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32 Views
20:27:38 12/10/11
Sony VAIO S Series Review and Giveaway
[LESS INFO] 32 VIEWS | ADDED 20:27:38 12/10/11
"http://lockergnome.com/subscribe/ - We're giving away a Sony Vaio S Series laptop to one lucky subscriber of the of the LockerGnome newsletter. To qualify, all you need to do is subscribe to our newsletter by clicking the link at the top of this description. The Sony Vaio S Series is a line of battery-efficient laptops made for general purpose use. With up to 14 hours of battery life, the S Series is a capable business and consumer laptop that has enough processing power to handle just about anything you can throw at it. Not interested in a new laptop? We're also giving away a DSC-WX9 Sony Cyber-Shot digital camera to another random subscriber of our newsletter. You can find out more about the VAIO S series here: http://go.tagjag.com/vaiosseries Not interested in waiting for the giveaway to get your hands on a Sony DSC-WX9 camera digital camera? Here's where you can pick one up: http://go.tagjag.com/dscwx9 You can watch the entire live TLDR episode here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjJBRZk7N1Q http://www.lockergnome.com/subscribe/ https://profiles.google.com/chris.pirillo http://twitter.com/ChrisPirillo http://www.facebook.com/chrispirillo"
20 Views
20:34:12 09/25/11
Love The Girl staring Tatyana Ali and Alphonso McAuley, Produced by Bentley Evans
[LESS INFO] 20 VIEWS | ADDED 20:34:12 09/25/11
Brought to you by www.icplaces.com
Steve Samblis’ Blog @ The Mevio Men Blog: http://meviomen.mevio.com
Check out other IC Places shows...
The Instant Movie Review: http://moviereviews.mevio.com
1st Look: http://1stLook.Mevio.com
icTrailers: http://Trailers.Mevio.com
IC Places Sports: http://icSports.Mevio.com
icMusic: http://icMusic.Mevio.com
Weekly IcNews Wrap: http://icNews.Mevio.com
Cooking For Bachelors: http://CookingForBachelors.Mevio.com
The Home Entertainment Review: http://dvdReview.Mevio.com
The Two Min Investor: http://investing.Mevio.com
Steve Samblis had a chance to talk with Bentley Evans, creator of the show and its hilarious co-star Alphonso McAuley. This is the first episode IC Places has shot at its new studios in Hollywood.
About the show:
Tatyana Ali stars as Tyana Jones in the new series Love That Girl ! Tyana is a recent young divorcee returning to Southern California in search of new independence, a new career and a brand new chapter in her life.
After settling into her new condo, located in the hip NoHo discrict of Los Angeles, Tyana gets a surprise visit from her brother Latrell Jones (Alphonso McAuley), an aspiring stand-up comedian, who insists he's just there to stay one night, even though his bags suggests a much longer stay. Tyana's tough-loving father, Delroy Jones (Phil Morris) is happy to have his daughter closer to home and ecstatic when he discovers that his "Baby Girl" is planning to follow in his professional footsteps with a career in Real Estate. That is, until he learns of her plans to work for his competition. Tyana's new move reconnects her with old friends, especially her best friend Nefertiti (Kendyl) who is happily single and ready to help her friend get her groove back.
She's smart, sexy and ready to get her life back in order. It's Tyana's world and they all Love That Girl !
About TV One:
Launched on Martin Luther King's birthday in January 2004, TV One is a fast growing cable network that now serves 54 Million households. Combining hit sitcoms, big studio movies, irrverent reality television and newsworthy specials, TV One delivers real life and entertainment programming from the African American point of view. TV One represents a connection to the authentic, rich, and diverse experience of African American life, history, and culture.
TV One is best known for its signature programming brand, Unsung . Launched in November 2008 the music biography series, that tells the untold stories of the greatest R%B and soul artists of our time, was an instant hit and helped define TV One as a trusted storyteller and voice of black culture. The 2010 debut of LisaRaye: The Real McCoy and Love That Girl , TV One's first scripted series, established TV One as a home for black hollywood stars and put the network on a new programming trajectory. TV One continues to be a unique partner for institutional African American brands such as Essence with our exclusive broadcast of TV One Night Only: Live from Essence Music Festival .
In December 2008, TV One launched TV One High Def, which now serves more than 10.3 million households. TV One is a joint venture owned by Radio One [NASDAQ: ROIA and ROIAK; www.radio-one.com ], the largest radio company that primarily targets African American and urban listeners; and Comcast Corporation [NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK); www.comcast.com ], one of the nation's leading providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services.
The cast of Love The Girl:
Created by: Bentley Kyle Evans Full Series Cast Episode
Count Year
Range STARmeter™
Mark Adair-Rios ... Adonis 12 (2010-2011) 29,951
Tatyana Ali ... Tyana Jones 5 (2010-2011) 2,291
Kendyl Joi ... Nefertiti 5 (2010-2011) 86,269
Alphonso McAuley ... Latrell 5 (2010-2011) 16,793
Peter Oldring ... Fabian 5 (2010-2011) 18,716
Bresha Webb 5 (2010-2011) 54,360
Phil Morris ... Delroy Jones 4 (2010) 7,482
Trae Ireland ... Jason Campbell / Jason campbell 2 (2010-2011) 71,964
Jeanne Chinn ... Arthea 2 (2010) 37,042
Tabitha Taylor ... Becky 2 (2010) 11,343
Series Directors
Bentley Kyle Evans (6 episodes, 2010-2011)
Series Writers
Bentley Kyle Evans (4 episodes, 2010)
Series Producers
Jeff Clanagan ... associate producer (6 episodes, 2010)
Bentley Kyle Evans ... executive producer (5 episodes, 2010)
Anastasia N. Ali ... producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Tatyana Ali ... producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Terry Crotzer ... line producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Nile Evans ... associate producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Stacey Lyn Evans ... supervising producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Jeff Franklin ... executive producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Richard Gumbs III ... producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Trenten Gumbs ... executive producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Martin Lawrence ... executive producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Raphael Saadiq ... executive producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Eric Upshur ... line producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Lamonte Von Evans ... associate producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Kevin Columbus ... associate producer (2 episodes)
Series Cinematographers
Scott Webb (7 episodes, 2011)
Conrad Montgomery (2 episodes, 2010)
Series Editors
Josie Azzam (5 episodes, 2011)
Evan Schrodek (5 episodes, 2011)
Freddy Allen (2 episodes, 2011)
Adam Redding (2 episodes, 2011)
Series Casting Directors
Leah Daniels (9 episodes, 2010-2011)
16 Views
20:34:12 09/25/11
Love The Girl staring Tatyana Ali and Alphonso McAuley, Produced by Bentley Evans
[LESS INFO] 16 VIEWS | ADDED 20:34:12 09/25/11
Brought to you by www.icplaces.com
Steve Samblis’ Blog @ The Mevio Men Blog: http://meviomen.mevio.com
Check out other IC Places shows...
The Instant Movie Review: http://moviereviews.mevio.com
1st Look: http://1stLook.Mevio.com
icTrailers: http://Trailers.Mevio.com
IC Places Sports: http://icSports.Mevio.com
icMusic: http://icMusic.Mevio.com
Weekly IcNews Wrap: http://icNews.Mevio.com
Cooking For Bachelors: http://CookingForBachelors.Mevio.com
The Home Entertainment Review: http://dvdReview.Mevio.com
The Two Min Investor: http://investing.Mevio.com
Steve Samblis had a chance to talk with Bentley Evans, creator of the show and its hilarious co-star Alphonso McAuley. This is the first episode IC Places has shot at its new studios in Hollywood.
About the show:
Tatyana Ali stars as Tyana Jones in the new series Love That Girl ! Tyana is a recent young divorcee returning to Southern California in search of new independence, a new career and a brand new chapter in her life.
After settling into her new condo, located in the hip NoHo discrict of Los Angeles, Tyana gets a surprise visit from her brother Latrell Jones (Alphonso McAuley), an aspiring stand-up comedian, who insists he's just there to stay one night, even though his bags suggests a much longer stay. Tyana's tough-loving father, Delroy Jones (Phil Morris) is happy to have his daughter closer to home and ecstatic when he discovers that his "Baby Girl" is planning to follow in his professional footsteps with a career in Real Estate. That is, until he learns of her plans to work for his competition. Tyana's new move reconnects her with old friends, especially her best friend Nefertiti (Kendyl) who is happily single and ready to help her friend get her groove back.
She's smart, sexy and ready to get her life back in order. It's Tyana's world and they all Love That Girl !
About TV One:
Launched on Martin Luther King's birthday in January 2004, TV One is a fast growing cable network that now serves 54 Million households. Combining hit sitcoms, big studio movies, irrverent reality television and newsworthy specials, TV One delivers real life and entertainment programming from the African American point of view. TV One represents a connection to the authentic, rich, and diverse experience of African American life, history, and culture.
TV One is best known for its signature programming brand, Unsung . Launched in November 2008 the music biography series, that tells the untold stories of the greatest R%B and soul artists of our time, was an instant hit and helped define TV One as a trusted storyteller and voice of black culture. The 2010 debut of LisaRaye: The Real McCoy and Love That Girl , TV One's first scripted series, established TV One as a home for black hollywood stars and put the network on a new programming trajectory. TV One continues to be a unique partner for institutional African American brands such as Essence with our exclusive broadcast of TV One Night Only: Live from Essence Music Festival .
In December 2008, TV One launched TV One High Def, which now serves more than 10.3 million households. TV One is a joint venture owned by Radio One [NASDAQ: ROIA and ROIAK; www.radio-one.com ], the largest radio company that primarily targets African American and urban listeners; and Comcast Corporation [NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK); www.comcast.com ], one of the nation's leading providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services.
The cast of Love The Girl:
Created by: Bentley Kyle Evans Full Series Cast Episode
Count Year
Range STARmeter™
Mark Adair-Rios ... Adonis 12 (2010-2011) 29,951
Tatyana Ali ... Tyana Jones 5 (2010-2011) 2,291
Kendyl Joi ... Nefertiti 5 (2010-2011) 86,269
Alphonso McAuley ... Latrell 5 (2010-2011) 16,793
Peter Oldring ... Fabian 5 (2010-2011) 18,716
Bresha Webb 5 (2010-2011) 54,360
Phil Morris ... Delroy Jones 4 (2010) 7,482
Trae Ireland ... Jason Campbell / Jason campbell 2 (2010-2011) 71,964
Jeanne Chinn ... Arthea 2 (2010) 37,042
Tabitha Taylor ... Becky 2 (2010) 11,343
Series Directors
Bentley Kyle Evans (6 episodes, 2010-2011)
Series Writers
Bentley Kyle Evans (4 episodes, 2010)
Series Producers
Jeff Clanagan ... associate producer (6 episodes, 2010)
Bentley Kyle Evans ... executive producer (5 episodes, 2010)
Anastasia N. Ali ... producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Tatyana Ali ... producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Terry Crotzer ... line producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Nile Evans ... associate producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Stacey Lyn Evans ... supervising producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Jeff Franklin ... executive producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Richard Gumbs III ... producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Trenten Gumbs ... executive producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Martin Lawrence ... executive producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Raphael Saadiq ... executive producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Eric Upshur ... line producer / producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Lamonte Von Evans ... associate producer (4 episodes, 2010)
Kevin Columbus ... associate producer (2 episodes)
Series Cinematographers
Scott Webb (7 episodes, 2011)
Conrad Montgomery (2 episodes, 2010)
Series Editors
Josie Azzam (5 episodes, 2011)
Evan Schrodek (5 episodes, 2011)
Freddy Allen (2 episodes, 2011)
Adam Redding (2 episodes, 2011)
Series Casting Directors
Leah Daniels (9 episodes, 2010-2011)
1 Views
20:10:37 09/13/10
The Criterion Cast Episode 050 The King Of Kings [Criterion Collection #266]
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 20:10:37 09/13/10
You are Listening to The CriterionCast - Episode 050 - The King of Kings (CC #266) This is the podcast dedicated to The Criterion Collection. Rudie Obias, Ryan Gallagher, & James McCormick discuss Criterion News & Rumors and Criterion New Releases, they also analyze, discuss & highlight CC #266 Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 film, The King of Kings. What do you think of their show? Please send them your feed back: CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 347.878.3430 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or Comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com. Thank You for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to their podcast and please leave your reviews in their iTunes feed. They broadcast every episode LIVE on UStream every Friday @ 8pm EST/5pm PST. Join in on the conversation @ CriterionCast.com/LIVE Our next episode they will highlight and discuss CC #009 John Woo's 1992 film, Hard Boiled.Add It To Your Netflix Queue.Show Notes: (00:00 - 00:26; Fantastic Fest Promo) (00:27 - 00:44; "A United Theory" by God Help The Girl) (00:45 - 02:04; The CriterionCast - Episode 050 - The King of Kings - CC #266)[NEWS & RUMORS] (02:05 - 08:56; Plans for The Dark Tower Series) (08:57 - 16:44; Time Bandits in 3D) (16:45 - 21:25; The Tree of Life in 2011)[CRITERION NEW RELEASES] (21:26 - 30:07; New Releases) (03:08 - 30:54; Break Music by Carlos Segovia)[FEATURE FILM] (30:55 - 1:15:28; Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings - CC #266) (1:15:29 - 1:16:17; Break Music by Carlos Segovia)[Variations On a Theme] (1:16:18 - 1:16:48; Variations On a Theme - Sacrifice in Movies) (1:16:49 - 1:18:10; The Matrix - Rudie Obias) (1:18:11 - 1:20:16; Armageddon - Rudie Obias) (1:20:17 - 1:26:59; Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - Ryan Gallagher) (1:27:00 - 1:32:00; 30 Days of Night - James McCromick)[CREDITS] (1:32:01 - 1:33:25; Wrap Up, Contact Info & Credits) (1:33:26 - 1:33:38; Next - John Woo's 1992 film, Hard Boiled - CC #009) (1:33:39 - 1:33:48; Goodbyes) (1:33:49 - 1:34:34; "Working Poor" by Horse Feathers) (1:34:35 - 1:36:36; Outtakes!!) We all highly recommend our listeners watch the documentary - Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION.Music Credits: Intro Music by God Help The Girl. Learn more on iTunes and their website, GodHelpTheGirl.com. Break Music by Carlos Segovia. Learn more @ GhostRamps.com. Outro Music by Horse Feathers. Learn more on iTunes and learn more @, HorseFeathersTheBand.com.
