Xixax Film Forum

Participant gobbles up 'Fast Food Nation'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

CANNES -- Participant Prods., the L.A.-based entertainment company founded last year by eBay pioneer Jeff Skoll, acquired North American rights and an equity stake in Richard Linklater's upcoming film "Fast Food Nation" from international sales agent HanWay Films, said Participant Prods. president Ricky Strauss.

Directed by Linklater and written by Linklater and Eric Schlosser, "Fast Food Nation" is inspired by Schlosser's best-seller. A Recorded Picture Company production, "Nation" is produced by Jeremy Thomas and Malcolm McLaren. Skoll will be an executive producer. The film will start production in the fall.

Want Stealth With That? The 'Fast Food Nation' Film Goes Undercover
By MICHAEL JOSEPH GROSS, NY Times

IN Austin, Tex., Richard Linklater, a filmmaker known for the whimsy of "Slacker" and "School of Rock," is planning a big-screen adaptation of "Fast Food Nation," the 2001 exposé book by Eric Schlosser. Filming began Monday in Texas and will continue at locations there, in Colorado and Mexico. The preparations have had the secrecy of a stealth mission. A recent call to the production office requesting information about the movie provoked a crackling pause on the telephone line. The hesitant voice finally said, "You mean ... 'Coyote'?"

In September, The Austin American-Statesman reported that the drama, written by Mr. Linklater and Mr. Schlosser and starring Catalina Sandino Moreno ("Maria Full of Grace"), is hiding under the sheep's clothing of a pseudonym. The false name - "Coyote" - was chosen, the newspaper said, to help the production gain access to franchise restaurants and other industry locations that might be off limits if the movie's true source material were known. (The blog Cinematical.com recently asked, "Is 'Coyote' itself a smokescreen to throw us off the scent of the real fake title?")

Ricky Strauss, president of Participant Productions, which owns North American rights and is an investor in the film, said the movie's title was "still in development."

"Sometimes filmmakers have to adjust the title so that a movie can be made without undue attention," he explained, while declining to say whether this was one such case.

Mr. Linklater was unavailable for comment, and the co-producer Ann Carli played down the film's connection to its muckraking source material. "We're just using the fast food industry as a backdrop for a multitude of characters," she said. "It's not a polemic. It's a character study, set in the world of the fast food industry. It's about how people grow up and make decisions to do they things they do. It's about what turns their lives." Whether Mr. Linklater's completed film, whatever its title, proves an effective exploration of such matters remains to be seen.

Participant's chief executive, Jeff Skoll, a co-founder of eBay, has promised to put his money behind films that make a difference. The company's corporate Web site, www.ParticipantProductions.com, explains that the company "believes in the power of media to create great social change."

"Our goal is to deliver compelling entertainment that will inspire audiences to get involved in the issues that affect us all," it continues.

In an interview, Mr. Strauss said that "Fast Food Nation" advances Participant's mission "in the sense of encouraging corporate responsibility."

The marketing plan for each Participant film includes activist outreach, especially on another company Web site, www.participate.net. Participant's first dramatic features, "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "North Country," opened this month - and the campaign for "North Country," whose plot involves issues of workplace discrimination and domestic violence, invites Web site visitors to "Sign the Women-Friendly Workplace Pledge" and "Implement a sexual harassment policy at your school." Although Mr. Strauss said Participant has had "internal discussions" about its "social action campaign" for "Fast Food Nation," the company will wait to announce its plans until the film is complete.

A producer of the movie is the Oscar-winning Jeremy Thomas ("The Last Emperor"), whose London-based HanWay Films and Recorded Picture Company are also expected to back Mr. Linklater's film. Mr. Thomas did not respond to a telephone request for an interview.

Participant's first two releases were set comfortably in the past. This film tackles issues and institutions that are very much alive (as does the forthcoming oil business-spy drama "Syriana," of which Participant is a producer), however, and so it may meet with a lot more resistance.

"I've got a bunch of people snooping around for info on this movie, and nobody can find anything," said Pete Meersman, president of the Colorado Restaurant Association, who appears briefly in Mr. Schlosser's book. Although his colleague Richie Jackson, head of the Texas Restaurant Association, did not return calls for comment, Mr. Meersman said he had been in touch with Mr. Jackson. "Richie can't find anything either," he said. "It's weird."

When told that the film could have a pseudonym, Mr. Meersman said, "If people are willing to lie about what they're doing, they can probably talk their way into most anywhere, and that could be a problem."

Susan P. Kezios, president of the American Franchisee Association, a trade group for franchise holders, pointed out that fast food giants are capable of fighting back. "If corporations got wind that this is happening, they could issue an order overnight to all franchisees that says, 'In order to be in compliance with your franchise contract, do not let any filmmakers in,' " she said.

But Robert Zarco, a Miami lawyer and franchise law specialist, thinks corporations would have a hard time slowing the "Fast Food Nation" movie down. He said that a franchisee's contractual obligations must be balanced with First Amendment rights. So long as the filming does not disclose confidential and proprietary franchise system information, Mr. Zarco said, "I believe that a franchisor will have an extremely high hurdle to leap to default and then terminate a franchisee for having permitted the filming of its business location."

Despite any obstacles, Mr. Linklater's associates believe he'll get access to the locations he needs. His friend Erwin Stoff (who is also a producer of Mr. Linklater's forthcoming "Through a Scanner Darkly") said the director has "the most Zen persuasive powers."

"I've never met anybody who sells less - and in the process, ends up selling you more," he said.

For Mr. Skoll, a greater problem than grabbing shots on hostile turf may be the need to reconcile seeming contradictions within his own growing empire.

In recent years, the Skoll Foundation, which shares Participant's commitment to social change (though it has no direct ties to the film company), has had its own encounters with the fast food industry - as an investor. According to its tax statement for the year ending Nov. 30, 2003, the foundation's $161 million in assets included $1.3 million worth of shares in fast food companies and their suppliers. Holdings included Yum! Brands (which claims to be the world's largest fast food restaurant company and includes Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell and other chains), Kraft Foods, Cadbury-Schweppes, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Bottling Group, and Aramark, a vending machine company.

Mr. Skoll, who is the foundation's chairman as well as the founder and chief executive of Participant, said, "I don't see a conflict between these investments and our intent with 'Fast Food Nation.'" The film, he said, is "intended to educate consumers about industry-wide practices, not pick on the practices of any specific company."

The foundation's president and chief executive, Sally Osberg, defended the foundation's investment strategy. "It's only inconsistent on the surface," she said. "Our investment managers vet the companies. We vet the managers. Those managers will drop those companies if they don't evolve to meet the demands of an enlightened and informed consumer." Ms. Osberg also pointed out that these investments amounted to only a small fraction of the foundation's stock portfolio.

And, Mr. Skoll noted, this will not be the last time that a Participant film will cause him to question his investments. "We're doing a film on global warming, and I'm going to have to ask, 'Do I personally or does the foundation have investments in car companies or other things?' " he said. "When you start thinking about all the potential cross-pollinations, you have to ask, 'Where do you draw the line?' "

This is especially difficult in a field with as wide a reach as fast food. Morgan Spurlock, who directed and starred in "Super Size Me," the 2004 documentary, said that he had seen a version of the "Fast Food Nation" script, and in an interview he praised the film's comprehensive look at this huge industry.

"You see how deep the tentacles run," Mr. Spurlock said. "You see how big the web is."

Good thing their secret was published in a paper nobody will ever read.

Lou Pucci Delivers A Taste Of Mysterious 'Fast Food Nation'
Source: MTV

Its ingredients are guarded more closely than the Colonel's secret recipe. The people behind the scenes continue to confuse reporters with statements only slightly less specific than the mumbles that come out of the Hamburgler's mouth. And like a finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili, nobody knows whether it will become the most controversial topic of its time or a big noisy hoax.

