Stephen Schaefer’s Hollywood & Mine
With his ambitious, offbeat series ‘Dispatches from Elsewhere’ (now on DVD), which he created, produced, wrote, directed and stars in, Jason Segel challenged himself not just creatively but physically. He’s perhaps best known for writing and starring in ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ and giving the Muppets an un-ironic reboot. ‘Dispatches’ was shot entirely on location in Philadelphia and costars Sally Field, Andre Benjamin, Richard E. Grant and Eve Lindley. These are excerpts from our interview.
Q: This was your directorial debut. What did you discover?
JASON SEGEL: For me the real work is done in the casting and I couldn’t have gotten luckier with this group. We tried to cultivate a shared vision. Sally Field knows better than I do what she’s doing. I want to be hands-off. She comes in knowing better than I do what will work. With Eve it was similar, she had a unique life experience and a take on the character.
Q: Is there one instance that stands out from those 6-day weeks of 14 hour days?
JS: The most defining night for me was in the pilot when we stumble on all the other players in a park. It’s nighttime and the park is lit up and people are pulling out these blue paddles. We had very little time and it was the most exhilarating moment.
Q: I wonder if Philadelphia, historically known as a city of Freedom, was chosen because it reflected that same thought in the writing?
JA: My thought was Philly is known as the underdog city with this great grit. The Rocky movies. The secret is it has more murals than any other in the country. There is hidden art in the city — a perfect metaphor for the show. If you turn down the alley, you’ll unexpectedly discover art. All the exteriors are real exteriors. Philadelphia is a character in the show.
Q: Your character Peter is our guide to what becomes a life-changing adventure.
JS: I felt that all four of these characters are meant to form a different form of existential crisis. Peter represents a breaking point of emotional suicide; realizing you’ve gotten on a track and not been living, just taking the next step and haven’t stopped.
Q: I’ll never forget watching ‘Project Greenlight’ years ago where each season these first-time directors on a budget had the most disastrous first day filming you could imagine. How was your first day?
JS: My first day was actually thrilling. I brought in the DPs [Directors of Photography) I made ‘End of the Tour’ with (his acclaimed film about the brilliant if suicidal writer David Foster Wallace). I’m very open with what I know and don’t know. We had a very firm budget. At some point it’s like this: You’re planning for this river rafting trip, you’ve got your equipment and your route. And at some point you get into the river. And it’s just about not dying! You’re just trying to not screw up. Our schedule was so strange and we were backing into a release date. So I was editing and acting and it was a lot I took on, as much as humanly possible. I’m glad I did it.
Q: What did you discover as a director?
JS: It actually was quite hard. People ask, Were there any pranks onset? No, everyone was tired. This was a lot of work this show. We were pushing the limits of our show with resources and budget. You finished each day and you were finished.
Q: Is this really The End? Could there be more?
JS: This season was created to end after the 10 episodes. If it was to continue it would be a whole new story, an anthology.
Q: This suggests that whatever you do in the future, you want it to be something that really matters.
JS: I think that’s the key. As you get older you start to realize you only get to make so much stuff. What are you trying to say? These are questions I never asked. Because you were getting a foot in the door — and it’s 10 years!
NEW DVDs:
A DIVA’S AMBITIOUS ASSISTANT The plot is overly familiar, the songs just OK but thanks to the easy assurance of Flora Greeson’s speedily plotted scenario and the uniformly on-target work of a cast that includes Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Bill Pullman and Ice Cube, ‘The High Note’ (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Code, Universal, PG-13) is mightily enjoyable. Yes, yes and yes indeed we’ve seen many movies about the little country mouse who achieves their dream by being smarter and braver than anyone would expect. Johnson’s wily mouse, an assistant to a demanding, mercurial rock diva (Ross, need you ask), wants to move up and produce records and, not so incidentally, restore her diva to the spotlight as a vital force, not Greatest Hits nostalgia. The Bonus features offer ‘Like I Do,’ the original song music video, deleted or extended scenes, 2 featurettes one on Ross’s character, ‘Making a Legend,’ and the other, ‘Inside the Creation of “The High Note.”‘
CREEPY PUZZLER I’ve always felt Scottish actor David Tennant (‘Broadchurch’) is best in ambiguous roles that contrast his innate good looks with a slightly sinister undertone. In that respect ‘Deadwater Fell’ (DVD, AcornOriginal, Not Rated), a 4-part Channel 4 Television British import, is perfect casting with Tennant the prime suspect in a suspicious fire that kills his wife and kids. Tennant is a respected doctor, his troubled wife Kate a schoolteacher. Her best friend is Jess (Cush Jumbo, magnetic in ‘The Good Fight’), also a schoolteacher, who’s married to Steve (Matthew McNulty). The couples are close in their small Scots town until the fire’s aftermath leads to recriminations and major angst. It’s Tennant’s show and he carries it ably. But perhaps the most memorable turn is Anna Madeley’s miserable Kate, a walking exposed nerve – until she’s done in.
GREATEST FEMALE SKATER EVER A petite Norwegian blond with ambition, grit and a lifetime of controversies, Sonja Henie remains ranked as the greatest female skater ever. A 3-time Olympic Women’s Singles champion, 10-time World Champion (1927-36) and 6-time European Champion, when Henie took a hike to Hollywood, her coffers overflowed. She scored as one of the town’s highest-paid stars thanks to a string of ice-skating box-office hits for 20th Century Fox (‘Thin Ice,’ ‘Sun Valley Serenade’). Masterful as a promoter who popularized ice shows and like Disney, a whiz at product tie-ins, Henie’s problems before, during and after WWII were tied to her politics.
