Posted: July 25, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Adam McKay, Ant-Man, Bobby Cannavale, Corey Stoll, David Dastmalchian, Edgar Wright, Evangeline Lilly, Joe Cornish, John Slattery, Judy Greer, Martin Donovan, Marvel, Michael Douglas, Michael Pena, Paul Rudd, Peyton Reed, T.I. | 2 Comments »
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Warning: SPOILERS
When word came down that they (and we all know who “they” are even if we don’t know who “they” are) were making a movie based on the Marvel character of Ant-Man, well, let us say that there was a bunch of groaning and/or unintentional laughter followed by, “Oh, you’re serious”.
Among my comic book geek friends, Ant-Man, a superhero who could miniaturize to the size of the referred to hard working insect, as well as control them, had never been taken that seriously.
With the name not really helping much.
And when I first saw the previews, I didn’t see any additional reason for optimism. They seemed fairly, well, lame.
So now I’ve seen the movie itself and I have to say…it’s not bad and actually has some worthy virtues to speak of.
Who’d have thought it?
The basic premise is that an ex-con (but don’t worry, one of those heroic ones, a computer hacker robin hood, so that way we can cheer him on) gets lured into a life of superherodom by a retired scientist trying to stop an-ex intern, now owner of the scientist’s former company, from exploiting the scientist’s technology of shrinking objects and people and selling them to the highest bidder for world domination purposes (with that neo-Nazi group HYDRA somehow managing to have the most moolah to do it after being so soundly defeated by Captain America and Co. a year or so ago—where do they get their funds? The Koch brothers?). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: July 24, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amy, Amy Schumer, Amy Winehouse, Asif Kapadia, Bill Hader, Colin Farrell, Daniel Radcliffe, Ezra Miller, Judd Apatow, LeBron James, Marisa Tomei, Norman Lloyd, Randall Park, Tilda Swinton, Trainwreck | 436 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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
How you feel about the new documentary on the short life of jazz singer Amy Winehouse, Amy, will probably to some degree depend on how you feel about Ms. Winehouse herself.
For me, she has an amazing voice that will pierce your soul. She is quite a mesmerizing singer.
At the same time, I have to be honest and say that I was not all that impressed by her as a lyricist (Cole Porter, Bob Dylan and Judy Collins she ain’t) and the hooks to her songs never really took me in as I wished they might have.
But if you disagree, and I expect a huge number of people will do just that, then that might help you overlook other issues I think the movie has.
Winehouse led a momentary and unhappy existence. She was one of those singer/songwriters whose every musical creation was a personal revelation about herself and her life. And she was very brave in not holding anything back. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: July 17, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Allison Janney, Andie McDowell, Bryan Lynch, Channing Tatum, Despicable Me, Geoffrey Rush, Gregory Jacobs, Jennifer Saunders, Jon Hamm, Kyle Balda, Magic Mike XXL, Michael Keaton, Minions, Pierre Coffin, Reid Carolin, Sandra Bullock | 6,841 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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
It’s not that common, but it’s also not completely unusual, for a supporting or minor character from a movie to be given a film of their own. This is more likely to happen in TV with spinoffs of popular TV series (Frazier, anyone?), but it does happen in tinsel town as well.
In Dead End, the Dead End Kids got their own franchise and when they grew up, they become The Bowery Boys. In The Egg and I, two of the minor characters, Ma and Pa Kettle, got their own series as well.
And in The White Sheik, Cabiria, a prostitute, via Federico Fellini, got her own vehicle in Nights of Cabiria; Ensign Pulver became the title character in the sequel to Mister Roberts (well, to be fair, Roberts was no longer around); and Ingmar Bergman’s From the Life of the Marionettes brings front and center the bickering couple who appear in the first episode of Scenes from a Marriage.
