The film takes place in Feudal Japan, where the era of the samurai is approaching its end and a sadistic young nobleman named Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki) lives above the law, raping and killing as he pleases because he’s the half-brother of the current Shogun, Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira). But even Sir Doi realizes the danger that Naritsugu presents should he succeed him as Japan’s leader, and so he secretly hires a trusted samurai named Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho) to assassinate him. Though there are few worthy samurai still living within the country, Shinzaemon sets out to recruit a small group of warriors to ambush Naritsugu before he can reach the safe haven of Akashi and be promoted to second-in-command. But that’s easier said than done, especially after Shinzaemon learns that his old sparring partner, Hanbei Kitou (Masachika Ichimura), is Naritsugu’s private bodyguard – a position he holds with honor despite his master’s cruel ways.

And just what kind of perverse behavior is Naritsugu capable of? Fortunately, Miike doesn’t indulge in showing too much, although we do see the remnants of one of his “sex toys” – a limbless woman who’s had her tongue cut out that one of Sir Doi’s senior officials presents to Shinzaemon to convince him to join the cause. Apart from that one grotesque moment, however, the film is pretty tame when compared to Miike’s usual grab bag of depravity, which is a little surprising because Naritsugu makes for such an interesting monster, wonderfully played by Inagaki with a disturbing, child-like curiosity for violence. The rest of the actors aren’t nearly as memorable as him, although screen veterans Yakusho and Ichimura bring a quiet intensity to the long-running rivalry between their characters that makes the long wait for their inevitable face-off worth it.

“13 Assassins” will definitely test your patience, because the first hour crawls by at a snail’s pace, with Miike taking the time to give each samurai a proper introduction. In fact, it can even be downright confusing between the large cast of characters (most of whose names you’ll never remember) and a prologue that flies by so quickly, you sort of have to put the pieces together on your own along the way. Still, it doesn’t present as big of an issue as you initially might think, because the film is essentially just a men on a mission story with one helluva finale. Though there isn’t much in the way of action before the final showdown, the last hour is a wildly entertaining orgy of swords, blood, fire and mud that goes on longer than it probably should, and yet never gets tiresome.

The scope of the battle is simply incredible, and it’s the kind of set piece that would make even guys like Michael Bay walk away from the film speechless. Still, it’s not the only reason for its success. The visuals are gorgeous, with Miike utilizing a muted palette that gives the movie an almost monochromatic look, while the occasional comedic moments help to lighten the mood and prepare the audience for the rousing, stand-up-and-cheer climax that’s just around the corner. It may not carry the same emotional weight as Kurosawa’s samurai classic, but “13 Assassins” is way more fun.

And then Mike Fleming, and every fanboy on earth it appears, found that the Comic-Con trailer for “Thor” had magically appeared on line, Wikileaks style. Anyhow, just as I had prepared this post, the folks at Marvel who apparently have a control issue with their marketing plan much as the U.S. government would rather you didn’t know too much about civilian casualties or the like, pulled it. I mean like seconds ago — it was there and I was ready to go and then it was gone. If you didn’t see it elsewhere, it was all Shakespearian and stuff and had more than a touch of “King Lear” to it, which makes sense as it’s directed by Kenneth Branagh.

So, since I don’t have the Thor trailer, here’s not one but two trailers. The first, a bit of Branagh directing actual Shakespeare and the probably never to be rivaled best ever quasi-Lear in cinema history. Enjoy, as you taste my bitter fanboy tears.

You know, I love Shakespeare and all, but his stuff is so full of cliches. Well, you’ll see none of that from Kurosawa-san.

Born in 1931 in what was very soon to become Hitler’s Germany, young Michael Peschkowsky was living in Manhattan by 1939. It was great luck both for the future Mike Nichols and for the country that accepted him.

Nichols is, of course, one of the most respected directors in Hollywood, and for good reason. He’s the original, craftsmanlike, and emotionally astute directorial voice responsible for such sixties and seventies classics as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,”  “Carnal Knowledge” and, of course, “The Graduate” (the source of his only directorial Oscar so far) as well as such eighties, nineties, and oughts successes as “Silkwood,” “Working Girl,” “The Birdcage,” and “Closer.” Even if some of the later films are not on the same level of quality as his earlier films — and several, especially his 1988 box office hit, “Working Girl,” stray into mediocrity — it’s still one of the most impressive and diverse careers of any living director in Hollywood.

That’s just on the big screen. On television, Nichols has rebounded in the eyes of many critics, directing two of the most acclaimed television productions of the last decade, 2001’s “Wit” with Emma Thompson, and the outstanding 2005 miniseries adaptation of Tony Kushner’s brilliant and mammoth epic play, “Angels in America.” With his 80th birthday just a year and a half away, he’s still working hard with two thrillers movies planned, including an I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low” currently being rewritten by the decidedly counter-intuitive choice of Chris Rock.

Before he directed his first foot of film, Mike Nichols was a noted theater director. That in itself is not so unusual a root for directors to travel. What is different is that, before he was a noted theater director, he was half of one of the most influential comedy teams in show business history, Nichols and May. (His comedy partner, Elaine May, went on to become an important, if less commercially successful, writer and director in her own right.)

Still, from the moment he directed his first major play, Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park,” Nichols mostly abandoned performing. Today, his highly regarded early work is mostly known only to fairly hardcore comedy aficionados.

