Best of Week Two

Back during that first week of the festival when I was sitting down with TCM host Robert Osborne, I asked him about what I see as our current obsession with lists. Ever since that first AFI Top 100 list a little over a decade ago, it seems like you can’t go to a website or look at a newspaper without seeing that someone has another one.

I was talking about the end-of-year top ten lists, I was speaking of stuff like those weird seemingly clueless and highly random ones that pop up on various film websites or in Entertainment Weekly (Zack Snyder is one of the top 25 working directors? Seriously? In what world is that even remotely true?). They just seem so pointless to me, and while I’m as guilty as the next person for always feeling compelled to look at them that still doesn’t mean I understand the fad.

Osborne reminded me that these lists have their place. Not only do people enjoy reading them, they spark debate and get viewers excited. They also potentially lead them to films and filmmakers they may not have ever considered caring about before, and he reminded me that any time you can expand a person’s horizon that’s one opportunity you shouldn’t skip out on.

I bring all of this up because I’m now going to present my SIFF Week Two Top Six. None of the selections from my Week One list are eligible, only the ones that had their first viewing between Saturday of last week and the midnight showing this evening. I’ve also decided to cut things down a little and only focus on the films I truly thought highly of. Hope you all enjoy.

6. ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction – Maybe it was simply the fact a kid standing on the street corner pickign his nose would have looked better in comparison, but this local Seattle production hit me as a seriously good time after the horrors of having witnessed Land of the Lost just a scant 45-minutes before. Quite simply, the comedy worked, the gross-out effects worked and the movie itself worked, this little horror-comedy a heck of a lot of fun that went a long way to helping me redeem what was up until then a truly dreadful night at the movies.



5. City of Borders – Great (if really short) documentary about Shushan, a gay bar in Jerusalem. Director Yun Suh took me into corners and places I was hardly prepared for, the entire film an eye-opening trip to a part of the world many only know from television news reports. Seriously outstanding and I dare viewers to try and forget it.



4. Small Crime – Absolutely charming mystery/comedy/drama/romance coming out of Greece about a young, ambitious police officer on a remote island in the Aegean Sea who decides there is a mystery to be solved when the local town drunk turns up dead seemingly of natural causes. Throw in a famous television personality returning to the island to discover the identity of her father and you have as delightful a little motion picture as any I could have possibly hoped for.



3. Grace – Writer/director Paul Solet’s horror film of motherly affection is so disturbing it left me visibly shaking by the time it ended. Never going where you think it will, the final moments build disgustingly beautiful tension, while the coda delivers a terrifying sucker punch impossible to describe. The movie sent me through the emotional and physical wringer, and yet by the time all was said and done the only think I wanted to do was watch the darn thing again.



2. Hansel and Gretel – Absolutely outstanding South Korean gothic horror-slash-fairy tale of young man rushing to be by his sick mother’s side who suffers a traffic accident in the middle of a dark and secluded forest. Befriended by a trio of mysterious children, he soon comes to realize that he and all the others who come their way are actually their prisoners, the kids looking for parental figures who will love and protect them no matter what. Think Tim Burton meets Guillermo del Toro with a lot of traditional Asian horror elements thrown in for good measure. Easily one of my favorites of the entire festival.



1. Food, Inc. – Scary, thought-provoking documentary about where our food comes from and the potential ramifications. Director Robert Kenner gets footage so horrific I can’t begin to give it justice here. Just know I’ll never think about the grocery store the same way again, and the whole idea about buying things from the organic section (or hitting my local farmer’s market – it is Seattle after all, we have tons of them) suddenly seems extremely appealing. A film not to be missed.

Technical Issues

This is just a quick, almost pointless post to apologize for not having as many posts up the last couple of days as I would have liked to. I've been suffering a few technical difficulties making updates a tad close to impossible. This looks like it has been remedied, however, and I should have some great Blog columns about SIFF for you tomorrow after I get back from a press screening of The Taking of Pelham 123.

