If you're looking for a potential upset that few if any are really keeping an eye on at the Oscars this year, I'd say watch out for Glen Campbell's original song “I'm Not Gonna Miss You” from “Glen Campbell…I'll Be Me.” It's a very meaningful track in a very moving movie, Campbell's final song ever, and I can't imagine there won't be more than a few in the Academy who would love to see the legend – who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease – carry a trophy off into the sunset. Campbell of course can't perform the song on the upcoming show, but Oscarcast producers have lined up some heavy star power to do the honors.

The Academy has announced that Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/actor Tim McGraw will perform the song on the 87th Academy Awards. “I'm honored to be asked to sing this powerful song from one of the true legends of the music industry,” the crooner said in a statement.

Performers have been announced for every other nominated tune, save “The LEGO Movie's” “Everything is Awesome.” Common and John Legend will perform “Glory” from “Selma” (considered the frontrunner to win at present), Adam Levine will perform “Lost Stars” from “Begin Again” and Rita Ora will perform “Grateful” from “Beyond the Lights.”

Have a listen to “I'm Not Gonna Miss You” and see its usage in the film below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrIW5RpvBnM]

Nominations have been revealed for the 10th annual Final Draft Awards. Pretty much anyone with the screenwriting software has a vote. You'd think, then, that the nominations might spread out a bit, but nope. Beyond a showing for Christopher and Jonathan Nolan's “Interstellar,” everything is down the line as we've come to expect it in the screenwriting categories this year.

Check out the nominees below. Winners will be revealed at the Screenwriters' Choice Awards on Feb. 12. And catch the rest of the fun at The Circuit.

Best Adapted Screenplay
“American Sniper”
“Gone Girl”
“Guardians of the Galaxy”
“The Imitation Game”
“The Theory of Everything”

Best Original Screenplay
“Birdman”
“Boyhood”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Interstellar”
“Nightcrawler”

Best Television Drama
“Downton Abbey”
“Fargo”
“Game of Thrones”
“House of Cards”
“True Detective”

Best Television Comedy
“The Big Bang Theory”
“Louie”
“Modern Family”
“Orange is the New Black”
“Veep”

Hall of Fame Award
Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910172499001

PARK CITY – The Sundance Film Festival can often focus too much on films set in New York or Los Angeles, but this year it provided a unique perspective on the latter in three very distinct films.  “Dope” centers on African-American high school students in Inglewood, “Tangerine” is set in a small part of Hollywood known for transvestite hookers (as well as shining a spotlight on the city's Armenian Immigrant community) and Patrick Brice's “The Overnight” is a window into the hipster family scene in the city's Silverlake neighborhood.  Radically different communities that don't always find their way on the big screen.

Well, spot that last line with an asterisk.  The east side of LA has become something of a staple of Sundance over the past decade (“Beginners,” “Quinceanera,” “Afternoon Delight,” etc.). Even the Duplass Brothers, who produced “The Overnight,” set their new TV series “Togetherness” on the East Side.  The expectations many have about this part of Los Angeles  is just one reason why this new comedy so intriguing beyond the male lead's full frontal nudity with prosthetic penises.  

Wait, you hadn't heard about the dueling penises that Alex (Adam Scott) and Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) pull out in the flick? The two actors have already spoken about it in depth and its been a staple of Brice's post-screening Q&A's here at the festival.  That being said, it's really not the most interesting part of the movie.

“The Overnight” begins with the arrival of Emily (Taylor Schilling) and Alex to LA.  Having previously live in Seattle, they nervous about making new friends in such an intimidating city.  During a trip to the local playground, their young son befriends the son of Kurt, a local who charismatically introduces himself.  Kurt is a borderline cliche of LA hipsterness with his printed shirt, sports jacket and large brimmed hat.  One thing leads to another, however, and he convinces the couple to join him and his wife for a welcome to the neighborhood dinner that night.

Kurt and Charlotte (Judith Godrèche) live in a gorgeous Spanish style home (pretty much akin to a mansion in Los Angeles) and Emily and Alex are almost immediately wowed. Even if you didn't know the general plot synopsis for the movie you would quickly catch the signs that Kurt and Charlotte might be one of those more “liberal” couples you've often heard about (and we're not talking politics).  The wine flows and Alex and Charlotte eventually convince their new friends to hang out past their son's bedtime (he crashes in their son's bedroom) to keep the good times rolling.  Alex appears to be some sort of independent businessman and artist while Charlotte is supposedly attempting to restart her acting career.  As you might expect, Alex and Emily are overly impressed by all this — remember these are the first “real” Los Angelinos they have met — and slowly become seduced by their new friends.  Sort of.

One of the strength's of Brice's screenplay is he plays with the audience expectations of what will occur in the wee hours of the night.  He also pays with their assumptions about who Kurt and Charlotte really are. At first they represent stereotypes about the liberal and hipster lifestyle in modern day LA.  That's why for a film that takes place over the course of one night Brice is expertly able to keep your interest. Kurt and Charlotte just seem so mysterious and sexy.  In reality they may or may not be something else, but Brice and his cast are able to make it titillating and funny while still keeping the characters pretty grounded.

Much of the success of the film is due to the four leads who seamlessly work the one or two outrageous moments into the story without resorting to over-the-top characterizations.  Schilling, who broke through on “Orange Is The New Black,” is particularly good as the eventual voice of reason and the movie simply wouldn't work if Schwartzman and Scott didn't click on screen as much as they do.  Godrèche is good, but by the end of the film you often wonder what motivated her to star in the movies on her “acting” resume.  

Semi-spoiler alert: There is an eyebrow raising scene at the end of “The Overnight” after the big (and small) penis moments that will be a conversation starter for many audiences afterward. The question is whether that moment helps break these LA hipster stereotypes or reinforces them.  Not what you'd expect from the dueling penises movie is it?

“The Overnight” was picked up for U.S. distribution by The Orchard and should hit theaters later this year.

This year's Oscar nominees for Best Makeup and Hairstyling – “Foxcatcher,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” – are a typically varied assortment. This is a branch, after all, whose choices often reflect consideration of the work itself above Best Picture-contending frontrunners. Just last year we got nominations for films like “Bad Grandpa” and “The Lone Ranger.” This time around, the cream of the crop just happened to come in critically acclaimed films.

Beginning with “Foxcatcher,” Bill Corso and his co-nominee, Dennis Liddiard, had a gargantuan task ahead of them: transforming well-known comedic actors Steve Carell and Channing Tatum, as well as Mark Ruffalo, into something approaching blue blood John du Pont, wrestling wunderkind Mark Schultz and his ill-fated brother Dave. They split duties, with Liddiard handling Tatum's transformation, Corso working on Carell and the two of them coming to Ruffalo when needed.

For both Tatum and Ruffalo, given that they were playing wrestlers, silicon cauliflower ears were crafted to display the look of cartilage being broken and crushed over the years. But more than that – and as a reprieve from having to 100% recreate the real-life figures, which wasn't something director Bennett Miller was interested in – there was an overall look that Liddiard was interested in trying to emulate.

“I looked at these guys who had been in that world of wrestling their entire lives, and in my research, what I kept noticing was their profiles are incredibly flat,” Liddiard says. “Their noses, the cartilage, their chins get really strong and they just have an appearance of having a very flat face. So what we did on Channing was he wore a prosthetic nose across the bridge of his nose to widen the bridge and make it look like his nose had been broken, like a bump on one side. And then I took little plugs that we pushed up his nostrils on the lower part of his nose to flare it out and push the tip down, which kind of flattened his nose out. Then he wore lower dental plumpers that pushed his lip out and lowered his jaw forward.”

For Ruffalo, they went with upper dental plumpers as opposed to lower because they pushed his top lip out to get the flattened face look. “We also made these little vacuu-formed tabs that went on the back of his ears to push his ears out, to try and make the brothers look more alike, because Mark's ears lay flat,” he says. “And we painted a little bit of a broken nose, because he already had a little bump. So we enhanced it.”

The trickiest part was dealing with the actor's hairline, which doesn't recede at all to the point Dave Schultz's did. They shaved it back, but then they were left with the “five o'clock shadow” to deal with. Ultimately, though, the work would have been all for naut if it was simply ruined in the wrestling sequences. They had to come up with applications that could take a hit.

“Billy and I both talked about it a lot,” Liddiard says. “We changed the designs of the ears a little bit. We talked about a full nose on Channing that was from the bridge all the way to the tip, but we didn't think that would hold up, so that's why we just did a smaller piece across his bridge. And then we ended up doing the plumpers up the nostril to flare out the bottom part, because we just didn't think it would stand up. And the wrestling you see in the movie is not even 1/16th of what we shot.”

For Carell, trepidation set in for Corso from the get-go. “When I had the conversation with Bennett, I said, blatantly, like, 'Why did you cast Steve in a part that's so against type?' And he goes, 'Well, it can't look like Steve. 'Steve Carell' cannot be in this movie.'”

Something else that had him worried was that Miller's filmmaking approach is to often hold on close-ups, which is terrifying for a film makeup artist who counts on the tricks of the medium to “hide” anything that might seem off. To say nothing of the kind of lighting this film was employing, which isn't necessarily flattering for film makeup.

“I immediately said, 'What's distinctive about Steve that we can get rid of,'” Corso recalls. “One was his eyebrows. So we had the prosthetic that covers his eyebrows and also I changed the anatomy of his eyes' shape and I added a little age around his eyes with that, so that makes a big difference. And then it allowed me to put the very pale, you know, thinning eyebrows on him, which was a huge change.”

Du Pont also had very distinctive, tiny teeth, so they made dentures for that and lowered Carell's gumline. They also decided to plump out Carell's whole mouth area and change its shape with plumpers on both the top and the bottom. But the biggest task, perhaps of the entire process on all the actors, was changing Carell's skin tone to the translucent blue-blooded look. “That was the lion's share of the work,” Corso says.

And of course, on top of all of that is the now-iconic “beak,” Corso says of Carell's nose appliance, which gives du Pont such a striking profile in the film. But the icing on the cake for him was simply the brown contact lenses to cover up Carell's lighter eyes. “That, to me, was when he became du Pont,” he says. “That's when he became almost, you know – I don't want to say soulless, because du Pont was actually a very entertaining, nice guy. But it puts the focus on his eyes and draws you right in.”

Unlike “Foxcatcher,” the success of which was deemed to be more about makeup and prosthetics by the branch than hair, the nominees for “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” each included hair designers. Beginning with the former, hairstylist Frances Hannon says the most difficult look to find was M. Gustave's, played by Ralph Fiennes.

