Exclusive Interview: Noah Emmerich on ‘The Americans’ Season 2 and ‘Jane Got a Gun’
SourceCraveOnline - March 7, 2014
AuthorFred Topel

Emmerich tells us what to expect from Stan in the new season of ‘The Americans’ and teases his role in ‘Jane Got a Gun’.

When Noah Emmerich found out I was only recording audio of our interview, he joked that he would take off his clothes. I replied that I would write that he did, whether he followed through or not. There you go, Noah.

It got us off to a great start talking about “The Americans,” in which his role as neighbor and FBI agent Stan Beeman has developed its own intrigue aside from what’s right under his nose already. Emmerich has also been in many of our favorite movies, so I couldn’t help throwing in some Truman Show and Frequency questions, and his upcoming role in the troubled production of Jane Got a Gun.

Emmerich tells us what to expect from Stan in the new season of 'The Americans' and teases his role in 'Jane Got a Gun'.

When Noah Emmerich found out I was only recording audio of our interview, he joked that he would take off his clothes. I replied that I would write that he did, whether he followed through or not. There you go, Noah.

It got us off to a great start talking about “The Americans,” in which his role as neighbor and FBI agent Stan Beeman has developed its own intrigue aside from what’s right under his nose already. Emmerich has also been in many of our favorite movies, so I couldn’t help throwing in some Truman Show and Frequency questions, and his upcoming role in the troubled production of Jane Got a Gun.
CraveOnline: Stan was having a very nice relationship with an operative, Nina.

