First Photos of Sendhil Ramamurthy and Kristen Bell from the set of The Lifeguard
Thanks to the fabulous @celebsoapbox's Instagram account, we now have the first photos of the awesome Sendhil Ramamurthy and the equally fabulous Kristen Bell on the set of The Lifeguard which is currently filming in New York City and Pittsburgh. The pair reunites from their days on NBC's Heroes where they played geneticist Mohinder Suresh and live-wire Elle Bishop.
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Dexter: Yvonne Strahovski on Her New Character's Dark Past
The Chuck star talks about her very different new role.
by Eric Goldman (August 10, 2012)
If you’ve been missing Yvonne Strahovski since Chuck wrapped up early this year, don’t fret – the Australian actress is back on TV soon, in a new recurring role on Dexter. Strahovski’s character, Hannah McKay, will be introduced in the third episode of Season 7, playing an important role as the season progresses.
I recently sat down with Strahovski to talk about playing Hannah, the differences between working on Chuck and Dexter and more. It was an amusing conversation, as Strahovski did her best to discuss her role while also trying to not reveal too much about her character early on.
IGN TV: You were on a show for years that had a very loyal and specific fanbase. What's it been like for you moving onto Dexter? Is it exciting for you to do something so different in tone?
Yvonne Stahovski: Yeah, definitely. Chuck was such a specific thing in itself. Although we got to do a lot of drama and action stuff, within that comedy show it was still very loose and farfetched. I think Dexter is farfetched itself, in a way, but it’s a dark style of acting. It just seems like the people are a little more real within their farfetched circumstances. You know, I’m not running around in high heels fighting bad guys. So yeah, it’s different, and I like that I’m not in any sort of law enforcement agency. It’s a complete 180 because it’s going to be so much darker. I can’t say much, but my character Hannah McKay does have this dark past. Little pieces of that will start coming into play pretty early on. I start in episode three, so it will progress pretty quickly. There’s a couple of things I’m pretty excited about that I know they’ve never done on the show that involve my storylines. So that’s really exciting.
IGN: You got the role first and then did your three weeks of super catch-up on the series, right?
Strahovski: Yes, gung-ho catch-up! I had nightmares throughout those three weeks. [Laughs] I actually have a funny story. I was just in the thick of watching some episode that was pretty creepy. I was home alone and there was a knock at the door. It was some random real estate agent doing door knocks, and it was just so suspicious to me. I remember, at the door, I was like, “Yes? What do you want?” He then asked me a thousand questions, and I was still completely, very suspicious. I thought for sure he was a serial killer. For sure.
IGN: So here’s where I get to try to get you to talk a bit more about your character. I don’t know if you saw that interview [Dexter executive producer] Sara Colleton did with TV Guide a few weeks ago, and she said some stuff...
Strahovski: Yeah, she said some stuff… [Laughs]
IGN: What can you say about the background of Ms. McKay?
Strahovski: Well, she has a checkered past that involves her boyfriend at that time. God, I really want to tell you more, and I can’t! I'm trying to politically correctly say things! She meets Dexter because she has to help solve an old murder case. It’s in her best interest to help them… That’s a little something!
IGN: Michael C. Hall hinted to me there are some things about your character that give Dexter the feeling of having a connection to her.
Strahovski: Right, okay. Wow, that’s a lot! Yes, Dexter and Hannah share a connection. They share an attraction to one another... for reasons that I cannot tell you. [Laughs] This interview is lame, I'm sorry!
IGN: [Laughs] I feel bad, because I know how it is for you trying to keep these secrets! Michael, obviously, gives such a wonderful performance, and it’s such an iconic role. What is it like playing off of him as Dexter?
Strahovski: It’s great. I feel so blessed to be a part of this show. It’s obviously critically acclaimed and award winning. Michael is amazing. He is everything you want an actor to be when you work with him. He’s totally generous and amazing in his own right at what he does. It’s just a joy to observe him work and what he does. He’s great to talk to, as well, about the character and about the scene. He certainly gets right in to all those discussions. Yeah, it’s everything you want an actor to be. It’s been great. I love it. I come home everyday and say, “I love my job.” I think it’s fantastic.
IGN: Does Hannah’s past weight heavily on her or does it seem like she’s been able to move on with her life?
Strahovski: I think she seems like a pretty normal, slightly tomboy-ish, sexy girl. She’s probably the most sort of physically free character that I’ve played, I think -- just comparing her to somebody like Sarah Walker, who’s kind of rigid. But you pretty quickly find out what her deal is and why they are approaching her to help with this particular murder case. But on the outside, she just seems like a fun-loving girl!
IGN: So, compared to Sarah, she might work that Wienerlicious outfit a bit more?
Strahovski: Right, right. There is a hotdog stand. [Laughs]
IGN: I know I've walked onto a set I've seen a lot on TV and it's slightly surreal. What’s it been like just being in the world of Dexter and working with Michael and Jennifer and everyone in the Miami Metro setting, having watched all the episodes?
Strahovski: I was completely saturated with Dexter in my brain when I came on to do my first day. I don’t think I had a line in my head as to what was real and what wasn’t. Everything was just… They were their characters, and I was actually standing in a police station. It took me couple of days to sort of remind myself that it’s a set and you’re here to do a job. Yeah, it’s great, though. I’m now obviously such a fan of the show. It’s so fun to be in that world. It’s also a slower pace, so it’s really nice to slow right down. Chuck was very go, go, go -- there was a lot of action, it was very fast. This is a lot slower. There’s a lot of attention to the small details, and that’s some of the stuff -- going back to working with Michael -- that we get out of working together and doing the scenes together. There’s a lot of attention to detail that will hopefully come through. I think there’s a very quiet excitement going around right now about this season. Everyone seems to be very excited about the first couple of episodes. Have you seen the first one?
IGN: I saw the premiere. It's great!
Strahovski: Yeah, so there’s a little buzz!
I recently sat down with Strahovski to talk about playing Hannah, the differences between working on Chuck and Dexter and more. It was an amusing conversation, as Strahovski did her best to discuss her role while also trying to not reveal too much about her character early on.
IGN TV: You were on a show for years that had a very loyal and specific fanbase. What's it been like for you moving onto Dexter? Is it exciting for you to do something so different in tone?
