Behind The Scenes

BURN AFTER READING

 

Ousted CIA Analyst, Osborne Cox (Malkovich) returns home to his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) to work on his memoirs. Unbeknownst to him, Katie (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), and planning to leave Cox for Harry.  When the computer disc containing material for the CIA analyst’s memoirs accidentally falls into the hands of gym employees Linda and Chad (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt), the duo are intent on exploiting their find and set off events that spiral out of control.

 

George Clooney, who has made and starred in several politically themed projects, offers, “Despite the Washington setting, this picture is really about shockingly dumb people doing dumb things involving sex and other situations. What makes it even more interesting is that they’re not politicians...As soon as they called me up I knew I’d do it. What could be better? After all, it’s the Coen Brothers. They make roles available to you that people don’t know you’re capable of doing as an actor. Then they told me they wrote the part for me, which worried me…”

 

Ethan Coen comments, “As George gets older, our characters for George are getting older, and not wiser.”

 

“Harry’s not unlike the dopes I’ve played in my other films for the Coens,” muses Clooney.  “He’s this sort of sad, moronic character. But there’s a viciousness to this guy that doesn’t exist in, say, Everett in O, Brother Where Art Thou? This script made me howl when I read it. It’s so insane, I just went with it. I grew the beard they thought the character should have and showed up to the set – where I finally had the chance to work with Fran (McDormand).”

 

McDormand remembers, “In the first scene for my character in the script, the description said, ‘Close Up On A Woman’s Ass. Pale. Bare. Middle-Aged.’ Why should one even read on? Why should one even consider the job?”

 

Ethan reveals, “It’s fun to write for Fran because you know she’s good. It’s not fun to show the script to her once it’s written, because she yells at you.”

 

 “You’ve been scripting it for a number of months, and she’ll go, ‘This is it?’ But we usually work through that,” assures Joel.

 

McDormand says, “You know, I’ve been working with Joel and Ethan for the last 25 years. Their first movie [Blood Simple] was my first movie. I don’t know why they make me do what they make me do. But it’s always worth it.”

 

Brad Pitt had been waiting a long time for a role in a Coen Brothers film, and at last the call came.  The actor admits, “I didn’t think the guy would be a dumbbell, a gum-chewing, Gatorade-swilling, iPod-addicted bubble-brain. I said to Joel and Ethan, ‘He’s such an idiot…’ But, he does have a good heart…Basically, I see the role as a career-buster.”

 

Clooney shrugs this off, saying of his longtime friend and costar, “Brad is going to steal Burn After Reading.”

 

Joel offers, “Brad grew to love playing a numbskull as much as George does, and he’s very funny in the role.”

 

McDormand adds, “Brad was doing some things in our scenes together which made it very hard for me not to crack up…As filmmakers, Joel and Ethan are so prepared; they meticulously plan out, and it’s all to the actors’ benefit.  We don’t have to wait for them to make decisions. They’re not intractable, though. They’re open to improvisation to a certain extent, but improvising is not really the way they tell their stories. Their combined sensibility makes it easier for them to articulate what they want to other people, because they’ve already had that conversation themselves.”

 

Clooney remarks, “I always try to operate the sets of the films I’m directing the way Ethan and Joel run theirs. Their style is just the easiest. They let you try out some ideas you might have on your own but, invariably, the way they see it is the way it should go because they have a very specific plan. I have yet to see them do any rehearsal on anything.

 

“What’s interesting about this movie is that it is all about middle-aged losers,” says McDormand. “George Clooney and Brad Pitt as losers, that’s novel.”

 

BURN AFTER READING (Focus Features) Starring George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt.  In theatres September 12^th.

 

 

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HOTEL LUCIA

400 SW Broadway Portland 877 225-1717

 

At Hotel Lucia, voted one of Travel and Leisure’s Top 100 The Best in the World, the wow factor begins the moment you step into the artfully decorated boutique hotel.  The lobby is adorned with such eclectic, captivating art that it doubles as a kind of museum as much as it does a swank welcome.  The hotel is practically lined with black and white portraits by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Humer Kennerly so that iconic political figures and characters from Seinfeld provide a chuckle and a feeling of wonder to residents when they walk through the lobby and even in their rooms.

 

The care and attention given when checking in is extended to the details in the chic and spacious King Superior room designed in warm wood tones.  In case you’ve left your music behind, there’s an I-pod already loaded with different genres of music to score your stay.  The faithful need not feel the pressure to convert because at this hotel, there is actually a Spiritual Menu so you can request any book of faith including the Koran and Gita.  Earplugs wait by the bedside to counter a snoring companion and ensure a goodnight’s sleep, and the bathroom beckons with Aveda amenities. An LCD flat panel TV poses seductively on the wall and high-speed wireless Internet access is only a few clicks away.  If you desire more, just use the phone’s Get It Now button and the competent staff at Lucia will try and move mountains any time of day or night.

