Confiscated & Burned: An Interview About 'THE WOMAN'

This year at the Sundance Film Festival our friend Jack Ketchum premiered his new film THE WOMAN to a crowd of unsuspecting press, filmmakers and festival-goers. The Woman was co-written with Lucky McKee, who also directed it.  Lucky is, in my opinion, one of the best horror filmmakers working today. With films such as May, The Woods, Red and what was easily the best entry of the Master's Of Horror anthology, Sick Girl, you could understand how excited I was when I read the news that both he and Ketchum would be teaming up to not only pen the script for The Woman together, but also collaborate on a movie tie-in novel at the same time. read more »

The Voice in Walter White's Head: An interview with Breaking Bad's creator Vince Gilligan

The show that brought us the beat-down high school chemistry teacher who decides to try his hand at the meth game turns out to be a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of pride, vanity, and the old axiom that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Mix in some south-of-the-border cartel/mafia, a hilarious attorney delivered to us via Bob Odenkirk (MR. SHOW), a wife in Skyler who decides she's had enough of being the sole keeper of the high moral ground in the family, and a brother-in-law in the DEA (something one would think might be a problem for a budding meth cook) and the cautionary tale takes on a mythic quality that leaves one wondering how such a story and cast ever came about. Vince Gilligan, the show's creator, agreed to talk about the genesis of the whole thing (a great story unto itself), the joy and pain of writing, why the Pontiac Aztek was THE car for Walt, plus the importance (or the need for de-emphasis) of differentiating between a writer and a writer who sells.

No stranger to writing for the screen big or small, Vince has written for THE X-FILES, the Will Smith feature HANCOCK, and the screenplay that started it all, HOME FRIES. But he's come into his own with BREAKING BAD, a project that, like so many others, made it to screen by the narrowest of margins, so close in fact that fans of the show should be flooding his agent's inbox with letters of thanks, as he was the one instrumental in getting the script read by AMC when no one else wanted anything to do with it. Mind you, this was the AMC before MADMEN, the AMC that aired recycled movies, albeit good ones. Even Vince himself questioned the validity of the choice at the time. read more »

And the option goes to...

I believe it started in 2001, when a young filmmaker named Jesse Peyronel optioned what many of Chuck's die-hard fans would call his boldest and best book: Invisible Monsters.  Movie media quickly picked up on the option and it seemed like things were on the fast track for entering some sort of production phase. Turning over a scripted draft that both Chuck and his agent, Edward Hibbert, were very pleased with, Jesse very quickly got to work trying to find funding for the film via Miramax Films. Parker Posey was tentatively on board to play Shannon and things were moving along. Then the inevitable drop in news happened, signaling the echoing cry of what is so accurately called "movie purgatory".

In 2002, Jesse resurfaced on our radar again.  He had renewed his option on the script to give funding another go. But again, nothing seemed to come of it and the closest story we had to go off for any production future for Monsters was a UK based company that was interested in doing an animated featured of the film.

Then, word around the campfire was that the film was on the move again with Jessica Biel being touted for the female lead and such names as Val Kilmer and Bill Crudup being mentioned for male leading and supporting roles.

That was about four years ago. 

During that time actor turned filmmaker, Clark Gregg, managed to write and direct Choke.  And even with the cache of having names like Sam Rockwell and Angelica Huston on board, the film took Greg over four years to gain funding for.  In the end, it had a very meager budget of about 2.5 million and didn't succeed well at the box office.

Even though Fight Club had become a cult phenomena, news on many of Chuck's other adaptations was growing precarious.  And buzz on Invisible Monsters possibly gracing the big screen was scarce.  Until now. read more »

A Wonderful Life

As a writer of a book you have only yourself to depend on to get it made. You’re the one who has to come up with the words, you are the one who strings together the narrative and, ultimately, you are the only one who gets named in the reviews. With a movie, however, you are only as good as the relationships you develop with those who can take your written work and make it something fluid and real. George Gallo, writer and director of LOCAL COLOR, had to pull in a phalanx of relationships he’s developed with some of Hollywood’s elite in order to get his film made. Based on the portrait of an artist as a young man, George’s own evolution as someone who dabbled in paints rather than celluloid, the movie captures what it meant to be young and to have spent time with a master of his craft. read more »

Sitting down with the director of 'Choke'

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of sitting down with writer, director and actor Clark Gregg. I had expressed interest on the site in interviewing Gregg, and not even minutes later, the wonderful reps at Fox Searchlight were contacting me about it.

For those of you that don't know, Clark Gregg is the writer/director of 'Choke', the new film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's bestselling novel, due to hit theaters this Friday, September 26th. He is a longtime actor who has appeared in such TV and movies as 'In Good Company', 'Iron Man' and the hit show 'The New Adventures of Old Christine'.

His journey to get 'Choke' to the big screen is a long and unique one. Clark was nice enough to take me out for lunch where we sat down for this interview. read more »

Decades Of Depravity

For decades, filmmaker John Waters has lovingly made films that make us cringe, raise an eyebrow or two and kind of throw up a little in our mouths. From sketchy bestiality scenes to characters who love to kill, he has notoriously sculpted a world where disgust is something to smile about and the underdog always wins. When it’s up to John, the chubby girl snatches the studly male dancer from the snobbish blonde bitch (Hairspray), a schoolgirl will show the world what happens when you don’t get cha-cha heels (Female Trouble), and there’s nothing wrong with selling heroin in schools and selling babies to gay couples (Pink Flamingos). read more »