Posted: November 27, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alison Sudo, Amy Adams, Arrival, Auli’i Cravalho, Collin Farrell, Dan Vogler, David Yates, Denis Villeneuve, Dwayne Johnson, Eddie Redmayne, Eric Heisser, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Finally, Forest Whitaker, J.K. Rowling, Jeremy Renner, Jon Voigt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Moana, Ted Chiang | 667 Comments »
For questions: hcasner@aol.com
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 think their might be a competition for the use of the geekiest hero in thrillers these days.
In the movie The Da Vinci Code, Tom Hanks plays a symbologist who races to uncover a mystery in order to save Christianity and the Catholic Church.
Now we have the film Arrival in which Amy Adams is a linguist who is called in to save the world from a possible alien attack.
What’s next? A philatelist? A trademark attorney?
The basic premise of Arrival revolves around a group of spacecraft that suddenly appear and hover above the earth in twelve different locations. In order to try to communicate with them and discover why they are here and what they want, they bring in Louise Banks (Adams), a college professor, someone who, it seems safe to say, is just a bit out of touch with her fellow man-the day after the craft arrive she comes in to teach her class and seems a little put out that no one else showed up. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 23, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Andre Marcon, Edith Scob, Father of my Children, First Love, Goodbye, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Isabella Huppert, Jake Lacey, Jessica Chastain, John Lithgow, John Madden, Jonathan Pereira, Mark Strong, Mia Hanson Love, Michael Stuhlbarg, Miss Sloane, Sam Waterston, Things to Come | 693 Comments »
For questions: hcasner@aol.com
First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
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
Two films at this year’s AFI fest had, as their central characters, women who work outside the home. But the takes on the situation by the respective filmmakers couldn’t be more different.
In Things to Come (not to be confused with the Sci-Fi film from 1936 starring Raymond Massey…I hope), Nathalie Chateaux teaches philosophy in high school. And I don’t mean teaches philosophy, she TEACHES philosophy (and in a way that makes you put on sackcloth and ashes, moaning and bewailing in despair over the U.S. educational system).
Everything in her life seems in perfect equilibrium. She has a loving husband, family, occupation (her only real downside is that her mother is emotionally unstable).
Then she encounters a series of misfortunes. Her husband asks for a divorce; her mother dies; and she is basically fired from her position of overseeing the philosophy texts used in school. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: November 19, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Andrew Garfield, Andrew Knight, Benedict Cumberbatch, C. Robert Cargill, Desmond Doss, Doctor Strange, Hacksaw Ridge, Hugo Weaving, Jon Spaihts, Mads Mickelson, Mel Gibson, Michael Stuhlbarg, Nathan Buzolic, Rachel Griffiths, Rachel McAdams, Robert Schenkkan, Sam Worthington, Scott Derrickson, Teresa Palmer, Tilda Swanton, Vince Vaughn | 810 Comments »
For questions: hcasner@aol.com
First, a word from our sponsors: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign for 15 Conversations in 10 Minutes. We did very well due to you folks. For those who weren’t able to give, keep us in your thoughts. And if you are able to contribute in the future, contact me and I’ll tell you how. I will even honor the perks on the original campaign.
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
Two films have opened of late with heroes who tune into spiritual forces for guidance in their lives, forces outside the natural world around us.
The first is Doctor Strange, the latest, for those of you who have moved to Mars, Marvel comic book hero, a Rodney Dangerfield of a character because he never gets any respect from devoted Marvel readers. When they muse over why this movie may not be quite as good as others in the canon, they sigh and tend to say, well, he only appeared in the back of the comic, you know.
And they are to some degree correct in their assessment. Certainly Doctor Strange the film doesn’t come up to the level of the original Iron Man or some of the X-Men movies. But it’s not as bad as they claim either. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 26, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Academy Awards, Birth of a Nation, Don Cheadle, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg, Miles Davis, Oscars, Steven Baigelman | 1 Comment »
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
Miles Ahead is the new biopic of Miles Davis, one of the great, if not the greatest, jazz trumpeter and composer of all times. It’s written by Steven Baigelman and the director and star Don Cheadle. The filmmakers do everything they can, from non-linear storytelling to all sorts of directorial flourishes, to keep the audience enthralled.
And they succeed, at least for a while. Flashbacks, jump cuts and various stylistic juxtapositions that feel inspired by jazz music, give the film a certain electric immediacy.
But it’s not long before it feels that all this tinsel and sawdust is, well, not a lot more than tinsel and sawdust, there to hide the fact that in the end, the movie, though often entertaining, is really just another, as I and a friend like to call it, typical Warner Brothers biopic, the reference being the prestige pictures of the studios made in their heydays, like The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Life of Emil Zola and even more recently, Gandhi. All worthy, but all still somewhat bland. Read the rest of this entry »
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 | 9,362 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’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.
Posted: November 3, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Aaron Sorkin, Cate Blanchett, Dan Rather, Danny Boyle, Dennis Quaid, Dermot Mulroney, Elizabeth Moss, James Vanderbilt, Jeff Daniels, Kate Winslet, Marla Mapes, Michael Fassbender, Michael Stuhlbarg, Noni Hazlehust, Robert Redford, Seth Rogan, Sixty Minutes, Stacy Keach, Steve Jobs, Topher Grace, Truth | 483 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 moment in Steve Jobs, the new biopic written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, when Steve Wozniak (who, it is suggested here, seemed to have done most of, if not all, the work on the Apple Computer which is what brought fame first to Jobs) lists all the things that Jobs cannot and did not do (such as write code). When he finished, Wozniak asks what seems to be one of the most appropriate questions of the entire film: Just what do you do?
In response, Jobs says that he’s the conductor that plays the orchestra.
Fair enough. But then I so wanted Wozniak to ask the obvious follow up question: So why do you get all the credit when you haven’t really done any of the essential work?
Because think about it. Quick, name five conductors off the top of your head. No, don’t google it, just do it. When I did, all I came up with was Bernstein, Toscanini and Stokowski. Now, quick, name ten composers who created the music these conductors, well, conducted? I immediately zipped through Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Copland, Verdi, Liszt and Stravinsky.
This last is especially interesting since at one point Jobs compares himself to Stravinsky, when to really be fully parallel, in this metaphor he’s Serge Koussevitsky. Who is Koussevitsky, you ask? He was the conductor at the premier of the riot inducing The Rite of Spring.
Never heard of him, right?
Exactly. That’s because conductors don’t create art, they interpret it. That is why the composer gets the credit, not the conductor.
If one was of a suspicious nature, one might wonder if sneaky little Aaron Sorkin wasn’t, in these scenes, taking more than a few potshots at film directors. After all, what do they do? Generally speaking, they don’t write the screenplay; they don’t design the costumes and sets; they don’t edit; they don’t create the cinematography; they don’t write the music; they don’t act; they don’t provide the money for it. Read the rest of this entry »
