Sundance Film Festival

9 Things I Learned About Jason Momoa While Breaking Bread at Sundance

July 5, 2014 By Thelma 1 Comment

Writer, Director, Star, Easy Rider, Khal Drago: Jason Momoa

Tuesday night, July 8th, I’m going to host a Jason Momoa double header: a Meet the Filmmaker Q&A at the wonderful Apple Store in Soho at 5 PM, followed by an Evening with the Actor conversation and screening of the biker movie he wrote, directed, costumed, and starred in, Road to Paloma, at the 92nd Street Y. The first one’s free; the second requires tickets.

Momoa, as I learned at a dinner hosted by WWE Studios President Michael Luisi in Park city last January, is a very fun and accessible guy. Here’s my Yahoo dispatch from that feast:

Cross that one off my bucket list! Last night I had dinner with Jason Momoa, the actor who bedded the Khaleesi in some of the hottest love scenes on TV as the Dothraki king Khal Drogo in HBO’s Game of Thrones. The occasion? WWE Studios was hosting a dinner for a dozen or so to celebrate the SAG winner’s directorial debut, Road to Paloma. He also wrote the Native American biker drama, which co-stars Momoa’s wife Lisa Bonet and comes out in July.

Here are nine nuggets that emerged over steak and fried chicken at Butcher’s in Park City:

1. There’s no truth to the rumors that he was cast as Aquaman in the delayed “Batman vs. Superman” movie – but he’d be happy to make it a reality if he were asked. [Update: He’s still not talking but in June, People Magazine reported that everybody’s favorite Dothraki had been cast as Aquaman in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.]

2. Although Momoa, 34, was born in Hawaii, his parents split. His mother raised him in Iowa – Madison County to be exact. One of his high school buddies actually had a role in the Meryl Streep-Clint Eastwood movie The Bridges of Madison County.

3. When you’re 6′ 5″ and very muscular, ordinary chairs are too small for comfort – and he tends to tip back in them to the danger point.

4. Momoa has a number of tattoos – one on his arm said, “Pride of Gypsies,” which is the name of his company. Another on his upper arm just above the elbow is rows of black triangles that represent shark’s teeth – so that when he’s in the water, sharks will recognize him as one of their own.

Flashback to “Easy Rider” on “Road to Paloma”

5. His dream project is to write and direct what he calls his “Braveheart.” It’s a heroic historical drama based on the true story of the Koolau Rebellion, or the Leper Wars on Kaua’i. As Momoa pointed out, Jack London immortalized the relatively little-known conflict in his short story “Koolau the Leper.”

6. Momoa has two children, 5 and 6, with wife Lisa Bonet. He kept in touch while in Park City by talking on his phone with them while snowboarding down a mountain.

7. While shooting the first season of Game of Thrones in Ireland, Momoa had more than a few awkward moments. When he went to the local pub, he didn’t exactly blend in. Who was this giant guy with, as Momoa put it, a “70’s porn mustache” and eyeliner? He was just an actor studying his lines – in Dothraki – and calling for another glass of Guinness. By the time he returned to shoot the second season, the locals were buying him beers and calling him “mate.”

8. On February 27, the Sundance Channel will premiere The Red Road, a twisty contemporary noir in which Momoa plays a lead role as a New Jersey Native American with a mysterious past opposite New Zealander Martin Henderson, Julianne Nicholson, Tom Sizemore and Bonet.

9. Momoa, a big man with a big heart, gives good hug – and is the absolute life of the party.

Countdown to TIFF – 12 Days – Movie Trailer “The Sessions”

August 25, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

When I first received info about The Sundance Film Festival last year, there was a movie description that sounded like an Onion parody of the festival: a Bay Area man in an iron lung wants to lose his virginity before he dies and hires a sexual surrogate to make that happen. It was called “The Surrogate.” Then the buzz came: John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone”) makes the movie in the lead role. Helen Hunt bares all as the surrogate. Crowds laughing and crying. Having seen the film, I can say that Hawkes is a shoe-in for a best actor Oscar nomination. No question. No money risked in betting. I am not a viewer that likes my emotions manipulated, so although the film, now retitled “The Sessions,” is a crowd-pleaser, i didn’t join in on the group weep at the end. Maybe I just wasn’t going to give the movie the satisfaction. So I’m not with those that say Hunt will get an Oscar nom, or that the movie is unquestionably bound for a best picture or best adapted screenplay nod (it’s based on a personal essay by poet and polio survivor Mark O’Brien), but Hawkes excels at the kind of role that earned Daniel Day Lewis an Oscar in “My Left Foot” in 1990.

Movie Review: Cedar Rapids

February 10, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

Us Rating: ***

Ed Helms shines in this endearing comedy as a square Midwesterner who finally breaks out of his shell at — of all places — an insurance convention. Aided by three conference vets (John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock Jr.), Helms gets into massive trouble — including a wacky three-way with Reilly and Heche in a hotel pool! Sexy Heche charms, but Reilly earns the biggest laughs as a pushy salesman with a heart of mush.

