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Meg Ryan and Alan Alda didn’t bag any prizes at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, but their respective portraits of a Hollywood exec and baseball card collector rank right up there with their very best work.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 10:35 AM
By Pam Grady

Sundance is over and the votes are in. No real surprise that the finely crafted Frozen River should win the Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature or that the talk of the festival, The Wackness – even if it broke down by gender lines – should win the Dramatic Audience Award.

But while the jury and audience votes give a quick snapshot of the festival in a popularity contest kind of way, these awards don't really provide a sense of the festival experience. There are only so many films any one person can see, so everyone's festival is different. Even among a small sampling of 30 or so film, odd patterns start to emerge, and everyone attending with take some different away with them. For myself, this is the Park City snapshot that I taken back home with me to San Francisco:

Did somebody say "Hitchcock?": Festival head Geoff Gilmore used the adjective "Hitchcockian" to describe Brad Anderson's train-set thriller Transsiberian, but while it is suspenseful, it lacks those ingredients that make Hitchcock's films what they are: the gloss of high style and the sprinkling of dark wit. The word better fits Carlos Brooks' debut feature Quid Pro Quo, which is not a thriller at all – there isn't even a murder – but which nevertheless generates suspense through the odd relationship that develops between cool, blonde, chic Vera Farmiga – easily channeling Grace Kelly – and Nick Stahl's Jimmy Stewart-like disabled radio reporter.

What becomes a legend most?: In the case of Isaac Julien's Derek and Steven Sebring's Patti Smith: Dream of Life, documentaries paid loving, lyrical homage to the lives and work of two provocative artists. On the other side of the scale, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired – which went on to win the festival's documentary editng award – revisited not the filmmaker's work but rather the seamier side of his life, his '70s era conviction for having sex with a teenage girl. Even if the point of this overlong, talking head-heavy documentary is that a corrupt, publicity-seeking judge railroaded him, the genius director – whose life has been so marred by tragedy – still comes across as an absolute sleaze.

The comeback kids: John Malkovich as the Kreskin-like mentalist and one-time Tonight Show darling reduced to playing half-filled houses in second-tier markets in The Great Buck Howard, William H. Macy as a suicidal movie producer whose career has been one long downhill skid in The Deal, and the titular Canadian metal band that never quite made it in the documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil all have something in common. They all get a surprising second chance at success long after their careers appeared to reach their peaks. Stakes are highest of course in Anvil, where this real-life version of an aging and supremely likable Spinal Tap-like group fights the odds in its quest for stardom, but all three movies and their appealing underdog heroes are winners. The Deal gets special credit for gifting Meg Ryan with her best role in years as studio development executive who falls in with Macy despite her better judgment.

It's Only Teenage Wasteland (American Teen, The Wave and Towelhead): Nanette Burstein won the Sundance documentary directing award for American Teen and the film found a theatrical distributor in Paramount Vantage. An entertaining – if bland - doc it is, even if it does feel like something that would fit more comfortably on PBS' American Experience series. This real-life Breakfast Club focusing on a queen bee, a jock, a misfit and a nerd offers few revelations, except for those few innocent souls out there who never realized that the Internet and texting are quick, efficient means to facilitate bullying and character assassination. Far more intriguing was the German drama The Wave, in which a Ramones-loving high school teacher accidentally creates a nascent fascist movement over the course of a role-playing civics lesson and Alan Ball's Towelhead, in which a 13-year-old girl gets in over her head when she tests her budding sexuality on a neighbor played by Aaron Eckhart.

Making like Mickey and Judy: Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind and Andrew Fleming's Hamlet 2 celebrate the pure joy of putting on a show. In the former, Mos Def and Jack Black remake Hollywood movies in a bid to save a dying video store, creating an accidental sensation with their off-kilter takes on recent classics in the process. The latter plays loving homage to high school theatrics in the tale of a wildly untalented drama teacher and amateur playwright who nonetheless strikes a nerve (and creates a laugh riot) when he writes a sequel to Shakespeare's signature work.

They’ve got rhythm: Ari Gold is a copper miner who finds meaning his life through air drumming in Gold's debut feature Adventures of Power, while Richard Jenkins is an embittered, widowed college professor who gets a new lease on life through a growing friendship with an illegal immigrant couple and a newfound talent for African drumming in Tom McCarthy's The Visitor. Gold's amiable movie is an adventure is pure silliness, but McCarthy returns with his first film since The Station Agent with yet another deeply felt, observant, and offbeat drama – one that should be talked about when end of the year honors are doled out.

Two side of suburbia: Actually, any number of films at Sundance dealt with suburban themes, including the aforementioned Towelhead and Craig Lucas' Birds of America. But it is Johan Renck's Downloading Nancy and Mark Pellington's Henry Poole is Here that offer the starkest contrast.

Renck's nihilistic drama, written by Lee Ross and Pamela Cuming and based on a new true story, about a woman (Maria Bello) who steps out on her husband (Rufus Sewel) with the Internet hookup (Jason Patric) that she hopes will murder her, finds in this upscale community, an emotional dead zone, as airless and sterile as the couple's plastic wrapped furniture. In Henry Poole, Luke Wilson’s character also fully expects to die from a terminal disease, but when a nosy neighbor spots Christ's face in a water spot on the side of his house, his fury with her turns to something else when she and other neighbors ignore his bad behavior and rally around him.

