Akira Kurosawa's centenary celebration continues all Summer long at the Pacific Film Archive with a 30-film tribute curated by Susan Oxtoby. That's five more than Criterion's AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa! But speaking of that gorgeous DVD collector's set, for a limited time, you can save money on your purchase while supporting the Pacific Film Archive. Buy AK 100 at criterion.com, enter code AKPFA at the prompt, and you'll save 25% off the retail price of $399.95—plus, the Criterion Collection will make a $25 donation to PFA on your behalf.
Though I caught several of these films during TCM's recent retrospective, I'm all the more excited to see my favorites projected in 35mm prints during the PFA schedule:
Friday, June 4, 2010 7:00PM—Rashomon (Japan, 1950). Visual proof of the relativity of truth, Rashomon is "one of the most brilliantly constructed films of all time, a monument to Kurosawa's greatness, and a landmark in film history."—James Monaco. (88 mins)
Friday, June 4, 2010 8:50PM—Drunken Angel (Japan, 1948). Doctor meets tubercular gangster (Toshiro Mifune) in the slums of postwar Japan in this noirish tale, an "effective and searching view of contemporary Japanese life."—Variety. (98 mins)
Sunday, June 6, 2010 6:50PM—Throne of Blood (Japan, 1957). Kurosawa's Noh-influenced version of Macbeth is "the most brilliant and original attempt ever made to put Shakespeare on screen."—Time. The towering Toshiro Mifune is paired with the legendary Isuzu Yamada in "a partnership of titans."—Film Forum. (107 mins)
Saturday, June 12, 2010 7:15PM—Red Beard (Japan, 1965). Toshiro Mifune plays a gruff but charitable nineteenth-century doctor in this humanist epic, his last film with Kurosawa. (185 mins)
Sunday, June 13, 2010 7:35PM—I Live in Fear (Japan, 1955). Toshiro Mifune gives a daring performance as an eccentric patriarch with a neurotic fear of the atomic bomb. "The final effect is overwhelming, and perhaps Kurosawa's most sweeping statement on the human condition."—Film Forum. (100 mins)
Thursday, June 17, 2010 7:00PM—The Lower Depths (Japan, 1957). Filmed on only one set, Kurosawa's adaptation of the famous Gorky play throws together some memorable characters—raucous thief, oversexed landlady, gambler, prostitute, samurai—in a teeming Tokyo flophouse. (125 mins)
Saturday, June 19, 2010 6:30PM—The Bad Sleep Well (Japan, 1960). Kurosawa charts corporate evil as a company is torn from within by scandal, greed, and lust. "Enron meets Hamlet."—Film Forum. "Better than Shakespeare."—Francis Ford Coppola. (148 mins)
Sunday, June 20, 2010 7:15PM—Ikiru (Japan, 1952). In Kurosawa's humanist masterpiece, an ordinary civil servant discovers what it means to live. This Japanese Everyman was perhaps Takashi Shimura's greatest role. (143 mins)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 7:00PM—The Hidden Fortress (Japan, 1958). Toshiro Mifune swashbuckles his way through this supremely entertaining mythic adventure, the plot inspiration for Star Wars. (134 mins)
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 7:00PM—Sanshiro Sugata (Japan, 1943). A young man learns dedication and discipline in life—and judo—in Kurosawa's debut film, "a must for Kurosawa admirers."—L.A. Times. With Sanshiro Sugata II. (163 mins)
Saturday, July 10, 2010 8:30PM—Stray Dog (Japan, 1949). Toshiro Mifune is a driven detective in Kurosawa's bravura Tokyo noir. "A bona fide masterpiece."—Time Out. (122 mins)
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 7:00PM—The Most Beautiful (Japan, 1944). A semi-documentary drama of life among women factory workers ("not a major work, but the one dearest to me," said Kurosawa). With the lively samurai adventure The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, "a small triumph of inventiveness and resourcefulness."—TCM. (144 mins)
Saturday, July 17, 2010 7:00PM—Seven Samurai (Japan, 1954). A ragtag group of samurai band together to protect a village from bandits in Kurosawa's masterpiece, often cited as one of the 10 best films ever made. Seeing it on the big screen, who's to argue? (208 mins)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 7:00PM—No Regrets for Our Youth (Japan, 1946). Ozu favorite Setsuko Hara stars in this powerful character study of a woman fighting for her rights—and life—before, during, and after the war. Kurosawa's only film with a female lead. (110 mins)
Saturday, July 24, 2010 6:30PM—Yojimbo (Japan, 1961). Mifune is a sly, amoral mercenary looking to make a fistful of ryo in a lawless town in Kurosawa's tongue-in-cheek anti-epic, which inspired A Fistful of Dollars. "A visually faultless and highly sophisticated satire on violence and human weakness."—Sight and Sound. (110 mins)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 7:00PM—One Wonderful Sunday (Japan, 1947). A young couple encounters the pleasures—and dangers—of Tokyo in Kurosawa's city-film, inspired by Frank Capra, D. W. Griffith, and Murnau's Sunrise, and one of the first films to capture the essence and energy of a newly emerging postwar Tokyo. (108 mins)
Saturday, July 31, 2010 6:30PM—Sanjuro (Japan, 1962). Kurosawa's spirited follow-up to Yojimbo finds Mifune leading a band of comically inept samurai. "A superb parody."—Donald Richie. (96 mins)
Saturday, July 31, 2010 8:30PM—Scandal (Japan, 1950). A motorcycle-riding artist and a pure-at-heart popular singer are targeted by unscrupulous scandalmongers in this entertaining indictment of journalistic "ethics," inspired by Warner Bros. muckrakers and starring Toshiro Mifune and Yoshiko "Shirley" Yamaguchi. (104 mins)
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 7:00PM—The Idiot (Japan, 1951). Kurosawa faithfully remakes Dostoevky's The Idiot in wintry Hokkaido, with Toshiro Mifune and Setsuko Hara bringing to life this tale of a pure soul destroyed by a faithless world. "Probably the only Dostoevsky adaptation which carries something of the complexity and dramatic intensity of the original."—Noel Burch. (166 mins)