“Wes is a perfectionist and Ralph Fiennes is an extreme perfectionist, as is the character,” she says. “He wore makeup, mascara and not one single hair on his head that was ever out of shape. Prepping his mustache every day would take half-an-hour! Wes wanted golden blonde hair and Ralph”s wig had to blend with Ralph”s own hair, which was very dark, and transforming that was difficult. Plus we needed a full head of hair. Ralph carried it extremely well.”

It wasn't as difficult as the drastically transformative work on Tilda Swinton because that, she says, “was a more contained achievement.” Others were as well because they had to be connected to a “young” and “old” version of the character, such as matching Tony Revolori to F. Murray Abraham and keeping something – their hair – to connect the two. “Similarly, Tom Wilkinson and Jude Law kept the same hair, same shape mustaches, and if you put them side-by-side, you could think that they may have been the young and the old,” she says.

But speaking of Swinton's Madame D, that was still, of course, a significant task. “Wes was looking at a much older woman originally,” she says. “He came to me very early when he was thinking of casting [Swinton] and said, 'What do you reckon? Could it work?' I was not thinking that he was going to cast a 50-year-old – much less such a striking 50-year-old – to play an 83-year-old woman. It took the whole family into a particular area that was new. It was an amazing concept and amazing of Wes for coming up with this idea.”

She worked with Mark Coulier a lot on this as he whipped up the prosthetics, but for the hair, she says she looked at hairstyles from the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to Queen Mary. “But we didn”t want to lose Tilda,” she says. “The costume design was to give that extraordinary balance. You mustn't let the makeup ever outweigh the rest of the look. She became Madame D and she was just a whole presence. And then we followed through with Adrien [Brody]. I put his hair up very high, unusually high. He had mascara and a very precise look balanced with a very heavy costume. That in itself was sort of a nod to Madame D, too. He was emulating his mother.”

On the prosthetics side, Coulier says he had a glamorous, larger-than-life figure in mind. But he also married that to ideas of how someone like Madame D might age. “Depending on what someone”s done in their life, people age in a different manner,” he says. “A person who has lived healthily their whole life will age differently than someone who has spent their life in the sun and/or been a heavy smoker all their life. [Madame D] had lived an interesting life, been quite varied in her glamorous lifestyle, travelled a lot, and we put elements of that into our sculpture and then wrinkled everything up a little bit more than you normally would. We weren”t just aging an actress, we were creating a character. Julie Dartnell and Frances then put on the wig and applied the makeup in the same fashion as if Madame D had been applying it for years – hence, the lipstick was applied rather badly. That was a nice touch from Frances.”

Quite often, he says, if you get a glamorous leading lady, she doesn”t want to be aged as much as you normally would, so you'd rein it in. “This happens especially in aging young actors to their mid-40s or 50s,” he says. “They sometimes don”t look old enough. But this was a total opportunity. Tilda was really into it, Wes was really into it and we were really into it.”

There was work done on other characters, of course, from Harvey Keitel's bald cap and nose cap, to fake heads and fingers that are removed from bodies over the course of the story (boy does it sound like a different sort of film in that context). But these were the key challenges for the team.

Over in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, hairstylist Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and makeup artist David White were working in a whole different, well, universe. And it was an incredible opportunity. “I have a pink marker pen when reading the script to go through what has makeup,” Yianno-Georgiou says. “There was a lot of red on this script! I knew from the time I read it that it was going to be exciting.”

Unfortunately, White was not available to talk about his prosthetics work on the film, which is obviously quite extensive – from Dave Bautista's tatted-up Drax the Destroyer to Zoe Saldana's green-drenched Gamora. Though Gamora was a joint character between Yianni-Georgiou and White's teams, and she says Michael Rooker's Yondu was another example of a character they built together.

“There was a unity in that we needed all of the characters to work well together,” she says. “And we didn't have visual effects on any of our characters. I knew the visual effects team had a big job with the spaceships and a whole universe to create so it was never an option. Everyone had to come from the makeup chair to be ready to be seen on the screen.”

Drax's look largely fell to White's team and was achieved through the use of 18 separate prosthetics to depict the scarring which told the story of the character's life. But there was a delight in both teams immersing into the world of the comic book, which all involved felt obliged to honor.

“You have to please the Marvel fans, even though 'Guardians of the Galaxy' was not quite as well-known,” Yianni-Georgiou says. “If they weren”t on our side, it could have been a disaster, couldn”t it? With Ronan, when you see him, his tribal markings were taken from images of Ronan from the comic books. But we could do twists and changes and also had lots of characters that weren”t part of that comic world.”

Indeed, investing in the “history” of planets to know where characters were coming from was a particular creative adventure. “'Why would somebody have rigged nails,'” she would ask in brainstorming with the art department. “'Why would somebody's eyes be red instead of blue?' 'What are these planets like?' We used a lot of the lettering in Ronan's wall to make tattoos – if somebody looks into their world, they”d see their language. Yondu's also got metal in his teeth and that's because he goes to planets and collects trinkets, and I thought that that would be one of the things he'd collect.”

Her favorite character to create, however, was The Collector, an over-the-top specimen played by actor Benicio Del Toro. “I don't know, it was just sort of exciting to have someone like Benicio in the chair,” she says. “And Ronan – Lee Pace was amazing. We did lots of tribal research and painted his body in tribal makeup. He was so in on it, so part of his character.”

Ultimately, Academy voters couldn't ask for a more diverse assortment of work to choose from this year. “It's a great lineup,” says Corso, who is also serves on the Academy Board of Governors for the branch. “Look at what we got: We have a period comedy, we have a big fantasy and we have a really dark drama. That's awesome. We always have a very eclectic collection.”

Find out who wins the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 87th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 22.

SANTA MONICA – Michael Keaton has been asked about a sequel to “Beetlejuice” enough times to surely be sick of it by now, because the thing has moved at such a glacial pace there just isn't much to be said. But his work in the original film came at a time when his career was really taking off, and playing in the expressionistic world of Tim Burton in both that film and the first two “Batman” movies was a wholly new and exciting experience for him. In one, he helped build a character from the ground up, while in the other, he found himself at the center of a raging pop culture tempest.

Both roles are iconic in their own ways, and looking back, Keaton can – as ever – find nothing but gratitude for getting to be a part of it. “Batman” in particular was a personal landmark, a movie that grabbed kids of my generation by the lapels and said, “Get your ass to the theater!” Of course I had to get into it with him.

So we talked about all that, immersing into a tactile, handcrafted world and making something that has a global impact. Check out the back and forth below.

“Birdman” was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Actor. The film hits DVD/Blu-ray Feb. 17.

***

HitFix: So I guess you and Tim Burton are talking about “Beetlejuice” a lot lately, because people keep asking you about the sequel.

Michael Keaton: Yeah. “Beetlejuice” is just so special because who knew what that was going to be? And boy, when you think about where Tim was right then, here was a guy who – thinking back, he said, “Hey I got this thing I want to do.” I mean he had only done, like, “Frankenweenie” I think, and “Pee-wee.” That's really just getting started. And this guy said, “Here's what it is,” and he would explain to me visually what was going on, and then you'd see the set. And then the thing that I love most about it, the single thing I love most about doing that movie, besides just being in it, was Tim would explain something and I'm going, “Oh, okay. I know what this picture looks like. I know what the painting – I know what these frames look like. So what's my job now within those frames? What's my job to do within that, given that Tim's starting to really make clear what he's building here,” because that's a hard thing to explain to someone.

That can't be a tone that's easy to talk about or verbalize.

No. Well, nothing had ever been done like this. And what I love about it, almost more than anything, is it's handmade. Everything is handmade.

Exactly. Which brings me to this. I often ask this of actors who might find themselves in period pieces or something design-heavy, makeup-heavy, a movie like this where the design is so overt. Does that kind of thing help you immerse yourself more into the character? Is that like mana for an actor?

Well, I mean, I have talked about this but it's worth talking about again. None of that was there. He showed me sketches of something that looked nothing like – he couldn't describe it. And in fact if anything – have you ever seen his Char Boy drawings?

Yeah.

If anything it was in that world, but he said, “It's that but it's not that.” I can't really remember but none of that was there. I said, “Let me go home and think about this,” because I really honestly didn't understand what he was trying to explain. I really didn't get it at all. And I didn't see the set. He had started shooting it and I called the studio and said, “Send me wardrobe from all time periods,” because of one thing Tim had said. And where the mold came from was he said, “I don't know. Maybe he exists in all kinds of place. There's not any one place. He could maybe live under rocks.” I went, “Under rocks?” So I was just picking up little bits and pieces. I said, “I want mold on my face.” And the great [makeup artist] Ve Neill and I sat down.

The striped suit, Tim had that in his head the whole time, I think. I had nothing to do with that. But the whole hat for the guide I chose because I thought the guide was really trippy, like guide to where? You know? So the eyes I think Ve came up with, but the hair, I said, “I need my hair like this.” [He mimics a mound of hair atop his head.] And I didn't see it as big as she saw it, but I liked it when she showed it to me. I said, “Give me hair that's just like I stuck my finger in a socket.” I was going to start there and to see if I could go all the way or keep it at that level in terms of manic intensity and drive and energy and craziness.

So you built that thing from the ground up.

Right. There was nothing to immerse myself in at the beginning. I had to basically build it and then I took it to Ve and she helped build it with me. And Tim really saw it the first day I showed up on the set, so I didn't know if that whole thing we were doing was going to work. I'm sure she was showing him stuff. I can't remember. He may have dropped in the makeup trailer, but it was so difficult, what he was trying to pull off, and everything was made by hand. We'd have to literally do things over and over again. And that's what was so cool about it. Like you know that scene where I come up like this and I got the carousel on my head? That's all wood. And when I roll up my arms – we had a guy standing on the set because you couldn't guarantee they were going to roll straight down. They fall like this. And the guy goes, “OK, cut,” and we'd go back and roll them up. Now you don't even have to build anything. You just CGI it all. And coming up I had to be in the right position because if it would catch, it would stop and we'd have to do it over again. Little things like that was like, we were all kids with a whole lot of money to build amazing sets.

I guess that's what I'm asking, is about that tactile nature of it. It's helpful to just be in the midst of all that craftsmanship as an actor, I imagine.

Yeah, man. For a thing like that.

And it seems like people have been asking about a sequel for a long time.

If there ever is one – and frankly, at this point, I'm so sick of saying it, I've been saying it for years – whoever is in control of it, whatever they want to do, [I'm in]. They've pushed it to the point where you want to go, “Dude, this is such a no-brainer for everyone in the world. Whatever your issues are with not deciding,” I can't even think about it.

So this is something you've wanted to do for a while.

