Based on the best-selling book of the same name, by Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez , The Soloist stars two of the biggest actors on the planet in this true story of how Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) discovered that Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a homeless schizophrenic man who played violin on the streets of Los Angeles, was once a classical music prodigy. The Soloist chronicles Lopez’s attempts to help the troubled genius find his way back to the music world he loved so dearly.
In this exclusive interview the Oscar-winning Foxx and Academy Award-nominated Downey, the Hollywood heavyweights recall meeting their real-life counterparts for the first time, while Robert explains why he wanted to look inside Lopez’s closet and Foxx, discusses how and why he studied the physical and emotional aspects of Ayers, and how playing a schizophrenic almost drove the former Dreamgirls leading man insane. Plus: this week’s Blu-rays and DVDs, after the jump.
Robert, you portray real-life journalist Steve Lopez in The Soloist, and he said that you actually asked him if you could look in his closet to get a sense of who he was…
DOWNEY: “Where does it all end?” [Laughs]
Well, in deciding how closely you want to get to the real person you are playing, for you, where is that imaginary line? And, what did you find in Steve’s closet?
DOWNEY: “Well, you’re supposing that he allowed me into his closet. He marvels at the idea that I asked. He never even dignified it with a response, nor would he allow me to interview him at a distance or at close range. We had a cigar together and we talked. He wanted to tell me that to impersonate him would be to do a disservice to the movie. But I mean, it’s different every time. I knew that the technical prowess and the degree of difficulty was going to fall on Jamie (Foxx), and that I was to observe and report on that as though I were an audience member. (Director) Joe Wright said that it was really important that I do next to nothing and listen a lot, which is very counterintuitive to my kind of ectomorphic disposition. So, it was an equal challenge for me in that way. I had a couple of ideas. I thought that my hair should be short and the next thing you know Catherine Keener is shaving my head — the first day of rehearsal — with a number two scissor blade.”
Jamie, the second time after you met your real-life counterpart, Nathaniel Ayers, apparently you looked so much like him that no one could tell the two of you apart. How does a transformation like that happen?
FOXX: “All of us, you sort of want to be the person. I got a chance to go down and watch Nathanial Anthony Ayers from a distance, without meeting him, because a lot of times when people meet us they’ll be on their best behavior and they’ll change it up. I just wanted to see him in his own element, how he ordered his food, how he talked to people. Within five minutes, you would’ve seen four different sides of this guy. He was happy. He was angry. He was jubilant. He was all these different things. So by doing that, when you’re doing a character you want to do the nuance. I dropped some weight. Got my hair done nicely, and then I got a chance to meet him. I filmed him on my phone while he was talking, just to capture some of those little nuggets. It was also scary to play someone schizophrenic. We’re all artists and we all go different places in our minds, and I know how they feel. I feel this way, that if I were to lose my mind I would lose everything. So that was a little bit of a fear going into the project, but that was it. You just had to get it and once you get it you feel like it’s really that person. You’ll say it in your mouth, you’ll say whatever that person says and hear it in your mind. Then you say, ‘Okay, I am that person.’”
Your costar, Catherine Keener mentioned that one of the real-life people of the story talked to her about not wanting to take their medicine because she was afraid she would lose her creativity…
DOWNEY: “And that the voices were her friends, and that they were her only comfort and that by silencing them she was going to lose the only sense of community that she had.”
The Soloist really oozes a strong sense of taking Ayers to another place when he plays his music. Jamie, could you relate to that aspect of him, since you are a musician yourself?
FOXX: “I actually thought that I was Nathanial at one point, and called my manager late one night and was explaining to him why Nathanial does what he does. He will say, ‘Red shirt, blue shirt, jeans,’ so that it would keep him sane, but after doing it over and over again, if you were looking from the outside, it would look like this guy is insane, but I believe that the music relaxed him. I said, ‘Marcus, the music is what calms him. That’s what soothes him,’ because the music takes you someplace else. When you get in the elevator, most people get nervous in elevators, and that’s the reason the muzak is playing. That soft music sort of calms you without you even knowing. So as a musician, of course, I’ll go through things in my life and things are not quite the way that I want them to be, and then you go and hear a song or you play some music it changes your whole outlook. So that’s what I do and I know that’s what Nathaniel did.”
