A couple of weeks ago thanks to my membership in SIFF I was able to attend a preview screening of Don Roos’s new film Happy Endings. By now there are main press reviews so I will not really write up much about the movie. I will say that as art house movies go it had a great cast and the plots of the movie did a great job intermixing. Lisa Kudrow did a much better job then the awful HBO show she is on right now. Much to my surprise Tom Arnold was even good. Jason Ritter plays his son and he does a good job in his role. After the movie Tom Arnold was there for a Q & A session. Here is what I can remember from it. Tom was asked about how he got the part. Don Roos told him that he had written the role for him but it was only after the movie had passed through a few studios and a few other actors passed on the part was he actually given the part. Many people did not know the connection between Tom and Don and Tom said that for the first few years that he knew Don he did not know he was in the movie bussiness. He only knew Don as someone who was also helping others over come shall we say a substance abuse problem. Tom talked about how Maggie Gyllenhall, his love interest in the flim just had a nack for improv and much of her acting and dialog was not in the orginial script. He also said for his love scene that he insisted he would be on the bottom so his gut would not show as much. Actually for the role Don asked Tom not to lose any weight. He looked a lot thinner and healthier for the Q & A. Jesse Bradfod has a scene in the movie where he shaves off of a beard that he has and Tom told us that the reason they have it in the movie was that Jesse had been in I think a motorcycle acident and they were covering up an injury benieth a fake beard which he used in the the filming until he had healed. The day before this preview showing members of SIFF were able to see a preview of Rebound in which Tom Arnold played himself as part of the "Best Damn Sport Show" crew. Tom said he did not want to do it but he had made a deal with Fox that for doing that part they would let him have access to footage from True Lies for a new movie he had just finished. It turns out that Tom has had some interesting neihbors. On one side of him lived Shaq. On the other side lived a rich man who wanted to put his son with cerebral palsy in a film where he wanted to play the action star called the Kid & I. To use the footage for another film you have to get everyone to sign off including people like the stunt doubles. This can be a lot of work to track these people down. Fox did the work for Arnold in excahnge for his bit role. His new film sounds very cool. Joe Mantega and Henry Winlker are in it and I think Shannon Elizabeht plays the boys love interest and Tom said the first time he kiss a girl it was Shannon. Linda Hamilton and of course the starts of True Lies, Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold Schwartzenegger are in the film.
If you like ensomble films with a good cast (althought I should warn you that you will have to do a bit of reading in the film) I would go see Happy Endings.
If you like ensomble films with a good cast (althought I should warn you that you will have to do a bit of reading in the film) I would go see Happy Endings.
A digital recording of my life 