Oh, when did we do it? 1988? I've been saying it since about '92. And I really don't like doing things again, except that one I'd try again.

Is Tim in the same boat?

Well, you know more about it than I do. Every time I talk to people they're more up to speed on things than I am. I've given up following it. I don't know. I hear that it's on then it's off. He and I have communicated and we've both said – I don't want to do it without him, and he apparently doesn't want to do it without me. But just even the discussion, now it's gotten so old the sad part would be that they've taken so long – not Tim – to decide, that frankly, if I was the public, I would go, “You know what? Whatever. We're tired of saying we'd like to see it again.”

It's kind of like “Ghostbusters III.” Same situation.

Yeah. I wouldn't be shocked if they missed it and now the public – you can only ask a girl out so many times and have her say “no,” and then you go, “Hey man, with all due respect, whatever. I'm not going to beg you.”

Have you ever seen a script or anything?

No. But Seth Grahame-Smith is a really talented and funny guy. And he said, “I have this stuff, but I won't talk to you about it yet because I don't know what it is.” I go, “Whatever.” And now I don't know when – I got three projects, which is too bad because that would've been a cool one to do right now. Somebody should quit being so Hamlet-like and just make a decision.

Naturally “Beetlejuice” flowed into “Batman” and you and Tim kept the relationship going. I loved the quote that I ran across recently, by the way, where you said, “I'm Batman. I'm very secure in that.”

[Laughs.]

But would like to talk about “Batman,” if you're not sick of it by now. And hopefully this doesn't sound too fan-ish, but I do want to kind of intimate to you what that movie was for me. I think your son is around the same age as me.

Yeah.

So some of this might sound a little familiar, but growing up, I saw stuff in the theater like, I don't know, “Masters of the Universe” or “The Land Before Time,” whatever. I didn't really go to the movies a lot. So when “Batman” came around – I've written about it in these terms before – I call it my Cecil B. DeMille moment, where suddenly a movie was about more than the movie. It was like the event around the movie.

I get that for your generation, totally.

There are those movies where it's the thing that invites you into that world. And then of course you explore the nuance and art of film after that.

That's true. Like for me it was “Midnight Cowboy,” “The Graduate,” maybe “Easy Rider” to some degree.

But there's always that thing that opens the door for you, and it's generally an event, like “Star Wars” or “Jurassic Park” or “Batman.” That moment where suddenly movies are not this, like, curiosity. I was going to the movies a lot more after “Batman,” and I've always said that I owe it that, so in some way I guess I owe you that as well. So, you know, thanks!

Oh, you're welcome. I totally get how that could happen. Totally. And also, remember, it was possibly the most inventive, original campaign for a movie that I've ever seen, and it was really impeccable the way that Warner Bros. did it. That ultra subtle, simple thing. I remember I was in a theater seeing a movie and the very first trailer came up and you see a trailer, see another trailer, see another trailer, and then there's nothing. And then all of a sudden on screen comes the bat symbol, and then it disappears. People went fucking nuts. Then I think two weeks later or something it came on and I think it had the date under it or something, or it was just some subtle thing. And then we started doing little kind of just abstract – like the Batmobile comes flying across and leaves blowing up in the street or something. That was one of the best campaigns I have ever seen.

As a kid, the commercials and everything, it was like, “If I don't go to this movie, I'm way out of the loop.” It was “must-see” in the biggest way.

Yes. You need to be part of that.

Being in the middle of that maelstrom, what was that like for you?

Well, it was intense, but not intense. I'm really honest about all this stuff. I mean, I am so proud that I was in that movie and I think that first movie, if you consider what Tim had to work with and what he had to overcome and what was going on – nobody had tried anything like this. What he pulled off in that movie, I think people forget. You look at it now and you go, “It doesn't have the great stuff like Chris Nolan's films do.” I mean those are just really, truly great, even though I must say I've never seen one from beginning to end. But I never saw “Batman Returns” from beginning to end. But you see enough of Chris Nolan's stuff and you go, “Wow, this is great.” But if you think about what Tim did then, and nobody had ever done anything like that before, and the choice to go with those color tones, not just the darkness that everybody talked about but he created that real kind of, like, blue/black thing, and that shadowy thing and the visuals. He changed everything, and then it mutated and mutated and mutated into whatever those movies are now. And the pressure that he was under was enormous.

The design is…

The design is tremendous.

Just talking about that tactile thing, I mean, walking around that set had to be something else. I've talked to producer Michael Uslan about that, immersing yourself in those square blocks.

[Production designer] Anton Furst, dude.

Yeah. Phenomenal. That's one of my favorite Oscar wins of all time.

That's true. I forgot about that. Nice man, too. And getting back to the maelstrom – a good use of the language, by the way – what it really was was the first time, even though I was in popular movies and I was getting well-known – when the movie itself is that scale, and the symbols in the movie and the symbolism and the impact and the power of a movie like that, it really changes things. One of the reasons it changes things is that it goes international. That kind of shit goes international. And when stuff like that has impact, and being part of a thing – like it affected you – that has real impact. And then everything exponentially blows up. It was a great thing for me because now, you know, there's people in Norway and Burma and stuff going, “Holy mackerel. Look at this thing and look at that guy and look at Jack and look at everybody.” And Jack had been exposed to big international things by that time, but not like that. Think about this. Jack Nicholson at the time, that kind of actor to be in a movie like that was really unusual. Like, those kind of actors wouldn't do a movie like that.

Yeah. It was like a reinvention for him in a way.

Yeah. And then to be so effective and so good in it. And we all found the right tone, which was not an easy thing to do. Once that ends, that affects your life.

What did you want to do and what were you able to do, I guess, with that level of newfound superstardom?

You know, I do what I do. That's the thing. I didn't say, “Oh, now I'm going to be this.” I don't think like that. I did ensemble pieces. I went and did “Pacific Heights.” I did movies with people – I did “Clean and Sober” and people said, “You can't” – or did I do “Clean and Sober” before?

That was right before, but I get what you're saying. I mean you went off and you did Shakespeare with Branagh.

Yes. Because I actually, honestly – I'm not being, like, “Aren't I cool?” – I think that's my job. And also it's what I really like. I mean how lucky am I that I get to do Dogberry in “Much Ado About Nothing,” do “Multiplicity, do “My Life?”

Oh, tears, by the way. “My Life.” Niagara Falls.

Oh, that kills guys.

Can't handle it.

Men. That crushes every fucking guy I know.

I don't know if it's just the story or the story plus John Barry just killing it.

Yeah. I know. It really gets guys. It really hits guys hard. Kevin Stevens was a really tough guy; he played for the Penguins and told me he was sitting in the theater in Pittsburgh one day and something went wrong. They had an electrical problem and they had to shut the projector down and the lights in the theater come up. And he was sitting there with his wife and, like, people are looking around, and people in Pittsburgh being huge sports and hockey fans, turn around and they go, “Here's Kevin Stevens.” And he said he's sitting there like this because, tears, and it's this tough guy and there were tears running down his eyes. Yeah that crushes guys. I did that movie because I thought if I never get to do anything again, and this does something for somebody somewhere, I get to actually do something for somebody. Honestly, that's the reason I did it. I mean I have a job where you're sitting there telling me what it meant to you. How lucky am I? How many people have a job where I get to do something like that? I mean, nobody gets that. Nobody gets to have a job like that. It's really amazing.

Tomorrow: Finally, “Birdman” and the unexpected virtue of an overstated “comeback.”

Michael Keaton will receive a career tribute and the Modern Master Award at the 30th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 31.

It was a battle of Yves Saint Laurent biopics at the Césars (the French Oscars, if you will) this year as both the French foreign language Oscar submission “Saint Laurent” (leader of the pack with 10 nods) and “Yves Saint Laurent” picked up a ton of mentions. Oscar players that popped up include “Two Days, One Night” star Marion Cotillard and animated feature “Song of the Sea.” Foreign film Oscar nominee “Timbuktu” also had a major showing.

And of course, in the Césars' foreign category, films like “Boyhood,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “12 Years a Slave” are duking it out.

Check out the full list of nominees below, and remember to keep track of it all at The Circuit.

Best Film
“Les Combattants”
“Eastern Boys”
“La Famille Bélier”
“Saint Laurent”
“Hippocrate”
“Sils Maria”
“Timbuktu”

Best Director
Céline Sciamma, “Bande De Filles”
Thomas Cailley, “Les Combattants”
Robin Campillo, “Eastern Boys”
Thomas Lilti, “Hippocrate”
Bertrand Bonello, “Saint Laurent”
Olivier Assayas, “Sils Maria”
Abderrahmane Sissako, “Timbuktu”

Best Actor
Pierre Niney, “Yves Saint Laurent”
Romain Duris, “Une Nouvelle Amie”
Gaspard Ulliel, “Saint Laurent”
Guillaume Canet, “La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur”
Niels Arestrup, “Diplomatie”
François Damiens, “La Famille Bélier”
Vincent Lacoste, “Hippocrate”

Best Actress
Juliette Binoche, “Sils Maria”
Catherine Deneuve, “Dans La Cour”
Marion Cotillard, “Deux Jours, Une Nuit”
Emilie Dequenne, “Pas Son Genre”
Adèle Haenel, “Les Combattants”
Sandrine Kiberlain, “Elle L”Adore”
Karin Viard, “La Famille Bélier”

Best Supporting Actor
Eric Elmosnino, “La Famille Bélier”
Jérémie Renier, “Saint Laurent”
Guillaume Gallienne, “Yves Saint Laurent”
Louis Garrel, “Saint Laurent”
Reda Kateb, “Hippocrate”

Best Supporting Actress
Marianne Denicourt, “Hippocrate”
Claude Gensac, “Lulu Femme Nue”
Izïa Higelin, “Samba”
Charlotte Le Bon, “Yves Saint Laurent”
Kristen Stewart, “Sils Maria”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“La Chambre Bleue”
“Diplomatie”
“Pas Son Genre”
“Lulu Femme Nue”
“La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Coeur”

Best Original Screenplay
“Les Combattants”
“La Famille Bélier”
“Hippocrate”
“Sils Maria”
“Timbuktu”

Best Cinematography
“La Belle Et La Bête”
“Saint Laurent”
“Sils Maria”
“Timbuktu”
“Yves Saint Laurent”

Best Costumes
“La Belle Et La Bête”
“La French”
“Saint Laurent”
“Une Nouvelle Amie”
“Yves Saint Laurent”

Best Editing
“Les Combattants”
“Hippocrate”
“Party Girl”
“Saint Laurent”
“Timbuktu”

Best Set Design
“La Belle Et La Bête”
“La French”
“Saint Laurent”
“Timbuktu”
“Yves Saint Laurent”

