A working actor for decades, Chris Messina struck the equivalent of lightening in a bottle with his work as sports agent David Falk in Ben Affleck’s terrific ‘Air,’ the unlikely and hugely entertaining story of how Nike signed Michael Jordan for a branded sneaker – and changed the industry. Messina has a memorable scene where he explodes in a phone call with Matt Damon’s Nike veep who has had the temerity to go behind Falk’s back and speak directly with Jordan’s mother, played by Viola Davis. It’s an astoundingly profane and extremely funny volcanic eruption. Messina, 48, spoke with The Boston Herald about ‘Air’ and his other imminent projects, including the Stephen King horror hit ‘The Boogeyman,’ a Peacock series opposite Kaley Cuoco called ‘Based on a True Story’ and the sci-fi space adventure, ‘I.S.S.’ Here he talks about his three Affleck movies.
Q: I had seen ‘Air’ and two weeks later on TCM’s Warner Bros. salute I watched Affleck’s Oscar-winning Best Picture ‘Argo’ — and there you were Chris! And then, of course, I see that you were in Affleck’s ‘Live By Night.’ So what is it with you and Ben? Are you kind of like a member of his ‘stock company,’ the way John Ford had actors he would always cast?
CHRIS MESSINA: I like the sound of that. Ben — you know, I’ve been very lucky with him. In all three movies he just gave me the parts. I didn’t audition. Of course, you’re wondering if he’s sitting by the monitor (as they filmed), thinking, ‘Why did I give this to Chris?’ But he’s been very, very kind to me and I’m extremely grateful. And every part got better and better. You know, when you work with that caliber of people! Not only Affleck but Bob Richardson’s shooting it, William Goldenberg’s editing it, they really have your back. I believe that anyone that played David Falk would have been fine because they take care of you. But I had a blast. I had so much fun playing that role.
Q: Is it true your phone meltdown was entirely improvised?
CM: It wasn’t true. I mean, so much of it was improvised, the profanity and the sheer rage that just was nonstop. A lot of great stuff was written; it was really a beautiful script. The reason it worked, which sounds maybe obvious but it never happens: Ben shot the phone calls at the same time. So there were three cameras on me and three on Matt; we were down the hallway from each other. So we were able to improvise and overlap. I think at one point, Ben had come in and said, ‘I have it! I’m really happy. Now do whatever you want.’ And a lot of stuff on that take is in the movie. You know, we got a little crazy.
It seems right that Falk would be livid. For what Matt had done, in terms of threatening his relationship with his client that means the world to him. So all of it was done with the utmost respect for Falk who was such an intelligent man and helped really to change the game for marketing and the players. And what we did is try to not do an impersonation; this was my version of Falk. I read his book. I watched interviews with him. But I wanted to get the essence of this man that really has to be just as much of a competitor as his clients, especially when you’re dealing with Michael Jordan.
NEW DVDs:
MIGHTY MACHINERY ‘TRANSFORMERS: Limited Edition Steel Books 6 Movie Collection’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code, Paramount, PG-13) This propulsive high-octane series charts how global war rages between the Autobots and their human allies against the evil Decepticons. In addition to the set’s 4K upgrade discs, each film’s Blu-ray disc is loaded with extras. Michael Bay, a maestro of mechanized mayhem, directed the first 5, from 2007 to 2017, and produced them all. ‘Bumblebee” in 2018, directed by Travis Knight, is both spin-off and prequel to the 1st ‘Transformers. The series’ 7th film, ‘Rise of the Beasts,’ is now in theaters. The ‘Toy Story 4’ Oscar-winning director Josh Cooley helms the upcoming 8th ‘Transformers,’ an animated prequel due in 2024.
HAUNTING AMERICAN FOLK TALE Charles Laughton’s stark, elemental fable ‘The Night of the Hunter’ (4k Ultra HD + Special Features Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics), filmed in dramatically art-directed stylized black-and-white, is today universally recognized as a masterwork, the only film the Oscar-winning British actor ever directed. Yet in 1955, despite the marquee allure of tough guy Robert Mitchum, sensual and sexually needy Shelley Winters and silent era legend Lillian Gish, it failed to find an audience or impress critics. Go figure. Mitchum’s merciless killer, a preacher, is famously tattooed with HATE on one set of knuckles and LOVE on the other 4 but he has no compunction in murdering Winters and then targeting her 2 children in pursuit of $10,000. Only a steely Gish stands between these innocents and death. Roger Ebert rightfully proclaimed this ‘Night’ ‘One of the greatest of American films.’ Special Features: An audio commentary, filmmaker Ernest Dickerson analyzes the film, actress Kathy Garver’s thoughts are here, as well as artist Joe Coleman.
DOCUMENTING NAZIS, THE HOLOCAUST & HOPE ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’ (Blu-ray, 2 discs, Milestone, Not Rated) from 1969 is Marcel Ophuls’ monumental – and monumentally unsettling — documentary accounting of the WWII Nazi Occupation of France. Ophuls, the son of the legendary director Max Ophuls, lets the survivors and Occupiers speak, alongside artists, farmers, German veterans. What ‘Sorrow’ really did was destroy the postwar myth of a unified France resisting Germany. ‘Sorrow’ is in 2 parts, each over 2 hours, plus a 40-minute Ophuls Visual History courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A natural pairing is the first-rate 2022 German thriller ‘The Forger’ (DVD, Kino Lorber, Not Rated) which tells the true story of Cioma Schönhaus (Louis Hoffman), a young Jew whose family has been sent to the death camps and works in a Nazi arms factory. In 1940 Berlin he saved countless Jews with his artfully forged passports. Only as the Nazis tighten their grip, the question becomes: Can Schönhaus save himself?