But now at least we have a clue. While promoting yet another project in his suddenly red-hot career, indie film sensation Lou Pucci ("Thumbsucker," "The Chumbscrubber") has confirmed his participation in an upcoming film whose title is (for a change) not a long word ending in "er": It's the top-secret movie adaptation of the book "Fast Food Nation."

"I definitely think it'll be controversial," offered the 20-year-old actor, who also stars in Green Day's epic video for "Jesus of Suburbia" (see "Green Day Shoot 14-Minute Short Film For 'Jesus Of Suburbia' ").

For those whose pop-culture awareness is as slim as Jared from Subway, "Nation" was published in 2001 and quickly entered the New York Times bestseller list. Subtitled "The Dark Side of the All-American Meal," the nonfiction exposé detailed author Eric Schlosser's adventures exploring the food chain from top (fast-food executives) to bottom (minimum-wage slaughterhouse employees) with a lighthearted, nostalgic, yet ultimately condemning outlook.

"I haven't read the book yet," Pucci admitted. "I met the writer, who's such a nice guy, he's amazing. It's funny, because he has so many messed-up stories."

Versatile filmmaker Richard Linklater ("Dazed and Confused," "Before Sunrise," "School of Rock") has confirmed that he is shepherding "Nation" to the big screen, but that's where the rumors begin to run wild.

One story has the film currently shooting under the alias "Coyote," so that secretive scenes in real-life restaurants can occur. Another has everyone from Bruce Willis to Greg Kinnear to Catalina Sandino Moreno (last seen being nominated for an Oscar for "Maria Full of Grace") in the cast. Finally, it is rumored that the film will be inspired by the book, but that the characters themselves will be largely fictionalized.

Pucci described his character, Paco, as being more dramatic than documentary. "Paco is like, he wants to do something, he just doesn't know what the hell it is," Pucci said excitedly. "He's a kind of college revolutionary-type kid. He knows he wants to get something done, and so he has a plan."

As for the details of Paco's plan, or the presumed corporate entity he targets, Pucci remained tight-lipped. "They're going to act on it and see what happens. But I can't really go into it any more, without giving away the story."

Pressed for details on the names of his fellow castmembers, Pucci once again began to tremble like the Taco Bell Chihuahua. "I'm actually not sure ... so I don't think I should ... just because ... I really, I don't know."

And so the secrecy continues, with Pucci offering little else except an admission that he begins filming "a couple days after" his current project, a quirky drama called "The Go-Getter." And, Pucci insisted, the script is more concerned with the flavor of a country than that of a Whopper.

"I think that 'Fast Food Nation' as a movie is going to be really, really interesting to watch," he enthused. "And it's just going to say truthfully what life can be like for somebody who's not from this country, who comes here with nothing and sees what happens.

"Or," he finished, offering a McNugget of caution to eaters everywhere, "people who live in this country and have no idea what's going on behind the scenes."

Fox Searchlight on 'Fast Food' binge

Fox Searchlight Pictures has acquired North American distribution rights to "Fast Food Nation."

Directed by Richard Linklater, the film is a dramatic character study about the fast-food industry based on Eric Schlosser's nonfiction best-seller. A 2006 release is planned.

The ensemble cast includes Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Ashley Johnson, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Avril Lavigne, Esai Morales, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ana Claudia Talancon and Wilmer Valderrama. It was shot in Mexico, Texas and Colorado.

Linklater, who met Schlosser four years ago when the author came through Austin on a book tour, said: "The idea that came out of our meetings was that the movie would not be a documentary but a character study of the lives behind the facts and figures. I'm more interested in fiction than nonfiction. You get to the point through human storytelling."

Linklater's recent credits include "School of Rock" and "Before Sunset," for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay.

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 18, 2005, 07:04:40 PM
Ana Claudia Talancon

Masturbatory happiness

......the movie also stars Wilmer Valderrama. $20 he hit on her. $20 more she turned down his pimpled ass.

That's one of the more interesting ensemble casts I've seen in a while.

I've read bits and pieces of that book, and I don't really see how it's possible to make an interesting character study based on the material.  Linklater's stretching.

Quote from: onomabracadabra on December 22, 2005, 09:27:33 PM
I've read bits and pieces of that book, and I don't really see how it's possible to make an interesting character study based on the material.  Linklater's stretching.

Or maybe that description is.

My impression is that Linklater sees something in the book, and is then building his own thing around that something.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS!









(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fphotos1.blogger.com%2Fblogger%2F2783%2F2413%2F1600%2Ffastfoodnation.jpg&hash=a70aa754bf80d2083cc9d8156be9fc72adcbd906)

Dude, you better arm that pic with a spoiler warning.

I never imagined his hair being so long, this isn't looking good at all.

What could she be so agape about? Or is she just yawning a little?

Quote from: Just Withnail on May 11, 2006, 09:42:56 PM
Dude, you better arm that pic with a spoiler warning.

It was a released still from a French mag, so I figured it wasn't spoilerish. But okey-doke, I'll do it anyways.

well, it looks like i no longer have to see THIS movie!  :yabbse-angry:

Yeah, way to go Taki spoil i!

Eric Schlosser was in my store last week doing a book signing.  only 10 people showed up.  :(

Quote from: rudiecorexxx on May 13, 2006, 02:04:41 AM
only 10 people showed up.  :(

obviously, everyone else was avoiding SPOILERS.

STARZ Behind The Scenes clip...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8BZHDS0-aM

Teaser Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X99n9BveKns)

Linklater courts controversy, headaches with films

Writer-director Richard Linklater arrives at the Cannes Film Festival with two vastly different movie adaptations: "Fast Food Nation" and "A Scanner Darkly."

"Fast Food Nation" (Fox Searchlight; fall release) is a fictionalized version of Eric Schlosser's 2001 restaurant industry expose; while "A Scanner Darkly" (Warner Independent Pictures; July 7 limited release) is an animated version of Philip K. Dick's 1977 sci-fi cult novel and paints stars Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. in vibrating computer-animated colors.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE "FAST FOOD NATION" A NARRATIVE FILM?

Richard Linklater: I think that's what Eric Schlosser had in his mind when he thought of it as a movie. When he was in town on his book tour, I sat down with him, started talking about it and asked him that question. I said, "Well, it's kind of a documentary." And he started talking about narratives that cover people in one location, like he had that in mind. Once I grabbed that, it was easy to run with it. We'd take this one town in Colorado and just build it. The book is a wonderful piece of nonfiction, but we sort of tossed it out, and Eric led the charge. I went with him to Colorado on a lot of occasions, met a lot of people and just kind of sniffed around. We developed characters from different walks of life. We got the undocumented workers coming in from Mexico, we got the teenage girl who works at the burger place, we got an executive who works at the company. Those are the three main stories, and they branch off from there.

THR: WHY WAS THE FILMING SO SECRETIVE? DO YOU EXPECT A CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE FILM?

Linklater: It's already happened, actually. Someone leaked to the press that McDonald's has an interior campaign against the film. Eric has a new book out called "Chew on This." It's kind of "Fast Food Nation" for kids. They're sort of on to that, trying to keep ahead with their own spin.

THR: SO, I'M GUESSING THERE'S NO PRODUCT PLACEMENT?

Linklater: No. I don't know why McDonald's is so nervous. We invented our own fast food chain that isn't McDonald's. It's Mickey's.

THR: THIS AND "A SCANNER DARKLY" ARE TWO ADAPTATIONS OF VERY DIFFERENT BOOKS. HOW FAITHFUL DID YOU TRY TO REMAIN TO EACH OF THEM?

Linklater: If you liked "Fast Food Nation," I think you'd definitely like the spirit of the movie. It's just a further human examination of that subject seen from a worker's perspective. "Scanner" was a whole 'nother thing altogether. I tried to stay very true to the source material. That was one of my biggest goals: to try to adapt Philip K. Dick in a way that would encompass what I feel he is, which is very complex. The movie's ultimately a full-blown comedy because the book to me is very funny. It also has very tragic and sad implications, too. That was the challenge there. What's easier to accept in a novel is fairly hard to pull off in a film, tonally. But that was the goal.