Best Score
“Bande De Filles”
“Bird People”
“Les Combattants”
“Timbuktu”
“Yves Saint Laurent”

Best Sound
“Bande De Filles”
“Bird People”
“Les Combattants”
“Saint Laurent”
“Timbuktu”

Best Animated Film
“Muniscule – La Vallée Des Fourmis Perdues”
“Jack Et La Mécanique Du Coeur”
“Le Chant De La Mer”

Best Documentary
“Caricaturistes – Fantassins De La Démocratie”
“Les Chèvres De Ma Mère”
“La Cour De Babel”
“National Gallery”
“The Salt Of The Earth”

Best Foreign Film
“Boyhood”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Deux Jours, Une Nuit”
“Ida”
“Mommy”
“12 Years a Slave”
“Winter Sleep”

Best Newcomer (Male)
Kevin Azaïs, “Les Combattants”
Ahmed Dramé, “Les Héritiers”
Kirill Emelyanov, “Eastern Boys”
Pierre Rochefort, “Un Beau Dimanche”
Marc Zinga, “Qu”Allah Bénisse La France”

Best Newcomer (Female)
Lou de Laâge, “Respire”
Joséphine Japy, “Respire”
Louane Emera, “La Famille Bélier”
Ariane Labed, “Fidelio, L”Odyssée D”Alice”
Karidja Touré, “Bande De Filles”

Best Debut Feature
“Les Combattants”
“Elle L”Adore”
“Fidelio, L”Odyssée D”Alice”
“Party Girl”
“Qu”Allah Bénisse La France”

Best Short Film
“Aïssa”
“La Femme De Rio”
“Inupiluk”
“Les Jours D”Avant”
“Où Je Mets Ma Pudeur”
“La Virée A Paname”

Best Animated Short
“Bang Bang!”
“La Bûche De Noël”
“La Petite Casserole D”Anatole”
“Les Petits Cailloux”

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910162019001

PARK CITY – The Sundance Film Festival giveth, and the Sundance Film Festival taketh away…85 minutes of your evening. Those are the breaks when it comes to any major festival and, unfortunately, “I Smile Back” falls into the latter category. That may sound a tad harsh, but Adam Salky's latest is a disappointing effort that is the one film that truthfully doesn't belong in the U.S. Dramatic Competition this year.

[It's worth noting there are usually two or three films that the Sundance faithful wonder why they've been selected for competition, so just one means it's been quite a good year overall.]

In many ways, “Smile Back” feels like a film that would have been at Sundance 10 to 15 years ago. It centers on Laney (Sarah Silverman), a stay-at-home mom living in a gorgeous house in either Connecticut or upstate New York (either works) who has two beautiful kids and, seemingly, a wonderful husband, Bruce (Josh Charles). In reality, however, Laney isn't entirely with it. She forgets her ID to allow her to walk her kids to their classrooms and keeps trying to sneak her way out of having to park when returning to school to pick them up. We soon discover her problems stem from alcoholism and drug abuse. Oh, she's also having an affair with a family friend (Thomas Sadoski) and Bruce seems somewhat oblivious to all of it. That is until he discovers she hasn't been taking her lithium pills to keep her balanced and has been hiding drugs and vodka in different parts of their home.

Predictably, she's sent to rehab, where counseling reveals a good portion of her pain comes from the fact her father left her at the age of nine. “He never called,” and 30 years later, she still wonders why he abandoned her family. And that, is the gist of the movie.  

For such a straightforward story, Salky and screenwriters Paige Dylan and Amy Koppleman make some strange creative decisions. Why does it appear as though none of the women in the movie have jobs and are all stay-at-home wives? Why does Laney cheat on Bruce in the first place? Is she just bored? Wouldn't that have been something more interesting to explore than just focusing primarily on the drug addiction? Why would they let the film seemingly fall so easily into the trappings of a “rich white people” problems movie? Especially for a story we've seen numerous times before in different media. It's all so puzzling.

That aside, Salky and the producers have done their best to recruit some fine actors to surround Silverman with including Charles and Sadoski. Unfortunately, the former “Good Wife” star, who was great in last year's Cannes selection “Bird People,” has little to color Bruce with here. There seems to be something missing from his character and you wonder if something got lost in production. Sardonski at least has a more active character in Donny, who is clearly obsessed with Laney and even willing to leave his pregnant wife for her. He has much less screen time than Charles, but at least Donny feels more tangible.

If there is any saving grace in “Smile Back,” it's Silverman's fierce commitment to her performance. She gets roughed up, isn't afraid to expose herself physically and emotionally and she elevates the script when it really needs it (which is fairly often). In particular, she's quite effective in the numerous scenes that possibly foreshadow Laney losing her children (no, that's not a spoiler). It's high praise to say Silverman proves she's on a shortlist of actresses who could at least make Laney compelling to watch.

No one who sees “I Smile Back” will question if Silverman was right for the role, they will simply question whether this was a story that needed to be told in the first place.

The Sundance premiere of Alex Gibney's new documentary (does he sleep, by the way?) “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” caused quite the expected stir up in Park City this week. Our own Dan Fienberg noted in his review that the throng of people eager to get in was considerable, and I saw something on Twitter about people offering big money for those tickets. No shock, then, that the Church of Scientology cannot abide this.

The club (not gonna call it a church) sent out an email to just about every outlet that published a review of the film, reeling from not being consulted. Which is, of course, hilarious on its face. We'll be sure to reach out to Darth Plagueis before running any “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” thoughts in December.

Anyway, it's a predictable reaction, and the email itself – included below – is full of humorous clamoring. What's most notable to me is the “Dear Sirs” bit. Because, you know, what woman writes/edits a review? XENU FORBIDS IT.

I'm pretty sure, however powerful Gibney's film, we can go ahead and chalk it up as an also-ran in this year's Oscar race. But good on him and HBO for getting the perspective of these former members out into the world on the heels of Lawrence Wright's book.

***

Dear Sirs,

The above article concerning Going Clear, Alex Gibney's film, was posted without contacting the Church for comment. As a result, your article reflects the film which is filled with bald faced lies. I ask that you include a statement from the Church in your article. There is another side to the story which has to be told. Do not be the mouthpiece for Alex Gibney's propaganda.

Karin Pouw

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY STATEMENT

The accusations made in the film are entirely false and alleged without ever asking the Church. As we stated in our New York Times ad on January 16, Alex Gibney's film is Rolling Stone/University of Virginia redux. The Church is committed to free speech. However, free speech is not a free pass to broadcast or publish false information. Despite repeated requests over three months, Mr. Gibney and HBO refused to provide the Church with any of the allegations in the film so it could respond. Had Mr. Gibney given us any of these allegations, he would have been told the facts. But Gibney refused to speak with any of the 25 Church representatives, former spouses and children of their sources who flew to New York to meet and provide him and HBO with firsthand knowledge regarding assertions made in Mr. Wright's book as that was all we had to guess from. Gibney's sources are the usual collection of obsessive, disgruntled former Church members kicked out as long as 30 years ago for malfeasance, who have a documented history of making up lies about the Church for money. We invite you to view our complete statement, correspondence and documented facts at freedommag.org/HBO.

The Academy has announced that they have not let it go. Seriously, though, the Oscar-winning songwriting team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez have been tapped to write an original musical number for host Neil Patrick Harris at this year's Academy Awards.

“We love the Oscars and have always been huge Neil Patrick Harris fans, so when he asked us to write him a song for this year's show we said, 'Yes!' before he could finish the sentence – it's possible he may have been asking us for something else,” the duo said in a dual statement. “We are having so much fun collaborating, and have even enjoyed weaving our experience as Oscar nominees into the song.”

Meanwhile, on the heels of yesterday's announcement that Adam Levine will be on the show to perform the Oscar-nominated track “Lost Stars” from “Begin Again,” it's been revealed that John Legend and Common will also be on hand to offer up “Selma's” inspirational track “Glory.” Oscarcast producer Craig Zadan revealed the news on Twitter.

Proud to say @johnlegend @common perform GLORY from SELMA on the #Oscars. Big emotional moment on the #Oscar telecast. Thrilled to have them

– Craig Zadan (@craigzadan) January 27, 2015

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Stay tuned throughout the week for more announcements regarding this year's show, just 26 days away!

SANTA MONICA – A brief interlude today in our on-going series of chats with “Birdman” star Michael Keaton. An interesting note in his filmography is the handful of journalism films he has under his belt. Between Ron Howard's “The Paper,” HBO's “Live from Baghdad” and the upcoming “Spotlight” from director Tom McCarthy, Keaton has seen his share of journalist characters. And it's something he's been fascinated by since he was a young man trying to find his way.

Indeed, follow him on Instagram and you're not going to be confronted by a bunch of selfies from his life on the circuit. You'll see snapshot after snapshot of newspaper stories that he devours every morning while kicking back at the coffee shop we're meeting the a day before he'll get the news that he has landed his first Oscar nomination.

It seemed an interesting sidebar so I pursued it. Read through the back and forth below as we discuss his trepidation in playing real-life characters, his first brush with covering an event from the trenches as a doe-eyed college kid and his upcoming role in McCarthy's film.

“Birdman” was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Actor. The film hits DVD/Blu-ray on Feb. 17.

***

HitFix: How long have you been coming to this spot?

Michael Keaton: I kind of lay low. It's where I read my paper every morning, for years, many, many years.

Yeah, I noticed on Instagram you're always Tweeting a picture of the paper or something you might read.

It's easier than saying “go do this” or “here's what I think about this.” I think it probably annoys some people. I don't mean to be preacher-y but people need to know certain things, I think.

I wasn't aware of how much of a voracious newspaper reader you were.

Yeah, I read two a day. If I'm on the road I'll try to read the local paper, whatever city I'm in, and then The New York Times. I love newspapers.

 

His Coolness

A photo posted by Michael Keaton (@michaelkeatondouglas) on Dec 23, 2014 at 10:11am PST

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What's a favorite local paper out there?

You know, my friends tell me – my writer friends, my novelist/journalist friends – tell me the Miami Herald is actually a good paper, which I never knew. But I'm seldom there for more than a day. I'll always read the Pittsburgh paper if I'm there. I used to get that online. I think San Francisco's paper is good.

I went to grad school for journalism at USC here. The LA Times is kind of like the Trojan mafia. Lots of USC people in there. Or at least it was like that for a long time.

Really? I didn't know that. Hey, did you know that – did we talk about this, given that you're a journalist, that I just did this movie called “Spotlight?” Did we talk about that?

Not yet.