What I will say is that I watched Frances Ford Coppola's stunning new film Tetro this morning and to say I was flabbergasted would be a gross understatement. This beautiful, thought-provoking and deeply emotional masterwork brought me to tears and left me sitting in the theater in complete darkness the last person to leave. It is, without question, a serious work by a still-gifted master whose last work - the semi-horrible Youth Without Youth - had many of us questioning whether he still had anything worthwhile left within him.



As answers go, Tetro is as good as is it gets. Moments of pretension aside (and a dip into traffic-filled melodrama I didn't quite need at the end), this might have a shot at edging The Hurt Locker as my second favorite piece of the festival. I'll have to think more on it, of course, but I can tell you right now that when this one opens film lovers of all kinds better be first in line. You simply need to see this and it has to be seen in a movie theater to appreciate fully, and if the darn thing doesn't get Oscar nods for cinematography, editing and sound design than those knuckleheads in the Academy have forgotten what brilliance is.

I'll leave it there for now. More tomorrow. Promise.

Gender War

Last night was the local Seattle press screening for the much-hyped R-rated Summer comedy The Hangover. It’s a funny movie and deserving of (most) of its early praise, but I was struck a little bit by the hypocrisy displayed by Warner Bros. in regards to this release. Not because the movie is getting one – I guarantee you this will be a massive hit – but because the studio did such a huge disservice to a highly similar comedy that could have done reasonably well itself, the SIFF first week favorite Summer Breakdown.

Why hypocrisy? The studio had absolutely no faith that a small, hugely inexpensive dumb comedy starring three women (Parker Posey, Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch) could recoup its costs, while a tad more expensive one starring four nobodies (well, Bradley Cooper is sort of a star, I guess) is worthy of a prime June release and a huge influx of promotional dollars. They made the assumption that audiences wouldn’t see a juvenile farce starring women, and for some reason that gets under my skin and chaps my hide to absolutely no end.

Do not misunderstand. Neither film is high art. Both are extremely stupid (the former following four guys after a disastrous night in Vegas on the eve of one of their party’s wedding, the latter following three 30-something High School and Collegiate losers given the responsibility of following the sheltered daughter of a powerful Senator to Spring Break), their plots barely a decent enough reason for the films to even exist.

But they do generate laughs, lots of them. There were moments during The Hangover where I almost fell out of my seat, while Poehler has a couple of scenes in Spring Breakdown so hysterical I literally spit up a little bit of Diet Coke (not that this is something I’m proud of). More, it knows when to say when, it’s 86-minute running time a whole lot more palatable it’s almost two hours long male-driven second cousin.

I had a chance to sit down with Dratch and co-writer/director Ryan Shiraki during the first week of SIFF and asked them if they thought Warner was making a mistake, and if the studio’s decision was based on maybe a tiny bit of sexism, in not releasing the film to theaters and shuffling it instead straight to DVD.

“We heard so many different reasons as to why we weren’t getting a release,” commented Dratch, “and I remember one of them along the way was that we weren’t big enough stars to open the movie and they’d have to put in like $25-million in advertising and marketing into it. Yet, on the other hand there have been so many guy comedies with lesser known [actors] that do get a release. I would think Parker Posey and Amy Poehler have some name recognition, even if I do understand [they’re] not quite Drew Barrymore or Cameron Diaz.”

“We had the bad luck of being born at the wrong studio,” added Shiraki. “That’s really what it is. We were conceived to parents that didn’t understand us. When we were at Sundance, we had two other studios that wanted to buy and release the movie and Warner Bros. for whatever reason said no.”

“It’s hard to demonize the studio completely. They did let us make [the film]. That’s a miracle in and of itself, for a studio to make a female driven comedy that cost under $15-million that also makes Harry Potter. I mean, here we are marching into the President’s office saying, ‘Hi there! We want to make a comedy, and we want to do it with no guys.’ And it was like, who are we kidding, and yet they let us do it.”

“At the end of the day, we can’t be like, ‘Fuck you, all!’ because they let us play for an entire summer and the let us make the movie and even when we were at Sundance they were still supportive of the idea of this movie, if not how to market it. It’s like any difficult parental situation. Love them, hate them, what are you going to do?”