Saturday, August 7, 2010 5:30PM—High and Low (Japan, 1963). A kidnapping becomes a moral dilemma for executive Mifune in "one of the best detective thrillers ever filmed.... Both spine-tingling and compassionate."—N.Y. Times. (143 mins)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010 7:00PM—Dodes'ka-den (Japan, 1970). Kurosawa's first color film was also his most personal, an expressionist look at the lives of several Tokyo slum dwellers. Music by Toru Takemitsu. (144 mins)
Sunday, August 15, 2010 7:00PM—Kagemusha (Japan, 1980). George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped produce Kurosawa's big-budget return to epic samurai filmmaking, involving a lord and his double (both played by Tatsuya Nakadai) trying to hold a kingdom together. "Probably the director's most elaborate, awesome film ... majestic, stately, cool, almost abstract."—N.Y. Times. (160 mins)
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 7:00PM—Dersu Uzala (Japan, 1972). A grizzled native hunter teaches a Russian surveyor how to survive in—and respect—the Siberian wilderness in Kurosawa's environmental epic. "It seems that Kurosawa has created this magnificent film as an elegy to our human heritage."—Peter Coyote. (165 mins)
Thursday, August 19, 2010 7:00PM—The Quiet Duel (Japan, 1949). In one of his most delicate, introspective roles, Toshiro Mifune plays a dedicated doctor who contracts a deadly disease during the Manchurian War. (110 mins)
Saturday, August 21, 2010 5:30PM—Ran (Japan, 1985).King Lear in feudal Japan, with Tatsuya Nakadai as the lord who divides his kingdom among his three sons, with disastrous results. "A majestic piece of filmmaking, a lush tapestry of lordly tableaux, ruthless betrayals, and flaming carnage."—Village Voice. (160 mins)
Sunday, August 22, 2010 7:00PM—Ran (Japan, 1985). See August 21. (160 mins)
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 7:00PM—Rhapsody in August (Japan, 1991). Four teens visit their grandmother in Nagasaki, and try to comprehend her (and the city's) memories of the atomic blast, in Kurosawa's eloquent, gentle reflection on war and its aftereffects. "The master is as vigorous and complex as ever."—N.Y. Times. (98 mins)
Saturday, August 28, 2010 5:30PM—Dreams (Japan, 1990). Dreams come to life in Kurosawa's magical collection of tales drawn from his own dreams. "At once buoyant and extraordinarily passionate, it has the feel of an urgent message to the living and the dead."—Village Voice. (160 mins)
Sunday, August 29, 2010 7:00PM—Madadayo (Japan, 1993). Kurosawa's final film looks back on the life of a beloved elderly teacher and his students. "Fully engaged and alive, beautifully written, acted, and filmed, meditative, benevolent, humorous; one of the director's greatest works."—Chicago Tribune. (134 mins)
04/20/10 UPDATE: Frako Loden offers Ace Pilot's great guide to Kurosawa's ensemble of actors.
I'm pleased to announce that my first book review for Film International has been published with their current issue 43 (8:1, pp. 80-81). I was invited to take a look at Diasporas of Australian Cinema, edited by Catherine Simpson, Renata Murawska and Anthony Lambert, which dovetailed nicely with my research into diasporas and imagined communities for Film Festival Yearbook 2.
The cover article "On the Edge" by Gary McMahon--whose layout mimics a comic book--renders an evocative snapshot of why the horror genre addresses a social malaise of powerlessness and rage. McMahon writes: "Drugs, perhaps, and comforting obesity, and desensitizing la-la land on TV, keeps life and limb together through a mandatory nightmare, this pusillanimous void, this ogrous abomination that is everyday life. Another thing taught by the super-villainous 1980s was that nothing comes free, not public services, not emergency services, not education, not caring: everything is levied as a bribe, where briberies for amenities is legitimate commerce, and our human rights are leased to us for exactly as long as we can pay for them." (8:1, p. 9)
Garry Leonard follows through with "Monsters and Mortgages: The Horror Movie as Prime Economic Indicator"; a truly fascinating Marxian analysis of how horror films concretize unseen market forces, especially consumer debt as vampirism. "Descending inexorably into debt," Leonard writes, "is similar to the progress of a victim's relationship with a vampire: we move from a sense of fascination, illusory well-being and imaginary plenitude to a horrified awareness of the steady, unstoppable diminishment of our life force. The 'answer', as presented in the genre of the horror movie, is to identify, isolate and destroy this 'monster' in order to once more re-inhabit the present moment, regain control of the future and then stop the mysterious draining away by annihilating the now visible cause." (8:1, p. 12) Vampires aside, his argument begs a vision of our current economic collapse as caused by Wall Street financiers infected by their own philosophies; a brood of zombies, if you will, who have transmitted their infection onto not only a national but a global populace. He inspires me to write a novel on that premise; screen rights to follow.
The "infection film" is further meditated upon in Murray Pomerance's "What Ever is Happening to M. Night Shyamalan."
Shifting away from the genre of cinematic horror to real-life horrors of omission and erasure, Omar Hassan critiques censorship in "Real Queer Arabs: The Tension between Colonialism and Homosexuality in Egyptian Cinema." Hassan emphasizes the alarming trend by pious Islamic fundamentalists of viewing cinema as one of the "darker" arts fueled by perceived Western degeneracy.
My favorite article in Film International issue 43, however, is "Return to Third Cinema? The Case of Listen to Venezuela" by filmmakers Deirdre O'Neill and Mike Wayne, not only for their efforts to define a revolutionary cinema, but their cogent critique (by way of Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino's seminal essay "Towards a Third Cinema") of classifying First Cinema as dominant commercial cinema and Second Cinema as film festival arthouse fare, which deems itself revolutionary for resisting Hollywood's hegemony while unabashedly catering to middle-class appetites and agendas.
