Movies Plus - February 2009

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MOVIES PLUS FEBRUARY 2009 NUMBER 84 WWW.MOVIES.IE

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Bolt The Curious Case of Benjamin Button The Secret of Moonacre Punisher War Zone The Good, the Bad, the Weird He's Just Not That Into You Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Pink Panther 2 Hotel For Dogs Friday The 13th Notorious

Gran Torino Che - Part Two Confessions Of A Shopaholic Push Cadillac Records Franklyn The International The Unborn New In Town Doubt

The Secret Of Kells Watchmen American Teen The Young Victoria

6th FEB

13th FEB

20th FEB

27th FEB

6th MAR

Editor: Vincent Donnelly - Movieplus@gmail.com CREDITS

MOVIE CALENDAR - FEB 2009

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Extras: Paul McBride, Ian Finnerty Design: David Peckett & Vincent Donnelly Shop, Cafe, Bar Distribution: Micromedia Ltd + The Pictureworks Cinema Distribution: D Crowley, G Donnelly, C Bennett, E Zaidan

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Meet... Clive Owen Early Starter: Computer geeks may remember Owen from the days before he become a big screen success. He starred as the main character "Ser Lev Aris" in the 1996 game "Privateer 2: The Darkening”.

Birth Cert : Although his 'official' date of birth is 1964, the News of the World published a birth certificate stating it as 1962 as part of an article about the real age of movie stars.

Owen Plays Guitar : Owen is a huge Bowie fan and has called the singer, "the biggest musical influence on my life." In the 1970s, when Bowie was changing his appearance and style with every album, Owen would re-dye his hair whatever colour Bowie’s was at the time.

Romeo Romeo: He met his wife Sarah Jane Fenton on stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art when they were performing the title roles of "Romeo and Juliet." How romantic!

Clive Vs Craig: Back in 2005, Owen was voted the top choice to play 007 in “Casino Royale”.

The role eventually went to Daniel Craig.

Later, he lobbied for the role of Asriel in “The Golden Compass” but was, again, passed over in favour of Daniel Craig. Watch your back Clive!

Badger Phobic: In a recent newspaper interview Clive revealed that one of his biggest fears was badgers.

The International

Dublin Visit : Clive is visiting Dublin this month for the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival to discuss the Graphic Novel Genre of movies. Visit www.JDiff.com for more info.

Opens Feb 27th Full name: Clive Owen • Height: 6'2" Birthday: 3rd Oct 1964 • Born: Keresley, Coventry, UK

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BAFTA NOMINATIONS 11NOMINATIONS 13 OSCAR including BEST FILM BEST DIRECTOR David Fincher BEST ACTOR Brad Pitt

including BEST FILM BEST DIRECTOR David Fincher

BEST ACTOR Brad Pitt

“Moving and thoughtful, epic and intimate, Button offers life through different eyes.”

((((( EMPIRE

“A superbly told, genuinely beautiful film that will already take some beating for film of 2009.”

((((( ENTERTAINMENT.IE

“...A gorgeous epic that has Oscar written all over it.”

THE IRISH TIMES

d .

“An epic of rare craft and ambition. An astounding achievement.”

(((( TOTAL FILM

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IN CINEMAS EVERYWHERE FEB 6

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celebrity and Every month we profile a different on’s movieget the low down on the nati we profile watching habits. This month the Jameson of tor direc ys, phre Hum Grainne g place takin ival Fest nal Dublin Internatio a full list from Feb 12th to Feb 22nd. For com of movies visit http://www.JDiff. a h film?

M+ How often to you get to watc h , I watc As festival director of the JDIFF attending movies all year round, as well as watch a lot film festivals every 2 months, I hundreds of new Irish work as well as the al each of films submitted to the festiv ends, week year. And then of course, I go at and check to keep up with current releases enjoying. out what Dublin audiences are

never sit M+: What movie could you n? saw? agai you e ugh movi thro I M+ Tell us about the last , I should be There were a couple of short films With the festival about to start terrible that we so ge, colle the in saw on I ed when work but , getting to bed early age Don’t Look couldn’t even bear to watch the foot opening frames of the classic ed. while we were editing, never mind the hook was I , night rday Satu on Now late e has finished film. is Nicolas Roeg’s best film, Venic It and Julie never been captured so well well worth Christie and Donald Sutherland, staying up until 3.30.

movie?

