As anyone who reads my work is aware, I have a great affection for the Q&A format. For me it represents an extremely important point of cultural contact and a unique zone of interaction between film talent and fans essential to an enhanced cinematic experience. But, even I recognize that—as avidly as I aim to transcribe my favorite sessions—there are built-in restrictions to the format. The time allowed for a session, for example, or the quality of questions asked have everything to do with a successful Q&A session. Then again, conveying an interviewee's personality, character, or even the gist of a rambling inquiry pitched by an audience member are challenges for me as a writer. Frequently—though not always—I've seen Q&A sessions being filmed but have rarely seen these taped sessions made available to the public. That fact alone became one of the driving inspirations for my transcribing Q&A sessions so that an institution's archival impulse expands out to the public sector. That being said, however, I admit that I am not too keen on watching interviews or Q&A sessions and am partial to the written word, for reasons too numerous to account for here; but, in the instance of someone as fascinating and articulate as Special Effects maestro Douglas Trumbull, I make exception.
When Trumbull joined TCM weekend host Ben Mankiewicz on stage at the Egyptian Theater after the screening of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey at TCM's first-ever Classic Film Festival in Hollywood earlier this year, I struggled to capture the breadth of his intelligence and to convey the many ideas he proposed; several which, admittedly, I barely comprehended. I've received favorable response to that transcript; but, perhaps one of the most welcome responses came this morning in an email from Evening Class reader Eugene Mamut who forwarded a blip.tv clip that enumerates Douglas Trumbull's past, present and future enterprises, including his career in film and simulation technologies, his love for astronomy, his more than 23 patents, and—most intriguingly—his fix solution to the BP oil spill. And, believe me, that's just the tip of the iceberg. One of the sweetest bits of trivia was discovering that his father was the technician who slapped the apples out of Dorothy's hands in The Wizard of Oz, as well as dangling the Cowardly Lion's tail by a wire. My thanks to Eugene for sharing this taped session with me, which achieves what a written transcript cannot by way of supplemented visuals that help convey some of Trumbull's more complex explorations.
In tandem with this clip—which I avidly encourage folks to watch—is Trumbull's YouTube demonstration of a vacuum-sealed manifold cap that he suggests might remedy the BP oil spill disaster.
Since compiling my last Twitch report on films slated for this year's edition of SF IndieFest's Another Hole in the Head (Holehead)—running July 8-29 at both the Roxie Film Center and VIZ Cinema—a few guest reviews have popped up in response to similar programming at the New York Asian Film Festival, administered through Twitch teammate Ben Umstead, and a couple of earlier reviews that I overlooked have surfaced as well.
Death Kappa (dir. Tomoo Haraguchi, 2010)—Guest reviewer Mark Popham wanted more from this kaiju tribute than, he opines, it delivers. Deeming it "flat out awkward", I don't agree; but, hey, that just means more cucumbers for me! I'm going back to see it a second time when it screens at the VIZ and I'm taking friends. Crunch crunch. Mommy!
Mutant Girls Squad (dir. Noboru Iguchi, 2010)—Guest reviewer Alexander Thebez deftly synopsizes Iguchi's film, which—per his own admission—is familiar territory for fans of Tokyo Shock. He praises the breast swords and anal chainsaws as singularly noteworthy.
Strigoi (dir. Faye Jackson, 2008)—I admit it, I had Roberto Rossellini on the brain searching for this film and punched in Strigoli. Of course, I came up with no results. Had I been a bit more careful, however, I would have found Kurt Halfyard's spot-on review. Kurt writes: "Where Trueblood and Twilight pander mightily to their audiences, offering lurid cheap thrills and plots that wash down like fizz-less soda pop, Strigoi challenges and stretches audience expectation of the bloodsucker with an ambitiously adult story of land ownership, tradition, history and a people dealing with a generational gap that has its youth go off to the rest of Europe to find their place in the world." He concludes: "Faye Jackson's slice of Romanian village life is both a handsome curio and a modern step forward from the stake that Let The Right One In drove into the heart of the genre last year."
Symbol (dir. Hitoshi Matsumoto, 2009)—Guest reviewer Joshua Chaplinsky joins the chorus of the amused and confused. He categorizes Symbol as "two parts Luis Buñuel, a dash of Takashi Miike, and a sprinkling of Kevin Smith (to taste)." Joshua adds: "Symbol can be great fun. There is a charm to its mixture of smart and stupid, and it possesses an element of daring sorely missing from Western cinema."
Yatterman (dir. Takashi Miike, 2009)—I'll blame it on the Twitch search engine that I inadvertently overlooked Andrew Mack's earlier ebullient review of Yatterman from last Fall's Fantastic Fest, revived for its NYAFF appearance. Or perhaps I was just too dazzled by Grady Hendrix to look further? Either way, Mack asserts that Miike has taken the basic elements of the story and characters of a wacky '70s animated show and combined them together "with a dash of self awareness", candy coating "everything in an array of brilliant colors that won't melt in your hand but will melt in your heart. The sugar rush of goofiness and fun brims to the point of overflowing but Miike has never tasted so delicious and sweet." Considering the project "a resounding success", Mack found Yatterman far more entertaining than he ever thought it would be, with production elements far more impressive than he could have ever hoped.