And of course, there is much much more, not the least being Gary Kramer's festival report from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, which I appreciated not only for his disclosure of how he selects films to watch from TIFF's voluminous entries ("I generally avoid popular titles ... to see films that might not otherwise get distribution"), but--anticipating its inclusion in San Francisco's upcoming International Film Festival--his commentary on Rigoberto Pérezcano's feature debut Northless (2008), which he says "belies a documentary approach" in its opening (and strongest) scenes, "shot with little or no dialogue. The heat is as palpable as the miles of unchartered territory." He adds: "Northless benefits from its incredibly assured sense of place, and the use of música norteña on the soundtrack lends an authenticity to many of the Tijuana scenes." (8:1, p. 93)
Imagine being a young effects artist relatively new to the scene and sitting in front of Joshua Grannell with your portfolio and your resume, listening to his ambitious vision for his first feature film All About Evil. Imagine him describing all the shock gags he wants to include in the film. Then imagine being told you have next to nothing to make those effects happen. Why would you bother? Because, after listening to Grannell relay his dream, Aurora Bergere wanted to do everything she could "to make his dream happen." Everyone I know who has worked on this project has felt the same way, including myself. I feel like someone sprinkled me with holy water, incanting, "The spirit of Peaches Christ compels you!"
Alongside the Victoria Theatre near the back stage entrance Bergere and I found two folding chairs during her break and warded off the cool night with some warm talk. [This conversation is not for the spoiler-wary!!]
* * *
Michael Guillén: In the space of two years since you moved from France to San Francisco, Aurora, you have already built up your resume with some notable Bay Area projects, including Pighunt, La Missión, and now All About Evil. Why did you choose San Francisco rather than Los Angeles to pursue make-up effects?
Aurora Bergere: I chose the Bay Area first off because of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). I grew up with all those big movies whose special effects were made by ILM. I wanted to meet with them and, hopefully, work with them and—though I didn't know if that would happen or not—that was one of the reasons why I moved to the Bay Area. A second reason was that I grew up in a small town in the south of France so I was still a little scared about Hollywood and everything around it, so I played it safe by starting out in the Bay Area and taking it one step at a time. Then I fell in love with San Francisco and never wanted to move, to be honest.
Guillén: You got your start interning with special make-up effects on the film Catwoman?
Bergere: That wasn't my first movie, but it was my first big movie, where I worked with well-known professionals. I worked nine months on that shoot. I was about 21-22 years old.
Guillén: You're in a nice dovetail right now as La Missión is just about to open the San Francisco International Film Festival, and you were assistant make-up artist on that film before joining the crew of All About Evil.
Bergere: That's true. I feel very lucky. I don't know how, I don't know why, but….
Guillén: I suspect you're doing good work.
Bergere: I guess so! I think I am.
Guillén: How did you become involved with All About Evil? Did you know Joshua beforehand?
Bergere: I didn't know Joshua at all. I knew Brian Benson, who was the first assistant director and one of the producers. We worked together on La Missión. He knew I was capable and—at that particular time—I was finally working with ILM but they didn't have much money. When we went to Sundance with La Missión, he started talking to me about working on All About Evil. So I said, sure, I'll bring my portfolio and resume to them and see what we can do with what they have. Though I won't say I fell in love with Joshua the first time I met him, I walked away feeling a very deep connection with him. He's an amazing person, one-of-a-kind, with a beautiful karma. I just wanted to make his dream happen. So I jumped on board.
Guillén: How closely have your effects matched what Joshua had written for his script? Were they specifically delineated in his script? Or did you negotiate with Joshua during production on what effects could be created within budget restraints?
Bergere: No. Joshua has a wide imagination. All these effects were written into the script how he wanted them to look like, except for one effect—the amputated breasts—where I had a little bit of input. He wanted something simple for that shock gag because, of course, he didn't know what we would be able to achieve technically. I understood, but, I wanted to take it to the next level for him so we made this beautiful appliance with tubes and syringes inside. It was gorgeous. I was very happy to create it in the time that we had because we only had three weeks of pre-production to make these effects happen.
Guillén: My understanding is that All About Evil blends your practical effects with some CGI?
Bergere: Yes, but not much CGI. The CGI people are here primarily because Joshua wrote a scene that involves a projection. There is a film within the film. That's why they brought in visual effects. Thank God I was able to make most of the effects without visual effects. Maybe they'll do some touch-up—that's always happening—but, I don't think they'll have much to do actually.
Guillén: It strikes me that your effects are very much in the tradition of the practical effects used by Peter Jackson in his early films. Was that tradition an influence on your work?
Bergere: Oh yes, absolutely. I'm a big fan of his and other early films. My B.A. is in literature and art history and so it was Frankenstein that first caught my attention. I was intrigued by how they had taken this book and used special effects to turn it into a movie and then I became interested in how you create effects with whatever you have on hand around you. That's how I got started. Ever since I was a kid, I would make something out of whatever I could get my hands on, and later in college I studied painting, sculpting.
Guillén: As you were developing this talent in this small town you grew up in southern France, did others consider you odd?
Bergere: [Laughs.]
Guillén: Well, weren't you the only one? Was anyone else doing this?
Bergere: No, naturally; but, it took time to develop because in France it's completely different than here. Being an artist is difficult and it's hard to make a living at it there. So I had all this talent in my hands but I didn't know what to do with it.
Guillén: Well, Robert Green Hall is himself a make-up artist who directed this film Lightning Bug that was basically autobiographical, about a young boy growing up in a small town in rural Alabama who wants to work in Hollywood as a make-up effects artist. He's extremely creative but no one around him understands what he's dreaming for himself.
Bergere: Sometimes I fantasize on what it would have been like to grow up here in the U.S. instead of in France. At least here kids have influences around them. For me, everything had to come through my imagination. Where I grew up in the south of France, I had no access to effect supplies. Though, to be honest, later on I found this to be a good thing because I've been forced to improve my art with nothing. Now that I have the materials that I need, I can take my imagination to the next level.