M+ What is your favourite Irishthis years

There are some fantastic films in and some festival; shorts, documentaries ult to name fantastic feature films. Its diffic I return to a single Irish film; some films The Butcher again and again, My Left Foot, me tomorBoy, Adam and Paul, Once, ask row and I will have another list!

M+ Do you have a favourite movie? ie and lly fluctuate between Bonn

I usua then I love Clyde and La Dolce Vita, but my college When Harry Met Sally. I did vetes and thesis on the films of John Cassa I’m forFaces is a fantastic film, but then West. the getting out Once Upon a Time in

a movie?

M+: Have you ever cried during Clint I cried at the end of the new a fantasEastwood film Gran Torino, it’s final tic film, with a really beautiful heart sequence, it’s a thriller with a huge over the and when the music started down my final credits, the tears started face. movie M+: Who would play you in the adaptation of your life?

I would People have said Debra Winger, as Nora love Rosalind Russell. However, make a Ephron has suggested if they one permovie of your life there is only yourson who can play you better than self and that’s Meryl Streep.

HTTP ://WW W.JD IFF.C OM TO BOOK TICK ETS VISIT

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theinternational-movie.co.uk

AT CINEMAS FEBRUARY 27

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MOVIE SPOTLIGHT Words: Paul McBride

Vicky Cristina Barcelona Director: Woody Allen Cast: Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson

Comedy drama from Woody

T o B

Allen concerning two

D

young women with quite

C C T

different personalities (one sensible, one impetuous) who are

M

spending a summer in

d

Spain. The friends fall in

c

with a charming painter and romance beckons

a h b

but his stormy ex-wife

li

crashes into the story.

w a

M+ Fact: Woody Allen has

b

been Oscar-nominated

M

14 times for best original

f

screenplay, more than

-

anyone else.

F

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de

Notorious The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Friday the 13th Director: Marcus Nispel Danielle Panabaker,

Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton

Travis van Winkle

character is born an old man and ages backwards so that he gets younger as time goes

Derek Luke, Angela Bassett

Dramatisation of the life of Christopher Wallace,

Jason Vorhees, the demonic killer who first appeared in

drama in which the central

Cast: Jamal Woolard,

Cast: Jared Padalecki,

Director: David Fincher

Multi-Oscar nominated fantasy

Director: George Tillman Jr.

the 1980 original Friday the 13th, is back again to murder and terrorise a group of young people at Camp Crystal.

who transformed himself from a drug-seller on the streets of Brooklyn (for which he did time in prison) to the successful

by. The film charts his eventful

A party of friends gather for

rap artist, Notorious B.I.G.

life, including his relationship

a weekend of sex, drugs

(Biggie Smalls), who was

with lifelong friend Daisy,

and booze, not realising the

famously murdered in 1997.

although they are only

terror that awaits.

briefly the same age.

M+ Fact: This is David Fincher’s first film to get a PG-13 rating - his previous films include Fight Club and Se7en.

M+ Fact: Derek Duke won an

M+ Fact: This is the twelfth

Independent Spirit award as

film in the Friday the 13th

best actor in 2003, four years

franchise, the last being

after waiting tables at the

Freddy vs Jason in 2003.

same event.

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Push Confessions

of a Shopaholic Director: P.J. Hogan

The International Director: Tom Twyker

Goodman’s first job was as a bouncer.

Dakota Fanning

Sci-fi thriller about a group of young people with Globe-trotting thriller about an American and a European

M+ Fact: Hefty actor John

Djimon Hounsou,

Naomi Watts

Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack,

Comedy from the director of the hit, Muriel’s Wedding.

Adapted from a successful ‘chick-lit’ novel, the story concerns a young woman journalist living in New York whose addiction to shopping means she can’t help living beyond her means. Attempts to spend less or to earn more money fail miserably.