13 Views
00:15:20 08/21/10
Piranha 3D, The Switch and Nanny McPhee Returns
[LESS INFO] 13 VIEWS | ADDED 00:15:20 08/21/10
This weeks show is brought to you by www.zazzle.com save 10% off your order with coupon code icplacesMR11
Also... make sure to check out more cool stuff at www.icplaces.com
This week's Movies...
The Switch :
(Walt Disney Pictures)
Release: 08/20/2010 A 40-year-old unmarried woman decides to become pregnant by inseminating herself with a turkey baster. What she doesn't know is that the sperm is from her best friend, who must live with the secret that the child is his.
Nanny McPhee Returns:
Production Information “I am going to explain to you the way I work. When you need me, but do not want me…then I must stay. When you want me, but no longer need me…then I have to go.” —Nanny McPhee In Nanny McPhee Returns, Academy Award®-winning actress EMMA THOMPSON (An Education, Stranger Than Fiction, Nanny McPhee, Love Actually, Sense and Sensibility) returns to the role of the magical nanny who appears when she’s needed the most and wanted the least in the next chapter of the hilarious and heartwarming fable that has enchanted children around the world. In the latest installment, Nanny McPhee appears at the door of a harried young mother, Mrs. Isabel Green (Academy Award® nominee MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL of Crazy Heart, The Dark Knight, Stranger Than Fiction, SherryBaby), who is trying to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. But once she’s arrived, Nanny McPhee discovers that Mrs. Green’s children are fighting a war of their own against two spoiled city cousins who have just moved in and refuse to leave. Relying on everything from a flying motorcycle and a statue that comes to life to a tree-climbing piglet and a baby elephant who turns up in the oddest places, Nanny McPhee uses her magic to teach her mischievous charges five new lessons. Starring alongside Thompson and Gyllenhaal in Nanny McPhee Returns are RHYS IFANS (Notting Hill, Pirate Radio, Greenberg) as Mrs. Green’s villainous brother-in-law, Phil, and legendary two-time Academy Award®-winning actress DAME MAGGIE SMITH (Becoming Jane, Harry Potter series) as the delightfully enigmatic Mrs. Docherty. Nanny McPhee Returns is directed by BAFTA winner and two-time Emmy nominee SUSANNA WHITE (television’s Generation Kill, Bleak House, Jane Eyre) from a screenplay by Academy Award®-winning screenwriter Emma Thompson, based on the character from the “Nurse Matilda” children’s book series by CHRISTIANNA BRAND. It is produced by LINDSAY DORAN (in her fifth collaboration with Thompson, including Nanny McPhee, Stranger Than Fiction and Sense and Sensibility) and by Working Title Films’ TIM BEVAN and ERIC FELLNER (Green Zone, Atonement, Bridget Jones’s Diary). The accomplished behind-the-scenes team includes director of photography MIKE ELEY (Touching the Void, television’s Grey Gardens), production designer SIMON ELLIOTT (Brick Lane, television’s Bleak House), editor SIM EVAN-JONES (Shrek, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), eight-time Oscar®-nominated composer JAMES NEWTON HOWARD (The Dark Knight, King Kong, Salt) and two-time Oscar®-nominated costume designer JACQUELINE DURRAN (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice). The family comedy’s executive producers are DEBRA OSBORNE (Nanny McPhee, Atonement), LIZA CHASIN (Nanny McPhee, Pride & Prejudice) and Emma Thompson. SYNOPSIS Mrs. Green is at the end of her rope. Her three children—Norman (ASA BUTTERFIELD), Megsie (LIL WOODS) and Vincent (OSCAR STEER)—are constantly fighting with each other. Her husband, Rory (EWAN MCGREGOR), is away at war and hasn’t been heard from in months. Her brother-in-law Phil is pressuring her to sell him Rory’s half of the family farm and her employer, Mrs. Docherty, is beginning to behave very oddly indeed. On top of all that, her posh niece and nephew, Celia (ROSIE TAYLOR-RITSON) and Cyril Gray (EROS VLAHOS), are being sent to the farm from London for an unlimited stay, and the village warden, Mr. Docherty (SAM KELLY), keeps warning her that bombs could accidentally fall out of the sky at any moment. It’s all too much for Mrs. Green. She doesn’t know it yet, but the person she needs is Nanny McPhee. Unfortunately, Mrs. Green’s situation is even worse than it appears. Phil has been telling her that he has a buyer lined up who will give them a good price for the farm, but in truth he owes a gambling debt to the shadowy Mrs. Biggles. Mrs. Biggles has sent two female thugs, Miss Topsey (SINEAD MATTHEWS) and Miss Turvey (KATY BRAND), to threaten Phil and force him to get the farm away from Mrs. Green to pay off his IOU; if he succeeds, the Green family will lose everything. Cyril and Celia show up a day early while Mrs. Green is away at work. The rich city children and their country cousins hate each other on sight, and their fighting quickly escalates to epic proportions. Mrs. Green comes home to find absolute mayhem in her house. She is trying in vain to stop the fighting when she hears a knock at the door. She opens it to reveal the unsettling figure of Nanny McPhee. Nanny McPhee takes one look at the warring cousins and knows immediately that these children need her. She repeats her well-known phrase: “When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go.” She bangs her stick, and the children are suddenly hitting themselves instead of each other. Eventually they agree to Nanny McPhee’s demand to stop what they are doing and apologize. Lesson One, to stop fighting, is complete. Later that evening, Nanny McPhee continues to give the children a taste of their own medicine. When they refuse to share beds and say they’d rather share with a goat or a cow or an elephant, Nanny McPhee bangs her stick and the children are forced to make room for each other as well as for the animals they’d named. Lesson Two, to share nicely, is complete. When Phil lets the family’s valuable piglets escape in an attempt to make Mrs. Green desperate enough to sell the farm, Nanny McPhee uses her magic to force the children to cooperate in the search, and even to enjoy each other’s company. Working together, the children manage to capture the piglets and return them in time to be sold to the Greens’ neighbor, Farmer Macreadie (BILL BAILEY). Lesson Three, to help each other, is complete. The children are just starting to get along, and Mrs. Green is finally becoming more relaxed, when a telegram arrives bearing the terrible news that Mr. Green has been killed in the war. Everyone is overcome with grief except for Norman, who “feels it in his bones” that his father is alive. Cyril offers help—his father, Lord Gray (two-time Academy Award® nominee RALPH FIENNES), is “very high up in the War Office” and can find out what’s happened to Mr. Green if only they can find a way to get to London. Before long, they’re being whisked across the countryside in the sidecar of a motorcycle driven by none other than Nanny McPhee. Back at home, Megsie and Celia find a note from Norman telling them where he and Cyril have gone and why. The girls realize they have to prevent Mrs. Green from selling the farm while Norman is gone. But later that morning, Phil shows up with a sale contract and a pen. The girls try to stall him, but time is running out. Cyril and Norman have an adventurous ride to London, and then arrive at the office of Cyril’s imperious father. At first Lord Gray dismisses the boys’ request, but Cyril stands up to his father for the first time and demands his help. Lord Gray looks into the matter and reveals that Rory Green is missing in action, not killed, and that no telegram was sent from the War Office. Norman realizes that his wicked Uncle Phil has forged the telegram for his own purposes and that he and Cyril must get home right away. Back at the farm, Megsie and Celia do their best to prevent Mrs. Green from signing Phil’s contract, but eventually Megsie loses hope. She whispers urgently, “Nanny McPhee, we need you!” Suddenly, a baby elephant—the same one that Nanny McPhee had deployed earlier for the lesson in sharing—appears in the kitchen. When Phil and Mrs. Green aren’t looking, the baby elephant sucks every pen in sight into its trunk. The children are delighted and Phil is temporarily confounded, but he eventually finds another pen and forces it into Mrs. Green’s hand. All seems lost, but suddenly a passing enemy plane accidentally drops a bomb into the Greens’ barley field, exactly as Mr. Docherty had predicted. The thud causes the ink to spill and ruin the contract, but the bomb doesn’t explode. The boys return and Norman tells his mother that Mr. Green is missing but not dead. Mr. Docherty faints at the prospect of actually defusing a bomb, and the children realize they have to do it themselves. In the end, the children defuse the bomb and Lesson Four, to be brave, is complete. Phil is arrested, the harvest is brought in by Nanny McPhee’s magic, the children have become friends, and Mrs. Green’s life has at last become manageable. Lesson Five, to have faith, is complete, and it’s time for Nanny McPhee to go. Genres: Family Comedy Starring: Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rhys Ifans and Maggie Smith Piranha 3D
From director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes) comes the new action thriller PIRANHA 3D. Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for Spring Break, a riot of sun and drunken fun. But this year, there's something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers; a new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria. After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the areas new razor-toothed residents. The film stars Jessica Szohr (Gossip Girl), Steven R. McQueen (The Vampire Diaries), Elisabeth Shue, Jerry OConnell, Ving Rhames, Adam Scott, Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd, and Kelly Brook.
9 Views
20:15:07 04/22/10
The Losers -starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoë Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada and Jason Patric
[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 20:15:07 04/22/10
An explosive action tale of betrayal and revenge, “The Losers” centers around the members of an elite Special Forces unit sent to the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. But the team—Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch and Cougar—soon find that they have become the target of a deadly double cross, instigated from the inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max.
Making good use of the fact that they are now presumed dead, the group goes deep undercover in a dangerous plot to clear their names and even the score with Max. They are joined by the mysterious Aisha, a beautiful operative with her own agenda, who is more than capable of scoring a few points of her own. Working together, when they’re not arguing amongst themselves, they have to stay one step ahead of the globetrotting Max—a ruthless man bent on embroiling the world in a new high-tech global war for his own benefit. If they can take down Max and save the world at the same time, it’ll be a win-win for the team now known as The Losers.
“The Losers” stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan (“Watchmen”) as Clay; Zoë Saldana (“Avatar,” “Star Trek”) as Aisha; Chris Evans (the “Fantastic Four” films) as Jensen; Idris Elba (“Obsessed”) as Roque; Columbus Short (“Stomp the Yard”) as Pooch; Oscar Jaenada (“Che: Part Two”) as Cougar; and Jason Patric (“In the Valley of Elah”) as Max.
Sylvain White (“Stomp the Yard”) directed the film from a screenplay by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, based upon the comic book series written by Andy Diggle, illustrated by Jock and published by DC Comics/Vertigo. “The Losers” is produced by Joel Silver, Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster, with Steve Richards, Andrew Rona, Sarah Aubrey and Stuart Besser serving as executive producers and Richard Mirisch co- producing.
The behind-the-scenes creative team was led by director of photography Scott Kevan (“Stomp the Yard”), production designer Aaron Osborne (“Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”), editor David Checel (“Stomp the Yard”), visual effects supervisor Richard Yuricich (“Orphan”), and costume designer Magali Guidasci (“Zombieland”). The music is by John Ottman (“Orphan,” “Valkyrie”).
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Dark Castle Entertainment, a Weed Road Pictures production, “The Losers,” to be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The film has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for scenes of intense action and violence, a scene of sensuality, and language.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Anyone else would be dead by now.
“The Losers have fun while they kick butt.” Director Sylvain White succinctly sums up the appeal of the ex-special forces unit that comes to the big screen from the pages of the popular DC/Vertigo comic book series, by the team of writer Andy Diggle and artist Jock.
As a fan of the original comics, White wanted to capture the same irreverent style in the film “The Losers.” He relates, “When I read the comics, the first thing that really struck me was the sense of humor Diggle and Jock were able to inject into a very action- driven story. It was such good source material, and I wanted to stay true to it by reflecting that tone in the movie.”
Producer Joel Silver agrees. “The great thing about ‘The Losers’ is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, which originated with the comics, of course. But much of that attitude also came from the screenwriters, Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, who brought so much to the table, and a lot came from Sylvain, who delivered a strong, visual cinematic style that I think feels fresh and hip and cool.”
Producer Akiva Goldsman was already familiar with Sylvain White’s work from the director’s feature film debut, “Stomp the Yard,” a drama centered around a step- dancing competition. “And yet,” Goldsman says, “there was a construct to the dancing in it that made it very much like martial arts, which spoke to the style he wanted to bring to this movie. Sylvain has a really good eye and a terrific sense of character and action. When he showed us what he wanted to do with ‘The Losers,’ we were all impressed.”
Employing his graphic arts background, White had created a full storyboard for the film that told the producers all they needed to know. “Sylvain came in and gave us a dazzling presentation,” recalls producer Kerry Foster. “He was so passionate and had such a clear vision for the movie that we knew he was the perfect choice to direct it.”
White says he not only drew inspiration from the original comic books but also from the screenplay. “It had a light tone paired with very gritty, visceral action. That can be a very difficult balance to maintain, but Peter and Jamie did it perfectly.”
