IT’S NOT THE SIZE, IT’S WHAT YOU DO WITH IT: Movie reviews of Child 44 and Unfriended by Howard Casner
Posted: April 20, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Child 44, Daniel Espinoza, Fares Fares, Gary Oldman, Jacob Wysocki, Jason Clarke, Joel Kinnamen, Levan Gabriadze, Nelson Greaves, Noomi Rapace, Paddy Considine, Richard Price, Tom Hardy, Tom Rob Smith, Vincent Cassel | 194 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
Child 44, the new mystery thriller that is about the hunt for a serial killer in post-World War II Soviet Union, has received terrible reviews. I mean, horrendous in some cases. It’s at 25% at rottentomatoes. And very few, so far, have had much too good to say about it.
Well, I’m here to suggest that maybe the movie is being a bit maligned.
That is not to say I think it’s great. I definitely do not believe it quite succeeds on its own terms or rises above what it is.
And it’s also possible that I went in expecting the worst, only to be pleasantly surprised. That’s certainly happened to all of us at one time or another.
But still, I think there is much to like here, especially if you are a fan of neo-noir or crime dramas. Read the rest of this entry »
THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY or THE QUIET MAN and THE WILD ONE: Movie reviews of The Drop and Starred Up by Howard Casner
Posted: September 23, 2014 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ben Mendolsohn, David Mackenzie, Dennis Lehane, Jack O’Connell, James Gandolfini, Jonathan Asser, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michaȅl R. Roskam, Noomi Rapace, Starred Up, The Drop, Tom Hardy | 3,225 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
The film noir genre is a particularly American institution, one that took hold of the local populace during World War II and stayed strong until the 1960’s.
It had a great influence on movie making all over the world. Perhaps there was just something so satisfying to other countries about the U.S.’s finally washing its dirty laundry in public and exploring the amoral, immoral and sociopathic underpinnings of its society, bringing itself down off the pedestal it had so self-righteously put itself up on.
(An interesting irony here is that the movie world of the 1930’s, during the height of the depression, was one of optimism and a focus on people having frothy fun, while after taking down Hitler, and America entering one of its most prosperous periods in history, the movies are far more cynical and willing to explore the more unsavory underbelly of our world.)
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