YOU’VE EITHER GOT OR YOU HAVEN’T GOT STYLE: Movie Reviews of Mistress America and Queen of Earth by Howard Casner
Posted: September 11, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alex Ross Perry, Cindy Cheung, Elizabeth Moss, Greta Gerwig, Heather Lind, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Katherine Waterson, Kentucky Adler, Listen Up Philip, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear, Mistress America, Noah Baumbach, Patrick Fugit, Queen of Earth, Whit Stillman | 312 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
In Mistress America, the new comedy of manners directed by Noah Baumbach and written by Baumbach and the actor playing the title role, Greta Gerwig, Tracy, a freshman in college who wants to be a writer, has trouble fitting in. She can’t get invited to a party. The snobbish college lit magazine rejects her story. The only person who has warmed up to her, fellow writer Tony, whom she hopes to date, suddenly shows up with another woman on his arm.
Desperate to find a way out of her slough of despair (to use a literary allusion), she finally does what her mother suggests: contact Brooke, the daughter of her mother’s future husband, who lives in New York. And when she does, Brooke takes Tracy under her wing and expands her horizons.
But Brooke is, well, quite a character, should we say. Which is good since, in many ways, Mistress America is a character study.
It’s also a very studied character study.
Critics have said that Mistress America is very quotable. And in many ways, they are right. Just like a play by Oscar Wilde, I could see almost every line possibly ending up in a Barlett’s.
But everything in the movie feels like it’s in quotation marks. The acting, the characters, the story, the mis en scene. It’s like a Restoration comedy that’s been produced within an inch of its life.
That sounds like I’m saying something negative about the movie. But I’m not really. Yes, everything in Mistress America seems punctuated, but still, it’s a thorough joy to watch. It is a rollicking good time. Read the rest of this entry »
MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS: Movie Reviews of Diary of a Teenage Girl and Grandma by Howard Casner
Posted: September 9, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alexander Skarsgard, Bel Powley, Blame it on Rio, Christopher Meloni, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Dirty Dancing, Elizabeth Pena, Grandma, Ingmar Bergman, John Cho, Judy Greer, Julia Garner, Kristin Wiig, Lily Tomlin, Lolita, Manhattan, Marcia Gay Harden, Marielle Heller, Paul Weitz, Phoebe Gloeckner, Roman Polanski, Sam Elliot, Wild Strawberries | 967 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
I remember back in 1987 when Dirty Dancing came out, I was a little surprised that in all the positive reaction to the film, no one was mentioning the fact that a teenage girl was having an affair with a much older man. In fact, women loved this movie about first love and sexual awaking.
When Lolita was released in 1962, the movie was not so much seen as a dramatization of the horrors of pedophilia, but a tragi-comic character study of a man obsessed with his step-daughter, a step-daughter who did as much of the seducing as did the aging roué.
In 1984’s Blame it on Rio, Michael Caine has sex with his best friend’s daughter and the whole thing is played as a farce. It was even called incest by proxy by some and many found the move tres amusement.
Woody Allen’s films like Manhattan (1979) were probably the main ones the drew some hesitation, but even in his black and white paean to a city filled with morally questionable neurotics, his relationship with the high school nymphet was seen as the most pure and Mariel Hemingway got an Oscar nom.
Even Roman Polanski got the brunt of the sympathy as he fled the country to try and restart his film career in Europe.
But this was an earlier time when sex between older men and teenage girls wasn’t quite held in the same low esteem as it is today.
And oh, my, the times they have been a changing. Back then we had the new morality. Today, we have the new, new morality where sex between an adult and someone below the age of consent is no longer seen as acceptable and even considered damaging to the teen. Legally it’s always been called statutory rape, but until more recently, that term was not used much in terms of these relationships in movies.
