Jason, I loved your montage that so bittersweetly evokes those numbingly exhausting first months of motherhood. Tell me how you put that together.
JASON REITMAN: I’m so happy you asked about that! That’s something that was on our call sheet every single day and it was really important to us that we get that right. There are so many movies that examine and portray parenting and it often comes across as slapstick. Parenting is one of these odd taboo subjects in a time when we share our most intimate details. We will describe what medication we’re taking but we still won’t share the intimacies and struggles of parenting in a real way. So we gave a questionnaire to twelve mothers and asked them to give us anything they were willing to share about the first three months of being a parent. It was through these questionnaires that we got these odd details like putting the baby on top of the dryer and the amount of moms and dads that drop their phones on their babies. We were constantly shooting it and there was an editor who worked only on that montage throughout the film.
Interview: Ser’Darius Blain of “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”
Posted on April 2, 2018 at 6:53 pm
Ser’Darius Blain plays Fridge, the high school football player whose avatar is Kevin Hart in “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” one of the best family movies of 2017 and now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. I got to ask him some questions about acting and being in the film.
Copyright 2017 Sony Pictures
If you could pick any avatar of any game to represent you, what would you pick and why?
If I could pick any character from any game to represent me it would be Ryu from Streetfighter. He’s so cool and walks with so much still confidence.
In “Jumanji,” what did Fridge most need to learn from the game?
In Jumanji, Fridge most needed to learn to trust in himself and his own intelligence. He also needed to learn true teamwork and that nobody was judging him but himself…he gained huge lessons through friendship.
What is your favorite scene in the movie?
My favorite scene in the movie is when Jack Black discovers his… anatomy and had to relieve himself in the woods.
With “Jumanji” and “Charmed,” you’ve worked on two projects with a lot of fantasy and special effects. What is most fun about that and what are the challenges?
The most fun about working with special effects is that you have to really rely on your imagination to build the scene. You can’t actually see how what you’re doing will fit in ultimately and You look silly while doing it but when you see the finished product it becomes something amazing! Like getting mystically sucked into a video game and turning into green jungle dust.
When did you first realize that you wanted to act?
I always knew I wanted to act but I was really afraid to desire something that seemed so unrealistic and a long shot. I was a kid memorizing entire movies and TV episodes but I didn’t take it seriously until I was about 19. Then I moved to New York and took it head on. Best decision I ever made.
What actors have inspired you most?
Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Derek Luke and Leonardo DiCaprio inspired me the most. The rawness balanced with charisma that they all bring to the screen is awe inspiring. I want to be like them when I grow up.
What’s the best advice you have received about acting?
The best advice I’ve received about acting is “to be as uniquely and unequivocally YOU as possible. YOU are special. YOU are interesting and if you’re real, people will find it interesting.” -Della Reese (to me at 22 years old)
Interview: Drew Fellman and Jake Owens on the new IMAX Film “Pandas”
Posted on April 1, 2018 at 10:15 pm
Copyright Warner Brothers 2018
Pandas are, as someone notes in the adorable new IMAX documentary simply called “Pandas,” “the King Kong of cuteness.” Kristen Bell narrates the story of an ambitious and daunting Chinese project, to take panda babies bred in captivity and release them into the wild, to repopulate the endangered species. The Chinese panda specialists consult with an American from New Hampshire who has a similar program for bears. And we get to watch as a panda named Qian Qian leaves the only home she has ever known. I spoke to director Drew Fellman and American panda expert Jacob Owens, who worked with Qian Qian and appears in the film.
Why are humans so drawn to pandas?
Fellman: I know, it’s a mystery, isn’t it? There is so much about that that really is so unknown, part of it I think is that pandas are still so new to us. Pandas were unknown to the West until about the 1860’s and the first panda showed up in the U.S. in 1920. Once people were introduced to pandas there has been a panda mania of some sort. From the very beginning they just captured the public imagination and I think part of that was because they seemingly came out of nowhere and they’re so big and so adorable and they look so unlike any other animal. The physical answer as to why they’re so adorable is because they have the strongest jaws you can imagine so they can bite through solid bamboo and that gives them these huge jaw muscles which give them a big round head like a giant baby.
Owens: Yes, babies are cute because they have big eyes and they have round heads, they’ve got disproportionate ears; and so you look at the pandas and it’s got big black spots that look like big eyes and big ears and a big round head, also they roll around more than any other animal I’ve ever seen. They love rolling. So not only do they do look really cute, they’re also really silly goofy animals.
In the film you say that the three qualities you were looking for in finding the right panda for the release program were courage, curiosity, and climbing ability. Why were those were the key skills and how do you look for them?
