ME & MY LEFT BRAIN: THE ALEX LYKOS INTERVIEW

Alex Lykos burst on the Australian film scene with his debut script, the 2015 adaptation of his play Alex & Eve. Directed by Peter Andrikidis, the film proved a sleeper hit, but was a frustratingly slow process for the young writer. For his follow-up project, Lykos wanted greater control, and the result is the rom-com/fantasy Me & My Left Brain, a crowdpleaser on which Alex Lykos has taken multi-hyphenate duties as writer, director and star. “I went into this blind,” he jokes, “and I got very lucky.”

Lykos reflected upon the experience of shooting Me & My Left Brain in a lengthy chat with SCREEN-SPACE, in which he addressed the value of a cast featuring Malcolm Kennard and Rachael Beck, the insight that one’s personal journey brings to a script and the stark realities of seeing your first film to completion…  

SCREEN-SPACE: There’s the spirit of early Woody Allen in Me & My Left Brain, with homage paid to Play It Again Sam and Annie Hall, for starters. Who are the filmmakers and films that have informed your writing and performing?

LYKOS: Definitely, Woody Allen has been a significant influence on me. Billy Wilder is another, especially The Apartment, and of course Some Like It Hot. Nora Ephron, I love her writing. Cameron Crowe is another; love Say Anything and of course Jerry Maguire. Recently, Alexander Payne, has been a significant influence. 

SCREEN-SPACE: You and co-star Malcolm Kennard share some long-takes together, working up a great chemistry in those moments. What are his strengths as a scene partner?

LYKOS: When first considering Mal, we set up a half-hour cafe meeting; three hours later we were still talking (laughs). Neither of us came up for air. It was pretty clear a connection was made immediately. We saved so much time trying to build ‘chemistry’ as it just happened. Mal’s process was all about staying as relaxed and as loose as possible. He taught me a lot as an actor, especially when it comes to shooting the close-up. Mal is not about playing it safe. He’s a risk-taker and found some lovely moments that were not in the script. Initially, I had some trepidation towards directing, but Mal encouraged me to do so. To have someone of his standing backing me was reassuring. We’re like brothers; we can argue and make up and argue and make up within a minute. We are like Snapchat (laughs); any arguing is immediately erased, there is no lingering residue. (Pictured, right; Lykos and Kennard on-set) 

SCREEN-SPACE: There is a real sense of friendship and natural sweetness between you and your leading lady, Rachael Beck…

LYKOS: Rachael attended one of my stage shows years ago, and we spoke briefly. Her energy and general disposition suited what I had in mind for the role of ‘Vivien’. And from when she came on board, she was just open to everything. It was she who noted the importance of building a bond, encouraging us to catch up, run some lines. Anyone who has worked with her will tell you, she is just delightful to work with. So much so that I have actually written the lead role for her in my next film. She has so many special qualities on screen. (Pictured, below; Rachael Beck and Lykos between takes during the shoot)

SCREEN-SPACE: I sensed a degree of catharsis was being worked through in your scrip. Is ‘Arthur’ and his experiences drawing upon certain specifics of your life?

LYKOS: Absolutely. A lot of us have felt the pressure of Sydney’s real estate market, kicking ourselves for not having bought 10-15 years ago, (leading to) second-guessing a career choice of a life in the arts. You see friends in the corporate world, getting promotions or a pay rise, that ‘uniform climb’ up the ladder. The life that artists choose doesn’t offer that. So there have been many dark moments, at least for me. For one scene, I was on 2 hours sleep a night, enormously stressed. We did this dramatic scene that, in many ways, mirrored my real life situation, and I broke into tears. With each take, I got more emotional and was bawling my eyes out. The take we ultimately used was the 6th one, after I had spent all my tears. On the day it looked like good acting, but in the edit it was too much. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Tell me about the work ethic needed on a shoot like this. It was low-budget but looks polished; there was location work, which comes with its own variables.

LYKOS: It was definitely a grind. We shot in 13 days so I needed to do a lot of pre-production preparation, especially on the locations. I got a couple of actor friends, went to the shooting locations and walked through the scene, literally pre-blocking it. So on the day, with the real actors, I knew exactly how the scene would play out. I think this is where my background in theatre helped. (Pictured, right; co-stars Kennard, left, and Chantelle Barry on location with Lykos)

SCREEN-SPACE: What professional lessons did you learn from the experience of building this film from the ground up?

LYKOS: Oh my gosh, heaps. Having a good crew is paramount. And it really is all about the script. Shooting is a whirlwind, so there is no time to rewrite. I had no idea what post-production entailed. Once we finished shooting, I was introduced to Miriana Marusic (Director of Photography on The Castle) and she edited the film. We built a great energy in the editing suite and I came to rely on her opinion on everything. Without her, the film doesn't get finished. Miriani and I would travel to the Newcastle studio of our sound designer, Anthony Marsh and we would have the best time working on the sound. And I was fortunate enough to have composer Cezary Skubiszewski (Red Dog; The Sapphires) give the film a real professional polish. Flying down to Melbourne to watch the live recording of the music was a real buzz. Cezary treated me like I was family. I went from shooting a film with no idea what post-production was, to having three of the best work alongside me to get it finished. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Are the traditional elements of the romantic comedy being challenged by the shifting nature of gender definition in society? In writing Me & My Left Brain were you conscience of representing male and female roles in the most contemporary way possible?

LYKOS: Absolutely. The landscape has changed and we as writers need to be sensitive to this new landscape. We actually shot the film October in 2017 and in the 2nd week, the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke. I have always tried to write honestly, and when writing this film, I wasn't thinking so much about the representation of men and women. Alex & Eve has played such a big part of my creative life with three incarnations on the stage and the film, and it relied on broad 'ethnic comedy' and ethnic stereotypes. With this film, I wanted to tell a comedy which did not rely on these broad stereotypes. I did not want to cast according to ethnicity, (but) simply based on who had the right disposition for the role irrespective of their cultural background. (Pictured, above; Lykos with co-star Laura Dundovic)

ME & MY LEFT BRAIN will be in select Australian theatres from May 16; venue information and ticket sales are available via the official website.

PENNY MARSHALL AND THE BEAUTY OF BIG

Post-2000, the typical Hollywood slate – comic book pics, YA franchise gambles, teen vampire romances, PG horror – has not suited the storytelling skills of Penny Marshall. The director, who passed away overnight aged 75, found occasional gigs on the small screen; her last directing credit was a 2011 episode of The United States of Tara. But in the mid 1980s, when studios developed a broad roster of projects with both commercial and critical ambitions, Penny Marshall became an overnight sensation when her second feature delivered on both. That film, in every sense of the word, was Big.

Penny Marshall had directed a few episodes of her iconic TV series Laverne & Shirley (1976-1983) and ceded control of the comedy Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) to Francis Ford Coppola when 20^th Century Fox recruited her to rescue the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Jumpin’ Jack Flash in late 1985. Director Howard Zieff (The Main Event, 1979; Private Benjamin, 1980) had been removed and Marshall would be stepping into a shoot behind schedule and leaking money. Her sitcom training and natural comic timing ensured Jumpin’ Jack Flash sped to the finish line and became a sleeper hit for the studio.  

Marshall was rewarded with her choice of projects and zeroed in on a fantasy/comedy script about a young boy who wishes himself into adulthood. Big had been written by Anne Spielberg as a project for her brother Steven to develop with Harrison Ford attached, but their workloads meant the Fox property languished. Oscar-winning industry heavyweight James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, 1983), a staple at the studio with film (Broadcast News, 1987) and television (The Tracey Ullman Show; The Simpsons) works in development, brought the screenplay to Marshall. She warmed to it immediately, and began a casting search for the role of 12 year-old Josh Baskin (pictured, from left; Marshall with actors Jared Rushton and David Moscow)

Marshall’s attachment to the resurgent production meant the Fox brass started to weigh in on key pre-production decision-making. Marshall toyed with a rewrite that made the lead character female, hoping to cast Debra Winger (with whom she had almost shot her aborted Peggy Sue… project). When this proved unworkable, the casting call went out Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Bill Murray, Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Michael Keaton, Judge Reinhold, Albert Brooks, Dennis Quaid, Sean Penn, Gary Busey and Steve Guttenberg. Marshall zeroed in on two favourites, both of which were nixed by the studio – John Travolta, who was in the worst box office slump of his career, and Robert De Niro, America’s greatest living actor (and dear friend of Marshall) though untested as a comedy lead (pictured, left; Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin in Big)