Personally, I think both Dratch and Shiraki are being too nice. The Hangover is a perfect example of the sexism on display here on the part of the studio, one comedy getting the full media blitz while the other gets shuffled off into Best Buy bargain bin oblivion with hardly a how do you do. It isn’t right, not even remotely. Nonetheless, here’s one critic’s vote for Spring Breakdown to at least make a couple of DVD waves and find the audience it deserves.

"Spring Breakdown" hits DVD and Blu-ray today while "The Hangover" will be at a theater near you this Friday. (Below clip is R-rated - you've been forewarned.)

Wave of Mutilation

As much as I’d like it to be, this is not a post about the Pixies, but that doesn’t mean it has absolutely nothing to do with them. I bring them up here at the start because their music, much like that fantastic cover of the Carpenters classic, tends to be a little bit on the dark – some would even say depressive – side of things. But there is almost always also a point to their lyrics, a reason for the malaise and ennui, and like all great musicians their work goes deeper then just being able to play well and craft a catchy tune.

Movies can sometimes be a lot like Pixie lyrics. Films like Babel or In the Bedroom or Platoon or Leaving Las Vegas can seem pretty grim for most of their running time, but there is a depth and meaning to all the heartbreak and sorrow that resonates so deeply each of those pictures become impossible to forget. Despair and darkness can be a good thing, and as long as there is purpose to the pain I’m all for stories that head straight inside the heart of darkness and holding nothing back.

What I do I have problems with are motion pictures like Downloading Nancy. Technically well made, gorgeously shot by the great Christopher Doyle (resembling a little his dynamic work on Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express) and extremely well acted by its three leads Jason Patric, Rufus Sewell and especially Maria Bello, director Johan Renck’s debut work a piece of straight-up nihilism that’s about as appetizing as mainlining battery acid.



This is a movie obsessed with depression. It is about a self-destructive woman named Nancy (Bello) whose 15-year dysfunctional marriage has driven her right around the bend. Apparently abused as a child, she likes things a bit rough (if you get my meaning), golf-obsessed husband Albert (Sewell) too caught up in his own superficial world to notice his wife is slowly falling to pieces.

Keeping thing simple, she comes to the conclusion that the only way she can be free and happy is to be dead, but she can only experience that if she can find someone to end it all for her in the act of absolute sexual brutality she desperately longs for. Patric is the man on the internet Nancy meets who likes it nearly as rough as she does, while Amy Brenneman also stars as one of the most singularly unhelpful therapists I’ve ever cinematically encountered.

If there were some deeper meaning to Pamela Cuming and Lee Ross’ screenplay (based upon the latter’s original story) I’d be okay with all this masochistic darkness. If I felt like I was learning something deep or meaningful about the human condition, I’d be okay with 100 or so minutes of straight-up despair. Heck, I’d have settled for one of the characters having some sort of emotional recognition that felt genuine or honest, at least then I could try to convince myself in some small way there was some sort of merit to all this depravity.

But nothing like that ever takes place. All this movie wants is to deliver the pain, and it wants to do it in as unsettling a way as possible. This has got to be the singular most uncomforting film I’ve seen all year, and while I appreciate and respect the fact that Bello and Patric were so willing to shed themselves so emotionally (and physically) naked for it that alone does not make watching such an irredeemable crock of hooey even slightly worthwhile.

I have a problem with movies that are all about and for the suffering with no other reason to exist than that. I’m not saying all stories have to have happy endings with rainbows and butterflies and little animated birds chirping brightly, not at all. What I am saying is that there has to be some point to the malaise, some reason for it to matter. After all, viewers are the ones who have to sit there for two hours and absorb it all in, and if your going to spend all that time making us feel like crap you sure as hell better make sure there’s damn good reason.

In other SIFF news, I just noticed that there is ANOTHER mockumentary on the SIFF docket, and like Mothers & Daughters it is a Canadian production. It’s called The Baby Formula and has its first screening on Tuesday. On the plus side, it actually sounds kind of interesting (lesbian couple desperately wanting a child secretly – and separately – go to a doctor and get impregnated with genetically modified ‘female’ sperm made from their own DNA). Maybe I’ll to give it a shot. After all, the Canadians can’t screw up the format twice in the same festival, right?

