Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a real hang-loose type interview I did with Gil Kenan, director of CITY OF EMBER, which opens today, as well MONSTER HOUSE. Kenan came through Austin to show the flick at Fantastic Fest, bringing Bill Murray in tow. I didn’t get a chance to interview Mr. Murray, but I did get a chance to shake his hand get in some small talk, which rocked my socks off. I can’t believe I spoke with Peter Venkman… Anyway, my opportunity to sit down with Gil was an early morning after a late night of movie watching at Fantastic Fest and my movie of the day for that day. One of the first things he said when I walked into the hotel room where the interviews were taking place was about my AMAD column, asking how I was keeping it going during a film festival. It wasn’t easy and that’s where we are as the digital audio recorder was switched on. I hope you guys enjoy the chat. It’s a fun, conversational interview with a guy who is a big fan of the site. And please forgive any exhausted ramblings on my part. There are a lot of tangents, but this is the kind of free-wheeling chat I love. I mean, when else do you get an interview that covers everything from Bill Murray to Howard The Duck to talking cats? Enjoy!
Gil Kenan: But you already posted your write-up of (your Movie A Day?)
Quint: Yeah, I posted it before I went to bed, but that was about 6am when I posted it. I might have gotten in three hours of sleep.
Gil Kenan: That’s amazing. Do you want me to close the blinds? Maybe that will help your sad, tired eyes.
Quint: Yeah, let’s make it as dark in here as possible. That’s a good idea right now.
Gil Kenan: And maybe I can bring some white noise in and make some ocean sounds. (laughs) “We have some cookies and I can bring you some warm milk…”
Quint: Warm milk and cookies, maybe not. Do you have any Pixie Sticks, I could use the sugar rush…
Gil Kenan: We just happen to have some CITY OF EMBER themed pajamas!
Quint: Sweet! And Pillows! (laughs) No, I think I’ll be OK. It’s one of those, when it almost hurts to wake up, but…
Gil Kenan: I know what you mean. I had to do GOOD MORNING AUSTIN this morning. Have you ever seen that? There’s like Joe and Catherine. I didn’t go to sleep as late as you, but I had to wake up at seven. I went to Tim’s [League] house last night. He showed BULGOKEE the movie. It’s like this Korean movie about barbeque. It was awesome.
Quint: You came out for MONSTER HOUSE, right?
Gil Kenan: That was my first time screening MONSTER HOUSE.
Quint: And I wasn’t here for it.
Gil Kenan: I know, where were you?
Quint: I don’t know. When was that?
Gil Kenan: 2006. I probably came out in May or June of 2006.
Quint: I think I was in New Zealand.
Gil Kenan: Oh cool, so it was a worthy cause. You are forgiven. That’s when I met… I had met Drew in LA, but I hadn’t met Harry and I met like the whole gang on that trip, other than you.
Quint: I saved myself for when I’m bright eyed and bushy tailed, but yeah I love MONSTER HOUSE man.
Gil Kenan: I appreciate it.
Quint: Just in re-watching it, I think they got it in HD or BLU RAY, I don’t remember which format I got it on, but just re-watching it there after seeing it in theaters, it struck me. I just love that there’s… I grew up watching like when Disney had that great run where they did two or three actual horror movies for kids, where they did like WATCHER IN THE WOODS and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES and as a kid I loved that. I was a little atypical as a kid, I was watching FRIDAY THE 13th and stuff like that, but I loved that as sort of a gateway drug into horror, that kind of thing and you took the world seriously, so there was a threat to it and I’m seeing the same thing in CITY OF EMBER. It’s like you take it seriously.
Gil Kenan: I always felt when I was a kid watching movies, that maybe… I don’t know if it was just the 80’s, like when we were growing up or that my parents were terrible parents and let me go see movies that I wasn’t supposed to, but I always felt like going to the movies, regardless of the kind of movie that I was seeing, was sort of a frightening experience in the best way possible, like when the lights go down, the floor could open up and you could get chewed up somehow and I think that that for me was part of the magic of movies when I was a kid, like that there was danger involved and so I think I just soaked that up. I think we really lost that in a way in movies, especially in the 90’s when everything was so bland.
