End.
Q: Is there any chance that I will like This is the End?
A: Yes. There are a lot of chances, actually.
Q: How is This is the End not one big circle jerk?
A: While it's true that there is plenty of literal masturbation in This is the End, it's also the case that, metaphorically, the film does a surprisingly good job of appearing to exist for the lone purpose of satisfying its stars' egos.
Q: To what "end" does the title This is the End refer?
A: The apocalypse as described in the Book of Revelation.
Q: So if I am a devout Christian, I will love This is the End?
A: Ha.
Q: Why are all of these characters hanging out together during the apocalypse?
A: They are attending a party thrown by James Franco (James Franco) when the apocalypse begins.
Q: Is everyone having a good time at the party?
A: Jay Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) is not having a good time.
Q: Why not?
A: Jay Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) is basically our point-of-view character. Even though Baruchel (Jay Baruchel) is a fairly famous actor, he only knows Franco (James Franco), Craig Robinson (Craig Robinson) and Jonah Hill (Jonah Hill) through his longtime friend, Seth Rogen (Seth Rogen), and he feels like an outcast when he is around all of them.
Q: Is there any real-life basis for this dynamic?
A: I have no idea and don't particularly care. It's a movie.
Q: When does the apocalypse occur?
A: On the night of the party, the good people are taken to heaven while the rest have to fend for themselves in a horrifying landscape of volcanoes, earthquakes and roaming demon beasts.
Q: Do we see a lot of celebrity deaths in This is the End?
A: Yes.
Q: Which character does the most with a small amount of screen time in This is the End?
A: Michael Cera (Michael Cera).
Q: Which character does the most with a moderate amount of screen time?
A: Emma Watson (Emma Watson).
Q: Wait, how does Danny McBride fit into all of this?
A: Danny McBride (Danny McBride) comes to the party uninvited, then sleeps through the beginning of the apocalypse. Regardless, he joins the other five holed up at James Franco's house.
Q: I don't understand what this movie is about.
A: It's probably for the best.
Q: Is each actor portraying himself or herself as how he or she actually is in real life?
A: Though they all are playing themselves -- and I'm sure there are some overlapping tropes -- the actors definitely play exaggerated versions of themselves. For example, I'm sure in real life Danny McBride has uttered a funny insult, but it's doubtful that he has an appetite for human flesh. (That said, I have no inside information regarding either of those two assumptions.)
Q: What are these famous actors doing while just sitting around James Franco's house?
A: As mentioned before, there is masturbation. And there are a lot of references to James Franco's lesser movies. But, eventually, the group starts to run out of food and water, forcing them to leave the relatively safe confines of James Franco's house.
Q: How many references are made about James Franco portrayal of the Green Goblin in Spider-Man 3?
A: Two
Q: If I am a fan of Pineapple Express, will I like This is the End?
A: A lot.
Q: How in the world are you telling me that this is a good movie?
A: Honestly, I don't know, but I laughed a lot. It's the funniest movie of 2013 so far (to be fair, there hasn't been a lot of competition for that title) and by far the most fucked-up movie of 2013.
Q: Is there a chance that This is the End is too insidery?
A: It's possible, but I honestly don't think so. Though a working knowledge of each actor's past work probably would help.
A: Someone said, "Jonah Hill gets raped by the devil, and that's like the sixth-most-fucked-up thing that happens."
Q: Wait, what?
A: Yeah.
Q: What's the fifth-most-fucked-up thing that happens?
A: Without giving too much away, it involves the Devil's penis.
Q: If you could choose what quote to put on the This is the End movie poster, what would it be?
A: "Jonah Hill gets raped by the devil, and that's like the sixth-most-fucked-up thing that happens."
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
This story appears in Issue 53 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, June 14.
]]>M. Night Shyamalan, 'After Earth' Director, On A Sequel To 'Unbreakable' And His Relationship With Criticstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-05-30T08:05:30-04:002013-05-30T11:27:48-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
In person, Shyamalan is about as cordial as they come. When we met on Wednesday afternoon, he was wearing an Iron Man t-shirt; it made him seem approachable and endearing. So did this: Shyamalan was tipped off that May 29 was my birthday, so no matter how contentious the below conversation seems to get at times, keep in mind that it ended with him and me eating a cupcake.
Before the interview, I was told that nothing was off limits. So, with that, we started talking.
You're looking through Life magazines.
It's so cool, man. Look how beautiful Cybil Shepard was during "The Last Picture Show," which is one of my favorite movies.
I wouldn't have guessed that.
It's all tone. Bogdanovich, his control of tone is insane.
