Big Fan [Sundance 09]

Started by modage, January 19, 2009, 03:44:14 PM

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modage



Paul Aufiero (Oswalt), a 35-year-old parking-garage attendant from working-class Staten Island, is the self described "world's biggest New York Giants fan." One night Paul and his best friend, Sal (Kevin Corrigan), spot star Giants linebacker Quantrell Bishop at a gas station in Staten Island. They impulsively follow his SUV into Manhattan to a strip club, where they finally muster up the courage to talk to their hero. What starts out as a dream come true turns into a nightmare as a misunderstanding ignites a violent confrontation, and Paul is sent down a path that will test his devotion to the extreme.  Written and directed by Robert Siegel, fresh off of writing The Wrestler for Darren Aronofsky.

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/01/19/sundance-we-review-patton-oswalts-new-sports-comedy-big-fan/
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

New Feeling


72teeth

Buffalo '66 part 2: Giants '09
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

MacGuffin

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Stefen

Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

picolas

i stopped watching midway through. looks like one of those trailers that tells you every single thing that happens. exciting though. didn't know the writer of the wrestler had another thing happening so soon.

©brad

Awesome. I can't remember the last protagonist I felt for as much as Paul. Very dark and funny and poignant character study, with 70s/Taxi Driver roots. The climax is fantastic. I cant' wait to see what Robert Sigel does next.

modage

That's so funny, I did not like this at all!  Or or, wait for it wait for it...

I was not a big fan.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

MacGuffin

Quote from: modage on August 29, 2009, 11:41:56 PM
Or or, wait for it wait for it...

I was not a big fan.

:splat:


Booooooo-urns!
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Fernando

Patton Oswalt: Big Fan
By Ryan Stewart

suicidegirls.com

There are only a handful of comedians whose album releases qualify as cultural events, but Patton Oswalt is one of them. Tracks from his new CD, My Weakness is Strong are already being dissected by comedy enthusiasts in coffee shops around the country and picked apart on social networks like Twitter for the exquisite one-liners, the acutely-lobbed political grenades, and moments of inspired lunacy that compare to his memorable tangle with a screaming heckler on his last album, Werewolves and Lollipops. That CD, released during the death throes of the Bush administration, was widely hailed for its stance of supreme indignation and undercurrent of soul-weariness that mirrored the national mood at the time, and cemented Oswalt's reputation as a comedian who loses no ground by going topical and getting angry.

Since that time, the 40 year-old and new father has continued to play to rabid fans at intimate clubs, tossing out brief, memorable bits such as one in which a Youtube user is re-imagined as an insatiable Roman emperor. An acting career that began with a run on King of Queens has also accelerated, with Oswalt winning critical kudos for his voice work in the 2007 animated adventure Ratatouille. This week also sees the release of Big Fan, a pitch black indie comedy that marks the directing debut of Robert Siegel, screenwriter of The Wrestler. Oswalt plays Paul Aufiero, a 35 year-old trapped in a state of permanent adolescence, living with his mother, and pouring his love and his energy into an obsession with the New York Giants – a one-sided relationship if there ever was one. "He loves his team, and he shows them he loves them through suffering," is how Oswalt summed it up to me when we met up last week at a Manhattan bar to talk about the film, as well as the state of comedy in 2009.


PATTON OSWALT: I've done a lot of interviews with you guys, with the late, great Dan Epstein.

RYAN STEWART: I know, I think I've read them all. Great stuff.

PATTON OSWALT: So, what the fuck happened? Did they ever know? No one has ever told me.

RYAN STEWART: I honestly don't know. I read that it was sudden and unexpected, but I don't have a connection there.

PATTON OSWALT: But it was never explained. And I met him a couple of times and he always seemed so hale and hearty. I mean, what the fuck? That just sucks so fucking hard.

RYAN STEWART: I was sort of brought in during the wake of that whole thing. I would like to have gotten to know him, though.

PATTON OSWALT: Oh, he was the best. I would get into fights with him. I would be like "Why did you just ask me that? That's stupid!" And he'd be like "Oh, um, sorry..." I always just loved how we would go back and forth, it was so great.

RYAN STEWART: Could you back him down? 