That Nichols/comedy disconnect is probably related to the fact that Nichols has become famous for films and plays that are usually witty but often anything but comedies.  Some, like “Closer,” are downright dour. Still, he has never made a film where where wit was not a factor. Dissecting relationships and politics with great skill, he’s more recently allowed his comedy freak-flag to fly with farce in 1996’s “The Birdcage,” and complete absurdity in the Monty Python-based theatrical musical comedy smash, “Spamalot.”

No, there’s little doubt that there’s very little in the way of traditional drama or comedy that Mike Nichols hasn’t successfully accomplished and, as his Wikipedia entry reminds us, he’s got his “30 Rock” EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) to back that up. There are other awards, nevertheless, and so it was that he was honored a couple of weeks back with an American Film Institute (AFI) Lifetime Achievement Award, easily one of the  highest honors any U.S. movie director can win. It was presented at what sure sounds like a highly entertaining superstar-laden black-tie ceremony on the Sony lot in Culver City. I haven’t been allowed to see it yet, but we can all catch up on it after it premieres on TV Land, tonight, June 26th, at 9:00 P.M/8:00 P.M. central.

While such mega-luminaries as Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Elaine May, and a reunited Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel stayed far away from the press, a number of us writers were allowed to briefly chat with a few select notables and friends from Nichols’ past. The first to visit with the online press was Wallace Shawn.

An extremely busy comic character actor who began his film career being insulted about his looks by Woody Allen in “Manhattan,” Wallace Shawn’s best known work ranges from the “Toy Story” films (he’s the voice of Rex, the dinosaur) to the inconceivable villain, Vizzini, of 1988’s “The Princess Bride” who proved that sometimes you actually can go up against a Sicillian when death is on the line, though we’ve all been reminded lately that getting involved in a land war in Asia remains questionable.

The son of legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn, Shawn has been a noted playwright since the 1970s. He first came to national fame having a feature-length dinner with visionary directory Andre Gregory, in the Louis Malle directed two-character 1981 art-house sensation, “My Dinner with Andre,” co-written by Shawn and Gregory. Some years later, he again collaborated in what amounted to a starring role, and a dramatic role at that, alongside Gregory and opposite a then-unknown Julianne Moore in Louis Malle’s final film, the great semi-documentary adaptation of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya”, “Vanya on 42nd Street.” Though Shawn’s flair for comedy and humble, regular-schmo demeanor might make him seem like the opposite of a creative flamethrower, his plays are politically charged, highly controversial, and definitely not for everyone. Fiscally speaking, I’m sure he’d agree it’s a good thing he’s got such strong acting skills.

As for his connection to Mike Nichols, though the ex-comedian has done very little acting since the early sixties, Nichols did Shawn the rare honor of starring in both the stage and film versions of Shawn’s three-character piece, “The Designated Mourner.” It was directed on both stage and screen by playwright David Hare.

Wallace Shawn might be a man of big and challenging ideas. However, as in “My Dinner with Andre,” he seemed more comfortable discussing humorously mundane matters. Asked by a highly attractive podcaster next to me about what jobs he’d be doing if he wasn’t an actor and playwright, he started discussing his early position as a shipping clerk, an experience he remembered rather fondly when asked how he’d feel if he had to return to it.

“I worked for very nice people, and it was folding nice dresses. It would be alright.”

But what about the pay?

“The pay was [long pause] poor. Because I was not at the top of the shipping clerk world. It was rather low down…I only had started as a messenger. They said, ‘This guy can probably fold these dresses as well as the next guy.'”

When asked who he admired as a young man coming up, he said that, while there were many, he was more likely to idolize people today, specifically naming Mike Nichols as well as Nobel Prize winning linguist and leftist intellectual superstar Noam Chomsky.

Then I thought I’d go back to a line from a “Andre” in which he mentioned that, as a child raised in comfort, all he thought about was art and music, but that as 36 year-old working adult, he mainly thought about money. Where was he on the curve now?  Was he back to thinking about high-minded matters like art and philosophy or still focusing on the mundane need for ready cash?

“I do think a lot about how money affects things, but I think about it philosophically and artistically.”

I tried to follow it up with a question about the politics in Nichols’ work but after agreeing that “Angels in America” was a really good and weighty work of theater and politics, he was off to the next interviewer.

My dreams of a substantial, if necessarily super-brief, Terry Gross-style discussion with Shawn dashed, there was no time for recriminations because next up was character actor Tim Curry.  Though he’ll never quite live down the charismatic Mick-Jagger-meets-Juliet-Prowse excellence of his cult superstar making performance in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Curry has more than 200 credits on his IMDb page, including innumerable voice characterization for animation, and he may well rack up another hundred at the rate he’s going.

So, after such an eventful career, including innumerable highly demanding stage roles such as originating the role of Mozart in the Broadway production of Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” and any number of strong performances in films ranging from the board-game adaptation “Clue” to “The Hunt for Red October” to Bill Condon’s terrific 2004 docudrama, “Kinsey,” what was it like finally working with Mike Nichols during the 2005 Broadway production of the ultimate (and so far only) Monty Python-derived stage musical comedy, “Spamalot”?

“It was really great, which is why I’m here.”

Did that have something to do with Nichols own background as a comedian.

“Absolutely, because nobody knows funny like he does. He’s brilliant at comedy. He knows what it is. He knows how to make it work.”

Then it was time for my ultimate fall-back question which invariably pleases highly experienced actors — and for which I once again must credit Mr. Will Harris. Was there anything in Mr. Curry’s hugely full background which he felt deserves more attention?

