BY GENE TRIPLETT

GRAPEVINE, Texas — You can light up a cigarette in a smoke-free hotel when you’re as big as Antonio Banderas.

Who can say no to the voice of Puss in Boots, the feline fighter, lover and outlaw, or the man behind “The Mask of Zorro,” or the guitar-strumming, gunslinging El Mariachi, eh?

It’s been a grueling morning of interviews after all, a smoke break has been earned, and Banderas is polite enough to ask permission of a hotel management rep — which is immediately granted — as he and co-star Salma Hayek settle down in a meeting room of the posh Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center for an exclusive interview with The Oklahoman.

Hayek asks the reporter, “Do you mind if he smokes?” But older reporters are used to smoke-filled rooms.

“My wife just made a movie in Oklahoma,” Banderas says, referring to spouse Melanie Griffith. “A movie called ‘Yellow’ with (director) Nick Cassavetes.”

That film is due out sometime in 2012, but the movie Banderas and Hayek have come to Texas to promote today is “Puss in Boots,” the animated comedy-adventure from DreamWorks that centers on a funny, furry, sword-wielding character who first took his bow in the long running “Shrek” series.

“We like cats,” Hayek says as she doodles on a legal pad. “I have a cat. He has four cats. We have other animals, too. Not just cats.”

The dark-haired, dark-eyed, Mexican-born actress supplies the voice of Kitty Softpaws, the female foil in “Puss in Boots,” marking the fifth time she and Spanish native Banderas have played opposite one another, beginning with Robert Rodriguez’s “Desperado” (1995) and its sequel “One Upon a Time in Mexico” (2003). They also appeared together in Julie Taymor’s “Frida” (2002) and Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” (2003).

Banderas attributes their shared film work to friendship and chemistry.

“Whatever it is that we have, we try not to intellectualize it,” he says. “It may not work anymore, so we just let it go.”

“It’s true,” agrees Hayek, who is married to French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault. “And honestly it’s not that big of a thought-out thing. We did a thing with Robert Rodriguez, ‘Desperado,’ that had a sequel, which is ‘Once Upon a Time in Mexico.’ Obviously we became friends from the beginning. Then I did a movie called ‘Frida,’ and as a friend I needed him to help me. And as a favor he was in the movie. Then, because we were also friends with Robert Rodriguez, he asked me to do a cameo in one of the ‘Spy Kids’ movies.”

Whatever it is between them, it still seems to be working in “Puss in Boots,” not through their physical presences on the screen this time, but through the male-female tension of their lively and often heated dialogue exchanges. In recording dialogue for animated features, the performers usually work alone in an isolated recording studio setting, without the benefit of another actor to play to. But Banderas requested a face-to-face recording session with Hayek, which helped them develop their usual verbal rhythm and even some improvisation that was used on the soundtrack.

“We looked in our eyes when we were doing it, and it brings freshness to the movie,” Banderas said.

“Puss in Boots” — which releases in 3-D and 2-D formats in theaters Friday — is populated with twisted nursery-rhyme characters, including Puss’ childhood friend from the small village of San Ricardo, Humpty Dumpty (voiced by Zach Galifianakis). When the story begins, Puss and Humpty are growing up in an orphanage, sharing a dream of finding the magic beans needed to grow a beanstalk and steal the fabled goose that laid the golden egg from a giant’s castle in the sky.

But things don’t go as planned and the two friends grow apart, with an embittered Humpty turning into a bad egg full of vengeful intent while Puss is unjustly accused of being a traitor to his village. Puss must then set off on a crusade to save his village, aided by the tough and street smart Kitty Softpaws.

“This is a deep reflection, in a way, about friendship and betrayal, and forgiveness, too,” Banderas says. “Stay with your principles and not be drawn by your friends to do things you shouldn’t do, because you have to pay a price for that, and it’s bigger than you think.”

That’s the basic message he hopes younger members of the audience take home with them.

“You don’t want to get stuck in a movie that’s not appropriate for your child,” Hayek says. “Some of the movies are good only for little boys. And some of them only the little girls enjoy. And this is actually so universal, everybody can enjoy it.”

Judging from the enthusiastic audience reaction at a red carpet premiere in this Dallas suburb the night before, Hayek is right.

And if there’s one thing Banderas likes to light up more than cigarettes, it’s joy on people’s faces.

