I’M READY FOR MY CLOSEUP, MR. DEMILLE: Movie Review of Hail, Caesar! by Howard Casner
Posted: February 8, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alden Ehrenreich, Alex Karpovsky, Caesar!, Channing Tatum, Ethan Coen, Francis McDormand, George Clooney, Hail, Joel Coen, Jonah Hill, Josh Brolin, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Veronica Osorio | 7 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
Hail, Caesar!, the latest comic satire from Joel and Ethan Coen, is one of those films that has so much that is right with it, plus a bit more that is brilliant, that it makes it all the more disappointing that it doesn’t quite come together.
The basic premise has as its center piece one Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), head of production at the fictional Hollywood studio Capital Pictures (the same studio that the Brothers used in Barton Fink). Over the course of one or two days, he has a difficult decision to make: should he remain at Capitol where he’s constantly having to put out fires both large and small and is constantly confronted by the insane antics of his stars, or will he take a position as head of Lockheed, a safe position with a guaranteed future (this is the 1950’s after all, and TV is more than making its presence known), fewer hours and less stress on the nerves?
Well, so far so good. Read the rest of this entry »
HUMANITY AT ITS BEST AND WORST: Movie Reviews of Sicario and The Martian by Howard Casner
Posted: October 7, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Aksel Hennie, Andy Weir, Benicio del Toro, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Kaluuya, Darius Wolski, Denis Villeneuve, Drew Goddard, Emily Blunt, Harry Gregson-Williams, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Joe Walker, Johan Johannson, Josh Brolin, Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, Matt Damon, Michael Pena, Pietro Scalia, Ridley Scott, Roger Deakins, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Sicario, Taylor Sheridan, The Martian, Victor Garber | 143 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
Sicario, the new thriller about the drug war written by Taylor Sheridan (a first film) and directed by French Canadian flavor of the month Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Prisoner, Enemies), is, in many ways, two movies for the price of one.
The first is an action/adventure film full of car chases and gun battles and plot twists (many of which, if truth be told, I found just a tad tenuous at best) of the action/adventure variety.
The second is a treatise on the drug war.
The first film is often quite successful and impressive. The second is, at least from my perspective, quite shallow and unconvincing.
This means that for much of the time, Sicario is definitely and highly entertaining. Sheridan and Villeneuve, along with the incredibly soaring cinematography of Roger Deakins (one of our finest today), the film editing of Joe Walker, and the heart throbbing music of Johan Johannson, have crafted an edge of your seat story that never really stops and never really lets you stop watching. Read the rest of this entry »
THERE WILL BE WEED or THE GRASSTER: Movie review of Inherent Vice by Howard Casner
Posted: December 19, 2014 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Benecio Del Toro, Eric Roberts, Inherent Vice, Jack Kelly, Jeannie Berlin, Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Martin Short, Maya Rudolph, Owen Wilson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Peter McRobbie, Rese Witherspoon, Thomas Pynchon | 2,713 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
Warning: SPOILERS
I’m afraid that when it comes to me, myself and writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, the honeymoon may, at last and alack, be over.
I mean, this was no one night stand.
When I first met Anderson, he took me with his Hard Eight. And we then spent many Boogie Nights together. I did think that with Magnolia we didn’t quite come together as we once did. Still, though it may not have totally worked, it was far, far…far more stimulating than many films that did. And with Punch Drunk Love he just, well, punched, drunked and loved me.
I was delirious.
But time marches on and, like so many relationships, people change, circumstances change, conflicts emerge until the relationship starts hitting some rough shoals. Read the rest of this entry »
REAL Short Box Subscribe!
