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Quint holds SMOKIN' ACES director Joe Carnahan at gunpoint and demands answers!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a short phone interview I had with Joe Carnahan, who is out promoting the DVD release of his shoot-em-up bit of insanity SMOKIN’ ACES.
We talk mostly about the cast he assembled and a bit on his upcoming WHITE JAZZ towards the end.
When I was first greeted by Carnahan over the phone I asked him how he was doing and he said not very good. His home was just broken in to. That’s where we start… Enjoy the chat!
Quint: So was is just now that your house got broken into? Is that what you said?
Joe Carnahan: No, no it was Saturday. I think they were casing the joint. They basically went to the master bedroom and took my TV, but they didn’t touch my Kubrick collection, so I’m happy about that. I have my Cassavettes and Kubrick collection side by side and they left them, so yeah… It was a thief with no taste, so it ‘s good. Yeah, they just got the computer…
Quint: That’s horrible.
Joe Carnahan: It never feels good to come back in knowing some one else has been in your house. So you never know what horrors you’re going to uncover, but I think is a pretty straightforward kind of snatch and grab.
Quint: I used to have this sketchbook that I would take around to conventions and things. I actually picked this up from Harry. He had this sketchbook that he would take around and have people draw sketches in it for him. I had everybody from Mike Mignola, who drew a Hellboy for me, and there was a Don Bluth sketch… he did this beautiful Fievel from AN AMERICAN TAIL. Had tons of stuff in it, at least 3 or 4 years worth of collected sketches. I had the book in a bag in the front seat of my rental car in LA and unfortunately I had a digital camera on the top of it, so the bag was taken…
Joe Carnahan: Oh fuck man…
Quint: Yeah, you just know that guy’s not going to have any need for it, that it would just end up in some dumpster a block away…
Joe Carnahan: Right, absolutely dude, yeah…that’s the thing. They took this flat screen SONY that I have, which I didn’t give a shit about, but there was this nice little humidor with my name on it, which was a nice gift and they took that, which really fucking pisses me off. I was a lot more upset that they took that than the TV.
Quint: Well yeah, a TV is replaceable…
Joe Carnahan: Yeah stuff like that, like gifts… and they took a really nice watch… I would have given anything just to catch them. Just to be here when it happened, but again, nobody got hurt and this stuff is replaceable, so you can only piss and moan about it for so long.
Quint: Then they sit you down and make you talk with a whole bunch of journalists…
Joe Carnahan: Exactly!
Quint: (laughs)
Joe Carnahan: Exactly the experience I want! No, it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve had good questions…
Quint: Well, you’re not going to get anymore of those right now.
Joe Carnahan: That’s it dude, it’s over! No, it’s good. It’s at the end of the day, so we can all slouch…
Quint: Well I saw the movie at Butt-Numb-Athon. I loved the intro by the way.
Joe Carnahan: Oh yeah, the killing of (my assistant). Yeah, I thought since I couldn’t be there, I had to give a little something extra for the crowd.
Quint: Well, it’s always good to kick off a movie with a shooting.
Joe Carnahan: (laughs) Absolutely. Why not? Ya know, why not?
Quint: Well the movie went over really well at Butt-Numb-A-Thon.
Joe Carnahan: That’s great man. It’s one of those things, you know… It looks like a much more mainstream film than NARC and I disagree. NARC is a much more mainstream film, because something like SMOKIN’ ACES, you know going in it was going to polarize the number of people that dig it, that dig what it’s trying to do, and people that hate it for those very reasons.
Any time you try to combine a kind of almost screwball slapstick dark comedy with really heavy end drama, it’s a pretty tight slalom. It’s one of those, it’s why I’m glad on DVD there’s the… you can develop a greater appreciation for movies, as opposed to seeing them one time theatrically. Beyond visceral thrills and just really great action stuff, the plot’s pretty twisted and convoluted and you ask an audience to take a pretty big… to literally follow a very serious thread in a movie that’s fucking wacky at times… You know what I mean? So I’m glad, anytime I hear it plays well, it’s always a comfort to me… [laughs]
Quint: I don’t think that you really have to go too far with the geeks considering your casting,. I love the ensemble aspect of the film… I mean, you even have Booger in the movie!
