Toronto International Film Festival

Busted: Drug-War Drama “Sicario” Strikes me as Warm MIlk after Reading “The Cartel,” watching “Narcos”

September 11, 2015 By Thelma Leave a Comment

There Will Be Blood for Emily Blunt in “Sicario”

Thanks Don Winslow. (Said with the cadence of ‘Thanks Obama.’) You ruined Sicario for me. Your fantastic, devilishly researched novel The Cartel that James Ellroy called “The War and Peace of dopewar books.” Even before El Chapo escaped jail and the Mexican government scapegoated four policemen, you changed the entire way that I looked at the so-called war on drugs. To paraphrase “I’ve looked at drugs from both sides now,” and by using multiple narratives you made the case that the cartels aren’t something run by Mexican families south of Laredo, but an intricate web of government complicity on both sides of the border where our guys often choose what they consider to be the least of all evil drug lords in a policy that, like the War in Vietnam, has become a lose-lose proposition.

Don — may I call you Don? — by writing a book with multiple narratives, that gives humanity to everyone from the journalists in Juarez to the mistress of the El Chapo of your narrative to a child soldier born in the states and trained to become a sicario of soul-evaporating brutality, as well as American law enforcement, you created a rich and complex narrative. It’s a tale of one border with two very different sides that are as interrelated as brothers, codependent and estranged. Watching Sicario, the movie that stars Emily Blunt as a naive, or as Hollywood says, “idealistic” FBI agent, I kept wondering why she hadn’t read your book — or at least, given the grotesquely violent set pieces she heads into with her Kevlar vest and her eyes open, why she had so little clue about the invasive tentacled tumor that the cartels have become on both sides of the border crossings that they control to Midas-size profits.

For those who read my work, you’ll know that I’m all about the female-driven narrative, but Blunt’s wide-eyed and slightly lip-glossed agent is a false construct. To root for her, and her desire to fight crime by the books, is to sit on the side of American willful ignorance. And that’s not my preferred seat.

What I love about Sicario are the visceral set pieces. But when G-worman Blunt crosses the border in a plane with a mysterious federal agent (a charmingly no-bullshit Josh Brolin) and a twitchy overdressed Latino on special assignment from no branch of the U.S. government that has a payroll (Benicio Del Toro), I missed the complexity of The Cartel. Because his Juarez, not the Mexican drug jungle of the movie, had a culture of books and journalists and community. It was a real place raped and dismembered by the drug trade, a collusion of greed and violence and the American dream for escape through white powder.

The Juarez of Sicario is all backdrop for an American vision. Additionally, thanks to The Cartel, I know that the duality the movie sets up between the good federales and the corrupt local police is bullshit — the federal police are just playing on a different team, because there isn’t just one drug kingpin but many.

Sicario will shock, and Brolin and Del Toro give it grit, Blunt (as always) gives her best but, like Jessica Rabbit, her problem is that she was just drawn that way and can’t escape the sketch. But not only does it come in the wake of The Cartel, and not everybody is reading 600-page books however brilliant these days, but it also follows Netflix’s Narcos, the serial character study of Colombian drug king Pablo Escobar that I watched in great gulps until the final downward spiral. And, if you want to read a fantastic female-driven narrative of a legendary female drug chieftain, reach for the riveting Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Telemundo adapted that novel in Spanish in the wildly popular telenovela La Reina Del Sur from Telemundo.

And, Don, I don’t want to leave out the sultry but intensely lonely survivalist drug queen played by Salma Hayek in Oliver Stone’s adaptation of your novel Savages. She certainly deserves her own book — but I know you are busy, busy.

So that is my long answer as to why, while Sicario will shock some audiences (and the lovely man sitting next to me at the Toronto International Film Festival screening), it lacks authenticity. While it has the stinking dismembered bodies to give it street cred, it goes down like warm milk compared to the reality: a world where we Americans, in general, are willfully misunderstanding our co-dependent relationship with our sister to the south. As someone who grew up on the border in San Diego, and has fond memories of family visits to Tijuana and Ensenada, where life seemed so much more vibrant than the suburbs where I lived, this is a narrative I find infinitely affecting.

Like Vietnam, the War on Drugs is unwinnable — but we have to understand what its true nature is — and how many people on both sides of the border have invested their political and law enforcement careers on it. Read the headlines — and learn to read between the headlines. Follow @DonWinslow. Drug kingpin El Chapo escapes his high security prison. The Mexican government arrests four policemen who take the fall. But this is a dance and the drug cartels are paying the band with briefcases of cash. This echoes the refrain of Narcos: do you want silver or do you want lead — bribes or death. In that environment, there is no law. if you were given that choice, what would your response be? A dead with the devil or death? Think on that.

