Three Imaginary Girls - Interviews

Coffee with a Rockstar: The Divorce

imaginary liz — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:29:20 +0000

{The Divorce. Photo by Breanne Koselke.}

Some of Three Imaginary Girls' favorite (and some infamous) moments of the first five years of our tiny lil web existence (from 2002-2007) involve The Divorce.

Over the course of an introductory EP, two full-length albums (2003's There Will Be Blood Tonight and 2005's The Gifted Program), and countless live shows, the Divorce embodied the both the sweet and salty of the Seattle music scene of the time. On stage they were fresh and fearless, belting out beautifully destructive pop songs to packed crowds. Then, in 2007, they decided to call it quits (the 'D' word if you will) and dispurse into different bands and projects.

On Saturday, July 30, 2011, they will once again take the Crocodile stage together to Divorce it up and of course we'll be there. What a better time to chat with the four Divorce fellas (Shane Berry-lead vocals, keyboard, guitar and tambourine, Garrett Lunceford-lead guitar, Jimmy Curran-bass, and Kyle Risan-drums) to find out why they are reuniting now and offer some more insight into the band for those that might have missed them the first time around. To do so, I thought it a great opportunity to resurect our original interview series (circa 2002-2006): Coffee with a Rockstar.

TIG / Liz: I can't believe in all of our Divorce fandom TIG never sat down for a Coffee with a Rockstar imaginary interview with you guys. It's surely a sign of our shyness. This chat is a long time coming and there's a lot to catch up on, but first, we have our ice breaker traditional first question:

Capitol Hill Block Party 2011 preview: Virgin Islands To Play Vera Stage on Sunday, July 24

Chris Estey — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:24:56 +0000

{photo: April Brimer}

Virgin Islands is one of Seattle’s best live rawk and roil bands, souped up on speed-ball breakneck paces and reeling through the gears left behind from The Cops. Fronted by Michael Jaworski (vocals and guitars), and tuned in by two-lane blacktop hard by Aaron Ball (drums and percussion), Charles Keller (bass and vocals), and Christopher Meyer (guitars and vocals), they’re bringing dapper mayhem to the Vera Stage during the Capitol Hill Block Party (2011!) on Sunday, starting at 3 p.m. sharp.

I spoke with Mikey about the festival, the band’s recent full length debut, and love for Cap Hill!

TIG / Chris Estey: Is it a particular thrill to be playing the Block Party? What is it that's more special about playing the CHBP than a usual show in the area?

MIKE: It is thrilling to play the Block Party! It really does feel more special than a regular show in the area. In my opinion, the Block Party is the coolest and most grass-roots festival in our area and it's an honor to perform for it. It takes place in an extremely cool and vibrant neighborhood and it caters to such a great cross-section of humanity. It's just a great street party with awesome bands and we're honored to be a part of it! Not to mention, Jason Lajunesse and crew book artists that truly represent the diverse music scene in Seattle and some of the best national touring acts around. I think you'd be hard pressed to find another music festival that does it so well, especially in a block party setting.

Come see my live interview w/Steve Ignorant of legendary punk band Crass tomorrow night {4/26} at The Comet

Chris Estey — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:33:09 +0000

You should come to my (absolutely free, though 21+) live interview with Steve Ignorant tomorrow night (April 26) at The Comet starting at 6 pm - because Crass, the band he sang vocals for, sound better and truer and more meaningful than ever in these uber-apocalyptic times. Have a listen to their greatest non-hits collection Best Before 1984, and you will hear the voices and noises of women and men beating back the darkness as hard as they could. Whether that despair be political repression, male domination, religious hypocrisy, Crass sounded like the Sex Pistols and The Clash on overdrive, in song revolutions so real you could taste the tear gas and pints that fueled them.

As keenly described in his honest and humorous autobiography The Rest Is Propaganda (scribed with Steve Pottinger), which Ignorant will be signing copies of for sale at The Comet, he was a fun-loving teenager when he began hanging out at the Dial House, a hang-out for artists helmed by Crass co-founder Penny Rimbaud. Ignorant was kicked off the dole for a bad attitude, and didn't have much hope given him growing up in a poor, violent part of England. When he saw the near-30 year old book designer and vegetarian Rimbaud living life exactly the way he wanted to, he came along, in his own fashion. Wine-soaked nights ranting about the UK going right wing, along with seeing Rotten in the Pistols on TV and Simonon of The Clash commanding mod coolness live, put these two men into a spoken word/drums duo for rants like "Do They Owe Us a Living?" and "Reality Asylum."

Imaginary interview: Telekinesis

imaginary victoria — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:21:38 +0000

The first time I heard Michael Benjamin Lerner live was in the incarnation of the band that played the 2008 Imaginary Holiday Spectacular at Chop Suey. (And no, I'm not just saying that because this is the lead to an interview for Three Imaginary Girls.) It's the only time I can recall in recent memory that the sound of a band made me stop what I was doing, leave a conversation with a legit famous person -- at the time, John Roderick -- and go into the other room to see what the haps was. Turns out, it was a little band called Telekinesis, recently on my radar due to a stellar release and some pictures I saw on the 'nets by the uber-talented Sarah Jurado. The band was catchy, tight, and infectious. Hence my love for Telekinesis was born, and "Coast of Carolina" has made an appearance on practically every mix I've made for friends looking for new music to dig on since.

Being the lucky gal I am, I was able to see that incarnation of Telekinesis again, when Michael filled in on percussion for a pseudo-Long Winters gig at the Sunset, and then played full-band later on in the night. Between living in our fair city and taking the trek out to Sasquatch! last year, I was able to catch a few more glimpses of the good that Telekinesis is capable of, all the way up to (and including) the work of his newest release, 12 Desperate Straight Lines. He'll be making his noise unto the masses again shortly as he tours behind 12DSL, and we caught up with him last week to talk about his chosen craft, what he's listening to, recording with Chris Walla, and other indoor sports.

Imaginary Victoria: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me! Alright, Michael -- let's jump right in. What's changed the most for you since recording the last album, so far as your personal world goes? There's a spot in your press release about a change in relationship, and I'm sure you've been affected somewhat by a measure of success -- have these changes proved stimulants or challenges? There's always that "happiness writes white" trap that Sean Nelson sings about...
Michael Benjamin Lerner: Of course! Let's see... a whole heap of a lot has changed since the first record! A relationship that I was in when writing / touring off that first record ended, and that was hard and weird, and it provided a whole lot of song fodder. And, I also was dealing with a bunch of personal health issues. Ear stuff, which could never really be explained to me, which led to a series of unfortunate events, including a car accident the day before I was supposed to drive to San Fran to record with Chris Walla. The car crash prevented me from doing that, but in turn, I wrote a bunch of songs that ended up on the record in that time that I was home because of rescheduling and recovering. And now, I'm feeling better, and happier! I moved into a house with my girlfriend, and am finally not living with my parents since I started this band, which feels amazing.

Imaginary Interview: Miguel Arteta, director of Cedar Rapids (aka: The Wizard of Oz of Insurance)

Imaginary Rich — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:28:53 +0000

The world famous Sundance Film Festival took place in Park City, Utah last week. For the second year in a row, the festival had a satellite event where films and directors fanned out to nine US cities to screen their films on Jan 27th. Seattle was slighted/skipped last year, but got the respect we deserve in 2011 with a special screening of Cedar Rapids at the Egyptian theater. We'll be back with a review closer to the film's opening in mid-February, but I had a chance to sit down with the film's director Miguel Arteta ahead of Thursday night's screening.

Arteta kicked off his directing career with Star Maps in 1997, followed by Chuck & Buck in 2000. He's done a diverse number of TV shows and most recently (before Cedar Rapids) directed Youth in Revolt. The following interview does contain some mild spoilers. Miguel arrived in Seattle via Sundance where Cedar Rapids Premiered on Jan 23d. We talked about his Sundance experiences, this film, Jimmy Stewart smoking crack cocaine, and about why everyone should see the new documentary out of Sundance dealing with the wider than you'd expect legacy of Harry Belafonte.

Crispin Glover comes to the Northwest Film Forum - An Imaginary Interview

Imaginary Rich — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:39:10 +0000

{Crispin Glover is screening his films What is it? and It is Fine! Everything is Fine at the Northwest Film Forum this weekend, 1/21-1/24. Each performance will be preceded by a slideshow.}

Crispin Glover is an actor with a flair for creating memorable characters. From Back to the Future to last year's Hot Tub Time Machine, he can make even a small role stand out. This weekend he'll be front and center at the Northwest Film Forum to screen the first two films in his "It" trilogy, What is it? and It is Fine! Everything is Fine. You get a lot of Glover's time for a not excessive amount of money ($20 each screening, or $17 each for NWFF members).

I've heard both strongly positive and negative feedback on the films. Suffice it to say, it doesn't appear to be a presentation that results in a lot of mild opinions one way or the other. I was lucky enough to have chance to virtually sit down and chat with Crispin Glover ahead of his arrival. I steered clear of anything too specific about the films, both from my own ignorance of them, and a desire to see them unimpeded by too much information. Instead, I tried to cover some background on his intent and his future plans.