James Vanderbilt, who collaborated with Peter Berg on the screenplay for “The Losers,” notes, “I was raised on Joel Silver movies like ‘Die Hard,’ ‘Lethal Weapon’ and ‘48 Hrs.,’ and that is my favorite type of action film—where there are real emotions, but not everything is so dire all of the time. The stakes are high, but the characters seem to be having a good time...and we have a good time with them.”
“The Losers are fun; you want to hang out with them,” White affirms. “They are not superheroes, they are real guys; in fact they’re underdogs who find themselves in what I would say is an extreme situation.”
“We’re not soldiers anymore. We’re fugitives.”
Despite what they are called, “The Losers” started out as anything but. Rather, they were an elite black ops unit, who were called upon for only the most perilous missions.
But in the jungles of Bolivia, while on a secret mission to eliminate a powerful drug and arms dealer, they are betrayed by a shadowy government operative named Max, who has his own reasons for wanting them eliminated...and almost succeeds.
“They’re left for dead and left taking the blame for the innocent lives that were lost on their mission,” White remarks. “Now they have to find their way back into the U.S. and redeem their names.”
Being presumed dead does have its advantages. But, although no one may be looking for them, five “dead men” can’t exactly walk back into the country without drawing unwanted attention. They need help and they find it in an unlikely source: Aisha, who is as beautiful as she is mysterious. Before they can reclaim their lives, however, they will have to deal with Max.
Each member of the team—Clay, Roque, Jensen, Pooch and Cougar—has a specialty that makes him individually strong. Together, they are unstoppable...or so they hope.
CLAY – OPERATIONAL CONTROL
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is Clay, The Losers’ man in command, whose entire identity had been wrapped up in being a soldier. After the team is betrayed, however, he is forced not only to fight for his country and his men but also his name.
Morgan offers, “His rank is colonel and that had defined him. Without that he has to question who he is, but he still has to lead this ragtag group. The leadership thing came naturally to me. It helped that I’m older than most of the guys in this movie, so I immediately wanted to kick their butts anyway,” he deadpans.
“Clay is a hardened man, but he has a definite sense of humor and I loved the dry wit of the script,” Morgan continues. “That can be difficult for a writer to capture on the page and a tricky thing for an actor to deliver. But I’m pretty sarcastic in real life,” he smiles. “In fact, I tend to be even a little dryer than Clay, so that worked well for me in playing the part.”
Sylvain White says he was sure Morgan was the right man for the role even before he actually met him. “He pulled up on his Harley and I knew instantly he was the guy. He’s got this very cool, mature energy about him, a kind of old soul quality that makes him a born leader. Jeffrey is very likeable, very approachable, but there is also a bit of a dark edge to him, which was something he was able to layer very well into the character of Clay as he spirals down into his obsession to take revenge on Max.”
“Jeffrey is that great combination of a tough guy with a heart of gold,” adds Goldsman about the actor, who played a very different kind of soldier in “Watchmen,” the film adaptation of the acclaimed DC Comics graphic novel. “He’s handsome and rugged and can appear dangerous, but at the same time be kind and sensitive. It’s a very mercurial quality that is hard to deliver, but he absolutely did.”
JENSEN – COMMUNICATIONS & TECH
Chris Evans plays Jensen, the team’s computer wizard, who can hack anything—or into anything—that comes his way. Even under cover on the other side of the world, he manages to keep up, via computer, with the standings of his niece’s 8-and- under soccer team, The Petunias.In terms of the family dynamic of the team, he is kind of the kid,” Evans admits. “He gets into mischief and cracks jokes at inappropriate times, but he cares about this group of people and loves what he does. He’s quick with a smile and has limitless energy. I enjoy playing guys like that because you can’t help but bring some of that attitude home with you.”
“Jensen is the geek with a gun,” White laughs. “Every character has moments of comic relief, but Jensen is probably the funniest guy in the movie. Chris had a ball with that because he is a genuinely funny person and was able to bring his own natural humor to the role. He is such a great guy to be around; he was always making us laugh, and that’s basically who Jensen is.”
“Chris was a wonderful addition to ‘The Losers’ cast,” Goldsman says of Evans, who is already a favorite of comic book genre fans for his role in the “Fantastic Four” movies and has just been announced as the new “Captain America.” “He is not only a talented and appealing actor, he also has the same sort of charm as Jensen, which is very engaging.”
ROQUE – DEMO & TACTICAL
Idris Elba plays Roque, an explosives expert, whose personal weapon of choice is a knife...the bigger the better. Roque has been Clay’s brother-in-arms for years, although Clay’s dogged determination to exact revenge on Max, at any and all costs, is now causing friction between the two old friends. “Roque is a no-nonsense type of character,” the actor observes. He’s a straight talker, very to the point. He’s an experienced soldier who’s not very emotional about the job; he just gets it done.”
White remembers, “When I first met with Idris, he told me about his ideas for how he could bring facets to the character of Roque because his story takes an unpredictable turn. He is an amazing actor; I knew he had the capacity to make his arc believable and yet surprising.”
“I liked the character of Roque, and that I had enough room to make it my own,” says Elba, who adds that there were other elements that appealed to him about the project. “The script was great—funny with a lot of larger-than-life action. And I’ve worked with Joel Silver before and am a fan of his movies, so that was another draw.”
“Idris is one of those go-to actors,” notes Silver who previously worked with the actor on “RocknRolla” and “The Reaping.” “I always know he’s going to give a great performance, no matter what the role. He can do drama, he can do comedy, he can do action, and there’s all of that in this movie. This is my third film with him, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
POOCH – TRANSPORTATION & HEAVY WEAPONS
Columbus Short takes on the role of Pooch, the group’s transportation expert, who “can rig, wire, fly, drive or commandeer any vehicle, and gets to shoot some pretty sweet weapons,” states Short.
Pooch also has the most personal motivation for wanting to return home. Short explains, “Pooch’s wife is about to have their first baby, and he desperately wants to get back in time to see his child be born. It makes Pooch kind of the heart of the group and adds to the guys’ individual reasons for wanting to clear their names.”
Short’s motivations for taking the role involved both the script and the director. “The storyline was great and the writing was very clever and witty; I laughed out loud reading some of the dialogue and I loved the action,” he comments.
The actor says he also appreciated the opportunity to reunite with Sylvain White, who had directed him in “Stomp the Yard,” which marked his first leading role. “Sylvain is a very collaborative director; he gave me the freedom to discover things about my character that weren’t necessarily in the dialogue. I couldn’t imagine a better experience than working with him again on this movie.”
White states, “I knew Columbus was perfect for Pooch from the get-go; I didn’t even have to think about it. When I read the script for ‘The Losers,’ I felt that the character was the emotional anchor of the team. He’s the family man and the kind of guy you want as a friend. And Columbus has a very warm soul and this sweet innocence about him that makes you care about him the second you meet him, so I pictured him as Pooch right off the bat.”
COUGAR – LONG-RANGE ELIMINATIONS
Spanish actor Oscar Jaenada is cast as Cougar, the unit’s crack sniper, who can hit any target with a steady hand, a cool eye and a quiet calm. “I loved playing a character who is more about sight than sound, more visual than verbal,” Jaenada offers. “Cougar may be the quiet type, but he’s always there watching out for his team. He’s the strong, silent guy in the movie.”
“Cougar is the mystery man of the crew,” says White. “I met Oscar and thought he was incredible; he has such an expressive face and an amazing presence. We needed someone who could act with his eyes, and that’s Oscar. He brought the character of Cougar to life in a way not many people could have.”
Kerry Foster emphasizes, “Oscar was such a boon to the cast. He enjoyed the idea of playing the guy who doesn’t need to speak to get his point across. He came in from Spain and wasn’t able to arrive until the day before we started shooting, and I think the other guys were sad to see him because he was clearly the coolest of the bunch,” Foster teases. “But he’s just the sweetest man and everybody loved working with him.”
“It’s pretty much a suicide mission.”
Despite their individual and combined skills, The Losers need help to sneak back into the U.S. undetected. That’s where Aisha comes in. Zoë Saldana plays the woman who proves to be either a formidable ally or a dangerous enemy...or both. It’s hard to know whose side she’s really on—other than her own—but Clay is about to learn she usually comes out on top.
“Aisha appears to them out of nowhere just when the guys think there is no hope for them to get back home,” says Saldana. “She makes them an offer that sounds too good to be true, but it’s also an offer they can’t refuse: she’ll get them back into the country, but then they have to deliver Max. They decide to take her up on it, but there is mistrust from the beginning because they don’t know what this woman is hiding up her sleeve,” the actress smiles.
White, who had been a fan of Saldana’s even before her recent roles in the sci-fi blockbusters “Avatar” and “Star Trek,” recalls, “When we started discussing the role of Aisha, I instantly thought of Zoë. She has remarkable acting chops, but she also has the physicality the role demanded. Aisha is not the lady in distress; quite the contrary, she’s the badass who actually rescues the men. She’s very capable, very strong and very determined, and Zoë brought her own genuine strength to her performance. She also happens to look very much like the character in the comic book, so we were thrilled when she said yes.” Joel Silver adds, “Zoë is beautiful and sexy and exciting—all the things Aisha needed to be. We wanted Aisha to be a match for the guys and then some. She’s tough, smart, opinionated and able to mix it up, and everything we expected of the character, Zoë delivered to the role.”
“You know that if we do this, we are waging a war against the Central Intelligence Agency.”
The man who targeted The Losers—and who is now their target—is Max, a shadowy and ruthless government operative, who is now operating by his own set of rules to keep America on top. And if a few billion dollars end up in his pocket along the way, even better.
Jason Patric, who plays the role of Max, affirms, “He has his own manifesto and a twisted sense of patriotism that I thought was funny and even a little topical today. Max has a bit of a swagger and an overconfidence, which I think he uses to hide the fact that he’s been beaten down in the past. But I just tried to have fun with it.”
“Max was probably the trickiest part to cast,” White asserts. “We wanted to cast against type, and Jason has never played a true bad guy in a movie before. He came in with some great ideas for the role, and I thought he would help me create a unique character who is different from other villains we’ve seen. He brought this quirkiness to his performance that I think really sets it apart.”
“Jason was terrific,” Foster agrees. “He made Max menacing and eccentric and funny all at the same time. He’s a villain you love to hate.”
As do all self-respecting villains, Max also has a henchman named Wade, because, as Patric says, “Every bad guy should have a thug.”
Wade is played by Holt McCallany, who offers, “Wade is a former special ops soldier, a very competent guy who has now kind of gone over to the dark side. He took all the skills he learned in the Special Forces and become a soldier of fortune. He’s a guy who’s essentially a mercenary. What makes him dangerous to The Losers is that he knows these guys. He knows their history and what they’re capable of...and what a threat they are.”
Judging by appearances, you can also tell what Wade is capable of. “You know Wade could physically take Max out any time he wanted to,” White allows. “But Max is smart enough and manipulative enough to have Wade following his orders, no matter how outrageous they are. Holt played the character with just the right balance of fear, loathing and respect.”
“CIA, NSA, Special Forces... We’re not them.”
Before the main cast of “The Losers” could portray a Special Forces unit they had to learn to behave like one. Former Navy SEAL Harry Humphries, who has served as the military advisor on a wide range of films, recently including “Iron Man” and “Transformers,” was the film’s military advisor and “training officer.” Humphries relates, “I come from the Special Operations community and I feel a great responsibility to them, so it was very important to me that the actors, who obviously didn’t have any prior tactical experience, look correct onscreen.”
He and his team put the cast of “The Losers” through a rigorous training regimen. “I didn’t try to turn them into total ninjas overnight,” says Humphries, “but I looked at what they would be required to do in the script and concentrated on those skill sets, like proper weapons handling, dynamic room entry, fire and cover, etc. They were all excellent students. I was very impressed.”
The actors had equal praise for their trainer. “Harry was a great instructor,” Idris Elba states. “He taught us quite a few tactical maneuvers. He made sure we looked realistic, especially handling the gear and the weapons.”
Columbus Short concurs, “Before I got there, I would not have known the first thing about dismantling or brandishing any sort of weapon. Now I feel like a weapons specialist. We were trained in the protocols known by every Special Forces operative in the world. It was very cool.”
Since Oscar Jaenada was still in Spain at the time, Humphries sent a trainer based in Europe to teach the actor the rudiments of being an expert sniper. Humphries notes, “A former British SAS (Special Air Services) Operative named Tony Smith went down to see Oscar in Madrid and just immersed Oscar for a week in the mental and physical requirements of precision rifle shooting.”
“It was very important for me to learn how to act like a real sniper,” Jaenada says. “Tony taught me the right way to hold the rifle and I also had to learn about precision and patience—when to know the perfect moment to take the shot.” Armorers Michael Papac and Vincent Flaherty worked closely with Humphries to select and supply the right weapons to use in each scene, including Cougar’s mammoth- scoped rifle, the Knights Armament SR-15.
Chris Evans points out that the most important thing he learned about the Special Forces was “I am not cut out to be one, that’s for damn sure,” he laughs. “We were out in the jungle doing those scenes, and I’m like, ‘I need water...I need a chair...I’m sweating...I’m tired...There’s mud, and bugs are biting me...’ We’ve got a whole team of ex-Navy SEALS consultants who never even break a sweat, and I’m wondering when lunch is.
Oh yeah, that’s not for me.
“But seriously,” Evans adds, “it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had making movies. Where else would a guy like me get Navy SEAL training? It was fantastic.”
One important aspect of the actors’ training was learning to work together as a unit, which they all agree came naturally. “There is a shorthand between those guys, a special camaraderie, and I think we captured that,” says Jeffrey Dean Morgan. “Within one or two days, we realized it had fallen into place as far as us all feeling like one team...with Sylvain White as the maestro.”
White remarks, “The first time the cast was all assembled as a group they immediately bonded, and it was pretty clear that they had great chemistry between them. That’s the kind of thing you can’t really predict or bank on, so when it happens, you feel really fortunate. And I think it makes a big difference on the screen, too.”