Instead, the studio and their director decided to hold out for Tom Hanks, who had hit big with Bachelor Party and Splash (both 1984), though had lost momentum after a string of underperformers (The Man With One Red Shoe, 1985; Volunteers, 1985; The Money Pit, 1986; Nothing in Common, 1986). With young David Moscow cast as boy Josh (outfitted with contact lenses to match Hanks’ eye colour), support players Elizabeth Perkins, John Heard, Mercedes Ruehl and Robert Loggia adding dramatic heft onscreen and top-tier talent such as DOP Barry Sonnenfeld, composer Howard Shore and writer Gary Ross (who did a WGA-recognised polish on the script) in the mix, the US$18million film began shooting at locations in New York City and New Jersey in mid-1987, eyeing the prime summer release date of June 3, 1988 (pictured, from left; Marshall, DOP Barry Sonnenfeld and Hanks on-set).

Marshall has been forthright about her anxiety during the shoot. Dailies were certainly supporting the decision to cast Hanks; the now iconic scene in which he and Loggia dance on the giant piano keys had Fox executives thrilled. The comedic chemistry between Hanks and Jared Rushton, cast as Josh’s boyhood friend Billy and the only character in on Josh’s secret, was plainly evident. But the director spent much of the shoot diplomatically fending of studio interference, most notably their insistence that love-interest Susan, played by Elizabeth Perkins, make the journey back to childhood with Josh in the film’s final scenes.

Several of the film’s biggest laughs were workshopped/improvised, such as Billy and adult Josh’s classic silly-string fight or Hanks chewing on a baby-corn cob; the ‘Shimmy Shimmy Coco-Pop’ song was entirely Hanks’ idea, inspired by a tune his own kids came home from summer camp humming. Marshall had no idea if they would cut into the finished film at all, leaving her to ponder its potential as a ‘laughless comedy’.

To further complicate principal photography, four other ‘body-swap’ storylines hit theatres while Big was in production – in order of release, Like Father Like Son (1987), with Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron; the Italian comedy, Da Grande (1987); Fred Savage and Judge Reinhold in Vice Versa! (1988);and, 18 Again (1988) with Charlie Schlatter and George Burns. Each was met with middling critical and commercial interest, ensuring further concerns for Marshall and her producers.

In hindsight, any concern was unwarranted. Big became one of 1988’s biggest hits, earning US$114million domestically (in 2018 dollars, a whopping US$243million) and placing it as the years’ #4 box-office earner, behind Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Coming to America. It was record-setting triumph for Penny Marshall; her comedy was the first film directed by a woman to break the US$100million barrier and would earn Academy Award nominations for Hanks in the Best Actor category and for its Original Screenplay. In 2000, the American Film Institute included Big on its ‘100 Years…100 Laughs’ list, honouring the best American comedies of all time (pictured, above; from, left, Marshall, Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks).

In an interview with The Washington Post following the film’s release, Penny Marshall was typically acerbic about her beloved comedy classic. "I hated it for a long time," she says. "You go through different phases, so I'm told. 'Oh, God. What did I do here? What is this? This is crap.' And then your saving grace is you see it with an audience. They give you feedback and they give you the energy to go on."

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS: THE MAIKE BROCHHAUS INTERVIEW.

For Maike Brochhaus, sexuality in cinema is due for some redefining. An advocate of pro-sex feminism who lectures on the role of pornography in art history, the German filmmaker has directed a contemporary sex comedy called Schnick Schnack Schnuck (the title a Teutonic variation of ‘Scissors Paper Rock’). In the frank and fearless film, a group of 20-something friends deal with life and love while frequently indulging in what 20-somethings do best; the sex is full penetration, the scenarios designed to convey character and drive plot but also question the nature of audience reaction. Brochhaus seems to have tapped into a groundswell of like-minded support for real-world/real-people sex within a conventional narrative. In 2015, she won the prestigious Best Director honour at Berlin’s PornFilmFestival; last week, Schnick Schnack Schnuck won the Audience Award at the Kinky Film Festival in New York City. From her base in the city district of Kalk in Cologne, Maike Brochhaus spoke to SCREEN-SPACE about the daunting mission she faces in changing the contemporary view of sex on film….