What was it like shooting among the homeless in downtown L.A., Jamie? Are you passionate about the city?
FOXX: “Well, you know what, we were passionate, but I wasn’t as passionate as Joe Wright was — which is a little amazing because here’s a guy from England saying, ‘No. This is what it’s about.’ I remember talking to Mr. Downey, Jr. about, like, ‘Is this really what we should be doing?’ At first I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to be this close to these people. I don’t know if I want to be that person.’ Then to see those people and to feel some of their stories it made you become more passionate about it and it made you look at it completely different. We’re Hollywood behind our gates, doing whatever we’re doing, and you never think that you have those types of feelings, those revelations, and with this movie there was really a revelation. It was great. It was great being down there and shooting. It’s a great place.”
There were times while I was watching The Soloist, I was reminded the speech that Robert’s character in Tropic Thunder — Kirk Lazarus — about not going “full retard.” When you do a film like this, how important is it not to get lost in the character?
DOWNEY: “I think that we’d all agree that job one is aesthetic distance. Mr. Gellison, my theater arts teacher from Santa Monica High School, taught us that — it’s right there in the first three pages of the book on theater arts. But then it’s that thing that just because you’ve read the owner’s manual it doesn’t mean that you use the machine that way. I think it’s really important, though. I guess the thing here is that it was this journey by the end, and Catherine and I were talking about it because she was serving functions, different and separate from what they were in the story. We were literally talking about it and writing this end scene with us in the house — that we used to be married in — about what happened, and this and that. I’d had this idea about likening it to the Northridge earthquake, which I think was something that every Los Angelino could relate to. That had to do with when my own first marriage — things that started to tip up for me, and all the promise of L.A. compared to what it really is. So it was this sense… You don’t want to cross the line, but what you want to do is bring as much as of yourself to bear as you could. The funny thing is that I would see Jamie — who essentially created a system of playing cello and violin, and I played a little bit of violin when I just did Sherlock Holmes and it is mind numbing. Mind numbingly insane — I utilized Jamie’s system just to get a take or two down, and he did it day by day by day. Then we’d be at Disney Hall and he would go over because it had been a particularly difficult day, and he was entertaining the hundred extras we had there while we were night-shooting during a scene that he had to have a meltdown in. So he’d be out of character, cracking jokes, going, ‘I’ve got $20 for anyone that can tell me when Fred Willard was in a movie in 1979,’ and people were going, ‘Isn’t he about to go crazy?’ He’s throwing down, like he was throwing a party in Miami for these people. Then they say, ‘Action,’ and he would go in and have this complete psychotic break, literally. I think the way out was to be yourself and the way in was to bring as much of yourself to bear as you could. So we were always trying to infuse it with a sense of ‘How can we be us somehow in this moment?’”
What was it like to sit next to Nathaniel and exchange ideas with him, Jamie? What was the interaction like? Apparently, he played for you, but did you play for him?
FOXX: “We played the piano. I played the piano and he played the cello. I talked to him like his friend, like his homie. I would listen just to grab everything that I could, as far as his mannerisms and things. This is one of those characters where, like I said, there was a lot of fear in me. A lot of going to talk to the psychiatrist. That’s a whole other thing — African-American. I don’t know anyone from my hometown or anyone from my family that’s been to a psychiatrist or a therapist, because they’re always like, ‘Man, that’s for crazy people.’”
DOWNEY: “By which you mean ‘White people.’”
FOXX: “I’ll never forget being on a TV show once and the first time, I guess the first time I saw black people go to a therapist was when I’m walking off of the The Jamie Foxx Show and they go, ‘No. He may not want us to know.’ I went over and I went, ‘I may not want you to know what?’ ‘Who’s your therapist.’ ‘I don’t do that, man. I talked to the homies.’ I made a joke about it and one of the guys, I won’t say his name, said, ‘Well, I go every day and it’s needed.’ I was like, ‘Why?’ This was years ago. So now when I go see the psychiatrist, all these different things are in my mind, but I actually felt better. He said some things that made sense. He gave me some ways to sort of pull out of this thing that I was about to go into and then when I was sitting with Nathanial there was something calming about him. He didn’t want to do the meds or the drugs or anything like that. He felt as if everything was cool. So in doing that I had to play not the guy who was crazy or schizophrenic. I had to play the guy who’s life just happened to be like that. He’s a guy that went to New York and Julliard who happened to play very good, but who happened to have schizophrenia, and who happened to end up homeless in L.A. and happened to run into a beautiful friend in Steve Lopez.”
