Opening this Friday, Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq is a modern-day retelling of Aristophanes’ ancient Greek play Lysistrata set in Chicago’s South side. Nick Cannon stars as the titular character, a drill rapper caught up in a gang war with a crew led by a man they call Cyclops (Wesley Snipes). With men, women and children dying on the streets every day as a result of the rivalry, the gangsters’ female counterparts decide to deny their partners sex until they stop the violence and come to a peace agreement. Led by Chi-Raq’s girl, Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris), the militantly celibate women hold their ground as the gangs, the police and politicians ponder the price of their senseless dick-measuring.

In a roundtable interview in San Francisco we spoke to Cannon about the film, which opens this Friday and also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, Dave Chappelle, Jennifer Hudson and John Cusack.

This role is different than anything you’ve done before.
It’s quite different. [laughs]

What was the biggest challenge for you, working on a movie like this?
The overall piece is a challenge, to take something Aristophanes created over 2,000 years ago and set it in Chicago with Spike Lee at the helm…that’s brave, you know what I mean? That’s a challenge because Spike is a visionary, but it’s also taking something that’s so classic and true, and the film’s in verse. [Spike said,] “I feel like you can fulfill this role.” Him making that creative choice, it’s like, it’s an honor, and I’m going to give you my all. Everything I could do to honor the authenticity of the souls in that community is what I attempted to do.

Spike Lee said recently that everything he’s done has led to making this film.
He did say that! It’s true. He came to me before I saw the script, before I heard the full synopsis. He said, “I want to save lives on the South side of Chicago. I was like, “I’m in!” It’s true when he says, “If I save one life, if I bring awareness and stop one senseless act of violence, I’ve done my job.” For all the other films that he’s made that have made strong statements and empowered so many in front of the camera, behind the camera, people whose lives have been changed by this gentlemen…for him to really get connected with the community and say, “We have to stop the killing of our own,” not just in Chicago, but all over the world…that’s a big task. I understand why he’d say everything he’s done has led to this point. He knows how precious life is, and if he saves a life, that’s tremendous.

There’s been some controversy surrounding the film.
See, that’s the thing. I’m all up for opinion, all up for the debate. But I want it to be intelligent, you know what I mean? I want people to understand—it’s a satire. Some people don’t even know what that is, but they want to comment. You’re more than welcome, but understand that satire is what Kubrick did with Dr. Strangelove, what Spike has done before with Do The Right Thing. There were some hilarious moments in Do The Right Thing. There’s nothing exploitative about what’s going on in that film. The same thing is true with Chi-Raq, if not even more. You can’t judge anything off of a two-minute trailer. That’s coming from a place of ignorance. No one has seen it. I still haven’t seen it. You can’t speak on it in that sense. The devil is the author of confusion. We should be upset about a lot of things, but not this. The man is using his art to raise awareness, to create a conversation. Let’s be upset about what’s going on in our community. Let’s be upset that there was a 9-year-old executed in the same neighborhood we shot this film in.

I’ve been coming up with all these different ways to digest what’s going on in the social media aspect [of the film.] It’s as if someone’s like, “Man, look at that Picasso. That don’t make no sense! It’s too colorful! He’s coloring outside the lines!” If you don’t understand what Picasso’s artistic vision was…this is this man’s artistic choice to [use] an elevated sense of satire and a classic tale to portray this story. This is art. He’s using art to evoke change.

Hopefully, once the film comes out, people can have an intelligent debate about what’s going on. There are so many powerful messages in this movie. I think a lot of people are going to take back the things that they’ve said once they see it. That happened with Do The Right Thing. When that came out, people said, “This is going to cause riots. This is bad for our community. It’s a hate film!” And then it went on to be one of the greatest films for our community ever. Spike knows what he’s doing. I’m saddened by a lot of the voices that have come out to speak against the film and haven’t seen it.

Do you think the movie’s trailer is a good representation of the film?
I love the trailer. I think it’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. It’s created this interesting conversation. It’s got people stirred up. That’s what art’s supposed to do. The thing that saddens me are the comments coming from some of people speaking out. Do you see that you don’t sound intelligent the way you’re speaking right now? That you don’t even understand what satire is? It makes me cringe. People who understand satire and Greek theater, they love it. People who don’t understand what art is…I guess we probably didn’t make this for you. It hurts my soul when people say, “They ain’t got no real killers in this movie! It’s real out here!” What?! We know, but we don’t want to glorify that. Let’s tell it in an intelligent way. Spike chose a high-versed style, something most can’t do. People will see that he’s a genius and he knows what he’s doing.

I’m a huge fan of hip-hop culture.
Thanks for that…I am, too! [laughs]

I’m a big fan of battle rap, too. You’ve given a platform to Hitman Holla and Conceited on Wild n Out, so thanks for that.
We got a couple of new cats coming too. We gon’ go in next season. We got two new secret weapons we gon’ lay on ya’ll.

It was striking to me that, in the lead-up to this film, you released a song in character.
Yeah.

