Monthly Archives: October 2015

Film, Interviews

Interview: ‘Aladdin’ voice stars recall magic of classic film, Robin Williams

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'Aladdin' (photo: WDSHE)

By Tim Lammers

Without question, “Aladdin” voice stars Scott Weinger (Aladdin) and Linda Larkin (Princess Jasmine) are thrilled over how the 1992 classic Disney animated film continues to be discovered and held dear by new generations of viewers.

Still, Weinger told me in a recent phone conversation, some people have been harder to convince than others when it comes to explaining the cultural impact of the movie — a circumstance that fortunately changed at Disney’s D23 fan convention last summer.

“We did an ‘Aladdin’ event that thousands of people showed up for, which was so cool … I also got to take my kid around for rides at Disneyland and he got his first inkling that Dad’s pretty cool,” Weinger said, laughing. “I was like, ‘I’ve been telling you for the past six years that Dad’s kind of a big deal,’ but he never believed me.”

“Aladdin” makes its Diamond Edition debut as a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD Combo Pack (Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment) Tuesday. In addition to the film, the new release includes never-before-seen Genie (Robin Williams) outtakes, as wells as featurettes, deleted scenes, deleted songs and more.

While Weinger and Larkin are the speaking voices of Aladdin and Jasmine, the singing voices were provided by Broadway veterans Brad Kane and Lea Salonga. Larkin said in a separate phone conversation that she was amazed how Salonga matched her vocal style when recording the film’s Best Original Song Oscar winner, “A Whole New World.”

“I was actually surprised how smooth the transition was because I speaking going into the song and coming out of the song. It is so seamless that the filmmakers almost had me convinced that I sang it,” Larkin said, laughing. “I was like, ‘How did I do that? It was amazing!’ I’m joking, of course, but it was such an incredible match for my speaking voice. Lea’s such an incredible singer. I feel so lucky to have had her to be a part of that with me.”

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For those new to the film, Aladdin is an Arabian street urchin who meets and falls in love with Princess Jasmine. Resigned to the fact that their dramatically different backgrounds will forever keep them apart, Aladdin’s fortunes change when he opens a magic lamp that contains a genie (Robin Williams) who will grant him three wishes — that is if the evil sorcerer Jafar (Jonathan Freeman) doesn’t get in their way.

Weinger and Larkin said their good fortunes continued far beyond the film, including opportunities to continue to voice Aladdin and Jasmine in subsequent film, TV and video game projects.

“It’s one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me and I’m so proud of it and fortunate,” Weinger said. “It was a pleasure happening when I was a kid to enjoy the initial success of the film in real-time as it was being introduced to the world, but I would have to say it’s even more fun now, now that it’s entered the pantheon of classic Disney movies.”

While Weinger’s voice is prominent in “Aladdin,” he’s far from taking any sizable credit for the film’s staying power.

“I have no ego about it. I have no illusions that I’m responsible for the success of the movie. That belongs to the magnitude of the people who worked on it, from the animators like Glenn Keane, Mark Henn and Eric Goldberg, and Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, who did the music — and of course, Robin Williams as the genie. For me, I just feel lucky to play a small role in this massive production.”

The Diamond Edition release of “Aladdin” is both joyous and bittersweet for Weinger and Larkin, given the loss of Williams in August 2014. Watching the film now gives it a whole new meaning, they said.

“My wife was saying as much as she enjoys watching it now, it’s hard not to burst into tears thinking he’s no longer with us,” Weinger said. “But at the same time, as sad as it is and as awful for everybody as it was to lose him, it was amazing to see my 6-year-old and his buddies at a screening of the movie last weekend rolling in the aisles. It was amazing to realize that even though he’s gone, he continues to touch people and make them laugh like that. It was incredible to see my kid coming home that day and saying lines from the genie in the movie.”

For Larkin, the actress not only connected with Williams on ‘Aladdin’ and subsequent projects, but also as a member of the theater community.

“We met on the movie and only had one day of recording together — Robin, Scott and I — and it was one of the most special days of my life,” Larkin said, humbly. “He was an incredible to work with, and it was exciting and inspiring. It was everything you’d imagine it would be. I would see Robin every five years.  He’d either come up in my life in something we were doing for Disney, or, like in 2011, when he and my husband, Yul, were both doing plays on Broadway around the corner from each other. They were both nominated for Tony Awards, so they were seeing a lot of each other and knew of everything going on in my life because of it.”

It was also the year Larkin was named a Disney Legend, and Williams made sure that she knew how proud of her he was.

“I went to see Robin in his play during a matinee, and I went backstage afterward to see him in-between shows,” Larkin recalled. “He had a lot of time for me and it was really special because he congratulated me on the Legends award, made some jokes about it, of course, gave me a big hug like he always did, and called me ‘Princess.’ It was the last time I ever got to see him, and it’s a really precious memory for me.”