Yvonne Stahovski: Yeah, definitely. Chuck was such a specific thing in itself. Although we got to do a lot of drama and action stuff, within that comedy show it was still very loose and farfetched. I think Dexter is farfetched itself, in a way, but it’s a dark style of acting. It just seems like the people are a little more real within their farfetched circumstances. You know, I’m not running around in high heels fighting bad guys. So yeah, it’s different, and I like that I’m not in any sort of law enforcement agency. It’s a complete 180 because it’s going to be so much darker. I can’t say much, but my character Hannah McKay does have this dark past. Little pieces of that will start coming into play pretty early on. I start in episode three, so it will progress pretty quickly. There’s a couple of things I’m pretty excited about that I know they’ve never done on the show that involve my storylines. So that’s really exciting.
IGN: You got the role first and then did your three weeks of super catch-up on the series, right?
Strahovski: Yes, gung-ho catch-up! I had nightmares throughout those three weeks. [Laughs] I actually have a funny story. I was just in the thick of watching some episode that was pretty creepy. I was home alone and there was a knock at the door. It was some random real estate agent doing door knocks, and it was just so suspicious to me. I remember, at the door, I was like, “Yes? What do you want?” He then asked me a thousand questions, and I was still completely, very suspicious. I thought for sure he was a serial killer. For sure.
IGN: So here’s where I get to try to get you to talk a bit more about your character. I don’t know if you saw that interview [Dexter executive producer] Sara Colleton did with TV Guide a few weeks ago, and she said some stuff...
Strahovski: Yeah, she said some stuff… [Laughs]
IGN: What can you say about the background of Ms. McKay?
Strahovski: Well, she has a checkered past that involves her boyfriend at that time. God, I really want to tell you more, and I can’t! I'm trying to politically correctly say things! She meets Dexter because she has to help solve an old murder case. It’s in her best interest to help them… That’s a little something!
IGN: Michael C. Hall hinted to me there are some things about your character that give Dexter the feeling of having a connection to her.
Strahovski: Right, okay. Wow, that’s a lot! Yes, Dexter and Hannah share a connection. They share an attraction to one another... for reasons that I cannot tell you. [Laughs] This interview is lame, I'm sorry!
Strahovski: It’s great. I feel so blessed to be a part of this show. It’s obviously critically acclaimed and award winning. Michael is amazing. He is everything you want an actor to be when you work with him. He’s totally generous and amazing in his own right at what he does. It’s just a joy to observe him work and what he does. He’s great to talk to, as well, about the character and about the scene. He certainly gets right in to all those discussions. Yeah, it’s everything you want an actor to be. It’s been great. I love it. I come home everyday and say, “I love my job.” I think it’s fantastic.
IGN: Does Hannah’s past weight heavily on her or does it seem like she’s been able to move on with her life?
Strahovski: I think she seems like a pretty normal, slightly tomboy-ish, sexy girl. She’s probably the most sort of physically free character that I’ve played, I think -- just comparing her to somebody like Sarah Walker, who’s kind of rigid. But you pretty quickly find out what her deal is and why they are approaching her to help with this particular murder case. But on the outside, she just seems like a fun-loving girl!
IGN: So, compared to Sarah, she might work that Wienerlicious outfit a bit more?
Strahovski: Right, right. There is a hotdog stand. [Laughs]
IGN: I know I've walked onto a set I've seen a lot on TV and it's slightly surreal. What’s it been like just being in the world of Dexter and working with Michael and Jennifer and everyone in the Miami Metro setting, having watched all the episodes?
Strahovski: I was completely saturated with Dexter in my brain when I came on to do my first day. I don’t think I had a line in my head as to what was real and what wasn’t. Everything was just… They were their characters, and I was actually standing in a police station. It took me couple of days to sort of remind myself that it’s a set and you’re here to do a job. Yeah, it’s great, though. I’m now obviously such a fan of the show. It’s so fun to be in that world. It’s also a slower pace, so it’s really nice to slow right down. Chuck was very go, go, go -- there was a lot of action, it was very fast. This is a lot slower. There’s a lot of attention to the small details, and that’s some of the stuff -- going back to working with Michael -- that we get out of working together and doing the scenes together. There’s a lot of attention to detail that will hopefully come through. I think there’s a very quiet excitement going around right now about this season. Everyone seems to be very excited about the first couple of episodes. Have you seen the first one?
IGN: I saw the premiere. It's great!
Strahovski: Yeah, so there’s a little buzz!
IGN: Is it cool for you to be coming in right in the middle of what is such a huge shift in the paradigm of the show?
Strahovski: Yeah, it’s a very pivotal season with Debra and how they’re going to play that out. It was funny because I knew that when I did my whole back-to-back viewing session. Some of the seasons were spoiled for me because I knew what was going to happen. I knew Rita was going to die, I knew Debra was going to [see him]. But what I really enjoyed were Debra’s therapy sessions. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I didn’t know that she would discover that she had these complex feelings for Dexter. That was a total shock and surprise. So now I’m super excited when I get the scripts.
IGN: That leads me into asking, what does Deb make of Hannah?
Strahovski: Yeah, we’ll see! [Laughs] There will be some scenes there that we do, I’m sure. I don’t know. Anything I say is going to give stuff away. It’s too far down the line.
IGN: I’m curious to know what your Comic-Con experience was like this year because you had this interesting Thursday where you did a panel for Chuck [at Zachary Levi's Nerd HQ] and then you did the Dexter panel the same day. Was it kind of cool for you to have that shift from something familiar to something new?
Strahovski: It was very cool. I felt like when I saw my cast members from Chuck, it felt like home base. It was actually exhilarating and weird at the same time to move on and do all the same press things that we do every year at Comic-Con and the panel and do all those same things, but this time, you know, solo -- representing a different show. I’m so used to having my old cast members with me, but this time it was different. I’m on my own. It was a new experience. I loved it. I had such a blast. I had a really great time at Comic-Con, mainly because everyone has been so welcoming. It seems like there are a lot of Chuck fans who cross over with Dexter fans as well. Fans of Chuck are so loyal; they’re going to follow all of us actors to whatever we go into, I feel like, because our support is there. I’m very excited. It’s also really nice to sit back and listen to Michael and Jennifer and Sara and Scott [Buck] talk about the show and see what they have to say. It’s a completely different world. I feel part observer and part participant, because I am the guest. It’s a different responsibility, a different experience altogether.