PATTON OSWALT: No! He would totally defend it. He would hand it right back to me, and I loved it, it was great. I loved it!

RYAN STEWART: Someone just told me that the original title of Big Fan was Paul Aufiero, which kind of stopped me, cause that's a way, way better title. There's just something about it. Agree?

PATTON OSWALT: Are you kidding? I think it's a fantastic title. I also thought Sydney was a way better title than Hard Eight. But there you go! [laughs]

RYAN STEWART: The only other obsessive sports movie that comes to my mind is the one where Jimmy Fallon is one of those guys, but he's also dating Drew Barrymore. Unrealistic!

PATTON OSWALT: Yeah, but that character was a functioning guy. His fandom was the kind of fandom that enhances a life. Paul's is fandom in place of a life. But you know, in a weird way, there's also a love story in this movie. It's just that, as Robert put it, it's an unrequited love. He loves his team. And he's going to show them he loves them through suffering. It's that classic case of "You'll really start to love me when I don't leave you after I've been abused." It's that kind of thing, that whole pathology.

RYAN STEWART: I know guys like Paul. Mid-thirties, no ambition. They seem to get along okay, for the most part.

PATTON OSWALT: Go to some rep. theaters in L.A. on a weeknight, like I do all the time. Go to the New Beverly and you'll see some people for whom movies have completely replaced their lives. It's no longer a supplement to their existence, it is their existence. It's very, very sad, those autograph hounds, those guys with the weird, tattered copies of the Leonard Maltin movie guide, checking off what they've seen and haven't seen – that's really fucked up.

RYAN STEWART: Does Paul have an out? Does he have opportunity?

PATTON OSWALT: I think he has nothing but opportunity, but there's really no ability on his part to pursue it. The opportunities are there and they will continue to be there, but he's actively waging a war against that door being opened. He does not want to change, at all, and it really activates him when someone comes along and tries to make him change. He really fights against that. He's kind of a perfect combination of sad and noble.

RYAN STEWART: Was it easy to get into the headspace of a low-energy, low-ambition kind of guy?

PATTON OSWALT: Well, as ambitious as I am with my comedy and as a writer, I do have that aspect in me where I just want to sit back and watch movies. And I've also seen people like that in my life. In show business, you see a lot of delusional, damaged people. People who've rejected life. They've really, really rejected life. I see that in a lot of my friends and in me – where we have one foot on the edge of having way too much passion for our own good, you know? You also see that in the biographies of some people like H.P. Lovecraft. That's one that immediately comes to mind as a guy who was just, like, against life.

RYAN STEWART: The obsession is ultimately a symptom of what? Boredom or depression?

PATTON OSWALT: That's a good question. Which came first? Would this person have filled his life with something else if the object of his fan desire wasn't there? Or would he just be this weird kind of empty shell? I can't say! [laughs]

RYAN STEWART: What I loved most about the movie was that sudden ramp-up in the beginning of the third act. We're suddenly made aware that we haven't been privy to al of his thoughts. Did you like that?

PATTON OSWALT: Yes! That's what I really loved. This is one of those rare movies where it goes into the third act and you're suddenly like "I have no fucking idea what's going to happen now ... but it seems to be going someplace really bad." Things start to get really, really bad. Yeah, that's also what I dug about it. The fact that you asked that question is, I think, what makes it such a good movie. It's that you just do not know, and the movie is not going to go, okay, let's hold up here and let me answer some of your questions. It just doesn't do that. Instead, it opens this tiny window. It's like those great movies of the early 70s, like McCabe & Mrs. Miller or Night Moves, where it's like "Hmm..that's all I'm gonna see, now I've got to put the rest together myself." People used to get excited by that. They were like, okay, now I'm engaged – let's figure this movie out.

RYAN STEWART: Now, not so much!

PATTON OSWALT: Ehhhhhh, not so much! Didn't Reader's Digest just file for bankruptcy? A magazine that boils books and magazines down to shorter versions? People didn't have the attention span to read that!

RYAN STEWART: Going back to the movie nerd parallel, I also saw a specific comparison to the way that today's seasoned movie nerd is expected to have a finely-honed opinion about each studio, like it's a team.

