MOMMIES DEAREST: Movie Reviews of films Mia Madre and The Light Between Oceans by Howard Casner
Posted: September 11, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alicia Vikander, Blue Valentine, Bryan Brown, Derek Cianfrance, Francesco Piccolo, John Turturro, Margherita Buy, Mia Madre, Michael Fassbender, Nanni Moretti, Rachel Weisz, The Light Between Oceans, The Place Beyond the Pines, Valia Santelli, We Have a Pope, Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire | 1,757 Comments »For questions: hcasner@aol.com
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Warning: SPOILERS
In many ways, Margherita is having a year of Job.
Her mother is dying and she and her brother spend much of their time with their parent in the hospital. She’s directing a socially conscience film that is not going well; it seems fake and she’s not sure she can make the project work, and small things keep going wrong. She has recently broken up with her latest lover because she can’t leave her work at home. She is having trouble relating to her daughter. And she is having difficulty getting a performance from the American actor flown in for the lead of the film (he has a condition that makes it difficult for him to remember lines, made worse in that they are in Italian).
The film, Mia Madre, is co-written by the director Nanni Moretti (along with Valia Santelli and Francesco Piccolo) and is inspired by the time in his life when his mother was dying while he was filming We Have a Pope. Read the rest of this entry »
NO COUNTRY FOR BLIND MEN: Movie Reviews of Hell or High Water and Don’t Breathe by Howard Casner
Posted: September 10, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Daniel Zovatto, David McKenzie, Don’t Breathe, Dylan Minette, Fred Alvarez, Hell of High Water, It Follows, Jane Levy, Jeff Bridges, Margaret Bowman, No Country For Old Men, Only Lovers Left Alive, Rodo Sayagues, See No Evil, Sicario, Starred Up, Stephen Lang, Taylor Sheridan, Wait Until Dark, Young Adam | 140 Comments »For questions: hcasner@aol.com
First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
I am now offering a new consultation 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? FosCheck 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
At one point in Hell or High Water, the new bank robbery movie that takes place in Texas, as younger brother Toby (Chris Pine) goes into a convenience store, his older brother, Tanner (Ben Foster), requests a Dr. Pepper. Toby returns with a Mr. Pibbs, to the consternation of the aforementioned sibling.
I’m not sure if the screenwriter Taylor Sheridan is from the Lone Star State, but I do have a feeling that only a native son would understand the egregious wrong that has been committed here.
In a recent review, I mentioned that we have George Lucas to thank for utilizing a bad guy that everyone can hate with no political incorrectness: Nazis. But as this movie quickly indicates, there is one bastion of evil that comes a close second: banks.
THE NAZIS ARE COMING, THE NAZIS ARE COMING: Movie Reviews of Imperium, Anthropoid and The People v. Fritz Bauer by Howard Casner
Posted: September 2, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: and Toby Jones, Anthony Frewin, Anthropoid, Burghart Klaussner, Cillian Murphy, Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Ragussis, Imperium, Jamie Dornan, Lars Krause, Olivier Geez, Rudiger Klink, Sam Trammell, Sean Elli, The People vs. Fritz Bauer, Toni Collette, Tracy Letts | 1,847 Comments »For more information, contact hcasner@aol.com
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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
In the 1970’s Hollywood on, people were having trouble coming up with an acceptable background for villains. Critics and audiences were becoming more and more resistant to the idea that the bad guys had to be a member of a minority group.
What was a filmmaker who liked to use shorthand to create characters rather than create in-depth individual to do?
Well, George Romero gave us the living dead. Steven Spielberg gave us a shark (which is only fair since he soon took away aliens as bad guys with E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, not to return space creatures to their evil glory until War of the Worlds).
But perhaps the filmmaker we should be most grateful to is George Lucas who gave us the most villainous of all villains, the Nazi, in the Indiana Jones franchise.
After all, other than Trump supporters, who likes Nazis? Read the rest of this entry »
NEW YORK STORIES: Florence Foster Jenkins and Little Men
Posted: September 1, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alfred Molina, Arturo Toscanini, Catherine Frot, Christian McKay, Earl Wilson, Florence Foster Jenkins, Greg Kinnear, Hugh Grant, Ira Sachs, John Kavanagh, John Sessions, Little Men, Marguerite, Mauricio Zacharias, Meryl Streep, Michael Barbieri, Nicholas Martin, Simon Helberg, Stephen Fears, Theo Taplitz | 2 Comments »For questions: hcasner@aol.com
First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
I am now offering a new consultation 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? FosCheck 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
Tourist: How do I get to Carnegie Hall?
Taxi Driver: Practice, son, practice.
Or you can go the way of Florence Foster Jenkins and have enough money to rent the hall oneself.
In the 1960’s, a Margaret Dumontenesque like singer going by the name of Mrs. Miller become a flavor of the month sensation by singing pop songs like Downtown in an operatic off key shrill. I have a memory of Mrs. Miller from my youth. I did wonder at the time whether she knew she was being laughed at, not with. Apparently she had some idea, but that didn’t stop her from recording.
