Hi guys -

It's been awhile, we know. We just wanted to give you a heads up about some cool pages that recently went up for some important causes. If you have the time/inclination it would be great if you could check them out:

The first is Leonardo DiCaprio's myspace page. He and a team of filmmakers interviewed more then 50 leading scientists, experts and visionaries about the state of our environment. The film features them along with info on solutions and what we can all do to make a difference. check it out here:
Leo's Myspace page.

The other is to help raise awareness about the genocide continuing to take place in Darfur. Warner Records has released a CD of some of the top musical acts today covering John Lennon tunes. Artists include U2, Green Day, AeroSmith and Lenny Kravitz among many more. These are not just great songs but the money goes to help aid people currently stranded in refugee camps. Instant Karma link.


Also, look for a documentary later this fall from actor Don Cheadle. The film spotlights people who have been working tirelessly to raise awareness about the atrocities being committed in Darfur. More info here: Darfur Doc


thanks for taking the time,

the Warner Independent Pictures/SOS team

Hey, everyone. Moriarty here.

With ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, Michel Gondry stepped up and made a classic, a film that I am confident will be watched and studied and debated for decades to come. I know many people who want to help the lions share of the credit for that film on Charlie Kaufman, and certainly, the films he writes bear certain similarities to each other from film to film.

But Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry and George Clooney arent remotely the same sort of filmmakers, with the same sort of voice. Look at the way BEING JOHN MALKOVICH plays versus the way ETERNAL SUNSHINE plays versus the way CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND plays. CONFESSIONS is dark. Plain and simple. Its dark and its charismatic and its ugly. And it really doesnt give you something to hold onto in the end, either. Theres no redemption for Chuck. MALKOVICH is sweet and funny until the point where it isnt, at which point it becomes completely black and terrifying. I think its got the saddest ending since SE7EN or BREAKING THE WAVES. ETERNAL SUNSHINE is about hope. Its about possibility. Its about rebirth. Starting over. Its about the chance, however small, that theres something good tomorrow. Of all the of the films made from Kaufmans scripts so far, ETERNAL SUNSHINE is the one that allows for something that resembles a happy ending. And part of that is because of Kaufman, but part is because of how its shot. Its because of the choices those guys make. And the clearest way to determine what that voice is that the director brings to Kaufmans work, we have to see the director do something away from Kaufman. With Gondry, hes finally made the leap from director to writer/director, something that Kaufmans doing in the other direction next year. Its exciting, just because Gondrys such a visual wizard. Even if he ends up making something slick and empty, chances are itll be exciting to see.

The good news here is that Gondry is obviously a gifted and important film artist, one well be watching for a while.

The even better news is that hes got soul. There are a lot of talented guys who dont. I wont make a list of them because I dont want them to cry. But its true. The filmmakers with real soul are the guys I think matter. The guys who are slipping the art right through the system. Gondry earned his place at the table, and instead of shooting some comic-book adaptation or some sequel to a childrens franchise or a video-game-tie-in, hes using his juice to make a film like THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. Its beautiful. Thats the best word for it. Its lush and its sweet and its got a big heart and a bigger head, and theres really no other film thats made me feel this... blanketed... all year. Like you slip into this film and just let it carry you along.

Lots of people shoot dream scenes for movies. Its one of the oldest clichés in the book. Theres very little that hasnt been tried in the service of showing dreams on film. One of my favorite films of all time is Terry Gilliams BRAZIL, in which dreams play a crucial role. David Lynchs films are often described in terms of dream logic. The biggest groaner twist ending you can pull on your audience is having a character wake up and realize, Oh, no, its all a dream!

So basing your entire film on the main characters dream life is a risky move. Again, if you look at BRAZIL, the entire film is about Sam Lowrys struggle to decide if his real life will ever be able to live up to his dream life, and if its worth it to bother with both. The dreams in that film are all like jigsaw puzzle pieces that reveal more and more about Sam Lowrys inner life. About who he is. Who he wants to be. Its smart, well-written, and utterly calculated. As most dreams on film are. Our dream lives in movies are very orderly, overtly Freudian in many cases, and for the most part very narratively-based. Thats not the way I dream in real life, though. My dreams are fucking bizarre. Images. Impressions. Random flashes of things. Any narrative that happens is constantly collapsing and changing anyway. My dreams are nothing like the dreams we see in movies.

But THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP comes pretty close. Gondrys built his entire film to feel like a dream, from beginning to end, and it reveals in him a remarkable decency and innocence that is rare in guys as accomplished as this.

You cant help but assume that Gael Garcia Bernal is playing a version of Gondry, just as Woody Allen frequently has people playing him in his films now. Bernal plays Stephane, a young man who is returning to Paris to live with his mother. Hes been living in Mexico with his father, but now that hes dead, he finds himself adrft. Hes a bit of a screw-up, explaining at one point that he has a hard time keeping his waking life and his dream life separate. His mother (played by the always-charming Miou-Miou) isnt home when he shows up, so hes got the place to himself for a few weeks. Shes found him a job that she tells him is artistic, but when he goes for his first day, he learns that its basically assembly line work in the art department of a calendar company. Crushingly dull work, especially for someone like Stephane, who would rather spend his days indulging that wild creative spirit of his.

