The Cintelectual by Shahin Haghjou

SPIKE JONZE FROM SKATEBOARDING TO THE BIG SCREEN

BILL MURRAY INTERVIEW SPECIAL

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AMAZING BILL MURRAY INTERVIEW

THE COHEN BROTHERS CLASSICS

WOODY ALLEN CAREER LOOK BACK

RUFF N’ THOUGH MOVIE BAD BOYS

THE STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHEIF - GEORGE BUCKHEIM EDITORIAL DIRECTOR - SUSAN GREEN ART DIRECTOR - SHAHIN HAGHJOU ART EDITOR - JEN LARSSON PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR - ALBERT JAMES INTERN - MATTIAS LINDSTROM

THE BIG SPECIAL SPIKE JONZE

TALKS ABOUT HIS HUMBLE RISE TO FAME, FROM SKATEBOARDING TO THE BIG SCREEN

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" Well, you know, it’s kind of nice, and I think it’s going to be an annual thing where once every 25 years I get nominated."

negative or a mean thing. It’s just something that happens in life, like Autumn,” he adds, smilingly. While at the genesis of his suc-

cess, Murray was defined by his own blend of wry comedy, exemplified from Meatballs to Ghostbusters, but the Bill Murray on screen today, is older, wiser, and far more profound than the earlier, self-deprecating comic of Chicago’s Second City school of improvisation. Asked whether he is consciously entering a serious phase of his career, Murray glibly refers to it as his possible “blue period, but insists that his entire career has consisted of serious phases at one time or another, “if you take it seriously no matter if you’re doing high profile, dramatic pieces, like epics or not. That’s just a sort of perception but I’ve taken it all seriously, the work part of it, but you can’t take the response to it so seriously, that is the reaction to it. It’s pleasant when it’s good but you can’t get all bent out of shape if it’s not pleasant. I like the job, the actual shooting of movies, and when the camera rolls.”

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Bill Murray Interview by John Rubi

If there is one constant them in both Life Aquatic and Bill Murray’s previous foray into cinematic self-reflection, Lost in Translation, both characters reflect on their lives, in var ying fashions. Murray himself, who rarely does interviews these days, is not one to ponder over his own ‘life aquatic’, but sitting on a dais, simply attired in t-shirt and jeans, and in good humour, concedes that despite his early successes, he rarely gives much thought as to any kind of a legacy, and might even consider a career change at this point in his life. “I’ve had lots of things to do and I sort of thought about this a few years ago about: do I want to be a big movie star, and I didn’t really want to be one. I decided I wanted to live my life and see what happened there and at the same time, I take these jobs where you don’t necessarily get paid a lot of money but you work with people who

are good and you do what you want to do. I figured that one of these might be a hit one day and I’ll get whatever I need in terms of being noticed. And, you know, damned if this movie didn’t really do that. It did, but I made half a dozen, 7 or 8 movies in between that were all good but they just didn’t have it all work at once like that and I like working that way. I don’t like feeling the pressure of having to be the biggest star in the world and I’m trying to help this movie and talk about it. I don’t want to get stuck or feel desperate, It’s OK, I’ve had a great run and if I even changed careers, that would be an adventure too,” Murray says, philosophically, adding that he has been seriously thinking of a career change. “I’d like to write, that’s what I’d like to do,” but not the kind of writing one would necessarily expect. “I think I’d like to write a play which is always what I wanted to do,” Murray confesses. It was Sofia Coppola’s Oscar winning Lost in Translation, that managed to almost rejuvenate interest in Bill Murray, one of those “small movies” he refers to, that became a worldwide hit and garnered the actor a Best Actor Oscar nomination, an

" I ’ll fight it, but I won’t kill it. Now, what about my dynamite?"

event he looks back on with a certain gleeful cynicism. “Well, you know, it’s kind of nice, and I think it’s going to be an annual thing where once every 25 years I get nominated.” Perhaps he may not have to wait that long, if Academy voters are willing to embrace his Steve Zissou, a once famous mariner seeking revenge on the fish that killed his best friend, while at the same time trying to forge a relationship with a long lost son, played by Owen Wilson. It’s another unique character as part of the Murray-Wes Anderson school of the unconventional, but clearly actors love the chance to play them, Murray included. “These characters don’t have any controls on them, especially this fellow in Life Aquatic. He doesn’t have any censors that say the next thing you’re going to say might be bad behaviour, so you might want to hold that back and he just sort of lets go. There’s no governor here holding him back and all the emotions are expressed. He is hit, bang, and out it comes which is kind of fun to play. You don’t get to do that in life that often because you’re supposed to obey some rules of politeness or respect and we don’t have time for that in the movies. Wes wants to see the emotion right now so it’s kind of a treat to do that.”