Beisbol has been very, very good to me: Half-Nelson filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden return with Sugar, a compelling, atmospheric drama that follows a hopeful major league prospect from the baseball academy in the Dominican Republic to Arizona spring training to Iowa A-ball and finally to the Bronx. But it is the fans who star in Terry Kinney's Chicago-set Diminished Capacity in which Alan Alda gives one of his finest performances as an increasingly scattered elderly man who has decided the time has come to part with an especially valuable baseball card.

Bad vacations: The brochures never tell the whole story, but hit man Colin Farrell only finds Belgium boring until the bullets start flying in playwright Martin McDonagh's pitch-black feature debut In Bruges. Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer learn their own, horrid lesson in travel planning in Brad Anderson's Transsiberian after railroad nut Harrelson books them on the famous cross-country train, only to realize too late that it is a popular means of transport for underworld types and the corrupt cops pursuing them.

Forget the Baldwin’s, here come the Foster’s: So far, Ben Foster has had the showier career, memorable in the last year alone for his off-kilter roles in Alpha Dog, 3:10 to Yuma and 30 Days of Night, while baby brother Jon has forged a more conventional image in such films as The Door in the Floor. Sundance afforded the rare opportunity to compare and contrast the siblings with Ben playing Matthew Perry's eccentric, homeless brother in Birds of America, while Jon is a recent college grad and mobster's son who falls in with bohemian Sienna Miller and her shady boyfriend Peter Sarsgaard in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.As actors, they are very different, but both deliver memorable performances that push problematic films up a notch.

Carlos Brooks, Quid Pro Quo

"The best detective stories are the ones where the detective ultimately realizes he's been investigating himself."

THE REELER: In your own words, please take a second to outline Quid Pro Quo.
CARLOS BROOKS: Quid Pro Quo is about an NPR-type reporter who uses a wheelchair and stumbles on a, let's say, subterranean culture of people who wish they used wheelchairs. That seems like kind of an NPR-like story. So he's in the process of pursuing that when he meets a woman who may or may not actually be the grown child who injured him in the first place and killed his parents.

R: What got you started on the idea?
CB: I wrote the script just to write. I didn't write it to direct or anything; I just wanted to write something different. I've always wanted to write a detective story, and what this really is is a detective story in disguise. It's an investigative journalistic piece, and the best detective stories are the ones where the detective ultimately realizes he's been investigating himself. I would never write an actual detective story -- at least I don't think I would -- but that's what this secretly is.

I guess initially I thought, aside from that conceit, what I was passionate about in the story was that I loved the idea of talking about somebody who was impaired in some way who would get something that allowed him to overcome his impairment. And this thing he was given -- this talisman, whatever it would be -- would come with some sort of cost. I thought it would be interesting that if it was an injury that impaired him, then it would be interesting if the cost of having this thing would be that he had to help the person who initially injured him. There's a quid pro quo in that. From there, I kind of hit the wall; where it really caught fire was when I realized that these people really exist.

R: Definitely -- I've heard about this. To what degree did you research or interview anyone from this subculture?
CB: You can imagine these people are incredibly private. There have been a couple of things on 48 Hours about amputee wanna-bes, but never anything about paralysis. I don't even think it's been codified in the psychological journals yet; there is no actual term for the pathology. When I was at the stage where I didn't know about these people, I went online. I realized I wasn't as comfortable with the culture of disability as I thought I was, and I started Googling different terms that would really get me into this culture. And who else is out there doing that at 2 in the morning? It's these people! I kind of vectored in on them. Then I just lurked; I visited all these Web sites where they posted to each other, encouraged each other, and they're not at all crazy-sounding. They aware of what people like you and I think of them, and they’re very concerned that they find acceptance. I couldn't look away.

I created a Bible of information -- just stuff that I found about people and their testimonies. I developed character ideas from that, and then I gave that Bible to the actor who played the part, Vera Farmiga. We're the only two people who've seen it.

R: I wanted to ask you about casting Vera. How did she come to the project?
CB: She approached us. It was a few years ago; the project was delayed a couple of times, and I met her before The Departed came out and she'd really broken. I don't even think she had won her award at Sundance yet [for Down to the Bone]. Vera's really good at making audition tapes -- she could teach a master class -- and the character was kind of written like this sort of stylized, waking dream. But she made it so real. She really blew me away. She flew down; we did some auditions, and it was a long process casting her and getting the financiers to understand how great she is. They did ultimately, and she got the part. That was it. She's grown in her indie stature since then, but we really didn't know that much about each other before then. She just dialed into it. R: And now she's in her thousandth Sundance film, but it's your first. What are your thoughts, hopes or concerns headed into Park City?
CB: I'm really thrilled. People use that word way too much, but I really am thrilled to be going to Sundance. For once I can genuinely say that But with the subject matter of the movie, I'm really curious. I think Sundance is a place that’s really good at promoting political and social awareness about things, whereas my film has more of a European theme: I'm interested in the metaphor and the individual.

