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Happy Birthday to Justin Edward Uren!

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Gala For The Cure event in October

<p>Playing Beck Weathers in &#8220;Everest&#8221; might not be the pinnacle of Josh Brolin&#8217;s movie career but it comes mighty close.</p><p>A former teen star, Brolin has paid his dues working in a wide variety of flicks ranging from the good (&#8220;No Country For Old Men,&#8221; &#8220;Milk,&#8221; &#8220;W&#8221;) to the bad (&#8220;Gangster Squad&#8221;) to the ugly (&#8220;Jonah Hex.&#8221;)</p><p>It&#8217;s no wonder when Brolin heard about the real-life survival saga at the heart of &#8220;Everest,&#8221; he was instantly hooked.</p><p>&#8220;I knew the story and I knew the book,&#8221; said the actor about Jon Krakauer&#8217;s 1997 tome &#8220;Into Thin Air.&#8221; &#8220;I actually had a massive reaction to the book.&#8221;</p><p>So did millions of other readers. Krakauer&#8217;s bestseller tracks an ill-fated climbing expedition to Mount Everest in 1996. Eight mountaineers were killed and several others stranded thanks to the harsh conditions, which included a so-called &#8220;rogue storm.&#8221;</p><p>In addition to Krakauer (Michael Kelly) and Texan Beck Weathers (Brolin), the characters include expedition leader Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), Japanese climber &#8211; and the lone woman on the crew - Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori), mailman Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), the leader of a competing climbing organization.</p><p>While playing Beck, Brolin went through a blizzard of emotions. He started out happy to land the gig, then became annoyed at what he was asked to do. In the end, he was overjoyed at what he and his cast mates accomplished.</p><p>Under the direction of Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur, the actors endured avalanche scares, dangerous altitudes, unheated lodgings and storms in the Italian Alps.</p><p>&#8220;In the beginning, (everything) sounds great, conceptually, and then there&#8217;s the reality of it,&#8221; recalls Brolin, 47, who also stars this season in &#8220;Sicario,&#8221; a thriller set in the midst of the Mexican drug war.</p><p>You think, &#8220;OK, now I&#8217;m freezing and I haven&#8217;t felt my feet for three days and I&#8217;m kind of done with this whole idea.&#8221;</p><p>For Brolin, it wasn&#8217;t only the grueling outdoor work that was a challenge. While much of the movie was shot on location in Nepal and the Italian Alps, other segments were filmed at Pinewood Studios in London where powerful fans shot snow and salt at the actors for hours on end.</p><p>&#8220;When we came in from the snow, we went to London and had salt thrown at us with these 100 mile per hour fans,&#8221; Brolin said.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a nice exfoliation method but after a while the romance of it is gone, and you&#8217;re going, &#8216;OK, I am feeling an irritation here. I hope it will look good on film.&#8217;&#8221;</p><p>Kormakur said Brolin&#8217;s reaction was part of his game plan.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s nothing better for a director than an angry actor because then things become real,&#8221; the filmmaker said. &#8220;Seriously, a happy actor is not a good actor.&#8221;</p><p>As grueling as it got, Brolin believes it was all worthwhile. &#8220;When you see the film, you&#8217;re like, &#8220;thank you Balt, thanks so much. I really appreciate that.&#8221;</p><p>As far as Brolin is concerned, Kormakur was the only man for the &#8220;Everest&#8221; job.</p><p>&#8220;As soon as I met Balt, I thought, &#8216;I need to work with this guy&#8217; because he was real,&#8221; Brolin said.</p><p>Kormakur believes he was fortunate to put together a team of actors who were, across the board, willing to meet the challenges he threw at them.</p><p>&#8220; I do believe I was extremely lucky to get this kind of a group together,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to realize that I was asking these actors like Brolin and Jake and all of the others &#8230; to stand on a hill all day in negative 30 degrees. They had to swallow their egos a couple of times.</p><p>&#8220;Its not a given that (actors) are ready to do this. So, I was extremely lucky.&#8221;</p><p>When he was approached to direct &#8220;Everest,&#8221; Kormakur had one goal in mind: to put viewers in the shoes of the men and women who climbed Everest.</p><p>&#8220;I wanted people to be able to see and feel Everest because most of them will never go or shouldn&#8217;t go,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We wanted to create a visceral feeling &#8230; I can&#8217;t experience what it is to be on top of Everest but you want to get as close to it as you possibly can.</p><p>&#8220;And that&#8217;s the way I choose to make the film and not to make it easy on (us) but to go and try to find it, and to find it in the elements.&#8221;</p><p>Adds Brolin, &#8220;We&#8217;re not even going to get 1 percent of what really happened. That we&#8217;ll never understand &#8230; But if we can respectfully honor this story, in any possible way, through what we do, then&#8221; we&#8217;ve succeeded.</p><p>While some viewers might question what would propel climbers to risk their lives to reach the top of Mount Everest, Brolin thinks he understands the need of some people to try and touch greatness.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve made decisions that I don&#8217;t know if I regret but I&#8217;ve made decisions. I started skydiving when I was 21 and then within the year I was doing it five or six times a day,&#8221; he said.</p><p>&#8220;I think that people climb or do other things for different reasons &#8230; You want to feel like, &#8216;I can step that extra step when most people can&#8217;t and I can touch the extraordinary&#8217; &#8230; It propels me to live on, and it gives my life more meaning.&#8221;</p><p>Brolin learned an important lesson in the risks and rewards of daredevil pursuits from his late friend Base jumper Dean Potter, who died after an jumping accident at Yosemite National Park.</p><p>&#8220;Dean was one of the reasons I did this movie,&#8221; Brolin said. &#8220;He turned me on to climbing and all that. Dean was a very safe, incredible human being who lost his life a few months ago.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;So, is it bad that he lost his life? I don&#8217;t know. He lived a pretty incredible life. That was his choice. Were people sad because of it and suffering because of it? Absolutely. But isn&#8217;t that part of life, too?&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Josh Brolin and Jason Clarke in &#8220;Everest.&#8221; </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_ENTER_MOVIE-EVEREST_LA.jpg</photo0><caption0>Josh Brolin and Jason Clarke in &#8220;Everest.&#8221; </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_everest2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Jake Gyllenhaal, from left, as Scott Fischer, Michael Kelly as Jon Krakauer, and Josh Brolin as Beck Weathers, in the film Everest.&#8221; The film is now in theaters. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_everest2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Jake Gyllenhaal, from left, as Scott Fischer, Michael Kelly as Jon Krakauer, and Josh Brolin as Beck Weathers, in the film Everest.&#8221; The film is now in theaters. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta></subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Amy Longsdorf | For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Amy Longsdorf is the Times Leader&#8217;s ticket into the Hollywood movie world. Her column, Vintage Videos, include reviews of DVDs with local ties. She also interviews stars of soon-to-be-released movies.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

‘Everest’ captures extreme emotion, environment from a true story