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Tupac Shakur back from the dead?

April 29th, 2009 by Scott Marks

Could it be that Tupac Shakur is pulling an Andy Kaufman?

TMZ published several photos of a man in a New Orleans bar that bears an uncanny resemblance to the rapper who was gunned down on September 13, 1996. Looks more like his cousin Tupac Aday.

Honestly, I hope it is Tupac. No because of his singing - what do I know from gangsta rap — but because of his acting ability. The guy gave credible performances in Juice, Gridlock’d and Gang Related.

On a related note, EC found this exclusive photo taken in Toluca Lake of a man believed to be the late Bob Hope.

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Filed Under Gossip

Actor/Director Charles Martin Smith talks to Emulsion Compulsion

April 28th, 2009 by Scott Marks

Charles Martin Smith, Andy Friedenberg and Scott Marks. (Photo credit: Bruce Klowden)

Charles Martin Smith was the guest of honor at the closing night ceremony of the 25th season of Andy Friedenberg’s Cinema Society of San Diego. Mr. Smith was in town to screen Stone of Destiny, his latest film as writer and director. The following interview took place on the drive back to his hotel in La Jolla. Thanks to Beth Friedenberg for taking the long way in order for me to sneak in a couple of extra questions.

Scott Marks: I know that if I make assumptions that are false you’re going to stop and correct me.

Charles Martin Smith: I certainly will.

SM: I promise that I won’t give you all American Graffiti questions. Is it safe to say that most people look at Terry the Toad as your signature performance?

CMS: No. Actually, it’s not safe to say. It’s interesting. People talk to me about all kinds of things. A lot of people talk to me about American Graffiti and a lot of people talk to me about The Untouchables. Probably even more than American Graffiti. A lot of people want to talk about Never Cry Wolf.

SM: As well they should.

CMS: Well, thanks. It’s interesting. I have my own kind of little game I play when I see somebody approaching me and I see that look in their eyes I try and guess what movie they might have seen. I try and size them up: Okay, this guy is probably a Starman fan. Musicians all want to talk about The Buddy Holly Story.

SM: You’ve directed five features now.

CMS: Five or six. And then I’ve done three of four mini-series and TV movies of different kinds. I did the TV movie that was actually the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m one of the fathers of Buffy. I was the first director to do that series.

SM: I really enjoyed Boris and Natasha.

CMS (Shocked): Did you really?

SM: I’m an old SCTV fan and I love Dave Thomas in the role.

CMS: Wow! All right.

SM: You mean I’m the only one?

CMS: Believe it or not, I’ve never seen the finished film.

SM: Why?

CMS: I had a lot of problems on that film. I actually ended up kind of leaving. At one point I almost took my name off of it. It’s too difficult to go into it now, the the producer on it was very, very difficult. Dave and I are great mates. We’re good friends and I got involved because he was already cast and they didn’t have a director. Dave and I were trying to make one movie and Sally Kellerman and the producer were kind of trying to make another. It wasn’t an altogether happy experience for me. Because I had so many difficult times I never saw the absolutely final product. I finished the cut and all that and felt that a lot of what I was trying to do was compromised and it was very frustrating.

SM: As a director, if you had to pick one scene from one of your movies where you say, that’s it, I nailed it, what would it be?

CMS: (Long pause): The very last scene of The Snow Walker.

SM: That’s one I haven’t seen.

CMS: You definitely should see it. It’s the film I did right before (Stone of Destiny). Same producer, Rob Merilees and Bill Vince, Infinity (Media). It’s based on a Farley Mowat short story, the same guy that wrote Never Cry Wolf, and I shot it all up in the high Arctic with the Inuits with Barry Pepper in the lead and James Cromwell and the female lead was an 18-year-old Inuit girl that I basically discovered up there and she’s brilliant. It’s a film that I’m very, very proud of. I wrote it and directed it.

SM: Do you remember the first film you went to when you were a kid.

CMS: No. That’s a great question. The first film I remember seeing as a kid was when I lived in Paris. My father was an animator in the studios. He got a job producing and directing films for a Parisian animation studio when I was three. I remember going to the cinema and seeing a movie called The Red Balloon.

SM: Great movie. They just reissued that about a year or two ago. It was a gorgeous restoration.

CMS: Fucking hell! Can I say that?

SM: You just did.

CMS: I would love to see that again. That film impressed me and I still think of it to this day and I’d love to be able to capture what that director did. Who made that film?

SM: Albert Lamorisse. He directed that and The White Mane and they released both of them on a double bill and there is a brand new DVD that looks spectacular.

CMS: You can put that down as the first movie I remember seeing.

Charles Martin Smith introducing Stone of Destiny. (Photo credit: Bruce Klowden)

SM: What was the first movie you remember seeing where you realized that the actors weren’t making up the story as they went along and you actually realized that you were watching a creative process at work?

CMS (Laughing): I watched my dad make films, so I always knew that. I remember sitting on his lap while he was drawing cartoons. He’d flip the pages and show me how the characters moved and then he’d explain to me all about how when you see a live-action film it’s actually a series of stopped frames, but because there’s a shutter your eye is tricked into thinking that you’re seeing something moving. I grew up with that.

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