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Thor, As You Like It. Trade Roughage 09/29/08
FIREPROOF proves Christian-themed movies can still come out of nowhere and do brisk business; Kenneth Branagh is appropriately linked to THOR; Mark Miller’s WAR HEROES will be adapted; Hollywood finally agrees on a digital projection deal.

• As expected, Eagle Eye came in at #1 at the box office over the weekend with $29.2 million, and as speculated, adult moviegoing was down Friday because of the presidential debate. The real box office news, though, is the success of the Christian-themed Fireproof, which came in at #4 with $6.5 mil. despite playing on fewer than 1,000 screens. Especially interesting because another seemingly red-state-geared (though definitely more blue-state-friendly) limited release, The Lucky Ones, opened to a tiny fraction of that amount ($209,000) on only half as many screens.
• In one of the best ideas from Hollywood ever, Kenneth Branagh has been offered the gig to direct Thor for Marvel Studios. An appropriate move given that Stan Lee originally wrote the character as speaking in a Shakespearean manner.
• Still on the subject of comics, Hollywood continues its feeding frenzy on the work of Mark Miller (Wanted; the upcoming Kick-Ass), whose super-soldier tale War Heroes (created with Tony Harris) will be made into a film by Columbia Pictures.
• A majority of the major studios has apparently finally agreed on a suitable virtual print fee. In the next two weeks, Universal, Paramount, Disney and Fox will announce the long-overdue, billion-dollar-financed plan to put 15,000 digital projectors in theaters owned by Regal, Cinemark and AMC. Interestingly enough, as the deal will allow more screens to be 3-D-equippable, Warner Bros. is not reportedly involved, despite the fact that it could have done better with its Journey to the Center of the Earth had there been more 3-D screens. Also, it has the fourth installment of Final Destination, which has been shot for 3-D, out next year.

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Ballast Review
This review originally appeared during the Sundance Film Festival. Ballast opens in New York today. Ballast is the kind of movie that I’m predisposed to enjoy––a slow, score-free and sometimes actually silent character study, offering the chance to spend some time watching real-ish people floating in and out of a crisis point, demanding that we engage […]

This review originally appeared during the Sundance Film Festival. Ballast opens in New York today.

Ballast is the kind of movie that I’m predisposed to enjoy––a slow, score-free and sometimes actually silent character study, offering the chance to spend some time watching real-ish people floating in and out of a crisis point, demanding that we engage by refusing to pander for that engagement––and yet its wonders still crept up on me. But falling for a movie is like falling for anything, I guess; you don’t really know it’s happening until the undeniable gut punch.

For me, that moment came about two thirds of the way through Ballast, with a shot of a young boy lying on the floor, listening to adults speak off camera while absentmindedly stroking the belly of a giant dog. Like every shot in Lance Hammer’s feature directorial debut, it’s dead simple but beautifully composed, and it gets you by playing hard to get.

The story begins with the suicide attempts of twin brothers Lawrence and Darius. Darius’ is successful, Lawrence’s is not, and after surgery and therapy, he returns to the dreary plot of land he shared with his brother and delivers a letter that passes for a will to Marlee, the estranged mother of Darius’ child. That child, 12 year-old James, is developing a taste for guns and crack (the local drug dealers, maybe five years his senior, are the only professional role models in spitting distance) which in short time leads to Marlee being beaten so badly that she’s fired from her job as a janitor. First James and then Marlee reluctantly turn to Lawrence for help, and in the name of making Marlee a living and giving James an education, the three move towards a tentative partnership and with it, a renewed reason to live.

It’s hardly a honeymoon, and some of Ballast’s most impressive moments come from the deliberate drawing of the friction between the three, as they stumble towards some kind of familial intimacy. Lawrence is wracked with shock and heartbreak over the loss of his twin; Marlee, a former addict living hand to mouth, barely in control of her own life in spite of desperate efforts, is clearly terrified that she’s lost all ability to help her son as well. Each adult needs the other, but both are too broken and wary to accept it. As Hammer’s camera hops slowly from one cold, blue-gray setup to the next, the two engage in countless rounds of emotional combat, with every couple of gains counteracted by a major loss. As their mutual trust builds, Marlee and Lawrence each make a gesture of physical intimacy towards the other, and each is rejected. Both times, Hammer’s camera sits on the instigator as they swallow their humiliation, and you can almost physically feel it burn.

Hammer shot Ballast on 35mm in the winter’s available light in rural Mississippi, with a cast of non-professional local actors, and discarded his script in order to flesh out the story via a two-month rehearsal process. The look, locale and subject matter couldn’t more different from Hannah Takes the Stairs, but with Ballast Hammer joins Joe Swanberg in the club of American filmmakers who are turning to stripped-down production methods and intense improvisation in search of emotional truth. The more that films like this manage to break through the wall of noise at festivals like Sundance, the better chance critics, filmmakers and audiences have of seeing each movie both on its own terms, and as part of a larger wave of back-to-basics American independent filmmaking that defies pejorative genre classifications.

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Chuck Palahniuk, Author of CHOKE
The author of CHOKE and FIGHT CLUB talks to Lauren Wissot about JT Leroy, the “physical business” of sex, and the inclusionary power of verbs.