We treat the subjects in a really enlightened way. People who were disabled were involved in a facets of making it. There's a lot of commonality, but that's as political as it gets. I wonder if people will have a knee-jerk reflex to look at this in a political light. Hollywood is historically horrible at showing people with disabilities, and I think it conditions people to look at that subject mater in a politically correct arena. They want to be sure that they're on the right side of it. This is taking it way beyond that -- I'm just writing about people. So I'm curious to see if people take what I intend from it or if they want to look at it from that other way. I'm interested in finding out.

Posted Jan 21st 2008 2:02PM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Drama, Romance, Sundance, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews

How's this for a premise? A young reporter who lost the use of his legs in a childhood car accident is asked to look into a group of handicap "wannabes" before he falls in love with a physically-abled woman who, yep, desperately wants to be a paraplegic. Sounds pretty outlandish, doesn't it? But the truth is that there ARE people out there who'd prefer to be wheelchair-bound -- as "crazy" as that might sound to you and me. Strange but true, folks, and Carlos Brooks' oddly illuminating Quid Pro Quo does an appreciably good job of delving into some rather arcane issues.

Although he needs a wheelchair to get around, radio journalist Isaac Knot (get it? I Sick. Not.) is by no means disabled. Aside from the fact that he can't stand or walk, Isaac has no problem getting around New York City, chasing down story leads, and handling a fairly normal social life. (Aside from all the skittish single chicks who get freaked out at the sight of a wheelchair, that is, and all those lazy cab drivers.) But when a decidedly strange story hits the wire -- apparently a man recently walked into a hospital and offered a doctor $250,000 to amputate a perfectly healthy leg -- Isaac becomes intrigued. Professional interest turns into personal business when a mysterious (and sexy!) informant pops up and offers Isaac an odd exclusive: She'll introduce him to the world of "wannabes" if he teaches her what it's like to be stuck in a chair all the time.

The lovely (but clearly somewhat strange) Fiona does a lot more than explain her desires to Isaac; she literally shares them with the semi-smitten reporter. As their relationship gets deeper, Fiona becomes more and more convinced that "intentional paralysis" is what she truly wants -- but obviously Isaac is going to do what he can to talk her out of it. But things take a strange turn (more than one, actually) and the affair between Isaac and Fiona becomes a whole lot more ... co-dependent.

Taken as a low-key cross between Garden State, The Waterdance and Cronenberg's Crash (now there's a weird combo), there's a good deal to like about the weird but well-intentioned Quid Pro Quo. Some of the "wannabe" stuff gets a little creepy (and borderline ridiculous, truth be told) but some excellent work from the underrated Nick Stahl and the always-hypnotic Vera Farmiga manage to elevate the flick through the few rough spots. And if it sounds like this is a pretty bizarre premise for a romantic drama, well heck, I guess that's why we have film festivals. It's not like an odd romance between a semi-paralyzed radio reporter and a slightly-insane museum curator is going to knock down the box office walls, but there's always something to be said for a little flick that takes chances on potentially strange subject matter.

Worth seeing for the two leads alone, Quid Pro Quo has some pretty insightful things to say about the nature of being "disabled," and it does so with a good deal of humor, style, and understanding. And even if the movie slows down once or twice, you can just sit back and stare at Ms. Farmiga's stunningly beautiful eyes. That's what I do with all her movies!

by indieWIRE (January 8, 2008)
EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling first-time feature directors who have films screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Premiering at Sundance '08 in the Spectrum program, Carlos Brooks' "Quid Pro Quo," details the story of Isaac (Nick Stahl), a popular New York City public-radio reporter who also happens to be a paraplegic. His investigation of a particular story about a man who had requested his leg be amputated for no medical reason leads him to Flora (Vera Farmiga). While developing a relationship with her, Flora introduces Isaac to subculture of paraplegic "wannabes." Sundance's Nazgol Zand finds that "Quid Pro Quo" does not celebrate or sensationalize the subculture it portrays but instead explores the human psyche and allows the audience to ask questions."

"Quid Pro Quo"
Director: Carlos Brooks
Screenwriter: Carlos Brooks
Producers: Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford
Cinematographer: Michael McDonough
Editors: Lauren Zuckerman, Charles Ireland
Principal Cast: Nick Stahl, Vera Farmiga, Kate Burton,
James Frain, Aimee Mullins, Pablo Schreiber
U.S.A., 2007, 82 min., color, Sony HD Cam

Please introduce yourself.
I grew up in Washington state, in Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle. I studied journalism at Western Washington University, in Bellingham, and later English and screenwriting at USC. My job experience is primarily as a screenwriter.