'Tis the season for celebrated mythology: The Secret History of Rock 'N' Roll

Chris Estey — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:25:46 +0000

Christopher Knowles is the author of the recently published book The Secret History of Rock 'N' Roll, which ties the rock-era music scene back to mystery cults formed "since the Stone Age." Christmastime is a festive season when we party hard, glory vicariously in exciting fables, and when some of us even shove our mystified beliefs in others' faces in the broader culture. So chatting with the award-winning writer of this elucidating tome on tropes behind our rock idols seemed like a great way to chop up myth, music, and magic just at the right moment in 2010.

Knowles has been a writer and editor for some time, and his Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes is also an excellent analysis of how ancient archetypes become cheap everyday thrills. But it was his tenaciously intense engagement with a certain UK punk-into-pop band in Clash City Showdown: The Music, Meaning, and Legacy of The Clash that got me into his work. I admire his passion and fierce intelligence at dissecting culture we enjoy and use to transcend our lives habitually. Below is our chat with Mr. Knowles about all these things.

Imaginary interview: Matt Bishop and Loryn Kezer

imaginary victoria — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:16:52 +0000

This Sunday night at the Sunset, our favorite septet's frontman Matt Bishop will be headlining a benefit show with Carrie Biell -- and you have simply got to be there. It'll be the best ten dollars you'll spend, like, ever. Because the proceeds from the night will be going to send local humanitarianismist (and the show's opener) Loryn Kezer to Africa, where she's heading to do volunteer work in rural areas of Tanzania. Locals doing good + sweet indie-pop playing a role in helping to heal world? We were so impressed by the whole effort that we just had to know more -- so we sat the two of them down last week to talk about it.

Imaginary Victoria: So, who hatched this plan? Tell me how everything came about.

Loryn Kezer: I hatched it, with great encouragement from friends. Apparently, when one is planning a self-funded humanitarian mission, it's ridiculous not to do some fundraising. But I'm terrible at out-and-out asking for help -- so I figured I'd try to provide a little entertainment in exchange for people's dollars. Carrie and Matt are both incredible musicians and really good friends of mine who generously agreed to play the show pro bono.

IV: And when's the trip? How much are you trying to raise?

LK: The end of March -- less than five months away! I've been pinching pennies for a year, so I'm prepared to pay my way and cover my ass while I'm in Africa. But beyond that, I'd like to be able to purchase what medical and educational supplies are needed at the places I'll be working. Bascially, I'm hoping to raise any amount of money I can. An extra fifty, hundred, five hundred bucks can (and will) go a long way.

Imaginary Interview: Chris Morris, Director of Four Lions

Imaginary Rich — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:43:26 +0000

{Four Lions opens in Seattle on Friday, November 5th at The Varsity}

This past week I had the fortune to have an opportunity to sit down with Chris Morris, the director and co-writer of Four Lions, which makes effective comedy out of one of the most unlikely of topics - a homegrown British terrorist cell.

After some warming up discussing the media’s irrational glee in over-hyping minor meteorological events from rain in San Francisco to the thought of snow in Seattle, we jumped into discussing the film. Ranging from Spinal Tap references and how to live your dream of being a penguin through virtual reality, to spousal support of would-be terrorists and back again to the art of swallowing unusual objects - a fair amount of ground was covered that afternoon....

I loved the film. I just had a hoot - in fact I think I annoyed some of the other press people by laughing a bit too hard.

CM: At least you weren’t laughing during United 93, like I was.

*laughing* I haven’t seen it. Though I guess I have to watch it now - now that you say that!

CM: Yeah, uh, it’s worth watching.

Teen Feed: an imaginary interview with Megan Gibbard

imaginary victoria — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:32:38 +0000

Odds are, if you're here at Three Imaginary Girls poking around, you've heard of Ben Gibbard. And if you're in the greater Seattle area, you've definitely heard about the sold-out show coming up this Wednesday at the Crocodile. (And if you're like us, you might be acting half your age and figuring out just how early you have to get to the venue to secure a spot up front.) But what you may not be as familiar with is the beneficiary of the night, Teen Feed -- so, we thought we'd sit right down with their Executive Director and find out all about it for you.

Imaginary Victoria: So, let's have a little background on the who-what-and-where...

Megan Gibbard: Of course. Teen Feed is a 7-night-a-week meal program for homeless youth ages 13 – 25. Every single night, from 7-8pm, we serve up to 70 youth a healthy and safe meal – it very well may be the first time that day they’ve been safe. Teen Feed is more than just this meal, however. Present at every Teen Feed meal are our Case Managers (we call them Support Coordinators) to build relationships with youth, share a meal, and help with resources and encouragement. Our Street Talk Outreach Program (STOP) meets youth directly on the streets, in their environment, before they're even ready to ask for help.

Teen Feed works with the community to offer basic needs, build strong relationships, and ally with homeless youth as they met their future off the streets. We achieve our mission through three main initiatives: meals, outreach, and case management. It is difficult to go to school when you’re hungry. It is difficult to succeed at work when you aren’t sure where your next meal will come from. So, the food always comes first at Teen Feed – then, we get down to the business of working alongside youth as they find that path from the streets.

I recently spoke with a woman who was homeless on the Ave in the early 1990’s at the age of 13. She said that she had a moment, a watershed, when she realized that she needed to get off the streets and start pursuing college. Teen Feed was right there to help her when she needed it. Teen Feed is important because all people need to be fed – and every youth on the streets needs safe adults right there with they’re ready to ask for help.

This same woman spoke in front of 150 Teen Feed volunteers recently and said:

“I look at my husband, and he’s a lot like his parents. I look at my children, and they’re a lot like him and I. I look at myself, and I’m a lot like all of you.”

Portrait of an Artist: Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows, the Minus 5, R.E.M., the Baseball Project, and more

D. Crane — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:19:14 +0000

I was too young/too uncool to listen to the Young Fresh Fellows, but I got way into the Minus Five after seeing them play with the Posies at the Mural Amphitheater, when I was in high school. “The Lonesome Death of Buck McCoy” was my first Minus Five CD purchase, from Tower Records by the Space Needle. Since then I have been a constant fan. Their style of mixing playful lyrics with real emotion behind them, has influenced me to write songs. To that I say….thank you Mr. McCaughey. I moved to Chicago in 2002, to teach middle school on the south side of the city as part of Teach for America. It was a rough go, but “Down With Wilco” was one of the few things (pizza, Wrigley Field, and Thai food….oh did I mention burritos?) got me through. I am on my third copy of that album, now on reissue LP.

D. Crane: Down With Wilco is a special record for me. I remember where I was when I heard “The Days of Wine and Booze” for the first time. I still buy it/recommend it to my friends. It is up there with the White album on my favorite albums of all time list. Do you have any special albums like that? Albums that you give to friends? Albums that you think are severely underrated/are as good as Beatles albums?

Scott McCaughey: Yes, I have albums like that. Whenever I'm asked, I go blank though. I try to turn people on to the Bill Fay CD of his first two albums, which coincidentally, Jeff Tweedy turned me onto the night before we went into the studio to start Down With Wilco. I also pass on copies of the first two McGuinness Flint albums -- I stockpile them (at next to nothing, as no one wants them) and then pass them on to those I think might be susceptible to their charms. (John Wesley Harding took the bait and fell hard.) Nazz Nazz by the Nazz; Armchair Boogie by Michael Hurley; Wish You Were Here by Badfinger. Everyone knows Straight Up but WYWH is also a masterpiece! In The Air by the Handsome Family. It's tricky because you have to find stuff that people haven't heard. And in the end, no matter how great, nothing's as good as the Beatles. But all three Big Star albums come close.

I also really love the Gun album. What was the thought behind the “gun artwork?” I also love the rifle on the spine. It makes me feel uncomfortable to have it in my classroom, but don’t think it isn’t hidden beneath a grammar book! My favorite song is “Out There on the Maroon,” do you actually drink white Russians? Have you been to Russia?

I wanted the "Gun Album" artwork to be simple and stark. I wanted it to express the feeling that went behind the songs. That was my distillation of a couple tough years I went through. I HATE guns, but it was the central image that captured the feeling of the record. It's thematic and whatever a gun represents to me felt right in presenting that album to the public. "Out There On The Maroon" took a strange road to its realization on the album. My friend Bob Spires from the amazing and wonderful band The Possibilities (and lately, Nutria) send me a drunken email with a "song/poem" that started with the line about the White Russians. I took it from there and somehow, over a few years gestation, with a few different attempts, it became a song to my daughter. A guilt-ridden song, but one that I hope evokes a bit of positivity into a rough situation. I'm not sure. I love the song. I haven't had a White Russian for thirsty years, although occasionally people tell me I look like The Dude from The Big Lebowski. I love Jeff Bridges. I've been to Russia once, for about 18 hours. I have the furry hat to prove it.

