Russell Brand announced on Friday that he would not be attending any of his planned SXSW appearances.
Russell Brand/Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/RussellBrand]
In a surprise statement on Friday, Russell Brand announced that he has canceled all planned SXSW appearances, including a much-publicized keynote speech. Brand was invited to the festival to discuss BRAND: A Second Coming, a documentary about his rise to fame and struggles with substance abuse. The film will premiere at SXSW on Friday.
The star posted a lengthy apology on his website, explaining that the film is difficult for him to watch and speak about. "You'd think a narcissist would like nothing more than talking about themselves and their 'rags to riches,' 'hard luck' story," says Brand. "But actually, it felt like, to me, my life was hard enough the first time round and going through it again was painful and sad."
The documentary took seven years and 21 different investors to produce. Although Brand originally spearheaded the project, he eventually handed over the directorial reigns to Ondi Timoner, the acclaimed filmmaker behind Dig!.
"Ondi is a very beautiful person and a director of peerless integrity. I suppose what I didn't consider was that in letting go of the film, I was agreeing to be the subject of a biography," Brand states. "Posthumously this is a great honor but while you're alive, oddly intrusive and melancholy."
Brand ends his post with an apology to the festival. "I apologize sincerely to the organizers of SXSW for my non-attendance, especially Janet Pierson, Brian Solis and Rynda Laurel from the Interactive festival, who were responsible for the keynote talk that I was due to do."
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
Tommy Martinez, Emily Blunt, and Josh O'Connor in Disclosure Day.
With the release of Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg has now directed 17 feature films over 26 years in the 21st century, the exact same number over the exact same period of time he did in the 20th century. The first half of his career was mostly defined by his blockbuster films, while the second half has seen him exploring a lot more serious material. Disclosure Day marries the two for an experience only he could deliver.
The film starts in medias res, as Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) is being pursued by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) and a team of henchmen for stealing intellectual property from Wardex, a government contractor for which he works. As the audience gradually discovers, Daniel is a cyber-security programmer who has discovered evidence of alien life in the company’s servers. He and others within the company, including Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), are determined to release the information to the public.
Concurrently, television meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) starts experiencing weird things, including the ability to speak multiple languages and read people’s minds. Without either of them actively trying to seek each other out, Daniel and Margaret are set on a path to meet, with Scanlon (with the help of a mysterious alien device) trying to track their every move.
Directed by Spielberg and written by David Koepp, the film is an almost even mix between classic Spielberg wonder and a deep story about what it is to be human. By starting the film in the middle of the story, Spielberg immediately ramps up the excitement level. While the movie has relatively little action, that sequence and a few others deliver the type of propulsion for which Spielberg is revered, keeping the 145-minute film moving at a brisk pace.
Of the different types of alien movies Spielberg has made over the years, this one is closer to Close Encounters of the Third Kind than E.T. The story ponders the ethical, religious, political, and sociological effects that revealing the existence of aliens could have on the world. The debates had by various characters purposefully take the film out of being a sheer popcorn flick, forcing the audience to grapple with issues that they may have never considered before.
Unlike some other Spielberg films, he and Koepp don’t hold the audience’s collective hand throughout the story. There are a lot of times when viewers have to use context clues to understand exactly what is happening. That especially goes for an extremely important aspect of the world in which the story takes place that could pass you by if you’re only paying attention to the main characters’ dialogue. Spielberg’s using only subtle allusions for an element which would be the main focus of most other films is a fascinating choice.
O’Connor (Wake Up Dead Man, Challengers) has that everyman quality that a story like this needs. It always feels like it's him against the world, and does a terrific job of exuding both confidence and fear. Blunt delivers a fantastic performance, switching between confusion and composure with ease. Firth makes for a solid villain, and the story is helped by great turns from Domingo and Eve Hewson.
The idea that the nearly 80-year-old Steven Spielberg is still making blockbuster-style movies over 50 years after he made Jaws is astonishing, and the fact that he still knows how to make them work is even more impressive. Disclosure Day may not be the type of alien movie many were expecting, but it’s another high water mark in a career that has been full of them.
