Summer Supplement - Ashley Young Interview - MUTV

FORMAT: XViD | AUDIO: MP3 128Kbps | VIDEO: 624x352 - 1200Kbps |Runtime: 21mins | Size: 205MBKeep up to date with all the news, interviews and transfer gossip from around the world as Summer Supplement brings you the latest news affecting Manchester United. Includes Ashley Young Interview and Uniteds Asian Trophy Tour with Ji Sung ParkFileKeen | Hotfile | Fileserve | Filesonic | Wupload

Truth, dreams collide in indie drama Beginners

After the release of Thor last month — the headline contained the word “Thorible” — I was quizzed by a reader: “If you hate Thor so much, what do you recommend I see?”

My answer was Beginners, which wasn’t even open yet after its Arizona release was bumped several times, even as glowing reviews poured in from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. But Beginners isn’t just the anti-Thor: it’s a deeply personal and genuine film all on its own merits. And now it has a solid Arizona release date — this Friday.

It stars Ewan McGregor as a fortyish single man whose mother dies and a week later his father comes out that he’s gay. “She knew,” the father says. He’s played by the amazing Christopher Plummer, who has channeled Leo Tolstoy, Mike Wallace and Sherlock Holmes, but never a gay man. He’s remarkable.

But there’s more to Beginners than just its gay themes. It also has tender romance (gay and straight), a profound personal journey of the McGregor character, the lovely Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds), a subtitled Jack Russell terrier, literal graffiti, comedy, and these nostalgic, dream-like storytelling devices that are refreshingly unique. They begin with McGregor narrating his character’s memories. I call them the “This Is What It’s Like” scenes. Photos flick onto the screen as if from a slide projector. “This is what the stars looked like in 1955 … the sun … These are my parents … This is where they were married.” The trick is poetic and wonderful.

The scenes were some of many clever ideas by the film’s writer and director, Mike Mills (Thumbsucker), who’s also an accomplished graphic designer and artist. Mills was traveling with Beginners on a national tour when I interviewed him last month.

Flix: Beginners is very good, which makes me wonder why you have to travel with it and publicize like you are.

Mike Mills: Well, I’ve learned that movies are sold in two ways: by word of mouth or by big-budget marketing campaigns. This movie isn’t going to get a bunch of marketing simply because it’s small and the story, about a 75-year-old gay man who’s dying. It doesn’t have that kind of big story — it’s not Iron Man. So I’m touring with this movie for the next month or so. These small movies get sold by shoe leather, which is basically me going door to door. It’s kind of magical. You meet some wonderful people, which doesn’t happen all the time — a director a meeting their audience.

Flix: What has the response been from the gay and lesbian community?

MM: To be honest I haven’t read anything from anybody. The movie is so personal that I haven’t really sought out opinions from writers … gay or straight. My general feeling is that the response has been positive. Every once and awhile an older gay man will come up to me and say something really sweet about how the film mirrored their life, or touched them in some way. It feels good to hear things like that, especially since the film is told through a straight person’s eyes.

Flix: I know the film is semi-autobiographical, but how much of it is true?

MM: It’s very autobiographical, but it’s also, in a way, my dream, which are represented in some of the sequences. What is true, though, is that my parents were married in 1985. My dad was gay, my mom knew it. My mother died and my dad came out of the closet when he was 75. Then he passed away almost five years later. That’s all in the movie and it’s all very true. There’s a part of the movie where my mom was kicked off the swimming team in 1938 for being half-Jewish. That’s true as well. There are also a number of photos in the film that accurate, like the one of the location of my parents’ wedding, which was down the street from where Allen Ginsberg did some of his writing.

Flix: The “This Is What It’s Like” scenes are very memorable. Are those dreams?

MM: In a way they are, but they are also very factual to me. Really, they are all facts. This is what the stars looked like, this is what the sun looks like. Those are actual pictures of the sun and stars in 1955. It gets very dreamy. I love that conflation. It really hits at how dreamy facts are, and how factual dreams are. I was using a documentarian-like approach, but the end result is very lyrical.

Flix: Those are my favorite parts of the movie. I especially liked how you showed a quarter on the screen when it’s told to the father that he has a tumor the size of the quarter. First you show the quarter, then two dimes and a nickel, then five nickels, then nickels and pennies, then finally all pennies. It’s an interesting visualization. The film vilifies the quarter — something most people have in their pocket at any given time — and it also shows the spread of cancer.

MM: I’m glad you liked that scene. If you only knew how hard it was to convince people to do that. They were just like, “Really?!?” It’s just the way I think. I went to art school; I didn’t go to film school. There are a lot of artists who do similar kinds of work that inspired me. I feel very lucky that I had the nerve to show these elements as I naturally view them.

