By Gene Triplett

OKLAHOMA CITY– Actress turned writer-director Famke Janssen said she chose Oklahoma as the setting for her film “Bringing Up Bobby” because it provided the perfect background for her “Bonnie and Clyde-esque” story.

Famke Janssen

“I’d seen the Round Barn and I’d seen Pops and I’d seen all these places where I thought it would make it really interesting,” she said, ” … and there’s something about Oklahoma, where you still have a train coming right through town.”

She spoke to journalists Saturday night during a gala wrap party at a Nichols Hills residence, in a neighborhood where some of the filming took place. It was the first time she had agreed to be interviewed since filming on the $1.5 million production began on July 19 on locations in and around Oklahoma City, Edmond, Arcadia and Guthrie.

Filming was completed Friday.

“I was introduced to Oklahoma through my boyfriend Cole Frates and, being a foreigner, even though I’ve lived in the United States for about 20 years in New York, I thought it was a unique and different place, very American in a way that I think New York is sort of its own little country.

“I was fascinated by it, it intrigued me and Cole and I just sort of started developing this idea … which became ‘Bringing Up Bobby.’ And Oklahoma just seemed the right setting.

“I kind of felt like my space ship had landed because it was so different from what I have experienced growing up in Holland and living in New York. It really just inspired me.”

Janssen said another enticement for filming in the Sooner state was its Film Enhancement Rebate Program, which offers a 35 percent return on film production expenditures made within the state.

The film stars Milla Jovovich (“Resident Evil”), Marcia Cross (“Desperate Housewives”), Bill Pullman (“Sleepless in Seattle”), Rory Cochrane (“Dazed and Confused”) and newcomer Spencer List as Bobby.

The film marks the directorial debut of Janssen, who is best known for her starring roles in films such as the “X-Men” trilogy, “GoldenEye” and “Taken.”

“Bringing Up Bobby” is a comedy-drama about a con-artist named Olive (Jovovich) who escapes to Oklahoma with her son Bobby to try to create a better life for both.

Filming has involved the use of many Oklahoma cast and crew members and among the executive producers are locals Chad Burns from Indion Productions, David and Maryann Johndrow from Johndrow Vinyards, Steve and Renee Knox and Cole Frates.

Janssen also complimented the “kindness and generosity” offered by many Oklahomans during the production.

Thanks to the Warner Archive Collection, more than 550 previously unavailable films, short subjects, TV movies and miniseries have been released on DVD in the past year, making it possible to find, for example, such forgotten gems as the 1982 prison thriller “Fast-Walking” starring James Woods; the obscure “Chandler,” a 1972 detective yarn pairing (of all couples) Warren Oates and Leslie Caron; hundreds of hard to find ’30s and ’40s classics; and the focus of this review, “Hide in Plain Sight.”

This superb, fact-based 1980 crime drama stars James Caan, who also took his one-and-only shot at directing here and nailed it nicely, keeping things taut, gritty and suspenseful from beginning to end. Caan plays a divorced blue-collar worker whose children are spirited away when their new father, a low-tier mobster, enters the Justice Department’s witness protection program.

As an actor, Caan is in his prime, convincingly playing the tough and defiant protagonist that was his stock-in-trade, going up against the cops, federal agents and the U.S. government to find his kids and take them back. He also manages as director to pull spot-on performances from an excellent cast that includes Jill Eikenberry, Robert Viharo, Barbra Rae, Kenneth McMillan, Josef Sommer and Danny Aiello.

It’s now available for the first time on DVD, only from WarnerArchive.com, along with hundreds of other long unobtainable titles. Warner manufactures these discs on demand with each order, and they can’t be found in stores.

Check it out.

— Gene Triplett

Billy Wilder, along with Preston Sturges, was among Hollywood’s first “hyphenates,” a screenwriter who in the highly stratified studio system of the 1930s managed to cut deals that allowed him to direct his own screenplays. Hence, a writer-director.

That’s just one of numerous groundbreaking accomplishments this German-born film pioneer chalked up in an amazing career that ranged from 1929’s “Hell of a Reporter” (as writer) to 1981’s “Buddy Buddy” (as writer-director). These and other highlights are detailed in the definitive biography “Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder” (The University Press of Kentucky, $39.95), by Gene D. Phillips.

