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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 21 January 2012

It’s not often I laugh openly in a movie but there are some very funny scenes in the latest Australian comedy, A Few Best Men.  I had a chat with director Stephan Elliott (Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert) and we spoke about the film.

You can download a 2 minute extract from the interview by clicking here.

Matt:  It’s been almost 20 years since Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert but it’s a film that’s only grown in stature since it was first released.  Did you have any idea that it was going to be so popular when you made it?

Stephan:  No.  The real fun of Priscilla was that we got out there and we made it up as we went along.  I went into it with zero expectations.  I said to myself “this is going straight to DVD, no one is going to care so we may as well have a good time”.  No one saw it coming.

We have a stage show now that has just opened in Italy and it’s about to open in Brazil.  I’ve only just woken up to the idea that this thing is going to outlive me which is kind of scary.

Matt:  So you’ve been involved over the past few years with the development of the musical?

Stephan:  Yeah.  I’ve been writing the show again and again.  It’s really hard.  I wrote that script 25 years ago and now here I am still writing it.

Matt:  We should talk about A Few Best Men.  We’ve seen plenty of movies where weddings go wrong but I don’t think I’ve seen too many that are this crazy and this outlandish.  When you picked up Dean Craig’s script for the first time, what was it that stood out?

Stephan:  Since Priscilla, it seems the only thing I’ve ever been offered have been wedding movies.  I’ve always turned them down because my career started as a wedding videographer.  At about 14 years old, I started doing video weddings and I did about 3,000 weddings over a 7 year period.  Let’s just say I have a lot of wedding rage.  I have seen the worst behaviour from every member of the family in every possible religion.  It started to drive me mad.

Dan’s script was the first one that arrived that was looking more at the dark side and I decided to go for it.  A lot of me is in that script.  There are lines and scenes that actually happened to me when I was recording weddings.

Matt:  Wow.  So you’re obviously very experienced with this subject matter?

Stephan:  I’m the expert.  Trust me.  There’s nothing I don’t know about bad behaviour at weddings.

Matt:  Was it an easy film to get off the ground and get finance for?

Stephan:  It was actually pretty easy.  I’ve been offshore for a long time and a lot of people have been begging me to come home and make a film again.

I just had a moment during a showing of Priscilla the musical where a drag queen in the front row refused to take her wig off and a fight broke out with the guy sitting behind her in the theatre.  That was in London and at that point, I said it’s time to go home.

I came home, the script was on the desk, I have big opinions on weddings and I said “let’s go for it”.  We did it in record time – inside of a year.  Most scripts usually take about 10 years to get off the ground.

Matt:  I always love seeing actors in roles that we’re not quite accustomed to.  Olivia Newton John is swearing, snorting cocaine, hanging off chandeliers.  Was it an easy sell to Olivia?

Stephan:  It was a tough one.  I’ve been friends with Olivia for a couple of years and have been trying to get her involved in projects for a while.  She’s one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous human beings on earth… but get two glasses of red wine into her, and there’s a naughty Australia school girl in there.  She never lets it out.

I was sitting there one day and watching her cackling away at something filthy and I said to her “we’ve got to let this person out”.  She then got remarried, moved out of Los Angeles, met this fantastic guy and her whole life changed.  It was then I said that it’s time to do a big change.  Stick your head out and take a chance.

Matt:  Well I’m glad you got her on board.

Stephan:  Yeah.  There’s a final shot in the film where she ends up swinging off a chandelier.  That was the last day of shooting.  I said to her “how do you feel about it?”  She said she couldn’t do it so we got a stunt double in… but at the last minute she changed her mind and agreed to do it.  Bless her cotton socks, she’s 63 years old and she was 3 feet off the floor swinging off a chandelier.  At that moment, I was totally in love with her.

Matt:  What about Xavier Samuel?  He’s one of Australia’s brightest prospects and becoming very marketable.

Stephan:  Xavier is going big places very fast.  At the time, he was being offered one $300m movie after another.  The one thing he’d never been offered though was comedy.  He’s not a natural comedian but he was surrounded by comedians and had the task of playing the “normal guy” in the film.

I think there were a lot of pissed off agents in the world who then realised they weren’t going to get their commission from the $300m movie.  He took a gamble and I think he did a spectacular job.  It was very hard for him.  We had 5 stand up comedians in that crew.  Once they go, Rebel Wilson goes, Jonathan Biggins goes, there’s no stopping them.

Some days I realised that the set was losing control.  All I could do was point the camera and get them to stand back.  You’ve got to give points to Xavier and Olivia for holding their own.

Matt:  I was going to ask what it was like on the set.  The audience was laughing hysterically at the preview I attended.  What was it like for you guys?  How do you keep a straight face when shooting some of these scenes?

Stephan:  You don’t really.  It was hard being the teacher.  At the end of the day, I’m still a director and have to bring a film in on time and on budget.  One or two days, the giggles set in and I think my record was about 37 takes when Kris just got the giggles and the extras started laughing.  When I saw the cameraman with the wobbles while laughing hysterically, I started to scream at everyone and told them to grow up.  It only made it 100 times worse.