PATTON OSWALT: Good lord, yes! I never thought of it that way. Or even a production company, like, saying "Oh, they always put out this or that." I mean, just look at the Weinstein Co., with that New York Times Profile on Sunday. They're being treated just like a sports franchise that's gone into some weird twilight phase. It's all like, what happened to their glory years? The company becomes a bigger personality than the people involved.

RYAN STEWART: Why can't people just consume their entertainment without getting under the hood and getting a closer look at their icons?

PATTON OSWALT: I'm going to argue that there is something inside of us that seeks out things to worship and elevate, if only to give us something to aim at in ourselves. The only way we survived as a species was that we evolved. The main thing about evolution is improvement and refinement, and it certainly helps that process if you have a target or a symbol that you can focus on for your improvement. Oddly enough, the fact that we have religion is proof that evolution is real. It's further proof, to me, anyway. We seek a godhead or a demigod or some other elevated figure that we can evolve toward. We invented that and we focus on it, in order to give us something to aim towards, just subconsciously. So, the fact that we invented religion and the fact that we created God proves that evolution is real.

RYAN STEWART: I think you might have blown my mind.

PATTON OSWALT: You're welcome.

RYAN STEWART: I thought you were going in a simpler direction, of just saying that we want to best our own Philly Phil [Paul's rival, who he spars with throughout the movie on a radio call-in show] across the street. We have to top our rival.

PATTON OSWALT: That's just a tinier version, though. That's just a cul de sac of evolution. That might be the definition of a failure – a guy who picks a really lame target to defeat, and then once he's defeated them, that's it; that's all he's gonna get. He's never gonna do anything amazing, because he picked a shitty target to focus on. Pick a better target! Get a bigger weapon, as Boots Riley of The Coup would say.

RYAN STEWART: I don't think Michael Rapaport would mind me saying that he's a spectacular douchebag.

PATTON OSWALT: He was amazing. In scene after scene, this guy was completely tireless. He would just do take after take. And what was really weird was that, in talking to him in real life, he's just this sweet, kind of goofy guy. He was like "Hey everyone, how ya doin?" and always talking with people, but then in the scene ... and it wasn't like he did some crazy thing where he was like "Oh, now I've got to put my actor face on." He would just slowly crank it up. He was so fucking annoying! But you know, most actors don't want to play that kind of abrasive, repulsive guy any more, and this guy, he just loves playing characters.

RYAN STEWART: I think Paul resents that Philly Phil doesn't give a shit, he just spews forth whatever is at the top of his mind. Meanwhile, Paul is going as far as to craft his bon mots in a notebook ahead of time.

PATTON OSWALT: Right, he's just spewing forth the easiest things that everyone else says. Although, even through struggling in his notebook to write that stuff down, Paul's still struggling for his art. "I showed my team my love through my industry and my labor." It's basically like Salieri pledging to Jesus, you know? I think in his mind, this is all a performance. "This is my art and I prepare, the same way that a musician tunes up or an athlete warms up, basically. That day job I have? That's just to pay for my art."

RYAN STEWART: Do comedians tend to pocket some good comeback lines, in case they need them to slap down a heckler or fight with Carlos Mencia?

PATTON OSWALT: I certainly don't. I think it becomes so clear, if you're up on stage, that you had a line ready. I prefer to talk to them and let them hang themselves. I never have something where it's like "Just wait, I'm gonna wham him with this line." Instead, I amplify whatever it is that they're doing until they pop. I can handle hecklers pretty well, and it's not because I'm so amazing. It's because I've been defeated by hecklers many times and the world didn't end the next day. That's why I'm without fear now. I've seen it crash and burn so many times that it doesn't matter to me, either way. It's not going to change a thing about tomorrow. I think a lot of hecklers are like "Boy, he's gonna remember me," but I just tune that out and then I take care of them and then I reactivate what I'm doing. I go back to doing the material that I like. Hecklers really have no impact on me, you know? On my second album, I deal with a heckler on one of the tracks and when the producer of the album played me the thing to say, you know, you should leave this in here, I had totally forgotten that it happened. It just meant nothing to me. I find it so boring.

RYAN STEWART: Was that the guy who gave a kind of Lynyrd Skynyrd yell?