Flix: Was it hard securing your cast?

MM: It was, but not once I met them. Once I met them it became incredibly easy. Making movies like this is like swimming your way upstream. It’s also like running for president: You have to meet all these people and basically convince them that you are the right guy to make this movie. And you really have to campaign for yourself and the actors you want in it. As soon as Ewan and Christopher read the script they loved it, and they loved it for all the right reasons. Ewan and I had coffee together very early, and I kept thinking he was going to like it but be unable to do it because he was busy, or he was shooting another movie, or whatever. Or I also worried that he was going to be an ass, like someone I could never relate to. But then he shows up and he’s like the most down-to-earth dude I’ve met in a long time. He spoke of the movie using the right tone and you could tell he was there with the movie’s good intentions at heart.

Flix: I just reread Easy Rider, Raging Bulls, about New Hollywood’s transformation of cinema in the late ’60s and ’70s. In it, there are directors who want to become famous to make big movies, people like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and there are directors in it who want to become famous to make small movies, people like Francis Ford Coppola. Which group do you put yourself into?

MM: Oh, no doubt, I want to make smaller films. I want to make more personal films, films with stories. The smaller/bigger movie thing is kind of a trick though, too. Consider Little Miss Sunshine, a small movie that made a ton of money. Lost in Translation was a small movie that found a large audience. So, in a way, I don’t want to self-ghettoize myself by saying I make small movies. I just see my movies about people getting in touch with who they are. And making those kinds of movies is so hard. It takes so long to get it all right. I feel like I lose a limb after each one.

Flix: There are many directors working now, though, who have made their bones on a small, well-reviewed independent movies and then inevitably start making movies like Thor or Green Lantern or Iron Man, movies that don’t have a fifth of the soul of movies like Little Miss Sunshine, Lost in Translation or Beginners.

MM: I think it’s a real struggle. I mentioned earlier that you have to swim upstream, and it’s really tough and it wears you down. Eventually you just tell yourself, “I want to go with the stream for once. I want to be supported.” I can see why directors would turn to these movies that are bigger and louder. I’m too old to switch gears. And I really don’t want to switch gears. Being a writer-director is the best job in the world. It’s the same job that Woody Allen has, the same job that John Cassavetes had. If I get to make movies that are anything like that I feel profoundly lucky and happy.

Naomi Campbell for Interview Magazine

Naomi Campbell appears looking absolutely flawless for the October cover of Interview Magazine. And while she may be a top model - a role model, maybe not, she admits inside the issue. 

"Listen, I make many mistakes. Many mistakes. I'm not a perfect human being," she says.

"I have to learn from my mistakes. And a lot of the ones I've made have been public. So I always get nervous when people speak about something that sounds like a role model, because I don't know if I've been a great role model myself."

Campbell plays up her bad-girl persona in the provocative portfolio shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. And while the images may not exactly help change people's perceptions of Campbell, but she could care less.



"I mean, look, I'm controversial," she says matter-of-factly. "If people want to work with me, then they want to work with me. If they don't, they don't." LOVE HER!

The lamentation of St. Zac Efron

Your face is huge on that poster.

“I know, right,” Zac Efron says. “Oh wait, check this out.”

Efron, 22-year-old teen dream, pops up from the leather ottoman he’s lounging on and runs into the next room, leans over his hotel bed flashing his dark-colored briefs underneath his jeans in the process — somewhere a teen girl weeps and she doesn’t know why — and grabs his iPhone 4. He bounds back into the room flicking through images on the phone.

“A buddy who was in Times Square sent this to me,” he says while holding the phone so I can see the image: it’s Efron larger-than-life on the poster of his new movie, Charlie St. Cloud. The poster must be 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide. His eyes stare off the edge of the poster right up the spread legs of a Victoria Secret lingerie model who happens to have found placement above him in the New York City skyline — and she's ready to sit on his face.

“I’m looking right at her ass,” he says, noticeably pleased with the comedy of the two ads create. “Thank you, New York.”

Efron, that plucky young kid from the High School Musical series, is growing up, and the proof is in his persistent survival post-HSM. First there was the starring role in 17 Again, one of those goofy body-switch movies in the vein of Freaky Friday. Then there was Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater’s critical darling about Welles’ famous staging of Julius Caesar, a film that no doubt left tweens wondering aloud who Orson Welles was and why he was taking screen time away from Zac.

And now Efron has Charlie St. Cloud, a film in which he’s the unmistakable lead — he plays the title character — and he’s five years removed from high school, which means he’s playing roughly his own age, a bonus for any HSM breakout. “I’m done aging down for a character,” Efron says from his upscale Phoenix hotel room, “but I will age up. The studios are really pandering to a younger crowd by casting older actors in younger roles. Audiences are so much smarter than we give them credit for.”