Eddie Redmayne Explains His ‘Theory of Everything’ and Fear of Stephen Hawking

November 9, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Smart is sexy: Eddie Redmayne makes an example of himself

A lithe, red-haired Eddie Redmayne slips into the banquette in a restaurant in Toronto, takes one look at the table’s snack mix and pushes away the bowl. Shaking hands, he remembers that the last time we saw each other was in New York at a lunch for Les Misérables. We had discussed how he lied about his equestrian skills to get a role in Tom Hooper’s TV mini-series Elizabeth I, and his matriculation at Cambridge alongside Tom Hiddleston.

That elite university was also where Redmayne first spied Stephen Hawking, the genius cosmologist and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) sufferer who Redmayne portrays in The Theory of Everything. The biopic delves into Hawking’s first marriage to wife Jane (Felicity Jones), as he suffers the effects of the neurodegenerative disorder that gradually robs him of muscle control. Redmayne and I spoke about meeting the real-life scientist, Redmayne’s terror at playing him onscreen, and the raves he’s earning at the Toronto International Film Festival for his immersive performance.

Had you known much about Hawking before you took the role?

I’d seen Stephen in his wheelchair from a distance at Cambridge. I’d studied history of art, and I just knew what I suppose most people know: the icon and the voice and something about black holes. Then I read this script and was embarrassed by how little I knew.

Did the role come easily to you?

There was a moment when I got the part where I felt a wonderful euphoria. It lasted about a second and a half. It’s been fear and trepidation ever since. The night before we started filming was the only night of my life that I did not sleep. It got to four in the morning, and I was being picked up at five, and I was like, ‘I haven’t slept. I can’t start this film without having had a minute’s sleep.’

Did it surprise you that Hawking was physically fit until he was an adult?

I didn’t know that much about him or ALS. I thought it was something that came on quite quickly. And in many cases, it does. But I found the love story aspect of it, this idea that there was this extraordinary woman named Jane, played by Felicity Jones, behind him completely riveting. I chased the role pretty hard, and I had a long conversation with [director] James Marsh. And I did that thing that actors do of pretending to sound really confident. I somehow managed to blag him into it.

Gentleman Ginger

What does ‘blag’ mean?

Blag means con him.

Well, maybe it wasn’t just blagging. You did an incredible job.

Thank you. My instinct had been that to approach a part like this, you needed to go back to an old school way of working. I felt that every single aspect of it would affect everything else. So the physical would affect the costume, would affect the makeup, would affect the voice. I worked with a dancer, an amazing woman called Alex Reynolds, and I spent a few months going to the London Motor Neuron Diseases Clinic to see how ALS manifests itself. It’s different in every single patient…. As the muscles stop working, you used other muscles. There are muscles here in our face that we never use, and [Hawking’s] mom and his wife Jane describe how he had incredibly expressive eyebrows. So it was trying to learn to isolate muscles, which meant a lot of time spent in front of a mirror with photos.

The movie frankly shows that Hawking remained sexually active post-diagnosis and fathered three children.

Completely. When you look at photos or hear about Stephen as a younger man, he was incredibly charismatic and flirtatious. The ladies loved him and still do…. It was absolutely apparent meeting him that he is a really strong, potent man in every sense of the word.

While a lot is made of the role’s physicality, the genius is that the illness never overcomes Hawking’s intellect or spirit.

The story of Stephen dwarfs the illness. For him, it is of no importance. He didn’t ever want to see a doctor again after he was diagnosed. He is someone that lives forward and lives optimistically. So, for me, what this film was about was an unconventional love story, a film about loving in all its guises. So, young love, passionate love, love of a subject, the tribulations of love, and the love of family.

With the current celebrity frenzy around the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it seems like a perfect storm for ALS awareness now.

For me, it’s a wonderful thing because as part of my research, I met 30 or 40 people suffering and their families. It’s a brutal, horrific disease. But because there is very little money invested in finding a cure, it’s been around for a long, long time, and they’re not much closer to finding one. I’m now a patron of the Motor Neuron Disease Association in London, and for them [the Ice Bucket Challenge] has been game changing.

Tell me about meeting Hawking.

