David What?

Please join us in welcoming the fine actor David Dastmalchian, a busy actor we've been loving since we first spotted him in The Dark Knight (2008) and who you'll soon see this summer in both Ant-Man (2015) and Animals (2015). He's the first of our special guest blogging actors this summer!
- Editor. 

David Dastmalchian © Caleb Condit

Hi!  I’m thrilled to be guest blogging for Nathaniel this week.  I'll take over tomorrow for a day. I’ve been following the the site for a long time and was thrilled when he asked me to Guest Star in anticipation of the upcoming release of Animals (2015) on May 15th.  (Guest Starring is SO much better than Co-starring FYI)   

Let’s see – you may or may not recognize me from my roles in some pretty cool films, some TV shows, a few hamburger commercials… on stage???  I’ve definitely played my fair share of what some may describe as “bad guys” (my sister calls them “psychos”) though I prefer to think of them all as misunderstood innocents trapped in circumstances beyond their control.  

In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008)I was playing “Guard” and “Montano” in a production of ‘Othello’ at a wonderful regional theater in Chicago (Writer’s Theater) when I had a chance to audition for a bank-robbing clown in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.  By a stroke of miraculous luck, I was cast as The Joker’s schizophrenic henchman, Thomas, and my journey as an actor changed – my dream of working in film began to materialize and I hit the road.  I was in NYC long enough to meet the love of my life and then moved to Los Angeles where I’ve lived since 2011. 

Tomorrow I’m gonna really open up and pour my soul all over these digital pages – or at least hopefully do fun posts and tell you more about Animals.

And most importantly – teach you how to properly pronounce my name.  David (Day-vid) Dastmalchian (Dast-mol-chin).  The phonetic trick for my last name is to imagine you’re saying “This small chin” but really fast.  Go ahead, try it…

On the set of Prisoners (2013) © Wilson Webb

Until tomorrow...

Beauty vs Beast: Chris Nolan's Anti Heroics

JA from MNPP here with this week's latest "Beauty Vs Beast" tourno, wherein we ask you to choose between a good guy and a bay guy (half of those words should have meaningful quotation marks around them -- good, bad, what does it all mean???) from the halls of movie-dom and explain why you're on this or that team. This week Chris Nolan's got a new picture coming out so I figured we'd hit up one of his flicks; I contemplated a couple of other choices (DiCaprio versus Cotillard? Pearce versus Pantoliano?) but it just comes down to one in the end, doesn't it?

Going back to The Dark Knight does have a couple of knocks against it for this series - Nathaniel was just bemoaning the internet's blanket-coverage of superhero movies a few days ago, for goodness sake, and also we've already done a showdown between a Batman & Joker when we looked at Tim Burton's 1989 flick back in June. But but... but, ya know? If I'd gone with Bale vs Hardy, it just would've felt like a chance missed - the shadow of Heath Ledger's performance towers too great. So we gotta go with...

poll by twiigs.com

As always you have seven days to clear your throats and make yourselves heard - are we with the compromised brooder or the gleeful maniac - in the comments, so have at it. Die a hero or live long enough to become the villain, y'all.

PREVIOUSLY We finished up our four weeks of October "Final Girl" series with John Carpenter's Halloween and sure enough the girl smart enough to turn a wire-hanger into a weapon won our hearts once again. Said brookesboy of Laurie Strode, ultimate final girl:

"Gotta go with Laurie. Thanks to the virtuous precedent she set, all teen heroines with virginal fortitude who came after were spared the slasher's wrath. Their resistance of carnal pleasure guaranteed their safety, at least until the sequel. Thanks, Laurie. I'm sure the knee socks helped."

Best Shot: Batman Returns & The Dark Knight

...Or, as I call them: Catwoman (1992) --what? the names not taken since there is no other movie none nuh-uh called this -- and The Joker (2008).

Yes, it's true I intended to watch all 8 Bat Movies before the big event tomorrow night (pick a Bat-Film, any Bat-Film) and select a best shot from each. The idea that I was going to be able to watch eight films, most of them over 2 hours long and write about each of them individually in the space of a week is so ridiculously delusional that maybe I need to be locked up in Arkham Asylum? 

But I knew which shots I would choose from both Batman Returns and The Dark Knight without a rewatch (and that's not common for me). Even while watching the movies the very first time in 1992 and 2008 respectively my amygdalae be all "We likey. This moves us. Never forget!" 

Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer shot by Stefan Czapsky)The Joker (Heath Ledger shot by Wally Pfister)

The reasons to love these two shots and pair them are legion. They're twins in every way I can think of and "Holy Split-Zygote!" does the Batman franchise ever love twins.