In the film, he plays a property manager of a cemetery who meets his dead brother every day at sundown to play catch. They chat, reminisce and altogether delay the inevitable day when Charlie must let go, and the brother must venture onward into eternity. There’s also some business with a girl who’s going to sail around the world, and how she’s driving Charlie away from his dead brother. At one point they have sex in the graveyard, to which the women in the audience coo'd and moaned — I laughed hysterically: "They just fucked on a headstone!" The film also is notable for starring two veteran actors — Ray Liotta and Kim Basinger — and giving them nothing to do.

I ask Efron about this, particularly about Oscar winner Basinger, who looks electric in all 3½ minutes she's on the screen only to disappear after her mindless cameo. Was her role originally larger, because it seems pointless to have Basinger there when an extra could have done it just as good? I kept thinking she was going to pop up again. Efron, protecting his director, Burr Steers — Steers, besides directing Efron's 17 Again, was also in Pulp Fiction as the guy on the couch shot by Jules — explains Basinger's disappearance like this: "Hey, when Kim Basinger can be your mom, why not?"

Charlie St. Cloud is not a great movie. It’s one of those pandering melodramatic cheeseballs, the kind that are usually penned by Nicholas Sparks, or some Nicholas Sparks-programmed robot. But even inside this stinker, Efron seems to shine. I’m convinced he can play very serious, but hasn’t yet been given the opportunity. He has this complexity to his gaze, like a dreamier River Phoenix — “Thanks,” he says, “Stand By Me is one of my favorite movies.” But if he's not careful he can drift from River Phoenix to Boone from Lost, who just whined too much and ultimately fell off a plane and died.

How do you pick roles?

Efron, back on the ottoman, his eyes wander, his feet shuffle: “I play it by ear. The voice of the character, can I hear it? What’s learned, what’s the message? Is it cool, is it fun, do I see myself having fun during shooting? What is the rest of the cast like? These are questions I ask myself before I decide … Right now I’m more excited about broadening — or having the potential for broadening — my fan base’s experience at the movies, to see how they respond to more real, more grounded plots.”

But don’t you get a lot of scripts trying to break you with drugs, alcohol, sex or violence? There’s probably a price on your head to get you to do a bad boy role that plays against your High School Musical days.

“I would never do anything like that just to do it … one of those ‘bad boy’ roles,” he says, “but I think if there was an amazing role where I was playing a well-written character who was also slightly villainous I would do it. I would never play bad for the sake of playing bad, and believe me we’ve been given those chances since the first High School Musical.”

In a passing comment, Efron admits to frequenting theaters in the Los Angeles area. It’s hard to imagine movie stars watching other movies. It’s easier to just picture them always on the screen as opposed to basking in its glow like us, the general populace. He and his longtime girlfriend, fellow High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens — who he is not shy to talk about in front of writers — make it their date night.

“I prefer to see movies at the theater. When I have time off, and if 7-o’clock rolls around and we have nothing to do we’ll go to the movies. No one really bothers us at the theater. People are buying candy and stuff, so no one really notices us. We’ll probably see three movies a week.”

It’s ironic you can find peace — from fans and the paparazzi — at a movie theater of all places.

“I know, right; it’s great,” Efron says. “Also I don’t have a great sound system at my house. Vanessa has a great theater system at home, big screen and everything, so movies are definitely better there, but we prefer to go out.”

Then he admits something: “I still haven’t seen the finished product of Charlie St. Cloud.”
That seems rather odd to me, not because stars should be required to see themselves on the screen — Clooney doesn’t, Nicholson doesn’t — but because Efron is so young, and ego drives the young in Hollywood. There’s this attitude that if you’re young and talented that you’re going to be the next big thing. Lindsay Lohan, now locked in an isolation cell somewhere, probably thought that way. How do you stay so grounded in Los Angeles, I ask.

“I get out [of LA] as much as possible. Also, I’ve been protected and helped. I get uncomfortable around the paparazzi and too much attention, so I never put myself in those situations. Hollywood is just not my thing.”

It’s working so far, though.

I Got Interviewed ....

I got interviewed by Kim.  It was fun cause Kim is awesome.  Go check it out if you want.

That's all I've got.  Back to my hiatus. 

Beholding the blast and its collision with flesh

I’m certain of several things this summer, mainly these two: First, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the worst film of the decade. And second, The Hurt Locker, which is effective counter-programming for transforming robots, is the best film of the summer.

Talking with Hurt Locker star, and early Oscar contender for best actor, Jeremy Renner, he agrees with me on all these points. Except maybe that Transformers one, to which he simply says, “Hey, to each his own. Nothing against Michael Bay.”

