Posted: September 11, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alicia Vikander, Blue Valentine, Bryan Brown, Derek Cianfrance, Francesco Piccolo, John Turturro, Margherita Buy, Mia Madre, Michael Fassbender, Nanni Moretti, Rachel Weisz, The Light Between Oceans, The Place Beyond the Pines, Valia Santelli, We Have a Pope, Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire | 1,757 Comments »
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Warning: SPOILERS
In many ways, Margherita is having a year of Job.
Her mother is dying and she and her brother spend much of their time with their parent in the hospital. She’s directing a socially conscience film that is not going well; it seems fake and she’s not sure she can make the project work, and small things keep going wrong. She has recently broken up with her latest lover because she can’t leave her work at home. She is having trouble relating to her daughter. And she is having difficulty getting a performance from the American actor flown in for the lead of the film (he has a condition that makes it difficult for him to remember lines, made worse in that they are in Italian).
The film, Mia Madre, is co-written by the director Nanni Moretti (along with Valia Santelli and Francesco Piccolo) and is inspired by the time in his life when his mother was dying while he was filming We Have a Pope. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: December 14, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Aaron Covington, Alicia Vikander, Ben Whishaw, Creed, David Ebershoff, Eddie Redmayne, Lucinda Coxon, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael B. Jordan, Phylicia Rashad, Ritchie Coster, Ryan Coogler, Sebastian Koch, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thomas, The Danish Girl, Tom Hooper, Tony Bellew | 875 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
The Danish Girl, a movie about the first recorded sex change operation, is a drama made with such good taste, Merchant/Ivory would probably have been proud to claim it as one of their own.
Now why anyone would make a movie about the first recorded sex change operation in such good taste that Merchant/Ivory would have been proud to claim it as one of their own, is certainly beyond me.
Actually, why anyone would make a movie about anything with such good taste that Merchant/Ivory would have been proud to claim it as one of their own, is even more also certainly beyond me.
That is, except for Todd Haynes, who is possibly the only filmmaker who can take good taste and raise it up to art.
But here we have screenwriter Lucinda Coxon (from a novel by David Ebershoff) and director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables) who don’t do much that is particularly exciting with the subject matter except to make sure it’s dressed up as beautifully as a picture by John Singer Sargent, with gorgeous costumes, marvelous sets and beautiful cinematography. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: April 29, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Alex Garland, Alicia Vikander, artifical intelligence, David Kajganich, Domhnall Gleeson, Ex Machina, James Franco, Jane Hawking, Jonah Hill, Michael Finkel, New York Times, Oscar Isaac, Rupert Gold, sci fi, True Story | 7,355 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
A critic once said that when you get down to it, there aren’t that many plotlines; after all, Frankenstein and Pygmalion are basically the same story.
This came to mind as I was watching Ex Machina, the new sci-fi drama written and directed by Alex Garland (who also wrote the very involving Never Let Me Go and the highly successful 28 Days Later…). For my money, what he’s done is basically combined both Mary Shelley and George Bernard Shaw’s seminal works into one narrative.
It’s intriguing. But for me, I also found it a bit slow, unfocused at times and, well, to be ruthlessly honest, more than a bit creepy in ways that may not have been intended.
The last is because the more I think about Ex Machina, the more it seems to me that what the movie is about is not what the movie is about. And what the movie is really about made me very uncomfortable. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 28, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alicia Vikander, Appropriate Behavior, Boyd Holbrook, Brenton Thwaites, Cecilia Frugiuele, Chloȅ Sevigny, Desiree Akhavan, Elisabeth Banks, Ewan McGregor, Halley Feiffer, Jacob Lofland, John Collee, Josh Lucas, Julius Avery, Little Accidents, Matt Noble, Nash Edgerton, Sara Colangelo, Scott Adsit, Son of a Gun | 281 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
and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE
Warning: SPOILERS
Three movies have opened recently that are driven by characters studies, even in the case of the one that is also driven by a prison break and robbery of a gold refinery. It’s not a bad way to start the new year, even if one of them, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t work on any level.
Little Accidents takes place in a small town that depends on coal mining for its existence. When a cave in leaves a sole survivor, he gets caught between two factions: the miners who want him to blame the company so they can be sued for compensation, and the miners who want him to say it was an accident because if the mine owners are held at fault, the mine will close and there’ll be no more work.
Meanwhile, the teenage son of the mine manager continually bullies the son of a miner who has died. When a fight ensues, the miner’s son accidentally kills the manager’s son and hides the body, causing a city wide search.
Finally, the wife of the manager, upset over the disappearance of her son and her suspicion that her husband was responsible in some way for the cave in, finds her life slipping away from her.
The three characters, Amos, the survivor; Owen, the miner’s son; and Diane, the manager’s wife, slowly find their lives intersecting as they become involved in some way with each other: Amos and Diane have an affair while Owen does yard work for Diane while Diane begins to treat him as a surrogate son and Amos becomes a kind of father figure to Owen.
Little Accidents is written and directed by Sara Colangelo and is one of those small movies that are rich in depth of characterization. The people are leading lives of quiet desperation, but Colangelo shows them such understanding and sympathy that you can’t help but be deeply moved in how they work through the difficulties that have suddenly shown up in their lives. Read the rest of this entry »
