I Heart Huckabees

[ono]

I was also let down by this film the way I was initially let down by Three Kings: the happy ending felt contradictory to the story. The ending does make sense, but I think instead of a resolution, the film should have further dove deeper down into the energy it tapped into to reveal some greater truths. I also could be interpreting what is a personal film of character relation as only a societal film.

And what would those greater truths be that you hoped Russell would have tapped into?  I got that same sense that he was really going somewhere here, but it was a much lighter ride, and I really enjoyed it for that.  The more I think about it, the more of a farce it really is (in a good way).

It really is an excellent film. It's just this film is the typical film from last year. I find myself liking many parts, but also criticizing some as well. I really only have a few complete great films to claim from last year. Its really sad.

Those films would be?  Did you make your list yet?

[Gold Trumpet]

I was also let down by this film the way I was initially let down by Three Kings: the happy ending felt contradictory to the story. The ending does make sense, but I think instead of a resolution, the film should have further dove deeper down into the energy it tapped into to reveal some greater truths. I also could be interpreting what is a personal film of character relation as only a societal film.

And what would those greater truths be that you hoped Russell would have tapped into?  I got that same sense that he was really going somewhere here, but it was a much lighter ride, and I really enjoyed it for that.  The more I think about it, the more of a farce it really is (in a good way).

I'm not sure. Its just as the characters were on a downward spiral the film was picking up pace to have its own explosian of everything like Dr. Strangelove. Its just everyone ended up picking themselves up right at the end. David O. Russel said that he would have changed the ending of Three Kings if he could. He thought the tone was too light compared to the rest of the film. I somewhat see a similiar situation here.

It really is an excellent film. It's just this film is the typical film from last year. I find myself liking many parts, but also criticizing some as well. I really only have a few complete great films to claim from last year. Its really sad.

Those films would be?  Did you make your list yet?

No, I haven't made a top ten list yet. The more I think about making one and squandering to a few titles I really don't believe are worthy of top ten placement, the more I feel prolly just won't make one. Something so trivial shouldn't take so much effort.

As with a title like The Incredibles, I'll just try to voice my enthusiam for it in other ways.

[Sigur Rós]

I just saw this and didn't understand it at all. Maybe it was trying to make fun of existentialism and philosphy (the scene where they hit eachother with the ball). But that doesn't really mather cause it was all worth seeing because of Mark Wahlberg. I can't believe how funny he was in this film. He was back in his favoirte dump-naive-funny-goodhearted-character.

[tpfkabi]

i finally saw this. i liked it.
the Open Spaces PSA's on the 2nd disc are pretty funny.
so is seeing Hoffman, Law, and Schwartzman wearing fake breasts.

[©brad]

okay well i loved this. and i haven't really read through this thread and i probably never will, but--

original, funny, innovative, frustrating, mind-scratching, colorful, crazy, optomistic, sweet-- these are all eligible adjectives for the dvd cover (which i know already exists, but maybe they could be used for a criterion cover or sumthin)

[pete]

isabelle hubert is 53 years old?!?!  how the hell is that possible?

[Weak2ndAct]

I'd still give her a good scrogging.

[MacGuffin]

I’ve been finding it very difficult to describe the film I Heart Huckabees to anyone. It’s a veritable mishmash of materialism, pop culture and very heavy on the vermouth, I mean existentialism. I was lucky enough to get an interview with its writer/director David O. Russell and it was a damn good thing because he describes the movie way better than I could.

I know of Russell from the dozens of times I’ve watched Flirting with Disaster and Spanking the Monkey. While Three Kings seems to be his most popular film to date I found it to be a bit preachy. Huckabees is another story all together. It’s a brilliant film that has translated many long and heavy modern philosophies into a film.

While talking to Russell I realized why he was the perfect man to make a film about existentialism. The conversation wanders off into tangents which are often very fascinating.

Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello David, I’m Daniel from SuicideGirls.

David O. Russell: I know SuicideGirls. My editor will be so pleased. Her name is Pam March and she’s been on SuicideGirls. She is one of those body pierced lesbians. She loves SuicideGirls and one of the best things I ever did for her was tape the special they did on them off HBO and give it to her. She provided me with what I think is the best metaphor for what a movie star is.