“I love kids, just children,” he says. “Moments that you have been working on for a long time, suddenly they arrive and you see the whole theater reacting to that, and it pays off for everything, including the promotion. You know what is beautiful, too? We are living in a very, very, very tough world nowadays, very violent, with these enormous crises that we don’t know where we’re going. It’s all so beautiful and a privilege for us actors to have the opportunity to see the beautiful smiling faces of the people around the world. When you see that you feel a really great satisfaction.”

Travel and accommodations provided by DreamWorks.

Few things are funnier than a real-life feline fighting a ball of yarn, but the animated antics of “Puss in Boots” come pretty close.

Being a cartoon cat, young Puss has some advantages over your common household kitty, such as opposing thumbs, the skill to match blades with the fiercest of swordsmen, and the ability to speak hilarious lines with the elegant baritone of Antonio Banderas (“Fear me, if you dare!”). And he wears those boots (as the title indicates), that cape and that big feathered hat. Try dressing your cat up in an outfit like that.

That sets things up for some pretty mirthful moments in this spinoff of the “Shrek” franchise, which relates the origin of Puss and his life before meeting the big green fella, when he was an outlaw in his Spanish hometown.

The film is populated with twisted nursery-rhyme characters, beginning with Puss’ orphanage childhood and his friendship with ambitious egghead Humpty Dumpty (voiced by Zach Galifianakis). Together they dream of finding the magic beans needed to grow a beanstalk and steal the fabled goose that laid the golden egg from the giant in the sky. But the dream is elusive and the two friends grow apart, and the cat grows up to find his true calling when he rescues a woman from the path of a charging bull.

The villagers of San Ricardo proclaim Puss a hero and award him his famous boots and hat. But unhappy events and fickle fortune eventually leave the cat branded a traitor. When he crosses paths with Humpty again, the egg has turned bad, still obsessed with stealing the goose, and eager to enlist Puss as his partner in crime. But it’s going to be a one-egg, two-cat caper. Enter Kitty Softpaws (seductively voiced by Salma Hayek), the greatest thief in all of Old Spain.

In their fifth film together, Banderas and Hayek conjure the same steamy chemistry with their animated characters as they’ve managed with their live-action roles in “Desperado” and “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” creating boy-girl tension between Puss and Kitty that is edgy and sweet.

Galifianakis is excellent, too, as the morally scrambled egg, delivering his lines with perfect comedic pitch, some aimed over the heads of kids (“You know what they do to eggs in prison? It ain’t over-easy!”).

Also, Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris bring dark, Southern-accented hilarity to this film’s more sinister version of Jack and Jill.

And director Chris Miller (“Shrek the Third”) keeps things fast-paced and lively throughout, maintaining 90 minutes of a kind of fun that appeals to the whole family. The visuals are striking as well, complete with lifelike character detail, fluid animation and rich color and shadow, especially in the 3-D version, where the technology is tempered to enhance, not distract.

Kids and adults alike will find the well-choreographed chases, dances and sword fights, plus the dandy dialogue delivery, in “Puss in Boots” purrrrty darn entertaining.

— Gene Triplett

MOVIE REVIEW

“Puss and Boots”

PG1:303 stars

Starring: Voices of Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton, Amy Sedaris.

(Some adventure action and mild rude humor)

BY GENE TRIPLETT
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The guys from “The Hangover Part II” didn’t really suffer the consequences of alcohol abuse while filming in Bangkok, but too much of the Thai capital can cause its own morning-after miseries.
“I think, unfortunately for Ed, it was the food,” Bradley Cooper said during a news conference to promote the new comedy last week at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Zach Galifianakis, Mason Lee, Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper

“I had a very serious hurdle to get past, the first week, which was food poisoning,” Ed Helms agreed.

“It lasted throughout the movie,” Cooper disagreed.

“Well, it never fully went away,” Helms admitted. “And maybe I should just leave the rest up to your imagination. Just say my body exploded.”

So, maybe it wasn’t such an acting stretch for Helms to look hung over in “The Hangover Part II,” the much anticipated sequel to the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time.

Bangkok action

Like the 2009 original, chapter two is an outrageous raunch-fest about four guys who embark on a drinking and drugging spree to celebrate the impending wedding of one of their number, only to wake up in a trashed hotel room the next morning remembering nothing, but quickly discovering and panicking over the fact that one of their number is missing.

One of the main differences between the sequel and the first film is that the action has moved from Las Vegas to the meaner streets of Bangkok, where a serious language barrier — and a few dangerous criminal types — make it all the more difficult to find their lost friend in time for the impending nuptials.

