Jeff Lipsky, Writer-Director of Twelve Thirty
, An intense, low budget indie drama about a young Iowa City virgin who becomes sexually involved with a mother and her two daughters, marks Lipsky's fourth feature. It opens tomorrow at Reading Cinemas Gaslamp 15. I was honored and fortunate enough to speak at length with Jeff Lipsky, a man who has given so much back to the art form he adores. We talked about everything from our mutual crushes on Hayley Mills and Ingmar Bergman as a sex counsellor, to "jiggle-vision" cinematography and the future of celluloid.Scott Marks: Do you remember the first film your parents took you to see?
Jeff Lipsky: I do, in fact. My father took me to see Walt Disney‘s Darby O‘Gill and the Little People . That was a no-brainer for me. When Barbara Barrie came to my attention, and she was available and wanted to do it, I realized that I can’t have everything.
SM: I am embarrassed to admit that this is the first film of yours that I have seen, so it‘s time to hit our local Kensington Video to do some catch-up work. What impressed me so much about this film was your jeweler’s eye when it comes to casting.
JL: I have been blessed with some of the greatest casting directors in New York. On Flannel Pajamas . She did such an amazing job. I wrote the part of Vivien for Karen Young. I’ve known Karen personally for about eight years and it has always been my dream to work with her. When I went to her with the script after I knew I was going to make the movie, she embraced the character completely. After Karen was cast, I told Julie that I needed her to find the best available actors to play her family. That’s the way the process began. Casting Twelve Thirty ), but it hadn‘t been released yet. It was all based on auditioning him and speaking to him, and I just felt he‘d be perfect. For me, the real discovery of the movie is Portia Reiners who plays…uhh...
SM: Mel.
JL (Laughing): Yes, Mel. Thank you. You have this 19-year-old woman playing her age and even though she’s been an actress since she was nine, I was not familiar with any of her work. She was very impressive at the audition and so responsive and focused and smart and believable when we were working together. It was frighteningly impressive to me.
Portia Reiners and Jeff Lipsky
SM: Mel is the perfect girl: sexy, smart, dangerous, willing and, after the first date, completely unavailable. You’re kind of let down when you realize that she’s just using Jeff for sex.
Characters In A Spot Of Bother - News
Nowadays, I want something more than an excuse to high-five the director because he convinced his leading lady to disrobe instead of using sex to advance the plot or tell me something about the characters that I didn't already know.
PS Don't bother sending Green Lantern, he's useless and his costume is too revealing for our Irish Catholic sensibilities." Yes indeed, we need a hero. Step forward, then, Gary Keogh. The man who became famous for throwing eggs at an AIB meeting in
I don't understand why anything like that should ever bother me. Also, you're making up opinions and attributing them to me again. Where have I said that I only like ROH guys? If that's the case, then why do I not like Kendrick? Why do I like Angle,
Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee was great, although he didn't have the accent, it never bothered me, Jones did a great job of keeping the character interesting enough to just not care about his accent. I wont bother going into detail on the rest of the
It's a great movie and really, thats like their number 1 plot device, so it shouldn't bother you that much. Remember the part where the Cuban Missile Crisis was caused by American cowboy gung-ho attitudes? that was totally awesome.
Guest Blogger! – A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon « …. i can stay
Unnoticed in the uproar caused by his daughter’s controversial nuptials, sixyt-one-year-old George Hall discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart–and come together–as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s distrubring yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. “
Are you familiar with the term “you can’t choose your family?” I am. And I am reminded of it every time I’m forced to attend dinners, parties, funerals–and the absolute worst: weddings.
(Just a reminder, happily married aunts and uncles, single people don’t like being reminded that they’re single. And for the record, having “you’ll find someone” said to you just makes the situation all the more sad.)
This, I think, is one of the reasons why I related so much to Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother , where everything starts falling apart for the Hall family when daughter Katie announces she’s marrying again–to a man no one thinks is right for her.
When I bought the book, and before I started reading it, I thought the whole thing would be told from the perspective of George, the person who is “trying to go insane politely”. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the point-of-view revolves around the four members of the Hall Family.
I’m not always a fan of multiple perspectives when it comes to books. I like having an anchor when reading, not minding if I don’t know what’s happening somewhere else because it makes me feel all the more involved in the fictional (or non-fictional) world I’m reading. But with A Spot of Bother , I thought the fact that the point-of-view went around the main characters made them feel more complete, more real–more complex.
Characters lie. When you read a book with a perspective, your main character is always described with rose-tinted glasses. Sure, they can be flawed–who likes perfect protagonists anyway? But they’re always doing things that are explainable. But that’s not the case in A Spot of Bother .
When we’re reading with George, we see him as a man who just wants to be a better father than his dad; someone who likes the quiet, and for life to be as uneventful as possible. But when we switch to Jean, the wife, we see him as someone who doesn’t appreciate having a wife. From Katie’s point-of-view, he’s someone who never cared–because he’s always so reserved. And for son Jamie, George is someone who can never understand what it is to be gay–and to be happy about being gay.
Characters In A Spot Of Bother - Bookshelf
A Spot of Bother
—People UA Spot of Bother is tidily executed. . . . This book is kind in spirit and empathetic to its characters' assorted plights. ...Encyclopedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present
As one reviewer notes, “He's so wondrously articulate, so rigorous in thinking through his characters' mind-sets, that A Spot of Bother serves as a fine ...New York
One senses, as Wagner yanks his characters around on their tracks or crushes ... His new follow-up, A Spot of Bother, follows a surprisingly ordinary father ...Encyclopedia of Contemporary Writers and Their Work
In 2006, A Spot of Bother was published and short-listed for Costa Novel of ... re-envision the world from these characters' perspectives and undermine the ...Theatre world
... following his initial success with A Spot of Bother. ... establish a reputation with the aid of a writer who creates characters and a company of actors ...Detailed Information Directory
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon - A Spot of Bother Book Review
In A Spot of Bother, George Hall is convinced that the eczema on his thigh is cancer and ... A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon is the author's second novel, following The Curious ...
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon - Reviews, Discussion ...
A Spot of Bother has 8,529 ratings and 1,562 reviews. Patrick said: I pretty much hated this book. It was the type of book that you read because you liked t...
A Spot of Bother Book Club Discussion Questions - A Spot of ...
In A Spot of Bother, George Hall is convinced that the eczema on his thigh is cancer... A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon is the author's second novel, following The Curious ...
Mark Haddon - A Spot Of Bother
A Spot of Bother is Haddon's second novel aimed at adults, and again he writes his characters with great affection despite the fact that they're deeply flawed. ...
A Spot of Bother: A Novel by Mark Haddon - Powell's Books
A Spot of Bother is the story of the highly dysfunctional Hall family... A Spot Of Bother" begins with George Hall, a retired man in his sixties, finding a mark ...