It was five days before we started filming, which was not ideal. I’d spent all these months prepping, and I was a little worried: What if everything I had prepped was wrong? Our first half hour together was pretty hilarious in a kind of awful way. I basically just vomited forth information about Stephen Hawking to Stephen Hawking. But he was very generous…. Above and beyond the specifics I gleaned about how he slurred his words and such, was that he emanates this humor and wit. And that is what ended up being the most wonderful thing because it meant that I could start each scene — whatever obstacle’s been put in his way, he still finds humor and he still finds joy.

What’s your biggest takeaway from the whole experience?

The film quotes Hawking’s line: “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” I’m a massive culprit of all the foibles in your life taking all of that joy away. But, actually, when Stephen was given a death sentence at age 21, he committed to living each one of those moments fully.

Willem Dafoe on Working with Philip Seymour Hoffman and His ‘Fault in Our Stars’ Fame

July 26, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

A Dapper Dafoe

From the Green Goblin to Nosferatu, Martin Scorsese’s Jesus Christ to Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, actor Willem Dafoe has cultivated a career out of taking risks. This year his gambles have paid off handsomely: At age 58, the Wisconsin native is having one of the best years of his career. He recently starred in this summer’s smash weepie The Fault in Our Stars and the ensemble comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel. This Friday, he dons a German accent and a slick suit to play a dodgy banker in John Le Carre’s espionage thriller, A Most Wanted Man (the film, which opens Friday, is one of the last to star the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died earlier this year).

Arguably the hardest-working man in show business, Dafoe discussed five of his latest roles with Yahoo Movies:

A Most Wanted Man

As Tommy Brue, Dafoe serves as a foil to Hoffman’s Günther Bachmann, a German spy on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I didn’t know Hoffman personally before [we made the movie], but to work with him was to feel like you knew him for a long time,” Dafoe told Yahoo Movies. Of their scenes together — some of which take place in a sedan racing through Hamburg, Germany — Dafoe said: “His character bullied me in those scenes. You may be in a car and it may seem deceptively simple, but a lot is going on.”

The Fault in our Stars

In this smash adaptation of John Green’s young-adult hit, Dafoe played Van Houten, an embittered, alcohol-addled novelist who’s sought out by young lovers Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Gus (Ansel Elgort). “The other day I was walking down the street in New York,” Dafoe says, “and these 11-year-old girls mobbed me and shouted ‘Van Houten!’ It was like the first time I had ever been recognized in my life. It was like starting all over again it was so unexpected. Sure, kids see Spider-Man, but there was a different kind of passion that young teenagers have when they saw me. They didn’t see an actor that played Van Houten. They saw Van Houten [himself].”

The Grand Budapest Hotel

In Wes Anderson’s latest ensemble-comedy, Dafoe played a menacingly silent assassin. “Wes has a way of assuring you of a good life adventure when you work on one of his movies. Wes showed me an animated storyboard with line drawings for the picture, and I remember after seeing it, I joked, ‘Wes, you don’t need any of the actors. You have a movie right here!'” As far as the atmosphere on the set of the film — which co-starred Ralph Fiennes and Bill Murray — Dafoe says it “was like the actors’ retirement home.”

Nymphomaniac: Volume II

When discussing his latest collaboration with renegade director Lars von Trier — in which he plays the scheming superior to Charlotte Gainsbourg — Dafoe downplayed his participation in the sexually explicit movie. “My involvement was minimal, a couple of days… When I watch it, it’s almost a movie I’m not in.” But he had more to say about their previous collaboration: “Looking at Antichrist, Lars was feeling very insecure and a little ill, he had great ideas, but he didn’t know whether he could actually finish the movie. He used to say, ‘I may not come to set tomorrow or I may not finish this movie.’ It was always scary, and required a huge amount of trust on our part.”

Pasolini

In Abel Ferrara’s biopic — which will open this fall, after premiering at the prestigious Venice Film Festival — Dafoe plays the title character, the controversial gay Italian director (The Decameron), poet and writer who was assassinated in 1975. ”Pasolini is someone I admire a great deal,” said Dafoe, who splits his time between New York and Rome. “He fascinates me. I immersed myself in Pasolini for three months, wore some of his clothes and carried a pen that Maria Callas gave him. Those little details connect you like little relics to the material. They put you in touch with the ghosts.”