Cooper plays Phil, the relatively levelheaded ringleader of the group; Helms portrays Stu, the bridegroom this time, whose rather milquetoasty demeanor belies a dormant darker side; and Zach Galifianakis returns as Alan, the left-footed child in the body of a man who is prone to appallingly inappropriate behavior that’s a constant source of irritation and trouble for everyone.

Right now, Galifianakis was cutting up Alan-style with one of his co-stars at the head table and had failed to hear a reporter’s question about how they all adjusted to life in Bangkok.

“I’m sorry, these guys have got the giggles,” the bearded comedian-turned-actor said with an impish look in his eyes. Then he flipped on his serious switch. “I think just in general, the city itself, just getting used to the city the first few days, and the jet lag, was a little bit tough. But once you got there and got settled in, the people are so brilliantly nice that you feel welcome. And it’s a great society, it really is.”

Dealing with mayhem

Cooper’s biggest problem with Bangkok was the sheer numbers of nice people.

“There’s something about doing a production in Bangkok where there’s just tons of people all over the place,” he said. “And (director) Todd (Phillips), to his credit, thank God, runs a lean set and that just makes it easier to work. So that was a challenge, having to adapt to there just being so many bodies around all the time.”

Phillips echoed Cooper’s complaints but had some good things to say about the city as well.

“I think in a nutshell Bangkok is just a very crowded, very chaotic and very hot city, so I think we all had challenges like Bradley was saying, dealing with the crowds and chaos,” said Phillips, who also co-wrote the script with Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong.

“But ultimately the movie is about mayhem, and to make a movie about mayhem sometimes you have to go to mayhem, so I think it all found its way into the movie, and it helped.”

On the other hand, he said, “Bangkok is one of the most beautiful cities. I mean that’s where you have to go. It’s a very cosmopolitan city. In our movie, we shot a lot in the Chinatown district of Bangkok. We really took a liking to the look and the feel of the area. But Bangkok as a city is just a beautiful, unbelievably cosmopolitan city. There’s so much there. I was there for about three months and still felt like I could have stayed longer. Just more to see.”

Which led to another reporter asking about restaurant recommendations.

Several in the group unhesitatingly touted a place called Top Menu, but Helms insisted it was no better than any ordinary Chinese restaurant in New York.

“He wonders why he got food poisoning,” Phillips said.

“There’s another place called Very Top Menu,” Galifianakis said. “Don’t go to Bottom Shelf.”

Travel and accommodations provided by Warner Bros.

Listed on wimgo Movies under Comedy

Bradley Cooper, Ken Jeong, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis.

It’s a given that boys will be boys with bruising consequences again in Todd Phillips’ latest comedy outrage, “The Hangover Part II.”

The title after all is a pretty straightforward declaration that this is the fully warranted sequel to the writer-director’s 2009 surprise runaway smash hit about three guys who wake up in a trashed Las Vegas hotel room feeling the crushing morning-after effects of a mobile night on the town they can’t remember, and their frantic efforts to retrace their drugged and drunken path of destruction and find their missing bridegroom buddy, control all the damage and get him to the wedding on time.

But the comic shots in this second serving are watered down by a funky tasting formulaic sameness, the formula being a part-by-part remix of the same narrative cocktail Phillips poured in the first round.

The laughs are here to be sure, especially in the shaggy, portly form of Zach Galifianakis as Alan, the self-described “stay-at-home-son” of rich, doting parents who wants desperately to be accepted by his brother-in-law, Doug (Justin Bartha), and Doug’s best friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms). Unfortunately (and hilariously), he’s prone to appallingly inappropriate and childish behavior that kind of puts everyone off.

But it’s deja vu all over again from the opening fade-in, with a bedraggled and borderline-panicked Phil on the phone to his wife, trying to explain why he and his buddies have been absent all night from the scene of a wedding that is now only hours away. Just as before, the reason for Phil’s distress is that one of his hard-partying companions is missing and possibly kidnapped, dead or at least grievously injured.

Once again, ringleader Phil, milquetoasty Stu and weird Alan — the “Wolf Pack” as Alan has dubbed his crew — are tasked with tracking down clues to the nature of the previous night’s bachelor party debauchery and the whereabouts of a lost sidekick.