Cast: Camilla Belle,

Cast: Clive Owen,

Cast: Isla Fisher, John Goodman

Director: Paul McGuigan

clairvoyant, telepathic and telekinetic powers who are

law enforcement agent who unite to try to bring down one of the world’s biggest banks when they discover

being pursued by a secret government agency called the Division. They are forced

that it has been involved in

to unite and pool their

a range of illegal activities,

special abilities to secure

including money laundering

their freedom.

and political manipulation.

M+ Fact: Djimon Hounsou M+ Fact: Clive Owen is a huge David Bowie fan and once went through a phase of regularly changing his hair colour to match that of his idol.

lived homeless in Paris for a time as a young man but was discovered by fashion designer Thierry Mugler and became a model.

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d

SOUNDTRACK OUT JAN 26th FEATURING THE MASSIVE ‘BROOKLYN GOES HARD’ WITH JAY-Z

IN CINEMAS FEBRUARY 13

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He may still look like your quintessential Hollywood heartthrob but Brad Pitt insists he has at least one wrinkle for every one of his six kids and at least a couple more for Angelina Jolie. Despite the pressures of his fame and family and being in his mid-forties Brad easily qualifies as a rival to Hugh Jackman when it comes to that coveted world’s sexiest man title.

But Brad has aging on his mind at the moment. His new movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, sees the actor as a warped version of how he might look when Angelina is wheeling him around their Hollywood retirement home. The film tells the story of Benjamin Button - a man born in his eighties and who ages backwards. Cate Blanchett plays the woman who befriends and falls in love with Button as he grows from elderly child to childlike old man. Brad’s performance has created almost as much buzz as Angelina’s in Changeling and it is no surprise that the couple will walk arm-in-arm down the red carpet on Oscar night as fellow nominees.

Q: Benjamin Button has been creating a big buzz. Why do you think that is?

A: I think because it deals with those things that unite us all - our loves and our losses and the fact that it’s all impermanent. We’re all just pictures in a photograph at the end and even those get destroyed so… But it’s a lovely film. I’m very happy about it.

Q: How was it seeing yourself aged in this movie?

A: I was fine with it. Obviously this is a strange twist on the aging process but it was fun to do.

Q: So getting older doesn’t bother you?

A: No. I’m interested in old age. I feel like I’ve earned it actually (laughs). I don’t mind aging.

Q: Do you think there is less pressure on men to stay looking young compared to women in Hollywood?

A: I guess there is and it’s not necessary.

I don’t think anyone should feel under

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pressure to not age gracefully.

Q: Do you think having kids keeps you young?

A: No. It wears you out. Are you kidding (laughs)? I’m aging fast but it’s worth every second.

Q: Is it true that your daughter Shiloh has a secret cameo in this movie?

A: It is. She is in one scene. Babies can be difficult because they are in a scene and they can be crying so we made an emergency call and she came down for one scene to help us out.

Q: Are you surprised at the level of interest there is in your family?

A: Well, I think we are an interesting family.

It’s not your usual family. I’m quite interested in my family actually (laughs). I don’t see it as anything less than a compliment. I’m really proud of this family. I look at my sons and my daughters, one’s from Vietnam, one’s from Cambodia, one’s from Ethopia. Then there’s this kid who was born in Namibia and they’re all playing like brothers and sisters. They’re fighting, they’re laughing, they’re staying up late and they’re messing with their parents and driving me crazy but I feel rich. I truly feel rich being around them. It’s a rich home and each one of them offers so much to the mix.

Surprisingly though six kids is not as easy as you might think (laughs).

Q: You shot some incredible pictures of Angelina breastfeeding for a magazine spread recently. What made you decide to do that?

A: I just wanted to capture a side of Angie that’s so warm and big and that you rarely get to see with all the celebrity stuff. She does that really well too though (laughs).

Q: Does taking pictures like that make you any more comfortable with the paparazzi?

A: No. Let me be very blunt: I hate them.

I hate these people. I don’t understand why they do that for a living. We have got to make a distinction between people who photograph celebrities at events and

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people who climb over your walls wearing camouflage, calling out your kids’ names as you’re trying to take them to school so they’ll look the right way. I have no respect for these people. I do not like them. I don’t understand how they can live that way. There should be laws against it. They shouldn’t be able to follow kids like this.