IGN: I know I shared that excitement hearing about your casting – “Oh, she’s going to be on Dexter!” Did you quickly encounter that from fans?
Strahovski: Yeah, I think my Twitter followers jumped up to, like, another 20,000 in a couple weeks from Dexter fans, I think. That was pretty exciting. But no, there’s definitely a lot of support. There’s a whole lot of support out there. I feel the love, all the time. Twitter sort of helps you feel connected to that as an actor. I was peer pressured, originally, into Twitter. I never wanted to be a part of it. Now that I am, I can’t look back. It really is your official word as an actor. You get to say what you want to say and show people what you want to show. It’s a way to touch base with the fanbase and stay connected, really, with the people that are making it happen for you, on the outside.
IGN: Lastly, I have to sneak in a question about the end of Chuck. Chuck and Sarah have that kiss, but there were some fans that were concerned about not seeing what happened next. What do you think happened ?
Strahovski: I think they started a relationship, and she slowly started remembering. Things started coming back to her.
IGN: So they’re okay?
Strahovski: I think they’re okay!
IGN: My wife was among those fans saying they wanted to see Sarah remember and be 100% sure. I was telling her, "I'm sure they're fine, honey!"
Strahovski: Well now you can tell her! You can play her this interview!
Dexter: Season 7 premieres September 30th on Showtime, with Yvonne Strahovski debuting in the third episode, on October 14th.
Strahovski: Yeah, it’s a very pivotal season with Debra and how they’re going to play that out. It was funny because I knew that when I did my whole back-to-back viewing session. Some of the seasons were spoiled for me because I knew what was going to happen. I knew Rita was going to die, I knew Debra was going to [see him]. But what I really enjoyed were Debra’s therapy sessions. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I didn’t know that she would discover that she had these complex feelings for Dexter. That was a total shock and surprise. So now I’m super excited when I get the scripts.
IGN: That leads me into asking, what does Deb make of Hannah?
Strahovski: Yeah, we’ll see! [Laughs] There will be some scenes there that we do, I’m sure. I don’t know. Anything I say is going to give stuff away. It’s too far down the line.
IGN: I’m curious to know what your Comic-Con experience was like this year because you had this interesting Thursday where you did a panel for Chuck [at Zachary Levi's Nerd HQ] and then you did the Dexter panel the same day. Was it kind of cool for you to have that shift from something familiar to something new?
Strahovski: It was very cool. I felt like when I saw my cast members from Chuck, it felt like home base. It was actually exhilarating and weird at the same time to move on and do all the same press things that we do every year at Comic-Con and the panel and do all those same things, but this time, you know, solo -- representing a different show. I’m so used to having my old cast members with me, but this time it was different. I’m on my own. It was a new experience. I loved it. I had such a blast. I had a really great time at Comic-Con, mainly because everyone has been so welcoming. It seems like there are a lot of Chuck fans who cross over with Dexter fans as well. Fans of Chuck are so loyal; they’re going to follow all of us actors to whatever we go into, I feel like, because our support is there. I’m very excited. It’s also really nice to sit back and listen to Michael and Jennifer and Sara and Scott [Buck] talk about the show and see what they have to say. It’s a completely different world. I feel part observer and part participant, because I am the guest. It’s a different responsibility, a different experience altogether.
IGN: I know I shared that excitement hearing about your casting – “Oh, she’s going to be on Dexter!” Did you quickly encounter that from fans?
Strahovski: Yeah, I think my Twitter followers jumped up to, like, another 20,000 in a couple weeks from Dexter fans, I think. That was pretty exciting. But no, there’s definitely a lot of support. There’s a whole lot of support out there. I feel the love, all the time. Twitter sort of helps you feel connected to that as an actor. I was peer pressured, originally, into Twitter. I never wanted to be a part of it. Now that I am, I can’t look back. It really is your official word as an actor. You get to say what you want to say and show people what you want to show. It’s a way to touch base with the fanbase and stay connected, really, with the people that are making it happen for you, on the outside.
IGN: Lastly, I have to sneak in a question about the end of Chuck. Chuck and Sarah have that kiss, but there were some fans that were concerned about not seeing what happened next. What do you think happened ?
Strahovski: I think they started a relationship, and she slowly started remembering. Things started coming back to her.
IGN: So they’re okay?
Strahovski: I think they’re okay!
IGN: My wife was among those fans saying they wanted to see Sarah remember and be 100% sure. I was telling her, "I'm sure they're fine, honey!"
Strahovski: Well now you can tell her! You can play her this interview!
Dexter: Season 7 premieres September 30th on Showtime, with Yvonne Strahovski debuting in the third episode, on October 14th.
* The movie with Olivia's 'totally unnecessary nude scene', 'showing her breasts because this is an "arty" movie and not TRON Legacy' and 'Cinemax-like sex scenes' according to prudish reviewers.
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'Boss' Review
Maureen Ryan- "Boss," 9 p.m. ET Aug 17, Starz
As was the case in the first season of this show, Kelsey Grammer provides a charismatic focus when his character, Chicago mayor Tom Kane, is on screen; but the rest of the show isn't nearly up to the standard he sets in the acting department.
There are fitful moments that work, but the show also manages to shoot itself in the foot regularly. In the first episode, there's a Hey, Boobs! moment even more gratuitous than the ones in "Magic City"; it's vaguely arty and pretentious; it's full of characters who either secretly dislike each other or openly dislike each other and all in all, make for a sour atmosphere.
Those elements would be potentially forgivable if the show had anything approaching reasonably decent pace and depth, but the random stabs at ambition on "Boss" don't disguise the fact that it appears to have nothing to say and few original ideas when it comes to the story of the implacable Kane's physical and mental degeneration. The addition of drearily symbolic hallucinations and the subtraction of Martin Donovan's advisor character don't bode well for the show's second season, all things considered.
More here.
