I interviewed writer / director Andrew Haigh about his enormously moving drama Weekend and asked him what movie he finds genuinely romantic.

Inspired by Hugo and The Artist, I wrote about other films that wistfully look back at their own ancestors.

I talked to nomadic French filmmaker Vincent Moon about how his famous ‘Take Away Shows’ capture music in a way that regular concert documentaries can’t.

I reviewed the docos Bill Cunningham New York and Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard.

Something non-film: I profiled the inspirational Father Bob Maguire about 38 years of fighting the good fight.

And my favourite – because it did what all my favourite interviews do and exposed me to a world I’d never really considered before –  I was taken on a walking tour of Melbourne’s cinema graveyards:

According to Dean Brandum, the multi-storey car park next to the Forum theatre is “hallowed ground”. It was once the enormous Majestic Theatre, retooled and refurbished as The Chelsea in 1960. By the mid-70s, however, The Chelsea had become Melbourne’s home of exploitation cinema. “Lots of pornography,” says Brandum, “and lots of European horror like Giallo films. The story goes that you could always see more rats than customers.”

Check out Time Out Melbourne here.

Your Tucker and Dale co-star Alan Tudyk [from Firefly and Dollhouse] has that crazy Joss Whedon love behind him!

We just went to Comic-Con. I’d never been before. It was nuts there. I was like a superstar – and Alan is like the God of Comic-Con. It was insane! Those fans are the best fans you could have. If you get in with them, you’re good for life.

Was it particularly hard seeing Reaper cancelled when you knew this passionate audience was out there? Absolutely loyal to the show?

We were really hitting our stride, critics were pricking up their ears, our ratings were actually really good for the CW – so we were like ‘what the hell was the problem?’ To this day, I still don’t know. We didn’t fit into the idea of what the network wanted and got the axe. And it sucks because when a show’s cancelled, the actors are the ones left to deal with the fans. I ended up on another show right away, and to some fans it looked like I’d jumped ship…

Like you’d betrayed them?

Yeah. These people who’d been my fans were suddenly, like, “you suck! You’re an asshole! I can’t believe you have another job!” The show had been canned for months – they just didn’t know it yet, because we weren’t allowed to announce it. It sucks. And I myself was a fan of the show, regardless of my involvement. I thought the show was supercool. I would’ve watched that show even if I wasn’t in it. So that kind of pissed me off. But also Reaper was like my fifth television series, so I understood how TV is a fickle bitch. Onwards and upwards I guess, you know?

The problem with loyalty is how it can so quickly sour into feeling betrayed. Fans give so much to these stories. They just expect the cast and crew and creators to do the same. Treating a role just like another job won’t cut it: it has to be a passion, a calling, the dream of a lifetime. Everyone on set must be the best of friends, too.

Remember the  outpouring of anger  when Michael Rosenbaum said he wasn’t going to appear as Lex Luthor on the final episode of Smallville? Or the ire directed towards George R. R. Martin for not writing his next Song of Ice and Fire book fast enough? At least that resulted in Neil Gaiman’s fantastically quotable clarification of the contract between writers and readers: ”George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.”

Neither’s Tyler Labine, damn it.

I interviewed Spurlock about this little while ago for triple j magazine, and found him A) very charming and B) pretty candid about the film’s goals. Here it is.

So this interview is just part of the ‘media impressions’ required by your sponsors, right?

That’s right. You’re complicit in this whole process.

I feel like a DVD extra or something.

You are a walking, talking DVD extra! But it’s not just you. What I love about the film is that it shows you how things are marketed, how that marketing turns into awareness, how that awareness turns into attendance…

In Greatest Movie, we see you getting your Don Draper on and trying to sell the concept to brands. Is this something that comes naturally, or do you hate the business of movie-making?

What I’ve learned is that if you’re going to be in this business, you really need to understand how to manoeuvre in this business. Pitching is one of those things that they don’t teach you in school. You’re thrown into the deep end as a filmmaker when you graduate from college and you’ve got to figure it out. I made it up as I went along.

Your last film, Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden…

Question answered by the way. President Obama, you’re welcome.

…that movie was also a kind of sales pitch, just one for tolerance and understanding. Greatest Story feels different because you’re compromised from the start.

Yeah. That’s part of what makes the film work. You see the corruption take place. After making this, I told people that when you get into business with a brand it’s not a 30% or 40% chance – it’s a 100% chance they’ll somehow infect the content.

“Transparency is the new objectivity”. Do you agree?