Quint: Yeah, I used to ride my bike to the mall. Summer was great, because I would just wake up and my mom was a waitress at the time, so I would just dip my hand in the tip jar, come back with 2.50 and I would have a day of movies down at the mall… Kid’s can’t do that these days.
Gil Kenan: Totally. I think most of my life is dotted by those kinds of experiences that I had alone in a movie theater or with my dad or something seeing something that would freak me out and stay with me and I kind of… I do sort of remember all of these amazing moments that I feel sort of shaped my life, like seeing FLASH GORDON at a drive in when I was a kid, like when it first opened up.
Quint: That’s a pretty trippy, creepy movie when you think about it.
Gil Kenan: Totally. It’s actually… that movie is a total mind-fuck actually.
Quint: The tree stump scene… that and the whip fight with the…
Gil Kenan: With the spikes on the balance board?
Quint: And the dude with the metal face… Klytus or whatever… that falls into the spikes and dissolves and his face pops off…
Gil Kenan: And then the Ming torso spearing, you know with the green goop. Moments like that sort of… they affect you and so I’m just really lucky that I have gotten to work on two movies now that I feel like don’t pull their punches for kids, like I’m definitely making the movies knowing that there is going to be a younger audience. It’s not like its just throwing a bunch of dark nonsense at them, but I do feel like I always knew when a movie was respecting me when I was an audience member as a kid and so I’m trying to do the same for kids… for the children of the world. “It’s all for the children.”
Quint: That’s your own charity, except you have to pay for it.
Gil Kenan: (laughs) Actually they pay me. It’s a great charity, it’s a great model. The charity cases actually pay me.
Quint: That’s awesome, but yeah I really like the design aesthetic. I’m a huge fan of BIOSHOCK and stuff and so I love seeing steampunk-ish, but I’m not familiar with the books at all, so I don’t know how much of that was in the novel…
Gil Kenan: I didn’t even know there was a book until someone told me yesterday, no… (laughs) The novel is great in creating a sort of feeling and really these sort of fascinating characters, but it doesn’t get too much into the sort of look of the place, so right when I had finished reading it the first time I kind of had that one image which was the generator and I started drawing it and it was almost this compulsive image, I kept sketching it on everything and then I sort of extrapolated from that and got a feel for what this world was like, but it’s an interesting thing designing a dystopia, because to do it honestly you have to start off by designing a utopia and then doing it functionally and that’s sort of the task I set out for myself, to make this place a logical place to keep a few hundred humans surviving for a couple of hundred years and then you kind of just start tearing it down and you think of how time ravages it and what people do to soften things that are designed purely functionally. Like when you go into an architectural home and most of the time there is a lot of seating surfaces that are not comfortable, like they look really good in the place and that’s kind of the way that a lot of these projects started off. It’s like there are designers at the top and then as soon as people start to move in and humanize the place, it changes and becomes organic. I don’t believe that if you were on a space ship and traveling across the universe that you would keep your sleeping pod with those thin-ass foam mattresses that they always have. I feel like people would bring in a bunch of comfy pillows and like a quilt from home and soften the surfaces. So in a way this was an opportunity to make a domestic science fiction film.
Quint: Definitely as well as a post-apocalyptic movie, which I love.
Gil Kenan: Can’t get enough of those kid post apocalyptic… they’ve got to learn about the apocalypse somehow and it might as well be in this film.
Quint: Yeah, who knows? In forty something days we might figure out just how close we’ll come.
Gil Kenan: I think they are figuring out ahead of it, they found a way to do it before the election, so kudos to them.
Quint: Any way to hasten the apocalypse.
Gil Kenan: Apparently you start by shooting wolves it turns out…
Quint: From helicopters, yeah…
Gil Kenan: (laughs) Did you see that? It just keeps getting better and better.
Quint: It will, if Mr. Obama can keep his momentum and we can just have a laugh and it doesn’t become a reality, because yeah I’m very scared…
Gil Kenan: I’m going to rent a bus that’s going to drive us to England and you are welcome. I’ll save you a seat.
Quint: Oh yeah? The bus is going to drive us to England, huh?
Gil Kenan: It’s going to be like a CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG bus thing that has like an inflatable raft that opens up when you get to the water.