And people don’t get it.
Yeah! The crazy thing is, I’ve got a whole album of that drill shit! I’m sitting on it. I ain’t ready yet, but it helped me get into character. Wesley Snipes plays the antagonist of the film. His name is Cyclops. They’re the Trojans and we’re the Spartans. There are these Greek war references but in a drill music fashion. I was like, they’re not ready for it. Hamilton’s on Broadway right now. You can take elements of hip-hop and teach history and show the juxtaposition between love and war. But some of these cats ain’t ready for that. I think hip-hop has evolved. You wouldn’t be mad at Frank Sinatra for releasing a record from one of his movies in character. “That ain’t you, Frank!” Yeah, of course it’s not me! It’s the character I’m playing! When you think about embracing the art, how dope is it that I can release a whole project as a character from a film? I would love hip-hop to understand that we can evolve to that space, but we’re still kinda stuck in that mentality of, “If you ain’t real, you shouldn’t be talking about it.” So Al Pacino couldn’t be Scarface? He wasn’t from Colombia, you know what I mean? He don’t talk like that. But he embodied a character and gave you a piece of art. That’s what we did with Chi-Raq, not just with the film, but with the music as well.

Rappers have been killing people on records for years, but none of them want to come out and say that, really, most of them are playing a character.
You know what’s interesting? Hip-hop has always been about how “real” you are. “Keeping it real.” But none of those guys are really who they say they are! I don’t have no fake name—my name is Nick Cannon, and I’m never trying to be anything that I’m not. I’m happy being this guy. But some of the guys we look up to and call themselves “the realist”—it’s like, yo dawg, you stole someone else’s name, someone else’s whole persona, and you think that because whoever you’re affiliated with you’re allowed to talk tough-guy gun talk? You’re an entertainer. You’re an artist. If you were the biggest dope dealer in the game, you’d still be doing what you were doing! Unfortunately, what has gone on even in the South side of Chicago is, we got it all screwed up and misconstrued. We think, “I gotta really be a killer to be a dope rapper. I really gotta have bodies.” No! We’re kings and queens. Respect life. Let’s focus on that. We can talk about the hardships we’ve experienced, but let’s not think it’s cool to kill somebody to make us more popular and make us more money. We’ve gone down a demonic path if that’s what we’re doing.

What is it about Jackie Chan that makes him the most lovable person on the planet? If you consider other action stars, like Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger or even Bruce Lee, they just don’t exude that same cheerful charisma that Chan has. If  anyone could deliver some martial arts driven world peace, it’s him. And in his latest action epic, Dragon Blade, that’s exactly what his character, Huo An, wants to do.

Daniel Lee directs this grandiose spectacle of a historical action film and the ornate detail put into the visuals of the film are truly mesmerizing…and utterly distracting. Clearly Lee, who also wrote the film, is attempting to use the historical allure of the Silk Road and the mingling of cultures along that road to present a message of unity—no matter the rather loose historical accuracy of the events depicted or the bombast with which he presents it all. Dragon Blade is a thoroughly enjoyable film with laugh-out-loud moments, almost all of which I assume the director did not intend. The same slow motion glory with which the film’s final epic battle plays out also works to highlight every jowel-ripple moving across John Cusack’s face as he rides horseback. Proof positive that enhanced visual effects don’t always enhance a film’s quality.

Supposedly based on a historical person, Chan’s Huo An leads the Silk Road Protection Squad, peacekeepers of the Silk Road, whose mission is to prevent those many cultural clashes bound to happen on a busy trade road. In the film’s opening Chan hilariously faces off against the leader of one such clan, Cold Moon (Peng Lin), about to engage in a desert scuffle. Using fancy footwork and his forearm shield, he makes avoiding fighting this woman look amazingly intricate, showcasing that despite his age—61 and not quite doing all his own stunts anymore—Chan definitely still has it.

That crisis is averted but someone has it in for the Protection Squad and they are wrongly accused of corrupt practices and exiled to Goose Gate, a fortress along the Road in a state of disrepair. All the various cultures found in the area are represented, Hun, Indians, Turks, Mongols and more, and all are forced to work alongside each other to rebuild the city wall. Which of course leads to opportunity for the Protection Squad to use their training, albeit unappreciated by the others until the day a Roman army—led by John Cusack and his slow-mo’d jowels—shows up to invade. Huo An comes to the rescue, facing Roman leader Lucius (Cusack) in a sword fight and offering sanctuary when a sandstorm cuts their dual short.

In a rather quick turn of events, Lucius and Huo An form a sort of friendship. Lucius is traveling with deserted Roman army soldiers and a blind young Roman prince, Publius (played by Chinese child actor Jozef Waite turned blonde Roman and weirdly creepy), who is pursued by his tyrannical older brother Tiberius who has overthrown his own father and blinded his brother. In exchange for shelter and in preparation for Tiberius’s arrival, the Roman soldiers and workers of Goose Gate band together, using Roman technology to rebuild the city in a very short amount of time, and simultaneously learning the efficiency and joy of working as a team. If it wasn’t so elaborately shot and costumed, it would be a perfect fit for a Sesame Street segment.

Tiberius does indeed show up, clad in perfect Roman curls and played at his villanous best by Adrien Brody. The script shifts dramatically at this point, and after all the friendship-forming and singing—no, literally there is an extended scene where each of the different tribes sing the songs of their people and show their respects to one another—the sudden gruesomeness that ensues is dark indeed. Apparently that world peace Huo An seeks won’t happen without a fair amount of blood shed, all of which elicits laughs rather than gasps due to its over-the-top entrance into the film.

There is a satisfying showdown and large-scale battle to round out the film but once again the magnitude of it all detracts from any connection to the so-called story. Huo An remains the sole character for whom we hold any real connection, but the degree of his suffering hardly makes the battle feel worth winning. Strangely all criticism of Cusack or Brody has entirely to do with the writing material they were given and the silliness they are thrust into at moments. Amazingly, and this is of course a testament to Chan’s remarkable choreographic abilities, both men look completely at ease and totally tough in their fantastic fight scenes.