SF IndieFest's Another Hole in the Head (Holehead) always prefers that you have a good time over a good film. This year's line-up continues the gore and guffaws, and some of the films manage to be wholly original through sheer gumption and insanity. Titles like Mil Mascaras vs The Aztec Mummy and Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives seem to only encourage audiences to come to the showings drunk, and the programmers' obsessions with Miike and The Machine Girl bring the latest iterations of each, but for my money Holehead's best films might be the older ones on the bill: The Exterminator (1980), Lady Terminator (1988) and Metropolis 1984 Redux.
The Exterminator—A classic of crap genre film, The Exterminator is a NY anomaly of gleeful macho-isms and vigilante justice in the wake of Death Wish (1974). Opening with a bang in the jungles of Vietnam before taking to the streets of The Big Apple, The Exterminator has some great scenes of slo-mo action and gore but struggles with a scattered narrative and pretty piss poor action hero—but those are both pros and cons for a film of this ilk. Robert Ginty as John "The Exterminator" Eastland has a droopy face and very little motive to do in a lot of the street punks he murders, but luckily there is only a single city cop on the case and he'll never catch Eastland because he keeps taking time off to go on dates. Made in 1980, The Exterminator still has that gritty '70s grindhouse look and feel, and it even takes a stab at an ending that reflects post-Vietnam paranoia. Doesn't work though.
Lady Terminator—Killing two male fantasies with one stone, this Indonesian production beat its inspirators by 15 years in bringing a female Terminator to the screen. Mixing island fantasy with sci-fi, the female Terminator of the title is actually the reincarnation of The South Sea Queen, a demon who seduces men and then cuts off their you-know-whats. The differences barely matter though, and Lady Terminator does more than pay homage to the 1984 classic, fully recreating the eye gouge at the sink and the "Come with me if you want to live." With die-hard pacing, '80s fashion and Indonesian pop music, Lady is easily one of the better cheapo action flicks of the '80s, Indonesia or otherwise, and sports some great-terrible dubbing.
Metropolis 1984 Redux—Yep, that Metropolis. Having really enjoyed the 1927 silent classic, disco-star Giorgio Moroder pulled some strings and re-cut his own version, tailor-made for 1984 audiences. The man behind Midnight Express' "Chase" theme and the mastermind of Donna Summer's best hits re-scored the film and added a bunch of crazy colors, but the core remains. In addition, Moroder re-imagined a lot of lost scenes from the original cut, but managed a product 40 minutes shorter by making most of the inter-titles subtitles. Is it blasphemy? Well, for the haughtier of film fans there can be no doubt, but Moroder's release did gain the film a new audience who would not have otherwise seen the film and his redux version has its own charms stemming from a time-capsule candy coating and terrible Freddie Mercury theme song. Sure, there were probably a bunch of kids who treated Metropolis 1984 Redux like a planetarium laser show, but let's not pretend we're above something as fun as a laser show.
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) hits the big 3-0 this year, and will celebrate that landmark anniversary with a slate of 57 films from 14 countries. At last week's press conference, Executive Director Peter L. Stein and Program Director Jay Rosenblatt gave a guided tour of this year's films and special events, which will run from July 24 to August 9 at five Bay Area venues. Rosenblatt is a celebrated local film director who now finds himself on the other side of filmmaker/film festival divide. He replaces Nancy K. Fishman, who left the fest after seven years at the programming helm. The SFJFF is the oldest and largest festival of its kind, and was recently named one of the world's 50 leading film festivals by indieWIRE.
Many wondered how the SFJFF would emerge—artistically and financially—from fallout caused by 2009's contentious screening of the documentary Rachel. At the press conference, the film wasn't even mentioned by name, but was euphemistically referred to as "the earthquake." Anyone who was at the Rachel screening can tell you how painful it was to witness such fractiousness at a Bay Area cultural event. I personally heard one megabucks donor defiantly proclaim he'd never give the festival another dime and it seems he's made good on his threat. I've since learned that in response, many SFJFF fans upped their membership levels to demonstrate support for the festival's diverse programming. While nothing appears to harbor a Rachel-like potential for divisiveness this year, who knows? One SFJFF30 panel discussion is tellingly named, Is Dialogue Possible? How Films Help Us Talk About Israel (…Or Not).
SFJFF30 unofficially kicks off on Saturday, July 10 with a free outdoor Union Square screening of 1987's Dirty Dancing, starring the late Patrick Swayze and a "pre nose-job" Jennifer Grey. The event is co-presented by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation as part of its "Film Night in the Park" series. The festival proper launches two weeks later on Saturday, July 24. This year's opening night film is Ludi Boeken's WWII drama Saviors in the Night, based on the true story of Marga Spiegel, a Jewish woman hidden from the SS by a righteous Catholic farm family. Spiegel herself, now 98, is expected to attend the Castro Theater screening along with director Boeken and actress Lia Hoensbroech. This year's 30th anniversary Opening Night Bash will take place after, rather than before the screening. Opening night itself has been moved from Thursday to Saturday so people can party down without worrying about work the next day.
