Film: Woody Allen: A Documentary

I'm very excited that PBS' American Masters series is covering Woody Allen this season (If you didn't know, I'm a big fan). There'll be a two part sequence featuring Allen's accomplishments as a filmmaker.

You can view some clips PBS has posted here. And you can learn more about the episode here. 

The show premiers on November 20th, after which it will be available on PBS' website, most likely here. (A link on the far right will probably say 'Watch full episode' after the episodes have aired).  

Video: Behind the Scenes The Sing-Off

I always wondered if the groups choreographed the opening number by themselves. Turns out, nope, they don't. But hey, that doesn't detract from the performance!

I love behind the scenes footage, and this is no exception.

Those of you might recognize that Sam Tsui of Youtube fame is the host of these behind the scenes featurettes! Cool, right?! I mentioned him before in this post.

New York Magazine: Upright Citizens Brigade Interview

Amy Poehler and Matt Besser around 2000.

Look, it's Amy, Amy, and Amy! 

I don't know much about the improv scene, but from what I do know, Second City (based in Chicago) and Upright Citizens Brigade (based in NYC) are two big powerhouses.Tina Fey, Dan Aykroyd, Stephen Colbert, and Jane Lynch are all graduates of Second City. Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, Rob Cordry, and Ellie Kemper are all UCB alumni.

New York Magazine recently covered how the group came to be, and many of its members got together to talk about how it all began. Notable participants in the reminiscing love fest include: Amy Poehler (Parks & Recration), Ed Helms (The Office), Ellie Kemper (The Office), Jack McBrayer (30Rock), Andy Richter (Conan), Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recration), Seth Meyers (SNL), and more! Crazy impressive, right?

To read the original article, click here.

Some of the highlights:
HELMS: A comedy community is comprised of a lot of people who have not thrived in conventional social circles. And that just makes for a giant pool of awkward sexuality. 


ADAM PALLY, Happy Endings: I remember seeing Ellie [Kemper], because she’s the nicest person, getting trapped and literally having to make her way from nerd to nerd to nerd to get out of the theater. 


RICHTER: For the next 20, 30, 40 years in this country, the comedy that we will be purchasing as consumers will have some UCB on it. 


SETH ­MEYERS, SNL: They were all sort of exceptional. Besser was doing stuff that was aggressive and unique—he was a guy that everybody talked about in reverent tones. Ian is one of the purest improvisers, as far as never being out of the scene. Whereas Walsh always seemed a little out of the scene, in a way that let the audience know how much fun he was having. And Poehler was probably the most feminine and most masculine performer. Masculinity—that’s probably not the right word. She’s an alpha performer. I think that’s ingrained in her, but it got trained very well, being with those other three guys. 
RICHTER: In the comedy world, a woman that strong and funny is worth ten funny guys. 

Interview: Dan Harmon of Community

Dan Harmon puts on his thinking cap.

Dan Harmon's Embryos

WIRED recently interviewed Dan Harmon, creator of NBC's smash hit Community. This article is so interesting for a couple of reasons:

• Harmon reveals his 'rule of 8' embryos (see image above). Basically, every episode of Community follows this pattern. It's kind of Harmon's adaptation of Joseph Campbell's the hero-myth cycle and brainchild after scrutinizing countless TV eps and movies. 
• Harmon tells WIRED that he discovered he had Asperger's Syndrome after researching it on a whim; many have off-handedly pointed to Abed, one of the shows main characters, as a young man with Asperger's.
• Harmon talks about his thinking habits and personality. In the article, it is stated: Even Harmon’s biggest supporters acknowledge his mercurial tendencies. “It’s hard, because he’s really passionate,” Community writer Megan Ganz says. “He cares about his work in a way that he doesn’t necessarily care about other people.”

Behind the Scenes: The Help

A week ago, I saw The Help and really loved it. The film was a well-balanced mix of comedy and heart. A lot of this comes from the screenplay adaptation of the book, and a lot comes from the stellar cast. 

Unlike most films that get cast in two or three months, The Help took almost a year! The Hollywood Reporter recently contained an article that addressed this fact. You can read it here. For a slideshow featuring blurbs on how each actress or actor was cast, click here. 

Some fun facts:

• Octavia Spencer, who plays Minny Jackson in the film, was the first to be cast. In fact, she was inspiration for the book's character. So of course, she was to be cast in the film!
• Although we all know Emma Stone, who plays Skeeter, as a now-famous actress, Stone was actually cast before the success of Easy A. Casting occurred in spring of 2010, but Easy A wasn't released until that year's fall. 
• Ahna O' Reilly (playing Elizabeth Leefolt in the movie) auditioned and elicited a 'Thank God, finally, a real Southerner in our film!' from film execs, but in reality she's a California girl! Turns out Spencer trained O' Reilly to speak with a Southern accent just for the audition. Looks like it worked!

