It hits stores alongside a reissue of “Stranger Than Paradise,” both discs coming from the auteur-lovers at Criterion. “Stranger Than Paradise” is, of course, well established in the indie pantheon and needs no boosterism here. It’s also been on disc before. This edition might not be very big news (despite the new director-approved transfer and juicy documentary extras), if not for the fact that Criterion throws in a rare movie for free: Jarmusch’s first feature, “Permanent Vacation.”

This makes the “Paradise” set feel like an echo of the company’s “Slacker” release from a few years back. Both packages pair an indie star’s breakthrough film with an earlier one that few fans have heard of, and fewer have seen. As with Richard Linklater’s “It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books,” Jarmusch’s “Permanent Vacation” is one of those debuts that admirers call “challenging” and detractors call “a chore”: meandering and ultra-low-budget, it makes the famously laid-back “Paradise” look like a Hollywood thriller. It does, however, offer a great time-capsule peek at grimy turn-of-the-’80s New York and the hipsters who squatted there.

But back to “Night on Earth.” The setup’s easy: five small, self-contained stories, each taking place at the same time, set in taxicabs in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. When the first story has run its course, we watch a wall-mounted clock turn back to the beginning and are transported to the next locale.

I haven’t done a scientific survey, but I’ve always had the impression that people looked down on this one — both at the time of release, when skeptics thought casting Winona Ryder as a grease monkey cabbie was a sellout (that’s nonsense: she’s great here), and in retrospect, with viewers’ post-Oscars annoyance with Roberto Benigni contaminating his hilariously profane performance. Or maybe it’s that anthologies of all stripes — even those where the parts are conceived and produced together, as opposed to some slapdash, multidirector omnibus movie — tend to get a bum rap.

Whatever the case, its critics are wrong. “Night on Earth” bursts with low-key charm, its miniatures reveling in the sparks that fly when interesting characters drop their guard and truly interact with strangers. In the most overtly entertaining sequence, a street dude played by Giancarlo Esposito, frustrated by dozens of cabs who won’t take black passengers to Brooklyn, has to ride with an East German (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who can’t drive to save his life. (Along the way they hijack Rosie Perez, who as you might guess doesn’t hide her displeasure.)

But it’s tempting to say that the best segment is the one in which the least happens: the Finnish episode, where a forlorn Matti Pellonpää picks up three drunks who only think they have problems until they persuade him to recount his own.

Through the early ’90s, I burned the film’s Tom Waits soundtrack into my brain so deeply that it’s impossible for me to comment on it objectively. (If I’d been big on mixtapes at the time, I’m sure every one I made would’ve had at least one of these tracks on it.) But the slowly evolving theme, creepy-crawly here and rollicking there, gives each section its own character while simultaneously gluing them together. Waits bookends the film with dueling versions of the song “Back in the Good Old World,” first as a gypsy romp and then as a waltzing lullaby.

The song gets lovelier every time I listen to it, but when I checked online just now to make sure I had the name right, I learned something horrible: The album appears to be out of print.

When’s Criterion going to start reissuing CDs?

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Perhaps “kindred spirits” would be the best term to describe writer-director David Wain and actor Ken Marino, both of whom helped craft the independent film “Wet Hot American Summer,” which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.

Wain and Marino, who were once college roommates, hit it big in the mid-’90s with the sketch comedy troupe “The State,” which ultimately became a series on MTV. Since then the twosome have grown with one another and have continued to collaborate.

“A lot of the time during the writing process I’m thinking of ideas and typing them out,” Wain said recently.

“And I’m making something for us to eat,” Marino said. “Like a pizza or eggplant parmesan.”

And yet this relationship seems to work, possibly even better than a married couple’s. So it comes as no surprise that the comedic duo have combined their talents once again to create “The Ten,” a film which puts a humorous twist on a well-known set of rules, the Ten Commandments.

During a recent interview it was often difficult for a reporter to decipher whether Wain and Marino were being serious about what they were saying or if they were simply being the jokesters that they are.

“[The Ten Commandments] are older than we thought,” Wain deadpanned. “We thought we had discovered this thing, but apparently the Ten Commandments have been around for years.”

“I know for a fact that [Charlton Heston] wrote two of [the Ten Commandments],” Marino added.

Though, Heston may have done the role of Moses justice in the 1967 film “The Ten Commandments,” one doubts that he wrote a commandment or two.