“Welcome back to the land of the living.”
The action of “The Losers” unfolds around the world—from the jungles of Bolivia to New Mexico, from Mumbai to Dubai, and from Miami to Houston to Los Angeles, with various points in-between. Despite the diversity of the settings, the filmmakers were able to accomplish almost all of the principal photography on the island of Puerto Rico.
“We looked at quite a few places,” White recounts, “but when we got to Puerto Rico, we saw that the islandhas a great infrastructure and different locales. It was very convenient because we could ‘cheat’ a variety of terrains within a relatively small distance.”
“It was staggering what we found when we came to Puerto Rico to scout,” Foster confirms. “There is a city, obviously gorgeous beaches, a close approximation of a desert, and a rainforest that was ideal to double for Bolivia. It’s a beautiful island and the people could not have been more wonderful.”
Filming on Puerto Rico, the filmmakers also took advantage of the dramatic backdrop of the Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest radio telescope. Jason Patric shot his first scenes there and, in the process, discovered something about himself. “I didn’t realize I have a lack of fondness for heights, but I do now,” the actor reveals. “It was a pretty daunting way to begin.”
To craft the look of the film, production designer Aaron Osborne first went to the source: the original comic books. “What I noticed is that they used two or three colors to represent the tone of each setting, so I really tried to enhance that.”
“Every chapter of the comic books is a new environment distinguished by different color palettes,” White observes. I really wanted to do that in the movie as well—where every time we are in a new city or country, the aesthetic of the film changes completely, so there is no homogeneous look. It’s very eclectic.”
White collaborated with Osborne and cinematographer Scott Kevan to break down the images of the scenes. “We charted the whole movie with certain color schemes for each location and different shades as we moved from day to night,” Osborne explains. “We were quite meticulous about it.”
Color also came into play in the work of costume designer Magali Guidasci, who deviated from tradition by dressing the main protagonist, Clay, mostly in black, while the villain, Max, mainly wore white or light pastels. “Clay is a black-and-white type of guy,” she says, “so he wears a black suit and white shirt—another type of uniform in its own way, make no mistake. Max is always in a very light color, if not pure white. We first see him in a white suit and black tie, as if to appear the opposite of Clay.”
Form followed function with Cougar’s trademark cowboy hat, which was the perfect accoutrement for a sniper whose eyes needed to be shielded from the deflecting glare of the sun. His clothes are in muted colors to allow him to fade into the background and he wears gloves with the trigger finger cut out. Function was also important in costuming Zoë Saldana as Aisha, in clothes that Guidasci describes as “simple and athletic. She wears boots where she can conceal extra weapons, but no heels for that lady. She needs to be agile—able to jump and kick ass.”
In keeping with Jensen’s fun-loving nature, the character wore a collection of T- shirts that were as colorful as his personality. The idea of the T-shirts began with the one Petunias shirt he wears to support his niece’s soccer team. Guidasci offers, “Then Sylvain came up with the idea for Jensen to have a different funny T-shirt for almost every scene. Some we found and some were created by our graphic designer, Eduardo Gomez, and we also tried to make some of them subtly apropos to the moment.”
Osborne notes that the filmmakers adopted the term “Loser style,” which did not refer to the clothes of the characters but rather their surroundings. He elaborates, “Let me put it this way: anything we built in ‘Loser style’ either got burned, destroyed, shot up or blown apart.”
For certain sets, where the action was going to be explosive, Osborne and his crew consulted with special effects coordinator John P. Cazin, as well as stunt coordinator and second unit director Garrett Warren. Clay’s hotel room in Bolivia was the most obvious example of a set that was literally designed to be demolished.
“My first thought was, ‘Oh, we’re building a motel room...no big deal,’” admits Osborne. “But we had to design layer-by-layer, working everything out with John regarding the special effects, since we were going to burn down the entire room, and also with Garrett on the stunts, because people were going to be thrown around and putting their fists through the walls. So what seems to be a normal motel room was actually planned to the utmost detail. Every piece of furniture had to be replicated several times over because we were either going to burn it or smash it.”
The motel room is destroyed over the course of an all-out brawl between Clay and Aisha, who, surprisingly, is more than a match for her larger opponent. “The fight scene between Clay and Aisha was amazing to create,” says Warren, who had recently worked with Saldana on “Avatar.” “They were both consummate professionals: Jeffrey is up for anything and Zoë has a dancer’s physicality and loves doing stunts. We just pulled out all the stops.”
“The thing I loved about the way Garrett designed the fight is that he made it very playful,” Saldana comments. “When Clay and Aisha meet, you think they’re about to hook up for a steamy scene and they end up kicking the crap out of each other. There’s something sexy about a woman who can hold her own against a man, especially when they find each other irresistible.”
“It was pretty hot,” Morgan agrees, though not necessarily referring to the attraction between the characters. “The flames in that room were real, so filming that scene really stood out for me.”
Hot and steamy proved to the watchwords for the entire cast and crew while working in tropical Puerto Rico. “It’s a beautiful place, but the heat and humidity were unrelenting,” Morgan attests. “Add a black suit and about 60 pounds’ worth of guns and gear, and it made filming the action scenes a special challenge. You can’t drink enough water because no matter where or when you’re shooting, you’re drenched in sweat. But the good news is you’re bound to lose a lot of weight,” he grins.
In planning the stunt sequences, Warren says, “I got my team together and we brainstormed to come up with some interesting, fun ways to shoot. I talked Sylvain into letting us fly him above one action scene on wires and he actually held the camera to film one of our guys doing Parkour-style moves, running and jumping over these large containers. That was a lot of fun...at least for us.”
White also worked with Scott Kevan to film the action from a perspective that brings moviegoers right into the fray. The director emphasizes, “We want the audience to experience certain pivotal moments through the eyes of the characters. It’s about positioning the camera inside the action and staying as close as possible to the actors. Sometimes it’s limiting, and other times it opens brand new doors. It was a fine line, but I think we were able to find a good combination.”
He continues, “I’m very proud of the action in this film, but what I think shines through the most is the fun tone and the great characters. I think ultimately that’s what I want to leave the audience with—having had a good time with ‘The Losers’...and wanting to do it again.”
ABOUT THE CAST
JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN (Clay) starred last year in the action thriller “Watchmen,” Zack Snyder’s controversial big screen adaptation of DC’s seminal graphic novel. Morgan played Edward Blake, a.k.a. The Comedian, whose murder sets off a potentially explosive investigation and reunites his former costumed colleagues, the Minutemen. Also in 2009, Morgan starred in Ang Lee’s independent feature “Taking Woodstock.”
Morgan is currently at work on the crime thriller “The Fields,” in which he and Sam Worthington star as detectives investigating several unsolved murders in Texas. In November, he stars in the remake of the action hit “Red Dawn,” playing a U.S. Special Forces soldier who helps the teenage rebels, known as the Wolverines, fight back against enemy forces that have invaded the United States. Prior to “Red Dawn,” Morgan filmed the suspense thriller “The Resident,” opposite Hilary Swank, his former co-star from “P.S. I Love You,” in which he played her prospective love interest.
His other upcoming films include Mikael Hafstrom’s period drama “Shanghai,” with John Cusack, and the murder mystery drama “All Good Things,” in which he stars with Kirsten Dunst, Ryan Gosling and Frank Langella under the direction of Andrew Jarecki. Morgan’s additional film credits include the independent comedy “Kabluey,” with Lisa Kudrow; the romantic comedy “The Accidental Husband,” opposite Uma Thurman; and a cameo role in David Dobkin’s holiday comedy “Fred Claus.”
Morgan first gained the attention of television audiences with a recurring role in ABC’s smash hit series “Grey’s Anatomy.” His dramatic arc as heart patient Denny Duquette, who wins the heart of Katherine Heigl’s Izzie Stevens in a star-crossed romance, made him a universal fan favorite. He has also had recurring roles on the hit CW series “Supernatural” and on the award-winning Showtime series “Weeds.”
ZOË SALDANA (Aisha) enjoyed a banner year in 2009, starring in back-to-back blockbusters. She capped the year starring as Neytiri in James Cameron’s history- making sci-fi epic “Avatar,” for which Saldana won an Empire Award for Best Actress. The film, which also starred Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver, broke numerous box office records on its way to becoming the highest-grossing motion picture of all time. Among its many honors, “Avatar” won a Golden Globe for Best Picture – Drama and earned nine Oscar® nominations, also including Best Picture.
Earlier last year, Saldana played Nyoto Uhura in the sci-fi action adventure hit “Star Trek,” about the early years of the legendary crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Directed by J.J. Abrams, the film also starred Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Eric Bana.
Saldana will next be seen in the Neil LaBute-directed comedy “Death at a Funeral,” in which she joins an ensemble cast that also includes James Marsden, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Martin Lawrence, Columbus
Short and Luke Wilson.
Born and raised in New York, Saldana first gained attention with her memorable feature film debut in the starring role of Eva in “Center Stage,” directed by Nicholas Hytner. She followed with “Get Over It,” “Crossroads,” “Drumline,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Terminal,” for which she won a 2004 Young Hollywood One to Watch Award from Movieline magazine. Her additional film credits include “Haven,” “Guess Who” and “Vantage Point.”
In 2009, Saldana graced the cover of ELLE as one of the magazine’s “Top Women in Hollywood.”
CHRIS EVANS (Jensen) stars this August in Edgar Wright’s action comedy “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” with Michael Cera, Anna Kendrick, Jason Schwartzman, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. He also just wrapped production on Adam and Mark Kassen’s drama “Puncture,” in which he stars as a drug-addicted lawyer who takes on a major health supply corporation while battling his own personal demons.
Evans next starts filming opposite Anna Faris in Mark Mylod’s romantic comedy “What’s Your Number?,” about a woman revisiting all her ex-boyfriends in hopes of finding the man of her dreams. This summer, Evans is set to go into production on the action adventure “The First Avenger: Captain America,” in which he will star in the title role of the Marvel Comics superhero, under the direction of Joe Johnston.
Evans is also well known to moviegoers for his role in the hit “Fantastic Four” action adventures. His more recent film credits include Paul McGuigan’s sci-fi thriller “Push,” in which he starred opposite Dakota Fanning; the independent period drama “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond,” written by Tennessee Williams and also starring Bryce Dallas Howard; and David Ayer’s crime drama “Street Kings,” with Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker.
Raised in Massachusetts, Evans began acting in regional theatre before moving to New York, where he studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. He made a few guest appearances on television series before landing his first feature film starring role in the comedy spoof “Not Another Teen Movie.” His early film work also includes “The Perfect Score,” with Scarlett Johansson, and “Cellular,” with Jessica Biel and Kim Basinger.
In 2005, teamed with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Ioan Gruffudd as a group of astronauts who gain individual super powers after being exposed to cosmic radiation in the blockbuster hit “Fantastic Four.” Two years later, he reprised the role of Johnny Storm, a.k.a. The Human Torch, in the summer action hit “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.”
Among Evans’ other film credits are Danny Boyle’s critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller “Sunshine,” with Cillian Murphy and Michelle Yeoh; “The Nanny Diaries,” opposite Scarlett Johansson; the independent drama “London,” opposite Jessica Biel; and Griffin Dunne’s “Fierce People,” with Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland.
IDRIS ELBA (Roque) recently starred in the hit 2009 thriller “Obsessed,” with Beyoncé Knowles and Ali Larter. Elba earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for his portrayal of a married man being stalked by a co-worker. He previously shared in a Screen Actors Guild Award® nomination as a member of the main cast of Ridley Scott’s 2007 true-life drama “American Gangster,” with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
Elba has several film projects upcoming, including the crime drama “Takers,” with Matt Dillon, Zoë Saldana and Hayden Christensen, and the action adventure “Thor,” in which he stars with Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman under the direction of Kenneth Branagh. He also executive produced and stars in the independent film “Legacy,” which was chosen to close the 2010 Glasgow Film Festival, and has also been selected to screen at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
Elba’s additional film credits include David S. Goyer’s horror thriller “The Unborn”; Guy Ritchie’s “RocknRolla,” as part of an ensemble cast that also included Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton and Tom Wilkinson; and the hit horror thriller “28 Weeks Later,” to name only a few.
On the small screen, Elba had a recurring role last season on the hit NBC series “The Office.” In his native England, he next stars in the title role of the BBC crime drama series “Luther,” set to debut in the UK in May. He first gained attention with his starring role as the de facto leader of a Baltimore drug empire in HBO’s acclaimed original series “The Wire,” for which he received an Image Award nomination. Additionally, he starred in the Channel 4 telefilm “All in the Game,” and gained another Image Award nod for his performance in the HBO movie “Sometimes in April,” as a Hutu soldier who tries to save his Tutsi wife and family during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Elba has also worked on the stage, including leading roles in several plays produced in London. Additionally, in New York, he starred in Sir Peter Hall’s off- Broadway production of “Troilus and Cressida,” receiving rave reviews for his portrayal of Achilles.
COLUMBUS SHORT (Pooch) previously collaborated with director Sylvain White as the star of the 2007 hit “Stomp the Yard,” which topped the box office in its first two weeks in release and brought Short an NAACP Image Award nomination for Best Actor. He more recently won an Image Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the true-life drama “Cadillac Records,” about the birth of rock n’ roll in Chicago, in which Short starred with Beyoncé Knowles, Jeffrey Wright and Adrien Brody. He next stars in the ensemble comedy “Death at a Funeral,” alongside Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Martin Lawrence, James Marsden, Luke Wilson and Zoë Saldana.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Short relocated with his family to Los Angeles at a young age and, by his early teens, had landed work in television commercials. He was a senior at Orange County School of the Arts when he was offered a part in Broadway‘s hit show “STOMP!” He went on to choreograph Britney Spears’ “In the Zone” tour.