What’s different this time is the setting, switched from Vegas to Bangkok, and Stu’s the one who’s getting married, to a beautiful Asian-American girl named Lauren (Jamie Chung), despite his tenuous relationship with his future father-in-law, Fohn (Nirut Sirichanya), a stern traditionalist who thinks Stu is something less than a man.

And this time the missing person is Fohn’s favorite son, Teddy (Mason Lee), a teenage academic and artistic genius who’s escaped daddy’s watchful eye to tag along with Phil and company and discover the forbidden wonders of a grown-up boys’ night out.

It all starts out harmlessly enough when straight-arrow Stu — still gun-shy from his experience in Vegas — insists that his bachelor party consist of nothing more than one bottle of beer apiece, in sealed containers that can’t be spiked with any disaster-triggering drugs like last time.

And that’s the last thing anyone remembers when they wake up the next morning in another trashed room, this time in the middle of one of Bangkok’s most infamous districts. Instead of discovering a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the closet, they find a high-strung, cigarette-smoking monkey swinging from the rafters, a severed finger in a bowl that appears to belong to the missing Teddy, and a crazed Mr. Chow (the hilarious Ken Jeong, reprising his role as the effeminate, psychotic “international criminal” the guys encountered in the first film).

Also, Stu has acquired a tattoo on his face, and Alan has shaved his head.

Of course that’s only the beginning of the overnight horrors that have transpired, as the guys soon learn when they meet a menacing mobster named Kingsley (a memorable turn by Paul Giamatti), a stripper named Kimmy (Yasmin Lee) who’s not what she seems (much to Stu’s dismay), and a gang of murderous drug dealers out to nail the guys for stealing their monkey.

As in the original film, the depiction of male friendship has genuine heart, the raunchiness is rampant and refreshingly unapologetic as scripted by Phillips, Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong, and Part II does have its share of guilty comedic pleasures. But the laughs don’t come as frequently or quite as uproariously as they did during the Vegas shenanigans because the writers have tried too hard to duplicate the magic of part one and have ended up producing what amounts to an elaborate rewrite of the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time. Its devoted audience has already been there, done that.

— Gene Triplett

MOVIE REVIEW

“The Hangover Part II”

R

1:42

 2½ stars

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Mason Lee, Jeffrey Tambor, Paul Giamatti.

(Pervasive language, strong sexual content including graphic nudity, drug use and brief violent images)

There are likely to be few critics in the country who’ll fail to point out that “Due Date” – with its slapstick road-trip dynamic, its fat-guy/slim-guy co-stars, its prickly-mushy buddy movie formula – plays like a latter-day “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”

Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis

But instead of the buttoned-down businessman Steve Martin heading home for Thanksgiving, we have the fidgety architect and family man Robert Downey Jr. homeward bound for the imminent birth of his first child. Both are uptight control freaks.

And instead of amiable slob John Candy, a shower-ring salesman with a penchant for telling long, pointless stories, we have neurotic slob Zach Galifianakis (the reigning John Belushi of the times) as a pot-smoking aspiring actor with abandonment issues owing to the recent death of his beloved dad. Both are annoying but ultimately endearing screw-ups.

And instead of director John Hughes effectively moving from teenaged angst to middle-aged anxiety, we have director Todd Phillips (“The Hangover,” “Road Trip”) pedaling his brand of raunchy, R-rated, over-the-top physical comedy through some very familiar territory.

The imperatives of the two films are the same: to get home before the holiday/birthday, despite a maddening series of comically escalating setbacks, delays, detours, disasters and deeply humiliating misadventures.

Anyone who has seen “Due Date’s” preview trailers or commercials already knows the set-up: Downey’s persnickety architect Peter Highman gets bounced off an Atlanta-to-L.A. airline flight due to the creepy antics of Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis), a neurotic, motor-mouthed Hollywood hopeful. Through a series of tortured coincidences, the mismatched pair end up sharing a car (along with Ethan’s self-gratifying French bulldog, Sonny) for a grueling cross-country drive.

And the clock is ticking as Peter’s impatient wife (an underused Michelle Monaghan) is expecting the couple’s first child and wants him home, and as Ethan claims to have an important meeting with a big-shot L.A. casting director.

This sets up the dynamic in which the needy, erratic, insanely upbeat Ethan invites disaster at every turn as he painfully, gradually ingratiates himself to his high-strung, judgmental but not totally unsympathetic traveling mate.

