Mike Mills on "Beginners" and Making Stories About Ourselves.

Christopher Plummer and Mike Mills promoting "Beginners"Sometimes the beginning of awards season offers pleasant surprises. Such is the case with Beginners, one of the year's best films, which recently debuted on DVD and is now suddenly on the shortlist of potential Oscar contenders with early and surprisingly robust attention from both the Gotham Awards where it won the top prize and the Independent Spirit Awards (3 nominations including Best Feature). 

I had the opportunity to speak with writer/director Mike Mills recently about Beginners, his second feature. The film famously draws heavily from Mills' own life to depict the relationship between a lonely artist named Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and his gay father Hal (Christopher Plummer) who comes out late in life shortly before succumbing to cancer. Oliver does his own romantic soul searching with an actress named Anna (Melanie Laurent) after his father's death.

The film moved me deeply this past summer and I told Mills as much as we began to talk. I had just rewatched the film on the morning we spoke.

NATHANIEL: It's so fresh in my memory, but how about you? Have you watched the movie recently?

MIKE MILLS: No. You know, most of my friends are filmmakers. A lot of filmmakers I know, we never watch our films after they're done. They're like old lovers or old worlds we were in. Since I premiered it at Toronto in 2010 I haven't watched the whole thing straight through. I watch parts of it and when I do Q&As I end up watching the end a lot or I peek in. Parts of it are tolerable but watching the whole thing is slightly torturous. More than slightly torturous.

Because you've lived with it for so long?

MILLS: Yeah. I've seen it probably a hundred times in making it. It's not the same experience for me, obviously, as it is for the audience. I'm thinking of all the strings behind the puppets. Maybe in a few years. It's strange. It's kind of sad. My wife [Miranda July] doesn't -- I have a lot of director friends and none of us look at our movies. 

Well, Beginners is also so autobiographical. So is it at all harder to watch for that reason, than say your first feature Thumbsucker? 

MILLS: It's not -- well, I don't think so. While it is very autobiographical by the time I've written it, turned it into a story, cast Christopher and all these people, it is a story for me; it's not 1 to 1. For me, I'm the most aware of how much it is not my life. But having said that, I do watch the end a lot. So often, I watch Hal die. I've watched Hal die so many times. The section right after that where it talks about what you do when someone passes away, there are some very real things in there. The daisies at the end -- there's a black and white photo of daisies. That's my mom's photo. That part can really hit me. One, it reminds me of my mom. Two, 'whoa! I put something incredibly intimate and vulnerable in this very public thing.' It almost surprises me every time that it's in there.

"They're just personal photos, they're not art."

I was going to ask. It feels so personal. The very specific can become universal of course. But on the other hand, we are aware that it's based on your life. So...

I'm very happy to remember my dad. It's not like a painful thing. Even his death and even his illness and all of that, we had a lot of great times around that. We had more closeness than we had ever had. So most of the stuff I'm showing you in the film are positive memories, things I enjoy being around. To be honest, most of the stuff with the dad... I pretty much wrote down things my father said to me to the best of my memory. But by the time you've put it in a different place, you've put it into a larger fictional context, and you have Christopher saying it, I really don't go "oh, that's my pop". Do you know what I mean?

But those flowers slap me in the face. They kind of sneak up on my every time.  I worked on the father stuff so much and I got really used to thinking of it as the weird hybrid of personal and story.

[more on his fine screenplay, his art, and working with Oscar-buzzing Christopher Plummer]

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Linkland: Thelma & Louise, Marion & Melanie, Regina & Shawn

Movie|Line "what the box office skeptics are missing about Super 8"?
In Contention does not like Super 8. "Super h8ted it" Uh oh.
Just Jared Dakota Fanning's High School Graduation. Congrats Dakota!
Mister Hipp "sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it" - just lovely. Still my favorite Tim Burton film.
Kenneth in the (212) Thelma & Louise, 20 years later (in Toronto.) Awwww I ♥. Sadly, Brad Pitt was not there.
Tom Shone loves Melanie Laurent in Beginners. As do I.
The Critical Condition has a really interesting question/thought about Marion Cotillard in Midnight in Paris. NOTE: Don't read it until after you've seen the movie!
Splash Page talks to Chris Evans about working on The Avengers.