After a 90-second Google search, Wain and Marino said, they learned what all the commandments were and their order of appearance and used them as a launching pad for “The Ten.”

“We didn’t take the Ten Commandments as they were,” Wain said. “We did a little re-work and polish to them.”

Made on a $4 million budget, shot in 40 locations in 28 days and consisting of an all-star cast, the film is an original of its kind.

“It was important to us to do something different that was funny and fresh and made us laugh,” Wain said.

“The Ten” is a bizarre tale of tales narrated by Paul Rudd, who also served as a co-producer. This film includes all Ten Commandments, with overlapping characters and stories.

For example, Adam Brody breaks the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” by becoming an idolized God-like figure and causes his wife, Kelly (Winona Ryder), to leave him.

Later in the film Kelly appears again. After separating from Brody, she then becomes infatuated over a ventriloquist’s wooden puppet, and steals it for her own love fest.

Though Ryder made headlines in December 2001 when she was caught on tape for allegedly stealing from a Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, the fact that she was asked to play out the commandment of “Thou shalt not steal” was a complete coincidence, Wain explained.

“It didn’t occur to me until I spoke to her on the phone and I said, ‘Your commandment is, “Thou shalt not steal,’” and she said, ‘Great,’” he said. “It was a great part for her. And she turned out to be just an amazing actress and completely committed to our silly material and raised it five levels.”

And that’s exactly what this film is — silly.

“We’re not really trying to make any point about religion or anything for that matter,” Wain said.

With that said, Christian groups or whoever for that matter should hold on to their letters of disapproval concerning the film until they see it.

“In my opinion it’s a morality tale,” Marino said. “You break a commandment, you pay your dues.”

Furthermore, aside from Ryder’s character’s zany antics in the film becomes wackier as it progresses, especially, when two neighbors compete against each other to see who can purchase the most CAT scan machines and the big musical number at the end of the film.

“Whether you like it or you don’t, I don’t think it’s a lot like other movies,” Wain said.

LA Independent

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”The Ten,” written by the same director of Wet Hot American Summer, is a compilation of ten different stories, each depicting one of the ancient commandments given to Moses by God.

Christians have expressed their concern about the film and how it degrades and insults God and His laws. Many critics, however, believe the movie will have little influence.

“The Ten Commandments have been a cornerstone of our society for nearly one hundred years,” explained “The Ten” director David Wain on the film’s website. “If you’ve ever taken a Sunday off, or if you’ve ever stopped yourself from murdering someone, then you yourself have been following the Ten Commandments without even knowing it.”

The film has a number of stars in it including Paul Rudd, Adam Brody, Gretchen Mol, Winona Ryder, Oliver Platt and Jessica Alba. Each of them either stars or plays minor roles in each of the short scripts. Each uses the Bible to create a foundation for an often inappropriate caricature.

A main example of one of the acts tells the story of a virgin librarian who takes a trip to Mexico and experiences a sexual awakening with a local named Jesus H. Christ.

Other shorts include a prisoner coveting his inmate’s “wife,” a woman who steals a ventriloquist doll after she falls in love with it, and a police detective who covets his neighbor’s Cat Scan machine.

Some Christian leaders feel that the film is part of a larger trend of increasing antagonism toward Christianity and religion in America.

“This is going to be a very negative attack on faith and values,” said Dr. Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, to World Net Daily. “It’s very sad society has descended into this attack mode.”

There have been mixed reviews towards the film, with some finding the over-the-top humor entertaining while others feeling it went too far.

The review by the Associated Press gave it one and a half out of four stars.

“Anytime you compile a series of vignettes and call it a feature film, you’re going to have hits and misses. It’s the nature of the structure,” reviewed Christy Lemire of AP. “’The Ten,’ unfortunately, has more misses.”

Many faith-based critics are not greatly worried about the impact it will have morally, however.

Its distributor, City Lights Pictures, is not one of the major companies and should not be far reaching.

“This [film] is not going to be a major influence,” added Baehr.

Still, movie critics are voicing their concerns over the spoofing of something featured so prominently in Judaism and Christianity.

“In the old film code, you couldn’t defame anyone’s religion,” Baehr said.

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Winona Ryder did the red carpet, had her picture snapped, but I didn’t see her in the theater or at the afterparty. Apparently, during Sundance she came to the screening, but couldn’t get in because her entourage was too large. Maybe she decided to skip the NY scene. Soon she’ll be on the cover of Vogue; I’m happy she’s poised for a comeback.