Guillén: Speaking of effect supplies, about how many buckets of blood have you used in shooting All About Evil?
Bergere: Not much, actually. I've used about 10 gallons.
Guillén: What is your blood made of?
Bergere: It's the Dick Smith formula: basically, karo syrup, pigment, water. That's pretty much it.
Guillén: I imagine that—as a make-up artist who is constantly "taking it to the next level" with each assignment—that you are continually growing and learning as an artist?
Bergere: Absolutely.
Guillén: What would you say you have learned from working on All About Evil? Have there been challenges that have provoked you to learn new things?
Bergere: A lot of new things. At first I was worried because the script called for a lot of effects that involved prosthetics and—as anyone who works in make-up effects knows—they take a lot of time to make. It takes about six to eight hours just to make a mold, then you have to do a live casting, and all the rest. It's a lot of work. I worked non-stop seven days a week, 17 hours a day for about three weeks to get it done on time. That was something Joshua didn't get until he saw the appliances and then he was like, "Oh my God, Aurora, I'm so sorry. Now I understand."
So, yes, I learned a lot. I learned that basically without a lot of money, you can still do a very beautiful movie.
Guillén: How has it been for you with this cast of actors applying make-up and prosthetics?
Bergere: I feel very lucky. Mink Stole is a player. She went for it. She's awesome. I had a blast working with her. The same thing with Kat Turner. She was wonderful. To keep it short, I feel very lucky. They were all game and enthusiastic. And again, Joshua's energy was all around you. Everyone is here for him.
At the time that I interviewed Thomas Dekker on the set of Joshua Grannell's All About Evil, the decision was still pending as to whether or not his TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles would be picked up for another season. Fox elected to cancel the series; but—livewire that he is—there are no flies on Thomas Dekker. No sooner did he return home to Los Angeles from the All About Evil shoot than he was cast as Jesse Braun in Samuel Bayer's remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street, which he recently promoted at WonderCon.
During down time on one of All About Evil's infamous night shoots, Dekker and I sat down to discuss his career to date, his involvement with Evil, and his plans to shift from acting to directing.
* * *
Michael Guillén: I was just reading an interview where you were complaining about night shoots on the set of Laid to Rest, and here you are going at it again!
Thomas Dekker: I know! It's difficult, but I don't actually dislike it. A lot of the other actors hated it; but, for me, it was just strange to adjust to. I'm a night person anyway. I would much rather shoot overnight than to have to be up early every day, that's for sure.
Guillén: I wanted to make sure to tell you, Thomas, that as one of core group of extras working here last weekend, I was impressed with your friendliness and kindness to the extras, coming over to talk to us while we were waiting to be called on set.
Dekker: We couldn't make the movie without you guys.
Guillén: I especially liked how you treated Annie. She's such a fan of yours and you made her feel like a million bucks.
Dekker: I love Annie; she's sweet. And she's a great supporter. She's been at every single thing I've done and I'm thankful. There are actors who are rude to the extras and rude to the crew but what the fuck's the point of that?
Guillén: I've been noticing you're a bit of a live wire on this set.
Dekker: Yeah. I tend to become the jokester on set. I mean, it feels like I'm making a movie with my friends, like I felt on Laid to Rest where I was friends with so many of the creative people and the actors in the cast. I don't feel I have to be "professional"—though I am professional about the performance—but, it's been great to be crazy and silly and have fun. It took me a while to get there on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles because I was being precise at first; but, both Lena Headey and I became terrible jokesters on that set. But there have been movies where—if I have a lot of emotion to play—I've needed to keep a lid on it; but, this is way more fun.
Guillén: How did you become involved in All About Evil? Did you know Joshua beforehand?
Dekker: This is how it went down: I knew the producer Darren Stein for years. I'd heard him talk about Peaches Christ but I didn't really know who Peaches was. We had just started filming the second season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles when Darren called me and said, "I have this friend Joshua; he's the one who does Peaches Christ and he's in town and wants to meet you." I said, "Okay, well come to the set." Joshua (not in Peaches drag) came to the set—which, comically, was made up to be a military academy that day of all things—and I spent about 20 minutes talking to him and really liked him immediately. I thought he was smart and cool. He told me, "I'm directing this movie All About Evil and Darren's producing it and I think there's a role I'd like you to do." He sent me the script but I had actually agreed to do it before even reading it because I really liked these two guys. Joshua didn't really know anything about me personally. I think he thought I was just another actor; but, when he was talking to me in my trailer on set, he noticed it was filled with John Waters films and horror films. Since then, he and I have talked at length about being major horror geeks—very close to the character Steven I'm playing in All About Evil—and cult geeks. Joshua's thing for cult and horror is totally my thing. That sealed the bond for sure.
Guillén: Tell me about your character Steven in All About Evil.
Dekker: Steven is a big ol' horror geek, which was the easy part for me, and he's also a visual artist, which I've also done my whole life. So I have a lot in common with the character of Steven. But he's been fun to play because he's naïve. In a way he has to be. Even though all this stuff is going on around him and even though he figures it out, being as close to it as he is you'd think he'd get a whiff of something being wrong. But, he's naïve, aloof, and I'm playing him very young. I knew a kid who was a big horror geek and he used to blink all the time so I've put that into the character. He has all these twitches and blinks and a funny slurred speech. It's been fun because I've been playing John Connor now since June of last year so finally getting to play someone else has been really liberating.
Dekker: No, I'd never worked with either of them before and I only got to meet Mink briefly because I didn't have any scenes with her. Cassandra is such a lovely woman. The only two people I knew from this cast previously were Anthony Fitzgerald who I worked with on Laid to Rest (he was the head that was cut off in the fridge) and he was in Whore, is a friend of mine, and helped me out a lot with getting that movie made. The problem was that I shot Whore while I was doing Terminator that first season so Anthony was the person who made everything happen because I couldn't get stuff ready. My time off was simply to shoot. And I've known Noah Segan for a long time.