'Compliance' puts accent on morality, not strip-search
Craig Zobel's "Compliance" was widely considered the most controversial movie at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Drawing accusations of misogyny and exploitation at its Q-and-A sessions, the film, about the strip search of a female employee at a fast-food restaurant, was seen as a hot potato.
Even with strong reviews, Zobel was repeatedly called upon to defend himself. "I wanted the film to be a conversation starter," he said at the time, "so it's frustrating that it stopped the conversation for some people."
Now just before Magnolia Pictures' Aug. 17 release, the distributor and filmmakers are treading carefully, trying to strike the right balance between raising awareness and not pissing more people off.
Based on real-life incidents, "Compliance" follows a fast-food restaurant manager (Ann Dowd) who receives a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer; when the alleged cop convinces her to strip search and hold captive an attractive young employee (Dreama Walker), the story ventures into some highly disturbing and, for some, sadistic territory.
Zobel is quick to point out that he could have shot the film without any nudity -- as it is, there is very little -- "but that would have lowered the tension," he explains. "I could have made a movie that was very subjective to Dreama's character's point of view, and avoided what people are calling misogyny. But then I would have missed the really interesting, morally gray problems that happen to the other characters in the movie. It would have painted everyone else as the bad guys."
Magnolia Pictures prexy Eamonn Bowles believes Zobel himself is the film's best defense against criticisms that the pic is sexist or classist. "I want to get Craig out there talking to people," Bowles says. "Once they hear him, I think those negative things will go away. If you know Craig at all, you'd know he's a humanist and has respect for other people. To hear those accusations that he's condescending to working-class people, my jaw dropped and my heart broke, because I know that's the furthest thing from his intentions."
While Walker, hot off her Teen Choice nom for female breakout star in "Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23," is promoting the R-rated movie, Bowles says Magnolia isn't planning to sell the film off the 26-year old actress's emerging TV fame. "We don't mind the awareness," he says, "but we're not going down that road."
Still, the film's old-fashioned platform-release strategy relies on its potential to be a topic of water-cooler conversation. Releasing the pic only in New York to start a "flashpoint," says Bowles, Magnolia wants people writing about the film and discussing it before it hits other markets.
Magnolia is purposely bypassing the hybrid day-and-date theatrical/VOD releasing model for which the distrib is known -- and which has seen great success with films such as "All Good Things" and "Melancholia." Bowles says "Compliance's" lack of stars and "less obvious subject matter" makes it harder for a VOD launch. "The profile really needs to be raised by a theatrical release and the reviews," he maintains.
Bowles likens the rollout to Magnolia's summer 2003 release of "Capturing the Friedmans," which became one of the most successful documentaries at that point in time, with more than $3.1 million in domestic sales. Compliance' isn't exactly a cocktail party movie, but it's (a) movie you have to discuss, just like "Capturing the Friedmans' was," he says. "There's the same kind of awe-struck divergence of opinions."
"Compliance's" ambiguity -- what Bowles calls the movie's "Rorschach test" quality -- is key to the filmmaker's intentions.
The pic's producer, established director David Gordon Green, who went to the North Carolina School of the Arts with Zobel, says his biggest concern about the film was not Zobel's execution of the material, but the casting. "We needed voices that were believable and would facilitate something complex," he says. "If cast incorrectly, it could have felt exploitative."
For example, Green cites noted legit actor Bill Camp, who plays the restaurant manager's alcoholic boyfriend and who perpetrates the film's most heinous crimes. "You can see him as a predator, but he's also a victim," Green says. "There's such a beautifully heartbreaking complexity to his performance. And going with a non-name cast brings that really ambiguous quality to the characters."
Though some audiences might resist this unsettling approach, Zobel isn't afraid of further backlash. "I'm not scared of people not being in my court," he says. "That's sort of why 'Compliance' was made: Debate is good."
Or maybe not. Bowles isn't convinced the film's risque reputation will help ticket sales. "Frankly, controversy in the theatrical marketplace has not been a great selling tool lately," he says. "Cinema has always been about escapism, and I think it's profoundly so now: People go to cinemas to get away from the 24-hour news stations and the rampant advocacy in today's media."
That said, adds Bowles, "Something that's intellectually and emotionally challenging, and that's (fully executed) is always going to have a chance in the marketplace."
Whatever ultimately happens with the film, it's already effectively launched Zobel's career. After a five-year gap between making his 2007 feature debut "Great World of Sound" and "Compliance," the 35-year-old Georgia-born filmmaker is close to shooting a new and bigger-budget project -- a "picturesque thriller," he calls it -- later this year.
"I always saw myself as someone who would make a lot of different movies," he says, "so now I want to get cracking."
His debut feature, “Great World of Sound” (2007), about a pair of hustlers peddling fake record deals, is an offbeat look at celebrity as American dream and American lie, with a few documentary audition scenes that essentially perpetrate the con that the film depicts. His second, “Compliance,” based on an actual incident and also involving a scam and a chain of exploitation, holds up a mirror to the powerful social forces of persuasion and obedience. Fittingly for a film inspired in part by studies in behavioral psychology, it has itself become an experiment in audience discomfort and identification.
By design “Compliance,” opening Aug. 17 in New York, is not easy to sit through. In the middle of a bad day Sandra (Ann Dowd), the harried manager of a fast-food franchise, receives a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer. He accuses an employee named Becky (Dreama Walker) of theft and instructs Sandra to subject the pretty teenager to a series of humiliations: detain her in the stock room, confiscate her belongings, conduct a strip search and on and on. As the title suggests, at each step of this increasingly elaborate and unnerving hoax, Sandra and Becky do what they are told.
“Compliance” gained instant notoriety when its Sundance premiere was greeted with heckles and heated accusations of exploitation at a post-screening Q. and A. Mr. Zobel said that while he realized it was not a film for all tastes, the extremity of that initial reaction caught him off guard.
“A movie like this is fascinating because you don’t know until the world sees it how far you went or what you did,” he said in an interview before a screening of “Compliance” this summer at the BAMcinemaFEST at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mr. Zobel said the film began with a fascination with the human capacity for cruelty and callousness, as demonstrated in several well-known cases: the Stanford Prison Experiment; Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience to authority; the murder of Kitty Genovese, which became a staple of psychology textbooks.