Over the "Moon"

The one major drawback to SIFF is also the one thing that makes it stand out from the international film festival crowd, its size. With so many features, documentaries and shorts, it’s sometimes easy to become overwhelmed to the point you actually forget some of what you seen. Especially if you see it early, like during the press screening period that happens weeks before the festival starts, and unless the picture stands out as magnificent the chances you might forget it – even for an instant – is unfortunately pretty high.

That’s what happened to me in regards to director Duncan Jones excellent science fiction drama Moon. I actually saw this movie all the way back in April, and it didn’t even occur to me that it was playing during the first week of SIFF until the moment I was suddenly sitting down with the director to talk about. It was completely absent during the Thursday’s recap of my early personal favorites, the fact I didn’t mention it making me feel a bit like a total idiot.

Why? Because this movie, even in spite of some relative problems with over-familiarity and predictability, is a total grabber from start to finish. The story of corporate drone Sam Bell (Sam Rockewell) at the tail end of a three-year contract working alone (save for the companionship of singular robot named GERTY, wonderfully voiced by Kevin Spacey) in a mining plant on the Moon, the film is a glorious 1970’s/1980’s style throwback that makes you think almost as much as it entertains.

Not wanting to give too much away, threw a seemingly random and bizarre sequence of events Sam ends up coming face-to-face with what appears to be a three-years younger version of himself, the two men having to figure out what is going on before a retrieval team from the corporate office arrives to assess the situation. Is there a conspiracy, the company hiding a secret the two Sams were never meant to discover? Or is it all a figment of the man’s imagination, almost 1095 days of solitude taking their toll on his fracturing psyche?

The answer isn’t all the surprising, to be completely honest, but the journey is still so enthralling the fact I pretty much had the whole story clocked the moment Sam One and Sam Two met for the first time didn’t really bother me. Jones creates a magnificent fusion of 2001, Silent Running, Outland and Gattaca consistently thought-provoking and engaging. There is a smooth, almost pulsating tension running through the picture that got a little bit under my skin and kept me gingerly creeping to the edge of me seat, the filmmaker plays things just close enough to the vest I couldn’t help but want to see more.



It also helps immensely that Rockwell, easily one of the most underrated and undervalued actors of his generation (his work in films as diverse as Galaxy Quest, Matchstick Men, Confessions of Dangerous Mind, Choke, Frost/Nixon and Snow Angels shows an almost unbelievable range) this dual portrait of one man’s journey at two points in time is arguably one of his very best. What he does here is like what Jeremy Irons accomplished in Dead Ringers, and if there were any justice in the world voting members will take the time to seek this small sci-fi drama out a give the guy the Oscar nomination he totally deserves.

As the film starts going into limited release in just a couple of weeks, I’m going to leave things there for now. There is so much more to talk about and discuss, and I almost can’t wait to get into that interview I had with Duncan. That said, here’s one quote from our brief 20-minute chat I think you might enjoy, the two of us having a debate on the two different types of directors who graduate from making commercials and go into the world of feature-length motion pictures. I have to say, to me at least, I don’t just think his answer is a good one, I feel it’s downright refreshing.

“I think there are two different types of [commercial directors]. I think there are those who want to make feature films to start off with, and commercials are a root to making [them]. They use commercials to learn, to explore the medium and to get better at the craft, and I think that’s the type I am.”

“And then there are the people who make a fantastic living making commercials and kind of just feel like they should probably make a feature because they’ve done so many commercials, and I think those are the guys who maybe have a little bit of a problem doing something that doesn’t come naturally to them. [Commercials], it is about the look of things, it is about the visuals, and if you don’t want to look deeper than the surface it’s easy to fall into that trap when you start making feature films.”

“For me, it is about the characters. The visuals are important. The look is important. But the characters and their story are more important. For some guys maybe that’s not the same, it’s not the point for them. They like blowing things up and showing off their technology, and sometimes that can be entertaining but, personally, I think a really good film needs to have more than that. Hopefully it shows in [Moon] and in the other films I’ll get the opportunity to make.”