We're the same, split right down the center.

Two silent images in madhouse conversation.

Both images are solo shots, weird little character-beat reveries within much fussier action punctuated sequences. In fact, in lesser director's and editor's hands it's easy to imagine them left on the cutting room floor altogether as they're more visual grace notes than story beats. Both images are animalistic, the cat doubled playfully and the dog hanging out the car window to feel the breeze, the only thing missing being his tongue. Both images have no dialogue, they're just hypnotic snapshots of two actors at the peak of their gifts lost in their own inspired headspace fully inhabiting fantastical people. Perhaps most impresively, both images happen to reflect their movies and auteurs, too. Tim Burton's Batman films are a mix of pitch-black night, elaborate production design, playful flourishes and cartoonish verve... all accounted for in this image. They don't take place in the real world - notice everything swallowed by darkness behind Catwoman. There is no real world; Gotham is a soundstage. Chris Nolan's Batman films, in contrast, are a mix of late night restlessness, gritty realism, and told with a straight face and dark majesty... all acounted for in this image. The Joker may be otherworldly but he's intruding in ours; Gotham is Chicago, filmed on location.

Finally, and this is no small matter, what Michelle Pfeiffer and Heath Ledger were doing in both of these movies in roles that haven't always inspired actors or even been taken seriously by them is art, pure and simple. These star turns are film-elevating stylized tragicomedy, so highly peculiar that they could have only come from inspired character actors, so mesmerizing that they could have only come from movie stars. This Catwoman and this Joker are filled with such vivid specificity that though these roles which will surely be played by dozens more actors in the next 100 years, they will always belong to Heath and Michelle. 

And now... the main event see all the images chosen in the Best Shot party.

Shot in Chicago: Movies that capture the spirit of the city

Tim here, rejoicing over the fact that our good host Nathaniel is in my very own Chicago this weekend – we have a movie night planned tomorrow! – and to celebrate, I wanted to showcase some of my city’s best and most dubious moments in the cinematic spotlight. Therefore:

Three Chicago-based movies that truly "get" the city
(no documentaries; that would be cheating, no matter how much Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters are 100% essential Chicago movies)

Mickey One (1965)
The film that Warren Beatty and director Arthur Penn made right before Bonnie and Clyde is even more besotted with the French New Wave, but stylistic excess doesn’t get in the way of a really special hyper-naturalistic depiction of the city streets as they existed almost half a century ago. I cannot, of course, speak to the veracity of what’s onscreen, but the film’s documentary aspects shine through even under the sordid thriller aspects of the plot and Penn’s fractured filming style. Of all the classic movies filmed in Chicago – and there are a few – none do such a great job of suggesting what the neighborhoods looked like way back when, before building and gentrification made their mark.

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Screenplays of '12. Pg 12. "The Dark Knight Rises"

New daily! I'll be sharing page 12 of every screenplay I've received for 2012 Films. With commentary! Until you get bored. Which maybe you already are? I thought y'all would love the last entry on Zero Dark Thirty but there be crickets.

The following scene is our introduction to the sole bright spot in Chris Nolan's final Batman film. That'd be Anne Hathaway as Catwoman if you were momentarily confused. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I gave the film a positive if unenthused review. It did not age well within the summer, let alone the year. I'd easily name it Chris Nolan's worst film (though I have not seen Insomnia). But anyway... PAGE 12. 

INT. SITTING ROOM. EAST WING, WAYNE MANOR - CONTINUOUS

The Maid looks at FRAMED PHOTOGRAPHS OF RACHEL, THOMAS, and MARTHA WAYNE. Some are half-burned. She notices an ARCHERY TARGET, ARROWS stuck in it. She reaches out - WHAM! AN ARROW STICKS IN THE TARGET - the Maid spins around, FLUSTERED. Wayne, at the other end of the long room lowers a COMPOSITE BOW. Picks up his cane.

                    MAID
I'm, I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Wayne.
It is Mr. Wayne, isn't it? 

Wayne nods, gently. Limps toward her.

                    MAID (CONT'D)
Although you don't have the long
nails...
(nervous laugh)
Or facial scars...

She trails off, embarrassed. Coy. She seems very young. 

                   WAYNE
Is that what they say about me?

                     MAID
It's just that... nobody sees you...

Wayne approaches, slowly. He nods at her PEARL NECKLACE...

Aren't you glad I didn't bore you with the first half of the page which is a scene with Marion Cotillard? Good Chris(t) but Nolan didn't do her any favors by casting her in that picture.

So let's all just focus on Awesome Annie (VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP)

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