All posts by Tim Lammers

Interview: Matt Johnson talks moon landing conspiracy thriller ‘Operation Avalanche’

matt-johnson-and-owen-williams-in-operation-avalancheEver since “The Blair Witch Project” kicked off the found footage genre in 1999, few filmmakers have conjured up any inspired ideas to further the genre beyond its horror film roots.

But as film fans are discovering this month, that’s all changing with writer-director Matt Johnson’s moonshot thriller “Operation Avalanche,” which utilizes the documentary style technique to explore an alternate take on the long-held conspiracy theory that the U.S. government faked Apollo 11’s landing on the moon in 1969.

The film, now playing in select theaters across the country and opening nationwide on Friday, tells the story of a fresh pair of CIA recruits from Harvard (Matt Johnson and Owen Williams) who inadvertently tap into information indicating that the Apollo mMission has enough thrust to get to the moon, but no ability to actually land on it. Proposing to their shady supervisor an idea to fake the moon landing in an effort to save face in the space race with the Soviets, Johnson and Williams (who go by their real names in the film) soon find themselves in the crosshairs of the government, which is determined to keep the cover-up a secret at any cost.

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“Operation Avalanche” is unique in that instead of going the obvious route and constructing a narrative about director Stanley Kubrick faking the moon landing — a claim that the late director’s daughter, Vivian, debunked, once and for all, in a tweet in July — it utilizes the legendary filmmaker in the story as an unknowing participant.

Since the film is an independent production, the lack of funds forced Johnson to be creative.

“The idea to do our story that way actually came out of necessity. There was no way we could afford that digital effect of bringing Stanley Kubrick back to life by inserting him in the film for more than a few frames,” Johnson said in a recent phone conversation.

“Of course, we couldn’t tell the story without him because he’s such a part of the legend. Everybody who talks about the moon landing being faked at some point mentions Stanley Kubrick,” Johnson added. “What was interesting to us was having a sequence in our movie that could almost stand as an ersatz version of the faked moon landing. His presence in the film allowed us to show people the power of the medium, and how you can do extremely fake things and make them look credible. It’s almost like a microcosm for the moon landing being faked itself.”

As “Operation Avalanche” pans out, it essentially leaves Kubrick off the hook for the rumor that’s been plaguing his legacy all these years. And while tight funds allowed only a bit of Kubrick to appear in the physical sense in “Operation Avalanche,” clearly the influence of the groundbreaking “2001: A Space Odyssey” filmmaker is all over the feature, which made its splashdown at Sundance in January.

“In many ways this movie is a love letter to Kubrick,” Johnson said. “We were trying to technically achieve the same types of dynamics and impossible feats that he tried to achieve in his early work.”

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Naturally, one can’t go into movie like “Operation Avalanche” without doubts that the moon landing was faked. Still, Johnson’s theory on what really happened on July 20, 1969, may come as a surprise to most, if not all, conspiracy theorists.

“‘Operation Avalanche’ is coming from a guy who grew up hearing stories of the moon landing being faked and just thought it was a good story,” Johnson said. “I never believed in the conspiracy — not for a minute. I just thought the story of characters who could be able to do something like it was so compelling.”

After making the movie, Johnson added, it seemed even more obvious to him that the moon landing wasn’t faked.

“As suspicious of government as I am in many cases, in no way do I believe that NASA was involved in some sort of cover-up, mostly because it wouldn’t have served the public good,” Johnson said. “I don’t think there is a reason that they would have needed to fake it. Like we say in the film, if America had no chance at all of landing on the moon, the Russians wouldn’t have been doing much better. All that mattered to the Americans was that the Russians weren’t doing it first.”

Interview: Leah Gallo talks ‘The Art of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’

Quirk BooksWhile fans of Tim Burton are waiting with burning anticipation for the release of his latest, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” one of the celebrated filmmaker’s closest collaborators has another look at the film in a most peculiar way.