When he meets the girl who lives across the hall from his mother and learns that her name is Stephanie, he finds himself roped into one of the strangest and loveliest film romances of recent memory. Instead of trying to explain the specifics of how Gondrys story unfolds (a futile effort, since this is not a case of the narrative driving things), its easier to focus on how he tells that story. Theres a charmingly low-tech approach to things, with Gondry reaching deep into his bag of tricks to bring Stephanes visions to life. Theres a little stop-motion, some optical tricks, but a startling amount of the movie was accomplished in-camera. In an age where you can order just about anything you want from one of the various CGI houses, seemingly at the punch of a button, its lovely to see someone release a film that feels this hand-made, this organic. It feels like theres room for accidents and magic in the way Gondry puts these images together.

And I love that the dreams arent all just excuses for more exposition dressed up with some weird imagery. Gondry isnt afraid to digress and follow his impulses in some strange directions. As a result, theres a place in the middle of act two where it feels like the narrative unravels almost completely. It makes perfect sense in the context of the film, though, because its right around the time that Stephane loses track of what is or isnt happening to him.

How you feel about Stephane will depend largely upon how charming you find him. Hes so childlike that hes practically helpless, drifting in and out of reality to a dangerous degree. He begins to imagine pieces of his relationship with Stephanie, so when he sees her for real, he acts in inappropriate ways, and its up to her to sort of piece together what he thinks happened. Theres a magical moment late in the film with the two of them sharing a late night phone call... its a perfect little slice of any relationship, a snapshot of that switch from one level of intimacy to the next. Its the best phone call in a film since THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. I like the way Bernal plays Stephane. I think he plays him vulnerable and sad and genuinely lonely. Hes no good with people. Its easier to dream a friendship than it is to actually have one, evidently, and easier to fix whatever goes wrong. Gondry has a sense of whimsy, which can be a real turn-off for some audiences, but its so heartfelt, so genuine, that I think it really plays. And when the film reaches its conclusion, its a sledgehammer wrapped in a down pillow, a subtle beat that carries huge implications. Its thrilling, and I give Gondry credit for sticking the landing. Because of this, Im totally up for BE KIND, REWIND. If you didnt read Quints interview with Gondry, you should.

One note, though. Evidently, the script has continued to evolve since Gondry talked to Quint, and BACK TO THE FUTURE no longer plays any role in the film. Instead, it sounds like GHOSTBUSTERS is the film that took its place. Theyre evidently two weeks into the film at this point, and cooking along. I like that Gondry is working fast, making films, not vanishing for five years after each time at bat. Hes got two films in theaters already this year, and hes going to finish shooting a third before the years over. Impressive, especially when its as good as SCIENCE OF SLEEP.

Ill have my JACKASS 2 review in a few hours, along with a few other stories for the front page. Until then

Moriarty out.

'The Science of Sleep'
A work that's clearly the vision of Michel Gondry.


Deep 'Sleep'
(Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.)
By Carina Chocano, Times Staff Writer


Maybe I should confess that if Michel Gondry's next directing project involved rerouting traffic, I'd buy a ticket with my own money. "The Science of Sleep," Gondry's third feature, follows the under-loved "Human Nature" and the much more successful, melancholy and poignant "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

It's the first of his films not written by Charlie Kaufman (though it was Gondry who proposed the idea for "Eternal Sunshine," after it was suggested to him by a friend). After seeing the third film it's easier to sort their individual talents into adjoining but separate piles. Gondry, whose artistic, free-thinking family includes two musicians, another director and an inventor, is nostalgically fixated on memory, especially childhood memory, and the role it plays in shaping the present. But he doesn't share Kaufman's more cerebral gift for precise narrative structure. "The Science of Sleep" isn't as intricately plotted as "Eternal Sunshine," nor does it rush to quite as satisfying an end. It doesn't have anyplace in particular to go, and it takes its time not getting there. But the sightseeing is fantastic.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Long before he started making movies, Gondry was known for his wildly inventive and weirdly emotionally transforming music videos for Björk, the Foo Fighters, the Rolling Stones and others. Among the handful of directors (Spike Jonze, Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton and Mark Romanek among them) who spun record companies' promotional money into surprisingly evocative daydreams for which pop songs provided the score, Gondry was arguably the most technically innovative and emotionally attuned. But his biggest trick was his ability to capture private, dreamlike, stream-of-consciousness exultations triggered by music and mechanically transpose them onto film.