Most people remember Shepard from "Moonlighting."
She was amazing in "Moonlighting," but, this movie ... she's more powerful than the movie and your heart is taken away with this not-so-glamorous girl.
This is my segue, but speaking of tone, "After Earth" doesn't have the typical tone that we are used to from you.
Well, I think it's a hybrid, right?
There are moments.
Moments, yeah. Quiet kind of has its place in the movie -- you know, the quiet stillness and the introspective stuff. Which I think we're talking about, that kind of tonal thing. You know, it's interesting: I think my movies are primarily dramas -- you know, 70 percent drama and 30 percent whatever the genre is -- and then normally they're sold on that genre piece. And that causes a weird reaction of, "Oh my God, I didn't know it was 70 percent this other thing." And this time it's at least 50/50.
But this one seems less your movie than what we've seen in the past since probably "Stuart Little." This has been publicized as Will Smith's movie.
I don't know if I'd say that as much. "Stuart Little" would be the one that I just kind of embraced it, but, to some extent, that was a lot me, too -- the tone that came through. I've become a version of whomever I'm working with, to some extent. Does that make sense?
How so?
Like if I'm working with Scott Rudin on "The Village," I start leaning more that way in the way I'm thinking a lot -- so, I'm more toward that person, my partner, a lot. And, on this one, it was Will.
But I feel like something like "The Sixth Sense," you can say, "This is my vision. This is my movie."
Yeah, from the beginning.
But I feel on this one Will Smith can tell you, "No, I'm looking to do it this way. Do that for me."
I think the balance of it was that he left me mostly to my devices in terms of how to portray the character's journey. So, I'd say, "Well, maybe he gets poisoned by a leech." I remember writing that sequence. And I think Will's influence specifically would be seen, say, in an action scene where I would stop at "two" and we might go "three" or "four" -- go one more beat in the action. And I definitely learned from that in terms of -- I'm a big self-analysis guy, making sure I go through therapy all of the time with myself.
What's that mean?
You know, that's what making a movie is: therapy for me.
Which movie is the most therapeutic?
They're all.
Equally?
Yeah, they're all like that. They all represent where I am. Does that make sense? And in this one, working on this movie -- I have two types of minimalism. I love, really love, to be minimum. Left to my own devices, I'd definitely do "The Tree of Life." That's where I would go. I'd love to do that -- ambiguous and quiet and all that stuff.
Do you consider yourself a filmmaker like Malick?
Well, he's so courageous. I don't know if I'm quite as courageous as him.
How so?
You know, there's a kind on insinuation that we were talking about with "The Last Picture Show," just a tone. There's very little plot in "The Last Picture Show." It's not based on plot. The plot comes in and out, but your driving force is tone. A lot of Malick's movies and especially "The Tree of Life" for me -- I can't tell you that I knew exactly what was going on, but emotionally I was 100 percent there. So, he was working on a subconscious level.
Let's say you made a Terrence Malick-type movie. Do you think it would have been better received, say, right after "Unbreakable" came out or now? That people would have given you more of a shot back then with something so abstract and that critics would be more unfair today?
God, I don't know. I've come to think of it more as a body of work. That's the way I've always thought about it to some extent, but it's the healthiest way to continue to think about it rather than kind of going on each one in its particular context at that moment and its particular expectations of that moment. Those can be driven by the marketing, those can be driven by the previous movie, it can be driven by other movies -- you know, that kind of thing.
Do you feel that critics have turned on you?
[Laughs] No, no. I definitely think that they're seeing it more -- I think it will be easier to see in a body of work, I think.
You had a critic character in "Lady in the Water."
I don't feel an adversarial relationship to them -- I goof around with them in "Lady in the Water."
But you see why some critics take that as a personal attack? He's brutally killed.
[Laughs] I know.
And you cast yourself as the writer with the important vision.
Well, it was all about storytelling. And all about kind of all the aspects of storytelling -- that movie's main character is named "Story" and all of that stuff. I mean, it was a tongue-in-cheek movie.
Could "The Sixth Sense" be a phenomenon today? With the Internet, could it have kept its secret for as long as it did.
I don't know. It would have been difficult, I think, today. It would have been difficult. For sure the headline on Twitter would have been like "surprise ending," right? Or "I didn't guess the ending." It immediately orients you in a different way to it. I don't think it would have been the same experience in today's market. The fact is, it was very lucky timing. It was right before the Internet became a real, real place where everyone constantly went. I remember it at the time, it wasn't even talked about when we put that movie out.