Joe Carnahan: I was consciously trying to like subvert what everybody normally does, you know he’s [Ryan Reynolds] been kind of a comedic… JUST FRIENDS… VAN WILDER and Curtis Armstrong played Booger. I tried to go against what these guys normally do and Bateman, Jason Bateman’s normally the straight man, so I kind of made him this kind of freak, you know? That’s always fun. It’s always fun to take an expectation and twist it somehow or warp it a bit so that they’re not doing what they’ve done before.
Quint: Was the seed of the story based on you wanting to get the big ensemble together?
Joe Carnahan: No, it’s really… It started with my fascination with kind of Frank Sinatra and the mob. This is the one time in your career you should really throw it against the wall and just fucking go all out on one and really indulge every creative whim you’ve ever had and see if it will congeal and see if one movie will hold it. And then realizing that and building archetypes that you thought would lend itself… certainly the Tremor brothers… the Tremor brothers are the Hansons in SLAP SHOT and [Randall] “Tex” Cobb’s character from RASING ARIZONA. That’s kind of the inspiration for those guys,.
So knowing that you’re going to populate this film with really freaky larger than life king of characters, while at the same time you’re going to put very real, relatable characters in the movie and again man, it kind of adheres to that overall strategy, which is you know… There’s this shotgun blast that’s going to scatter everywhere and not be in anyway a direct hit on any one thing and that’s definitely the vibe going in and always my greatest concern. It’s like, shit man, I don’t know if audiences will be able to take this, the gear changes required for the movie, but what the fuck? Let’s do it! I may only get this shot once, might as well let it all hang out [laughs].
Quint: Since you got everybody from Ray Liotta to Matthew Fox, is there anybody you wanted that you didn’t get?
Joe Carnahan: Ryan Gosling, I think for a while was going to play or interested in playing the “Acosta” part, the Nester Carbonell one. I just got this weird call that Ryan Gosling wanted to play that part, but it didn’t fit. He wasn’t, obviously, Latin American… it wasn’t that character and while intrigued, I just didn’t think it was the right move to make. That guy would have been a lot of fun to work with though, but no man, it’s always fun when people want to chase the project and want to do it.
One: they see it for what it is, kind of experimental and potentially weird, and they also see it as kind of spending a month in Laos, or rather a year [laughs] you know, working on this movie… with a 40 day schedule, so it was a very quick fitting kind of thing.
Quint: Yeah. I think, personally, my biggest draw upon hearing the plot and the cast, was with seeing Jeremy Piven as the lynchpin of the story. Did he chase the movie or did you go to him?
Joe Carnahan: You know, we kind of had a mutual admiration and I went and sat down with him and within five minutes I was like “OK, this is the guy.” Jeremy’s willingness to push it and do different things and take the mania and that manic energy… you know, like the Ari Gold character and go the other way with it… he’s very introspective quite odd. You know, he got the inherit value of doing that as a performer and wanted to give that a shot. Like I said, everybody that came to that part kind of “brought their own beer” and lawn chair… it was great. There is no pretence attached, everybody was in on the joke.
Quint: That’s cool and I really dug him in the movie, too. He has to be kind of a dickhead, but if you don’t feel for him, then you’re not going to worry about these guys coming to get him.
Joe Carnahan: Yeah, that’s why I wanted to give him moments, very quie, kind of deeply personal, where you’re watching a guy essentially kind of melt down. People ask me “What’s your favorite moment or favorite thing in the movie?” and it’s always the two shot of (Piven) and Common towards the end, where Common is essentially talking to Jeremy’s reflection. He’s no longer… he’s present and you can see him in the mirror, but you can’t see Jeremy’s physical shape in the frame, only the mirror and to me, that was the whole relationship.
This guy is indeed a fake and he’s given up his friends and his friendships. You’ve seen the deterioration of that and obviously there’s a lot more of that material… there’s a much bigger kind of conversation in the bathroom and some of that stuff will be on the DVD, so it will be interesting to see people’s reaction to the more extended bits of that, little more details in terms of the ins and outs of that friendship.