X-Men "Born This Way" Parody.

Teehee. Fun lyrics although some may quibble about Magneto not being... that other way.

Finally, Scott Feinberg shares the nominees for the 1st annual BTJA "Critics Choice" Awards. Mad Men cleans up but the interesting part is the Emmy-diversion details: Glee is nominated but Jane Lynch is the only cast member with a nomination; they're absolutely nuts for all AMC shows; and Southland got a nomination for Shawn Hatosy (yes!) but not for Regina King (boo!). If you watch Southland you'll know that Hatosy's role got crazy intense this past season as his screen partner Kevin Alejandro was killed (so that he could sex up Lafayette on True Blood... or was that a post-job-loss career get?) and Hatosy's character broke down hard. But the MVP of this show is still Regina King. Go Regina!

Review: "Beginners"

Have you ever found yourself wincing in premonitory fear that a gay character or theme will be mishandled by filmmakers or actors? Set those worries aside when approaching the expressive charming BEGINNERS. Though the story about a lonely bachelor artist Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and his newly-out dying father Hal (Christopher Plummer) is fictionalized, it has the stamp of the exquisitely personal about it. It's handmade, in other words, never to be mistaken for a movie made by committee. Writer/director Mike Mills' (Thumbsucker) own father came out of the closet when he was in his thirties and the film is an obviously loving tribute from son to father.

Gay characters in the movies are sometimes little more than caricatures and depictions still largely fall into "types". Older gay men have it especially rough in media representations; if they aren't altogether invisible they're desexualized or depicted as lonely and pitiable. Beginners won't have it like that. One could argue that it's practically heroic in its willful embrace of wholly human characters, no matter their age or sexual preference. Hal is played with lively curiousity by Christopher Plummer with that customary dark twinkle in his eye. It's actually brilliant casting since Ewan McGregor is such a kindred spirit when it comes to those mischievous undercurrents...

Read the Full Review @ Towleroad

Cannes Goddesses Pt. 1: A Red Carpet Conversation

Jane Fonda. She Knows She Rules.Last time on red carpet lineup Kurt and Nathaniel chatted about the annual Met Gala. This time out, Jose and Nathaniel are discussing the first few days of Cannes international fashion parade. Find out which actress Nathaniel is starting a religion to worship and which audition tape Jose dreams of seeing.

Nathaniel: Hello Jose. I must know. Before I throw dresses at you if you've been following Cannes 64 at all?

‪Jose: ‬ ‪Hi! Well yes, but mostly for the dresses actually, considering most of us mortals never get to see all those movies they talk about over there.‬

Nathaniel: ‪So though you're a cinephile, for Cannes you're rather like the very casual Oscar watcher then?
It being all about the gowns?

‪Jose: ‬ ‪Sadly, yes. I blame distributors!‬

Nathaniel: The perfect scapegoat.

Jose: ‬ ‪At least they can't take fashion away from us.‬

‪Nathaniel: ‬ ‪True. Or movie stars for that matter.‬ Even when the movies aren't there anymore you're still a legend for the purposes of the red carpet. Like Faye Dunaway...

FAN BINGBING, MAIWENN LE BESCO, FAYE DUNAWAY, SJP, PENELOPE CRUZ

‪Jose: ‬ ‪I love that they're paying tribute to her in Cannes.

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪It does feel like a reevaluation is coming. Or at least a revival. Even Mommie Dearest... you don't hear people dissing that performance anymore so much as voicing the theory that gonzo acting ruined her career.‬

Jose:  Absolutely, but I think she'll do more serious work. She's even quoting Meryl Streep in interviews!

Nathaniel:  I don't know enough about fashion to know what type of dress this is but gossamer modest flowy light things always make me think of ghosts in Victorian mansions... or Stevie Nicks. Who is also back!