What Women Want: More Movies by and About Women

June 17, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Writer-director Rachel Israel

Rachel Israel is an up-and-coming Columbia University educated director who has joined with Tangerine Entertainment to write and direct an autistic love story, Keep the Change. The project builds on Israel’s short film, casting actors with developmental delays in the lead role of a high-functioning autistic man (Brandon Polansky) who falls in love with a more developmentally challenged young woman (Samantha Elisofon) when he attends a support group. Echoes of The Fault in our Stars, anyone?

Tangerine Entertainment is the brainchild of Anne Hubbell and Amy Hobby with the mission to see that more films directed by women get shepherded through the production process and onto the screen. They are joining with Summer Shelton (Little Accidents) to produce. Tangerine’s latest project, Lucky Them, with Toni Collette and Thomas Hayden Church, is currently in theaters after playing the Toronto International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival.

Below is a three-minute video of Israel discussing the making of the short that inspired the feature, and using non-actors with disabilities in the lead roles. At one point, she says of their ability to improvise: “The best material is the material I didn’t write.”

“Keep The Change” from CUFF 2014 on Vimeo.

Q&A: Never “Enough Said”: More Talk on Motherhood and Career with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

September 21, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

In vino veritas

This dialog with Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a continuation of an interview conducted at the Toronto Film Festival for Yahoo! Movies. Julia and I (and director Nicole Holofcener) are of the same generation: working mothers who went to college, had kids and are now, gradually, facing empty nests and, eek, what we see looking forward — and looking back — at midlife.

Here, I continue that part of the interview that was a little more personal, and more about mothers and professional women from our generation. Julia and I were discussing her character, Eva, who is having an awkward summer with her daughter as the pair prepares to separate when Ellen (Tracey Fairaway) heads to Sarah Lawrence in the fall. I said to Julia, about her character, “and she’s afraid…”

LOUIS-DREYFUS: She’s terrified.

Q: Nicole, the writer-director, is also someone who has gone through this transition or will be going through this. Her children are younger, right?

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Her twins are a year younger than my youngest. But still, she thinks about it a lot. And it’s very much on her mind, when her boys go off. And, what that means, and —

Q: Do you think that there’s now this generational shift? That our generation of women, who are writers and actresses and directors, who had kids, are at that point, where their kids are leaving, and are now going to re-embrace their careers with new vigor? Do you think there’s going to be this “Enough Said” renaissance?

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Jesus Christ, I hope so. I mean, the more voices of smart, experienced, women out there, the better for the world, I say, really.

Q: I’m there and, also, you have to be aware — just my personal drum to beat — is that there are, in fact, there were never many female film critics to begin with, and there are in fact less. And a lot of them who are our age have been furloughed off, and are floating, without the seniority that say, a Judith Christ had, or a Pauline Kael. And, just so you know, you need those people out there. We need those experienced women in print and online out there. We have to put that into the conversation too, because the things that we enjoy, and that could be “Enough Said,” or it could be “The Kids Are Alright,” or even “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat.” Male critics have a different lens, and we don’t want them to be the only gate keeper.

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Right. How are we going to do this?

Q: I’m fighting every day, that’s all I can say. I’m telling you and I’m writing about it, and I’m writing in a mainstream place, and I just didn’t — I’m not angry. I just write about you. I just wrote about Nicole. I write about the movies that interest me, and make sure that they are getting sung. And the movies of Catherine Keener; and you’ve done great work because you’re also doing “Veep” on HBO.

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Yep. Thank you very much.

Q: My all-time favorite TV show is Armando Iannucci’s “The thick of It.” And “Veep” is that show’s American cousin.

LOUIS-DREYFUS : “The Thick of It:” Amazing.

Q: Amazing. So, what do you think about the path for women are age. You’ve had success moving from TV to movies and back, but there’s a lot of resistance. I’m sure it’s hard.

LOUIS-DREYFUS : These scripts aren’t bountiful. You can’t just pluck them off trees. And that’s why I jumped when I read “Enough Said,” because it was like, holy shit, there’s nothing like this out there. I’ve got to do this. And, oh God, I’m so happy I did.

Was it good for you, too? Gandolfini, left, Louis-Dreyfus

Q: Obviously, you’re looking for more. What’s your next project?

LOUIS-DREYFUS: My next thing? I’m leaving today to go shoot “Veep: Season 3.” So I’m in the thick of that. That’s what I’m laser focused on, at the minute, and also trying to develop something else for film. But I’ve got to keep my eyes on the prize of “Veep” right now. It’s a very demanding schedule, and even juggling this, the film festival, this interview, the premiere, I’m in the middle of “Veep.”