Quint: So what else can we expect to see on the DVD?
Joe Carnahan: Well the original scripted ending, which I opted not to use. I shot two endings and the script originally ends with what I call the “cowboy ending.”
Quint: Somebody riding off into the sunset?
Joe Carnahan: [laughs] I wish… No, I just thought it was… in a movie that was, at times, really abrupt, it was making, again, really aggressive gear changes. I thought, this was a bit too abrupt and too hostile at the end, but I love the ending. I mean, it’s what closed the script, so I certainly had affinity for it and then there’s the Tremor brothers… they’re their original selves in the hallway and again, I shot those guys and there was always a constant decision to shoot each character the way they kind of want to be filmed and these guys are guys who have seen THE MATRIX three hundred times.
So we’d shoot them in slow motion, with everything kind of poetic and over the top, so I had a three and a half minute sequence with them marauding through that top floor cut down to like a minute, so there’s another two and a half minutes of that that will be on the DVD.
There’s a scene between Ryan Reynolds’ character and Martin Henderson’s character at the end that never made it into the movie that people will be able to see. In addition, there’s some really great gun stuff and a big stunt special feature in there that shows some of the stuff that we did, so it’s, dare I say, jam-packed with goodies… additional material.
Quint: So you’re moving on from…
[The publicists says “this will be the last one, because of time”]
Quint: So you’re moving on from publicity to preproduction on WHITE JAZZ right?
Joe Carnahan: Yeah, I’m literally going through a bunch of old Art Blakey, you know Chet Baker albums… all these west coast jazz brew back, that was just a fucking blast man and putting together this whole visual presentation. Basically, the thing is always avoiding getting the studio hung up on “period.” Any time they hear “period film,” everyone kind of clutches their purse, so I’m really doing just entry level stuff in terms of the research. I’ve got a really kind of skeleton crew working on it right now. We’re going to go kind of full-blown prep in late July/early August and really rip into that thing, it should be a lot of fun.
Quint: Alright, cool, that’s definitely something we’re interested in here.
Joe Carnahan: Yeah, that’s going to be something else. I’m really… I had to… we had to kind of change the Guy Pearce character around…
Quint: Yeah, because of the LA CONFIDENTIAL 2 thing…
Joe Carnahan: Yeah, exactly, but beyond that, I’m hoping that the people who really love the book will think we haven’t forsaken too much of that story. So, yeah, we’re steaming ahead full.
Quint: Well alright, cool man. It was good talking to you and good luck with the DVD!
Joe Carnahan: Alright bro, you too!
That’s all I got. Hope you enjoyed the chat.
I’ve got a few more interviews in the pipeline. Keep your eyes peeled!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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You are right :)
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no one should read talkbacks, i wont......we're obviously not appreciated.
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but then I saw the film. 3/4th of the movie is exposition and the action part was too brief. It was more like a sketch of a movie or a short. Overall, it didn't have enough story to be a crime drama or enough action to be an action movie.
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Hey awesome, you guys both had stuff stolen once, that's crazy, oh hey by the way what happened with Bunny Lake? Why did Reese drop out? Did you try and recast with anyone else in mind before it all fell through?
jk, good stuff -
Mark my words, this will be a film people "rediscover" in five years and find a new appreciation for. I see it as a kind of "Repoman" for this generation.
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and, of course, she lived...damn, she sucks.
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"old Art Blakey, you know Chet Baker albums… all these west coast jazz brew back," What does "brew back" mean, Quint? Those transcriptions can be a bitch...
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"I'm not ever gonna post anything again cuz Quint said he hates us, waaah! ... except of course this post in which I say I won't ever post again." What fucking crybaby losers. Grow some hair down south, quit cutting loose with the pointless vitriol in every single fucking TalkBack, and start being a FAN again, instead of a whining, naysaying fucktard. Jeeeeeeebus Holy Applesauce, Quint was ABSOLUTELY GODDAMNED RIGHT when he made that off-the-cuff remark!!