Q: You’re obviously a very private person but yet you flirt publicity at times. How do you balance the two?

A: Well, it’s like the pictures we did. Ange and I talked a lot about that. With the pictures of the kids, there’s a bounty on our heads and these pictures are going to come out at some point. They’re going to be chasing us and going to the ends for the Earth to get these photos. We just thought because there is such a bounty we could take that money and funnel it to something good. It’s still a bit

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uncomfortable to do that kind of thing but that’s what we decided to do.

Q: Finally, what are your thoughts on President Obama?

A: Oh man. I think over night we have redefined what America is all about.

I couldn’t be any happier and more hopeful for the upcoming years.

Word: Hilary Morgan The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is at cinemas from Feb 6th

Chat with other movie fans on the Discussion Forums on Movies.ie

S

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“A SEXY, SASSY MOVIE” STYLE MAGAZINE

“ WINNING COMEDY”

++++ HEAT

A new job?

Hopefully.

A new man?

Possibly.

A new handbag?

Absolutely!

CONFESSIONS OF A

SHOPAHOLIC CERT TBC

FROM THE BEST-SELLING NOVEL

IN CINEMAS WED FEB 18

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15A www.ifco.ie

IN CINEMAS FEBRUARY 20

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It’s that time of year again, the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is back to brighten up the dullest time of year with a wealth of classic cinema, international guests and special events.

Tickets are on sale right now for over 100 movies from many different genres, picking the right one might be difficult so below we’ve highlighted just some of the must-see’s from the lineup, for a full list visit http://www.Jdiff.com

The Class

is driving their daughters home, she becomes momentarily distracted. Disaster strikes. Left in a fog of grief, Joe decides to accept a position teaching in Italy. He hopes the change of setting will help to pull both him and his daughters from the limbo of their bereavement.

Special Guests: Colin Firth will be attending this screening

Coraline 3D Winner of the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2008, “The Class” is based on an autobiographical novel by Francois Begaudeau, a drama that follows the year in the life of a French schoolteacher working at a high-school in a tough neighbourhood of Paris. Ethnicities, cultures and attitudes often clash in the classroom. As amusing and inspiring as the teenage students can be, their difficult behavior can still jeopardize any teacher’s enthusiasm for the low-paying job. Francois insists on an atmosphere of respect and diligence. Neither stuffy nor severe, his extravagant frankness often takes the students by surprise. But his classroom ethics are put to the test when his students begin to challenge his methods.

Special Guests: Director Laurent Cantet will be attending this screening.

The first ever high definition, stop-motion animated feature to be shot in 3-D, Coraline is based on Neil Gaiman’s international best-selling book and is helmed by ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ director Henry Selick. In the film, a young girl (voiced by Dakota Fanning) walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life.

Five Minutes Of Heaven Genova Joe (Colin Firth) is an Englishman raising his family in the United States. One day as his wife (Hope Davis)

Five Minutes of Heaven traces the lives of two Ulstermen; one a murderer, the other the brother of the man he killed. Since 1975 each of these two have

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lived in dread of encountering the other. One, Alistair, feels he dare not ask forgiveness, the other, Joe, feels incapable of giving it. When they do eventually meet, Joe is armed and on the point of having his revenge, when something extraordinary happens – something that will change the rest of their lives.

Special Guests: Colin Firth will be attending this screening

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Anvil the story of Anvil

Confessions of a shopaholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic is an adaptation of the novels ‘The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic’

by British chick lit author Sophie Kinsella. In the glamorous world of New York City, Rebecca Bloomwood is a fun-loving girl who is really good at shopping-a little too good, perhaps. She dreams of working for her favourite fashion magazine, but can’t quite get her foot in the door-until ironically, she snags a job as an advice columnist for a financial magazine published by the same company. As her dreams are finally coming true, she goes to ever more hilarious and extreme efforts to keep her past from ruining her future.

Let the Right One In (Låt Den Rätte Komma In) Possibly the most anticipated Swedish movie of all time? Let The Right One In is a story both violent and highly romantic, set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982. Oskar, a bullied 12-year old, dreams of revenge. He falls in love with Eli, a peculiar girl. She can’t stand the sun or food and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other peoples blood to live he’s faced with a choice. How much can love forgive?