“There was no direct objective at first,” Mr. Zobel said. “I was researching all this stuff because I wanted to know more. It wasn’t so much about what is wrong with us, but more like, isn’t it fascinating that this is part of all of us?”
“Compliance” came into focus when he learned about the 2004 case of a man who called a McDonald’s in Mount Washington, Ky., and persuaded the female manager to interrogate and strip-search a female employee. Mr. Zobel was amazed to discover that this story was part of a wider pattern; the culprit was a serial prankster, and similar incidents had been reported at other chain restaurants.
“It’s the kind of story that’s a blip, a headline you read and go, ‘Wow, that’s crazy,’ ” Mr. Zobel said. “Then you say, ‘That would never happen to me’ and move on. But I was thinking more and more about it, and it seemed to encompass a lot of things about people’s relationship with authority.”
Mr. Zobel acknowledged that the premise was not obviously cinematic: “A movie that takes place in a fast-food restaurant’s back room, and one of the main characters is on the phone — that sounds terrible.”
But he said he also realized that such a film, with its tight focus and no-frills locations, would not require a large budget. (It was made for less than a million dollars.) More to the point, writing it might help answer some questions about the story that he could not shake. “How could that even be? How could you not know? How could you do that?” he said. “It was about trying to put words in people’s mouths to make sense of things. If they went from here to there, what in the world did they talk about to get that to happen?”
To write the ingratiating, threatening lines of the caller — whose appearance and location are revealed about halfway through the film and who’s played by Pat Healy — Mr. Zobel immersed himself in the reality show “Cops.” “I was trying to pick up on the way that cops talk, the way they alternately comfort and assume authority in a situation and also manipulate in certain ways,” he said. “If you watch any one episode of ‘Cops’ you’re like, ‘Wow, they talked that person into doing that crazy thing.’ ”
He also consulted a few movies that stage pressure-cooker situations in tight spaces: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” and “The Incident,” a 1967 film with a young Martin Sheen, about teenage thugs terrorizing the occupants of a New York City subway car. “We needed to make it visually nonboring over what is essentially 40 minutes in one space,” Mr. Zobel said. With subtle changes in lighting and camerawork, the film conveys the shift from day to night and only gradually reveals the physical orientation of the cramped room.
Mr. Zobel encouraged his actors, especially Ms. Dowd and Ms. Walker, to experiment with the nuances of the pivotal scenes. “It was all the same dialogue but laced with different emotions,” Ms. Walker said. “We would shoot takes where our characters were more amicable and others where it was palpable that she hated me, and I hated her.”
Mr. Zobel has noticed that a common criticism of the film is to write off the characters as implausibly gullible fools. “Everyone plays the part of the hero in their mind and says that they wouldn’t do it,” he said. “But clearly that statistically is not accurate.”
As played by Ms. Dowd, a stage veteran with a long résumé of character roles on screen, Sandra is not simply an idiot nor a clear-cut villain. “When I read it, I knew on a gut level that you could play it in a truthful way,” she said. “I don’t think people want to actually see that part of themselves, it’s too uncomfortable. But for actors, we’re not looking to avoid the feeling, we’re looking to own it.”
An analytical filmmaker, Mr. Zobel widens his scope beyond the central crime to outline the aftermath and to include a full orbit of bystanders (whose reactions run the gamut). “Instead of being subjective and seeing it just through the point of view of the young employee, where everyone else becomes bad guys, I wanted to be objective about it, and look at multiple people making multiple different strange decisions,” he said. “A friend of mine says it’s as if an alien came down and watched all these people.”
“Compliance” can certainly be read as an allegory on blind allegiance to authority and the diffusion of responsibility. But Mr. Zobel stressed that the film does not advance a thesis; nor does his cool, controlled approach preclude empathy for his characters. “It all has to be rooted in real people and things,” he said.
The movie has made the festival rounds since Sundance, and from South by Southwest in Austin, Tex., to the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland audiences have far been more receptive than at the first screening. There are still occasional walkouts, and the odd accusatory question, but on the whole, Mr. Zobel said, viewers, even those deeply upset by the film, have been keen to engage in discussion.
“It’s been disappointing when I hear that people have problems with the film but don’t want to challenge me,” he said. “It’s intentionally complicated. I’m happy for any sort of conversation.”
Who's Cody Horn?Even with strong reviews, Zobel was repeatedly called upon to defend himself. "I wanted the film to be a conversation starter," he said at the time, "so it's frustrating that it stopped the conversation for some people."
Now just before Magnolia Pictures' Aug. 17 release, the distributor and filmmakers are treading carefully, trying to strike the right balance between raising awareness and not pissing more people off.
Based on real-life incidents, "Compliance" follows a fast-food restaurant manager (Ann Dowd) who receives a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer; when the alleged cop convinces her to strip search and hold captive an attractive young employee (Dreama Walker), the story ventures into some highly disturbing and, for some, sadistic territory.
Zobel is quick to point out that he could have shot the film without any nudity -- as it is, there is very little -- "but that would have lowered the tension," he explains. "I could have made a movie that was very subjective to Dreama's character's point of view, and avoided what people are calling misogyny. But then I would have missed the really interesting, morally gray problems that happen to the other characters in the movie. It would have painted everyone else as the bad guys."
Magnolia Pictures prexy Eamonn Bowles believes Zobel himself is the film's best defense against criticisms that the pic is sexist or classist. "I want to get Craig out there talking to people," Bowles says. "Once they hear him, I think those negative things will go away. If you know Craig at all, you'd know he's a humanist and has respect for other people. To hear those accusations that he's condescending to working-class people, my jaw dropped and my heart broke, because I know that's the furthest thing from his intentions."
While Walker, hot off her Teen Choice nom for female breakout star in "Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23," is promoting the R-rated movie, Bowles says Magnolia isn't planning to sell the film off the 26-year old actress's emerging TV fame. "We don't mind the awareness," he says, "but we're not going down that road."
Still, the film's old-fashioned platform-release strategy relies on its potential to be a topic of water-cooler conversation. Releasing the pic only in New York to start a "flashpoint," says Bowles, Magnolia wants people writing about the film and discussing it before it hits other markets.