PATTON OSWALT: It was a guy who makes some weird noise during a bit where I'm building up to something, and there's some silence on there, and then he starts yelling. I can barely even remember what I said to him, because it didn't mean anything. I had totally checked out during that, and I didn't want to include that on the track, because if you actually listen to what I'm saying you can tell that there's no passion in what I'm saying. I'm more like, "Ugh, I gotta deal with this guy," and then I go right back to what I was doing.

RYAN STEWART: I think that was also the album where you commented on the state of comedy at the time, and you said it was a golden age because comedy fans were having to seek out the comedians.

PATTON OSWALT: It's gotten ten times better. Those audiences have stuck around and the comedians who are flourishing now are so fucking good.

RYAN STEWART: Like who?

PATTON OSWALT: Well, where do you live? They're out there. Anthony Jeselnik. Natasha Leggero. James Adomian. Kyle Kinane. There are so many that are coming up right now that are just fucking amazing. Not just good. I'm talking about holy-shit-they've-found-their-voice-way-early. They're just gonna run with it, they're amazing. And these young comedians are starting to get looked at for TV, and the fact that Conan O'Brien is in L.A. now and is very interested in showcasing young comedians, and the fact that Jimmy Fallon is very much looking for young comedians in New York, both of those scenes are just so fucking fantastic right now. It ended up getting way better than I described it back then. I thought that it was happening in waves, and maybe it is, maybe this will end up being a wave, but if it is it's gonna be a fucking huge one, with all of these people coming up. It's just ridiculous right now.

RYAN STEWART: But I want open-mic wingnuts, too! I want Dr. Pepper.

PATTON OSWALT: Hey, I hope those guys come back too – they're fun! Nothing wrong with that, but for the most part the shows themselves are not being put on by the clubs, they're being put on by other comedians. The ones putting them on are lovers of comedy. And every night, there's some great shit going on. It's fantastic.

RYAN STEWART: Do you expect your comedy to become less political going forward, now that we've sort of said goodbye to all that?

PATTON OSWALT: No. There's plenty of political stuff on my new album. I think, if anything, politics is always affecting the world in one way or the other. What's great about Obama is just watching to see how certain people react to him. I mean, that is fascinating. It's just as crazed and insane as how I felt about Bush, you know? What's really great about it is that I can look at a lot of the ways people are dealing with Obama – not just comedians, I mean the public – and I see a lot of what I did wrong during the Bush years, a lot of the easy stuff like the Hitler comparisons.

RYAN STEWART: The stuff about Bush causing the biblical apocalypse, and that stuff?

PATTON OSWALT: Well, actually, the apocalypse one was one where I felt like I went for something a little better. But I do look at what they're doing with Obama and I know that I was just as guilty of that. I fucked that up. It's good to see it from the other side and be able to go "Oh, so that's where I was wrong.

RYAN STEWART: So, how does a comedian approach Obama?

PATTON OSWALT: Well, I've never found more ways to say "There's a black guy in the White House" without actually saying "There's a black guy in the White House." [redneck voice] "I want my country back! We are on the verge of fascism!" It's so great, it's fascinating! There is nothing more fun for a comedian than watching a country lose its shit.

Stefen

This was good.

Robert Siegel is quickly becoming one of my favorite screenwriters. He's very good at writing sad sap characters that you can't help but root for.

It's a pretty dark movie and that ending; WOW. Didn't see that coming. I thought it was going in a different direction.

Patton Oswalt is definitely the revelation in this. I didn't think he had it in him, but he does. Can't wait to see him do another dramatic role.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Derek

I've always thought Patton Oswalt was born to play Ignatious in a Confederacy of Dunces if they were ever to make the movie.
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

RegularKarate

Quote from: Fernando on September 01, 2009, 03:22:17 PM
I also thought Sydney was a way better title than Hard Eight. But there you go! [laughs]

Patton Oswalt, recognizes me as RegularKarate every time I see him (not that often, the last time was when he was in town for the last SXSW for a screening of The Snake).  He always has to ask what my real name is. 

He is one of the few people that (when told is was a P.T.A. thing) got the reference. 

He called it Hard Eight when he did though.