Dayton, Faris, "Sunshine"

email this story
read comments (4)
post a comment

A well-deserved N.Y. Times piece about Little Miss Sunshine directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, who are very married, very talented and who finish each other's sentences.

There's just this one tiny odd note in Franz Lidz's piece that I'm sure Dayton is regretting to some extent already. It comes when Dayton refers to a former roommate named Frank H. Sprague, "a perpetual 30 year-old college student [whose] extended academic career had spanned 22 years...[and] was one of those people who really did what you're supposed to do in life but never reaped any of the benefits," inside whom "there was a whole universe hidden." Sprague ended up dead a few years ago "in a derelict Hollywood studio apartment," Lidz reports. And then right after this sentence he quotes Dayton as saying Sprague "died in his underwear clutching a Hershey bar."

Whoa. No matter how much of a loser or a dilletante Sprague might have been, it's disrespectful to dismiss him that way. The use of the words "clutching a Hershey bar" doesn't feel right.

"Fountain" poster<< previous | next >>Flags and Black Sands

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 15, 2006 at 3:41 PM

comment #1

Anonymous says ...

That "hershey bar" bar comment is a little off. Still, they're really fantastic directors. It's a great movie and I agree totally with the review over at collider.com. It's amazing how many great directors have come from music videos (Fincher, Jonze, Romanek etc.).

There's a great, and sad, bit in a book I just bought (too lazy to find it to get the name -- Luke Greenfield, Todd Phillips, Patty Jenkins and a ton of directors are interviewed about their careers so far) where McG admits he's very depressed about the fact that he's not as respected as Spike Jonze and the elite of his peers. He says, "Mark Romanek said that 98% of music videos are crap, but the other 2% are the most amazing shit out there." What McG doesn't realize is his videos are part of that 98%. He was using it to try and lend credibility to his music video ouvre, but it does the opposite. I wonder if We Are Marshall is going to be any good.

Posted by Anonymous at July 15, 2006 4:33 PM

comment #2

Nicol D says ...

"It's amazing how many great directors have come from music videos (Fincher, Jonze, Romanek etc.). "

With the exception of Fincher, none of these directors has made enough films to decide if they are great or not.

As for Jonze I suspect Kaufmanis the auteur here.

The vast majority of music vid directors stink and are part of what is wrong with Hollywood.

If in 30 years we still mention the name Spike Jonze we can reconsider. As for now, I'll leave the word 'great' to people like Ford, Capra, Kubrick, Spielberg, Bergman etc.

Posted by Nicol D at July 16, 2006 9:22 AM

comment #3