Major awards from the Screen Actors and Producers guilds give "Birdman" (pictured) in the driver's seat for Academy Awards; a media watchdog group says "American Sniper" has inspired threats against Arab-Americans and Muslims; sex is a common theme at this year's Sundance festival; actor Tony Hale has written a children's book.
At Sundance, sexual themes take center stage, even in comedies
The Sundance Film Festival is the nation’s top showcase for movies made outside the studio system. And the movie that really put the festival on the map was Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies and Videotape.”
In that 1989 movie, James Spader can only experience sex alone while watching videotapes of women talking about their sex lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI5MKaE4aGc
Well, there’s no more videotape at this year's Sundance, but the filmmakers are showing sex in any way they can think of. Festival director John Cooper says it’s been a growing movement.
“I think it’s been happening for a few years. When you look back to 'Don Jon’s Addiction' and a few films like that, there’s been a trend towards looking at sexuality — the human experience, human nature. I think it is part of our human story,” Cooper says.
While sexual themes in festival films isn’t new, this year’s particular — and ever present — brand of sex is. In the narrative features playing at Sundance this year, you get to see scenes of gay sex, straight sex, group sex, trans sex, sex with yourself and sex with minors. But what’s really noticeable is that many of these depictions are really comedic.
“That’s a new trend we’ve seen," Cooper says. "The sex scene in 'The Bronze' is one of the funniest sex scenes ever. I can't believe we haven't seen it before." He's referring to a scene involving gymnastics and highly acrobatic sex in a very small hotel room.
Another Sundance comedy that’s filled with sex and people talking about sex is “Sleeping With Other People.” It stars Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie as former college classmates who reconnect in a meeting for sex addicts.
The film’s writer and director, Leslye Headland, says she has noticed the preponderance of sex and comedy at Sundance films this year.
“I think that in comedy, sex has become more and more a subject as opposed to just a punch line,” Headland says. “At least for me, it's becoming more and more a part of a conversation. But as far as a zeigeist-y Why-is-this-a-theme-this-year?, I'm not quite sure.”
Sex for comic shock value is a big part of the Jack Black film, “The D Train.”
During its Sundance premiere, when two characters engaged in an unexpected sex act, the audience went wild with laughter.
Another film that plays sex for comedic value, but also with sex very much woven into the fabric of the story, is “Tangerine.” It’s a story about transgender prostitutes in L.A., where two characters have sex in a drive-through car wash.
The filmmaker, Sean Baker, says the trans-actress had a say in the tone of those scenes.
“It was really Mya Taylor, and one of the first couple meetings we had, she told me, ‘I'll make this film with you, but I want you to make this thing real. Brutally real, number one, and number two, I want you to make this funny,’” Baker says.
Some of the Sundance sex comedies are notably directed by women, including “Diary of a Teenage Girl”— a comedy that features a girl obsessed with owning her sexuality with fearless candor. The coming-of-age sex comedy was directed and written by Marielle Heller.
“I do think for female filmmakers and female writers, this is a little bit of a domain that I think we're very interested in exploring," Headland says. "Not that male filmmakers don't, but I think it's something that we feel like we would like to have a say on exactly what our experiences have been.”
Unlike many male filmmakers, Headland is not interested in gratuitous shots of womens' naked bodies — what’s known in film criticism circles as "The Male Gaze." While her movie is very much about hooking up, it’s one of the rare Sundance movies that doesn’t have any nudity.
“For me, nudity takes me a little out of the story," says Headland, "and when I see an actor nude, I think about the actor just very briefly. Even if it's just for a split second, I think, Oh, the actor's naked. That's a blip that I never want my audience to have.”
While Headland specifically avoids nudity “Sleeping With Other People,” the writer and director of “The Overnight,” Patrick Brice, can’t get enough of it.
In “The Overnight,” a comedy about a dinner party that goes into some unexpected directions, there’s an extended scene of full frontal male nudity with Adam Scott and Jason Schwartzman.