A highlight of this year's festival is a special program titled Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film, curated by Fishman. In the catalog she writes, "Scratch the bark on your family tree and you might uncover a Jewish gangster or someone who paid off a Jewish gangster." Indeed, at the press conference Fishman revealed that her own grandparents once received an ominous funeral wreath from gangster "Dopey Benny" Fein. The four films in this series include Barry Levinson's 1991 Bugsy with Warren Beatty, 1961's King of the Roaring 20's—The Story of Art Rothstein starring David Janssen (TV's The Fugitive), Mickey Rooney and Diana Dors, 1975's Lepke starring Tony Curtis as mobster Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and finally Howard Hawk's 1932 classic Scarface, "a gangster movie that would have had a Jewish subtext for the Jewish audience of its day because of Paul Muni's career in the Yiddish theater."
Following the screening of Lepke, Fishman will moderate a panel discussion with writers Ron Arons (The Jews of Sing Sing), Patricia Brett Erens (The Jew in American Cinema) and Albert Fried (The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster). And if that ain't enough Jewish gangsta for ya, the JCCSF presents an exhibition of paintings by Pat Hamou, "Wise Guys: Mobsters in the Mishpacha," from now until September 15, and the SFJFF will screen four more Jewish gangster movies at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts this autumn, starting with John Sayles Eight Men Out on October 3.
Each year the SFJFF hands out a Freedom of Expression Award, honoring "the unfettered imagination, which is the cornerstone of a free, just and open society." Jay Rosenblatt was one of its earliest recipients in 2005. This year's honor goes to Arab-Israeli writer/satirist Sayed Kashua, who has made a career of skewering Israeli/Palestinian relations in an irreverent manner that "somehow brings Arabs and Jews together in wincing, barrier-breaking laughter." Episodes from the first season of his hit TV sit-com Arab Labor were shown at the festival two years ago, which I regrettably missed. Arab Labor: Season One spent a long time in my Netflix queue listed as "a very long wait," before disappearing from the on-line rental service altogether. Happily, three episodes from Arab Labor: Season Two will have their international premiere at SFJFF30 just prior to Kashua receiving his award. The following day, the documentary Sayed Kashua—Forever Sacred will screen, preceded by an Arab Labor episode from Season One.
When I first glanced at this year's line-up, the film that leapt out was Robert Guédiguian's Army of Crime. I've been a fan of this French-Armenian director's politically humanist films ever since Marius and Jeanette became a U.S. arthouse hit in 1998. Unfortunately, only three of his eight subsequent films ever made it to the Bay Area (The Town is Quiet, The Last Mitterrand, Lady Jane), which makes the appearance of Army of Crime something to celebrate. The film, which details the exploits of a group of Jewish-Communist French resistance fighters during WWII, has received rave reviews across the board. It stars such notables as Guédiguian regulars Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Ariane Ascaride (Guédiguian's wife), as well as Simon Abkarian, Virginie Ledoyen and Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet. If you're unable to catch the film's lone SFJFF screening on July 28, it'll be back for a one-week run on the SF Film Society's Sundance Kabuki screen on August 20.
There are two additional French films playing SFJFF30. Axelle Ropert's The Wolberg Family was the most interesting film I saw at the SF Film Society's French Cinema Now series last year. This wildly offbeat drama traces the dissolution of a family headed by a small town Jewish mayor, all set to a soundtrack of eclectic R&B singles from the 60's and '70s. I certainly hope to see it again. The other film is Marco Carmel's Father's Footsteps. It's also about a family, this one an Israeli-Tunisian clan struggling against the seduction of criminal life in 1970's Paris. It was nominated for five 2008 Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actress and Cinematography.
Sometimes the most interesting SFJFF films are from the outer reaches of the Jewish Diaspora. Therefore I was delighted to see three films from Latin America on the roster. Marcos Carnevale's Anita has been selected as the festival's Centerpiece Film, and is about a young woman with Down syndrome searching the streets of Buenos Aires for her mother. The mother is played by legendary Argentine actress Norma Aleandro, with Alejandra Manzo in the titular role of daughter Anita (the latter is expected to attend the festival screening). Ilusiones Opticas is a debut feature from Chilean director Cristián Jiménez. This melancholic comedy has been compared to the works of Scandinavian deadpan masters Roy Andersson and Aki Kaurismaki. The film will be preceded by the short What About Me? by Etgar Keret and Shira Gegen, co-directors of the 2007 Israeli hit comedy Jellyfish. Finally, in Fabian Hofman's semi-autobiographical Te extraño (I Miss You), a Jewish teen is sent to live with relatives in Mexico after his older brother "disappears" during Argentina's Dirty War.
Two films I regretted missing at last year's Mill Valley Film Festival have happily resurfaced at SFJFF30. Tali Shalom Ezer's Surrogate follows an emotionally damaged young man through his sessions with a sex surrogate. The fest catalog warns/promises that "This film contains nudity." A Room and a Half is Russian animator/documentarian Andrey Khrzhanovsky's fanciful riff on the life of Nobel prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky. This film was off my radar until rave reviews began pouring in from 2009's New York Film Festival. A Room and a Half also connects two SFJFF30 sidebars. People of the Book spotlights films exploring Jewish and Israeli literary lives and includes Ahead of Time (a doc about acclaimed journalist/photographer Ruth Gruber), Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams and Grace Paley: Collected Shorts. The other sidebar, Voices of the Former Soviet Union, includes Stalin Thought of You and My Perestroika. The former is a documentary about Soviet political cartoonist Boris Efimov and his delicate relationship with the dictator who murdered his beloved Pravda editor brother (this film also screened at Mill Valley). My Perestroika profiles five Russians who came of age during the collapse of the USSR, and it received terrific reviews from Sundance and New Directors/New Films. As someone who travelled frequently to the Soviet Union during this period of radical change, it's a film I'm particularly looking forward to.
