ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
August 21, 2009
Not-So-Tall Tales
Spy Kids director Robert Rodriguez gives TFK the scoop on his new fantasy adventure movie, Shorts
For Spy Kids director Robert Rodriguez, making movies is a family affair. Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, the future filmmaker was always recruiting his nine brothers and sisters to star in his backyard productions. Fast-forward 30 years later and the moviemaking bug has bitten Rodriguez's five children too. They've all had roles in their director dad's films and Rodriguez's son Racer even came up with the story for The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl 3-D.
 |  COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES Director Robert Rodriguez (far right) goes over a scene with actors Jimmy Bennett and Jolie Vanier. |
Now, Rodriguez's youngest son, Rebel, can be credited for the idea behind the filmmaker's newest fantasy, Shorts, in theaters now. Rebel was inspired by The Little Rascals, a series of comedy short films-and later a TV series-about a group of neighborhood kids and their adventures together. Shorts tells the tale of an ordinary 11-year-old named Toe Thompson, who lives in the not-so-ordinary suburb of Black Falls. Here, all the grown-ups work for Black Box Industries. The manufacturing giant makes a do-it-all gadget that is sweeping the nation. But Toe's only wish is to make a few friends.
One day during a freak storm, a rainbow-colored rock falls from the sky and finds its way to Toe. The rock grants wishes to anyone who holds it. As the colorful stone gets passed from one resident to the next, the neighborhood is turned upside down with wishes gone wrong. Soon, Black Falls is spilling over with tiny spaceships, crocodile armies, a giant booger monster and magical madness around every corner! TFK chatted with Rodriguez on how he came up with the whimsical stories in Shorts and what his family would wish for if they had a wishing rock.
TFK:Your third son, Rebel, came up with the idea for Shorts after watching The Little Rascals. Can you talk about that a little bit?
ROBERT RODRIGUEZ:I'd been showing my kids The Little Rascals films because it was something I had been in love with when I was a kid. I think they responded to the characters and the practical gags in it. So, after Racer and I did Shark Boy and Lava Girl, Rebel said, "I want to come up with the next movie." And I said, "What would you want to do?" He said, "Something like The Little Rascals." He mentioned a rainbow rock and a canyon and crocodiles and snakes and coming up with short stories. I thought that was a great idea because that's how I started out-in the backyard making short films with my brothers and sisters.
TFK:Do they get any kind of payment for their ideas, like extra allowance or anything?
RODRIGUEZ:Yeah, they get the extra perks. Rebel got to act in the movie in one of the bigger roles. He plays one of the Shorts brothers, Lug. The money doesn't go right to them to buy video games; it goes to their college fund.
TFK:There are so many wacky things going on in this movie. How do you come up with all of these ideas?
 COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) goes one-on-one with the Booger Monster. | |
I teach my kids that as soon as they have an idea, start trying to add to it. Like, let's say we have a rock and it's a rainbow color. Well, maybe it came from a rainbow, so maybe there was a giant thunderstorm. What does this rock do? Maybe it's a wishing rock . . . We would just try out ideas and write them down. The ones that made us laugh the most we would keep, and the others we would throw away.
TFK:What would you all wish for if you had a wishing rock?
RODRIGUEZ:I asked my kids, "If you could wish for anything what would you wish for?" And Rebel said, "I wish I had a butt for a head!" And Racer wished to be a potato. And I said, "I would wish for a million more wishes." Then it kind of dawned on them that they had blown their wish. [Laughs] And I realized that would be a really great subject because kids probably would wish for pretty ridiculous things at first not knowing its potential.
TFK:What would they wish for now?
RODRIGUEZ:Now? Oh, I don't know . . . Rebel wants to be a marine biologist, so I think he would wish to be able to breathe under water.
TFK:You actually came up with the idea for the booger monster years ago. Do you feel a sense of accomplishment having finally made, as you've said, the "booger of your dreams"?
RODRIGUEZ:Yes! And that happened on Spy Kids too. The guys that are made out of all thumbs-they were from a drawing that I had won my first art contest with at the age of 13. Some ideas that you dream up as a kid, you know, come back to you. I just think that's a great thing when technology has to catch up to an idea you have. I had the idea way back when for a booger monster sequence in a kids adventure movie like this. So when we were thinking of short stories, I knew immediately that it had to be one of them because now I could do it.
TFK:What was your favorite scene to shoot?
RODRIGUEZ:My favorite scenes were probably all the scenes I shot in my backyard, because I just had to roll out of bed and walk out of the house. [Laughs] The scene where Toe is getting chased up into the tree and getting rocks thrown at him, the scenes with the canyons and the crocodiles and snakes-those were shot just a few yards from my house on my ranch property. That is my entire dream. That's the reason I first built that place, so that I could someday make a movie there.
TFK:You've directed a variety of genres, from horror movies to dramas to comedies. But you always come back to family films. Why do you think that is?
RODRIGUEZ:Because that's where I started. They say to write what you know, and what I know is family life. I grew up in a family of ten kids and I have five kids of my own. That's just what I constantly have around me. It's true-life inspiration. I don't on a normal basis go around blowing things up. [Laughs] Making movies like those are sort of a vacation from reality. But I always come back home.