Especially in these turbulent economic times, most people are one circumstance away from becoming homeless. Is that good or bad?
FOXX: “Wow. I don’t know.”
What, if anything, did both of you take away from playing these characters that you can apply to your own lives? What happened after you shed your characters?
DOWNEY: “I took some of Jamie’s wardrobe. [Laughs] I just remember, honestly, if I had to put it in a principle, there was this sense of humility, of feeling kind of right-sized when it’s done. It’s hard to feel right-sized when you’re done if you weren’t somehow out of your balance with your own perception when you started. Hopefully, we are self-correcting enough and we have enough support and we have enough friends or the peripheral people that help make us okay, a sense of community, our families, whatever it is we do to be okay. So it’s not like I need a movie to help me get my head right, and I would take umbrage at the idea that there was some lesson that I had to learn from the thing. It’s a way of infusing some Hollywood adventure with profundity, but I do know that because of the process and the way that we did this and the close proximity that we were to each other and the kind of stuff that we wound up talking about and when you’re downtown at 4:30 in the morning, seeing people who are extras and seeing people who are literally looking for somewhere to sleep when the sun comes up when they’re done making whatever pittance they were given for playing extras in this movie or whatever. It was just the sense of how little direct contact that I’d had with so many of the things that I thought I was sure of. But really, what I took away from it, more than anything else, was, ‘My, God. Sometimes you make a movie and sometimes the movie makes you.’ This was one of those type things.”
Jamie, did you feel some of the same things?
FOXX: “Yeah. I mean, he said it all. He did.”
Jamie, did you ever have to juggle feelings of actually losing your mind while filming The Soloist? Did you ever take some of those feelings home with you?
FOXX: “Yeah, I actually broke down and was talking to my manager about it and these feelings and I said, ‘I’ve always had a childhood fear of losing my mind.’ You had to lose your mind every day on the set, and sometimes you didn’t have enough time to get your mind back by the weekend, and the next thing you know you’re back on the set. So it was really real. I just remember calling my manager and saying, ‘I know what it is. I know why he’s crazy.’ He said, ‘Are you okay?’ I said, ‘No, no, no. He does this because of this. He does that because of this. I’m going to go crazy. I’m going to lose everything. I’m going to be homeless. But I’m going to be able to play the piano great.’ He said, ‘Foxx. I’m on my way over.’ He comes over with one my agents and they sit with me and they said, ‘Are you cool?’ I said, ‘Yeah. I think I’m cool.’ They said, ‘Well, the psychiatrist that you met, there’s another guy that we want you to talk to just so that you’ll have a way to deal with these feelings.’ He goes, ‘How are you holding up? Because that’s a tough thing, dealing with schizophrenia.’ I said, ‘I’m good. Am I showing something?’ He said, ‘No. You’re not showing anything, but that’s a tough thing. If you need anything let me know.’ I had no idea. I was always the guy that was like, ‘That therapy thing is totally cockamamie.’ I had no idea that the mind could be that fragile.”
So, Robert, what’s the status of Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man 2?
DOWNEY: “We finished up on Iron Man 2. It’s going to be a kick-ass follow-up to the movie we all enjoyed. We felt more responsible to spend more time, and we had broadened our cast and horizons, and the story is actually significantly more complex and subtle, while you can still follow it. It’s great. And what we’ve shown of Sherlock Holmes — at ShoWest and Comic Con — to most people, they think Sherlock is great, it has been really well received. I can’t wait to come back and sell you some soap on Sherlock Holmes before Christmas time. I think that’s going to be something special, too.”
So, you really like playing Tony Stark/Iron Man again?
“Oh yeah, I love doing Iron Man again — it’s mind-blowing to me, because I’d always felt like I wanted to and could do something like it. It’s wild.”
The Soloist Blu-Ray + DVD – Bonus Features: Commentary by director Joe Wright; three featurettes and deleted scenes. The Blu-ray also includes a piece titled “Juilliard: The Education of Nathaniel Ayers” and the theatrical trailer.