Moon opens in New York and Los Angeles on June 12 and then expands from there. It should have been in the top five in my first week top ten recap and it is a movie I hope everyone goes out and sees and I apologize for letting it slip my mind.

First Week Top Ten

We’re now officially one week into the 35th Annual Seattle International Film Festival. Granted, regular screenings didn’t start until last Friday (only the opening night picture, In the Loop, screened on Thursday), so I guess I should be making that statement tomorrow instead of today. But it’s too late now as I’ve already written it, and while there are plenty of things playing tomorrow night I haven’t seen considering the number I already have I think I can write the rest of this entry in relative good conscience.

What in the world am I talking about? Well, I figured as we’re through the first seven days I might as well rate my favorites of the festival up to this point so far. After all, we are a culture suddenly obsessed with lists, so my adding one more (no matter how obscure it’s going to end up being) isn’t going to hurt anything.

So, without further ado, here are my votes for the Top Ten films of SIFF through the first week:

10. Pop Star On Ice – Outstanding and highly entertaining documentary chronicling United States figure skater Johnny Weir as he competes for Olympic Gold. Anyone who has ever seen the guy skate already knows how much of an outspoken character he is, but I didn’t expect him to be so interesting and compelling as well. Directors David Barba and James Pellerito do an excellent job of showing the highs, lows and mesmerizing in-betweens of Weir’s life, the film having an emotional resonance I admittedly wasn’t quite prepared for.

9. Summer Hours – To quote my review of director Olivier Assayas’ latest project, “There is an exquisite, almost longing ebullience to Summer Hours that lasted long after I left the movie theater, many of its themes whipping through my head like a whirlwind. I found that I didn’t want the film to end, that I wanted to see what kind of adults the siblings’ children would grow to become, to discover what sort of world it would be they would inherit. While not a masterpiece Assayas has still achieved something modestly miraculous, the finished product a memorable journey I can’t wait to embark on again.”

8. Morris: A Life with Bells On – If you scroll down you’ll see I already extolled the virtues of this winning mock documentary quite thoroughly. I also had the pleasure of interviewing the film’s star and writer Charles Thomas Oldham. Here’s my favorite quote (partly coming from my question asking Oldham where he hoped to go from here): “Worldwide domination, ideally, is the plan. That sounds nice. No, seriously, ideally I’d just love to do this again. That’s really what we want to do. I’ve been a lawyer, I’ve been a banker, they are the worst jobs on the planet. They’re dull, and they’re uninspiring to me (although there are [probably] plenty of people out there who enjoy being lawyers and bankers - I'm just not one of them). I love [acting], and I certainly love filmmaking. It is the most extraordinary way to make a living.”

7. Paper Heart – Another mock documentary (this festival seems to be full of them), this one revolving around actress Charlyne Yi as she travels across America trying to discover whether or not love exists, falling in l’amour with fellow actor Michael Cera along the way. Sweet, beguiling and beautifully awkward, this is one of those movies you can’t help but smile about each every time you think about it.

6. The Beast Stalker – Hong Kong director Dante Lam delivers a forceful, highly kinetic action opus that had me at the edge of my seat start to finish. A few too many of the genres usual quirks aside (the slo-mo inherent in Asian action cinema really has to stop), the central story (disgraced cop tries to redeem himself when a prosecutor’s daughter is kidnapped by trying to rescue her himself) is so gripping and suspenseful I found it impossible to look away. (The director has a second film playing at the festival, Sniper, and the buzz is that it is even better than this one. I can’t wait.)

5. Passing Strange – Spike Lee’s expertly photographed documentation of the landmark Broadway production’s final show. Extremely intimate, watching it I didn’t just feel like I was in the audience, at times I even felt like was actually on the stage itself. (There is no trailer for this yet, the video is from the 2008 Tony Awards.)

