‘Spidey 2’ makes solid, if not quite stellar, debut

For almost any other film, an opening weekend gross of $92 million would be considered just cause for celebration. And while execs at Sony surely aren’t wringing their hands over The Amazing Spider Man 2’s debut, it's nonetheless the weakest of the five Spider-Man films (including the Sam Raimi trilogy) to date. That being said, Spidey 2 has already grossed $277 million overseas. In China, which, as the world’s second-largest film market, Hollywood insiders are watching closely, the film opened on Sunday and earned $10.4 million, the top gross ever for a workday in the region. The movie could well match its predecessor’s $460 million worldwide total.

Back here in the States, audience demographics broke down as expected: 61 percent of attendees were male and 51 percent were under the age of 25. These viewers awarded the movie a B+ CinemaScore grade, which is all right but not great; anything less than an A generally portends a quick dropoff. Some pundits are predicting a total domestic gross of $230 million or so.

With a gross far below that of Spidey 2, The Other Woman took second place at the weekend box office. The femme-targeted comedy earned $14.2 million and has raked in $47.3 million thus far. It may not be the best example of the comedic heights of which female comedians are capable, but Woman’s success does prove (once again) ladies will turn out for films that are, even vaguely, about them. (Here’s to more female offerings that do not need to be qualified by the phrase “even vaguely.”)

Third and fourth place went to Heaven is for Real ($8.7 million) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($7.7 million), respectively. With $7.6 million in earnings, Rio 2 earned the weekend’s fifth-place slot and officially crossed the $100 million mark. The animated sequel’s total now stands at $106.5 million.

The specialty division saw a solid debut for the well-reviewed Belle. Screening in four locations, the period romance opened to a $105,000 per-theatre average. Elizabeth Banks comedy Walk of Shame performed as expected, that is, not too hot: The movie earned just $38,000 from 51 theatres. It did, however, reportedly earn the top spot on iTunes for a time.

Week in review: 4/28 - 5/2

The world mourned the death of another talent this week with the passing of Bob Hoskins. The 79-year-old British actor and father of four children, whose most beloved roles include an Oscar-nominated turn in the noir film Mona Lisa as well as children's' films Hook and the classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit, had been ill with pneumonia. He was 71.

Classics were much discussed throughout the week. Cult favorite Mean Girls celebrated its 10th anniversary on Wednesday, to the tune of many retrospective pieces and memes touting the line, "On Wednesdays we wear pink!" The NYT spoke with screenwriter Tina Fey, director Mark Waters, stars Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, Lizzy Caplan, and Daniel Franzese (but not heroine Lindsay Lohan), as well as author Rosalind Wiseman, whose book Queen Bees and Wannabes inspired the film, about their memories of the project.

Development on the latest addition to the canonically classic Star Wars franchise is well underway, per the announcement, made on Tuesday, of seven new cast members. Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), Adam Driver ("Girls"), John Boyega (Attack the Block), Daisy Ridley (the short Blue Season), Domnhall Gleeson (About Time), Max von Sydow (The Exorcist) and Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings) are the lucky stars joining original cast members Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and the awesome Carrie Fisher in Star Wars: Episode VII.

Like that film's director J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg is no stranger to playing the blockbuster game. But will he be able to match his own past box-office successes? As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the director will helm an adaptation of Roald Dahl's The BFG, as well as a Cold War thriller starring Tom Hanks. The two projects announced simultaneously are Spielberg's first since 2012's Lincoln. The latter testifies to the director's competent handling of classic (or at least historical) material, but as concerns the success of his latest endeavors, only time will tell.

As it will concerning the box-office prospects of arthouse darling, Ida. The Twitterverse is awash in praise for the Polish film directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Interview magazine got the scoop on Ida's beautifully rendered, if emotionally fraught, world, straight from the creator himself.