SFJFF30 closes in San Francisco—and opens in Berkeley—with The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground, Erik Greenberg Anjou's musical documentary about a band that's spent 20 years redefining and popularizing the Jewish dance/folk music genre known as klezmer. Another SFJFF music doc, The "Socalled" Movie, takes a look at Socalled, a.k.a Josh Dolgin, a Jewish/Canadian rapper/filmmaker/visual artist/YouTube sensation who's so hip he performs with ex-James Brown bandleader Fred Wesley. Socalled is expected to perform live on the Castro Theater stage, and his film will be preceded by Maurice at the World's Fair, a Spike Jonze-directed short made for Maurice Sendak's 80th birthday. And if you didn't get your fill of silent films at the previous week's SF Silent Film Festival, the psych-folk band Moab Strangers will perform a newly commissioned score alongside 1922's over-the-top Jewish immigrant melodrama Hungry Hearts.
But wait, there's more! Relations between a young Israeli woman and the Palestinian mechanic who works at her father's garage leads to tragedy in Keren Yedaya's Jaffa. Set in the port city that adjoins Tel Aviv, it's directed by the maker of 2005's much lauded Or, and features my favorite Israeli actress Ronit Elkabetz (Late Marriage, The Band's Visit). Two more films exploring Israeli/Palestinian issues are the documentaries My So-Called Enemy and Budrus, the latter having screened at this year's SF International Film Festival. And speaking of the SFIFF, director Sam Green (The Weather Underground) will reprise his "live" documentary Utopia in Four Movements at the SFJFF. Those in the throes of the current baseball season might want to check out the Dustin Hoffman-narrated doc Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story. In Ry Russo-Young's feature You Won't Miss Me, a young woman recently released from a mental hospital tries to navigate life in NYC. The film stars Stella Schnabel, daughter of artist/filmmaker Julian, and it won last year's Gotham Award for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You. Finally, a married couple's relationship is turned upside down when the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia in the stylish thriller Protektor—a film that happens to be sponsored by my friend Michael Ehrenzweig. There are roughly a dozen more programs I haven't touched on; all the more reason to pick up a SFJFF30 catalog or go on-line for a closer look.
Let's keep this short and sweet. Despite some outstanding visuals, the problem with M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender is that it lacks all the humor and heart of the original anime. The joys of the story—Aang's impish capriciousness, Katara's valiance, Soka's buffoonery, even Uncle Iroh's avuncular charm—have all been eliminated in favor of anger, shame and earnest regret. Only Dav Patel's tortured portrayal of exiled Prince Zuko comes anywhere near to humanizing his character and—as the first menacing reviews prophesy—he's not going to have much chance to do more than that. This franchise is going down in flames, courtesy of the Fire Nation.
I appreciate the visuals. I really do. The elements pit against each other have never looked so beautiful. And I bet they cost a lot. But it doesn't justify Shyamalan's eschewal of the anime's essential charm. Does Aang ever smile in Shyamalan's vision? Soka cracks maybe one lame joke. And much too much is made of his quickly fashioned and tragically lost dalliance with Princess Yue (the audience actually started to titter from boredom). And worst of all the film's final confrontation—which should have been a frighteningly destructive exhibition of the Avatar's wrath—is tamed to a threatening overhanging wave. So what? I wanted to see the destruction of the Fire Nation's fleet in a whirling vortex of elements. Instead I got the Hollow Man in the audience chiding, "This is how the franchise ends. With a whimper and not a bang."
Where would the horror genre be without its libidinal icons? Its scream queens and handsome hunks? Along with gore and jump scares, sex has fueled the horror genre for generations. Just as characters from the vampire and werewolf mythos can "glamour" others—i.e., put a spell on others—so is the glamorous essential to the cinematic spell cast by these denizens of the dark, and nothing spells glamour like sex appeal. Is it any wonder that young breakout actors frequently find their first feature opportunities in independent horror films?
In the first of a series of research interviews, I'll be taking a look at the hunks of horror, starting off with one of the leaders of the pack, so to speak: Chris DiVecchio. DiVecchio's recent turn as Dan, the werewolf drifter in Dana Mennie's Dark Moon Rising (aka Wolf Moon, 2009) skillfully interprets the sensual tension between strength and vulnerability key to such characters. This is an opportune performance for DiVecchio. Having just been released straight to DVD through Lionsgate Entertainment, and available for viewing on Netflix Instant Play, Wolf Moon matches DiVecchio's chops with newcomer Ginny Weirick, genre royalty Sid Haig and Lin Shaye, and respected talent Max Ryan, Chris Mulkey and Billy Drago.