I play Walter Robinson, “Robby” Robinson. He called himself a player/coach but he was essentially the editor of the kind of Metro section of the Boston Globe called Spotlight. They all won a Pulitzer. They uncovered the Cardinal Law Catholic Church abuse scandal and exposed that.

Yeah, that kind of brings up something I wanted to talk about, which is, you know, “The Paper,” “Live from Baghdad,” now “Spotlight.” Is that something you're interested in, stories about journalism?

Yeah. A lot. I really liked journalism [in college] and I thought about that for a minute. And in fact, I had attended a few different anti-war, kind of pro-environment things. I was a speech student, which was just vague enough to give me some time to figure it out. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I went down and I thought I'm going to take a little pen and paper. And I don't know, I had the instinct to journalize it. I hitchhiked down to one of them in DC and I was down there by myself. Back then there was like this network [of people to coordinate something like that]. There was a radical old woman from Atlanta. She was like 80. And she had gotten an old house in DC and was putting up demonstrators from all over the world, students, and that would be a place you could crash for the night.

Anyway, I remember I came around this corner and I had my notepad out and it was really, like, all of a sudden everything stopped, because you could hear people being chased around on the streets, but far away. I was totally alone. I came around the corner of this street and I go down and also alone turning the corner on the opposite end of the block and coming toward me was a National Guard guy with a gun, helmet, you know, full gear, full battalion gear. And he stopped and looked at me and, frankly quite nicely, he looked at me dead in the eye and said, “Leave,” or, “Get out of here,” or something like that. I remember the clarity of how he said it. And I went, “OK,” turned and walked the other way. There was no reason to say anything to him. He was doing his job. He wasn't really being mean about it; he was just doing it, but he was very clear and stern about what I was supposed to do.

That's interesting. Your first brush. I love journalism movies, “All the President's Men,” “The Insider.” Did you see “Nightcrawler” yet”

No. I really want to see “Nightcrawler.”

It's so good.

That's what I hear.

And then a movie like “The Paper,” even though it's comedic, it definitely gets it. It gets the heart of what that profession is trying to be.

All you guys love that movie. I hear that from more journalists. They really thought it was fairly accurate and they really liked it. And “Live From Baghdad” was really great.

I just watched it again recently. You play CNN producer Robert Wiener in that. I don't think you've played real people too often. Is that something that you had any trepidation about? Taking on a real guy? Or do you feel that way in general?

I do. I do have trepidation about it because I find it hard. “Robby” Robinson, we got to be friends. And first of all, Wiener, I look nothing like Wiener. I kind of sound nothing like Wiener. I liked him, but I don't think there's much that we have in common. I went to talk to him when he was living on a barge. I think he still lives on the Seine in Paris with his wife and I think his kid, which I thought was pretty cool. I hung out with him there and just asked him a bunch of stuff and we communicated. But you feel a responsibility and it's that tricky thing where, like, with Robby, we immediately hit it off and we are remarkably similar in a lot of ways in kind of how we think about things and our take on stuff. And he's very subtle. He's cagey. He gets stuff without people knowing he's really getting stuff. There was a lot about his personality I found really interesting.

I do have trepidation when I play people, though. “The Paper,” he was a created a character. But he was actually loosely based on Mike McAlary, the guy who passed away from the Daily News. [Tom] Hanks played him on Broadway [in “Lucky Guy”]. It was loosely based on that type of a guy and I hung out with him. Walter, it's not like I do an impersonation of him – except I did when I had some physical things, because how he carries himself, sometimes physically what he does kind of dictates how he gets what he gets. I can't quite explain it, but if it didn't I probably wouldn't have bothered. And also, it's so un-“Birdman.” Like, there's no real giant, high energy thing. In fact he's kind of a quiet, slow-moving kind of guy to some degree, until he really gets going on something and then I'm told you cannot get him off of it. He's very powerful and very direct but until he reaches that point, he's a really pretty easy-going guy, but very cagey about how he gets information. Not in a bad way, in a really cool way, like a bird dog. So I kind of had mannerisms I observed. But I always dreaded having to do a Boston accent, because I don't find them easy and also they change neighborhood to neighborhood. We're similar in that he's curious about a lot of different stratas of society and he's pretty good at moving in a lot of different circles.

Chameleonic?

Yeah. But even in his personality, when he's not doing his job, he's very bright. His education wasn't anything outstanding. He'll be the first one to tell you that. He's a veteran, an Army veteran. He moves from class to class real easily. He was a working class kid and went to a Catholic school and is connected to Catholic school enough, but not really, like, locked in that deeply. And so I really found that interesting. So his accent, I was told by Tom [McCarthy] and the other guys, he told them that's one reason he just doesn't really have one. But he will fall into one when he's around people from his neighborhood or other neighborhoods. But then his r's get hard and he does “ing” and sometimes he doesn't do “ing.” So when I saw that I thought, “Oh, shoot, now how do I determine when he's speaking with a Boston accent and when he's not?” So little things like that were hard. But basically what you want to do is be true to the guy, and I don't mean protect him, I just mean be who they are, you know? Not try to make them nicer than they are or anything. You know what I mean?

Totally.

And I guess it's because I'm lazy that I think, “Oh, shoot, here we go. Now I got to do the work. I wish this was going to be easier than I thought.”

That's got to be fun, too, though.

Yeah.

Tomorrow: Tim Burton, “Beetlejuice” and it's long delayed sequel and Bat-mania.

Michael Keaton will receive a career tribute and the Modern Master Award at the 30th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 31.

PARK CITY – Sometimes the elements of a movie just gel together so well and you find yourself enjoying the ride so much that you instantly forgive the material for any of its inherent limitations. Case in point: John Crowley's new drama “Brooklyn,” which premiered Monday night at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. After 20 minutes I'd written the not-so positive words “earnest” and “cutesy” in my notebook. Almost an hour and a half later I was so moved by what had transpired I was fighting back the tears. The picture isn't the achievement expected festival grand prize jury winner “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is, but it's a damn good movie on its own terms.

“Brooklyn” is based on the popular novel by Colm Tóibín and was adapted by another celebrated author, Nick Hornby (“About a Boy”). It begins in the early 1950s where Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) doesn't see much of a future for herself in her native Ireland. Neither does her sister Rose (Fiona Glascott), who works with a friendly Catholic priest, Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), to find Eilis a job in New York City where the opportunities seem limitless. Leaving Rose to take care of their widowed Mother (Jane Brennan), Eilis journeys to New York where she settles in Brooklyn, seemingly awash with so many Irish people it should feel like home. She moves into a ladies boarding home run by the frank and funny Mrs. Kehoe (Julie Walters doing Julie Walters things or maybe even Imelda Staunton things) and housemates who befriend her providing advice that helps her slowly come out of her very shy shell. Their dinner conversations are quite entertaining and, at first, fall into that “cutesy” category. By the second incarnation Walters has helped transform it into a welcome comedic bit you want the film to return to again and again.

Eilis' life begins to change when she meets Tony (Emory Cohen) at a local Irish dance hall. Tony is Italian American, but admits to Eilis he often goes to the weekly dances because he has a thing for Irish girls. While our heroine spends her time juggling between her day job at an upscale department store and taking a night class to get a bookkeeping certificate, she also finds herself being wonderfully wooed by Tony. Honestly, I can't remember the last time a big screen romance hit so many perfect notes and Ronan and Cohen's chemistry is so good you're actively rooting for them to work out. Still, you know something is going to come between the two lovebirds and, eventually, it does.

After a family tragedy, Eilis is forced to return to Ireland for what is supposed to be just a short amount of time. No one told her old friends and family, who seem to be conspiring to make her stay permanently. Unaware of Tony, they even introduce a compelling new suitor, Jim (Domhnall Gleeson), into the mix. Will Eilis, who has grown into a confident woman, consent to a life she thought she'd left behind, or return to one she'd never dreamed of? We won't spoil it here, but this writer was so enamored by Crowly and Hornby's collaboration he was ready to scream if she made the wrong choice (and that is not a common occurrence, mind you).

Crowley, who's best work before “Brooklyn” was arguably “Boy A,” which introduced Andrew Garfield into the cinematic consciousness, makes some smart choices that justifiably take awhile to come to fruition. The film has a gorgeous, almost classic postcard look thanks to Crowley's collaborations with cinematographer Yves Bélanger (“Dallas Buyers Club,” “Wild”) and production designer François Séguin. And if we're heaping praise on below-the-line talent, costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux (“An Education”) deserves a ton of credit for chronicling Eilis' arc through increasingly bright and modern dresses as she begins to win over New York and come into her own. But Crowley is really the man who deserves the credit for pulling all of this together. Many filmmakers would be nervous about including a scene-stealing and hilarious 8-year-old, James Digiacomo in a period piece like this, but the kid just fits as Tony's younger brother and Crowley milks it for what it's worth.

As for Ronan, she was very good in a not-so-good movie, “Stockholm, Pennsylvania,” early in the festival but she's even better here. Honestly, it's arguably her best work overall since 2011's “Hanna.” The Oscar nominee delicately maps out Eilis' growth from sheltered small-town Irish girl to an independent and sophisticated metropolitan woman. And when Eilis has tough choices in front of her, the tears flow and they flow in buckets, but Ronan never lets these moments ring as anything but true.

While Gleeson delivers another fantastic turn as a truly good man in Jim, it's Cohen's performance that makes you want to hope Eilis and Tony find some sort of happy ending. Cohen got noticed with his breakout role in “The Place Beyond the Pines” and has worked steadily since, but Hollywood may see him in a completely different light after “Brooklyn.” He plays Tony's puppy love for Eilis with realistic shadings you simply aren't expecting.

Every year Sundance somehow selects a film that either reminds you why you are in love or, for the single people in the house, makes you want to fall in love. This year's movie was “Brooklyn.” Yes, that sounds hokey and overly sentimental, but sometimes you need that in a movie.

Even at the world's bastion of independent cinema, Sundance.

Just go with it.

PARK CITY – The 2015 edition of the Sundance Film Festival has already brought us star-making performances from Bel Powley (“The Diary of a Teenage Girl”) and Thomas Mann (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”). But it turns out they are not alone. It appears we have a triumvirate of breakout talent in coming-of-age flicks with the addition of “Dope's” Shameik Moore. The Atlanta native is freakin' fantastic as an Inglewood high school senior trying to stay true to himself in Rick Famuyiwa's entertaining new dramedy.

Famuyiwa, who is best known for 1999's underrated drama “The Wood,” has fashioned a crowd-pleaser in “Dope,” a movie that brings a '90s hip-hop aesthetic to a contemporary story. The director's muse is Malcolm (Moore), a self described African-American geek who is in love with the aforementioned era (almost everything was better then). He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friends and punk bandmates Jib (“The Grand Budapest Hotel's” Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons from “Transparent”) while trying to avoid the jocks, gang members and drug dealers who populate his world.