Short began his film acting career in 2006 with starring roles in “Save the Last Dance: 2” and the comedy “Accepted,” with Jonah Hill and Justin Long. His subsequent film credits include “This Christmas,” opposite Idris Elba, Regina King and Chris Brown; the horror remake “Quarantine”; the thriller “Whiteout,” with Kate Beckinsale; and “Armored,” with Matt Dillon and Laurence Fishburne. On television, he played the young writer Darius on Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed drama series “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”
Short is also working behind the camera through his production company, Great Picture Show Productions. He most recently executive produced “Stomp the Yard 2: Homecoming.”
OSCAR JAENADA (Cougar) is an award-winning actor in his native Spain, who is quickly becoming well known in the U.S. In 2005, he starred in the title role of “Camarón: When Flamenco Became Legend,” the true story of Camarón de la Isla. Jaenada earned a number of acting honors, including Spain’s prestigious Goya Award, for his portrayal of the legendary flamenco cantaor. He more recently starred in “Todos Estamos Invitados,” for which he won the Málaga Spanish Film Festival’s Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Toulouse Cinespaña Award for Best Actor.
American film audiences have also seen Jaenada in Jim Jarmusch’s thriller “The Limits of Control,” in which he co-starred with Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton, and Steven Soderbergh’s biopic “Che: Part Two,” starring Benicio Del Toro.
Born and raised in Barcelona, Jaenada later moved to Madrid to pursue his acting career. He started out in the local theatre and also landed roles on television. His breakthrough came in the widely acclaimed 2003 feature “November,” for which he received a Goya Award nomination and won several other awards, including a Toulouse Cinespaña Award for Best Actor.
JASON PATRIC (Max) first gained attention with his starring role in Joel Schumacher’s 1987 comedy thriller hit “The Lost Boys.” He went on to earn critical acclaim for his performances in the drama “The Beast of War,” the erotic thriller “After Dark, My Sweet,” and the crime drama “Rush.”
Patric subsequently starred in Walter Hill’s “Geronimo: An American Legend”; the title role in “The Journey of August King”; Barry Levinson’s “Sleepers”; and Neil LaBute’s “Your Friends and Neighbors,” which was also the first feature Patric produced under the banner of his production company, Fleece.
Patric’s more recent film credits include “Narc,” “The Alamo,” “Expired,” “Downloading Nancy,” “In the Valley of Elah,” and “My Sister’s Keeper.”
On Broadway, Patric starred as Brick in the revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” opposite Ashley Judd. His other theatre work includes productions of Neil LaBute’s “Bash”; “Beirut”; “Out of Gas on Lover’s Leap”; “The Tempest”; “Henry V”; and “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
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17:46:49 04/11/10
Date Night starring - Steve Carell and Tina Fey
[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 17:46:49 04/11/10
Action-comedy maestro Shawn Levy, the director of the blockbuster “Night at the Museum” franchise, teams up with two of the comedy world’s biggest talents, Steve Carell (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “The Office”) and Tina Fey (“Baby Mama,” “30 Rock,” “SNL”) for an adventure that turns a run-of-the-mill married couple’s date upside down – way upside down, in DATE NIGHT.
Phil (Carell) and Claire Foster (Fey) are a sensible, loving couple with two kids and a house in suburban New Jersey. The Fosters have their weekly “date night” – an attempt at re-experiencing the spice of the dates of yesteryear, involving the same weekly night out at the local Teaneck Tavern. Their conversations quickly drift from barely-date talk to the same chore-chat they have at the dinner table at home. Exhausted from their jobs and kids, their dates rarely end in fore- or any other kind of play, let alone romance.
After seeing two of their best friends – another married couple with kids in suburban New Jersey – split apart from living the same life they themselves lead, Phil and Claire begin to fear what may lie ahead: a state of bland indifference and eventual separation.
In an attempt to take date night off auto-pilot, and hopefully inject a little spice into their lives, Phil decides a change of plans is in order: take Claire into Manhattan to the city’s hottest new restaurant. The Fosters, however, don’t have reservations. Hoping to be seated sometime before the clock strikes twelve, they steal a no-show couple’s reservations. What could it hurt? Phil and Claire are now the Tripplehorns.
The real Tripplehorns, however, it turns out, are a thieving couple who are being hunted down by a pair of corrupt cops for having stolen property from some very dangerous people. Forced on the run before they’ve even finished their risotto, Phil and Claire soon realize that their play-date-for-parents has gone hilariously awry, as they embark on a wild and dangerous series of crazy adventures to save their lives. . . and their marriage.
The ritual “date night” dinner is something all too familiar to most married couples – even directors of blockbuster movies. “I was in the process of making the second Night at the Museum film,” recalls filmmaker Shawn Levy, “and, as is kind of our ritual, once a week, my wife and I go out to dinner.”
At one such dinner, the Levys found themselves sitting at the restaurant they frequented, ordering the same food, talking about the kids, what’s coming up that weekend, who’s going to buy the gift for which birthday party, etc., etc. “In the middle of all that, I said to my wife, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a movie about a date night, where you just did one thing differently? And, from there, you have an unraveling of everything, to the point of it threatening your life and your marriage, with all kinds of crazy stuff going on. But, in the midst of all that crazy stuff, you end up recapturing the vitality that date night was invented in the first place to preserve.’”
The next morning, Levy came in to his production company office and told his staff, “Okay, we’re going to do a movie called DATE NIGHT, and here’s what it’s about, and let’s get a writer. Let’s go.”
Levy’s search for a writer didn’t take very long. “I had written a small, quirky film, called ‘(Saint) Peter,’ which Shawn had read and fell in love with, recalls screenwriter Josh Klausner. “Shawn was determined to find something for us to work on together. He very graciously took a big chance and had me fly out, and we started brainstorming.”
Levy and Klausner met at Levy’s bungalow on the Fox lot, where they quickly broke the story. “We are both in the same stage of life,” Klausner says. “We both have children and go out on date nights, knowing what they’re supposed to be, but realizing they never end up being that anymore because there are so many other things that get in the way. So we started talking about those experiences.”
“We talked about our marriages,” Levy adds. “And we found that there are certain commonalities in trying to sustain a vibrant, romantic relationship,” and not simply becoming roommates. “It’s the question of in the midst of grownup life, how do you keep couple-hood fresh?”
DATE NIGHT was originally conceived as more of a suburban story centered around a parent-teacher conference night, but quickly evolved into, as Klausner calls it, “the perfect ‘North by Northwest’ setup” of mistaken identity.
“Shawn and I really wanted what spurs on the evening to be something that we all might do,” Klausner continues. “Phil and Claire simply can’t get a seat at a restaurant, and, since nobody’s answering the call for a reservation, they just decide, ‘What’s the harm in taking it?’ And it leads them down the rabbit hole. From there, they end up on the worst night of their lives, which ends up being the best night for their relationship.”
Levy describes the film as being “in the spirit of action comedies I remember fondly, like ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ or ‘48 Hrs.’ DATE NIGHT has a real hybrid tone, because it’s first and foremost a comedy. It also has a hefty dose of action, as well as a lot of heart, because it’s about the things that people deal with in relationships.”
For Levy, DATE NIGHT is a change from the family-friendly hits he’s helmed, like “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Pink Panther” and “Night at the Museum.” DATE NIGHT is more of an adult-skewing comedy,” Levy points out. “In a way, it’s the other side of the movies I’ve done, which have been focused on the child-parent relationships. DATE NIGHT is focused on the marriage side – what happens after the children go to sleep.”
Levy was keen to keep the emotional side of the story intact through the mayhem experienced by the characters. “If you’re making a movie about relationships and being a married couple, it must be more than just funny, because life doesn’t work that way,” the director explains. “This movie has some surprising moments of poignancy.”
“A lot of comedies these days feel like a compendium of gags tied together to follow a narrative story,” notes Klausner. “DATE NIGHT, at its heart, is about marriage and being in love with somebody, but at the same time, life gets in the way. It’s honest, which is something Steve and Tina wanted, too. I’m proud that this movie has preserved that soul.”
When Levy learned that Steve Carell and Tina Fey were hoping to find a project on which they could work together, he knew he had found his DATE NIGHT duo. “We got an early draft of the screenplay to Tina and Steve, who always struck me as the dream pairing for a movie about marriage,” Levy says. “They said, ‘Yeah, we relate to this, we want to do an action comedy that’s also honest about relationships.’ So they said they were in.”
While Levy usually takes a break between completing one feature and beginning the next, he found himself prepping DATE NIGHT while editing “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” in order to take advantage of his stars’ availability. “Steve’s and Tina’s series commitments [on, respectively, “The Office” and “30 Rock”] provides only a limited window for feature film work,” Levy explains. “They told us, ‘Look, we want to do this, but we’re free now, and we’re not going to be free in six months – what do we do?’ I said, ‘Well, we make the movie right now!’ I didn’t get a break between films, but I got a comedy with Steve Carell and Tina Fey, who are two of the most intelligent, interesting people working in comedy today. So a lot of my job was to come up with the idea, get the two perfect actors for the movie, and then get the hell out of the way.”
While slight alterations to the script were made to match the stars’ comedic voices, DATE NIGHT was essentially tailor-made for the pair. “It felt like the film was written for them,” says Klausner. Adds Levy: “Three minutes into this movie, you buy Steve and Tina as a married couple. They have a powerful chemistry together. They clicked completely on screen.”
Phil, says Carell, “feels underappreciated by his friends and family, but he sort of keeps that feeling close to his chest. He’s a very loving guy, but he and Claire have reached a plateau in their relationship. He needs to snap himself out of it, if possible. And the night that he and Claire experience together is a defibrillator for their marriage.”
Carell’s comedic skills, along with his ability to stir audiences’ hearts, made him the perfect choice for the role, Levy says. “Steve is super funny, and his chops as an actor are fantastic. He not only carries entire comedy sequences on his back, but three scenes later, he’s moving you to an emotional place with such sincerity and nuance. There’s no end to what he can do.”
Carell says his own date nights, like Phil Foster’s (and Levy’s and Klausner’s), leave much to be desired. “Sometimes the worst part of date night is actually leaving for the date – when you see your babysitter sitting down, getting all cozy, turning on the TV. That sometimes seems much better than the night that lies ahead.”
Fey, like Carell, has the ability to be riotously funny while still portraying the emotional side of her character realistically – to turn down the volume on jokes and simply allow them to happen. For example, in response to a nudge for sex from her husband, Fey’s Claire offers a very normal, ‘Yeah, hang on a minute” moment as she pulls out her dental mouth guard in preparation for sex with her husband, with enough drool to instantly turn off her mate.
“Besides being obviously really pretty and intelligent, Tina has a complete willingness to make an ass out of herself,” says Levy. She’s completely up for goofing on herself and being the butt of the joke, and that’s very charming.”
Fey describes Claire as “a working mom of two kids, who, like almost everyone I know, is just a little worn out by the day-to-day life of raising your kids, getting them out the door, getting them to school, having a job, keeping a house clean. She’s a good person who is just kind of worn into the ground a little bit. I certainly identify with how just physically tiring it is to be a parent and have a job – sometimes it feels like a real effort to just be present for your spouse.”
So which would be scarier – being in a boring marriage or being chased by the mob (both of which the Fosters experience in the film)? “I would say that being married to a person in the mob would be the scariest,” Fey jokes.
Along their night-from-hell journey, Phil and Claire encounter a cavalcade of characters on both sides of the law. Levy’s casting choices for these roles was sometimes unexpected – and always spot-on. His intent was to provide the story with a “Wizard of Oz”-like experience. “You’re with your heroes, but along the way, they’re being affected and changed by the people they meet, and I just thought wouldn’t it be fun if at every turn of the road, you’re surprised all over again by who has suddenly appeared in this movie. And the cast members fit the roles perfectly.”
The surprise apparently wasn’t limited to the audience. “I read the script,” says Fey,” and I thought, ‘Oh, these are really good parts for somebody.’ I never thought we would get this lucky to have that caliber of people in all these different parts.” Having what otherwise would have appeared to be small roles portrayed by big name actors only helps bring them alive, Carell notes. “When you see them acted out, they’re even better than they were on the page.”
And getting high-powered stars to join the DATE NIGHT team wasn’t just a matter of coincidence. “So many people were so keen to find a way to work with Steve and Tina – they just found a way to make it work,” says Levy.
Mark Wahlberg portrays a former real estate client of Claire’s the pair turns to in the middle of the night. “I play a guy named Holbrooke Grant, who is a security expert who Claire and Phil come to for help,” Wahlberg explains. “They just catch Holbrooke at a bad time – he’s with his beautiful Israeli girlfriend.” The pair ends up turning Holbrooke’s night upside down, as well.
Wahlberg had the simplest costume in the entire cast. “There is no wardrobe – just a pair of silk genie pants,” he recalls, noting that he regularly found himself freezing on the air-conditioned set. That the top half of his costume was missing (except for an ample supply of makeup covering Wahlberg’s countless tattoos), was a fact not lost on the female members of the cast and crew. “Mark was shirtless for three or four days,” Fey says, prompting a noticeable increase in the number of women who suddenly had additional tasks to address on set on the days he was on the job. “I had friends texting me, ‘Can I get on the Fox lot and visit you today?’” Fey laughs.
Also coming to the aid of the beleaguered couple is Taraji P. Henson, an Oscar® nominee for her work in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” who plays NYPD Detective Arroyo, who, though she doesn’t exactly believe the Fosters “chased by bad guys” story, begins to become suspicious of a couple of her colleagues. “She’s sort of a hero,” the actress says.
