UPDATED: My meeting with actor Christian Bale plus thoughts on The Dark Knight, Terminator Salvation and Watchmen

Just saw Terminator Salvation and it reminded me of my meeting with Christian Bale while he was shooting it. So even though i wrote about this in relation to Dark Knight, I thought I'd talk about the film and put it in the context of my meeting with its star. (plus some Watchmen commentary thrown in).
I met with Bale in Culver City during the short break he to took while filming Terminator Salvation shoot, right before going to the Dark Knight premiere in London.
He was sporting the John Connor look and the first thing i said was
that I never thought I'd see his name and McG's together on the same credit sequence. Christian was developing a fascinating and challenging body of work, and putting him and the terminator franchise under the helm of the director of Charlie's Angels, wasn't exactly the most logical step to me. After a short silence, Christian assured me this was very different from everything McGinty, as he refers to him, had done so far. I kept the faith. I'm thought with with Bale on the lead and Johnathan Nolan's and Paul Harris' passes on the script, Salvation could prove a pleasant surprise.
Well, I've seen the movie and think some of my fears where well founded. The movie wasn't completely terrible throughout. In fact it was sort of working on a simple entertainment level for me right up until Marcus and John get into Skynet. Now why on earth would computers use graphic interfaces to communicate with each other? Obviously for the benefit of the human audience who has to navigate skynet along with John Connor but this could have been done in a more subtle manner. Now if a villain's monologue explaining the whole plot to the hero (audience) before being destroyed is a tired cliche, it's even more ridiculous when it's a computer doing the explaining and to another machine no less! The digitized governator was a laughable and unnecessary wink to the audience and there was too much recycling of T2, specially, in a failed attempt to bring some of the weight of Cameron's films to this much lighter entertainment. Nothing wrong with light entertainment sometimes, but this franchise, specially as originally envisioned by Cameron, has much more potential. Can you imagine this in the hands of someone like Christopher Nolan directing and co-writing?
It's sort of the same problem I had with Watchmen.
Alan Moore's Watchmen is my favorite graphic novel of all time. What I had read of Hayter's script didn't come close to achieving its complexity, which is understandable, but struck me as a good, faithful enough foundation for the film. I really loved what Snyder did visually (minus the slow-mo overkill) and thoroughly enjoyed Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. The film very faithful on the surface but missed the key true sense of cold war paranoia, and the more complex dramatic undercurrents. Zach's pop sensibilities, specially when it comes to music, where also often misplaced. Another major blunder was Dr. Manhattan's role replacing the graphic novel's "Giant Squid" in the end. Of course adaptations are supposed to differ from their sources and i can see how replacing the squid with something already established within the Watchmen Universe that had a more visually realistic approach could work. But the whole point of Ozy's plan was to create a distant, alien threat that the whole world would unite against. Making Dr. Manhattan the final perceived threat, he who had acted on behalf on US government against the other regimes in question, would not stop the escalation and aggression amongst governments but if anything, increase it. Alan Moore's Ozymandias is rumored to be the smartest man on Earth. If you're going to re-write Moore on his ending, you better come up with a better plan not something that would surely backfire. So McG has like Snyder is a brilliant visual stylist, but is that enough? Zack prides himself of being a true comicbook geek, but was he really on the intellectual level to tackle Alan Moore's work?
I can't help but think that Paul Greengrass' version of Watchmen would have carried more gravitas, more weight. Greengrass was well into pre-production for his film adaptation of the comic before it was pulled from him. He has directed the deeply moving and challenging films like Bloody Sunday and United 93, and also showed he had the chops for action/heroics (as seen in the last two Bourne films). He would've done brilliantly but sometimes producers simply look at the box office returns of the director's last film. McG's Charlie's Angels 2 made a bundle so he gets Terminator, regardless of how the two fit together. If Paul's Bourne Ultimatum had come out earlier and made as much as it did, he would have gotten to make a far superior Watchmen I believe... but I digress.
Back to Terminator and Bale. Salvation had many redeeming qualities, not only did it play very well right up to Skynet which was near the end of the film, but I thought Sam Worthington did a great job as Marcus, the cyborg. He was by far more sympathetic than Bale's character. John Connor here is a hardened human being who, like Sarah in T2, has become sort of a machine himself in his relentless campaign to save humanity from machines. Christian did alright with a believable portrayal but his character simply didn't have the arc that Marcus did, and thus was far less interesting. The relationship between Marcus and Blair was to me the most interesting thing in the film and i wished it had been more deeply explored.
Like Zack with Watchmen, McG did a great visual job, with great action set-ups most of which we'd seen on the very effective final trailer for the flick.
Michael Fitzgerald and Shane Hurlbut also excelled with their approach to the movie's cinematography, conjuring a washed out, bleak landscape, using a chemical process that enhanced the metallic feel of the film.
Bale's documented outburst at Hurlbut for blocking his light really did hurt my impression of him. In our conversation Christian did seem very intense but i didn't expect that sort of disrespectful on-set behavior. I guess once you start shooting a multi-million dollar franchise film that's been marketed to death with a recognizable star at the lead, there is very little you can't let them get away with. But I'd like to think a stronger director would have reined him in.
Christian is a truly fine actor so maybe this stuff coming out is a blessing in disguise for him. A chance to learn and grow. I do wish him the best.
In our meeting which stated at noon we also talked about many projects but this is what little else I think I can dish out:
Killing Pablo... Bale had been in talks with Joe Carnahan on this story of Colombian Mafioso Pablo Escobar, he said he loved the script but producers want to place many name actors in roles that Christian feels should go to unknown Colombian actors. He mentioned a rift between how "hollywood", or how realistic the movie should be, with Carnahan and Bale on one side and the suits on the other... guess who's on which side? Yup, as most of you know both Bale and Carnahan have shown great artistic integrity throughout their careers. Christian doesn't paint the producers as villains at all, merely recognizes that they are thinking simply in terms of money, that's it. Oh, and also, Christian told me there is the issue of timing, was Oliver Stone is competing with a similar project based on another book related to the events. We also talked a lot about writing and in particular the work of Joe's brother, Matthew Carnahan who we very much admire as a writer.

