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by Jox on 10 Apr 2015, 01:22
ShawnWatson wrote:Agua Dulce is likely where Severence's house was.
ShawnWatson wrote: but the exact address is a tough one.
by ShawnWatson on 10 Apr 2015, 04:02
by ShawnWatson on 10 Apr 2015, 04:31
by ShawnWatson on 13 Apr 2015, 20:01
by ShawnWatson on 13 Apr 2015, 20:35
by Jox on 09 Jun 2015, 00:05
You’ve been in many great films that don’t get the same recognition as others. How was your experience working on Joshua Tree and Dark Angel (a.k.a. I Come in Peace) with Dolph Lundgren?
Joshua Tree was a waste of time and I really don’t remember it. I Come in Peace was fun because Craig Baxley is always a blast to work for.
by Moltisanti on 09 Jun 2015, 05:03
by Krom on 29 Aug 2015, 23:02
by Jox on 30 Aug 2015, 00:42
by Jox on 07 Oct 2015, 16:26
by Tom on 09 Nov 2015, 18:48
by Krom on 09 Nov 2015, 20:36
by Jox on 09 Nov 2015, 22:55
by Jox on 04 Feb 2016, 15:35
Bey Logan: Vic, your directorial debut, Joshua Tree, is out soon from the Entertainment Group. Right now, there hasn't been too much press about it, so can you tell us a little about the movie?
Vic Armstrong: Sure. It's an action thriller. I didn't want to just make Joshua Tree, as my first film, into a crash-and-burn one, which is the temptation, always, or at least it's the expectation people have, considering my background. You see, now I'm doing Black Beauty, with all the magic that children expect from Black Beauty. Anything but crash-and-burn! Having said all that, Joshua Tree has some strong action moments in it. There's a nice car chase, but I approached the car chases differently. Rather than skidding and smoking tyres as they go around corners, I made it more balletic, with lots of helicopter shots. It's between a Ferrari 140 and a Lamborghini Countach. Then we've got a huge shoot-out in it, and I went over the top on that and made it into a Sergio Leone/ oriental-type shoot-out, because I thought it needed some kind of stylising, and because I love Sergio Leone! Basically, the film is a road film. It's a great vehicle for Dolph (Lundgren), and it's by far his best performance ever, and he's come over very well in it. He looks superb. It's the story of an innocent man who's accused and convicted of something he didn't really do. He's a little shady around the edges. About half way through the film, it does a one ¬hundred-and-eighty flip around, and you realise that the good guys are the bad guys! He's being chased by George Segal and Beau Stan, who turn out to have conned good cop Geoffrey Lewis. It's got a nice story and a good plotline running through it. A few twists. It's not too predictable. I guess people will presume Dolph is innocent, but the evidence against him looks pretty daunting at the beginning…
Bey Logan: Considering that the last time we saw Dolph as the Universal Soldier character, maybe they WON'T believe he's innocent…
Vic Armstrong: Exactly. They might believe he is the baddie, and in that respect it's quite good. It won't be out until the autumn. It was supposed to be out last spring, but I finished my cut at Christmas time and went away and left it, and basically I hated the cut that the producers had done, so I went back and explained why. They totally agreed and they recut it the way that I had it. However, it sold so well, and they made so much money from abroad that they decided that they wanted to build up the climax of the movie, the final confrontation between Dolph and the two bad guys, which was a very valid point. It's always different when you see a film cut together in terms of how the end measures up to the rest of the movie. The middle of Joshua Tree is so strong, with this Sergio Leone shootout, you need to try to finish on a higher note, if you can, which is difficult when it's one man against two. We shot for two more days, and they're now sticking that stuff in. It was too late for a spring release, and I didn't want it to come out this summer against Cliffhanger and Last Action Hero!
Bey Logan: I haven't seen the whole film yet, but I've seen various trailers for it. I thought the garage shootout had, as you say, very much a John Woo style to it…
Vic Armstrong: Yes. We went very John Woo-ish. I know because I've talked to him a lot, that John took a lot of his style from Sergio Leone. I don't find any guilt in copying other people's styles. When I did Henry V, I did Agincourt on that, I went in to see Ken Branagh and he explained what he wanted with the rain and everything, and I said "To me, this sounds like Seven Samurai by Kurasawa", and he goes "Exactly! Exactly! I keep telling these guys I want Kurasawa and they don't know what I'm talking about!" So I did the rain and the slo-¬mo and the long lens stuff.
Bey Logan: So you'd been influenced by the Eastern film-makers before Joshua Tree…
Vic Armstrong: Oh, yeah. I spoke to John Woo and I said "You're probably going to hate me after this, John, because I stole all your gags, all the double-guns and so on…" He said: "Vic, don't feel bad. I've been stealing from you for years…"
Bey Logan: I heard that you had to re-shoot the ending of Universal Soldier. Why was that?
Vic Armstrong: Again, as with Joshua Tree, the ending wasn't big enough compared to what had gone on before.
by ShawnWatson on 16 Mar 2016, 15:22
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