Posted: March 30, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 45 Years, Bach, Catherine Frot, Cesar Award, Florence Foster Jenkins, Grandma, Grey Gardens, Groucho Marx, Hello My Name is Doris, Laura Turreso, Marcia Romano, Margaret Dumont, Marguerite, Marianne Sagebrecht, Max Greenfield, Meryl Streep, Michael Showalter, Percy Adlon, Peter Gallagher, Sally Field, See You in My Dreams, Stephen Root, Sugarbaby, The Room, Tommy Wiseau, Tyne Daly, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Xavier Giannoli | 944 Comments »
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Warning: SPOILERS
When Tommy Wiseau released his film The Room, it was so awful that it inadvertently became a cult hit, especially on the late night circuit. But people often wondered whether the filmmaker knew just how execrable his movie really was.
I thought of that as I watched Marguerite, the new French film from writers Xavier Giannoli (who also directed) and Marcia Romano. It’s a story about a patroness of the arts who gave recitals in her home to raise money for various charities. When all the other performers had rendered their absolutely ravishing arias and duets, Marguerite would then conclude the evening by singing herself. And out of her well meaning mouth came notes so awful, it made fingernails on a blackboard sound like one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto.
Posted: September 9, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alexander Skarsgard, Bel Powley, Blame it on Rio, Christopher Meloni, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Dirty Dancing, Elizabeth Pena, Grandma, Ingmar Bergman, John Cho, Judy Greer, Julia Garner, Kristin Wiig, Lily Tomlin, Lolita, Manhattan, Marcia Gay Harden, Marielle Heller, Paul Weitz, Phoebe Gloeckner, Roman Polanski, Sam Elliot, Wild Strawberries | 586 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
I remember back in 1987 when Dirty Dancing came out, I was a little surprised that in all the positive reaction to the film, no one was mentioning the fact that a teenage girl was having an affair with a much older man. In fact, women loved this movie about first love and sexual awaking.
When Lolita was released in 1962, the movie was not so much seen as a dramatization of the horrors of pedophilia, but a tragi-comic character study of a man obsessed with his step-daughter, a step-daughter who did as much of the seducing as did the aging roué.
In 1984’s Blame it on Rio, Michael Caine has sex with his best friend’s daughter and the whole thing is played as a farce. It was even called incest by proxy by some and many found the move tres amusement.
Woody Allen’s films like Manhattan (1979) were probably the main ones the drew some hesitation, but even in his black and white paean to a city filled with morally questionable neurotics, his relationship with the high school nymphet was seen as the most pure and Mariel Hemingway got an Oscar nom.
Even Roman Polanski got the brunt of the sympathy as he fled the country to try and restart his film career in Europe.
But this was an earlier time when sex between older men and teenage girls wasn’t quite held in the same low esteem as it is today.
And oh, my, the times they have been a changing. Back then we had the new morality. Today, we have the new, new morality where sex between an adult and someone below the age of consent is no longer seen as acceptable and even considered damaging to the teen. Legally it’s always been called statutory rape, but until more recently, that term was not used much in terms of these relationships in movies.
The new movie Diary of a Teenage Girl, written and directed by the actor Marielle Heller (she can be seen in such films as A Walk Among the Tombstones and MacGruber), based on the autobiographical novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, falls somewhere in between today and yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »
