Her

[Pubrick]

It looks cute.

cute? that is quite an understatement. this shit is adorable.

this is the movie of the year.

"socially acceptable insanity" ... are we going to believe that Spike Jonze wrote this whole thing by himself? i don't give any credibility to vincent gallo very often but it kinda rang true when he said jonze was borderline illiterate. whoever helped him write this, they deserve some kind of recognition. excellent trailer at least, it's top of the list for me.. only god/graviwho?

[©brad]

When did Gallo say that?

[Pubrick]

When did Gallo say that?

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=1221.msg290447#msg290447

he was pretty dismissive but he never said illiterate, i remember after reading his comments i chuckled and that's how it stuck in my mind.

i still am kind of weary that jonze would write something all on his own. if only for the fact he's never done it before.

[©brad]

Agree. I have to assume/hope he reached out to Kaufman for notes.

[polkablues]

He wrote his short films, We Were Once a Fairytale, I'm Here, and Scenes from the Suburbs, as well as co-writing Where the Wild Things Are. This is a weird thing for us to be worrying about. Especially on the word of Vincent Gallo, renowned asshole.

[jenkins]

gallo is mean in that interview. he's not mean in life
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2013/05/vincent_gallo_and_friends_have_killed_off_the_arts_district_beautification_program.php

if you meet spike jonze irl, it's obvious he's not a writer ("Spike Jonze is borderline illiterate")
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1019244,00.html

i've heard spike jonze tell a funny and charming story about fatlip receiving a blowjob from a crossdresser and, at the time, considering his life ruined. it wasn't told like a writer would tell a story. it was a good story, still. my guess is he performed a logical order: he had an idea, he wrote it, he gave it to his writer friends, they recommended things, he changed what he wanted to, and the movie was made

[polkablues]

If the mark of a true writer is being good at telling anecdotes at parties, I might as well just kill myself now.

It's bizarre to me that we're all so quick to dismiss the possibility that Spike Jonze, over a nearly unimpeachable 15 year film career, could not possibly have developed into a good writer on his own merit, because Vincent Gallo was feeling bitchy in an interview one day and Rebels on the Backlot said he didn't know about A Streetcar Named Desire back in '99.

I'll concede his limitations when they show up in his work. Until then, it's just rumor and supposition.

[jenkins]

lol i'm not vincent gallo or that author. i saw spike jonze at a retrospective of himself, where he was talking about being himself

[©brad]

I'm not dismissing him. Just more curious than anything else. It looks great, I'm excited.

[MacGuffin]

Spike Jonze on "Her" Femininity and His Vision of the Future
Posted by Brian Brooks on August 08, 2013
in Interviews • NYFF 

Spike Jonze's career has bridged the movie and music biz, his work running the gamut from music videos to commercials, film and television. His feature directorial debut, Being John Malkovich, had its North American premiere at the 1999 New York Film Festival, going on to pick up three Oscar nominations including one for Best Director. More Academy Award nominations came a few years later with Adaptation, plus a win in the Best Supporting Actor category for Chris Cooper, and Jonze took on the art of the blockbuster with Where the Wild Things Are in 2009.

His latest film, Her, stars Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson and will have its World Premiere as the Closing Night Gala Presentation of the 51st New York Film Festival, which runs from September 27 – October 13. It recalls the sci-fi and comedic elements of Malkovich in its story of a lonely writer who develops a connection to his new "advanced operating system." After initiating it, Theodore Twombly (Phoenix) meets Samantha (Scarlett), a bright, female voice who is insightful, sensitive, and even funny. Their needs and desires grow together, deepening their bond.

FilmLinc Daily spoke to Spike Jonze ahead of Thursday's announcement that Her will close the upcoming NYFF. In the conversation, he touts the film's feminine nature, the challenges of personalizing the relationship of the two main characters, and how he designed his own version of a perfect, comfortable future set in L.A. complete with a sprawling subway system.

FilmLinc Daily: It has been a little while since your last narrative, Where The Wild Things Are. What inspired you to write Her and what might it have to say about how relationships are formed today?

Spike Jonze: What did inspire this... There are so many different aspects to it. There are all these conceptual science fiction areas to the film. Obviously technology has become such a big presence in our lives and, I definitely know, in my life. I think of how much of my daily interaction is with and through technology... and it's an emotional experience too. You know, you get a buzz when getting texts: "Oh, someone's thinking about me."

The movie has all these high-concept ideas, but it is nevertheless mostly a relationship movie. It's about love and our need to connect and our [method] of connecting. But, at its heart, it is a relationship movie.

FD: I saw the trailer and, of course, heard the unmistakable voice of Scarlett Johansson coming from the operating system and Joaquin Phoenix's character reacting to her and forming a relationship, of sorts. How did you work with them to pull off this unique arrangement?