The new movie Diary of a Teenage Girl, written and directed by the actor Marielle Heller (she can be seen in such films as A Walk Among the Tombstones and MacGruber), based on the autobiographical novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, falls somewhere in between today and yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »
ART ISN’T EASY: Movie Reviews of Straight Outta Compton and She’s Funny That Way by Howard Casner
Posted: September 1, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Andrea Berloff, Austin Pendleton, Corey Hawkins, Cybil Shepherd, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, F. Gary Gray, George Morfogen, Ice Cube, Ileana Douglas, Imogen Poots, Jason Mitchell, Jennnifer Anniston, Joanna Lumley, Jonathan Herman, Jr., Kathryn Hahn, Louise Stratton, Michael Shannon, Owen Wilson, O’Shea Jackson, Paul Giamatti, Peter Bogdanovich, R. Marcus Taylor, Rhys Ifans, Richard Lewis, She’s Funny That Way, Straight Outta Compton, Suge Knight, Tatum O’Neal, Tovah Feldshuh, Will Forte | 1,184 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
Though bearing almost no resemblance in any other way (to say the least), two movies have opened of late that demonstrate, to paraphrase Stephen Sondheim, that art sure isn’t easy.
Straight Outta Compton is a tale told of the rise of three best friends who stop becoming friends and then find their way back to being friends before the credits come up (or as we say in the biz, guys meet guys, guys lose guys, guys get guys). It’s the tale of Eazy-E, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre who took the universe by storm with this newfangled sound called Rap and changed the world of music forever.
The film basically has four types of scenes in it: the first are scenes that show the horrors of growing up in the projects and how blacks are treated by the authorities (even when the authorities are black and in one case, find themselves to be music critics); second are the scenes that show the relationship of the three central characters, especially on tour, including the downtime of hanging out and getting high and laid; third are scenes of confrontation between the artists and their managers; and the fourth are the scenes where they actually perform.
I would say that all but the second set of scenes work well, sometimes astoundingly well, and are strong and rich in dramatic conflict. But the story tends to stall whenever the characters are doing little but hanging around just being themselves (the Beatles from A Hard Day’s Night they ain’t). Most of these scenes have little vibrancy or originality to them, while others resemble and have as much depth and insight as an MTV music video from the same period.
And as riveting as so much of the film is, somewhere in the second half it starts to lose forward momentum and I did sort of wish that they would wrap things up already at times. Read the rest of this entry »
A TALE OF TWO JESSES: American Ultra and The End of the Tour
Posted: August 30, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: American Ultra, Bill Pulman, Clouds of Sils Maria, Connie Britton, David Foster Wallace, David Lipsky, Donald Margulies, Infinite Jest, James Ponsoldt, Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Joan Cusack, John Leguizamo, Kristen Stewart, Lavell Crawford, Max Landis, Nima Nourizadah, Rolling Stone, Sam Malone, Still Alice, Stuart Greer, The End of the Tour, Tony Hale, Topher Grace, Walter Goggins | 7 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
I’ve always had mixed feelings about the actor Jesse Eisenberg. His stuttering performances, his “gee gosh” can’t look you in the face acting technique, his off beat visage, have actually, if I must be honest, and I guess I must, I must, put me off at the beginning and often quite annoyed me.
And, as I also said to my friends: Aren’t Jessie Eisenberg, Michael Cera and Paul Dano actually the same person? I mean, have you ever seen them in a room together?
As time has gone on, as time is want to do, as we know from Casablanca, and as Eisenberg has made more and more interesting choices in film roles (from The Squid and the Whale to The Social Network to Night Moves to The Double), he’s sort of won me over and I even look forward to his next endeavor.
Well, his next endeavor, nay, endeavors, we now have, and they come in the form of two new films: American Ultra and End of the Tour.
American Ultra is about a slacker, stoner Peter Pan, called Mike, who works at a convenience store in a small town that he can’t seem to leave because he has an agoraphobic reaction whenever he tries. He lives with a long suffering girlfriend Phoebe who he has decided to ask to marry him. But something happens that causes his best laid plans to go awry. Read the rest of this entry »
BOYS WILL BE BOYS: Movie Reviews of Goodnight Mommy and Cop Car by Howard Casner
Posted: August 27, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Camryn Manheim, Christopher D. Ford, Cop Car, Elias Schwartz, Goodnight Mommy, Hays Wellford, Ich seh, James Freedson-Jackson, Jon Watts, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Lukas Schwartz, Severin Fiala, Shea Wingham, Susanne Wuest, Ulrich Seidl, Veronika Franz | 755 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
Kids. Can’t live with them. Can’t kill them…or can you? Well, in two new movies with young boys as central characters, infanticide might not be such a bad idea because if you don’t, they might get you first.