Any reason for seeing Dragon Blade lies firmly within a respect and adoration of Jackie Chan and relies on one’s ability to be patient waiting for the fight scenes. The film’s themes are as overt as a round-house kick to the face and no one who sees this film will be able to escape walking away feeling like they were subjected to the film equivalent of two hours on It’s a Small World—you know, but with blood and gore.

Jackie Chan fans can deal with the cheese that often accompanies the thrill of seeing the man in action, and those who like ornate flourishes may not mind the film’s style, but mostly this film’s biggest assets are the strange combo of Chan, Cusack and Brody and the accidental hilarity of a frilly film taking itself seriously. And perhaps there is a lesson in Dragon Blade after all. World peace may not equate to “good” guys winning over “bad” guys, or the people of the world combining in a united cause—it may simply be a matter of everyone getting over themselves and having a laugh.

In a 2011 CBC Radio interview, Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson was asked why the sun was such a central theme in his famous pocket symphonies. His answer: “Because it’s California sunshine, you know?” (He then proceeded to sing an impromptu, acapella version of “Do It Again.”) It was a delightfully straightforward, almost childlike answer given by a man who wrote heavenly songs to bat away the demons that terrorized and ravaged him in his waking life.

Love & Mercy, an unconventional biopic based on Wilson, isn’t so much about sunshine as it is about his demons. The focus is the anguish and isolation that plagued him from his early days as a musical prodigy and deep into his adult years, when drugs and anxiety nearly reduced his mind to mush. It may be the best musician portrait of the millennium so far, for its artistic ambition, supreme sound design and chilling performances.

It’s a hard enough thing telling someone’s life story in two measly hours, but when your subject is Wilson, a man whose life is so legendary it could easily fill a 1,000-page book, the Wikipedia biopic approach simply won’t cut it. Bad biopics try to shove a life story into a bottle; good ones take on a life of their own. Director Bill Pohlad and screenwriter Oren Moverman get it: instead of going with the “rock ‘n’ roll rise ‘n’ fall” approach, they use two critical, defining slices of Wilson’s life to render a beautifully complex, abstract interpretation of the man who gifted us “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls.” Despite covering only two portions of Wilson’s life, Pohlad and Moverman’s film feels rounded, complete, and faithful to its subject’s soul and spirit.

The narrative is stereophonic, in a way. It tells two stories, phasing them into a larger arc with clever scene arrangement and seamless editing that echoes the fluidity of Boyhood‘s invisible time jumps. Paul Dano plays a young Brian in the ’60s, whose artistic awakening has coincided with the emergence of a debilitating anxiety disorder; John Cusack plays him in the ’80s, a chemically imbalanced mess who’s unsure of every word that escapes his lips.

’80s Brian is a man on a leash, held captive by Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), a shady therapist who’s taken charge of Brian’s life and, conveniently, his funds. (Landy’s moved into Brian’s Malibu mansion, moving Brian to a smaller house up the coast.) Brian meets his savior and future wife in Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), a savvy car saleswoman who he asks on a date while sitting in a car she’s in the process of selling him. Melinda and Brian’s romance and camaraderie and her efforts to liberate him from the imperious Dr. Landy drive their half of the film.

The earlier time frame covers the Beach Boys in their prime, topping the charts and competing for pop culture dominance with The Beatles. An early scene has the camera slowly circling Dano’s Brian, sitting at a piano and playing a kernel of a song that, as the movie progresses, turns into “God Only Knows,” which would become widely regarded as one of the best songs ever written. His gift comes with a curse: severe panic attacks begin to wreak havoc on his psyche, torturing him as he creates Pet Sounds, an album that would become his preeminent masterpiece.

Wilson led a turbulent life from the start, going from being the son of an emotionally and physically abusive father and straight into the arms of Dr. Landy. He didn’t live life on his terms, instead resigning himself to the role of peon for most of his adult life. The only time he had absolute control was in the studio, where he was notoriously meticulous about the execution of his musical arrangements. Pohlad recreates the famous Pet Sounds sessions in brilliant detail, in the same studio where Wilson and The Wrecking Crew laid down the classic record. Dano gets Wilson’s obsessive perfectionism down, well, perfectly, vocalizing to the musicians exactly how he wants each note played. He yells to the cello player from the booth: “Taka-ta-taka-ta-taka-ta-taka!”

Love & Mercy glides forward gracefully, flitting from side to side between the two time periods like a well handled hockey puck. Its shape doesn’t resemble any biopic I’ve ever seen, and that’s its strongest quality. It jumps forwards and backwards in time, but the story’s movement feels lateral, not linear. The way Pohlad accomplishes this is by letting the two stories breathe and develop on their own terms and on their own time, apart from each other. They’re weaved together with sharp filmmaking technique, but beyond that they’re completely discrete.

The most glaring proof of this is the fact that Dano and Cusack look nothing alike. Their interpretations of Wilson are unique, and there doesn’t seem to be any sense of continuity between their performances. This is a good thing. If they’d used makeup to make them look more alike, it would have soured the pot from the get-go.

Looper comes to mind: What sold Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a younger Bruce Willis wasn’t the creepy-looking makeup; it was his performance. It was the twitches, the way he spoke, the way he walked, the way he held his hands, the way he raised his eyebrow. Cusack looks nothing like Dano or Wilson, but when he’s in motion—dangling his arms at his sides, whispering like a child with a secret—he sounds and moves and feels just like Wilson. He had a steeper hill to climb than Dano (who’s a dead-ringer for a young Wilson in every way), but he makes it to the other side without the aid of prosthetics or CG tomfoolery. Impressive.

