"Royale" Without Cheese

When Daniel Craig was first cast as James Bond, I was one of many who expressed my doubts. He's not tall, not handsome -- at first glance, he's not -- as the character is often described -- "the man every woman wants and every man wants to be."

But a still photo of the guy doesn't tell you everything. Once you see him in action on the screen, it all totally works. In fact, it works so well, when the movie's over, you couldn't imagine anyone else playing the part.

That says a lot, considering Craig is the sixth actor to play the role. But it says more about the script (by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with dialogue help from Oscar-winner Paul Haggis) which allows Craig to make the character his own. The writers start from scratch, introducing Bond as a young agent just beginning his career. In a black and white prologue, we get to see his first kill, and it's not pretty. The brutal violence sets the tone -- there'll be no parachuting off cliffs in this one. But it also allows a fresh interpretation of Bond.

Rugged and muscular, this 007 is no pretty boy. What Craig does have is charisma and intensity. He's also able to do what no what no previous actor has been able to do: make the character plausible. Don't get me wrong -- I loved Pierce Brosnan in the role. But he was playing a different character -- he was the Bond who could singlehandedly take out a small army and save the world, all without wrinkling his expensive tailored suit. But that's not the guy we see in Casino Royale. Brosnan or Roger Moore couldn't have played this Bond. Only a young Sean Connery could have come close. Of course, Craig has the advantage of a screenplay that for the first time, gives Bond a true character arc and real emotions.

The rest of the cast is great, too. Eva Green is gorgeous as treasury agent, Vesper Lynd -- the most complex, three-dimensional Bond girl ever. She has real chemistry with Craig, and their romance is the best real love story the series has ever achieved. Dame Judi Dench (the only actor returning from the previous films) gives her best performance yet as "M". This time, she's more of a mother to Bond -- guiding him and helping to shape him into the man he becomes. Jeffrey Wright, though under-used, is also great as Bond's CIA counterpart, Felix Leiter.

The storyline is also more realistic. Ironically, Casino Royale -- the shortest of Bond novels (less than 200 pages) -- has become the longest Bond movie (2 hrs. 20 mins.). It begins with what amounts to a mini-Bond movie about 007 foiling a terrorist plot to blow up a plane in Miami. It then segues to the plot of the novel, which makes up the bulk of the movie's second act. Here, the writers are very faithful to Ian Fleming's original work, albeit with some extra fight scenes and car chases thrown in. The book is essentially a simple story about a card game. Bond is sent to the casino to make sure the bad guy loses all of his money. The game is updated from Baccarat to Texas Hold 'Em. At first, I thought that change was sacrilege, but it's absolutely the right choice, since it allows the audience to more easily follow what's going on. The psychological nature of Hold 'Em also gives the writers and actors more fun stuff to work with.

In short, Casino Royale is a terrific rebirth for the Bond series. I look forward to Craig's next mission.

Movie Review: World Trade Center

Directed by Oliver Stone

It's a little known story from a day we know all too well. The new film World Trade Center tells the gripping true story of two of the last men pulled out of the rubble of Ground Zero alive.

Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena play Port Authority Police officers. In the film's heart-pounding opening minutes, we watch the attack unfold through the eyes of these first responders. As the routine morning becomes anything but routine, the officers glimpse news reports (we are thankfully spared any images of the plane striking the towers) and get bits of information from cellphone calls to family members as they race downtown. But what's most striking is how little the men know about what's really happening. As the officers prepare to the climb the North Tower, they are unaware the South Tower has even been hit. Communications gear is failing, and there is confusion all around.

Through impeccably detailed sets and flawless special effects, director Oliver Stone and his filmmaking team recreate these hectic moments in all-too-realistic detail. You're right there, on the street, looking up and watching the chaos unfold in 35mm and THX surround sound. If you didn't know any better, you'd think Stone had a crew shooting in Lower Manhattan that day. You have to struggle to remind yourself everything you're seeing was recreated on a soundstage on inside a computer.

Screenwriter Andrea Berloff further enhances the realism with believable dialogue. She not only effectively captures the "cop talk" (half the time, there's so much lingo being bantered back and forth, you don't understand what the heck the characters are saying -- as it should be), she also delivers a truth and honesty to the conversations and interactions. The words never feel contrived.

The quality cast does the script justice. It's remarkable how well Cage, a major movie star, disappears behind the moustache and hunched shoulders of Sgt. John McLoughlin. Pena (last seen as the locksmith in "Crash") is instantly likeable as Ofc. Jimeno. Their performances are even more noteworthy considering they spend the majority of the movie flat on their backs. They are also well supported by Maria Bello and Magie Gyllenhaal as their respective wives, who spend much of the film enduring an agonizing wait to learn the fate of their husbands.