But what a joy.  It was David Niven who once said that if you have too much fun on a set, the film won’t work.  I can honestly say that’s rubbish.  The last time I had this much fun was with Priscilla.

Matt:  Everyone has a different sense of humour and from what I've seen on Twitter, there have been some very different reactions to the film.  Some have loved it but others think it’s really rude and crass.  What sort of reactions have you been receiving at previews so far?

Stephan:  It’s a genre that took off a few years ago with Wedding Crashers – they’re wedding movies for boys.  For many years, wedding movies were just for girls and then someone came up with the opposite.  With that, comes a lot of crass humour.  I went into this knowing that the very serious critics were going to crucify me and I had no problem with that.  The film is what it is.

The big stunner for me was when David and Margaret reviewed it before Christmas and both gave it 4 stars.  Didn’t see that one coming!

Matt:  It’s so hard trying to sell Australian films in this country as we’re always up against the big budget U.S. films with their marketing campaigns.  What can we tell people to make sure we get their bums on seats?

Stephan:  It’s cyclic.  I remember when I was first doing Priscilla, we were at the end of a period where we were doing lots of costume dramas and dark, “kitchen sink” dramas.  Baz Luhrmann, P.J. Hogan and myself did Strictly Ballroom, Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla without even knowing each other.  We retaliated and did the opposite – fun, bold, interesting comedies.  They all worked.

I think we’re right in the middle of the “kitchen sink” dramas again and it’s time to turn it around.

Matt:  Well I think it’s a terrific film.  It’s one of the best comedies I’ve seen in the past 12 months.  I hope it’s great at the box-office too.  Stephan, thanks for speaking with me this morning.

Stephan:  Brilliant.  Thank you so much.

You can read my review of the film by clicking here.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 16 January 2012

Golden Globes Wrap

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to know that there were few surprises at the 2012 Golden Globe Awards.

I’m sorry but this always puzzles me.  Given the Hollywood Foreign Press consists of just 90 or so members, how are their choices so easy to predict?  Surely it would only take a few members to think differently from the wider consensus to cause an upset.  Or is their real goal not to honour who they think is best, but rather to position themselves as being the forecaster of the Academy Awards?

Here’s a quick list of the major winners:

Best Picture, Drama – The Descendants

Best Picture, Musical or Comedy – The Artist

Best Actor, Drama – George Clooney (The Descendants)

Best Actress, Drama – Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy – Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy – Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Best Director – Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Best Screenplay – Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris)

Best Foreign Language Film – A Separation
Best Animated Film – The Adventures Of Tin Tin

The only “upset” would appear to have been Martin Scorese’s best director win for Hugo.  Some had predicted it but the majority had sided with The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius.

In terms of my own bets, I’d wagered $200 on Brad Pitt for Moneyball (at $5) and $200 on Viola Davis for The Help (at $3.25).  Both were defeated and I finished with a loss of $400.  I’m not too disappointed given I got good odds but I was confident that Davis would rain on the parade of Meryl Streep.  The Oscar race is still wide open in that category if you ask me.

The Artist has done itself no harm and is now on track to win the Academy Award for best picture.  Then again, we said this last year about The Social Network and it’s momentum was stopped once the Guild Awards were announced (and The King’s Speech made it’s charge).  We’ll see.

Ricky Gervais was a little disappointing as host.  He wasn’t as provocative as last year and he didn’t appear on stage all that often (aside from the opening monologue).  A few good quotes though…

“Congratulations to all the nominees and all the winners... I hope you enjoy the goody bags and the champagne and the gold. I hope that took your mind off the recession for a little while.”

“It’s going well, isn’t it? You’re so much better than last year’s audience. They had a right stick up their a***.”

“I mustn’t mention Mel Gibson this year. Not his private life, his politics, his recent films and especially not Jodie Foster’s beaver. I haven’t seen it myself. I’ve spoke to a lot of guys here - they haven’t seen it either, but that doesn’t mean it’s not any good.”

“Tonight you get Britain’s biggest comedian hosting the world’s second biggest award show on America’s third biggest network. Sorry? Fourth? It’s fourth.”

Golden Globes Competition

A big thanks to the 76 people who entered my Pick The Golden Globes competition.

It was a tight contest with no one getting a perfect score.  We had 6 entrants finish on a score of 5 out of 6.  They were Sam Dagan, Jimmy Orsag, Solo Fogg, Isabelle Laskari, Paul Nelson and Barry Rutherford.

It therefore came down the tie-breaker question – the age of the person who presented the award for best picture, drama.  Sam Dagan was spot on with his guess of 69 as that’s the current age of Harrison Ford.  Well done to Sam and I’ll talk to him soon about prizes.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 12 January 2012

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was one of the highlights of the Brisbane International Film Festival (there were two sold out sessions) and now it’s being released in cinemas across Australia.

I was lucky enough to secure a telephone interview with star Gary Oldman and he talked us through the filmmaking process.  He also gave us a sneak peak of what we’re in for with The Dark Knight Rises!