Ever wonder why it's so difficult for Hollywood to successfully dramatize the life of the writer and her process onscreen? Author and GW prof Thomas Mallon and Slate film critic Dana Stevens weigh in.

Ever wonder why "A113" seems to crop up in almost every one of Pixar's films? "Today" satisfies the curiosity of those most observant of Pixar fans.

Prospects for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ uncertain

What with prevailingly cool temperatures, and that onslaught of April showers through which most of the East Coast recently suffered, it certainly doesn’t feel like summer outside. But try telling that to Hollywood. The movie industry is eager to kick off its slate of summer blockbusters, the first of which opens today in a whopping 4,323 theatres: The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Spidey 2 is an interesting case. It’s the first Spider-Man film, including the Sam Raimi trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, to garner mostly negative reviews. The consensus has top marks for lead Andrew Garfield and the chemistry he shares with off-screen girlfriend Emma Stone, but has decried the movie’s bloated runtime, stuffed to the 2.5-hour hilt with villains and a busy, read: dull, string of setpieces.

To be fair, the franchise has been on the decline for years and through most of its run. The first two Sam Riami Spider-Mans performed the best, but each offering since 2004’s Spider-Man 2 has earned less than its predecessor. The 2012 Amazing Spider-Man grossed $262 million, which was down 22 percent from the first Tobey Maguire film.

Sony, which, as has been widely publicized, is in great need of a lucrative tentpole, is attempting to recapture the success of a few Spideys past by opening the film this first week in May. Sam Raimi Spider-Mans one and three set opening-weekend records when they debuted over this same weekend in 2002 and 2007, respectively. Box Office Mojo, however, believes Captain America: The Winter Soldier may have preemptively stolen some of Spider-Man’s thunder by performing as well as it did in April. Spidey may be the first of the summer blockbusters, but it isn’t exactly filling a dearth of blockbuster fare.

So, what does all this mean in cold, desirable dollars and cents? Depends whom you ask. Some pundits believe an opening north of $100 million is likely. Others have more tempered expectations, and see the film shooting for $95 million at most. But these are provincial concerns. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has already earned $155 million overseas and is poised to open in several more international markets this weekend, including the world’s second-largest, China. Look for China to play a major role in the movie’s success: The first Amazing Spider-Man grossed $48 million from the region, and there’s little reason to believe this second outing should prove any different. In terms of worldwide gross, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 could certainly match its predecessor’s $490 million haul.

For non-superhero fans (despite the current Hollywood fixation, they do exist), the specialty film Belle opens in four locations today. This second feature from director Amma Asante has positive reviews and a star turn by newcomer Gugu Mbatha-Raw to recommend it. Comedy Walk of Shame, starring Elizabeth Banks, is screening in 51 locations this weekend, and is also available on VOD.

'Mean Girls' as imagined by Lars von Trier

Today is a day of celebration and commemoration in Hollywood, as it marks the 10th anniversary of teen cult classic Mean Girls, and the 58th birthday of auteur Lars von Trier. Upon first glance, the hit film and the director may not appear to have much in common. One takes a satiric and fairly straightforward look at female dynamics in the predatory hotbed of a suburban high school, while the other practices a much more oblique form of human ribbing and doesn’t really “do” straightforward. Yet both are concerned with themes of guilt, shame, and the grey area at once separating and blurring into good and evil. Mean Girls and Lars von Trier concern themselves with our baser points of commonality in order to make a fine point about our inescapably common, in the sense of shared, humanness.

