Robert Rodriguez lives comfortably in two different film worlds; one is the cheeky and violent adult universe, the other is for kids of all ages. On the grown up side, for instance, refer to the El Mariachi series which also includes Desperado and Once Upon a Time In Mexico. By contrast, there's his Spy Kids trilogy, which is strictly adolescent.
His latest called Shorts is definitely for little rascals who like a good farce joke. Opening on Friday, the movie tracks the exploits of 11-year-old Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett), a typical kid in a cliched suburban community who is bored at school and bullied by a pack of juveniles.
All that changes, sort of, when Toe finds a magic rainbow rock that makes his wishes come true but not always with positive results as illustrated by the separate arrivals of bratty aliens, walking alligators and a giant monster booger.
Adding to the playfulness of the Rodriguez fantasy is the fact that the movie is told in a series of time-shifting vignettes.
Not all the creative credit should go to Rodriguez, though. His 10-year-old son Rebel came up with the Shorts idea a few years ago, so he was rewarded by dad who gave him a co-starring role playing Toe's sidekick Lug.
The Shorts title was his son's, too,
"As he (Rebel) explained, the stories are short, the kids are short and they wear shorts," reports Rodriguez smiling. "I say it's like Pulp Fiction for kids because each of the stories are told out of order."
As far as casting Rebel, Rodriguez explains, "He's no rookie." At five he played a young Sharkboy in Rodriguez's The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. He was also a robot in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and he was the baby on a magazine cover in 2001's Spy Kids.
Wisely, the filmmaker populated his kids' flick with some veteran actors, too. Jon Cryer and Leslie Mann play Toe's work-obsessed parents. William H. Macy's a compulsive scientist while James Spader chews some scenery as the villainous Mr. Black, head of Black Box Industries which owns the suburb and employs most of the adults who live there.
It's an odd plot with unlikely characters, but Rodriguez continues to do his movies his way thanks to the efficient productions he puts together at his Austin, Texas-based company. which boasts a mini-studio housed in hangars at an abandoned airport.
"A lot of things are happy accidents," Rodriguez says. "When the Austin airport was moving we convinced them to let the hangars stay up, so we used them for the Spy Kids movies."
Four years later, while filming Sin City there, "I looked around and said, 'Wait a minute, I have my own studio'," he says.
It allows Rodriquez the freedom to multi-task, which is the main attraction. He writes, directs, produces, often edits, prepares musical scores and sometimes operates the cameras on his quickly made projects.
"The strange thing is the more you do the easier things are, because there's an efficiency when the director, editor and writer and producer are the same person," notes the 41-year-old father of five.
Spader, the Shorts villain who had never worked with the director previously, says he was amazed at Rodriguez's efficiency. "You have to give yourself up to his movies because he knows exactly what he wants," says the actor.
It's been Rodriguez's style since his movie debut with the cheap and cheerful El Mariachi in 1992, subsequently outlined by his popular memoir on making films, Rebel Without A Crew.
He has tried the director for hire routine, too, but pulled back from that when he had to resign from the Director's Guild of America over a co-directing ruling for Sin City. That forced him out of a planned studio film in development, and he went back to his Austin roots full time.
While the adult-only Sin City did OK critically and at the box-office, he has had disappointments since his independence from Hollywood. Shark Boy and Lava Girl, conceived by another son Racer, received poor reviews and earned mediocre box-office.
Grindhouse, his double feature with Quentin Tarantino, disappointed critics and fans. And his planned remake of Barbarella with girlfriend Rose McGowan (he divorced wife and producer Elizabeth Avellan after separating in 2005 ) was finally scrapped this spring.
However, Machete is a go. It's the feature length action film expanded from the fake trailer in Grindhouse which showcase tough guy Danny Trejo from the Spy Kids films.
In Machete, Trejo plays the title character, a bad ass do gooder battling the bad guys. So far, Rodriguez says he's enjoying the shoot with Trejo and co- stars Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, and Steven Seagal.
"It's been amazing and the movie has a lot of energy," he maintains. "I think we've surpassed what we wanted to do."
Next up is his relaunching of the Predator series with the film Predators, written and produced by Rodriguez.
Then, of course, there is the often discussed sequel to Sin City written by creator Frank Miller. The director's guarded about the film's future, however.
``Until I am on that set, I can't say it's happening," Rodriguez insists. "But I do have a script."
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