Formed in Toronto by two school friends, Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner, the band gained some fans and respect by their second album, 1982’s Metal on Metal, but from there they drifted into obscurity. Now in their 50s, the two men are touchingly still dedicated to following their rock dreams, even as each glimmer of encouragement they get is being snuffed out. Filmmaker Sacha Gervasi is allowed incredible access to the band, portraying their eccentricities, anxieties, confrontations and meltdowns with frankness, but never without affection.

Special Guests: Anvil will be attending this screening.

The Secret Of Kells

Set in 9th century Ireland, the film opens in the fortified Kells Abbey, whose outer walls provide the last line of defence against the omnipresent danger of invasion by the Vikings, while also acting as a frustrating limit to the playground of our hero, a twelve-year-old boy named Brendan (Evan McGuire).

His uncle, the stern, forbidding Abbott Cellach (Brendan Gleeson) rules the abbey with an iron rod but despite this, young Brendan finds a new source of fun and friendship with Brother Aidan (Mick Lally) and his motley crew of illuminators who work on the abbey’s greatest treasure The Book of Kells.

Special Guests: Brendan Gleeson will be attending this screening For the full lineup visit http://www.Jdiff.com

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Possibly no other movie is acclaimed enough to launch this years Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. Doubt has five Oscar nominations, including best Actress (Meryl Streep) She’ll be 60 in June, but Meryl Streep has never been busier. Or more box-office. Paul Byrne spoke to the acting legend about this years festival opener...

For most actors, having the safety net of another take is a major comfort. For some, it’s pretty much crucial.

With Meryl Streep - a 40-year veteran of stage and screen - you get the sense that she believes in the first take always being the deepest.

And that’s why she relished shooting Doubt, Irish-American playwright John Patrick Shanley’s big-screen adaption of his own Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 play.

Set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, Streep plays the sternly traditional Sister Aloysius, quickly convinced - after conflicted Judas, Sister James (Amy Adams), voices her suspicions - that liberal Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) may have been a little too close to one of the students.

It’s a film full of sideways glances, growing frustration and seething confrontations, but Streep clearly loved the closeted intensity. And the long, long takes. Oh, and getting to psyche the hell out of Hoffman. By muttering, before certain takes, “I’m going to kick his butt”, just loud enough for her co-star - and everyone else present - to hear.

“Well, you’ve got to have your fun, haven’t you,” smiles the 59-year old actor when I caught up with her last week at Claridge’s Hotel in London.

“You have to get yourself to that place where you feel completely in tune with your character. Every man for himself, and all that. Besides, Sister Aloysius was very, very keen to kick Father Flynn’s butt.”

It helped too that, as with the original Broadway production, Shanley only told the actor playing Father Flynn exactly what did go on down in the rectory between the priest and the boy.

“That’s a wonderful move, because I never knew if this guy was truly guilty or not,” says Streep,“and neither does the audience, of course. It keeps you on your toes, looking for any telltale signs in the person’s responses, in their behaviour. That was incredibly helpful.”

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And it was those long, long takes - thanks in part to the film’s small budget, and extremely tight shooting schedule - that thrilled Streep too. Most actors would buckle under such pressures, but not our Meryl. She is, after all, getting pretty darn good at this acting lark.

“Oh, it’s like food. The scenes that we were allowed to play out in this screenplay were unusual. They’re unusual in letting you have ten minutes of that camera running, and we didn’t have the money, or time, to labour over any of it. They didn’t have time to take it all into the editing room and make the performances there. We knew that these scenes would often play just as they did, in one.

“And so, yeah, that charges you up, and it’s sort of as exciting as when the curtain lifts and you go out and do a play. It’s not often that way in film.

Film is shot in little increments, and so, you can just achieve a very short thing. But this was more substantial...”

That rather fine Glasgow comedian Billy Connolly once said that the Queen must think everywhere outside of the Palace smells like paint, given that those expecting her visit will always have just spruced the place up. For Meryl Streep, regarded by many as our greatest living actress, there’s no doubt a similar sense of the air being changed simply by her arrival, no moreso than on a film set?