Also, on that song, the guitar line is a musical highlight for me. Seattle is dying to know….who can shred harder…you or Captain Peter Buck?

The fantastic JOHN RAMBERG (currently fronting Seattle's Tripwires) played the nifty guitar leads on "Maroon". You know, neither Peter nor I would ever claim (or aspire) to "shred". Neither of us considers ourself a lead guitarist. Peter is actually REALLY good, and he could do it, but he doesn't want to, thus one of the defining characteristics of R.E.M. as an original and unique and undated band.

I play in a band called BOAT, and I also teach middle school. I can’t see a point where music would provide for me, my wife, and dog/cats. I also think spending my days working with kids in a creative way, provides me with much more to pull from if I am making songs. I think if I just did music I would be bored…and make boring songs. And conversely if I just did teaching, I would be a bored/boring teacher. Do you work any other jobs when you are not playing music? Does working other jobs help make the music more interesting?

I used to work lots of jobs. Luckily I haven't so much, since booking the Crocodile for a year 1993-1994. I've worked at Thrifty Rent-a-Car, a furniture factory (I got to be a pretty good sander), and of course many years in a record store. All of these jobs inspired songs, no doubt about it. Were they good songs? Hmmm, well, I still haven't recorded "I Don't Want To Live Without A Nose" -- probably for the best.

Where do you write most of your songs? Do you start with chords, words, an image?

It varies but more often then not I start with words, because they come to me when I'm driving or walking (I walk more than drive), and hopefully I'll remember them and jot them down at first opportunity. I've forgotten to jot down many of my best songs, which thusly remain unwritten. My best songs happen when I pick up an acoustic guitar or sit at the piano -- might happen more often if I had a fucking piano -- and start playing and the chords inspire a lyric and it all happens at once. That's the real serendipity of songwriting. Surprising how seldom it happens, mostly because I'm always somehow too busy to take the time to let that situation exist.

What is your favorite REM song to play? What is your favorite REM song to listen to?

Man, that's hard! I like playing "Circus Envy" though it doesn't happen that often. "Horse To Water" is a big fave. "Tongue" and "Kenneth". For listening I like "Beach Ball" and "At My Most Beautiful" and "Summer Turns To High".

If you had to put together a new band for the Minus Five, and could choose from any musicians living or dead….who would you choose? (Yes, you can choose Peter Buck.)

Irma Thomas on vocals. Peter Buck on 12-string guitar. Paul McCartney on bass. Allen Toussaint on piano. Jeff Tweedy on lead guitar and vocals. Steve Berlin on baritone sax and mellotron. I'm not sure my participation would be necessary at all! Except maybe driving the van (daytime only.)

What is the next project or project you are involved with?

Doing this incredibly fun Tired Pony thing. Me and Peter with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, plus Richard Colburn from Belle & Sebastian, and Iain Archer, and Troy Stewart, and Garret "Jacknife" Lee. New album out now, and it's amazing. Also hard at work finishing the next Baseball Project album and the next R.E.M. album!

{Don't miss Scott with the Young Fresh Fellows at the Tractor July 23rd!}

{Art by D. Crane}

redmccaughey.jpg

{Art by D. Crane, The Young Fresh Fellows play July 23rd at the Tractor}

Imaginary Interview: Steel Tigers Of Death {CHBP at Neumos on Sunday, July 25... Wa-Cha!}

Chris Estey — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:48:49 +0000

Seattle's own Steel Tigers Of Death punk-metal antics are endearing and inclusive where other band's attempts to merge visual comedy with musical chaos can be sloppy and shrill. They're set to open the set at Neumos on Sunday, July 25, hitting the stage (and probably splashing everywhere) around 2:15 PM.

I sent some questions to one of the guys, who gave them to two other of the guys (El Tigre and Bradley Of, for the record). That's how they roll, as some other guy once said about, um, guys and rolling. All together. Like that.

Imaginary Interview: Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde

Imaginary Amie — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:04:38 +0000

I’ve already declared my adoration for Concrete Blonde, and recommended you come see the show with me tonight (Thursday, June 24) at The Showbox – and now I get to present something super-awesome: I asked Johnette Napolitano a few questions via email about Bloodletting and this 20-years-later tour, and she responded with some great answers:

What was the inspiration to move from your previous punk rock vibe to a more gothic feel for Bloodletting?
Being other places in the world, and I'd never been anywhere but California, and Tennessee was the first place I lived other than LA, really. That was our third record and we'd toured a lot by then and I'd spent a lot of time - and I still do - in New Orleans and the South, and I love it down there and it's moody, for sure. Fucks with my hair something awful, but well worth it.

Do you think it’s awesome or hilarious that "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)" became a Goth club standard in the 90s?
Awesome, hilarious, horrible, scary, weird, surreal, beautiful, a pain in the ass and very, very lucrative.

What was the catalyst for re-releasing this album and how does it feel to be touring with it again?
20 years seems to have gone by. A perfect storm, really. I lost my Dad and am still very much dealing with that, and he would have said, do it! He was very proud of the band. Never quite came out and told me so, but he didn't have to. I played for him the last time I saw him, he'd bought a guitar for himself. Only he and I would know what that gesture meant…I see a future for myself that I like, and I'm very lucky, we're very lucky, to still have an audience that would actually show up. That never ceases to amaze me. We'll have a great time and I'll come off and write and paint and work on opening a Flamenco place in New Orleans and we'll just play where we want to play, when we want. It's a good place to be.

Any chance we’ll see a new Concrete Blonde album emerge from this reunion (a girl can hope!)?
I'm hoping that we're not killing each other by week two. We won't though, everybody seems to be working in the same direction and after the last year basically a month of playing and sleeping on a bus while somebody else gets me there sounds good. I'm looking forward to it; I know we all are. I'll let the music take over and see where it goes.

Bloodletting.jpg

Imaginary Interview: Bass Ackwards

Imaginary Amie — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:41:21 +0000

Photo Credit: Victoria Holt

Another favorite of mine at SIFF this year was the charming road trip movie Bass Ackwards. I grabbed some time with Director Linas Phillips and his co-star, co-writer and friend Davie-Blue to talk about the experience of making this film.

While Linas is a self-described brat and I was never sure what was true and what was said in fun, the interview was fantastic and I can’t wait to see what these two do next.

I thought Bass Ackwards was great, and the thing that really made it great (in my opinion) is that Linas’s character was so loveable that you want him to be okay. You’re really rooting for him to make it.

Linas: He doesn’t seem annoying? Because he’s not getting his shit together?

No. I feel like everybody’s been lost like that at some point…

L: Everyone’s been annoying? Annoying doesn’t exclude empathy, maybe.

I didn’t find him annoying at all. (turning to Davie-Blue) Did your character find him annoying?

L: Or did you?

Davie-Blue: No, I think she wanted to have sex with him. But I do kind of find him annoying, personally. Well I don’t know if annoying is the word. I guess, yeah.

L: Frustrated with? No?

DB: Yeah, I guess it is frustrating to watch somebody not take the bull by the horns.

L: Right, but I think maybe he comes off like someone who shouldn’t be acting like that. So maybe it’s less – because if they’ve always been like that, and they’re forever going to be like that, there’s no reason to watch them.

DB: Right. So it’s actually effective. Put some fire under everybody.

L: It’s like a contradiction that he can’t do anything, but he seems like he should be someone who can.

DB: Yeah, it’s the challenge that he has, and you have hope for him. It’s exactly what you’re saying.
Yes, I was sympathetic towards him – right off, for an unknown reason.

DB: And you see his potential. You want to help him.

L: I think earlier on in the scene at the wedding where you see him talking to this little kid, even though it was just something that we shot spontaneously, I think it was really important to have that in there. One, because it was so real that it helps with the authenticity, and if we didn’t have that in there, it would have been harder to show his nice side immediately. You see it very quickly, you find out so much about him in this short scene with the kid.

He’s interested in kids, and he’s doing a wedding – but there’s something not right, I mean he could be like a weirdo who just flirts with all the girls at the wedding. I think I’ve done that when I’ve shot weddings for real.

DB: That moment when he says, "Do you wanna go now?" to that little kid, giving him a chance to run off, is so unique, because that requires such a sensitivity and most grown men would not have that sensitivity and observation and love for a little person. And so you learn that not only is he a nice guy, but he’s a special guy. It’s a very touching moment, I think.

L: Yeah, I never thought of that. I just thought, ok FINALLY he’s letting the kid go. Because he’s kind of annoying him, or making him feel a little awkward. But I also think he really liked the kid. And he’s just enjoying it. Like in the way that you’re like tricking someone, but it’s not as mean as that.

Like, I have a thing where I just like to tease my grandmother or make her wear something weird. And it’s not hurting her, she likes the attention, because hardly anyone ever talks to her, but it’s kind of got that kind of energy.

DB: My dad is like that.

L: Teasing people? I love to just…mess with people. I’m a brat. That’s what it is. I asked Liz if I was mean, and she said, "No, you’re just a brat".