Though Wolf Moon has been accused of capitalizing on the Twilight Saga in the handful of reviews listed at IMDb, I find such a critique akin to lazily shooting fish in a barrel. Twilight is hardly original nor definitive when it comes to the connection between teenage angst and horror—whether vampires or werewolves (think I Was A Teenage Werewolf)—and I sincerely hope Twilight does not become the standard by which all future vampire/werewolf films will be gauged. Wolf Moon, for starters, does not have the kind of budget that Twilight's sparkling gloss requires, so it's more appropriate to gauge what Wolf Moon has achieved within its limited means. Perhaps the most fair review comes from Talyseon at Epinions whose bottom line is that Wolf Moon "knows its limitations, and succeeds in working inside them. ...This is not the best thing since Brotherhood of the Wolf by any stretch of the imagination, but for a low budget horror movie, it was exceedingly well done. There is a philosophy of use-the-old-tricks-to-build-mood, spend your money where it will do the most good, and don't over reach the technology you have to work with. This delivers lots of thrills and chills for the dollar, making this an enjoyable werewolf movie on the cheap."
I agree. You could do a lot worse than choosing Wolf Moon for a DVD rental or adding it to your Netflix Instant Queue. Then again, there's the subject interest of the film's ample eye candy, not only the lovely Ginny Weirick, but studly Max Ryan (fresh from his erection in Sex & The City 2), and interviewee Chris DiVecchio who as Dan, a drifter who travels through a small town where he picks up work as a grease monkey, puts the hubba hubba back in hubcaps. Chris was generous enough to talk to me by phone.
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Michael Guillén: Many actors have begun their careers doing genre work. Michael Landon was a teenage werewolf. Jack Nicholson started out working with Roger Corman and only later returned to genre roots in Wolf (1994). Johnny Depp had his big screen debut in the original Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). And, of course, the Twilight Saga has furthered the careers of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, among others. Can you speak to that tradition of young actors working in genre films to kickstart their careers and how you feel about being a part of that?
Chris DiVecchio: It's interesting because it's definitely a pattern that's out there that can be recognized; but, personally, it's never been part of my angle of trying to break into the business. I've always just tried to seek out work that I can connect with and, of course, in this business it doesn't always work out that way. You take the opportunities that are in front of you and—as long as you find a connection to the work—I think that's the most important thing; but, there's definitely a pattern of these types of genre films launching careers for breakout actors.
Guillén: How did this role come to you?
DiVecchio: They say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Fortunately, I got very lucky on this project. I had done a film five years prior down in San Diego and the young woman who was producing that film had graduated from San Diego State University, moved up to Hollywood, and had been working in Hollywood for the last five years. I'd kept in touch with her. We had a really good friendship on set and I had proven myself on that picture. She signed on as a producer for Dark Moon Rising and encouraged Dana Mennie to take a meeting with me. [Lionsgate changed the title to Wolf Moon when they picked the film up for domestic distribution.]
At the time, Dana Mennie was looking at some big names. He read Joseph Gordon-Levitt for the role, among other actors who had significantly stronger resumes than myself, but he didn't find what he was looking for so at that point my producer friend continued to press and Dana agreed to meet with me. Even after our first couple of meetings, he wasn't sold on the idea that I was the guy for the role of Dan. Initially, he didn't see me as Dan. It wasn't that he didn't think I could physically handle the role, he just didn't visually see me as that character. Fortunately his wife Julie Snider-Mennie, who played a big part in casting and handling the production of this project, had seen my demo reel and she felt that I was the guy for the role. In the end she convinced him to give me the opportunity.
It's a great example of never knowing what one project will lead to. Five years ago I had no idea that doing that small student film down in San Diego and building that relationship with that young woman would create this opportunity down the road.
Guillén: You say you didn't fit Dana Mennie's original image for the character of Dan. Do you know what it was he was originally looking for?
DiVecchio: I think he felt I was a little too big. He hadn't pictured Dan as a guy who had more muscle and brawn and I think he felt I had a little more self-assuredness and awareness of who I was. I don't think he originally saw Dan as being this big, this confident, or this charismatic. But, as an actor that's my job to take on different characters and be able to tell the truth under imaginary circumstances. Though the character of Dan and I are two completely different people, therein lay the challenge for what I had to do, and Dana felt confident enough to give me the opportunity to pull that off.
Guillén: I'd say that—though you might not have met the filmmaker's preconceived image of Dan—your strapping good looks had a lot to do with making this film attractive.
DiVecchio: [Laughs.] Again, when you're looking at this type of genre, that's another pattern that you see. You try to find different angles to appeal to different audiences and, yeah, I guess they knew what they were looking for in that regard.
Guillén: I appreciated the review at Epinions where the reviewer noted: "The beast was a beauty as well." What are your thoughts on being one of Hollywood's (let alone horror's) new hunks?
DiVecchio: Hey man, I'm open to it. I don't mind. Taylor Lautner certainly isn't complaining about his exposure in Twilight.
Guillén: Your buffed physique came about as a result of your athletic interests as a younger man. You started out in hockey?
