(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 5/16/2013)

This Friday night James Franco and Travis Matthews‘ stunning, complicated and sexually graphic new film Interior. Leather Bar., a “docu-fiction” exploration of queer sex and BDSM subculture as it relates to Hollywood, mainstream culture and where we all draw the line as people, is making its Pacific Northwest debut at QDoc: Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival.

I had the opportunity to catch up with both Franco and Matthews this week to chat about the public’s reaction to the movie (so far), their intentions behind making it to begin with, how gay sex will save American cinema, and much more.

Watch the official Interior. Leather Bar. trailer and then read our conversation below:

Logan Lynn: Thanks for taking time out to do this, you guys! I watched the screener of Interior. Leather Bar. this week and ended up recognizing a handful of the actors you cast from Portland. One major focus of the film is the inner struggle of Val Lauren, whom you cast to play the Al Pacino character, and I am just wondering if this is something you experienced with all of the cast. Was there a process you went through with each of the actors and extras?

Travis Matthews: If you mean a process that went as far and as deep and exploratory as it did with Val, no. Initially when we did the casting call, and there were so many guys who were both gay and straight, and a lot of them had different ideas of what they were willing to do, what was OK, what was too much. I kind of thought that we should just bring on extras that were really 100-percent behind this, but then it seemed like it made a lot more sense just to complement the arc that was Val’s story. You look at Cruising; it’s a story that follows that main character in a very similar way. That was a lot of the intent.

Lynn: That makes sense. I’m seeing the term “docu-fiction” used all over the place to describe the movie. In the context of this film, what does that mean to you?

James Franco: I think that describes a lot of different dynamics that are happening within the film. Our source was a piece of fiction, a movie called Cruising, but that fictional feature film had a lot of documentary kind of history attached to it in a very strong way. If anybody knows that film nowadays, it’s very hard to extract the film from its history, the history of its production and the protests that went on, the history of its reception and the personal histories of the people involved. So, from the start, our project was engaged with a source that was already combining docu-fiction in a very strong way. I think that the way that Cruising and its history are tied together informed our approach, and a lot of it really was discovery and exploration as we went. We didn’t have any firm goal in mind. I think that, for me, one of the clearest things about the project at the beginning was that we had an area to explore, but that it would be an exploration. That was a huge part of it. Anyway, I guess that’s a long way of saying our source involved docu-fiction and our approach accordingly involved docu-fiction.

Lynn: Do you have any theories on what William Friedkin’s motivations were in making the original Cruising film? Have you heard him speak to that?

Franco: Yeah, I have heard him speak about it, and he Read the rest of this entry »

(Originally Published on Moviefone and The Huffington Post on 11/19/2012)

With Laika Studios releasing ParaNorman on 3D Blu-ray combo pack, Blu-ray combo pack, DVD, On Demand and digital download on Nov. 27, I decided to catch up with my old friend (and ParaNorman creator/director) Chris Butler. We chatted about his dream project coming to life, how this movie of his is changing the world, and why everyone needs to watch it at least twice.

Logan: Hey, Chris. Thanks so much for chatting with me today. For you, what is ParaNorman about?

Chris: I think mainly it’s about tolerance. It’s about how judging people is often misjudging people. The original seed of the idea was something as simple as “how cool would it be to make a stop-mo-animated zombie movie for kids?” and I think that had more to do with growing up on a gleeful diet of Ray Harryhausen creature features and cheesy horror movies. But then beyond that I started thinking that all the best zombie movies are really social commentary — zombies as metaphors. I had the lofty ambition of trying to do that on my movie, only making it a social commentary for kids. I think by far the hardest issue I faced as a child was “fitting in.” I was different, and when you’re a kid, “different” is considered “bad.” The world isn’t a tolerant place for people who don’t conform to the accepted norm. When I embraced that as the heart of the movie, the story really clicked. I wanted to juxtapose the fictional horror of the walking dead with the very real horror of what it is to be 11 years old and different.

Logan: Oh, God. Seriously. How long had this project been in the works?

Chris: I started writing it about 15 or 16 years ago. I kept returning to it over the years. There was something about it that just wouldn’t die, which I guess for a zombie movie is pretty appropriate.

Logan: Aww, it’s your baby!

Chris: This truly is my baby, from initial idea through first draft of the script to the finished movie. It’s a very personal project to me.

Logan: Clearly. I was also struck by the craft of it all. In a world of mass production and CGI, to see something so labor-intensive come to life is a real treat. Was it hard to convince people to come on board with your way of doing things instead of taking an easier animation route?

Chris: We’re an odd bunch in the stop-motion world. We live, breathe and fight for our medium. We love what we do, and for that reason this type of animation will always be around and will always attract amazingly talented people. I think there was a degree of passion among the crew for this project in particular that I don’t think I’ve seen before. Obviously, I’m biased, but I genuinely think people wanted to give this their all.

It was always conceived as stop-motion, right from day one. As soon as I saw the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts as a kid, I knew that stop-motion was the best way to bring the dead back to life!

Logan: It’s really special, Chris. And clearly, Casey Affleck’s ginger character is based on me. If one of the characters in the film were based on you and your experience in the world, who would it be? Read the rest of this entry »

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 8/20/2012)

I was recently introduced to Los Angeles-based electropop outfit Father Tiger by my friend/collaborator Jeffrey McHale, who directed both my “Bottom Your Way to the Top” video in 2009 and my “Quickly as We Pass” video in 2011, and who has now directed Father Tiger’s debut video, “Shell,” which just premiered this past week.

The video was made entirely with the photo app Instagram, and it is a real piece of genius. Jeff worked with artist John Parot (from Bravo’s Work of Art: The Search for the Next Great Artist), who also did the illustrations for our 2009 collaboration.

Watch Father Tiger‘s video for “Shell” below and be amazed:

Read the rest of this entry »