(Pictured, above; front row - producer Sören Störung and Brochhaus, with cast members)

SCREEN-SPACE: What did you set out to achieve with Schnick Schnack Schnuck?

Brochhaus: Sören (Störung, producer) and I always liked those classic 70s porn flicks. They are fun to watch, with great music, a little naive and silly but still kind of hot and honest. After watching a lot of them, with Sören or a couple of girlfriends or at the PornFilmFestival in Berlin, we started asking ourselves, ‘Why don't they make 'em like that anymore?’ So we decided to do something about it. Most of the 70s humour was plain sexist, which can be fun if you look at it now because it's so old, but we didn't want that in our film. So we tried to find a way to capture the spirit but with a fresh, modern feel to it.

SCREEN-SPACE: There is a compelling honesty about the sex your camera captures. Why do you think the sensation of watching your actors have sex is very different from the reaction one experiences with ‘mainstream’ pornography?

Brochhaus (pictured, right): Back in 2013, I crowd-funded a documentary called häppchenweise, in which six real people around the age of 30 get drunk and play spin-the-bottle. I wanted to see if they would have sex in front of the camera without forcing them. I called it a "post-pornographic experiment". We ended up with one shy and very harmless sex-scene, which I really liked. It was so honest! Schnick Schnack Schnuck is the first scripted film we’ve made, and I wanted to have amateur actors in unscripted sex scenes as well. The situations leading to sex were of course scripted, but not the actual sex. We just let them do whatever they liked for how long they wanted. This comes with some risks, because you never know what's going to happen, but I'm very happy with the result.

SCREEN-SPACE: Another point of difference is the range of sexual acts that your cast presented you with. Is the willingness to experiment with the sexual experience common to the generation represented in the film?

Brochhaus: I know women and men who live deliberately adventurous and/or promiscuous lives. They talk openly about their desires, experiences and problems, which is a very healthy thing. I wanted to show a little of that in a happy and relaxed way. But there are also friends of mine feeling very insecure about themselves, their bodies and sex in general. And I feel like mainstream porn is not helping at all. In fact, it can lead to a lot of pressure. So in Schnick Schnack Schnuck, you don't get to see muscular androids working out, just some slightly hairy people having fun.

SCREEN-SPACE: What exactly is the director’s role when staging such intimate moments? What techniques do you apply when shooting sex scenes?

Brochhaus: We essentially came up with three simple rules - show individuals rather than just interacting bodies; show real female pleasure; and, don't be afraid of a flaccid penis. We shot the sex scenes with two cameras, a sound guy, the performers and I. We talked about what they would and would not like to do during the shoot and I asked them if I'm allowed to give them some simple directives, like move an arm a little or stuff like that. (Pictured, above; Brochhaus on-set, with Störung)

SCREEN-SPACE: I love the film's notion of ‘Pornotopia’! A world in which sex exists unburdened by any negative connotations or social stigma; where it just ‘is’, like in a porn film. Can such a state of being ever really exist?

Brochhaus: Unfortunately, I don't think so. That's why I want to remind the viewers that they are still watching a porn flick. In Pornotopia, sex is always an answer and able to solve all kinds of complex problems. In reality you have to deal with so many more things. It couldn't hurt if we ease up a little, though.

SCREEN-SPACE: In broader terms, why is there not a film genre that allows for the frank portrayal of real sex within a conventional narrative? Why do you think that, despite films like Shortbus and 9 Songs, actual sex in mainstream plots remains a taboo?