What initially attracted you to filmmaking? What other creative outlets do you explore?
My dad was a writer, my mother was a graphic artist. But I was initially interested in music - songwriting and performing - my heroes as a kid were singer/songwriters, and I find analogies to that process in being a writer/director. I've always written stories, but it was the physicality and vitality of filmmaking that hooked me as a teenager. If you are constrained by any kind of budget (even if it's only the 20 minutes before the security guard arrives), directing a film is like writing while running for your life from a bear. Even the low points have a certain urgency. After doing it once, I knew I never wanted to be anything but a director. So I spent a lot of time studying and practicing how to write a good screenplay. The problem is every time I think I've figured it out now, I start a new one and none of the old rules apply.

How did you learn about filmmaking?
I went to USC film school for four years. I started writing TV scripts for money while I was there, and sometimes I would get on sets. I did some acting in school, but I also hung out with actors on the sets where I wrote the script, and I got a feel for what they were going through. Most of what I know about running a set I learned from listening to production managers, old school guys. The kind who always had a role of 20s in their pockets for bribing uncooperative shop owners. I remember one South African UPM pulling me over as the entire set waited for the director and the first AD to debate a problem that should have been solved the night before. He said, "See what's happening here? We're doomed."

What prompted the idea for this film and how did it evolve?
I thought it would be interesting to follow a character who had been impaired somehow, but then give him a tool to overcome his limitation and see what happens. In return for this gift, I felt there should be a price to pay -- that there should be some sort "quid pro quo" arrangement -- and that it should entail his having to help the person who had impaired him in the first place. It didn't occur to me until much later in my research that the concept of "helping" can mean something entirely different from one person to the next -- it can even have an opposite meaning. That was interesting. For this script, it was re-examining that word "help" that opened up the story to me.

Elaborate a bit on your approach to making the film, including your influences or early inspiration with regard to the casting, technique and approach to the filmmaking.
I love contemporary filmmakers, but I just sit and enjoy their work. My influences are the same directors who influenced the last generation -- John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Don Siegel -- Sidney Lumet and Alan Pakula in particular inspired my approach to directing "Quid Pro Quo," embracing a kind of formalism that I thought would serve the picture. I knew I had a very unconventional subject -- thought it would be good to approach it conventionally, even mainstream. Some of my favorite films in the '70s worked along these lines, but in reverse -- they were, for their time, unconventional treatments of often very conventional little stories ("The French Connection" is a great example)... Along those lines I was also inspired by the old pulp magazines like Black Mask that were full of unconventional, weirder-the-better little stories that were told in a very accessible style.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in making the movie?
Going the "rugged verite" route always forgives a multitude of sins -- but I wanted to have more control over the world I was creating. We wanted it to feel special. Working with production designer Roshelle Berliner, and DP Michael McDonough, we were able to squeeze an amazing amount of production value out of our budget, even though it meant fewer setups, no time to go back and fix any mistakes, and little room for error. When I got to post I realized that some of it worked within that framework, but some of it didn't. It wasn't until Lauren Zuckerman and I were able to find the voice of the movie in the editing room that we realized the initial vision was going to be realized after all, with some retooling to the structure of the original screenplay. All of us were perhaps too ambitious for our own good, but it worked.

What are your specific goals for the Sundance Film Festival?
We have domestic distribution already, so my intention going to Sundance is to get a better sense of the other filmmakers and their work, share what what they went through at more or less the same time as I was going through it. I want to know I'm not alone!

What are some of your recent favorite films?
I was just blown away by "Into the Wild". Also this year, "Michael Clayton". The latest "Bourne" movie had perhaps some of the most astounding editing I've ever seen. And I can find absolutely no fault with the writer/director Tony Gilroy who wrote both those films. His work this year really inspired me.

How do you define success as a filmmaker? What are your personal goals as a filmmaker going forward?
Success as a filmmaker means you get your movie made, and you're still standing when it's finished. I want to continue working with artists of Nick Stahl and Vera Farmiga's calibre, and to continue working with the core group of filmmakers that I was so fortunate to have found on my first film.

Please tell us about any upcoming projects.
I am just now finishing green screen tests on a project I wrote before "Quid Pro Quo." I don't want to say what it's about just yet, but I'm partnered with a company called Engine Room in Los Angeles, run by Dan Schmit, who did the beautiful tulip photography and fx for "Quid Pro Quo." On this one we're using motion control in a way that's never been done before, it's a total departure in scale from "Quid Pro Quo," but just as artful. I'm very excited about it.

"Quid Pro Quo"

The eye-opening sub culture of "wannabes" -- able-bodied people who'd rather live their lives paralyzed -- is revealed in writer-director Carlos Brooks' debut feature.

In the film Isaac (Nick Stahl), a wheelchair-using public radio journalist, is assigned to cover the wannabes phenomenon. During his time with them he meets Fiona (Vera Farmiga), who may or may not have played a part in a life-changing incident in his past.

Describing the film as a mix between a comedy and psychological thrill, Brooks came up with the idea of a wheelchair-using character as the central figure in a film three years ago, but explains it was a struggle to create a compelling story. "The problem was I was making an assumption that I was more comfortable with disability than I truthfully am," he says. But after discovering wannabes during a late night internet surf he knew he had found his movie. "In order to feel better they believe they need to be injured. I just found that so compelling," Brooks says. "In effect I think I had to become a wannabe in order to write truthfully the life of somebody who uses a chair."