“That’s a good question,” said Curry, taking a second to think. “I did a film in Arkansas where I played…a sort of version of [scandal plagued TV preacher] Jim Bakker. The company went broke just as it came into the theater, so nobody ever saw it.”

(The film comedy in question, 1988’s “Pass the Ammo,” is currently unavailable on DVD. Bug Lionsgate if you want to see it.)

After that, it was time for Curry to move on to the next questioner who queried him about his ongoing stint on “Criminal Minds.” For the sake of any fans of the shows out there — which I gather may include the previously mentioned Mr. Harris and another fellow PHer, Ross Ruediger — Curry confesses to being a huge enthuisast of the show himself and admits that he lobbied heavily for a part. Also, for any “Clue” cultists out there, he’s aware of the Rocky Horror-esque midnight shows at theaters like the Nuart in Los Angeles — complete with costumed film-goers — but he hasn’t attended. “It’s a bit late for an elderly person.”

Next up was one of the most familiar faces of American movies circa 1965-1980. In the seventies, George Segal carved himself a niche as somewhere between the Jewish Cary Grant and the handsome Woody Allen in films like “A Touch of Class,” Robert Altman’s classic look at compulsive gamblers, “California Split,” Carl Reiner’s edgy cult comedy classic, “Where’s Poppa?” (aka “Going Ape”) as well as such late seventies mainstream fare as “Fun with Dick and Jane” and “Rollercoaster.” These days, Segal is probably best known for his role as Laura San Giacomo’s publisher father on TV’s “Just Shoot Me.” In his mid-seventies, he remains a busy character actor and is about to headline his own sitcom on TV Land, “Retired at 35.”

Segal’s career got a major kick-start in the mid-sixties with two acclaimed films, the POW drama “King Rat” and, more relevant here, his somewhat underrated supporting turn in Mike Nichols hugely important directorial debut, Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” In the film, he and actress Sandy Dennis portrayed a younger married couple on shaky ground who find themselves drawn in to a very late night of ultra-dysfunction by rampaging academic drunks George (Richard Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). Though most of the attention went to the more histrionic performances by Burton and Taylor, Dennis and Segal were invaluable in grounding the film with their two highly layered performances.

Still, when asked about what he would do if he weren’t acting by my neighbor, he said that he’d probably be a professional banjo player. “I wouldn’t work as much — there’ s not much demand for them.” Late seventies/early eighties TV viewers and really knowledgeable traditional jazz fans will know this is no mere joke. Segal’s singing and banjo playing was once a familiar site on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” when he fronted the Dixieland-playing Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band alongside writer Sheldon Keller and fellow thespian Conrad Janis (“Mork and Mindy”).

When asked about Mike Nichols directorial technique, he denied ever having doubts about any of Nichols’ directorial decisions. “Those smart guys, they’re smart.”

Being curious about what smart guys do, I pretty much had to ask Segal about the making of Nichols epochal film adaptation of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Among other matters, the 1966 relationship-drama-on-steroids — already something of a shocker on Broadway — more or less delivered the final blow against the strict classic-era film censorship of the MPAA Production Code as well as changing preconceptions about what mainstream audiences would accept with its then remarkably blunt language and brutal emotionalism.  Since it was theater director Nichols’ first film, sure to be a super-controversial sensation, and  starring easily the most famous couple of the time in Taylor and Burton — very much the Brangelina of their day — those must have been heady times for a relatively new performer like the 32 year-old Segal.

“It was very intense. It was like six months that we spent on that movie, and one of those months was all rehearsal. So, that movie was prepared. By the time we got to doing it, we could have put it on as a play. And I think that comes across. They don’t do that anymore,” Segal said.

(Actually, it was pretty rare even then. Then and now, movies are typically shot over a period of 4-8 weeks, with only minimal or no time for rehearsal.)

Next up was a real hero of my youth — and it’s not like he’s exactly chopped liver now — Eric Idle. No more able to escape his past association with a certain six-man comedy ensemble than the surviving Beatles will ever escape their fab past, Idle has recently found great success retrofitting the group’s mega-cult breakthrough, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” into the smash Broadway and London musical comedy success, “Spamalot,” directed, naturally, by Mike Nichols.

Talking to Idle, I found it necessary to gush a bit. I was probably one of the first in L.A. to know anything at all of the existence of Monty Python, which had barely begun playing on PBS in Southern California, when “Holy Grail” opened in theaters in 1975. Being a bored kid with nothing to do but having never seen a single Python sketch, I hopped on a bus for Westwood Village to see the film on the strength of a couple of a couple of good reviews. Let’s just say that, as it would for so many geeks, my life would change just a little bit that day.

Still, it sure didn’t seem like it was on its way to being an institution and an English national treasure that day. There were perhaps three or four other people in attendance that afternoon. Idle says he was actually there at the Regent Theater for some of those early screenings, alongside “Brazil” director to be Terry Gilliam — quite possibly including the one I attended. I certainly wouldn’t have recognized either one of them at the time. But that was then, this is now and we’ve both moved on from our respective immanent projects at the time: becoming a worldwide comedy star in Idle’s case, puberty in mine.

How was working with Nichols on “Spamalot,” different than it would have been with other theater directors.

“He’s a comedian. He’s been there, so he knows where the laughs are. When to take them and when to leave them alone. He’s got a great deal of taste.”

So, other than Nichols, and himself, who are Idle’s favorite comedy directors?