Such a character appears in pop culture every once in a while (anyone have a painting of a poor orphaned waif with saucer eyes?). And now a new movie has been made about a similar creature who shared her voice during the days leading up to World War II.
The main difference is that Florence Foster Jenkins made Mrs. Miller sound like Leontyne Price. Read the rest of this entry »
GROWING UP IS HARD TO DO: Movie Reviews of Don’t Think Twice and Indignation by Howard Casner
Posted: August 18, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bartleby the Scrivener, Chris Gethard, Crouching Tiger, Don’t Think Twice, Gillian Jacobs, Herman Melville, Hidden Dragon, In the Region of Ice, Indignation, James Shamus, Joyce Carol Oates, Kate Micucci, Keegan-Michael Key, Linda Emond, Logan Lerman, Mike Birbiglia, Philip Roth, Sarah Gadon, Sleepwalk With Me, Taking Woodstock, Tami Sather, The Wedding Banquet, Tracy Letts | 3 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
I am now offering a new consultation 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Don’t Think Twice, the new movie about improvers from writer/director/actor Mike Birbiglia (his second feature after Sleepwalk With Me, also about comedians), has one of the best analyses of Saturday Night Live (called Weekend Live here) I’ve come across, encapsulating what has gone wrong with the show for who knows how many years now. The main characters have gathered together to watch one of their group who has been cast in the series. The skit is terrible, as so many SNL skits are. They scrunch up their faces and basically say: you can tell it’s supposed to be funny, you can understand why it’s supposed to be funny, but it just isn’t funny.
The basic through line of Don’t Think Twice is, in many ways, very universal. It’s happened to all of us. We’re progressing when suddenly we find ourselves in a rut, but we don’t realize it. We know we need to do something to achieve our longtime goals, but we’ve grown comfortable, without realizing that’s how we feel, and so we drift along the way we are.
Then something happens that forces us to do something to change the status quo. We actually think this event is, in many ways, the apocalypse, but in working through it, we actually realize it’s the best thing that could have happened, because we were forced to do something, anything, to make us so uncomfortable that we had to start reaching for that goal again (or redefine it). Read the rest of this entry »
THE EAST IS EAST AND THE WEST IS WEST: Movie Review of Woody Allen’s Café Society by Howard Casner
Posted: August 6, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Café Society, Corey Stoller, Jeannie Berlin, Jessie Eisenberg, Ken Stott, Kristen Stewart, Parker Posey, Paul Schneider, Stephen Kunken, Steve Carrell, Still Alice, The Clouds of Sils Maria, Woody Allen | 1,003 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
I am now offering a new consultation 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
In Woody Allen’s most recent attempt at making himself forget that he will have to die one day, or as it’s called in the state of the art, his latest film, Café Society, about a young man, Bobby (Allen stand in Jessie Eisenberg), who goes out to the West Coast to see if he wants to make a future there, the camera often glides around a scene with all the grace of Sonja Henri, even at times so smoothly it left me a little dizzy. I can’t remember the last time I saw Allen’s camera flow as much as it does here. Often of late, his camera feels as if it were following the old saying, what you see is what you get.
Its appearance was so refreshing at the beginning of the film, it had me hoping for something more than a typical 21st Century Woody Allen movie. But alas, though not a terrible night at the cinema, Café Society is only intermittently successful.
TV OR NOT TV: Movie Reviews of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie and Star Trek Beyond by Howard Casner
Posted: August 1, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Absolutely Fabulous: the Movie, Charlie, Dawn French, Doug, Gwendoline Christie, Idris Elba, Jennifer Saunders, Joan Collins, Judgment at Nuremberg, Justin Lin, Mandie Fletcher, Marty, Simon Pegg, Star Trek, The Days of Wine and Roses | 133 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
I am now offering a new consultation 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
In the olden days (those are the days when most of you weren’t even a gleam in your father’s eyes yet), when the movies went to television for subject matter, we got Marty, Judgment at Nuremberg, Charlie and The Days of Wine and Roses. Today we have The Beverly Hillbillies, Charlie’s Angels, Dark Shadows and The Addams Family (okay, The Addams Family was pretty neat, especially Addams Family Values, but you get my drift).
And now, opening the same week, we have two more: Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (or Ab Fab, as those in my tribe refer to it) and Star Trek Beyond (or STB as I will refer to it).
Shoot me before they reach Gilligan’s Island.