Renner, whose claim to fame before this was playing cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Dahmer, plays a hotshot bomb disposal tech in Iraq in this gritty and excruciatingly intense Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days) war movie. I type “war movie” with some trepidation, though, because the movie is so much more: it’s an action movie, a psychological thriller and, ultimately, a character study about men drawn to the flame of what might be their own demise. Why do men go to war? This movie has that answer and many more.

Above all else, though, Renner just nails this nuanced, provocative performance of a man riding the razor’s edge that is bomb disposal in a warzone. In one scene he removes his bomb-proof protective gear so he can lay against a bomb, feel it’s mechanisms, channel its soul. “If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die comfortably,” he says. No movie is half as intense as this one this year.

Renner, who said he is one of five actors being considered for the lead role in a Road Warrior reinvention (by Mad Max creator George Miller, no less), sat down and spoke with Volume/Pick-Up Flix before Hurt Locker opened in the Valley on July 10, and then expanded on July 17. Take mine and his word, and see this movie.

— Michael Clawson

Volume: Is America ready for movies about this war?
Jeremy Renner: I think America’s ready for this film. Without a doubt. If we box it into saying this is a war film, we’re boxing it in unfairly. At that point there have already been preconceived notions put upon it. It’s almost unfair to say that about films, like, “Oh look here, this is a real tearjerker movie.” That’s unfair to the film because it sends viewers into it with expectations; it’s going to limit the experience. So to call this just a war movie is unfair to the viewers, especially since it’s so much more. As far as being “ready” for this film, there’s a big audience for it. This film is an immersion. You go in to experience it, to feel it. That’s how well it’s made.

Volume: War is, for the most part, a boys club. Do you think having a female director brought a fresh perspective to these types of actions scenes and also just the bonding soldiers go through?
JR: Kathryn has always proven to be a phenomenal, detail-oriented action director. She does film male subject matter for the most part …

Volume: There is nothing more male than Point Break.
JR: Exactly. But her gender doesn’t come into play here because her abilities are so focused and her energy is so exact in the details. I wonder if, in her mind, she wasn’t directing a war movie, the way I was thinking I wasn’t acting in a war movie. I can’t fathom how she works, because she’s so intricate. She’s a painter, a voyeur, an artist with a camera … she’s so many things, and I never thought, “Oh and she’s a woman, too.” She’s better than that.

Volume: You’ve said the words voyeur and immersive. They must have been themes because the film was shot with dozens of cameras from dozens of different angles allowing an immersive, almost voyeuristic look at the material.
JR: The idea was to put you in those streets watching these guys diffuse bombs. There were days on set that I never saw a camera. Literally, days. We called them ninja cameras because they were on roofs, on balconies, under cars to get my feet walking past. She put her cameras in the most interesting places.

Volume: What kinds of things did real soldiers tell you before you went into this project?
JR: It was more me asking them questions, because they weren’t volunteering too much because they’ve never worked with actors. They learn how to make bombs and diffuse bombs for real, so dealing with some jackass actor was low on their list of priorities. I knew when I started asking good questions, though, because they told me stuff was top secret. One thing they stressed was that they would never run up to a car bomb that was on fire, which happens in the movie. Unless, of course, the president was in a nearby building or something. They’d send the bot down almost always. Some guys told me they relied on the bots so heavily that they rarely got out of their cars to take care of these roadside bombs. The soldiers I talked to did tell me about one guy who would walk up to IEDs, kick them and say things like, “Well, I guess I won,” and he’d pick the bomb up and drag it back.

Volume: As far fetched as it was, though, I felt like your character’s renegade behavior was always justified, even when he ran up to bombs on fire. He was going against the grain on everything, even his own life.
JR: That’s a testament to how well this film was written. My character is clearly going against what he’s learned is safe, and going against all the instincts that pull people away from a bomb. He goes because he feels like he has to. He’s drawn to the danger out of necessity.

Volume: There are no villains in this movie. No nefarious bomb-making schemers. No ex-Marine Jihadists. Nothing like that. A lesser film would have been you hunting down and killing a bomb maker rather than you and your motivations in war — call it the Hollywood version.
JR: That makes the film more real. I mean, look at Hurt Locker: there isn’t a whole lot of plot, right? It’s just characters. A more Hollywood-type movie would have all the necessary plots and turns and developments. This film is free of all that. It moves on its own, to its own beat. It’s unrelenting.

An Interview With the Vamp .. er .. Bastard ...

Shout out:

Drowsey Monkey, who dreams about ME, has created a new photo meme. It’s called Mellow Yellow Monday.