Noah Emmerich: That’s what I thought.
How has that changed Stan?
Oddly, his world has gotten darker and lighter at the same time. He’s been backed into a corner pretty deeply over the course of the first season. His home life is getting worse, his relationship with his wife, his estrangement from his son. His confusion at work is sort of compounding somewhat as he gets closer and closer to his prey. They keep slipping away.
He thinks he’s on top of things, but he just keeps missing them. But he does have this sort of flowering relationship with Nina who I think he sees as a counterpoint to himself, a reflection of himself if you would, someone who understands him in a way that his wife can’t. Partially for his wife’s own protection because of the secretive life of an undercover agent or counterintelligence agent and his trying to keep his family clean of his somewhat dirty work world.
But Nina’s someone who accidentally, I think he approached the relationship with all the best intentions as a source, but he is an isolated, lonely man. Somehow she opened up to him which I think he feels able to communicate and be seen and assuage some of that loneliness.
How do you think Stan didn’t know or expect how complicated that relationship could be?
Well, I mean, Stan is a newcomer to the intelligence gang. He was working domestically for the bureau. He was working undercover for a domestic terrorist group essentially what we would call now, a racist organization he was trying to infiltrate. But the world of spies, undercover is actually quite different from the world of spies and I think the complexity and the moving parts of the spy world took him by surprise somewhat. He landed running and he’s gotten a little bit ahead of himself, but hopefully he’s a very smart guy, not to mention extremely good looking. [Laughs] So hopefully he’ll be able to figure it out.
Is he emotionally wounded this season?
I think he’s wounded from the day we met him. I think he still hasn’t fully recovered from his three years undercover with the white supremacist group. That was a traumatic experience. He’s just sort of reentering his own skin, his own family, also having moved across the country to Washington. We find him somewhat disoriented and I think more wounded than he admits. Then of course a series of events that unfold over the course of the season only serve to wound him further. I think this season will be even more difficult. As we see, Nina is playing both sides of the fence. Stan doesn’t know that so certainly that’s going to come up somehow and I don’t think it’s going to be pleasant.
How is Stan’s relationship with Phillip this year? Are they still buddies?
Yeah, they seem to be going along okay. It’s a fine line between what we walked the first season is how suspicious Stan can be believably and not either catch them or seem ignorant. So we’re continuing that walk this season, that their friendship is ongoing.
You’ve always gotten parts in big movies, but how rich has the work on “The Americans” been?
You know, what’s amazing is just the amount of material you get to do. Over the course of a season, you’re making essentially a 13 hour film which is like making six movies at once. So everyday just being able to come in with fresh material, it’s really like going to the gym for me. A film is a little bit more precious and a little bit more tedious in terms of its execution. It’s such a longer time schedule, but in terms of the amount of acting one gets to do, television is amazing.
I’ve really enjoyed also the relationship between the writers and the actor because there can be some synchronicity there. There can be some give and take as we get to know each other and our strengths. It’s more bespoke, so to speak, than a film. Then it presents other challenges as well, mostly that you don’t know where you’re going. It’s almost improvisational to be working in the middle of it. For a film I prepare the role long before we start shooting and I know the entirety of the arc of the character. In television, every day you get news about yourself which is at first a little intimidating for me but ultimately ended up being quite fun, rewarding and challenging in a great way.
Did you have to learn that? At first did you try to approach it like a film role?
Yeah, I did. Certainly with the pilot, but I learned right off the bat because even the pilot we started shooting, in the middle of production they changed their take on my character and the backstory and some of the tonalities. So right from the get go, it was clear that it was a different process from filmmaking. It scared me at first and then once I sort of gave into it, it felt very liberating and freeing. There’s less preciousness with the choices. Everything’s not set in stone from the get go. It’s all very fluid and dynamic.
Because of the nature of genres in film, you often get cast as the wacky best friend or sometimes the bad guy. Were you itching to do something with, I hate to say more depth because we love those characters too, but more like Stan?
I think that’s one of the great draws of television is that the writing seems to be more expansive in terms of the characters. Film seems like they really focus on the protagonist and the characters that surround the protagonist aren’t always as multi-dimensional as in television where you really have these ensemble casts and it’s sort of a game of Hot Potato.
One episode you might be very light and one episode you might be very heavy, so there clearly are the main protagonists of the show but in terms of the writing, there’s no real supporting character. Every character is full and real and three dimensional and has an opportunity to be explored in a deeper way than one would have in a film where you only have the two hours. You might have a couple episodes where it’s a Stan heavy storyline and all of a sudden he’s the lead of the show, and then it comes back to Elizabeth and Phillip or it goes to Martha.  It’s a great ensemble dimensionality that is for me one of the most appealing things about television, and particularly television writing.
Do you think The Truman Show came true?
I think The Truman Show predicted the future in a way. When we made that film, there was virtually no reality television. It seemed like an incredibly far-fetched Isaac Asimov concept and it turned into essentially what is on television. Just a few little teeny exaggerations.
Just without the dome.
Yeah, without the dome, but “Big Brother” and I don’t even know the number of shows there are, so many. The one thing that Andrew Niccol maybe underestimated was the desire for people to live their lives on camera because of course Truman’s dilemma was he didn’t know. Once he knew, he wanted out, he wanted his real life. Turns out, everybody wants in “The Truman Show.” No one wants out of “The Truman Show” so it’s a bizarre evolution of our culture.
One of my personal favorites was Frequency. Was that a special movie to work on?
That was really special because my brother wrote that and I wrote my role in that film with him, so that was a family endeavor. It was really quite fun. I had a lot of hand in a lot. From the beginning of that writing process I was involved, so that was quite interesting and fun.
You picked Yahoo as the big tech stock to invest in. Should you have gone with Google?
Well, Google didn’t exist really when we made that film. No one knew about Google. I actually used Google from very early on, but I’m sort of a tech geek. Yahoo was the dominant engine of the time and certainly would have been a great investment, even now. Certainly now, it’s doing well again, but if you had invested in Yahoo when we made it, if we had just taken our own advice, I wouldn’t be here today. You’d have to come to my island and interview me.
Did you do any movies between seasons of "The Americans?"
I did a couple. I did a western called Jane Got a Gun with Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton and Ewan McGregor that Gavin O’Connor directed that I’m really excited about, really fun. I play Natalie Portman’s husband in a really period, classic western. And I did a film with Guillaume Canet calledBlood Ties with Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Zoe Saldana, Marion Cotillard and Mila Kunis, a great cast. That’s a ‘70s cop drama that I think’s coming out here in the spring.
Were you on Jane Got a Gun from the beginning or after Gavin took over?
No, I came in after Gavin, who directed our pilot, who I’ve worked with multiple times, this is my fifth film with him. He came in, the movie was troubled, very troubled but Gavin ended up being the director. Actually the day after I wrapped “The Americans” season one, I flew to Santa Fe for a couple of months to make that film. It was really fun.
Are you the reason Jane got a gun?
I was a member of an outlaw gang and I left the gang when I met Natalie’s character. We went off and lived our lives and the gang has since found where we are and they want revenge. So they’re coming to get me essentially, and Natalie’s character, Jane. I’m injured and she has to figure out how to defend the pending siege of our homestead.
The Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of Spring 2014
SourceStudio System News - March 7, 2014
AuthorNeil Turitz
7. TRANSCENDENCE

