Portrait of the rise of champion Claressa “T-Rex” Shields from her childhood to her Olympic wins.
Unseen Films
A collection of reviews of films from off the beaten path; a travel guide for those who love the cinematic world and want more than the mainstream releases.
Monday, December 23, 2024
FIRE INSIDE (2024)
Portrait of the rise of champion Claressa “T-Rex” Shields from her childhood to her Olympic wins.
Sunday, December 22, 2024
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (2024)
This is the story of Bob Dylan from his arrival in New York until he blew up the world of folk music by going electric at the Newport Jazz Festival.
This is a breezy Hollywood telling that leaves a lot out, glosses over other things and still manages to make you cheer despite Dylan coming off as a self centered dick (great talent is forgiven a great deal).
The film works because of the musical sequences and because the actors over come the writing which leaves all of the characters as ciphers (this is particularly true of Elle Fanning as Dylan's on again off again girlfriend Sylvie). Largely we are left to plug in what we know of the real world counter part and go with that. Timothy Chalamet and Edward Norton come off best because the script kind of gives them something to work with.
The truth is that intellectually this film probably isn't very good, too much is missing, but emotionally, thanks to the musical needle drops this film rocks and will move you to tears. I say that as some one who isn't a Dylan fan and who was reaching for a tissue a number of times during the film.
Recommended.
Saturday, December 21, 2024
2024 Catch up Capsule Reviews Part 4: THE SUBSTANCE, I SAW THE TV GLOW, LOOK INTO MY EYES, THE BODY POLITIC and STRIPPED FOR PARTS AMERICAN JOURNALISM ON THE BRINK
THE SUBSTANCE
Social commentary collides with body horror in a oozy farce about a former A-list actress who uses The Substance to become a younger version of herself - not figuring on the side effects. While the film is good, it didn't click with me. I found it's form over content style and over the top performances less than welcoming. I was done about a third of the way into this 140 minute film.
I SAW THE TV GLOW
Jane Schoenbrun's second feature is a film about the two friends and their love of a TV show over time.
Strange trippy film examining the notion of reality and how we see the world and ourselves. It's a very deliberate film that you are either going to love or hate. I didn't much care for it. It's not bad, but like Schoenbrun's earlier film it's just not my cup of tea.
LOOK IN MY EYES
A look at psychics and their clients. I know a lot of people who loved this and found it involving, but I couldn't connect, even though I truly appreciate the fact that the film is not judgmental.
THE BODY POLITIC
This is a very good portrait of Baltimore politician Brandon Scott a man trying to to fix Baltimore despite being attacked from all sides.
STRIPPED FOR PARTS AMERICAN JOURNALISM ON THE BRINK
An excellent look at how hedge fund moguls are buying up newspapers and then effectively killing them with cuts to the budgets that don't allow for real journalism. This is a film that's screaming a message that needs to be heard- more so in an age when billionaires are doing everything they can to control the media.
Friday, December 20, 2024
Death, THE DEAD (1987), and THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (2024)
It’s probably always tricky when a work of art quotes another one, more so when the quote is direct—that is, in the same medium, on the same theme, and very nearly piggy-backing on the original work. And this is what Pedro Almodovar’s THE ROOM NEXT DOOR, which opens in limited release today in the U.S., unfortunately does in relation to THE DEAD, John Huston’s final film. I say unfortunately because sadly the effect is much the same as that of SUGAR, HBO’s Colin Farrell detective series that's prone to gifting the audience with choice clips from the golden age of noir; after a certain point, one can’t help but notice how much the old stuff surpasses the new homage.
Of course, this somewhat reductive judgment could be unfair for several reasons: Huston was arguably the all-time master of adapting English language novels, and I’ve not even read the Sigrid Nunez's What Are You Going Through, upon which the new film is based, so I can’t speak to how artfully the adaptation has been handled. But I will contend that the deeply felt—and heartbreakingly expressed—emotions of both the 1987 film and the James Joyce novella are in short supply in THE ROOM NEXT DOOR, as is the effortless lyricism that they managed in conveying the universality of death (and, therefore, grief).
That’s not to say that there aren’t many things to admire about THE ROOM NEXT DOOR, including the beauty of its production design and its cinematography—reasons enough to catch it on the big screen, if you can, either now or when it goes wide in January. The leads, Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, are each captivating in their own way, and Swinton often does a miraculous job turning lines that seem unnoteworthy into sly reveals with the slightest of changes in expression. And that’s important, given that the script itself often doesn’t do much to turn “page dialogue” into “spoken dialogue”; to return to noir again, it’s the same challenge that Raymond Chandler said he ran into when adapting DOUBLE INDEMNITY for the screen.
What’s more, the simple fact that the film tackles not only the existential reality of death but society’s lack of support for individual autonomy regarding it… well, that itself is admirable. In fact, with some changes in tone and emphasis, THE ROOM NEXT DOOR could have been a compelling “drama of ideas,” and perhaps that’s how many already view it. But for me it occupies a kind of nondescript middle ground between thoughtful “meditation” and cathartic psycho-drama, offering the full virtues of neither. In case another point of comparison is needed besides a 1987 film: THE ROOM NEXT DOOR lacks the engaging specificity, confidence, and sheer freshness of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR, which not only addresses similar themes, but also happens to be an adaptation of an acclaimed story.
At times Almodovar’s film seems like it aspires to being equally bold, but it instead comes across as a meticulous still life—with the same gorgeous visuals almost serving as a distraction as we marvel at all the “style” on display. In the end, then, THE ROOM NEXT DOOR both goes deep and remains shallow. Many of the characters feel like they’re personifications of particular worldviews and little more; I’m thinking of the characters played by John Turturro and Alessandro Nivola—both actors are certainly fine, and it’s not their fault that they’re asked to spout mini-speeches that embody perspectives framed as stark philosophical alternatives to those of the main characters. The end result is that the film resembles a lightly fictionalized essay connecting the timelessness of the death theme to the current mood of the end times possibly being upon us. The trouble is, it doesn’t impart a living heartbeat to its convictions before it draws its last breath.
Very brief thoughts on A TRIP ELSEWHERE (2024)
During the covid lockdown four people end up on the same trip and have to sort things out before they return to reality.
This is a good but unremarkable film with an interesting remise that didn’t quite work for me. While the film is well made and well acted I never connected to the film and found I was admiring it more than liking.
That said if the subject interests you its worth a look
Thursday, December 19, 2024
2024 Catch Up Capsule Reviews Part 3 : DADDIO, ARGYLE, ALIEN ROMULUS, TRANSFORMERS ONE, GHOSTLIGHT, MY NAME IS ALFRED HITCHCOCK and THE COMMANDANT'S SHADOW
DADDIO
A woman and her cab driver talk on the way from Kennedy Airport into midtown Manhattan. Well written and well acted film that is a solid little footnote that will entertain.
ARGYLE
Woman who writes spy novel affects real world spies. Over the top and silly action film that echoes ROMANCING THE STONE. In no way high art but damn is it entertaining.
ALIEN ROMULUS
An attempt to restart the ALIEN franchise via a film that takes place between ALIEN and ALIENS. If you take it on it's own terms it's a pretty good action film, though the finale with it's connection to the PROMETHEUS prequels may end up causing you to change your mind. I think the prequels don't work so I think the end of the film disappoints.
TRANSFORMERS ONE
A really good animated Transformers film that is a lot of fun. The film is set in the early days of Optimus Prime and features great performances and set pieces. Recommended.
GHOSTLIGHT
A construction worker who is unable to come to terms with the death of his son, ends up in a production of ROMEO AND JULIET. I know several people who were devastated by this film. I never warmed to it. It's not that it's bad but more too convoluted for my tastes.
MY NAME IS ALFRED HITCHCOCK
a look at the films of Hitchcock as if he were telling his story. This is a good film that suffers because it is coming out around the same time as the excellent POWELL AND PRESSBERGER and MERCHANT IVORY docs. I wish I had seen it in a void. I will have to revisit it.
Commandant's Shadow
Excellent HBO documentary about the descendants of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss meeting the people that Hoss had tortured. It’s a sobering look at the pain and suffering down generational lines as well as the path toward a reconciliation.
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
With THE BRUTALIST opening today, here is a repost of my NYFF review in the hope of bringing people back to reality
There is going to be a lot here so stay with me.
Word out of where ever was that THE BRUTALIST was going to be the next greatest film ever made. Many people were calling it all the accolades that instantly get my panties in a bunch and make me want to get them in off the ledge. Other festivals, more accolades. Finally it hits NYFF and I buy a ticket for the last day it's screening because I want to hear what friends have to say and I want distance.