There’s an odd pit stop to purchase pot from a spacey Alabama dealer (Juliette Lewis in yet another short but pithy supporting turn). There’s a peculiar sidetrack in which Peter enlists the aid of an old college friend (Jamie Foxx). There’s a truly bizarre detour over the Mexican border followed by a credibility-stretching car chase. There’s a tangential trip to the Grand Canyon rim to release the coffee-can ashes of Ethan’s dead dad and to allow the bickering buddies a nicely sappy bonding moment.

Although the script by a committee of writers feels like it was written by, well, a committee of writers, Downey and Galifianakis generate enough endearing if annoying buddy chemistry (or anti-chemistry as the filmmakers insist) to hold it all together and keep us cheering for its carefully calculated odd couple – although it’s often a long, bumpy road between laughs. The always watchable Downey works his slow-burn to perfection, and Galifianakis manages to invest even the most predictable material with a wild, weird, unpredictable energy.

“Due Date” won’t make anyone forget the superior “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” but it packs just enough shaggy-dog likeability to make us willing to ride along.

- Dennis King

“Due Date”

R
1:40
2 1/2 stars
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan, Jamie Foxx, Juliette Lewis
(Language, drug use, sexual content)

Juliette Lewis

BY GENE TRIPLETT

Juliette Lewis has come by her Hollywood rock ‘n’ roll wild child image honestly, picking film roles and playing music that are dangerous and different.

Since stunning movie audiences when she was barely 18 as Danielle Bowden in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of “Cape Fear” (earning  a supporting Oscar nomination), the Los Angeles native has tackled some of the edgiest characters out there, including a serial slayer in Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers,” a psycho-killer’s girlfriend in Dominic Sena’s “Kalifornia,” a corrupt cop’s mistress in Peter Medak’s cult favorite “Romeo is Bleeding,” a worldly-wise young drifter in Lasse Hallstrom’s “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” a mentally challenged woman in Garry Marshall’s “The Other Sister,” and a nine-months-pregnant kidnap victim in Christopher McQuarrie’s “The Way of the Gun.”

In 2003, Lewis took a break from acting to satisfy her musical urges, which were just as exotic as her dramatic appetites, forming a band called Juliette and the Licks, shaking up a punk-pop concoction that was equal parts Iggy Pop, P.J. Harvey and ’90s alt-rock, and filling two full-length albums with it (“You’re Speaking My Language,” “Four On the Floor”) in 2005-06.

In 2009, she went solo, expanding the colors of her musical palette — with a touch here and there of the blues — on “Terra Incognita,” before turning back to acting in earnest.

And earnest she is in Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction,” the true story of working-class Massachusetts woman Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) who put herself through law school and spent 18 years proving her imprisoned brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) innocent of murder.

Lewis is already drawing critical raves for her brief but indelible performance as an unprincipled, low-living woman whose testimony puts Kenny in jail.

She kicked off our recent phone interview by complimenting my “nice accent,” of all things, making me self-conscious about my Okie drawl. So, I asked about our mutual Oklahoma City acquaintance, Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips.

A: Well, you know, I met him a couple of times at his shows so I don’t know him past that, other than I’m a big fan of his, and he seems like a real good guy.

Q: The reason I asked is because you actually appear in the Flaming Lips documentary “The Fearless Freaks.”

A: I know, I remember that show. Me and my sister went there, and we had our own animal suits that we rented. We didn’t know that they gave you suits, so we came with our own. And I got to be an animal onstage.

Q: What kind of animal were you?

A: I think I was a mouse.

Q: When was that?

A: Oh, that was like six years ago. It was before I was touring with my own band.

Q: Bet that was fun. Well, let’s talk about “Conviction.” You were fantastic in this film. With the little time that you were in it, you made more of an impression on me than anyone else in the cast.

A: Oh wow, I appreciate that. Yeah it’s been really wild because I didn’t make movies for about five years because I was just making records and touring, and that became my main bread and butter. So I turned stuff down because I just wanted to give everything to my music. So it was only last year I started doing films again. So it’s been really exciting for me to just play all kinds of different roles.

No matter how big or small the part is … this is a perfect movie that gave me the opportunity to do something I’d never done in film before, which was to completely transform. I didn’t want you to see me anywhere, any of my mannerisms. And also I never played a part where in one scene I had to go through so many transitions or emotions, you know, like between feeling guilty and grief-stricken to vengeful and then being totally disconnected. And then at the end being manipulative.

So yeah, it was a really wild thing to be a part of.

Q: Did you pursue this role, or did they come to you with it?