Brochhaus: This is a question I could talk about for hours. I think part of it comes from our Christian background, which always tabooed sex for pleasure. Its influence is getting weaker, but it's still powerful. Sex remains something a lot of people don't like to watch, especially with other people in a cinema. I always find it strange that fighting and killing seems to make people much less uncomfortable than sex and dealing with emotions. Another big thing is obviously sexism. Over centuries there were men trying to restrict female sexual development because they were afraid of it. Pornography was created by men for men; women were only tools for their pleasure. Nowadays, there are even women who have adapted to this all-male view on sex, and that needs to be changed. And I'm happy it is changing right now! You can feel enormous fear if you read anonymous men commenting online on feminism and women commenting on pornography. There is part of men who are deeply afraid of dealing with female pleasure but there's no need to be afraid. Men and women think a lot about sex, that's a fact, and I think we should talk about it. I don't think it's healthy for an individual nor for society to suppress it or let mainstream-porn and advertising tell us how we have to do it. So let's put real sex back into film and enjoy it! (Pictured, above; leads Jana Sue Zuckerberg, as Emmi, and Felix Anderson, as Felix)

Watch the trailer here (NSFW Warning - Explicit Sexual Content)

SPIRITED COMEDY: THE MARLON WAYANS INTERVIEW

Given the recent dire efforts in the field of found footage horror, some may suggest a parody is a bit redundant. But for writer and comedian Marlon Wayans, there is still a lot that can be laughed at.

Breaking away from the big-screen act he perfected with his brothers Keenen and Shawn over the last decade in the hit films White Chicks and Little Man, Wayans has returned to the mockery of one of his franchise starter, Scary Movie, for his latest comedy, A Haunted House. “They did something special with the first Paranormal Activity film, like they did with the first Blair Witch movie. They did a really good job spinning the bullshit, making you believe the house was haunted,” Wayans tells SCREEN-SPACE while in Sydney for a series of sold-out stand-up shows. “But by the time Paranormal Activity 3 came out, I was thinking ‘Man, this is getting bad.’ It was time to make fun of them.”

The film is a typically low-brow but occasionally hilarious send-up, with elements such as set design and narrative beats taken directly from the Paranormal Activity series as well as recent hits The Devil Inside and The Last Exorcism. Wayans fans won’t be at all surprised to learn the film is full of sexual innuendo and base crudity and that’s exactly the way they like it. “I make it for the kids, who don’t care too much what’s right and what’s wrong in the eyes of grown-ups, who just want to have a good laugh,” he says. “But I also make it for the 30 and 40 year-olds who still have that little kid inside of them and who want to be a little naughty and a little crass.”

It is a formula that has proved enormously successful for Wayans; budgeted at around US$2million, the film became a sleeper hit Stateside, grossing nearly $45million. The final tally is doubly impressive given the film took a critical savaging from the mainstream media, very few of whom have ever sided with the young comic’s popular appeal. He takes their disdain philosophically. “I think sometimes critics tend to overthink comedy. I think they should watch some comedies with a paying audience and watch the audience reaction,” Wayans theorises. “Then they can say ‘Well, it wasn’t my thing, but the audience seemed to love it’. That would be the fairer thing to do with a lot of comedies, because what makes each of us laugh is such a subjective thing. Some people think themselves too intelligent, or too above, a good fart joke.”

Body functions are just one of the many avenues explored by Wayans and his co-stars David Koechner, Nick Swardson (pictured, right, with Wayans), Cedric the Entertainer and Essence Atkins (“She had a baby five weeks before we started filming, but she still got on the rig and let us pull her around. She was incredible.’) Free-wheeling their way through many improvised moments, the cast push a lot of boundaries in terms of physical humour; in one scene, Wayans enjoys a wild sexual encounter with two stuffed toys. Wayans agrees that there’s not much he won’t do for a laugh. “Oh man, I go there! I’m absolutely happy to go there,” he says with laugh. “Comedy has always got to be all or nothing. But you have to have layers, of course, and I think with this movie we accomplished that.”

He is also proud of the way he and first-time director Michael Tiddes adapted the clichéd use of the camera in found footage films for comedy impact. “The style of the movie we were sending up, all that handheld stuff and the CCTV footage, was able to be used to our comedic advantage,” he explains. “We were able to let a group of very funny people just do take after take of really funny stuff, just non sequitur, bizarrely funny shit that, if it worked, we would use it. Absolutely the aim was to do a comedy version of a found footage movie.”

A Haunted House opens in Australia on May 30. Follow Marlon Wayans on Twitter here.