So you said that scene was spontaneous, how many scenes did you…

L: Forty-two.

Forty-two spontaneous scenes?

L: No, sorry, what’s your question?

Was it mostly scripted, or did you just do what felt right at the time?

L: It was a real mixture. The beginning was written, although there is stuff in it that’s not scripted, and then once we started shooting we came up with other ideas. Some of them happened a year later, so some of the stuff on the road trip was scripted afterwards. I was basically trying to save a movie that felt half-finished. I just thought it needed more fleshing out. Whenever we were shooting, it was pretty loose.

Like I think we had stuff written for us when we’re in the hotel, when Georgia and Linas were playing cards, but then we didn’t follow it exactly. I think it’s good just to get it written down, even if it’s bad. Because a lot of times things when you write them, there’s no way it’s going to sound good.

Like the Alpaca scene? That was one of my favorite scenes.

L: I think people are sometimes thinking they’re performing for an invisible person – but they just don’t have anyone around. They’re alone in their life. Because it’s kind of performance, the way that he’s doing that. It’s almost like too much, like I know I’m on camera or something. But yeah, that’s an example where I think if it were written down, we’d be asking why we’re filming it.

But also, what else wasn’t scripted? Um, the girls on the road in the bar, those moments weren’t scripted. They just happened when we got there.

DB: One thing that I wanted to say about that too was that [the film] was very low budget. And just had like a tiny, tiny crew. Very often it was just Linas and his DP, so it wasn’t just the dialog that was improvised, it was everything. You can’t really write a script and then shoot it – unless you have enough money to do that. And we just had to take what we could get. So, I mean, the dialog changed.

L: Yeah, if you’re writing it in a certain way where you’re planning it out more, you’re going to be so frustrated when you have this small of a movie. Like even later on when we added a scene with me and Georgia, where I’m asking her to go on the road with me, that was actually shot this past December in Boston – nowhere near Seattle. But that was just because we were out there, and we had to find someplace where it could work, so we just banged on people’s doors and asked if we could film a scene there.

Yeah, that scene definitely needed to be there, so when Linas sees her later, his reaction makes sense.

L: And that we came up with later too, that stuff was shot much later. There’s a shot where I start driving over the Brooklyn Bridge in 2008, and in 2009 I finish driving over it.

We basically had a few ideas and we shot a little bit for each one, and it didn’t really work, so we came up with the Jim character. So it’s organic, but even stuff later could have happened within the first chunk of filming if we’d had more time…and I’d been smarter.

The Jim character is really interesting to me too, because he’s not exactly a likable guy. He’s very strange and abrupt, but I think it really played off your character’s gentleness. I mean, he just gets in your van and says he’ll go where you’re going, and then he’s cock-blocking you at the bar…

L: There’s actually going to be a sequel called Jim: The Cock-blocker.

That would be awesome.

L: That kind of would be a funny comedy. You know? Jim just cock-blocking people? And then every time he’s just like, "What?"

Yeah, we kind of show the worst version of Jim, I guess. Parts of his character are very similar to how he is in real life. But I guess I just see him as a character that operates outside the laws of social constraint and behavior – because he’s never mean. He is just someone who’s very free. And that’s one thing the Linas’s character isn’t.

Yeah, I felt like you two could be good for each other. I did really enjoy all the characters you met along the way, especially Paul Lazar. I was pretty excited to see him in your film. I love that guy!

L: That scene where we did the impression was a hard scene; it took a long time. There were wide shots where we’re both doing the scene, because he still didn’t really get it. I was just trying to get to it.

So did you have that impression in your mind, then?
[Note: The impression was of a Lithuanian Christopher Walken]

L: Yeah, because I used to do it for real when I did stand-up comedy years ago, and I thought it would just be good to have there. My Lithuanian is so bad, I’m sure even Lithuanian people wouldn’t understand it. I kind of cringe when I think about them seeing it.

He’s really good [Paul] – I know him be cause his wife was a teacher of mine at NYU. He cast me in a play, actually. But then he got a movie, and he didn’t end up doing the play, and I ended up not liking the replacement director, so he always felt about that.

And then we were going to do a two-man show together; we rehearsed a couple times, but I didn’t think it would be good. So it took many years for us to finally be able to work together. But yeah, he really liked my first film, Walking to Werner.

So did you actually take the road trip with your DP?

L: We really were driving across the country, and we towed the Shorty most of the time. We shot from the back of this pick-up truck when I was driving; I didn’t drive it too much though, in real life. Like 5-10 miles at a time. Sometimes, 20 – if we couldn’t find a place to pull over and hook back up. It was a real pain in the neck to undo the tow rig and everything.

We put a lot of work into the car too – these guys, Bug-Aid. They fixed it up. The guy who sold me the car, in Montlake Terrace, is going to come to the screening tonight. He’s all excited. He sold it to me because he bought a flat screen TV.

Are you guys both originally from Seattle?

L: No, I lived here for 4 years and made films here, so I just seem like a native.

DB: I’m an LA native, but I grew up in Seattle. This festival was kind of the beginning of me really falling in love in with film and wanted to be involved in it.

L: She used to work at the festival too, that’s kind of how we met.

So what’s next for both of you?

L: Well, tennis shoes. I’ve always loved tennis, so Davie & I are going to open a tennis shoe shop.

DB: We got a lease in SoHo, this kind of tiny little…

L: Because people need tennis shoes!

DB: Yeah, everyone wears them.

L: Even if you don’t play tennis, it’s fashionable.

DB: There’s not just for tennis. They’re also for skateboarding, basketball, etc.

What’s it going to be called?

L & DB (in unision): Tennis Shoes….Too.

L: Five Brothers Tennis Shoes?

DB: No.

L: I’ve been just writing and trying to figure out what film is next, but it’s probably going to be this film, Rainbow Time. Which is hopefully going to star my brother who is mentally handicapped, and his name is Rimas.

It’s about him living in a home for mentally handicapped people, and it’s a buddy film. There’s a new volunteer at the house, and they start creating a TV show together called "Rainbow Time". Rimas is a complex character, a very cranky guy – hard to be with sometimes, but he’s very funny and endearing. And he’s obsessed with Happy Days. So yeah, Rainbow Time, hopefully this Fall or Winter.

DB: I’m also writing a screenplay right now – my first screenplay. So I’m in that process. It’s exciting and fun.

Can you give me a hint about it? Or are you not ready to talk about it yet?

DB: It’s about a young woman who is lost in her life, and so uptight and disconnected from her own self-communication, and the tragedy of that – but also her awakening. It’s called Fancy Goldfish.

L: And she’s obsessed with Happy Days, right? You stole that!

DB: She’s obsessed with GOLD FISH. She loves gold fish.

L: You stole that idea from me. She sent me the script and it’s all about Happy Days, and I was like uh….

DB: There’s going to be a lot of children in it.

L: Kids are good on camera.

DB: I’m a teacher and a nanny and a baby lover. So I’m excited about that challenge of creating spaces that are really safe for children to improvise and really express their truth, which is so magical. We’ll see if it’s possible. You know what they say – no children in movies. They say, no children, no animals – so I have the goldfish, I have the babies, so we gotta get a boat.

L: I thought kids were good in movies.

DB: I know; you’re a radical.

L: Kids and motorcycles. I thought that what’s it’s about.

Can you talk about the music in the film and what you’re listening to now, what inspires you, etc?

L: Samba.

DB: Well my mother is a jazz singer, Rochelle House, and I’ve been listening to her album a lot lately, and my brother just cut his second hip hop album, so I’ve been listening to that. Raven Matthews is his name. His crew is Faded Theory – teenagers in Seattle.

L: We should make a documentary about him and get it into SIFF! That’d be good exposure.

DB: Yeah, let’s do it now! Let’s do it about him not having enough money to go to college.

L: I don’t think you need college.

DB: Yeah, you need college! You can’t say that if you went to NYU.

L: Yeah, but I still can’t pay off the loans. I just stopped. There’s this great band called the Bill Collectors. It sounds like an iPhone ring, and it just plays on and on, every Sunday morning.

Actually, I just listen to Bob Dylan and Neil Young mostly.

DB: How about Janelle Monáe? Have you been hearing her? She’s a young soul/hip-hop/pop spiritual Diva coming up out of Atlanta. And she is INCREDIBLE. She always wears a tuxedo and does James Brown dance moves, and just weaves together incredible inspiration from all these genres. I think she’s going to be a big deal.

L: Have you heard of Amy Winehouse?

DB: I have heard of that. I think I have, yeah.

L: I think we should, because she’s “up and coming”, we should try to get her to do a tennis shoe for us.

DB: Yeah, with a heel. Maybe she can be in Fancy Goldfish and Rainbow Time.

L: She should be the lead in Fancy Goldfish!

But also, if we could mention Lori Goldston, that’s awesome. She’s a musician here in Seattle and she did the soundtrack with this woman Tara Jane O’Neil (who’s in Portland) to Bass Ackwards.