A: Oh no, Tony (Goldwyn) just offered it to me, Tony the director. And I just make a decision based on “does this give me something new to do in film?” And I felt it did, but I’m also slowly finding my way back into movies again, and I feel like this is a new chapter in my career, or it’s the beginning of one, you know, in my 30s now. This is the most dramatic thing I’ve done in the last 10 years. I was out on “The Switch” earlier this year, which is a comedy, and I’ll be in “Due Date” which is another comedy in November.

Q: What kind of preparation or research process did you go through for this role in “Conviction”?

A: This movie was really interesting because there was a world of research. Because it’s a true story and this person is a real person. I never met her, but I had all the ingredients there, that she lied and she kept lying, and I knew she was an alcoholic. I studied with a dialect coach, a woman named Liz Himelstein, to get her accent together.

But with that said, every personality is different. And a lot of the essence of the part is something that I have to sort of channel and come up with.

So I added the ingredients like the facts of the case. Like the scenes I’m in, that’s all verbatim things she said in interviews.

So even the way she messes up phrases, that’s her actual language. But the way in which she conveys her feelings, that was left for my interpretation.

Q: There was one word in there that was really off-kilter, that caught everybody’s attention.

A: “Railroad?” That was in the script. And I thought it was a typo. And I told the writer, “Don’t you wanna fix this?” And she went, “Oh no, that’s what she said.” And she said “stature of limitations” (instead of) statute of limitations.

That was really fun, and then of course makeup and hair, that was a huge part. ‘Cause I wanted you to see the amount of damage that she’d been through over 18 years. When you see, you know, when you can see a person and you can go, “Wow, where have they been?” And I wanted you to feel that.

Q: I know you said the script was verbatim, but how much did you bring to this character beyond that?

A: Well, all of the behavior and where she gets emotional, where she gets angry, all of that is the way I interpret the dialogue. And then, of course, when I’m getting up to fill my drink, or if I’m being distracted, all those things are my physical language.

But as far as lines, I added a couple of lines but that’s pretty much as written. It’s just sort of the life I gave it is something else. You can’t really write a person’s interpretation of it.

Q: You mentioned “Due Date,” which stars Robert Downey Jr. Could you tell me a little bit about that film?

A: That’s a real cameo, and it’s one scene. (Director/co-writer) Todd Phillips, he just calls me up and says, “Hey, I got a part for you,” and then I come down. He’s proven himself as one of the best comedic directors out there right now, and this movie with Downey, and first of all, Zach Galifianakis is one of my favorite comedians. Downey, I played with, of course, in “Natural Born Killers.” It was a fun day at the office for me with those two.

Q: So are you doing anything at all musically, or putting it on hold for a while?

A: Yes. I just toured the states and Canada in a van, no less. And we were on a monthlong tour and we didn’t play Oklahoma, but I was out with The Pretenders last year and Cat Power was pretty incredible.

And so now I’m on my downtime. It’s the gestation period. I’m going to be writing more, and I’ll probably make another record next year. But now I’m finding the balance, because I was pretty much just making music and touring for five years, and I really feel like I found a strong, good solid audience that is gonna take the ride with me when I do it again.

Q: The music you’re making with The New Romantiques, how does that differ from the music you were making with The Licks?

A: Well, they’re not called The New Romantiques. I flirted with that name for a minute, and then it was out on the Internet, and blah, blah, blah. But “Terra Incognita” is a proper solo album in that it was written with a good friend of mine. I wrote half of it on piano and then (Omar Rodriquez-) Lopez of Mars Volta produced it and he also played instruments on it, and then I put a band together after the fact.

So, the way I approached songwriting was completely different, and I focused a lot more on melody and space and dimension in the music and the songs. Big old guitar riffs and rock drums. Because with The Licks it was proper, straight-up-and-down guitar rock, and on this new record I have a blues song called “Hard Lovin Woman,” I have this really what I hope to be or aspired to be a kind of Bowie-esque, softer song called “Suicide Dive Bombers,” and then your banging rock ‘n’ roll track, “Terra Incognita.” And so it goes all over the place, and I feel like it’s a real personal record. It’s just me and my different musical tastes.

I’m about to release a new video that’ll come out next month. But I always tell people to go on MySpace and all that jazz to hear the music.

Q: Is the next record going to be more of what we’re hearing on “Terra Incognita”?

