PERIOD PIECE: 1950’s America and Movie Reviews of Brooklyn and Trumbo by Howard Casner
Posted: December 9, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Brooklyn, Bryan Cranston, Carol, Christian Berkel, Colm Toibin, Dalton Trumbo, Dean O’Gorman, Diane Lane, Domhnall Gleeson, Edward G. Robinson, Emory Cohen, Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, John Crowley, John Goodman, Julie Walters, Louis CK, Michael Stuhlbarg, Nick Hornby, Otto Preminger, Saoirse Ronan, Trumbo | 9,361 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’m not sure what it is about America in the 1950’s, but it has become very popular as of late in film. Three movies this year that took place during the Eisenhower era have captured the fervent imagination of the audience: Carol (which I’ve already reviewed), and now Brooklyn and Trumbo.
Hm. It seems that that time period also has a penchant for titles with only two syllables as well.
The reason for this mini-Renaissance may all be due to the success of TV’s Madmen, which dramatized America’s transition from the 1950’s to the 1960’s.
Or maybe instead, “transition” is more the key word here. The 1950’s is one of the great transitional periods in our nation’s history, slowly trying to grow away from the conservation way of life of the Depression and World War II, struggling to break free so it can surge into the Summer of Love.
And it all happened under a Republican president no less. Read the rest of this entry »
THE GOOD, THE NOT SO BAD AND THE UGLY—THIS YEAR AT AFI: LOVE STORY – Movie Reviews of Carol and In the Shadow of Women by Howard Casner
Posted: November 27, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Arlette Langman, Carol, Caroline Deraus-Garrel, Cate Blanchett, Clotilde Courau, In the Shadow of Women, Jean-Claude Carriere, Kyle Chandler, Lena Paugam, Louis Garrel, Patricia Highsmith, Philippe Garrel, Phyllis Nagy, Renato Berta, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Stanislas Maher, The Price of Salt, Todd Haynes | 2,674 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
There’s a scene in Carol, the new film about lesbian lovers in 1950’s America, where one of the two leads, Therese, a clerk at a department store, joins her boyfriend and his pal in the projection booth of a movie theater that is screening the classic (though it was new at the time period of the film’s action) Sunset Boulevard.
The pal, who has seen the movie before, is taking copious notes because, as he says, he wants to record the difference between what the characters are saying and what they are really feeling and thinking (for those in the industry, this is often called subtext).
This is a conversation that I found to be of prime pertinence to the film because, with rare occasions, none of the characters ever, ever says what they really feel or think.
But of course, this is 1950’s America, the Eisenhower era where there was a lot bubbling underneath everyone’s skin, but it had yet to burst through to the surface as it soon will when the social revelation comes in the 1960’s.
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