“Why did you want to be naked in the grand finale?” I asked Jack Fisher, president of City Lights and brother of CEO Danny Fisher, after the screening. “I knew I wanted to be apart of a cult classic,” he said.

Outside the theater, David Wain was congratulated warmly by Christopher Meloni as they swapped contact info.

At the afterparty in the storied Avalon (get it, Ten Commandments-spoof – party in church?) I was able to talk to David Wein. He had a really pretty girlfriend with him.

Q. How did you feel about it? (had to ask the obligatory question)

A. I’m proud of the movie.

Q. Why this topic and theme?

A. The Ten Commandments are everywhere, in every hotel room and on monuments.

Q. I couldn’t tell if you were for or against the Commandments, what did it all mean?

A. If you make or break the commandments, the intention is there.

Q. Why did you end with naked men?

A. Why not.

Q. Any last thoughts?

A. I’m glad our brand of humor is gaining acceptance.

I met someone that looked distinctly like Justin Theroux or the character he played in the movie — Jesus – over passed mango shrimp. I asked him if he was, in fact, Jesus. He said “no” with a cockney smile. I didn’t know if he was quoting the movie; I moved on to mini-cheeseburgers.

The very funny Kerri Kenney responded to my questions with witty banter. She called the movie a “morality tale and comic romp,” professed her love for David Wain and exclaimed “my shoes are too small.”

Paul Rudd the narrator of the 10 stories, was dashing and had a fabulous smile.

Q. Were you bothered by the taboo topic?

A. Never.

Q. It looked like you guys were having fun.

A. With friends, how could you not be?

Continuing that theme, Roberto Cannavale felt the movie was “hilarious.” I asked why he went naked. “Because they’re my friends.”

Ken Marino was surrounded by girls and flashing lightbulbs so I couldn’t approach; he was simply stunning in a suit. By the time I could interject, the free booze had kicked in and I couldn’t think of anything to ask.

Overall the night was cool. Yet Avalon has never been so stayed and I’m still slightly shocked and giddy at seeing such an edgy movie.

By Alex Geana

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O filme chama-se A Scanner Darkly, de 2006, e bem que poderia ser lançado como longa-metragem numa sessão adulta do Anima Mundi, graças à sua técnica primorosa de rotoscopia. Nele, a bela Winona não está na categoria de produtora, como em Garota, Interrompida ou em Adoráveis Mulheres (filmes que ela produziu pra ver se descolava uma indicação ao Oscar, o que não deu certo), e entre os produtores estão ninguém menos que os sócios e amigos Steven Soderbergh e George Clooney. A direção e o roteiro são de Richard Linklater (que também dirigiu e roteirizou Antes do Amanhecer e Antes do Pôr-do-Sol, aqueles, com Julie Delpy e Ethan Hawke). A história é baseada em romance lançado sob o título de O Homem Duplo em 1977 e escrito por Philip K. Dick (autor de Blade Runner). Aqui, Winona Ryder trabalha apenas como atriz.

O filme foi bem recebido pelo público e a crítica americana, mesmo tendo uma apresentação da história considerada deficiente, a trama, ou a ausência dela. No entanto, é todo composto em rotoscopia, que é, em parcas palavras, a técnica de animação na qual os movimentos são primeiramente filmados com atores reais e depois transferidos, quadro-a-quadro, para a animação 2D (feita a lápis e arte-finalizada com pintura digital). A equipe de animadores é, pelo visto, primorosa. Basta uma olhada nas imagens do filme.

O interessante é observar que além de Winona Ryder (cujos pais foram hippies e que deram o nome Winona à filha por significar “primeiro filho nascido mulher”) e Keanu Reeves (de Matrix), o elenco de A Scanner Darkly conta com Woody Harrelson (Assassinos por Natureza) e o conhecido ator “junkie”, Robert Downey Jr. (de Chaplin e da série de TV Ally McBeal). Detalhe: Winona e Reeves já trabalharam juntos em Drácula de Bram Stoker, de Coppola, na época em que namoravam.