The 464-page book interweaves facts of Wilder’s life – he fled Berlin because of his Jewish heritage and sought refuge in America when Germany came under Nazi control – with details of his quick ascendancy in Hollywood from the ranks of staff screenwriter to the coveted position of writer-director.

Drawn from archival records, voluminous correspondence between Wilder and his antagonists and collaborators, a lengthy interview with Wilder himself, and interviews with many of his colleagues, Phillips’ book weaves together various elements into a story that feels both scholarly and highly entertaining.

Along with biographical background, the book includes plot synopses, quotes, anecdotes and trivia from some of Wilder’s most challenging films. Wilder (1906-2002) directed some of the most acclaimed movies in Hollywood history, including 1950’s “Sunset Boulevard,” 1954’s “Sabrina,” 1955’s “The Seven Year Itch,” 1957’s “Witness for the Prosecution” and 1959’s “Some Like It Hot.”

His earlier films, 1943’s “Five Graves to Cairo” and 1945’s “Double Indemnity” earned several Academy Award nominations, and 1945’s “The Lost Weekend” took home Oscars for best picture, director, and screenplay. During the 1960s, Wilder continued to direct and produce controversial comedies, including 1964’s “Kiss Me, Stupid” and 1960’s “The Apartment,” which won Oscars for best picture and director.

Wilder often clashed with the studio powers over strict production codes and conservative ideologies, and Phillips duly notes the filmmaker’s lifelong maverick tendencies.

“Although Wilder made comedies as well as dramas, his satirical purpose was the same in film after film: to expose the foibles of human nature to the public eye,” the author writes. “To stimulate audiences to serious reflections about the human condition. It has been said that if a satirist like Jonathan Swift had lived in the twentieth century, he would have written screenplays for Billy Wilder.”

Phillips is author of other film-related books, including “Beyond the Epic: The Life & Films of David Lean” and “Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola.”

Several other fine biographies of Wilder have preceded Phillips’ book and it appears the author brought no major new revelations to light with this sprawling tome. But for students and fans of this witty, urbane and slyly subversive moviemaker, without a doubt one of the most influential directors in Hollywood history, “Some Like It Wilder” is a well-informed and well-told addition to any library of movie greats.

- Dennis King

The Wrap and Ain’t It Cool News are reporting that Ben Affleck and Rachel Weisz have joined the cast of a Terrence Malick film, set to begin filming in in Bartlesville, OK  in October.  Affleck was recently spotted at the Broken Arrow Bass Pro shop, where an employee reported Affleck said he was filming a movie, and researching a role as a fisherman.

According to the Wrap, the project, a “romantic drama,” was announced at the Berlin Film Festival.   The Wrap speculates Affleck may be replacing Christian Bale in the film.  Bale was spotted in Bartlesville in 2008, and told The Oklahoman’s George Lang he was scouting a possible film.

Oklahoma Film and Music Office Director Jill Simpson said she has not spoken with Affleck about making a film in Oklahoma.

Ben Affleck

Roger Ebert

The collective thumbs of movie lovers everywhere should be flying at half-staff this weekend when the final original episode of ABC’s syndicated series “At the Movies” airs after more than three decades of broadcasting.

The venerable movie-review show, that began on Chicago public television in the mid-1970s featuring dueling newspaper critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, will see its final curtain after the Aug. 14th show.

Gene Siskel

Current hosts A.O. Scott of the New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune will usher out an era of syndicated television that was profoundly formative for many film lovers as well as scores of movie critics practicing the craft today in print, on the air and in various corners of the internet. Barely a working movie critic today was not provoked, challenged and inspired by the heated back-and-forth debate and sparkling insights provided by the show’s familiar format. A generation of critics owes the show a fond farewell.

Earlier this year, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, which distributed “At the Movies,” and ABC Media Productions, which produced it, announced they were pulling the plug on the show after crunching some numbers and deciding that “it became clear this weekly, half-hour, broadcast syndication series was no longer sustainable.”