Stone's storytelling is also more methodical and straightforward than it's been in recent years. He mercifully ditches the frenetic editing style he's employed in films like Natural Born Killers and Any Given Sunday.

Not Political

When one hears that Oliver Stone, director of such politically charged films as JFK and Born on the Fourth Of July, is making a movie about 9/11, your first tendency is to say, "uh oh." But this may be the least political movie Stone has ever made, one both red states and blue states can agree on. It's not about the roots of terror, or who's to blame for what. It's not about villains. It's about heroes. Though set during one of America's darkest hours, it tells a life-affirming story of courage, love and the strength people can summon inside. The movie reminds us how we all felt that day, how we all came together. Some say it is too soon for a movie like this. But as our nation sits so sharply divided, it's not a minute too soon to remember the unity of purpose we all had on 9/11 and ponder whether we can ever get it back.

Kevin Smith Q & A

Recently, as part of my day job, I had the chance to interview writer/director Kevin Smith about his new movie, Clerks II.

You can read an entire transcript of the interview below, or you can watch it in its entirety by clicking here.


Q. Clerks II, you're coming full circle. Talk about the differences making the sequel. The first film was made for very little money.



A. There is something of a full circle affair to the whole thing, if you were intending to do the circle in the first place. It wasn't one of these things where I'm like "One day I'm going to make a Clerks II". It just kind of happened, and some people assume it happened because of Jersey Girl. Like, Jersey Girl tanked, so he wanted to go back to the well. And they've kind of missed the target, but hit the tree. Like, Jersey Girl played a role, but it wasn't that it didn't do as well as it could have, or should have. It really came down to, after making a movie where the back-story -- who was sleeping with who -- was far more intriguing and maybe more interesting than the movie itself, so much so that every story about the movie was about that about Ben and Jen, I was just like, "I don't want to work with famous people, man". I want to work with people where people don't care if they're sleeping together. Like if Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson started sleeping together, maybe in like a post-Brokeback Mountain era that might be good for the movie, but I don't think it's going to make the cover of like "Us Weekly". So I kind of felt like, alright, this would be a nice way to kind of recharge the batteries, kick back, make a movie with my friends, not have to worry about tabloids showing up on the set. So, it seemed like Clerks II was the thing to do. And I was also sitting there like, I want to make a movie about what it feels like it's like to be in my 30s. And I started thinking about how Clerks was that movie for me in my 20s. And I was like, well, why not use Dante and Randall as the proxies, as the way in again.



Q. What happened with Jersey Girl? Was it just a victim of the whole Bennifer thing?



A. It's not like I can point at Bennifer and be, like, that was the problem, although you have to be willfully ignorant not to acknowledge Gigli's affect on Jersey Girl. They went first, we had to follow, that was a tough act to follow. Because it was almost like, remember that movie you hated with those two people you can't stand, here's even more. Check 'em out. So, that was tough to follow. But you know, it was just as much a problem that critically people seemed to think I shouldn't be making that movie. There were a lot of reviews that were just like, "Why did he make this? He shouldn't make this. Dante and Randall would've made fun of this movie. You take his name off of this, you wouldn't know he directed it. Very standard, very pabulum." Stuff like that. So, I guess that played a role as well.

Q. "Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back" was supposed to be the last "Askewniverse" movie. What happened?



A. Yeah Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back, I was like, that's it, we're done, no more Askewniverse movies. And then I saw my mortgage bill, and I was like, you know what, back to the well! No, then I thought about the idea of making Clerks II and telling this story. And the first person I talked to about it was Scott Mosier, my producer, and I was like "I'm thinking about making a Clerks sequel." And he was like, "as long as it's entertaining, go ahead". And I said, "Yeah, but I said I was done with these movies. And I said I wasn't going to make them anymore." And he put it all in perspective when he said, "So". And I was like, "Excellent point". And I was like, "yeah, but everyone's going to take me to task," (and when I say everyone, I mean the five people who are interested in these movies). I said, "they're going to take me to task for saying I was done and now suddenly doing it again." And he's just like, "so, you changed your mind, big deal. So basically, what you're saying is, you're entertaining the notion of not making the movie, because you once said you're not going to make them anymore, aren't you allowed to change your mind? He's like, "When you were a kid, didn't you tell me you wanted to be a Jedi?" And I said, "I did say that". And he said, "Are you a Jedi today?" And I was like, "No." And he was like, "Should I be mad at you that you didn't live up to your promise to be a Jedi?" And I was like, "I get where you're going with this, good point."