“There are one or two people who are very good. Johnny Lynn [English sitcom creator and film director Jonathan Lynn of “My Cousin Vinny” and “Nuns on the Run”] is very good. It’s a specialized skill, comedy. But Mike really tends to leave the comedy to itself and then he tends to go more about truth-telling. He’s not worried about the comedy, he’s more concerned about the drama and the relationships and emotions. That what makes him so good.”

And was there anything Idle had worked on which he felt hadn’t gotten enough attention? At first, he misunderstood the question as, I think, the project he was most proud of, and answered “Spamalot.” When I explained I was talking about projects that had been mostly ignored — and a nationally touring, Tony-winning show doesn’t really qualify — he got into the spirit.

“Well,” he said, laughing, “[Composer] Johnny Du Prez and I have been writing musicals for 25 years, and we finally did ‘Spamalot.’ We have about 280 songs recorded. So, I think when we’re gone there’s boxes full of old songs.”

Little did I know at that point, but Idle would shortly be dressed as an angel while serenading Mike Nichols and the AFI crowd with a rendition of  “Always Look at the Bright Side of Life.” The song — which really was the perfect ending for the follow-up Monty Python classic, “Life of Brian” — has most certainly not been ignored. It’s been covered by Harry Nillson, Art Garfunkel, and Green Day and, according to Wikipedia, is sometimes sung at soccer matches and, yes, funerals.

Moving along, it wouldn’t be a red carpet if there wasn’t at least one celebrity present who is completely unknown to most Americans and has no discernible connection to the event. In this case that would have to be Jaime Camill, a personable actor and television host apparently hugely famous in Mexico and Latin America and who was then preparing to help cover the World Cup. He naturally made it very clear that he’d be honored to work with Mike Nichols at some point and who declared that all Mike Nichols films are “amazing.” I’m mentioning him really only because of the sheer randomness of it. Also, who knows, we might get some Latin American hits out of it.

Then we got to the point at the Red Carpet that I will call the Hyperspeed Parade of A-Listers Past and Present, or H-PALPAP for short. This is the point when the real household names at any of these events, having already spoken profound words to the truly major outlets (say, “EXTRA” and “ET”), whiz by us less major outlets. If we’re very lucky, they may provide a wave or a stray word or two.

Now, the only way to properly deal with the H-PALPAP is to have a large microphone in your hand and preferably a very large TV camera behind you. Then, you must come up with a really quick question that is entirely non-controversial but also kind of interesting enough to get their attention and ignore the (literally) screaming paparazzi behind them. The classic example of an H-PALPAP question is, I’m sure, “Who are you wearing?” Since you guys presumably don’t care about that, I really don’t know Vera Wang from Vera Miles, and I don’t own a large television camera, I have yet to perfect my H-PALPAP approach. However, since I got a few okay pictures of some of the more super-celebs, I’ll go with some pictures and brief commentary for the balance of this post.

Like Mr. Camill, the first H-PALPAPer jovially confessed to not having ever worked with Mike Nichols and expressed a sincere desire to do so. However, if Michael Douglas — who is promoting both the limited release success “Solitary Man” and the upcoming sequel to “Wall Street” — really wants to go to a party, he usually gets to go. After making a sincere case that he’s a fan of Mr. Nichols to a swarm of press that had clustered around him, however, the H-PALPAP-savvy reporter next to me asked Douglas — as she’d been asking almost everyone — what entertainment figures had inspired the young Michael Douglas to go into “the industry”?

“What am I going to do? My whole family’s in it. I couldn’t get away from it!” said the second generation A-lister son of Diana Douglas and Kirk freakin’ Douglas, suddenly seeming a bit more half-Jewish than usual, right down to talking with his hands.

Perhaps getting ready for a role, actor Giovanni Ribisi was next, sporting a mustache and soul patch which makes him like something between a Western bad guy and and a perverted jazz musician. A very solid performer but perhaps not really an A-lister, Ribisi stopped by long enough to answer a previously discussed H-PALPER-friendly question, about what he’d be doing if he weren’t an actor. “I’d be watching the Laker game.”

Apparently, if he were just a little more famous, he could have done both because later reports indicated that Jack Nicholson arrived late from watching the game and perhaps enjoyed a few beers, or something while doing so. According to numerous accounts of the night, his joke cum unsolvable Zen koan or perhaps veiled threat/warning to Nichols was “even oysters have enemies.” Someone should use those words in a song someday.

In any case, my Ribisi pictures didn’t come out so great. So, here, have a totally random picture of Harrison Ford, and a portion of Calista Flockhart, though I didn’t hear a word either said.

Wow, he’s really famous.

And then there the great women who passed where I simply fouled up with the camera. Candice Bergen (“Murphy Brown”), a huge favorite/crush of mine since I first saw her in “Carnal Knowledge” rushed by, clearly uninterested in courting the press too much. I got one picture that, tragically, just didn’t seem to look right when I put it here.

I had even worse luck getting a good photo of Helen Mirren with or without her director husband, Taylor Hackford (“Ray”). She cheerfully past us all by, but but gave a rather long and detailed answer to a writer from a green website who shouted a quick question asking her what she did to try and limit her carbon footprint. That’s part of why she’s super-cool, I guess. My recorder failed to capture the witty words of Emma Thompson in response to the same question, and my camera only caught half of her face at time, as well as the top of her head and, I swear by accident, her chest. If I could put them all together, I might have a decent picture.