Here’s her description of how to play…

“Basically you post a photo every Monday with a little or a lot of yellow. I chose yellow because it's my favourite colour and I think the world is a better place with a splash of yellow.”

(remember, she’s Canadian so she gets to put an extra “u” in the words “favorite” and “color.”)

Anyway, if you want to play along just click RIGHT HERE to get all the details.


Interview time…

There are many differnet kinds of memes out there. Some of them suck balls and some of them can be kind of fun. I don't do too many of them unless I feel like it, or the person tagging me is new or just really wants me to do them. The meme, not "them." ;-)

But, one of the few memes that I did like was the interview meme. That's where someone asks me five questions. I had a good time with that one, not just answering questions but reading everyone else's answers to other people's quesitons. This meme has been revived and I decided to let a couple of people interview me. Avitable will be interviewing me whenever the hell he feels like it and M from Rumblings and Bumblings is interviewing me today.

And if you aren’t reading Rumblings and Bumblings you are missing out. She rocks!

So here we go...


1. What is your most favorite blog to read? The one you just could not do without? (don't try to weasel out of this one)

Oh this is impossible! It's like asking my which shot of tequila last night was my favorite. They were all so wonderful and tasty.

This question took some serious thought and time. I actually did think of a couple of ways of weaseling out it. I thought about naming a blog written by someone who stopped blogging. That would be clever. Or maybe one of the "pro" bloggers. Or maybe one of the trashy celebrity blogs where they post pics of hot young celebs running around in bikinis. These were all possibilities.

And there is a bit of unfairness to the question because it puts me in position of possibly hurting some people's feelings. Or having to listen to a bunch of whining from people. That's why I don't do those little blog awards. I did it once and I got a couple of emails from people bitching because I didn't give THEM the award. It was so silly.

But, I think my original analogy of "my favorite shot of tequila last" actually does work. As I sat and thought things over, it became obvious that my favorite blog is the first blog I read consistently and my first blog friend. You probably already know who I'm talking about.

Pickled Beef by Tink. Yup, I think the first blog you love will always be your favorite. And that will always be Pickled Beef and the amazing, charming, wonderful, brilliant Tink.

So there you have it. It doesn't mean that I don't love everyone else though!

2. Favorite meal of all time? (restaurant or homemade)

I'm a pretty simple guy. So my favorite meal of all time is a pretty simple, comfort food meal. It's meat loaf, mashed potatoes and green beans. Or maybe roasted carrots in place of the green beans. Maybe tack on a couple of rolls if you want and even a glass of wine.

3. Crawfish, crawdads, or crayfish?

In Shreveport, Louisiana they call them "mudbugs." I know this because that was where I was first exposed to these creepy little fellas. It was at Mudbug Days Festival there and there were people eating those things by the pound. I didn't try them, but I did have aligator on a stick. That was pretty tasty.

Anyway, here in Redneckville we have Crawdad Days. So, I call them "crawdads."

4. What is your idea of a dream vacation? (with location)

Another tough one. I think my favorite place that I've ever been to is Monterey, California. It was soooo beautiful there. If somebody handed me a bunch of money and told me to take off right now for a vacation I would go to Europe though. I've always wanted to backpack through Europe. I missed my chance back when I was college aged when most people do that type of thing. But, anyplace where I can wander around and explore and visit historical sites would be great.

5. What color are your bed sheets?

Come on over and find out ladies! I have a set that are kind of an off-white, a set that are light blue and a set that are maroon colored.


Okay, so the next part of this game is where I'm supposed to tell people to let me know if they want me to interview them.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

The only time I did that I had to come up with questions for 40 people. Way too much of a hassle. LOL

But, thanks for the great questions M. Hope I answered them for ya.

Military correspondence: Dye in The Pacific

Captain Dale Dye has been to war. So when he speaks of authenticity and realism in war movies he’s not just referencing some petty idea that he’s morphed into grandiose film philosophy. No, to him authenticity and realism are the culmination of his entire war experience, the embodiment of a career living and breathing combat.

The retired Marine Corps captain, who saw plenty of real action in Vietnam, has taken the vast history of warfare and his own combat experience and used them to consult big-time Hollywood directors on war pictures, first with Oliver Stone’s semi-autobiographical Platoon and nearly every war movie filmed since then, from Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. And because Captain Dye, with his distinguished silver hair and drill sergeant voice, still lives and breaths the military lifestyle, he’s often cast in the films he consults on — he memorably played Col. Robert F. Sink in HBO’s Band of Brothers and an assassination conspirator in JFK.