Q. Were you worried about tarnishing the original Clerks?



A. There's always like a fear, a little trepidation going in that the movie stinks, and not only do people hate the new one, but they retroactively go back and hate on the original. So, there was a bit of trepidation of touching something that some people have labeled as a cult classic, a seminal indie film. That's what some people have said about the movie, how some people categorize it. We didn't set out to make a cult classic, a seminal indie flick. We just set out to make a movie about dudes sitting around talkin' about stuff that I find kind of funny. So, when you view it from the prism of, oh man, don't muck with the legacy, don't screw with your legacy, it becomes daunting, but when you just kind of remove all that, you know, the kind of bells and whistles that get attached to the movie after it comes out, and just go, alright, it's just a movie about two dudes sitting around talking. The one I want to make is another movie about two dudes sitting around talking. We talk about different stuff, they grow a little bit more. You know, let's not get lost in what people say that Clerks is, um, and just kind of move forward.

Q. In the sequel, not much has changed for Dante & Randall.



A. In the beginning of the movie, and through most of the movie, we find Dante and Randall -- in the very beginning of the movie, we find that nothing has changed for them in ten years, they're still working at the Quick Stop then something happens with the Quick Stop and they wind up working at this burger joint called Mooby's, which is a fake burger franchise we introduced in Dogma, played a little role in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back as well. So the movie kind of follows a day in their life -- Dante's last day in New Jersey before he moves down to Florida with his fiancee. And it kind of focuses on how untethered Randall feels by the idea the one dude he can identify with is gonna leave. And it all culminates with a donkey show. As every movie should.

Q. Since you made the last movie, a lot has changed for you. Twelve years have passed. When you made the original, you're weren't that far removed from these characters. You're much more successful, now. How hard was it to get back in these guys heads?



A. You know, getting back into their heads was easy, I mean, I know I haven't had a minimum wage job in 12 years at this point, and I never worked at a fast food joint, so it's not like, you know, some people have worried that like or fretted, online in particular, like, what connection do you have to this world? Well, my answer to that has always been, like, "Well, Clerks wasn't really about working in a convenience store, either." If you look at the movie, like, that's the setting, but really it's about people who do everything they can to not work in a convenience store. They just happen to be there. Same thing with Clerks II with Mooby's. It's not about fast food. It's not some indictment of the fast food franchise. It's really just where they happen to work. And it's all about how those dudes kind of go out of their way to not be at work. No one ever really works in this movie. Just like nobody ever really worked in Clerks. So getting into that mindset was easy because I'm a very lazy bastard. Even though I've been able to do some stuff over the last 12 years, it's not like I'm the most exciting go-getter. I spend a lot of time watching TV and surfing internet porn. So, I can identify with these characters in a big way.

Q. How long did it take you to write the script?

A. I think I wrote the script in about a month. A little less than a month?



Q. You obviously had a lot of challenges making the first movie. I'm guessing there were far fewer this time with the bigger budget?



A. The first movie we had a budget of like 27,575 bucks. That wasn't going in, that's just what it wound up costing. This one had a budget of $5 million. So, we had a lot more money for coke and whores this time around. You know, my job doesn't change from budget to budget. It doesn't matter what it cost us to make, my job is relatively the same. You know, write the script, rehearse the actors. Make sure they give as good an on camera performance as the one I heard in my head, if not better, if they bring something to it, something bigger. So, whether we've got five bucks or five million, my job remains kind of the same. The one who it gets more difficult for, based on the budget level is Scott Mosier, my producer. You know, a little more money makes it easier for him to pull off. Less money means he's pulling in favors and begging people to do stuff. But five million was a very comfortable budget for us, in terms of like, you know, it's guaranteed to make it's money back, it's already in profit, they pre-sold the movie in foreign territories. So, before we ever rolled a frame of film, we were in profit. So, that's cool because it sort of takes the onus of the business half of the show-business equation off our backs, because, I don't know how everyone else, other directors operate, but, you know, I'm Catholic, I have tons of guilt when it comes to like, spending somebody else's dough, and I want to make sure they get their money back. So, knowing that those dudes at the Weinstein Company are going to be in profit -- that's great -- then I can just concentrate on actually making the movie itself. And five million was a comfy place to do it. Cheap by studio standards. It's on the low-end of the scale. I guess the average studio budget now is between 30 and 40, ours was five million. But it was more than enough to accomplish what we needed to accomplish.

Q. The lower budget -- did that give you more freedom? Because I think you pushed the envelope further than ever before with this one.



A. Yeah, the less money you have, I find, with what I do, the more free reign you have to kind of put whatever you want in the movie. If I made this movie for $20 million bucks, I'm sure a lot of the scenes would have been excised, a lot of the themes we're dealing with would have been condensed, a lot of the language would have been culled out. So, by virtue of the fact there's a lower budget, as long as the studio feels like, well, we're going to make it back -- I mean, even if nobody went theatrically on the movie, our DVD sales are always really strong. So, they know they're going to make their money back. So, they kind of tend to leave you alone. It's not like on Jersey Girl. On Jersey Girl, we had a $35 million budget. When people started hating on Gigli, I started getting the calls and the sit-downs where people were like, maybe you should get Jennifer out of the movie, I don't know? And it's like, "She dies in the first ten minutes! What do you want me to do?" And it's like, "Maybe you should make her die in Gigli or something, so that she doesn't even show up in this movie." I didn't get any calls like that on Clerks II, no matter what we did. We're like, "We're shooting a donkey show today." They're like, "Go nuts, whatever. Just stay on budget."

