tagged w/ David O. Russell
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How different would Three Kings have been if Private First Class Conrad Vig wasn't played by Spike Jonze, but Christian Bale?
Bale, who eventually teamed up with director David O. Russell for The Fighter, let slip in an interview with Charlie Rose that he had auditioned for the part in Three Kings, only to lose out to a non-actor. "I won't go into it, but ... it didn't go very well for me," Bale laughed.
How different would Three Kings have been if Private First Class Conrad Vig... more
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Alia Shawkat shot her first film, Three Kings, when she was nine, playing a child mourning the execution-style death of her mother, shot before her very eyes. Now that she's of legal age, Shawkat's film roles have grown up as well -- from Ellen Page's best friend in Whip It, to the unnamed bassist in The Runaways, to the prostitute hanging outside the hotel in Cedar Rapids, who's always up for a party. In Cedar Rapids, she takes a special liking to an innocent named Tim (played by Ed Helms), who seems unaware that she's a hooker, and drags him along to a party he won't soon forget -- but in Three Kings, she's the one who is along for the ride.
Alia Shawkat shot her first film, Three Kings, when she was nine, playing a child... more
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With all the awards buzz for The Fighter (and its recent Golden Globe wins for actors Melissa Leo and Christian Bale), the Museum of the Moving Image in New York is honoring the film's director David O. Russell with a retrospective of his five films to date.
On Wednesday, Russell sat down with his friend and fellow filmmaker Spike Jonze and rattled off stories about The Fighter, I ♥ Huckabees, Three Kings, Flirting with Disaster, and of course, his first feature, the mother-son incest fest Spanking the Monkey. "That's the one that got me started," Russell said.
Russell had filmed a few shorts -- Bingo Inferno and Hairway to the Stars -- and he was actually working on a separate project, when he was selected for jury duty. "That was the trick," he said. "You got to trick yourself into writing, and the best stuff comes when it doesn't count. Like emails, or during jury duty."
Taking some real-life details and turning them into elements of a "pornographic fantasy," Russell found himself musing on how his mother had smashed up her car one summer and how he had been stuck taking care of her. "She had a drinking problem, and my dad was away a lot, and I was painting houses," he said, "and I spun that into a really sick story, a filthy, angry fantasy. And it told itself."
At first, Russell didn't have any plans for the story, but since "it was the best thing I had written," he decided it would become his first feature-length film. "There was always a longer version of the film that I wanted to do, too," he said, "if you went even further with it, and they had the sex earlier, and the son is walking around in his dad's robe and slippers and really getting into the role more, and [the mother and son] went to cocktail parties together and stuff. Someday!"
Russell's own parents were not pleased with even the 100 minute version. "They of course hated it," he laughed. "When I was making Three Kings, my mother said to me, 'What's this one about? Incest again?' And I said, 'Yes, it's about incest in Iraq, during the Gulf War.'"
More than his parents, Russell was worried about the reaction from his own son, who is now sixteen. "I kind of always dreaded him ever seeing that film," Russell said. That didn't stop the teenager, who snuck the DVD in the player during one family movie night.
"I said, 'I don't want to watch that,' and he said, 'Let's watch it,' and he won," Russell said. "And the first half was such an uncomfortable experience for me. The emotional content, it's just gross. I'm squirming. And then there's also the aspect of it being your first film, so the way it was shot, the way it was edited, being forced to look at your mistakes. I could see ten minutes that should come out of it, and it was too indulgent, indulgent, indulgent."
By the second half of the movie, Russell relaxed. "I'm happy to say the second half works," he said. "It's a mechanism that works. Even with all the mistakes and the grody material." And the more important verdict was in: his son loved the movie.
The David O. Russell retrospective continues at the Museum of the Moving Image with Spanking the Monkey on Friday, January 21.
Three Kings airs on Current TV on Saturday, February 26 at 12 am ET/9 pm PT.
With all the awards buzz for The Fighter (and its recent Golden Globe wins for actors... more
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Melissa Leo shocked a few folks when she gave her Golden Globes acceptance speech -- and thanked her Fighter director David O. Russell for "those few hours" they spent together at the Maritime Hotel. When the audience laughed at the implication, she was quick to add, "Oh, come on! You don't know what kind of girl I am!"
So what kind of girl is Melissa Leo?
Melissa Leo shocked a few folks when she gave her Golden Globes acceptance speech --... more
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Director David O. Russell has had a controversial past with some actors -- ahem, George Clooney -- since making Three Kings, but one of his actors from that film has stuck by him ever since. Mark Wahlberg got raves for his supporting role in Russell's I ♥ Huckabees, and as a producer on The Fighter, the actor got Russell the job as a director after Darren Aronofsky dropped out to work on Black Swan. Russell talks about his collaboration with Wahlberg and the rest of the cast.
Director David O. Russell has had a controversial past with some actors -- ahem,... more
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Mark Wahlberg plays a welterweight boxer in The Fighter, a movie for which he pulls double duty as a producer. Casting and rehearsals happened out of his home, where his and Christian Bale's real-life counterparts, boxers Micky Ward and Dickie Eklund, helped and observed. Though the story is a boxing drama, Wahlberg is quick to point out this movie is about more universal themes, such as overcoming adversity, which he can relate to.
Mark Wahlberg plays a welterweight boxer in The Fighter, a movie for which he pulls... more
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Christian Bale subsists on a steady diet of Method acting where he bulks up for one role only to immediately lose all the weight for the next -- from American Psycho to The Machinist, from Batman Begins to Rescue Dawn, and now, from The Dark Knight to The Fighter. Bale plays real life boxer Dickie Eklund, a former welterweight champion who lost his career to a life of drugs and crime, only to turn his life around by training his half-brother, boxer Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg). Bale talks about how it can be dangerous to play a pugilist.
Christian Bale subsists on a steady diet of Method acting where he bulks up... more
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Director David O. Russell's latest film The Fighter is based on a true life story, and as a consequence, all the actors from Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, to Amy Adams found themselves face to face with their real life counterparts during their research. For Wahlberg Bale, that meant boxers Micky Ward and Dickie Eklund, and for Adams, that meant Ward's girlfriend, the spitfire Charlene, who encouraged Micky to split from his family and his own way in the ring. Adams talks breaking from type and learning to fight.
Director David O. Russell's latest film The Fighter is based on a true life... more
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From slatev.com
Christian Bale, Chris Berman, Bill O'Reilly, Lily Tomlin, David O Russell and Alec Baldwin. All in this foul-mouthed animation.
(Warning: contains very strong language)From slatev.com
Christian Bale, Chris Berman, Bill O'Reilly, Lily Tomlin,... more
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