O personagem central é de Keanu Reeves. Ele interpreta Bob Arctor, um agente de narcóticos que vai atrás da fonte de produção e venda da letal “Substância D”. O “D” do nome da substância vem de “death” (morte) e compõe, portanto, a mais perigosa droga existente no mercado, conseguindo cancelar o link entre os hemisférios da mente, levando a um irreversível dano cerebral. Daí, a trajetória de Arctor ser tragicômica, pois ele mesmo é um dependente da Substância D. Ele vive tantas vidas a ponto de seus superiores, na polícia, não saberem como identificá-lo. Ora ele pode ser confundido como sendo Bob Arctor, traficante, ora como “Fred”, uma outra identidade do também agente do Narcóticos Bob Arctor. Enfim, só assistindo pra conferir. Se o filme tiver no mínimo a carga psicanalítica do livro homônimo de Philip K. Dick, já será um ganho.

A Scanner Darkly trata, entre outros temas, do consumo de drogas. Em relação às técnicas de filmagem, o filme se mostra cativante. Reside aí o seu diferencial. Nesse aspecto, ele é bem sucedido, permitindo à platéia compartilhar lampejos de paranóia e de desilusão dos personagens. O “blur” (ou seja, a tela embaçada) utilizado em boa parte do filme ajuda nessa atmosfera de desconexão, de confusão total provocada pela tal Substância D. Assim, consegue se enfatizar a caricatura bastante ácida e mórbida, repleta de diálogos que vão do surreal ao cômico entre pessoas cujas mentes se renderam a viagens alucinantes e alucinógenas. O trailer, na internet, é um show de imagens.

A crítica americana e mesmo os fóruns sobre A Scanner Darkly nos adiantam que, embora talentoso pela maneira de ser construído, o filme peca pela dificuldade de mostrar o conflito, de decolar a tensão, sem a qual é impossível assistir a qualquer coisa. Mesmo o mundo de paranóia e conspiração (o trailer enfatiza a idéia de que “qualquer ação sua pode ser gravada”, daí a idéia de scanner) fica inerte, porque essa experiência parece perdida no plot, na trama. O curioso é que Linklater faz isso, só que suavemente e tendo o romance como pano de fundo, em dois de seus filmes anteriores, aqueles dois que têm no elenco a dupla Julie Delpy e Ethan Hawke passeando pelas ruas de Viena e Paris.

Source: Bigorna.net

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Winona Ryder had a devil of a time getting into character for her latest role in The Crucible.

In this powerful story of the 17th century witch trials in Salem, Mass., Ryder plays Abigale Williams, the teenage servant girl who unleashed a witch-hunting frenzy in an isolated religious community.

Abigale had a brief, secret affair with a married farmer named John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis), only to be shunned when the older man confessed the sin to his wife (Joan Allen).

Abigale’s revenge was to accuse dozens of the town’s leading citizens of being witches. Her accusations resulted in the most notorious witch trial in U.S. history, ending with the execution of 17 innocent people.

“The temptation in a role like Abigale is to go for pure evil, but I couldn’t just play her as a bitch. I had a great deal of sympathy for her,” admits Ryder.

“Abigale was an outsider. She was an independent, highly sexual girl in a repressive, patriarchal religious community. She was different and that difference made her an outcast.”

Flashback to 1982. Ryder is 11 years old and her family moves from San Francisco to the sleepy suburban community of Petaluma, Calif.

“It was my dream come true but it would soon become a nightmare,” recalls Ryder.

“I grew up in San Francisco around drag queens, openly gay couples and feminists. I never differentiated. They were all just wonderful people. My parents were hippies, so we eventually moved into a commune where free love and nudity were an everyday occurrence.”

The preteen Ryder read the books in her parents’ library and longed for the traditional family life of her favorite fictional characters.

“In Petaluma, I finally had my own room in a real house and I was going to a real school. I was in heaven.”

Ryder’s dreams were shattered her first week at school.

“My hair was really short. I wore these androgynous clothes and I was tiny and frail. Girls threw food at me and one day three boys started calling me a faggot. I told them I was a girl but they wouldn’t believe me, so they beat me up. I had to have stitches in my head and I had a broken rib.”

When her parents filed a complaint with the school, the principal suggested Ryder leave because she was deemed a bad influence.

“My parents taught me at home after that and one of the plays we read together was Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. I remember thinking even then that I was Abigale. We had both been made scapegoats.”

In retrospect, Ryder feels lucky.

“I have so many girlfriends who were date raped, beaten by their boyfriends or coerced into sex by producers, directors and other actors. Though my early romances made headlines, I was never abused in a relationship,” says Ryder, referring to her live-in relationships with actor Johnny Depp and rocker David Pirner.