I think we live in a time where people have been jerked around and lied to for so long that the new thing is just to not jerk people around and lie to them. To finally say: “You know what? I’m going to do something nuts and tell you the truth.” We’re at the end of that rope, and people are tired of being bullshitted.

Is that really where we’re setting the bar? “I know you’re going to screw me, but at least you’re honest about it”?

Yeah! I think it is! That’s exactly where we are!

The movie shows how everyone has their own line between ‘what’s okay’ and ‘what’s selling out’. Where’s your line?

The line I didn’t want to cross was giving up control of the film. The greatest asset they got out was the movie marketing their products, but the greatest asset I got was the film itself. The minute I gave final cut over to a brand or a company, I compromised my ability to tell the most honest and open story I could.

Did a number of sponsors want final cut?

All of them. Every single contract.

They should at least put more money on the table. “Final cut? Ten million dollars!”

I would happily have given it to them for ten million dollars.

Are you worried the film makes product placement seem sort of fun and harmless?

There was a great thing that happened after the premiere of the movie at Sundance. We got a standing ovation for the brands. It was one of the most insane things you’d ever seen. A woman came up to one of the brand representatives and said “First I want to thank you, all your companies, for supporting this movie. I’m going to buy more of your products because you did – but I’m conflicted about it.” Luckily the irony wasn’t lost on her. And I hope that when people watch the movie, just like her, the irony of the situation isn’t lost.

While a lot of the doco is funny, I found the last ten minutes strangely moving, especially with that OK Go song rising up behind it.

What I love about the film is how it comes full circle. Everything I’m critiquing at the beginning of the movie are the tools I’m using to market the film at the end. So you see the snake eating its tail. The lyrics of that OK Go song are “We solved all our problems with bigger problems”. That’s the American way.

This interview first appeared in triple j magazine #53.

As always, there was plenty we talked about that didn’t make the final cut, mostly because I try to keep my Bookslut stuff from becoming too seeped in superheroes. (I fail at this with embarrassing regularity.)

Here’s a little more of our conversation about comics as cinema, accelerated storytelling, his superhero writing on Iron Man and Fear Itself, and his appreciation of Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis.

One thing I admire about Casanova is its crazy economy of storytelling. And that’s one reason why I can’t imagine Casanova: The Movie – unless it was something like Total Recall was to Philip K. Dick. Casanova feels more comic-specific than, maybe, your superhero stuff. Would you agree?

I hope not. I think that’d mean the superhero stuff fails on some level.

Perhaps it’s just that your Iron Man seems born out of the Robert Downey Jr. take on the character.

That’s an illusion of publication schedule. I had four or five issues in the can when the first film came out. I had no special access; I saw the trailer when everybody else saw the trailer.

So why does Iron Man feel more ‘cinematic’ to me than Casanova?

I think that’s the grammar of superhero comics right now – or, rather, it was when I came in. Over this last year, from issue #500, Iron Man’s started to change. You can see the pages changing, the density change. As Fear Itself came along it kind of had to grow backwards a little bit, but you’ll see change coming out the other side. That’s my own proclivities as much as anything else. That was the grammar – or the accent, maybe – of the language that superhero comics were speaking. Three, four panel pages.

I got a really fascinating note from Joe Quesada on the first issue of Fear Itself: that I write so close to the bone, I carve away so much, we had a 48-page event that read like a 22-page comic. And that was a problem. I’d cut away so much in the interest of keeping things super-accelerated that I’d crossed the threshold and he found it too brisk. Fear Itself #1 is huge. It’s a big comic where a lot of things happen. It’s not slight – it’s lean. So I did a draft where I went back and added, which I hardly ever do, you know? And he was absolutely right. It was an incredibly trenchant observation. My natural instinct is to cut away, cut and cut and cut, until acceleration is almost a character.

It’s funny that in blockbuster crossover comics like Fear Itself – or Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis – you get to have an economy that you mightn’t in regular titles. They deal with so many characters, so much appearing on every page…

Final Crisis is a great example. Look at what Morrison cut out, and look at the backlash that particular book received. Now, I’ve studied Final Crisis like the Torah. I love it for what’s not there as much as for what is there. I suspect that’s why people wail and bitch and moan that they don’t get it, they don’t understand it. Never mind the inherent absurdity they can keep track of, say, thirty years of Legion continuity or four series of Star Trek or thirteen different Doctors Who – but a single Grant Morrison comic that doesn’t take the time to point out that those are Eclipso Gems? It somehow causes paroxysms of confusion and rage.

