The annual convention for film studios and movie theater owners gets underway in Las Vegas; a group of Latino musicians have put together a tribute to Morrissey (pictured) and The Smiths; David Rubin and Lora Kennedy discuss being a casting director in today’s film business.
LISTEN: Mexican musicians pay tribute to Morrissey and The Smiths with 'Mexrrissey' tour
Morrissey fans don't have to wait for a Smiths reunion. The "Mexrrissey" tour — a tribute by Mexican musicians to Morrissey's music — will tour the UK and then land in New York and L.A.
The idea was prompted when producer Camilo Lara, who records as the Mexican Institute of Sound, and Andy Wood, promoter for a London festival called La Linea, thought it would be a good fit for "The Year of Mexico" in the UK — a cultural exchange with a different country each year. To create a Latino spin on Morrissey classics, Lara reached out to Mexican musicians, including Ceci Bastida.
"When he called me back in December and he asked me to do, I just said yes. I didn't even know what was going to happen," said Bastida, who lives in L.A..
The show will also feature Chetes, Jay de la Cueva, Alejandro Flores, Ricardo Najera, Alex Escobar, and Sergio Mendoza and Jacob Valenzuela from the band Calexico. The melodies are recognizable, but the songs will be performed in Spanish — por supuesto.
"I think that's been the biggest challenge — translating his lyrics has been incredibly hard work," Bastida said. "You don't want to lose the meaning, the feeling of it, and then you realize that the way that he phrases things is so strange."
Bastida spoke with The Frame's Oscar Garza on the connection between Mexicans and Morrissey, the project's challenges and interpreting his music.
Listen to two of the tracks here:
Interview highlights:
You were a Smiths fan growing up in Tijuana?
I was a huge Smiths fan. Yes, in junior high. I had all the albums, I knew them all. Back then — I'm going to sound so old — you would put on the album and just stare at the cover and read the stuff inside. I did that a lot.
I've been aware for a while now about this huge appeal with Morrissey in the young Latino, Chicano communities. Were you aware it was a huge deal?
I wasn't. I moved to L.A. almost 10 years ago. I wasn't aware what was going on with the whole Morrissey fan base he has over here. But I do know that Mexicans are very much in love with him. One of the conversations we often have is that it has to do with the fact that Mexicans love drama or melodrama. His songs are so emotional and we tend to gravitate towards that kind of song writing, so he's huge.
Was this originally conceived to be a band? Is an album going to come of this?
We're not quite sure. When Camilo called me, he just asked me to do this. What he proposed to me in the beginning was to do this tour in the UK, as part of this cultural exchange. It happened that some people seemed to be interested, so now we're going to go to New York also after we come back and then we're going to do a show in L.A. It has become something interesting. It's been a lot of work and they've done a really great job with the music.
Are you reinterpreting the songs in Spanish?
I didn't know in the beginning, but of course it makes sense. I think that's been the biggest challenge — translating his lyrics has been incredibly hard work. You don't want to lose the meaning, the feeling of it, and then you realize that the way that he phrases things is so strange. Trying to translate it and at the same time make it fit properly that has been the biggest challenge. But musically it's amazing.
How different is your version of "Everyday is Like Sunday" from Morrissey's?
It's not incredibly different. There's moments and phrases that do change. We play around with different ideas, we don't want to do an exact copy of what he's doing. All of this with all of the respect in the world, obviously, but there's a song that I sing that mentions Dublin and bunch of other cities and we switched it up to Atizapán and and bunch of different cities in Mexico. We allowed ourselves to do that — play around with it. But we're still trying to keep the essence of the song, not go too far away from it.
Is Morrissey aware of this project?
According to our sources he is aware. I don't know if he's going to attend any of the shows. We're not sure if he's going to like it, he might hate it. But I think that's what happens with him and fans of his music — people are very passionate. They might love it they might think it's sacrilegio [sacrilegious].
The Mexrrissey tour will come to The Regent Theater in L.A. on May 11
While you're at it, check out the Morrisseyoke night at the Eastside Luv bar:
from
on Vimeo.
CinemaCon: MPAA head Chris Dodd speaks against piracy, promotes new site
Former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, now chairman/CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, delivered a State of the Industry address at Las Vegas's CinemaCon on Tuesday. The annual convention gathers movie theater owners and the studios for a preview of the year's major releases. It's also a trade meeting where the topics include marketing to niche audiences and new regulations pertaining to food concessions.
Dodd's speech focused on fighting piracy and he also promoted a new site to help audiences find content legally.
He emphasized the economic impact of the film industry, opening with a video of a mechanic who works in the industry before citing 1.9 million workers in the United States whose jobs either directly or indirectly depend on movies and television. (The MPAA's website notes that 302,000 of those jobs are directly part of the industry.)
"We, all of us who make our home in this industry, must stand up and speak out to protect their jobs, and our industry, by spreading this message, whether in movie theaters, the best place to enjoy their presentation, or on television, or streaming legally online – where you watch film matters," Dodd said in his speech.
Dodd said that hundreds of thousands of jobs are threatened by film piracy, and thanked National Association of Theatre Owners head John Fithian for aiding in the fight. He talked about the MPAA's new site, WhereToWatch.com, which helps aggregate where to watch film and TV legally, from finding movie times or sites where content is streaming or available for purchase.
Dodd went on to cite the Constitution in his discourse on piracy.
"Let me quote to you what our founders wrote into the Constitution of our nation 226 years ago in 1789 about this abiding principle of copyright: 'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.'"
Dodd noted that copyright is also hugely important in other industries, specifically citing tech.
"Those creators too rely on copyright, intellectual property, and patents to protect their work and contribute to the next great ideas and innovations. That is why all of us must ensure that future generations will have the same opportunities to fulfill their creative ambitions and profit from them, if they so wish."
