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filmmaking C KING OF CRASS HANGOVER DIRECTOR TODD PHILLIPS U REINVENTS THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER by Kevin Fallon / CAS ’09 oy wizards, warring Starsky & Hutch (2004) , is perhaps began as a project robots, superheroes most proud that his latest movie for Choy’s docu - L in spandex, drunk - was labeled “the raunchiest main - mentary-film en pirates, and talk - stream comedy of all time.” And course, which he B ing animals. These now he’s in demand as a producer took for four se - are the historic pillars of Holly - as well, having just wrapped the mesters. Phillips wood summer blockbusters. But ensemble comedy Project X , for focused on docu - T thanks to three men with splitting which he’s credited with discov - mentaries because headaches and a rogue tiger, the in - ering a cast of unknown actors he imagined him - dustry has discovered a new way to likely poised for big breaks. Is it all self too inexperi - sell tickets on a massive scale. Di - a little overwhelming? The enced to write rector Todd Phillips (TSOA ’94) is Brooklyn-born Phillips concedes: believable screen - the man behind the bawdy, box- “It’s a long way from living on plays. “When office-shattering comedies The Seventh Street and Avenue B and you’re 18 years Hangover (2009) and The Hangover going to Christine Choy’s docu - old, unless you’re Part II (2011) . The films each raked mentary class, for sure.” a naturally gifted in more than $480 million world - Phillips grew up on Long Is - writer, which I UR wide, rivaling the gross of franchise land, raised by his mother and two wasn’t, you don’t E hits such as Transformers and X- older sisters, and fed by the movies have a lot of sto - Men —but without the costly spe - of John Landis and Ivan Reitman, ries to tell yet,” he cial effects. In fact, The Hangover which inspired him to go to film says. While in - Part II is the highest-grossing R- school. He describes his time at terning at HBO, P rated comedy ever, only surpassing NYU as an education in culture— he shot his second documentary, H O T O the first Hangover film. broadening his film taste beyond Frat House (1998) , about the dark - © M E L This, of course, has made Animal House and Stripes . “You’re er side of Greek life—from fright - I N D A Phillips, 40, something of a Hol - exposed to things you wouldn’t ening hazing rituals to dangerous S U E G lywood darling, which is “defi - be on Long Island at your local party habits. It won the Grand Jury O R D O Prize at the Sundance Film Festi - N val in 1998, and became emblem - “Other comedies have bad atic of themes he would explore in behavior, but most of them his later works. His first feature, Road Trip , spend the last 15 minutes could easily be viewed as a apologizing for [it]. My movies comedic spin-off of Frat House . Released in 2000, it was born out revel in the bad behavior.” of an introduction with Ghost - busters and Meatballs director Re - nitely bizarre, but flattering,” he video store,” he says. His early cin - itman (who executive-produced says. The filmmaker, who built ematic endeavors reflect that the film) at Sundance. Rife with renown on the backs of gratuitous change. His first film, a documen - nudity and other explicit content, “frat comedies” such as Road Trip tary called Hated (1994) about con - the film grossed more than $120 (2000) , Old School (2003), and troversial punk rocker GG Allin, million worldwide and set the tone PHILLIPS (CENTER) SHOT THE HANGOVER PART II ON LOCATION IN BANGKOK, THAILAND, WITH STARS ED HELMS, BRADLEY COOPER, AND ZACH GALIFIANAKIS. for the, in Phillips’s words, “un - play than in his Hangover films. The says. “It’s hard for me to have con - heart in his characters. And the in - apologetic and aggressive” come - first movie featured, among other versations that are PG-13, let alone dustry has noticed. After Old dy he would become famous scenes of debauchery, characters make a movie that is.” But is there School , Steven Spielberg sent him a for—such as Will Ferrell streaking simulating masturbation on a baby. a line? Only occasionally, he main - fan letter praising his work. The in Old School . Borat (2006), which In addition to rampant drug use tains, does he stop and question, as first Hangover film won the Gold - Phillips co-wrote and which and explicit language, The Hang - he did during the baby scene,“how en Globe Award for Best Musical Newsweek called “game-changing” over Part II boasts what has been de - this will play in Peoria.” or Comedy in 2010, beating out for how warmly audiences re - scribed in