Fully aware of the film's controversial subject matter, Brooks hopes the film causes discussion. "All I want is for the audience to be incredibly engaged by the story and I'd love it if they were debating it among themselves hotly as they walk out of the theater," he says. "I'd love that it provokes a stimulating conversation, a different way at looking at things."

Financed through HDNet Films at under $2 million, filming wrapped in New York in the end of October, 2005. Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury ("Desperately Seeking Susan," "River's Edge") are producing. Shot on HD by Michael McDonough, it will be cut by editor Charles Ireland ("Me And You And Everyone We Know"). Exec producers are Jason Kilot, Joana Vicente, Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban.

By JO PIAZZA & PATRICK HUGUENIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, January 22nd 2008, 4:00 AM

Bruce Willis did more than debut his flick "What Just Happened?" in Park City. He took the opportunity to premiere his new girlfriend, former Victoria's Secret model Emma Hemming. The pair took in the film, then took seats at the after-dinner alongside Robert De Niro, Stanley Tucci, Barry Levinson and Art Linson at Robert Redford's restaurant, Zoom.

Later at Zoom, Glamour mag toasted its Reel Moments short film contest with a midnight séance hosted by A&E's spooky new show "Paranormal State." Bryce Dallas Howard, actress and daughter of legendary director Ron Howard, came out for the creepy party, where investigators managed to find a ghost in the old hotel. Howard, who left her 11-month-old home with her hubby, was daunted by both the ghost and the film festival. "It's my first time," she told us. Shockingly, her dad had never been, either. "He called me and asked me what it was like. I said, 'Dad, why don't you come? I'm sure they'd love to have you.'"

We overheard hard-core liberal Moby spouting off about politics at the Harmony Project launch party Sunday night. If he absolutely had to, like if someone forced him to vote Republican, McCain is his man.

"The Departed" babe Vera Farmiga sizzled onscreen Sunday night at the premiere of her movie "Quid Pro Quo," in which she seduces a paraplegic reporter played by Nick Stahl. Farmiga was stuck filming in Montreal and couldn't attend, but sent a letter for the film's producers to read aloud as Stahl blushed. "Courageous Nick," wrote Farmiga, "with his Rocky Mountain oysters big enough to play this role. Dear, sweet Nick. It took the crew weeks to explain to Nick that just because he was playing a handicapped person, didn't mean he could park in their parking spots."

New York thespian William H. Macy is busy at Sundance this year. He has his own film, "The Deal," to promote, plus he needs to catch wifey Felicity Huffman in "Phoebe in Wonderland" and Atlantic Theater Company BFF Clark Gregg in "Choke." We caught him at the Film Lounge Media Center to ask if he'd ever come back to New York and do some, you know, theater.

"My wife is stuck in a hit," he said with a grin about his own personal Desperate Housewife, "so we're not going anywhere for a while. We have two small children. But as soon as that's over, we're talking about coming back. We want to do a play together."

We'd rather watch Josh Hartnett kick vampire butt than play a serious role, but we can't blame him for having aspirations. At Hyde this weekend, the actor was so engrossed in conversation with director Oliver Stone that Hartnett barely noticed the parade of honeys coming up to say hello.

Pillsbury the filmmaker: once and always a Minnesotan

PARK CITY, UTAH Sarah Pillsbury Oscar-winning filmmaker and accomplished activist and descendant of the milling family — has the thick skin of a born Minnesotan.

Minutes after the Sundance Film Festival's world premiere of "Quid Pro Quo," the romantic drama she co-produced with longtime business partner Midge Sanford, Pillsbury suggests that the best place to give an interview is outside. "Park City is balmy compared to Minnesota," she says, leading us out the door of Sundance's library venue. "Let's just stand in the snow."

Why not? Pillsbury lives most of the year in sunny Venice, Calif., but reacquainted herself with below-zero temperatures recently while working with the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits on voter participation issues. "Quid Pro Quo," set in New York City, follows the relationship between a paraplegic public radio reporter (Nick Stahl) and an able-bodied woman (Vera Farmiga) who longs to be disabled. But its concerns aren't far from home for the activist.

Putting people in a different place

"The movie fits with what I like to do," says Pillsbury. "You want to be able to lift people up and put them down in a slightly different place." The loud applause that followed the world premiere suggests the film achieves just that.

Pillsbury, great-granddaughter of miller Charles Pillsbury and daughter of former Republican Sen. George Pillsbury, has been involved with filmmaking since the 1970s. Her Oscar for co-producing the short film "Board and Care," about mentally disabled patients, came in 1980.

In the years that followed, she and Sanford produced several bona fide classics of independent film, including "Desperately Seeking Susan," "Eight Men Out," and "River's Edge," the enduring cult movie about small-town teenage murder, which premiered at Sundance in 1987. "Quid Pro Quo" represents Pillsbury's first producing credit in nearly a decade.

No country for old women?

"We've been joking that Hollywood is no country for old women," laughs Pillsbury, hardly old at 56. "Four of my first five movies with Midge were funded by companies that are no longer in business. The consolidation of media ownership in the late '90s radically changed the industry, so we sat out for a while. We thrived at a time when the business was much more entrepreneurial and independent than it is now."