Which leads us to wonder just what Mean Girls would have looked like had von Trier brought his heavily referential Nymphomaniac method of directing to bear upon the film, one decade ago…

Mean Girls as Imagined by Lars von Trier:

We imagine a Biblical mishmash of an allegory, with Regina George (Rachel McAdams) meant to represent the fallen archangel Lucifer bent on destroying the good in simple, innocent, kind Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan). Our heroine’s first name gestures to the golf term “caddie,” or a helper, and it's no coincidence her surname is that of a fish, a reference to the famed “loaves and fishes” Bible story. (The ancient tale’s emphasis on the regeneration of materials carries sexual implications as well, furthered by a second interpretation of Cady Heron’s name: Cady could also be a play on "Caddy," a type of Volkswagen pickup truck known upon its 1980s debut in North America as the VW Rabbit Pickup Truck. Rabbits are, of course, a hyperactively procreative species.) In a neat turn of gender reversal, Cady is also an Adam figure, having been cast out of Eden, or Africa, at the beginning of the story for having given into physical temptation and attempted to kiss her childhood crush, Nfume. Later in the film, she will fall prey to temptation once again in the form of her sinfully uncharitable, possibly once again lustful?, quest to take down Regina George.

In addition to the Biblical overtones, von Trier’s Mean Girls would necessarily include a discursive

cerebral element. Regina George henchman Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert) and her obsession with the supposedly British slang term “fetch,” her desperate need to make fetch a popular phrase among her peers or “make fetch happen,” aptly supplies the intellectual heft. Following the de Saussurean model of linguistic semiotics, then, the word “fetch” is used as a signifier for the abstract concept of cool or desirable, the signified. Taken together, signifier and signified form a sign. To where is this sign pointing Cady? To go fetch the desirable Regina George, of course; to bring the fallen soul back into the fold. Taking this a step further, as is the von Trier way, the fact that fetch is a British term may function as an allusion to the Revolutionary War, during which rebels rejected the fold or oversight of the British father(land). Naturally, Cady does not succeed in wholly reforming rebel Regina. This may be a comment upon the futility of her mission or, given Cady's ultimate redemption after suffering the evils that drive Regina herself, the nobility of her attempt. Take it as you will.

Still with us? Don’t worry, in von Trier’s Mean Girls, Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey) has a much larger role, accompanying Cady throughout the halls of North Shore High and commenting upon her doings in order to aid the audience in catching, at the very least, a backdraft of the many references coursing through the film. Ms. Norbury would be the Virgil figure, which is apt, as this would make high school Hell.

Anyway, having covered religion and the intellect, there must of course be an overt sexual occurrence in Mean Girls-by-way-of-von-Trier. Minor character Kevin G raps about copulating with another man’s girlfriend halfway through the film: “I’m Kevin Gnapoor/The G is silent when I sneak in your door/And make love to your woman on the bathroom floor/I don’t play it like Shaggy/You’ll know it was me/Cuz the next time you see her/She be like ‘Ohhh! Kevin G!”  A flashback would depict this scene in visceral detail: The grout-y tile of the bathroom floor beneath the girlfriend’s backside, which is leaning up against, and thus feels the full force of, the door in question when it opens to admit the wronged boyfriend. The woman’s final moan ("Ohhh! Kevin G!") would be equal parts ecstasy and pain, bliss and hurt, violence and love, an aural microcosm of the human condition which, cutting back to Kevin’s performance in the present moment, would culminate in audience applause. What does it mean? Take it as you will.

Finally, in von Trier’s Mean Girls, the film would end, as the original does not, when Regina George

gets hit by a bus. Cady would be forced to reckon with her widely perceived culpability. Students and townspeople would shun and crucify her via rumor. Though Cady comes to feel ashamed of her stint as a mean girl, eventually finding her way back to her old, kind self, the community’s reaction would drive her crazy. Literally. Like Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin, the innately kindhearted Cady would be driven to madness by the evils of the world around her. She would herself jump in front of a bus. Or into a lake. Fin.

Thus, popular reaction to Lars von Trier’s Mean Girls could easily be summarized in the phrase, “a serious downer.” Others would undoubtedly hail it as a masterpiece. Could a von Trier Mean Girls have ever come to rival the Tina Fey-Mark Waters creation? Alas, the world will never know.