Word out of the NYFF press screening ran the gamut from it being really good (no one was genuflecting) to one person calling it a noble failure and dismantling it in terms of Paul Thomas Anderson films (specifically THE MASTER and THEIR WILL BE BLOOD). It was the politest shredding of a film I've ever heard
Calmed by that, I suddenly had hope I wouldn't hate the film from top to bottom. Grabbing Nate Hood, who truly had no idea what the film was other than it was 4 hours and in 70mm, I went to the theater to see it for myself.
The film is the story of a noted Hungarian architect who comes to the US after being displaced and being in the concentration camps of World War 2 and ends up hooked up with a rich family hoping to make a cultural center in the middle of Pennsylvania.
The first half surprised me. It was quite good. While not the American epic promised by many, I was curious where it went.
After the intermission (which is actually part of the film- there is a reel change moments after the 15 minutes run out) things pick up and.... OH HELL NO. The film became an absolute mess. It's disjointed, unfocused and in desperate need of another hour and a half. SO much is unsaid, until it is, that the film just collapses under it's bloated pomposity and pretentious bullshit.
At this point I'm going to give a warning I'm going to reference things in the film---like the ending--- so if you don't want to know surf away now. No skin off my back.
If you are going to be here for the long haul understand I'm not going to do this in a perfectly formed manner because, quite frankly there is too much wrong with the film that there is no point in ordering my grievances, I'm just going to get it all out as it hits me.
Okay that isn't fair. This isn't a total waste, its okay over all, but it's not the GREAT film promised straight faced by my fellow writers. If the film wasn't as celebrated as it is it might have gotten away with being a pretty okay over long drama that people had to chase to actually see instead of an Oscar hopeful that is going to leave the paying public scratching their heads.
I should point out that most of the problems that will be referenced here are to do with the second half.
Then again there is one thing that the first half suffers from as well as the second and that is bad acting and lack of characters. Yes, Adrian Brody is great. Yes he should be in the running for the Oscar, but everyone else, save the guy who plays the builder is either a badly written character or badly acted. And I do mean you, Guy Pearce. Normally you are wonderful even with an underwritten role, but you are just awful here. Without real characters we have no one and nothing to follow. I didn't care about anyone because there was no one to care about. (If you think otherwise please tell me who was well rounded-the wife? The Niece? Pearce's kids? No one is given enough to form a character)
This lack of having anyone to care about goes completely off the rails when Adrian Brody's character essentially disappears from the final 20 minutes of the film. Yes, he is kind of there is the epilogue, but he really isn't (it's some guy made to look like him).
Blame the problem on the choppy nature of the second part. We travel through time and space in a disjointed matter. Huge pieces of exposition are just not there. Plot threats and thematic threads come and go (I'll come back to this). It causes chaos in our ability have a handle on things. For example after Brody takes his wife to the hospital because of the overdose, she mentions that he confessed when they were tripping together. THE NEXT scene has her going to Pearce's house and she is, not in the wheelchair, but a walker. Where and how? More to the point because of the dialog Brody has been in New York with her for two days. Two days from when? Not the overdose, she wouldn't be there, much less walking into the house in a walker.
Part of the reason the characters don’t exist is the weird ass jumps in time. Because the second half careens through time no one is allowed to arc. They simply are the next thing. Look at the development of Brody’s wife. Ignoring the fact that she exists simply to say something that needs to be said or to be a person around which something can happen, we never are given a reason she becomes more and more assertive. She just is until suddenly she is walking into the house to reveal she knows what happened between Pearce and Brody. Where did it come from? And because there is no arcing in the second half Brody’s character simply thrashes from scene to scene in a different manic state.
I am bothered by the film’s relationship with heroin. Not that it’s there but how it uses it. For some reason I feel that too much of the plot is driven by it. I kept wanting to say a variation of the old Woody Woodpecker line “If woody had just gone to the police none of this would have happened.” Here it would be if Brody hadn’t used heroin so much of this wouldn't have happened. The drug simply becomes the way to have events happen such as the incident with Pearce, that Brody uses it to stop his wife’s pain, and the implication that his being so sick from it that his wife has to confront Pearce is asking too much of it to the point that it’s simple a deus ex machina. This film could not go forward if Brody's character wasn't a junkie.
The truth is the film fudges too much with the wife. Not only doesn't she arc but simply exists for a moment or a line. She speaks of talking to god and knowing everything about what Brody did, but we have no clue about it really. Later after her overdose she speaks of his confessions of all these things but there is no indication of what exactly other than the incident with Pearce when she walks into the house….
...and about that there is absolutely no indication about the depth it bothered him-other than the look when he and Pearce walk out of the cave. There is no indication that it bothered him so badly that his wife would have to step up and fix the problem.
If it isn’t clear the second half of the film is a real mess and the more I think about it the more I keep adding to this piece because the more I need to say how fucked it is. The film is riddled with all sorts of continuity plot and thematic questions particularly in the second half.
The biggest problem with the film is what is the film about? Yes I know Adrian Brody, but thematically? The film never makes a stand for anything.
Is it the immigrant experience? Maybe, but that disappears for chunk of the film. It doesn't matter he is an immigrant, more that he's crazy.
Is it life after the Second World War? The war comes and goes.
Is it a societal expose on class? Perhaps but it says nothing new.
Is it a look at being Jewish in America? Yes, but outside of the religious services and Israel the threads aren't always there. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of overt antisemitism outside of the wife of the cousin in the film, with any objections to Brody are not because he's Jewish but because he's from an Eastern Block nation.
Is the ending saying that all Jews should just go to Israel because they will be happy and successful? It isn't clear and I'm not certain, enough to make a guess, though the film is geared to say that had he just gone to Israel he'd have been happy sooner.
What is this all about? I'm not certain.
But this isn't surprising since basic facts such as a seemingly that's given such as that Brody and his family were in the concentration camps is bobbled. It's referenced here and there, but Brody is said have broken his nose when escaping from train car on the way to the camp. Did he escape or not? And while it's fleetingly referenced, it doesn't come to the forefront until the epilogue when it's said the design for the building he was making is based on the camps he and his wife were in. It's a fact that was never referenced until the final moments of the film.
If I misinterpreted something don't blame me, so few of the details are really clear.
One of the things that Nate and I talked about after the film, as did several people outside the theater after the film, was that the writing was too clever and unclear for it's own good. Forget the fact that things just happen because they need to, basic things in the dialog are set up to be really sly. There are lines all though the film that mean nothing, but suddenly become clear indications of things later on. For example the fact that Guy Pearce's character is queer and wants to screw Brody is seen in the reference to Brody that he's beautiful. It's never really mentioned again until things happen. There are other examples, but I don't want to completely dismantle the film. The problem with clever referential dialog in a four hour film is that people will forget seemingly throw away lines in the first hour. Sure cineastes and scholars will catch things on the second or third go but the first time through its all going to be the wrong sort of missed. While I love puzzle box films, or films that have layers to them, you shouldn't have to catch and retain everything the first time through to understand or even just like a film.
More troubling is that I felt passages of dialog seem recycled from elsewhere. The unsigned check story for example, comes from at least one other film. While I don't see the Paul Thomas Anderson references, I do sense that this isn't as fresh as many people would think.
And what are we to make of the ending where characters disappear both figuratively or literally with no real sense of an ending, except a tacked on epilogue that gives it a quasi-happy ending that isn't earned and raises a lot more questions than it answers. It's as if they didn't know how to end it so they just winged it and tacked things together.
This is a film made by a filmmaker who desperately wants to be taken seriously. Its flashy and showy in a way that screams "I"M THE MOST IMPORTANT FILM OF THE YEAR!" Its the work of a man who wants to be an artist and can put the pieces together to create a faux piece of art, unlike his protagonist who just does it.
This film is ultimately pretentious twaddle which disappoints because if the second half hadn't been as choppy and the themes were more focused it might have been a pretty good film.
I suspect it will get lots of Oscar noms, Brody may win Best Actor, but in a year or two we won't be discussing the film much.
Forgive me for ranting but I really don't think the film works, and I feel stronger because I went to the film with one of the smartest film people I know and he was vexed by the film as well.
(And one last brickbat - I've seen dozens of films in 70mm over the years and this was the first time I was left puzzled as to why.)
ADDENDUM: If you want to make comments on this piece or tell me I got anything wrong feel free. However you absolutely can not tell me anything that was either in the press notes or things the director said in an interview or at a Q&A. Films MUST stand on their own so you can not bring in anything from the outside because 99% of the people who see the film will not see the notes, interview or Q&A. I will delete any comments that mention them because they are not in the film.
LEE (2023)
Kate Winslet gives a career best performance as model/photographer Lee Miller who became a photographer during the Second World War and took some of the most icon images of the war before quietly retiring and burying the pictures in the attic.