This is the most subtle, measured performance of Dano’s career. He’s always been a standout, but always seems to be aggressively trying to steal scenes in an almost competitive, selfish manner that occasionally undermines his on-screen partners (he does this in Looper to Gordon-Levitt, actually). The fact that he’s playing such an iconic man (who happens to still be alive) in this movie seems to have calmed him down a bit and allowed him to explore nuance in a way he never has before. As a bonus, he plays the piano and sings himself, an extra detail musicians will no doubt appreciate. (Nothing’s worse than the disconnect of hearing a lovely piano tune as an actor flails his fingers across the keys like a faulty marionette.

(Cue “Heroes and Villains.”) Banks and Giamatti’s contributions to the film shouldn’t be understated. They’re both phenomenal, and in fact share a handful of scenes together, one of which may be the film’s best. In the throes of a nasty legal battle (Landy was Wilson’s legal guardian for a time), Dr. Landy pays Melinda a visit at the car dealership, pounding on her locked office door like a threatened gorilla, screaming obscene threats. Eventually, Melinda swings the door open. The look on Banks’ face as she stares down Giamatti is more badass than anything you’ll see in any action blockbuster this summer. She’s killer.

Wilson devotees will likely be moved to tears by Love & Mercy (“God Only Knows” is waterworks material for me no matter the context), thought the experience of the uninitiated will be no less special. This man is a certified American icon, and for his legacy to be preserved in a way that comes ever so close to matching his artistry is a wonderful thing. The film’s only major obstacle is Cusack’s resemblance issue. If you can’t get past it, you may find yourself repeatedly thrown out of the movie every time he saunters into frame. If you can get past it (it took me a while, but I did), you’ll have a film experience to treasure for years to come.

I’d been fearing for years that, once a film about Brian Wilson was made, it would be one of those painfully formulaic biopics that have become so stale as of late. The Beach Boys frontman deserves a more artful big screen tribute than that; aside from being a veritable musical genius, he’s lived one of the most turbulent, awe-inspiring lives in documented rock and pop history.

Bill Pohlad‘s Love & Mercy, I’m relieved to report, is no soup-to-nuts hagiography, but rather an abstract, moody interpretation of two very important slices of Wilson’s life. Paul Dano plays a young Wilson in the process of writing the songs that would become Pet Sounds. An older, more mentally damaged Brian is played by John Cusack. Paul Giamatti joins Cusack’s half of the film as Dr. Eugene Landy, who in the ’80s exploited Wilson’s wealth and health, overmedicating him while he shacked up in one of Wilson’s mansions. Elizabeth Banks plays Melinda Ledbetter, Wilson’s soul mate who attempts to wrest Brian from Dr. Landy’s poisonous grip.

The film’s fragmented approach allows it to reach a stunning level of intimacy with Brian and his mind. During his visit to San Francisco this past April for the San Francisco International Film Festival, I spoke with Pohlad about the film and his experiences with Wilson, as well as the shining contributions of the rest of his team. Love & Mercy opens wide tomorrow, Friday, June 5th.

What did you like about Oren Moverman’s script that drew you to the project?
To be honest, it happened the other way around. There was a script floating around about Brian called Heroes & Villains that came to us. I read it and didn’t really like it, but I liked the idea of doing a movie about Brian Wilson. I met with Brian and Melinda and got a sense for trying to tell this story in a different way. I was never really interested in doing a biopic. In meeting them, I learned that she actually did meet him without knowing who he was and was kind of attracted to him, even though he was a bit quirky and odd. Then, she learned who he was and that all this weird stuff was going on around him. I thought it was a great way to get into his story. I was intrigued by that chapter of his life and the Pet Sounds period when he was so super-creative. It felt like those two strands would be the way to go to tell a story. We interviewed a bunch of writers, but Oren was a standout. It was one of those things where you immediately connect with somebody. We got along very well. It kind of took off from there.

I remember in high school buying the big Pet Sounds Sessions box set. The green one. I loved it. I listened to it front to back over and over. It had all these different versions of songs and Brian getting annoyed with everyone. [laughs] It was emotional for me to see those studio session recreated.
I did the same thing, buying that box set and being entranced by it and listening to it all the time. It was exciting to think about trying to recreate that. It was a magical time during the shoot, and the whole shoot honestly had a magic to it that doesn’t always happen in film production. We shot that studio section first, and it was great to be able to be in that studio, which is the actual one he recorded most of Pet Sounds in. I wanted it to have this spontaneous feel that I had appreciated in years growing up with Let It Be or Sympathy For the Devil, films like that where you’re able to get an inside look at what it’s like in the studio when guys are creating music like that. We actually hired real musicians, not actors, and gave them sheet music like they would get in a session. Paul would go in after listening to the Pet Sounds sessions over and over to get a sense of how Brian works, and we’d just let him go. We had two 16mm cameras and shot it like a documentary.

At my wedding my wife walked down the aisle to “God Only Knows.” That scene where Paul’s writing that song at the piano killed me; I got very emotional.
Shooting that was emotional, but the whole project was emotional, to be honest. The second thing we shot was the scene when he’s writing “Surf’s Up” at the piano. Paul sat and played “Surf’s Up” for, like, three hours in front of the crew. He was amazing. That was really emotional because I knew what Paul and all of us had invested in this. We were kind of doing this shot-by-shot recreation from a documentary. The “God Only Knows” thing was equally emotional because, yes, I love that song. It’s such a great song. I wanted to capture this progression of moments. When you first see him it’s like he’s just coming up with this song, and then it develops. He gets more sure of it, and by the end he’s playing it for his father. Showing that progression was really special.