{Bass Ackwards screened at the 36th Seattle International Film Festival this year, is screening at Northwest Film Forum June 12-17, and is currently available to watch on Streaming Netflix}

Photo Credit: Victoria Holt

Deep SIFF: Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar

ChrisB — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:48:18 +0000

"People who I interviewed said she was the most genuine person they had ever met" director James Rasin told me in an interview about Candy Darling, the transgendered actress who died in 1974 and is the subject of his engrossing documentary Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar. He added he "I thought was weird because she's a person who is a complete construct, everything is intentionally, layer upon layer, an artifice but becomes someone so completely genuine."

That is one of the central themes and ironies that runs through Rasin's fascinating film, which played at the Seattle International Film Festival this year. Candy Darling was one of the Warhol superstars featured in the Lou Reed song "Walk on the Wild Side" (Reed's band, The Velvet Underground, also had a song about her called "Candy Says") where Reed sings in the second verse "Candy came from out on the Island, in the backroom she was everybody's darling; she never lost a head, even when she was giving head". While not exactly the most positive description one could hope for, Rasin's documentary is far more kind and thorough.

Born James Slattery in the forties sometime (the actual date of Candy's birth is the source of some debate but is most likely in 1944), Candy desired to be a glamorous film star in the tradition of Kim Novak. One of the ironies is that other than Warhol, no one really broke out and became a superstar on that level from The Factory scene. When I asked Rasin about that, he said "it is odd that there were so many people in that circle but no one really broke out of that. Maybe The Velvet Underground or Edie Sedgwick, but she never really did anything on her own outside of the Factory and she died very young." One example he did give was Holly Woodlawn, another transgendered Warhol superstar who was said to have been considered for an Academy Award for her part in the Warhol film Trash. Rasin summarized that "it was very great to be in the Factory scene because it was seen as a stepping stone, and Andy was a theoretically a launching pad and he did give people a much larger stage, so it is a big break, but where you go from there isn't easy."

What makes the film so compelling is a lot of rare audio recordings that primarily came from Candy's close friend and roommate Jeremiah Newton, who loved Candy dearly and started conducting audio interviews with people around the Factory shortly after Candy died. One person he interviewed was Valerie Solanis, who was immortalized in the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol because, well, she did. It was a wealth of information that he had saved for almost thirty years before allowing someone to use it for a film. Rasin said he met Newton at a book party at the Chelsea Hotel about twenty years ago and became friends with him. He said "Jeremiah was always supportive and liked what I did. We established a pretty tight bond, so when it was time for him to do something with this stuff and entrust someone with Candy's legacy, all of this stuff he had been clinging on to and protecting for so long, he felt he could trust me with the material."

Newton provided a lot of the material and was also reluctantly a figure in the film, which turns out to be essential. "Originally, he didn't want to be in the movie, it wasn't my idea to have him in the movie, but at some point I realized that he was an interesting character and his relationship with her was so different and unique that we could really learn about Candy from his perspective in some ways but also learn about him and their relationship and bring it out of this fossilized past. It also opened up different themes in the movie about friendships and loyalty and the passage of time, youth as opposed to getting older," Rasin said.

Newton, who is listed as a producer on the film, was responsible for much of the material used in the film. Rasin also noted that Newton "knew they were going to be important and he took a lot of time to do that (conduct interviews), it was part of his own grieving process. He was thinking of doing a book, sort of like an oral history like the book Edie. He had a lot of her stuff. The mother had given him a lot of Candy's belongings. We went back to get the rest and she had destroyed them. He had a lot of the actual journals." He didn't have all of Candy's diaries, though, and Rasin said "some of the most beautiful diary entries he had read into a tape recorder when he was at Candy's house at Massapequa. He found a diary there and read it into the tape recorder but he didn't take the diary and it ended up getting destroyed by Candy's mother. That was in there and so was his own audio diaries." There was still a lot of material to sort through, though, as Rasin said "He just had boxes and boxes of stuff, everything from ephemera and some old video tapes that he didn't even know what they were; we sent them out to New Jersey to get them restored and see what they were. That was that the footage of Candy with Tennessee Williams. It was a real treasure trove."

Not all of the material came from Newton's collection, though, and Rasin said most people were quite willing to let him use it. "People were very, very generous with their material. Some of the things came from Anton Perich, who said no problem; the Warhol Museum was very helpful with the material they had. Except for Paul Morrissey, we didn't have any problems." Morrissey directed a lot of Warhol's films.

The documentary also features Chloe Sevigny reading from Candy's diaries and Patton Oswalt providing the voices of both Andy Warhol and Truman Capote in a conversation. On Sevigny, Rasin told me "she's very much New York and downtown New York. In a lot of ways, I thinks he's the spiritual heir to Candy. She's not a transgender or anything, obviously, but as someone at the nexus of art, film, fashion and downtown New York, she's the one. One of the last things we did was approach her to do that. She then e-mailed me and said 'I heard you were doing this film and I'm really interested; I've always loved Candy Darling and I cherished my copies of her diaries'. She was so great to work with and was so generous with her time and talent. I can't say how much I appreciate how much she did for the movie and for Candy."

The film is a short and quick 86 minutes but it's obvious from talking to Rasin that there was a lot of things he wanted to include but couldn't for the sake of time. He said " You have to respect the medium of filmmaking, for how you structure it and how you tell a story. There's not room for everything. A lot of the interviewees have really interesting things to say but a lot of the time, those things have to get cut out. They always say tighter is better." A second later, he added that a film is "not a scrapbook where you're just throwing in great stuff."

{Beautiful Darling screens at the Seattle International Film Festival at 6:15 at SIFF Cinema.}

Deep SIFF: Meet Monica Velour

ChrisB — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:10:23 +0000

"Basically, I told her I want to blow Samantha Jones into tiny little pieces" Keith Bearden, the writer and director of the often very funny new film Meet Monica Velour told me in an interview. By "her", he was, of course, referring to Kim Catrall, who plays Samantha Jones in the now much-maligned "Sex and the City" franchise and who plays the title character in his debut film that recently played at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Monica Velour is a has-been porn star, who may have been remembered for Saturday Night Beaver or Hooked on Hookers, although chances are, she's not remembered at all. She's living in a trailer park in Indiana somewhere and her life is a mess. Sadly, there are few skills that porn stars can take that will help them re-enter the job field and Monica wants to escape the live she has while regaining her former fame. It's like Sunset Boulevard, if, instead of Norma Desmond saying "I'm still big, it's the pictures that got small," she starred in a gangbang.

While the film mostly works as a comedy, its inspiration is rooted in a sad reality. I asked Bearden what was the inspiration for Monica Velour and he told me "I also used to be a film journalist and I interviewed a retired porn star who I thought had done a lot of B-action movies under a different name. She e-mailed me back and said 'no, that wasn't me but I love my fans and for $200, you can spend the night with me on my houseboat in Sausolito'. I thought that 'wow, so that's what happens. $200 so you can spend the night with her becuase that's the only way she can make a living.'" He also added, "right around that time there was Ginger Lynn, who was this huge porn star and she made people millionaires and she was reported as selling her underwear on the internet to raise money to pay for her kid's medical treatment. I thought 'here's some sad things that nobody's writing about'. Porno at that time was a multi-billion dollar industry, bigger than the NFL, opera and Broadway combined. Where's the actor's side? Where's the ugly side? You might think it's all fun, but nothing's all fun and it has a really ugly side."

Having Catrall as the star made a huge difference in getting the film made, Bearden told me. "Having her on board was everything. Kim having a big, big fan base around the world was very important to getting this film made. If we made it with a Broadway actor, or an unknown, it would have never happened. That's the reality of the movie business, especially with a first-time director," he said. He also told me he had a big reservation about casting his star. "The big issue was that I thought she was too pretty for the part. I told her that she's going to have to look bad, older, she's going to need to gain weight. I told her initially I wanted her to gain about 50 lbs and she said only under a doctor's supervision would she and we couldn't afford a doctor. I think she gained 20-25 pounds. She was completely on board with all of that," he said.

Tobe is the other central character to the film. He's a seventeen year old kid who is an obsessive fan of her movies. He's awkward, looks like Napolean Dynamite and has a crappy job running a hotdog truck. He runs into an unusual happenstance when a junk collector offers to buy his truck and lives in Indiana somewhere and sees on the Internet that Monica is appearing at a strip club in the middle of nowhere in the same state. It sets off a sort of unlikely friendship and unrequited romance.

Bearden based the character of Tobe on a Northwest actor who starred in one of his first short films. He told me, "The inspiration for the character of Tobe definitely came from this kid named Dylan Cole, who was the star of The Raftman's Razor, one of my first short films. We had an open casting call and we shot that film in Seattle and Eastern Washington. He showed up in the middle of the summer in a three-piece suit with a big pompadour. He immediately told me his idols were Dean Martin and Sylvester Stallone, who he said was a genius. He was seventeen and a beautiful kid and I looked at him and thought 'you are one weird fucking kid,' just like Monica tells Tobe in the movie. As I got to know this kid more, he was this hot house flower. He never had a girlfriend, he was a virgin. He loved pop culture, a lot of older stuff. I think we live in a society where there are more opportunities to dive into pop culture than ever with the internet and DVDs; everything just co-exists." He went on to say, "as an adult, I didn't realize there were still eighteen year-old virgins. Also, what happens when you have a kid like that and has this fantasy of what women are like and when the harsh reality of that Wizard of Oz fantasy comes into his face?"