Told as a memory tale of Miller telling the story of her life, the film is for the most part a magnificent telling of a great life. Miller was, by all accounts a hell of a woman who did what she wanted and changed the lives of everyone around her.
In portraying Miller Winslet has found a career defining role. Big, bold and ballsy there isn’t a false note anywhere in it. Winslet inhabits the role with bravado that is rare. It is as if Miller is inhabiting Winslet.
For most of the film’s running time the film is great. It takes us places in a story that hasn’t been done to death. While it doesn’t tell everything, not that it could in a 5 hour movie, the film tells us enough that we don’t think to ask for more. The film only stumbles in the last section when the film goes to the death camps and the telling becomes a bit by the numbers.
This is a great filmmaking being used to tell a great story.
Recommended.
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Count of Monte Cristo (2024) opens Friday
Edmund Dantes returns again in an epic retelling of the tale of betrayal and redemption.
For those who don't know the tale is the story of Dantes who is locked away in a prison by his so-called friends who want what he has and want him lost so that their misdeeds won't be found out. Told of a vast fortune by a fellow prisoner, Dantes escapes and then returns to France after years away as the Count of Monte Cristo and takes revenge on those who wronged him.
I love this story in all its forms. Sure, the movies have altered the massive tale, but in doing so it's created some truly great versions (Robert Donat, Jim Cavievzal, Richard Chamberlain all star in versions I love). No film has really come close to telling the tale as written because it's too damn big a tale.
This version makes a good go of it. Running a solid 3 hours, the film brings in a lot of elements and characters that other versions leave out (the daughter of the pasha for example) while also bringing in new twists, the masks the Dantes uses to impersonate a wide variety of people. The result is a film that plays like a novel and which stands firmly on its own feet. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I can't wait to see it again. (And before you ask let me see it a few more times before I put it into the ranking of various versions.)
This is great cinema and highly recommended - especially if you can see it on a big screen and get lost in its world.
Monday, December 16, 2024
RED ONE (2024)
When Santa goes missing his team grab the man responsible, a hacker who can find anyone, and force him to help them retrieve the big guy before Christmas is canceled.
I suspect that had I paid to see this in the movies I would have been annoyed, but at home on the couch with the Christmas tree in the same room I was delighted.
While far from high art, and very by the numbers, RED ONE entertained. I knew pretty much how it was going to go from start to finish and I didn't much care. It was doing what it was doing well and with a certain amount of charm and I was fine with that. Actually considering all of the disingenuous and made purely for the cash empty Hollywood sequels of late seeing something that was at least trying something new was refreshing. I'll take something that actually has a beginning middle and end as opposed to something that is set up to be the next step to the next cash grab.
Is this the best thing in the world? No, but It made me smile. The cast sells it which was a enough to over come the wildly uneven special effects. (As someone recently said why are the best CGI from the first Jurassic Park and why has everything since then gotten worse despite advancements and costing hundreds of millions more?)
Is this worth seeing? On Prime? Absolutely.
It may not be the best Christmas film ever but it will entertain.
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) December 18 in theaters and January 3 on Netflix
The director Nick Park and the production supervisor introduce the film |
Wallace and Gromit return after a break of 20 years with more mayhem.
The plot of the film has Wallace creating a new garden gnome shaped robot in order to help Gromit do chores. The neighbors see it and want to have it help them too. The robot is also seen by Feathers McGraw, who despite being locked up in the zoo, manages to reprogram the robot so it's evil and able to make a robot army.
After a rambling start that feels more like a bunch of left over gags, the film finds it's footing and goes. Full of insane references to films, VENGEANCE... soars in the second half as Wallace is hunted by the police and Feathers plots revenge, escape and stealing the blur diamond. The audience I saw this with was belly laughing their way through the craziness.
I had a grand time.
Sunday, December 15, 2024
Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
Head scratcher of a film is glacially paced, odd musical numbers and rambles around seeming not having a direction. The story follows Arthur Fleck as he goes on trial while hooking up with a woman who becomes his Harley and ... I don't know.
Points for trying something different but minus many more for failing to make it interesting. If the original film was a shift away from typical superhero films into something more real and grounded, this is an outright rejection of even that. I may have not liked the first film but I at least knew why it existed, this on the other hand has no point.
That Warners kept this turkey alive when all the others were cheaper and would have turned a profit together is a sign of their derangement at the top (probably thought it was to expensive to kill- or thought it would actually make some money - made about a quarter of its cost not including promotion). This film is so calculatingly bad that I'm not even certain it' anything other than a an F-U to the studio
Nothing here works. The Sylvain Chomet animated opening seems out of place. The songs are so oddly performed as to make you wonder why they did it this way since they are more distancing then engaging. Yes the performances are fine but the characters aren't given enough to do to fill the two hours twenty minutes. Its sturm and drang and "where is the remote" or "I can't believe I paid to see this".
While not bad enough to go on my worst of the year list, it would go on my least needed films of the year.
LISTEN CAREFULLY(2024) hits streaming tomorrow
A man discover his new born is missing and the people who took her tell him, over his baby monitor, that the only way to get her back is to follow what they say. He is then sent on a wild chase across the city.
This is the second film at Fantaspoa where the main character has to follow directions being given them by an unknown source. Like that other film this one suffers from the fact that we've been here before. This isn't to say that the film i bad, more that it isn't anything special.
Give the film points for having a good cast and being well made, but it's not quite flashy enough to remain memorable.
Worth a look on a slow night but nothing to chase after.
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn (2023)
Pennsylvania politician Malcolm Kenyatta hits the campaign trail to run for the open Senate seat that John Fetterman eventually won.
Much more than the story of a gay black man from Phillie the film paints a much more complex portrait of politics in America in that we see things aren’t as red and blue as the media would have us believe. I want to see this again because there is good stuff here.
Camp Ricstar (2023)
This is a sweet little film about a summer camp using musical therapy to reach the kids and adults with certain conditions.
Started two decades ago in the wake of the death of a young man named Ric whose live was improved by his connection to music. We watch as other people are helped by the therapy as the music opens them up and allows them to make connections to each other and those around them.
This is largely a deeply moving film about the power of music to heal and make the world a better place. Having family members with issues I could relate to the power of music to open people up.
As great as the film is the film has one flaw that, while not fatal, bothers me, and that is that it largely keeps all of the people we see sperate and apart from each other. Most other similar films connect up the people in a program, this film doesn’t really do that. It’s a minor flaw but I would have liked some interaction.
Minor quibble aside this film is worth a look.
Singing Back the Buffalo (2024)
Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard looks at efforts to reconnect the buffalo to the land and to the Indigenous people who lived in harmony for centuries.
This is a glorious celebration of the buffalo and the efforts to bring them back. It’s a look not just at the physical repopulation of the animals into the plains but also a look to bringing the buffalo and their spirit into the lives of people and the world. It’s a film with some stunning images and some deeply moving spiritual passages. I really liked this. My sole complaint where there is a point in the final third or so where it seemed to run out of steam.
Friday, December 13, 2024
Paul Williams on the 50th Anniversary of THE PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE
In early fall, when The Brooklyn Academy of Music announced that they would be screening PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE on December 10 with Paul Williams in attendance I reached out to the PR people to see if he was interested in doing an interview. They were kind enough to simply go “Let’s find out”. After a brief exchange of emails, a phone call was set up for the Friday before the screening. I was told expect half an hour and we went almost a full one.
To say that I was and still am in shock that it came together is an understatement. I mean Paul Williams is a god. He is one of my all-time favorite creators ever. His music is the soundtrack of my life. His film and TV roles have entertained me. For the last six decades he has made me smile. That I was lucky enough to talk to him and actually meet him after the screening has blown my tiny little mind.
For those who don’t know Paul Williams, he is an actor, singer, songwriter and raconteur who has been working steadily since the early 1960’s. He was written songs for everyone (no really), worked extensively with the Muppets (he wrote Rainbow Connection), won almost every award under the sun including a recent Grammy with Daft Punk. He is also over 34 years in recovery and is willing to help those who need it.
He and his work have touched everyone in the world whether they know it or not and made us better.
He’s so HUGE that when I said I was going to interview him all my friends had questions they wanted answered. I went into the interview with a page of my questions and two pages of questions from friends and family. Some of the questions got asked and some didn’t. I was way too busy just trying to keep up with the man himself.
What follows is most of our talk. As entertaining as the removed material was, I trimmed the things that were not on his career and life, I removed talk of an egg sandwich and a few other minor things.
I want to thank Ao Lan Guo at Obscured and Jesse Trussell BAM for helping me make connections. I want to thank Nancy Munoz for arranging it with Paul.
Mostly I want to thank Paul Williams not only for talking the time to talk and meet me, but for all the music and laughter that his work has brought to my life (and everyone else’s) over the years.