Happily, Malcolm has dreams of attending Harvard and also the grades to get in. Things get complicated, however, after the local dope dealer, Dom (Rakim Mayers, aka A$AP Rocky), uses him as a go-between with the beautiful Nakia (Zoe Kravitz), a girl that Malcolm has also adored from afar. Against his better judgement, and partially due to the peer pressure from his friends, Malcolm attends Dom's birthday party at a hip-hop club hoping to snag a dance with Nakia. The police raid the joint putting Dom in jail and scaring Malcolm and his friends into thinking they have barely escaped with their lives. Malcolm is soon shocked to discover that Dom has put a drug shipment the cops are after in his backpack. One phone call from an incarcerated Dom later and Malcolm is on an adventure to get rid of the drugs without damaging his chances to go to his dream school. Oh, and getting Nakia to fall for him wouldn't hurt either

After the first 10 minutes of the movie it's obvious Famuyiwa's vision for the film is in the details. The 1990s references aren't just about Malcolm's flattop or vintage Jordans. Nakia's long braids are a clear homage to Janet Jackson look in “Poetic Justice” and outside of the four original songs written by Pharrell Williams, the soundtrack is filled with classic songs of the era (and not all of them are West Coast Rap either). More importantly, Famuyiwa wants to play with the audiences expectations of the genre. Yes, Malcolm wants to escape his tough neighborhood by trying to avoid all the stereotypical negative influences around him. And yet, by the end of the movie he comes to realize while he might be a “geek,” there might be something gained by being a “menace” as well.  

The unexpected comedy bits, great music and an insightful point of view all contribute to making “Dope” something special, but it simply wouldn't fly without Moore. Frankly, Famuyiwa may have slightly overstuffed “Dope” and during those moments it's Moore who carries it on his back like a true Hollywood veteran. He also delvers a performance that is surprisingly touching. At one point, Nakia has given Malcolm a ride home. As they sit in her car she tries to give him a compliment by saying something akin to, “You must have all the girls in school all over you.” Dom appears heartbroken and his voice becomes as soft as we've ever heard. He replies, “Are you making fun of me?” Dom has been ignored by girls and his peers most of his life. He can't conceive of the compliment she is bestowing on him. And in that one moment, Dom makes you feel all of Moore's years of pain.

Whether or not you see “Dope” when it hits theaters later this year make sure to remember the name Shameik Moore. Because, ladies and gentlemen, talent of his ilk doesn't appear on the scene very often.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910550879001

Over the past two decades, and the last 15 years in particular, Colleen Atwood has cemented herself as one of Hollywood's leading costume designers. She's earned three Oscars and is continually sought after by many leading directors to design threads for a variety of time periods and genres. With “Into the Woods,” she has once again reunited with Rob Marshall for an inimitable blend of period and fantasy.

HitFix recently spoke the Atwood, who picked up her 11th Oscar nomination for the film earlier this month. Read through the back and forth below.

“Into the Woods” is now playing in theaters.

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HitFix: You clearly had to create many iconic characters for this film. Is that intimidating at all?

Colleen Atwood: It was totally intimidating and not only creating them but creating them together in the same movie! Like, everybody is iconic, but it sort of flowed once I started. I started with the witch. We knew Meryl was cast in that role (the other parts were not cast yet) so I started with the witch and what I was going to do with her, and as that evolved, then Rapunzel evolved (her daughter, her child) – each [character] has their own world and they're all in the world together. It went from there.

Is it fair to say that the color palette is darker than how these characters have traditionally been portrayed?

No. Everyone thinks of a traditional portrayal as from the '50s and '60s and their color pastels. In some of the old fairytale illustrations, in the back of the Grimm fairy tales, there's a lot of woodland darkness.

So do you feel like you're going back more to the original Grimm aesthetic?

Yeah, I am. I'm embracing the early fairytale. Cinderella's early costume had gold shoes. She wasn't in this blue dress [as portrayed by Disney].

I'd like to talk about Cinderella. Here is a character that is not as glamorous as portrayed in popular culture. I for one was really struck by the brown (even in the pre-transformation stage). How did you come up with that color and look in particular?

I took the palette for her more earth-bound role. She's kind of a kook and grounded in a strange way. Sondheim told Anna Kendrick, “You do talk to the birds!”

Rapunzel is another character with an interesting aesthetic. She's almost chained. How did you come up with that?

I kind of went with a bondage theme there. She's trapped in a tower, trapped in a world. I took satin ribbons and ties because there's no exit there. For her prince, I wanted a mother's nightmare: black-leather clad, motorcycle dude, but with a good heart.

What about the witch who goes through a transformation. What inspired you there?

I think that the tortured quality of her life came through. [I wanted to] make it look crusty, like it had been scabbed over the years, pre-transformation. Then she transforms into this “American suburban” idea of what she thinks her daughter would love her to be. A huge, statuesque, iconic blue witch was her idea of the perfect witch and the witch she once was. Meryl loved it and we had great fun. I hadn't before worked with Meryl Streep in a big role (I worked with her very briefly on “Lemony Snicket” years ago). To work with someone of that talent in a big role was a treat.

Were you worried about not working with the “woods” that the art department was conjuring?

No, because I knew what they were going to look like and I knew what the lighting was going to be like. I knew what Dennis [Gassner, the Oscar-nominated production designer] and Dion [Beebe, the cinematographer] were going to do.

What's it like to be in the Oscar race yet again?

It's just kind of a gigantic party that's kind of nerve-racking, but it's great to be honored and it's an internationally acknowledged award. I'm working in Europe and people are so excited that I'm nominated for an Oscar.

Does it change now that you have three wins and over 10 nominations to your name? It's always so random. You never know when you're going to get nominated and for which projects.

You think sometimes you have a chance and nothing happens and then other times, like this year, where I really wasn't sure I was going to get nominated. It's exciting.

With all the “Selma” controversy regarding lacking Oscar nominations and snubs, etc., I think we can all agree those silly details are but a blip at the beginning of what will be a bright career for director Ava DuVernay. I've mostly been excited to find out what her follow-up will be, and it appears things are coming together on that front.

Apparently she will be saddling up to her “Selma” and “Middle of Nowhere” star David Oyelowo once again as they are developing a sweeping love story and murder mystery framed around the disastrous Hurricane Katrina landfall of 2005. They'll both produce, she'll write and direct and he'll star.

Participant Media is backing the project.

“Hurricane Katrina is one of the most important social and environmental stories of our time,” said Participant's Jonathan King. “Ava DuVernay has shown herself to be highly skilled at bringing intimacy and contemporary urgency to epic events. We have been looking for the right way to get back in business with Ava, and with David Oyelowo, and are proud to re-team with them on her original idea, which we believe will be a powerful film.”

Added DuVernay, “The story we”re interested in will explore the complexities of intimate relationships within times of chaos, while also examining the chaos itself. I”m looking forward to the journey.”

I am, too! Seriously, this sounds intriguing as all hell. A little bit of genre against a social disaster backdrop. Fascinating.

We can probably expect a number of Oscar announcements this week as the producers begin to put the show together in earnest. Kicking things off, Adam Levine has been tapped to perform “Lost Stars” on the show.

I'm sure Oscarcast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron did cartwheels when this tune was nominated. It meant they could get some major star power on the show. Seriously, these guys obsess over this detail. I once heard an Oscars producer vocally bemoaning the “terrible” line-up of nominees in the song category (he didn't know the company he was in at the time) because of the lacking luster. Nevermind quality of work; it's all about the ratings, baby!

I imagine Common and John Legend will be tapped to sing “Glory” on the show, too. And whoever will get up there to crank out “Everything is Awesome.” Probably Rita Ora will get the call for “Grateful.” It's an interesting category this year, though, because the award may well end up going to Glen Campbell's “I'm Not Gonna Miss You” in an Oscar shocker. Just keep an eye out is all I'm saying. It's a gorgeous track and there will surely be plenty in the Academy who want this for him.

The 87th Academy Awards will be held Sunday, Feb. 22.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910168562001

We've come to an interesting crossroads in the race. With all eyes on “Boyhood” coming into the weekend, and a few others on “American Sniper” and “The Imitation Game,” it was “Birdman” that walked away the PGA champ Saturday. The SAG Awards left some doubt late in the evening Sunday as to whether the film's odds-on favorite status for the ensemble prize was jeopardized by Eddie Redmayne's lead actor win over Michael Keaton, but when the dust settled, “Birdman” was on top once again.

So, some notes on the history. Films that have won both of those awards and gone on to claim the Best Picture Oscar: “Argo,” “The King's Speech,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “No Country for Old Men,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and “Chicago.” Films that have won both and gone on to lose the Best Picture Oscar: “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Apollo 13.” The year of “Little Miss Sunshine,” Martin Scorsese won the DGA and, of course, “The Departed” won Best Picture. The year of “Apollo 13,” Ron Howard won the DGA but “Braveheart,” not even nominated for SAG ensemble, won Best Picture.

“Birdman” is a film that appeals overwhelmingly to actors (the largest branch of the Academy) and certainly below-the-line artisans (more or less the rest of the Academy, save a couple branches). In those terms, it makes a whole lot of sense as a Best Picture winner.

But speaking of below-the-line, there's a quirky little element of “Birdman's” nominations showing that a number of people are clinging to: It didn't get a Best Film Editing nomination. The last film to win Best Picture without an editing nomination was “Ordinary People,” well over three decades ago. Nevermind the fact that stats are meaningless and broken all the time (Ben Affleck's lacking Best Director nomination for “Argo” being the most notable recent example), or that the editing situation with “Birdman” is nuanced (it is conceived to look like a single take with editing that is in place to mask those transitions rather than tell the story with traditional montage). This is simply enough for some people to dismiss its chances. Silly, I say.

I've said from the beginning that, due to the shared preferential ballot that hints at how films might break down in that voting scheme, whatever wins the PGA Award is my pick. So “Birdman” is now my pick, and the SAG support, expected from the moment the film revealed itself at the Venice and Telluride film festivals, is just icing on that cake.

However, this is definitely a competitive year. I have no doubt there's a lot of clustering in these races and nothing is the dominant, runaway winner. So if it's a bit up in the air and we're in a situation akin to “Little Miss Sunshine's” year, I guess we turn to the DGA for some guidance, where frankly, an Alejandro González Iñárritu win makes a lot of sense. But that also still feels like Richard Linklater's domain this season, so we'll just have to sit back and see what those 15,000 people ultimately thought. And it's sort of grueling that we have to wait two weeks for that.