 

It’s not an exaggeration that everything in the City of Roses is within walking distance but this urban luxury hotel’s convenient location in the heart of downtown, only minutes from the Pearl District and the landmark Powell’s bookstore, makes shopping, partying and touring even more enticing.  But if you’re not inclined to take a jaunt in search of adventure, the hotel domiciles a Zen-like bar called Crash where hipsters can find martinis, bites and beautiful people, and adjoins to Typhoon, serving sumptuous Thai fusion cuisine.

 

By the end of your stay, you’ll discover that Lucia has done more than just live up to the media accolades and first impressions.  It’s done that rare, special thing – become a kind of vacation home, one that you will find reasons to come back to before you’ve even left.

 

 

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SPOTLIGHT Aaron Zigman

San Diego-born composer Aaron Zigman, who has stirred audiences in hit films like The Notebook, John Q, and most recently, Sex and the City, began training as a classical pianist at age 6 with his mother, a pianist and harpist.  What’s less known about this coveted film composer, is that he’s also produced, written and arranged hits for artists like Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Carly Simon, Christina Aguilera and Dionne Warwick.

 

Even as Zigman created some chart topping hits for renowned acts, including the hit single Crush on You for The Jets (which he wrote and produced), his heart was always into creating orchestral music.  Zigman’s break came in 2000, when director Cassavetes asked him to score Denzel Washington’s John Q.  The Notebook, written during a particularly emotional time for Zigman, followed this.  “More than any time I was thinking about reunion,” he says.  “I couldn’t help thinking about my father and the fabric of the family.”  Cassavetes and Zigman traveled to South Carolina where the film is based so he could lend some authenticity to the music.  “They shot for 6 months,” he continues.  “So I went through three seasons in South Carolina and felt all the different climates and translated that into my work.”  The results are mesmerizing – a tender, heartfelt music score that accomplishes what is the ultimate for any film score— it’s independence from the project even as it buoys it in the context of the film; something that can be listened to on its own and applied as a soundtrack to your own life.

 

“When Michael Patrick King said he wanted an original score for Sex and the City, it was music to my ears,” says Zigman, playing parts of the score on the piano.  “He told me, ‘I want you to push on the bruise.’  He wanted an emotional score.  Aside from the comedy, he was very passionate about making this a love story…One of the cues, when Miranda and Steve meet on New Year’s Eve and their son asks them to kiss, I deliberately stopped the music right there so that the audience can feel the tension.  I (the music) came in and out, and I followed my instincts to make the movie more visceral.” 

 

The Sex and the City score, sadly not commercially available in its entirety, is arguably one of the most remarkable things about the film.  There are scenes – a devastated Carrie taking stock of her heartache in the mirror, Big struggling with his vows, Miranda and Steve struggling with their separation – that bring a viewer to tears not just because of what they’re seeing on the screen, but also because of Zigman’s sound.  

 

“I try to transcend the emotional value of what I write with the orchestra,” he says.  “When I finally hear it played, it’s magical; the relationship is so interdependent, sharing a sound stage with a group of people I love.  The sound of all these pitches and bodies together – it’s such an incredible experience.”

 

As it is for us when we hear you, Z.

 

--  Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla

 

 

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Chazz Charms

Only Academy Award- nominated actor Chazz Palminteri can keep you enthralled for a 90-minute, no-intermission, one-man show in which he conjures an entire cast of moving and hilarious characters based on his memoir, A Bronx Tale.  The limited engagement of 16 performances (September 9 through 21) at the Wadsworth Theatre opened to an engrossed, celebrity-studded audience and took us into the hidden world of 1960’s-era Bronx where the boy’s law-abiding father, Lorenzo, the dangerous but winsome gangster, Sonny and 16 more unforgettable characters come to life under Tony Award-winning director, Jerry Zaks. 

 

“A Bronx Tale is not a gangster story,” says Palminteri.  “It’s a story about family.  It’s about how one guy said no to the mafia and showed his son that the choices you make in childhood will shape your life forever.”

 

 

 

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STYLE LA

Swim & Resort Fashion Runway Show

Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian hosted this year’s smashing Style LA Runway Show at Santa Monica’s Viceroy Hotel.  Delicious models from Ford and LA Models walked the over-the-pool runway to raise funds for The Facial Paralysis Foundation and Stop The Violence/Face the Music charities.  The beautiful crowd sipped on Pinky Vodka martinis, Fiji Water and mingled with the likes of the Kardashians, Ian Ziering and Kristian Alfonso while appreciating styles from John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, Gottex and Nina Ricci.