Quint: Perfect, that solves the Atlantic problem. Let’s talk a little bit about your cast, I met Saoirse [Ronan] on LOVELY BONES.
Gil Kenan: Oh right, so you went back to New Zealand for that?
Quint: No, that was in Philadelphia.
Gil Kenan: Oh right, for that leg of it, yeah.
Quint: I got to know her dad and they were all really cool and so nice, but she had just gotten nominated for ATONEMENT while we were on and they were just so humble and open. You hear all of these stories about kid actors, but it clearly wasn’t a face that she was putting on.
Gil Kenan: She’s like… It’s difficult to sort of describe in a few sentences what that girl can do, but…
Quint: She’s almost creepy good, but she falls just short of being creepy.
Gil Kenan: Well, because she’s really funny and nice, but she has this sort of power on camera that is pretty extraordinary, like your eyes are electrically pulled to her on screen and there’s no way to look away. So it’s was pretty amazing for me to be able to find her. I looked for a long time for Lina and she came out of nowhere. When I first met with her, she had just finished shooting ATONEMENT, but there was really nothing that I could see of her out there, so it was based on a meeting. She came out when I was in London and we met…
Quint: I remember ATONEMENT didn’t really get any buzz until it started screening, because people didn’t really know about it.
Gil Kenan: Right and she just owns that film and so… I just met with her. We talked for a few minutes. She read a couple of lines and she had the part, because it was pretty simple.
Quint: But when you saw the movie, you realized you had to take the whole “cunt” element out of CITY OF EMBER, like “Man, I can’t repeat it.”
Gil Kenan: (laughs) I don’t know what version they showed you, but the one I’m think of on October 10th is full of ribald.
Quint: It was great and in these movies, it’s really crucial, but you go back to the golden era and you see…
Gil Kenan: SHORT CIRCUIT 2?
Quint: I do love SHORT CIRCUIT 2.
Gil Kenan: “Help me Rhonda?”
Quint: Yeah and Los Locos kick your ass…
Gil Kenan: And your balls into outer-space.
Quint: See? Kids movies used to rock man!
Gil Kenan: Here here!
Quint: I don’t know where I was going, but it was probably me admitting my love for HOWARD THE DUCK, too, but…
Gil Kenan: By the way, I looked for every opportunity when I was up at Skywalker to get people to share some HOWARD THE DUCK stories, because I love that movie, too, and the best I could do was find some publicity photos like tucked into some books in the library there, they are really amazing…
Quint: They just want to imagine the movie doesn’t exist.
Gil Kenan: I know. One day they will realize that there is this groundswell of people who love the Duck.
Quint: You know what’s great? I recently re-watched it, because the Alamo showed it. What is awesome is I don’t think I had ever seen it big, I think I had only seen it on video and it was like… it was horrible, because they screened it celebrating it as a tribute to…
Gil Kenan: National Duck Day?
Quint: No, the creator, who died and of course he hated the fucking movie. But what struck me about HOWARD THE DUCK or the reason I love it so much is because it shouldn’t exist.
Gil Kenan: No. It’s in that pocket of the universe where like the Garbage Pale Kids movie exists… That would actually be a really great double feature, wouldn’t it?
Quint: No, I agree.
Gil Kenan: I need to go find those prints now.
Quint: I don’t know, but I love movies like that, movies where you are like “That was big movie…” “They thought that was a great idea. They thought that’s how it would work…” It played well to me, but like everybody hates it and I know why, but Leah Thompson has never been hotter.
Gil Kenan: She is always hot.
Quint: She gives a duck a featherboner, so I guess that’s the next questions. When are you going to…
Gil Kenan: When am I going to get a feather-boner? I’ve had one this entire interview!
Quint: “CITY OF EMBER 2”
Gil Kenan: “RISE OF THE FEATHER-BONER”
[Both Laugh]
Gil Kenan: I feel like we have got to try to get a Blu-Ray of that. There’s probably not even a DVD release is there?
Quint: Nope.
Gil Kenan: Alright, this is my new mission.
Quint: See, now you’ve got to remake it, because that’s the only way that they will put it out on Blu-Ray
Gil Kenan: The only way I’m doing it is if I’m using a real duck.