Paul Williams at Brooklyn Academy Of Music talking about PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE |
PAUL: So, we're going to see you Tuesday, right?
STEVE: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I bought my tickets as soon as I found out they were on sale.
I had been trying to, trying to see if I could arrange an interview with you because it was that important. I mean, just the thought of you being here in New York, you know, being able to see you is just way too important.
PAUL: I really appreciate it. It's amazing. It's the 50th anniversary and to have something that was just basically ignored, when it came out, 50 years later, have the kind of love because of the fans that that really loved it and made everybody they know watch it. And that built and built.
And the great thing in my life is that because some of the fans of Phantom have nice careers in music and in film and they reached out to me. So, I got, right now I'm writing Pan's Labyrinth for the stage with Guillermo del Toro.! And writing the words for that to Gustavo Santaolalla's music. And I mean, that whole thing with Daft Punk was because they met at Phantom of the Paradise in Paris.
But it's been this little movie that just has been such a gift as the years have gone by. And I mean, this year they screened it to close the, the Cannes Film Festival. And I went over and introduced it. I'm standing on that stage looking at this massive audience on the beach. They did the closing evening on the beach with all those deck chairs, hundreds of deck chairs. It looked like full of people. And I mean, I just got emotional. It was like, wow, to finally see that kind of an audience. And I wish Bill Finley was alive to appreciate it.
STEVE: I saw it sometime after it premiered. We wore out several copies of the vinyl, and cassette and 8 track and CDs of the soundtrack. It was always something where we would play the music and people go, “what is this?” It's a, it's Phantom of the Paradise. And then we got them into the movie. And now there are people I know who I got into the film when I was a kid watching the film in the seventies who now are showing their kids and their grandkids.
One of the things that blows everybody's mind, because it's how good you are, is that, you know, the breadth of the music in the film. Everything from Beach Boys to what would be hard rock at the time. And then you say he wrote Rainbow Connection and Evergreen. And then he wrote for the Carpenters and Helen Reddy, and everybody goes, “wait, what? And it just, blows everybody away.
PAUL: Well, you know, what's interesting when you, when you look at what I had out and what I was known for, what had been hit when, when Brian DePalma came over at the A&M Records looking for somebody to do, write the songs, I was probably the worst idea you could have. I mean there was nothing that I had success with that was anything like what it seemed like was what he was going to need, you know? So it's amazing that I got the job. But what's interesting in my life is I sit down to write and a lot at that time of my life, that's just what was coming out of my chest. That's what I was writing.
I was writing also with Roger Nichols, who was writing that kind of music. And I wrote lyrics to it. But the music that I loved was like the original Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.
And, you know, I was a huge, huge fan of, do you know who they are? Delaney & Bonnie & Friends?
STEVE: Yes.
PAUL: I mean the Stone Ponies and. Poco and all the, all the guys over in Laurel Canyon that I wish I was a part of, you know, with, with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and, and it was just, what I sat down and wrote was not like what I loved until I got the chance to do it with Phantom..
STEVE: But that's one of the things I was going to ask you was Brian De Palma came to you, did he a type of song he wanted? Did he say write this type of song and this type? How involved were you in shaping all these genres that show up in the film?
PAUL: Well, in the original script, which was Phantom of the Filmore, it changed a lot while we were working on it. It became more and more about my favorite line in the picture, which is when Philbin, before the wedding and the assassination that's all set up, says to me, “why would you want to do that on television? You know, with cameras on”. I say, “an assassination live on coast-to-coast television, that's entertainment.”
I think that what was going on, and I've talked about this before, is, you know, we're at a place where we we're watching the Vietnam War footage over our TV dinners every night. And I think we're getting to a place with the kids where it's basically entertainment and for adults watching the news, entertainment and news begin to come the same. , The separation between the two and the line between the two begins to, begins to disappear.
Originally Beef was supposed to die in the shower, and out of our conversation with Brian, it all of a sudden it emerged that what if the kids see the murder and they, and they think it's part of the show? Because they've been seeing so much theatrical violence, you know?
STEVE: Right.
PAUL: And so, the script changed. In the very, very first script there was a thing where Annette [ed. a character mentioned in Philbin’s first monolog but not seen in this version of the film] gets her tongue cut out, and what I decided to do is, have just at the moment of that, have her scream, go, AH!, and then turn it into Little Darling, you know? I think that, that Brian had actually mentioned Little Darling for that moment. And then he wanted Sha Na Na, and I thought, you know what, I want my own band, my own road band that knows me so well. So, when I turn to them and say, okay, we're talking, Beach Boys, they immediately start playing it, you know? I mean, we have such great communication. So with, with no disrespect meant intended for the, for Sha Na Na who I thought were terrific, that was not what I wanted.
I wanted a band that, that I could take the stolen music and shape it into these different forms. It says that at the very opening, that he was responsible for the invasion from England, and the music of the spheres. I knew that I wanted to go to a kind of a Beach Boys thing at one point. I was really proud of was that Somebody Super Like You, Life at Last, are really good hard rock, you know?
And, God bless my band, because, you know, because they just, they were right there. I lay out the chords for them, and I start singing lines to them, I mean, right down to opening, with the guitar, you know, Bow, bow, dow, dow, dow. So, so I'm singing that shit, and then the, you know, Art Munson is playing guitar, just, you know, hits his, his peddle, and just bow, bow, dow, dow, dow. And, and the drummer, Gary Mallaber, was so killer. So we got stuff that, that, that was, sounded. And then you go, wait a minute, now I'm going to do the, the music of the spheres, what does that sound like, you know?
And it's, it's kind of pretty glam rock.
STEVE: I know you were then what Ozzy Osbourne, and everybody was doing ten years later You were just, you were ten years ahead of everybody.
PAUL: Well, it was interesting, because I was such a, you know, middle-of-the-road writer. I wrote easy listening. But I love it, you know. I approached all of it as an actor. I was an actor first. So, you know, so to me, it's like let's look at this character. What is this character writing?
I look at Winslow, and I just related to his vulnerability and, little broken soul. And then there's Bill Finley, I mean, you, you look at him looking like, as if he is a deer that's been separated from his mommy, and then he turns around and, and throws Philbin against the wall, and you know, the anger that emerges. He's so, so fucking good.
So, I write for that.
I wrote almost all the songs for Ishtar, and I approach that as, like, these are these two guys, Chuck and Lyle, that are mismatched writers, and I cast myself as both of those characters, and so I write a line as Chuck, and then I write a line as Lyle, and, and so you wind up with… I don't know if you're an Ishtar fan or not.
STEVE: I'm mixed on it. I've never, I've never, I have friends who, like, absolutely love it.
PAUL: You know what, check out the music in it again, if nothing else, check out the music. It's intentionally bad songs that are believably bad, like somebody's trying to write something decent, and he just fucks it up, somewhere along the line.
“Telling the truth can be dangerous business. Honest and popular, popular, don't go hand in hand,” That’s a pretty good opening.
“If you admit that you can play the accordion, and no one will hire you in a rock and roll band”
It's like, oh, you screwed it up, guys, man.
You know it was just more fun, and I worked a year and a half on that. I wrote probably 50 songs, beginning to end, for the two or three lines they were using, it was all they needed, but she would have me write the whole song and teach it to them.
STEVE: Do you end up with a lot of cut songs?
PAUL: Well, when they're, especially when they're intentionally bad, you don't exactly drag them out and use, and you use them for something else. But you know I’ve never done much with a song that doesn't have a life.
I've never pulled something out of one show and tried to stick it in another. I think that's kind of cheating, you know. I think that I was inspired by Brian's vision. I was inspired by the script as it evolved, and it's a collaborative art form, you know. So, I try to really stay in the now, and it was just a rare opportunity to, especially to do both things, you know, to, to write the songs, and yet play the songs was so cool.
STEVE: Were there any songs that were cut out of Phantom?
PAUL: Not really, not, well the one that was, you know, the Hell of It was written for a graveyard scene. It was written for a scene where after Beef dies, you're out in a kind of a frozen, wintry scene graveyard. There's an open grave with a casket over it, and a circle of fans around it, and a lot of, and a lot of microphones and cameras, and, and you follow the, again, follow the, the wires back to a hearse, and inside the hearse is Swan, who's recording live on the Death label.
And I guess we just never really found the right funeral the right cemetery, but in that moment, when they're lowering the whole thing with the people around it, I wanted to do this kind of a Nino Rota thing. Nino Rota wrote the music for the Fellini films, so I wanted to do this kind of very, very Nino Rota, because it's very kind of Fellini-esque scene, and in the, in the script, it says that a little girl runs out and jumps on the casket as it's being lowered, starts auditioning, starts tap dancing, so that's why you hear, you hear the tap dancing. And, and it was so cool that, that the editor, Paul Hurst took, took that and used it for the end credits, which is so cool, so it didn't get lost.