I remember I had no desire to see it at first because it looked too much like "Mercury Rising," Bruce Willis' other movie with a child actor.
"Mercury Rising"? I'm trying to remember it.
Then the word of mouth came.
Right. It would be different, one way or the other. In some ways, it could have been recommended faster. So, it could have been that or it could have been talked about in the wrong way too quickly.
Did you ever feel caught up in having to have a twist? Did you ever feel that you had to do it?
No, I never -- I don't think like that.
A lot of your movies have twists.
They do. So, in my mind, if it turned out that I did 10 movies and seven of them had twists, that's great.
You never thought, I need to stump the audience again?
No. I don't ever think of it like that. That's kind of outside-inside thinking where it's really none of them are that. None of them are a gimmick.
I don't think they're a gimmick. But I wonder if there's something internal that makes you want to one-up yourself.
Not at all. Not at all. What I'm trying to say is it's not an outside thinking thing. This is the story of a young reporter who is turning 39 and he wants the day of his birthday to be amazing.
I fear this is going to end badly for me.
I'm going to tell it from the point of view of the person that didn't know him. And then I reveal the story, reveal what your actual plan was for your birthday. An angle on the story rather than thinking of it like like I need to have a twist. It's what's the most provocative angle to tell the story? And from that, it becomes a revelation of another part of the story. So it's more of a paradigm shift in how to tell the story than it is thinking of it as a gimmick.
You've gotten away from that in your last couple of movies.
I don't think of it like that. You know, my first two movies before "The Sixth Sense" were just straight movies -- and "Signs" was a straight movie. And "Lady in the Water" was a straight movie, in that way. Although there are revelations in those movies.
You tried to make "Life of Pi." Was it hard at all to watch Ang Lee win an Oscar for Best Director for that movie?
No. You know, there are so many movies that I wish I had made. And Ang doing it is like the perfect ending to that story for me.
That's a nice thing to say, but how?
He's my hero. All of his movies, even before "The Ice Storm" -- which I think is a masterpiece -- just to have someone that I think is a master-level storyteller to take that story, which is a boy from Pondicherry [in India], where I was born ... You know, I love that movie a lot and I love that book a lot. It means a lot. It was nice to see things work out for everybody. It's happy, as opposed to if it was done by somebody that I didn't like or didn't think as highly of. I would have felt bad about the situation.
Is there a movie that you wish you could have another shot at or film a different way? A movie that audience didn't respond to as well as you had hoped.
Well, you always have a way of making it more accessible. Always. The decision is always between "accessible" and "authentic."
What's an example?
Well, let's say, for example, like a difficult decision for the main characters -- let's say at the end of "The Village" -- a difficult decision to continue the lie versus the youth becoming free. And winning the day. And realizing their opportunities of being able to come into the light of the real world and to a Times Square kind of vibe. So, that would be provocative and empowering, but I chose to make it morally ambiguous. But it was more authentic to me. My whole conversation with that movie was I'm nervous about the world.
What specifically?
Living out the fantasy of protecting your children and how far would you go to protect your children from everything. "Would you lie to them about everything?" kind of thing. So, that was the premise of this story. So, you know what's an authentic decision for the artist versus what's the more accessible decision. That's the struggle you make all of the time in your commerce versus art conversation.
There's been talk of an "Unbreakable" sequel for a long time.
Yeah.
Samuel L. Jackson seems to want to do it. I saw you two talking on Twitter.
It's a harder one for me because -- it's getting closer, by the way.
I feel like I've heard that for the past 10 years. I want that to be true.
I want it to happen, too. We've been talking about almost the same subject in every one of your questions, which is artistic integrity -- something versus an agenda. Right? And almost every single one of your questions was agenda versus intention, even though you didn't realize it, but it kind of fell into that theme as we were talking.
Agenda how?
So, like you think I go and I write, "Oh, I'm going to write a twist ending."
I didn't know. That's why I asked.
That's an agenda versus "I want to talk about loneliness." And then it comes out, "How is the best way to talk about loneliness?" Intention versus agenda. And then I go, "Oh my God, if I make a movie about loneliness and everybody hated it, will it be able to come out and people will get it?" That's when you start going, "Oh my God," and you try to push that away. The same thing with "Unbreakable," to some extent, it's excitement to be made. "It's such a fun thing" is squashing my ability to find the thing that's connecting me with it. Does that make sense? So, I don't feel like I did it for agenda reasons. So, slowly I'm getting a story in my head that I feel like is able to tell what I'm feeling right now.
For people who like that movie, it sounds encouraging.