You can read the rest of the interview at Bookslut.

The following is a piece I recently wrote for The Big Issue. I dedicate it to the much loved, widescreen, pre-‘special edition’ VHS copy of Star Wars I have somewhere around here.

David Herbert's sculpture "VHS" (2005). http://www.davidherbert.com/

Vinyl simply produces a better sound than a CD. While music websites are still bursting with arguments about this statement – most punctuated with frequencies mapped on angrily-spiked graphs – the idea has been around for so long it’s now almost considered common sense.

“Vinyl’s just a superior sound than digital,” says DJ Andee Frost. He’s been collecting vinyl since he was sixteen and until recently ran Melbourne’s ‘vinyl boutique’ Hear Now. “There’s something more human about it. A CD is too crystal clear. Music needs the same warmth that it had when it was recorded.”

Warmer; softer; somehow more human. When asked if he could imagine someone praising video for the same attributes, Andee’s not so convinced. “I don’t know whether you’d find too many people claiming VHS is a superior format. How many people do you know who still use VHS? That’s the real question.”

Meet Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. She’s a cinema researcher with a frighteningly large (and ever growing) collection of VHS tapes. “Initially,” she explains, “it was because I never throw anything out. I never got rid of my player, because I always had stuff on video that I needed for work.”

It helps that Alex’s interest is in exactly the kind of obscure horror movies likely to be considered disposable. Her first book, Rape-Revenge Film: A Critical Study, will be published later in 2011.

“Most of what I see on VHS is stuff that’s never been put onto DVD – so I like the treasure hunt of finding it. Now I buy more VHS than I buy DVD. It wasn’t a conscious decision; I just like the look of VHS better. A video will play even if the tape is chewed and curled. It deteriorates more organically. The colours and the sound wash out, and it fades more like a painting.”

“Sometimes I don’t like the crisp HD look. It’s too harsh,” says Cassandra Tytler, a Melbourne artist working in Paris but soon taking up an artistic residency in Finland. Her work often has a pulpy, purposeful lo-fi look. “For one of my early films, I re-shot scenes right off the TV to give it a real ‘videoey’ quality.” Cassandra mentions Trash Humpers, the latest feature by cult American filmmaker Harmony Korine. Korine purposefully shot with the cheapest VHS camera he could find to give his film the authentic feel of a lost object.

As Cassandra points out, though, “I would say the real question is what format things are shot on, rather than whether it’s DVD or VHS.” Trash Humpers might’ve been shot on video – and Korine even made it available to buy on VHS – but most fans will still end up watching it on DVD.

And that ‘videoey’ quality is appearing more and more in popular culture. Just like every second music video was once filmed on Super-8 to give it that opening-credits-to-The-Wonder-Years glow, it’s now common to see the soft focus and horizontal static-lines of VHS. Mark Ronson’s new music video for the single ‘Somebody To Love Me’ looks like it’s composed of archival video footage. Even before you realise you’re meant to be watching a young Boy George, the specific quality of the image generates instant nostalgia. Is that retro appeal all there is to lingering affection for VHS?

Vinyl and VHS share another thing that separates them from their digital counterparts, and that’s their undeniable bulk. “You’re actually buying something, investing in something, when you buy a piece of vinyl,” says Andee. “And you’re getting beautiful cover art. It takes up more room; that’s how it becomes part of your life.” Alex waxes equally lyrical: “I love the materiality of VHS. I love that tapes are big black monoliths like in 2001. That’s the same with vinyl – you spend your money, and you get an art object. DVDs aren’t art objects. They’re consumer products.”

Could VHS ever make a comeback like vinyl? Andee says there’s one all-important difference: vinyl never went away. “Vinyl’s always been there,” he says, “and vinyl will still be here after CDs have gone. When no one even remembers what a CD-R was, you’ll still be able to buy records.”

Alex, however, doesn’t hesitate. “In certain circles, we’re there already. I strongly recommend that you jump on eBay and try to buy some VHS. I just thought I’d get a copy of Dario Argento’s Deep Red for a dollar or two, but I ended up paying $35 for it from a guy who only sells VHS. These people already exist. They’re out there.”

A version of this story first appeared in The Big Issue #374. I’ve edited out the embarrassing bit where I was fooled by the authenticity of the ‘Somebody To Love Me’ clip mentioned above. Damn you, Boy George!

