Interview: Topher Grace and Dan Fogler of ‘Take Me Home Tonight’

Posted on March 2, 2011 at 3:24 pm

Topher Grace (“That 70’s Show,” “”) and Dan Fogler (Tony award winner for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”) co-star in the wild, raunchy, but sweet comedy “Take Me Home Tonight,” a loving tribute to the 80’s and 80’s music and movies. Grace plays a recent college graduate who is a little afraid to get on with his life until he runs into his high school crush (Teresa Palmer) and has one wild night risking everything to try to get her attention. Fogler plays his best friend and Anna Faris plays his twin sister.
This is like the movie John Cusack never made.
TG: That’s exactly what we wanted it to be. That’s a great review! It’s just as much genre travel as time travel. When we started the process, me and my friend said, “What happened to those John Hughes movies where you can do great comedy and great drama and work with great friends like Dan?” There are movies that are all raunchy now, and they’re great for what they are, or all romance. But we missed those movies from John Hughes and Cameron Crowe like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Say Anything” with actors that weren’t huge movie stars yet.
My producing partner pointed out that “Dazed and Confused” took place in the 70’s and was shot in the 90’s. “American Graffiti” took place in the early 60’s and was shot in the 70’s. I think 20 years are a revolution of time, where the 50’s are like the 70’s and the 60’s are like the 80’s.So if we made this now, we’d be the right distance from the time period. So we married those two themes together and began with the soundtrack.
It’s a great soundtrack! It does feel like a soundtrack with a movie attached — it has such a strong and evocative collection of songs.
DF: There’s a great song for every scene. I love the “Straight Outta Compton” one when we steal the car. I love the “You can Dance” getting into the dance-off.
TG: We wanted it to be like a musical, where the feeling of the character is so much they can’t just talk about it, they have to sing. We wanted the music to be so of what these characters are going through that the soundtrack had to come first.
What is it about 80’s movies that makes them special?
DF: Nostalgia. It was definitely a rabid cocaine-fueled peacock as far as decades go. So even if you weren’t growing up in that era, it’s still a fascinating time because everything is so in your face. I was born in 1976 so a lot of my formative years were in the 80’s and it was a total pleasure to go back and spend some time there again.
TG: We didn’t want to make fun of the time period. We wanted the movie to be about the characters and the decade but not to spoof it. It’s a hard decade not to make fun of. But we wanted it to be more like a time travel back to it. The real trick is that in movies like “American Graffiti” and “Dazed and Confused,” they deal with timeless issues and characters you want to watch, no matter when it takes place.
DF: It’s very relevant today, with economy issues and people getting out of college and not knowing what to do.
TG: I hope years from now, people won’t remember whether this movie came out in the 80’s or later on.
Your father in the movie is an 80’s icon, Michael Biehn of “The Terminator.”
TG: We wanted someone who was of the 80’s but not stuck in the 80’s. He is so talented and so great in the scene where he finds us in the car. And it is funny to think that in real life now we’re past the time when he was supposed to be living in the future.
I really enjoyed those moments that reminded me of details of the era I had forgotten, like Drexel Burnham, the powerhouse financial firm that collapsed after its most important trader, Mike Milken, went to jail).
TG: Yes, we had a couple of Mike Milken jokes in there but didn’t want to gild the lily, as they say.

What are your favorite 80’s movies?
DG: “Bachelor Party,” “Ferris Bueller” is probably my favorite, “Back to the Future,” “Breakfast Club”
TG: Our one wink to John Hughes is the name of the high school in the movie: Shermer. I liked “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” because not everything works out all right. They didn’t pull any punches. There’s stuff coming at you that’s dangerous and sexy and weird. And it has great characters.

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Actors Interview

Tribute: Jane Russell

Posted on March 2, 2011 at 12:21 pm

We lost a true Hollywood icon this week when Jane Russell passed away on February 28 at age 89. Russell had brassy, good-natured quality that made her seem like the girl next door — if the girl next door had a sensationally curvy figure.

She was born in Minnesota, the oldest of six children and the only girl. She was discovered by Howard Hughes, who signed her to a seven-year exclusive contract and famously used his skill as an engineer to design a bra for optimal display of her generous bust. (She later said it was so uncomfortable that she tossed it away). Her bust was also the focus of a widely distributed publicity still for “The Outlaw” and for the film itself — today no one remembers much about it except that its release was held up for two years over debates about the display of Ms. Russell’s cleavage.

What Hughes didn’t seem to notice was her talent as a comic actress, singer, and dancer. After her contract with Hughes was up she made her best-known films, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as the wisecracking sidekick to Marilyn Monroe, and The Paleface and Son of Paleface with Bob Hope.

In her later years, she continued to perform, making her Broadway debut at age 60 and recording pop, standards, and Christian music. Her great heart and generous spirit shone through all of her work and she will be missed.

