Pages tagged “luke wilson”

Some of the funniest films ever made pay tribute to that special time of transition in life between youth and adulthood. Yes, I'm talking about college—those carefree days of waking up hungover in a pile of your own vomit, only to realize you've missed your philosophy mid-term. Just thinking about it, I'm instantly transported back to my College of Charleston dorm room, with its painted-blue concrete walls and window that didn't open. I'm hitting snooze because I don't want to get up for my 2 p.m. thursday class. "Might as well skip it," I think to myself as I roll over and start drifting back to sleep. "With the amount of time it'll take for that ceiling fan to dry the boxers I hand-washed last night because I spent my change for the coin laundry on beer, I'll never make it anyway."

Release Date: Aug. 15 (limited)
Director: Mark Pellington
Writer: Albert Torres
Cinematographer: Eric Schmidt
Starring: Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza, Rachel Seiferth
Studio/Run Time: Overture Films, 100 mins.

Luke Wilson tempers sweet Frank Capra-channeling film

Luke Wilson plays a scowling loner who buys a house in an old suburban neighborhood but doesn’t expect to be there long. Why, he doesn’t say. He avoids his chatty neighbors and blocks out the Southern California sun with blankets. When the water stain in his stucco begins to resemble the face of Christ, and when his neighbors—and the film—take the appearance seriously, the movie shifts from a potential romantic comedy into the mystical world of Frank Capra, like a warmer version of It’s a Wonderful Life. Warmer—and stranger. Pop songs hold the skinny plot together, and each of its embedded music videos delivers the undeniable punch of a power ballad. They’re mopey and obvious, but sweet as can be, and the film’s redeeming facet is the depth of Henry’s cynicism. The heated exchanges he has with his faith-filled neighbors affirm that he’s no flower, and this surprisingly caustic side of Luke Wilson is the medicine that helps the sugar go down.

It's been a while since we heard from Luke Wilson. Lately, media attention has been (unfortunately) focused on his older brother, and Luke's behind-the-camera debut, The Wendell Baker Story, was a certified box-office flop.

Of course, none of this makes any of the three Wilson brothers (oldest Wilson bro Andrew co-directed Wendell Baker) less talented or watch-worthy. And Luke is poised to make a big-screen comeback with his latest movie, the miracle fable Henry Poole is Here.

The family-friendly film, co-starring (random alert!) Radha Mitchell, Cheryl Hines and George Lopez, centers on the morbidly depressed Henry Poole (Wilson), who moves into a ramshackle house in a nondescript suburb of L.A. to hermitize in a Leaving Las Vegas-alcoholic kinda way.

Then the face of the Lord appears in a water stain on Henry's stucco and everything changes. His super-Catholic neighbor Esperanza brings her preacher over as witness, followed by the inevitable busloads of miracle seekers.

Henry Poole was a sensation at Sundance, where Overture Films purchased the rights on a wing and a prayer—or the many prayers of the potentially huge morally upright audience for the PG-rated film. The movie hits theaters nationwide on Aug. 15; check out the movie poster at the MTV Movies blog and the trailer below:

Related links:
Henry Poole is Here on MySpace
Festivus : Sundance review of Henry Poole
Feature: Brothers in Arms—Luke, Andrew and Owen Wilson make a movie

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

For a screenwriter, a comparison to a literary giant would normally be received as a tremendous compliment. But Luke Wilson takes it in stride—especially when the sarcastic remark is coming from veteran actor Harry Dean Stanton, who stars with Luke and his brother Owen in The Wendell Baker Story. The film, written by Luke, is also co-directed by the oldest Wilson brother, Andrew.

“Harry Dean would complain about me to Owen and Andrew and say, ‘Hemingway claims I can’t change this line,’” recalls Luke. “And I’d say, ‘Look, Harry Dean, I’m all for changing a line if it makes it f—ing better! Otherwise just do it as is!’”

In spite of many such exchanges, Luke says, “it was the best time I’ve ever had in my life, including Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and Bottle Rocket.”

“We’ve forgotten the tough stuff,” counters Andrew.

In the film, Luke plays reformed con man Wendell Baker who, upon his release from prison, takes a job at a retirement hotel run by Owen Wilson’s character. The cast also includes Seymour Cassel, Will Ferrell, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, Eddie Griffin and Eva Mendes.

Unsurprisingly, some of the film’s best moments are delivered by Stanton and Cassel, whose characters reside in the hotel. Luke would frequently spar with Stanton, whose roles in films like Repo Man and Paris, Texas have earned him near-legendary status. At one point, Luke says he’d forgotten that these were older guys and that shooting a late-night walking scene filled with dialogue might be a little harder for them. “I just thought they hadn’t done their homework,” says Luke. “I was talking to them the way I talk to a friend, and you forget that Harry Dean is almost 80; Seymour’s 77. I’m so lucky they even did it.”

So after numerous takes, he began to prompt the actors off-camera. “I was barking lines out to them. And they said, ‘That’s not the way we work’. And I was saying, ‘Well, what the f- do you want to do if you don’t have the dialogue memorized? We don’t got time for this bullshit!’ And I glance over, and there’s Lance Armstrong, the one day he decides to visit the set. This great champion, and he knows me as this guy that yells at old people.”