4. Spring Breakdown – Dumb? Yes. Silly? Definitely. Funny? You better believe it. How this inspired lowbrow comedy starring Parker Posey, Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch (who also co-wrote the screenplay) is being shuffled straight to video is beyond me because this movie has laughs, lots of them. As underappreciated gems go, as far as SIFF 2009 is concerned this one might just be at the very top of my list.

3. Deadgirl – I cannot get this movie out of my head. I knew what was going to happen, I knew where it was going to go and I knew exactly the way in which it would end. Nonetheless, this story of two teenage boys and their undead corpse crawled under my skin and refused to let go. Disturbing, to say the least, but also unforgettable, and that’s not a gift I’m going to even remotely take for granted.

2. The Hurt Locker – One of the best films of the year, Kathryn Bigelow’s dynamic opus of a bomb disposal unit working Baghdad is easily one of the more kinetically ferocious pieces of work of the director’s entire career. It’s a ticking clock thriller where danger lurks around every corner, and by the time it was over I’d realized I’d sweat so hard I’d have to go home and change into a new shirt.

1. In the Loop – No surprise here. I’ve been talking this one up since the very first moment I saw it at the SIFF press launch almost a month ago. As satires go, this one is as smart and pointed as any of the best ones you can call to mind. As comedies go, it’s so fall on the floor funny I could almost foresee myself watching it as many times as I’ve seen A Fish Called Wanda or Some Like it Hot. As 2009 goes, it’s not just the best film I’ve seen at SIFF, it’s the best film I’ve seen this year.

HONORABLE MENTION
The Cove - Louie Psihoyos' documentary by all rights should be sitting in that number three slot. It is as good a piece of investigative filmmaking as anything I'm likely to see. But as much fun as it is, that final 20 minuts unnerved me so much I have trouble talking about the movie more than just saying, "It's good - it's really good," to whomever asks me about it. Unfair? Yes, but unfortunately that's the place I'm at right now. All I can add is that this is a movie everyone should see, the truth Psihoyos unearths one the whole damn world should take the time to do something about.

Mocking the Doc - Part II

I don’t normally repeat myself, but I just finished watching Canadian director Carl Bessai’s comedic drama Mothers & Daughters and it is another mock documentary to add to the 2009 SIFF list. It’s also been pointed out to me that, technically speaking, my favorite film of the festival In the Loop is also (more or less – but I don’t totally agree) one as well.

Mothers & Daughters is exactly why I do not typically like this particular genre. It is everything that annoys me, sort of the familial single camera cousin to Crash or Babel or Crossing Over. While the issues Bessai’s film are concerned with aren’t nearly as heady as the ones faced in those pictures, its multi-character structure is, and as far as the format goes combining it with the mock doc isn’t exactly my concept of a good idea.

This movie is arch and annoying. Chronicling the relationship between a handful of mothers and their respective daughters, on the surface the movie is supposed to be about the bonds between parent and child that irrevocably shape their lives for both the good and the bad. But the film is so overdone, so shrill and cloying, I never believed for a moment that any of these women were flesh and blood human beings. The film felt forced and false, and the only thing I wanted while watching it was for the darn thing to come to an end (when 86-minutes feels like 186 you know you’re in trouble).

To be fair, not everything is a disaster. Actress Tantoo Cardinal (you might remember her from a variety of projects, most notably 1998’s Smoke Signals) is outstanding. She is the only one that seems to tap into her character’s inner essence and I never felt like she was acting the part. Cardinal simply was Celine (a professional house painter regretting past choices made in regards to her own daughter now being given the opportunity to help out a young woman on the verge of motherhood herself), a part of me almost wishing we could have seen a movie only about her life and have left the rest of the women on the cutting room floor.

Like I said, not a lot to say here. I just felt like if I was going to extol the virtues of a couple of mock documentaries I did like I should probably point out one I mostly didn’t care for. Mothers & Daughters is that movie, and as of right now it is the only film I’ve seen at SIFF I sort of wish I’d never taken the time to view in the first place.

And now... back to a movie I do REALLY like...