Yeah, it is! The story of a guy who kind of wakes up with a little gray feeling in the morning, I love that character. It's something that I feel and I want to talk more about that character.
Another is a possible sequel to "The Last Airbender." A movie that critics didn't like, but it did make a lot of money.
Yeah, I love the kind of Eastern philosophies of that. Those are costly movies to make and they take a lot of time. So, what happens is, there's a thriller I can do pretty fast, they go quickly. And I didn't expect to make another big movie -- I was going to make a thriller and then go make the sequel to "Airbender." Then I made "After Earth," which took a long time, so it kind of took that two-and-a-half to three-year period. So, I'm trying to sit down and see if I want to do a really small movie next.
Honestly, I'd love to see you do a really small movie.
I am really leaning towards doing a hyper-small movie.
Like something on the festival circuit.
Yep. And that's where my head is right now, by the way. I'm leaning towards that.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
]]>Ellen Page, 'The East' Star, On 'X-Men: Days Of Future Past' And Her Love Of 'Ever After'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-05-29T09:31:57-04:002013-05-29T09:31:58-04:00Mike Ryanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ryan/
Page's new movie is Zal Batmanglij's "The East," a thriller about the exploits of a group of eco-terrorists doling out punishment to corporate leaders for crimes against the environment. Page plays Izzy, a member of The East whose family becomes a target of the group.
Page doesn't hold back when it comes to her opinion on the environment; but for as boisterous as she can be about her political opinions, we don't know a lot about her private life -- a situation, as she says here, that she works hard to maintain -- other than to reveal that her favorite movie growing up was the Drew Barrymore fantasy film "Ever After," which has inspired Page's career more than you would think. And Page gives us an update on the ever-more star-studded "X-Men: Days of Future Past."
When I watch movies about the environment, I tend to get depressed.
I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people feel defeated, which leads to frustration, which leads to anger -- and I know I feel that. I feel that toward myself, you know, because I live in society and I drive a car and I'm on planes all of the time. But, of course, these are things that I spend a lot of time thinking about. And it is hard. It's hard because I think there are actually a lot of answers. Everyone talks about these issues being so complicated -- of course they are. Sometimes it's like, well, why don't we get big money out of politics, stop subsidizing oil, stop subsidizing a food system that's an unsustainable mess?
But that stuff is not going to happen.
Yeah. And guess what? It might mean that a lot of humanity is going to be wiped out.
Well, that is what's going to happen.
Exactly.
That's why a movie like this is depressing.
The only reason that it makes me really sad is really, honestly, the people that have nothing to do with creating the problem -- and those are the poorest and most exploited in the world -- they're the ones that are going to have to deal with the brunt of the shit the most.
Like toxic cities in China.
Or how much food costs are going to go up because of the way our food system works. Or extreme weather around the world, you know, or cultures disappearing.
I'm starting to think there's no reason for hope. I know that sounds defeatist.
Maybe the hope is actually in accepting the hopelessness. Human beings came in and the reason we've caused so much destruction is because we're so obsessed with out impermanence that we came in and created all of these linear systems that don't reflect nature whatsoever. And that's not to say everyone -- a lot of people still live that way, in a cyclical nature. But we came in and we believe in an economy that's based on exponential growth, which makes zero sense and just leads to destruction. So, yes, what might happen is the Earth is just going to do a bunch of stuff and reset itself and life is going to keep going. And that just happens to be what we're alive for. I think it's better to be obviously positive and do what one can, because I'm sure a lot of groups of people that were profoundly oppressed had moments of absolute hopelessness and thought things wouldn't change -- and then things did change.
Are these opinions why you liked this movie? How do you choose your roles when scripts show up?
Well, I mean, it always usually comes down to the script or the people or something I'm interested in exploring, or a different kind of filmmaking. This specifically, I was a fan of "Sound of My Voice" and what Zal did with that. Brit Marling's performance in that, as well as "Another Earth," I just loved. I was just like, "Who the hell is this person?"
"Another Earth" is such an interesting premise.
It's a beautiful film. I love that movie and her performance in it, I think, is just astounding, truly astounding ... and to be honest, when you meet them and experience their energy and their passion, it's very infectious. And I was trying to play it cool at the meeting.
How does Ellen Page play it cool? You seem like a relaxed-enough person in general.
Well, no, what I'm trying to say is that I really, really wanted them to want me to be involved. They could have easily wanted someone else.
Do you get offered a lot? I'm under the impression that people want you in their movies.
No, no, I don't think so. You know, especially because careers go in ebbs and flows, absolutely.
