Shorts

James Spader Talks About Playing a Villain in Shorts

James Spader has made quite a career out of playing villains, notably in Less Than Zero and Pretty in Pink, but no experience has been quite like playing the nefarious Mr. Carbon Black in Shorts. Spader spoke to MoviesOnline about the shoot, calling it "a whirlwind".

When they called me up and sent me the script. I thought, "Well, I don't know how the hell I'm going to do this 'cause I'm shooting Boston Legal and we're on hiatus and I need to take a break." They called up and they said, "It's going to take us about 5 days to shoot you" and I was just "Okay." I went down there, I think as much for anything else, just to see how the hell they could possibly do that and they did. I think they shot me out in 5 or maybe 6 days. It was a function of Robert. Robert Rodriguez has such a tremendous confidence in terms of how he puts the film together.

In order to shoot the movie as quickly as they did, Spader took Rodriguez's advice on how to play his "over-the-top" villain.

I just sort of gave it up to Robert and whatever he wanted. If he wanted me to say it louder and scream it louder with eyes wider and bigger and flail my arms around even broader, then so be it, because he's got it in his head what this is going to look like. And, it's impossible on the set to tell yourself, to have any idea what the hell it's going to look like because so much of it is created behind the scenes.

Shorts follows the adventures of an 11-year-old boy who finds a rock that grants wishes. What would Spader wish for in he had the rock?

Well, I mean, there's the most immediate which is to wish for a few more wishes. That was always the first wish for me [as a kid] and that always seemed rather intuitive. You start out strong by wishing for more wishes, and then, instead of expanding on that, it then immediately distills and gets reduced to walkie-talkies and mini-bikes or something else depending on the day.

• Shorts
• James Spader
• Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez Talks Shorts' Inspiration

Director Robert Rodriguez is well-known for making genre movies like Sin City and the upcoming Machete, but he's also the creator of popular kid movies like the Spy Kids series. His latest venture, Shorts, follows the adventures of a young boy who finds a rock that can grant wishes. Rodriguez explained the genesis of the movie to Moviesonline:

We have a castle turret [in my house]. Part of the house that I'd built thinking, 10 years ago when I built it, some day I was going to use it as a set for a movie with my kids when I had kids and then it ended up happening with this. I was going to shoot it like El Mariachi in my backyard and come up with a storyline later. When my son came up with the idea of doing a Little Rascals type movie, of course, that was something I had thought of doing years ago and I had totally forgot about it. He would talk about the canyon and a rock. He loves rocks, he collects rocks. He kept saying a rainbow rock. So I thought, what if it’s a wishing rock, and I asked him what he would wish for if he wished for anything because I was going to test the idea on him.

He said, "I wish for a butt for a head." I said, "Are you sure?" and he said, "Yeah." So, I asked my other son who is older and wiser what he'd wish for and he said, "I wish to be a potato." So I said, "Hmmmmm. Okay. I'd wish for a million more wishes." And then, their faces kind of dropped. You could tell they were thinking, "Oh, I just wasted my wish." ...

... I realized this is a great idea for a movie. If you got a rock and could have anything, you really wouldn't know what to wish for at first. Of course, if you're a kid, it's "a never ending supply of chocolate" and now he's got stuff shooting out of his pockets. "Let's wish for telephonesis" and, of course, he says the word wrong. Everything is taken literally and you can just have a lot of fun.

When it comes to making kids' movies, Rodriguez's plan is simple: just make a good movie that everyone can enjoy:

... they weren't expecting something like Spy Kids, where it's like – "Wow, somebody actually looked like they wanted to make a family film, and set something in this age, where it's about what you can get away with, instead of what you can aspire to." You know, "This movie's a gem," or something like that.... We just want people laughing in the theater, and we don't have anything else to do, so let's just entertain. Anything we can do to just get a laugh, just make the kids laugh, and the parents will feel like they took their kids out to have a good time.

• Shorts
• Spy Kids
• Machete
• Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez Hopes to Start Shooting Jetsons Movie Next Year

Most of what has leaked about Gamer so far is admittedly not very funny. Where's the humor in be manipulated in combat to the death by some master computer geek? But there is a lighter side to this dystopian tale of future gaming, John Leguizamo tells Sci Fi Wire. Leguizamo, who plays the character Freek in the movie, says he is there primarily to provide some comic relief:

I'm like a Renfield in the Dracula story, that crazy guy who's locked up in an insane asylum ... I'm in there; I have all this information, and I'm in the prison. I'm in the game.

In the game, but not involved in the butt-kicking so much. That, he says, he is leaving up to Gerard Butler, who plays Kable, the cyber-gladiator at the center of the action.

• Shorts
• Predators
• Sin City
• Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
• Planet Terror
• Fanboys
• The Jetsons
• Robert Rodriguez
• Adam F. Goldberg

Robert Rodriguez Casts Latest Shorts

After goring it up in Grindhouse,Robert Rodriguez is heading into family-friendly territory again with his latest comedy for Warner Bros. entitled Shorts.

The cast thus far includes Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, Leslie Mann and James Spader.

Shorts is set in a fictitious suburb where everyone works for the same gadget-producing company Black Box. When an 11-year-old boy is hit on the head with a rainbow rock that grants wishes, craziness ensues.

As usual, Rodriguez will serve as his own one-man crew as writer, director, director of photography and visual effects supervisor. Judging by his latest efforts (Spy Kids: 3-D, Sharkboy and Lava Girl) maybe Rodriguez might want to consider staying focused in just one or two areas?

Source: Variety

• Shorts
• Robert Rodriguez