Is it tricky selling John Cusack as Brian Wilson since, frankly, he looks nothing like him?
First of all, he does kind of look like him.

You think so? I don’t see it.
He just looks like him from another period. If you look at shots of Brian from the ’80s, he’s this big, bearded behemoth, almost. Then, he’d look like this skinny, emaciated guy. He was working with Landy, and his weight was going up and down. We were really trying to figure out which look we’d go with and who would portray him. I watched the Don Was documentary I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, which was shot in the early ’90s. There’s a shot early on of him in a leather jacket, and he looks like John. People say they don’t look alike occasionally, but Melinda and Brian say to them, “Yes he does!”

But I didn’t want them to be doing things like using prosthetics to make John look more like Brian or Paul. I also didn’t encourage John and Paul to work together. I wanted them to find their own, organic way into the character. You kind of let them find it. John did it by spending time with Brian and the Smile sessions. Paul did it by spending time with the Pet Sounds sessions and trying to get a sense for Brian back in that time. He said working with Brian wouldn’t have been as productive as John working with Brian.

John got Brian’s walk almost exactly, with his arms turned forward.
I’ve had psychologists and doctors say that the way John walks and the way he holds his hands are all indications of when somebody is over-medicated or getting the wrong medication.

Paul resembles Brian so much.
It’s spooky at times.

What was it like meeting Brian for the first time?
It was amazing. The first thing I’ll admit is that I grew up as a Beatles guy, and I think that’s good, in a way. There were a lot of people who wanted to be involved in the picture because they loved Brian, but it’s almost like they were too close, too big of fans. I’ve gotten more into Brian and his music over the years, and very into it about 15-20 years ago through Pet Sounds. But I think it’s good to have some objectivity. When I met Brian, it was a thrill, but I didn’t fall over. The key thing is to represent the human side of him. The celebrity and musical genius side is important, and we want to get that across, but what I want more than anything is to be able to relate to this guy. If you want to put him up on a pedestal and survey his life, you do that in a biopic. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to relate to this guy. I think the mental health issues he went through carry a more important message than saying how great a guy he is. It’s about how we treat people and how we make assumptions about people who have those challenges.

Giamatti is killer.
It’s tough, because a character like Landy…[pauses]. I couldn’t find anybody who had anything positive to say about him. He’s dead, so we don’t have a lot to go on, but you don’t want to create a one-dimensional character. You want to relate to what drove him to this and brought him to this place. There are a lot of subtleties, and having Paul Giamatti navigate those waters is huge.

One of my favorite moments in the movie is when Elizabeth Banks opens that office door in Paul’s face. She looked like such a warrior.
All of that happened [in real life]. She was in the office with the door locked and he was yelling outside. Honestly, with Brian’s story, there are so many things that happened that you would just never put in a script because they’re unbelievable. [laughs] At the end when Brian walks out in front of Melinda’s car, we struggled with that for a long time. We thought, nobody’s going to believe that! It sounds like a movie thing! It literally happened that way. Brian walked out in front of the car and she almost ran into him. As a filmmaker, it’s hard to pull it off without people thinking it’s a movie convention or something.

Favorite Beach Boys song?
“God Only Knows.” But it’s tough. “Don’t Worry Baby” would be up there.

“Good Vibrations” is my number two.
“Surf’s Up” is really great. I could go on and on.

Talk about your approach to sound. I assume that’s high priority in a film like this.
Oh, totally. Brian has aural hallucinations, not visual. Your default thing in a movie is to put all these weird things on-screen and create a “trip.” But this is what he’s hearing in his head, all these disparate chords and harmonies. They’re a part of his genius, but he can’t turn it off, so it becomes part of his nightmare as well. I wanted to figure out a way to depict that so people understood it. I thought “Revolution Number 9” off the Beatles’ White Album would be a good model. We sat down with Atticus Ross and he got it immediately. Beyond the “mind trips,” the score itself is Brian’s music, just rearranged. We’ve taken the stems from the original recordings, taken one from one song and one from another, and weaved them together. I hope Atticus’ story of what he did on this movie comes out, because it’s extraordinary.

I loved how audacious those hallucinations are. You’ll hear a weird sound mixed very hard to the right, and then a loud chord all the way on the left. Crazy stuff.
Our sound mixer Chris Jenkins’ contributions are as valuable as Atticus’ or mine.

What was the hardest thing for Brian to watch?
Brian’s quite hard to read. He’s very asocial. It’s not his thing. But I wanted to make sure he was onboard and made sure the film [was credible], so we had a table read for him early on, just the script. At times I thought he wasn’t paying attention at all or that he was sleeping. An hour later, he’d come back with these really insightful notes. The guy was listening the whole time! When he saw a rough cut the first time, he watched it alone. I heard he liked it, but I didn’t get to watch it with him until Toronto. He never shared what the hardest thing about it was, but he says reliving that whole process is hard for him.

He’s a curious guy. if you ask him about Landy now, he’d say, “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Landy,” even though he knows everything Landy did to him. He still sees it in a childlike way, a purity that’s just fascinating. But then, for the rough cut, he said we were being too kind to Landy. He thought our portrayal was a little softer than he actually was.

Inspired by the passionate reaction CJ received for his Mad Max: Fury Road review, Bernard and CJ discuss the value and (un)importance of critical consensus on this week’s Way Too Indiecast. Bernard also review’s Bill Pohlad’s new drama Love & Mercy, starring both Paul Dano and John Cusack as Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson at two separate junctures in his life. The boys also share their favorite music movies and offer up their Indie Picks of the Week on this jam-packed show.