THR: YOU GO BACK AND FORTH A LOT BETWEEN STUDIO AND INDEPENDENT FILMS. HOW HAVE THE EXPERIENCES BEEN DIFFERENT FOR YOU?

Linklater: I've never really had studio interference affect my final film. Other than them wanting me to cut a lot -- it's the typical thing -- and you just kind of hit an impasse and say, "This is the movie." And they go, "Well, we don't like the movie." And they sorta don't release it. Several times I've been in that position. But I had the same thing with "Scanner." The same wall-to-wall notes. In my experience, it doesn't matter if you have final cut. I have final cut on a good percentage of my movies but could be treated as badly or worse on a low-budget movie that I have final cut on than on a big studio film I don't have final cut on. It strictly comes down to the people involved, their attitude toward what they're looking at and what their brilliant ideas are. You just gotta deal. It takes up a lot of psychic space, and it's not what you get into filmmaking for. There's a huge political element. I had final cut on both of these films, but like I said, that makes no difference. "Scanner" had a very lengthy, difficult postproduction period.

THR: HOW DID YOU JUGGLE THAT PRODUCTION WITH "FAST FOOD NATION?"

Linklater: They sort of came to the finish line at exactly the same moment. I shot "Scanner" a year and a half ahead of "Fast Food." By the time I was shooting "Fast Food Nation" this fall, I was done with "Scanner" more or less. I was still futzing around with music, and there were a lot of animation tweaks to be done but were in the final correcting-type phase. With "Fast Food," we had one screening, it went well. Had some ideas, couple little trims, finished the movie, great. "Scanner" was just the opposite. Done with it, "Oh, let's have another screening, here's notes" . . . it just went on forever. I couldn't have had two more opposite postproduction experiences on both films. "Scanner," due to the animation, the lengthy process and no apparent deadlines, it just sort of went on and on.

THR: WHAT CAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM "FAST FOOD NATION?"

Linklater: Wow. You're gonna get pulled into a world, see things behind the scenes that you don't see much. But it's really just a human drama. It kind of packs a wallop, too, at the end. I don't think I've ever made a movie that is . . . I don't know if the word devastating is too big. But by the end, you're really taken on a journey. It's tough. When you get into this world, there are certainly labor issues and definitely health issues and environmental issues. It's a complex system that's so huge, and we kind of hit on all of it. I had access to some stuff you really haven't seen in a movie before. Some of the working conditions in the meat industry, where your meat comes from. I think the power of cinema is that you can show the people behind your products and behind everything -- there's the people who make your cars, the people who sell you drugs, the little immigrant, the undocumented kid selling a flower on the street. There's a human story there.

Manohla Dargis' take on the film (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/movies/19cann.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

And you can see the premiere right now on the online IFC cam.

It's kinda surreal hearing Avril Lavigne's name announced on the Cannes red carpet :yabbse-grin:

Just a gut feeling: 2006 will be a great year for Linklater.

And an even better one for his fans.  Does anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

Quote from: Split Infinitive on May 19, 2006, 11:39:13 PM
Just a gut feeling: 2006 will be a great year for Linklater.

And an even better one for his fans.  Does anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

Haha, I actually was going to comment how this is the first Linklater film I'm excited to see because I found out today Bruce Willis makes an appearance in it.

So naw, not much of a Linklater fan at all.

Quote from: Split Infinitive on May 19, 2006, 11:39:13 PM
Just a gut feeling: 2006 will be a great year for Linklater.

And an even better one for his fans.  Does anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

You are not alone, sir.

A very mixed review from Time Out London (http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1155.html)
Excerpt:

QuoteAt best, 'Fast Food Nation' offers an amusing if hollow satire on the American corporation. At worst, it feels like a didactic public information film of the sort employed in schools to warn you of the danger of venereal disease.

Worst of all, while Schlosser assumed a savvy, mature and intelligent readership, 'Fast Food Nation' the movie pitches itself squarely at the sort of American teenager who would be shocked to learn that McDonalds, Burger King et al were anything but outstanding pillars of the community.

Quote from: takitani on May 20, 2006, 03:49:51 AM
A very mixed review from Time Out London (http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1155.html)
Excerpt:

QuoteAt best, 'Fast Food Nation' offers an amusing if hollow satire on the American corporation. At worst, it feels like a didactic public information film of the sort employed in schools to warn you of the danger of venereal disease.

Worst of all, while Schlosser assumed a savvy, mature and intelligent readership, the movie pitches itself squarely at the sort of American teenager who would be shocked to learn that McDonalds, Burger King et al were anything but outstanding pillars of the community.

looks like linklater has another hit on his hands.

A mixed notice from the Telegraph (http://xml=/news/2006/05/20/njunk120.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/20/ixuknews.html) (UK):

QuoteUnusually for Linklater, who has been on a terrific roll of late (Before Sunset, School of Rock, Bad News Bears), the film is almost as indigestible as its subject matter. He and co-writer Schlosser have steered away from documentary in order to create a series of character sketches that dramatise some of the key themes of the book.

The action shuttles between the boardroom of Mickey's Fast Food Restaurant chain, whose execs are trying to keep quiet reports that their burgers contain fecal matter, a meat factory in which Hispanic workers are under-paid and under-trained for their dangerous work, and a burger joint where college kids earn a dime or two.

Linklater isn't a naturally political movie-maker. The extended ideological debates here are closer in tone to those normally found in a Ken Loach film than in his own breezy pictures. Though the film streamlines its source material, it still tries to cover so many issues - patriotism, immigration, corporate malfeasance, labour exploitation, to name but a few - that it's hard to engage with any of the characters.

It doesn't channel or hone its admirable energy half as effectively as Super Size Me or Maria Full Of Grace. The star of the latter, Catalina Sandino Moreno, is just one of the top-notch cast: among them Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzman, and Ashley Johnson as an idealistic undergrad who wants to free all the cows in Colorado.

Despite its flaws, it's a fascinating exercise in marrying feature film-making and journalism. Some of its abattoir scenes are as compelling cases for vegetarianism as can have been seen on the big screen.

Lukewarm from the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1779442,00.html) (the dude is usually pretty critical though):

QuoteNow Schlosser's book has been turned into a feature film. It's reasonably watchable, but there is something obtuse and self-defeating about turning a factual exposé into a fictional film about a fictional corporation: it undermines the central message that all this is really happening.
...
The movie ticks along reasonably enough, but lacks the arrowhead of the original. Kinnear's face is perpetually creased with a frown, but the question of what he will do with this information becomes more and more nagging. Will he quit? Will he tell the media? The outcome is less satisfying, and this, too, betrays the original's spirit of disclosure. There are some funny moments, especially in the company's lab, where the down-home cooking smells are created in a test-tube. But where's the beef?

Mixed from ScreenDaily (UK) (http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=26314):

QuoteAmusing and informative but also hectoring and didactic, the wide-ranging film is not as tasty as one might have hoped and consequently will struggle to win hearts and minds.
...
Individual moments shine and sparkle but the film becomes harder to digest when characters start delivering speeches rather than having natural conversations and the humanity of the piece is eroded by the need for one more sermon on the evils of the world. There is so much information and insight to try and squeeze into Fast Food Nation that it cannot help but lack the tightness and bullseye effectiveness of something like Super Size Me.
...
Attempting to comment on everything from the politics of food consumption to the plight of the poor and powerless and the moral meltdown of corporate American, Fast Food Nation has bitten off more than it can comfortably chew. There simply isn't the same pithiness and fluidity that marked Linklater's most successful ensemble piece Dazed And Confused. Fast Food Nation may be more thought-provoking but the entertainment comes with a side order of conscience-prodding and the kind of bitter ironies that lack subtlety.