"Quid Pro Quo" shows Pillsbury playing by the new rules of the filmmaking game. Economically speaking, the $2 million film is the product of a fully integrated corporation: Mark Cuban's HDNet Films, whose work is distributed by Cuban's Magnolia Pictures and screened in his Landmark Theatres venues nationwide. "We're glad to know we have distribution," says Pillsbury. "A lot of wonderful films have screened at Sundance and never been released."

The film's boldly challenging subject matter — involving able-bodied "wannabes" who dream of having their limbs amputated, a topic it shares with Minnesota documentarian Melody Gilbert's "Whole" — makes the film's package deal with Cuban especially beneficial. Which isn't to say that that "Quid Pro Quo" lacks universal themes.

"The movie is really about the question of what makes us feel authentic," Pillsbury says. "What do we imagine would be our best self? I used to joke that in Minnesota there was no premium on being blonde. When I was 11 or 12, instead of being blond, I wanted to be a redhead with freckles named Ginger." Characteristically Minnesotan or not, Pillsbury — "tall and blonde and loud," with a "brand name," as she told Los Angeles Business Journal — continues to distinguish herself.

Day 3 of Sundance: More screenings and the future of film by Dan Satorius
January 22, 2008 01:17 PM EST
(Updated: January 22, 2008 01:22 PM EST)

Blogging from The Sundance Film Festival

Park City, Utah
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dan Satorius

I hoofed it down to the Library in asnowstorm for an 8:30 screening of Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind". By this point in the week I'm starting to fray around the edges and I'm operating on five hours of sleep. So making it to this screening and remaining sufficiently alert to stay with the movie is my challenge. Apparently, Gondry has similar challenges because he does not make it to the screening or the Q&A.

I like Gondry's films ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" "The Science of Sleep") and "Be Kind Rewind" does not disappoint. Jack Black and Mos Def are hilarious. Gondry's work is an odd but pleasant cocktail of naivety, quirkiness, and visual inventiveness. The inciting event in "Be Kind Rewind" is that all the video tapes in a neighborhood video store (no DVDs) get erased accidentally. The store's clerk (Def) and his buddy (Black) solve the problem by shooting the film themselves. The story is preposterous but Gondry manages character motivation, story logic and an emotional payoff.

I met John Crye of New Market for lunch in a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall next to one of the theater venues. For a small company New Market has released some amazing titles. These guys brought you "Memento," "Monster," "Donny Darko," "The Passion of the Christ," "The Prestige" and apropos to John's presence at Sundance, acquired "Whale Rider" for a song and turned it into a huge success. They are very smart and talented film people. John has been open to my pitches of client projects and has been a generous friend to one of my projects. You must check out John's side project "You Will Not Make It in Hollywood" webisodes on iTunes.

Everyone is trying to figure out the future of film/TV especially the impact of the Internet. John has his ideas. I have mine. I think the film business has a lot to learn from the music business which is withering this past 10 years. Its decline is not solely due to illegal downloading, but downloading has been a crushing blow. And the Internet, unlike previous technologies (8-track,cassette, CD) has not offered any great solutions to the music business.

John's observation is that studio blockbusters are dinosaurs and the comet is closing in. Very few films make a profit in theatrical release. DVD has for many years been a cash cow, but DVD sales are slumping. The Internet is likely to have a negative impacton DVD sales (just like the impact of the Internet on CD sales). So John is saying smaller budget films are the future. That's an improvement from where I sit.

Sarah Pillsbury ("DesperatelySeeking Susan" "Eight Men Out" "American Quilt"), a Minnesotan and friend screened her film "Quid Pro Quo" today. The film is well-acted by Nick Stahl and Vera Farmiga. But its strength is the great script and directing by Carlos Brooks. I felt like I was in good hands in this story. The film asks you to take some challenging twists and turns. Early in the film Farmiga builds trust that those twists and turns will be handled well and he delivers. It is emotionally intelligent with a well-crafted plot.

The story in "Quid Pro Quo" involves amputee wanabes. Theses are able-bodied people who identify themselves as disabled in some way: e.g. missing a leg or paralysis. Our client, Melody Gilbert, produced a fascinating documentary called "Whole" a few years back on this topic. So I was familiar with the subject. Both films deserve a look and one is not in any way a replacement for the other.

Posted: Tue., Jan. 22, 2008, 4:20pm PT

Quid Pro Quo

A Magnolia Pictures release of an HDNet Films presentation of a Sanford/Pillsbury production. Produced by Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford. Executive producers, Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban. Co-producer, Per Melita. Directed, written by Carlos Brooks.

With: Nick Stahl, Vera Farmiga, Jacob Pitts, Aimee Mullins, Jeane Fournier, Kate Burton, Jessica Hecht, Dylan Bruno, Rachel Black, Phil LaMarr, Pablo Schreiber, Leonardo Nam, Michal Sinnott, Joshua Leonard.