Tribeca 2014 Wrap-Up

Another whirlwind 12 days have come and gone for the tireless organizers and lucky participants of the Tribeca Film Festival. This year’s slate was strong, with a mix of marquee names and neophyte filmmakers (mostly) moving audiences and critics to enthusiasm. Awards were announced Saturday, April 26, and included the below highlights:

'Zero Motivation'

Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature: Zero Motivation. Israel is the only country that requires compulsory military service from both men and women, and the latter bring drama and humor to this foreign entry. Filmmaker Talya Lavie also received the Nora Ephron Prize, or $25,000.  

Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film: Paul Schneider, Goodbye to All That

Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Human Capital (Italy)

Best Screenplay: The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, written (and directed) by Guillaume Nicloux (France)

Best Documentary Feature: Point and Shoot, directed by Marshall Curry

But with a lineup that included 89 feature films, not to mention countless speakers and supplementary events, the Tribeca Film Festival offered a great deal else of note. Life Partners, for instance, the movie Millennials know as the film on which Blair Waldorf and Seth Cohen met and fell in love (actors Leighton Meester and Adam Brody are now married), was among one of the most pleasant surprises of the festival. Fun and likable, the feature, which chronicles the relationship between two latter-end twentysomething girls (Meester and Gillian Jacobs) as one finds a beau and the other struggles with abandonment issues, is just as relatable as it would like to be.

Then there is the “weird Belgian film” deserving of attention. Like Life Partners, the documentary Ne Me Quitte Pas follows a pair of best friends, in this instance two latter-end middle-aged men struggling with alcoholism and family trouble. The film won the award for Best Documentary Editing, and the jury had this to say of its decision:

This year’s prize for editing celebrates a pair of filmmakers’ ability to give shape, rhythm, and even mythic beauty to a story that might have been, frankly, a sodden mess. For finding luster in the most unlikely places, the winners of this year’s prize for Best Documentary Editing goes to Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden for their bittersweet portrait of two Belgian boozers.

There is nothing messy or sodden about the documentary Tomorrow We Disappear, which takes advantage of cinema’s ability to delight the eye, and does just that. It’s a commemorative work documenting artists’ community Kathputli Colony in New Delhi, India. The Indian government is currently trying to displace the Kathputli artists (who have been living on government land for the past 50 years or so) and Disappear captures both the modern turmoil this threat creates among community members, as well as the timeless beauty of community members’ traditional art. Cinematographers Josh Cogan and Will Bisanta use the slum colony’s many shadowed, labyrinthine alleyways and brightly painted buildings to capture images as lovely as doc subject and renowned puppeteer Puran Bhatt’s hand-painted puppet of a prince.

'Tomorrow We Disappear'

The narrative feature Gabriel, helmed by writer and first-time director Lou Howe and starring MacCauley Culkin’s younger brother Rory (who, in person, with his long hair and pale skin, is Byronic) also boasts atmospheric, arresting images – the leitmotif of a reaching, leafless tree, hues of blue and brown – but for the purpose of serving more discomfiting ends.  The film, inspired by a friend of Howe’s who was diagnosed with mental illness as a teenager, tells the story of the titular schizophrenic as, come hell, high water, or the interference of his loving and concerned family, he sets off in search of a childhood crush. It’s a star-making turn for actor and director alike.

Writer Aaron Sorkin is no stranger to the star machine, having played an instrumental role in the career-making turns of Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jesse Eisenberg, as well as fanning second winds for Martin Sheen and Rob Lowe. The controversial screenwriter was on hand last Monday night to discuss his legacy and assert his lack of a political agenda (something many might find difficult to believe of TV’s “The West Wing" writer). Sorkin is a voluble personality who has earned a reputation for contentiousness and pretension, but he comports himself well in person. It’s clear by the many hesitations, pauses, and qualifications of which he took advantage throughout the night he has felt the ill effects of foot-in-mouth syndrome before. But most of what he had to say – we’ve “commoditized nastiness” in popular culture; there’s nothing threatening about the current spate of quality programming on TV because “Movies are awesome. There is no war going on. Film is not going to lose to television;” and “I wasn’t trying to and am not capable of teaching a professional journalism class,” as regards his critically maligned (and recently canceled) HBO show “The Newsroom” – was hardly galling.