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying,” she says. “There is an expectation, but it just dissipates almost immediately when I forget my lines. Which I do, by the second day.And everybody really relaxes, because they start whispering, ‘Oh, she’s not so great’.”

Streep lets out a laugh.

“But, you know, what can I say? I’m really glad be regarded - highly regarded - in my profession, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m still here.”

Another laugh.

“But it’s great. I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Unlike just about all of her 1970s contemporaries, Meryl Streep is currently enjoying some of the best reviews, and the best box-office, of her career.

Outings such as The Devil Wears Prada, A Prairie Home Companion, Mamma Mia! (the runaway success of 2008) and now Doubt have Streep

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covering just about every angle, satisfying both the show and the business sides of this game.

Compare that to her male counterpart, Robert De Niro. The Queen Bee of cinema acting has gone from strength to strength over the last decade (after floundering in the early ‘90s, with such shamelessly commercial turkeys as She-Devil and Death Becomes Her), whereas cinema’s King Bee has all but retired from serious acting, De Niro having long ago decided that branding - and self-parodying comedic turns - are far more rewarding than pushing himself as an actor.

“Part of it with Bob is that he’s a producer now,” says Streep, coming to her old buddy’s defence.

“He runs Tribeca Films, he runs the Tribeca Film Festival. I’m two things - I’m an actor and a mother, and those are two gigantic jobs, but I can’t imagine taking on what Bob’s ambitions are.

That’s a lot of work.”

Streep takes a moment to think about De Niro’s recent screen output, keen to point out that he’s still a great actor.

“It seems invisible, you don’t see it. But I see it...”

There goes that laugh again.

“He’s a friend. My challenges have always come from acting. I’ve never done anything else - never directed, never produced. Just acted; that’s my kick. And I love it. And I am amazed by the fact that I’m still getting things.”

It’s incredible, indeed. Jump back a decade or two, and the mantra from the leading ladies of the day was the injustice of being practically retired by Hollywood once they hit their forties. They needn’t have worried.

The likes of Streep, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Charlotte Rampling and Catherine Deneuve are rarely off our screens these days, and they’re not just there to play Jessica Alba’s faded mum either.

“I think about Bette Davis, in her waning heyday” muses Streep, “All About Eve, when she’s playing a washed-up actress - she was nineteen years younger than I am now. She was forty. And when she played in those ghoulish movies with Joan Crawford; Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte... she was nine years younger than I am now.

“The idea that I could have a love scene with Pierce Brosnan this last year,” Streep laughs, “it’s

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wonderful. It’s a signal that the world is changing, a little bit. There’s not a million movies out there where that happens, so, certainly, Mamma Mia! took everybody by surprise. Not those of us who made it, because there is a sizeable audience that really does think you’re not dead at forty...”

Our time is just about up, so, I squeeze in the Oirish question. It’s been 11 years since Streep played Kate Mundy, the eldest of five spinster sisters living a proper 1930s Donegal life in the big-screen adaptation of Brian Friel’s Dancing At Lughnasa. Has Streep managed to get back to Ireland much since that 10-week shoot deep in the heart of Wicklow’s wild and windy Sally Gap? “It sounds terrible, but anytime I travel now, it tends to be business,” she says, with just a tint of sadness. “I was there not so long ago, to help raise funds for the Metropolitan Arts Centre in Belfast, but, as to having time to look around, that’s been almost impossible of late.

“I’ll have to wait until this career of mine suffers a major slump. When you see me walking along the Cliffs of Moher, you’ll know I must be finally resting in-between jobs...”

Doubt opens this years Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and opens nationwide in Irish cinemas everywhere on Feb 27th

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SEE IT IN FEB 6 www.boltmovie.ie G

PAID PREVIEWS FEB 7&8 IN CINEMAS FEB 13 © Disney Enterprises, Inc. Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, UK

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ZACK Snyder faced the biggest challenge of his career when he was asked to direct an adaptation of Watchmen, the award-winning graphic novel

by Alan Moore. The story about super heroes living in an alternative 1980s America had intrigued Hollywood, but the consensus was that it was unfilmable. Indeed, as 42 year-old Snyder - the director of smash-hit 300 - points out, by the time it came to him, Watchmen had been turned down by every studio. “Every studio was like, ‘Giant graphic novel? No. ‘You can’t get Arnold Schwarzenegger? No,’” says Snyder.