Read that: the audience for intelligent, insightful film criticism is rapidly aging and younger audiences are much more interested in advertising sound bites, garish, red-carpet glamour and gossipy, insider-Hollywood programming that is more about marketing than thoughtful analysis of weekly studio and indie releases.

Through several incarnations, “At the Movies’ offered a weekly glimpse at what was coming to multiplexes and art houses everywhere, along with concise synopses and spirited evaluations (that for many years ended with a thudding thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdict).

The frank, straight-laced Chicago Tribune critic Siskel and the contrarily erudite Chicago Sun-Times critic Ebert hosted the show through its leap from the public airwaves to corporate syndication and its eventual landing under the Disney umbrella.

With Siskel’s death in 1999, Ebert shared the balcony seats with a rotating group of guest critics until his Sun-Times cohort Richard Roeper assumed permanent co-hosting duties in 2000. Then, Ebert fell ill with cancer in 2006 and with the loss of his voice gradually ceded his spot to substitute critics.

In 2008, a messy corporate divorce saw both Ebert and Roeper exit the show, replaced in an ill-conceived bid to court younger viewers with the infamous “two Bens.”

Ben Mankiewicz, scion of Hollywood royalty and a radio and TV host, along with neophyte Ben Lyons, son of New York critic Jeffrey Lyons, were brought aboard to host a flashier, younger version of the show.

But after one poorly received season – and lots of brickbats from viewers and fellow critics – the two Bens experiment was abandoned and the highly respected duo of Scott and Phillips were brought in to restore some critical clout.

But corporate bottom-line considerations spelled the show’s demise.

Ebert, a Pulitizer Prize-winner still very active as the Sun-Times critic, characteristically sounded off frankly on the situation in his newspaper blog, Roger Ebert’s Journal.

“`At the Movies’ … didn’t fail so much as have its format shot out from beneath it. Don’t blame Disney. Don’t blame Tony Scott and Michael Phillips, the final co-hosts, critics I admire …. Don’t blame Ben Mankiewicz. Don’t blame my pal Richard Roeper, who didn’t fancy following the show in a ‘new direction.’ Don’t blame the cancer that forced me off the show. Don’t even blame Ben Lyons. He was the victim of a mistaken hiring decision.

“Blame the fact that five-day-a-week syndicated shows like ‘Wheel of Fortune’ went to six days. Blame the fact that cable TV and the internet have fragmented the audience so much that stations are losing market share no matter what they do. Blame the economy, because many stations would rather sell a crappy half-hour infomercial than program a show they respect. Blame the fact that everything seems to be going to hell in a hand basket.”

But in the cancellation of his beloved show, Ebert sees an opportunity. In his blog, he says that he and his wife, Chaz, are in negotiations for a new movie-review show. “We believe a market still exists for a weekly show where a couple of critics review new movies,” he wrote.

“I can’t reveal details about the talks we’re deeply involved in,” Ebert said. “I can say that the working title was ‘Roger Ebert presents Fill in Words Here,’ and that it has now become ‘Roger Ebert presents At the Movies.’ Gene Siskel and I started using that title way back in 1980, when we left PBS for Tribune Broadcasting. I can also say the Thumbs will return.”

And to that, we say a resounding “thumbs up!”

- Dennis King

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is:

“The Diets That Time Forgot”

Forget “The Biggest Loser” and its weekly American gladiator regimen. When it comes to spectator dieting, leave it to the British to lend a quirky eccentricity to the process. They do weight loss the old-fashioned way in “The Diets That Time Forgot,” a six-episode English realty TV series coming out on DVD Tuesday.

The British show is hosted by fit historian Sir Roy Strong, who shepherds nine modern obese Brits through the weight-loss regimens of three old English diet plans. The TV show divides contestants into three teams, decks them out in period costume and puts them up in a magnificent Victorian country house to play out the drama. Over the course of the show, the teams spend 24 days dieting and taking part in fitness programs of the past, including ice-water baths, dancing, colonic irrigation, military drills and other draconian exercises.

Weight-loss plans from three different eras are enforced on the teams. The Victorian diet consists mostly of meat. The Edwardians are allowed to eat whatever they want, provided they chew each bite 32 times. The Roaring ’20s team is limited to a diet of celery, veggies and fruit – up to 1,200 calories per day.