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (1:50)
• Critical Consensus (10:22)
• Favorite Music Movies (36:33)
• Love & Mercy Review (52:16)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Tu Dors Nicole review
This Ain’t No Mouse Music review
Chris Strachwitz interivew
Mad Max: Fury Road review

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Love & Mercy

Brian Wilson wrote some of the most beautifully complex pieces of music in history throughout his decades-long career with the Beach Boys and beyond. But as a person, he’s more beautifully complex than anything anyone could ever write. Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy explores Wilson’s psyche from two angles, focusing on the biggest artistic and personal turning points in his life. Paul Dano plays a Wilson as a young man in the Beach Boys’ heyday, in the midst of writing what would become one of the greatest albums of all time, Pet Sounds. Making up the other half of the movie is a more recent, frightening period in Wilson’s life (he’s played here by John Cusack), when he was under the (highly medicated) spell of unethical therapist Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), his only protection from whom being his beach blonde soul mate, Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks).

Alternating between the two Brians is a welcome break from the typical biopic schematic. Dano’s resemblance is scary uncanny, and while Cusack’s isn’t so spot-on (I didn’t see it, to be honest), their commitment as actors is about level. Beach Boys fans will suffer uncontrollable geek-outs during the Pet Sounds studio session reenactments, but the real value of the film lies in the respectfully unkempt and fraught depiction of Wilson’s legacy as both a musician and a man.

Experimenter

Slipping between several planes of reality with the nimbleness of a jazz ensemble, Michael Almereyda‘s Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard as late social psychologist Stanley Milgram, is more of a delectable treat than the dark subject matter might lead you to believe. It centers on Milgram’s famed contributions to the world of social experimentation, most notably his controversial experiment on obedience conducted in the ’60s. We see the Holocaust-inspired experiment—involving test subjects led to believe they’re remotely causing harm to a man in an adjacent room (played by Jim Gaffigan)—reenacted by a litany of strong players, including Anton Yelchin, John Leguizamo, Anthony Edwards, and others.

The film sees Sarsgaard’s Milgram periodically address us, the audience, in cleverly worded monologues that highlight the actor’s natural wit and intellect. It’s fun to see Sarsgaard given so much breathing room; he has a lot of fun with the role, and so we do as well. Almereyda lets loose too, with neat touches like utilizing rear-projection backdrops and employing a real-life elephant to stalk behind Sarsgaard down a hall as a fun metaphor. Winona Ryder stars as Milgram’s wife, Sasha, and gives the film an emotional oomph whose importance is clearest by film’s end.

7 Chinese Brothers

Jason Schwartzman is ridiculously funny in Bob Byington‘s 7 Chinese Brothers, a film created in the Wild West indie landscape that panders to no one (mainstream audiences will likely balk at the quaint, offbeat humor), but will please crackpot-comedy weirdos (like yours truly) to no end. Larry (Schwartzman) is a small-town schlub who drinks his way into and out of menial jobs he can’t stand. He’s got his romantically savvy friend, Major Norwood (TVOTR’s Tunde Adebimpe), his silvery grandmother (Olympia Dukakis), and his impossibly drowsy dog (Schwartzman’s real dog, Arrow) to keep him company most days. When he finds himself gravitated to his new boss, Lupe (Eleanore Pienta), he’s shocked to discover that, for once, he actually looks forward to going to work.

A lot of the funniest stuff in 7 Chinese Brothers involves Schwartzman almost having a contest with himself, trying to come up with the most bizarre behaviors he can think of and making them as out-there as possible. It’s the little, absurdist stuff that makes you laugh, like Schwartzman throwing garbage into a garbage can, and then throwing said garbage can into a dumpster. Byington’s written a great script, too, each line of dialogue going in a different direction than you expected. Keep this one in mind.

To say that John Cusack has been in a slump of late might be an understatement. The actor, who can be undeniably great when given the right material, has become something of a muted Nic Cage, with last year’s Drive Hard and The Bag Man (to name just two). But this year it looks as though the actor might be turning that all around with some far more interesting roles on the horizon. One of which arrives in the form of Love & Mercy alongside the ever great Paul Dano.

The film, directed by Bill Pohlad, is an unconventional portrait of Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer, songwriter, and leader of The Beach Boys. Dano and Cusack share the duties of portraying Wilson, with Dano taking the younger as he battles to preserve the vision of his music during the production of Pet Sounds, and Cusack the elder as he struggles to free himself from the oppressive thumb of Eugene Landy.

Love & Mercy left TIFF 20114 with some solid buzz, and now the teaser trailer is here so we can get a taste for ourselves. With the familiar faces of Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks rounding out the cast, it’s safe to say we’re excited for this one.

Check out the trailer below:

Love & Mercy trailer

Maps to the Stars exists in the familiarly twisted, hyper sexual and hyper violent world that spawns many David Cronenberg movies. The film opens with Mia Wasikowska’s Agatha, a wide-eyed Floridian on a bus to the City of Angels, hoping to reconnect with long lost family. With the help of a promise over Twitter from Carrie Fischer, she lands a job as the personal assistant to aging starlet Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). Havana’s late mother was an iconic actress, and before her death she filmed a classic movie that is set for a new remake. Havana has her eyes set on her late mother’s part; however, she’s is both caught in her mother’s shadow and haunted by hostile visions of her. John Cusack has a role as Havana’s new-age massage therapist who helps Julianne Moore work through childhood trauma in barely clothed sessions. Olivia Williams is his wife, an anxiety-ridden stagemom struggling to come to terms with an incident from her past. Evan Bird is their son, child star Benji, a 13-year old foul-mouthed drug abuser recently out of a stint in rehab.