After Platoon, Dye formed Warriors Inc., a consulting firm that guides Hollywood productions as they undertake war, combat and military themes. Some of the pictures he’s consulted on haven’t really been war films: Alexander, Forrest Gump, JFK, Starship Troopers and Tropic Thunder, which is now in theaters and is a slight exaggeration, almost spoof, of the Captain's job. The company is mostly known for Dye — or officers below him in the ranks — taking actors like Sean Penn, Michael J. Fox and Tom Hanks to a pre-filming boot camp where they clean machine guns, rumble through pre-dawn runs, undergo daily calisthenics regimens and eat K-rations. Dye’s thoughts are this: An actor can’t be a soldier until he’s lived like a soldier.

Besides consulting on films, Captain Dye is an actor, a military historian and a sharp-witted author, whose prose takes military jargon and adds colorful new versions of swear words that only a Marine could invent. He has a new book about his Vietnam experiences due soon, and he regularly writes on his Warriors Inc. Web site, where he shares stories from films, including one where Tom Hanks hit him where it counts with a dummy hand grenade.

Captain Dye is currently in Australia filming the sister piece to Band of Brothers, The Pacific, for HBO. He corresponded via e-mail with Volume.

— Michael Clawson

Volume: A vast majority of people think of World War II as only the European front — us against the Nazis. Even major films (with a few notable exceptions) tend to focus on the struggle in Europe as opposed to the battle in the Pacific. Will this be a learning experience to viewers who may not understand what went on in the Pacific?
Dale Dye: Historic touchstones such as Pearl Harbor and Iwo Jima aside, much of today’s audience does think of World War II in terms of the struggle against Germany and her Axis partners in the European Theater of Operations. Do a little digging into the history of the period and that will be understandable. Not proper or appropriate, but understandable. When America entered the Second World War in 1941, there was a tacit agreement among the Allies that the primary focus would be on defeating Hitler and the Nazis. Imperial Japan would be dealt with in due course, but first the continent from which most American families originated had to be saved. Hence, press coverage and public attention was focused on that theater of war and Pacific operations were a sort of public after-thought. There’s another issue involved in this also: The war in Europe was relatively conventional, confined to familiar areas and waged against an enemy that looked like us and for the most part fought like us. It was an entirely different deal in the Pacific where war was waged in remote areas that most people had never heard of against an entirely unconventional enemy that most definitely did not fight like us. War in the Pacific was hard to understand, generally under-reported and brutal in the extreme. We are dealing with those issues in the new mini-series and I believe The Pacific will be a sobering — perhaps even shocking — look at Marine Corps operations during World War II. It’s as different from Band of Brothers as it can be but just as powerful and insightful.

Volume: With Germany’s Ost battalions (made up of captured Soviet soldiers), pockets of unmotivated fighters and soldiers who were sometimes too young or too old, the war in Europe could have been much deadlier for the Allies. The Japanese were formidable opponents, though, as deadly as we could imagine. Why do you think we won?
DD: We won against Japan because we were flexible and innovative where they were dogmatic and slow to adjust to rapidly changing battlefield realities. We won because we were able to apply the power of American industrial might against their more backward industrial techniques and lack of raw materials. We won because we could maintain and defend our logistical supply lines across vast ocean areas and they could not. We won because we were willing to bypass strong bastions in the Pacific and let the Japanese defenders wither on the vine while they insisted on trying to defend every square inch of conquered territory. We won because we believed that metal is cheaper than meat. We won because we fought smart with an eye to preserving life where they fought stubbornly but stupidly with little regard for preserving their combat power in desperate situations. We won because we fielded combat formations that contained a strong corps of enlisted leaders who could take over and continue the fight when officers became casualties and the Japanese military hierarchy had no such functional middle class.

Volume: For The Pacific did you take your actors through your famous boot camp training? If so, any highlights from the experience?
DD: No project of this scope and scale could be done without building a solid, functional military unit that can — and will — do anything required over a long, grueling shooting schedule. Well, I suppose you could do it, but not to our exacting and demanding standards. When we got word that HBO had agreed to do this series early in 2008, we immediately began to construct a training schedule that would turn our actors and special ability extras into a credible, capable reflection of World War II combat Marines. Along with the technical stuff about period weapons and tactics, we always include a heavy dose of physical training and that includes long distance runs during which we sing and chant some fairly bawdy lyrics. These runs usually happen early in the morning when sane people are still sleeping. During our two-week training period in the rain forests of Far North Queensland, Australia, we usually ran along a county road that passed near several pastures in which cattle were grazing. Apparently Australian cows get a little skittish when a unit of ninety or so Marines in training come tromping by screaming at the top of their heaving lungs. As a result, I was forced to spend many long nights in the field writing “bovine trauma reports” for the lawyers before I could carry on with night activities. I just may be getting a little old and cranky for that sort of stuff.