STEVE: That’s awesome, I love that story, thank you.
PAUL: You're welcome, you're welcome, I appreciate you being an advocate and, and, and having the interest in the picture, it's very cool.
STEVE: No, it's an absolute joy. Whenever, Phantom's on, oh, we gotta watch it.
PAUL: I love it, I love that, thank you.
STEVE: You're welcome. Question for you, Bugsy Malone became a show, I know, in London, and I know Emmett Otter's turned into a, was turned into a stage play. Why hasn't Phantom ever been really turned into a stage play?
PAUL: Well, it's funny you should ask, because we're actually very, very close to having that happen. There'll probably be an announcement, I would guess, in as much as a month.
STEVE: Oh, awesome.
PAUL: It's, it's finally gonna happen.
STEVE: Oh, I love that.
PAUL: Yeah, I've written some additional stuff, and we'll write a little more, but we've finally found a combination and the right people. And it's funny because these things, like with Guillermo and Ken's Pans Labyrinth, Guillermo keeps going off to to work on movies, so we're like, we'd be working on it, then we'd kind of wait, and then we'd get work on it again, and all that. It got to the point where I was just like, okay, I surrender. I'm gonna just give up on it.
I'm gonna take it out of my bio. I mean, I'm just gonna do whatever. Then tthe next day I get an email from, from Guillermo's office that J.J. Abrams has come on board as our producer, and that makes it absolutely real. I mean, when you get somebody like J.J. Abrams, who's now producing Broadway shows, and he says we're gonna open in 2025 in England, then bring it over to New York, it's real, you know. So I've got a lot more patience than I used to have. and I don't really, if something doesn't do, I mean if something doesn't happen, to me, my first thought is that no is the gift. If it doesn't happen, there's something better that's supposed to happen. I've got a very Jiminy Cricket approach to life, you know, and it's all related to my sobriety. You know, it's 34 years of life lessons that have been just, that have just made me nothing but grateful.
I talk about the fact that my choo-choo runs on the twin rails of gratitude and trust, and that wound up being a book that I wrote with my friend Tracy Jackson. It hit the New York Times bestseller list briefly, and it's about recovery for people that are not addicts but have some bad habits they want to get over, gratitude and trust, you know.
STEVE: There was something my brother had wanted me to ask you, which was, you've written all these great songs, you've won all these awards and you've also done so much with recovery, you've written books, you've done advocacy, you've done all of these things. Is the advocacy what you're most proud of, or is it something else?
PAUL: Yeah, well, I'm proud of it, but beyond that, it's almost the other way around. I just see it as a total gift. I mean, I called a doctor in a blackout. I had a blackout. One of the last things I wanted to do was quit drinking. The career I thought I had had been gone for 10 years. You know you're an alcoholic when you misplace a decade. I mean, I was bad, a big cocaine addict and whatever. I had a terrible reputation by the time I got sober.
But in a blackout, I called a doctor, and when he called me back, he said, well, I found a place for you.
And I went, what are you talking about? Well, you called me yesterday and said you were sick of lying, that you didn't want to drive with your kids in the car anymore, bloated, like your dad did with you. And boy, there was something about hearing that that I said, yeah, I want to go to treatment.
So, I got sober. But 10 years later, that's why I was just in Oklahoma doing a fundraiser for a clubhouse there.
But what happened is I found out that I had gone, like five days before I had called a doctor in a blackout, I'd been in Oklahoma City doing a concert, and I had a full tilt psychotic episode. I mean, I went nuts. I'd been up probably two to three days and nights without sleeping. It was crazy. I was beaten up by an invisible hospital. And they postponed the gig for a day, and the promoter was just freaked out. But I ran into it. So anyway, when I did the gig, the next day I said I had a reaction to my meds, which was kind of the truth, because that was my medication in those days.
But I got on a plane to go home, and I drank on the plane, and I got drugs when I hit LAX and all. But then in that blackout, I called a doctor. I found out ten years later that what had happened is that the promoter, who was at the time seven years sober, and I didn't know it, called his sponsor, and they put together a prayer circle, and they prayed for me. They prayed that he'd enter out of the rooms that I would find from my addiction and my disease. And five days later in a blackout, I called a doctor. That's, to me, that's inseparable fact, and I think it's solidly connected.
And I have a spiritual life that believes that what they prayed, their prayers were answered, that what they asked for, what they visualized actually happened. And that's kind of basically the basis of my spiritual life, is that what we dwell on, what we create. You think you're not going to get that job.
Oh, I'm not going to have a career. It's not going to happen. And so, I heard like a prayer, and it doesn't happen.
But if you go, you know what? Something great is coming, and I can feel it. I can honestly feel it. It shows up the next day. It's amazing. And the way you describe it all in any of my work is the line, you give a little love, and it all comes back to you.
STEVE: For the most part, has your career been fun?
PAUL:Oh, my God, yeah.
STEVE: I ask because when I see you on TV you always seemed to be full of joy. For example, when I was re-equating myself with the details of your career the one thing that kept appearing was when you did the Planet of the Apes on the Tonight Show.
PAUL: It was a classic case where I did 48 tonight shows and. I remember six vividly. But I was booked to do the show, and we're out in Malibu shooting, and I've got all the orangutan makeup on, and I said to my makeup man, I said, you know what? I mean, if, you know, we take this off and try to get to NBC in time, I'm not going to get there in time to do the show, so can you come with me, and I'll just go on like this. So, I called Doc Severinsen. I said, I just saw him on a two-top, a table with a little check tablecloth, a candle, a cigarette burning in the ashtray. I said, okay, I'll bring my cigarette holder because you can't get it in your mouth. You know, you couldn't smoke a cigarette without a cigarette holder. And I'll sing, Here's Our Rainy Day in any key.
And, I mean, I just, I always had fun with Johnny. He was the best. We never talked before we were on camera. So there wasn't any, like, it was never fake. It was never, like, hey, how you been and everything. And we had, like, a 20-minute conversation back in makeup.
We stayed away from each other. We stayed away from everybody until they were right in front of him. And we just, you know, I mean, I made him laugh. And he was just the best, the best interviewer of any of them ever. And I was great friends with Pat McCormick, who wrote most of his monologues, the craziest stuff in his monologues. And I was drinking buddies with him and with Ed McMahon, you know.
I mean, Ed McMahon and I, anybody really interesting that I was really impressed with, I'd go have dinner after the show with Ed McMahon. I had dinner with, you know, James Mason. I had dinner with Orson Welles. I'm this, you know, the run of the litter from the Midwest to construction brat who just had all these Hollywood dreams. And the next thing you know, I'm sitting there having dinner with Orson Welles. So, it's like, and the fact is, see, that neither one of us has to, because we both do this for a living, neither one of us has to give up their fan card.
I mean, I am as much of, I mean, God bless Quincy Jones. I've seen Quincy, and I've known, I mean, I wrote songs, you know, wrote stuff for Quincy and was his friend and knew him for 50, 60 years probably, or more. But anytime I ever saw Quincy, there was something in my chest that kind of went, wow, there's Quincy Jones. Hey, Quincy, that's cute. And I mean, I just got a big kick out of it.
When I love someone, I'm writing with this group called Portugal the Man, and I love them. I mean, I love Portugal the Man.
STEVE: It's a great group.
PAUL: Yeah, great group. And John Gorley and I are writing a bunch together and all. And I mean, I literally go, I'll sit there and watch him work or perform with the band, and I go, shit, man. I mean, I'm writing with John Gorley. And he's told me like that about, my God, I'm writing with Paul Williams. Well, it's so cool.
It's very cool.
STEVE: I'm feeling that right now. I mean, it's just like, you know, that I'm talking to you is like, the five years, I want to say, the little kid in me is like jumping up and down. Because I've loved your music for my whole life.
PAUL: Yeah, I love that. And you know what? I appreciate it.
But the fact is, what you're talking about feeling is what I'm talking about feeling. I've never lost that. I've never lost that.
And I think that's what maybe you see, you know. I think that at this point in my life, it's an amazing gratitude. I mean, Christmas Carol was the first movie that I wrote the songs for, words and music, after I got sober.
You know nobody was calling me. The phone wasn't ringing. I'm not the hot property in town. And the career, as I said, that I thought I had had been gone about 10 years. And the phone rings in his hand, and it's Brian Henson. And he says, I want you to do the, you know, the songs for Christmas Carol.
Which is, think about how perfect that is. I'm having a spiritual awakening. For the first time in my life, I've come out of medical detox with no cravings. And I go, oh my God, what was I doing? This is amazing. The way that it felt, you know, just to be normal. And nothing but grateful. So, I'm this guy having a spiritual experience for the first time, writing about a guy who's having a spiritual experience for the first time.