DRE: What is that?

RUSSELL: She went to a strip club in New York and she exchanged numbers with a stripper. She called her and they made a plan to meet at a party and when she got to the party she realized there were at least 20 other women who had gotten the same thing from the stripper. The stripper had her choice of who to flirt with and who to choose from. She was completely in power and when Pamela said that to me I realized that was what a movie star is. When you are in a movie or a magazine you are giving your number to millions of people and suddenly you have command attention from all the people you want to command attention from.

Thank you Pamela March and you’re going to be so excited because I’m doing an interview with SuicideGirls. I didn’t know you did movie coverage. When Lily Tomlin did her one woman show one of the thoughts I had that the lesbians she’s talking about, the ones who wear Birkenstocks, have been replaced by a new generation of lesbians who wear hot type clothes, have piercings, tattoos and blue hair. SuicideGirls is a way for women to take back the porn.

DRE: How do you describe I Heart Huckabees?

RUSSELL: Here’s how I described it to the people who financed the movie. Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin are existential detectives who you could hire to investigate the meaning of your life. They are formal, they wear suits, they are Paris-trained and their clients include Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Jason Schwartzman and Mark Wahlberg. Their nemesis is Isabelle Huppert. Hilarity ensues. I’m not going to try to tell the whole story but that’s the conceit of the whole thing. I’m going to make it funny and smart.

DRE: Do you think you wouldn’t have been able to make this movie without all those stars?

RUSSELL: No, Alexander Payne made his movie at the same time I did at the same studio for the same budget and there are smaller stars in his movie. I don’t mean to say anything against Thomas Haden Church but I haven’t seen him in much since Wings. That’s a more straight ahead story but this is anything but.

DRE: Was it difficult to get this film started?

RUSSELL: It’s a film I’ve been trying to make for about 13 years. I got a grant in 1990 from the New York State Council on the Arts to make a short movie about a consciousness investigator who conceals microphones on the tables of a Chinese restaurant and wrote insanely personal fortunes to the people who ate there. Then he ended up getting involved with them. When I got the money I decided that I couldn’t kill myself to make another short, I had to make a feature. I tried for 18 months to turn it into a feature script. I didn’t feel I did that successfully enough so I used that money to make Spanking the Monkey instead. I eventually had to give the money back because they said they gave me the money for the fortune cookie movie not the incest movie. Then after I made Three Kings I really wanted to go back to making personal movies. I wrote a movie for Jason Schwartzman who I had fallen in love with from Rushmore. I wrote it about a Zendo I had gone to for four years on East 67th street. I thought it would be a great hub for an ensemble comedy about consciousness because there is every kind of person who goes there from lawyers to architects to janitors to accountants. At 6 pm they go there, kick off their shoes and study consciousness. I thought it would be funny and serious as well. It took me 18 months to write the script then I put it in a drawer and told them I couldn’t make this movie and that’s why I told them I didn’t do a movie for five years. Then I had a dream which answered my conundrum. The dream had a woman detective in it that was following me but not for criminal reasons. I wrote that down and I realized that was funny and that was the conceit of the movie.

DRE: All of your feature films have been a search for self and Huckabees is no different. Do you see that?

RUSSELL: I think that’s just in my DNA. Flirting with Disaster was done after my sister found her birth parents while having a lot of miscues happen along the way. Three Kings was an investigation for those solder’s souls in a way. They are celebrated frat boys at the beginning of them film then they realize that they don’t know what they are celebrating and discover who they really are and who they want to be. SuicideGirls is coming through with some good questions and they’re not all about body piercing. In ten years SuicideGirls is going to be like CNN, the biggest network in America.

DRE: In Huckabees, on one hand you have all these people who are connected then you have the people who don’t believe people are all interconnected. What made you choose those two philosophies?