Treat or not, The Life Aquatic was also Murray’s toughest film assignment to date, shot on location at sea in the heart of winter. “This is by far the hardest film I’ve ever done and the most physically and emotionally demanding, personally and professionally and I think the most ambitious,” admits the actor, adding he might have been more reticent to take this on, had it not been for director Anderson. “I mean, if you read the script and you didn’t know who was in charge, you would be much less confident. I sure as hell wouldn’t leave the country and go over there, for just anybody, because you’ve got to have some faith in who you’re with.” Described by his co-star Angelica Huston as a combination of melancholy and loveable, those extreme personality traits seem perfect for an actor playing characters imbued with extremes of humanity, and Murray does not necessarily disagree. “Well, that’s the trick isn’t it? How do you do it? If you’re really playing the game of life, you have these feelings, you get them and it’s how you come back with them. How you do it, is not necessarily re-act but what happens to you when you have a melancholy feeling? I think melancholy’s kind of sweet sometimes but it doesn’t mean it’s a

The Big Lebowski has been turned into a porn movie. When I think Big Lebowski, I think of sex. Maybe not. Sure it contains some nudity and there is a vaguely erotic scene in which a ferret meets up with a very naked Dude in a bathtub, but seriously, The Big Lebowski just isn’t sexy. Funny? Sure. Absolute genius? Hell yes. Sexy? Well at least not until now. Those hard working little lemurs in the porn industry have done the impossible, and turned The Big Lebowski into an adult film. I think it’s safe to say that the porn industry has officially gone too far this time.

The Apple iPad. Watch your movies on the new gadget everyone has been talking about. The international Release is this summer, however reports has been coming in from the states saying that the iPad is packed with the latest technologie making it next to perfect for movie lovers.

Murry holding back on the plans.

Is Murry being an jerk about Ghoastbusters III? Despite constant rumors to the contrary, there’s still been no progresson getting a Ghostbusters 3 actually made, with directors shuffling in and out and the script getting rewritten and, oh yeah, the original Ghostbusters balking at every turn. While Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis always seem happy to suit up for another goround, the sticking point has always been Bill Murray, a guy who has been more of a professional pain in the ass than an actor for the last decade. (Hey, more power to him. He’s earned the right to ignore us) Now gossip of Murray’s stubbornness has reached so far as a segment on the Howard Stern show. As recapped by Bloody Disgusting, National Enquirer gossip columnist Mike Walker visited Howard Stern and updated him on the behind-the-scenes drama of Ghostbusters 3: Dan Aykroyd called ‘ol pal and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murry and snarled ‘stop acting like a jerk’, “ Walker

Will the new iPad change the way we watch movies or is it just a publicity stunt pulled by Apple to sell more units? We asked people on the street and this is what they think. YES NO

reported. “Murray, despite agreeing to doing the film, has suddenly turned so cranky and mean [that] he refuses to answer phone calls.”Personally if Dan Aykroyd called me up, I’d do whatever he asked, but I understand that’s not how Murray’s mind operates. Since he’s apparently gotten his wish to appear only as a ghost in the film, it’s hard to imagine what the hold up is except Murray just dreading the inevitable. Given that we don’t even know who will play the new generation of ‘busters, I don’t think Murray is the only thing holding the movie up.

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Allen

Career Retrospective

What makes Allen's career different from all the rest? Despite constant rumors to the contrary, there’s still been no progresson getting a Ghostbusters 3 actually made, with directors shuffling in and out and the script getting rewritten and, oh yeah, the original Ghostbusters balking at every turn. Ever committed to nostalgia, Turner Classic Movies has brought reruns of the The Dick Cavett Show to its weekly schedule. The cable station presented a new episode, featuring the even-toned but engaging Cavett interviewing Mel Brooks, to re-introduce recently acquired film-related entries from the original 1970s series. The batch will leave film buffs drooling: included are personalities such as Bette Davis, Robert Mitchum, Groucho Marx, and Katharine Hepburn, but TCM also has the behind-the-camera masters Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Berman, and Orson Welles chatting on Cavett’s couch. (The series is now available on DVD.) The programmers made a wise move by nabbing a rare interview with Woody Allen, who has become a notorious recluse ever since his Cavett appearance and has taken one hell of a journey professionally (and, alas, privately). This 1971 interview captures Woody at a unique time: his hair had spro-uted long, he’d been through two marriages, and he was already a veteran of analysis. He discusses his films and shares his knowledge of the classics, but is ready to inform the audience that a recent sexual assault upon his ex-wife could not have been a “moving violation.” (No worries – the joke was one of many fictional bits he used during standup routines.) As a filmmaker, he showed an expertise with farcical material in Take the Money and Run and Bananas, both of