In the meantime, we do have the ACE awards later this week, awarding the best in film editing. “Birdman” is likely to beat out Oscar nominee in the comedy category “The Grand Budapest Hotel” there, while “Boyhood” is the favorite in the drama category. So it really does feel like these are the two duking it out going into phase two. If there's softness, though, no doubt about it, something could spoil. “American Sniper” is catching a (controversial) stride and the non-SAG-nominated Bradley Cooper could steal Redmayne and Keaton's thunder. “The Imitation Game” is just acceptable enough to be a consensus favorite across the board. Etc.

You just have to think about that preferential ballot. What films are likely to have the least amount of #1 votes in the first round? Probably “Whiplash,” maybe “Selma” or “The Theory of Everything.” The guessing game is trying to understand what the #2 vote on a “Whiplash” ballot would likely be, or a “Selma” ballot, etc., as those will be reallocated as #1 votes in the second round. And that's nothing more than a guessing game because, you know, people contain multitudes.

So what we have is a compelling race, to say the least. And if Clint Eastwood or Morten Tyldum or Wes Anderson win the DGA, well, bedlam. Oscar ballots don't go out until Friday, Feb. 6, the day before the DGA Awards. So that DGA winner, it could be an influential piece of the puzzle this year. And we could end up with a nail-biter all the way up until the moment the Best Picture envelope seal is cracked. Just like last year.

All I know is this: Any bellyaching a “Boyhood” fall from grace is rich. We in the media put films on those pedestals by talking about them in terms of being “the frontrunner” (he said knowing full well what his headline would be). I've always sensed some softness in that steamroller, and again, I've been looking at “The Imitation Game.” But everything is in play. Sometimes it's better to just let an underdog be the underdog. No one was really expecting this of “Birdman,” and boom, there it is. And the critics, to say it for the umpteenth time, don't have a vote here. People fooled themselves into thinking “The Social Network” was unstoppable in 2010, and, well…

The season pushes on. People will put these films in the cage and make them fight it out, but it's all a little silly. They're both great films, and a number of others in the category, too. Let's just try to enjoy the ride and not chew on it too endlessly.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910566027001

SANTA MONICA – Michael Keaton is having the time of his life. Cruising along an awards circuit that has brought him plenty of kudos for his performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu's “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” and probably more opportunities to talk about himself than he'd prefer, he seems consistently high on life and not at all phased by the grind. He's not someone who has really sought out this kind of attention and acclaim, often retreating to his ranch in Montana away from the Hollywood fray, but now that he's feeling the love? Let's just say I doubt anyone's having as much fun with all of this than he is.

On the eve of this year's Oscar nominations announcement, I met Keaton for coffee and a light lunch at one of his favorite Santa Monica spots to chew on as much of his career and the awards season tempest as 90 minutes would allow. In the end, a focus on a couple key departments made sense. We talked about “Birdman,” of course, as well as his experience at the heart of the “Batman” explosion in 1989, his love of journalism and journalism movies and, “Birdman” being a laugh riot and all, his history with comedy.

That's where we start today, and it seems an organic place to begin. Keaton's roots are in comedy, hanging around spots like Catch a Rising Star in New York and working with improv troupes inspired by the greats of the 1970s. It has even been said he owes his stage name in some way to the form: To satisfy SAG rules early in his career, Michael John Douglas became Michael Keaton, but alas, it was a random pick and not an ode to comedy legend Buster Keaton, as has been reported in the past.

With all that in mind, settle in and read through the back and forth below for a discussion about the early days with Ron Howard, a personal favorite flick from the era, “Gung Ho,” working with Harold Ramis on “Multiplicity,” tackling Shakespeare with Kenneth Branagh and a little bit about his Tarantino/Soderbergh sojourn. And be sure to check back over the next several days for a whole lot more.

“Birdman” was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Actor. The film hits DVD/Blu-ray Feb. 17.

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HitFix: It's obviously hard not to play a bit of career retrospective with you. We know the stories by now about Babaloo Mandel and Ron Howard clueing into you and you getting the “Night Shift” gig. “Mr. Mom,” “Johnny Dangerously,” career lift-off. But I want to fast forward a little bit to is “Gung Ho.”

Michael Keaton: OK.

I actually love that movie so much. It's broad comedy but it's also a smart send-up of American machismo. I watched it over and over again when it was on HBO as a kid. George Wendt, John Turturro, the entire cast is so good. I love the “80s” of it all.

Yeah, that great Chrissie Hynde song in there. You know, that's interesting because that's one of those movies we did – it's like Edward Norton was talking about the other day, “Fight Club.” It's so great and it wasn't really a hit, but it is a hit because over time it doesn't matter what the money was. Guys like you, you were in a camp of comedy film fans because people who love that movie really love that movie for the reasons that you just mentioned. Like “Multiplicity” has those people, too. But you're right, I'll be honest with you, I really like that movie. And I always felt like I kind of let Ronnie down on that one and I don't know why. I think I could have been better. I can't put my finger on why.

Really? I actually think it's one of your best performances! I do. You don't watch your movies a lot, though. When is the last time you saw?

Oh, I don't know. I probably saw it once and then that's it. I haven't watched it for a long time.

There's a specificity to it, and I note this in a lot of your work. To me, that's the stuff you remember. Sometimes a comedy comes out and it just washes over you and you don't really remember it anymore, but if there's specificity – I'll just give you example. There's a scene with you and Gedde Watanabe getting drunk and laughing. He kind of wipes his eyes and says, “I've got troubles, bud.” The way he says it is kind of hilarious, and you go to take a sip of beer, but you can't because you get the giggles. For some reason I lose it every time.

Oh, thanks. Boy – honestly, I'm not just saying this, when people – that's maybe one of the giant reasons why I do what I do, when people get that I'm so appreciative of little things like that. I'll give you an example. I was telling [Mark] Ruffalo the other night. If you really examine what he does, he's actually quietly doing really specific characters. You think you're just watching Mark Ruffalo most of the time, but I just worked with him in “Spotlight” and it's happening kind of in front of you. But when you look at “Foxcatcher,” which I thought was great, all those guys are so good. But he does so many great little, quiet little things. And this is something I kind of made them do in “Mr. Mom,” little behavioral thing, tiny little things that I would add all the time because they really didn't understand what a guy with real kids is like.

Mark does this thing [in “Foxcatcher”] where he's getting out of the car when he first pulls in and the family is there and he's pulling into the estate and he's having a conversation, I think with his brother or maybe with Steve Carell or someone, and he's getting the kids out of the car. And it's as if he's getting out grocery bags. He kind of grabs this kid, the kid's kind of, like, hanging. Little things like this. [He mimics Ruffalo's multi-tasking moment from the film.] He's talking, he sets the kids down, because in life, parents – and that guy specifically, that kind of guy – that's what he does. Most actors really pick a child up, put a child down [separately from any other action], and that's not what happens. Thanks for appreciating that.

You mentioned “Multiplicity.” You talked about this earlier this year with Letterman, I think, working with Harold Ramis. What was that like for you, given the comedy world he came from?

Great, because guys like Harold, they came along out of that stuff, y own generation, when comedy hadn't really blown up yet. I've never read this or heard anybody discuss this but I'll bet you you would hear this from Marty Short and I'll bet you would hear this from Albert Brooks – comedy really wasn't what comedy became. It was a much smaller niche, you know? I mean the stand-ups who started influencing me, and then the movies and the magazines and the television shows, there seemed to be this smallish group of people that really dug comedy.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-teIrPT9Co]

There are so many good comedy people now it's crazy. Honestly. So many good people. And I think in the last five, maybe a little more years up to now, there's an explosion of great people. It used to be a tiny group all over the country and in Canada and probably in London were watching, you know, Jonathan Winters and National Lampoon and Bob and Ray. And then Pryor, Albert, little improv groups. There was a little thing called The Ace Trucking Company that was going. As much as I like “SNL,” I was really more of an “SCTV” guy. That really spoke more to me. And I think there were some of us that's true for.

So it was a niche, then. Now it's less. It's like there's people everywhere doing shit on everything, you know? And pretty damn good, too. I think those Key & Peele guys are funny. A few years back I saw those two guys, I went, “Oh, those guys are really smart.” I always talk about Chris Rock – when I saw him, really, really young, and I met him and he was just getting going, not only was he funny, he was really smart, which I thought was cool.

Did you read his New York Magazine interview?

I thought it was great.

I couldn't stop nodding. I thought my head was going to fall off. I'm just like right, right, right, right.

Me, too. A hundred percent. I went, “Yeah!” And then the other one I thought was pretty good, in the back of Rolling Stone. I wonder why he wasn't on the front of Rolling Stone? I barely read any of that shit, but if I see his interview, I'll read it? So comedy then was really fun and it's even in a weird way even more fun now. But there were certain things I really wanted to do. Like the stand-up stuff that you could dig up now online, I guess. There's one thing I've seen that I did on little talk shows, that was nothing. I don't even think it's very good because it wasn't really what I did. It's like, what, five minutes you have to discuss or talk on a panel that you're allowed to say – that was never really me. It had a fit and a place. What I was doing on stage was for a different thing, forming an improv group or writing. We all wanted to be in that world but there were very few places where you could do it.

And then it started changing. “SNL” really started changing things. And then it started opening up more and more and more. Now, man, you could say and do anything anywhere, really show people how you think and what you're about. But I was always confined. Even in movies. Ron Howard really deserves a lot of credit for trusting me when I improvise and go off and might have references. That was the first time I got to let a little of how I thought out inside of a character. I didn't want to just improvise to improvise. I wanted to improvise inside the character. It's easy to go off but I'm not impressed with people who improvise unless they're staying true to the character, which stays true to the story.

Right. And I imagine you were able to do that within “Multiplicity” given where Harold was coming from.

Yeah, Harold was in the epicenter of that world of comedy. And while he admittedly was not the performer that those other guys were, he had that mind. And he was just such a nice man, you know? He became Buddhist, but his Buddhism may have gotten in the way in terms of aggressively being on the studio to push “Multiplicity.” Because what they pushed instead, put the money behind, was “The Cable Guy,” because they were invested. And it didn't work. I kept saying, “Harold, Harold, let's go. This is really good. We put a lot of work in this. Let's go sell this movie. Let's ask these guys.” And he was so mild-mannered that he didn't want to do it. That's one thing I think he and I probably should have done. The campaign was kind of odd and didn't make any sense. But working with him was really good because he was so smart and he quietly got you to do things that you didn't really know, and he was so open to ideas and improv, because that's where he came from. So he was really a good co-conspirator.