Cop Car is a nice, tight little thriller about two pre-teens who are wandering across some wide open spaces common in their part of the country. They seem to have run away for some reason which is never explained (there’s a lot that is never explained in the movie, which is fine, since such explanations are often irrelevant as it is and would only get in the way).
They come upon an abandoned cop car, the sheriff nowhere in sight, find keys in it and, hey, boys being boys, they go joy riding…unaware that there is a body in the trunk.
Okay, I’m sorry, but this is a pretty neat set up for a couple of hours in the theater and the movie does an excellent job of fulfilling all expectations. It’s one of those films that doesn’t really do anything, but in the end, whatever it doesn’t do, it certainly does it rather well. Read the rest of this entry »
BULLY, BULLY and WOOLY, WOOLY: Movie reviews of The Gift and Shaun the Sheep Movie by Howard Casner
Posted: August 18, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Allison Tolman, Jason Bateman, Joel Edgerton, Mark Burton, Rebecca Hall, Richard Starzak, Shaun the Sheep Movie, The Gift, Wendell Pierce | 5 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
There’s a very telling scene and line in The Gift, the new thriller written, directed and starring Australian jack of all trades Joel Edgerton (you know, just because you’re from another country doesn’t mean you can’t leave a few jobs for the locals, mate).
Husband and wife Simon and Robyn have recently moved to California for Simon’s new job. The town is Santa Clarita (if my memory serves) where Simon grew up and went to school. While out shopping the couple run into Gordo, an old classmate of Simon’s, someone Simon claims he can barely remember, though Gordo seems to have no trouble remembering Simon.
Gordo suddenly starts showing up at the couple’s house with gifts, though it’s hard to tell whether he’s creepy or just socially awkward. But one night he leaves after having been invited to dinner (well, has sort of forced them to invite him to dinner) and Simon says there is something odd about him.
The reason this is telling is because it is also somewhat ironic since, by this time, it’s rather clear that there is something odd about Simon. Read the rest of this entry »
BORN AGAIN or PHOENIX IS AS PHOENIX DOES: Movie reviews of Phoenix and Irrational Man by Howard Casner
Posted: August 13, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Christian Petzold, Emma Stone, Harun Faroqhi, Irrational Man, Joaquin Phoenix, Nina Hoss, Parker Posey, Phoenix, Ronald Zehrfeld, Woody Allen | 130 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
In the U.S., much has been made of the lack of women’s roles in film, especially as they reach, in movie terms, the unmagical age of 40. There are many reasons for this, but the main one, I suggest, is that American filmmakers (directors, writers, producers) seem to have absolutely no interest in creating movies with women as central characters.
Though I’m not saying this isn’t a problem everywhere, it does seem to be far worse in the U.S. In other countries, especially of the European variety, for whatever reason (perhaps a topic for another time), actresses of all ages, but especially older ones, don’t seem to have that serious of a problem in this area.
In fact, it is not unusual for directors overseas to constantly use the same actress over and over again, often creating roles and movies as vehicles for them. Claude Chabrol loved, while Michael Haneke loves, using Isabel Huppert. André Téchiné seems to worship the ground that Catherine Deneuve walks on. Francois Ozon has a thing for Charlotte Rampling. And who can forget Lars Von Trier’s constant use of Charlotte Gainsborough.
And from Germany we have writer/director Christian Petzold who has little trouble finding interesting and effective roles for his latest muse: Nina Hoss (quickly becoming one of the world’s more impressive actors). Together they have made several films, from the existential Yella; the unofficial remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Jerichow; the cold war thriller, Barbara; and now the Holocaust drama, Phoenix.
CRUISING: Movie Review of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation by Howard Casner
Posted: August 9, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alec Baldwin, Barbara Bain, Christopher McQuarrie, Drew Pierce, Jeremy Renner, Martin Landau, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Simon McBurney, Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise, Tom Hollander, Ving Rhames | 1,236 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
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Warning: SPOILERS
In watching Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the latest attempt by Tom Cruise to keep his box office status as superstar and not let his being a Scientologist be held against him, one thing that struck me is that it seemed to be violating a basic law of physics, as least physics as stated by such scientific experts as the writers of shows like Star Trek.