I greatly admire director Werner Herzog 's career (and he recently collaborated with Bale on Rescue Dawn) and was glad to hear he and Christian are good friends and were in the very early stages of developing another project together. Here's hoping more Herzog/Bale collaborations materialize. We also talked about one of my projects and he wrote on my sketchbook an address where I could send the new material. Christian liked a drawing of Batman that I had done and left amongst my sketches for a project of mine I was telling him about... so I autographed the Batman drawing and gave it to him ( Funny but true ).He was heading to London with his family so we said goodbye. He struck me as someone that deeply cares about his work and the many aspects of production, There's a dark edge to the guy, which I guess it's that factor that made him perfect for Batman and so many roles. He was very friendly to me and his wife Sibi is an absolute sweetheart. Seeing them together I got the impression that Batman is actually quite the family man.
That's it, gotta go!

UPDATE:
Saw the Dark Knight and it completely blew me away.
It's been a while since I've so stunned by a movie. This thing almost knocked me off my seat. Dark Knight is now my favorite comic book movie by far (X2, Donner's Superman, Batman Begins and bit of SpiderMan 2 and Iron Man have all fallen further behind in that order). In fact, DK is now amongst my overall favorites.
Now, no movie is perfect and I can't help but nitpick when I'm so impressed by a film.
Let's start with the little things... some of the stuff from the production design...
I liked Batman's suit better in Batman Begins, this one looked more like extreme-sport gear, probably more comfortable for Christian who complained from headaches in the last one, and more functional, specially on the neck, but I liked the more simple black suit from the last film. It was far more iconic. And I agreed with Christians' previous statement that the wide neck he wore on Batman Begins made him look more like beast ready to pounce. I hope the next time around they manage to keep the new confort level but go back to simpler iconic look of BB. Also, while Wayne Manor is being rebuilt, Bruce is living in a pent house and The Batcave, has been replaced for a something that looks like a corporate hq/garage with that fluorescent ceiling which I dreaded.

Christian's performance was very effective, though while some lines really work on that rugged and intimidating Batman voice, I found a few lines that were more expository and were harder to take seriously the way he was speaking them. It makes sense Bruce would have to keep his voice from being recognized but this would be less of a factor when he's talking to people who already know his identity.

The Joker was simply put, one of the most memorable performances in recent history. Heath Ledger deserves the rumored Oscar for this. What a great loss, not only the obvious human toll on his family and all who knew him but for us filmmakers and film fans... this guy was just getting started. Speaking strictly as a Batman fan I was truly saddened by the fact that I'd never see this Joker ever again, one I'm sure won't be surpassed in a long long time, if ever. This Joker was actually frightening, the closest film counterpart to the one imagined by Alan Moore in his short graphic novel The Killing Joke (Brian Bolland's artwork in this is also FANTASTIC) and as dark as the one envisioned by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean (one of my favorite artists) on Arham Asylum.