And I remember walking into the recording session, and Michael Caine was there. I would be in the studio with him, kind of singing with him, and almost conducting him, you know, like making a big expression when I wanted him to get big, you know. And he just, liked that. I would sing, kind of like sing along with him, and then we'd do just him singing.
But it's like, I walked in there the first time, and I said Michael, it's great to meet you. You know, it's like, a huge fan. It's wonderful to meet you.
And he said, [Paul does a spot on Michael Caine impression] are you out of your fucking mind? He said, you know, we spent an entire weekend together at the White Elephant. We gambled, we drank, we drank, we gambled, and then we drank, and then we gambled.
It was so funny. I said, oh my God, I had totally, that was evidently a largely blackout weekend for me, you know.
Whenever I meet somebody, and I've been around in those days, I always check with them. Do I owe you an amends? I mean, did I behave? Or an actress or something, and say, you know, did I behave? Oh, you were charming. You were sweet. You were kidding. No, you were fine. And then there were the cases where I know that I was nuts.
I mean, by the last couple years before I got sober, it had to be awful to work with me. I mean, because I just, you never knew what you were getting. If I was going to show up as a responsible, you know, guy that was taking care of business, or was I going to show up as somebody just crazy, you know?
STEVE: How do you, being as fan of certain people, feel when you hear your songs done by them? And how do you feel when something that you've written a while ago is being redone now?
PAUL: Well, that's how I started, is I started, as a contract writer at A&M Records, and I write, you know, every week I'd be in there for a few hours every day, writing with Roger, or writing by myself, or writing with other guys, you know. My bass player, Jack Conrad, and I wrote Family of Man for Three Dog Nights. I wrote Old Fashioned Love Song alone. I wrote Out in the Country with Roger, you know, so I'm writing, I'm not writing for myself. I started recording eventually, and my albums, I mean, they, I wound up getting them because I promoted it on television, so I became known, and I got a performing career and all. But the fact is that my albums were really like demos.
I mean, I recorded songs, and other people heard them and decided to record them. So, I recorded You and Me Against the World, but no one really had the hit with it. And, you know, most of the songs that Roger and I were writing, the first person to hear them was gonna be Karen and Richard Carpenter. I mean, I remember I went, ran over and played Old Fashioned Love Song for Richard, and he didn't even listen to it through the second verse. And so my publisher sent it to Three Dog Nights, and they cut it. But what's really a treat is when there's somebody that I really wanted to record one of my songs, and they never had. And then when that happens, the classic example, I love Tony Bennett, and we were friends. The head of membership at ASCAP was John Tito, was very good friends with Tony. And I remember when Tony recorded Close Enough for Love, a song I wrote with Johnny Mandela, a title song for the movie Agatha. And it was, I mean, I was like a kid in a candy store. Oh my God, I got a Tony Bennett recording. You know, and I look up with a list of people that recorded my songs. I mean, I had, Bing Crosby recorded, We've Only Just Begun. I mean, that's how far back I go. I had songs recorded by Sinatra and Elvis and Ella Fitzgerald, and just, you know, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and just amazing to, you know, to look at that, and it's, again, nothing but gratitude.
I just, and it's a thrill, you know? And then, you know, the first song I ever had recorded was recorded by Tiny Tim. I was like, you know, Tiny was a sweetheart, but I was not, I was not bowled over with joy for a Tiny Tim cut, you know? And yet, look what happened. It's like, oh, well, that's where it wound up, okay. And it was a huge record. It was the B-side of it, and they played that as well. But then the next thing you know, you know, it's recorded by David Bowie, and it's like, oh my God, I got a David Bowie cut. And so, you know, at this point, I figured songs have a life of their own.
The longer I live, the more I feel like, you know, it's just, it's got my name on it because I sat down and wrote it, you know? But I sometimes feel like I have unseen collaborators, you know? I sit down to write a song, and then all of a sudden, it's just pouring out of me, and I wonder, oh my God, it's almost as if I'm not thinking it.
It just comes out. Is that, Harry Nelson, is that you up there? You know, is that J.D. Souther, my buddy J.D.? Are we writing this one together? Is it my brother Minter, who wrote Driftaway? Give me the beat, boys. Rewind.
You know? So I'm honestly humble about the life that the songs have and nothing but grateful.
STEVE: I think about all you've done and all you've written, and I can't imagine how your life would have been different if you had actually become one of the Monkees.
PAUL: That's why No is a gift. That's why, because if I'd become one of the Monkees, I probably wouldn't have, I wouldn't have had the life as a writer that I have. I mean, No is a gift.
You know who else would audition for them? Steven Stills.
STEVE: That would have been just weird. Can I ask you two quick questions?
PAUL: Of course.
STEVE: Do you still skydive?
PAUL: Oh no, I quit at 100 jumps. I actually quit because I wanted to start racing. I bought a 308 GTB Ferrari and they sent me to anti-terrorism, anti-kidnapping school at Sears Point Raceway. And I had no intention of ever racing. But I got in that car and I got a little instruction and I went, oh my God. So I did five Long Beach Grand Prix's, I did the Watkins Glen Grand Prix I think five times as well.
I raced Laguna Seca, Sears Point, Riverside. I mean, it just, I loved it.
Skydiving was such a… I'd rent a motorhome and drive it down to the drop zone, which is the most dangerous part of the weekend. And then we'd get a couple jumps in and it was kind of a crazy time. But I love free fall. You know, I made my first 33 jumps back when I was 20 years old.
It was just the beginnings of the sport. I mean, Rob Pack was the first guy to ever pass a baton to another guy in free fall where they left in planes separately. You know, two guys in free fall separate, flew to each other, passed a baton, opened their parachutes and landed.
So relative work, which was almost nonexistent when I made my first 33 jumps. When I was asked to come back and jump when they found that they were looking for a celebrity that had skydiving experience, they saw my name in the Parachute Club of America's logbook. And they went, is that you? That's not you, is it? I went, yes, it is. And the answer is yes.
I wound up shooting, making a bunch of jumps with the Golden Knights, the U.S. Army Golden Knights, and got my certification. I became a star recipient for being a seven-man diamond. We shot that and I kept jumping until I got to 100 jumps and I was done.
But it was a great experience and it's funny because things slow down. When you're in free fall, there's no real sensation of speed. It's like when your hand's out the window of your car and you're playing with the wind.
That's what your whole body feels like. It's kind of a secure feeling. With the Golden Knights, we were cleared to jump all the way up to 12,500 feet. So we get 80 seconds of free fall. It was like amazing.
STEVE: Oh, I'm so jealous.
PAUL:Get out and do it.
STEVE: I will, I will. One last question. The song that you did for The Odd Couple? Is that available anywhere?
PAUL: I don't think so. I never record it. You know, it's like I wrote it that morning and we shot it.
Because they kept changing the script so the whole thing was that Tony gave me a note for his daughter and I used the note to write the song. But they didn't write the note for Tony until the day that we actually shot it. So that morning, from that morning to the time when we shot it that night, was that later that afternoon with an audience in there and all, is when I wrote the song.
And I don't play piano, so I'm sitting there trying to remember where the hell the chords are and whatever. But it's funny, a lot of people talk to me about that. It's a sweet little song and that was long before I had any kids.
But I have to tell you that now with a daughter who's just turned 40 and the son is 44, I know how all those feelings felt. You know, I wasn't much there when they were growing up because I was a mess. But I got sober in 1990, I had my last drink in 1989 and my son was eight and my daughter was five.
And so from then on they've never seen me loaded. But I was not there for those early years and all. As my daughter said to me recently, Dad, you may have been before, you're now a full-tailed papa bear and that's as good a compliment or review as I've ever gotten in my life.
STEVE: That's the best one. That's absolutely the best one.
PAUL :Yeah.
(A report on Paul Williams post screening Q&A will be appearing soon)
2024 Catch Up Capsule Reviews Part 2: SONGS OF EARTH, SHADOWLESS TOWER, BAURYNA SALU, TRIUMPH, NAWI, and ALL SHALL BE WELL
SONGS OF EARTH
Norway's entry for the International Oscar film is a look at director Margret Olin's father and the valley in Norway where he lives is visually spectacular film that will blow you away. The images are breath taking and the reason to see it.
SHADOWLESS TOWER
Spurred on by a photographer he meets, a middle age man tracks down the father he hasn't spoke to four decades. Good but deliberately paced drama is perfect for anyone who wants to get lost in a meditative story for a few hours.