And mildly positive from Variety (http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=features2006&content=jump&jump=review&dept=cannes&nav=RCannes&articleid=VE1117930559&cs=1):

QuoteThe vigorous muckraking sensibility that informed Eric Schlosser's 2001 nonfiction bestseller keeps this fictionalized screen version of "Fast Food Nation" bobbing along despite its overly slackerish narrative organization. Richard Linklater's rough-hewn tapestry of assorted lives that feed off of and into the American meat industry is both rangy and mangy; it remains appealing for its subversive motives and revelations even as one wishes its knife would have been sharper.
...
All this, along with relaxed pacing and a laid-back visual style, creates the sense of a laissez faire approach to storytelling, one that's not off-putting but nevertheless does not fully serve the attack mode suggested by Schlosser's systematic original approach.

In the end, viewers waiting for an emotional and/or dramatic payoff will be disappointed. As a call-to-arms, it's highly sympathetic but surprisingly mild-mannered.

ooh, mildly positive!  now i can't WAIT to see this!  i have a feeling this is going to be a real lukewarm year for linklater fans!

Quote from: modage on May 20, 2006, 08:29:48 AMooh, mildly positive!  now i can't WAIT to see this!  i have a feeling this is going to be a real lukewarm year for linklater fans!

*ahem*

http://wip.warnerbros.com/ascannerdarkly/

Quote from: Split Infinitive on May 19, 2006, 11:39:13 PMDoes anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

*ahem*

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=708.0

Quote from: MacGuffin on May 20, 2006, 10:41:20 AM*ahem*

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=708.0

Just tryin' to spread the Love. :)

Quote from: modage on May 20, 2006, 08:29:48 AM
ooh, mildly positive!  now i can't WAIT to see this!  i have a feeling this is going to be a real lukewarm year for linklater fans!

Its his Art School Confidential.

*ahem*

Quote from: Split Infinitive on May 20, 2006, 09:38:53 AM

Quote from: modage on May 20, 2006, 08:29:48 AMooh, mildly positive!  now i can't WAIT to see this!  i have a feeling this is going to be a real lukewarm year for linklater fans!

*ahem*

http://wip.warnerbros.com/ascannerdarkly/

which keeps with the lukewarmocity

'I've never been in the firing line like this before'
Director Richard Linklater is known for his gentle, Gen-X movies. Now he's taking on the American meat industry with Fast Food Nation. He talks exclusively to Xan Brooks
Source: The Guardian

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage.guardian.co.uk%2Fsys-images%2FFilm%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2006%2F05%2F22%2FlinklschlossLaurentEmmanuelAP372.jpg&hash=c0790b59c1d77a8d7cde4f88c14585994adb739f)
Richard Linklater (left) with Eric Schlosser.

Richard Linklater's film Fast Food Nation ends on the killing floor, as cattle march placidly up a ramp to be slaughtered. We see them shot and shackled, sliced and diced. Grey loops of intestine come sweeping down the conveyor belt like some demented version of The Generation Game. Inside the cinema at Cannes, the audience groaned and covered their eyes.

Fast Food Nation is Linklater's filleted, fictionalised take on Eric Schlosser's 2001 bestselling exposé. The director worked with Schlosser on the script and then shot it at speed, with A-list actors (Bruce Willis, Greg Kinnear) camped out in a motel, and a Mexican slaughterhouse doubling for the abattoirs of Colorado. An outside bet for the Palme d'Or, the film marks the latest twist in a freewheeling career that has carried Linklater from the fringes of Austin, Texas to mainstream Hollywood and back again.

We are hiding out in the dark corner of a hotel bar. Linklater and Schlosser flew into Cannes a few hours earlier and are eager to hear how the press screening went. What did the audience make of that final scene? Did anyone run out screaming? The director is keyed up, excited about the prospects of a movie that dares lock horns with the giants of America's cheap meat industry. "I've never had a film that's been in the firing line like this before," he confesses. "I mean, I've made films that people have liked or disliked, but never anything like this. It's kind of fun, actually."

Schlosser strikes a more cautious note. "You say that now," he says gloomily. "Wait and see how you feel when the movie comes out." At home the author has been targeted by a website bankrolled by the food lobbies, and routinely finds his book readings disrupted by protesters. "Rightwing nuts," Linklater calls them.

It remains to be seen whether the film of Fast Food Nation will ruffle as many feathers as the book did. Undeniably, it does a fine job of converting Schlosser's source material into a multi-strand drama in the style of Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, covering all aspects of food production, from the impoverished migrants who work the packing plants to the grinning executives in their sun-drenched boardroom. But the film is essentially a drama, not a documentary. Linklater suggests that this makes the message easier to swallow, arguing that an audience will respond better to a human story than a thicket of facts and figures. "Characters take you beyond the politics. You can watch a movie and like it without necessarily agreeing with what the director is saying." Schlosser concurs: "This is a fictional film, but the plot elements are all taken from real life," he says. "All of this really happened at one stage or another."

Even so, some major changes have been made. The star of Schlosser's book is McDonald's, but in the film the corporation has been relegated to the role of background artist, a name to be dropped in business meetings. Instead, the action focuses on a fictional fast-food chain called Mickey's, which we are led to believe is a little bit like McDonald's, except (of course) for the fact that it exploits its workforce and specialises in hamburgers that contain a high "faecal content".

Linklater and Schlosser insist that there is no way they could have found a bigger role for McDonald's. The fact that the brand crops up at all, they explain, is only down to their own perseverance. "It's one of the most frustrating things about making a film," says Linklater. "Out in the real world there is no avoiding these companies; they're shoving themselves down your throat every waking second. Then suddenly you make a film and you can't even put them in the background, or you could get sued."

If the film is at all critical, the situation is harder. "These days we can be sued for disparaging an industry. It's like it's a felony to say something bad." Linklater shakes his head. "I think they should make it a felony to criticise a film product. Particularly my film product. It's anti-American. I'd like to see people get sued if they wrote a bad review of my movie. If you can't say something nice you shouldn't say anything at all."

"We're joking about this, but it's true," says Schlosser. "You can't criticise these big corporations. If you do you're an anarchist, socialist, whatever."

I suspect, though, that Linklater has always relished his role as an anarchist-socialist-whatever. This is the man who name-tagged a generation with his 1990 breakthrough Slacker and who has since steered a wild, iconoclastic course through American cinema. His films are airy, loquacious, full of warmth and wit. One thinks of those star-crossed chatterboxes, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunrise, or the criss-crossing interactions of the teenage revellers from Dazed and Confused. "My plan B has always been to make a film about people who talk a lot," Linklater explains.

Now, at the age of 44, he is able to mix mainstream crowd-pleasers such as School of Rock with more ambitious projects. Such is his rate of productivity that he has two films showing at Cannes this year: A Scanner Darkly, his Philip K Dick adaptation, screens later this week.

Inevitably, our conversation circles back to the killing floor. Linklater tells me how Mexican abattoirs are much the same as American ones, except cleaner; how the workers in the US are all Mexican anyway - the only thing they had to change was the language on the signs. But there is something preying on his mind. With its twitching carcasses and yellow mounds of fat, the last scene of Fast Food Nation appears expressly designed to put the viewer off meat for life. The problem is that for Linklater, a vegetarian since his 20s, it nearly had the reverse effect.

"It was the craziest situation," he says. "So many of the crew came out saying, 'I will never eat meat again.' But maybe it was all the smells. The warm blood. I swear to God it must have activated some long-dormant enzymes in my stomach, because I came out smelling a medium-rare steak, straight off the grill."

He pauses to chew metaphorically over the implications. "And wouldn't that have been the ultimate failure of this film? If it turned me into a meat eater." By this point he is looking alarmed. "I wouldn't have eaten the steak," he insists, as much to himself as to me. "But for a second there I almost could have."