Both movies, in spite of being in entirely different genres, do have two things in common. One: both are from television series that succeeded because they found the humanity at the core of their concepts. Second, and perhaps ironically: the human connection is almost totally cut off from both of the films (with Ab Fab: The Movie being so disconnected from reality, it might as well also have sci-fi in common with Star Trek). Read the rest of this entry »
BETTER LATE THAN CRAP: Movie Reviews of The Innocents, Wiener-Dog and Hunt for the Wilderpeople by Howard Casner
Posted: July 30, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Absolutely Fabulous: the Movie, Agatha Kulesza, Alice Vial, Anne Fontaine, Au hazard Balthazar, Danny Devito, Eagle vs. Shark, Ellen Burstyn, Greta Gerwig, Housebound, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Ida, Julian, Julie Delpy, Keaton Nigel Green, Kieran Culkin, of Flight of the Concords, Pascal Bonitzer, Pawel Pawlikowski, Rachel House, Rima Te Waititi, Sabrina B Marine, Sam Neill, Star Trek Beyond, Taikia Waititi, The Innocents, Tracy Letts, Weiner-Dog, What We Do in the Darkness, Zosia Mamet | 4 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
I know I’m a little late with reviews of the above titled films. I got behind in work and I wasn’t sure when I was ever going to get back to blogging and even thought of bypassing these movies since some of them have passed from the theaters.
But last week two major tentpole type films opened the same weekend, Absolutely Fabulous: the Movie and Star Trek Beyond, and both are crap. No, they are worse than that. They are crappity crap crap crap.
So I thought I owed it to the other movies to share my views. I mean, how can I justify passing up these three movies when I’m going to eventually review crap?
So, let’s begin.
In the early sixties Poland had, what was termed in the biz, a new wave, a group of emerging filmmakers who had something unique and fresh to say (or at least tried, the country was still a Russian satellite at the time). Directors and writers like Roman Polanski, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi and Krzysztof Kieslowski burst on the scene with an exciting outpouring of new work like Knife in the Water, Ashes and Diamonds, The Contract and Camera Buff. Read the rest of this entry »
DEAD MAN FARTING: Movie Reviews of Swiss Army Man and Carnage Park by Howard Casner
Posted: July 15, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 10 Cloverfield Lane, Alan Ruck, Ashley Bell, Carnage Park, Citizen Kane, Dan Kwan, Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Scheinert, Harry Potter, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michael Keating, Michel Gondry, Orson Welles, Pat Healy, Paul Dano, Quentin Tarantino, Shane Carruth, Swiss Army Man, The Lobster, The Most Dangerous Game | 769 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
I am now offering a new consultation 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
Perhaps the best way to describe Swiss Army Man, the new indie comedy from writer/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, their first feature film, is that it is an odd duck of a movie. Of course, it’s no insult to say that it’s not quite as odd a duck as The Lobster, but if it quacks like one, etc. You get my drift anyway.
Those of you who watch the previews of coming attractions at their local bijou, or even those who don’t, probably know what the basic premise is. Paul Dano plays Hank, a depressed loner who gets stranded on an island after a boat he rented got lost.
As he is about to do himself in, he sees a dead body washed up on shore. This non-character is played by former Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe, a role I bet never required him to pass wind.
Hank soon discovers that Manny has certain, shall we say, uses. He can fart with the power of an SST and he gets an erection that always tells Hank which way to go to get back to civilization.
And that’s just the beginning of the odd duckiness here. Read the rest of this entry »
YOU’VE GOT OR YOU HAVEN’T GOT STYLE: Movie Reviews of De Palma and The Neon Demon by Howard Casner
Posted: July 5, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Abbey Lee, Alfred Hitchcock, Bella Heathcote, Bernard Herman, Blow Out, Body Double, Brian De Palma, Carrie, Christina Hendricks, Desmond Harrington, Dressed to Kill, Elle Fanning, Gaspar Noe, Jake Paltrow, Jean Malone, Jill Clayburgh, Karl Cusman, Keanu Reeves, Melanie Griffith, Mission to Mars, Mission: Impossible, Molly Laws, Nicholas Winding Refn, Noah Baumbach, Obsession, Only God Forgives, Phantom of the Paradise, Polly Stenham, Robert DeNiro, Roger Cormen, Scarface, Terence Malik, The Black Dahlia, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Neon Demon, The Untouchables | 1,397 Comments »First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
I am now offering a new consultation 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
Two movies have opened recently that revolve around style. One is a documentary about a filmmaker who is known for his, the other is a film by a director who has it.
How one reacts to De Palma, the new doc by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow about the director, first name Brian, who really made his mark in movies with the horror film Carrie, may depend on how you feel about the filmmaker’s films in general. For me, De Palma, who is the only talking head here, it’s his show all the way, is only as interesting as his movies, which means that once we get to Blow Out, it’s all down here from there.
His earliest films tended to be of the independent sort, made on a shoestring budget, if that. They may not have always looked as professional as a Roger Corman production, but they had a fresh hipness to them and gave us such actors as Robert DeNiro and Jill Clayburgh.
His most successful films, when it comes to a meshing of auteurism and box office, came with the movies that were heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, films like Carrie, Dressed to Kill and the aforementioned Blow Out. There was something so kinetic and thrilling in his combination of individual style with Hollywood slickness that gave these films a certain electricity. Read the rest of this entry »
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