Magnolia is purposely bypassing the hybrid day-and-date theatrical/VOD releasing model for which the distrib is known -- and which has seen great success with films such as "All Good Things" and "Melancholia." Bowles says "Compliance's" lack of stars and "less obvious subject matter" makes it harder for a VOD launch. "The profile really needs to be raised by a theatrical release and the reviews," he maintains.
Bowles likens the rollout to Magnolia's summer 2003 release of "Capturing the Friedmans," which became one of the most successful documentaries at that point in time, with more than $3.1 million in domestic sales. Compliance' isn't exactly a cocktail party movie, but it's (a) movie you have to discuss, just like "Capturing the Friedmans' was," he says. "There's the same kind of awe-struck divergence of opinions."
"Compliance's" ambiguity -- what Bowles calls the movie's "Rorschach test" quality -- is key to the filmmaker's intentions.
The pic's producer, established director David Gordon Green, who went to the North Carolina School of the Arts with Zobel, says his biggest concern about the film was not Zobel's execution of the material, but the casting. "We needed voices that were believable and would facilitate something complex," he says. "If cast incorrectly, it could have felt exploitative."
For example, Green cites noted legit actor Bill Camp, who plays the restaurant manager's alcoholic boyfriend and who perpetrates the film's most heinous crimes. "You can see him as a predator, but he's also a victim," Green says. "There's such a beautifully heartbreaking complexity to his performance. And going with a non-name cast brings that really ambiguous quality to the characters."
Though some audiences might resist this unsettling approach, Zobel isn't afraid of further backlash. "I'm not scared of people not being in my court," he says. "That's sort of why 'Compliance' was made: Debate is good."
Or maybe not. Bowles isn't convinced the film's risque reputation will help ticket sales. "Frankly, controversy in the theatrical marketplace has not been a great selling tool lately," he says. "Cinema has always been about escapism, and I think it's profoundly so now: People go to cinemas to get away from the 24-hour news stations and the rampant advocacy in today's media."
That said, adds Bowles, "Something that's intellectually and emotionally challenging, and that's (fully executed) is always going to have a chance in the marketplace."
Whatever ultimately happens with the film, it's already effectively launched Zobel's career. After a five-year gap between making his 2007 feature debut "Great World of Sound" and "Compliance," the 35-year-old Georgia-born filmmaker is close to shooting a new and bigger-budget project -- a "picturesque thriller," he calls it -- later this year.
"I always saw myself as someone who would make a lot of different movies," he says, "so now I want to get cracking."
Oh, I Wouldn’t Do That, Would I?
‘Compliance’ Raises Questions About Human Behavior
THE writer-director Craig Zobel makes modestly scaled movies about ordinary people in unadorned settings that also happen to concern the greatest of mysteries: the hows and whys of human behavior.His debut feature, “Great World of Sound” (2007), about a pair of hustlers peddling fake record deals, is an offbeat look at celebrity as American dream and American lie, with a few documentary audition scenes that essentially perpetrate the con that the film depicts. His second, “Compliance,” based on an actual incident and also involving a scam and a chain of exploitation, holds up a mirror to the powerful social forces of persuasion and obedience. Fittingly for a film inspired in part by studies in behavioral psychology, it has itself become an experiment in audience discomfort and identification.
By design “Compliance,” opening Aug. 17 in New York, is not easy to sit through. In the middle of a bad day Sandra (Ann Dowd), the harried manager of a fast-food franchise, receives a phone call from a man claiming to be a police officer. He accuses an employee named Becky (Dreama Walker) of theft and instructs Sandra to subject the pretty teenager to a series of humiliations: detain her in the stock room, confiscate her belongings, conduct a strip search and on and on. As the title suggests, at each step of this increasingly elaborate and unnerving hoax, Sandra and Becky do what they are told.
“Compliance” gained instant notoriety when its Sundance premiere was greeted with heckles and heated accusations of exploitation at a post-screening Q. and A. Mr. Zobel said that while he realized it was not a film for all tastes, the extremity of that initial reaction caught him off guard.
“A movie like this is fascinating because you don’t know until the world sees it how far you went or what you did,” he said in an interview before a screening of “Compliance” this summer at the BAMcinemaFEST at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mr. Zobel said the film began with a fascination with the human capacity for cruelty and callousness, as demonstrated in several well-known cases: the Stanford Prison Experiment; Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience to authority; the murder of Kitty Genovese, which became a staple of psychology textbooks.
“There was no direct objective at first,” Mr. Zobel said. “I was researching all this stuff because I wanted to know more. It wasn’t so much about what is wrong with us, but more like, isn’t it fascinating that this is part of all of us?”
“Compliance” came into focus when he learned about the 2004 case of a man who called a McDonald’s in Mount Washington, Ky., and persuaded the female manager to interrogate and strip-search a female employee. Mr. Zobel was amazed to discover that this story was part of a wider pattern; the culprit was a serial prankster, and similar incidents had been reported at other chain restaurants.
“It’s the kind of story that’s a blip, a headline you read and go, ‘Wow, that’s crazy,’ ” Mr. Zobel said. “Then you say, ‘That would never happen to me’ and move on. But I was thinking more and more about it, and it seemed to encompass a lot of things about people’s relationship with authority.”
Mr. Zobel acknowledged that the premise was not obviously cinematic: “A movie that takes place in a fast-food restaurant’s back room, and one of the main characters is on the phone — that sounds terrible.”
But he said he also realized that such a film, with its tight focus and no-frills locations, would not require a large budget. (It was made for less than a million dollars.) More to the point, writing it might help answer some questions about the story that he could not shake. “How could that even be? How could you not know? How could you do that?” he said. “It was about trying to put words in people’s mouths to make sense of things. If they went from here to there, what in the world did they talk about to get that to happen?”
To write the ingratiating, threatening lines of the caller — whose appearance and location are revealed about halfway through the film and who’s played by Pat Healy — Mr. Zobel immersed himself in the reality show “Cops.” “I was trying to pick up on the way that cops talk, the way they alternately comfort and assume authority in a situation and also manipulate in certain ways,” he said. “If you watch any one episode of ‘Cops’ you’re like, ‘Wow, they talked that person into doing that crazy thing.’ ”
He also consulted a few movies that stage pressure-cooker situations in tight spaces: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” and “The Incident,” a 1967 film with a young Martin Sheen, about teenage thugs terrorizing the occupants of a New York City subway car. “We needed to make it visually nonboring over what is essentially 40 minutes in one space,” Mr. Zobel said. With subtle changes in lighting and camerawork, the film conveys the shift from day to night and only gradually reveals the physical orientation of the cramped room.