New Trailer here. (http://images.hollywood.com/quicktime/fastfoodnation_fox_t_low.mov)

Most of that content is straight from the book.  Kinnear seems to be playing a new exec who doesn't seem to know anything about the business that he's in... at least that's how the trailer makes it look.  That will obviously be a fabricated character.

I also got to see a 5 minute clip from the film at a Q&A with Linklater around a month ago.  That one had Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as siblings in a completely fictional scene.  As far as the stuff at the meat-packing plants and the fast food kitchens go, there are enough true stories in the book, and it looks like the movie will use much of them.

I saw a couple of frames in there from the meat-packing that look to be quite gruesome (i.e. the cows aren't all that get cut up).  We shall see.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Freporter.blogs.com%2Frisky%2Fimages%2F38.jpg&hash=a276b68e86d5cdb63fb09e8d651cb7a791340f5a)


Fast Food Nation Pushed Back to November

Writer-director Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly" is topping out around $5 million; it cost $8 million. It is also unlikely that his fictional adaptation of Eric Schlosser's indendiary 2001 food industry expose "Fast Food Nation" will be a slam dunk in a very crowded fall market. Fox Searchlight is moving the movie, which should boast some appeal to hip college audiences, back from October 20 to a November 17 platform release. Participant Productions (An Inconvenient Truth, Good, Night and Good Luck) is executive producing, so they'll help with political outreach on the movie. The way Linklater describes it, "Fast Food Nation" "is not a documentary, but a character study of the lives behind the facts and figures. I'm more interested in fiction than non-fiction. You get to the point through human storytelling."

Quote from: Split Infinitive on May 19, 2006, 11:39:13 PM
Just a gut feeling: 2006 will be a great year for Linklater.

Quote from: modage on May 20, 2006, 08:29:48 AM
ooh, mildly positive!  now i can't WAIT to see this!  i have a feeling this is going to be a real lukewarm year for linklater fans!

unfortunately for linklater fans and linklater himself i suppose it was more of a lukewarm year after all.  the film follows the Traffic (& Syriana) structure of examining a larger social issue by examining stories of the people whose lives it affects.  it zips back and forth between a few loosely connected storylines but fails to gather the emotional weight of those films.  i guess fast food just isnt as involving as drugs or oil, but most unfortunate is, even without reading the book, the film doesnt do anything that you would find surprising.  it doesnt uncover anything that most people likely wouldnt already know.  besides a SPOILER scene in the slaughterhouse that was pretty disturbing SPOILER there wasn't anything you would find shocking. i enjoyed the film, but i didnt think it was great. so with Scanner Darkly, it looks like he ended up hitting a couple doubles instead of knocking either one out of the park.

Quote from: flagpolespecial on October 26, 2006, 06:22:38 AM
i saw this today knowing absolutely nothing about the film other the information i saw on the poster

it was one of the most satisfying films i've seen this year. i loved it.

i'm surprised, skimming over the previous pages, that this has been getting lukewarm reviews.

the above post mentioned syriana and traffic. i think the comparisions are unavoidable. i really disliked syriana. but i felt this was far more interesting. the quality of the cast depth is outstanding. certain scenes are performed so wonderfully i couldn't quite believe it. great to see linklater back after the bad news bears remake which is barely worth mentioning. bring on a scanner darkly.

doubt i'll enjoy subsequent viewings nearly as much though.

highly recommended.

Finally a positive review, there's still hope!

Wow! Between this and Pan's Labyrinth, I've found myself agreeing completely with modage twice in one week! It's an okay film, but it's not nearly as galvanizing as I (being in complete agreement with everything it represents) wish it were. The best scene in the movie is the one with Bruce Willis. Brilliant writing, great acting, really well directed, and it sums up pretty much everything about the film in ten minutes.

Quote from: Ghostboy on October 26, 2006, 03:53:03 PM
Wow! Between this and Pan's Labyrinth, I've found myself agreeing completely with modage twice in one week!

It's all just a matter of time before 'rental' becomes a large part of your review vocabulary.

Quote from: flagpolespecial on October 26, 2006, 06:22:38 AM
the quality of the cast depth is outstanding. certain scenes are performed so wonderfully i couldn't quite believe it.

these comments don't mean anything and the second sentence sounds like a contradiction (on top of not meaning anything).

...

Tough ideas to swallow
Source: Los Angeles Times

"It's not just about the food," says writer-director Richard Linklater, still looking boyish at 46 in jeans and a black short-sleeved shirt as he lounged in the Driskill Hotel bar at last week's Austin Film Festival. "We always thought 'Fast Food Nation' was a state of mind."

Indeed. Linklater's ambitious new film, which he adapted from the bestselling 2001 nonfiction book "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal" with its author, Eric Schlosser, is the "Syriana" of happy meals. "Fast Food Nation" attempts to dramatize American culture's obsession with profits by illustrating the connections among illegal immigration, poor public health, the corporate monolith, student activism, suburban sprawl, the exploitation of workers, crystal meth addiction, the minimum wage, and, of course, the manufacture, packaging, marketing and consumption of fast food. In other words, the ideas explored in Schlosser's book have been super-sized.

A vegetarian for years, Linklater has long wanted to make a film about the plight of industrial workers. He's been unsuccessful in trying to make a passion project called "Rivethead," about an assembly line worker. He once did a comedy pilot about minimum-wage workers called "$5.15 an Hour" that he said wasn't picked up because HBO thought it was a "bummer." In films such as "Dazed and Confused," "Waking Life" and "Before Sunset," Linklater has specialized in meandering true-to-life character-driven narratives. "Fast Food Nation," drawing as it does on Schlosser's copious personal anecdotes, merely extends this tradition on a grander scale.

Linklater was a fan of Schlosser's work, but it hadn't occurred to him to create a film out of his most popular book. Then Schlosser pitched a fictional rather than a documentary treatment, and what Linklater thought would be a short meeting turned into a four-year collaboration. The film's (and book's) source of inspiration is Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," written at the turn of the previous century. Sinclair's novel detailed Lithuanian immigrants working in Chicago's meat-packing industry and sparked a trend toward a safer, more unionized blue-collar workforce — a trend that the film "Fast Food Nation," according to its makers, argues has retrogressed nearly to its exploitative beginnings on the backs of illegal immigrants.

Other disparate sources — the documentary "The Corporation," which explores its literally soulless approach to business, and sprawling film landscapes such as Robert Altman's "Nashville" and John Sayles' "City of Hope" — found their way into the feel of the film. (Linklater even referenced "Psycho" to sell his pitch to the studio, but not for the reasons you might think — it has to do with narrative structure.)

Schlosser and Linklater narrowed the scope of their script to three intersecting story lines: Don (Greg Kinnear), a naive executive from the fast-food giant Mickey's, is sent to Cody, Colo., to investigate contaminated meat at one of the company's plants; illegal Mexican immigrants (Wilmer Valderrama, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Ana Claudia Talancón) traverse the desert and enter the violence-, sex-, and drug-fueled maw of the American meat-packing machinery; and Amber (Ashley Johnson) is a student working at Mickey's who slowly awakens to the potential effects of her choices.

Though the film includes barbed references to the Patriot Act and corporate malfeasance, the writers were mindful of turning the dialogue too much toward the polemical. But a pack of self-righteous college students and Amber's funky, free-thinking uncle (Ethan Hawke) get a chance to articulate their power-to-the-people rebellion. Bruce Willis, who has a meaty cameo as the company's industry liaison, gives voice to a virtuoso speech that articulates the cold rationale of corporate interests without ever raising his voice.

Linklater saw each of the film's characters as a representation of a different stage in his life. Hawke's character, a former anti-apartheid activist, was inspired by an uncle who fed Linklater leftist cultural and political ideas in his youth. In his 20s, Linklater slogged for two and a half years on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. "I know what it's like to be at the absolute bottom of an industry, where you're the expendable labor," he says, acknowledging that it was never as bad as what some immigrants suffer. "That always informed my view of the world."