When he was approached to gauge his interest, the director was working on the post-production for 300. When he got the phone call, the last thing that Snyder was contemplating was taking on a mammoth movie project like Watchmen.

Although he was very familiar with the original graphic novel, he was within a hairsbreadth of rejecting the offer. “At first I thought, ‘Do you think I’m masochistic? I’m having a hard enough time with 300.’ But I went and took the meeting,” he recalls.

At that point, Snyder discovered that the studio held very different visions about how a film of Watchmen, originally set in a 1980s where Nixon is still in power, America has won the Vietnam War and there is a growing threat of a nuclear holocaust, ought to take shape. “They said, ‘We’d like to make this about the war on terror’; their script was already taking place in the present day.

And they said ‘Make sure it’s PG-13, and if it’s an hour, 40mins that would be cool.’ They already thought the script was long at 109 pages!”

But Snyder was determined that his vision should remain true to Alan Moore’s story. “When I got the script I said, ‘No to the war on terror - it’s got to be the Cold War. It’s got to be 1985 and it’s got to be R-rated.’ When I finished, we had a 167-page script that we got to shooting. I’d almost doubled the length of the studio’s script,” he says.

“And, to the studio’s credit, when they saw the three hour cut, they were pretty cool with me not knowing how to make it any shorter. They were like, ‘Ouch! What the hell is this? This isn’t what we asked for?’ Not in a bad way. It was more like, ‘We didn’t know how intrinsic this was to the story.’”

Snyder reckons there are several reasons why

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Words: John Millar

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Watchmen had been hailed as the great unfilmable movie. Firstly, there was the very obvious fact that Watchmen is deeper, darker and more complex than your run-of-the-mill comic book.

“When it came out, Watchmen created a revolution in the comic book world because it basically had taken everything that people knew about comic book super heroes, and made them into realistic characters. It took the situations that people would normally attribute to comic books and made those situations say something about society and politics,” says Snyder. “This was something that comic books hadn’t done before. It also took the morality of being a superhero, what it means to be a vigilante and to enforce your version of justice onto someone, and push it all the way.

“When Alan Moore said that superheroes were a part of our society and real, he took a leap that led him to the moral and mythological conclusions that the book makes.

“Why was that hard to film? Well, because all those things Moore successfully did, and the length is considerable. I think that Hollywood has struggled with it for numerous reasons. One, the intellectual property; two, the length; three, the time period.”

On top of that, Snyder believes there were other reasons why the movie hadn’t been made.

“Regime changes at the studios, politics, things of that nature,” he says. “I think it’s been a fortunate thing we’ve ended up with this unfilmable motion picture that we filmed anyway.”

Another major attraction for Snyder was that the story of Watchmen is dark, sexy, and morally dangerous.”Yeah, when I finished the first pass of

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the movie, the first thing the studio said was that it was too long, too sexy and too violent. And I thought, ‘But that’s a reason to go, isn’t it?’”

“I am interested in those things, but with Watchmen, I wanted to make a movie that was relevant to a modern audience. It deals with, and takes apart, all of what I would now consider clichés.

“My mother, for instance, knows that Superman has a fortress of solitude and that Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider. These are things that are in the culture now, and I think that Alan’s able, with the graphic novel, to take those things apart and say what is the ‘why’ of our mythology. If these characters represent our mythology as a society, to deconstruct the myth tells us about ourselves.”

With 300, Snyder proved that he was gifted at handling the visceral side of movie making. Now, in Watchmen, he is allowed to spread his wings and show just how adept he is with story and character.

“It is a story and character movie, in the end,” says the director. “I am a little tiny bit of an action geek, I will admit, but when I think about movies and telling a story, I have a very immediate connection with sound and music and pictures, and it’s an instinctive reaction to want to put them together.

The scale of Watchmen is huge, with sets ranging from Antarctica to Mars. It is no surprise to discover that this is the biggest movie of Snyder’s career.“For sure it is,” he says, with a grin. “It’s quadruple the size of anything I’ve done before …just in terms of sets and spectacle and scale of emotion. It certainly is the biggest thing I’ve done.”