A: No, it’s funny because I feel like every new thing musically is a reaction to the last. So my next record, I’ve already been writing the songs. It’s all really rhythmic. I’m an explorer, adding more electronic sounds to the drumbeats, and then it’s really hooky choruses. It’s just totally different. It’ll be a really fun record where “Terra Incognita” was more sort of my weird record, for lack of a better description.

It’s not gonna be too long. That’s the thing. I got into this game way too late and I have so much to say and do, so I’m not gonna wait a year.

Q: I look forward to hearing it. Well, I’ve already taken up my time allotted so I’ll turn you loose.

A: “Turn Me Loose,” that’s a Loverboy song. “Turn Me Loose.” OK, I’ll see you later. Bye.

Listed on wimgo Movies under Biography

If “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” plays out like a John Hughes movie set in a psych ward, there’s a very good reason for it. Writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have publicly

Zach Galifianakis, Keir Gilchrist

professed their love for the films of the master of teen-angst dramedy and acknowledged his influence on their latest collaboration.

The teens are just a lot more troubled in this kind of funny, kind of moving, kind of predictable screen adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by Ned Vizzini.

Keir Gilchrist (“The United States of Tara”) plays Craig, 16, who’s considering a dive off the Brooklyn Bridge as an escape route from the pains and pressures of adolescence. Instead, he turns his bicycle toward the nearest hospital where he begs to be admitted and ends up in the adult psychiatric ward because the youth ward is closed temporarily.

While he’s in the outer waiting room, a bearded man in doctor’s scrubs wanders in and sits down beside him, gives him a curious sidelong look and a strange little smile, asks if he has a cigarette, scolds him for being in the hospital when he could be out “bird-dogging chicks,” then gets up and leaves. This oddball later turns out to be Bobby (a perfectly low-key Zach Galifianakis), a fellow mental patient who is able to purloin physician’s duds and roam at will beyond the locked doors of the psych wing.

Bobby, who has also entertained thoughts of suicide due to marital problems and the inability to function in a grown-up world, eventually becomes Craig’s mentor and confidante, and vice versa.

Craig also meets a kindred spirit in Noelle (Emma Roberts), another displaced teen patient afflicted with self-destructive tendencies and the scars to prove it.

In Noelle, the socially clumsy Craig finds an acceptance that has eluded him in the outside world, especially in his pursuit of and unrequited love for Nia (a lovably sassy Zoe Kravitz), while in a hilarious role-playing session with Bobby, he learns how to approach and nurture relationships with the opposite sex.

Fleck and Boden, who’ve become darlings of the indie world with modest but memorable films such as “Half Nelson” and “Sugar,” work their magic again with this heart-warmer about damaged kids and adults helping each other learn how to cope with the big bad world. Gilchrist gives a pretension-free performance as a real, vulnerable, likable young protagonist everyone can root for, and Galafianakis, the outrageously buffoonish scene-stealer of “The Hangover,” strikes a perfect balance between deadpan hilarity and quiet desperation that is heartbreaking and heroic.

Viewers will guess the John Hughes-esque ending long before checkout time, but the treatment is worth experiencing. And like most Hughes movies, the soundtrack is terrific, featuring music from Broken Social Scene, the Damned, the Wowz, White Hinterland and Pink Mountaintops.

— Gene Triplett

MOVIE REVIEW

“It’s Kind of a Funny Story”

PG-13
1:41
3 stars

Starring: Keir Gilchrist, Emma Roberts, Zach Galifianakis, Viola Davis, Lauren Graham, Jim Gaffigan, Zoe Kravitz.

(Mature thematic issues, sexual content, drug material, language)

Listed on wimgo Movies under Comedy drama

BY GENE TRIPLETT

Zach Galifianakis

TORONTO — Zach Galifianakis is settling down and getting serious at 41.

Well, somewhat anyway.

When you’re starring in a movie that’s being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival there are certain obligations you have to meet, like going to lots of parties and screenings and such, which should be no biggie for a guy whose breakthrough big-screen role was as a supreme party animal in “The Hangover.”

But that was just acting.

“Tired,” he says, when someone asks him how he’s doing at the beginning of a roundtable interview promoting his new film, “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.”

He mumbles the single-word answer around a mouthful of cinnamon roll, which he’s brought into a small room full of reporters and Sunday morning sunshine.