I  saw it as part of the LFF and liked it. I think it got better as the film went on. There were moments though that stood out especially as being very well constructed and very affecting, the most obvious being
(maybe spoilerish...)                                                            the kill room.

The acting was all solid - Wilmer Valderrama being surprisingly good - with the exception of Avril Lavigne being rubbish. The writing was pretty fantastic too.
I asked Linklater a question at the q+a after the movie about if he found it challenging balancing all the different storylines in the film and he said it was always a concern and the biggest thing was having a film where your main character practically disappears halfway through.

Plus the day after I saw it I went to a Screen Talk thing at the NFT with Linklater talking about his filmmaking career et al which was great and then I got to meet him afterwards. He's one cool dude, happily hanging around to talk to random folks without being false or doing it to look good.  :bravo:

Exclusive: Filmmaker Richard Linklater
Source: ComingSoon

Director Richard Linklater has made five movies in the last three years adding to his eclectic run of films that have run the gamut in both genre and budget. Best known as a pioneer of independent cinema with his early films Slacker and Dazed and Confused, Linklater suddenly found himself with a mainstream Hollywood hit in 2003 when he teamed with Jack Black for School of Rock. Since then, his choices have been equally eclectic from his indie sequel Before Sunset to this year's animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly.

His latest project is a fiction film based on Eric Schlosser's bestselling non-fiction novel Fast Food Nation, which takes an in-depth look at the world of the fast food chains, how they create unsafe and unhealthy work conditions for exploited Mexican immigrant workers, which ultimately ends up translating into inferior food products. The star-studded cast includes Greg Kinnear, Bobby Cannavale, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Wilmer Valderrama, Patricia Arquette, Paul Dano, Luis Guzman and even Bruce Willis.

This is the fourth time that ComingSoon.net has talked with Linklater in the last few years, and this time, we caught the personable Austin-based director early in the morning before literally dozens of interviews he'd do for the film, but it allowed us to catch him at his most candid, as he even gets a bit introspective.

ComingSoon.net: At this point, when you're reading books like "Fast Food Nation", is the thought somewhere in your mind, "I wonder how I can make this into a movie"?
Richard Linklater: No, I can honestly say I read this book as a filmmaker and it never once crossed my mind that this was a movie. That's why I read a lot of non-fiction 'cause it doesn't clutter up my brain. Just the way I read anything, and I kind of think that maybe somebody can make a good documentary or this seems documentary-ish. If you think about it, the book itself, you could never be as thorough in a film as this book has been, so it wasn't until Eric Schlosser [author of the book "Fast Food Nation"] mentioned it. He came to Austin on a book tour, and that's when we met and started talking about it. He brought up the idea. I would never have been so cavalier with somebody else's material, but he said, "What if we kind of threw out the book and just made it a fictional film about these workers and then the themes of the book maybe can come out of that?" That's when I was like, "Well, that's what I would do" and I've always been interested in the subject matter, and I liked the idea of making a film about industrial workers at different phases. I'd been trying to do that movie for a long time, I just never could get funding. We sort of just rode the coattails of the bestseller status, even though we made a movie that wasn't it.

CS: Many of your previous films do seem to be a fly-on-the-wall of ordinary folks and their lives, much like a documentary.
Linklater: Yeah, that's my take, but it was fun to do that with people that actually worked for a living.

CS: Did you have to do any research or did you just use the book and what Eric had already done?
Linklater: We did a lot of research. A lot of it was through Eric, we'd go to Colorado, I met a lot of ranchers and a lot of workers. But not so much. My idea of the fiction film, you can really just concentrate on these characters, then you cast the person, and they end up maybe meeting a worker who's working next to them on the line. The movie kind of has this documentary realism, but it's very dramatic and structured.

CS: How were you received in Colorado when you went there to make the movie? Did they know that you were doing an expose of sorts on the fast food trade?
Linklater: Yeah, they know what's in the air. A lot of the people I met are the kind of quote-unquote good guys, the ranchers who were doing grass-fed beef. They're being put out of business by the factory feed lots. There's two ways to do it—there's the healthy way for the cows, for the environment, for the user at the end, not to have food that's hormone and antibiotic injected. There's that version, and then there's the factory feed lot model that seems to be winning, and that's where it gets dangerous. It would be great if consumers made the difference. So we were often dealing with the ranchers, who I actually have a lot of respect for. These guys are good stewards of the land, they care about their animals and the quality, but they're being put out of business by this other model that I've always been critical of. We have this myth in our head of "Oh, there's a family farm and crops and cows and pigs and chickens running around" and that's where your food comes from. Once you realize it's factories producing these things in really inhumane, horrible environments, that's when you go, "Okay, I don't want to support that but I'll support maybe those guys."

CS: It's funny you should talk about that, because there's a documentary coming out later this year called "Our Daily Bread" which shows some of those different methods.
Linklater: Oh, I've heard of that!

CS: It has no text or narrative, just images, but what they show isn't nearly as horrifying as some of the images in your movie.
Linklater: Oh, good. Sometimes, fiction can get at the horrifying truth.

CS: You're a vegetarian yourself, so is that for moral or health reasons?
Linklater: Well, it started with animal rights. Having grown up around it, I still don't have a problem with hunters. If you're going to go hunt a deer, kill it and feed it to your family, okay, there's something to that. But not the kind of hunting where rich people go out and there'll be some lion without claws that they'll release and you can shoot. Dick Cheney and Scalia where they have ducks let out of cages. That's pathetic on a moral level. I don't really have a problem with that.

CS: How did you get access to the meat-packing plant where you shot a lot of the movie? Did you tell them what you were doing?
Linklater: We couldn't in the U.S., we knew that. Even the friendly ones, the guys who are doing it right, the ones Eric knew who were doing the most to keep it clean, they wouldn't even touch this, even though they liked us. They just knew that in their industry, they couldn't do it. So we were in Mexico shooting the desert scenes, and we got access to some facilities down there by saying that these facilities would be portrayed in the movie as though they were in Colorado and that the story was about these Mexican workers, these three people from Mexico who go North and end up in this factory and this is their job. We didn't lie. I think they liked that the story was about Mexican workers who go North and their struggle. That's a story you don't see a whole lot so they came aboard with that. We didn't tell him the whole nature of it. I'm not proud of it.

CS: So you didn't give them copies of the Spanish translation of "Fast Food Nation"?
Linklater: No, they didn't really know that was our title. It's kind of like going undercover a little bit. But we had limited access. The whole abattoir scenes—I like that word—we had like three hours to shoot it all with no lights, extreme limitations, we just throw our actors in there and go. That was the fun.

CS: This movie stars a few actors you've worked with before like Greg Kinnear and Ethan Hawke, but did actors like Bruce Willis jump at the chance to be a part of this movie because of the subject matter?
Linklater: I don't know. I was in that privileged position where I didn't need Bruce Willis to get financing. The film was already financed regardless of who was in it, so I was in that position, which is a much stronger position to approach an actor you don't know who or who hasn't worked with you. I think they liked what the script was getting at. They don't read a lot of scripts like this. There aren't a lot of scripts that are trying to do what we're doing, even though it's a very low budget. So Bruce, Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, Esau Morales, Luis Guzman, I just thought they'd be perfect.

CS: Actors must know your scripts and what you can bring out of actors by now.
Linklater: I think eventually if you do something long enough, someone goes, "Oh, yeah, I heard he's okay to work with," so maybe that helps, but I dunno.