RUSSELL: For me they reflect two of the biggest attitudes that I think compete in our modern world. One that is ultimately non materialist and says you can’t take the material world at face value. Bob Thurman was a teacher of mine in college and was my main inspiration for the Dustin Hoffman character and he is the chair of religion at Columbia. He taught me at Amherst, wore rumpled suits and was very unpretentious while also being one of the greatest translators of ancient texts. He said to me that consciousness and the soul had been separated from science since the Middle Ages because when you raised any kind of questions about infinity or something called the number zero or any kind of metaphysical concept you would be burned at the stake. Since then scientists have dogmatically run from anybody who talks about consciousness. Thurman’s hope is that in this century it will be readmitted. You have that camp, where everything is interconnected, which is more affirmative then you have the Isabelle Huppert camp which is more Zen in a way. They talk about infinity or visions but just talk about what is right now. How does this chair feel on your ass, how does the air feel and that is the doorway to infinity. But as with many Zen things it can be taken farther into minimalism to say that there is nothing beyond this. I picked those two because I can feel either way on any given day. It’s basically, hope is hopeless in two different containers.

DRE: How have audiences reacted to the film so far?

RUSSELL: Two nights ago we had a screening at Mohegan Sun. because I will do anything for Mark [Wahlberg] we had a fundraiser for his Youth Foundation, because like the character in the movie he is devoted to inner city kids. The friendship in the movie he is involved with is our friendship. I went to college and he went to prison so we’re very different but we have a lot of love for each other. I don’t think that audience was the best first audience for the film. We were in this ballroom with a 1000 people with drinks and you can hear the slot machines and people could go to the bar. It was driving Mark crazy and I was just bemused. I thought it was an existential conundrum right there. Then the next night we did a screening at Columbia University very late at night. When we first started the film it was out of focus. I asked the projectionist about it and he said, not the answer I wanted to hear, “I know, we don’t really know how to project anamorphic here. So that’s about as good as it’s going to get.” I said that I didn’t think we should show it then because the film is hard enough to watch. These students figured how to fix the projector with paperclips or something. We played it and had a great screening. Then at the Q & A, a woman gets up to ask a question and says “I should tell you that I’m a reporter for The New York Times. I can leave if you want me to.” The whole room went “Yeah!” I asked her if she was like one of those Page Six people who infiltrates things. She said no but it is for a column that has been compared to Page Six then she left. That’s the end of that story.

DRE: What do you want audiences to walk away from this film with?

RUSSELL: A feeling of elation. I hope people come out tickled and thinking about things. What will make them able to do that is if they get on the ride from the beginning, then things will fly by them very fast but they’re ok with that. Maybe they won’t get them all the first time they see it but they will get it next time and they will also enjoy it at the same time. Some of the movies I’ve enjoyed the most have happened that way. It was a choice for us to do it that way.

I think it’s entertainment but you are also going to have to think as well. The people who enjoy it the most are the ones who experience it as a strange comedy. While I was trying to get Huckabees made my friend Adam McKay was trying to get Anchorman made. Adam was always saying to me that Huckabees was wacky and funny. Everyone takes it differently

DRE: How did you meet Adam?

RUSSELL: We met several years ago because we mutual admirers of each other’s work. We tried to write a couple of things together. I’ve never gone to the mat for something that wasn’t mine but I went to these guys and told them that Will Ferrell is the next big thing. This is quality comedy and I am a snob about comedy. Now I have the last laugh.

DRE: After Three Kings I’m sure you must have had a lot of opportunities for mainstream movies. What made you go with Huckabees?

RUSSELL: I had a free ticket after Three Kings so I decided to take a risk. To make a movie that was most near and dear to my heart. If this movie makes its money back I will get another ticket.

DRE: Did anyone tell you not to make this movie because it wouldn’t be good for your career?

RUSSELL: Damn SuicideGirls, I think this movie is going to be good for my career. We did an infomercial for this movie with Dustin and Lily advertising their services. It’s going to run on the Independent Film Channel. We had Professor Thurman and Professor Joe Rudnick the Chair of physics at UCLA. One of the people in it is Pamela, you can pick her out because of the blue hair. She is one of the cases and says “What does all this have to do with me? I don’t understand this fifth dimension.”

DRE: Could you talk about, Soldiers Pay, the documentary you did on Iraq?