“The freshness of that scene — I realize I haven’t seen that kind of scene, even in all the amazing television there is now and uncensored television, I haven’t seen that penis-size joke as yet,” Cooper says.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that “Tangerine” is about trans-prostitutes, the sex and nudity isn’t so much graphic, though it easily could have been.
“It was really scene-by-scene of how much we wanted to show and how much was appropriate to show," says director Sean Baker. "The sex acts [are] not graphic, but I did allow them to play out in real time.”
Cooper says the way Sundance directors are wrestling with, and depicting, sexuality is exactly in alignment with the festival’s mission.
“Filmmakers know that independent film is a safe place to do that and I think that they know that they can use it in creative ways,” Cooper says. “It’s just part of the fabric of what independent film is now.”
Actor Tony Hale's 'Next Big Thing' is a children's book
Over the course of a long and hectic career, Tony Hale has proved capable of creating eminently recognizable characters, from Buster Bluth on "Arrested Development" to Gary Walsh on "Veep," a role for which he received an Emmy in 2013.
Now, the longtime comedic actor is trying his hand at something different. He's the author of "Archibald's Next Big Thing," a children's book about a chicken named Archibald who has trouble living in the moment.
When Hale came by The Frame recently, he spoke with host John Horn about the effects of becoming a parent, collaborating with his daughter, and why actors have trouble appreciating what they already have.
Interview Highlights:
This is a book that's really about appreciating what you have in front of you. In fact, its subtitle could be "Stop and Smell the Roses."
Yeah, and it came from my personal experience of being in the business. I've been in this business for a long time, and I was finding a pattern: I've had some really great gigs that I'm very proud of, but every time I got a gig I was still looking to the next gig. It's something that I still struggle with, but if you get so focused on the next adventure, then you miss the adventure that you're on at the time. The book came out of that.
The way that you were thinking about yourself and your career — was that particular to you and your personality? Or was it the way that people in this line of work are taught to think of themselves, that you always have to be reaching for something higher?
I think it's a combination of the two. When I was living in New York, struggling to be an actor, I put a lot of energy into [thinking], That sitcom's coming! That sitcom's coming! I put a lot of weight on it, but also you're told, "Always be looking."
But here's the deal: I talk to people who are film actors, or they do a lot of film, and they [say], "Yeah, but I'd really just like to have my own TV show." And I meet people in TV and they [say], "Yeah, but I want to be doing movies." And then everybody's like, "Yeah, but I'd like to be doing Broadway." Everybody's looking to the next thing, wherever they are.
You could have written this as a self-help book for adults and put it into a different corner of the bookstore. Why did you put it ...
Are you talking about how I read it every single night and cry? [laughs] Is that what you're referring to?
I thought we weren't going to talk about that.
[laughs] Yeah, I don't know if I could fill a whole book. [laughs] I could just talk about my love for Trader Joe's or something. But it's a very simple message, and since I'm such a visual person, I love the combination of finding the illustrations for the simple message. Not to say it again, but it was important to keep it simple.
How did becoming a parent change your view of your work?
Not to always bring it back to this, but I will say that I started shooting "Arrested Development" in 2003 and we finished in 2006. And that was kind of the genesis of much of my realizing the significance of the struggle I had with being present.
My daughter was born in 2006 after the show was cancelled, and I think the gift that kids give is forcing you to be present with your child, because you have to keep them alive. So it really woke me up to a lot of stuff and I think that was a really big lesson for me. She really helped me stay here, and stay where I was. I couldn't be somewhere else.
How did you collaborate with her on the book?
Archibald has brothers and sisters, and he has a sister named Loy, which is my daughter's name. And so Loy was very excited about that and loved being a part of designing her outfit. She wanted pigtails, knee-high socks — she liked the color green — and that was really fun. It was fun just to talk about it, and then to see it come to life. And for her to say, "Wow, I chose those colors," was really a kick for her.
Did you tell her the story as you were writing it? Did you sound it out and ask what she thought? Was she giving you notes like, "Move Character A here," like your own studio executive?
