The Raúl E. Esparza "Spread the Love" Thread, Part Four- Page 40

[misschung]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 7:11pm

Oh man...

Yes, big name Johnny D circa 1984.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 7:43pm

Yeah, that's a rather ego-inflated sort of comment to make. But y'know, that's Hollywood for you.

I would like to point out that while those three actors may have made their first films with Wes Craven, they never made any subsequent films with him. I wonder how Wes Craven would respond to that observation?

[misschung]

Posted: 7/28/08 at 8:36pm

I'm not sure, but I love your avatar!

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 7/30/08 at 8:10pm

A considerably more detailed explanation of the plot of "25/8", as well as some other tidbits, from Wes Craven in an interview done at ComiCon.

This is an unorthodox idea for a horror movie. Can you tell us how you came up with this idea?

Wes Craven: I wish I could. I mean, it just came to me. It's what I call my "shower thoughts," when I just occasionally have an idea and you just have to jump out of the shower and write it down. So, it just came to me and, I don't know why. It's this normal guy. He has schizophrenia but he's completely under treatment. They've identified all the personalities within him. They're all relatively benign. They have an agreement. His psychiatrist speaks to them through hypnosis. He leads a very normal life. He hasn't even told his wife about his condition. There are a series of serial murders taken place in the town and it's never occurred to him that he might be a part of it. He's in his workshop and he finds a bloody knife that matches the one that people describe as being the killer's. He hears the voice speak for the first time as the killer that's been using him as his conveyance and says, 'If you tell anybody I'll kill your family.' So, that's how it starts and the main story is about the son of this man who dies in the first act, and the souls of each of the personalities, plus the soul of the child go into the seven children born that night. The son was one of them. He was rescued from his dead mother's belly. The man threatens to come back and kill them all, because each of the personalities helped turn him in. None of these kids know any of this. It's all been kept from them by their parents so they can lead normal lives. It's the night of all of their 16th birthday when it all happens and he makes his move. The title comes from, again, it was just an idea, but the idea was if you want to fight the devil, the devil fights 24/7 so if you want to win you have to fight 25/8 to do it. It was kind of a working title. Originally it was called Bug, about the title character and then Friedken came out with a movie of that title so I had to change it. We just took the phrase from a line in the film.

This doesn't seem like a very gory film. Is there much violence in it and is this going to be rated R or PG-13?

Wes Craven: No, it's definitely R. It's not a bloodbath but, you know, six or seven people die... and not pleasantly.

Is there a release date set for 25/8 yet?

Wes Craven: No. We'll be done sometime in early January, so it'll be sometime after that. It just depends on Rouge's schedule, I guess. (Rogue is the branch of Universal that's releasing the film).

Link to the whole interview: http://www.movieweb.com/news/34/30234.php

[Ariella]

Posted: 8/1/08 at 10:06pm

Hm. I reserve judgment.

I picked up Speed-the-Plow today, and I'm curious to see how Raul will relate to Mamet.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 8/1/08 at 10:59pm

He has schizophrenia but he's completely under treatment. They've identified all the personalities within him.

Will Hollywood ever actually look up what schizophrenia really means?


Originally it was called Bug, about the title character and then Friedken came out with a movie of that title so I had to change it.

William Friedkin directed the movie called Bug, which was based on the play called Bug, which debuted in 1996- long before Wes Craven came up with this drek. And Bug actually involved bugs.

[keen on kean]

Posted: 8/1/08 at 11:28pm

And doesn't Tracy Letts have a play called BUG?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 8/1/08 at 11:34pm

He does indeed. And it's creepy as hell.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 8/1/08 at 11:52pm

That's the Bug play I was referring to.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 8/2/08 at 11:14am

It’s not Hollywood, it’s the individual, in this case.

I’m not being an apologist for Wes Craven, but he used the word “schizophrenia” extemporaneously, in a casual interview. The man is 69 years old – he was raised and educated in a time when the word “schizophrenia” was a blanket term that applied to most all forms of personality disorders. I’m more than 15 years younger than Wes Craven, but I remember very clearly being taught in a high school science class that “idiot”, “imbecile” and “moron” were technical, scientific terms used by the medical profession to formally describe varying degrees of mental retardation (I also remember being very offended by those terms, and getting into trouble for arguing with the teacher about her use of them, but that's another story).

Hopefully that puts his use of the word "schizophrenia" in better perspective.

[misschung]

Posted: 8/2/08 at 12:23pm

Whatever. Music of the Heart is his best work :-P

Updated On: 8/2/08 at 12:23 PM

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 8/2/08 at 1:06pm

It’s not Hollywood, it’s the individual, in this case.

He's far from the only one in Hollywood to make that mistake. I can think of only one movie where schizophrenia is portrayed remotely accurately, but it's one of the most common horror movie clichés in Hollywood.