Owens: There is a lot of research that goes into this that we can draw from. It starts off with genetics and health; we want healthy individuals who have the right genetics for the places that we’re looking to release them. The next thing is looking at the behavior. We introduce novel stimuli to see how they respond. If an individual panda sees something new and instantly runs towards it that’s not necessarily the quality we need because we want them to be curious but also careful but you also don’t them to be so wary of everything that they won’t explore. They’ll need to explore their habitat, being able to find food on their own; things like this, so having in moderation being exploratory but also being cautious, being really vigilant; vigilance is a big thing always looking out for new dangers, those are the key features. And they have to climb well because they have to spend a lot of time in trees. They flee predators up trees and so being able to walk around and climb and do that well at a young age is a good indicator.
Did it feel like leaving a child at school to say goodbye that way?
Owens: Yeah, worse. As scientists you try not to get attached to the animals that you’re studying but this is very different than just strict science; this is reintroduction and release of individual animals and so we are doing all this research but then you’re also dealing with an individual and their own personality that’s unique and so you can’t help but personify and you can’t help but get very attached. You really care about them as an individual and also what they represent for the species. As a conservation biologist, I’m focused on making sure that there are individuals of species in the future. But at the same time just like anybody else, just like if you have a human child you want them to go off on their own and be able to be successful. It’s just that how you prepare them is a bit different. I don’t ever refer to it as training because I can’t train a panda to be a panda because I’m not one. So I call it conditioning or preparing, letting their natural instincts come out progressively through increasingly wild conditions and eventually to the point when they are ready to go out. We open the gate and she can make that decision when she wants to go out and when she wants to come back and, when she’s ready, just to be out fully.
What was the most important thing that the project learned from Ben Kilham, the man who has been raising bear cubs and releasing them successfully in New Hampshire?
Owens: Ben has been doing black bear rehabilitation for more than 20 years and so he’s just got a huge amount of knowledge about bears in general and pandas are bears. They are very different bears but they’re still bears. He also knows so much about rehabilitating and releasing animals. I’ve worked on reintroduction programs before with different species. People think that you should avoid all human interactions. Ben takes the opposite approach. He says there’s no real way to do that because these black bears don’t have a mom so you have to hand raise these cubs and you have to give them a safe environment to progress into the wild. Our pandas are born in captive care. Their mothers are also captive-born individuals so they don’t have the wild skills to teach their cubs. So for Ben the biggest thing is that human interaction has a real advantage, because once they trust you that provides us the access to keep on learning more about their biology, to keep on learning more about their conservation and also monitor them. I can change Qian Qian’s GPS collar just as Ben can with Squirty as you see in the film, and that’s a huge advantage because we can monitor her, we can follow her, we can see where she’s at, see how she’s doing. As technology increases we can do a lot more with that technology but if you don’t have access to them and they don’t trust you, then you’ll have to take other measures. You have to capture them in some kind of trap or use sedation and so because they know and trust us it’s a lot easier for us to do those things. Using those human interactions for those advantages is the biggest thing that I have learned from Ben in terms of our project.
Fellman: Also from the panda’s point of view is the positive interaction with the humans as opposed to being trapped or tranquilized which can be dangerous and can frighten them.
Owens: There is also the misconception that I had coming into this that if a panda or black bear gets used to one individual or a handful of individuals then they’re used to people and then they’re going to be a nuisance animal then there’s going to be a real problem and they’re not going to do well when they go out. But pandas and black bears are really smart and they can identify individual people very easily by the sound of their voice, by the smell and also by vision somewhat when you get close. It was a big learning thing for me to learn that we were wrong in thinking that this risk of them trusting a few human individuals is going to lead to touching every human. My dogs don’t do that in the States and most people’s dogs don’t do that in the States. Most animals just don’t do that.
What’s the most important thing that you want families to learn about pandas when they watch this movie?
Owens: I want people, especially families with young kids, that people around the world can work together really successfully and use their own combined strengths to work on an endeavor that’s really challenging. We’re really dedicated and I think that’s the big point — all of us globally working together to achieve a difficult goal.
Fellman: And another important message is that pandas are much more than just adorable animals; they are very smart, occasionally fierce, a bear with a mind of their own and they’re all individuals. It’s going to take a lot to create a better future for them and it’s something that’s really worth fighting for.
Audiences are cheering for “Step,” the documentary about a team of girls from a Baltimore school who compete in the jubilant precision world of step, which has deep roots in the African and African-American culture. They are members of the first graduating class of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, which is committed to making sure that all of the students are accepted to college, attend, and graduate from college as well. The documentary follows the team, especially three of the seniors, as the team attends competition and as its members apply to college and wait to hear whether they have been accepted.
