NO VACANCY: Movie reviews of 78/52 and The Florida Project by Howard Casner

For questions: hcasner@aol.com

First, a word iefrom 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

 

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Warning: SPOILERS

Writer/director Alexander O. Philippe’s 78/52 is not only everything you wanted to know about the infamous scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal film Psycho that did for showers what Jaws would later do for Fourth of July swimming in the seas, but everything you didn’t know you wanted to know (the name derives from the set piece requiring 78 camera set ups and 52 shots).

There has always been something perverse, not just about all of Hitchcock’s oeuvre, but especially in Psycho.

It’s not just that the movie is horrifying and scares the shit out of you.

It’s not just that it’s somewhat mean spirited (not just to the audience, but to the characters on screen).

It’s just that you can tell Hitchcock is having fun killing someone in such a way that both terrifies the audience while making them enjoy it and then feel guilty about it.

Read the rest of this entry »


MEAN STREETS and TRAINWRECK: Movie reviews of Tangerine and The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet by Howard Casner

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

tangerineGuerilla filmmaking is nothing new to the world of cinema. It’s probably existed since the first motion picture camera was invented. But perhaps the most famous and influential one is Rome: Open City in which the action is often filmed on the streets of a newly un-Nazi occupied Rome with a mixture of amateur and pro actors.

It’s never not gone out of style since (Sam Fuller uses it during the opening scenes of The Crimson Kimono, for example), but bulky cameras and sound gear made it very difficult. Now with smaller, cheaper and easier to use film equipment, it has been on the rise.

Most notably and recently we had Escape from Tomorrow, much of it secretly shot at Disneyland and Disneyworld (and often impressively so). But that film lacked a strong and focused narrative until it felt like the writer and director ultimately lost control of it all and the final third never came together in a satisfying way.

And now we have Tangerine, shot not just on the streets of Los Angeles (mainly on Santa Monica between Vermont and Highland, though it does extend to West Hollywood at one point), but also on busses, motels and in fast food restaurants, especially a donut shop manned by a very beleaguered clerk. Read the rest of this entry »