You know, Animal Kingdom is the Australian film I’ve enjoyed most in years.

Thank you very much. I haven’t seen the finished film yet, but I saw a rough cut a few months back and even then I was impressed. I thought that if it improves on this, it’s really going to be great. David’s ability to capture tone and mood is really chilling.

Do you approach an ensemble film like this differently than if you’re the leading man?

No, it’s the same. It has to be. On some level, whether you’re working on Neighbours or working on a 100 million dollar film, you still need to be as convincing as you can in front of the camera.

It’s interesting that lately you’ve played small – but important – roles in so many big films.

I know! I’m in Hurt Locker for about a minute, and people keep congratulating me. I feel like they’re mistaking me for somebody else. I was only filming for three days.

Did you intentionally decide to take these smaller roles?

Not at all. I want to play great roles, and I’d prefer to play leads. That’s my ego talking, I suppose. It can be much more satisfying to delve into something for a decent amount of time. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve dropped off the radar, but the best stuff that I was finding were smaller roles. So off I went.

I think you can frame this in a much more flattering light: you’ve put aside ego to choose the best films and not the flashiest roles…

Well, that’s honest, too. I’ve done things before that I haven’t been fully convinced by. I don’t want to fall into that trap again. It was very strange, though, to bookend these two great films – Hurt Locker and The Road – with their opening and closing scenes. And in between, I did Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories.

Uh, I hope Bedtime Stories doesn’t have too much in common with The Road.

Funnily enough, I was shooting Bedtime Stories when I had to fly to Pennsylvania for two days of The Road. I was in Goofy Adam Sandler World – and then I turned up on set to see Viggo Mortenson dying…

Are you a fan of award shows? Or do you avoid the Oscars like the plague?

My wife and I actually went to the Oscars this year. I was really adamant about hating award shows for the first 10 or 20 years of my working life. I still find them a bit silly, but I’ve become accepting of the fact they’re just how the industry works. It was really fun to go, and I was just really pleased for Kathryn Bigelow that her film did so well. It was unusual because twelve years ago I was also in a film that was up against a James Cameron juggernaut – Titanic. I still think that LA Confidential was the better film. So of course we’re all sitting at the Oscars this year going, well, I know how this is going to pan out. It’ll be Avatar. Kathryn might win best director, but James will win for his technological prowess…

As far as I’m concerned, Kathryn Bigelow deserved an Oscar for Near Dark in 1987! That’s an amazing film.

She’s an amazing filmmaker.

Do you think there’s a difference between being an actor and being a star?

I think a star’s someone who’s sitting at the top of the A-list. Someone who everybody knows, who can get any movie green-lit, who’s the first choice because it means bigger box office. And anybody who’s less known than that moves down the list – the B-list, the C-list. Obviously some people resonate with the greater population. They think: “I want him to be my hero”. Whereas with another actor, they might think: “Sure, he’s great, but he might be a bit confrontational, a bit dangerous. It’s great to see him in smaller roles but he might not be the guy I want to see as the lead.”

So they choose the actors who make them least nervous?

Yeah, that’s right: “At least we’ve got Tom Cruise…” But honestly – there aren’t many stars who aren’t also good actors, too.

This interview first appeared in jmag #40.

Just before Christmas last year I had the chance to chat with everyone’s favourite dirty uncle of cult cinema, and there’s a lengthy chunk of the interview now online.

Even when I haven’t thought much of one or two of John Waters’ films, I’ve always admired him for how excited he remains about other artists’ work, and not just his own. Film, theatre, fine art, you name it. So in the grand tradition of the Heathers lunchtime poll I asked him the following: if 1950s-style aliens arrived on earth to destroy all our movies and you could only save one film, what would it be?

His reply: Boom!

It’s the best failed art film ever. Elizabeth Taylor plays Sissy Goforth and Richard Burton plays the Angel of Death, a gigolo who comes to live with rich ladies before they die. It is staggering to see this movie. I could watch it over and over and shout out all the dialogue. It has Richard Burton saying for no apparent reason: “Boom… the sound of knowing the next moment you’re alive…”

(He gave me some good advice about surviving Christmas, too. While he loves it, he said he “understands people hating it. I think the biggest mistake you can make about Christmas is ignoring it.” Next Christmas, as Stephen Colbert would say: pick a side! We’re at war!)

Go read it, because he’s awesome. There’s some more of the our conversation – including why he thinks the Marquis de Sade is more famous than the Beatles – in the latest jmag.