The 411: The first movie directed by legendary cinematographer Wally Pfister, the thriller follows a terminally ill scientist, played by Johnny Depp, who downloads his mind into a computer, giving him power beyond his wildest dreams. Christopher Nolan is an executive producer.

SSN Insight: There’s a lot of speculation about this one, not only because it will launch Pfister’s career as a director, but because of Nolan’s involvement. The secretive helmer oversaw a similar level of confidentiality on this film, and Warner Bros. has been chintzy in how much of the film it’s shown. That said, Nolan’s name is an awfully big selling point.

Uploading minds to computers ‘could be reality by 2070’
SourceYahoo! News UK - March 7, 2014
AuthorRob Waugh

Ray Kurzweil, Google’s director of engineering, predicts an era where man and machine merge by 2045 – but the reality of the technology may be different, an Oxford expert predicts.

In the upcoming Christopher Nolan film Transcendence, Johnny Depp plays an artificial intelligence researcher who downloads his mind into a computer to cheat death – becoming immortal, and in the process, something not quite human.

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Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, predicts an era where man and machine merge by 2045 - but the reality of the technology may be different, an Oxford expert predicts.

In the upcoming Christopher Nolan film Transcendence, Johnny Depp plays an artificial intelligence researcher who downloads his mind into a computer to cheat death - becoming immortal, and in the process, something not quite human.

Ray Kurzweil, Google’s director of engineering, predicts that by 2045, such technology will actually be here, as the invention of artificial intelligence catapults humanity into a new era - and “mind uploads” will herald immortality.

Other scientists are more cautious - but many agree a technology allowing the storage of minds outside the body is likely to arrive this century.

Predicting the advent of such technology  is easier than it is to predict the birth of artificial intelligence, says Dr Stuart Armstrong of Oxford’s Institute for the Future of Humanity.

Armstrong warns, though, that the technology will probably not arrive as early as Kurzweil’s prediction, and may be rather different from his vision of a world of artificial intelligences “merging” happily with humans.

“There is some uncertainty about mind-uploading,” says Armstrong, “But unlike artificial intelligence, it’s based on past trends in technologies we know.”

“We can predict it based on when computers will achieve certain levels of processing power, and there we’ve got Moore’s law, predicting processing speeds. We can predict brain-scanning technology, based on past trends - and the ability of computers to knit the scanned images into a functioning model.”

“There is a probability distribution,” says Armstrong. His graph shows a probability that “peaks” somewhere around the year 2070 - 25 years after Kurzweil’s prediction.

Kurzweil’s idea of the future is somewhat different. He predicts that the ongoing increase in computing power will lead to an event he describes as The Singularity around the year 2045, where artificial intelligence will be born, and man will merge with machine and become immortal.

“Kurzweil is by far the best predictor of artificial intelligence I have ever seen,” says Dr Armstrong. “Compared to the others, he’s great. But he is not very good. He sees artificial intelligence as happening, and if AI happens properly, some form of upload is possibly part of that. He gets wishy-washy about this idea of “merging” - but at least he takes time to decompose the problem a bit.”

Armstrong says that AI enthusiasts tend to assume that increases in computing power will lead, inevitably to “intelligent” machines - i.e. computers which can assess and solve new problems by themselves, like humans. Kurzweil believes that the arrival of such machines will usher in a new era of immortal, uploaded humans.