reviews as “a shocking Phillips’s Hangover star Zach two Meryl Streep films. But the ic - ceived its utter political incorrect - array of penises.” Reitman credits Galifianakis once described him as ing on the cake was a handwritten ness, even earned an Oscar Phillips with pushing the bound - having “this cockiness that, for a letter from Emma Thompson. “It nomination (for Best Adapted aries of what’s commercially vi - skinny nerd from Brooklyn, is re - was about how much she just loved Screenplay). “Other comedies that able. “It’s a last frontier thing,” ally weird.” Certainly a fondness The Hangover , and how much she come out of Hollywood have bad Reitman told The Hollywood Re - for expletives and a summer fling thinks a movie like that just adds behavior, but most of them spend porter , adding that Phillips is “up - with Paris Hilton attest to that con - joy to the world,” he says. “I like the last 15 minutes of the movie ping the ante in terms of erotic fidence. But there’s a self-depre - when people put it in perspective. apologizing for [it],” he says. explicitness.” For his part, Phillips cating humility and love for his You’re not really trying to change “Movies that I make revel in the is equally unapologetic about that, craft underneath that. This combi - the world, you’re trying to put a bad behavior.” too. “I’m an R-rated person in nation enables his films to transcend good movie out there. And put Nowhere is that more on dis - general and always have been,” he mere tastelessness, tapping into the people in a better mood.” NYU / FALL 2011 / 23 DIAZ’S UNCONVENTIONAL WRITING STYLE HELPED HIS LATEST PLAY BECOME A FINALIST FOR THE 2009 PULITZER PRIZE IN DRAMA. C U Steve Austin. His encyclopedic L knowledge landed him a side job T as one of the first professional- wrestling bloggers. It wasn’t high - UR E brow work for someone with a master’s from the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramat - ic Writing in the Tisch School of the Arts, but Diaz felt truly lucky to land the position. And that luck kept paying off—the gig inspired him to pen a play that was nomi - nated for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity —which uses wrestling’s de - cidedly unsubtle milieu to explore thorny issues of racial identity, au - thenticity, and American cul - ture—was originally produced by the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago in 2009, and then off- Broadway by Second Stage The - atre the following spring. Reviewers swooned. The New York Times ’ Ben Brantley wel - comed the “delicious crackle and pop of a galloping, honest-to-God, theater all-American satire.” Backstage said that the play “will body-slam you to the canvas with a one-two punch of political satire and the - A Playwright atrical showmanship.” In addition to being a Pulitzer finalist, Chad Deity snagged the Obie and Lucille Lortel awards for Best Play. Chad Deity ’s narrative stems With Punch from a controversy that erupted during Diaz’s stint in the early blogosphere. In December 2004, KRISTOFFER DIAZ’S BRASH NARRATIVE STYLE HELPS WWE introduced Muhammad P H O Hassan, a patriotic Muslim- EASE AMERICA’S “UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS” T O © I American wrestler facing harass - L E I by Justin Warner A ment in post-9/11 society. (True B U R G O to wrestling’s artifice, Hassan was S played by Mark Copani, an Ital - ristoffer Diaz’s love Piper, and future Minnesota Gov - geons & Dragons with wrestlers). ian-American from Syracuse, affair with profes - ernor Jesse “The Body” Ventura Though his passion waned some - New York.) At a time when many sional wrestling ruled the ring. Diaz (GAL ’99, what in high school, it rebounded pundits and politicians wore K started as a kid in the TSOA ’02) obsessively followed in the late 1990s as a renaissance at xenophobia like a badge of hon - 1980s, when flam - matches, collected action figures, World Wrestling Entertainment, or, presenting a beefy Muslim as boyantly macho characters such as and even immersed himself in or WWE, spawned Dwayne “The a misunderstood good guy Hulk Hogan, “Rowdy” Roddy role-playing games (think Dun - Rock” Johnson and Stone Cold sparked tremendous buzz, with 24 / FALL 2011 / NYU Diaz and others impressed by the is a Puerto Rican wrestler who ventional fashion. Diaz’s plays— risky choice. But Hassan and his gets paid to lose matches, and wor - which total six in all—inter - SPECIALSPECIAL TAXTAX BREAKBREAK FORFOR creators soon retreated back into ries about the social and personal weave traditional scenes, stereotypes. “It fell apart very cost of being a Latino fall guy.