A new Source Code still, Jake Gyllenhaal talks comedy, and Brokeback - 5 years on

After all the new stills for Love and Other Drugs over the last few days, it's a pleasure to have one of the first for Source Code, courtesy of the film's Facebook site. There is also what looks like an official poster, which isn't quite what I was expecting.


One of Jake Gyllenhaal's Source Code co-stars, Jeffrey Wright has been interviewed about his Broadway play 'A Free Man of Colour'. It includes a question on Source Code: 'Q: I recently saw the trailer for your upcoming movie Source Code, which is directed by Duncan Jones, whose dad, David Bowie, starred with you in Basquiat. Did he have anything to do with this upcoming collaboration? JW: You’re asking if David is now my agent? [Laughs.] I had met Duncan some years ago, I think at a birthday party for his dad. So that factored into it as well. But moreover, it was this compelling vision that he brought to Moon, which is what drew me in. It was his work, not his father’s, although I have the highest regard for his dad.'


Sydney

Another interview with Jake from Sydney has been published, this time in the Sydney Morning Herald, complete with a stonking picture of Jake. And I quote... ."I don't consider this movie to be a light movie," he says. "There are comedic aspects but it's also romantic, moving and complicated... [Hathaway's] character helps make it more revealing about the pharmaceutical sales world," Gyllenhaal says. "The pharmaceutical representatives sell this idea of health that is much more about business and sales. There is something a little cold and cut off about that.".

'"I think it deals with Parkinson's very seriously but in life there can sometimes be comedy in the saddest events," Gyllenhaal says. "To me, movies that acknowledge that are the most courageous."


'"I spent a lot of time with Jamie and he had some funny stories and some disturbing ones about the things people do to create sales," he says. "These are the kind of things that happen when you mix the issue of someone's health with making a quota". Despite this research, Love and Other Drugs is less severe on the drug industry than Reidy's book. Some critics have suggested the film is a free publicity kick for Viagra. Not so, Gyllenhaal says. "I don't think those criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry were softened," he says. "What happened was we decided it was a love story and the comment became more about love... I don't think there's an avoidance of the drug issues but it's not blatantly political. What it's about is comparing real love with the drug. It's asking what really turns you on... The love story was fascinating in relation to this drug that is supposed to create intimacy."'


'"He's enormously funny," Zwick says in the film's publicity material. "[His] sense of humour is nothing new to those who've known him socially but up to now we've never quite had the opportunity to see that on film." The actor relished the opportunity to try something different. "A lot of the movies I loved watching as a kid had that heightened sense of humour – things like Bringing Up Baby and Spencer Tracy's movies," he says. "Comedy is something I very much like to do... I'm interested in telling interesting stories that I respond to. It's not like I only want to tell one type of story. It's strange that people believe it's only when you do a serious movie that you are getting your teeth into something. That's a rather simple way of looking at the process. Comedy is not an easy thing to do."'

You can also read an interview with Ed Zwick here.

Five years on

Tomorrow, 11 December, LA's Autry Museum is celebrating a significant anniversary - five years of Brokeback Mountain. Over the coming days and weeks, many of us will be having our five year anniversary with this film and I couldn't agree more with this statement from NBC Los Angeles:


'Important films come down the pike often, and we stand back or get close and we admire and then they pass on their way, only to return now and then in the clips segment of the Oscars or on various critics' top ten lists or as cultural references in other films. Then there's a movie like "Brokeback Mountain," which became less of a two-hour experience for many people and more of a significant signpost that shifted their thinking, and even their journey, outside of the theater in which they saw the film.'

I am one of many whose life was profoundly altered by that 'significant signpost' half a decade ago. I have no doubt that if it hadn't have been for that 'two-hour experience' back in January 2006, my life and the people in it would be very different today. It has affected each and every day. Every day that I write here about Jake and his movies, or write elsewhere inspired by my love for film, it is a direct result of those two hours. And when I set out on an adventure - whether it includes Jake or not - and when I share a meal and time with my friends - it is a direct result of those two hours.


So thank you to Jake, Heath, Anne, Michelle, Annie and Ang and absolutely everyone who created something astonishing with those two hours. And to Jack and Ennis.

Includes pictures from links.