DiVecchio: Yeah, I played hockey in college. I was out the gate since I was three years old. That's been part of my personal conflict. As a child, I had a burning desire to act and perform; but, as an athlete, as a kid, there was a lot of peer group pressure not to be a theater geek, so to speak. So I gravitated more towards my athletics; but, as I grew older and went through high school and college, I started to explore that side of my interests. Hockey turned into a bodybuilding career for a short stint and from there it turned into some fitness modeling in New York, some commercial work back and forth between New York and Boston, which led to my interest in coming out to L.A.
Guillén: No regrets about choosing an acting career over athletics?
DiVecchio: No. I had realized halfway through my college career that I wasn't going to get to the pro level. I got to a point of what you could call "a quarterlife crisis" where I had to make decisions of what was really in store for me and what I really wanted to do. I'm not sure where that came from for me. With most people it doesn't happen until later on in life with a midlife crisis; but, it dawned on me early that there was something bigger that I wanted out of life. I wanted to find a more meaningful purpose to whatever I was doing. I knew that hockey wasn't going to be it and, to be honest, I wasn't much of a student. I've never had much interest in my studies and books and whatnot. Acting felt like something I should start exploring and I've never looked back once I made that choice. It's been the best decision I've ever made.
Guillén: So choosing to learn from acting rather than academics, what would you say you learned with the Wolf Moon project that has helped you as an actor?
DiVecchio: I got an opportunity to work with a lot of veteran actors. What I learned from this particular experience was how important it is to prepare yourself for the role in whatever form you choose to prepare yourself, and fully commit to that, and be okay with the commitment you're making because—at the end of the day—you're looking at critics on both sides of the fence no matter what kind of movie you make. No matter how good a film is, there's always going to be another side finding something wrong with it. I guess what I learned was that I want to be as prepared and do the best work I can possibly do and be as committed to the work as I can possibly be so that when I look back—regardless of whatever the critics say, good or bad—that I feel good about what I've put out there. It's important for me to feel good about the work I do.
Guillén: And, admittedly, the critics of genre films are frequently the worst. They can be whiney, demanding little bitches with no sense of perspective past their personal likes and dislikes.
DiVecchio: They don't have the best reputation.
Guillén: They're also frequently unfair. To compare Wolf Moon, let's say, to Twilight is essentially unfair. The praise I have read for Wolf Moon aligns with my own, which is that—within budget limitations—Wolf Moon made very good use of the money put into it. I didn't feel that Wolf Moon took itself to be anything other than what it was and—for what it was—it proved a well-done genre entertainment. I can honestly say that I enjoyed Wolf Moon a helluva lot more than the remake of The Wolfman. The megabudgets for CGI don't always add up.
DiVecchio: I appreciate your perspective. Wolf Moon was a challenging film to get to completion. Sometimes in these lower budget films you run into all kinds of obstacles, just like you do with big budget films. These days to be able to get a movie into the can and to get distribution through a major studio is a huge feat. And I agree with you, that challenge is often undermined by critics. You have to take Wolf Moon for exactly what it is. Again, I don't get bogged down by critics.
Guillén: Good for you! It was actually amusing to me to read some of the film's dismissive reviews that were countered by readers comments who took the reviewers to task. I still believe that says the most about a movie.
DiVecchio: Absolutely, man, absolutely.
Guillén: You've already mentioned that you're quite different from the character of Dan. How did you prepare your characterization for the role?
DiVecchio: I worked with a great coach, Carl Ford. His mom is Susan Batson, who's been Nicole Kidman's acting coach for a long time. They work out of Black Nexxus, which is based in New York and L.A. I started studying with them when I came to Los Angeles. We worked for about three months on this character. As I've said, Dan and I are very different people. I spent the first month or so of my preparation stripping away my life as Chris DiVecchio. I come from a family with an incredible amount of support, love and affection. I've got great friends and incredible support all across the board. But Dan is a person who has never known his mother and father; basically, he's been abandoned since birth. He's stricken with this curse, which he has no idea where it's come from or how to control it. He's never had any friends. He's never had a relationship with a girl. He doesn't know what it feels like to have somebody support him or love him. He doesn't know what it feels like to love. So I had to break down and strip away my own life to build up his life of nothing. I did that by telling people in my life that this role was going to be a trying period in my career and I asked them to not tell me that they loved me and not send me notes of endearment or anything like that, literally, because I didn't know how it felt like to be abandoned, to not have anybody be there for me, to not have that cushion of support. It would have been easy for me to go there and fall back into that and become comfortable and I wanted to be as uncomfortable as I possibly could. And it really was. It was actually a scary process and I know I'm not alone as an actor when people talk about taking on characters and becoming confused about who they are; if it's the character or just them coming to the surface, y'know? It was a very scary time for me. I did a lot of journaling and kept extensive notes on my process and what I was going through.
I showed up on set two days early to spend time in this town [Beatty, Nevada] to just walk around the town. I wanted that experience of a kid who comes to a small enough town where he stands out. I'd drive by a neighbor's house and see him working outside his house and I'd just sit there and look at him, [feeling what Dan would feel], maybe wanting to go over and introduce myself but—because I'm so introverted and scared and unsure of myself—I wouldn't do it. All these feelings and emotions were so strange and foreign to me but this was exactly who this guy Dan was. At that moment, though they were scary truths I was experiencing, I felt confident about what I was about to put up on the screen.