The most humble statement Sorkin offered will likely interest any fan, or detractor for that matter, of his distinct “Sorkinesque” style of rat-tat-tat dialogue: “I’m not sophisticated when it comes to politics, when it comes to journalism, or, as you can tell, as articulate” as the characters he writes. “When I write about something I don’t have a sophisticated understanding of, I write it phonetically.” I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone speak like the characters Sorkin writes, but I would like to.

'Clouds'

A similar sense of tentatively optimistic ambivalence characterized my reaction to the Storyscapes demonstrations, “innovative and interactive transmedia work across genres,” which took place April 23 through 26. I experienced the Bombay Sapphire Award for Transmedia winner, Clouds, which I don’t think I fully understood but by which I was awed anyway. I viewed the project through a pair of Oculus Rift glasses, a complicated contraption that required one of the demonstrators strap it atop my head – the heavy goggles themselves first, which included a racer-back strap encircling the back of my skull, followed by a large pair of padded headphones.  I then watched a bit of Clouds the documentary, a virtual-reality experience contained entirely within the goggles that featured prominent tech talking heads speaking about tech things. But the Oculus Rift was projecting too many interesting images for me to pay much attention to what was being said. Anyway, I kept changing the speaker – by focusing your attention in the center of a circle that appeared on the edges of your vision, you could “select” another topic for the speakers to discuss. Off you would whoosh, or your sight would, down a tunnel lined with little white lights. Apparently, there was enough material for the doc to run eight hours. A map outlining the various algorithms at play and the many, many possible combinations of questions and speakers, looking like somebody unraveled the heavens and snarled the stars, offered a 2D, but no less daunting for that, look at the effort such a project requires. It was heady.

As was the somewhat similar entry not in competition, Rise. Another virtual-reality, Oculus Rift bid, Rise seemed to have more of a direct or at least obvious link with the world of entertainment. On went another pair of cumbersome goggles-and-headphones. This project was a trailer for a fictional animated crime film named Rise. The computer-generated graphics created the sense of being trapped inside a videogame.  The setting looked like a large indoor parking garage or warehouse space, while your attention was (supposed to be) focused on one figure holding a gun and another, a seated robot, tossing what looked like a small metal box into the air – a bomb, if the ticking sound effects were any indication. Neither figure moved, but the trailer was edited in such a way that, if you were to view the scene head-on, your vision revolved about them, eventually completing a full 360-degree turn during which you “moved” in closer and closer. If, like me, you felt the unnerving proximity to these two characters too unnerving, you could turn your head about and look elsewhere in the parking-garage-cum-warehouse space. The impression that I was in fact standing inside a room was so strong I felt compelled to close my eyes more than once.

Which is no way to view the future of movies. Next year, I’ll be better prepared.

Barney Frank gives a grudging thumbs-up to his bio-doc

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank retired from office on January 3, 2013, after 32 years in the House of Representatives, and it’s become increasingly clear that no one has come close to filling the void he’s left among liberal politicians. A master debater, a blistering wit and a skilled negotiator, he brought a skill set to the art of legislating that’s not easy to replicate. His wit in particular is on full display in Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank, the entertaining and endearing documentary profile that had its world premiere on the closing day of the Tribeca Film Festival, followed by a Q&A with Frank and his husband Jim Ready, moderated by Alec Baldwin.