They were followed quite rapidly by Steven Spielberg, who truly had no time for us Pixel-stained wretches and Mike Nichols himself, who was being understandably a bit selective and thoughtfully avoiding the 299 questions I could ask him. I got a picture of Nichols’ news anchor wife, Diane Sawyer, ironically begging not to be asked any questions by the media. Alas, it was bit too skewed, “Battlefield Earth” style, to use here.

I did, however, manage an acceptable picture of Warren Beatty and his mega-talented wife Annette Bening who, when asked one of the standard H-PALPER’s questions, said hardly a word, but provided fast-fingered photographers, but not me, a hilarious moment of prime Beatty-style evasiveness. You’ll have to make do with the squinty one I got below.

Then, somewhat surprisingly, none other than Cher, who is currently preparing to costar in the musical drama “Burlesque” with Christina Aguilera and Kristin Bell alit near us, talking to reporters en mass. She discussed her dress, of course, and her first meetings with Mike Nichols. (He famously rejected her early overture about acting in one of his films, later changing his mind, apologizing, and asking her to join the case of 1983’s “Silkwood.” That film wound up getting the singer her first Oscar nomination.)

She also took to the green question — and this time my recorder caught her answer.

“Oh, God. I just bought the ugliest car in the world. It’s some sort of Mercedes station-wagon that puts steam back into the air.”

And what would she have done if she hadn’t become a ultra-glam singer/actress and just had a “regular Joe job”?

“I’d be a bank robber.” I was also robbed of any good pictures of her.

Then, finally, my photographic luck improved a little with the appearance of Mary Louise Parker of “Weeds” and “Angels in America.” I had watched her the night before via my jam-packed-with-old-stuff DVR interviewing Elvis Costello on his “Spectacle” chat show in a special role-reversal episode. I figured it would be good to have seen it in the off-chance that I had a second to talk to her.  That wasn’t to be as the star was walking by as fast as her feet could move. I did, however, overhear that if she hadn’t become an actor, she’d be a kindergarten teacher.

As with Tim Burton, Jeunet’s roots are in animation. Together with his early collaborator, cartoonist Marc Caro, he made two films that pretty much destroyed the idea of France as a land where all movies were gritty examinations of the lives of depressed intellectuals (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Dystopic but decidedly non-realistic, “Delicatessen” and, to a much greater extent, 1995’s “The City of Lost Children” broke through internationally, with the latter becoming a popular midnight selection and attracting a geek audience that might have ordinarily rejected subtitled films. That was followed by his first solo production and also his first and, so far, only American film. 1997’s “Alien: Resurrection” was a domestic commercial disappointment that generated mixed reviews and more than a little fan hate in the U.S. — even its screenwriter, fan-master Joss Whedon, has entirely disowned it — but it was nevertheless an international success which is still warmly embraced by its jovial director. After that, Jeunet broke through even bigger with the worldwide success of “Amelie” in 2001, easily one of the most widely seen French films in the United States of the last couple of decades — so much so that it was simply referenced as “the French movie” in last year’s “Up in the Air.”

Now, Jeunet is back with his first film since his worldwide box office and critical hit, 2005’s “A Very Long Engagement,” with his own take on Chaplinesque/Keatonesque comedy with just a dash of Rube Goldberg not-quite-sci-fi. “Micmacs” stars comic Dany Boon (“My Best Friend”) as the hapless Bazil, whose father was killed by a landmine and whose health and livelihood was ruined by a bullet — each produced by a ruthless arms manufacturer. Homeless, he is befriended by a ragtag assortment of seven eccentrics with various unique skills. Bazil enlists their aid in avenging himself against the two firms.

The film has done reasonably well in its initial New York opening, and will be expanding to more theaters this Friday. It’s generally also been a hit with critics, very definitely including PH’s own Jason Zingale.

Jeunet is not one of those filmmakers he seems to mind meeting the press. Though he arrived late — how French of him! — he was both apologetic and in infectious high spirits, joking and introducing an old friend who was there to smooth over rough spots in translations. (Jeunet had little trouble giving long answers in English, but he seemed to occasionally need help in understanding the more involved questions.)

The first question was about the source of the story of “Micmacs,” and Jeunet was off and running.

“First you have to know something. Before, I worked two years on ‘Life of Pi.’ It’s a beautiful project for 20th Century Fox and now Ang Lee is supposed to make the film. I spoke with the producer this morning and it’s on the way. But it was so expensive because it was a story about a kid after a shipwreck in a lifeboat fighting against a tiger. You have the three worst elements for a film: the sea, a wild animal, and a kid. It was too expensive, that was the only reason I didn’t make this film after two years. I wrote the script… I spent six months to make the storyboard. Huge work.”

“So,” Jeunet continued, “I was starving to shoot — to make something very quickly. I had some different ideas in my computer and, in fact, I mixed three different feelings. One of them was a preoccupation with weapons sellers because I had a fascination for these strange people able to invent things to [create] suffering.”

“Also, I wanted a story of revenge. I love ‘Once Upon a Time in the West.’ And the third thing was to make something with a band of original, weird people like the seven dwarfs from ‘Snow White.’ One of them is shy, one of them is always pissed-off… so I mix from different feelings. I was concerned about mixing serious issues like weapons with a slapstick cartoon, and I thought, ‘Okay, ‘The Great Dictator‘ was a comedy, too.'”

That was followed by a question about mixing politics, to whatever extent “Micmacs” is political, with Jeunet’s not-of-this-earth style.