Do you feel that's happened to you?
I don't know. I mean, I feel super fortunate. I feel like every project I've gotten to do, I've been passionate about and I'm interested in. And to be an actor, to work, firstly, is a gift -- let alone to be able to choose what you want to do. I feel very happy with the choices that are in front of me and the choices that I get to make.
After "Juno," did you get a lot of Juno-type role offers?
Yeah, and I mean, you have people who get scripts and read them.
So they may not ever get to you.
No, and people know what I'm interested in and what I'm not interested in. I don't really want to play "the girlfriend," you know? Unless the girlfriend is interesting, you know what I'm saying? I'm also very specific about the young women that I want to portray, so that is important to me.
How so?
Because when I was a kid, I always was super excited to see a female role that was ...
What's an example?
Oh my God, I loved "Ever After" with Drew Barrymore. I loved that. Just movies that offered a different perspective of what a woman could be.
Is your love of "Ever After" why you wanted to be in "Whip It!"?
[Laughs] No, but I did love "Ever After." I mean, I wanted to be in "Whip It!" because I love that script and I wanted to learn how to roller derby -- and of course I wanted to be a part of Drew's directoral debut and have a blast making that movie.
It did look fun.
I'm proud of that movie.
I'm surprised it didn't do better.
It's always nice when things do, but I think things come out and they manage to find their audience. And I had a blast making it, that's all I really care about.
The most surprising role that I've seen you in -- and there are obvious picks like "Hard Candy" -- but Woody Allen's "To Rome With Love," I would never expect that role to go to you.
No, me either.
Your name and "starlet" don't really go together.
When it first came up, you don't know about the project. I came and I met Woody for like five or seven minutes or however long, then you leave.
Is it really that quick?
It's that quick. I was on my way to the airport and they're like, "Can you come back and read this in the office?" And I was like, "Of course." And I went back and I read it and I was terrified.
I have heard that he's hard to read.
No, he's sweet.
But that you don't know what he's thinking.
Oh, sure. You never know what he's thinking. To be honest, it was so terrifying and such a challenge.
When I got the gist of who you were playing, I thought that was really interesting.
Well, I was just finding all of my seeds of narcissism. No, but it was hard. It's funny because the role is like, you go to Rome and shoot two weeks, then you leave. But I was like shitting my pants. Obviously it's a lot of monologues.
I mean this in a good way, but I don't know much about you. How private are you?
I mean, I'm very private. But I also don't do that much, you know? I don't go out a lot. I'm not a partier. I'm not a big drinker. You know, it's just not my scene. So I don't think I'm very interesting or have anything in that realm that people want to talk about. And, yeah, of course I'm private. I mean, why wouldn't anyone want to be?
Some people don't.
Well, I want to be very private. Also because it's for the work. I mean, your job is to create an illusion, you know?
You have "X-Men: Days of Future Past" coming up. Did Bryan Singer have to talk you into returning? I'm under the impression that Brett Ratner had to talk you into doing "The Last Stand."
Well, you know, it came about and I was surprised. I didn't expect to be playing Kitty Pryde again. When you make the first one, you think, "Oh, maybe." But then that much time going by, the last thing that you expect -- how old was I? Eighteen? I'm 26 now, that was a long time ago. Yeah, I was 18. And with Bryan, to be honest, I heard about it and then I went and met with him in L.A. and he told me about it and told me what was going on with Kitty -- and [I] was totally excited to go back. Especially with this new, insane cast. I mean, it's psychotic. Jennifer Lawrence is fucking incredible. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and everyone, I mean -- awesome. It's going to be cool. I've been in Montreal shooting it and it's going to be cool.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
The Internship is a two-hour commercial for Google. The deal should be: "If you put up with the fact that the movie is a commercial for Google, you get to watch Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson crack wise. Deal?" 
Now, I'm sure Pepsi paid to have Marty McFly order a Pepsi Free at the diner in 1955, but this didn't stand out because (a) it made for a good punchline -- "If you want a Pepsi, pal, you're gonna pay for it" -- and (b) Pepsi Free is a beverage a human being might actually have ordered in 1985, where Marty is from. If it's seamless, product placement does not bother me at all. Having a character drink a Pepsi is less jarring to me than having a character drink from a white can that reads "cola." And even the rampant product-placements in Iron Man 3 didn't bother me because they were threaded into the story in short intervals. It wasn't as if the plot had Stark Industries purchase Fios because "no company is better than Fios." (I do fear that this may wind up being the plot of Iron Man 4, or Iron Man 4ios. Never mind, forget I wrote that.)