Armstrong believes that the gulf between computers today and a “general intelligence” is far greater than AI fans believe - and says that knowing whether “uploaded” humans are conscious “opens up a lot of complex, philosophical questions.” Even in terms of basic skills, computers are still far off the capacity of a human.

“If someone from 20 or 30 years ago saw IBM’s supercomputer Watson, they would be certain that we had an AI now,” he says. “It’s a computer that can talk - and win at Jeopardy. But it solves that problem with something very different to a human mind.”

“Kurzweil is wrong because, no one is good at predicting artificial intelligence, because it’s never happened,” says Armstrong. “No one has ever built an AI. Kurzweil has this sort of hand-wavy moment where computers become better, and then AI arrives.”

Armstrong, who, with colleagues, rated the accuracy of some of Kurzweil’s previous predictions, centred on the year 2009, found that he had an (impressive) accuracy of around 42%. Kurzweil rated himself as a much more respectable 90%, Armstrong says.

Predicting the advent of AI is harder than Kurzweil and other advocates believe, Armstrong says. “It depends on when people are going to have insights,” he says, “And write algorithms that do AI. We don’t know what insights they need to have. Predicting that is very hard.”

Armstrong says that the temptation to imagine that AIs will be similar to us is a mistake. “They might be extremely alien,” he says. “They  might have tastes completely incomprehensible to us.”

What is certain is that we will continue to merge with technology - but not in the cyber-Utopian way that Kurzweil imagines.

“We’re already merging with the machines in a lot of ways, if you were to go without your cellphone, you would find life a lot harder,” he says. “We have much less mastery of facts thanks to Google and Wikipedia. We’re restructuring our brains, and have developed the skills to use these tools - like we’ve outsourced a part of our minds.”

“Even if artificial intelligences and uploads never happen, we’re going to merge with technology - a soft merging,” says Armstrong. “Brain interfaces, where brains connect to computer components are undoubtedly going to get better. But the idea that suddenly we’ve outsourced enough of ourselves, there will suddenly be AI's out there - you cannot assume that.”

Johnny Depp Goes Digital in New ‘Transcendence’ Poster
SourceYahoo! Movies - March 7, 2014
AuthorMatt McDaniel

Everything in modern filmmaking is making the transition from analog to digital: sound, editing, visual effects, cinematography. And soon, maybe even our movie stars.

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Everything in modern filmmaking is making the transition from analog to digital: sound, editing, visual effects, cinematography. And soon, maybe even our movie stars.

That's how it looks in the new poster for "Transcendence," the upcoming science fiction thriller with its roots in the real theories of how man and machine may someday come together. Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, a brilliant scientist working towards the singularity — or what he calls "transcendence" — where computers become so advanced they can perfectly replicate or even exceed the capacity of a human brain.

When an anti-technology activist shoots Dr. Caster to derail his research, his wife (Rebecca Hall) insists on making him the first subject of the experiment. But her efforts to keep his intelligence alive after his body dies creates a new and unpredictably dangerous form of life.

"Transcendence" marks the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, who is the Oscar-winning cinematographer of Christopher Nolan's films "Inception," "The Prestige" and "The Dark Knight" trilogy. And while his film takes place on the edge of the technological frontier, Pfister still prefers to do some things the old-fashioned way. Pfister has always insisted on shooting with film and not digital cameras.

"Transcendence" open April 18.

Exclusive: Tyler Labine & Lucy Punch Have A First Date Kiss In Clip From ‘Someone Marry Barry’
SourceIndie Wire - February 13, 2014
AuthorKevin Jagernauth

Sometimes, two great performers are all you need to make a movie engaging, and in the romantic comedy “Someone Marry Barry” that’s the case with talented comic actors Tyler Labine and Lucy Punch. And just in time for Valentine’s Day, we have a clip that highlights the start of a raunchy relationship.

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Sometimes, two great performers are all you need to make a movie engaging, and in the romantic comedy "Someone Marry Barry" that's the case with talented comic actors Tyler Labine and Lucy Punch. And just in time for Valentine's Day, we have a clip that highlights the start of a raunchy relationship.