Considering that a century ago, women’s waists were generally 10 inches smaller and the average man was 20 pounds lighter, producers wonder if perhaps our ancestors might have known something about staying fit and trim that we’ve long forgotten. Sometimes alarming, sometimes funny and sometimes educational, “The Diets That Time Forgot” takes on issues of eating and weight control with a decorum that oddly blends parts of Masterpiece Theatre and Monty Python.

The two-disc set runs 288 minutes and is being released by Acorn Media. “The Diets That Time Forgot” is not rated but contains nudity, coarse language and queasy medical scenes.

- Dennis King

“The Runaways”

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning are dead ringers for Runaways Joan Jett and Cherie Currie in writer-director Floria Sigismondi’s gritty, often gripping and frequently rocking biopic about the controversial “jailbait” band that drew the blueprint and broke ground for every all-female guitar-bass-and-drum-bashing group that would follow.

The fact Fanning is really belting those vocals like Currie, and Stewart is churning the Jett-style chords as they rip through “Cherry Bomb,” The Runaways’ biggest, most salacious teen-rebellion hit, makes their performances all the more amazing.

Based on Currie’s autobiography, “Neon Angel,” “The Runaways” tells a shocking tale of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and celebrity that came all too soon to a group of naive adolescent girls from Los Angeles under the questionable adult supervision of manager, producer and shameless hype-meister Kim Fowley. His character is played with brilliantly lizardlike loathsomeness by Michael Shannon (“Revolutionary Road”).

Since Currie’s rapid rise and fall was the most tragic aspect of the band’s short life, Fanning has the juiciest portion of the dramatic meat here, and she tears into it with a passion as the impressionable, David Bowie-obsessed San Fernando Valley schoolgirl who was only 15 when she was persuaded to join Fowley’s “jailbait rock” band. The image of her near the end of her downward spiral, clad in lurid glam-star corset and fishnet stockings, squinting into the harsh light of public scrutiny through haunted, burned-out eyes, is an indelible one. Hard to believe the obviously gifted and mature Fanning was playing precocious little girls in films such as “Dreamer” and “The Cat in the Hat” just a few short years ago.

Sigismondi’s screenplay plays a little fast and loose with the facts at times, it still reaches the hard and intimate truths of the love-hate relationship between Jett and Currie at the height of their brief stardom and the end of their innocence in the sleazy, male-dominated world of late-’70s rock ‘n’ roll, a world they helped change forever.

Bonus features: Commentary from Joan Jett, Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning; making-of featurette. Blu-ray bonus: Movie IQ+sync, connects to real-time information on cast, music, trivia while watching movie. Includes The Runaways playlist.

— Gene Triplett

BY GENE TRIPLETT

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The man who would be Hulk was as laid-back and likable as any easygoing dude could be, more like the carefree charmer he plays in “The Kids Are All Right” than a guy who turns into a big green monster every time he loses his temper.

But when Mark Ruffalo settled back for an interview with The Oklahoman on Father’s Day afternoon, the official announcement that he would be taking over the role of Hulk alter ego Bruce Banner in the movie version of “The Avengers” was still weeks away, and he was here at the Four Seasons Hotel not to talk comic-book heroes but fatherhood and family. And gay marriage. And doing acrobatic sex scenes with Julianne Moore.

All of these elements come into play in “The Kids Are All Right,” a comedy-drama from director Lisa Cholodenko about Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Moore, respectively), a lesbian couple in a longtime relationship, each with a teenage child conceived via artificial insemination provided by the same anonymous donor. Their family ties are tested when the kids (Mia Wasujiwska and Josh Hutcherson) decide to seek out their biological dad, who turns out to be Paul (Ruffalo), a free-spirited natural-food restaurateur who first wins the hearts of the kids, then the vulnerable Jules, and then even the brittle and guarded Nic — until she decides that five is a crowd.

“I’m pretty loose and easy,” Ruffalo said, grinning affably as he compared his own traits to those of Paul. “I think like the guy. I’m pretty open to people. I’m not too judgmental of them. You know, I like to have a good time; I like to make people laugh. I think those are qualities that Paul has.