Navigating taboos like the death of children, as well as Hollywood’s incestual nature provides Maps to the Stars with a majority of its subject matter; however, the film stops short of providing an incisive perspective on these ideas. Once the film has seemingly run the course on its commentary, it devolves into an overly bloody, brutal climax. The shocking content is wickedly entertaining, but it only goes so far before being overcome by self-indulgence. And in a career full of twisted material, Maps to the Stars doesn’t delve into any new territory for a director like Cronenberg.

Welcome to Hollywood, where you steal spotlights at the age four, go into rehab before you hit puberty, hit menopause by the time you’re 23, and become a desensitized pill-popping, therapy-addicted, fame-crazed relic nearing death by the time you’ve reached your 40s. Oh, should we talk about the abuse? Should we touch upon that jaded little thing called incest? Prepare yourself for one ludicrous look through a cracked magnifying glass stained with cum and shit, one of which is a commodity but I won’t spoil and say which one. This is Cronenbergianism at its absurdest best and excessive worst, and it will most likely end up as the most quotable film competing for this year’s Palme D’Or.

Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) is moving to Hollywood from the Tony Montana land of Florida because her Twitter friend Carrie Fisher (yes, Princess Leia) said she might need help with her new book. Her chauffeur (Robert Pattinson) is one of a myriad actor slash writers looking for that big break. Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is an aging actress dangerously close to societal extinction, with all her hopes resting on getting a part in a new Hollywood remake, the same part her mother played in the original 70s version. Her massage therapist is kook guru Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) whose son Benjie (Evan Bird) is a thirteen year old box office megastar recently released from rehab, much to the relief of his mother Christina’s (Olivia Williams) bank account. The rub is that Agatha is the disfigured schizophrenic member of the Weiss family, whose real reason for coming to L.A. is to make amends with her family, who want nothing to do with her because, in a psychotic fit of rage, she tried to murder them all by setting their house on fire.

The symbolism in this film ranges from the stars all the sordid way to the gutter, and thanks to an Angelo Badalamenti-esque score (from Howard Shore!) and some hallucinations, the whole affair plays out like Mulholland Drive‘s long-lost, abused, and dirty half-cousin. All performance are overshadowed by Moore, who is essentially playing it easy for her standards but those standards still make her a strong contender for Best Actress. She steals scene after scene until you realized she’s stealing the whole movie. Wasikowska is officially typecast as the “crazy one”, a role she’s essentially been playing since her breakout turn in HBO’s In Treatment. Pattinson is a complete non-entity, which is in itself a great metaphor for the millions of star reaching non-entities driving limos and busing tables in Hollywood. Everyone else is solid, Cusack and Williams playing it perfectly whacky, and perhaps it’s young Bird who stands out slightly. But one gets the feeling it’s because of the exaggerated role and not so much the performance, fine as it is.

As ever with Cronenberg though, the acting is there as moral support to the more crucial element of theme and screenplay. The corruption depicted in this degenerative society is probably as far from the actual truth as the mention of a real-life celebrity is in the film (they’re mentioned a lot.) The razor-sharp screenplay is its biggest weapon, but it tends to cut too deep at times with certain lines bordering on cliche. Fans of the post-Spder Cronenberg will, I believe, devour every surreal and entertaining moment of Maps To The Stars. For my tastes, the dark humor and the intelligent weaving of violence, fame, and star-mania is enough to make me appreciate it and call it the best film Cronenberg has made since Eastern Promises. The themes of incest, and some of the characters’ fates (not Julianne Moore’s though, that was fantastic) went over the top and made the nightmarish atmosphere too lucid for its own good. All in all though, great fun, and an invigorating addition to Cronenberg’s offbeat filmography.

Every once in a while, we all see one of those special films – something that pushes the boundaries, defies expectations, breaks down the walls and makes us reconsider what is possible in the world of film making. Eugino Mira’s Grand Piano, starring Elijah Wood, is just such a film – it is a movie that challenges you, radically expanding one’s notion of how you can blow several million dollars at a single go– several big-name actors, technical-virtuosic production value, and the most improbable plot line you could ever think of.

The film takes the notion of piano recital jitters to the utmost extreme – musical prodigy Tom Selznick (played by Wood) returns to the stage after a long hiatus, hoping to reclaim the spotlight after an embarrassing bout of stage fright five years before. With the support of his wife, successful actress Emma Selznick (Kerry Bishé), things seem to be looking up for Selznick.

That is, until the performance – Selznick suddenly discovers an ominous note left on his sheet music, warning him if he plays one wrong note he will die. Thus we are launched into a psychological thriller so intensely implausible it’s hard to know what to make of the whole thing. Was the film meant to be funny? Indeed, it’s campiness and ironic touches of humor (from the wife’s crazy best friend and her tagalong husband, to the obnoxious comments that Wood receives from well-wishers throughout the film) could lead one to think it was all made in jest.

If Hitchcock made the film (who Mira is certainly drawing from), perhaps we could take it more seriously, but as it stands Grand Piano seems caught between its serious delivery and the sheer corniness of everything else. Thus we are left with this bizarre, campy film that appears unaware of it’s own silliness. Toss in a few odd Citizen Kane references, John Cusack’s random appearance as the film’s villain, and the distracting height difference between Wood and his leading lady, and you leave the theatre not sure whether to laugh or simply wish you had seen something else. Let’s face it – the movie is essentially about a piano player who hopes his audience won’t shoot him.