Film, Interviews

Interview: Ashley Judd returns to roots with ‘Big Stone Gap’

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Ashley Judd and Patrick Wilson in 'Big Stone Gap' (photo -- Picturehouse)

By Tim Lammers

While the new romantic comedy drama “Big Stone Gap” has a stellar ensemble cast that includes Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg, Anthony LaPaglia, Jane Krakowski, John Benjamin Hickey, Jenna Elfman and Chris Sarandon, Judd thinks the biggest star of the film may be the location itself: Big Stone Gap, Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains.

In a recent phone conversation, Judd told me that she credits writer-director Adriana Trigiani with successfully bringing the beauty and feel of the town to the big screen. “Big Stone Gap” is based on Trigiani’s best-selling novel of the same name.

“Adriana is a beloved daughter of Big Stone Gap, and everyone in the film, apart from the actors from movies and TV who came in to do the film, is from there,” Judd said. “Plus, it’s was a gorgeous place for us to film.”

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Opening in theaters Friday, “Big Stone Gap,” set in the 1970s, tells the story of Ave Maria Mulligan (Judd), a self-declared spinster whose life is turned upside-down when she discovers a long-hidden family secret. On top of that, her longtime friend, Jack MacChesney (Wilson) has woken up to the fact that he’s in love with Ave Maria, but since he bumbles his way into telling her his true feelings, she feels like she has no choice but to finally leave her humble abode and start anew.

“Big Stone Gap” was no doubt a fateful project for both Judd and Wilson, since Judd was born and raised in nearby eastern Kentucky, and Wilson’s family has deep roots in the region. But Judd feels you don’t have to be from the area to relate to the film.

“It’s just a beautiful, idealistic setting, and I’ve been thinking a lot recently about small towns. ‘Big Stone Gap’ is a small town story and that’s why I think it has a wide appeal,” Judd said. “Frankly, people today think small towns only hearken to a nostalgic era. I think what I realized was, ultimately, we all come from small towns. Maybe this generation or the one before it didn’t come from small towns, but before that, they did, and that small town is such a part of our hearts.”

Judd said Big Stone Gap still has such of a hometown feel that at least one cast member not originally from the area became very attached to the town during the making of the film.

“We all stayed in people’s homes during the filming, and John Benjamin Hickey stayed in a local woman’s home where her dog was on its way to heaven. He got very emotionally involved with the dog,” Judd said. “It was a very unique movie.”

Film, Movie Reviews

Movie reviews: ‘Pan,’ ’99 Homes’

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Levi Miller and Hugh Jackman in 'Pan' (photo -- Warner Bros)

By Tim Lammers

“Pan” (PG) 3 stars (out of four)

Director Joe Wright and screenwriter Jason Fuchs give the story of “Peter Pan” a solid new hook with “Pan,” a prequel that examines the origins of Peter Pan and Captain Hook before they became enemies in J.M. Barrie’s classic tale.

Relative newcomer Levi Miller stars as Peter, a young boy who is snatched from his orphanage in the middle of the night by pirates and mystically transported to the island of Neverland. It’s there where thousands of “lost boys” are forced to mine dirt piles for a mysterious gem called “pixum,” which contains fairy dust and the key to immortality for Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman). Fortunately for Peter, he becomes allies with fellow lost boy (and pre-Captain Hook) James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), who along with island native Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) unite to thwart the evil pirate leader and his reign of tyranny.

Interview: Garrett Hedlund and Jason Fuchs talk “Pan”

Despite a terrific cast and unique back story, “Pan” ultimately suffers from an excess of special effects and a relatively thin storyline. Granted, the film is aimed more at the kid set, but as the film trudges on, it comes off as more of an offshoot of “Pirates of the Caribbean” than an expansion of Barrie’s classic creation.

While “Pan” is an entertaining film (Miller is memorable in his big-screen debut and Jackman brings a memorable air of creepiness to Blackbeard), yet it feels like there’s something missing. Clearly the film leaves ample room for a sequel and maybe some holes will be filled in there. Until then, “Pan” feels like a lost opportunity floating around somewhere in Neverland.

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“99 Homes” (R) 3 stars (out of four)

Michael Shannon is frightening as a ruthless real estate broker in “99 Homes,” a dramatic thriller that keys in on the nation’s housing crash. Shannon plays Rick Carver, a broker who assists the banks in evicting people from their homes and flipping the houses.

Carver deviates from his usual protocol, however, when one of the people he evicts, Dennis Nash (former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield), agrees to go to work for him so he can get back the home his family has lived in for generations. And while Nash discovers in the process how Carver manipulates the system for his own personal gain, he’s willing to plunge his hands into the filth in his obsessive bid to get his house back.