Bauryna Salu
Title refers to the tradition of parents giving their first born to the grandparents to raise. When a young man's grandparents die, he is sent back to the parents he doesn't know. An observational drama that is quiet art house gem. Its a film that shows us a slice of life we've not seen before. (I am going to revisit this with a longer piece down the road when I can really sit with it and not feel rushed)
TRIUMPH
Bulgarian Oscar entry is supposedly based on an actual event. After the fall of communism a military team is following the direction of a psychic in a mad search for an alien artifact. This is an amusing tale that is both funny and kind of sad in that it shows what desperate people will do to get what they want.
NAWI
A lovely film about young girl dreaming of an education who is sold by her father for livestock. While in some ways the film is by the numbers, the characters and craft of filmmaking is so strong you really won't care. This is an absolute gem of a film and one of the great finds of 2024. (This will be getting a full review when I am less pressed for time)
ALL SHALL BE WELL
When a woman dies unexpectedly her long term partner is left to contend with her extended family. This is a very good film that over comes some expected turns thanks to great characters and even better performances. How is this film not getting more traction? Recommended.
Thursday, December 12, 2024
Talking to Pete Browngardt about THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE
I saw Pete Browngardt‘s THE DAY THE EATH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE because I asked for it when it ran as part of the Animation is Film Festival a couple of months back. To be honest I had no hope for it. Most of the recent long form Looney Tunes films have not been good (or scrapped) so my expectations was very low. After the film was finished I found myself delighted and I felt it was one of the best films (full stop) of 2024. (My review is here). I also found myself in the middle of some social media discussions about the film because people here in the US wanted to know about the film.
A couple of weeks ago I was contacted about possibly doing an interview with director Browngardt. Normally I balk at doing interviews, however the film was too good not to talk about the film with the man behind it.
I had a blast doing the interview. Pete just went and what was supposed to be a 15 minute interview doubled, in part because we started a little earlier, but mostly because we kept going and blew through the stop signal. (We were bonding over being Long Island natives and a love of Hundreds of Beavers)
What follows is most of our discussion. I removed the talk of Long Island, but pretty much everything else is here. It’s a great discussion of making the film, of making films under the current Warners regime and of a way to make Looney Tunes relevant a again.
I want to thank Alexandra at 42 West for setting up the interview and for Pete for taking the time to talk to a fan.
STEVE: Hi, Pete. Thank you for absolutely one of the best films of the year. I genuinely feel that way. I think it was actually on my vote. Just so you know, it was in my voting for the New York Film Critics Online as best animated film or one of the best animated films.
PETE:, That's so nice of you. Thank you.
STEVE: I want to begin with how is it that you managed to make such a wonderful film with 11 credited writers? I've never seen a film with, say, more than, three or four writers that's any good, and you have 11 credited writers.
PETE: And they're all good writers, too. I'll explain that one.
So, basically, I'm a storyboarder. I started animation pretty much as a storyboard artist for Cartoon Network. And we would get outlines, and we would have to write and board the story. There was no script. It was just sort of a page of what should happen. And we got writing credit on that. Because we are writers. We're writing this.
And then every project after that I'm going to try storyboard artists writing credit because they are writing. We are writing it, not just the pictures, because pictures speak a thousand words. We are writing the dialogue, changing the dialogue, rewriting situations, reimagining the whole script at times, throwing the whole script out and starting over and rewriting. And a lot of people don't realize how much storyboard artists do in animation. And Steve Hillenburg, when he made The Spongebob Squarepants movie, he got Paramount to give the storyboard artists credit on that. They had a smaller storyboard artist crew on that. We just happened to have a little bit of a larger crew, and that's why there's that many credit. But basically, there are two actual writers that only work in the word form in that credit list, and everyone else is a storyboarder.
It's like saying, is Charles Schultz the writer of Peanut? He draws it and he writes it. It's the same for storyboarders.
That's how I look at it. And I feel like it's one of my proudest achievements of getting the studio to agree, and I had to really make the case and show the evidence of it to get it. And I wish more studios gave, and more storyboard artists got credit for writing it because they deserve it.
STEVE: With previous Looney Tunes movies you never felt like it was one story from start to finish. And with this film, it's a one story from start to finish. And not only is it one story from start to finish, you've got all the characters arcing. I don’t think you see that in any other Looney Tunes film. You get a little bit of backstory or this or that. But this is the first time where you actually have character arc...
PETE: Yeah, that was from the get go. I knew that's what it had to be. I knew walking in when I pitched it to Warner Brothers that no one is going to watch just a long Looney Tunes short. It has to have an emotional arc. And Porky and Daffy, being a buddy situation, they are the only two Looney Tunes characters that aren't always trying to kill each other. They lend each other to give that vehicle to tell an emotional story and give those arcs in the film and storytelling of the film. I knew if we were going to make this right and tell a 90 minute story, have an audience engaged in it, it was a must.
And it was also one of the hardest things to do on the film. Is to go, well what is it? How do you not overdo it? How do you not underdo it? How do you find the balance? It was challenging. And it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of feeling it out. And we all, we were saying, well the writers, we would all be on Zoom calls together and we'd talk for hours upon hours, sitting just like this, talking through and sketching up ideas. Because we made the film during COVID, so we weren't in the room together. But we were in the virtual room. And it was important. And then we tracked it. And we had two great heads of the story, Ryan Kramer and David Dimmel, who sort of supervised the story department. And then myself, just overseeing the whole thing and making sure it does it.
STEVE: How much did Warners leave you alone? What did you have to give them? How much did you have to argue?
PETE: So a couple things helped me with this. First of all, when I first worked for Warner Brothers, I did a large number of short Looney Tunes films for Max. We did 209. And they liked what I did with that. Also, when I walked in to pitch that project to them the bar with Looney Tunes at Warner Brothers was very, very low. It was a couple of TV series that didn't really hit. They didn't know what to do with it. So I think their hands were up in the air a little bit. So, I went in and I said, well, you guys are changing stuff. Don't change it. Just make more, as best you can in this modern age. Which is hard because TV production, animation production is so different. It's so piecemealed and farmed out to places. So that helped me, and that was well-received.
Those were critically well-received. A lot of people haven't seen them because of the streaming wars and all that. We kind of got stuck on Max. But the people that have seen them really liked them. We've won a bunch of awards with those, with festivals and whatnot. So that gave me a lot of cachet, you know, as far as them listening to me when we were making it.
Also, it was streaming boom. We were a low-budget, $15 million budget. So the eyes are on it. That's why we survived, too. We had one of the lowest-budget films. They were axing all the films. And also the quality of our film. I think I put together a great team. I think we were showing results, everything they were seeing they were liking. And it still was an uphill battle. But they did leave me alone.
Let me put it this way, they were smart enough to leave me alone and leave my team alone.
STEVE: I have to ask this because this was right before I spoke with you I had seen something quick on Coyote vs. Acme. Were you ever fearful that ever a possibility that they would just junk the film like Coyote?
PETE: 100%, 100%, absolutely. Every day while we were in production, when that started to begin, not just that movie but Batgirl and David Zaslov taking over, I was waiting for the phone call every single day. And that adds to the stress and emotions that go into when you're making a film and how much hard work it is, to have that in the back of your head was hard.
And Ketchup Entertainment saved this film. Warner Brothers was smart enough to allocate funds to finish the film because we were at a low budget and I think they were able to squeeze it out. But if it wasn't for Ketchup Entertainment, we would be sitting on a shelf somewhere.
And GFM. GFM, they did international distribution, sort of led up to Ketchup being the movie. And the reception at Annecy saved the film.
STEVE: I was sent the film as a screener for Animation is Film. And when I posted the review, people went bananas saying that, because apparently they were afraid that the release is going to be bad because this is played elsewhere in the world and it still hasn't played here. Has it made enough money overseas that it's going to be a to hit? Or are you going to have to rely on what happens here in the US?
PETE: It's very important, in the film business, if you really want your film to get some traction and seen, domestic release is the way. You have to have a domestic release.
It's just very, very important. Internationally, it's great. And we got a lot of good buzz internationally, but Ketchup coming on and securing the distribution rights on that is huge, and putting some money behind it to not only get some attention for award season, but also to put it out for 1,500 screens in February 28th next year, this coming year, a couple weeks, two months away, whatever it is. It's just monumental. And I just hope, I mean, I don't know the financial budget, I mean, not budget, I know, I don't know how much money it's made. I'm not at the studio anymore. They don't tell me that stuff, so I don't really know.
STEVE: There’s all these lovely little references in the film, and you balance it so that you don't have them screaming to be noticed, everything's not glaring of, like, this is a reference to this film and this is a reference to that film. You have different shifts in style… How difficult was that? How did you balance that? Because you hit it, like, perfectly, so that it's not too much, it doesn't over power the story. How did you decide what you were going to do? Like, the stylistic changes and stuff of the art?