This year, Ryder has been dating X-Files star David Duchovny.

Ryder says her performance in The Crucible is “the most sexual of my career. I’ve never been asked to delve this deeply into a character’s sexuality before.”

She also feels her scenes with Day-Lewis are “supremely erotic even though I didn’t have to take off my clothes, get sprayed with glycerine and roll around naked with someone. It’s all in their glances, the tension between them and the muscles in their bodies whenever they get close. It’s also trickier to play than those cliched Hollywood sex scenes.”

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By David Ansen to Newsweek

Brash, bold and broad, Great Balls of Fire holds up a fun-house mirror to the life of Jerry Lee Lewis, the rock-and-roll wild man whose meteoric career in the mid-’50s crashed and burned when word got out he’d married his 13-year-old cousin (while still married to a previous wife). Concentrating on these few hyberbolic years, director Jim McBride (“The Big Easy”) and co-writer Jack Baran have chose to focus on the legend, not the man. What they’re after is the raucous, rebellious spirit of rock and roll itself, spelled out in the primary colors of a 1950s musical. Anyone expecting a psychological expose of Lewis’s scandal-ridden life — his six wives, his alcoholism, his troubles with the IRS and reports of violence — should look elsewhere. Dennis Quaid’s cocky, flamboyant Lewis, played with a preening audaciousness so broad re resembles a cartoon character, is no saint, but the movie celebrates him as an exuberant sinner who gave 150 percent of himself to his music. Like his God-fearing cousin Jimmy Swaggart (Alec Baldwin), he’s an evangelical performer, but instead of praising Jesus he sings secular hosannas to raging teen hormones.

The advantage of McBride’s stylized, movie-movie approach is that he’s able for the most part to avoid the dutiful approach of a “La Bamba” or “Buddy Holly Story.” There may not be much going on under the surface, but “Great Balls of Fire” is never drab. The musical set pieces really cook (Lewis re-recorded his old hits for the movie) especially, Valerie Wellington’s and Lewis’s versions of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” What the movie can’t do is bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. McBride tries to keep the upbeat tone, but he’s stuck with downbeat facts, and the tale just breaks off at an arbitrary point.

The movie’s most delicate accomplishment is its funny, sympathetic depiction of Lewis’s love affair with the schoolgirl Myra (on whose memoirs the film is based). Winona Ryder again proves herself the most gifted and endearing teen actress around. She plays off Quaid’s manic romantic assault with breathtaking spontaneity, her fresh, wide-eyed face running the scale of adolescent emotions, from glazed puppy love to pop-eyed bewilderment.

Having played the strange, black clad daughter in “Beetlejuice,” the reluctant high-school killer in “Heathers” and now the child bride Myra Lewis, Winona Ryder admits she’s “a magnet for really controversial roles.: She’s drawn to dark comedy and offbeat characters — the risk excites her. “Heathers” isn’t only her favorite part, it’s on of her favorite movies, along with “Brazil” and “My Life as a Dog.” This is not a typical teenager’s roll call of faves, but then how many teenagers can claim Timothy Leary as their godfather?

Born Winona Horowitz in Winona, Minn., she grew up in Petaluma, Calif., a good student but something of an outcast at Petaluma High with her taste for vintage men’s suits and her passion for books and writing. Her father, a rare-book seller, and her mother, a film buff, were veterans of Haight-Ashbury and counted Leary and Aldous Huxley among their friends. The third of four children in a close-knit family, Winona had an active imagination early on and was studying acting at 12 when an agent discovered her from a screen test. Shortly thereafter she landed her first role in “Lucas” and hasn’t stopped working since.

Enviable moment: Besieged with offers, heralded as a star of the future, sometimes dubbed a “heartthrob” (“I think of Shaun Cassidy when I hear that,” she giggles), Ryder is at an enviable but uncertain moment. She’s now shooting “Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael” and will costar with Cher in “Mermaids” in the fall. But she’d like to attend college “back East” and she fantasizes about marrying and having children in Minnesota.