“But after that, it pretty much stops. I’ve known a lot of people like this, a few people in particular that I’ve been really close to in my life, that I really have loved and admired. So in a way it comes naturally for me, because I know them so well. But I have three kids. I’m committed. I’m married. I’ve been married for 10 years, and you know, you don’t see me in the tabloids. I really kind of like my family and embrace my responsibilities, and Paul’s not like that.”

Even before he settled down, working as a bartender for nearly 10 years while he struggled to make it as an actor, Ruffalo could never get as lucky with women as Paul.

“I tried, man, I tried to be Jack Nicholson,” he said with a laugh. “I had some moments where I was close, but I’d always end up hookin’ up with a girl for a couple of years at a time. I had girlfriends. I’d live with them. I had a little period of time where I was trying to have a couple of different girls and be a bachelor, and you know that ended up with me gettin’ slapped.”

But in the film, his character’s the kind of guy who can tumble into bed with just about any woman he wants, including Moore’s gay woman, who’s hit a midlife crisis that’s causing tension at home. That was when the script called for Ruffalo and Moore to get buck naked and fake some pretty fiery sex scenes.

“Believe it or not, she’s a good friend of my wife, which takes a lot of pressure off me,” Ruffalo said.

They had all become good friends when Moore and Ruffalo worked together on “Blindness” in 2008.

In a separate interview, Moore said, “So, the fact that I knew him, that we really trusted each other, we were friends, all of that stuff was incredibly helpful. So we were able to do it quickly and easily, and it was fun, and I don’t even remember doing half of it. When I finally saw it at Sundance, I’m like, ‘Did we do all that? Oh my God, that’s outrageous!’”

“Well, you leave your body,” Ruffalo said. “Anything that’s that uncomfortable for you, I think you just separate from it a little bit. You just jump into it, and then a lot of times you can’t remember what happened because it’s so uncomfortable. … (At Sundance) I had my wife’s eyes covered during the whole thing.”

As for the gay marriage aspect the film, Ruffalo is quick to point out that it’s only a modern twist on an age-old subject and not the issue of the film.

“Not at all,” he said. “I’ve seen the movie now with a couple of different audiences, and they’re laughing because there’s a lot of humor in it. And they’re laughing not because it’s a jokey movie, they’re laughing because they see themselves in it. They see their own families. And ultimately I think it’s just an honest look at a family. I don’t care if it’s gay or straight or biracial or whatever. I don’t think there’s that much difference between ‘em, you know?”

Travel and accommodations provided by Focus Features.

Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck

As he strolls the streets of Central City in his sharp Stetson and crisp white shirts, deputy sheriff Lou Ford projects an image mildly suggestive of Andy Griffith. Clean-cut, ramrod straight, soft-spoken and scrupulously pleasant, he is in the vernacular of this dusty West Texas burg a classic good ol’ boy.

But as we probe deeper beneath the surface of this rustic rube – as we detect a hard glint behind his polite “Howdy, ma’am,” as we watch him sit home nights brooding to the music of Mahler and Donizetti, as we witness the stash of pornographic photos tucked away in his Bible – it dawns on us that a terrible sickness festers beneath Lou’s calm, upright exterior.

That sickness comes to vicious, visceral fullness in “The Killer Inside Me,” director Michael Winterbottom’s bold, brazen and mightily controversial adaptation of Jim Thompson’s savage pulp novel, that teases us slyly with “Andy of Mayberry” then plunges us deeply into an “American Psycho” abyss.

Since the late Thompson was an Oklahoman and Winterbottom shot the film in and around Guthrie, Oklahoma City, Enid, Tulsa and Cordell, there’s naturally much anticipation of the release in the Sooner state. But the bleak, brutal nature of the material, as well as Winterbottom’s blunt, unflinching handling of its violence, have rendered the film a virtual orphan in Hollywood’s distribution system.

Having been roundly booed at the Sundance Film Festival and struggling to find a footing in art-house circles (it played for two weeks then quickly disappeared from New York City screens), the film has become something of a pariah. It is available in Oklahoma City only on pay-per-view TV and will run at Tulsa’s Circle Cinema starting Aug. 20.