The movie is set half in Auburn (Tobe's home) and Indiana (Monica's), but it was filmed in Michigan exclusively. He said he wanted to film at least part of it locally, "as a former Washingtonian, I would have loved to have film the film half in Washington and half in Indiana but that isn't realistic. Plus, much of suburban America is identical: it's cute houses and places to get Subway sandwiches." The location wasn't essential, though. "It's really about two people in non-descript parts of the world," he noted.

Although the film was a low-budget, character-driven comedy, he did see the positive effects on the community. "A woman who has one line in my movie e-mailed me recently to say, and this is a year and a half, two-years later, 'thank you for starting me on my movie career, I no longer have a day job, I'm a professional actress living in my hometown in Michigan'. She's a working SAG actress in Michigan and it's astonishing," he noted and gave another example, "the woman who did the makeup in this movie, she was a twenty year old girl who worked in a salon, she's a full time makeup artist now." He concluded by adding "arts is a fantastic way to employ people... I love bringing the arts industry to people who really need it."

One of the unfortunate realities of making smaller movies is that it is very difficult to get people to see them. Bearden said he hoped to land a distribution deal in the near future and have the film garner a theatrical run in the fall but warned "if you only go see Avatar, it's all you're fucking going to get. I had trouble getting $2 million to make this movie and that's the effects team's lunch budget on Avatar."

A few moments later, he noted "no one wants to look at themselves and say 'I'm Monica' or 'I'm Tobe,' 'I'm this flawed fuckup who is still beautiful.'"

Imaginary SIFF Interview: Ruba Nadda, Director of Cairo Time

Imaginary Amie — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:39:23 +0000

One of my favorite films at SIFF this year was the beautiful, intuitive drama Cairo Time, written and directed by the equally beautiful and intuitive Ruba Nadda.

In person, Nadda exudes an open friendliness that instantly made me comfortable. We sat down for a few minutes and discussed everything from Patricia Clarkson’s eyebrows to the fiasco of Sex and the City 2. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I was captivated by everything she said, and that I’d love to be able to sit down with her and do it again.

Something I really loved about Cairo Time was that it focused on an older woman, because – let’s face it – you rarely see that in films. I read that your previous feature, Sabah, focused on an older woman also.

Ruba Nadda: It’s funny, because people ask me why I’m doing that, and it’s just the characters. I wrote the scripts as well, and the character just comes to my head, and for Cairo Time she was Patricia Clarkson. I saw her beautiful face in my head.

My first feature, Sabah, was about a 40-year-old Muslim woman who had never been in love before and had become stuck taking care of her mother, which happens to a lot of immigrant women. They get the brunt of that – and one day she falls in love with someone who’s white.

With Cairo Time, I just saw her: Juliet was in her late 40s, and I just felt, because I had gotten a lot of pressure from the financiers to make her in her 20s or 30s, and I said NO. This is a character who has a history, a marriage – a 30-year-old marriage. She has children, she’s worked, and for her to feel what she feels at that time in her marriage – you do not feel that in your 20s or your 30s, I'm sorry. You need that history.

I think to be able to see that on screen is great! It’s nice not to always see women in their 20s. And I LOVE Patricia Clarkson. So you wrote it for her?

RN: I did. The thing about the script was that it was a very simple, very subtle story, and I knew that if the roles of Juliet and Tareq were cast wrong, it could be really bad – because I knew that I wanted to capture that subtlety. And I knew that Patricia could break your heart with the flick of her eyebrow. And I don’t know how she does it! I’ve asked her, can you do that eyebrow thing that you do? And she has no clue what I’m talking about.

So she just – I just knew that she was it. I just remember when I first met her, she walked in the door and I knew she was my girl. In real life, she’s just so fantastic. And she’s got so much experience –and she’s soooo Southern. She’s so big in personality. She just became Juliet. She’s a powerhouse.

And when you cast Tareq, were you picturing Alexander Siddig?

RN: I had him in mind as well, yeah. It’s hard to find good Arab men in their 40s for some reason….

He’s really good-looking. I mean, really. REALLY.

RN: Well, yeah! Honestly I needed someone hot…and tall. And his eyes are insane! They’re this green-blue…but the thing about Alexander, because I’ve been a fan of his since [Star Trek:] Deep Space Nine, and then Syriana, he’s just so – there’s something very haunting about those eyes, and there’s something very old-fashioned about him. And that’s what I was looking for, so I hounded him until he said yes.

Had you spent much time in Cairo before deciding to film there?

RN: Yes. I’m Canadian, but my parents are Arab, and so we on-and-off lived in Damascus, during my childhood, and so they would take us on visits to Cairo. And over the years it just kept changing and I had a huge fascination with it.

It’s just such a vibrant, teeming with humanity city. It’s got so much history, but there’s something in the air – I can’t explain it – that just breaks your North American guard down, and I wanted to capture that in this movie. And I was very scared, because no one had ever pulled off shooting entirely in Cairo, it’s like a nightmare, So I didn’t tell anybody how difficult it was going to be. We showed up and I was like, “Surprise!”

Yeah, in addition to the brilliant writing and the characters in this story, the city was just beautiful.

RN: Thank you. Yeah, it is beautiful. But it’s not gentle – and that’s what I loved about it.

You really did capture that, the craziness in the streets with the traffic and the people, and the men following her around.

RN: Yeah, that happens. And it’s bad. It’s not cool. And it’s not older Arab men doing that, they do not like it. It’s the young men. And it’s because 50% of the population is under the age of 25, and the sexes are so segregated. Even as an Arab woman I’m so thankful that I’ve got a Canadian passport, because I’m free. I can wear whatever I want as a woman, and I have that right. I have that independence. And it’s something that the culture doesn’t like to talk about.

You know I’ll get the odd Arab man in an audience who will say, “Hey, that’s not true”. But it is true. I mean, I can’t walk down to the street without being followed, and I will be telling them in Arabic to leave me alone.

I got the idea for Cairo Time because my mother is blonde and green-eyed, and I remember when I was 16, we landed in Cairo and she was walking a little ahead of me at the airport, and this group of like 30 men surrounded her, thinking she was a foreigner. And my dad was like, “HELLO, she’s with me!”.

One of the things I did like about this film, though, was that though Juliet did have bare legs and arms some of the time, she was modestly dressed and she did wrap a scarf around her head when she went to visit the temples, as a sign of respect. And I’m saying that because of the contrast of this with something like Sex and the City 2.

RN: Well, here’s the thing about Sex and the City 2. You can’t take it seriously! I mean, it is cliché, but the thing people don’t realize about a lot of Arab cities, especially Cairo, is that it’s not an Islamic state. It’s very diverse. You have the conservative women, and then you have the women who are so fashionable and modern with tight jeans and stilettos.

Like the character Yasmeen?

RN: Yes, like Yasmeen. And I’ve had other comments from Arabs saying, “Why isn’t she covered?” and I say because that’s not Cairo. Cairo is a fashionable city. The thing that’s interesting now is that there are a lot of young women covering up. The fashion is a full sort of King Tut style hijab, and the eye makeup is out of this world! And everything matches. It’s just crazy.

I’ve talked to them and asked why they bother covering up, and the interesting thing that I discovered is that by looking pious, they’re allowed to leave the house and party with their girlfriends, and stay out until midnight. Because when fathers, brothers, cousins, and other males question them, they’re like, well we’re wearing hijab. And so that hijab actually equals freedom.

And are all male coffee shops like the one Tareq owned in the film common in Cairo?

RN: Oh god yes.

There’s no female equivalent?

RN: No. The females hang out at home – what’s known as “visits”. And mind you, so many times I would accidentally walk into a male only café, and they were cool with it. Immediately they’d get a chair, so it’s not like a misogynist thing. It’s just a social part of life.

The women actually don’t want to be there. There’s other places where men and women can be together…and I think that’s where Sex and the City 2 missed the point. You know, the point is that YES, there’s a lot of oppression of women, absolutely, but it’s not as horrible as it seems.

The thing is, there is something truly wonderful about the States and Canada - we as women do have those rights. We have those freedoms as women which kind of lack in the Middle East, however, there’s something missing [in the portrayal of that].

Yeah, I just felt like it was a cultural and religious respect issue that they [Sex and the City 2] fully stepped on, and made no apologies for.

RN: Yeah, you think? Like when Samantha gets arrested. And that’s one of the things I didn’t want to do, because I am both: I am Arab, and I am Canadian. And what I didn’t want to do is go to the Middle East and impose my values and my belief system on them. So I had to be careful. So, for example, Juliet doesn’t become Muslim. And people have actually asked me why she wears the hijab – and I just say, well out of respect. I mean, when you to Italy and you go to an old church, you cover up.