Guillén: I was going to ask you what it was like to be directed by someone in drag; but, you've done so much genre work that you're probably used to collaborators in costume around you?
Dekker: Yeah, but, I've never had a director in drag, which has been interesting. It's funny, but I miss seeing Joshua sometimes when he's directing as Peaches. What's interesting, though, is that—even in drag—he's still on top of everything. He's a great director, no matter if he's in a dress or jeans.
Guillén: I was impressed reviewing your career last night in preparation for our talk today. I had first seen you as Claire's friend Zach on Heroes and was somewhat disappointed that your character in that series wasn't really developed past the first season; but, then you got the gig as the young John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I watched in its entirety this last weekend.
Dekker: All of them?!
Guillén: Yeah, I did a marathon catch-up.
Dekker: Oh my God!
Guillén: It was fun.
Dekker: You liked them, though?
Guillén: Absolutely. Is the series going to be continued?
Dekker: We won't know until May 15. That's when all the shows, the up fronts, happen.
Guillén: Annie will be devastated if the show isn't renewed. Is there anything your fans can do to make sure it happens?
Dekker: Yeah, well, the fans of the show have been working their asses off. They're not the issue. They write to Fox every week; but, you can write all the letters you want and, unfortunately, it's an issue of having greater numbers overseas than here, which doesn't really please Fox. Who knows? I'd love it to come back and do another season; but, if it doesn't, we did a good show that I don't feel ever compromised its intelligence to be successful.
Dekker: IQ-145 is one of the strangest gigs of my career because I did it long before Heroes and Terminator. I didn't know what it was for. It was all green screen. I just auditioned and went and did this thing for a month. I didn't know if it was a pilot or an internet thing and then I never heard anything else about it, but then when I was working on Terminator suddenly it was out. It felt kind of odd because everyone thought it was this new thing I'd done but it had actually been sitting for a while, mainly because it took them so long to do the computer animation.
Guillén: Though you're a young actor, you began as a child actor and—in some ways—have more experience than most of the actors on this set.
Dekker: Look at you! Paying me compliments. Keep them coming.
Guillén: Which leads me to ask: by comparison, what is the atmosphere of this set like for you?
Dekker: It's a blast! One of my favorite moments was when Peaches—just in his makeup and regular clothes—walked past Martiny and went, "Third time to the cake table, Martiny?" We all get along and we all know each other and I've never worked on anything with quite this much blood. I came up to San Francisco wanting to do something fun with my friends, that was the feeling, and after the read through, even after a couple of days of filming, I realized, "Wow, this is going to be an amazing movie." It wasn't that I didn't believe in the film before I got here; but, once I was here, I really began to believe in it. But, honestly, that wasn't the reason I first came here. I just wanted to have fun. But All About Evil is blowing my mind. Joshua is directing like a pro. I was saying to Darren the other day that it has everything you want—which makes it difficult to describe—because if you want your tits, you've got your tits; if you want your murders, you got 'em; if you want culty stuff or comedy, you got 'em. Everything is in this movie. That's why when people ask me what the movie's about, I don't know whether to tell them it's a horror movie, a cult movie, or a black comedy, which is great.
Guillén: As a director yourself now, having directed Whore….
Dekker: And a couple of other things out there on the Internet….
Guillén: …are you having any issues switching back to being an actor?
Dekker: The only time I have issues is when I get nervous for the director and nervous for the production and the movie that's being made because—when you're just an actor—you're oblivious to those concerns and you're focusing on your own performance. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that "innocence" again; but, I can't. Once you've directed, you see what's going wrong with a production and it becomes frustrating. You see the director running out of time, running out of money, which—when you're making an indie movie—you learn are both scarce. Then I get nervous.
Guillén: So tell me about these directorial efforts out on the Internet.
Dekker: You make them sound so scandalous talking about them like that. The very first I directed was when I was 16, almost 17, and it was a feature-length hand-held dogme '95 movie. This is the first time I've ever spoken about it in an interview. It was called Cotton Wool and it was an improvised piece. I did it mainly to learn. I funded it but it was majorly cheap. It's kind of funny when you don't watch something for a long time and then you go back to it? Whenever I thought of Cotton Wool I dismissed it as that piece of shit thing I did as a kid; but, I watched it again recently and it wasn't that bad. Then I did a 30-minute short called Arcane and that was my first time working with a crew. Arcane is what helped me get the money to make Whore.
Guillén: Is Whore going to be theatrically released?
Dekker: No. We took a long time to get it ready because I kept going back and re-editing and added greasy coloring to it, so it took a long time. The finished cut is on DVD and we're trying for the festival thing. It's a culty movie so it needs to find its niche. Some people love it. Some people hate it.
Guillén: With Megan Fox, Lena Headey and Ron Jeremy, it has a promising cast.
Dekker: Here's the thing. I might as well just come clean now and we'll call this the first interview. The main point of Whore—among the many points it's trying to make—is a hokey idea: about kids who come to L.A. who want to be actors, fail, and become prostitutes and drug addicts. I get that's been done a million times before; but, the reason for Whore is specific. You never see these young kids attempting to be actors; it's implied. It's more about the mental state these kids are in while in Los Angeles. Kids all over the world desperately want to be actors; but, actors—by the public—are often treated like whores, sometimes like shit. It wasn't until I got my own TV show and started going online and reading what people were saying, not just about me, but about the show in general that I realized that some person in Wisconsin was writing the most vile shit about people that they don't know for no reason other than that they're actors. That fascinated me. Why is there this need to rip apart people you don't even know?
The main reason Megan Fox and Rumer Willis—who are friends of mine—are in the film is a game with the audience. They don't even have dialogue. They're on screen for a total of 25 seconds to two minutes. They offered to play roles, but, the reason I did it like that was because I wanted to play with the fact that everybody—and this is exactly what has happened—is concerned with whether Megan shows her tits and "that Rumer girl is so ugly that I wonder what she does in it." I knew that would happen and my hope was that these idiots who would go to the movie to see Megan's tits and make fun of Rumer will find out neither of them are really in the movie. If you want to see the movie for the movie, you're not going to miss them; but, if you're coming to ogle over celebrity, I'm not going to give them to you.