Watchmen opens in Irish cinemas on March 6th

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DVD - New Releases Hunger The last months in the life of IRA figurehead Bobby Sands, who starved himself to death as a protest against the British government's intransigence over recognizing convicted IRA members as political prisoners, is harrowingly recounted in Steve McQueen’s “Hunger”. Yet, for his feature debut McQueen does not lead his audience on a typical retelling (the strike itself is a relatively brief component of this multi-faceted and deeply engrossing drama).

Instead much of the story focuses on the prisoners and prison guards at Her Majesty’s Prison Maze. Bereft of words, we follow the daily lives of both parties; from the prison guards checking for bombs in their cars to the faeces and maggot ridden cells the prisoners must dwell within. Slowly, we register the presence of the cellblock’s most famous inmate, Bobby Sands, who, desperate for change and public awareness declares a hunger strike. McQueen and Enda Walsh’s script saves its words for one still and conversation-heavy scene where a priest (Liam Cunningham) tries to convince Sands (Michael Fassbender) that certain suicide is the coward’s way out. Consistently powerful and a harrowing, “Hunger” is a difficult yet rewarding watch.

Step Brothers

From the comedy duo behind Ron Burgundy comes yet another crass comedy classic in the form of “Step Brothers”. Having no doubt sensed their chemistry in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”, director Adam McKay reunites the perfectly paired Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (Reilly) - two feckless live-at-home forty-year old men, who become competitive stepbrothers when their single parents (played brilliantly by recent Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins and Back to the Future’s Mary Steenburgen) find love and get married. Admittedly the film is light on plot but what follows is two hours of madcap antics with Brennan and Dale playing increasingly mean-spirited pranks on one another. It may not achieve the comic heights of Ferrell’s “Anchorman” but “Step Brothers” is certainly up there in its creatively crass execution of a funny idea.

Cloverfield There Will Be Blood

Atonement

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Sweeney Todd

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I Am Legend

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American Gangster

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DVD - New Releases Burn After Reading After winning a packet of Oscars with the magnificently murderous "No Country for Old Men", the Coen Brothers might understandably choose to follow it up with something lighter, something funnier, something… a little less blood? The result is “Burn After Reading” an intricate (not to mention farcical) plot following two would-be blackmailers (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt), a couple of baffled CIA Agents and one brazen adulterer (George Clooney) at large on the Washington, D.C., dating scene. While it is neither an instant classic like their most recent success nor a psychedelic playground like “The Big Lebowski”, “Burn After Reading” is held together by the sheer will of its talented ensemble cast, all of whom appear to relish this opportunity to get a lil’ goofy.

Changeling Take a true story, mix in a well-known award-winning director and finally, add a star of grand magnitude and what you have (in theory) is one serious Oscar contender. Or so we all thought of Clint Eastwood’s latest film “Changeling”, the story of a real-life crime case that rocked California nearly eighty years ago. “Changeling” stars Hollywood heavyweight Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a young single mother, whose son was abducted from their home, and whose subsequent efforts to find him led her to being abused, arrested and imprisoned by the local law enforcers when she refuses to accept the child returned is her son. With a humdinger of a story, it’s hard to understand how Eastwood’s latest effort could have gone so sadly wrong but despite being professionally made, “Changeling” lacks the emotional punch of the story it is based upon.

The House Bunny Airhead blonde Shelley (Anne Faris) is an orphan who was never adopted, but at 17 went to live in the Playboy Mansion. Ten years on, she's asked to move out (after all, 27 is 59 in bunny years), and stumbles upon a sorority in need of a house-mother. Shelley adopts the group of misfit girls and "skimpifies" them into popular hotties in an effort to keep their house from closing. She also starts to fall for a nice guy (Hanks) for a change, and tries to smarten up a bit at university. Sound familiar? Well yes, this bunny com-rom is essentially a rehash of Legally Blonde. Fortunately, Faris creates a deeply likeable bimbo who seems as surprised to discover her own depth as everyone around her.

Words : Ian Finnerty

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WATCHMEN ing ance Screen HMEN is set in Special Adv phic novel, WATC

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