But that’s getting ahead of herself. At the moment she’s a 17-year-old flushed with her first taste of independence, having recently rented an apartment in Los Angeles with her best friend Heather (yes, Heather). She’s excited, faced with such unfamiliar responsibilities as calling the gas company for gas. She insists that a star trip is not for her; indeed that acting, as much as she loves it, is not her first priority. “The minute I start taking it all too seriously someone will slap me into shape,” she says with a laugh. She’s keeping in mind some words of advice given her by the late Trey Wilson, who appeared with her in “Great Balls of Fire”: “No matter what you do in your life or career, work hard but always remember to have a good time, otherwise what are you doing it for?”

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Winona Ryder’s acting career started with chewable vitamin C.

Ryder, the Petaluma High School freshman who stars in the hit movie “Lucas” said she’s always wanted to be an actress, “ever since I was a little girl. I remember I could lie real good. I loved to eat chewable vitamin C’s but my parents would only give me so many. I could thin up the greatest stories about how they were missing and why.

“Sometimes it actually worked,” she said with a laugh. “It was sort of deceiving of me, but it was fun. I realised I could do a good job.”

Ryder’s friends and neighbors will have a chance to see what kind of job she does because “Lucas” opens today for a week’s run at the Washington Square Cinemas.

It’s scary top think some of her friends will be seeing and judging her performance, the 14-year-old said, “I’m sort of shy,” she explained. “When I went to the screening in L.A. and people would come up and compliment me I would thank them but it was such a shock, you know, that so many people had just seen me act.”

The first time she saw the film it was hard to watch. “I was looking at my agent’s arm and he was trying to get me to look at the screen. I was just really scared to see my face that big.”

In Petaluma, “people are going to see me as a totally person,” she said. “People who don’t know me will probably think that I’m like Rina,” the character she plays.

Ryder, 14, said that although there are differences, Rina “is like me in some ways. I figured out when I was thinking about her before filming that she really loves Lucas. She has for years, and it’s not just a crush. After ‘Lucas,’ after the movie’s over, what I figured out is they would get together and they would be really happy.”

While “Lucas” is playing in town, “I think I’m be getting a lot of attention, although I’m not sure what kind of attention,” Ryder said.

Her peers “probably will be really shocked, from what I’ve heard from my friends who are actors. Corey (Haim, who plays Lucas), for instance, people just call him, ‘Oh, here comes the big movie star,’ and tease him. I hope that’s not going to happen with me. I know my real friends won’t change.”

Ryder understands about friendship, especially after making the film.

“The theme of ‘Lucas’ is to be yourself and people will still care about you, and don’t try to change for other people,” she said.

“It’s a very important message. I see a lot of people that are really caught up in the system and to get friends they try to do things that they’re really not for at all. And that’s really ridiculous.

“For instance, a girl would dress like her peers even if she didn’t want to, to have those peers be her friends. I think that’s really sad they won’t accept her for who she is.”

Ryder knows about being different. When she arrived in Petaluma last year, she found the cliques much tighter than those she had left behind in San Francisco.

“It was hard during eighth grade,” she admitted. “I was a little more outrageous-looking and got a lot of hassling. But people are beginning to realise that you can look different and still be a nice person. I have a lot of friends here now and they are all really great. Some tease me about (being in the film) but, you know, in a humorous way.

Film is comparatively new to Ryder who has been acting for audiences since the age of eight. “Lucas” s her first movie. She’s going to do another film this summer.

Her first stage role was Auntie Em in a summer school production of “The Wizard of Oz.” After that she went to the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco to learn acting, auditioning to earn a place n the prestigious school. She won scholarships at ACT for two years.

Ryder got the part in “Lucas” through her Los Angeles agent, she said, making no mention of her talent.

The film was shot in Chicago last summer.

She discovered that “when you do a film, you have people waiting on you and you tend to get spoiled. Thank God I had people there to keep me down to earth – my best friend, Heather Bursch and my older brother, Jubal.”

There were good times and boring times.

After the day’s work, “we would go back to the hotel, order up room service, all hang out in one of our rooms and, lie, watch TV. Some of us would go over the scene we were going to do the next day and some of us would listen to music.”

Other times weren’t so great. “One day, they called me and Charlie Sheen at seven in the morning and they got us there and out us in wardrobe and makeup right away. It was disgustingly hot. They kept saying, ‘We’re going to get to your guys’ shot, we’re going to get to our guy’s shot.’ At seven at night, they said, ‘We’re not going to get to it.’ We spent all day sitting on the set for nothing. But the majority of it is fun.”