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So I'm fascinated to see how they write the White Jazz script. As the story, possibly apocryphal, goes, Ellroy's original draft was 3x too long, so in response Ellroy removed most of the adjectives and verbs. True or not, it's such a stylistically challenging book that filming it will be a real challenge. It's too bad they killed Dudley Smith.
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Why wouldn't he? The lot of us are whiny twats that bitch about movies that haven't even been filmed yet.
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Carnahan waterlogged the adrenaline with every death scene. The music got introspective, the pacing slowed, and Carnahan SHOWED the deaths. The trailer sold that movie as having the energy and playfulness of Snatch, but Ritchie was smart enough to not show any of the brutal deaths. That was all done obliquely, and it allowed the energy to keep rolling. Snatch never got depressing (like when Matthew Fox's character slowly dies).
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Was Jason Bateman. In fact, I'll be renting the DVD just for the scene he has with the bounty hunters. Hilarious. Other than that, it was just incredibly painful to watch. Here's a tip, Joe Carnahan. If you're gonna shoot a scene you want to be incredibly emotional and cathartic, you don't put Van Wilder in it. Just a thought.
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Great film, if you don't think so...oh well. Heck, most of you think GrindHouse was good.
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What is the "the LA Confidential 2 thing"??!?
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half wannabe crime drama, half frenetic crazy action. unfortunately, since it was so half and half, both ideas seemed neutered and half assed. I was pretty pumped for it, and I came out of the theater so bored and disappointed. really a shame. the ending managed to be completely obvious and telegraphed AND ridiculously implausible. it's only interesting achievement was an unintended mistake.
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Don't listen to that evil Shia LaBeouf. He's trying to break apart our happy little family!I said this in that talkback, but in case you missed it... I seem to remember the talk with Shia being a little more political and less absolute than "Talkback is slime and garbage." I did say that there are horrible people who dwell down here and you can't take every negative thing said about you personally. God knows I've had my fair share... I believe the very first talkback I ever got was asking Harry to "Flush Quint like the turd he is."Talkback can be a wonderful, beautiful place of film conversation and personal connection... about 1% of the time. That's all I meant, honest injun'. Believe me, I appreciate everybody who reads the drivel I type. phaedrus - Curtis Hanson has said he wants to do a follow up movie to LA Confidential and he's got the support of Guy Pearce, who is supposedly returning, which mucks up the continuity for White Jazz.
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Smoking Aces sucked. ha...
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Wow.... LA Confidential is one of my favorite movies! That's the best film news I've heard in months. Thanks Q.
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He could've had all the drama and humor he wanted within an action movie context. He should've dropped the tired expostion and Tarantino-isms in the first hour and 1/2, got to the hotel sooner and made it an action movie.
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i broke into his house to get my money back for that piece of shit he calls a movie. "smoking aces" sucked!!
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There are some really great scenes in "Smokin' Aces." However, they don't always gel and the end is really contrived and overdone. That seems to be happening a lot this year. You'll have movies like "300," "Black Snake Moan," and "Smokin' Aces" that have some really amazing moments mixed in with some real clunkers. $10 a ticket is a high price to pay for near success.
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You're breaking formula, man! Don't make me send Kraken the picture of you and Rav on that trip to Tiajuana!
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Sorry but it had to be posted.
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I read the script, man, I'm sorry, but I didn't care about anybody or anything. I might pick it up cheap but judging by the script, I thought it was unengaging.
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doesnt suprise me to see the hate on the boards since most TBers hate EVERYTHING. but i thought it was well made and actually delivered on the promises the trailers made. it reminded me of a lot of japanese action/drama movies... a lot like Sharskin Man and Peach-Hip Girl. a lot of character building followed by over the top action pieces. good stuff in my book
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They made that film far more fun than it would've otherwise been. I'm still waiting for true greatness from Mr. Carnahan, and I know it will come one day.
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Some of the worst acting I've ever seen, he deserves a Razzie for this one. I enjoyed the movie thought it could have been chopped down a tad but still really liked it until...
