Jonas Åkerlund

[cowboykurtis]

i saw SPUN at sundance. it wasnt that great. the main problem was the lack of STORY. a lot of style, very little substance. pretty much a 90 minute music video that lost its novelty after 5 minutes.

[35mm]

I have seen this great movie.

I saw it on its first screening.

I do believe this is one of the weirdest movie-exp I have ever seen!


Look foreward!!!!!!!!!!


>MikeE

[MacGuffin]

A different face
Based on 'Spun,' you wouldn't know Mena Suvari is a Lancome cover girl.

"Spun," a new indie film by Swedish director Jonas Akerlund, splays the lives of a pack of speed junkies on a three-day crystal-meth odyssey in the North Los Angeles Valley. In it, 24-year-old Mena Suvari turns out a greasy-haired, mercurial performance as Cookie, Spider Mike's (John Leguizamo) endlessly spun girlfriend.

Her performances in such mainstream films as "American Pie" and the Oscar-nominated "American Beauty" don't foretell this de-glammed role, but Suvari says she likes the edgy, offbeat taste. It's the polar opposite of her new gig as the fresh, flawless young face of Lancome, Paris.

This might be an understatement, but what an unglamorous role.

Exactly. That appeals to me. I liked the story and character first off, but it's nice to play around with strange personalities. Usually you go to the set and get made up to look better, but here they'd draw veins in; they put red eyeliner in your eyes, paint bags under your eyes. The brown teeth came from a resin stain that looked like nail polish and hardly came off. At the end of the day I'd be scraping my teeth. I didn't wash my hair for a week and with the brown teeth would go out to dinner. The whole energy around you changes when you look like that.

When did the Lancome deal happen?

That was after "Spun." When I was in London doing some photo shoots for them, the Lancome people said, "Yeah, we want to have a screening of 'Spun.' " I thought, oh no, if they see that movie, I'm fired.

Some of the characters are so repulsive they're fascinating. Did you find them sympathetic at all?

I was very touched by the film when I first saw it. I think it's poetic and really beautiful in a way. Nothing is glorified about these people and the drug, but they're normal people. You see all the sides to the characters.

It's an extremely realistic drug film, but the characters still have humanity.

The writer seems to have intimate knowledge of his subject. Did you get to met him?

There were two writers, in fact [Will De Los Santos and Creighton Vero], and the film is basically their lives, which is kind of scary. The outrageous things in the film did happen, which gives one great pause. This film shows how cracked up these people get. Battery acid and household cleaners are apparently some ingredients of methamphetamines, so you can imagine what it does to one's brain and one's thinking.

There was a lot of nudity in the film, yet your role steered clear of that. Is it hard to maintain after your early experience with "American Beauty"?

I didn't even think about it at the time because I was so young in every respect; in the business, in life. It's funny, because I always said I was never going to do nudity and then that happened. So yes, I've had to work very hard and say that I won't do nudity. Even the films I've worked on after "American Beauty," it was taken out or redone, when originally in the script it was written in. I mean, it's understandable because sex sells. But when it's done for fluff or kicks, I don't want a part of it, thanks.


"Spun" opens Friday at the Sunset 5.

[Rudie Obias]

i hread that SPUN is in the guinness book of world records with most edits in a film.  something around 6,000 or more cuts.  that's insane!  

[MacGuffin]

Jonas Akerlund to Shoot Birdman
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Jonas Akerlund, the Swedish music-video veteran who directed the clips for Madonna's "Ray of Light" and U2's "Beautiful Day," has signed on to shoot Birdman, his second feature project.

The dark thriller, based on the novel of the same name by Mo Hayder, is expected to shoot in the first quarter in Los Angeles. Casting is under way.

Akerlund previously directed the 2002 crime caper Spun, starring Jason Schwartzman, John Leguizamo and Mena Suvari.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Yeah, it was kind of a 90-minute music video, but I liked it. It was fascinating. It really lacked emotion though... it's a little hard to be enthusiastic about it.

[subversiveproductions]

This might be a little late, but I just rented this and I have to say, what the fuck?  No story, no real character development, just one long drug sequence that was done a hell of a lot better in Requiem.  Schwartzman, as always, is awesome, but he's kind of just playing a speed freak version of Cool Ethan (Slackers).  Like in Requiem, they tried to do the whole intense sound design, but they fell far short of their source material.  The super intense jet engine noise as Mena Suvari puts down the cordless phone?  I want my five bucks back.

[MacGuffin]

Six 'Horsemen' join cast of crime thriller
Thesps added to Quaid, Zhang starrer
Source: Variety

Patrick Fugit, Lou Taylor Pucci, Clifton Collins, Jr. , Barry Shabaka Henley, Neil McDonough and Peter Stormare have joined that cast of "Horsemen," a crime thriller starring Dennis Quaid and Ziyi Zhang.

Principal photography has launched on Mandate Pictures production, directed Jonas Åkerlund ("Spun") from a screenplay by David Callaham. "Horsemen" will shoot for eight weeks in and around the Winnipeg area.

Film's produced by Platinum Dunes' Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller; exec producers are Mandate Pictures' Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane and Radar Pictures' Ted Field and Joe Rosenberg.

"Horsemen" centers on a detective who has grown increasingly distant from his two young sons since the death of his wife and finds himself thrust into an investigation of serial killings rooted in the Biblical prophecy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.