Mocking the Doc (with bells on)

While two out of about 400 (well, three if you count an ingenious German short film about elder care, retirement, apprenticeships and zombie killing that I can’t for some reason remember the title of) cannot be considered a trend, I still think it is worth pointing out that a couple of the most popular titles to be discovered by audience during the opening weekend just happened to be mock documentaries. The British import Morris: A Life with Bells On had its North American premier to a virtual sellout, while Sundance favorite Paper Heart packed both of its houses nearly beyond the breaking point.

Personally, this is not a format I think works particularly well for a full 90-plus minutes. With rare exception (last year’s horror double-team Cloverfield and Quarantine both come to mind), films that go in this direction usually tire me out. You just can’t sustain the gag, and after a while it almost always begins to feel like the energy has waned and my attention span has wavered right along with it.

Not so with this pair. The former, still looking for a domestic distributor (and certainly is deserving of one), revolves around the trials and tribulation of an English Morris Dancer (a peculiar folk dance involving hankies and wooden sticks), while the latter stars (and was written by) Charlyne Yi and revolves around her sudden romance with movie star Michael Cera during her filming of a documentary all about love.

They’re a crazy little pair with just about nothing in common, yet both are made so skillfully that if you didn’t know they were fake going in you’d almost think (especially in regards to Paper Heart) they were 100-percent real. The casts for both films are decidedly game, staying in character even when the central action has nothing to do with them at all. They are perfect examples of how to do this genre proud, and I think if general audiences are given they chance both of them might end up doing reasonably well as far as ticket and DVD sales are concerned.

I actually had the opportunity to sit down with Charles Thomas Oldham, writer and star of Morris, on the eve of his premiere and our free-flowing (and quite funny) conversation lasted almost a full 40-minutes before we both came to realization we should probably end or we might end up sitting on couches at the W Hotel for the rest of the afternoon. While I’m not going to reprint the entire thing, I liked the film so much I’d be remiss for not at least transcribing some of the better bits.

So many comedies don’t come close to meeting expectations, so to encounter one that pole vaults right over the top of them it’s the least I can do to spend a couple of minutes urging you all to check it out. It’s part of the job, after all, and I have to say that, if it wasn’t, I’m not entirely sure I’d love to doing it near as much energetically do.

It’s a big night. Are you excited about your North American premiere? “You always get nervous because, it’s your baby. In the case of Morris, [I’ve] lived it and breathed it for three years. Suddenly you’re putting it in front of audiences and you don’t know what’s going to happen. You think, ‘Why didn’t you laugh at that bit? I liked that line, I thought it was funny.’ Then they laugh at a different bit you didn’t expect and you think to yourself, okay, fine, whatever, I get it. At a certain point you just have to let it go. The audience decides for you if you got the job done, hopefully for us they’ll think we did.”

Are British comedies better than their American counterparts? Do you worry that British humor just doesn’t connect for audiences over here or is that a cliché argument not worthy discussing? “I’m thinking of what you’re saying there and, naturally, I would always think of Frasier, not just because I’m in Seattle but because it is my favorite comedy. That’s the best English Farce outside of Fawlty Towers that’s ever been written. It’s so well done, and I keep on watching [that] and thinking this is so amazing, and yet it’s so English, and yet it is also so popular over here [in America]. I think any comedy that is done well, and especially if it is not nasty and it is done genuinely, I think it will translate, doesn’t matter if it is British, American or something else. Good comedy makes people laugh, and I [think] we made good comedy.”

What were you thinking when writing this? Did you always know you were going to act in it as well as write the script? “It was actually as calculated and as cynical as that. I’ve been an actor for a while now but I came to acting quite late. I used to be an investment banker and a lawyer and then I discovered I wanted to wear tights and makeup and all of that. So I went to drama school quite late and graduated at 32, which is a tough time to leave especially when you’ve got red hair and are 6’3”, and I was really struggling.”

“At the same time, though, I was able to start doing really well doing voiceover work. I’m very lucky to this day to being voiceover work, but you get to the point where you have to make a choice, and that’s to be doing voiceovers all the time or, in the back of your mind, you say I’ll put all this success here to good use and write something for myself to star in. I’ll give myself the chance no one else is giving me. And so, using the Noel Coward school of writing and the like, I wrote myself the biggest part, cast myself in the lead role and then had an absolute ball. It’s that simple.”