So in the past couple of weeks we’ve seen two more examples of the selfsame approach, though with a different emphasis in each outing and with much different results.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: July 11, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Adam Scott, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Brady Corbet, Eden, Felix de Givry, Greta Gerwig, Jason Schwartzman, Judith Godréche, Mia Hansen-Løve, Patrick Brice, Radley Metzger, Score, Sven Hansen-Løve, Taylor Schilling, The Overnight | 2,364 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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
From the 1960’s through the ‘80’s, the filmmaker Radley Metzger made a series of what was termed at the time soft core films. This was a period in cinematic history when just about anything went, and many of these films, movies like Metzger’s The Lickerish Quartet and The Opening of Misty Beethoven, found a cross over audience in the mainstream cinema.
They weren’t as graphic as adult, or porn, films, but there was plenty of pretend sex and nudity and usually was a celebration of the new morality and an encouragement to the audience to reject old mores.
One of these, Score, was about a couple that liked to swing. On a regular basis, they would bring home couples for a night of whatever comes up. But this time round, they invite a particular married couple not with the purpose of having an orgy, but with the goal of the wife seducing the younger woman and the husband seducing the younger man.
And they succeed.
And it ends with the younger couple running off in joy as they have discovered themselves free to more fully explore their new found sexuality. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: July 5, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, Molly Shannon, Nick Offerman, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler, The Tribe, Thomas Mann | 2 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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
The Tribe is a new Russian film in which all the characters are deaf and speak in sign language (and not just any ole sign language, but a particular Ukrainian dialect of sign language, which means, from what I understand, that of those of you who can read western European sign language, only 20% will be able to understand it).
But as presented by writer/director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, it is also a movie in which there are no subtitles. Which means, most of you will probably never really know exactly what anyone is saying.
In other words, The Tribe is a silent film without intertitles. The only sound, in fact, is that of the ambient kind (I can’t even recall the use of music in the background). Slaboshpitsky even exaggerates this sound of feet shuffling down corridors, body parts slamming into each other while having sex or conversations, doors creaking; one might go so far as to say that the ambient sound used here is, well, extremely ambienty.
At first, I found this to be an interesting aesthetic exercise. And people have reacted very positively to it. When I first heard about it at AFI last year, people were very excited and kept recommending it. It has won some very prestigious awards (including three at Cannes). And when I saw it in Los Angeles at the Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater, it was a sold out crowd on a Sunday night.
At the same time, other AFIers expressed certain doubts about the film and I fear I must be honest and say I also have some of those selfsame reservations. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: July 2, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alec Sulkin, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, John Slattery, Liam Neeson, Marc Wahlberg, Seth McFarlane, Ted 2, Wellesley Wild | 1 Comment »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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 $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r
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Warning: SPOILERS
In 2012, Family Guy’s Seth McFarlane gave us Ted, a comedy about a teddy bear that came to life. It was actually a pretty good metaphor for the Peter Pan syndrome that the central character, John, suffered from.
It’s 2015, and now we have Ted 2. The bear’s still alive, but it’s a whole new metaphor: Ted wants to get married and adopt a child, but is he human enough to do so? Does he deserve equal rights?
Okay, you can see where this is going. And again, it’s not a half bad metaphor. One can almost see Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham posting on their blogs or talking about it on their shows as proof of the slippery slope that will result from legalizing same sex marriage: if a man can marry a man or a woman a woman, what’s to stop someone from marrying a…stuffed animal.
Posted: June 29, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: A$ap Rocky, Andrew Stroud, Dope, John Hughes, Kiersey Clemons, Lisa Simone Kelly, Liz Garbus, Nina Simone, Rakim Mayers, Rick Fumiyawa, Risky Business, Stanley Crouch, Stokely Carmichael, Tony Revolori, What Happened Miss Simone | 1,400 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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
In 1983, a suburban high school teen was left alone for the weekend by his upper middle class parents whereupon he danced in his undies, pumped up the volume on the hallowed stereo, hired a prostitute and through a series of farcical complications ended up having to open a bordello in his home in order to pay off a pimp of whom he had made an enemy. He ends up using said bordello to get himself accepted into a prestigious university.