“I don’t want to say ‘politics’ because it’s such a cliche to say ‘it’s bad to sell weapons.’ But we made real research. We made a beautiful interview with a weapons manufacturer in Belgium who made some arrows to go through the tanks. He’d get the temperature to go so high in one second everybody burns inside the tanks.”

“We met very interesting people. They have the passion for technology, I would like to have these people in my crew. Very nice people. But when you say, ‘But, then you kill people,’ they say ‘Yes, but we work on the right side.’ I remember this sentence, it’s in the film, ‘We work for the Minister of Defense, not the Minister of Attack,” said Jeunet, noting that, despite the arms merchants’ claims, their weapons are often resold on the open market to all kinds of evil characters.

Then there was the more or less inevitable question about Jeunet’s highly distinctive visual approach, particularly his use of rich colors and wide lenses.

“I like directors with a strong style….When you see a film from Tim Burton, you recognize immediately it’s Tim Burton. Same thing for Terry Gilliam or…David Lynch. A long time ago it was Fellini. I don’t want to compare myself to these great directors, but I love to shoot with a short lens, to use warm colors — I love to do that. That’s it.”

“This time, I wanted to make something faster with a lighter camera, but everybody told me, ‘no, it’s too early for the digital, we [need to] spend some time to fix the defects.’ Next time, I want to make it all in 3-D or with a lighter camera.”

Then, a question about whether a certain amount of innocence, combined with ingenuity and imagination, can be a way to defend oneself from the violence and evil of the world.

“Absolutely, I believe, about imagination. Between the ages of 17 and 21 I was a worker at the telephone company and imagination saved my life. In fact, the character of Dany Boon is a little bit of a metaphor of my work because, to accomplish his revenge, he needs a crew of specific characters like I need a crew to accomplish my films.”

Working at something of a disadvantage since I hadn’t yet seen “Micmacs,” I asked Jeunet about his obvious love for onscreen mechanical devices, which always puts me in mind of Orson Welles’ famous remark that having a film studio to work in was “the biggest electric train set a boy ever had.”

Jeunet was of a similar mind, comparing filmmaking to French-manufactured Meccano construction sets. “Inside the box you have the costumes, the dialogue, the music — and I want to use everything inside the box to build the most beautiful toy I can and don’t lose anything inside the box. This is my conception.”

“Another one is I am like a chef. I prepare a good meal and I want to share. ‘You think it’s good, no?’ and sometimes they say, ‘no, it’s not good, and I am disappointed.”

But Jeunet is different from other directors in that he’s obviously fond of actually putting odd, sometimes Rube Goldberg-like, mechanical constructions up on the screen.

“Yes. For this one, I hired a guy, because I discovered this guy who’s a naive artist. He was in a museum in Paris with a beautiful animated sculpture. It was so beautiful we didn’t build them ourselves, but I hired the guy to lend [them.]”

Then the conversation turned to the great silent comedy filmmakers and their influence on “Micmacs.”

“Especially for the ‘Cannon Men’ scene, I thought about Buster Keaton. And when Dany Boon makes you think about [Charlie] Chaplin, it wasn’t on purpose. During the shooting I saw him and said, ‘Ooh, you make me think of Chaplin.’ He said ‘You think so?’ And after, I think, he continued to think, and it was on purpose after that.”

And exactly how was the very talented actor-stand-up-performer Dany Boon, a huge star in France, cast?

“I followed him since 15 years ago. Just after I hired him, he got a huge success with ‘Welcome to the Land of Shtis’ [which Boon co-wrote and directed]. But when I say huge I mean it was almost like ‘Titanic’ — 21 million admissions. ‘Amelie’ was a huge success, it was nine million admissions. Can you believe it? I’m very jealous,” Jeunet said, getting some laughs at the table.

“He’s a very good actor. Every take is perfect. You never had a bad take. And he’s a nice guy, very simple, very funny.”

And what is Jeunet’s style of working with actors in general?

“They have to be precise. That’s the reason I love Audrey Tautou or Dany Boon. You have to have the head here or here, not to move a little bit. Because when you use a short lens, if they are too close to the lens they could be like a monster. I am very precise. On the other hand, if they want to surprise me, if they want to propose to me something different, I am very open. I make a storyboard but ‘okay, new idea, no problem.’ But I love technician-actors.”

Then there was a question (which I was hoping to ask myself) about the use of the music of Hollywood classic-era composer Max Steiner, which follows on a scene early in the film where Dany Boon’s character is watching a classic detective movie directed by Howard Hawks.

“At the beginning it was ‘The Big Sleep.’ We used maybe six or seven pieces of different [film scores] from Max Steiner. In fact, I wanted to just use the ‘The Big Sleep’ to make the gag with the end starting the film. It was on my notes. Of course, we had the music and the music worked so well, later we thought maybe we could use Max Steiner music for the whole film, the action scenes.

“It worked so well sometimes it was like a miracle. I remember one scene, during 40 seconds — not a cut. Every sync point worked perfect. I imagined Max Steiner in Paradise… [rubs his hands, laughing maniacally as if the angelic Steiner was gleefully observing “Micmacs” post-production]. No, it was a great moment. By luck we found some good recordings from the seventies. It was in stereo. Good quality, not amazing quality, but good quality.”

Then there was a question following up on Jeunet’s earlier comparison of being a director to being a chef. Does Jeunet try mainly to please himself or does he think specifically about the audience’s reaction while working on the film?

