Of late, my favorite interviews seem to be those where I get my ass ever so slightly handed to me by my subject, a category into which my talk with the ever-irascible William Friedkin squarely falls. Killer Joe, which I'll be reviewing when it opens in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks, is the latest step in what's looking like a full-blown late career revival for the director, who went seriously astray with movies like Jade and Rules of Engagement before getting his mojo back with a vengance. Along with 2007's Bug, which like Killer Joe was adapted from a play by Tracy Letts, Killer Joe is a bloody chamber piece, in this case trapping the audience inside a trailer home with a group of morally bankrupt Texans. It's an expert button-pusher, disturbing and hilarious and as live-wire thrilling as anything I've seen since my first viewing last September. That goes for Friedkin as well, a pugnacious conversationalist and clearly a man you want on your side in a fight. More, including his refreshingly blunt take on the effort to free his movie Sorcerer from the clutches of uncaring studios, at the A.V. Club, where he also explains this picture:
