‘S WONDERFUL! ‘S MARVELOUS! ‘S OKAY: Movie Review of La La Land by Howard Casner
Posted: December 18, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Damien Chazelle, Emma Stone, J.K. Simmons, Justin Hurwitz, La La Land, Ryan Gosling | 3 Comments »For questions: hcasner@aol.com
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Warning: SPOILERS
La La Land, the new musical about aspiring Angelenos, opens on a wintry 84 degree day in stalled bumper to bumper traffic on an L.A. freeway.
So, of course, to pass the time, everyone begins to sing and dance. And it’s absolutely wonderful, a marvelous moment of agile bodies twisting and turning, on car roofs and cement barriers, as the camera glides around and amongst them, as if carried by a graceful wind.
The basic story revolves around aspiring actress Mia (spunky Emma Stone, if that’s not redundant) and aspiring jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling, perhaps the cinema’s best representative of metrosexuality), an artist so pure he refuses to join a music group because he wants to open his own club where he can play jazz the way he wants, not the way someone else wants him to.
They have trouble meeting cute, and once they do and romance blooms, they have trouble breaking up. Read the rest of this entry »
IT’S A DISASTER: Movie Reviews of 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Wave by Howard casner
Posted: March 20, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 10 Cloverfield Lane, Ane Dahl Torp, Cloverfield, Cooper, Damien Chazelle, Dan Bradley, Fridtjov Saheim, Harold Rosenlow-Eeg, John Goodman, John Kare Raeke, Josh Campbell, Josh Gallagher Jr., Kristoffer Jone, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Matthew Stuecken, Roar Uthaug, The Wave | 2,826 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
10 Cloverfield Lane is a somewhat awkward mating of two genres: the women in danger film (aka, a female thriller) and an alien invasion film.
What’s so surprising is that despite the clunkiness of said mating, the movie is very enjoyable and more or less works on its own terms.
The basic premise here revolves around a young woman who leaves her boyfriend for reasons unknown and on her way to wherever it is she is going, if she’s actually going somewhere, her car is broadsided and goes over the side of the road. She loses consciousness only to wake up in an underground bunker replete with a conspiracy theorist who claims that America has been attacked and they may be the only survivors.
Is he crazy? Is he telling the truth? Or is he both? Read the rest of this entry »
AND THE RHYTHM OF LIFE IS A POWERFUL BEAT: Movie review of Whiplash by Howard Casner
Posted: October 29, 2014 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chris Mulkey, Damien Chazelle, J.K. Simmons, Miles Teller, Paul Reiser, Whiplash | 3 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
Warning: SPOILERS
Jerome Robbins was one of the greatest choreographers and director in theater. But he was almost universally hated and it’s hard to find anyone who had a nice thing to say about him. There is one story, probably apocryphal, which sums up this feeling about the grand master: during West Side Story, he was slowly backing up toward the apron; everyone was so angry at him, they didn’t try to stop him and just watched him go off the edge of the stage.
On the other hand, Bob Fosse, at least equally as brilliant (possibly more), though a tough taskmaster, was universally loved. Even his ex-wives and lovers tended not to wax rapturously about the negative aspects of his personality.
Yet both, through different approaches, achieved wondrous things with their actors and dancers.
I thought of this as I was watching the new film Whiplash, written and directed by Damien Chazelle, a story about Fletcher, a tyrannical conductor and teacher of jazz at what the story contends is the greatest music school in the U.S. (Julliard is chopped liver, I suppose) and his new victim, I mean, pupil/discovery, Andrew, someone Fletcher thinks, through his Stalinesque methods, can be turned into a drummer on the level of Charlie Parker. Read the rest of this entry »
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