Mr. Zobel encouraged his actors, especially Ms. Dowd and Ms. Walker, to experiment with the nuances of the pivotal scenes. “It was all the same dialogue but laced with different emotions,” Ms. Walker said. “We would shoot takes where our characters were more amicable and others where it was palpable that she hated me, and I hated her.”
Mr. Zobel has noticed that a common criticism of the film is to write off the characters as implausibly gullible fools. “Everyone plays the part of the hero in their mind and says that they wouldn’t do it,” he said. “But clearly that statistically is not accurate.”
As played by Ms. Dowd, a stage veteran with a long résumé of character roles on screen, Sandra is not simply an idiot nor a clear-cut villain. “When I read it, I knew on a gut level that you could play it in a truthful way,” she said. “I don’t think people want to actually see that part of themselves, it’s too uncomfortable. But for actors, we’re not looking to avoid the feeling, we’re looking to own it.”
An analytical filmmaker, Mr. Zobel widens his scope beyond the central crime to outline the aftermath and to include a full orbit of bystanders (whose reactions run the gamut). “Instead of being subjective and seeing it just through the point of view of the young employee, where everyone else becomes bad guys, I wanted to be objective about it, and look at multiple people making multiple different strange decisions,” he said. “A friend of mine says it’s as if an alien came down and watched all these people.”
“Compliance” can certainly be read as an allegory on blind allegiance to authority and the diffusion of responsibility. But Mr. Zobel stressed that the film does not advance a thesis; nor does his cool, controlled approach preclude empathy for his characters. “It all has to be rooted in real people and things,” he said.
The movie has made the festival rounds since Sundance, and from South by Southwest in Austin, Tex., to the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland audiences have far been more receptive than at the first screening. There are still occasional walkouts, and the odd accusatory question, but on the whole, Mr. Zobel said, viewers, even those deeply upset by the film, have been keen to engage in discussion.
“It’s been disappointing when I hear that people have problems with the film but don’t want to challenge me,” he said. “It’s intentionally complicated. I’m happy for any sort of conversation.”
WHO'S THAT GIRL?
This all-American brunette was born and raised in Los Angeles.
WHERE YOU'VE SEEN HER
This 24-year-old US actress is a part-time model who also appeared in several episodes of TV series The Office and Rescue Me last year.
(She was admittedly pretty good in Rescue Me. Sexy too)
WHY HER
Blessed with both looks and brains, Horn has a degree in philosophy from New York University's Gallatin School.
Moreover, showbiz is in her blood. Her father is Alan Horn, the CEO of Walt Disney Studios.
WHAT'S NEW
She plays Channing Tatum's love interest in Magic Mike, director Steven Soderbergh's independent film that's inspired by Tatum's real-life experience as a former male stripper.
As a girl-next-door type who is opposed to her brother's (Alex Pettyfer) interest in professional stripping, her disapproval of the industry soon prompts Tatum's titular character to re-evaluate his life and career choice.
Next up for Horn is crime drama End Of Watch here she'll share screentime with another Hollywood hunk, Jake Gyllenhaal.
On being on set
"The guys really had this fun camaraderie and they included me in it, and I felt very lucky and happy to be a part of it. They're all like brothers in many senses."
On why she choose acting as a career
"I read my first screenplay when I was nine...I knew I wanted to produce, I knew I wanted to be involved, and so I started interning and doing different things. I came about acting pretty organically."
On her father's influence
"I'm lucky to have my dad in my life. He's brilliant. Although he comes from a business background, he just loves movies. That's the way I feel as well. I just love film.
The thing that he said to me was that there's a lot of rejection that comes with being an actor.
He wondered why I didn't go into something where I wouldn't face as much rejection. That was his biggest concern."
* I hate nepotism but I understand where her dad is coming from. I posted before about the (tragic) pitfalls of being a Hollywood child living in shadow of a famous or powerful parent. Alan Horn is doing everything to give his beloved daughter the leg up in the industry even if it's morally wrong. But this is modern America where wealthy folks are immune to socially accepted contract. Favoritism, cronyism and nepotism are encouraged and cultivated.
I have to remind everyone there is no evidence Alan is helping to boost his daughter movie career so the above brief opinion is conjectural on my part.
Cody personally gives off the same vibes as Dominik García-Lorido. Trying pretty hard to be accessible and attending every auditions but at the same time have that slacking attitude associated with rich kids blessed with safety net. Both can't act but I'm an optimist when it comes to cute girls so I believe they'll evolve performance-wise especially Dominik if she shows her titties in season two of Magic City. Getting naked on-screen is not only liberating but loosens you up as an artist as claimed by Kate Winslet (okay....I made that up). Unlike Dominik, Cody is still 24 and less choosier in accepting any roles that comes her way. Her Officer Davis in End of Watch is a glorified cameo. Miss Horn have tried to be a model before deciding singing was her vocation and then ditching that too; taking up acting soon after. I find Cody to be very attractive but she needs to stop slouching her shoulders. Quite unbecoming.
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Call Me Maybe : Carly Rae Jepsen
(Chatroulette Version)
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Aussie supermodel and soon to be divorcee Miranda Kerr : "Harper’s Bazaar" Magazine [September 2012]
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School leader involved in group sex scandal after government officials
Following after Lujiang county of Anhui province denied the accusation that its party secretary and deputy-party secretary were among the three men in a set of over 100 group-sex photos, some web users changed to say a man is in fact a senior leader from a college in Hefei city, Anhui province.
The pictures capturing three men and two women in a group sex scene were uploaded on August 8, and quickly swept the Internet.
The two men were alleged to be the top government officials of Lujiang county initially, as the officials’ photos that were spread along with the nude photos show that they resemble the men participating in the group sex.
The top officials, Wang Minsheng and Jiang Dabin, have denied the accusation, and claimed that some ones modified the photos by computer software to attack them for unknown reasons.