“Sorry,” he says, swallowing. “A little tired. I think the younger version of me inside is like, ‘Hey, still gotta go out and have a few drinks.’ And then I get home and, ‘Why was I out having a few drinks?’ It’s so disappointing these days. I hate the loud music, and you’re known for being in movies. People bug the s— out of you. It’s a no-win situation. The last thing I wanna do is talk about stuff that I’ve been promoting all day, and then you feel like you’re promoting it again when you’re out.

“I haven’t seen one movie. But I’ve been out for dinner and drinks for the last three nights.” Then a slight, sly grin creases that brown beard as he adds, “And probably will tonight.”

Galifianakis certainly doesn’t look as battered and baggy-eyed as he did in that drinking movie, when he played the weird, oddly childlike future brother-in-law who harbored a desperate need for male bonding and was prone to sudden, inappropriate utterances and behaviors in public.

Now he’s looking clean and neat in a navy-blue hoodie, jeans and sneakers, no socks, and his thick head of curly brown hair is tousled, but in a naturally cool sort of way. The eyes look a bit sleepy but not dissipated. And he’s gamely ready for another day — and probably night — of promoting his new movie.

But he’s enthusiastic about it, because this is the closest he’s yet come to playing drama. Sure, he’s weird and funny in it too, and he’s portraying a mental patient, so maybe there is a little typecasting involved here. But some of his scenes in this dramedy from writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are real heartbreakers.

“Yes, I’d been in a movie called ‘The Hangover,’ which is kinda known, and I wanted to make sure that the next thing I did was not exactly in the same heartbeat as that,” Galifianakis says. “So it was a conscious thing. Plus those directors are great directors, and I’d seen their movies (“Half Nelson,” “Sugar”) and I was kind of very flattered that they would ask somebody like me, who’s probably known for a little more outlandish stuff, to be in the movie.

“I am playing these parts of nut jobs, but this one I was trying to make him a bit more of a thoughtful nut job.”

“It’s Kind of a Funny Story” is based on a novel of the same name by Ned Vizzini, about a suicidal 16-year-old named Craig (played in the film by Keir Gilchrist of TV’s “United States of Tara”) who checks himself into a Brooklyn hospital and finds himself in the adult psychiatric ward because the youth ward is temporarily closed. There, he meets a kindred spirit in Noelle (Emma Roberts), another displaced teen with self-destructive tendencies.

Galifianakis plays Bobby, a moody adult patient who takes Craig under his wing, becomes his mentor, and is in turn mentored by the teen. The comedian-turned-actor admitted he was a little skeptical about working with young people, but there were no problems.

“These guys are mature young kids,” he says. “Emma comes from a Hollywood family (daughter of Eric Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts) and Keir is super mature. They were the mature ones, and I wasn’t. … I don’t really hang out with teenagers that age. For a long time, I haven’t. So, I didn’t know what they’re like these days. I don’t like teenagers. If I see them in the subway, I’ll go to the next car. I’ll cross the street if I see ‘em coming down the street.

“But (Gilchrist and Roberts) were very professional to work with. They were pretty serious about their work. More serious I think than some of the adults on the set, which was interesting to see.”

But Galifianakis was also serious about the role of Bobby. It’s a character with emotional troubles not altogether unfamiliar to the comedian.

“Yeah, from an early age I kinda knew that I wanted to figure out how (to be in show business), but I went to college and did the regular college things,” he says. “I promised my parents that I would have something to fall back on. And then I had a nervous breakdown in college, and then I quit and went to New York with the intention of trying to be in show business. But I had no idea how to go about it.”

Obviously, Galifianakis has figured it out. He now has a regular gig on the HBO comedy series “Bored to Death” with Jason Schwartzman and Ted Danson, he’s starring opposite Robert Downey Jr. in the upcoming comedy “Due Date” from “Hangover” director Todd Phillips, and he’s set to work with Phillips a third time on “The Hangover 2.”

And with “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” he’s finally gotten to show off some serious acting chops.

But with all of that, he still manages to practice his first love — standup comedy — whenever possible.

“There’s not really conflict,” Galifianakis says. “I was a standup comic and I was doin’ my own thing and people weren’t asking me to be in movies, and then people were asking me to be in different stuff. I mean, I’ve had people tell me I’m a sellout and that kind of thing. I came from such an underground comedy scene for years, where you kind of did rebel against the system.

“I never did that but the comics around me did, and now they’re getting tons of Hollywood work too, so it’s funny how it worked out that way.”

Travel and accommodations provided by Focus Features.

Listed on wimgo Movies under Comedy drama