Rerun:My controversial 2009 Melissa Leo Q&A on HuffPo

February 6, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

Posted: July 29, 2008 05:28 PM

For Your Consideration: Melissa Leo for Best Actress in Frozen River

When I saw Frozen River last January at Sundance, it knocked me out. I’d been a Melissa Leo fan since she played Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on Homicide: Life on the Street. We became friends through the Woodstock Film Festival, and I adore Racing Daylight, her movie with David Strathairn that has yet to get theatrical distribution. When I saw Frozen River (FR), I discovered that when an actress who’s also a friend appears on screen, it’s doubly interesting because you’re rooting for her, and you want her to be great, and you know she can be great. I saw the drama about two struggling single mothers forging a friendship while smuggling on the NY-Canadian border, and I literally wept in two ways. I wept because this particular story moved me emotionally but, also, to watch someone you love create a work of art is extremely affecting. And, over the process of becoming an advocate for FR that week in Park City, I bumped into Michael Barker and Tom Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics at a screening. I told them they had to see FR: it’s tremendous, I told them; it’s adult and has Melissa Leo, you know her from 21 Grams and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and she should be on the Oscar track. And, by festival’s end, not only had Michael and Tom bought FR, but Quentin Tarantino and the jury awarded it best narrative feature and it went on to open New Directors/New Films at MOMA. Last month, I sat down beside Melissa for a chat:

Thelma Adams: Melissa, when did you step into FR to play Ray Eddy?
Melissa Leo: Five years ago-ish, I was in Chatham, NY with James Schamus [Focus Features]. He’d brought 21 Grams up there for a screening. At the after-party, a wide-eyed blond-haired gal came up to me and said ‘I have a short, will you read it?’ And I said, ‘sure.’ I read a script called Frozen River about two characters: the blond and the native; they didn’t even have names. About four years ago, [writer-director] Courtney Hunt, [co-star] Misty Upham and I went up to Massena, NY and shot the short. After, I saw that short and was very impressed by what she had done, Courtney said, ‘wanna do the feature?’ And I said, ‘oh, I didn’t know you had one,’ and ‘sure, let’s do the feature.” So every six, eight months I would call Courtney and say, “Are we going to make that movie?” And she would say, “oh, yeah, no, I’ll get right back to you,” so I would kick-start her again to go look for the financing. Eventually we found it in her own backyard through her husband and his business associates.
TA: Melissa, your character is tough, and yet when her sons are around, her behavior is warm, natural. When Ray Eddy’s getting ready for work and the younger son is there, there’s a real bond. I know you have a great connection with children – I’ve seen that with my own daughter – and you’re really present and you can see that on screen.
ML: What you have to realize is that little actor never acted before — and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. So, it took a lot of work with me and the older boy and sometimes Courtney as well. Sometimes there are actually all three of us off-camera with the little boy on screen prodding him in this direction, prodding him in that direction. [Read more…]

Tiffany Shlain Connects: The Sundance Interview

January 28, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

E.M. Forster built a body of great literature on the idea: “Only connect!” but even the great novelist could never have imagined the internet’s power. Berkeley filmmaker (and founder of The Webby Awards) Tiffany Shlain explores this next generation of interconnectedness, and dives into her personal experience, in her compelling, informative and entertaining feature documentary, Connected: A Declaration of Interdependence.

Watching the film, it surprised me how interconnected Tiffany and I are: we both attended UC Berkeley, we’re both Jewish with roots in Odessa, and mothers of two. We both suffered miscarriages and found the loss difficult to mourn openly in this society. And our lives were irrevocably changed when our fathers died in their prime of brain tumors, an event that I have written about and that is central to Shlain’s highly personal film.

And we both found ourselves together at the Sundance Film Festival, connected as filmmaker and critic, sitting in front of the fireplace at the Yarrow hotel after a packed screening of Shlain’s award-winning first feature.

Thelma Adams: What does it mean to be connected in the 21^st century?

Tiffany Shlain: It means many things. It means we’re connected to a rich complex history as a species. On a very primal level we’re connected in a close way with our family and in a new way with all this technology, with all these tools. Each of those things requires some thought. You start with yourself and work your way outwards.

TA: What developments do you anticipate in the future?

TS: We’re in the zeitgeist moment where this connectivity is about to catapult us into a new place where we’re going to tackle some of the problems of the day. I worry about this connectivity of keeping us present. The challenge is to personally be connected while using these tools to make the world better. If you look at what happened in Haiti, people were able to coordinate on the internet to help people on the ground. We’ll all be able to react and help.

TA: This is a movie about your relationship with your father….what is your connection to your mother?

TS: Very close. My mother was an incredible role model. She went back and got her PhD. I feel like she’s planted there [in the film]. As I say in the film, my mother and father both co-wrote my brain.

TA: How has that shaped who you are as a mother?

TS: I love being a mother. My mother loved being a mother. My parents both reversed a trend and they were really wonderful parents to me. I feel like I have incredible freedom to be a mother like I want to. The internet helps me. Given my miscarriages, I really valued being a mother. Every moment became more sacred. As a mother it made me more present.

TA: How would you describe your generation of women?

TS: I feel that I had a choice. A lot of my peers waited too long to have children and have had infertility issues. The internet changed things. It gives me an incredible freedom. But I struggle with turning off the computer and being with the kids. We try to do technology free trips. The first step is trying.

TA: In Howard’s End, E. M. Forster wrote, “Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.” How is this literary vision of connection different from that which your film describes, or is it?

TS: I was at an event yesterday with Gloria Steinem. She said we’re such social creatures that when we punish somebody in our society we isolate them. We sit in a movie theater so we can have a communal moment.

TA: Can you capture this film in 140 characters?

TS: I hope this will spark a conversation about what it means to be connected in the 21^st century.