Talking to Mike Binder

Below is an interview with Mike Binder earlier this week about Reign Over Me and what he's looking to take a crack at next. There's some interesting info in there about the fate and future of The Search for John Gissing and a bookend/companion to The Upside of Anger.

MC: Where did the idea come from?

Mike Binder: I just wanted to do a piece about the people that still wander the streets after these major tragedies of our time after the 24-hour news spotlight goes on to the next one. They go over to Katrina and the Tsunami and leaves Oklahoma City behind.

I remember when 9/11 hit feeling really bad for the people of Oklahoma City because everyone was so... just blanketing all that affection on the survivors and victims' families of 9/11. It was almost like, y'know, well I thought okay, maybe these Oklahoma City people, they're done, they're over, you know? Their time is up in terms of getting help, getting assistance and sympathy. So I thought...I was just thinking about that type of people...the families. You know, it's such a horrible thing to have in your life.

MC: Contrary to the way some of the publicity stuff came across, to me it's not a movie that is all about 9/11. Of course, that's the inciting incident to the story, but it's principally about grief and these two guys reconnecting and bonding. The thing I like most about is that at it's core it's about moving on and getting past the grief.

Binder: You know, I never saw it as a "9/11 movie". I saw it more as a movie about communication and I just...you know, you can't control how these things come out and what the publicity looks like. You can stick your two cents in there as much as possible but, boy I tell ya, you gotta leave that stuff up the the gods.

MC: There's a game that recurs as a theme in a constructive way that I'm not used to seeing in a lot of movies, Shadow of the Colossus.

Binder: Isn't it a great game?

MC: For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a game where you play as this guy who has to climb these gigantic bad guys and knock them down. Where did that game come into the process?

Binder: I wrote a game into the movie. I was just gonna make up a game and then Jeremy Roush, one of our editors, turned me on to Shadow of the Colossus, and I showed it to Sandler, who said "man, this such a good game for this".

MC: Some of the footage you got of those guys (Cheadle & Sandler) playing looked like it was just these two guys playing a game and messing around. Something more real than you get in a lot of what comes out these days.

Binder: They were. They played off each other really well when I just let them go like that.

MC: Something I've tried to convince friends of is that this isn't what they want to call an "Adam Sandler Movie" just because he's in it. At least some of the critical notice Adam's gotten on this, I wish he'd read. He said in the Q&A at SXSW that he doesn't read any of it.

Binder: None of it.

MC: I understand where he's coming from, but...

Binder: I think it's horrible to read any of that stuff, especially for an actor. I mean I hardly read any of it. I like the sites, you know, I like Hollywood Elsewhere, and I like Cinematical, and...uh, Movie City News, and I like Harry Knowles' site, so I can't help but read those because...that's just what I read! But y'know, you can't read the other stuff man.

First of all, there's too many opinions...especially about my movies. My movies are the kind that one guy loves, and another guy hates. Which, y'know, I'm kinda proud of. They're not really for everybody...but Sandler is a guy...either you like the smell of Sandler or you don't. There's no inbetween.

You know, people hate some of the shit he's done over the years and they love debating him. For him, reading up on the news and how people react to him would be a mistake, because he's stayed an original. You hang out with him, and his comedy is just so natural.

MC: That's the thing, I don't think the dramatic strength he's shown here and in Punch Drunk Love didn't show up out of nowhere. It's been there all along, he just hasn't had many opportunities to show it off. I think he's surprised a lot of people with what he can do. Speaking of, did you catch him hosting Letterman?

Binder: Yeah, I was there! I was with him, we were all flying around the country together.

MC: Cheadle name-checked Stubbs BBQ in Austin.

Binder: They tried to go back into this routine they did...we all went to dinner at Stubbs the night I met you (at SXSW) and they were trying to get into this riff that they do a lot, they put these riffs together that are really funny. They couldn't get wind with it on Letterman, y'know what I mean? It was one of those "it was funny if you were there" at Stubbs that night, but they couldn't get the picture in their minds across to the audience. It ended up being a good hit for Stubbs, but it wasn't a great piece of comedy.

MC: It was a noble attempt that bombed, but hey, they sang Endless Love, and that saved everything.

Binder: That was great, wasn't it?

MC: I thought it was hilarious.

Binder: It's all over YouTube.

MC: What kind of stuff are you looking at putting on the DVD for Reign Over Me?

Binder: Oh, the guys did a great improvised song when they did the jam session scene, so we'll put that in there, but I'm not gonna put any deleted scenes in, I'm not gonna do a lot. I don't like doing it anymore, I think it gets in the way of the movie.

MC: What's happening with The Search for John Gissing? I've heard stuff about a DVD for that...

Binder: I'm gonna release it myself on DVD, right on my website, here in about a month or so.

MC: It was another SXSW movie.

Binder: Did you see it there?

MC: No, I didn't start going until a year or two later, but everyone I know who saw it liked it a lot.

Binder: I'll send you one, we're making a bunch of copies. We're shipping them right out of here, just do-it-ourselves. I made the movie and I liked how it came out. It did really well at festivals, but the only distribution I could get was like "well, we'll put in three theatres and then we'll own it forever".

I mean, I had a lot of my own money in it. I raised the money independently, and I was almost gonna just go do a couple weeks of reshooting, but then I started doing Mind of the Married Man. I got it all together and did another season of Married Man, and then I left to go do Upside of Anger and I finally just said, you know what? I'm never gonna get those reshoots done, it's sitting on the shelf, so I rewrote it where I woulda done the reshoots, and I called it The Multinationals, and I actually fixed it. I think there's a great premise for a really great international comedy in there, and I'm gonna remake the whole thing completely, with new actors.

MC: Is that what you're doing next?

Binder: No, I don't think I'm gonna do it next. I think the next thing I'm gonna do is this movie I wrote called The Emperor of Michigan.

MC: What's that about?

Binder: Well, it's kinda like a bookend companion piece to The Upside of Anger. It's a father and four grown sons, and the father is kind of a lost soul guy and he's been traveling around the world with this young woman...the mother died years ago, and the father just kind of lands back in these four sons' laps. I really like it a lot. I'm gonna shoot it in Michigan...Birmingham, Michigan, where I'm from, and I wrote it for Owen Wilson, but he jumped ship on me.

MC: Got anybody lined up for it?

Binder: Not yet. The father's more like Pacino's age, someone like that.

MC: So hopefully Emperor of Michigan or the John Gissing rework next?

Binder:I'd like to do [Emperor] next, but I just finished Reign Over Me basically, and I've been sick as hell, so I don't know. That's what I would like to do next. I want to do some writing, make some money, 'cause you know the way I do these movies, I do them pretty cheap.

The Multinationals probably after Emperor of Michigan. I'm gonna put out the Gissing DVD and then I'm gonna put out a book I'm working on called Crafting the Comedy. It's actually a series of four books, the first one I've got finished. It's interviews with screenwriters, just conversations. It's Woody Allen, Judd Apatow, it's got just about everybody that's done any comedy.

MC: You looking to do any more acting?

Binder: No, I'm not gonna do that anymore. It drives me crazy. You just sit around for all these days on end, and especially after being a director. As a director, you're right in the middle of a storm and your days go by so fast, and then you get on someone else's set when you're acting, and you look at your watch and it's goin' backwards. It's hell.

MC: Hey, I know you've got a meeting, I don't want to take up too much more of your time.

Binder: Listen, thanks for the interview.

MC: Thank you Mike.