To the film’s credit, the production value was astoundingly high, and technically excellent – it featured beautiful cuts, musical scoring, lighting and all the rest. The actors did the best they could, adding to the film’s crisp and well-executed feel. Indeed, the fluidity of the whole thing (along with its subtle hints of humor) is what saves Grand Piano. It’s fast-paced, gripping style is engaging despite the plot’s overwhelming implausibility – the movie’s ridiculous, but it looks so good viewers it’s hard not to want to believe what’s onscreen.

As a brief aside, the film is surprisingly insightful in its portrayal of stage fright – not just the anxiety, but the obnoxiousness of compliments, words of encouragement and annoying well-wishers. But best of all is the ultimate, ridiculous realization, (and insult to every perfectionist out there), that for all your fear, the audience probably won’t notice if you screw up (though they might try to kill you for it if they do).

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is a chronicling of the civil rights movement through the eyes and ears of a black butler in the White House, based on a real man, Eugene Allen, who served 7 U.S. presidents from 1952 to 1986. Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong (Game Change) take “dramatic liberties” with Allen’s personal life here, but the events that transpire in the White House are apparently true-to-life. The film stars Forest Whitaker as the titular servant.

As a historical drama, the film fumbles; it’s a cameo-parade that reduces some of the most interesting and socially significant people in our nation’s history to diminutive sound bites and fleeting, trivial (and inaccurate) caricatures. It’s a biopic (one of my very least favorite types of films) that looks and feels familiarly “Gump-y”, but without the exhilarating sense of narrative movement or unforgettable riffs on key historical moments (Strong’s riffs are woefully unremarkable). However, if you wipe away all of the spectacle, age make-up, presidential impressions, and on-the-head historical allegories, there’s an eloquent, affecting father-son tale that miraculously breathes life into a narratively encumbered film.

The film opens in the 1920’s Deep South with a jab to the heart; a gruesome image of the very worst consequence of post-slavery mentality that I am choosing not to describe in detail here, even though the image is tasteful and vital to the story. Cecil Gaines (Michael Rainey Jr.) is a young cotton picker who enjoys spending time in the fields with his father, but when his old man gives the plantation owner the tiniest bit of lip, he’s gunned down right in front of Cecil’s eyes. The boy is promoted to house worker by the covertly sympathetic Vanessa Redgrave, and over the next few decades sharpens his skills and works his way up to being one of the most respected and beloved butlers in the White House (he’s now played by Whitaker.) The climb from dank to swank is told through uninspired montage with a few emotional nuggets sprinkled in.

Within the white walls, Cecil serves a slew of presidents that are played by loud, well-known actors that can’t be disguised by any amount of makeup you pile on. Robin Williams (as Eisenhower), Alan Rickman (as Reagan), and John Cusack (Nixon) are so miscast and awkward that they’re guaranteed to jerk you right out of the movie and even make you laugh in bewilderment. Their presence is showy and hokey and not worth your time. On the other side of the coin, there’s Live Schreiber (as Johnson) and James Marsden (as Kennedy) who actually do a great job and disappear into their roles. Still, it feels like these appearances are doubly-distracting double cameos. “And now…John Cusack as Richard Nixon! Applaud! Laugh!” Cringe.

Though Cecil’s career is going swimmingly and he’s able to provide a cushy lifestyle for his wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) and two sons, Charlie (Elijah Kelley) and Louis (David Oyelowo), home life isn’t so peachy. Gloria, a stay-at-home mom, grows weary and neglected as Cecil is constantly caught up with his work at the White House. Louis, however, provides the most disruptive element to the family dynamic, as he becomes actively involved with the Freedom Riders and the Black Panthers, opposing the government his daddy serves, the same government that puts food on the table and gave him the house he grew up in.

This enrages Cecil (remember, he lost his father due to a transgression that’s tiny compared to Louis’.) Louis is fighting for civil rights aggressively, tooth and nail, while Cecil is quietly subverting black stereotypes by being a humble example of a great African-American man in the most influential building on earth (this observation is highlighted ham-fistedly in a scene between Oyelowo and Nelsan Ellis, as Martin Luther King Jr.) Cecil and Louis’ violently clashing views on how to foster change in the nation splits the family in two. Their opposing philosophies finally implode their relationship in wonderfully intense family dinner scene. Watching the father and son’s paths sharply diverge and then eventually meet again on the other side (in the current time of Obama) is the film’s one true joy.

Whitaker is so good here that he’ll often fool you into thinking you’re watching a great film. His range is staggering: he can smile the warmest smile you’ll ever see and make you feel safe, or he can stab you in the chest with a venomous glare. Likewise, all the main players (in contrast to the presidential cast) put forth strong performances, from Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz as Whitaker’s ribbing, chummy fellow butlers, to Winfrey, who handles her morally complex role eftly here, though her character’s arc feels somewhat superfluous.

Like I said, as a historical drama, Lee Daniels’ The Butler falls flat (though the filmmakers’ intentions are pure and good.) However, as a family drama, there’s something to it; the well-acted inter-familial relationships are undeniably effective and the moving father-son storyline unfolds elegantly. It’s a shame that the excellent central storyline gets so obstructed and mucked up by all the noise, spectacle, and pageantry (and that god-awful Cusack performance that I can’t seem to shake off. Yuck.)

Lee Daniels’ The Butler trailer