Jose:  Faye looks so graceful. Stevie rocks! But I think the new queen of ghost wear is that Florence from the Machine lady.

Nathaniel:  This is the part of most celebrity discussions where I would start singing

the dog days are over
the dog days are done
can you hear the horses
because here they come

and then someone would snark about Sarah Jessica Parker.

BUT we both like SJP. So there.

Jose:  "Like"? I'm obsessed with her! People can say whatever they want about her face and Sex and the City but the woman is a red carpet visionary! This Elie Saab dress is proof of that. I love how she's been trying to bring back the 70s lately (with her in charge of Halston and everything...)

Nathaniel: I will say that this dress looks MUCH better in motion than it does in a still photograph. Because here it look just... too much. Too much fabric for a tiny diva. But she definitely is a risk-taker. And bringing back the 70s is going well for her if red carpet looks from other women are to be believed.

Jose:  Maybe she was paying tribute to Faye. too?

Nathaniel:  I hope everyone is with her face plastered on all the posters. Incidentally she wore this dress to the premiere of Peter Chan's Wu Xia and the only unfortunate thing about inviting international fashion icons to your premiere is that your stars get ignored.

Jose:  Smart move in case everyone hates the movie, no?

Nathaniel:  Well sure but this movie stars Takeshi Kaneshiro, Kara Hui and Tang Wei and I haven't seen one photo of any of them, yet. And they were there as this video proves!!!

Jose:  Maybe they were hiding from the cameras under Sarah's ample dress.

Nathaniel: Heh. One thing that happens with celebrity photo feeds is if someone of SJP's fashion stature shows to any "smaller" event, the event is often completely ignored. Even in the headlines. It's weird.

Jose:  Shh, don't say that, people will hear you and SJP won't be invited to things anymore! I had no idea Tang Wei was in new movies. I had started to assume she'd pulled off a Falconetti on us and retired after Lust, Caution.

Fan Bingbing at the "The Tree of Life" premiereNathaniel: I always include Fan Bingbing in red carpet lineups because she really wears a deep groove in the Cannes carpet each year. I can't imagine the size of her luggage. How do you ship entire closets?

Jose:  I have no idea what this woman does for a living but being beautiful seems to be enough.

Nathaniel:  She's an actress, silly. I ignore the models and celebutantes, even when I like what they're wearing.

Jose: She was featured in every option of a "Best Dressed in Cannes" poll, the other day. Maybe entire fleets carry her dresses?

Nathaniel: She never seems to repeat colors styles fabrics. I think maybe mice and birds sew her into custom-made gowns each evening.

Jose:  Magic!  Must be hard being under so much sartorial pressure. No wonder she rarely smiles...

Nathaniel:  I had to include Mäiwenn Le Besco (Crouching Tigress) in the photo above.

Jose: Crouching Tigress, Obvious Drunkard! Girls seems to be enjoying her champagne. Who does that on a red carpet?

Mäiwenn ... actress, director, Diva PlavalagunaNathaniel: Heh. Maybe she's reminding everyone that she wields cameras these days. I saw her last movie The Actress' Ball and it was extremely self-indulgent but also intermittently hilarious and obsessed with actressing so I respect her. When I was interviewing Ludivine Sagnier last month that movie even came up.

I'm always secretly thrilled when Mäiwenn shows anywhere because I love explaning to people that she's the blue opera diva  from The Fifth Element and shocking them. Bam! Are you freaked?

Jose:  VERY. I always assumed that was a man!

I can't believe you're not letting me talk about Pé yet.

Nathaniel: Your wish is granted.

Jose:  Sigh. Nat, I kid you not. I didn't want her to do Cannes because I was afraid she'd disappoint me. Mrs. Bardem has been doing some weird ass red carpet choices, post baby Leo. But I'm actually in love with this.

  At first I thought she'd gone all out on Cannes (they love nudity there) and actually had had people paste tiny rocks and fabrics to her body.

Nathaniel:  Split opinion here. I think this color is three kinds of wrong on her. I'm not fond of nudity unless it's actually nudity.

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