“You work for yourself. If you are a chef, you are the first taster. ‘Hmm. I love that! Do you want to share?’ But you have to love [it] before…’ You are the first spectator of your film. If you think about the other people, you’re dead. It’s very selfish to make a film.”

Next was a question about the strongly Gaelic flavor of Jeunet’s films, at least from an American point of view. Has it been a help in differentiating his films and competing in the world market with U.S. productions?

“I don’t know. I love Paris. I try to show a different Paris each time. I don’t know if it’s French. Of course, if I use music with accordions, it sounds French. But, in France, you have to know, I am not French. They think I am international because my films are sold everywhere, and I don’t feel especially French.”

That led to a discussion about how sometimes a country’s most internationally successful living filmmaker is less beloved at home. Jeunet mentioned how Spain’s Pedro Almodovar has quit his nation’s film academy after his films were ignored at awards time. I didn’t get the chance to bring it up, but a similar phenomenon happened with the elder Akira Kurosawa in Japan, who endured a great deal of criticism during the seventies and eighties from younger filmmakers and writers. No one is a prophet in their own home, as the saying goes.

Of course, that’s not all, there’s the tendency of all nations’ press to build people up and then rip them apart.

“At first, I can’t complain. But now it’s getting difficult because I had three huge success. ‘ Alien’ [as alluded to before, “Alien: Resurrection” was a hit in France], ‘Amelie’ and ‘A Very Long Engagement.’ Now,” Jeunet intoned, his voice getting comically melodramatic, “it’s time to pay!,” he said, getting a big laugh from the table.

Next there was a question about whether future projects might be more commercial than past films. The director alluded to an intimate “small French book” which he thought might not be commercial, but that there was also a presumably more broadly appealing, and apparently really excellent, American book. “Oh my God, it’s a masterpiece. But I don’t want to tell anything because I’m going to meet next week with the author in New York.”

Jeunet likes the book, whatever it is, so much he was having a hard time containing himself. “Ah, it’s such a good book. Oh my God, it’s a fucking masterpiece but I heard he [presumably, the author] would like to direct the film himself. Big mistake!” Jeunet said with his French talent for exaggeration, getting another laugh from the table. He also said that the story is actually set in Russia “during the war” and that it would neither be a French or American film in terms of feeling, though American actors would star because using Russian actors would probably “scare people.”

Another question: Does Jeunet think his imagination is “dark”?

“I can [be dark] if I want. I try to make something more brighter. It’s more interesting and more difficult to make something positive than negative. To be negative is very easy.”

What does he think of the current vogue for more film science fiction and works of “extreme imagination.”

“I love science fiction and I don’t like the fantastic. For example, if you have a magical ring and you can explode the world, for me — it’s not interesting. I don’t like ‘Lord of the Rings’ or even ‘Star Wars.’ For me, I don’t understand this kind of story. But [I love] ‘Alien,’ because the rules of the game are very precise. It could happen… I have an idea about robots in the future…”

Then came some questions that really didn’t go very far. Having not seen the film, I wondered if, in addition to the hero’s helpers being an allusion to the seven dwarfs, if they were perhaps somewhat influenced by the highly specialized abilities of the teams that helped pulp heroes like Doc Savage pull off their daring-do. I also couldn’t help thinking of the Doc Savage-inspired science fiction satire, “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension,” a movie that might have been improved if Jeunet had been able to direct it in 1984. Since he didn’t seem to know anything about either, I have to take that as a “no” even if his two-word answer was “Yeah, maybe.”

Moving on to another questioner, how did Jeunet feel about the relative size of his audience, overall?

“You can have a dinner with one [person] or with ten people and it’s the same pleasure. If you can get the money back for the film, it’s not a problem. If I would have wanted to have a huge audience, I would make American movies, not French movies, because there is a limit, of course, with the French language.

“…I prefer to shoot in my own language, to play with my language, to play in Paris. And, I have the freedom, complete freedom in France. It’s amazing. If American directors could imagine how I am free they would have asked to have…” And then Jeunet had to ask his aid for the words he was seeking. They were “political asylum.” Another big laugh.

And that led to the question, which Jeunet said he was waiting for, about the general impression that he wasn’t allowed very much freedom by the American producers of the controversial “Alien: Resurrection.”

“No, it was a great experience. I read so many times ‘it was a nightmare for Jean-Pierre Jeunet.'” That impression apparently extended to “Up in the Air” co-writer/director Jason Reitman who, according to Jeunet, mentioned in an interview the director’s alleged ordeal in connection with his film’s offhand reference to “Amelie” and her traveling garden gnome.

“No, it wasn’t a nightmare. I’m sorry. It was tough. It was difficult because you have to convince people to have your way in editing. You have to speak with a lot of people, but it wasn’t a nightmare. It was just tough. And, in France, it’s not tough. You have the freedom by law.”

Then Jeunet did something very refreshing in response to questions, which is to admit to some creative weaknesses. First, in a passing reference to “City of Lost Children,” he confessed that he and Marc Caro had come up with the kind of setting and mood they wanted to create before coming up with the story and that was, perhaps, the wrong order. The story, he said, should come first.

Another question asked about what he thought of the love story in “Micmacs” between Dany Boon’s character and a contortionist played by Julie Ferrier.

“I think it’s not enough. Some people told me, ‘It’s not enough. We need some stronger emotion.’ And they’re right, I think.”