I’ve noticed that this film is being billed as mainly a “Will they or won’t they” romance, but I felt like it was actually more about Juliet and her journey, and how she changes once she experiences Cairo.

RN: I love you! You’re such a woman. Yeah, it’s really about her and him getting to her. And she’s in love with him – and for this memory to live with them forever, it had to end up the way it did. But is a female thing, and part of being a female filmmaker is that I always had my eye on Juliet from start to finish. I delivered the end based on her.

It’s funny, I had a lot of pressure, again, from financiers, saying that I had to be shocking at the end, and do certain things, and I said no. This is a story about Juliet and I’m not gonna sell my heroine out. I’m not.

Well I’m so glad you didn’t And I’m very interested to see what you’re doing next….

RN: I’m doing a thriller next actually! I feel so lucky with this movie, because it has a US Distributor and it’s coming out in August.

Since Three Imaginary Girls is primarily a music site, what kind of music are you listening to right now? Or what inspired you during the filming of Cairo Time?

RN: I am weird. I love everything. I love Arabic music, opera, classic, modern, I’m strange . You should see my iPod. Like from you know – who sings that song, "Sweet Disposition"? [Ed. note: The answer is The Temper Trap] I love that song. I listen to that from Beyonce to Arabic to Opera – it’s weird.

Who did the score for this film? It was so beautiful…I usually don’t find myself liking that kind of music, but I loved it.

My score for Cairo Time was by Niall Byrne – and I made sure it’s available in iTunes. I love music, and it’s so important to have the right music for a movie.

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Deep SIFF: Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, Rebel

ChrisB — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:56:42 +0000

In the fascinating and thorough new documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, Rebel, you don't learn much about the larger-than-life, octogenarian character who spends most of his time in his pajamas and dates women who are at least half a century younger than he is. What you do learn about is a very smart and thoughtful man who has an unmistakable moral compass and has always ended up on the correct side of history.

The film was directed by Canadian filmmaker Brigitte Berman, who is best known for documentaries on jazz musicians Bix Beiderbecke and Artie Shaw. The latter (Artie Shaw: Time is All You Got) won the Academy Award in 1987 for Best Documentary and the former (Bix: "Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet") was responsible for Berman and Hefner meeting. When I interviewed Brigitte Berman after her documentary screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, she explained, "it just happened that Bix was Hef's favorite musician. When I won the Oscar for the Artie Shaw film, Hef tracked me down through Mary O'Connor, his right-hand woman, and she called me and said Hef wanted to get a copy of it, so I sent it down. He's been showing it and whenever I was in LA, I was invited to the mansion for movie night. Our friendship grew over music and movies." She further explained "I knew there was so much more behind him because I'd hear him talk after movies and I saw the intelligent and complex side. I decided that I wanted to make a film about him. I wrote up a treatment because I knew that he would never agree to it if someone came up to him and said 'Hef, can I do a movie about you?' The next day, he sent me a fax that said 'I love it and anything you need, I'll give you.'"

While the portrait of Hefner is sympathetic in the film and he is interviewed at length and provided a lot of materials featured, his involvement was minimal. Berman said "he gave me creative freedom, which was extraordinary for me and very important for me as a filmmaker because I don't want anyone to think that I'm a director for hire or that I'm doing it because he asked me to. No, no, no. He was completely hands-off the entire time."

There were no shortage of critics to be interviewed in the film, including feminists like Susan Brownmiller and Christian conservatives like Pat Boone and Dennis Prager. While the decision to ever solicit Pat Boone's opinion on anything should be examined with a skeptical eye, she explained "Victor (Solnicki, Berman's partner and a producer on the film) suggested Pat Boone because he was reading up on Pat Boone and and how, as strong Christian activist, he strongly felt that Hef's influence had broken the moral fiber of America. That was why I wanted to interview him and have him in the film." She added "the most difficult people (to agree to be interviewed for the film) were the naysayers" but she wanted to include more. One high-profile figure that declined was Gloria Steinem, who went undercover as a Playboy bunny for a very critical article she wrote in 1963 detailing how she was treated in the New York Playboy Club. Berman said she refused to participate. While seeking dissent is hardly inconsistent with Hefner's values (controversial, right-wing talk radio host Michael Savage is the subject of the Playboy Interview in the most recent issue of Playboy), having people say "you suck" on screen in literally the story of your life couldn't be easy for anyone.

One of the most surprising aspects of the film is Hefner’s commitment to civil rights. Jim Brown and Jesse Jackson are both interviewed in the film and very highly of Hefner. One story Berman told both in the movie and in her interview with me is "when Hef found out in Miami and New Orleans that black people were kept from coming into the Playboy Clubs, he had to buy [the clubs] back at a loss. He did not care. He knew that it was wrong that the clubs bore his name and he was not going to be associated with that. To this day, he is really proud of that."

She also talks of a kinship between Hefner and Martin Luther King. She says "Hef was very close to Dr. King. When he died, the article about him in Playboy was edited and finished by his widow." She adds "Dr. King was one of those people whose idealism made him ahead of his time. He really stuck his neck out and really believed what was right. I think that was what brought about a kinship between Hef and Martin Luther King, the belief in doing what is right." In the film, Hefner says that few people realize that Dr. King’s dream "was my dream, too."

The guiding theme through Hefner’s life is summed up by Berman who told me, "for him, it was always human rights and anything less than that is wrong."

Brownmiller’s complaint was that the models featured in Playboy set up an unattainable ideal for women to live up to. I’ve always found that argument incomplete not because Anna Nicole Smith was both curvy and a Playmate of the Year but because the magazine has featured lots of women writers and have read fiction by Joyce Carol Oates and political reporting by the late Molly Ivins in the pages of Playboy. Still, Berman says Hefner found Brownmiller to be an intellectually honest critic. "When he saw the film, that longer version, and she mentioned two names of his editors and he laughed and said ‘I'm so glad she was reading the magazine!’ That meant a lot to him and she actually went up in his estimation because she knew the names of his editors."

One of the most enjoyable moments of the film were the clips from the "Playboy" televisions shows Hefner hosted, especially "Playboy’s Penthouse," a program set to look like a cocktail party everyone wanted to be invited to. There is one particular touching scene where Hefner gifts Sammy Davis, Jr. with a cute puppy. It ran for one season, in 1969. Another program, "Playboy After Dark," ran for two a few years later.

While long for a documentary (124 minutes), the film moves at a quick pace and never seems dull or uninteresting. Some events, like Hefner’s marriage to former Playmate of the Year Kimberly Conrad in 1989, are barely covered for the sake of brevity. There is no narration and the story is held together by interviews and rare footage. For the storytelling aspect, Berman said she liked the dimension Mike Wallace brought to the film. "He counted how many naked women were in the magazine! He said he was a prude but he learned to appreciate other sides of Hef that isn't just the naked bodies in the magazine. It's so much more than that. That was one of the reasons he was so important to me. I like the narrative arc that he has from moving from here to here. He still says he's a prude."

The film does cover Hefner’s legal issues, including when Playboy was labeled as obscenity because Jayne Mansfield was featured nude in the magazine (Playboy was never obscene or pornographic) and his challenging of archaic sodomy laws. It was noted several times in the film that if those laws were fairly enforced, most sexually active adults would be serving a minimum of five years in prison for private, consensual acts.

Berman said she spent three years making the film and one issue that hangs over the film is what will happen to Playboy once Mr. Hefner is no longer with us. He’s 84 years old right now and no one lives forever. She told me "His mother lived to be over 100, so there's longevity there! I think it's important to have people like this with us for a long time to come." Hefner’s daughter Christie recently resigned as Chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises and this isn’t exactly a fertile era for magazines in general. "All I can say is that the magazine will be there as long as Hef is there… It's his life blood. What happens after that, I don't know."

{Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, Rebel screens at the Seattle International Film Festival tonight, Wednesday, June 9 at 9:30pm at the Egyptian Theater.}

Imaginary Interview: SIFF

ChrisB — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:07:29 +0000

If you've been to TIG any time over the past twenty days or so, you've noticed that the Seattle International Film Festival is one of our favorite events. Some 400+ short and feature films will have been screened by the time the whole thing wraps up on Sunday by giving out the Golden Space Needle Awards that morning and closing it out with a screening of the Bill Murray/Robert Duvall film Get Low and a party.

To get some more insight into the festival, we posed some questions via e-mail to SIFF's wonderful and extremely knowledgable Programming Director, Beth Barrett. Here's what she had to say.

What particular movies are you most excited for?

I can't wait to see THE TOPP TWINS: UNTOUCHABLE GIRLS - a great mix of music, camp, politics, folk songs and yodeling! They truly are New Zealand's pride... I'm also very curious about UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS - it is a "live" documentary, created by Sam Green and Dave Cerf with input from the audience. I love the mix of established documentary footage with the idea of spontaneity.