In the new book “The Art of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” (Quirk Books), photographer/writer Leah Gallo documents the making of Burton’s new adventure fantasy. In addition to a myriad of behind-the-scenes photos and portraits of cast members, the book features an introduction by Burton as well as a foreword by Ransom Riggs, the author of the best-selling novel that the film is based upon.

“Ransom is such a genuine, down-to-earth human being, and he just brings a lot of enthusiasm to everything he does,” Gallo, a Pennsylvania native, recently said in a recent phone conversation from London. “Just being around him, it’s contagious. It’s always fun to hang out with him. We did photo shoots on the film, including Belgium, and he was a lot of fun to take photos of because he was game for whatever.”

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df-08993Leah Gallo. (Photo: Jay Maidment, courtesy 20th Century Fox)

Like she did on her last book on a Burton film, “Big Eyes: The Film, The Art,” Gallo doubled her chores by writing the text as well as taking on many of the photographer duties. While on-set photographs from the making of the film were taken throughout the shoot, the most intensive period of work on the book in terms of the photos and writing took place between November 2015 and May of 2016. Joining Gallo on the book was her longtime collaborator Holly Kempf, who was in charge of design.

Gallo’s “The Art of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” was unique in that the idea of Riggs’ novel was borne out of photographs, assembled from the author/filmmaker’s collection of unidentified vintage portraits that he assembled through trips to flea markets, antique stores and the like. Many were mysterious, if not eerie photographs of children, which led Riggs to conceptualize them in writing as “peculiar” with supernatural abilities.

As a result, Gallo created similar vintage portraits of the characters in the film, which in effect placed her in a parallel universe, effectively, by recreating the original photographs.

“We wanted to keep the vibe of the original photos as much as possible. Whenever we could, we tried to be true to the essence of the photos and the ways the subjects posed in Ransom’s book,” Gallo said.

But unlike Riggs, Gallo said she doesn’t collect old, unidentified photographs of people — nor has she ever had the desire to.

“Whenever I see those old photo bins, I just feel a sense of sadness in a way,” Gallo said. “It’s like they’re pieces of orphaned history that creates a mystery. ‘Who was this person?’ It creates limitless possibilities. That’s why I think Ransom did a great job of curating his collection for his book, and choosing ones that were very striking, intriguing and creepy. I certainly appreciate them and find them compelling, especially in the way he’s constructed the narrative around them.”

“The Art of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” includes dozens of interviews with cast and crew members from the film, including executive producer (and Gallo’s husband) Derek Frey, and of course, the filmmaker behind the peculiar vision that fans will see on the big screen when it opens across the country Friday.

leah-gallo-3Leah Gallo, sketched by Tim Burton, from “The Napkin Art of Tim Burton” (Steeles Publishing).

Gallo recalled the first time she talked with Burton about what inspired him to make the film.

“The photographs from Ransom’s book are what attracted Tim to the project,” Gallo said. “He found them compelling and mysterious. They were a huge part of why he wanted to do the film. I think that’s he was attracted to doing the story of these peculiar children. There’s a similar narrative in a lot of his films, of the misunderstood.”

While she’s collaborated with Burton for 10 years, Gallo said it’s always fascinating to talk with the filmmaker about his newly realized big-screen visions. Essentially, no matter how much she thinks she knows Burton, she always ends up learning so much more about what goes into bringing those visions to life.

“Whenever I interviewed him for the book, he always had answers that surprised me,” Gallo enthused. “The depths in which he thinks about every little detail is amazing.”

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Interview: Lana Parrilla talks ‘Once Upon a Time’ Season 6 preview for D23

ABCTim Lammers recently talked with “Once Upon a Time” star Lana Parrilla for D23.com about the upcoming sixth season of the hit ABC series. Here’s a preview …

Move over, Regina Mills: The Evil Queen has separated from her Storybrooke, Maine, alter-ego and is returning with a vengeance in the sixth season of ABC’s hit series Once Upon a Time. Needless to say, series star Lana Parrilla, who, with delectable deviousness, has brought her evil highness to life since the fantasy romance drama kicked off in 2011, couldn’t be more delighted.