[Both Laugh]
Gil Kenan: Just like spend a few years training him how to speak English and then teaching him how to play guitar for the next couple of years. That would be amazing if I took 20 years now and just coaxed a documentary remake out of a couple of real ducklings.
Quint: You would have to do it with a couple of multiple generations, so they would be born with it in the DNA…
Gil Kenan: Yeah, there’s this great novel called LIVES OF THE MONSTER DOGS which is about taking subsequent generations of dogs and training them how to walk up right and then they attach these talk boxes to their larynxes or the closest thing that dogs have for that and getting them to synthesize speech, it’s amazing.
Quint: Yeah no, they don’t need to do that. Have you seen… online there’s this dog that lost both front arms…
Gil Kenan: I love that dog!
Quint: He keeps running around with that weird hunchback thing going on because he wasn’t meant to be upright, he wasn’t built for it, but…
Gil Kenan: I would be really… I think if I came upon him on the street, it would be a very complex reaction, like I would be really scared. I would probably start to cry and laugh at the same time, because that is a sort of miraculous creation. It also makes me feel like my dogs are really lazy, like my dogs are getting by on four legs and I feel like maybe it would be good for them to practice walking upright a little bit, because if that guy can… It makes them look…
Quint: Obviously they can, they’re just not doing it!
Gil Kenan: Dogs are lazy. We are giving them way to much slack sleeping around all day.
Quint: We need to give them straitjackets.
Gil Kenan: Have you seen the cat that talks on Youtube?
Quint: Maybe.
Gil Kenan: Just try “Talking Cat” sometimes. I think she says like “Old Don Piano.” And she just keeps repeating it. “Old Don Piano.”
Quint: I remember when AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS was on and you had the dog that said “I love you.”
Gil Kenan: [In a dog impersonation] “I ruv you!” I’ve been trying to train them for years to say it. I got close once, but… not enough for AFV.
Quint: Well also Murray, like when the movie was announced like “Oh yeah the guy from MONSTER HOUSE, ok… wait Bill Murray? Really? He got Bill Murray?” It’s not an animated cat movie and you’re not Jim Jarmusch. How’d you do that?
Gil Kenan: (laughs) It turns out he’s out there. He does movies and I lucked out, because Caroline Thompson wrote the script and he was a fan of hers from the ‘80s and so I think he didn’t throw the script away when I sent it to him, because it had her name on it and so for some reason he decided after he finished reading it that he was game for doing a movie out in Ireland. It actually wasn’t as complicated as I had always heard it would be, I mean he showed up and we hadn’t really talked before he showed up, he just said he would come out. I was pretty nervous, because I didn’t know if we would be able to relate or anything. Then the first time they brought him out I was actually in the middle of shooting another scene and my assistant director thought it would be a good idea, since it was Mr. Bill Murray, to like bring him out onto the set and introduce him to everyone in a formal way, which was actually a really horrible idea both for me, because I was in the middle of shooting a scene and for Bill, because he didn’t really need that kind of nonsense. He was an English guy, the AD, so he was like “Ladies and gentlemen we are very honored to have Mr. Bill Mur-ray” and everyone clapped and stuff and so I came out and everyone was watching us and we shook hands and I was like “Welcome” and he said “Thank you” and that was it, like “OK, I’m going to go shoot the rest of this scene” and he went off. (laughs) I was like “Oh man… I’m screwed,” but then the next day was a Saturday and we weren’t shooting, so we met on the set. It was empty, because you know we built the whole city basically which was amazing. There was this enormous, empty set of stages where the Titanic was built originally and we just started walking around the streets of Ember and talking about what this place was, like who Mayor Cole was, like how he fit into this and by the end of that chat we were making the exact same movie. I think it was really good for us to do it not just alone, but also in the city itself, because it’s such an important character in the story.
Quint: Yeah, there’s nothing like that, especially when you see something as big in scale as that, then it makes it real.