Chuck Palahniuk, the author behind David Fincher’s Fight Club and Clark Gregg’s Choke, opening in theaters this Friday 9/26, pens intelligent, well-written junk food. I enjoy reading all his books, and even have a friend I nicknamed Brandy Alexander after the transgender lead character in Invisible Monsters, yet whenever someone asks me the plot of a particular novel that isn’t Invisible Monsters, I draw a blank. I mean, I’m certain I’ve read his books, just like I’m certain I ate dinner last Thursday, I just can’t tell you exactly what it was.

So when I learned I had an email interview with the author himself scheduled I had to dig out my old copy of Choke and check the jacket. Ah, sex addicts who work at a fake Colonial village – how could I have forgotten? No matter. The writing is terrific. Palahniuk might be able to shed some light on the grander themes he seems to be addressing, from numb consumer culture to transgender issues to the difference between nonfiction “truth” versus “truth” in fiction, I reasoned.

You see, I just couldn’t accept Choke on the same terms as a piece of well-made but empty entertainment like The Scorpion King, which worked because it didn’t overreach beyond what was necessary, tailored the script specifically to The Rock’s charming, self-deprecating personality and nothing more. I wanted to know why I always felt an important statement about society was being made in Palahniuk’s books.

But after finally interviewing the author I got a strong sense that his working method is more akin to that of the car mechanic he was for years. As a writer he seems to take the same sort of Meyerhold biomechanics approach (“I saw a bear, I ran, I was afraid”) that I learned in acting school. In other words, through the physical, mechanical act of writing – and not reflection – he gets at a deeper truth. Which is deep in itself. Now if only I could remember what Rant was about…

LW: Choke deals with sex addicts similarly to how Terry Southern treats bombshell virgins and porn stars - as social satire. In other words, there is very little that is “sexy” about your (or Southern’s) work. Sex is just another part of our numb consumer culture. Can you discuss this more?

CP: Actually the sex in Choke — like the violence in Fight Club — is merely physical business for the characters, to keep their hands and feet busy while they say their dialogue. Otherwise, you just have talking heads, and I loathe that type of fiction. We adore films because the moving object is so hypnotic. Books can hold our attention with that same device.

During the “Antidote Films vs. JT Leroy” lawsuit I started writing about the fine line between fiction and nonfiction – and does it even matter? As the author of a nonfiction memoir that was marketed as fiction I find this whole quest for “truth” absurd since there is no definitive “truth” – truth is always subjective. You write nonfiction as well, and your novels contain more elements of reality than certain historical documents (and there’s even the fake Colonial village in Choke). What is your take on this debate?

There’s a world of difference between fiction which presents itself as such… and a person telephoning you at all hours, sobbing and claiming to be a child sex worker dying of AIDS. For hours, claiming to be crippled because he/she had been fisted so brutally by a sadistic john. Such a callous deception undermines all sympathy for and desire to help real people suffering in those circumstances.

I jotted down this terrific quote from you right after Invisible Monsters came out: “Brandy Alexander doesn’t really want a sex change. And in a way, having it was the most important thing she could think to do, because it would destroy an identity that was being imposed upon her by society.” As a genderqueer person who defiantly refuses to conform to society’s “insides must match outsides” rule, I’ve always considered the notion of having a sex change kissing up to the mainstream, i.e., why is it my duty to make others feel comfortable? To say that transgender people are in the “wrong” bodies implies that there is such a thing as a “right” body. You also seem interested in this notion of “transcending” society’s dictates – Jesus has a big role in Choke – rather than conforming. Can you talk a bit about this and how it plays out in your work?

Say, what?

What is it like to have a character that’s been living in your head appear onscreen in flesh and blood form? Have there been actors who didn’t live up to your idea of the character or who exceeded your expectations?

The trick is to not have expectations. Instead to allow the world to present itself and trust that everyone is doing their best. Sorry to sound so passive, but I’ve learned to control only what I can control: the original stories.

What is it like to lose control of your story through the filmmaking process?

It’s intoxicating, to be around people who love their work — are so passionate about their work — people who are so smart and diligent. It gets me high. God, this is what high school should’ve felt like.

Are there certain actors or a particular director you dream of attaching to any filmed versions of your books?

Sam Rockwell, always. Kate Beckinsale. Bette Davis. Louise Brooks. Ruth Gordon. Jack Webb, when he was younger. You did say ‘Dream.’

Are you interested in delving into screenwriting and/or directing?

I also dream of flying and being invisible, but I’ve no talent at those skills, either.

How has the process of turning Choke into a movie differed from that of Fight Club?

David Mamet advised Clark Gregg to conduct a film set like a party. That a director should facilitate everyone to enjoy themselves. Clark had to film so much each day that the shooting never seemed to linger on any one scene. Filming Choke was more like a party, with a constantly changing focus for our attention. And excellent catering.

Which writers do you look to for inspiration?

Amy Hempel. Katherine Dunn. Denis Johnson. Irvine Welsh.

Your writing has a strong sense of location. Much like Armistead Maupin could only be a San Franciscan, I would never mistake you for an east or west coast author. How important is residing in the Northwest to your work?

Huh? I must be stumbling. My goal is always to avoid too specific a setting. Only my third book, Invisible Monsters, cites a city. By avoiding descriptions of place, and physical descriptions of characters, I allow readers to insert details from their own lives. Instead of description I concentrate on keeping everyone in action — fighting and fucking — so the plot escalates more quickly. Like everybody, I love Maupin, but setting a story in a specific city also excludes readers who live elsewhere. Verbs exclude no one.

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