Guillén: What you're speaking to is exactly one of the strengths I appreciated about Wolf Moon. It's a character-driven genre piece, which lifts it above the standard fare. I can appreciate the process you went through to achieve an authenticity to the character. In one of your interviews you actually referred to Wolf Moon as a "romantic thriller", which I found an interesting departure from simply describing it as a werewolf movie. Clearly, Wolf Moon isn't just a werewolf movie. It is strengthened by a romantic subplot, complete with power ballads and muscle cars. As the film's byline suggests: "Love is a six-letter word: horror."
DiVecchio: Again, it might have been more of a subconscious choice to throw out that term "romantic thriller" because sometimes horror movies have this certain stigma attached where people presume it's going to be a dice-and-slice slasher and—even though there is a little bit of horror in this film—that isn't the driving catalyst of the plot. You've nailed it. The storyline is really about the love between these two characters who are so oddly matched but who find companionship together.
Coincidentally, Ginny Weirick and I had worked together on that student project down in San Diego that I'd done five years previously. Initially, when Wolf Moon was cast, someone else was cast for Amy's role. But about three months away from filming, Dana and I decided we had to find someone else to play Amy. We had three actresses coming in the next day to interview. I met the first two but then I had to take off and Dana interviewed the third actress on his own. I wasn't there. The next day I got a call from Dana saying, "You're never going to believe who we cast for this role. Ginny Weirick." I said, "I don't know who that is, do I?" So I looked her up on IMDb and I realized, "Holy crap! This is the girl I did a movie with five years ago." At the time I thought her name was Jenny, I didn't realize it was Ginny, so it didn't connect.
Further, six months before we started filming, I had randomly run into Ginny at the gym and we got to talking. She asked me what I was up to now and I told her I had just booked this film. So they end up recasting everybody on Wolf Moon except for me and it ends up that Ginny gets cast as Amy, my female lead, in the movie I had been telling her about six months earlier. It was really strange but something that totally added to the element of the filmmaking process for Dana, for Ginny, for myself; it was really strange how it all came together.
Guillén: Along with preparing the psychological motivation for your character Dan, what did you do to prepare as a werewolf? Did you watch other werewolf movies? Were you a fan of werewolf movies as a young guy? How did you approach that?
DiVecchio: I'd seen Wolf with Jack Nicholson plenty of times. Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of my all-time favorite movies. I can't say enough about Gary Oldman as an actor. But because I knew I had to do a lot of work in a creature suit, it was important for me to understand the embodiment of this animal. I didn't want to imitate. I wanted to make him unique to my own style and to make it something I connected with. I followed up on an idea suggested by my acting coach and drove up to Joshua Tree about three times with my dog. I parked myself in the middle of the desert and let the dog loose. I'd follow my dog around and imitate and mimic everything my dog would do. The reactions of an animal versus the reactions of a human differ because an animal's senses are more heightened.
I also worked with a special effects movement guy who had done all the work with Silver Surfer. I worked with another guy on the team as well to develop my own style and technique of how a wolf would walk and run and move. Then, once I put the suit on, I can't tell you how the transformation alone took over my body.
Guillén: Yet another plus in favor of Wolf Moon is that it didn't excessively rely on CGI and that it worked more with practical effects engineered by the Alahouzos Brothers and their studio. Can you talk about the werewolf suit they created for you?
DiVecchio: Yeah. I flew out to Greece about three months before production for about five days. They started taking body cast moldings. They build this suit around my body. From the body to the teeth to the measurement around my eyes for the contact lenses, they wanted this suit to be molded around my body so that the camera would capture every movement. Because audiences are more easily tricked with CGI, a guy in a suit isn't easy to pull off these days and we had to pull it off. But the Alahouzos Brothers are incredibly talented hardworking guys who worked blood, tooth and nail on this project to get these suits to the level they did. They're great guys in general to work with. Some of the demands that were placed on them in terms of time frame and what they were able to accomplish and come up with is unheard of. That's why, for me, the fact that we got this film finished and were picked up by a major studio for domestic distribution is a major accomplishment and a reflection of the team effort.
Guillén: Wolf Moon's cast is an admirable ensemble composed of newcomers like yourself and Ginny mixed up with genre royalty like Sid Haig and Lin Shaye. Can you speak to working with both of them?
DiVecchio: It was great! Actually, I was very surprised when I found out the cast we had. Obviously, there was a strong interest in people wanting to take on this project and, again, I think it's because it wasn't your typical horror film and it gave great actors the opportunity to bring some character into their roles. I didn't have any scenes in particular with Sid other than the showdown scene so we didn't have much interaction; but, working with Lin was amazing. Lin and I worked quite a lot on the scene where Dan and Amy visit the psychic.
Guillén: Lin Shaye's portrayal of the dreadlocked psychic is an extraordinary supporting turn in Wolf Moon. She did a great job.
DiVecchio: She's incredible. Her commitment level, the places that she goes to, and how from moment to moment she's in the scene with you makes it so easy as an actor to work with her.