[laughs] "The story structure of this is off, Dad." No, I would read it to her a lot, and she'd be like, "I don't get this bit, and what's up with him there?" And it was great, because when she was talking I was like, Yeah, I need to simplify that a lot more. Or make it more in her world, because I think I'm thinking a little too...whatever.
How old is she now, and how old was she when you were writing it?
When we started writing it she was seven? And she's almost nine now.
And is she somebody who is stopping to smell the roses, unlike her father in earlier times?
[laughs] She has a dad who, any time she's asking, "Where are we going, what are we doing, what's next?" I'm like, "Where are we now?" So I think she's kind of annoyed by the message.
But I just saw this ... graffiti and it was a beautiful picture with a guy underneath an umbrella and all these colors were coming down, and he was under this umbrella with a worried look. And there was this little girl outside just standing in the rain, loving it.
I saw that and I [thought], That is so my daughter. She's just free and finds the joy and love in things, and it's so fun to watch her and learn from her.
Are you now part of the actor-turned-children's-book-author community? Jamie Lee Curtis, Julianne Moore, I'm sure there are many others. Do you guys have little coffee meetings?
We do, we have weekly coffee and we just kind of praise each other's work. [laughs] No, but I'd love to. I got to know Henry Winkler during "Arrested Development," and he was a real inspiration for me, because Henry has dyslexia and he did this whole children's book series based on what he's been through. He had such a passion for it and I think he's just one of the most wonderful men in the business, so I loved hearing what he did, and I think that had a lot to do with me [thinking], You know what? Let me try this one day.
'American Sniper' causes rise in hate speech, says civil rights group
The film “American Sniper” continued its astounding performance at the box office over the weekend. The film grossed another $64 million, bringing its total to $200 million in just two weeks of wide release.
While debate continues over the depiction of the sniper at the heart of the film, Chris Kyle, there is concern in certain circles about the reaction from some of the film’s fans. The Washington D.C.-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, reports a dramatic increase in violent threats against Arab-Americans and Muslims in the U.S. since the film's release.
The threats prompted the ADC to send a letter to the film's star, Bradley Cooper, and its director, Clint Eastwood, requesting that they publicly denounce the hate speech. A spokesman for Warner Brothers would not say whether Cooper or Eastwood would respond, but the studio did release the following statement:
Warner Bros. denounces any violent, anti-Muslim rhetoric, including that which has been attributed to viewers of "American Sniper." Hate and bigotry have no place in the important dialogue that this picture has generated about the veteran experience.
ADC president Samer Khalaf spoke to The Frame's Oscar Garza about the groups concerns.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
On the comments the ADC has been seeing:
Most of the comments are coming in on social media and via e-mail. And we've seen two waves of these comments coming through. The first were a direct result of the movie itself. The second wave is sort of a backlash towards our campaign to try and get both Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper to come out and denounce the hateful speech.
On the response the group hopes to elicit from Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper:
Simply put, that this type of speech is unacceptable. I mean, to paraphrase some of the messages ... they generally say, "Just saw the movie, it was great, now I want to go kill some ragheads."
On 'American Sniper' showing in the Middle East:
Hollywood is about the dollar. And these types of movies make tremendous amounts of money. Hollywood is always about picking the one villain, the one bad guy, that's what sells.
From the beginning, from the '60s and '70ss, Hollywood's always made money off of portraying the evil Arab. And you want to know something? There are bad Arabs. There are bad Muslims. There are bad Italians, there are bad Germans, there are bad everybody. But unfortunately, what they don't do is show the good Arab or the good Muslim. And that's problematic.
On the ADC's campaign during awards season:
We're going to disagree about the movie. I'm going to disagree with Clint Eastwood, maybe disagree with Bradley Cooper, I may disagree with other Americans about whether this is a good movie, bad movie, or whatever. But I think the one thing we can all agree on is this type of hate — this type of vitriol, these types of threats — where people say, "I'm going to put a bullet in someone's head," just because they happen to be Arab or they happen to follow a specific faith, I think we can all agree that that is wrong. And that is not the American way of life.