Are there any favorite movies that you hope people see, beyond the obvious favorites?

I would love for people to come see HUGH HEFNER: PLAYBOY, ACTIVIST AND REBEL - this biopic really took my by surprise, not really knowing much about Hugh Hefner except the obvious "Tales of the Mansion"... through a lot of documentary footage and interviews, I discovered that I actually really didn't know ANYTHING about him, and the progressive nature of his work.

If I'm not mistaken, SIFF is the largest film festival in the US, both in terms of filmgoers and number of films screened (and if I'm wrong, it's likely pretty close). What is it about Seattle that makes it such a great city for film and is able to sustain and support the festival?

The audiences of Seattle are really adventurous and willing to take chances with film. We have a great level of film knowledge as a community, but even more than that, Seattle-ites are naturally curious about the world around us, and sincerely

Can you talk briefly about how films are chosen for SIFF? Is there a specific process for deciding which films make the cut and which don't?

Programming is an incredibly subjective process, and reflects the interests and thoughts of our 15 person programming team. We watch over 4000 films to arrive at the 405 that we will be screening this year. We discuss the films as a team, and what films we think will work best in the Festival. We have a number of programs, and really strive to have a wide variety of genre and styles within them.

In what ways has SIFF grown from when you first started working with the festival?

I started in 2003, and in the last 7 years, we have become a fully year-round organization, of which SIFF is the largest and most well known program. Our footprint has increased both in numbers of screenings, and venues both in and out of Seattle. Opening SIFF Cinema really allows us to concentrate on bringing the best film to Seattle year-round, and be more adventurous in our programming choices.

Last year, the Best Picture winner screened at SIFF (The Hurt Locker), how do you plan on topping it this year?

Full sweep. TOPP TWINS in 2010.

Who is responsible for disciplining people who reveal what was screened during the Secret Festival? Has it ever happened and what is the punishment, somewhere between politely asking not to reveal the names of any more movies and being put to death?

I've been sworn to secrecy about our methods....

How did you become involved with the festival?

I was a film-goer for many years, and then a volunteer, and then in 2004, became the Programming Manager. I came from the Publications world, and have a soft spot for the SIFF Catalog.

Last question. What would you say to someone who has never been to SIFF about what they could expect?

Expect something un-expected... Going to SIFF is different than going to the mulitiplex, since you will be surrounded by people who are very knowledgeable about the films, and often even more esoteric knowledge.... You should listen to the people in line and in the theatres and take a chance on a film you have never heard of, and stay for the Q&A's - directors often say something you aren't fully ready for.

To get some more insight into the festival, we posed some questions via e-mail to SIFF's wonderful and extremely knowledgable Programming Director, Beth Barrett. Here's what she had to say.

Deep SIFF: Wheedle's Groove

ChrisB — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:23:06 +0000

You could probably be forgiven if the first time you thought of Seattle as having a vibrant music scene was when MTV first aired "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Thanks to an engrossing new documentary from first time feature director Jennifer Maas called Wheedle's Groove that just played at the Seattle International Film Festival, you learn an awful lot about the thriving soul and funk scene from Seattle in the 1960s and '70s. While few of the artists are remembered today and fewer broke out of this particular scene, it was thriving because there were a lot of clubs booking these bands and they were playing several nights and week to large crowds.

The Wheedle's Groove project was first a compilation album from local buried treasure-finders Light in the Attic Records that they put out in 2004, featuring bands like Cold, Bold and Together, A Black On White Affair and Ron Buford. They aren't household names today, but the compilation has sparked a renaissance of interest in this time and it has spawned a supergroup of sorts from this era who play and record as Wheedle's Groove and released an album of new music in 2009 called Kearney Barton. When I interviewed director Maas at SIFF, she told me how the idea for this documentary came about. "I was doing a documentary, I was pretty new to making documentaries but I made a lot of short things, I decided I was going to find out how a music scene works behind the scenes. I started interviewing people like John Richards and Jason (Hughes) from Sonic Boom, different record labels. I was going to interview some of the Three Imaginary Girls, although I don't know that I did. I think I planned that interview but I don't think it ended up happening." It changed, she said, when "I ended up interviewing Matt Sullivan at Light in the Attic. They were just about to put out this compilation of soul music from the 60s and 70s in Seattle called Wheedle's Groove. I instantly decided that was the movie I needed to make instead of the one I had been making. There was a record release party (at Chop Suey) and I showed up there with a bunch of cameras and then here we are, five years later." It should be noted that she and Sullivan also married in that time.

Maas said she felt fortunate to have learned of the project when she did because it make tracking down people to participate much less difficult. "I was lucky enough that I discovered the project just as the compilation was about to come out. Matt and Light in the Attic and Supreme (a record collector and DJ featured in the film who is a treasure of knowledge from the era) did all of the hard work. I think it took them two years to get everyone on board. When I was on board, everyone already loved them and trusted them and were excited about the project. It wasn't that hard." She added that "Kenny G and Quincy Jones were a lot more difficult. Some of the grunge-era folks weren't super-easy but most people were happy to have been involved."

Success, or at least in the sense of "making it big," became elusive for a lot of musicians of this era. It is a common theme that runs through the movie. As Maas told me, "I think the sad truth is that most people just don't get to make it. I think there is some sadness and bitterness there and I think if you talk to a lot of people, they'll tell you that not making it is failure." She added that "I don't think 'not making it' is failure". One example she cites is Robbie Hill, the drummer and bandleader for Robbie Hill's Family Affair. He's "a janitor at Seattle Central Community College and I'm sure he'd like to play music more, but I think he is good at what he does. He's been employee of the year multiple times and people give him a high five as he walks down the hall. He loves what he does and has a great life. I don't think there's a lot of sadness there." Hill is also the drummer for the supergroup that came from musicians of this era who still play on occasion together. "There is a drum break he plays and I've had grown men in the audience squeal when they saw him play that," Maas also said of him.

Part of what made it more difficult for Seattle musicians from this era to break through was there wasn't an infrastructure to support a nationally-known scene. As Maas told me, "there wasn't a collective understanding of the industry here. Not very many musicians had managers and there wasn't anyone here saying 'this is what you need to do.' They pounded the pavement and tried to make the money here and often they'd go to LA. That's the story we saw over and over again where they'd journey to LA to try to make it and then they'd stay there for a while, but usually it didn't happen... They could have used a little more guidance." She added that there "wasn't a Motown here" and wouldn't be anything comparable until Seattle became synonymous with grunge in the early 1990s.

Most musicians from this era were able to work as musicians and didn't need to keep day jobs. In one particular scene from the movie, Robbie Hill talks of telling his band they could make a living from playing music and they all took a leap of faith and did quit their jobs. It worked well for several years where they were able to live on what they made from playing shows nightly.

It's not lost that the one musician from this era to become a star musician was Kenny Gorelick, a then-young saxophone player in Cold, Bold and Together who, of course, is now better known as Kenny G. "It's a bit of a reward a few minutes into the film" Maas said. He also comes across as very likable and surprisingly cool. Maas told me, "he was really great to work with and was funny and self-effacing. I flew down to Houston to interview him before a show and he stopped his soundcheck because he wasn't done reminiscing with us. I think people are surprised by that and it's one of the bonuses in the film that it shows him in a different light." Explaining further, she said, "He's certainly villified by those of us who don't connect to his music. The interesting thing to me about his audience is that he has a very large following of older black women who were listening to the same (type of) music that is in Wheedle's Groove and that was what they transitioned into. One person I interviewed in the film really liked Kenny G and I asked her to explain it to someone who isn't as familiar and she said 'that is the music we were making babies to.' I didn't get to stay for his show but when you saw the crowd lining up, it was these really cool black women in their fifties and sixties. There's a very direct lineage between the Wheedle's Groove music and the music Kenny G was playing in the early '80s."

The documentary continues to play at film festivals and Maas said she hoped to partner with different local community groups across the country to show the film. "The dream is to have a small version of the supergroup that has come out of this movie tour with the film. They are really great and they can still play and it would be amazing to have them tour with this film. It's a pretty expensive prospect, but that would be awesome," she said. More modestly, she added "I think we're going to have a theatrical run." Meanwhile, the Wheedle's Groove band continues to play shows locally, including playing a party for EMP members later this week and a free, lunch time concert at Harbor Steps on Friday, June 18 at noon. They continue to record, as well. Kearney Barton, which came out last year, Maas said "that was all new music that sounded like old music. It's really good." A favorite for her is "'Jesus Christ Pose,' which is a Soundgarden song that Pat Wright redid as a gospel song. She reinterpreted it. It's sort of about rock stars standing up in a Jesus Christ pose acting persecuted on stage, which was probably a '90s thing to do, I don't see it much anymore, and Pat Wright turned it into a song about hypocrisy in the church and she's a pastor. That was really, really amazing." She then said "There also might be one or two more of the Wheedle's Groove compilations, as well," and added "there's still a lot of music that's not out."