DEFINITIVE ‘70s BURT REYNOLDS The 1974 ‘The Longest Yard’ shows exactly why Burt Reynolds ruled the box-office – for five consecutive years as the Number One star. Reynolds was such a potent force that he starred in 20 movies in the decade following his star-making role in the 1972 ‘Deliverance.’ Frankly sexual, funny and unpretentious, serious yet hardly somber, Reynolds ranked above Steve McQueen, Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood, to name just a few of the era’s enduring icons. ‘Longest Yard’ is a matchless underdog tale set in a prison from Robert Aldrich (‘The Dirty Dozen,’ ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’) who also produced and directed ‘Hustle.’ Here gorgeous Catherine Deneuve is a call girl and Reynolds an LA detective. The ’75 ‘Hustle” illustrates Reynolds’s ambition, teaming this ‘good ol boy’ with a living legend in France’s icily elegant Deneuve (both Blu-ray, KL Studio Classics, R). Both films are in brand new HD masters and feature audio commentary by the author of ‘What Ever Happened to Robert Aldrich? His Life and His Films.’ ‘Yard’ also has Reynolds (who was 82 when he died in 2018) and producer Albert S. Ruddy offer an audio commentary, alongside 2 featurettes.
NEW OZON! France’s leading filmmaker Francois Ozon is back in first-rate form with ‘Everything Went Fine’ (Blu-ray, Cohen, Not Rated). Literally a life or death family drama, ‘Everything’ has estranged daughter Sophie Marceau answering her dying father’s request to ‘die with dignity.’ As always Ozon’s complex moral quandaries illuminate at-first familiar and then decidedly complex characters. Charlotte Rampling, Ozon’s early career muse (‘Swimming Pool’), has a scene-stealing cameo as the father’s ex.
ANNA MAY WONG!! Hollywood’s only Chinese-American female star, the ‘Anna May Wong Collection’ (Blu-ray, 3 discs, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) offers 3 of her late ‘30s vehicles. ‘Dangerous to Know’ (’38) is a romantic triangle with Wong as a racketeer’s dumped lover. ‘Island of Lost Men’ is a remake of the early ‘30s ‘White Woman.’ And also from ’39, ‘King of Chinatown’ has Wong’s Dr. Mary Ling and her father (played by future Charlie Chan, the Danish Sidney Toler) teaming against vicious gangsters – and winning. Wong, born in 1905, was in her mid-teens when she was first featured in early 1920s silents. She became a star and fashion icon in the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks’ classic, ‘The Thief of Bagdad.’ Today, she is probably best known playing opposite Marlene Dietrich – they are both high class hookers — in von Sternberg’s sublime ‘Shanghai Express.’ Her last film, the glossy murder melodrama, 1960’s ‘Portrait in Black,’ gave her little to do as Lana Turner’s maid.
MIGHTY MENACING NOIR The latest 3-film collection, ‘Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XIII’ (Blu-ray, 3 discs, KL Studio Classics, Not Rated) highlights ‘50s starlet Colleen Miller who had above the title billing in ‘The Night Runner’ (’57) as a woman terrorized by an escaped mental patient and ‘Step Down to Terror’ (‘58) opposite Rod Taylor (‘The Time Machine,’ ‘Sunday in New York’). ‘Step Down’ is adapted from the same short story that Hitchcock used for his thriller ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ and serves as a remake. In both films, a serial killer hides out with his family. The 3rd entry here, ‘Spy Hunt,’ is a Cold War thriller set in the Swiss Alps, co-starring live black panthers enroute to a zoo that teams Howard Duff (‘While the City Sleeps’) with Marta Toren (‘Illegal Entry’). One of the panthers has top-secret microfilm in its collar – that’s where the Cold War of Russia versus the USA matters. A train wreck forces instant collaboration between Toren’s spy and the burly animal keeper.
INDY’S QUARTET Harrison Ford’s (presumed) final bow as adventurer Indiana Jones is expected this month with ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.’ Re-acquaint yourself with his exploits now that all 4 have been released in 4K Ultra HD upgrades: 1981’s kicker ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ the 1984 ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ which costars the future Mrs. Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, 1989’s ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ and the years later 2008 ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ (all 4K Ultra HD+ Digital Code, Paramount, the 1st 2 are PG. For the last 2 Steven Spielberg got the PG-13 rating created to avoid being cursed with the restrictive R). There’s a lot of history here in each chapter. ‘Raiders’ solidified Ford’s standing as a superstar and set the formula for all hugely expensive franchises to follow. ‘The Last Crusade’ was meant to be a passing of the torch so that Indy’s adventures could continue with Shia LaBeouf — a notion that immediately evaporated once the movie opened. ‘Last Crusade’ boasts genuine chemistry teaming 2 mighty franchise heroes: 007 himself Sean Connery and ‘Star Wars’ stalwart Ford. Surprisingly, no Bonus Special Features!!