On DVD and Blu-ray
Flight Of The Conchords: The Complete Second Season
Season Two of this Emmy-nominated pop culture masterpiece continues to follow the always hilarious, quirky and sublime exploits of everybody’s favorite Kiwi band from Down Under (not Australia, but that little country next to it), the folk rock duo of Flight Of The Conchords. This time around, we’re treated to the Conchords — Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie — trying to adapt to life in Manhattan, where they have moved to build on their reputation as New Zealand’s Fourth Most Popular Folk Parody Duo and to make it big in America — by any means necessary. Even funnier than the show’s first season, in this installment Jemaine and Bret’s life in the Big Apple is the ultimate fish out of water story — or in their case, the boys are more out of place than a kiwi in a pigeon’s nest. Living the unglamorous side of life in show business, the boys of Flight of the Conchords not only have to fight to get their music heard, but it’s a constant, laugh-filled struggle to keep the electricity on in their less-than-lavish Big Apple digs. From beginning to end, the second season of this brilliantly-written and -acted series (on DVD with deleted scenes, outtakes, a mini-documentary, Hidden Easter Eggs and a mock commercials for Dave’s Pawn Shop) will keep you in stitches and wondering when the Conchords are coming to your town (fictionally, Jemaine and Bret would do anything for a paying gig). Sadly, while Season Two could quite possibly be the last for the New Zealand folk duo of Flight Of The Conchords (who have recorded several bestselling albums in real-life), here’s your chance to take to flight with the best music business mockumentary since This Is Spinal Tap. It’ll be smooth gliding all the way.
Wolfhound
Life in this medieval kingdom isn’t as idyllic and carefree as you would imagine — it’s filled with revenge, blood, brutality and heroism. Directed by Nikolay Lebedev, and based on Maria Semenova’s bestselling novel of the same name, this epic Russian saga that features Aleksanor Bukharov as the last surviving member of giving and life-loving tribe who are all brutally murdered. All the inhabitants of the Russian village are killed — or so it seems. Although he is thought to be one of the dead, Wolfhound is very much alive and begins to get his fighting skills, body and mind in shape for a personal quest to become a fierce sword-wielding fighter. Hell-bent on finding those responsible for the deaths of his family and friends, he soon becomes involved in a battle to vanquish a horrible, murderous monster, which would help to save the country his loves. Wolfhound is a full-fledged fantasy/action flick packed with massive battle sequences heightened by state-of-the-art special effects. Also starring Oksana Akinshina from The Bourne Supremacy, Wolfhound is an essential addition to any action/adventure aficionado’s DVD collection.
The Love Boat: Season Two, Volume Two
There was so much fun in 1979’s Season Two of this iconic comedy that it had to be split into two DVD packages. On the remaining 13 episodes of Volume Two, on four DVDs (with vintage 30 second promos for each episode), it’s full steam ahead for the main characters on the romance-packed Pacific Princess oceanliner — Captain Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), cruise director Julie (Lauren Tewes), Gopher (Fred Grandy), Doc (Bernie Koppell) and Isaac the Bartender (Ted Lange) — as they set sail for another wacky and wild celebrity-filled cruise. Joining the crew for another romantic getaway are such stars as Ray Bolger (the original Cowardly Lion), Tina Louise (Gilligan’s Ginger), Abe Vigoda (The Godfather), Leslie Nielson (Airplane), Sonny Bono, Ethel Merman, singer Bob Denver and a ton of other A- to D-listers. Let’s face it, you either have a cruiseliner-sized spot in your heart for The Love Boat or you can’t stand it. Either way, it’s a primetime classic that’s a part of our collective psyche (I bet you could at least hum the theme song). It has earned its place in the sitcom hall of fame, so if you’re ready to be hit with another tidal wave of wackiness, these episodes are just what you’ve been waiting for.