Manhattan 1979

Zelig

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10 Annie Hall

Stardust Memories 1980

The Purple Rose of Cairo 1985

Hannah & Her Sisters

Husbands & Wifes 1992

Radio Days 1987

Manhattan Murder Mystery

Deconstructing Harry 1997 11

ANNIE HALL

“I do want to make a serious movie one day.” which worked off his stand-up aesthetic that mixed low comedy with intellectual musings. The program even shows Allen promoting his first collection of comedy writings, Getting Even, which consists mostly of work written for The New Yorker. Allen fans will find a special treat when he picks up his clarinet to jam with a Dixieland outfit--but even moreso when he casually muses, “I do want to make a serious movie one day.” A renowned film expert even then, Allen hints toward his stock in the auteur theory when he describes his upcoming project, a film adaptation of his 1969 light stage comedy, Play It Again, Sam, as not “his work.” It would be directed by play-to-film specialist Herbert Ross from Allen’s script, though it feels a part of Allen’s canon. At the time of the interview he still had hilarious, breezy parodies of dystopia (1973’s Sleeper) and 19th-century Russia (Love and Death, 1975) ahead of him. But his script and performance in Play it Again preview how he would soon elevate his comic acumen into masterful studies of tragic romance. Though the story is thoroughly in Allen

territory, its setting is un-Woody. As Allan Felix (Woody in an early not-so-alter ego) walks the hilly city streets, modern viewers may expect him to yell into the camera, “What the hell am I doing in San Francisco?” The Play It Again production relocated there from Allen’s usual locale, New York, due to a strike of film personnel. There Allan Felix works as a film writer who immerses himself in the romantic ideals of Humphrey Bogart. The opening scene comically juxtaposes the sublime Bogey, offering advice and those classic lines to Ingrid Bergman at Casablanca’s closing, with an entranced Felix watching in a theater. We soon find him in an apartment practically wallpapered with Bogart, an ironic environs that sets up the center of the story: Allan’s lack of luck with the ladies. His luck has run short with his wife (Susan Anspach), who has left him for a man visualized by Allan as an Aryan biker. As the film develops with various comic bits, we realize that Woody has goals quite familiar to his work of the period: to entertain with elements from his standup routine. When Dick and Linda Christie (Tony Roberts and Diane Keaton--Sam was the first of many occasions for both to work with Allen) appear to console Allan, the latter throws one-liners up for everyone’s joy. “At night I used to lay

Allen's

FUTURE W

oody’s costars also share the fun when Keaton shows her own neurosis--“I’m experiencing The series could work as a little time capsule for children born after the cell phone boom. Robert’s Dick is preoccupied with his work, and thus leaves his wife comfortable but abandoned. As Linda spends more time with Allan--first helping him reenter the dating world, then going out with him platonically--the connection eventually grows into romance. Linda offers support to Allan even after his wackiest of come-ons to other women: “What are you doing Saturday night?” he asks a dark-clad hipster at a gallery, who replies, “committing suicide.” Allan, right in stride: “What are you doing Friday night?” Keaton plays naturally as a functioning neurotic next to a performer who was still making himself comfortable onscreen (though Woody’s quite at home with the wisecracks and visual gags, like when Allan suffers an avalanche of contents from a medicine cabinet). Though uneven, the performances find chemistry in that both characters capture a balanced mix of anxiety and concern about each other. But Allan isn’t in this thing alone. While pondering his love life, he sees the object of his fanaticism walking from the shadows of his apartment to address him. Soon Allan finds himself struggling with advice from Bogey (uncannily realized by Jerry Lacy), who has Allan’s situation all figured out in light of his gruff noir code. (The film’s title even quotes one of Bogart’s refrains in Casablanca.) Onscreen, Woody shines when dealing with the intruding Bogart, who offers advice when Allan is alone and when he is trying to score. Woody’s use of fantasy foreshadows his later successes with the genre,

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