MAKING A KILLING: Movie Reviews of The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Murder on the Orient Express by Howard Casner

First, a word from our sponsors: 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

When I saw writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos and writer Efthymis Filippou’s earlier film Dogtooth, I must be honest and say I didn’t have the most favorable reaction and many might consider that odd.

I felt it a rather dated attack on middle class mores that had already been done to death in the 1950’s and 60’s, especially in the off-Broadway theater.

But then I saw The Lobster, their last film, an hysterical satire and social commentary on love and relationships and the society that promotes them.

And now I’ve seen their latest, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and I realized I was partially right about my earlier analysis because the more I see of their work, the more I realize the turgid social commentary of those decades are not their main influences. Rather, these two artists are the 21st Century embodiment of the existentialist/theater of the absurd practitioners like Beckett, Ionesco, Sartre, Albee and others of that ilk.

Read the rest of this entry »


THE GOOD, THE NOT SO BAD AND THE UGLY: AFI 2015, PART 3: NO RESERVATIONS-Movie Reviews of the movies The Lobster and Youth 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

lobster 1Two movies at AFI were brought there by filmmakers who worked with an English speaking cast for the first time. Screenwriter Efthymis Filippou and writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos, from Greece, previously gave the world the oddity Dogtooth and, appropriately enough, now give us the quite possibly even odder oddity, The Lobster.

The Italian filmmaker Paola Sorrentino, who directed and co-wrote the absolutely brilliant and ravishing The Great Beauty, has now given us Youth.

Overall, they have all succeeded rather well in spite of the fact that they are creating in a language that is not their native tongue.

Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster is set in one of those dystopian futures and is located in The City, a place where everyone must be in a relationship, and if you are not (say you are widowed), you go to a hotel with others like yourself and are given 45 days to fall in love. If, at the end of your stay, you find yourself yet single, you are turned into the animal of your choice. Read the rest of this entry »