Gil Kenan: Totally. Every actor that walked out on the stage, I felt like my job just got so much easier whenever they walked out to the set, because a lot of times… MONSTER HOUSE especially was like “OK, this is going to be really cool, one day there’s going to be a massive house here and it’s going like ‘Rarrrr’ and you are going to react like this…” and so much of my energy was about describing the set basically and here there was a real instant reaction and that was nice. But Bill was amazing. It’s weird, I’ve met a lot of funny people in my life, but…
Quint: And funny-looking people.
Gil Kenan: And funny looking people and I feel like what he can do, like he has honed his sarcasm. It’s almost like watching the higher plain of sarcasm, like how it can evolve into. Do you remember in DEFENDING YOUR LIFE when he goes and Rip Torn is eating like the food that the lawyers eat there and Albert Brooks is like “What does that taste like?” and he’s like “You wouldn’t understand, it’d taste like shit to you.” It’s sort of like that, like hearing him communicate is like the food of the lawyers in DEFENDING YOUR LIFE.
Quint: At least it’s not like A PAST LIVES PAVILLION.
Gil Kenan: No.
[Both Laugh]
Gil Kenan: That’s actually my least favorite scene in that movie, it’s too easy. That movie is amazing though. I love the way it uses food to help us understand the afterlife. It’s actually the genius of that movie. I think there’s an Albert Brooks food threat that would make a really good thesis. Remember the sherbet in MOTHER? There’s like the sherbet in the freezer that was like a metaphor for their relationship? I’m not saying I’m the guy to write this paper, but…
Quint: Maybe you are.
Gil Kenan: If this whole movie thing doesn’t work out, I’ll write an essay about Albert Brooks and food. By the way it’s really good to meet you at long last, are you going to be around tonight for this party thing?
Quint: Yeah probably, I’ve heard that Bill might be there.
Gil Kenan: He might very well be there, yeah. He’s actually on his way here. It’s going to be so awesome. I’m really excited.
Quint: So if I go to the party, will you introduce me?
Gil Kenan: Without a doubt, 100% I can guarantee it. It’s going to be really cool. I went out and showed him the movie last week.
Quint: He dug it? Well, obviously if he’s going to fly out, I doubt he would fly out and do a Q&A. “Well, I certainly love the money… Thanks for the paycheck.”
Gil Kenan: He’s amazing actually. I love that guy.
Quint: That’s great. I wish I could have seen him more in GET SMART, he had that one bit in there.
Gil Kenan: I haven’t seen GET SMART yet, is he funny in it?
Quint: Yeah, well he has one scene where he’s playing the agent that’s always hiding, if you ever watched the old TV show he was always like in a desk or a cabinet drawer or whatever.
Gil Kenan: Where does he turn up?
Quint: It was at the very beginning of the movie and he talks to Maxwell Smart and he’s in a tree and he’s talking out of the knothole or whatever and it’s like “Man this is going to be great and they are going to pepper him throughout the movie and he’s going to be hiding like that,” but he’s just in that one scene.
Gil Kenan: That movie turned out OK, right?
Quint: Yeah it was pretty funny.
Gil Kenan: Have you been seeing a bunch of movies during the fest? It’s been great?
Quint: It’s been awesome.
Gil Kenan: I’m really bummed out that I came so late, because I was reading the program last night and it looked like there was a ton of great stuff. What’s your favorite so far?
Quint: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN… awesome, absolutely awesome.
Gil Kenan: Is that Danish?
Quint: No, I think it’s Swedish.
Gil Kenan: It’s the vampire one, right? Like with a twelve year old.
Quint: It’s funny because when I wrote my review people were like “You said vampires and all of a sudden I don’t give a shit any more.” It’s like “No guys, seriously.” That movie has as much to do with vampires as CRONOS has to do with vampires, like technically they are there and this one’s a little bit more traditional vampire than in CRONOS, but it’s like that really isn’t the point of the story.
Gil Kenan: I can’t wait to see it. Does it have an American release yet?
Quint: I think they’re going to probably do something late… they’re stupid if they don’t open it up next month, with a big October art house push…
Gil Kenan: Yeah, but that will never happen right? It’s so frustrating. Maybe when TWILIGHT comes out and if that does well they will see some dollar signs and figure out a way to do it.
Quint: I hope so. The remake rights are already sold to it.
