Interview: Chad Hartigan on “Morris from America”

Posted on August 20, 2016 at 11:28 pm

Being 13 is agonizing because of the upheaval that makes you feel like an outsider from kids, from adults, and from yourself. In “Morris from America,” the title character is a 13-year-old who is an outsider. He and his father have just moved to Germany, where everything is different and he does not know anyone. He cannot speak the language, he is younger than the other kids, and he and his father are the only black people in the community, and, it seems, the entire country. Craig Robinson and Markees Christmas give outstanding performances as father and son. Writer/director Chad Hartigan has created a sensitive, funny, poignant film and it was a pleasure to talk to him.

I love that conversation between Morris and his father at the end of the film. Tell me a little bit where that came from.

It’s probably a little bit of a fantasy. I don’t have kids myself and so if I’m imagining what I might be like as a dad of course I’m going to come up with a sympathetic and wise version. I really like the idea of a dad who is really trying his best and a kid who is deep down a good kid. Two things that I think most people would find inherently undramatic but that I thought you could still have a dramatic relationship between them.

I understand that the movie is in some way sort of autobiographical, that you lived abroad when you were Morris’s age. Is that right?

Yes but that’s kind of actually maybe the least autobiographical thing about it. I did live in Cyprus until I was 12 or 13 and then we moved to the States. So it’s almost a reverse scenario. My mom is American and I have always had an American accent and I went to an international school in Cyprus so I was very well accepted there. In the States it took me a long time to make friends but no one ever thought or assumed I was a foreigner, so I kind of got away with it a little bit. The movie is autobiographical more in the sense of the specific things that happened to me during my painful adolescence and falling in love for the first time with a girl.

The bad hip hop in the film is what I wrote when I was young. I really wrote that when I was 12 and my teacher found it and gave it to my mom and I got in big trouble. When I was collecting anecdotes from my life I thought, “Oh, wouldn’t it have been funny if I got in trouble because these are so bad instead of what I actually got into trouble for, because of the content.” But when he raps well at the end that we had to outsource to someone who was better than me.

How do you find a person that age who is self-aware enough to be able to give such a sensitive portrayal?

It was extremely hard. It took months and a lot of looking and that’s also the quality that’s hard to kind of gauge. You can never really expect that one is going to come in and nail it from a technical acting standpoint so you have to be looking for other things and a lot of the times you are not even sure what those things are yourself. You are maybe just looking to be surprised in some way. Markees had a very stiff actual audition but he surprised me with the questions that he asked. I always asked the kids if there’s anything they wanted to know before we started, about if they thought of anything reading the scenes and he just asked the questions that in their simplicity made it seem like he was thinking about this in a much different way than all the other kids.

How do you make him comfortable with some of the sensitive and vulnerable scenes? He is so natural.

In January I did a call back with Markees and the call back was still a little bit stiff. I wasn’t totally sure if he was the one, to be honest, but we were going to shoot the movie in June and we had already spent so many months casting that I was faced with the decision of either keep waiting and hope that a kid walks in the door and blows my mind or cast someone now and use the time from January to June and work with him. And I decided to do that with Markees. I really just went to his house about once a week and not to rehearse or anything but just to hang out and for him to get a feel of who I was and build a relationship and to meet his friends. I think that in the end that was really was essential because on the set in a foreign place I was the one person that he was most familiar and most comfortable with.

It was a great pleasure to see Craig Robinson in a more serious role. He gives a beautiful performance.

He wasn’t the first person I saw in the role either, but sometimes the movie god is looking out for you and giving you what you don’t always know you need. We had another actor we were talking to and that broke down and then someone brought up Craig and I was like, “I love him but can he do this? Can he do the German, the monologue?” I wasn’t sure but I got to meet him and talk with him and I asked David Gordon Green who directed “Pineapple Express.” He spoke very highly of Craig. So that was another case where I was like, “Well he is willing to take a chance on me, I should be willing to take a chance on him.” We did and I’m very happy that we did.

What made you decide to set the film in Germany?

I knew I wanted to make a film in Europe just because I’m a dual citizen and feel like it’s a part of my identity that I want to take more advantage of. And then when I came up with the coming of age story I was like, “Well, since I lived there as a teen this one might make sense,” Germany was the most recent country I had visited so I started writing it for there. The more I put into it the more it the more it just felt like the right fit. They all speak English there. I tried to learn for the movie, I tried to really do a crash course and I did learn enough to get by ordering at restaurants, that kind of stuff but it was a fact that they all spoke enough English that’s that made it easy to work there.