Playing thugs Collins and Armstrong, who are after the Fosters (whom they believe are the Tripplehorns) are Common and Jimmi Simpson. Common is a familiar face to audiences for his role as a murderous cop in “Street Kings” and for his work as a musical artists (his hits include “Love of My Life” and “Testify”). Simpson has made occasional appearances as Lyle the Intern on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
Common describes the duo as “one of the many catalysts to get this mundane couple out of their comfort zone – mainly by shooting guns at them.” The two are essentially hunters, he adds, noting, “I’m the muscle.”
Collins and Armstrong’s formidable boss is gangster Joe Miletto, from whom the Tripplehorns have apparently stolen something of importance that he wants back. The casting of acclaimed actor Ray Liotta as Miletto delighted Carell and Fey. “We were shooting a scene with Ray one night,” recalls Carell, “and Tina looked over and said, ‘I feel like I am in a 3D version of ‘Goodfellas. Ray Liotta is actually walking up and talking to me.’ It was like a ride at a theme park.”
Playing a heavy in a comedy, particularly for actors used to appearing in dramatic films, requires a special knack, one which DATE NIGHT’s group of toughs embraced with gusto.
“It’s really in the writing, so it’s dependent on your commitment to it,” explains Liotta. “If the situation’s just a little more heightened, you’re going to laugh.” Common agrees: “Shawn expressed to us from the beginning – you’ve got to keep it real. The more real it becomes – because you’re playing off Steve and Tina – the funnier it becomes.”
Portraying the “real” Tripplehorns – actually a drug dealer named Taste and his wacky stripper girlfriend, Whippit – are James Franco and Mila Kunis. Despite their different life circumstances, the pair has much in common with the Fosters, being in the same spot in their relationship as their clean-cut counterparts. Notes Josh Klausner: “Whether you’re a drug dealer or a suburban husband, you still feel the pangs of ‘You never look at me the way you used to’ and ‘You don’t have time for me.’ What the two couples are going through is exactly the same,” making the exchanges between the two couples both hilarious and poignant at the same time.
Kunis describes the pair as “very passionate – when they’re angry, they’re very angry, and when they’re happy, they’re madly in love.” Whippit, specifically, she describes as a “psycho, who is very up and down. She goes through three different emotions within two and a half script pages.”
The name “Taste,” Franco says, is left over from an earlier concept of the character – a 6 ft. 7 in. bald man with “TASTE” tattooed on his forehead. “So when they asked me to be in the movie, I said, ‘Well, I’m certainly not that.’” The character’s description was then rewritten, but the name stuck. “I was up for facial tattoos, too,” Franco says with a laugh. “We just went for the cheesy ‘Grim Reaper.’”
Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo play the Fosters soon-to-be-splitting couple friends, Haley and Brad Sullivan. “Their parting brings up the question about getting bored with your spouse and moving on, or just sticking it out,” says Wiig. “I think Haley plants the seeds in Claire’s mind.”
Also taking on key roles are “Gossip Girl’s” Leighton Meester as the Fosters’ babysitter Katy, and “The Dark Knight’s” William Fichtner as district attorney Frank Crenshaw.
All the cast members appreciated Levy’s ability to balance action and comedy, which in turn allowed his actors the freedom to come up with their own gags. “That’s the only way you can afford to have time to play around or to improvise and do extra takes,” notes Fey. “That only happens if everyone – especially your director – really knows what they’re doing.”
For Levy, there’s a method to the potential madness of improv. “Sometimes, after we’d get what I want, Steve and Tina would come to me and say, ‘You know what? Could I get one more take? I’ve got an idea that might lead somewhere.’ Sometimes we couldn’t use it, but more often than not, it was gold and it ended up in the movie,” such as the duo’s restaurant shenanigans game of guessing what’s up with the couple sitting across the way.
“Every person in any field wants to go to work and feel respected for what they do,” says the director. “So when you say to an actor, ‘We’re going to do the script that I’ve written for you, but I want to hear what’s in your head. I actually think that the ideas you come up with might be as legitimate or better than what we scripted,’ it makes your actors feel like partners and collaborators, and not mouthpieces. It makes them feel like part of the creative team, rather than a piece of machinery.”
MEET THE TWINS
While attempting to escape their pursuers, the Fosters “borrow” Holbrooke Grant’s car, the much-too-powerful-for-Phil Audi R8. When Phil inadvertently smashes into a taxi cab, the two vehicles’ bumpers become hopelessly locked together. Nonetheless, the chase continues, the conjoined twin automobiles smashing their way down Manhattan streets.
The complicated sequence came about when Levy and Klausner were brainstorming ideas for a chase scene. Concerned about repeating the oft-used, cliché urban car chase, Klausner recalls, “I remember sitting in a room with Shawn, telling him, ‘You know, do we really have to do a car chase, because how many times have we seen a car chase in these movies? How interesting can that be?’”
Levy then related to his writer a story from his teenage years. “He was just learning to drive, and was trying to park, but he ended up smashing into another car in front of him and getting stuck on that car. His father just drove by and shook his head.” Thus was born the idea of conjoined cars.
But just having two cars barreling down the street wasn’t enough. “Shawn wanted to do something that nobody had ever seen before,” says 2nd unit director and stunt coordinator Jack Gill, who planned and executed the sequence. “Once we got the basic idea of conjoining the cars, we began figuring out not only how to build the cars, but how to make it work comically. I then started adding eccentricities, like spinning them around in circles and having characters fire guns at them.”
Besides having six different cars that, each of which handled a specific aspect of the chase stunts, Gill built a 40 foot frame, upon which the Audi and cab bodies were placed. “So there’s just one rigid frame,” he explains. The stunt driver was situated at the leading end of the conjoined vehicles. “So when the cab is facing forwards, with the Audi ahead of it facing the wrong way, the stunt driver is actually driving from inside the Audi’s trunk, looking out the back so he can see where he’s going and drive around corners.” In addition, for most shots, the rig’s rear wheels – those under the rear end of the conjoined vehicles – could also steer, in the same manner as those of a hook-and-ladder fire truck.
Needless to say, don’t try this at home on your own Manhattan street.
New York City ordinances limited the production to the types of stunts that could be filmed on Manhattan streets. So following a week of night work in New York, the stunt team moved to downtown Los Angeles to complete the sequence.
“We had about six blocks to work with on Broadway, which was great,” Gill recalls. “We needed a long stretch locked down, because when you conjoin two cars together, you’ve got a thing that’s forty feet long – getting it up to speed and shutting it all down can be tough. You can’t just do it in two blocks.” The sequence was filmed with up to six cameras, including a special “balloon cam,” with wheeled buoys on each corner, which allowed the camera to be sent into the path of the speeding car pair and getting hit head-on, without damaging expensive camera equipment.
Carell did actually drive the R8 himself for a number of shots. “We wanted the car to have way too much power for a guy like Phil to handle,” says Gill. “So I asked Audi to disconnect the all-wheel drive, which meant putting all 560 horsepower into the rear wheels.” So what was Carell’s impression? “He said it felt like somebody hitting him in the back of the head with a shovel when he stepped on the gas.”
In one shot, Phil must make his way to the cab while Claire is driving the Audi at high speed. “We did all the transfers across the hood with doubles – that was all real,” notes Gill.
Close-ups of Carell and Fey were done against a green screen set at Twentieth Century Fox. Since the chase acrobatics had already been filmed, besides their scripted lines, Carell and Fey filled in the gaps with their gut-busting ad-libs. “I’d show them footage and explain to them, ‘Here’s what we did last week downtown with the real cars – what do you think?’” Gill says. “And we’d bounce off ideas until something really clicked. And then Shawn was always there to say, ‘You’re right on track here – that’s really funny!’ It really helps when you have a collaboration where everybody can talk ideas out.”
Even with all the excitement, Levy kept the scene’s theme on track. “Once we had the concept of having the two cars stuck together, then we could find a way to thematically tie it in to what the movie’s about, which is this couple that has to learn to communicate to survive,” he explains.
Indeed, even with all that happens to them on this fateful night, the Fosters achieve their goal: to reinvigorate their relationship and reconnect with the love and excitement that brought them together in the first place.
“DATE NIGHT is kind of like a fable,” says Levy. “It takes place over a very short period of time, but in some way, it’s timeless, because it’s a story about a journey two people make in their relationship. And we leave the night feeling like they will go back to their lives and no one except for the people involved that night might ever know what happened. We’ve watched them experience this crazy night, but the real adventure of their married life, now that they’ve found each other again, is just about to begin.”
“They’re comfortable enough again with each other to be able to say ‘Knock it off’ and ‘I love you’ within the same five minutes,” says Steve Carell.
Tina Fey has just one last piece of relationship advice: “Go on a date night and see DATE NIGHT.”
ABOUT THE CAST
STEVE CARELL (Phil Foster) has emerged as one of the most sought-after comedic actors in Hollywood. First gaining recognition for his contributions as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy® Award-winning “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Carell has successfully segued into primetime television and above-the-title status in the film world with equal aplomb.
Carell currently stars as Michael Scott, the pompous and deluded boss of a Pennsylvania paper company, in the Americanized adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ acclaimed British television series “The Office.” Now in its sixth season, the show continues to flourish in ratings and has earned Carell three Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe® nominations for his work on the show, and earned the Golden Globe in 2006. In the last two years, the show has won the Screen Actors Guild Award® for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
Carell opened his first lead feature, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” which he co-wrote with director Judd Apatow, at #1, a spot it remained in for two straight weekends. The surprise hit of 2005 went on to gross more than $175 million worldwide and had #1 openings in 12 countries. The film generated over $100 million in DVD sales in North America alone. On an award level, the film was honored with an AFI Award® named one of 10 Most Outstanding Motion Pictures of the Year and took home Best Comedy Movie at the 11th annual Critics’ Choice Awards®. The film also earned Carell and Apatow a co-nomination for Best Original Screenplay by the Writers Guild Association.
In 2008, Carell starred as Maxwell Smart in the much-anticipated action-comedy “Get Smart,” opposite Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin. The film grossed over $230 million worldwide. A sequel is due in 2011. He also lent his voice as “The Mayor of Whoville” in Twentieth Century Fox’s animated film “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” based on the children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. Directed by Jimmy Hayward (“Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.”), Carell played opposite Jim Carrey, and helped launch the film as an international success earning over $295 million worldwide.
In 2006, as part of an ensemble, he starred in “Little Miss Sunshine,” which earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Picture and won the SAG Award™ for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The black comedy also starred Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette. Previous film credits for the actor include “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Bewitched, and “Dan in Real Life.” Carell’s feature film breakout role in “Bruce Almighty,” opposite Jim Carrey, led to a sequel starring Carell in 2007, “Evan Almighty.”
Carell recently announced the start of his new production company, Carousel Productions. Carell’s endeavors and successes in acting, writing and producing were an organic segue in the creation of Carousel Productions. Born in Massachusetts, Carell now resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Nancy Walls (NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”), whom he met while at the Second City Theater Group in Chicago, where both were members. He is the proud father of a daughter and a son.
TINA FEY (Claire Foster), one of the most visible and popular figures in television today, writes, executive produces and stars in NBC's three-time Emmy Award-winning comedy series “30 Rock,” a workplace comedy which takes place behind-the-scenes of a live variety show. Her performance as head writer Liz Lemon on the fictional “TGS with Tracy Jordan” has earned Fey an Emmy, two Golden Globes, three SAG Awards, and a People’s Choice Award®. This year alone, “30 Rock” won five Emmy Awards and was nominated for many others.
Prior to creating “30 Rock,” Fey completed nine seasons as head writer, cast member and co-anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Fey is an Emmy winner and two-time Writers Guild Award winner for her writing on SNL, also receiving an Emmy for her spoof of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Since her transition to being in front of the camera, Fey has won much acclaim, including being named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainers of the Year, People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People (three times), and one of Time magazine’s Prestigious Time 100.
Other awards include, in 2008, a Producers Guild Award and a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for “30 Rock.” She has also won two Gracie Awards and a Made in New York Award and has been nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Choice Comedy Actress and a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Fey expanded to feature films in spring 2004 as both a screenwriter and an actress opposite Lindsay Lohan in the hit comedy “Mean Girls,” which earned her a nomination for a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most recently she starred alongside “Saturday Night Live’s” Amy Poehler in the film “Baby Mama” for Universal Pictures, which exceed the $50 million dollar mark at the U.S. box office. Fey also starred in the Ricky Gervais comedy “The Invention of Lying,” released in 2009.
MARK WAHLBERG (“Holbrooke Grant”) earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his standout performance in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed drama “The Departed.”
Wahlberg’s remarkable film career began with Penny Marshall’s “Renaissance Man” and “The Basketball Diaries” with Leonardo DiCaprio, followed by a star turn opposite Reese Witherspoon in the thriller “Fear.” He has enjoyed playing diverse characters for visionary filmmakers such as David O. Russell, Tim Burton and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Wahlberg’s breakout role in “Boogie Nights” established him as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents. He later headlined “Three Kings” and “The Perfect Storm” with George Clooney, and “The Italian Job” with Charlize Theron. He followed those with “I ♥ Huckabees,” “Four Brothers” and the football biography, “Invincible.” He then appeared in “Shooter,” based on the best-selling novel Point of Impact. Wahlberg reunited with “The Yards” director James Gray and co-star Joaquin Phoenix in “We Own the Night,” which Wahlberg produced.
In 2008, Wahlberg starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening,” and in “Max Payne.” He recently appeared in director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lovely Bones.” Due out this year is “The Fighter” for director David O. Russell and “The Other Guys,” with Will Ferrell.
Wahlberg is an executive producer on “The Fighter” and “We Own the Night,” as well as on the HBO series “Entourage” and “In Treatment,” which have received six Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations.