But it is easily seen that the photos have no trace of computer software modifications. And according to the online link leading to the original nude photos, they were taken long time ago from a real goup sex scene in Kunming by wife-swappers.
Yesterday afternoon when the set of photos continued to spread online amid censorship, some netizens pointed out a man in the pictures should be a deputy secretary of C.Y.L. (Communist Youth League) committee from a college in Hefei city by going through “Human Flesh Search” engine. They in the same time uploaded this school leader’s photos for netizens to compare too.
And it seems now the college leader has admitted to the Tencent microblog platform that he’s truly the one in the group sex photos, and the other two are just his friends but not Lujiang government officials.
The college leader also denied that the women were the teachers from the college.
He said he did that five years ago, and is now very regretful. He has paid a heavy price for his act.
However, the school authority is unavailable to the matter at the moment.
Download this gallery as a zip-archive
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MPAA “Optimistic” About Google’s New Rules To Punish Pirating Sites
It’s not shutting them down as many in Hollywood would like but if a site is repeatedly posting pirated material then Google announced today that they’re going to flag it. “Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices received for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results,” Amit Singhal, the company’s SVP, Engineering wrote this morning on Google’s blog. Singhal added that “we’re receiving and processing more copyright removal notices every day than we did in all of 2009 — more than 4.3 million URLs in the last 30 days alone.” Earlier this year at the AllThingsD conference WME’s Ari Emanuel emphasized that he wanted Google to start helping Hollywood out with piracy and “start filtering when people are stealing our product internationally.” The Motion Picture Association of America has long advocated Google and other search engines addressing the issue of piracy and copyrighted material and the accessibility of such material in search results. Today the MPAA’s Michael O’Leary had this to say about the new move by Google:“We are optimistic that Google’s actions will help steer consumers to the myriad legitimate ways for them to access movies and TV shows online, and away from the rogue cyberlockers, peer-to-peer sites, and other outlaw enterprises that steal the hard work of creators across the globe. We will be watching this development closely – the devil is always in the details – and look forward to Google taking further steps to ensure that its services favor legitimate businesses and creators, not thieves.”
Judge sides with porn P2P plaintiff, setting up legal showdown
Appeals court to decide if rightsholders can subpoena 1,058 people in one case.
But the judiciary is far from unanimous. And this week, one judge sided squarely with the porn plaintiffs—again.
Judge Beryl A. Howell is no copyright neophyte. As we put it last year:
Howell helped to write CALEA (the law extending wiretap powers to the Internet) along with the No Electronic Theft Act (providing tougher penalties for online copyright crimes), the DMCA (making it illegal to break or bypass DRM, even if you want to rip a movie from a DVD you own to your iPod), and the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Deterrence Act.
She then moved into private life at Stroz Friedberg, where she began lobbying for the RIAA, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Between 2004-2009, Howell was the only listed lobbyist at the firm; the RIAA was her exclusive lobbying client for most of that time.Now she's on the bench as a federal judge in Washington, DC, ruling on mass file-sharing lawsuits. And she has proven more sympathetic to copyright holders' arguments than most of her peers.
That trend was again evident in her Monday ruling, where she rejected arguments from major Internet providers that the subpoenas designed to uncover the identity of their subscribers were little more than fishing expeditions. The divergence between Howell's ruling and some of her peers has now set up a showdown at the appellate level.
"No merits" to ISP objections
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| Judge Beryl Howell |
Those arguments have worked in other courtrooms, but Judge Howell didn't buy them. "The court concludes that the ISPs' objections to the plaintiff's subpoenas have no merits," she wrote.
While other judges have found that suing hundreds of individuals in one lawsuit imposes an unacceptable burden on the judicial system, Judge Howell reached the opposite conclusion.
Joinder at this stage in the proceedings is the single, most efficient mechanism available for the plaintiff to obtain information to identify those allegedly illegally downloading and distributing its movie. Severing the Doe defendants would essentially require the plaintiff to file 1,058 separate cases, pay separate filing fees, and obtain 1,058 separate subpoenas for each of the Listed IP Addresses. This burden for the plaintiff—not to mention the judicial system—would significantly frustrate the plaintiff’s efforts to identify and seek a remedy from those engaging in the alleged infringing activity.Other judges have ruled that merely being part of the same BitTorrent swarm was not a sufficiently close connection to justify joining hundreds of defendants together in a single lawsuit. Here, too, Judge Howell disagreed.
"Although some IP addresses listed in the Complaint are identified as infringing the plaintiff’s copyright four months apart, at this stage there is no basis to rebut the plaintiff’s claims that the Listed IP Addresses were, at least potentially, part of the same swarm and provided or shared pieces of the plaintiff’s copyrighted work," she concluded. "If the plaintiff chooses to proceed against those allegedly infringing its copyright after it obtains identifying information, the named defendants may be able to rebut these allegations."
Settlements "serve our system of justice"
Indeed, Judge Howell finds nothing improper in the plaintiffs' strategy of obtaining defendants' contact information and then using the threat of a lawsuit to extract settlements.
"Upon receipt of the identifying information sought in the subpoenas, the plaintiff is entitled to seek settlement with these individuals, or decide that pursuing a lawsuit against particular defendants is no longer feasible or cost-effective," she wrote. "Either course selected by the plaintiff would give the copyright owner the opportunity to effectuate its statutorily protected rights and thereby serves our system of justice."
Judge Howell also dismissed jurisdictional concerns, ruling that defendants were free to raise those issues once they had been identified and named in a lawsuit. She rejected the ISPs' contention that AF Holdings should have used geolocation technology to narrow down the list of defendants, arguing that such technologies are only 95 percent accurate.
Recognizing that her ruling puts her at odds with many of her fellow judges, Judge Howell took the unusual step of authorizing an immediate appeal of her ruling. Ordinarily, appeals occur at the end of a case, in order to avoid wasting time with multiple rounds of appeal. But because these preliminary issues are likely to determine the outcome of the case, she allowed her ruling to be appealed immediately.
Now the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit will decide whether Howell's arguments stand up to scrutiny. While the ruling won't be binding on other judicial circuits, the appeals court ruling will set an important precedent that could start shaping the work of judges across the country.
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