Book: Woody Allen on Woody Allen

If you haven't noticed, I'm a pretty big fan of Woody Allen's. I found this book at my local library, and I love it! 

Each chapter is dedicated to a conversation between Allen and filmmaker Stig Bjorkman about a particular film. Other books featuring Allen's thoughts exist (such as Erik Lax's Conversations with Woody Allen) but I prefer Bjorkman's format. So after I watch an Allen film, I can read all about the decisions behind casting, cinematography, producing, directing a particular scene, etc. Lax's book is divided into chapters based upon the different elements of film--casting, directing, cinematography, etc. 

Click here to learn more about the book and to read an excerpt. 

I'm pretty sure this is common knowledge, but I didn't know it til I read this book--Annie Hall was based off of Diane Keaton in real life! Allen and Keaton shared a famous relationship for many years, and a lot of the film characters' relationship is based off of this. Keaton's original name is Diane Hall, which she changed upon registration for the Actor's Guild, because Diane Hall was already taken. 

For Your Consideration: The Good Wife

Ad from this week's THR

The great thing about reading The Hollywood Reporter is that I get to read the ads and participate (kind of) in the film/television campaigns. Just as politicians campaign for positions in government, television show execs are campaigning for awards. During awards season time (Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, etc.), certain producers etc reserve whole pages in THR for ads. These make great for great posters (THR is a big glossy magazine.), and sometimes direct me towards cool things like this:


For Your Consideration: The Good Wife is a site that acts like an ad for judges (I presume). This site has a pretty long video (I'm thinking ~5-7 minutes) that encapsulates the show pretty well. Think of it as an extended TV trailer that seems like a movie trailer. Warning though for those who have not watched the show: spoilers are present in the ad.

So click here to see what those in the industry (and now you too!) are watching. But as impressive as that opening video is, the behinds-the-scenes videos are even better. Click on 'video' for lots of these making-of goodies! These ~5 minute clips include the following:

• Good Acting: The actors, actresses, and guest stars who make The Good Wife great
• Good Stories: Co-creators/Exec producers Robert King + Michelle King on storytelling
• Good Look: Tour the set with Product Designer Stephen Hendrickson
• Good Style: Costume Designer Daniel Lawson on the show's fashions
• Fun fact: Daniel Lawson answers questions about the show's fashions on a regular basis at this CBS-based site. I envy those who can actually consider hunting down these outfits, which tend to be big-name labels like Narciso Rodriguez and Diane von Furstenberg. 
• Good casting: Finding great actors for great roles
• Good Sizzle: Everything you need to know about the show

As a side note, I read this article saying that Alan Cumming has signed a 3 year deal to continue working on The Good Wife. You know what that means? Three more years of great dramatic television!!! (Chanted in the background--Three more years! Three more years!)


Other shows have campaign pages, but unfortunately...the videos are restricted to Academy Members only. Ouch. For example, Universal Studios (which owns NBC), has all their show pages online too. Here's Jimmy Fallon's. Although these episodes are not accessible to us humble folk, I bet you could use these sites as a guide for the show's best episodes.

Youtube: New World Record for Longest Lip Dub

I saw this on Roger Ebert's Blog. It's pretty impressive! From the Youtube title, I gather this is the new world record for a LipDub. And I think one of the rules is that the record-breaker must have been filmed in one shot. And you can get an idea for how difficult it was to do in the interviews below.



And as usual, some behind the goodies.


Here's a radio interview accompanied by production stills.

Film News: The Hobbit

Orlando Bloom joins the cast of The Hobbit! Turns out Elijah Wood and Cate Blanchett will be appearing also. I wonder how they're going to do that!

Here's the original news.

Behind the scenes: Community

Community is one of my (many) favorite shows. Each episode is kind of its own monster (A good one. Like the ones from Where the Wild Things Are); each week, some new aspect of entertainment culture gets parodied. I love it.


This clip has the cast talking about part 1 of the season finale (it's hilarious).
Comments about the video:
1. Danny Pudi can beatbox?! Awesome.
2. I liked how they included the clip with Alison Brie's stunt double. Demystifying things (okay, not sure how 'mystical' that scene actually is) is a much-loved activity by moi.
3. Homage to Blazing Saddles!? That movie is great. A 1974 film by Mel Brooks, it is one of my favorites. Did you know that originally Richard Pryor, one of comedy's greats, was supposed to have the lead? His party-hard lifestyle influenced decisions to keep his role as only a writer, and not the lead actor. In his stead was cast Cleavon Little.
4. Father Sarducci?! Check this out. It's pretty funny. Don't all you graduates feel good about yourselves? :)

Behind the Scenes: Pirates 4

He's baaaaaacccck. That's right, everyone, Johnny Depp is reprising his role as Cap'n Jack Sparrow in the 4th installment of the Pirates franchise. 