In 2015, an inner city high school teen doesn’t dance in his undies, but through a series of farcical complications ends up with a shitload of drugs in his backpack, and gets caught between a variety of guys of the not so good variety who all want what he’s got. He opens a drug lab in his high school and uses the sale of the illegal substances to get himself accepted into a prestigious university.
However, the background to the story is not the only difference between these two basically similarly structured films.
No, the 2015 film, Dope, has characters much richer; dialog much wittier, smarter and crisper; and a plot much edgier and more exciting than the rather white picket fence blandness of the Tom Cruise Risky Business.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: June 25, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amy Poehler, Blythe Danner, Brett Haley, Diane Lane, Inside Out, I’ll See You In My Dreams, Josh Cooley, June Squibb, Kyle MacLachlan, Lewis Black, Marc Basch, Martin Starr, Mary Kay Place, Meg LeFauve, Pete Docter, Phyllis Smith, Pixar, Rhea Perlman, Ronaldo Del Carmen, Sam Elliot | 6,859 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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 really sure what to say about the new independent movie I’ll See You In My Dreams, written by Marc Basch and Brett Haley and directed by Haley, except that it is quite a lovely, little film filled with acute observations about life as one enters one’s golden years.
Is that enough for a film these days? I don’t know. But in this particular case, I found it more than ample. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: June 18, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Allison Janney, B.D. Wong, Ben Falcone, Bobby Cannavale, Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Colin Trevorrow, Irrfan Khan, Jake Johnson, Jason Statham, Jude Law, Jurassic World, Melissa McCarthy, Miranda Hart, Nick Robinson, Omar Sy, Paul Feig, Peter Serafinowicz, Rose Byrne, Simon Masrani, Spy, Ty Simpkins, Vincent D’Onofrio | 2 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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
Are you having a bad day? Things not going well? Are you a bit down in the dumps?
Well, if you want to feel a bit better about yourself and life in general, I can hardly recommend a more effective drop of medicine than Spy, the new espionage comedy starring Melissa McCarthy as Susan Cooper, the unprepossessing agent’s assistant with the unprepossessing name who turns into one bad un-unprepossessing ass of a Jane Bond.
What can I say? I came out of the movie theater feeling wonderful, simply wonderful, ready to take on the vicissitudes of life and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune once again.
Now, I do have to be honest. Based on remarks I’ve seen on facebook, how you react to the movie will probably depend on how you feel about Ms. McCarthy. If you don’t like her particular brand of comedy persona, the movie may affect you more like a fallen soufflé.
I happen to think she’s an exploding nova of a comic talent. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: June 10, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alec Baldwin, Aloha, Beach Boys, Bill Murray, Bill Pohlad, Bradley Cooper, Brian Wilson, Cameron Crowe, Danny McBride, Elizabeth Banks, Emma Stone, Eugene Landy, John Cusack, John Krasinski, Love & Mercy, Melinda Ledbetter, Michael A. Lerner, Oren Moverman, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Rachel McAdams | 813 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors. 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
I’m not sure that I can really add to the general response to the movie Aloha (it’s 20% at rottentomatoes.com and I don’t think the box office is of the more optimistic size), but far be it from me not to join in and kick a man while he’s down.
About three quarters of the way through the new rom com written and directed by Cameron Crowe (who also gave us the very good Almost Famous, Say Anything and Singles, but not much else since except for, well, Jerry “Show me the money” McGuire, but, no, I’ll stick with not much else since, thanks), I turned to my friend Jim and said, “I’m sorry, but I have to be honest: I have no idea what’s going on here”.
Jim laughed and sighed in relief because he had no more of a clue than I did.
The plot eventually does make sense; well, within the context of a not particularly well written movie it makes sense, but overall, as a piece of writing, it really makes little sense at all.
Read the rest of this entry »