Mutant Chronicles
Apocalyptic movies have come and gone by the hundreds. And for every nail-biting cinematic great like I Am Legend or most of the Terminator films, there’s so many you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Luckily, director Simon Hunter never pushes Mutant Chronicles to the point of being outlandish or preposterous. Stars Thomas Jane (Hung), Ron Pearlman (Hellboy) and John Malkovich (Changeling) will help any viewer suspend disbelief. In Mutant Chronicles (loosely-based on the role-playing game), a war rages between the world’s four biggest corporations as they fight over Earth’s diminishing resources. When a bomb inadvertently breaks an ancient seal that has been buried for centuries, and an army of terrifying, blood-thirsty necro-mutants (!) are released from a prison deep under the Earth’s surface, who do you call? No, not Venkman and company, but a bad-ass, take-no-prisoners squad of soldiers who must stop the mutants for leaving their subterranean lair. On DVD & BD with audio commentary, deleted scenes, a load of great featurettes, webisodes and interviews.
Chaos Experiment
With Val Kilmer in the cast, odds are usually good that the film he’s in is at least worth watching. That theory is once again proven right with Chaos Experiment, and better still, this one is a keeper — it deserves more than just a single viewing. A tightly-woven and wonderfully complex thriller from director Philippe Martinez (Wake Of Death, Citizen Verdict), Chaos Experiment features Kilmer — in a stroke of unconventional-but-inspired casting — as a professor who is slowly losing touch with reality and finds himself spiraling into the world of madness. After being professional disgraced for a crazy-sounding hypothesis, he lures six unsuspecting volunteers into participating in an experiment dealing with global warming. Locked in a room where the temperature is close to hitting the 130 degree mark, the six human guinea pigs will soon be dead. Their only hope is a detective (Armand Assante) who must get to them before its too late.
Delgo
What do you call a reality-crossing, CGI tale, featuring the voices of Val Kilmer, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lou Gossett Jr. and Chris Kattan, that crosses every genre? How about Delgo? Even though it didn’t receive very much attention during its theatrical release, the critically-applauded Delgo (did I mention Val Kilmer was in it?) is an inventive marvel. This is a unique, witty fantasy adventure that viewers, both young and old, should find fascinating.
Stargate: Altantis Fans Choice
When was the last time you got to (legally) put all your favorite Stargate: Atlantis episodes on one disc and design the packaging for an Atlantis “greatest hits” DVD and Blu-ray? Well, if you are a hard core fan, you did so earlier this year for this DVD/BD release. Thanks to the studio for the long-running series (which ended with Season Five two months ago), avid Atlantis followers logged onto www.SGAfanschoice.com and voted on the best episodes from the series and were given the opportunity to design the cover art. With over 20,000 votes cast, the top two fan fave episodes include the feature-length pilot “Rising” and the extended version of the series finale “Enemy at the Gate.” Of course, the Stargate: Atlantis Fans’ Choice is filled with several other classic Stargate episodes and longtime beloved Stargate character and actors including John Shepard (played by Joe Flanigan), Rodney McKay (David Hewlett), Teyla Emmagan (Rachel Luttrell), Ronon Dex (Jason Momoa), Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Richard Woolsey (Robert Picardo).
Hippos and Rhinos
Take an inside look into the world of some of the planet’s biggest land mammals — who if we are not careful, could soon become extinct — in this Animal Planet collection of four of their most informative and entertaining episodes. Hippos and Rhinos offers up an insightful, yet playful and unprecedented look at these animal heavyweights and the surprising connections they can form with humans. From an episode on an orphan hippo rescued by a game ranger and a walk among a group of the endangered black rhino, to the rare experience of viewing a hippo giving birth to her first baby in captivity, Hippos And Rhinos is a fun and unflinching look at two of the giants of the animal world.
Demon Warriors
Demon Warriors, from the creators of Ong-Bak and The Protector, is an unnerving martial arts thriller set in the world of the ghostly, ghastly and supernatural. A Honk Kong actioner with a paranormal bent, Demon Warriors shows just how far the dedicated Detective Techit will go to solve his biggest case. To find those responsible for the horrible crime he is investigating, he’s willing to serve up the ultimate sacrifice — his life. When a mysterious, mystical warrior offers Techit incredible powers of intuition upon entering the world between life and death — Opapatika A/K/A limbo — Techit leaps at the opportunity to become a detective with an edge — both over his peers and, more importantly, the criminals he’s chasing. After committing suicide, Techit uses death as a doorway into a supernatural plane of existence inhabited by ghoulish warriors fighting eternal, raging battles against each other. But, there’s BIG problems and things don’t go quite as planned for the detective. He quickly catches on that every time he fights an Opapatika spirit, Techit loses one of his five essential senses. For fans of martial arts movies and supernatural thrillers, Demon Warriors is in a class all its own.