Hopefully that puts his use of the word "schizophrenia" in better perspective.

No, it doesn't, because it's still wrong. Multiple personality disorder (more recently dissociative identity disorder) has been in the DSM since at least 1974- the same edition when they decided homosexuality was no longer going to be considered a mental illness. Would you want us to excuse his ignorance if he said gay people were mentally ill?

Updated On: 8/2/08 at 01:06 PM

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 8/2/08 at 2:04pm

I said "in this case". And I never said his use of the word was right. Far from it - I'd hoped relating my own experience and reaction to it would indicate some disagreement on my part for his misuse of "schizophrenia".

I said at the start I was NOT being an apologist for WC. I was not trying IN ANY WAY to excuse his ignorance, just trying to put into perspective how and why he might have come to use the word in the manner that he did, however incorrectly or offensively it might be viewed.

[keen on kean]

Posted: 8/5/08 at 10:48am

On a different note - amazon.com tells me the PUSHING DAISIES dvd will be available September 18th! And I think the first episode of the new season is October 1?

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 8/5/08 at 2:58pm

I saw an ad for Pushing Daisies today on TV. Seems on the early side, but yay!

[keen on kean]

Posted: 8/5/08 at 4:18pm

I hope Raul has more than two episodes this season, especially since it will be a full (rather than a strike-interrupted) one.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 8/5/08 at 5:25pm

Hey, it's August! Not too early at all! I mean, they're already playing pro football on TV!

They're definitely interested in getting Raúl back on Pushing Daisies, but it's all going to depend on his schedule. After telling him way back they'd need him in July, they started mapping out the season's storylines and came up with a whole arc (multi-episode story) involving Alfredo that would have necessitated him to be in LA for longer than just a week or so in July. But by the time they got around to telling Raúl, he'd already signed on for Speed The Plow, so they had to scrap the whole storyline. As things stand now they won't be doing anything with him until after STP closes. So while they still want him on the show very much, we probably won't be seeing Alfredo until sometime next year.

[ElphieDefiesGravity]

Posted: 8/5/08 at 6:20pm

I really hope that somehow you're wrong, because THAT is tragic.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 8/5/08 at 7:39pm

I wish I were wrong, but I have a friend who is a movie and tv critic and she got that information from Dan Jinks (he's one of the executive producers of PD) when she interviewed him during the TCA's a couple of weeks ago. She told him point blank she had a friend who'd kill her if she didn't ask him about Raúl, and that's the info he gave her.

Pretty typical of Hollywood - they tell you one thing, then change everything and make all these grandiose plans without telling you. Initially they said they'd need him in July - I'm guessing he (quite reasonably) assumed he'd be free to do a play after that, in the fall. Sigh. That's show biz.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 8/5/08 at 7:47pm

Maybe, if we're lucky, they changed the plans after hearing all the questions they got about Alfredo at the TCA's and ComiCon and wrote him into the next couple of episodes and he's out in LA right now shooting them.

I can dream, can't I?

[Craww]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 4:50am

My mom and I sang the hell out of Sunday from TTB on the way to our concert (Empires) tonight because it was inexplicably being held in a weird silvery diner converted to a night club. I was vaguely aware of the building and its appearance, but we weren't fully aware until we pulled up that the blue silver chromium diner we'd been singing about was as literal as all that.



It was a serendipitous evening. Hopefully my flight in a few hours goes quite that well. I'll probably be thinking of Raul as I see Evita in Sacramento. Hopefully not longing for him or anything, but considering him.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 8:48pm

This was stated in an article on Taylor Hackford (director of Leap of Faith) today:

"Hackford had been attached to direct a Broadway musical version of the film Leap of Faith, featuring a book by original screenwriter Janus Cercone, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater. After a May workshop of the piece featuring Raul Esparza and other theater stars, published reports indicated that Hackford would not continue developing it, though no official notice of its status has been announced."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Now, I know the writer of that article is just repackaging what Riedel said a few weeks ago, but it's still disconcerting, and a bit disappointing to think that "Leap of Faith" might not happen at all next year. Then again, that would give Raul more free time to come out and film Pushing Daisies. And if "Leap Of Faith" does get postponed, I have every confidence that something else will fall into Raúl's lap for next year.

Here's the whole article on Taylor Hackford:
Taylor Hackford to direct feature film bio of Tennesse Williams

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 8:53pm

I posted this in the thread on the Main Board, but Playbill's release on the Tennessee Williams film pretty strongly indicates that Hackford's still attached to Leap of Faith.

I'd rather see the show pushed back and done right than fast-tracked without the proper team behind it.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 9:09pm

Definitely. And next season is already awfully crowded with musicals. I'd hate for Raúl and Leap of Faith to get lost in the shuffle.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 9:12pm

It's gonna be a good year whether this happens in '09 or not. I can't wait for September. It all snowballs from there.