By JUSTIN CHANG

An exceedingly odd meeting of the minds (and bodies) occurs in "Quid Pro Quo," a strikingly original and provocative first feature from scribe-helmer Carlos Brooks. Touching on one of New York's weirder subcultures -- perfectly mobile, able-bodied people with paralysis envy -- this very funny two-hander has the wit to treat potentially offensive material with an offhand drollery that is immediately disarming, even as it builds a disturbing level of intimacy between its excellent leads, Nick Stahl and Vera Farmiga. Bizarro subject matter and minor-key execution will keep wider audiences at bay, but consider Brooks a talent to watch.

A detective story that morphs into a twisted romance, "Quid Pro Quo" is narrated by Gotham public radio personality Isaac Knott (Stahl), who's been in a wheelchair since the car accident that killed his parents and deprived him of the use of his legs at age 8. With his wry wit ("If you're wondering, yes, I can have sex -- I just can't catch a cab") and utter lack of self-pity, Isaac would be ideal company even if he didn't guide the audience into such intriguingly murky territory. Tipped off about a secret group of paraplegic "wannabes," some of whom have sought to induce paralysis via amputation and other means, Isaac smells a potential story and soon gets in touch with the mysterious Fiona (Farmiga, with a Veronica Lake hairdo). A conservator of artifacts and Chinese-culture enthusiast, Fiona turns out to be one strange cookie; Isaac is the first person she tells about her wheelchair, to which she wants to be confined forever.

But Fiona doesn't spill her guts without a price, and the film's title refers at least in part to the fair exchange of secrets between the two characters. Brooks' sardonic screenplay yields one of the cinema's more unique portraits of co-dependency, as Isaac and Fiona's initial guardedness gives way to their mutual need to get inside each other's heads (and, of course, their growing sexual attraction). Fascinating questions are raised along the way -- not only why some people would want to paralyze themselves, but also why they might view their freedom as a form of paralysis.

The sly perversity of "Quid Pro Quo's" setup -- which takes an even odder turn when Isaac magically starts to regain feeling in his legs, while Fiona mulls her options -- would keep a viewer watching even if the film completely derailed. It doesn't, but given the pretzel-logic intrigue that precedes it, the film's final revelation is arguably too pat, even psychologically reductive, although Brooks definitely has an impressive way with a red herring.

Lead thesps are beautifully matched, with Stahl's imperturbable Isaac acting as the perfect straight-man foil to Farmiga's neurotic, impassioned Fiona. One of their early dates, as Fiona tests out her wheelchair for the first time in public, reps a comic high point.

Lenser Michael McDonough amplifies the film's detective-fiction undercurrents and dreamlike feel with a noirish, amber-glow lighting scheme. Tech package is decent.

Camera (color, HD), Michael McDonough; editors, Lauren Zuckerman, Charles Ireland; music, Mark Mothersbaugh; music supervisor, Robin Urdang; production designer, Roshelle Berliner; art director, Mary Beth Kuhn; set decorator, Siobain Flaherty; costume designer, Eric Daman; sound (Dolby Digital), Antonio Arroyo; sound designer, Sandy Berman; re-recording mixer, David West; visual effects supervisor, Dan Schmidt; visual effects, Engine Room; stunt coordinators, Cort Hessler, Gene Harrison; assistant director, Jason "Rowdy" Rody; casting, Randi Hiller, Sarah Halley Finn. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (Spectrum), Jan. 20, 2008. Running time: 81 MIN.

Read the full article at:
Variety.com

January 21, 2008

Close Up: Quid Pro Quo gets naughty

"I read somewhere that this was a psycho-sexual thriller," whispered one audience member at Sunday night premiere of Carlos Brooks' Quid Pro Quo. "I think it's more of a drama, but that makes it sound so sexy."

The film is sexy indeed. Nick Stahl stars as a paraplegic NYC public radio reporter wooed - and rather persistently - by a sultry, suspicious stranger, played by Vera Farmiga (both pictured).

In one spicy scene, the two start a game of bumper wheelchairs and end up in bed. In case you were wondering, this isn't your average Hollywood romance.

"The scene as it was written on the page was just going to be sex," says Brooks. "She was going to take her clothes off." "I wasn't opposed," adds Stahl.

"But it was one of those scenes where you always let the camera keep going after the shot, which Nick hates, but Vera loves," says Brooks. "And Vera started pushing him down the hall. There was nothing we planned and I was watching and I was like, let’s see how this goes. Finally we stopped and I said cut and I remember Vera said, 'That was naughty!'"

Seattle at Sundance

Posted January 21 at 12:41 pm by Brian Miller

There is no Zoo. There is no Police Beat. There is no Smoke Signals. In fact, there are no Seattle-made films at all this year at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, which opened last Thursday and continues through Jan. 27. The most we can boast is a couple of Northwest-made filmmakers. Calvin Reeder acted in and directed several short film up here (including Jerkbeast); now based in L.A., he's most recently created the Sudance short The Rambler.

Then there's Carlos Brooks, raised in Bellevue, a late '80s alum of Interlake High School, where he got his start as a filmmaker. “We kind of carved our own way," he says by phone from Los Angeles, shortly before flying to Utah. "There was just the beginnings of a media department in the Bellevue School District. I got a hold of a video camera, and we did music videos in high school. And that was what started me going.”