Dodd cited a number of major releases coming later this year for the industry to be excited about: superhero films "Avengers: Age of Ultron," "Ant-Man" and "Fantastic Four"; family films "Hotel Transylvania 2," "Minions" and "Tomorrowland"; and new films in the "Mission Impossible," James Bond, "Jurassic Park" and "Star Wars" franchises.
Dodd bookended his speech by closing with another video clip, this one of a costume illustrator.
Casting directors: How movies like 'Batman v Superman' came together
Casting directors Lora Kennedy and David Rubin have put together some of the biggest movies around, including "Superman Returns," "Man of Steel," "Hairspray," "Wonder Woman," "Cloud Atlas," "Game Change" and "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."
"I think casting directors are psychologists and matchmakers and astute readers of scripted material," Rubin said. "They are sensitive to both the actor's process and the director's process."
"And we're caretakers," Kennedy said. "The actors come in with a certain amount of nerves and anxieties and dreams and hopes and wishes, and directors come in with anxiety and dreams and hopes and wishes, and we have to calm them down. We have to get them focused."
Rubin added: "A director once said to me that the two most important things in filmmaking are the script and the cast — and everything else is transportation."
"Superman Returns" and "Man of Steel"
"We had gone through a series of trying to reboot it with a bunch of different directors, and then we finally settled on a director [Bryan Singer] and an actor [Brandon Routh]," Kennedy said. "And that film got made, and he was really lovely, but we had also tested Henry at that time."
That would be Henry Cavill, who'd go on to star in "Man of Steel."
"And [Brandon Routh] was fantastic, but the film just didn't work as well as they had hoped, so we rebooted it seven years later, and Henry was still around," Kennedy said. "And so I said to him, 'Let's try this one more time, you and me. Come in, let's you and me read this one more time, let's give it one more shot.' And he was it. And we just submitted him to the directors and the producers, and luckily Chris Nolan was producing, Zack Snyder was directing, and everybody was in agreement that Henry was the guy. And it took Henry and I seven, eight years to make that happen, but I knew it."
"Hairspray"
"There's really no list of young, overweight teenage movie stars," Rubin said. That presented a challenge in casting for "Hairspray," due to the star's appearance being central to the show.
"We knew we had to open the doors and see many, many people. But one of the first auditions we saw was a videotape from a girl who was working in an ice cream shop on Long Island, and it was extraordinary. And yet it was so early on in our process that we couldn't have that eureka moment," Rubin said, "and what resulted was we had open calls all around the country, and everybody second-guessed this fantastic reading from the very beginning of our casting process. It took six months of long lines, of hopeful teenage girls all around the country singing their hearts out, and ultimately we ended up pointing to this video that we'd received very early on from Nikki Blonsky, who carried the film on her shoulders."
Race
What impact does race have when it comes to casting? Rubin says that race in a screenplay is something he tries to ignore when it comes to casting.
"One of the first things I do when reading a script is cross out the character descriptions," Rubin said. "The writers of a screenplay write very detailed descriptions of each character for a very specific purpose — because they write that screenplay for studio executives. They want a studio executive to envision what this movie is and then write a beautiful check to make the film. As casting directors, we ignore those descriptions and focus only on how does this character impact the story, and that can happen from many, many perspectives, from many genders, many races, many types."
"Wonder Woman"
Kennedy says that they sought an actress with a European feel, both at Zack Snyder's request and out of an attempt to appease fans.
"Because the legend of Wonder Woman is that she's from Greece, and the fan base needs these kinds of things to be paid attention to," Kennedy said. "We had seen Gal [Gadot] in the 'Fast and Furious' series and really loved her, and then we met her. And she's absolutely fantastic. She's 5'10", she's a supermodel, and she was in the Israeli army."
Kennedy said those attributes, combined with having no fear, made Gadot the right wondrous woman for the role, though it came as part of a worldwide search.
"Cloud Atlas"
Lana and Andy Wachowskis used an extremely international and diverse cast in their complicated sci-fi film, "Cloud Atlas." Kennedy said casting the movie took two years, including getting Tom Hanks attached to play a wide variety of roles.
"It wasn't about ethnic lines, it was about the soul lines of the character, and how they were embodied in different people," Kennedy said. "And so it was very hard for people to understand. But wherein Caucasian actors played Asian, Asian played Caucasian, and it was just a big mashup of humanity."
"Game Change"
Rubin worked on casting for two political projects: "Recount" and "Game Change." He says that authenticity in a film based on a true story is important, but you don't want to be beholden to an impersonation.
"Julianne [Moore] had certain trepidations about [playing Sarah Palin], which are reasonable, and she did a tremendous amount of research and got very obsessive about the cadence, the voice, the movement and all of that," Rubin said. "And then, very cleverly, when it came time to shoot, [she] forgot about all of that and just played it as herself."
Backlash for Ben Affleck as Batman
When the announcement that Ben Affleck would play Batman in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (and beyond) was made, it led to a huge amount of backlash online — more than Kennedy and the rest of the team expected, she said.
"I think Ben handled it really well, but I think it was hard on him. I don't think, at any time, people can't expect that to not have an effect on these actors. It doesn't matter if it's Ben or anybody. All this negativity, and this anonymous hating that goes on on these websites is really out of control."
Kennedy added that audiences need to reserve judgment until they actually see what's being made, and that she's bothered by people showing hate toward casting decisions and movies in general before it's even made.
"No one knows what kind of Batman we're making," Kennedy said. "No one knows the character of Batman in this particular movie. It's not Christian [Bale]. It's a new Batman, and Ben is a new Batman, and he has a new take on it, and he's worked very hard at this, and he has committed himself to it, and I think people are really going to be surprised."