VARIOUS: Peter Dinklage and Alexandre Rockwell open Slamdance Film Festival with "Pete Smalls is Dead"

Record ID: 249306

  • Title: VARIOUS: Peter Dinklage and Alexandre Rockwell open Slamdance Film Festival with "Pete Smalls is Dead"
  • Date: 22nd January 2011
  • Summary: PARK CITY, UTAH, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 21, 2011) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PETER DINKLAGE, SAYING: "A guy who goes down the rabbit hole of the underbelly of LA, gets dragged along by a good friend of his." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ALEXANDRE ROCKWELL, DIRECTOR/WRITER, SAYING: "Sort of like the corner of Hollywood and Vine when the lights go out." (SOUNDBITE) (English) PETER DINKLAGE, SAYING: "[Looking at reporter] You're going to keep that one. [To Rockwell] Have you ever been to Hollywood and Vine when the lights go out?" (SOUNDBITE) (English) ALEXANDRE ROCKWELL, DIRECTOR/WRITER, SAYING: "There's a lone coyote." (SOUNDBITE) (English) PETER DINKLAGE, SAYING: "We actually shot on the corner of Hollywood and Vine when the lights go out and it wasn't safe." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ALEXANDRE ROCKWELL, DIRECTOR/WRITER, SAYING: "And we went to Mexico and it wasn't safe. It's like he gets pulled in to this by this buddy .." (SOUNDBITE) (English) PETER DINKLAGE, SAYING: "And life imitated art imitated life imitated art. We didn't have any money to make this movie and we found ourselves in the craziest places because that's where we wanted to shoot."
  • Embargoed: 6th February 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA4RGWEE194HZ4UU5PUED87Z9HK
  • Story Text: Director Alexandre Rockwell is no stranger to success at the Sundance Film Festival. In 1992, with his film "In the Soup," he won the festival's top dramatic honor, the Grand Jury prize. The film featured a then-unknown Steve Buscemi as a struggling screenwriter who has written an unfilmmable 500-page screenplay, and the subject matter provided Rockwell a chance to skewer the film industry he was trying to break into.
    Nearly two decades later, Rockwell's most recent film, "Pete Smalls is Dead," has returned Rockwell to Park City during Sundance. But this time, the film is opening the Slamdance Film Festival, which Rockwell sees not as a second-tier festival but a haven for serious indie filmmakers.
    The film, which stars Peter Dinklage, is described by the actor as a trip down the "rabbit hole" into the underbelly of Los Angeles. The story includes a lab heist a lab heist, with the robbers in pizza-delivery panda costumes. There's a dog named Buddha who is kidnapped and held for $10,000 ransom. And then there is Pete Smalls, played by Tim Roth, whose casket is empty at his funeral.
    Dinklage and Rockwell are obviously close friends. The two had a hard time speaking seriously about the film, often joking and interrupting each other. The movie, which takes place in a seedier side of Los Angeles, turns the city into a character of its own. Dinklage talked about the feel of a famous intersection in the city, Hollywood and Vine, once the tourists go home.
    "There's a romanticism to it, a romance to that sort of .. that red light burning into the wee hours," described Dinklage.
    "Sort of like an angel with a broken wing ..it has some beauty to it," added Rockwell.
    "An angel with a broken wing, drinking a martini," added Dinklage. Not to be out done, Rockwell added, "drinking at a funeral and farting." Laughing, Dinklage agreed.
    "Pete Smalls is Dead" stars Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez and Seymour Cassel along side Dinklage.
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