Her fellow Norwegians wondered about her association with and then away from Adolf Hitler. Having the German Fuhrer’s inscribed photo in a silver frame on her home’s grand piano reportedly spared her estate from any damage under the Nazi Occupation. After the war, alcoholism accelerated her professional decline in the ‘50s. She died of leukemia while on a flight from Paris to Oslo in 1969. She was just 57. The 2018 Norwegian biopic ‘Sonja: The White Swan’ (Blu-ray, Kino Lorber, Not Rated), which premiered at Sundance 2019, covers much of this history with an emphasis on her wealthy father’s emotional domination, her opportunistic gay brother and her semi-sordid love life. ‘Sonja,’ directed by Anne Sewitsky, is certainly stylish with lavish production numbers and a colorful cast as it follows Henie from childhood to global celebrity in LA and beyond.
But while Ine Marie Wilmann convinces on ice that she’s not there just for headshots with a body double (a la Margot Robbie in ‘I, Tonya’), ‘Sonja’ fails to ever really let us get inside Henie’s head. It’s as if we’re seeing a newsreel with the naughty bits included but strictly from a spectator point of view. In Norwegian and English with optional English subtitles.
ROLLING ALONG In a world where so much of ‘normal’ life has evaporated with a pandemic, economic collapse, social distancing, the network broadcasts retain an air of stability via weekly hour-long shows that suggest the world hasn’t quite gone completely mad. ‘NCIS: LOS ANGELES SEASON 11’ (DVD, 22 episodes, 5 discs, CBS DVD, Not Rated) continues to work because its wholesome, energized, can-do cast is simply convincing in their never-ending efforts to make the world a better place.
Chris O’Donnell’s G Callen and Sam Hanna (LL Cool J, eternally cool) are Special Agents who have everyone’s back. The plots can be local (a dead Naval officer) or the far away Middle East (stop a missile attack). Not to be forgotten: The invaluable assistance of Oscar winner Linda Hunt’s Hetty. As for the other successful spinoff ‘NCIS: NEW ORLEANS THE SIXTH SEASON’ (DVD, 20 episodes, 5 discs, CBS DVD, Not Rated) the Big Easy is anything but, what with kidnappings, cults and killers. The Special Feature ‘The Demise of Christopher LaSalle’ charts Alabama native Lucas Black’s personification of the character, a former Vice Squad New Orleans cop, then NCIS senior Special Agent. Black was an original cast member for all 6 seasons; his death shocked fans. There is also ‘Six of One,’ a Blu-ray exclusive the looks back at all 6 seasons with the series’ showrunners.
DIE! DIE? NOT DEAD Winner of the Fantasia Audience Award and not quite as raunchy as it might sound ‘Dead Dicks’ (DVD, ArtsploitationFilms, Not Rated) rates as an ingenious Canadian horror film with a sci-fi premise. There’s a reason it begins with a disclaimer about self-harm with a toll free number to call. For as the movie begins Richie (Heston Horwin) is somehow successfully asphyxiating himself with a plastic bag over his head. When his worried sister Becca (Jillian Harris) shows up at his messy flat, she’s mortified to discover his corpse in the closet where Richie has hung himself. We’re wondering what happened to that suffocating plastic bag. Despondent and in tears Becca is naturally shocked/freaked/disturbed when a naked Richie walks into the room. As she quickly discovers, every time Richie offs himself, he pops back up to life. There are already 3 corpses littering the small space and together the two have to figure out what’s happening and how to stop it. Special Features range from the two directors’ commentary, 20 minutes’ bonus footage, 4 video diaries with the directors and one 2-minute special effects featurette!
THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE ‘Wake Island’ (Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) was a blockbuster WWII hit in August 1942 – its release came just months have the events depicted onscreen! For a nation suddenly plunged into a war – and doing badly in those first few months — this well-paced saga was cheered, despite its chronicle of the heroic stand of a doomed battalion on a tiny Pacific atoll following Pearl Harbor. Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Director John Farrow, Original Screenplay and Supporting Actor William Bendix (best remembered in Hitchcock’s WWII classic ‘Lifeboat’). The audio commentary notes how ‘Wake Island’ Hollywoodizes reality. 
There were 500 Marines and 69 Navy soldiers but also 1,200 civilian construction workers who are not onscreen. The Americans defied overwhelming Japanese attack forces for 15 glorious days. Their heroic, selfless stand gave the nation reason to cheer. Gruesomely (and not depicted), when the Japanese took control, captured Marines were beheaded while being shipped to prisoner of war camps for their spirited defense. ‘Wake Island’ was impossible to film on the California’s Pacific shores which was then a war zone. So the Salton Sea, in the California desert south of Palm Springs, and Salt Lake City, Idaho, were substituted. Farrow, Australian-born in 1904, had come to Hollywood in 1927 and was a successful screenwriter and director (‘Five Came Back’ was a huge, unexpected hit). He left Hollywood in 1939 to serve as Lieutenant Commander in Canada’s Royal Navy struck by typhus fever. Gravely ill, he was discharged in 1942. ‘Wake Island’s August opening came just days before American troops landed on Guadalcanal, a key Pacific island, as the US began pushing back the Japanese, turning the tide of war.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2C11lnd
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