CS: It's been an eclectic couple of years from you, if you look at the different movies you've done from one to the next. Is it strange to you that people might find the wide variety of movies you've done a bit strange?
Linklater: No, I can see on the surface. I'm in that position, and it's funny to have been there. This decade, people go, "Okay, you've done these two studioish movie and you're all over the place." Well, I can explain in detail why each one is very personal to me, and why I was drawn and wanted to make a movie about any of these things. I think the ones that stand out are probably "School of Rock" and "Bad News Bears." If it had been just the others, maybe it would just have been leaps of subject matter, but I think it's the studio comedies that pop out. In my mind, it's all pretty coherent, but everyone's life is coherent, even the schizophrenic going down the street mumbling to themselves, they're coherent [to themselves]. I'm glad that through sheer longetivity, people say, "Oh, you do different kinds of things." Because early on, ten years ago, it was like, "Wait, what are you doing? You don't qualify to make a film about that. You're the guy who does this kind of movie." It's just a product of... like we all have interests, we all have things we want to do. I think my thing is that I don't feel like a specialist. I want to be able to make a film about anything I'm interested in. Name a subject of any movie I've done and I can explain in detail why, but it's no different than someone reading fiction books, non-fiction books. We're all interested in everything.

CS: I guess the big surprise came when after you made "School of Rock," you decided to revisit characters from a movie you made nine years earlier [i.e. "Before Sunset"].
Linklater: Right, then I made the lowest budget movie, shot in 15 days. That was sort of a crucial moment for me, because I didn't see myself as graduating to anything. It's like there's a lot of movies to make, and each movie has a certain budget and a way it should be made like clearly "Fast Food Nation" wasn't a big studio budget film if you want to get that made. I don't want to cut out the whole world by saying, "Okay, I just make big budget movie, get paid a lot..." No, I want to explore, that's what I do. If I'm lucky I get to keep making movies about something I'm into.

CS: Doing indie movies must have helped you to do the studio movies for less money, but has it gone the other way, where you learned something from doing studio movies that you've brought back to your indie work?
Linklater: In a way. Every movie has its own problems, even if you have a bigger [budget]. Like my studio films, they're low budget studio. It's not like they're $100 million, but $30 million, which believe it or not is low budget studio. They all have their own cross to bear. In my case, they're like working with kids, short hours, there's always something, but my lower budget realistic approach does help in that way. I don't know if those help, because you do have to keep from getting a little bit spoiled, just because you have a 50-day schedule. But dammit, if you use it, you're going to need more. I think whatever you have, you always need 20% more. Like James Cameron needed an extra $20 million to make "Titanic" just perfect. He struggled and got it. It's like that.

CS: Is your next movie going to be another independent and do you have a few scripts done that you might want to start shooting next?
Linklater: Yeah, for every film you get made, believe it or not, two more kind of sprout up, so I have quite a backlog. I have four projects that are in really good shape, two I've written and two I've sort of developed with writers over the years. That's how I tend to work these days. Or like a book I've optioned and have been developing. I don't know which one will be next exactly. I have a long-term project I shoot every year that I shot this summer. I'm kind of working on a documentary. It always feels like I have little things going on.

CS: You've done two animated movies now. They obviously take a lot longer than your normal productions, so how do you feel about continuing in that field?
Linklater: Yeah, total pain. The animators are doing all the work, but you're kind of overseeing. It's just this constant little thorn. I don't have a story in my head that would work that way, not really. We had a good team. We finally got it down, though it took a while. I don't really know. There's no plans there. All my future projects currently aren't animated. I don't want to sound like Al Gore here [does an Al Gore impression], "At this moment, I have no plans..." But no, I really don't. You kind of could do anything.

CS: Will you be including some of the live action footage from "A Scanner Darkly" on the DVD?
Linklater: Actually, "Scanner" would work as live action a lot better than "Waking Life" did because we shot it, we lit it, but there's no "live action version." It would be a mess and not that interesting.

CS: You've included politics and political talk in many of your movies, but have you ever thought of doing a straight political movie?
Linklater: Electoral politics is so ugly. I love political movies like "All the President's Men." "Network" is political in that way. This movie is political, maybe not in its specifics, but it's the politics I like, the politics of everyday life. To show the representations of politics, politicians actually running for office, that's apt for parody. We're living it. What new could we do there?

CS: I would think that being from Austin, Texas would lend itself to an interesting movie, that being a very liberal city in the middle of a conservative state.
Linklater: Yeah, Texas politics itself is very fascinating. I'd love to do a film about LBJ's early days. There's some cases when he was Senator where he was extremely political, just to show a really crafty politician who really cares about the people. You can take a moment in time politically. I'd like to make a film about the Haymarket Riot, a political action moment in our country's history. You just basically execute a bunch of people because you don't like what they believe even if they didn't do anything wrong.

CS: Do you mind directing things from other people's scripts like you did with "School of Rock" and "Bad News Bears"?
Linklater: I don't know. I don't even distinguish really, 'cause even if it's from somebody else, even for me to do it. I get offered stuff all the time, and usually I don't do it, not because it's not good. I read a script or get into a project and go, "Oh, yeah, that could be good," and often, they do go onto be successful big movies, but I just think, "What can I bring to it?" The times I've come aboard something, it's been that this was mine to do. I guess it's a combination of self-confidence and delusions to be able to go, "I'm the only guy who can do this just right." You have to think that way. You have some personal connection that goes deep enough that somebody else probably won't have. Not in a competitive way. Like "Bad News Bears." Baseball player, I knew that, kids, I just felt like that was me. Same with "School of Rock." My knowledge of music and how I wanted to portray the music and Jack Black's character. There's always different versions of a film before it gets made. There's like a cheesy bad version and then there's the cool version. My job is to make the cool version, and that's what you strive to do. Whether you get it or not, but you have to feel like you're chosen. And the same with adapting "A Scanner Darkly." Even though I did the adaptation and that's my script, that material is Philip K. Dick's, I was pretty faithful, so is there a difference between doing that vs. "School of Rock." It's somebody else's material, but why am I attracted to it? Of all the books that have ever been published, why am I doing that one?

Fast Food Nation opens on Friday, November 17.

Quote from: gob on November 01, 2006, 03:06:02 AM
I  saw it as part of the LFF and liked it.

I was really sore to miss this and my yearly fix of the LFF. I even managed to get tickets without queuing for standbys for the first time but unfortunately I was sick. As a consolation my dad went without me and took along Slacker for it to be signed (which RL informed my dad was the last film he was with at the festival).

Do you goto the festival a lot? I live about an hour from London so its not that convenient. I have managed to get standbys for the last two closing night galas which were pretty special.

Quote from: MacGuffin on November 10, 2006, 01:06:59 PM
CS: I guess the big surprise came when after you made "School of Rock," you decided to revisit characters from a movie you made nine years earlier [i.e. "Before Sunset"].
Linklater: Right, then I made the lowest budget movie, shot in 15 days. That was sort of a crucial moment for me, because I didn't see myself as graduating to anything. It's like there's a lot of movies to make, and each movie has a certain budget and a way it should be made like clearly "Fast Food Nation" wasn't a big studio budget film if you want to get that made. I don't want to cut out the whole world by saying, "Okay, I just make big budget movie, get paid a lot..." No, I want to explore, that's what I do. If I'm lucky I get to keep making movies about something I'm into.

I love that a great film like Before Sunset only took 15 days to shoot. Can't wait to see Fast Food Nation.

Quote from: ®edlum on November 10, 2006, 03:21:34 PM

Quote from: gob on November 01, 2006, 03:06:02 AM
I  saw it as part of the LFF and liked it.

I was really sore to miss this and my yearly fix of the LFF. I even managed to get tickets without queuing for standbys for the first time but unfortunately I was sick. As a consolation my dad went without me and took along Slacker for it to be signed (which RL informed my dad was the last film he was with at the festival).

Do you goto the festival a lot? I live about an hour from London so its not that convenient. I have managed to get standbys for the last two closing night galas which were pretty special.

Ah that sucks that you missed it, kind of consolation with the signed dvd though. I was on the aisle and I must confessed having seen Borat earlier on in the day that kidnapping Linklater by putting a sack over him did flash through my mind.