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Actors Tribute

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Taylor

Posted on February 27, 2011 at 2:00 pm

Today we send birthday and get well greetings to one of Hollywood’s all-time most enduring and alluring stars, Elizabeth Taylor. Here are some of my favorite Taylor movies for family viewing:

1. Lassie Come Home Taylor co-stars with Roddy McDowall and cinema’s most beloved dog in this classic story.

2. National Velvet The all-time best girl and a horse movie ever stars has Taylor as Velvet Brown, who raced her horse in the Grand National with the help of Mickey Rooney, Angela Lansbury, and the magnificent Ann Revere as her mother.

3. Father of the Bride One of the most beautiful sights ever put on screen is Elizabeth Taylor walking down the aisle in this gentle comedy about a wedding that creates great upheaval in the family, especially for the bride’s father (Spencer Tracy).

4. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Mature teens and their parents will appreciate this Tennessee Williams dysfunctional family story about power, money, frustration, and ambition, also starring Paul Newman and Burl Ives.

5. The Taming of the Shrew Taylor and then-husband Richard Burton star in Shakespeare’s rowdy comedy about an angry and outspoken woman “tamed” by a high-spirited man who thinks all he wants in a wife is money but finds himself falling in love (some mature material, brief nudity).

6. Little Women Taylor plays the artistic and sometimes socially ambitious daughter Amy, the youngest of the March girls, in this version of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel.

7. Jane Eyre Taylor has a small but unforgettable part as the young Jane’s only friend in the cruel boarding school.

8. Ivanhoe Taylor’s performance as Rebecca is so winning that it makes it hard to root for Ivanhoe’s romance with Rowena.

And here’s her charming appearance on “What’s My Line?”

MVP of the Month: Teresa Palmer

Posted on February 25, 2011 at 3:52 pm

Australian actress Teresa Palmer stars in two films out within a couple of weeks of one another. We just saw her as the tough action heroine Number Six in “I am Number Four.” And next week she appears opposite Topher Grace in “Take Me Home Tonight,” a raunchy but sweet tribute to the films of the 1980’s. She was terrific in the under-appreciated “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” and shows range, talent, charm, and good humor in these two films, giving more dimension to both characters than the script does, and holding her own among the special effects of “Number Four” and the wild antics of “Take Me Home.” Coming next, she appears in next year’s new “Mad Max” film from original director George Miller, co-starring with Nicolas Hoult and Charlize Theron. Sounds great!

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Actors Behind the Scenes

Colin Firth as Henry Higgins?

Posted on February 19, 2011 at 11:52 am

There are rumors that Colin Firth (“The King’s Speech,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Bridget Jones’ Diary”) may be the new Professor Henry Higgins in a forthcoming remake of “My Fair Lady,” to be directed by Joe Wright (who directed the Kiera Knightly version of “Pride and Prejudice”). Carey Mulligan of “An Education” might play Eliza Doolittle.

I am skeptical of remakes in many circumstances, and of course the George Cukor version of My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn and the divine Cecil Beaton designs is unquestionably iconic. I side with Cary Grant, who, asked to play Henry Higgins, famously said that not only would he not accept the part, but unless Rex Harrison repeated his Broadway performance on screen, he wouldn’t even go to see it.

In my dreams, though, I try to imagine a version with Grant opposite Harrison’s Broadway co-star, Julie Andrews. It would have been great. And so, just as the plays of Shakespeare are constantly new again for each generation, so can other stories. We saw a terrific production of “A Comedy of Errors” last week, in a sort of fantasy Edwardian setting, with a opening act introducing us to a small modern-day British acting troupe who would be performing the play, so that the real life actors were playing contemporary actors playing an early 19th century version of a 16th century Shakespeare about confused identities. And don’t forget, Shakespeare was doing his own version of a play dating back to ancient Rome.

And of course “My Fair Lady” itself is the musical version of “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw, inspired by an ancient Greek myth. “Pygmalion” was made into a wonderful film under Shaw’s personal supervision, with his choice to play Eliza, Wendy Hiller, and Leslie Howard as Higgins. I have always been fascinated by Shaw’s decision to chance the ending of his play for the movie version. In the afterward he wrote for the play, Shaw makes it very clear that Eliza and Higgins have no romantic future; he explicitly says that she marries the hapless but doting Freddie. After all, the story not a romance; it is about class and politics and religion and ideas — like all of Shaw’s work. But when it came time to write the screenplay for “Pygmalion,” he could not help reverting to the myth that inspired its title and at least leaves the door open for the idea that Eliza and Higgins fall in love, and that was carried over into “My Fair Lady.”

It is exactly one century since Shaw’s “Pygmalion” was written, and 55 years since “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway. Shaw could never have imagined that class barriers would dissolve as much as they have. And yet, the play has enduring relevance and appeal. I think we’re due for another try, don’t you?