Guillén: Her performance exemplies what I fully appreciated about Wolf Moon. A lot of times when I'm watching contemporary genre films I'm put off by a facile reliance on irony, a kind of tongue-in-cheek approach that doesn't work for me as much as actors who believably get into their roles, much as they did in the low-budget Hammer productions of my childhood. Lin threw herself into that role. I completely believed her in that role. And I felt for her.
DiVecchio: That's what I'm saying. The commitment on her end, I can't tell you. I felt very lucky to work with her. She's very giving and supportive.
Guillén: Two more familiar faces were Chris Mulkey and Billy Drago. How was it working with them?
DiVecchio: Oh man, c'mon, Billy Drago as Frank Nitti in The Untouchables (1987)? That guy, it feels like you're working with a legend. Billy is the guy you see in these movies. I gotta be honest, there's not a lot to decipher between him and his role. What an interesting guy to spend some time with off set. I could just sit there for days listening to his stories. There were plenty of times where we'd be in discussion and I'd be called to the set and I would rather sit there and listen to the end of his story, y'know?
And Mulkey? The guy is all heart. He, his wife and I have become very good friends. We spend a lot of time together. Chris took me under his wing and he felt very much like a mentor on set. I get on set and I do what I do and I don't think too much about it, but—damn!—Chris helped me a lot with my confidence. He'd give me a pat after a scene and say, "Hey, man, awesome job." It's nice to hear that from a guy who's been doing this for 30 years, who's a veteran, who I can feel confident I can talk with and knowing I'm going toe-to-toe with these guys who have been doing this for years. It's an honor to work with them and also to get praise from them as well.
Guillén: How about bumping heads with your "dad" Max Ryan?
DiVecchio: [Laughs.] You know, it's funny, those scenes were some of the more difficult scenes because—as close as I got to Chris—I got very close to Max as well. The second I walked on set, I was thinking, "Who's this guy Max? I've only seen pictures of him." I had been on the set for a few days during shooting and—though finally I had a day off—I was always on set no matter what. Even if I wasn't filming, I was right behind Dana in the director's chair watching and studying the other actors and what's going on so I could understand their storylines. Just before Max was getting ready to shoot his first scene, I ran into him right on set. He and I locked eyes and smiled at each other and I yelled, "Dad!" From that moment on, I felt like I had known the guy for years. Again, Max has been in the business for a while now and it felt like he took me under his wing and we spent a lot of quality time off set hanging out like brothers almost. But it made it difficult to get to some of those spaces sometimes because we had so much brotherly bantering off set, sharing jokes, that when it came to these serious scenes, we really had to separate and get away from that.
Working with Max was incredible. We had some of the more powerful scenes and I never felt that I laid down. In the scene where he and I had our first confrontation, where he cuts his hand and leans in and grabs my hand, there was a take that they didn't use where Max was smoking a cigarette and—right before he grabs the knife to cut his hand—he flicks the cigarette away and he actually flicked it and hit me in the eye with the cigarette, even though he wasn't meaning to. Thank God I stayed in character and thank God that Dana didn't yell cut because the scene was incredible. I literally wanted to jump across the table and cut his throat. It was like, "You hit me in the eye with a cigarette?!! Are you out of your fucking mind? Really?" But neither one of us broke. We stayed right in character and kept on rolling with it; but, as soon as they yelled "cut", he jumped across the table and gave me a hug and apologized. Of course he didn't mean to do that; but, we're both professionals, and sometimes your best work can come out of an unexpected moment like that.
Guillén: Finally, to wrap up here, I'm curious about your upcoming projects. IMDb lists that you're working with Dana Mennie again on a film called Lido?
DiVecchio: Yeah, we've got that project coming up. It's a script that's dear to the director. He had written a short story about he and his brother's life with their stepfather. It's a father-son story with a mixed martial arts twist to it. As soon as we get the green light—we're still working out some pre-production; but, it shouldn't be too much longer—I'll be going away to training camp for three months for Kenpō training.
Guillén: Do you aspire to be an action star?
DiVecchio: That's not really my dream. If that's where certain roles take me, that's fine. My passion for acting is really with characters who have a certain struggle for which they can't find resolution. I'm drawn to those kinds of characters. I like getting dark. I like getting needy. I like, not literally, but peeling open my skin and being able to use my vulnerabilities to take people on a journey and let them connect. That's what draws me to acting.
As anyone who reads my work is aware, I have a great affection for the Q&A format. For me it represents an extremely important point of cultural contact and a unique zone of interaction between film talent and fans essential to an enhanced cinematic experience. But, even I recognize that—as avidly as I aim to transcribe my favorite sessions—there are built-in restrictions to the format. The time allowed for a session, for example, or the quality of questions asked have everything to do with a successful Q&A session. Then again, conveying an interviewee's personality, character, or even the gist of a rambling inquiry pitched by an audience member are challenges for me as a writer. Frequently—though not always—I've seen Q&A sessions being filmed but have rarely seen these taped sessions made available to the public. That fact alone became one of the driving inspirations for my transcribing Q&A sessions so that an institution's archival impulse expands out to the public sector. That being said, however, I admit that I am not too keen on watching interviews or Q&A sessions and am partial to the written word, for reasons too numerous to account for here; but, in the instance of someone as fascinating and articulate as Special Effects maestro Douglas Trumbull, I make exception.