Q. Did you have any problems with the MPAA



A. The MPAA we were really worried were going to watch the movie and give us an NC-17 because we got an NC-17 on Clerks the first time around. The we had to fight it through an appeals process and got it overturned without having to cut anything. Jersey Girl, oddly enough, they gave us an R rating. And for a movie that's very, very sweet and sentimental -- no hard edge to it. The movie lacks cynicism or any of my usual kind of colorful language. And they gave us an R and we had to go in, do the appeals fight again and got it changed to a PG-13 without any cuts. For this one, we were ready for the Mother Of All Battles, I was gearing up for the Jihad of a lifetime -- armed with all my arguments as to why this movie wasn't an NC-17. Because we didn't have any gratuitous sex or any sex whatsoever, except you know, the donkey show. And no nudity or anything like that, or violence. And I'm ready to cite chapter and verse for other movies and other stuff similar to what we've done and how they got it on. It didn't matter, they just gave us an R. It didn't even get to use my arguments. I was ready to Clarence Darrow it and stuff and -- nothing. I didn't get my big moment in court. They just gave us an R. And I was like, wow, standards have apparently really dropped at the MPAA. At first I was delighted because it meant I wasn't going to have to cut anything. And I wasn't going to have to fight to get to that rating. You know, ecstatic as hell. And then after a few minutes I was like, "How could they NOT give this movie and NC-17?!" I was a little outraged -- as a parent.

Q. Do you think Christian Conservatives might have any issues with this film, not just for the racy content, but because of the way the character of Elias is portrayed?



A. I don't know man, I think this time around... Sometimes we've gotten in trouble, like with Dogma, we got in trouble with the Catholic League. On Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back oddly enough we got in trouble with GLADD. Jay and Silent Bob, to me was the gayest movie I've ever made -- that happened to have straight dudes in it. Until Clerks II, which is truly the gayest movie I've ever made. Very gay friendly. And you know, Chasing Amy, we got some heat. Every once and awhile we encounter these groups that are not pleased with what we're doing. So far on Clerks, nothing. And that's great, I'll take it. It'd be nice to release a movie for once without any hubbub around it. So, I'm not even going to tempt fate by pointing out what they could go after. All I know is that PETA signed off on our movie. That was one thing I was concerned about. I didn't want a bunch of people like, "Show respect for donkeys!" They were there on the set, they watched it when we were done. They gave us that "no animals were harmed... Maybe slightly embarrassed, but not harmed."

Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager (episode 1)

Life is hard when you're Darth Vader's less-talented, less-charismatic younger brother and you manage a grocery store.

Hu's On First

Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the White House today. The following conversation was overheard in the Oval Office this morning:

Aide: President Hu is here to see you, sir.

Bush: Who?

Aide: President Hu, the President of China

Bush: Who's the President of China?

Aide: Right. President Hu...

Bush: President Who?

Aide: Yes, that's who we're talking about.

Bush: Who are we talking about??

Aide: Correct. Now, as I was saying, President Hu...

Bush: Who's the President of What?

Aide: Hu's the President of China.

Bush: That's what I'm asking you!

Aide: Hu.

Bush: What?

Aide: No, Waat is the Ambassador from Egypt.

Bush: Who's from Egypt?

Aide: No, Hu's from China. Waat's from Egypt.

Bush: Where?

Aide: Wehr's from Germany.

Bush: Where's Germany?

Aide: Yes, Vice Chancellor Wehr is from Germany. Wehr is Germany.

Bush: That's what I was asking you.

Aide: Listen, it's simple. Hu is China, Waat is Egypt and Wehr is Germany.

Bush: I don't know...

Aide: Oh, Mr. Idanoe...he's your new press secretary!

Bush: Who's my new Press Secretary?

Aide: No, Hu's the President of China.

Bush: What? I told you I don't know!

Aide: Oh, you know Watt. He's from Egypt. He'll be here next week. He's coming with Secretary Wenn.

Bush: Who?

Aide: Not Hu, Watt. Watt and Wenn.

Bush: When?

Aide: Right, Watt is with Wenn.

Bush: What? When? How?

Aide: Oh, Admiral Howe -- He's next Thursday.

Bush: Where?

Aide: Yes, from Germany.

Bush: Let's start from the beginning: Who, what, when, where and how?

Aide: Exactly.

Bush: I'm confused.