Although the film by Sheila Canavan and Michael Chandler is upbeat and largely complimentary, Frank and especially Ready were clearly not altogether sanguine about their first viewing of the doc. “It’s your life,” Frank shrugged during the Q&A, “and there are some things I would have done differently.” But he did state he was “very pleased with the general themes” of the film, praising its portrait of the struggles of gays and lesbians against societal prejudice, and its assertion that cynicism in politics is “an inappropriate answer most of the time.” But Ready flat-out objected to the film’s inclusion of the well-documented scandal that nearly ended Frank’s political career in 1989, when it was revealed that the Congressman had hired a male prostitute as his live-in driver and housekeeper and he was wrongly accused of allowing him to run a prostitution ring out of his home. Ready called the filmmakers’ decision to cover that episode “embarrassing” and “kind of rude,” apparently unfamiliar with what documentarians do—and the fact that to overlook this career crisis would have sparked a firestorm of questions about the project’s journalistic standards. Of course, Ready, who runs a business making custom awnings, isn’t accustomed to public scrutiny of the kind Frank has endured.

Though Frank spoke during the Q&A about the value of public service and the need to avoid cynicism, it’s evident that the current climate in Washington has taken a toll. At the beginning of the doc, he jokes that he knew it was time to step down when his attitude changed from “How can I help you?” to “Why are you bothering me?” And he says it’s a relief not to have to pretend to like certain people anymore.

At the age of 13, Frank dreamed of a political career but also knew he was gay, and thought the two were irreconcilable. Nonetheless, he ran for the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1972 and won, serving for eight years. And in 1980, he rose to the U.S. House of Representatives, succeeding Father Robert Drinan, who stepped down after the Pope instructed priests to leave political posts. (During the Q&A, Frank wondered what the Pope would have thought of his replacement being a homosexual.) Conscious of being part of “a despised minority,” Frank led a relatively chaste and unhappy social life until 1987, when he became the first member of Congress to voluntarily “come out of the room,” as Tip O’Neill, the wary House Speaker, hilariously phrased it. “You cannot live that way forever,” Frank reflected during the Q&A. “You cannot live holding a gun to your own head.”

Compared to What makes the case for Frank as a major gay-rights figure not just for that courageous decision, but for his outspoken stance on terrible legislative decisions like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act. (In one devilish clip, Frank jokes that the canard that same-sex unions threaten the institution of marriage sounds like “an argument made by someone in an institution.”)

The doc also spends a lot of time in the economic weeds chronicling Frank’s tenure on the House Financial Services Committee (including as chairman from 2007 to 2010) and his role in reforming financial institutions that culminated in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. In a pretty remarkable sign of bipartisanship that seems to have disappeared from Washington, Frank’s successor as chairman, Alabama Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus, was at the Tribeca after-party for the film to say some kind words about his friend and colleague. Compared to that, the noisy bickering on the cable news channels each night looks childish indeed. Is it any wonder this gifted statesman has retired to long-denied domestic married life?
—Kevin Lally

‘Just Before I Go:’ Roundtable with Courteney Cox & cast

The actress makes her feature-film directorial debut with the “inappropriate” dramedy.

Courteney Cox’s character on "Friends," Monica Geller, is The Organized One. She is Type A, right-brained, the glue to her best friend Rachel Green’s (Jennifer Aniston) shiny glitter. Her need to control the situation is a running joke that endures the length of the beloved sitcom’s 10-season run. And while Cox herself seems much more relaxed in person, the Monica Geller parallels are unavoidable: Both women place a premium on organization, both are very funny, and both appear to leave lasting impressions on their Friends.

Cox’s feature directorial debut Just Before I Go premiered towards the end of the Tribeca Film Festival this past Thursday. Starring Seann William Scott, Olivia Thirlby, and Garret Dillahunt, Go is

Courteney Cox

a dramedy that follows the most vanilla of nondescript everymans, Ted Morgan, as he confronts the friends and family he holds responsible for his perceived failure of a life. The title makes reference to the urgency of Morgan’s bitter bucket list: At the end of his visit to his hometown, he intends to kill himself.