There is a moment in your film when Inga has a difficult message to deliver about Morris and the father’s reaction to her is very surprising. Tell me a little bit about what you wanted to achieve with that interaction.

I believe that good screenwriting and the hardest kind of screenwriting is when two characters are at odds with each other or arguing and the allegiance of the audience can shift between them or that one half of the audience can be in one character’s side on the other vice a versa because it’s much more common and easier to just have one person clearly be right and that person is sort of the surrogate for the right. But I like the fact that some people think that she overreacts by even coming there in the first place and bringing this up and that some people think that he overreacts by really shutting her down and telling her to mind her own business. I’m always just trying to find a way to make sure that not one person is 100 percent right when I write a scene like that.

What advice do you give young filmmakers who come to you for help?

I like to tell young film makers, especially ones that are just graduating now, that there is no rush to either make films or if you do want to make films, to worry about them being successful. I really feel like I was lucky to come out of film school at a time when there wasn’t an intense pressure to be so productive and so successful so young. I just think that it really takes a lot of time, a lot of failure and also the more you live your life not trying to make films the more you’ll have to pull from when you do make films. So I think that if people can just have patience it really is a virtue in this career.

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Breakthrough Actor: Ben Schnetzer

Posted on August 20, 2016 at 8:00 am

I’ve been a big fan of actor Ben Schnetzer since I saw him in “Pride” and “The Book Thief.” I didn’t realize at first it was the same actor, and I certainly didn’t realize that the actor who played a German Jew hiding from the Nazis during WWII and a gay Londoner raising funds for striking miners in the 1980’s was an American.

He appeared in the justifiably overlooked “Warcraft” this summer, but his upcoming appearances in “Snowden,” “Goat,” and “The Journey is the Destination” should make 2016 his breakthrough year.

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Actors Breakthrough Perfomers

Interview: Dave Christiano from Cross Country Racing Movie “Remember the Goal”

Posted on August 19, 2016 at 3:24 pm

In “Remember the Goal,” a new female coach fresh out of college takes over the cross country program at an all girls private Christian school and tries to lead them to their first state title. Real-life cross country coach Dave Christiano wrote and directed the film. In an interview, Christiano compared coaching and directing and what he did to make sure that this film, the first-ever to focus on girls’ cross country, was as accurate as possible.

What makes cross-country different from other kind of running events?

Cross country is an endurance race of 5000 meters in high school so it’s longer than any high school track running event. Cross country is a fall sport. Track is spring.

What do cross-country runners think about when they run?

Runners think mainly about their pace. If they are running too fast, they know a wall is coming and they will get very tired, start hurting and want to stop. It is so hard to run a race, say the last 1/3 of it, when you are dead tired and hurting from the pain of it. Correct pacing is very important and hard to do.

What did you to do make sure the cross-country running scenes were authentic?

As a former runner in high school and college, and a coach of two high school teams, I made sure the sport was portrayed with 100% accuracy. The pacing is right, the spacing is right, the finishes are right. The number of fans cheering is correct. I did no fantasy or foolishness to the sport that perhaps a movie would attempt to do. All of the lingo is correct that is heard at any meet. I did not need a technical advisor because I know this sport very well and follow it nationally.

Why is it especially important for young women to see female athletes on screen? Is it important for young men, too?

Girl’s athletics gets treated like a second hand sport and this is tragic. Girls compete just as hard as boys, just as well as boys, and are as athletic as boys. Because boys are bigger and stronger, they can run faster and jump higher. Everybody needs role models and each gender identifies with their own. It’s important to see strong female athletes and there are many, especially in running. Just look at the Olympics. The highest rated events are girl related in the Olympics. In cross country girls are closing the gap on boys when it comes to times. Girls playing sports build discipline and can keep them out of trouble. Cross country especially is a good sport for discipline.

How have the Rio Olympics inspired young athletes?

Everybody follows a winner and people are inspired by athletes who do well. Young athletes envision themselves competing for gold and it’s a motivation for them. Sports are a good thing.

How is directing different from coaching?

Directing and Coaching are pretty much the same. The key word is Preparation. Coaches and Directors must do their homework BEFORE the game or before you shoot a scene. They both guide, instruct, mastermind, and hopefully succeed.

