Reel life: Working with Pacino 'incredible' for director

<b>Critics notebook:</b>

If you watch "Furious 7" this weekend, look for Palatine native and Fremd High School graduate Jon Lee Brody playing a race car driver who's pals with Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel.

"It's a fun bit part," Brody told me this week. "The director, James Wan, is one of my best friends. So that's how that all happened!"

To read our From Suburbs to Showbiz profile of Brody, go to bit.ly/1BRvqJf.

You're invited to attend Dann and Raymond's Movie Club when it presents "I Got No Strings! The Great Animated Films," 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9, at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, 500 N. Dunton Ave., Arlington Heights. Free admission and popcorn, too! Clips from animated classics such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Yellow Submarine," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Ghost in the Shell," "The Iron Giant," "Princess Mononoke," "Toy Story" and seven more. Go to ahml.info.

It's First Tuesdays at the Midwest Independent Film Festival! Co-directors Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden will attend a screening of their new movie "Almost There," a Kartemquin Films production documenting the life of Peter Anton, an Indiana artist discovered by the filmmakers through paintings at a street fair. 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, at the Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St., Chicago. Go to midwestfilm.com.

<b>Dan on 'Danny'</b>

Filmmaker Dan Fogelman wrote Pixar's animated "Cars," produced and wrote for TV shows, then whipped up a smart rom-com movie called "Crazy Stupid Love." His directorial debut, "Danny Collins," starring Al Pacino, is playing at select theaters. I hit Fogelman with five questions.

Q. You have the greatest ending for a movie so far this year. It's almost like you started with that moment and wrote your way backward. Did you?

A. Yeah, I kinda did. I knew where the movie would start, and I kinda knew where I wanted the movie to end. I actually made a drawing of what it was going to look like. For me, the first 102 minutes of Al Pacino's journey is really just a setup for the last three minutes of the film, if that makes any sense.

Q. It does. Did Pacino give you any feedback on it?

A. Al told me that this was one of the first times, if not the first time, he became emotional while watching one of his own films, watching that final scene. It was a real exciting moment when he told me that. But then, he might have been just being nice.

Q. Your movie heavily references the similarly cancer-themed comic drama "Terms of Endearment." What's the appeal?

A. It's a touchstone film if not the touchstone film for me. When people ask, "What's your all-time favorite movie?" it's up there for me. What I thought that movie did so beautifully was that when you see it, you really, really laugh, then you really feel romance. My mom used to watch "Terms of Endearment." When we were kids, my sister and I would take pictures of her crying while watching the movie because we thought it was funny.

That became a goal - for you to walk out of the theater, not crying as hard as you would in "Terms of Endearment," feeling and laughing like you just had a fulfilling meal without feeling overstuffed. Another film I referenced was "Kramer vs. Kramer." I always admired the father-son relationship there. If you took those two characters and added 30 years, you might be looking at something akin to this relationship here.

Q. "Danny Collins" really sells hope. It's the most optimistic movie I've seen in a long time. Is that what you intended?

A. Yes, and that's very flattering. I love hearing that as a positive. Somehow, I don't know when, it became no longer cool currency to be optimistic or hopeful. It's interpreted as too shmaltzy or whatever. There's a lot less stuff out there that has a positive view of family. We didn't want a hyper-sweet, overtly religious or sentimental view, just a positive message.

That's part of what we wanted to do here. I think life is kinda crazy and beautiful and bizarre and messed up. Things that are underserved in films nowadays.

Q. For your directorial debut, you land Al Pacino as your star. How did you react to that?

A. It was jumping into the deep end, for sure. Because of what happened to him, he overnight shot to stardom as a movie star. But he has the chops of a New York City theater stage actor. He's interesting to work with because his process is very deep. He works very hard on the text.

We spent weekends at Al's house. Me, Christopher Plummer, Annette Bening, Bobby Cannavale, Jennifer Garner, all in Al's backyard rehearsing scenes for the upcoming week. That's how hard he prepares. He's a real actor in the best sense for the word. You have to be gentle with him. He's like a really high-powered sports car. He's got so many gears. He's got an incredible instrument.

<i>Dann Gire's column runs Friday in Time out! Follow him on Twitter at @DannGireDH Film and on Facebook.</i>