It’s a dark subject treated with a light directorial touch Cox’s cast describes as more than competent. William Scott gushes, “but honestly, funniest person I’d ever met. .. I just always knew I was taken care of. It was fun.” Addressing the director herself, “Your confidence with the camera” was “awesome.”

Mackenzie Marsh seconds William Scott’s enthusiasm. Just Before I Go signaled a first for the musical theatre actress as well: The role of Morgan’s former middle-school crush, Vickie, was her first film gig. “She took a huge chance on me,” she says of Cox.  “She really let me do my thing, and when she did come to give us any direction it was so intimate.”

At one point in the often ribald comedy – throughout the interview, the word “inappropriate” is frequently tossed about  in reference to lines, scenes, ideas, undisclosed on-set bribes –  Dillahunt’s character Lucky, Ted Morgan’s brother, refers to Marsh’s character as “fatty.” The line was not in the original script.

Remembers Marsh, “Courteney was so great and sensitive, but I was like, ‘No, whatever!’ You know, [she] just pulled me aside and said, ‘Is this OK if we add the word fatty?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, let’s do that. Take that moment.’ But I just thought that was so respectful. So unnecessary, but so wonderful from the producer-director.”

The producer-director was equally laudatory of her cast, saying of William Scott upon entering the room, “Isn’t he handsome?” Describing Marsh as “amazing… so gorgeous, so talented, and so beautiful,” praising the comedic timing of actress Cleo King, calling the absent Evan Ross, who plays King’s son Romeo, “so perfect” for his role.

Though her evident humor has a caustic streak, manifested in dry understatement, sarcasm, and a well-timed jab, there’s little that is acidic about Cox. Take her relationship with ex-husband David Arquette, who makes a brief cameo as Marsh’s husband.

“I love directing him,” Cox says. “I think David is an amazing actor. He’s just so interesting. There’s so much going on in that brain at all times…And he just broke my heart,” during an emotional scene with William Scott. “It was so natural. I thought they were good together.” Cox reflects, “We have a weird relationship. He’s my bud.”

The family affair also extended to the former couple’s nine-year-old daughter, who lends her vocals to the titular song that opens and closes the film. The decision to include Coco was made “probably a week ago. Maybe two weeks ago.” It was a choice born of pragmatics as much as parental love. “I had an original thought of what I wanted” for the music, “but I couldn’t afford one song that I wanted. Not one.”

Luckily, Cox had a pair of men, each prominent in his field, to lend her some sound advice. Director Gus Van Sant suggested she add the theme from the "Odd Couple" when a scene that included an (naturally) inappropriate word failed to generate laughs during a test screening. His suggestion worked – viewers at a recent press showing chuckled right on cue.  Then there was Cox’s new beau Johnny McDaid, he of Snow Patrol fame, willing and ready to have his band record an original song or two for the soundtrack. “It really elevated the movie,” she says of McDaid’s contribution.
But the on-set experience wasn’t without its challenges.

Seann William Scott

“Oh my God, it was awful,” says William Scott when asked how he enjoyed filming the movie’s opening underwater scene. The sight of a “massive tank” full of water caused the actor to balk. “I was like, 'Dude, I can’t do this.' So we did a little bit of practicing and then I panicked. I really panicked. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know what we’re going to do.’ ”

He did, eventually, hop in the tank and shoot the scene – but not without a little prompting from his director.

“There was some torture going on. Sean was like, ‘I think we’re going to have to do this in more than one day.’ I was like, ‘I think not. Pull it together.’ [Laughs.] But it worked out the way we did it.”
William Scott agrees. “It looks great.”

So, what’s next on the horizon for the newly minted feature-film director?

“I have really nothing going on,” Cox says bluntly. “But I’m on the bubble. A show called 'Cougar Town.' I have no directing jobs.” She turns to the members of her cast seated beside her, and deadpans, “So thank you. I hope you guys feel great.”