Future projects include the new HBO series, “Boardwalk Empire,” with Martin Scorsese and “How to Make it in America,” along with other feature film projects. A committed philanthropist, he founded The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in 2001 to benefit inner city children and teens.
TARAJI P. HENSON (“Detective Arroyo”) earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress portraying Brad Pitt’s mother in David Fincher’s highly acclaimed “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Most recently, she starred in Tyler Perry’s “I Can Do Bad All By Myself,” which opened to number one at the box office.
For three years, Henson starred as Raina Washington, the youngest female detective on Lifetime’s “The Division.” She was also a regular on David E. Kelly’s “Boston Legal” and had a recurring role on ABC’s “Eli Stone.” Henson appeared in featured roles on “ER,” “Strong Medicine,” “CSI,” “House,” among others.
Henson received rave reviews for her role in Focus Features’ “Talk to Me” opposite Don Cheadle. Henson was named Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Feature Film at the 2005 Black Movie Awards and received the Best Actress nod at the 2006 BET Awards for her performance as Shug in the gutsy drama “Hustle & Flow,” produced by Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton. She received two nominations at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards™ including Best Breakthrough Performance.
Upcoming films include “Karate Kid” opposite Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, which filmed on location in Beijing for Columbia. Henson plays Rainn Wilson’s love interest in the upcoming indie comedy “Peep World,» also starring Sarah Silverman. In the indie drama “Once Fallen,” Henson stars with Ed Harris and Brian Presley. She starred in Sony’s “Not Easily Broken” opposite Morris Chestnut, and opposite Forest Whitaker in “Hurricane Season.” She starred in Tyler Perry’s “The Family That Preys” with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., the Howard University grad has a strong passion for helping disabled and less fortunate children and reveals, “I always stress to kids to have faith in themselves—the greatest recipe for success is self confidence.”
COMMON (Collins), a Grammy Award® winning artist, made his big screen debut as a musical performer in “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” in 2006. In January 2007, he made his acting debut co-starring opposite Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys and Ryan Reynolds in “Smokin’ Aces.” Since then he’s co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in “American Gangster,” directed by Ridley Scott; David Ayer’s “Street Kings,” starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker; and “Terminator Salvation,” directed by McG, starring Christian Bale.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
SHAWN LEVY (Director/Producer) is one of the most commercially successful film directors of the past decade. To date, his films have grossed over 1.5 billion dollars worldwide. Levy has honed his craft, seamlessly weaving comedy and heart into captivating stories that resonate with audiences. His youthfully enthusiastic approach to filmmaking is evident in the storylines and characters he creates – reflecting his joyful intensity for each project at hand.
Levy is currently developing several films to produce through his production company, 21 Laps, which is housed at Twentieth Century Fox. These projects include “The Ten Best Days of My Life” (with Amy Adams), “Neighborhood Watch,” “The Devil You Know” and “How to Talk to Girls” for Fox; “Factracker” for MGM; “The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp” and “The Cutlass Islands” for New Regency, “Men of Magic” for Universal; “The Berenstain Bears” for Walden; and “The Spectacular Now” and “Table 19” for Fox Searchlight.
Currently, Levy is in pre-production on the futuristic father-son boxing drama, “Real Steel,” starring Hugh Jackman, for Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks.
Levy’s 21 Laps recently produced the 2008 comedy «What Happens in Vegas,» starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, which went on to earn over $200 million worldwide.
Levy both produced and directed the blockbuster “Night at the Museum,” starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney, which grossed over $580 million worldwide and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” starring a wide array of today’s most notable comedic talent including Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais and Steve Coogan, which grossed over $400 million worldwide.
He directed the successful 2006 comedy, “The Pink Panther,” starring Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Beyoncé Knowles, and Jean Reno and served as the executive producer of “Pink Panther 2.” Levy also directed “Cheaper By The Dozen” starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Ashton Kutcher and Hilary Duff, which went on to gross more than $200 million worldwide.
In 2002, Levy directed both the hit romantic comedy “Just Married,” starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy, which grossed over $100 million and the family comedy “Big Fat Liar,” for Universal Pictures, with Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti and Amanda Bynes.
Levy graduated at the age of 20 from the Drama Department of Yale University. He later studied film in the Masters Film Production Program at USC, where he produced and directed the short film Broken Record. This film won the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival, in addition to being selected to screen at the Director’s Guild of America.
JOSH KLAUSNER (Screenwriter) attended Princeton University, where he was involved in the theater community as an actor, playwright and director, and studied theater luminaries Bobby Lewis and Albert Innaurato. Klausner’s thesis play, “Scratch,” received the Francis LeMoyne Page Prize for Excellence in Theater. After graduation, Klausner co-created the short “Season of the Lifterbees,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and won the Time Warner Grand Prize at the Aspen Shortsfest and a regional AMPAS Student Academy Award for Best Dramatic Short.
In 1994, Klausner began working as an assistant to the Farrelly Brothers, on their first film, “Dumb & Dumber,” moving on to work as 2nd unit director on the Farrellys’ hit 1998 film, “There’s Something About Mary” and again in 2001’s “Shallow Hal.”
In 2000, Klausner wrote and directed HBO’s “The 4th Floor,” starring William Hurt, Juliette Lewis, Austin Pendleton and Shelley Duvall. He did additional screenplay work on “Shrek the Third,” and wrote the original screenplay and storyline for DreamWorks
Animation’s upcoming “Shrek Forever After,” to be released later this year.
Klausner is currently working on a number of feature film projects, including a live action adaptation of “Thomas the Tank Engine,” and an adaptation of Adena Hapern’s The Ten Best Days of My Life for Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps, which will star Amy Adams. He is also collaborating with Sir Paul McCartney on “High in the Clouds,” an upcoming animated feature film based on the former Beatle’s children’s book.
JOE CARACCIOLO, JR. (Executive Producer) began his career in film as a production manager on director Sidney Lumet’s “Running on Empty” and “The Verdict.”
Caracciolo executive produced the hit comedies “Marley & Me” starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, “What Happens in Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher (for 21 Laps), and “The Devil Wears Prada” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. His other executive producing credits include “Just My Luck,” starring Lindsay Lohan, “Hide & Seek,” a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, and “Uptown Girls,” a comedic New York fairy tale starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning. Additionally, he produced the teen thriller “Swimfan,” directed by John Polson.
Caracciolo’s other feature film credits include James Foley’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Jon Amiel’s “Copycat,” and “The Man Who Knew Too Little,” and writer-director John Waters’ “Serial Mom,” “Pecker,” and “Cecil B. Demented.”
JOSH McLAGLEN (Executive Producer) has worked as an assistant director on dozens of blockbuster films alongside some of Hollywood’s top directors. He has been 1st AD on “Tango and Cash,” “Alien 3,” James Cameron’s “Titanic,” “The X-Files,” “Cast Away,” “The Polar Express, and “Beowulf,” the latter three for director Robert Zemeckis, and again for Cameron on “Avatar.”
In 2002, McLaglen began wearing a producer’s hat, working his way from associate producer (“The Polar Express”) to co-producer (“Beowulf,” “Avatar”) to executive producer. In 2006, he began working with director Shawn Levy, as both 1st AD and co-producer on “Night at the Museum,” becoming executive producer for that film’s sequel, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” as well as for “Date Night” and the upcoming “Real Steel.”
TOM McNULTY (Executive Producer) is the president of production at 21 Laps, a production company based at Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles. McNulty joined 21 Laps at its inception with the company’s principal, director Shawn Levy and has set up over a dozen film projects at Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers and New Line. 21 Laps films include “Cheaper By The Dozen 2,” as well as the hit comedy “What Happens In Vegas” starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, “St. Peter” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sam Rockwell, and “The Rocker,” the latter marking their first producing effort together.
Prior to joining Levy, McNulty was the executive vice president of production at Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions for over six years. There, he oversaw the development of the entire slate of films, notably “Mr. Deeds,” “Anger Management,” “50 First Dates,” “Are We There Yet,” “Click” and “Dickie Roberts Former Child Star.”
Prior to joining Happy Madison, McNulty was an executive at Out Of The Blue Entertainment, where he was an executive on “Big Daddy” and “Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo.”
McNulty arrived in Hollywood as an actor, appearing in “Boys on the Side” opposite Whoopi Goldberg and “Escape from L.A.” with Kurt Russell. McNulty grew up on Long Island and attended The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.
DEAN SEMLER, ACS/ASC (Director of Photography) began his career in his native Australia, lensing “Mad Max 2” (aka “The Road Warrior” in North America) in 1982 for George Miller, for which Semler received an Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination. Semler reteamed with Miller for “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” Semler won both the AFI and Australian Cinematographers Society awards for the Aussie thriller “Razorback.”
By the late ‘80s, Semler was serving as director of photography on several U.S. productions, including “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown, and the western “Young Guns.” The following year, he returned to Australia for “Dead Calm,” starring Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill, for which Semler won the AFI award.
After filming the “Young Guns” sequel in 1990, Semler shot Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” for which Semler received multiple honors, including an Academy Award and American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award. He reteamed with Costner in 1995 for “Waterworld.”
Throughout the ‘90s and into the following decade, Semler shot the comedies “City Slickers,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” “Bruce Almighty,” and “Get Smart.” He also filmed Mel Gibson’s epic “Apocalypto.”
Most recently, Semler was director of photography on Roland Emmerich’s “2012,” and on “Secretariat,” starring Diane Lane and Scott Glenn.
DAVID GROPMAN (Production Designer), after working in television and independent films, designed the studio features “Of Mice and Men,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and “The Cider House Rules,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Gropman received an Art Directors Guild award and BAFTA nomination for his design for “Chocolat.” Gropman worked on John Waters’ “Hairspray,” for which Gropman was nominated for a Satellite Award. The Art Directors Guild once again recognized Gropman with a nomination for period film design for “Doubt,” which takes place in the 1960s.
CHRISTOPHE BECK (Composer) reunites with Shawn Levy, after composing the scores for the Levy-helmed projects “Just Married,” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Pink Panther. Recently, Beck reteamed with director Chris Columbus on “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” after composing the score for Columbus’ “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”
The Montreal native started piano lessons at age five and was writing music for his first-ever band, Chris and The Cupcakes, before his teen years. During high school, Beck studied flute, saxophone, trombone and drums, and performed in rock bands. While studying music at Yale University, Beck had an epiphany, discovering that his talent for composing exceeded that for performing. He wrote two musicals with his brother Jason (a.k.a. Chilly Gonzales, the Berlin-based hip-hop recording artist), as well as an opera based on The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
Upon graduation from Yale in 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's prestigious film scoring program, where he studied with Oscar winner Jerry Goldsmith, among others. Beck was immediately attracted to the creative challenges unique to the marriage of music and picture, and a personal recommendation from the head of the USC Music Department led to his first professional assignment, the Canadian TV series “White Fang.” Soon thereafter, he was asked to score a new TV series (then in its second season), “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” based on the 1992 cult classic film, for which he received the Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition during his three seasons with the show.
The prolific talent has scored 40+ feature films and nearly twenty television shows since 1993. His film compositions include a wide array of projects and genres including the action films “The Sentinel” and “Elektra,” the comedies “The Hangover,” “Drillbit Taylor,” “What Happens in Vegas,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “Pink Panther 2,” and “Bring It On,” and the dramas “Under the Tuscan Sun,” “Year of the Dog,” “Phoebe in Wonderland” and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury nominee “The Greatest.”
Beck has also composed scores for “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising,” “School for Scoundrels,” “License to Wed,” “Fred Claus,” “We Are Marshall,” “Confidence,” “Yours, Mine and Ours,” “Taxi,” “A Cinderella Story,” “Saved!,” “Garfield” and its sequel, “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “American Wedding,” “Post Grad,” and “All About Steve.”
MARLENE STEWART (Costume Designer) earned her first credits working on music videos, including memorable designs for fashion-forward pop superstar Madonna. Stewart created image-shaping costumes for 11 Madonna videos, including “Vogue,” “Material Girl,” “Like a Prayer” and “Express Yourself.”
Stewart’s film work spans a wide variety of genres, periods and looks. She has collaborated with an intriguing array of directors, ranging from Alejandro González Iñárritu on “21 Grams” to Oliver Stone on “The Doors” and “JFK” to Michael Mann on “Ali” and Beeban Kidron on “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.”
Most recently, Stewart designed the costumes for Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder,” Nancy Meyers’s romantic comedy “The Holiday” and Kimberly Peirce’s drama “Stop-Loss.”
Her credits also include Andy Tennant’s “Hitch,” James Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “True Lies,” Mary Lambert’s “Siesta,” Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down,” James L. Brooks’s “I’ll Do Anything,” Curtis Hanson’s “The River Wild,” Joe Pytka’s “Space Jam,” Rob Bowman’s “The X Files,” Tony Scott’s “Enemy of the State,” Dominic Sena’s “Gone in 60 Seconds,” David McNally’s “Coyote Ugly,” and Antoine Fuqua’s “Tears of the Sun.”
After earning a degree in History at the University of California, Berkeley, Stewart studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. She received the Bob Mackie Award for Design for her student work and began her design career by launching her own women’s clothing line, Covers. A Boston native, Stewart designed the costumes for three Madonna tours as well as tours for Cher, Paula Abdul, and Gloria Estefan. She created music video looks for Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, Debbie Harry, Smashing Pumpkins, the Bangles, and the Eurythmics, and was the first recipient of the American Music Awards’ Best Costume Design Award for the video “Material Girl.”
1 Views
14:15:33 01/27/10
OKInsiderEpisode61- Mischa Barton struggles, Latoya for American idol, Britney finds a loophole & Rhianna plans to wed.