Volume: Going broader now, onto movies and projects in general: Have you seen all the major war movies? Now, I’m not asking you to bash other filmmakers’ works, but have you seen any movies, old or new, that could have greatly benefited from your work as a military consultant? I imagine that The Sands of Iwo Jima would have been a much better film under your consultation.
DD: I certainly haven’t seen them all but I’ve seen a fair portion of what’s been made. I make it my business to do that and I have always been a fan of war movies anyway, for obvious reasons given my background. Given what I know now, I think all of them that I’ve seen could have been improved — and not just with better movie-making technology or computer-generated imagery. There are so many that play fast and loose with reality, mainly because audiences didn’t demand a heightened level of realism and filmmakers didn’t believe anyone would know the difference anyway. That wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. In the end it’s all a matter of supply and demand. What audiences demand is what Hollywood delivers. That changes with time and technology. And it has certainly changed since they began to listen to my advice.

Volume: Because you’ve served in Vietnam, a Vietnam film that is not authentic is probably borderline offensive. From your point of view, why is authenticity in war movies so important?
DD: Worldwide we have become a media-saturated society. The advent of constant news cycles in TV, live coverage of breaking events and dramatic advances in photography has made us much more aware of what things look like. We can’t expect people to watch a pitched battle live from Fallujah or Baghdad on the network news or CNN and then pay to enjoy a film about that fighting that doesn’t look like what they just saw on TV before they left home for the theater. Extend that concept to cable outlets such as The History Channel, or reflections of wars people have seen in magazines or books and you’ve compounded the problem. The short answer is that we know much more now about the reality of war than we ever have in the past. If what we see in films doesn’t reflect what we know from other media, there’s a disconnect that interferes with our enjoyment of the story.

Volume: As someone who’s been to war, you don’t seem opposed to working on films that may be viewed as anti-war, like Platoon or Saving Private Ryan, both of which show us the absurdity of war. How do you feel about films being used as a platform to speak out against war?
DD: I’m a firm believer in the adage that no one hates war worse than the people who have fought one. And I certainly don’t believe that I allow myself to be “used” as a conduit for generic anti-war messages. I understand, as do most rational and moderately well informed people, that wars are blight and a horrible waste of human lives. They are also the nature of our human beast and unlikely to ever disappear completely as long as societies differ politically and culturally with one side or another refusing to live and let live. Given that reality, a strong and capable military is a necessity for survival. I focus on the selfless people who fight wars when such events become necessary or advisable in the view of national leadership. When a film I help make or a story I’m involved in telling exposes political chicanery, failed diplomacy or just plain dumb-ass worldview, so be it. I believe in celebrating soldiers, not war.

Volume: Many of the movies that have come out about our current war in Iraq have been largely dramas that focus on the human element as opposed to the military element. When do you think we’ll see movies about the fighting itself? When is it appropriate to begin making those movies?
DD: With some notable recent exceptions that are primarily anti-administration political screeds, no recently made film has dealt on a battlefield level with the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan. That’s not going to hold for long but it will likely hold at least until there is some view of how those situations will resolve for better or worse. Studio money managers are conflicted about these conflicts. They don’t know whether or not to believe people will pay to see a story about a misunderstood or unpopular war. Are the guys and gals doing the fighting heroes? Or villains? It depends on your political point of view and that doesn’t provide much reassurance that an expensive movie project will draw big box office. Before too long, someone will be brave enough to fund a story that stays with a fighting unit, examines their life and times and doesn’t cross into political areas. There are some good scripts out there right now and I hope we can work on one of them in the near future. The modern military deserves such a spotlight and I hope we can help shine it on them.

Volume: When you begin working with actors, what is usually the first thing they must be broken of? I’m sure they don’t get to carry a cell phone during your boot camp, right?
DD: No cell phones and no contact with the world outside our training area whatsoever. It’s full immersion and that the only way it works. We put these people in an alternate reality and press it home — all the way and all the time — from the time we first meet them to the final scenes of the film. That’s our method. It ain’t broke so I’m not about to fix it. The first and most difficult chore working with actors is to get them to understand that in a military outfit they are not the center of the universe; the sun does not rise and set on them. This is tough because most actors are so understandably self-centered and concerned with themselves — it’s just the nature of their beast. We work to get them to see another reality. We teach them that they are simply a small cog in a very large military machine and that the performance of the unit is much more important than the performance of any individual.