Guillén: Do you want to direct more than act?
Dekker: Yes. I love acting and I've done it now for 16 years. Darren asked me the other day if I'd ever quit and I said, "Of course!" And then I went, "I dunno." I may do both.
Guillén: Well, there's nothing wrong with taking a hiatus, perhaps; but, I hope you don't quit acting altogether because—in reviewing your work this week—I'm struck by its promise. I'd like to see you older in more mature roles. I see you owning your craft at such a young age, that I'm curious to see what you'll give us with even more experience. It's interesting to watch you be such a livewire on the set because when it's time for you to play your scenes, you're actually much more subdued. Some of your roles call for you to be quite serious and emotional.
Dekker: And those are the roles I normally tend to get. I never get comedy or anything like that. I usually get dark, brooding roles, which is probably why I do a lot of horror. The greatest compliment I receive is when someone says, "Oh, you're nothing like your character." To me that's the whole point about creating a character: you have to find a voice and a walk and mannerisms.
Guillén: You're on the crest of a pop cultural wave with Heroes and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but talk to me about some of your upcoming projects, like From Within.
Dekker: From Within will come out in about a month. It's funny because people are asking me now if I'm choosing to do horror and science fiction films and I'm actually not. It just seems to keep happening that way. I did From Within, Heroes is sci-fi, Terminator is sci-fi, Laid to Rest is horror, this is horror, and the next film I'm doing is sort of horror.
Guillén: One of your early roles was as Picard's son in Star Trek: Generations, for God sake.
Dekker: I was, baby!
Guillén: And weren't you one of those damned children in John Carpenter's Village of the Damned?
Dekker: Which we shot here in San Fran. Yeah, so I've had a long line of that kind of stuff. From Within is actually a good film; I like it. Phedon Papamichael did a great job. It was, again, another exhausting night shoot in Maryland. And the next film I'm doing is a werewolf film.
Guillén: What about Laid to Rest, which made this month's cover of Fangoria?
Dekker: Laid to Rest was kind of like All About Evil in that I thought, "Oh, let me help my friend Robert Hall out. We'll all pitch in and do our thing." But, again, it turned out great.
Guillén: When I was talking to Aurora Bergere about her career, I told her she was reminding me of Robert Hall's Lightning Bug, which she didn't know anything about, and which you actually turned me onto in the Fangoria piece on Laid to Rest.
Dekker: I hope I turned a lot of people on to Lightning Bug.
Guillén: I understand you're a fan of Fangoria?
Dekker: I first started reading Fangoria because when I was 8 or 9 years old I saw an issue that covered the film Species and Natasha Henstridge's tits were on it as she was coming out of the cocoon and I had to have the magazine. I had watched Species about a thousand times a day. My mother had to take the magazine away from me because was I so fucking in love with Natasha Henstridge.
Guillén: Though it's not a genre piece, tell me about My Sister's Keeper.
Dekker: I just saw the finished cut of it actually not too long ago and I was impressed. It's a story that could so easily be a Lifetime / Hallmark film; but, it isn't because Nick Cassavetes is a pretty tough guy and so—when you have a tough guy doing sensitive material—it works well. I got to shave my head and my eyebrows off for it, which was really fun.
Guillén: But they didn't touch your eyelashes.
Dekker: No! They're my meal ticket. But as an actor you rarely get to be paid to do something as drastic as shaving your head and eyebrows. It was awesome. It was right after the first season of Terminator had aired where I had emo hair and everyone was like, "Where did you hair go?!" It was a big hoopla.
Guillén: In that first season of Terminator, I was wondering if you got to work with Jesse Garcia, who is one of my favorite young Chicano actors?
Dekker: No. I never even got to meet him. We weren't in any scenes together; but, Lena loved him. She thought he was amazing. There were a lot of people that first season I never got to meet. I barely even saw Richard T. Jones. Everyone had their own shooting schedules.
Cross-published on Twitch. Here's a little Evening Class extra: Thomas Dekker's colorful music video for title track "Psyanotic."
I caught up with the mesmerizing Jack Donner on his last day of shooting Joshua Grannell's All About Evil. As the maleficent Mr. Twigs he exudes charming menace with his craggy countenance, raspy voice and piercing eyes and—with scarce a trace of effort—has nearly stolen the show, according to co-star Cassandra Peterson. He strikes me as one of the great character actors of his generation, as accomplished as Vincent Price or Peter Cushing if not as well-known by name. His face is eerily familiar on an almost unconscious level. As a child in the '50s, I often caught episodes of As the World Turns and The Guiding Light, soap operas my mother, aunts and female cousins watched faithfully and which—now and again—I watched with them. Perhaps I first saw him there? Or perhaps it was during the '60s when he guest-starred on many of my favorite television programs: Mission Impossible, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Streets of San Francisco, Mannix, Kojak? Or perhaps when he appeared as a Romulan in Star Trek? Or later as a Vulcan priest in Star Trek: Enterprise? All I know is I couldn't take my eyes off him from the moment I first saw him. I was curious with the sense of knowing him and was especially pleased to have a chance to get to know him. [This conversation is not for the spoiler-wary!!]
* * *
Michael Guillén: Jack, as one of the core group of extras, I was lucky enough to be seated in the front row of the Victoria Theatre watching you perform multiple takes of your final monologue and fell in love with you.
Jack Donner: Really?
Guillén: You've got a good chance of stealing this show with your wonderfully wicked performance as Mr. Twigs. You've been performing for quite a while?
Donner: Oh yes.
Guillén: How did you come to be associated with this film All About Evil?
Donner: The standard way. My manager submitted my resume to the casting people, they called me in, I read for it and they hired me. [We're temporarily interrupted as craft services delivers some hot tea and cookies.] This company's been so caring and lovely.