The entire film was shot in and around Armstrong’s hometown of Austin, where Owen met Wes Anderson while attending The University of Texas in the early ’90s. With help from Luke and Andrew, they made a short film called Bottle Rocket that was picked up by Sundance and then developed into a full-length feature, directed by Anderson and co-written by Anderson and Owen. (The two teamed up again for Rushmore and also The Royal Tenenbaums, for which they received a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination in 2001.) Portions of The Wendell Baker Story feel similar to early Wes Anderson films, especially Bottle Rocket. “I’m glad to get roped in with those other movies,” says Luke. “But it wasn’t really done intentionally. I think it’s just one of those things where you get people that are kind of related or super-close, so you get similarities.”

While Luke now makes his home in Los Angeles, he says of Texas—where the Wilson brothers were born and raised, and a place prominently featured in the film—“It’s never lost its luster for me. In 12 years or so being in L.A., I think I have about two or three really close friends that I would include in with Andrew and Owen. My friends I grew up with always say ‘Yeah, Luke’s never changed and we don’t mean that in a good way.’ I mean I don’t have any interest in, like, hanging out with Madonna.”

Screenwriting is something Luke has seriously taken to heart. There’s a line when Cassel’s character convinces Wendell to go get his woman (Eva Mendes) back from Dave Bix (Will Ferrell). “And not just because you don’t like the idea of some dude sweating on her!”

“I can’t remember where I got that but I feel like it’s the kind of thing I have to have overheard. And I feel like that’s where so many good lines come from. To me the lesson is to always keep a notebook. I can remember reading about Sam Shepard carrying a notebook around.” Instead of finding music to fit the finished film, Luke included specific songs in his script, including first-rate cuts from albums by Bob Dylan, Beck, Mick Jagger and Johnny Cash, among others. “I was always conscious while writing, searching for stuff that I love.”

The film had been sitting in what Andrew referred to as “Hollywood purgatory” for a few years because the first two studios producing it went out of business. “We did work hard on it, and it did take a long time for it to come out,” says Luke. “It’s just a simple, free-wheeling comedy. It’s not like it’s this incredible epic or something. It’s just a simple movie about a simple guy.”

To read Luke Wilson's comments on the cast he worked with on The Wendell Baker Story, read this article's sidebar here.

[Above: Harry Dean Stanton and Seymour Cassel]

On brothers Owen and Andrew:
“We all kind of got similar tastes and ways of working and are interested more in semi-offbeat characters.”

On Harry Dean Stanton:
“One time I was getting on Harry Dean. He claimed that me, Owen and Andrew were like three Dobermans. He called us ‘Lothar, Guntz and Deiter.’ And he said, ‘Look, Lothar. I’m a highly f—ing trained professional actor and that’s why I work all the time.’ And I was like, ‘I get it, Harry Dean. That’s why I hired you, cause I like you.’ [He] drove me crazy.”

On Will Ferrell:
"You get on the set and you got Will who I met on Old School. It’s exhilarating in that you put yourself on the line and call in these favors and then you think, ‘I can’t believe he agreed to do it!’ That’s one of the great things you realize about doing a movie is that it really is a collaboration. That’s one of the blessings.”

On Kris Kristofferson:
“Kris had to miss the first day of shooting because he was dealing with the Johnny Cash funeral. The Cash family had asked him to be the main speaker at the funeral. Harry Dean had gotten Kristofferson his first movie role in Cisco Pike around ‘71. And then I found out Kris produced and bankrolled Billy Joe Shaver’s first album on Monument Records. So there were all these nice connections. I felt all these guys were meant to be together.”

Directors: Luke Wilson, Andrew Wilson
Writers: Luke Wilson
Starring: Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Kris Kristofferson, Harry Dean Stanton, Seymour Cassel, Will Ferrell, Eva Mendez
Cinematographer: Steve Mason
Studio/Running Time: MHF Zweite Academy, 95 mins.

“If you’re gonna con the con man, you’re liable to get burned.”
-Jeff Healey “Confidence Man”

Luke Wilson is a busy man. His “average guy” appeal has enamored audiences and Hollywood, a fact proven from the numerous roles in which he has co-starred with the likes of Jessica Simpson (in the upcoming Blonde Ambition), Kate Beckinsale, Uma Thurman, Claire Danes and Reese Witherspoon. But the one constant companion of the star and writer of The Wendell Baker Story has been a notebook, an idea he learned from screenwriter Sam Shepard. A word of advice, Luke: Keep writing. But keep moving. You’re a long way from Shepard’s shadow and it’s always harder to hit a moving target.

Wilson plays reformed con man Wendell Baker who takes a job at a retirement hotel after his release from prison. The head nurse, played by brother Owen Wilson, is swindling the old timers out of their medicare payments and shipping folks off to work on his mother’s farm in Oklahoma. Luke wants to help the residents, especially his newfound friends, Skip (Harry Dean Stanton), Boyd (Seymour Cassel) and Nasher (Kris Kristofferson), but he also wants to win back his girlfriend (Eva Mendes) from grocer Dave Bix (Will Ferrell). With the exception of Ferrell’s small-but-hilarious role, senior citizens Stanton and Cassel almost steal the film. Although the dialogue is, at times, sharp and intelligently funny, the convoluted storyline can’t keep up, and things become hackneyed and annoyingly predictable at the end. Again Luke, please keep writing. But don’t give up your day job.