Volume: I think when people say Platoon or Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan are masterpieces, yes they’re commenting on the scripts and the acting and the directing and everything else. But because they’re war movies, they’re also commenting on the authenticity, which is paramount to everything else. Don’t be modest: How important is what you do for films?
DD: I think what we do is crucial and our success seems to indicate that smart filmmakers also understand this. A good story and exciting film techniques are critical to success, but you can’t expect to tell that story or justify those techniques through people who don’t understand what they are portraying. Most directors we work with also understand the relationship between a sense of reality and dramatic storytelling and that makes us partners in synergy. If a producer or director doesn’t understand that or doesn’t care about it, they are unlikely to ask for our help.
Volume: You’ve done a number of films that weren’t necessarily war pictures. Is it nice to break away from the battlefield every now and again?
DD: I’m always anxious for a little break from a constant diet of military films. As an actor I’m always on the lookout for roles that will get me out of a uniform but they are few and far between. If there’s a firmly typecast actor in Hollywood, it’s got to be me. I also welcome films such as Roughriders, Starship Troopers or Alexander that let us get into history or science-fiction a bit and experiment with things we don’t normally do. Interestingly, we have also worked as advisers in video games, themed entertainment and music videos so we’re not very often bored.

Volume: Maybe you can settle a fun disagreement I’ve had with another movie critic here in Phoenix: I think the way Tom Hanks wore his helmet in Private Ryan, with his officer’s bars in front, is correct. A colleague of mine disagrees, saying that officers wore their helmets backward to hide the bars from German snipers. Who is correct?
DD: You both are. There is no definitive correct answer. We researched this heavily during the production and talked with a great number of D-Day veterans. The truth is that it depended entirely on the unit you belonged to during the landings and the subsequent fighting inland from the beaches. Some COs ordered their officers to wear rank conspicuously so that troops could find and rally on their leaders in the confusion. Some commanders wanted their leadership preserved, so they ordered officers to hide the rank. We made a decision to have Tom wear his rank insignia on his helmet because it was not wrong according to our research and because it helped to identify our star performer in the fog of battle.

Volume: I’ve always liked the story of the Bridge at Remagen and how the United States entered Germany. Are there any great untold stories from World War II; maybe you have a favorite.
DD: In my view there are about as many great-untold stories from WWII as there are veterans of that conflict. We’ll never hear them all much less be able to make films about them. I’m just happy to have been involved in a few that are representative and popular with audiences who don’t know much about that aspect of our history. I’d love to see a film made about the epic battle for Tarawa in the Pacific or about the capture of the Remagen Bridge over the Rhine in the ETO. Clint Eastwood’s recent efforts aside, I’m also convinced we should make a film about the capture of Iwo Jima that focuses on the battle and the Marines who fought it from the landings to the end or organized resistance.

Volume: Focusing in on Warriors Inc.: when the company gets a script or a project, what’s the first things that’s done? Do you right away read through the script and look for ways to increase realism without sacrificing the story?
DD: We approach each project carefully and cautiously because there are typically a lot of delicate egos involved. If it’s trash and can’t be saved or the producers and director don’t care about any sense of reality, we’ll simply pass and move on to something else. That’s not to say we won’t work on science fiction or comedy. We love that stuff, but if the script purports to be about real people or real events, we start making notes to see what we might change, add or subtract, to make it better entertainment without turning it into a documentary. Given our track record to date, we can usually make points with the right people and get things changed or modified.

Volume: What kinds of things do directors usually fight you on when it comes to showing military elements on film? Is there anything you’ve fought hard to preserve in a picture?
DD: What I’ve fought hardest to preserve on film is a fair and unflinching look at soldiers and the reality of combat. That’s been our stated goal since we began this thing some twenty-odd years ago. Directors fight me on all sorts of things such as not wanting their stars to get military haircuts and not wanting people in combat to maintain a proper interval so they can get more of them into a frame. It’s a constant surge of give and take for us. We pick our battles and fight them when appropriate. We always understand that we are not making documentaries and the director needs to have the latitude to take certain creative licenses. If we didn’t understand that we’d never be employed.

Volume: What is the future of war movies on film?
DD: Filmmakers will always return to the well and make war movies. Hemingway was right when he said war is man’s greatest adventure. It’s also a genre that can — and most often does — involve the entire range of human emotions, strengths and frailties. That makes for good drama, pathos, comedy and even romance. What’s the downside?

Volume: Do you enjoy what you do?
DD: At my age I certainly wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. I love the aspect of my work that provides me with an opportunity to celebrate the life and times of people who have gone in harm’s way and selflessly faced danger or death simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. I understand that spirit from personal experience and I think it’s a bright, shining truth of the human drama. That’s worth contemplating and exposing to the world through popular media. As long as I can do it, I will. And when I’m gone, I hope the successors I’ve trained and coached in Warriors Inc. will carry it on for all of us.

***Parts of this interview originally ran in the West Valley View Aug. 19, 2008.***