In this week's The Hollywood Reporter, there was a whole spread about the development process, interviews with the actors and production team, and notes about the Black Carpet (!!!) premiere.

For the premiere, the team transformed Disneyland into a haven for Pirate wannabes. This has been a veritable tradition in the past, with all previous Pirates movies having their premieres at Disneyland also. They rolled out a black carpet (still !!!ing about this. So cool.) and the cast and crew came parading down it on May 7th (no, nobody was walking tipsy a la Jack Sparrow because Disneyland is a strict no-alcohol zone. Even for premieres.) 

This movie has been long in the making. It started pre-Writers strike, was delayed by the writer's strike, and then resumed in mid-2008. About 2 years later, a screenplay was had. Between January 2010 and release date of May 2011, Bruckheimer and his team would travel around the world with their very fancy, very expensive, and very fragile 3D cameras. Shooting finally finished in November 2010. Finally after much post-production modifications, the film was ready for its release! 

Disney hopes to make some big bucks with this film--the Pirates franchise is actually in very good standing for becoming the top-grossing set of first 4 installments. To give you an idea of how other collections fared at the box office:

• Star Wars - 2.83 billon
• Indiana Jones - 1.98 billion
• Die hard - 1.13 billion
• Harry Potter - 3.55 billion

From the first three films, Pirates has 2.7 billion. Between 'Arry Pottah and Cap'n Jack Sparrow, I would much rather see the latter win. 

The magazine also featured some interesting comments made by various individuals involved in the film-making process (these first-hand quotations are my favorite part about this magazine!). Below, I've transcribed a few:

Writer Terry Rossio describes Depp's involvement in the film. "We worked very closely with him on the story design," Rossio adds. "We'd have late dinners where the wine and the ideas flowed freely." 

-Depp regularly devotes himself to the creative process. In the film Alice in Wonderland, Depp worked very closely with Tim Burton in creating the role of the Mad Hatter. He even drew some character sketches for the character! Isn't that cool? 

Marketer MT Carney describes the basic motivation for making this film. "We wanted to remind people of why they fell in love with Jack Sparrow in the first place and also introduce new elements in a way that was elegant," says Carney.

Just saying, but I'm pretty sure I don't *need* to be reminded about why Jack Sparrow is my hero. However, I wouldn't *mind* to be reminded of why...and that's my main reason for seeing the film when it comes out. 

Carney continues to describe the difficulties of making the new Pirates installment fresh and appealing to audiences. "When we only focused on the new elements and minimized Jack Sparrow, that didn't work; there needed to be a solid amount of him," Carney says. "And when we made it more serious, that didn't work so well, either. People wanted a fun adventure."

That's right, screw fancy plot lines and continuity with whatever-the-heck happened in the previous films (Who remembers anyway? It's been four years!). I want this movie to be a Jack Sparrow extravaganza. 

Director Rob Marshall (you can read his interview here) talks about his and Depp's love of old cinema. "We felt, from our first meeting, exactly the same way: We were born in the wrong time," Marshall says. "I should have been working in the 1940s in the Arthur Freed [musical unit at MGM], and Johnny would have loved to be in the 1930s or '40s. He loves Hollywood lore."

If you ever read this, Johnny, you love 1930s/40s films, and I love 40s/50s films. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

In a separate interview, Depp answers questions about whether a 5th Pirates film is in the near future. "I've seen nothing yet. It boils down to story, script and filmmaker. But it's not something where I would say, 'Let's shoot it next month to get it out by Christmas 2012.' We should hold off for a bit. They should be special, just like they're special to me."

:)  

The Doctor's Love Life

Steven Moffat answers questions about the Doctah's Looooooove Life. 

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/11/steven_moffat_on_sherlock_and.html

Brought to you by the Night Owl (I think)

Behind the Scenes: The Hobbit

I'm not sure if I'm more excited for the movie to appear in theaters or for the blu-ray and its hours of behind-the-scenes features!!!!!

Doctor Who: Insider Part 4 -- The Companions 2011 Behind-the-Scenes (by BBCAmericaTV)

YAAAAYYYYYY. 

Brought to you by the Night Owl.