The big mystery of the film is how far he is willing to go down the rabbit hole, and whether Carver, who is about money first, will betray his new protégé. Garfield is solid in “99 Homes” even though some of his actions simply defy logic, but it’s ultimately Shannon’s (Zod in “Man of Steel”) film, as the imposing actor owns every scene that he’s in.

Film, Interviews

Interview: Real-life Twin Towers wire walker Petit talks ‘The Walk’

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'The Walk' -- Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Philippe Petit (photo: Sony Pictures)

By Tim Lammers

For the lack of better words, it’s been a real balancing act for famed wire walker Philippe Petit for the past nine years — considering not one but two films about his death-defying walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center have made it to the big screen.

The first, of course, was director James Marsh’s 2008 Oscar-winning documentary “Man on Wire”; and now, nine years after Petit got a call from filmmaker Robert Zemeckis in a bid to tell the wire walker’s riveting tale in narrative fashion, “The Walk” is finally stepping its way into theaters.

“Although ‘The Walk’ is not the first film to take a look at the part of my life, it’s different because of the dimension and its immensity, and if you look at the movie in IMAX 3-D it is incredible,” Petit told me in a phone conversation from New York Wednesday.

Now playing in IMAX venues and expanding to theaters nationwide on Friday, “The Walk” chronicles the life and events leading up to the then-24-year-old Petit’s thrilling wire walk between the void of the Twin Towers in 1974. Directed and co-written by Zemeckis, “The Walk,” based on Petit’s book, “To Reach the Clouds,” stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit and Ben Kingsley as his mentor, Papa Rudy.

The interesting thing about “The Walk” is that Petit wasn’t looking to make his story into a feature film — that is, until he got a call from Zemeckis out of the blue. Once Zemeckis obtained a copy of the 2003 children’s book “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers,” he was determined to flesh Petit’s story out on the big screen.

“I received a phone call from him because he had the children’s book that he was reading to his little kids,” Petit recalled. “He said, ‘I want to make a movie about you in 3-D, putting people on the wire with you, and nine years later, the movie has opened. It’s really been an adventure.”

At the same time, the French artist said, “Man on Wire” was in the works, so he felt that there would be a chance Zemeckis wouldn’t be interested in telling another version of his story.

“The first thing I said to Robert when I met him was, ‘Did you know that there’s a documentary in production?’ and he said, ‘That’s great. It can only help. This film will be a different form of storytelling from the ideas in my head.’ So after the ‘Man on Wire’ production, I started another adventure with Robert,” Petit recalled.

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“The Walk” is particularly special to Petit, because as a PG film it is accessible to a wider base of movie fans. Petit said what makes the film experience particularly poignant — even though it is not addressed in “The Walk” itself — is the retelling of his tale in the wake of the terror attack on the Twin Towers.

“It’s incredible, seeing my story first as a children’s book and now being open to film audiences as a family movie by Robert Zemeckis. I have a whole new generation getting interested in what has become a legend, in a way, because the towers are not here anymore,” Petit said. “I have kids from schools sending me beautiful drawings, poems and questions, and at the end of the year, one school even puts on a little play that reconstructs my walk. The films have opened the door to a different age. That’s a great compliment for an artist to witness.”

Petit has maintained a great sense of humility about his accomplishments (“The Walk” also chronicles his walk between the two towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in 1971), as well as sense of humor. In his in his Twitter bio @PetitWTC, he proudly describes himself as “Man On Wire — been arrested more than 500 times for … Street-Juggling!”

The irony is, Petit said despite everything he’s done — and as many times as he’s been arrested — it’s never been for the attention. In fact, as it’s demonstrated in the film, Petit assembled a small crew for his “artistic coup” to walk the wire between World Trade Center towers, which was pulled off like a heist underneath the noses of New York City authorities, city personnel and construction workers.

“What is extraordinary is that I’ve never sought fame, it came naturally in the aftermath of the things I did,” Petit said, humbly. “If I had a goal, it was to venture in that strange, magic space created between the Twin Towers. I’m glad what I offered the people watching below and people around the world inspired them. I’m glad when people came up to me afterward and said, ‘You inspired us,’ instead of just offering them a slice of the impossible.”

If Petit’s dizzying walk between the Twin Towers in “The Walk” proves anything, it’s shows that you can go to incredible places as long as it’s your passion — not fame or fortune — that’s guiding you.

“People often ask me what the recipe is for the life I lead, to walk a wire, I always refer to the word ‘passion,'” Petit, 66, said. “If I look back at my life, whether when it was at 6 years old when I was learning magic by myself or at age 14 when I started to learn juggling, the passion was what mattered. I was practicing 12 hours a day, and was thrown out of school because I was so passionate and wanted to attain perfection. Passion should be on everybody’s slate throughout life.”