Guillén: It seems that way.
Donner: It is! It's the first company in the 50 years that I've been working that I'm really feeling sad about leaving because—as you know—today I wrap. The people have been a considerate, professional, smart and talented group. This set is heads above many of the indie film sets I've been on.
Guillén: So you had never met Joshua before or knew nothing about Peaches?
Donner: Not at all. This was all brand new for me. But they liked my audition, said it was fantastic, and I agreed with them. [Laughs.]
Guillén: Has it been odd to be directed by someone in half-drag?
Donner: I guess it was. Once I saw him a few times, I got used to it. I just related to him as my director. I've been directed by some oddballs who—though they have been dressed in a typical way—were screwy as hell.
Guillén: Tell me about your character Mr. Twigs.
Donner: I liked him when I read him. I had to give him some dimension for being a killer; but, he's spent his life in the projection room and became introverted and angry, shut down and isolated, so when Deborah's step-mother Tammy threatens to sell the movie theater, Twigs goes a little unhinged and haywire. Not only out of anger and rage, but fear. When he sees—not only Deborah killing her step-mother on the security camera; but, the fact that she enjoys it—he realizes, yes, murder and revenge is the thing to do, this is how to get his anger out. So as an actor, that was my job: to give him dimension through the tics in his eyes and the fiddling with his hair and the rumbly laughter. All of that seemed to express his psychosis.
Guillén: You've done a lot of genre films?
Donner: I've done a lot, yeah. This is probably about my eighth, ninth or tenth horror film. I've worked for about five decades except for a long hiatus between 1976 and 1991 when I got very ill and couldn't work. When I became ambulatory, I was still too weak to work so I decided to go to the university and—10 years later, or whatever it was—I came out a licensed psychotherapist. In 1970 I was diagnosed with adult onset asthma, which the doctors prognosticated would become emphysema, and they gave me about three years to live. They wanted to keep me comfortable with heavy medication. I had already fallen in with a group of people practicing a theory of emotional release listening, deep listening and questioning, so I told the doctors that I didn't want the heavy medication; I only wanted whatever it took to keep my bronchioles open so that I could breathe and I would take care of the rest. So for the next three years I had an emotional release session at least five times a week, which was all connected to early family trauma. It took me about three to four years to heal this thing and I'm still here.
Guillén: Excellent! If I were to go to the video store, which of your early performances would you want me to check out?
Donner: Everything. [Laughs.] I'd like you to look up the videos that have my performances from the Mission Impossible television series. I did 11 of those. They loved me on that show.
Guillén: Did you play the same character?
Donner: No. Different characters. Always bad guys, except for one. But they loved the way I died, so…. I'd also like you to look up a short 45-minute film called Cool Air based on the H.P. Lovecraft story. I loved that role because the emphasis was on his emotional psychology more than the horror of it. You might remember, perhaps, that the story is about this doctor from Spain who had to live in a refrigerated room when he came to America. That, plus certain chemicals, kept him alive. He had actually died and his doctor friend brought him back to life with this cold environment. That was one of my favorites. And then there's a fun little movie called Retro Puppet Master. I think it was the last of the Puppet Master series. Those are the performances I would love for you to take a look at.
Guillén: What's it been like working with Natasha Lyonne?
Donner: Fun! She's professional and truly interested in—not just her performance—but the timing, and the chronological development of her character. It's very difficult, you know, to keep hold of a character in a movie when you don't shoot in sequence. You have to keep your eye on the development of the character and figure out where a character is at any given point so that you can keep artistic control over the development of the character. She was great to work with in that regard. We chopped off heads, sliced off breasts, and—in terms of gore—this reminded me of another film I've done Farmhouse, which I'm not sure has been released yet.
Guillén: Talking with others on the set, it's become clear you are well-loved on this shoot.
Donner: Really? That's great to hear.
Guillén: I know that the budget for this film has been stretched thin over every aspect of this shoot. What has been most challenging for you?
Donner: The night shoots have been hard and demanding. About 10 days ago we had several days in a row where it was not just nighttime shooting but daytime too. We were in overtime working 12-15 hour days. And then the weather here in San Francisco is cold! And this building, the Victoria Theatre, is frigid! It's a warmish kind of day outside today but you wouldn't know it, it's so cold in here, and my fingers are always rigid. But that's not really a complaint, just a statement of fact.
Guillén: As someone who has worked with many directors over the years, how has Joshua's done as a first time director?
Donner: Superbly! It was as if he was well-experienced with directing. He knows his story very well and he knows what he wants, yet he's very flexible. He listens to the actors, accepts their ideas, and he'll adapt his approach while keeping the integrity of the story intact. He's done a great job.
* * *
I didn't ask idly, and followed through seeking out Donner's recommended performances from his long and established career. As Dr. Muñoz in Bryan Moore's 1999 black and white short film Cool Air, based on the eponymous Lovecraft tale, Donner inflects the film's structuring monologue with an understated yet riveting charisma, commanding a mastery of the countenance and elocution requisite to the narrative atmospheres of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe. For those able to access Netflix Instant Watch, this title is currently available.
Mink Stole's mindblowing scenes in Joshua Grannell's All About Evil had already been shot by the time I arrived on the set so I didn't have the chance to speak with her during the production; but—ever generous in spirit—Mink recently phoned me to share her thoughts about working on Joshua's first film. [This conversation is not for the spoiler-wary!!]
* * *
Michael Guillén: Mink, it's wonderful to talk with you again. Thanks for taking the time to help me promote Joshua Grannell's All About Evil.
Mink Stole: Absolutely! I'm a huge fan and good friend of Joshua Grannell's and would do anything for him.
Guillén: When we first spoke back in 2007 when you were at Frameline with Out At the Wedding, you mentioned to me that Joshua had approached you with the role of Evelyn in All About Evil and—as we had been joking—it was yet another role where you get killed off in a wonderful way.