Why Morris Dancing? Where did that come from? “There’s something about Morris that just appealed. We knew we could make it for cheaply. But, basically, at the end of the day I just thought it was funny. I look at Morris Men and can’t help but think, yeah, that’s funny.”

But how do you prepare for a role like this? How do you become a Morris Folk Dancer? “This is your forensic cross-examination quality because you’ve uncovered my deep dark secret. The truth is I lived with a Morris family when I was 16. When my parents went to Australia I stayed in the U.K. and went to stay with my next door neighbors. I went from a typical, British Middle Class with a small ‘c’ and not particularly artistic family [to] a very, very folksy, artsy, energetic family surrounded by artists of all types doing Morris Dancing in the backyard during BBQs. It was the most extraordinary different world, and I think was assembling nuggets [back then].”

“Obviously I wasn’t writing a film, but there was something about the Morris world that was permeating through me and I channeled that for the script.”

Were you surprised at all at the cast (Naomie Harris, Derek Jacobi, Greg Wise, Ian Hart, Dominique Pinon) you were able to assemble for this film? “Completely and utterly. I get such a kick rattling off all the names. Given that we were paying them a 150 Pounds a day – everybody got that, it was a flat rate – it was absolutely extraordinary that we were able to get the talent we did, especially to that extent. If I never work again, I can die happy after having made this having acted beside Derek Jacobi and Greg Wise and Ian Hart.”

Ian Hart is such a criminally underrated actor. I mean, funny enough, over here he’s not so much, but back home he is. I mean, he [was] in Dirt over here and that was a much bigger hit in America than it was in [England]. But he’s just the most outstanding scouter, and he’s fantastic just to have around. I love telling the story about when we were shooting one day [outside] and we had about 200 extras there and the kids, as they always do, want your autograph afterwards I felt like a total fool. I kept looking at them saying, ‘Actually, you want his autograph,’ and they’d be like, ‘No we don’t, we want your autograph. You’re the star. Why?’ So then I’d be like, ‘Harry Potter?’ and the lines would suddenly go like whooom! and my whole line evaporated. But he was great; he stood there for at least an hour signing autographs and pictures for the kids. It was great.”

Sounds like you almost wanted to pinch yourself a little bit. “Yeah. Maybe. I mean, like Naomie Harris flew in immediately after the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 premiere – and I’m betting her agent had no idea why she wanted to do it – and she jumped on a plane and she was here filming the beach scenes the following day. Freezing, just freezing her backside off on a cold Dorset beach, and she didn’t complain, knew her lines inside and out, and was just a total delight to work with. Same thing with Dominique Pinon, who is a hero if mine, he was just mental and brilliant. It really was a real master class of actors. We were so incredibly fortunate. It was great.”

What was your immediate reaction when you got a call from SIFF asking to premiere your film? “When we got picked for SIFF it was really out of the blue and it was like, wow, that’s f**king fantastic. We were beyond thrilled, and it was a great opportunity for us to come to the States and hopefully sell it, but there is that moment when you step off the plane and think, how are people going to respond to a film about Morris Dancing? Are they going to like it? All that goes through your mind. But it was brilliant to be picked for SIFF. I’m still a bit unbelieving that it actually happened.”

What do you hope happens from here? What are your plans? “Worldwide domination, ideally, is the plan. That sounds nice.”

“No, seriously, ideally I’d just love to do this again. That’s really what we want to do. I’ve been a lawyer, I’ve been a banker, they are the worst jobs on the planet. They’re dull, and they’re uninspiring to me (although there are [probably] plenty of people out there who enjoy being lawyers and bankers - I'm just not one of them). I love [acting], and I certainly love filmmaking. It is the most extraordinary way to make a living. You’ve got Derek Jacobi or Dominique Pinon saying your words and you just think, yes, I lived a charmed life. In the end, I think the only thing you could ever want after that is the chance to do it again.”