Andy Garcia screams at Ryan Reynolds in the end literally going in and out of his normal voice and his "Virginia/D.C." accent for the movie. It was so bad, not consistent, unprofessional, took me directly out of the movie. Why it wasn't reshot or cut around was beyond me but it was so bad the entire audience in my theatre. started laughing out loud at it. It's a shame to cause I was really digging the film. Anyone else agree? -
He's got the best job in the business...
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Which for those not familiar is a German loanword meaning "pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune". We could probably all agree there's nothing wrong with negative opinions in the form of constructive criticism or impartial commentary. It only gets ugly when the critic appears to be inflating his ego and deriving satisfaction from slamming someone, which is often the case here. And a word to the haters: when you take malicous glee in the misfortune of someone who's higher on the status totem pole than you are, you just end up looking jealous and insecure whether you actually are or not. Kinda like a fat girl talking about how ugly a hot girl's outfit is.
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what a cock....
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Seriously, WHITE JAZZ is Ellroy's best book, and that's saying something. I have passages of WHITE JAZZ memorized; with that book Ellroy achieved a stylistic breakthrough that has never been equalled since.
And SMOKIN ACES is absolute garbage, the less said about it the better. It's exactly the kind of shallow, stupid, facile crap critics were afraid would flood the market after Pulp Fiction and Snatch/LockStock succeeded. -
Sorry you got your tv taken, Joe. That sucks.
I enjoyed many scenes in "Smokin' Aces," especially the milk-toast lawyer's introduction and the .50 cal building-to-building crossfire. That shit was fun. But overall, the film wasn't as good as it could've been. Setting a specific tone -- funny or intense -- for the whole film might've helped, rather than trying to paddle two boats with one oar. But I appreciate Carnahan's attempt. He's a smart guy and I think he'll learn from "Smokin' Aces" shortcomings.
One more thing: is "LA Confidential II" on the table to get made? Because if that's true, and Guy Pearce is contracted to play Ed Exley in "LA Confidential II" instead of Carnahan's "White Jazz," this just sucks. Really. Just. Sucks. I'm sure other actors could play Exley with depth and panache, and maybe Carnahan will find one, but Pearce was SO good in "LA Confidential" that it's hard to imagine anyone nailing the role after Pearce. I prefer the whole continuity thing, so Pearce not being in "White Jazz" as Exley would be a let-down.
Other than that, I'm excited for Carnahan's new film. -
xiphos is the huge fan of the discussed material serving as the voice of reason...there always gotta be one of those...oceansized is the guy hoping against hope that talkbackers will somehow cease their relentlessly negative and useless jabs at any and all topics available to them...Quint is Quint...BadMrWonka is the guy posting in a talkback that no one is going to look at any more.p.s. Smokin Aces really was a train wreck, see my above post for more detailed oceansized-sanctioned constructive criticism...
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Worst movie ever. Closely followed by 300... And if you disagree, fuck you!
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This was mentioned over a month ago on IMDb:
'LA Confidential' Sparks Two Sequels -
The creative team and original stars from cult movie LA Confidential are in talks to re-team for a sequel to the movie, going head-to-head with another sequel starring George Clooney. Director Joe Carnahan is also directing a follow-up to the film based on author James Ellroy's book White Jazz. According to entertainment website Tmz.com, another sequel is being planned by the film's original director Curtis Hanson. Hanson's version wouldn't rely on the plot of White Jazz and would instead pick-up where LA Confidential ended. The sequel would reunite original stars Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in LA Confidential.
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Thanks for the info, REDD. I guess having Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, and Kim Basinger reunited with Curtis Hansen for a film wouldn't be so horrible, but what BAD timing. Seriously. For Carnahan. As much as I love Curtis Hansen's work, I'd much rather see Smokin' Joe take a crack at the actual sequel.
Also, Xiphos, can I serve as the voice of reason (the VOS) if we'll be hitting that iceberg soon? Yay! -
thanks for the info, badmrwonka. I wouldn't mind seeing a complete list some time.
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When Mickey's mum was burned alive. Right?
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