I'm a massive “Stripes” fan.

See, like that era where you go, “Oh, guys are saying that?” You know, “Guys are getting to be rebellious?”

When he says, “All the plants are gonna die,” I lose it.

[Laughs.]

And talk about specificity – this is a weird question, and maybe you've been asked before, maybe not. I don't know if anyone's obsessed on what you do in your movies as much as this but there's something you do in “Multiplicity,” and you do it in “Gung Ho” and you do it in “Beetlejuice” and you do it in “Birdman.” I've come to call it “the patented Keaton jerk-off hand gesture.”

[Laughs.] That's true!

I have to ask what that's about.

It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

Has anybody ever asked you about that?

No, but it just always makes me laugh when guys do it because it's such a smartass kind of way of dismissing everything. And you don't say anything!

There's a .gif of the “Multiplicity” one and it's glorious. I use in in Internet arguments sometimes. If I've had enough I just leave it at that.

[Laughs.] That's hysterical! That's hysterical.

And it's never out of place, either, in the movies. That's the funny thing about it.

You've got to know where to use it.

Yeah, yeah. Is it just something that you'll do naturally?

I think the first time I did it I improvised it, probably, and somebody probably laughed. When those moments come sometimes I don't know anything else to do. But that's so funny. Now I'm going to try to drop one, you know…

Do it in some prestige project.

Yeah, do it in, like, a Merchant/Ivory film. Yeah, I'll be wearing a ruffled shirt, you know, powdered wig and I'll go, “My Lord…” [And…boom, he does it.]

You should have worked it into “Much Ado About Nothing.”

I know.

Actually, it would have fit the character.

Actually, you're right, it would fit the character. I think there's an improv thing where I hump something in “Much Ado.”

[Laughs.]

They may have cut that out. But that was a character, you know, I was with a buddy of mine that I knew. He's truly, 100% an intellectual, this guy. He's a really interesting guy. He's written this really wonderful book called “Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks,” which I really recommend. And he's a really cool dude. But he's a dude from Pittsburgh, he talks that way, he's got all these expressions. We were talking about that last night and he's a crazy Shakespeare fan. He loves Shakespeare so much. I took one little Shakespeare thing in one of my acting classes. I didn't understand Shakespeare. I'd never done any of it or anything. And at first I said to Kenneth [Branagh], “You don't want me doing this.” He kept insisting and he said, “No, this is going to work.” He really wanted to use American actors and he was using stars, Denzel and everybody. He said, “No, everybody, don't do it with British accents. Don't do that.” And I said, “Well, OK, I'm out.”

But he kept coming at me. I said, “Give me a minute.” And I had this kind of half of a character I used to do, but I used to do it with Valri Bromfield, who was a partner for a while with Danny Aykroyd. She was one of the funniest women I've ever met in my life. And she and I used to goof around and do these guides. She'd do this one guide and we had a way of speaking and I took that and I added, like, this kind of crisp, Celtic vibe, like half of a Celtic accent. And interestingly, when I went to a Shakespeare coach to work on the character and talked to him about it and said, “Here's what we're going to try to do” – and he thought I was nuts – but he said, you know, interestingly there are scholars who think that some of that language was really from the Celts, from Ireland and parts of Scotland and not England. I said, “Well, whatever. I know nothing about it.” It's just something – I had to find a way in because for me to speak like this, I said, “I don't know how to do that.” And also, you say what you want about the comedy. I guess back then people thought some of that shit was funny. They'd go, “Oh, he's one of the wonderful comic characters.” And I'd go, “Not for me, man.”

[Laughs.] You had to put a spin on it for yourself. You had to put some English on it, so to speak.

No shit. And so I said, “OK, this is what I'm going to do,” and I'm sure scholars will hate me but I found no other way to do it. Then there was a guy where I grew up who was a local constable. And that's actually what Dogberry is, is a constable. But I never knew what a constable was and I remember this guy – I always found this guy really slippery. We all did. He would come in and he'd always want things from my dad and my dad would never do it. He'd want a favor here or a favor there, you know? He's never straight-up about anything. And I based a lot of the character on him and just thinking about that guy and how to kind of watch him.

Then I wanted to add to him, like, kind of a little bit of badass. There's stuff that's cut out of that movie where Dogberry actually really confronts a guy and threatens him. It's funny but you go, “This guy might be crazy,” you know? And that was really fun. But that was one of the most fun things I ever did. And I had a horrible fever. I got really sick and I was sick almost the whole time. And the weather was so hot; it was like 95 degrees every day in Tuscany, where we shot it. In all that hot clothing and I was constantly dripping in sweat, sick through almost the entire shoot. But I really loved doing that movie. In fact that's something, of all the things I want to do – there are now a bunch of things I want to do but I would really like to grab a Shakespeare piece again somewhere.

What about theater?

Yeah. And, I mean, that would really be ballsy because I'm sure they'd line up to stone me. But if I could find a smaller role that I could manage… It's so fun to try to pull it off because it's like learning another language. It's like doing a role in a foreign language, you know? The discussion about, “What does this mean?” And you know what was really the coolest? I showed up to the set, I was so nervous thinking, “I've got to be around all these Shakespearean actors and they're going to look right down their nose at me.” But they were the coolest guys. You'd be doing a scene and these guys working on Shakespeare several times would stop and say to Kenneth Branagh, “What does that mean? When he says…” And I'd go, “Oh! I am so relieved!” And then he'd say, “Well, he's really saying this but, you know, remember,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'd go, “Oh, man.” That really took a lot of the pressure off. They were so cool about it. They would read the London Times and I'd get up, do the scene, no big deal.

That's fun.

Yeah it was cool.

And then there's the comedy stylings of, say, Elmore Leonard. One interesting note in your filmography is the “Jackie Brown”/”Out of Sight” thing. You played the same character in both. It's interesting because we live in this world of shared universes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, etc. But that's just this funny little example of a shared character across two studios that's so rare.

No, I don't think anybody had ever done it and that's what made it. First of all, it was Soderbergh.

Which has to be weird. You get, like, a taste of Soderbergh. You had to have wanted more after that.

Yeah, because somebody asked me, “What's he like? How does he direct?” Still I'm not quite sure. But I'm a giant Soderbergh fan, and not only that, I thought, “Wait a minute. I don't think anybody's ever done this,” because we don't talk about it. You don't talk about, like, the minor, meta – if there is such a thing. I said to him, “The only thing I ask is he can't look exactly the same but he has to have a look that we maintain there,” and maybe I think I kept the jacket or something to go, “Oh, there he is again,” like he might pop up, you know, in another movie somewhere. I mean this guy – it makes him like a guy out there. It's, you know, Ray Nicolette might pop up. You might be standing in line at Starbucks and he might be there. Anywhere you can get next to originality, man, that's my thing. If I can get anywhere close to it I want to be part of it. And I never saw anybody do that so I was all in to do that. I didn't care if it was 30 seconds.

Was Tarantino fun?

Yeah, really fun. Really fun. And I loved “Jackie Brown.” You know, of the Tarantino movies, that's got its own little vibe. It's not like his other movies in a lot of ways, you know? And I think that's one of the cool things about it. There are some shots in that movie that are so good. He's something.

Tomorrow: “The Paper,” “Live from Baghdad,” “Spotlight” and a love of journalism.

Michael Keaton will receive a career tribute and the Modern Master Award at the 30th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 31.

PARK CITY – A great film is often one that it transcends the cliches of its genre. The 2015 Sundance Film Festival already debuted one movie that overcame the tropes of the coming-of-age picture, “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” Saturday. And on Sunday, it brought another genre-breaker to the zeitgeist with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's powerhouse “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.”

Let me start off by saying that the film's main character, Greg (Thomas Mann), would want everyone to know that the dying girl isn't going to die. She's gonna be OK and what you'll eventually see in theaters is really just the story of their friendship. The dying girl is named Rachel, by the way, and she's wonderfully played by Olivia Cooke (“Bates Motel”).  

But back to Greg.

Greg has spent most of high school trying to be casual friends with everyone while remaining as invisible as possible at the same time. He avoids the “Gaza Strip” battleground of the school cafeteria by eating lunch in the office of Mr. McCarthy (an almost unrecognizable Jon Bernthal), his history teacher, and spends his time watching foreign language flicks with Earl (a fantastic RJ Cyler). Even though he's known Earl since they were five-years-old he'd want you to know they aren't friends but “co-workers” (Greg appears to have an issue with getting close to people). The two spend most of their free time creating their own skewed versions of classic films such as “Senior Citizen Kane” and “2:48 PM Cowboy.”

Life becomes more complicated for Greg when his mom (Connie Britton) forces him – literally forces him – to go befriend his classmate Rachel after she's diagnosed with leukemia. Rachel isn't sure what to make of this, but the two slowly bond even if Greg's inherent awkwardness makes it harder for him than for her. Eventually, Greg gets pushed by Earl and another friend into making a film just for Rachel, but months after starting he can't seem to finish it.

Gomez-Rejon, who is best known for his television work on “Red Band Society,” “American Horror Story” and “Glee,” displays an unexpected vision in his second big screen effort. He uses stop motion animation, unconventional perspectives (one scene features shots from the POV of a melting popsicle) and self aware titles to frame the story in Greg's voice. And yet, every time the film seems to be slightly inspired by contemporary flicks such as “Submarine” or “Son of Rambo,” Gomez-Rejon will introduce an element you wouldn't expect which is nothing like those films. It should be noted, a good deal of the credit for the film's look has to go to cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, a frequent collaborator of Park Chan-wook.  

Both Gomez-Rejon and writer Jesse Andrews (who adapted his own 2013 novel) seem very aware of how this genre can become predictable and they constantly disrupt the audience's expectations in different ways. They also put a tremendous amount of true-life humor in Greg, Rachel and Earl's friendship at the beginning of the film. That's because Greg probably isn't telling the truth about what happens to the dying girl, but I didn't tell you that, OK?

“Me and Earl” could not succeed, however, without the incredible performances from both Mann and Cooke. This is the best material of their careers and they simply nail it. Outside of the aforementioned Britton, Bernthal and Cyler, Nick Offerman does wonderful Nick Offerman things as Greg's father, Molly Shannon brings some heartbreaking laughs as Rachel's mom and Katherine C. Hughes finds some three-dimensionality for what could have easily been the hot girl movie stereotype.

It's often easy to overhype a film at a festival like Sundance, but “Me and Earl” is as genuinely wonderful as the kudos will suggest. It's a fresh, beautiful and heartbreaking achievement that continues to surprise until the very last scene. It's dangerous to call something an instant classic, but sometimes it's simply the truth.