The performances were great all around and I thought Maggie Gyllenhaal was a much better fit as Rachel Dawes amongst Nolan's pitch perfect cast than Katie Holmes ever was. Gary Oldman, a great actor who I thought was rather weak in the first film, is settling in nicely into his role as newly appointed Commissioner Gordon, pretty closely based on the Gordon from Miller's Batman: Year One. Year One is probably my favorite Batman graphic novel of all time, with beautiful art by David Mazzuchelli. I was actually sad when, in an effort not to repeat himself I guess, Miller's own version of the Year One screenplay, the version I read anyway, was far in style and quality from his original work and transformed the Batman Mythos to such a radical degree that it ended up being unacceptable to Warner Bros and would have been to many fans. That film would have gone into production with none other than Darren Aronofsky at the helm, a visionary director in his own right (Requiem for a Dream) that I certainly hope gets to play within the super hero realm some day. But thankfully it was Nolan's version that earned a greenlight and has now spawned this brilliant sequel.

The writing in Dark Knight was incredible, I was completely lost in the story and there was only one line that brought me out the spell, it was very much typical movie exposition when Lucious Fox found out what Batman was doing with the cell phones and he himself explained it in detail for the audience to understand. He could've been shorter and more subtle and we would have gotten it, he could understood part of it and have to ask Bruce for the rest and they would have had a motivation to deliver this information, instead of simply clarifying it for the audience... but like I said, nitpicking. However this was in only one instance that comes to mind, a vast improvement over the dialog in Batman Begins and many other comic book movies that are far less realistic overall, and too focused on explaining the often unbelievable plot points depicted.

This cellphone sonar however poses another problem for me. Overall the look of the movie was strikingly real. The CGI, kept to a minimum, was almost invisible. The story seemed to unfold in an achingly real world, close to our own, and there was something visceral and organic about it... except when Batman activated the sonar goggles in his mask, or whatever that was and suddenly we were back in the more typical sci/fi comicbook movie territory... not a bad place to be necessarily but one that clashed with the realism accomplished to this point.
The cinematography was incredible and very much worth watching on IMAX. Almost every frame had me salivating.
Most importantly this movie took Batman seriously and pulled no punches. The doomsday scenarios, which usually strike me as an obvious and inconsequential plot device, carried some moral weight in this film and put out serious questions in the process (would you have triggered the bomb in the opposite boat? This was also a sort of parallel to the cold war, and escalation).
There were some other dangerous implications, and here we're back talking abut that cellphone sonar scene again, that have to do with us surrendering our civil liberties out of fear of terrorism. Some threats do require more desperate means, but we should never lose sight of the big picture. Though vigilance is necessary, legal safeguards must always be maintained so that
new powers to spy on the general public are not easily abused. I for one was happy to have Lucius Fox's point of view on this issue expressed to Bruce Wayne. Let's hope Bruce gets rid of this machine so we get to have Morgan Freeman on more of these Batman movies.
Either way, I can't wait for the next one.
Dark Knight showed what a darker, more adult comic book movie can be. And what a gift this is. Now we're all going to have to raise our game.

Film Festival photo + Andres in the Miami Herald

Here's a picture of actress Tamlyn Tomita (Joyluck club etc), myself and other filmmakers and communicator's at this years Asian Pacific Film Festival. (This was after my video was screened at the Director's Guild fo America during the fest - we had a lot of Asian talent appearing or working on it: Kal Penn, Kelly Hu, Ken Leung, Eric Byler and Warren Fu to name a few).


From left to right: Jack Song, Phil Yu, Panney Wei, Andres Useche, Tamlyn Tomita, Amyn Kaderali, Christine Chen, Warren Fu.

+

Election rocks to a new Latin beat for Obama
We want you: Election rocks to a new Latin beat

I'm quoted in an article by Jordan Levin that came out in today's Miami Herald. It talks about Latino musicians, actors and celebrities who are getting involved in the U.S. presidential campaign to an unprecedented degree this year, from voter-registration campaigns to online music videos for Barack Obama, the candidate drawing the most support from young Latinos.
This article references and/or quotes rocker Juanes, actress Rosario Dawson, singer Alejandro Saenz, Merengue legend Juan Luis Guerra, Mexican Rock band Mana, film actor John Leguizamo, pop singer Paulina Rubio, tv actor Wilmer Valderrama, Comedian George Lopez, producer Andres Levin, and filmmaker and signer-songwriter Andres Useche (yours truly).
A shorter online version of the article can be found at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/1043/story/585707.html

Si, Se Puede !