WEIRDLAND: Deleted moments in The Girl Next Door & The Good Girl

Monday, January 25, 2010

Deleted moments in The Girl Next Door & The Good Girl

Jennifer Aniston on a motel bed in in "The Good Girl" (2002).
Elisha Cuthbert on a motel bed in "The Girl Next Door" (2004).


The best moments of the shooting! (made by the prod!) Gag reel - The Good Girl, starred by Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, John C. Relly, Tim Blake Nelson, directed by Miguel Arteta.
Miguel Arteta (director of "Chuck & Buck", "The God Girl", "Youth in Revolt", etc.)

Donnie Darko Returns! A Chat with Writer/Director Richard Kelly.

Jake Gyllenhaal in the Widescreen Edition DVD cover of "Donnie Darko" (2001).


Luke Greenfield, director of "The Animal", "The Girl Next Door", "Something borrowed", etc.

Scott Weinberg: "Fair warning: The last person I interviewed was Luke Greenfield...and I didn't exactly help his movie all that much."

Richard Kelly: "Girl Next Door. Good movie. It's a tough one because you can market it as either a sex comedy or some kind of a sophisticated teen comedy. But, as a general rule, I think the best movies are often the hardest ones to market. Everyone wants to deal with one specific category".

Scott Weinberg: "...and the last interview I did before that was with your pal Eli Roth."

Richard Kelly: "Yeah, we just had dinner last night. He's a good friend of mine. Right now we're trading pages back and forth. We're working on something exciting called The Box..."
Richard Kelly and James Mardsen shooting "The Box".
Source: efilmcritic.com

I was lucky of having an opportunity of striking a brief conversation with filmmaker Luke Greenfield (which was developed on 23rd December, 2009) via Facebook.

-Me: Mr. Greenfield, did you see this article about unfairly overlooked movies in that I included in
one of my posts:

-Luke Greenfield: So great to read that! Thank you sooo much!

-Me: I wondered why didn't you include the deleted kiss scene between Matthew and Danielle. I liked how you brought to light in the commentary of TGND that Elisha's character, after kissing Matthew, when she lays back on the grass she's still keeping her secret, and for that reason her face looks worried while Matthew looks elated. I would have preferred you left that scene in the final movie, that was a sweet kiss.

-Luke Greenfield: Well, you made me just watch that deleted kiss again, I haven't seen it in years and YES! We made a mistake and we should've kept it in. Re-watching it now, it felt like a really nice subtle foreshadow that Emile is falling in love with her while Elisha is nervous that he is -- He doesn't know who she really is and she feels guilty that she's been "lying" to him. Thanks for bringing me back to that moment again. I'm going to send this to my partner-in-crime, my editor, Mark, who I feel is my co-director.


Emile Hirsch & Elisha Cuthbert in "The Girl Next Door".

I think there are some moments in "The Girl next door" with a deep suggestion of a an indefatigable feeling of happiness, and that's something very hard to achieve (specially in middle of stereotypical and cynical impressions within the sexual comedy genre fostered by the industry, frequently falling down due to shallow angles). I understand some critics comparing it with "Almost Famous" for that connection images/music, but what I loved of it was how reached its effect in natural fashion
(specially the twist at prom dance when Matthew is feeling more and more scared inside his dressroom, and then he looks at the lip kiss mark that Danielle has smeared on his hand), as if barely we notice there was a build-up going on and it felt natural like in real life, perceiving such extreme emotions in the same lapse of time (in that scene, Matthew goes through panick/fear and seconds later he finds lucidity). Quoting Cameron Crowe "a movie where you celebrate those private moments, you can't ask for more". and Eli (Chris Marquette) is a crack!

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