I've gone to a handful of films each year since 2004 when I joined BFI. I live just under an hour outside London too but I'm not bothered about taking the train trip cos it's always worthwhile.

This year saw: Fast Food Nation, A Screen Talk with Linklater, For Your Consideration, Borat and Sleeping Dogs Lie. To be honest I'd see near enough every film in the programme if I could.

Mystery Meat
Uncovering 'Fast Food' Secrets
Source: MTV

BEVERLY HILLS, California — They tell us that the meat is good. They tell us that McNuggets, Big Macs and Whoppers are all part of a balanced diet, and that the age of the 49-cent hamburger and the minimum-wage drive-thru employee is nothing to be concerned about. They tell us to enjoy the meal, don't look behind the curtain — and then ask if we want fries with that.

"They weren't very happy about the book," author Eric Schlosser said of "Fast Food Nation," his humorously horrifying 2001 exploration into the dark side of the all-American meal. "[The fast-food giants] were very critical of me personally, but they were never able to point out mistakes in the book or challenge central arguments of the book — so they really tried to personalize the issue."

Among other revelations, "Nation" depicted the New Jersey Turnpike lab where the phony flavors we associate with strawberry shakes and Taco Bell hot sauce are manufactured in test tubes; processing plants where Frankenstein burger patties are assembled from dozens or even hundreds of cattle; and the homeless and illegals recruited to work in slaughterhouses for meager wages.

"When I was on a book tour last year, The Wall Street Journal had an article that said McDonald's had said in a memo that they were going to discredit me as a person and by discrediting me, discredit my arguments and my work — and on this book tour, there were clearly people planted in the audience," the author recalled. "There were protesters passing out pamphlets; there were attempts to prevent me from speaking at schools, saying I was un-American and an improper person to be speaking to schoolchildren. It was clearly organized through this Washington, D.C., lobbying firm that McDonald's uses.

"It's been a very personal kind of criticism, but I never criticize McDonald's executives," he continued. "I don't say they are deliberately trying to harm anyone with their food. I think these are important issues, and we should be able to debate them and discuss them."

But there's only so far that a book — or its author — can go. Recognizing this, versatile filmmaker Richard Linklater ("Dazed and Confused," "School of Rock," "Before Sunrise") contacted Schlosser and said he wanted to pick up the "Nation" baton and run with it. But in order to get the issues out to as many people as possible, both men agreed that two things must be done: Financing and crew must be obtained without any chance of corporate sabotage, and the nonfiction book would have to be dramatized to get across the human elements.

"We're very realistic, and we're very truthful. There is nothing in the movie that isn't real to this world," Linklater insisted. "But it takes a little heat off of Eric's investigative journalist giving facts. We are telling a human story. ... The movie is just asking you to care about the people who are behind this system."

Linklater and his crew set out to film the movie in secret, staying ahead of the same multibillion-dollar industry that had sought to discredit Schlosser. Shooting under various aliases, their attempts to film in real fast-food restaurants and slaughterhouses were mysteriously undermined, and at other times, they had to make their shots and get out before anyone caught on. Somehow, even though his actors had to risk future advertising opportunities, keep tight-lipped about their involvement and often run around in the night like secret agents, Linklater recruited an impressive cast.
 
"It felt very underground, very guerilla espionage, James Bond-ish," grinned Greg Kinnear, who stars as a "Mickey's" executive alongside Wilmer Valderrama, Bruce Willis, Avril Lavigne, Ethan Hawke and others. "We had to shoot with code names and stuff like that."

Residents of the local area were told that a movie called "Coyote" (among other names) was shooting in their town, and most production lists omitted the names of the major stars involved.

"The restaurant industry put out the word to not let Rich shoot in the locations if they found out it was 'Fast Food Nation,' " Schlosser said of the need for secrecy. "This film had to be done low to the ground, or it could've never been made."

"Every location had a different name for the movie. ... We were being investigated, we were being chased," remembered Valderrama, who, while trying to film his scenes as a Mexican slaughterhouse employee, often saw corporate "spies" lurking about. "There were many, many attempts to see how they could shut down this movie."

"Our movie was financed through Europe," the actor added, referring to an unorthodox budget that was largely assembled by rebellious English entrepreneur and Sex Pistols founder Malcolm McLaren. "It was a very independent movie."

"It felt like being an investigative journalist," Linklater grinned, remembering an experience he'll never forget. "You go underground to do what you have to do. It felt like I was making my first film again — stealing locations — but with A-list actors."

Just because the "Nation" book and movie have something to say, however, doesn't mean they want to be preachy. The message here isn't necessarily to become a vegetarian but to become better-educated about the penny-pinching business model that gets that 99-cent burrito into your mouth — and all the ill-advised shortcuts that must be made to maintain it.

"I eat red meat, and I still do," Kinnear said of the health choices he makes. "[Schlosser] still does as well. There are different issues about meat; it's not just one size fits all. There is a difference between steak and going and getting a piece of wax paper that is holding a little beef patty that cost you 69 cents and smells really good. ... The issue of the book, and part of the issue of the movie, is just to consider the source."

Sure, they're telling you that the meat is good — but with films like "Nation" and "Super Size Me" opening people's eyes, that statement is becoming harder to digest.

Here's my own <a href="http://www.road-dog-productions.com/cgi-bin/2006/11/a_conversation_1.html>interview</a> with Linklater.

SOME SPOILERS

Anyone else think the music in this film just did not fit? Even detracted from scenes it was so grating? Great performances by individuals...not much of a film as a whole. Luis Guzman, Bruce Willis, Kris Kristofferson were all wonderful...but Kinnear disappearing and the focus shifting to those annoying high school liberals killed the film...everything went loose and tangental, not in the cool Linklater way, but in a wait a minute...this movie just became about nothing sort of way...the kill room was obviously affecting...but a 3 year old with a camera couldnt mess that up...i adore Linklater and was severely disappointed by this effort...

I got about what I was expecting based on what I've been hearing about the film.  I liked the film okay, but it was pretty inconsistent (some of the stories are interesting and some aren't), and in the end didn't fully come together.  If I hadn't thought that the Amber character (who I just discovered was Crissie Seaver on Growing Pains...) was pretty, I wouldn't have cared for that whole part of the movie.  I like the ideas... I like the idea of connecting high school fast food workers into everything, since it's all part of the "fast food nation," but these particular characters just weren't very interesting.  I felt like they got lazy in the script stage with the character development, which was the main disappointment, since this was initially described by Linklater as a character study version of Fast Food Nation.  But it's not really.

I guess the disconnect was in showing typical teenagers, a typical immigrant story, and Kinnear's character was pretty typical as well.  These are the most common stories, very common cases, and I guess that direction was chosen to suggest the larger scale of the story--it's these stories times a lot that make up the fast food nation.  However, in showing so much typicalness, it wasn't really that interesting.

I don't feel like the movie's goal was to educate, so I won't call it a criticism that I didn't learn anything.

But I will always remember the kill floor scene.  I had never really seen that before.  A friend of mine was crying, and I was very affected as well.  But even past the whole killing thing, the scene makes clear just how dangerous it is for the workers.  These are untrained people wielding equipment designed to cut flesh at high speeds for 8 or possibly more hours a day (for $10 or so an hour).  It does suggest, whether the meat industry likes it or not, that these workers' safety and maybe even lives are expendable, or at least secondary to increasing the speed of meat production.  People having to eat shit due to the high speeds of the production line is a relatively minor concern compared to the physical danger to the workers.  If there's one cry for change that needs to be made, it's that.

Quote from: Lucid on November 26, 2006, 10:09:18 PM
Catalina Sandino Moreno 

the only reason i might eventually see this movie.

Quote from: Lucid on November 26, 2006, 10:09:18 PM
the segments     

the only reason i might never see the whole movie.