The basic premise of MI – RN is that there is now a mirror version of this secret espionage group that is doing everything it can to cause chaos in the world. Or as described by Ethan Hunt, our fearless leader, an anti-IMF (hold for gasps).
But if that is true, then if one IMF member comes into contact with an anti-IMF member, shouldn’t the universe be destroyed in a huge explosion?
At any rate, growing up I was a big fan of the Mission: Impossible TV series. Every Sunday (or whatever night it was, it was so long ago, I don’t remember) I was there to find out what foreign country the MI bunch were going to covertly go into and destabilize or stabilize, depending on how James Phelps’ never seen but only heard, comforting, middle American accented boss felt about them. Read the rest of this entry »
STAR TURNS: Movie reviews of Southpaw and Mr. Holmes by Howard Casner
Posted: August 6, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 50 Cent, Antoine Fuqua, Bill Condon, Forest Whitaker, Gods and Monsters, Ian McKellen, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeffrey Hatcher, John Sessions, Kurt Sutter, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Mr. Holmes, Oona Lawrence, Rachel McAdams, Southpaw | 1,142 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay? Check out my new e-book published on Amazon: Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, including my series of essays, What I Learned Reading for Contests This Year, and my film reviews of 2013. Only $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r
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Warning: SPOILERS
I’m not about to say that director Antoine Fuqua is a great filmmaker by any means. But he is a solid craftsman of pieces of entertainment, perhaps one of the best around today. His films are technically impressive, satisfactorily written and they deliver the goods.
And Southpaw is no exception. It’s a movie that doesn’t take you anyplace new (in fact, it takes you to a myriad of places you’ve been before). And when it comes to, say, boxing movies, I don’t think it’s an insult to say he’s no Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull) or John Huston (Fat City).
At the same time, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed if all you want to do is spend a couple of hours being amused, diverted and distracted. And actually, if truth be told, Southpaw is probably a bit better than that.
I do think the main reason for this, as if I have to tell you, is the performance of Jake Gyllenhaal as the lead character Billy Hope (Hope?, really? Okay, sure why not). Striving very hard to be taken seriously as an actor since his Oscar nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain, he has pushed the boundaries of the types of character he plays in movies from Jarhead to Zodiac to his magnificent tour de force last year in the creepy, creepy Nightcrawler. Read the rest of this entry »
MEAN STREETS and TRAINWRECK: Movie reviews of Tangerine and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet by Howard Casner
Posted: August 4, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amelie, Callum Keith Rennie, Chris Bergoch, Dominque Pinon, Escape from Tomorrow, Guerilla filmmaking, Guillaume Laurant, Helena Bonham-Carter, James Ransone, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Judy Davis, Kitana Kiki Rodriquez, Kyle Catlett, Mya Taylor, Rome: Open City, Sam Fuller, Sean Baker, Tangerine, The Crimson Kimono, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, Thomas Hardmeier | 1,684 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00. For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you. I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one.
Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay? Check out my new e-book published on Amazon: Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, including my series of essays, What I Learned Reading for Contests This Year, and my film reviews of 2013. Only $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r
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Warning: SPOILERS
Guerilla filmmaking is nothing new to the world of cinema. It’s probably existed since the first motion picture camera was invented. But perhaps the most famous and influential one is Rome: Open City in which the action is often filmed on the streets of a newly un-Nazi occupied Rome with a mixture of amateur and pro actors.
It’s never not gone out of style since (Sam Fuller uses it during the opening scenes of The Crimson Kimono, for example), but bulky cameras and sound gear made it very difficult. Now with smaller, cheaper and easier to use film equipment, it has been on the rise.
Most notably and recently we had Escape from Tomorrow, much of it secretly shot at Disneyland and Disneyworld (and often impressively so). But that film lacked a strong and focused narrative until it felt like the writer and director ultimately lost control of it all and the final third never came together in a satisfying way.
And now we have Tangerine, shot not just on the streets of Los Angeles (mainly on Santa Monica between Vermont and Highland, though it does extend to West Hollywood at one point), but also on busses, motels and in fast food restaurants, especially a donut shop manned by a very beleaguered clerk. Read the rest of this entry »
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