What do you want people to talk about on the way home after seeing the film?

My hope is that people will be inspired and uplifted as a result of seeing the movie. I also hope the life lessons presented will be beneficial for tough decisions teens and parents have to make in their day to day living. Lastly, I hope that they reflect upon the Lord which can give the ultimate purpose in life.

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Directors Interview

Trailer: A Monster Calls with Liam Neeson

Posted on August 19, 2016 at 8:00 am

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, inspired by the late Siobhan Dowd, is the story of a boy whose mother is critically ill. He feels utterly isolated. His father has a new family. His grandmother is cold and unsympathetic. The sympathy of his teachers just makes him feel worse. And then one day, a monster calls, a monster with stories to tell. The film stars Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones, and Sigourney Weaver.

War Dogs

Posted on August 18, 2016 at 5:51 pm

“What does AEY stand for?” a newly hired employee asks Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill). “You mean morally?” No, he just wants to know what the initials represent, though the answer is the same: nothing. And, as it turns out, asking the question and correcting Efraim’s mistake get him fired. AEY “stands for” making money, no questions asked. That will be the basis for great success, until it is also the basis for catastrophe.

We this know right from the beginning, when we see Efraim’s partner David Packouz (Miles Teller) released from the trunk of a car and beaten up at gunpoint by some very evil-looking masked guys. In Albania. And then we go back in time to see how David, a college drop-out now on his seventh job, working as a massage therapist, and smoking a lot of weed, met up with Efraim, an old friend from middle school, and joined him at AEY, a company that sold equipment to the Pentagon.

It was 2008. The United States was fighting two wars and outsourcing pretty much everything. If it costs more than $17,000 to outfit each soldier, that means someone has to sell them all that gear. The Bush administration got into trouble for dealing exclusively with “Dick Cheney’s friends” and was under pressure to give some of that procurement business to small companies. And Efraim, a high school dropout, had mastered the art of constantly scrolling through the website that was essentially the government’s wish list and bidding on contracts so small they were beneath the notice of enormous government contractors who sell tanks and planes. “All the money is made between the lines,” Efraim says. He tells David that while big companies go for the pie, they can make plenty of money from the crumbs. David, bored and worried about money for his pregnant girlfriend, signs on.

At first it works. They make tons of money. But buying and selling guns puts them in contact with some untrustworthy and violent people. And a little bit of success makes them eligible to go beyond the crumbs. An international arms dealer who is barred from selling to the US because he is on a watch list (producer Bradley Cooper) offers them a deal too good to pass up on ammunition they can sell to the Pentagon at a huge mark-up. But Efraim and David are very good at the details when it comes to making the pitch; not very good at the details when it comes to delivering the product. This is a business school case study in failure of operations and execution. And in the failures of government procurement.

Director and co-screenwriter Todd Phillips is clearly trying to make the kind of shift from raunchy, slob comedies (“Old School,” “The Hangover”) to sharp, trenchant satire that Adam McKay did with “The Big Short.” And Jonah Hill, looking disturbingly puffy and pasty, clearly wants to play the Leo role instead of the Jonah Hill role in his own “Wolf of Wall Street.” Both get partway there. Hill clearly enjoys being the trigger-happy hotshot who can brashly invite a girl to skip ahead to the third date for $1000 instead of his usual role as either the dumb shlub or the smart shlub. Phillips does a good job in laying out the parameters of the story, making it clear how the window of opportunity opened for AEY and Efraim and David were in the right place at the right time. There are even chapter headings for each section, foreshadowing telling comments we will hear, from “God bless Dick Cheney’s America” to “That sounds illegal.”

He also lays out a classic Hollywood movie structure: set-up, early triumph, hubris, wipeout. There are some fine moments, like the surreal use of identical actors (or CGI) as the Pentagon officials who sign off on the deal. But Phillips’ control of tone and character is uncertain and he relies too much on songs (“Fortunate Son,” “Time in a Bottle”) to carry the story.

Parents should know that this film includes wartime and crime-related peril and violence including automatic weapons, war profiteering, constant very strong language, crude and explicit sexual references, non-explicit situations, drinking, and drugs.

Family discussion: When and why did David and Efraim make different choices? What was their biggest mistake? Were they appropriately punished?

If you like this, try: “The Wolf of Wall Street”

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Based on a true story War