RUSSELL: It’s now been distributed Cinéma Libre, who also distributed Robert Greenwald’s documentaries. You can see it at the Quad Cinema [in Manhattan]. It’s 45 minutes long and it’s been distributed with Robert Greenwald’s Uncovered: The War on Iraq. Warner Bros gave me the money to make it. I interviewed veterans coming home from Iraq, a two star republican general who has a lot of questions about this war and doesn’t like it. I interviewed Iraqis who were in Three Kings. There is a big culture over there that is more of a conquest culture than a liberation. Supply sergeants will go into your home and take your microphone and TV for the recreation use of the army which is not exactly winning hearts and minds. There was an article in Harper’s which said that was a conscious policy to destroy the culture of Iraq.

I had hoped that this film would have gotten a release before the election but Warner Bros said they wouldn’t do it. They even cancelled their plans to release Three Kings on DVD before the election. I don’t even know if I would be able to make Three Kings today. They weren’t owned by AOL five years ago and they were more independent. When I came to them I asked if they were really going to make Three Kings. They told me that they make Oliver Stone movies and they aren’t afraid of it.

DRE: Is it important to mix heavy subjects with comedy?

RUSSELL: It’s not as if I see as a spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down. I think that the serious material is funny to me. A Zen monk once said to me “If you’re not laughing then you’re not getting it.” My favorite surrealists like Duchamp and Magritte are implicitly funny while also challenging what reality is to you. Bob Thurman is like that, he has a glass eye that kind of looks away, he will read these ancient texts in voices that are just hilarious. I think it’s Reader’s Digest that says “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” I think Will Ferrell is sublime when he sings Afternoon Delight.

DRE: How was directing Dustin Hoffman?

RUSSELL: Dustin Hoffman was the dream guy to play this part. He had been asking to make a movie with me since Flirting with Disaster. When I made Three Kings I even considered giving him the Clooney role. But I saw him running around in the fatigues in Outbreak and it didn’t feel right. He was upset by that so I went to apologize. I told him I was still devoted to him and he was the reason I got into cinema that The Graduate had a profound effect on me. He looked at me and said “That’s it? You’ve got to do it the Jewish way and give me something.” I said ok, so five years went by and I came back to him and said this part is for you. He asked me to come to his house and read it to me out loud because he wanted to hear how I hear it. It took us two days because we would stop, talk then eat and then talk some more.

Also he taught me something about directing. I asked him one day if he was listening to me because he was looking down. He said “No I’m listening to your rhythm. You have three of them. The first one is that you talk very staccato and very intensely. The second is you talk slowly and deliberately when you want something to be understood. Three is that you listen very intently.” I always thought that dialogue in a movie isn’t supposed to have a rhythm but Dustin told that it is important to have that because that’s the rhythm of the movie. You have to give that to the actors and that’s what Ratso Rizzo was based on.

We shot on a set at The Ambassador Hotel which he had not stepped in since he shot The Graduate. There was a piece of wood at the front desk that Buck Henry sticks his head through in the movie and says, "Are you here for an affair?" I got Dustin that piece of wood because they are going to demolish that place. That was my way of repaying him for doing this movie for no money.

DRE: What was it like showing this film to Professor Thurman?

RUSSELL: I was nervous. He came to see it at my house right after he saw The Passion of the Christ. The first thing he told me was “Wow that guy really hates Jews.” We had dinner than watched the movie. He had a lot of good suggestions like encouraging me to more with the cubes. Since then he’s seen it many times and told me he loved it.

DRE: How much different would Flirting with Disaster be if you did it now?

RUSSELL: Everything I made I would make very different. I’m always picking at works. I could tell you everything that’s wrong with Huckabees but I won’t.

I would deepen Flirting with Disaster. I didn’t have the confidence or the chops to go deeper into the narrative and the identity issues. There were funny things I wanted to do at the time as well. When Ben Stiller meets his truck driver ersatz dad I wanted to have them break into Taking Care of Business by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

[modage]

so i rewatched I Heart Huckabees tonite.  i liked it. 

[ono]

Pourquoi?  *flaps arms like a French, existentialist seagull*

[Pozer]

this will rule in 2004.  i cant wait.

Mark your calendars.  According to the new Premiere, I Heart Huckabees will be released October 15th.

i'm convinced. this will rule and this thread will exceed 18 pages. here's to page 2...

god i hope so.

I hear this movie is only going to be kind of funny because it tries too hard.

god i hope not.