You can download a 2 minute audio extract of the interview by clicking here.

Here’s how the interview went down…

Matt:  There’s no doubt in my mind that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the best of this awards season and I couldn’t be more thrilled to say good morning to the star, Gary Oldman.  Gary, how are you?

Gary:  I’m very well, thank you.

Matt:  Were you a fan of spy books and movies growing up?

Gary:  Well I came to le Carré after the series was televised in 1979 but as a younger boy, I was a fan of James Bond and still am.

Matt:  But this is kind of like the reverse James Bond film as we see the life of a spy is a lonely, solitary existence?

Gary:  Yes.  Smiley is an anti-James Bond.  There are no martinis, no Aston Martins and it’s not Smiley who is promiscuous and jumping into bed with every girl who comes along but rather it’s his wife.  She’s out there playing the field.

Matt:  Do you get the chance to speak to any spies or those that worked for MI6 during the Cold War to get a feel for the era and their profession?

Gary:  Yes.  We had access to John le Carré himself as a resource.  He was available to speak to and John was part of MI6.  That said, everything you kind of need to know is in the novel, or I should say the three books which are under the umbrella of the Karla trilogy.  I didn’t have to work much outside of that and the odd conversation with John.

Matt:  Your portrayal of the character is a little bit different from Alec Guinness in the television series.  Did John le Carré give you any tips as to how the character should be played?

Gary:  Not really.  John gave us his blessing to do what we felt best.  The Guinness portrayal is a little more “school-masterly”, a little more “bookish”.  Guinness was nearly 70 when he played Smiley.  My Smiley is a little more virile and there’s an added cruelty when he needs to turn it on.  He’s a bit prickly.  I think Guinness was a little more huggable than me.

Matt:  Do you know if John has seen the final film and what he thinks of it?

Gary:  Oh he loved it!  He’d seen several versions of it in the early stages when director Tomas Alfredson was editing and putting it together.  He’s a real champion of the film and is thrilled with it.  We’ve got the old man’s blessing.

Matt:  You mentioned the director Tomas Alfredson and I know he described this character, George Smiley, as someone “you immediately forget if you saw him on the street”.  How is it for you playing such an ordinary guy who hardly says a word and maintains the same facial expressions throughout the whole film?

Gary:  It was a joy, really.  It was a relief to come into work, sit down in a chair and listen rather than playing someone who expresses himself emotionally in a physical way and bounces off the walls.  It was nice to let all the other people run around and let Tom Hardy to do some of the hard work.

Matt:  Did you have a bit of fun with your character’s look and the costume design.  I really liked the combed back hair, the nerdish glasses and the grey suit.

Gary:  Yeah.  The initial look of Smiley came from a photograph that Tomas had found of Graham Greene back in the late 1930s, looking rather suave in a mackintosh.  That was a starting point and my greying hair swept back is my little homage to Michael Redgrave.

Matt:  I know it’s director Tomas Alfredson’s first crack at an English language film.  What was he like to work with?

Gary:  He’s very prepared.  He’s very assured, very confident.  It was unusually quiet and focused on the set.  He’s got a great eye and a great vision.  Above anything else, he was a really decent bloke with a nice sense of humour.

I look back on this one with fondness because it was great to reconnect with some of those actors I worked with many, many years ago.  Particularly John Hurt who is superb in the film.  There are lovely performances from everyone really. 

Matt:  I know a lot of people talk about the fact you’ve never received an Academy Award nomination and hopefully that’s about to change.  I’m curious to know if that stuff means a lot to you?  The recognition in that regard?

Gary:  Let’s put it in this way – at least I’m in the race this year.  I do what I can to promote a movie but I don’t really push myself out there and campaign in that way.  I’ve never coveted an Oscar but I am promoting the film this time and it would be incredibly flattering if I were to receive a nomination.

Matt:  Well I hope you do get recognised.  I’d like to finish with one last question about the role you’ve become famous for in the new Batman franchise.  The Dark Knight Rises is going to be one of the biggest releases in 2012.  Can you give us an indication of what we’re in for?

Gary:  Of course I am absolutely sworn to secrecy about The Dark Knight Rises but I can say this much – it’s a fantastic story.  I don’t think Christopher Nolan would have made the third one just for the sake of it.  He really wanted to give us a great story to bring the trilogy to a close.  This promises to be a cracker.  A great epic piece.  Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to say any more.

Matt:  Well Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is going to give us plenty to talk about over the next few weeks anyway.  So I hope the film a great hit at the box-office here in Australia.  Thank you Gary for talking with us this morning.

Gary:  You are very welcome.  Thanks for having me.

You can read my review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by clicking here.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 09 January 2012

Whilst I love watching great movies, it’s a little frustrating from a reviewer’s perspective.  There are many weeks when I’m struggling to find a film to talk about.  This time, my attention has been split and not all these films will get the promotion that they deserve.

I should point out that I finally got a chance to upload my video from the Toronto Film Festival where I spoke with Alexander Payne and George Clooney.  Check it out here...