Gil Kenan: I saw that Matt Reeves is attached to it.
Quint: Oh really? I woke up and came here, so I… That’s interesting. It’s so visually well done. You see the movie and it isn’t really fit for a remake, because it’s one of those where you can’t really copy the style of it, because it’s not stylistically unique, but what it is just the focus. It’s what the director focuses on in a scene, that’s a complete twist on… you know if there’s a horror scene you are not following the victim and you are not following the killer, you are just back and you watching it and you don’t even realize it’s a horror scene until the horror happens.
Gil Kenan: That’s amazing. I can’t wait to see it. I did like CLOVERFIELD a lot though.
Quint: CLOVERFIELD is good. It’s good, it’s just the heart of that movie was the director and the two kids in the cast.
Gil Kenan: Did you meet the director? Did he come out?
Quint: No no he didn’t, but his vision, because it’s not like a style like “Oh crap look at that image,” It’s not a story that you can go “Okay, I can ASSAULT ON PRECINT 13 it” which is essentially RIO BRAVO anyway, like you can take that thing… It’s such a character piece and so I don’t know, I don’t have much faith in a remake.
Gil Kenan: It sounds like a distinctly European sort of approach to it.
Quint: I just don’t want it to lose the subtlety, which is what makes it special, you know? But there’s also THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD, awesome.
Gil Kenan: I’m dying to see that. I really liked your write up of it. That was a really good write up.
Quint: TOKYO GORE POLICE…
Gil Kenan: You wrote like a dual write up right? You posted the commercials, that fucking cutting commercial had me cracking up. It sounded really well done. It was a really expertly made commercial. It really was like ROBOCOP.
Quint: Totally and there are two more in the movie that I didn’t post, just so…
Gil Kenan: What are they? What are the commercials?
Quint: One is advertising “Oh, you don’t need a new cutting tool, the samurai sword you inherited from your grandfather, you can use that to cut yourself, you don’t need the trendy new thing.” It’s this Mortal Kombat style thing where it’s still pictures of things and so its this guy with a samurai thing with a sword and it cuts to him and it’s like “Don’t forget, you can also seppuku” [Imitates the act]
Gil Kenan: And the blood’s gushing?
Quint: No, it’s very bloodless until the very last shot and he does this [slices across is stomach] and all of his intestines shoot out like in THE THING and he goes “Wahhh.” There’s a couple of them in there like that, but it’s not…
Gil Kenan: Well it sound like THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD will come out to LA though.
Quint: It better, it’s too good.
Gil Kenan: Sounds like it’s amazing.
Quint: It’s a good fest, I’m way behind on my coverage because my A Movie A Day column.
Gil Kenan: How long did you commit to doing it, for the year or for the rest of your life?
Quint: It’s open ended right now.
Gil Kenan: Are there enough movies to keep going?
Quint: Yeah, I started with a years worth. I had close to four hundred titles when I started and I think I’ve added another hundred on since I began, so that’s the thing I scour DVD stores now and that’s kind of the thing, I’m finding all of these threads, actors I love.
Gil Kenan: Well that’s great, I’m really happy to finally get a chance to meet you. I’ve been reading your stuff for a while.
Quint: It’s good to meet you too, I like your movies.
Gil Kenan: Look at us loving each other. Come and tap on my shoulder tonight when I’m with the Mayor and I’ll make sure that you have some time with him.
And there you have it. I probably couldn’t have gotten more goofy if I tried. I hope that was in some way readable or interesting to an outside perspective. I love this kind of chat, where the interviewee doesn’t stick to talking points and just covers the same shit. I really enjoyed spending 40 minutes talking with Gil Kenan and found him to be very much on my wavelength in terms of personality and film tastes. I hope you guys were able to get a genuine feel of who he is as well. And the dude did introduce me to Bill Murray, so I am officially in his debt forever. I will probably be cleaning his house or mowing his lawn in the near future. Thanks for reading along! Yet more interviews to come. I’ve got such a backlog I might just do One Interview A Day just to really force myself to get them pumped out… But I’ll decide on that tomorrow. No matter what there are a ton ready and a lot more I’m planning over the next two weeks, so keep an eye out. -Quint quint@aintitcool.com