As expected its one of the best films of the year.

good.  the mixed reviews are killing my buzz.  this has been one of my most anticipated for the year and i cant wait for friday...

well since this was one of my most anticipated movies for the whole year, i'm pretty massively letdown right now.  i really really really wanted to love this movie, i thought the trailer was great, it just wasnt meant to be.  it was a noble mess. it was also the strangest movie i've seen all year.  its so weird it makes Eternal Sunshine look like a 'normal' jim carrey movie.  its so weird it makes Punch-Drunk Love look like a 'normal' adam sandler movie.  it will make $0 at the box office, my theatre was almost empty on opening night.  lets see what else...

I hear this movie is only going to be kind of funny because it tries too hard.

even though there are some really funny bits it comes off like pretentious garbage. i'm a big o. russell fan and tried my best to like the film, but just couldn't bring myself to it when the end credits rolled.

My initial reaction was not too good. Look, there are a few films I do anticipate, and this was one of them, but it was just flat in my opinion. I really had a hard time with the casting, and felt JasonS didn't work for me. Honestly none of the cast did, but I didn't really like the script much either. Quirky? Screwball? I don't know, didn't really seem like it knew what the hell it wanted to be, and maybe that's the point. Yes, it had some funny parts, but I didn't connect. I apologize for the negative vibe, not writing DaivdOR off, but that's the gut reaction.

i just cant believe this was made by the same guy who made three kings.  and made AFTER!!  its just so awkward and amateurish, i refuse to believe the same guy went onto make this (when it seems like an oddity that should've already fallen earlier in a career).  its not that the subject matter was too weird, the premise was great, it just didnt deliver.  the movie was either A. not funny enough or B. not thoughtful enough.  it was just too --- blah.  i dunno.  jason s. seemed underused as did most of the cast.  jude law didnt quite seem as good as normal.  there seemed to be a lot of halfbaked ideas that made a weird as hell incoherent movie.  i'm guessing everyone signed on because of who the director was hoping they could pull something together from the premise and russell was hoping the same.  but he just didnt have a handle on the thing.  the movie didnt seem to take place anywhere near reality.  you dont care about any of the characters because its so oddball you dont feel like you should, but then, its not so funny that you dont mind.  its really not even that entertaining.  i dont think it will have a very good rewatchability, like i dont know that i want to see it again.  its just a mess.  drop all comparisons to PT now.  this is a misfire.  its okay.  lofty ambitions not reached by a long shot.  this review at AICN is pretty much how i feel... http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=17036

the more i've thought about this movie today, the more i think it was probably just plain bad and i was in denial last night.  my shock at the initial letdown was so great that i was being nice and trying to make excuses for the movie.  but i really think i dislike it despite its best efforts.  i guess i meant amateurish in the fact in how badly i thought he mishandled the movies ideas.

goddamn, i cant believe i'm alone on this?  what film did i watch here?  what am i, the new gt?  why am i here?  what is the meaning of life, and so on....

The movie is not at all consistent, in the dialogue, in the story, in the characters, in the plot, in the tone, even in the frequency of randomness. It was consistently inconsistent... that's completely the point, and I think it worked beautifully. In that way it was almost exactly like a Wes Anderson movie.

so the fact that it sucked is what makes it great?  lets not go dragging wes andersons good name through the mud by comparing it to this dreck.

you're reaching jeremy.

thats like saying a horror movie thats horrible is great.  because it intends to show you horrors, including making you watch how terrible it is.  or comedies that are so unfunny theyre hilarious.  you could pretty much justify any bad movie with reasoning like that if you wanted to.

so i rewatched I Heart Huckabees tonite.  i liked it. 

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Was it really worth it?  I think his first bashing of it and his commendation of it would've gotten the point across.

Bravo, though.

[Pubrick]

I think his first bashing of it and his commendation of it would've gotten the point across.

no. that is the difference between you and pozer.

[bonanzataz]

well, dammit, now i need to get this bitch to the 18th page.

i missed it in theaters. i sawed it on home video. this movie was funny.

hehe. tuna salad.

we only need two more posts, people. WE CAN DO THIS!

[NEON MERCURY]

fuckabees[/tt]

one more?