Eastside cinemas were also part of his education, he explains: “The John Danz used to have this big dolphin that stood in the middle of the lobby. [The theater] was right at the end of auto row. That’s where I saw Superman, that’s where I saw the Star War movies....and fell asleep during Reds. We used to live in an apartment across the street from the Crossroads, and I was like, wow—there’s three screens! I’d ride my bike to the Overlake Cinemas, and I saw everything. I saw Little Big Man at the Overlake, the rerelease. Why were they showing Little Big Man at the Overlake in the early ’80s? And it was awesome!”

Two decades later, he explains, he began shooting his very first feature—which debuted yesterday (Sunday) at Sundance—in a fondly remembered location just north of town.

“The first frame of this movie I filmed in La Conner. Because I went to Western Washington University in Bellingham for a while before I went to USC. And I used to drive by the tulip fields every spring. So I wrote it into the script. We got this wonderful rainy great gray sky. And the flowers just popped. It was beautiful and very dreamy.” That scene is a prologue to Quid Pro Quo, about a wheelchair-bound NYC journalist (Nick Stahl) who becomes involved with a shady lady (Vera Farmiga, The Departed) while reporting a story on people who seek to amputate their own limbs.

Brooks studied journalism at Western, before transferring to USC film school. “And then there was a cable access channel in Seattle when I was going to Western. Cable access back then had a mandate, and they had allow public access to the equipment. And so we went in and we used it to make movies.” Those shorts were then shown on public access TV, likely Channel 29 or its precursor.

“I’ve been Sundance before," Brooks continues, "My wife had a film up there, that was 12 years ago." That film was Reality Bites in 1994, and he got an up-close view of the festival hoopla. “It was so crazy and crowded and elbowy, and yet kind of fun. There was some naivetè that this is easy." By "this" he means the process of getting your first script (or feature credit) into Sundance. "It was kind of ephemeral at the time. It was very light and airy and we were very naive.”

A dozen years later, he says, “I go back now as a grown-up. I don’t think all those elbows mean anything, all that jostling and bumping and excitement. I’m not jaded by any means. So that allows me to be kind of thrilled about it. People use that word a lot...in our industry. But I am really am thrilled.”

Unlike many, if not most films debuting at Sundance, Quid Pro Quo already has a distribution deal through a division of the same parent company that owns our local Landmark Theatres chain. Brooks says a release date hasn't been determined. Other festival screenings will follow Sundance. So what about SIFF?

“I would love to. I think that’s a great festival for us,” Brooks replies. Then, if all goes well with the project commercially, if more calls start coming to him instead of the other way around, he adds, "My wife and I want to move back." With two small kids, he notes, the price of housing in Los Angeles makes Seattle real estate seem a bargain.

We'll have more news later on whether Brooks and Quid Pro Quo make their way to SIFF. Our conversation ends when he gets an incoming call from his leading lady, Vera Farmiga, with whom he'll appear at Sundance. Perhaps that's the sign of a career on the rise.

January 08, 2008

TIP OF THE WEEK: It Came From Sundance!

by Mister Informative

Greetings, Moguls! Though January is a typically slower time for American cinema, not everything debuting this winter is required to have the quality of Meet the Spartans. There's at least one bright spot — the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, taking place this year from Jan. 17-27. And while some of the films being screened at Sundance might be relatively obscure now, they could end up as intriguing Fantasy Moguls picks (mostly in Ultimate Movie Moguls leagues), worth keeping an eye out for down the road.

Excluding one obvious biggie (and a film many readers are probably well aware of), Be Kind Rewind, I've picked out 10 films being screened at Sundance this year to put on your radar for future seasons. Some don't have a distributor or a solid release date yet, but those kinds of things are one perk of showing a film at Sundance — perhaps the movie will incite an indie studio bidding war for the right to distribute it. Last year's Sundance crop brought us Waitress (6 PTA points and a respectable $19 million at the box office) and The Savages (7 PTA points and $2.5 million thus far); might there be another film this year that could end up paying similar dividends for Fantasy Moguls players?

Quid Pro Quo depicts the eccentric subculture of those who long to feel whole, but in peculiar ways. It is fashioned as a tale of strangers whose lives become intertwined, in a similar vein to Crash or Babel. I know that many people think those films are a convoluted mess, but regardless of that opinion, those movies did perform well, and so there is a market for similarly crafted films. The main character of Quid Pro Quo is Isaac, a paraplegic New York City radio reporter, who follows up on an anonymous source's tip on a story about a man who walked into a hospital and demanded his leg be amputated. The pursuit of this story, even if only to satisfy his own curiosity, leads him to the culture of "wannabes," those who seek personal fulfillment in unorthodox ways, and may not feel whole unless they are an amputee. Unfortunately, Isaac's exploration of this culture may lead him to a painful truth rather than the answers he desires. Director Carlos Brooks is making his directorial debut with this psychological thriller (certain to be a more cerebral thriller than, say, Untraceable). Look for a limited release later this year.