That led to an anecdote about an American studio he greatly admires. “I had the great privilege to make a master class at Pixar in San Francisco with 1,000 people. It was amazing. They are so good to alternate… they say ‘one laugh for one tear.’ Auggh.”

That led to a bit more discussion of Julie Ferrier, a character comedian in her own right who Jeunet thinks is a kind of genius and instructed us all to look her up on YouTube. (I did. Being reasonably fluent in French would probably be a help.) And though she is quite flexible thanks to her background as a dancer, she’s not quite a contortionist. A body double was needed as well.

“We found a Russian girl, and she does an erotic show in Germany, and its very interesting,” Jeunet said, showing some good comic timing and getting a big laugh and generating questions whether her performances could be found on YouTube as well. He added. “My Japanese director of photography [Tetsuo Nagata], he was very moved.” More laughter.

And, apparently wanting to leave the journos laughing, the end of the interview was declared.

* I don’t know whether there’s some sort of game of managing expectations going on or if interest really is limited to younger males and no one else, but I’m starting to hear rumblings that “Kick-Ass” is not expected to kick ass do hugely well at the box office this Friday. If so, then Matthew Vaughn has got to be one of the least lucky talented mainstream directors ever after generating so much excitement with his film, at least in the fanboy realms.

My main rumbling comes via this Playlist piece which alleges that nothing has been done to expand the interest in the film beyond those who’ve never heard of the comic book.  Literally speaking, that’s not true because I’d never heard of the comic book before hearing about Vaughn’s film of it, though I am certainly a member of the Geek American community. The main thrust of the piece itself is actually on the possibly stronger hopes for “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” which, as a commenter offers, does seem to have more cross-gender appeal. It also has a well known star and the comic genius Edgar Wright going for it. We’ll see.

In any case, Vaughn appears to be doing what all prudent directors do before their next big film comes out, lining up the next gig just in case the current film really does tank. This story is a glorified rumor, but it does look possible that Vaughn’s next gig might involve a gangster/science fiction vampire comic book written by, of all people, controversial English talk show host and film geek, Jonathan Ross who is leaving the BBC because of a scandal caused, I kid you not, by tasteless prank phone calls. Here, he’d get a promotion. In any case, I’ll always remember him for “The Incredibly Strange Film Show.”

* Never fear, however, “Iron Man 2” will be here in 26 days. Of course it’ll do ridiculously well, but I remember some naysayers just before the first movie came out. Seems all those good reviews were a bit worrisome and even smart people like Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott, if memory serves, were worried the movie was a little too good to make monster bucks.

* The biggest news in my personal movie world is word via the Los Angeles Times of the resurrection of the statue that classic-era superstar Myrna Loy (“The Thin Man,” “The Best Years of Our Lives”) posed for when she was just a young student and which graced the front of my alma mater for decades. As the News Editor of the Venice High Oarsman (“Rowing, Not Drifting”) back in the pre-pre-pre-pre MySpace era, I was on the Myrna-vandalism beat. This gladdens my heart. A picture, however, would have been nice. Maybe I’ll get to work on that a bit later.

* If you were already fantasizing about someday buying Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern get-up via E-bay, you’re out of luck unless you were playing on buying some software. It’s going to be a CGI suit.

* Sharon Waxman thinks the Weinstein brothers may be in the lead to buy back their old company.

* Merrick at AICN has some details on the new Jack Ryan non-novel-based reboot or prequel or whatever it is. It’s plot, we’re told, will involve terrorists and a plan to destroy the economy. Cyber-terrorism? If so, they’ll have their work cut out for them making it cinematic. I guess they’ll just wind up nuking another American city half-way through the film and then expect us to buy a happy ending when it’s all over.

* I thought for sure the story/rumor/probable b.s. about Quentin Tarantino reviving Lindsay Lohan’s career would turn out to be today’s weirdest item. Then I came across the one about what we’re told is Chris Rock‘s latest writing gig. The first weird bit is that he’s purportedly taking over a script last worked on by David Mamet. Now, I’m a pretty big Rock fan — I even kinda sorta liked “Head of State” — but I’m also a Mamet fan, and let’s just say that I don’t often mention them in the same breath.

It gets weirder still because the movie in question is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic, “High and Low,” which was originally going to be directed by Martin Scorsese but is now going in a very different and less promising directorial direction with Mike Nichols. Kurosawa and Chris Rock, also not people I would ordinarily put together. As Beaks points out, however, this whole business of making ridiculous comparisons could be avoiding by simply going back to the original source material of “High and Low,” Ed McBain’s police procedural/business thriller, “King’s Ransom.” It’s similar but also very different than the Kurosawa movie in a way that tells you something about the differences between the Japanese and American cultures, and in some respects more relevant now than it’s been in some time.

I still can’t quite imagine Rock writing it, but you never know, I guess. Also, I give him credit for having interesting taste, assuming there’s a word of truth in any of this.

* The weekend box office “actuals” are finally in after the weekend confusion about which film came out on top. “Clash of the Titans” earned $26.6 miillion while “Date Night” was over-estimated by nearly $2 million and got a still very healthy $25.2 million.

* I don’t think there’s any way you can make me care about who’s writing the He-Man movie.

* If you’re in the mood for some real critical inside baseball and controversy. Glenn Kenny picks another fight, this time over age and ethics in this post and the ensuing comments. Personally, I like it better when Kenny writes about movies. I get enough meta at the DailyKos diaries. On the other hand, the Gang of Four clip is way cool.