The Mighty Boosh Volumes 1-3
Our British cousins across the Pond invite daring TV audiences to take a trip through time and space to the freaky, magical and bizarro world of The Mighty Boosh. Already a hit on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, The Mighty Boosh is a revered cult comedy series from creator-stars Julian Barratt (Nathan Barley) and Noel Fielding (The IT Crowd). The Mighty Boosh keeps its eyes squarely focused on Howard Moon (Barratt) and Vince Noir (Fielding), two zany zookeepers who find themselves going on a number of abnormal, strange and fantastical adventures as they spend time working at the dilapidated “zoo-niverse.” Utilizing reality stretching plots, musical interludes and animated sequences, Howard and Vince are regularly finding themselves on wild, eyebrow-raising adventures that range from them heading to the Arctic to find a mythical lost egg to holding a boxing match against a killer kangaroo — anything can and will happen on an acid trip-like comedy like The Mighty Boosh. With it’s first three episodes having just been released in North American, you can start joining in on the fun with the eight-episode, 2-disc Volume 1 DVD (featuring the entire U.K. first season plus bonuses like two featurettes, outtakes, commentary and a picture gallery).
NOW ON BLU-RAY
Race To Witch Mountain Combo Pack
Once for children only, this refurbished, rebooted, revamped and re-imagined version of the Disney classics Escape to Witch Mountain and Return from Witch Mountain has become a more grown-up affair. The Witch Mountain in this film is now a shadowy government outpost devoted to studying inexplicable phenomena like UFO sightings. And, with taxi man Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the driver’s set, it’s up to him and his mysterious, teenage, “alien” passengers to save the world from global disaster. Special Features: Combo Pack with Blu-ray, DVD and DisneyFile Digital Copy; deleted scenes with commentary by director Andy Fickman; Bloopers; two featurettes; Backstage Disney: Which Mountain? Feature and the D-Box Integrated Motion System.
My Cousin Vinny
To most industry insiders, My Cousin Vinny will always be known as the film that helped co-star Marisa Tomei snag an acting Oscar out of the jaws of several classically-trained female thespians. Most of us will always, and should always, remember My Cousin Vinny for Joe Pesci, as an inexperienced lawyer who took six tries to pass his bar exam, going toe to toe with a small town judge played by Hermann Munster (Fred Gwynne) in his cousin’s murder trail. Special Features: Commentary with director Jonathan Lynn; original theatrical trailers and TV spots.
Sling Blade
Forgot why Billy Bob Thornton won an Oscar for Sling Blade? After only a minute or two of watching the former Mr. Jolie portray a developmentally challenged man being reintroduced to society after 25 years in prison, it all comes back to you. And that’s only part of what makes Sling Blade such a great film: you have Thornton’s rich,, colorful dialogue and supporting performances by Robert Duvall, Lucas Black, John Ritter and Dwight Yoakum. Special Features: Commentary with Billy Bob; two featurettes; Roundtable Discussions; deleted scenes and additional Making-of-Footage.
The Waterboy
An early Adam Sandler classic, The Waterboy is the uproarious tale of a “water distribution engineer” (a waterboy) who discovers he is a football powerhouse. With an all-star supporting cast that includes Kathy Bates, Rob Schneider and Fairuza Balk, Adam Sandler plays one of the funniest, most unlikely sports heroes in movie history (in one of the best role’s of his career.)
Big Trouble In Little China
Directed and created by thrill master John Carpenter, Big Trouble In Little China is the legendary filmmaker’s most underrated motion picture. Temporarily taking a break from the killer-thrillers (like Halloween) that had turned him into a bankable director, Carpenter cast Kurt Russell as the all-American truck driver, Jack Burton (a nicer/kinder version of Escape From… leading man Snake Pliskin) and sends him to the mysterious underworld below Frisco’s Chinatown, to help save a best pal’s girlfriend (Kim Cattrall) from the clutches of a 2000-year-old ancient sorcerer named Lo Pan. Big Trouble is a 1986 martial arts/special effects extravaganza with a big ass sense of humor. Special Features: Commentary with Carpenter and Russell; deleted scenes; extended ending; vintage featurette; music video; gallery and trailers and TV spots.