In this light, the title of his latest film seems particularly apt. The movie is a love story. Sort of. If "Eternal Sunshine" bloomed in the cracks between the end of a love affair and its eventual resumption, "The Science of Sleep" is a passionate idyll that never happens. (Or if it does, it waits until after we've left the theater.) It's a jumble of dreams and minor moments, joke-less comedy and infantile aggression expressed in three languages and something resembling telepathy. In his dreams, Stephane (Gael García Bernal) is the host of a cooking show shot in a cardboard TV studio padded with egg cartons and decorated with a plastic shower curtain. Here at the studios of Stephane TV, he takes reminiscences, crushes, frustrations and whatever else he's got lying around his subconscious and tosses it all into a giant stockpot and waits for the results to appear on a screen. (Science plus sleep equals movies.)

A young Mexican artist and aspiring inventor, Stephane has just returned to his childhood home in Paris after his father's death from cancer. His French mother (Miou-Miou), now married to a magician and living in the outskirts, has lured him back with the promise of a creative job at a calendar company. Stephane's idea is to commemorate each month with a memorable disaster the explosion of TWA Flight 800 is featured, as is the Mexico City earthquake. On his way to work the first day, he encounters movers on the staircase and ends up with his hand pinned under a piano. The girls to whom it apparently belongs invite him in, spritz some foot odor spray on his bruise and wrap his hand in a bandage. Stephane is instantly smitten with the spiky Zoe (Emma de Caunes), who turns out to be a friend of his neighbor, the shy, quiet Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), an artist who works in an art supply store. Not wanting to cop to being the landlady's son, Stephane pretends to have come up with movers and keeps up the ruse of not living there long after the girls have figured it out.

Unfortunately, the job consists of "pasting words in a basement all day," as he bleats to his mother later. And his co-workers are a trio of squabbling clock-punchers, bored and fortified with cynicism. Guy (Alain Chabat), in particular, is the perfect foil for his tiny, idealistic new friend, who seems to live in the permanent shadow of Godzilla's looming foot. Guy fends off existential despair by obsessing about sex, making fun of everything and stuffing his tiny colleague Serge (Sacha Bourdo) into the trashcan as often as possible. The third co-worker is Martine (Aurélie Petit), on whom Guy, Serge and the boss have desultory crushes.

Soon all these changes and new sensations are feeding feverish dreams. Stephane's despair about his job, his frustrations with French, his confusing crush on Stephanie (he thought he liked Zoe), and his childhood fears are morphing into surrealistic epics that involve flying, sex on the copier, discovering that he's been betrayed, the usual. There's another recurring motif in Stephane's dreams he wakes up to find his hands have grown to the size of paddle tennis rackets. Trying to summarize the movie feels something like that in other words, I give up. Suffice it to say that I laughed throughout, and then was sad.

It's rare for young actors to exude as much charisma and charm as Gainsbourg and García Bernal; they flicker like tiny, pulsating stars in a glaring galaxy of manufactured celebrity. And though Gondry metes their moments out in small doses and makes it harder to discern what does and doesn't transpire between them as the movie goes on, and their interactions (both real and imagined) are poignant, funny, romantic and sweet. At times, I wished the view of their relationship wasn't quite so refracted and oblique, but then, so does Stephanie, probably. Gondry obviously knows from love trouble, and for any of his exes still wondering what was going on in his head, here's their chance to find out. Nothing much happens, but a lot goes on. It perfectly captures the feeling of what it's like to be young, creative, lost, idealistic and maladjusted, and it recognizes the overlap between the urge to create things and the longing for love

A Parisian Love Story in Forward, and Sideways, Motion, A.O. SCOTT

Michel Gondry's beguiling new film, is so profoundly idiosyncratic, and so confident in its oddity, that any attempt to describe it is bound to be misleading. While points of comparison are available - to Human Nature" and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," Mr. Gondry's collaborations with Charlie Kaufman; to early Surrealist artworks or the later films of Luis Bu..uel's landscapes were. It has, instead, a wide-eyed, picture-book uality, an air of almost aggressive innocence.

After a while, the spell wears off. Not because the film's inventiveness wanes, but because its mood changes, slowly but noticeably, from eager enthrallment to desperation. The gray of daylight seeps in around the edges, and Stephane's dreams become less an escape from the frustrations of ordinary life than another potential source of disappointment. His childlike behavior, especially around Stephanie, begins to seem intemperate and regressive, a petulant refusal to wake up into the rational, adult world.

And so you leave this buoyant, impish movie feeling a little blue: sorry that it had to end and also wishing, perhaps, that it amounted to more. But its fugitive, ephemeral uality is part of its point: dreams, after all, are hard to remember, and perhaps don't hold the meanings they seem to. Without them, though, our minds would be emptier and our lives much smaller. So while The Science of Sleep" may not, in the end, be terribly deep, it is undoubtedly - and deeply - refreshing.

The Science of Sleep" is rated R. It has obscene language, nudity and sexual situations

Check them out!

Describe All You Can See:


Get this video and more at MySpace.com



Stephane TV Show:


Get this video and more at MySpace.com



Dear Stephanie:


Get this video and more at MySpace.com



Iâm Exhausted:


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

The Science of Sleep Blog