PETE: Really, just by instinct, and the instinct of some of the other people on the film working with me. I feel like we have better taste. I mean, I'm just not going to lie. I think people, they think of animation in a certain way. It's got to be loud and screaming, or it's got to be overdone with this, and, oh, you have to have this in it. People always go like this. But I feel no, you can do anything you want. You can tell any type of story. You can tell it any way. You can paint it any way, color it any way. You can paste it any way. You can act it any way. It's the most incredible medium of film storytelling, and it's not utilized in a broad sense enough of a variety, in my opinion. So I think it's that, and they left us alone. They left us alone. And, yeah, I just truly believe it's just my sensibility and taste to go, no, that's cheesy, that's dumb, or I don't like that, or, you know, eh, I've seen that before. I'm a harsh critic. I'm very hard on myself and on what I like. I like good stuff. I try to make good stuff the best I can. So I really think it's that, you know.
And there is a balancing with that, too, it's just like some of it happens, like, well, we don't have enough money to do that extra two shots, so we've got to figure out how to make it into one shot, and it turns out to be better, you know. All I can say is it's instinctual a lot of times when you're in the trenches making it because things are happening so fast and you're moving fast, even for animation, like you have deadlines and shit has to get done, and you just have to trust your gut. And I'm lucky enough that I got to make a lot of television. It's really helped me to be able to be confident in my decision-making.
STEVE: Was it always going to be Porky and Daffy as the lead?
PETE: Yeah, always. Because it's just they're not the characters that sell T-shirts, that's for sure. You know, I mean, it was up to the studio, it would have been the Bugs Bunny Tweety Bird movie. You know, those are the ones that sell the merchandise. But the film wouldn't have worked with anybody.
And to be honest with you, the one thing that they've done wrong so many times is they put all the Looney Tunes living together or hanging out together. They don't work that way. The Looney Tunes don't work where, you know, Bugs is hanging out with Foghorn Leghorn and they're roommates. It doesn't work that way. And they think that they can disrespect what was created and throw them all together just because it's like, well, we want them all, we want to sell all the T-shirts, you know. But it doesn't work that way.
So luckily they let us just do this cast of these characters that I thought would work the best to tell their story.
STEVE: Which actually brings me to my next question because you have the great directors, the films that Chuck Jones did and Frizz Freeling and Bob Clampett and everybody else, they did all these films where they worked on individual characters and stuff. Do you think that if they had done a feature film… if they were allowed to just do the feature film, do you think they would have done something that was very close to this?
PETE: Oh, well, I doubt it.. Let me just put it that way. I don't know about that. They're the greatest animation directors that have ever lived. So it's kind of hard to know what they would do.
But there is a great little story, and I don't know, I'm sort of paraphrasing, I don't know the details of the story, but there is a legendary story where they brought Chuck Jones on to the Warner Brothers to show him the original Space Jam. And after the screening, he said such poor things about the film and that they ruined the character that he helped create that he was escorted off the lot. So I don't think it was that movie that Chuck would make, or Clampett, or Frizz, or Robert McKimson, or Avery, or any of the greats, you know, really.
STEVE: The reason I asked is, it's like if you watch some of the stuff that Chuck Jones did where he was doing stuff like Rikki-Tikki-Tavvi, and he was doing certain other things later on, you have these arcs that were never in the short films. I always had the sense that they wanted to do more.
PETE: I think so too, especially in their prime, I think so. You know, it's a thing where it's a shame that they didn't get a chance to do sort of longer form stuff like this. And it's a Hollywood thing where you get pigeon holed. You're the one guy that does, this is all you do.
It happens with actors, it happens with filmmakers, it happens with screenwriters, everything, right? It’s a shame, but yeah, I mean, what it is is that I do believe that my team and myself have the respect, and we did our homework the best we could, and the love of what those geniuses did before us. And they basically give you the manual of how to do it, but no one's read the manual.
We decided to go back and read the manual, and we were reading the manual our whole career. So that's pretty much what it is. I mean, I've been in meetings at Warner Brothers where we have to tell them what the character is, because they don't even know, but they're telling us what to do.
It's kind of maddening in a lot of ways, but that's the truth, that's the truth. You've got to do your homework, and you've got to love it, and you've got to respect it. And we do. I respect it tremendously. Another question is because you've made a feature film, that's a feature film, and it's genuinely that. And it doesn't have completely the story structure of the shorts.
STEVE: You've made a feature film. So I was curious as to who are your favorite animators or filmmakers? And even live action, because I was talking to the director of Flow, and he was saying the film wasn’t influenced by animators but by regular directors like Sergio Leone and others.
PETE: Oh I'm a huge, huge filmmaking, film fan, film cinephile. I'm in my office now, you can't see it, but still, Blu-rays and books on cinema. I mean, I love Tim Burton. Tim Burton's a huge milestone in my career, early Tim Burton films. Basically made me want to be an animator filmmaker, because that's what he was. And Paul Reubens and Pee Wee, huge, hugely. I went to Cal Arts because of them, both of them. I was like, they both went to Cal Arts, that's the school for me.
And I got into it. But other filmmakers that I love, I love Hal Ashby. I love Preston Sturgess. It goes on and on. I love the Zucker Brothers. I think they're amazing filmmakers that don't get enough credit as filmmakers. Comedians, comedic writers and comedic filmmakers. I mean, I could go on and on. Kubrick, Scorsese, all the greats, of course. But as the deep cut stuff, I love horror directors. I love John Carpenter, Sam Raimi. Coen Brothers, huge Coen Brothers. I love the Coen Brothers.
Old films, John Ford. My father got to meet John Ford and watch a film with John Ford. I learned about John Ford films. My father was an officer in the military, and John Ford was making military films in Europe. And he got invited to the office recorder, and they actually watched a film, a John Ford film, together on 16mm. My dad also met Walt Disney. Walt Disney is one of my favorite filmmakers. Walt Disney could be the greatest American filmmaker that ever lived, in my opinion. In live action or as a storyteller. I mean, who else has done what he's done? I'm waiting for the Ken Burns... The history of animation. Let's get that going, because... It's such a... It's a little bit off-subject, but I think The three greatest things of American culture is jazz, baseball, and cartoons.
STEVE: Oh yeah, he's done two of them.
PETE: But yeah, yeah, hugely influenced by film. I study film. I read books. I love making up stuff. Oh, I love Alexander Payne. I love Election. I think Election is a masterpiece. Just a huge film fan. And I always tell people…. I meet younger people getting into the business and in animation, and they haven't seen a lot of these classic films, and I go, you just pick a director and watch every single movie. I did that. I lived in New York for my 20s, and I would go to a Kims' Video, and I would go to some of those other video stores out there. They had everything in director, and I would just go watch every single movie, every day. You know, that was my life.
STEVE:The one thing I have to say is, if you love Tim Burton, there's a documentary series that's coming out, which is absolutely one of the best things I've ever seen on film. It's one of the best filmmaker things I've ever seen.
PETE: It's about him?
STEVE: It's about him. It played at Tribeca, and everybody's in it. But it tells you about how he made all his films. It also tells how he made everybody else better, and how he influenced everybody else. He's incredible. You're going to love it.
PETE: He's incredible. I can't wait. I have a whole little archive of Tim Burton, behind-the-scenes stuff of anything he's done, because he didn't do a lot of interviews early on and stuff, especially when he was at Disney and stuff like that.
And there's a lot of footage that's becoming unearthed of him making Vincent with Rick Heinrichs. Rick Heinrichs is one of the great production designers of our time, and they worked together on their early films at Disney, Frankenweenie and Vincent, and even the early Nightmare Before Christmas test.
What a journey. And I live in Burbank. I live in Tim Burton land. It's quite a place. You see where it all ends. All these houses are like, oh yeah, this is Edward Scissorhands. Now I get it.
What is it called, though?
STEVE: It was called THE TIM BURTON DOCUSERIES. I watched the episode that they ran multiple times, and I don't do that at film festivals
And I want you to know that you're sitting there talking about Hal Ashby and all these other guys, and I'm having my smile going wider and wider because because you're mentioning filmmakers who are not the typical people, which I absolutely loved.
PETE: Yeah, I owe a lot to my brother. My brother's an editor in a film, and he's older than me. He's a decade older than me, and he was making films, and we just learned about all these great... Filmmakers, a lot of people don't know about.
There's so much great stuff that people don't know that's out there, and it's just such an awesome...
Do you know what I just saw and loved? I just saw Hundreds of Beavers. I loved it.
My kids watched. We watched it together, and I have a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old, and they can get in it with each other, you know? And it was this amazing bonding thing where they were dying laughing, crying laughing. We all were watching this film. And that's a Looney Tunes film. If you want to see how a Looney Tunes live-action film would be, there it is.
We can do one more if you want to do one more.
STEVE: No, no, no, no, no. You've given me more than I could have hoped for and you've made me smile thank you so much. Thank you for the movie.