In the film, Labine plays the titular Barry, whose boundary-free antics has been making life a living hell for his three best friends, so they come up with a solution: set him up with a girl who will tolerate his rude, obnoxious behaviour. But they get more than they bargained for when Barry starts seeing Melanie, who is equally unguarded with her thoughts, emotions and bodily emissions. And in this clip, we see how famously the pair get one as they say goodbye at the end of their first date, with a conversation that covers such topics as masturbation and yeast infections.

"Someone Marry Barry" is now playing in limited release and is available on VOD starting today.

New ‘Transcendence’ Trailer Finds Johnny Depp A Little Artificial-Intelligence Happy
SourceHuffington Post - February 12, 2014

“This isn’t evolution. It’s an abomination,” Morgan Freeman informs Johnny Depp in the new trailer for “Transcendence.” It looks like the velvet-voiced sage is going head-to-head with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star in the forthcoming artificial-intelligence thriller. Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, a researcher who’s working to create a sentient machine that surpasses human intelligence. Naturally, he’s up against a motherload of opposition. When Caster faces death and wants to become a part of that machinery, even his wife (Rebecca Hall) and best friend (Paul Bettany) think he’s gone too far.

“Transcendence” opens April 18. It’s directed by Wally Pfister, who is known for his cinematography work on Christopher Nolan’s movies. Watch the new trailer here.

Take My Bro, Please: ‘Someone Marry Barry,’ a Gross-Out Rom-Com
SourceThe New York Times - February 12, 2014
AuthorNeil Genzlinger

For a gross-out movie, “Someone Marry Barry” has a respectable number of genuinely funny moments. Over all, it’s still kind of crass and lowbrow, showing a particular obsession with flatulence, but there’s a good-heartedness to it that somehow overrides your gut instinct to stop watching.

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For a gross-out movie, “Someone Marry Barry” has a respectable number of genuinely funny moments. Over all, it’s still kind of crass and lowbrow, showing a particular obsession with flatulence, but there’s a good-heartedness to it that somehow overrides your gut instinct to stop watching.

Tyler Labine is Barry, a lunk who lacks the social filters most of us have and is thus constantly embarrassing his three best friends (Thomas Middleditch, Hayes MacArthur and Damon Wayans Jr.). They decide that the best way to solve this persistent problem is to find a wife for Barry, so that he can become her problem.

That leads to some matchmaking scenes, including a speed-dating sequence, that look borrowed from a zillion other movies of this ilk. But things perk up once Barry meets Melanie (Lucy Punch), a female version of himself in terms of inappropriateness.

Mr. Labine and Ms. Punch find a workable comic chemistry, and the script by Rob Pearlstein (who also directed) gives Barry’s buddies some amusing bits as well. There’s nothing sophisticated or groundbreaking here, but the movie is a moderately good entry in the bro-grows-up genre.

Johnny Depp’s ‘Transcendence’ Gets New Trailer
SourceVariety - February 12, 2014
AuthorDave McNary

Warner Bros. has released the a second official trailer for Johnny Depp’s sci-fier “Transcendence,” two months before its April 17 opening.

Depp portrays a researcher who is uploaded into a computer in the near future after being shot by an anti-technology terrorist group RIFT — Revolutionary Independence From Technology. “My mind has been set free,” Depp explains.

Paul Bettany, Rebecca Hall and Morgan Freeman also star, with Wally Pfister helming and Alcon producing and financing in association with DMG Entertainment. Producers are Broderick Johnson, Andrew Kosove, Kate Cohen, Marisa Polvino, Annie Marter, David Valdes and Aaron Ryder.

The experiment apparently goes wrong as an ultra-serious Freeman intones, “If we don’t stop him, it will be the end of mankind as we know it.”

VIEW HERE

Hot Trailer: Johnny Depp in ‘Transcendence’
SourceDeadline Hollywood - February 12, 2014

Johnny Depp stars as an AI professor who uploads his consciousness into the digital ether when his body dies in Transcendence, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister. Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, and Morgan Freeman co-star in the sci-fi thriller from a Black List script by Jack Paglen. Nolan and Emma Thomas are exec producers. Transcendence is the first product of a partnership between Alcon Entertainment and Beijing-based DMG Entertainment to finance, produce, and distribute films, and was brought to Alcon by Straight Up Films’ Kate Cohen and Marisa Polvino, who are also producing. Warner Bros releases the pic April 17. Here’s the new trailer.