For the Huffington Post, I interviewed director Amanda Lipitz, who has has a background in producing Broadway musicals, which helped her bring a dynamism and energy to filming the girls’ performances. But it her connection to the girls and the unwavering dedication of their family and the school over six years that gives the film the emotional power that inspired an Instagram rave from former First Lady Michelle Obama.
I also interviewed the three young women Lipitz follows in the film, team captain Blessin Giraldo and team members Tayla Solomon and valedictorian Cori Grainger.
TAYLA: Okay, so for me we’re just sitting waiting for her for the college signing day because we knew we had to perform and so we were waiting, just sitting and standing and waiting; I’m just like I don’t care how long; it’s Michelle Obama. I’ll wait all day if I have to. So while I was sitting down she walks in and she’s like “hey guys, it’s you.” We’re like “you don’t know us but we know you; we’ve known you for eight years. That was just a great experience.” Yeah, and she hugged each and every one of us and talked to us. She smells really, really nice. Yesterday we had the Baltimore premiere of the movie so we’re all getting ready for the premiere and then we see the Instagram post and we’re like “wow!” Speechless, still speechless; I don’t even have the right caption but my facial expression tells it all. She’s amazing; she’s very powerful and I’m so happy we got to meet her.
What other adventures have you had on the road, promoting the film?
BLESSIN: We talked to a lot of youth and a lot of people that don’t know about what stepping is and don’t really understand the dynamics of our communities and how we’re all about staying together sticking together. Being a black woman from Baltimore, we’re put in a really good position to represent not only ourselves, our community, our school but to represent our generation and a group of people all across the world; people that want to succeed and want to do specific things but they may not have all the resources and all the support they need. It’s up to us educate people about it, how we can get involved and how you can help, and that’s one of the best parts for me. It’s getting a chance to talk to the people that can relate to my testimony because it’s really hard to be in front of a camera and open up like that but it came easy to us because we had a good team. We wanted to do something positive for our city and we had good intentions for it. That meant we had to break down your pride and really open up to let them in so people can understand you and why you’re so frustrated or why you’re going through what you’re going through and hopefully learn from that and be better. No matter where they come from what they look like, somebody always comes out of the Q & A and says “Oh my God, I totally relate.” It may not have been like their lights going off or their grades going down. It might have been something completely different like their marriage or their business and they relate to us. They are inspired by us for being so courageous and continuing to persevere.
What does it take to be good at step?
CORI: Confidence I would say.
BLESSIN: Precision.
TAYLA: Teamwork.
CORI: We had to get precise but I think the first step is confidence because you don’t have to be a stepper to look good if you’re confident while you’re doing it; you don’t have to be perfect, you can mess up all you want but if you don’t want it to look like you mess up you have to be confident.
TAYLA: But I think I agree with Blessin. Like the precision, you know when we have practice Coach would be like “you’re all not doing this right” and we’d be like “Coach we need to learn the steps” so we learned it and we made it look precise and once you feel it that’s when you get in the groove and be like “Okay, I’m confident; I got the steps and we’re going to look good together and we’re going to do every move together.”
CORI: I think that’s when you become unstoppable.
TAYLA: The ultimate stepper.
CORI: Like when we’re on stage and Coach says “I see you all zone out.”
TAYLA: When we step we have to find the space we want to look at because looking at people is weird when you step. So you don’t look at the wall, you look through the wall.
CORI: We all enter this from the perspective of us performing, I was entering from the perspective of a newbie so, what is it going to take me to be a good stepper?
BLESSIN: Maybe being willing to listen and learn.
TAYLA: Just going for it because I went in inexperienced. I didn’t start in sixth grade, I started in ninth and I was just willing to adapt and wanting to learn. They didn’t have to but they taught me what I know now to make me a better stepper and to look like them. It all comes together even when we make last-minute changes about positioning ten seconds before the show. You all might not know this but we know the formation is off and stuff like that. You got to be able to move quick and think quick.
What does is it takes to be a good captain of the step team?
BLESSIN: You can’t be in a spotlight hog. You have to know how to maneuver and tell people when they’re doing good things; like for instance when the girls on the team are always relying on her to keep the bass because we have deep voices when we yell. We are an all-girl team so when we travel and we compete against boys we all want to have incredible base, strong, deep voices. We have to uncover people’s strengths because you want them to be good. You have to be compliant. You have to be just as good in the back as you are in the front. You have to sometimes play the underdog. You have to play the person who gets in trouble because the whole team doesn’t need to get in trouble. It’s like you have to take criticism a lot because you’re not perfect and you will learn because at the end of the day you hold a title and at any moment anybody is capable of being a good captain. So you have to always keep in mind that this position is not something that is solidified; it can always be taken away from you, it’s something to defend, you have to earn it. Being a good captain you have to be very confident, you have to be focused on yourself and what you want to add to the dynamic of the team and always be very aware of the environment that you are selling; the tone of the environment.