When Ryder gets scripts through her agent, she asks advice of her best friend and of her parents, Mike and Cindy Horowitz of Petaluma.

At school, Winona uses her parents’ last name, not her stage name, which was chosen on the advice of her father.

Her favourite subject is English. “I love to read, to expand my mind.” Building on that interest, she also writes in her free time. The daughter of two writers, she is working on two scripts, both mysteries.

On the down side, “I hate P.E. and I’m horrible at maths.”

Attending school and living in Petaluma helps Ryder keep a good mental balance, she said.

“I get treated so different here than in L.A. When I go down there, I get a lot of attention, go to studios and audition for movies. Everyone compliments me and everyone’s so professional. I come back here and it’s just – Petaluma. It’s nice that I live somewhere where I don’t get my head high. I don’t want to get conceited.”

She pauses a moment. “The worst thing about being an actress is people judge you before they get to know you. People call me conceited and they’ve never even met me.’

Ryder is one of four children. Her younger brother, Uri, 10, and her sister, Sunyata, 18, saw the film as did Jubal, 17. “They’re really happy for me but it’s sort of hard (for them) to comprehend,” Ryder said. “They were a little shocked when they saw ‘Lucas’ because they saw their sister being someone else.”

Ryder said she would like to spend her life in “the business,” acting and directing.

If not, she also has her eye on a career as a human rights lawyer.

She intends to go to college to study literature and law. She may be able to help pay for her education with her earnings, which are being kept in trust for her.

However, being in a film doesn’t mean instant riches, she said. “Everyone thinks that because I’m an actress I’m a millionaire and live in a mansion. Not yet.”

One of Winona’s friends, Helene Longenbaugh, says she’s sure the young actress is “going to be big in Petaluma when the movie comes out here. The other day at the book store, World of Words, I heard two people talking and looking at us and one said, ‘Isn’t that the girl from ‘Lucas’?’ ”

FILM REVIEW ‘Lucas’: sensitive look at teen love
By Lee Siegel

The joys and agonies of teenage puppy love are explored with sensitivity, humor and intelligence in “Lucas,” a 20th Century-Fox film that displays a refreshing willingness to avoid easy answers to the travails of growing up.

The title character, played by Corey Haim, is a short, smart, articulate and bespectacled 14-year-old wimp who catches insects and falls for redheaded 16-year-old Maggie (Kerri Green) during summer vacation.

They’ll both be in the same high school class because Lucas is “accelerated” because f he’s very bright.

A relationship blossoms. But when school starts, Lucas learns painfully that what he views as love, Maggie sees only as a close friendship.

Maggie becomes attracted to a truly likeable football star, Cappie (Charlie Sheen), and both defend Lucas against cruel jokes and physical abuse from other, brutish football players who refer to Lucas as “leukoplakia,” a sometimes cancerous mouth disease.

But Cappie is still dating cheerleader Alise (Courtney Thorne-Smith). Meanwhile, Lucas barely notices the adoring stares of Rina (Winona Ryder) a pixie-like, brunette wimpette.

The pain of the unrequited crush is captured beautifully during a choir practice scene. Rina casts her longing gaze at Lucas, whose eyes are focused on Maggie. But Maggie – and Alise – are watching Cappie.

Despite his usual common sense, Lucas’ anger gets the better of him as he realizes that Maggie wants him only as a friend. He yells at her and tells her to leave hi alone.

When Maggie tries to explain that you like some people as wonderful friends and others as romantic interests, Lucas demands to know why. Maggie can’t explain. So Lucas tries to answer his own question, telling Maggie that Darwinian natural selection makes females pick the big, strong males to assure survival of the species.

As Cappie dumps Alise and develops a relationship with Maggie – who joins the cheerleader squad despite Lucas’ insistence that such activity is superficial – Lucas asserts his late-blooming manliness by worming his way onto the field during a crucial football game.

A less realistic film might have made Lucas the conquering hero. But this movie remains true to reality, with Lucas gaining respect and friendship, but not Maggie’s love.

Writer-director David Seltzer deftly manages his cast, portraying the teen-ages as warm, vulnerable and thoroughly engaging. Even the brutish jocks who torment Lucas show flickering signs of underlying humanity.

As a result, “Lucas” paints a sensitive portrait of youth as human beings, not the sex-and drug-crazed, one-dimensional stereotypes seen in far too many films dealing with teen-agers.

Rated PG-13 for some harsh language.

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