‘Someone Marry Barry’ (2014) Review
SourceWorking Author - February 8, 2014
AuthorRené S. Garcia, Jr.

Comedy is hard to do for two main reasons: First, comedy isn’t universal. Appreciation for comedy varies much more wildly than it does for other genres of entertainment, like action or horror for example. Second, comedic bits and gags have greater diminishing returns when repeated than action or horror sequences do. So while martial arts fights and murdered teenagers never get old, comedy has to keep evolving and trying different approaches to remain relevant. Someone Marry Barry exemplifies this concept, offering a little bit of the old shock comedy of recent years while exploring relatively new territory in humor. The result is something refreshing and unique that’s worth any comedy-seeker’s time.

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Comedy is hard to do for two main reasons: First, comedy isn’t universal. Appreciation for comedy varies much more wildly than it does for other genres of entertainment, like action or horror for example. Second, comedic bits and gags have greater diminishing returns when repeated than action or horror sequences do. So while martial arts fights and murdered teenagers never get old, comedy has to keep evolving and trying different approaches to remain relevant. Someone Marry Barry exemplifies this concept, offering a little bit of the old shock comedy of recent years while exploring relatively new territory in humor. The result is something refreshing and unique that’s worth any comedy-seeker’s time.

Barry Burke (Tyler Labine) epitomizes the one guy in every group who manages to say and do the most inappropriate thing in any given situation. He’ll dredge up embarrassing stories during eulogies, masturbate to the thought of his friend’s girlfriend, talk to the boss about how hot his daughter is, and more. The bigger problem is that Barry doesn’t realize the havoc his actions cause, and while he may have been a fun time for his friends, Desmond (Damon Wayans, Jr.), Rafe (Hayes MacArthur), and Kurt (Thomas Middleditch), when they were kids, the guys can no longer tolerate Barry as adults. They decide that the only way to rid themselves of Barry, without killing him, is to get him a wife. Unfortunately, all of their initial attempts fail, until Barry meets Melanie Miller (Lucy Punch). The problem, however, is that Melanie is just as inappropriate as Barry, and that’s definitely too much for the guys to handle.

At its core, Someone Marry Barry is a romantic comedy, which means that – in many significant ways – audiences can expect prototypical story beats. Boy is going meet girl, lose girl and then try to get girl back. Where the film distinguishes itself, however, is in the type of characters that are involved in the relationship. The two leads are so outrageous, they could only be made for each other. For example, when Barry confesses to farting while sharing a cab with Melanie, she isn’t repulsed. Instead, she criticizes him for having such a weak fart and then tries to outdo him. Who else could be with either of these two people?

Tyler Labine and Lucy Punch give two of the more natural performances in a film about two jackasses falling in love with each other. As a result, the two come off as charismatic in their own ways. The performances truly portray Barry and Melanie as two eccentrics who don’t behave the way they do out of mean spiritedness, but rather due to a light sociopathic streak in both of them. Best of all, the two actors are fully committed to their roles, to the point that it wouldn’t surprise if half their dialogue turned out to be adlibbed. Both Labine and Punch have played their fair share of quirky characters in the past, and they continue to flex their acting and comedy chops here, handily carrying the film.

Predictability does rear its ugly head throughout the film, but that’s almost unavoidable given the genre. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to feel a little impatience when watching any of the subplots involving the three friends who want to get rid of Barry. Their stories are more or less necessary for the overall film to work, but because they don’t get much screen time, it’s easy to see how they’re going to resolve later in the movie.Someone Marry Barry would have been better served if the group of friends had been consolidated into one character, which would have made for a more poignant experience for audiences, but this is a minor concern at best.

Someone Marry Barry is a reliable choice for anyone who enjoys comedies. It isn’t dark or mean or even too shocking – despite seeing some scrotum and a sculpture of a penis. Just don’t go into this movie thinking it’s a romantic comedy in the traditional sense. Technically, the film has romance and comedy, but a date movie it ain’t.