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Articles, Film Reviews and AnalysisNEW YORK TIMES FILM REVIEW INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE MOVIE REVIEW Azita Zendel's debut feature, "Controlled Chaos" is a fictionalized account of the four years Ms. Zendel spent as an assistant to Oliver Stone. Given Mr. Stone's self-cultivated reputation as a wild and crazy guy, you might expect "Controlled Chaos" to be full of thinly disguised juicy tidbits about this Oscar-winning filmmaker (best director for the 1986 "Platoon" and the 1990"Born on the Fourth of July"). But Ms. Zendel's movie is more of an affectionate apology for her former employer than a stinging indictment..."Controlled Chaos" is essentially a collection of anecdotes that Ms. Zendel has wittily grafted to a paranoid Stone-style scenario...Ms. Zendel's film succeeds in creating a convincing portrait of a common show business type, the insecure assistant (or publicist or script reader) who surrenders everything to an abusive but charismatic boss (also a common show business type)... LOS ANGELES TIMES MOVIE REVIEW Azita Zendel spent four years as Oliver Stone's assistant, and her debut feature, "Controlled Chaos," is a roman à clef revealing what it was like to cover up for a tempestuous, demanding, Oscar-winning director with a messy private life and substance-abuse issues. Zendel, of course, is not saying that her Rick Jones is literally Stone, and what's more, she strives to be fair-minded in her presentation of Jones, who seems to believe that anything his own private Dr. Feelgood says is FDA-approved can't do him any harm.There are some individual twists here and there that could come only from personal experience in the Hollywood jungle... Zendel deserves credit for her persistence in getting her movie made and onto a screen. Her narrative possesses a dogged drive and focus and dimension...well-written and well-played... E FILM CRITIC.COM " Director Azita Zendel worked for Oliver Stone for several years, so when you see her film (in which an egomaniacal movie producer uses, abuses and dismisses everyone he touches) you'll know there's a few sparks of truth in there. Funny and fairly brave, this is a flick you may come across on the Sundance Channel one night, and you should let your TiVo snag it for you." DIGITAL NATION I ran into Azita zendel, who was personally handing out information on her movie, a thinly veiled account of her experiences serving as an assistant to director Oliver Stone. Like SWIMMING WITH SHARKS, it describes the job as being a deceptively glamorous hybrid of plantation work, babysitting and damage control. Direct What You Know I admire the moxie of a budding filmmaker reaching into her own background, however risky or controversial that reaching may ultimately turn out to be, for material. And you have to chuckle at the irony of a movie seemingly portraying certain aspects of Oliver Stone's personal life and working habits in roughly the same spirit that Oliver Stone's JFK or NIXON told their stories. Anyone who's read James Riordan's exhaustively researched 1995 biography will recall that Zendel was not only regularly quoted, but was right in the middle of nearly every detail of Stone's life for roughly four years, from '91 to '95, which was Stone's most prolific period. He directed JFK, HEAVEN AND EARTH, NATURAL BORN KILLERS and NIXON during this time, and was involved in developing Stone's NORIEGA movie with Al Pacino, which never happened, and Stone's might-have-been EVITA with Michelle Pfeiffer. Anyway, Stone fans and the general curious might want to check out CONTROLLED CHAOS. It'll at least be a hoot! THE HARTFORD COURANT & ctnow.com GOOD FUN! Azita Zendel's roman a clef based on her four years as an Assistant to director Oliver Stone, played to a gaggle of 20-somethings in a Palais screening salon in Cannes . "This is war, and I do what it takes to win," the director, "Rick Jones," tells his assistant, who covers up his womanizing, drug abuse and brutal self-absorption -- all for a producing credit that never comes. Kind of "Swimming With Sharks" meets, well, "Swimming With Sharks." Zendel has guts. Frontiers Newsmagazine.com Film Review "Controlled Chaos" moves at a lightning pace and delivers some wry zingers (Rick to Elsie: "The day everyone hates you is the day you're doing your job correctly!"). ENTERTAINMENT TODAY MOVIE REVIEW …Controlled Chaos is a low budget roman à clef portrait of Hollywood excess and paranoia and its…intersection with darker criminal activity…[Slick (Erik Engstrom)] is a tabloid journalist bent for more reason than one on exposing the ugly truths of Jones’ bacchanalia, from his boozy sexual conquests to his substance abuse to his seduction/corruption of his new starlet leading lady Tara (Lori Enterline, standing in for… Cameron Diaz?). The film succeeds greatest in its accumulation of delicious, ridiculous details— interns hiding in the office and, later, in trees because Jones doesn’t like visitors to his sets (even on commercials), Jones butchering names unapologetically (“I like to call him Sam…” he demurs, rolling over a correction) and employing an on-set “Dr. Feelgood” to deliver shady“vitamin shots” and the like. The resultant portrait is sharp and should ring true to a whole faceless underclass of Hollywood assistants — less that of a tyrannical monster than a man-child whose petulance and delusions have been abetted and enabled for so long that they’ve taken on an entire life and (false) legitimacy of their own… THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER MOVIE REVIEW It shouldn't be surprising that "Controlled Chaos," the debut feature of Azita Zendel -- one-time assistant to maverick auteur Oliver Stone -- would turn out to be a Hollywood film-a-clef sure to be taken up by the Ain't It Cool News crowd... It's apparently a very, very well-researched work of fiction... when it comes to depicting a crazed pop icon auteur, she knows of what she films... A new-millennium "Sunset Boulevard"...! TV GUIDE MOVIE REVIEWS Given director Oliver Stone's notorious paranoia, there's a karmic perfection to the fact that this "film a clef" about the beleaguered assistant of a world- famous director was written, directed and produced by his former assistant and is structured like the kind of a paranoid thriller for which he's famous... Though it's Elsie's story, this should be Rick's show; he's written as a classic monster sacre and they always hog the spotlight... FILM MUSIC MAGAZINE MOVIE REVIEWS Debut filmmaker Azita Zendel redefines the meaning of "resourceful" with her feature CONTROLLED CHAOS. "I didn't have a lot of money for music and wanted to be in a position to afford more cues from my composer, Pinar (Toprak). I was able to work with my picture editor to utilize Pinar's available cues and samples. A similar dilemma surfaced during the screenwriting process. "I listen to music while I write, as it always emotionally effects me depending on what it is. I got attached to a particular (source) song and wanted to use it. I asked for festival permission and a $5,000 figure was replied. An explanation that that figure was more than my whole music budget didn't change their minds, so I wrote a song myself." Ms. Zendel springs from a musical family and started playing violin and piano at age six. Her evolving awareness of "the music of everyday life" led to her interest in the musical rhythms of film music. "Films have a beat and pace in the script, performances and editing. I started out as a singer and performer in school and never imagined I'd end up directing but here I am." Her collaboration process with her composer solidified respect for the benefits of creative collaboration. "I had specific ideas of what I wanted the underscore to sound like and Pinar has a very different pace than I do. You can even see it in our walks - different tempos. The musical sounds in my head weren't hers but the more I allowed her cues to play, the more I grew to like them. Ultimately, she and I are very happy with the end result." With such intuitive appreciation for the visceral effect of film music, one can expect similarly successful musical excursions from Ms. Zendel. "I look forward to working with other composers I liked if I can afford them next time. I want to try to get them on board early in the production process so we have more time to experiment and be pleasantly surprised with their inspiration." PAGE 6, NEW YORK POST, MOVIE REVIEW ARTICLE WHILE Oliver Stone is in Cuba sucking up to Fidel Castro, his former assistant is at Cannes premiering a movie based on Stone's "scandalous" lifestyle. Azita Zendel, who wrote, directed and produced "Controlled Chaos," worked for Stone from 1991 to 1995, during which time the volatile director brought out pictures like "JFK," "Natural Born Killers" and "Nixon." She features prominently in James Riordan's 1995 Stone bio. Her movie is a "roman a clef based on Stone's scandalous lifestyle and affairs" during Zendel's tenure, she says. In the film, "Elsie" is the assistant to famous director "Rick Jones." "She spends her days and nights putting out the fires her boss lights and covers up his risky, wild and scandalous lifestyle," the synopsis reads. Elsie falls in love with a handsome fellow who turns out to be a notorious tabloid journalist who's "bent on exposing a dark secret that her boss might be hiding," and the question becomes, "How far will she go to cover up for her boss?" Stone could not be reached for comment. JFK INFO.COM, PJM - Letters to the Editor - Whitmey In early 1992, Lewis began working for Oliver Stone at Ixtlan (which he described in his book), and received a letter from Stone dated April 14, 1992 indicating that he was not able to "...finance books, movies, documentaries, etc., but I like your book and wish I could find a publisher. I tried, but right now, if Bill Schaap and Ellen Ray won't take it, I can't think of anyone who would take that chance. Can Larry Howard do anything?" (A copy of this letter was sent to me by Lewis when I questioned his credibility, along with a Sept. 13, 1992 memo from Stone's assistant, Azita Zendel, providing a one-paragraph endorsement of Lewis' self- published book.) INDIEWIRE BUZZ for January 17, 2003: Assistant Strikes Back ASSISTANT STRIKES BACK: Azita Zendel, the former assistant to Oliver Stone, is screening her film "Controlled Chaos" in Park City this week, at 5 p.m. tomorrow and noon on Monday at the Treasure Mountain Inn's Fireside Saloon at Slamdance. Zendel perhaps drew on her own experiences for this one -- she describes it as"the story of the assistant to a famous film director who must protect her womanizing boss when a reporter implicates him in a scandal." The narrative feature runs 92 minutes. E FILM CRITIC.COM - Movieman's Sundance Diary (Day 5) Well, it's a party with a lot of people we don't know. The first person we spotted was actually a woman named Azita Zendel. She was an assistant to Oliver Stone for several years and had made a Swimming with Sharks-like movie playing at Sundance called Controlled Chaos. Scott had seen the film and then subsequently saw Azita every place he went. We saw her in the halls of the press office. She was at the Dopamine party. Was she following us? Whatever. It was nice to see a friendly face. |
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