Energized by her foreboding proclamation, the Dragon’s heart in hand, during the thrilling conclusion of Season 5 (“This is a war, and it’s just begun. The Queen … is back”), Parrilla is currently in production on the series in Vancouver, Canada. She recently took time out of her busy schedule to talk with D23 and give the legions of Once Upon a Time fans an idea of what to expect when Season 6 premieres on September 25.

D23: Congratulations on Season 6. When you first started, was it the goal of the cast and crew to mainly concentrate on the work of the first season in hopes that the show would find an audience, or did you have your sights set on Season 2, 3 and so on?

Lana Parrilla (LP): I have to say, I had a really good feeling at the start that we were going to go six seasons. I don’t know how far we’re going to go beyond this, but I had a good feeling early on about six. I think it was when I was saying goodbyes to family and friends in L.A. (getting ready to return for Season 2). Ginny Goodwin and I had a going-away party before we left to go to the set in Vancouver, and I just remember my goodbyes being longer and more emotional than other goodbyes. I looked at Ginny and said, “I think we’re going to be up here in Vancouver for awhile,” and she said, “Let’s hope so,” because we loved the show and wanted it to be successful. I would say to [creators] Adam Horowitz and Eddie Kitsis all the time, “We’re going to make it to six seasons,” and they were like, “Come on, don’t jinx it!” I said, “I’m not jinxing it. I’m just really confident!”

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D23: Judging by the awesome trailer for Season 6 that debuted at San Diego Comic-Con in July, you can’t help but come away with the feeling that this is going to be a big season for the Evil Queen.

LP: Yes it is. There’s a lot happening with the Evil Queen and Regina—and their face-off—which is fun to do. I can say that the Evil Queen is the real opposition for the heroes this season, and she has her hands in everything right now. She’s really creating turmoil in everyone’s lives, which is fun for me to play.

Read Tim’s complete interview with Lana Parrilla on D23.com.

Tim Burton Book 2
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Movie review: ‘The Magnificent Seven’ remake lives up to title

denzel-washington-in-the-magnificent-seven“The Magnificent Seven” (PG-13)

Director Antoine Fuqua’s homage to the American Western lives up to its title with “The Magnificent Seven,” a magnificent update of Akira Kurosawa’s iconic “Seven Samurai” from 1954, which spawned the Yul Brynner/Steve McQueen classic “The Magnificent Seven” in 1960. Fuqua clearly was a fan of Westerns growing up, and he nails the spirit and tone of the great American film genre from start to finish in this highly entertaining remake headed up by his Oscar-winning “Training Day” star Denzel Washington.

Maintaining the core of the original story about a village under siege by ruthless bandits (led by a vicious land baron expertly realized by Peter Sarsgaard), “The Magnificent Seven” plays like a classic shoot-’em-up that is punctuated by a high body count.

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The new “Seven” promises a twist on the original films, but truth be told, the major difference is a racially diverse cast, made up of a brilliant ensemble including Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier and Byung-hun Lee. Haley Bennett also plays a pivotal role as vengeful widow who hires the seven after her husband is gunned down in cold blood by the bandits.

Apart from a different spin on the casting, Fuqua incorporates all the vital elements of the Western – sprawling vistas, classic heroes and a sniveling villain, a triumphant score and stylistic echoes of John Ford and Sergio Leone – reminding viewers of how great the genre once was and still could be. If “The Magnificent Seven” doesn’t revive interest in Westerns on the big screen, nothing will.

Lammometer rating: 8 (out of 10)


Hear Tim review “The Magnificent Seven” on “The KQ Morning Show” with Tom Barnard and Michele Tafoya, starting 8 minutes in.

Tim Burton Book 2
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