SJ: We tried to write it with each person's wants, needs, and fears that they bring into their relationship, as we all tend to do. There's a certain set of differences and limitations because of their circumstances as you will see in the movie.

FD: The trailer appears to show a good amount of Los Angeles. Is the city a central element in telling the story?

SJ: Los Angeles is seen in our future version of itself. Early on we decided not to consider all the aspects of what things will actually look like in the future, as much as what we wanted "our future" to look like. L.A. was important for us because we tried to make a future that is very comfortable and an easy place to live in, and that's exactly what L.A. is like.

In our future we have an incredible subway system in L.A., so we suspended disbelief a bit. The weather is always nice and there's, of course, the ocean and the mountains and the food is always great. There's a comfort to our future and this movie plays so that everything reflects that [possibility].

I think the world is getting that way, actually. Design is a big part of the world in a way it wasn't 20 years ago. There's great food everywhere and even McDonald's uses nice wood now. And everything's just nicer. We tried to make a more comfortable L.A. that's easy and warm. Despite all of that, though, you can still feel isolated and long for connection.

FD: After you decided how you wanted "your future" to look, what were some of the challenges you faced in telling this story?

SJ: The biggest challenge is that it's a love story in which one of the characters isn't on-screen. To feel their connection and love for each other, which has everything to do with Joaquin and Scarlett, was the biggest challenge. So to give their relationship its due and feel what they're feeling was the biggest obstacle.

One interesting thing... It was the first time I worked with our cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and he brought a lot to it. He's also Dutch and brought a European touch to the film.

FD: How so?

SJ: I showed it to someone recently and their response I took as a very high compliment. The person said that it felt very feminine—a woman's film made by a man. I was very excited about that. When I first met Hoyte, one of the first things I liked about him was that he has a very feminine sensibility about him in terms of the sensitivity that he brings to his work. And that's one of the reasons I hired him. I wanted the film to feel feminine. And then my friend said that it was feminine and that really was a high compliment.

FD: You return to doing short films, videos and documentaries between your feature films, are they therapeutic or somehow inform you on your subsequent big projects?

SJ: I couldn't name specifically how one film follows another, but there is definitely some inspiration there. After Where The Wild Things Are, which was this big, long five-year project, I spent a year making small things. I wanted to do like a "sketch" and do something in just a month. The ideas didn't come directly out of Where The Wild Things Are, but the inspiration was definitely there. I did a short film with Kanye West over a weekend and then later did a short film about a robot love story and then a stop-motion animated film with friends in Paris. There were [many] of these short films... that I think were more of a reaction to doing that five-year project.

FD: Do you have any plans to do more docs down the line?

SJ: I don't know what I'm going to do now, honestly, but that's in a good way.

FD: And finally, congratulations on Her being selected as the Closing Night film of the New York Film Festival. We're excited to see it and have you here.

SJ: I'm very excited that it's a premiere in the city. The New York Film Festival is where we premiered our first movie and that's really special. It was our first U.S. premiere of Being John Malkovich and we had all our friends there and it feels so nice to come back to NYFF.

[Tictacbk]

... are we going to believe that Spike Jonze wrote this whole thing by himself?

SJ: We tried to write it with each person's wants, needs, and fears that they bring into their relationship, as we all tend to do. There's a certain set of differences and limitations because of their circumstances as you will see in the movie.

nope.

[MacGuffin]

WB Moves Spike Jonze's 'Her' To December For Awards Push
BY THE DEADLINE TEAM

WB says strong early reactions have spurred them to move Spike Jonze's Her, about a man (Joaquin Phoenix) in love with his Siri-like operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) by a month from November 20 to December 18. The new strategy is to open the pic in limited release in NY, LA and Toronto on the 18th before going wide January 10. Her will close the the New York Film Festival in October, where WB hopes awards buzz builds. Said Domestic Distribution President Dan Fellman: "Spike Jonze has created an unconventional love story that is thought-provoking and reflective of our modern age. Based on the responses we've seen thus far, we have confidence that Her will be embraced by both critics and audiences and look forward to sharing it with them, beginning in the holiday season." Her is an Annapurna Pictures production written and directed by Jonze and produced by Megan Ellison, Jonze and Vincent Landay; Daniel Lupi, Natalie Farrey and Chelsea Barnard are executive producers.

[Pubrick]

this will win the best original screenplay oscar.

it's gonna be really weird when Spike Jonze goes up to give his acceptance speech and it goes exactly like this:

(start at 47sec)

[pete]

this could be the first spike jonze movie I like

[Pubrick]

What's not to like about Blow Job Malkovich?