BLESSIN: All of the staff are dedicated, I don’t think that there is any other school in Baltimore like it. Some teachers just come in, teach, get their paycheck and leave but at our school they actually create programs for us after school so we can stay engaged and not be on the streets. They care about when we coming to class, how we get there, and they volunteer to take us home. They do things that teachers don’t necessarily do. I know we can call up any one of our teachers if we just need advice on any subject and they don’t hesitate to be there for us. The message of the school is to transform Baltimore young women one at a time and they definitely make sure they do that academically, emotionally and socially.
Does it make a difference that it’s an all-girls school?
CORI: I think that I hold women to like a certain standard now; it’s like you represent everything and more. I never want to see a woman think of herself as not being good enough or not thinking she can do anything because we are the beginning and the end. I feel like everything in this world revolves around a strong woman and it’s all about women’s empowerment. When it comes to women I’m kind of selfish and I think it’s because I was in an all-girl environment for a very long time. Men are pretty cool but I think women are way better.
BLESSIN: That’s just how I feel. I don’t mind being around men, now I go to a coed school I think we all go to coed schools now; it’s just something about being in a room full of women. You can come together and you can make magic.
Interview: Francesca Capaldi on “Max 2: White House Hero”
Posted on May 19, 2017 at 8:00 am
“Max 2: White House Hero” star Francesca Capaldi has a very extensive resume for someone born in 2004, including three seasons on the popular series “Dog with a Blog” and the voice of the little red-haired girl in “The Charlie Brown Movie.” It was a lot of fun to talk to the charming and remarkably bright and poised young actress about her newest project, Max 2: White House Hero, available on DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming May 23, 2017. I have a copy to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Max in the subject line and tell me your favorite pet’s name. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.) I’ll pick a winner at random on May 31, 2017.
“Okay, so the movie is basically the Russian President and his daughter come to America for talks with the US President,” she told me. “I play Alex, the daughter, and I meet the first son, TJ, who is played by Zane Austin, and his dog Max, who is a Marine dog but he stays with TJ. We kind of get into some trouble and we kind of get in some mischief. We go to a party, I went in the water on this raft, and it’s because someone is trying to sabotage these talks between Russia and the US.”
She was experienced in working with dogs before, from “Dog with a Blog.” “The most important thing to know is probably that they are not typical dogs and they’re not pets either. They’re workers. They are like actors but they’re just not humans and they are so well trained and they know so much that it’s crazy. You just have to remember they are working, kind of like service dogs, you can’t really go around playing with them.” There were actually four dogs playing the part of Max, each with different specialties. “They all had different abilities. They have different strong suits and we got to spend time with all of them before we filmed so that they are comfortable with us and there’s a better emotional connection when we’re filming. One could jump really, really well, one was a runner, one was like the face for the dogs. He’s on the posters and stuff like that. So, they all have different things they do and I thought was really cool.”
Francesca describes her character as “really excited to see what’s going to happen and I think she had a great time visiting America. And she’s a really fun character to play especially since I never did a Russian accent before. It was really cool to try something new with that. And she is a little precocious, she is a little funky and she was really fun to play.” She loves doing accents and developed this one by watching YouTube videos and working with her dad, who speaks a lot of languages. “Russians have a really distinct accent. Instead of ‘will’ they say ‘vill.’ I actually got to say some things in Russian and I’ve never spoken Russian I barely even heard it been spoken before so it was really fun. It was a little bit difficult because it’s not like anything I ever heard.”
She also had her first opportunity to do stunts, which she enjoyed very much. “I had to do a scene where I was kidnapped, where I was thrown into a van and I head butted someone and I was in this river. It was so cold I had to wear a dry suit, it was freezing and I remember the medic that was on set was saying, ‘Yes, keep your toes moving or there’s not going to be any circulation and we’re going to have to amputate them,’ and I was like ‘Oh, okay, yes, I’ll keep my toes moving.’ So it was just so cold but I loved it. I thought it was so much fun.”
Francesca has been performing since she was a baby and says, “I just love acting so much, it’s crazy.” She keeps in mind advice she got from the late Don Rickles. “He said to me, ‘Don’t let anyone ever discourage you. Stay confident, no matter what. Stay strong.’ He just gave me the best advice about the business and how to stay true to yourself.”