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 14:15:33 01/27/10
Apparently 7 lines are just too many for Hollywood starlet Mischa Barton . After having her last series ' A beautiful life ' cancelled after just 2 episodes, gaining a reputation for causing havoc on set and a stint at psychiatric unti last summer, the star is still not deterred from the New York nightlife, which may just may have something to do with her apparent lack of preparation for her guest role on TV show 'Law and Order' . 7 lines took all day to shoot and it seems Mischa couldn't remember any of them.
Now that Simon Cowell has walked away from his judging seat on american idol, the seat lies empty and stars are beginning to beg! One surprise option for place go villain on the panel is Latoya Jackson ! Who has just 'put it out there' that she would be interested in being a judge and have the chance for the public to get to know the REAL HER.
No one likes their parents telling them what to so and how much to spend so we're feeling for Brtiney Spears who- due to her fathers conservatorship has given her a strict credit limonite of £1000 a week. However the wily popster has apparently found a loop hole- using her bodyguards, she gets them to score over-budget purchases. Britney's conservatorship ends in a month, so lets hope they've kept their receipts!
Rhianna fans get excited as there are serious rumours that she is planning to get marry soon. A friend of the umbrella song told how Katie Perry asked Rhianna to be her bridesmaid at her wedding to Russell Brand later this year. Rhianna replied ‘yes- I’ll be next!’
Hero of the week is a kind hearted twitterer who Peaches Geldof i s very grateful of after she lost her passport in an east London Park. The kind hearted passer-by tweeted the star and the star and passport were promptly restored to each other!
Villain of the week is China - the government, rather than the entire population- who have banned box office hit Avatar as it is taking too much market share from home-grown movies!
Hotshots:
Jessica Simpson is single again, JLO joins the Glee fanclub and Demi ditches the golden globes as she was having a bad hair day.
Visit OK! Magazine online at www.OK.co.uk
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4 Views
06:43:51 05/02/09
BIKE SNOBS / NOISE / F BRakes Lyrics
[LESS INFO] 4 VIEWS | ADDED 06:43:51 05/02/09
Hey all, XRIS here, announcing that the TS is back in action, after a nice break from reality, the web, and modern life in general. (I myself haven’t checked my email in six months or turned on the TV in the last four, so I am feeling cleansed.;-)
But all that is potentially changing, because we are currently crawling out of the bright pit of new romance, over employment and other fine distractions. Carefully observing what damage, or good, has been done by this technological withdrawal. Some people still call me personally on the old 20th century device the cell phone (R.I.P. my beloved Star-tek, now I be rockin’ a pricey iPhone), well, those old school friends have expressed their hurt / offense that I don’t welcome them into a facebook / twitter presence I either never embraced or had in the first place. To all those folks, sorry about that. Though it may happen again. But for now, I am logging on to the half-life. I personally will be reflecting back on the interesting experiment of complete withdraw, while we in TS slowly reintroduce ourselves to the modern tech world we withdrew from, seeing what we really do “need”. Which seems to parallel what much of the nation seems to be doing with their wasteful economic lives.
TO THE BLOGS!
I don’t know how much we need blogs, but clearly they can be fun, if not powerful tools. Or in my case, luring temptresses, because I was finally drawn back on to the interwebs, as our beloved bassist Juggy D. told me: “Reconnect your series of tubes, Team Spider is on BIKE SNOB”. The mysteriously anonymous yet ever blogging Sir Snob Esq. Writes that we have given the brake-less fixed gear community their theme song, referring to our crappy little ditty FUCK BRAKES. Ha. Why not? Most people probably don’t know the lyrics, or what inspired the song, but we’re glad the general spirit is embraced. ( though BikeSnob picked up on the political themes stating “(brakeless fixed gear) has officially been elevated to a rolling metaphor and a political statement.”
Nice, though he isn’t optimistic people are going to take to the streets and make the world a better place, a stern letter is the first step away from a blank stare.
Since people are discussing the lyrics /origins Fuck Brakes, might up well clear up the confusing.
SIT BACK KIDS AND HEAR A TALE, A TALE OF A FATEFUL TRIP…
The FUCK BRAKES song and general shenanigans are the result of a combination of events, starting with an old fixie sticker that was floating around a few years back. An ancient time, when dragons roamed free, and the fixed gear community was much more of a cult riding without brakes, then a fashionable phenomenon. It attracted, if not required, a certain state of mind, as much as a crucial level of skill. Hence the FUCK BRAKES stickers affixed to many bikes and items, such as our guitarist $am’s helmet (featured on our Fuck Brakes EP cover looking somewhat military like). Ironically, in the distant past I had a bit of a paternal stance against non-messengers riding fixed on the streets of NYC. And I wasn’t even a messenger. I remember long conversations w/ Mike Green of bikeblog where I doubted that random commuters had a suitable skill level to deal with NYC realities. The exception being our 8-10 hours a day bike riding, midtown-traffic battling, road warrior Messenger friends, who initiated the use of fixed gear riding on the streets of NYC in the first place. My opinion was sadly reinforced after personally witnessing an old lady launched in the air on 8th and Broadway after a young guy skidded into a full crowd of people crossing the street. The impatient pedestrians were crossing against a light, so the kid certainly was in the right as far as traffic rules went. But much like the Pope’s stance on condoms, he was not really factoring in reality. In the streets of NYC, it’s the rules of the wild Wild West, aka: if you’re going to take your guns to town, you better be fast on the draw. Or in his case, able to stop. Though, much to the rider’s credit, he took responsibility and stuck around till the end -knowing the inevitable red flashing lights on the horizon would probably represent more than just ambulances. Even in the face of an escalating mob scene, including one person in the crowd who exclaimed in disbelief, “He doesn’t even have brakes!” At which point the young guy was saved from a possible crowd lynching by firefighters, who inexplicably were there before the police, (who never came) complete with their truck and Dalmatian.
Anyhow, bicycle deaths were definitely on the rise. Though I doubt any statistics exist to see if the rise of fatalities were at all fixie related, I personally linked it to lack of experience mixed with a lack of infrastructure. The city was not exactly catering to the onslaught of new cyclists of any type. In fact, cops seemed to be harassing and arresting cyclists at every turn. Hundreds of dollars in fines for “riding on the sidewalk” as people mounted up in front of their building rather than on the street. Messing with Critical Mass’ers by claiming they were “protestors”, or “parading without a permit”, charges, which aren’t grounds for arrest in the first place. (If we tend to believe in the Constitution).
And so it was on a Critical Mass bike ride, the weekend before the 2004 republican national convention, that I found myself in the infamous NYC tombs for over 30 hours (well over the 24hour due process requirements), shackled at the ankles to other cyclists while mysterious G-men carrying palm pilots asked us questions about our roommates and other uncalled for invasions of privacy, all the while giving the impression that cooperating with their Intel gathering would make it all go faster. Funny enough, bassist Juggy-D was my roommate at the time, and I refused to needlessly sell him out. Though it turns out he was in handcuffs somewhere else anyway.
At that point, between the endless electronic fingerprinting, and questions that revealed more than they obtained, I came to realize… I am now in the system.
I had always avoided partaking in the system / grid / economic debt traps etc. for their obvious (to me) chains and seemingly nightmare-like realities. So the idealistic, naive and chronically optimistic me, had always avoided at great lengths being documented. Where many of my friends had no licenses or ID’s, they were constantly being arrested. I lived the same off the grid lifestyle, but had a knack for not getting tangled up with the law. This was back when paper trails were actually on paper, passports were stamped not scanned, and living a low budget lifestyle meant wonderful anonymity as much as it did poverty. Nowadays it seems that with just a couple keystrokes you can find out your local dumpster diver’s home address, not to mention life story (and nude pictures!). But back then, the few times I had been captured by authorities it had at worst maybe resulted in finger prints on some old index card system, forgotten names and phantom addresses. But now, in the modern reality, suddenly, they had me. Fingerprints, digital photos, profiles, associate, and with this (perhaps inevitable) attaching of my heavy chains, I felt –surprisingly-- FREE. Like blazing down the avenue, taking lights, no brakes, maneuver or die time, saying, (or better yet- living) the words: FUCK BRAKES.
When I came out of jail, the Police of course “accidentally” switched everyone’s keys so no one could get in their homes upon release. And for the first time in a while, I found myself stuck on the streets, dehydrated, spent, assumed to have been whipped into shape, while in reality, I was no longer hiding in the shadows. Reflecting on my reality I started penning lyrics.
--Again the hell of my jail cell
--Rats and roaches make prisons swell
--Your harps and clouds of yesterday
--They drift away
Feeling free about the future, confirming my long running form of atheism from popular religions such as capitalism, Catholicism, self imposed isolationism,
I found myself looking backwards… and recognizing what the systematic arrests were all about…
--Mistakes were made
--In the land of the free built by their slaves
--Taught how to behave
--By corporate crooks
--Digging our mass graves
And that really nothing is new, except maybe for my own self-awareness, of how they motivated me, more than scared me…
--I never colored within the line,
--My flags and bridges burn far behind
--East side, west side, you lie we die
--Doored and doomed, still we fucking ride.
Suddenly, the powers that be somehow made riding a bike, political.
Well, all those initial lyrics sort of got lost in the piles of stuff floating around team spider’land. (See recent moving of Zak’s 30,000 lyrics ;-)
And sort of forgotten about. We would sometimes joke about living the ‘fuck brakes’ lifestyle. And how it equally applied to our cats, Snotty and Ratt, who spent every waking moment conspiring on escaping the house. Always running into the busy alphabet city streets that we were so set on protecting their naive little butts from. And of course 80 yr olde ZAK, who lived in such an immediate and present fashion, that his life appeared as reckless as the life of a teenager. Living the fuck brakes lifestyle is likely why he fit so seamlessly in the underground squatter punk scene.
Then, when ZAK passed away, we weren’t sure what to do. Should the team Spider call it ‘quits.’? Was the TS moniker more a chain and burden at this point than a benefit. What would Zak want? When we knew Zak would only ask: what do you want? And after some chilling, we decided we wanted to keep rocking out, hanging, having fun. We had lots of songs sitting around, and had spent much of our time over the last few years caring for Zak, that we never got to tour or record, a.k.a. do things that normal bands do. Soon, inspired by Zak, and more obviously our cat’s, out poured verse 2:
My kitty cats
Snotty and Ratt
Wait by the door for sneak attack,
Breaking free from my laws and lies
Their sweet meows say
“Fuck it, still we ride”
And soon we were recording our shitty little EP, deciding in a typical commercially suicidal decision to call it: FUCK BRAKES
Never the less, we got to tour Europe,
Where we made lots of new friends, and new adventures, rocked the Cycle Messenger World Championships in Ireland, lost passports in Belgium, rode protected bike lanes in Amsterdam, and even installed a much needed “American” shower in Paris. Along the way we self-taped and produced a feature Doc, FUCK BRAKES: THE MOVIE (of course) --the title of which already has distributors backing away slowly, --
But STILL… we plan to put out this summer.
So, now fixed gear riders are popping up everywhere. Skilled riders are all over, alleycat races are popping up that feature more non-messengers than messengers. Tall bikes, cruisers, 10 speeds and every other flavor are appearing so quickly that the cars have been forced to wake up. A large bike community sharing the road with the beasts, usually with admirable, (& often still required) skills, while more and more bike lanes, including European style protected lanes, are starting to appear. And, most surprisingly… the city is slowly (not so surprising) adapting to the unstoppable cyclists, potentially making it safer for all involved.
So, maybe FUCK BRAKES the song is, or will be embraced by the community who were inspired by the community who inspired it, but we probably have to make a good recording of it first! (—I still don’t like that shitty studio version floating around…got suckered into a ‘fancy’ studio where we mistakenly played around with it till we were broke and couldn’t afford to re-do it the way it should have been done in the first place: One take, raw, and on fire.--) *someone in the bikesnob comments called it ‘punk-lite’ ha. Pretty accurate. For now I’ll just enjoy it playing it Live.
Well, whoever embraces the song, thanks. Meanwhile, we’re just planning to continue to try to do things our way, making our own mistakes, having fun, riding bikes, rocking the Ska-core, and spreading the bike core reality.
Living free, not ready to die
Fuck brakes!
XRIS
\n/
b\/c
/y\
--On May 3rd, TEAM SPIDER is returning to the LIVE realm, with a FREE Bike-Punk show in Tompkins Sq. Park, ---BIKE NOISE 2!---
Featuring lots of our friends and favorite bands including: MISCHIEF BREW, WOMBAT IN COMBAT and more… Tompkins Square Park, Sunday MAY 3rd, 2009, East Village NYC, 2-6 PM.. co$t: Free. Ride yr bike.,
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FUCK BRAKES, complete lyrics:
St Peter at the pearly gates
Asks me why did I say fuck brakes
You mean we’re free to decide?
Might fall, but not today
Fuck gravity
And the USA
Cause we’re going down
Either way
Whoa oh- Fuck Brakes
Mistakes were made
In the land of the free built by their slaves
Taught how to behave by corporate crooks
Digging our mass graves
I never color within the lines
My flags and bridges burn far behind
East side, West side, you lie we die,
Doored and doomed,
Still we fucking ride
Whoa oh, Fuck Brakes
Again the hell of my jail cell, rats and roaches make prisons swell
Your harps and clouds of yesterday,
They drift away
My kitty cats Snotty and Ratt
Wait by the door for sneak attack
Breaking free from my laws and lies
Their sweet meows say
“Fuck it, still we ride”
Whoa – oh Fuck brakes
Saint Peter at the pearly gates,
Again asks why? did I say fuck brakes?
Like we’re free to decide
Might kneel but not today
Fuck religion,
And the USA
Cause we’re on our knees
Either way
Live free or fucking die
(We’re free to die)
Live free or fucking die
We’re free to Fuck Brakes!
==============