Stole: I do, don't I?!
Guillén: Tell me a little bit about your character Evelyn.
Stole: Evelyn is a nice person. She really cares about Deborah, Natasha Lyonne's character. She's worried about Deborah's obsession with this completely dilapidated movie theater that will possibly bankrupt her and she counsels Deborah with genuine affection and concern to get rid of the place. Deborah does not like that.
Guillén: You've had the honor of being the first live guest at Peaches Christ's Midnight Mass and have—in effect—grown up with Joshua's alter-ego Peaches and the midnight scene he's created here in San Francisco over the past decade. What was it like for you to graduate with Joshua to his first feature?
Stole: I have to tell you that everything I have ever done with Peaches has been done professionally; he's extremely professional. I've always been very well taken care of. In all of my dealings with him—from my first appearance at Midnight Mass and our various appearances together around the country (we've appeared together in Seattle and a few times in San Francisco; I've done Midnight Mass several times)—it's always been stress-free for me and a pleasure to do anything with him. So I knew that if Peaches was doing a movie, he would have it together.
Guillén: So for his first stint as director, you felt he did a good job?
Stole: Yes, he did an excellent job as a director but I also thought he did a very good job as a producer.
Guillén: In your scenes in All About Evil, you primarily interact with Natasha Lyonne, who you've worked with before?
Stole: It was lovely. It was really nice because I hadn't seen her in that entire 10-year period so it was wonderful to see her healthy, well, working and happy.
Guillén: As you know, the world premiere of All About Evil is coming up in a few weeks and I understand that you're going to be here to help launch it off?
Stole: I will be there.
Guillén: And rumor has it that you and Peaches will be performing the theme song from Female Trouble.
Stole: That's correct.
Guillén: That delighted me because the last time we spoke you mentioned that someday you hoped to perform on the Castro stage.
Stole: One of these days I'd like to have my whole band there with me and do my whole one-woman show. That's something that I would love to do, but that's a fairly big undertaking.
Guillén: One of the most interesting aspects of the production of All About Evil is Joshua's plan to roll the film out across the country with a pre-show "spooktacular." Will you be helping him with that in a few cities?
Stole: I will do as many of them as I can because, first of all, they're fun; second of all, I love traveling to different cities to do shows; I enjoy that very much. And I love Joshua. We're friends. We get to spend time together when we're traveling and that's always pleasant so, yes, I will do as much of it as I can depending on my schedule and whether the venues want me.
Guillén: Without giving too much away, your particular shock gag in All About Evil was created by up-and-coming effects artist Aurora Bergere. Can you talk a little bit about interacting with her to achieve that shot?
Stole: She was great. The hard part of that shock gag for me was when I had to have a face cast made. They put this stuff on your face and then they wrap it in bandages so you can't see and it's a little bit claustrophobic. The traumatic difficult part of that was done here by somebody else whose name I can't remember and wouldn't tell you if I did because I didn't like him. [Laughs.] But anyway, what Aurora had to do was create the actual prosthetic that fit on my face and she did an excellent job. I've seen just a tiny clip of the sequence and it's very realistic.
Guillén: It's one of the most amazing shocks in the film.
Stole: And the nights that we filmed that scene were long and grueling night shoots, which are always hard. We were working against the sun and had to get everything done before the sun came up. We were also working in a library so we had to get out of there before the library opened. I was put in a position of perpetuating that shock gag for hours while scenes were being shot around it. It was hard for me, I have to admit.
Guillén: Did you get to work in the Victoria Theatre?
Stole: Yes, I did, though my only shots at the Victoria were outside the theater. There are scenes in the film where I'm allegedly in the attic of the Victoria; but, they were shot in a different location, at the Armory.
Guillén: Since the last time I talked to you when you were in San Francisco with Out At the Wedding, you've worked on several projects. I was pretty sure you had told me you were not in Adam Shankman's Hairspray, yet IMDb lists you as an uncredited cameo?
Stole: IMDb is notoriously wrong. I was not in that movie and, also, John Waters' Fruitcake has never been made; it's not even in pre-production. There's a script but there is no film.
Guillén: As you know, I'm writing a feature for Fangoria magazine, which has long been one of Joshua's favorite magazines and a dream of his to be featured within its pages. Are you a fan of Fangoria?
Stole: I'm not a fan of horror movies. Fake blood scares me.
Guillén: Really? So is your role in All About Evil your first horror credit?
Stole: It's my biggest; but, I have done others. I just actually worked on a short in Los Angeles called Bug Baby where I am killed by a bug baby; a bug that was born to human parents and you get a nice shot of the pincers getting ready to take off my head.
Guillén: [Laughs.] Oh my God! You continue to have an absolutely fascinating and unique career!
Stole: That was such a fun gig. So I get to say, "Yes, I've been eaten by a bug."
Guillén: Have you gotten around yet to drafting your memoirs?
Stole: No.
Guillén: You know I'm going to be on your case about that every single time I talk to you?
Stole: Good! Fine. Somebody needs to push me into it because it's something that I would like to do, but is torture for me: writing is very hard. And I'm not going to have someone else write it for me.
Guillén: Well, Mink, thank you so much for taking the time to give me a few quotes for the Fangoria article and I really look forward to visiting with you when you're in San Francisco for the world premiere of All About Evil.
Stole: Thank you. I'm looking forward to it as well. First of all, I love San Francisco; it's one of my favorite places. I love the Castro Theatre and the premiere should be a spectacular event.
Akira Kurosawa's centenary celebration continues all Summer long at the Pacific Film Archive with a 30-film tribute curated by Susan Oxtoby. That's five more than Criterion's AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa! But speaking of that gorgeous DVD collector's set, for a limited time, you can save money on your purchase while supporting the Pacific Film Archive. Buy AK 100 at criterion.com, enter code AKPFA at the prompt, and you'll save 25% off the retail price of $399.95—plus, the Criterion Collection will make a $25 donation to PFA on your behalf.
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