Clearly, this is rough, disturbing material, and in the folksy, feral performance of Casey Affleck as Lou, in his sadistic-masochistic encounters with itinerate prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba) and wholesome, hometown fiancée Amy (Kate Hudson) – both actresses plumbing some harrowing, humiliating territory – the film often feels like a very dank slog through a slough of despond.

As Lou’s violent escapades escalate – from the highly publicized pummeling to death of Joyce with his fists through more homicides, double-crosses, sexual depravity, misogyny, botched blackmail schemes – Winterbottom and screenwriter John Curran attempt to capture Thompson’s matchless gift for pitch-black wit, for sweaty prurience versus outraged moralism and for fearlessly probing evil’s most fetid recesses.

But what works so well in Thompson’s hard, artful prose doesn’t always translate so well on screen. Too often, Winterbottom’s version lacks the rising pitch and morbid exhilaration of Thompson’s best writing. The British filmmaker skillfully recreates Thompson’s sordid, dusty, sun-parched world but doesn’t manage to muster its assorted characters effectively or wend his way through the author’s intriguing plot turns with sufficient clarity. And efforts to reveal the pathology of Lou’s sickness just get bogged down in murky exposition.

Much here is artfully done. There are deft, brief supporting turns by Ned Beatty and Simon Baker, puzzling appearances by Elias Koteas and Bill Pullman, and sly musical punctuations here and there like Spade Cooley’s “Shame Shame on You” and Little Willie John’s “Fever”.

But unlike the best adaptations of Thompson’s works – Stephen Frears’ “The Grifters” and James Foley’s often overlooked “After Dark, My Sweet” – this version feels somehow off, like a film influenced by Thompson but not of Thompson (count among the former “Blood Simple,” “Blue Velvet,” Chinatown,” “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” – not bad company).

For sure, “The Killer Inside Me” is a film of raw daring and honest artistic intention that will intrigue some, deeply offend others and raise a feminist outcry among many. But anyone who knows Jim Thompson, knows not to enter his domain expecting a placid landscape of mental health. This is jagged psychological terrain and Winterbottom explores it with a certain admirable intrepidness.

- Dennis King

“The Killer Inside Me”

R
1:49
2 stars
Starring: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman, Ned Beatty
(Disturbing brutal violence, aberrant sexual content and some graphic nudity)

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is:

“UHF” (new box art)

One gimmick distributors often employ to goose sales of long-released DVDs is to reissue discs in new packaging, hoping to attract new buyers as well as obsessive collectors. This week, “UHF,” the 1989 cult comedy, shot in Tulsa and starring Weird Al Yankovic, gets the treatment, being reissued with “new box art.”

The contents of the box are essentially the same as those in the long-awaited DVD package released in 2002, with the usual behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, audio commentary, production stills, promotional materials and Weird Al’s “UHF” music video.

But for Oklahomans, revisiting Weird Al and all the weirdos of Channel 62 should come as a welcome treat. The film was executive produced by Oklahoma City’s Gray Frederickson and shot entirely on location in Tulsa, featuring scores of locals as extras and in small supporting roles.

The wildly eclectic cast ranged from Hollywood mainstays such as Kevin McCarthy, Anthony Geary, Billy Barty and Trinidad Silva (who died tragically midway through the production) to edgy young comics such as Emo Philips, Victoria Jackson (“Saturday Night Live”), Fran Drescher (“The Nanny”), Gedde Watanabe (“Sixteen Candles”) and Michael Richards (presaging his Kramer antics on “Seinfeld”).

The story of a struggling little UHF station and the crazy antics of daydreaming manager George Newman (Yankovic) to keep it alive have become the stuff of cult-fan obsession. Though the movie tanked at the box office, it gained a rabidly loyal following in cable and video afterlife. And now, its bizarre programs – like “Wheel of Fish,” “The Wonderful World Of Phlegm,” “Raul’s Wild Kingdom” (where poodles fly from third-story windows), “Uncle Nutzy’s Clubhouse,” the fistfight-filled “Town Talk” and more – are bonafide counterculture classics.

“UHF” (with new box art) is rated PG-13 and runs 97 minutes.

- Dennis King