Posted: May 27, 2016 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Adam Hirsch, Alan Sharp, Alex Brewer, Angourie Rice, Anthony Bagarozzi, Arthur Penn, Benjamin Brewer, Chinatown, Elijah Wood, Jerry Lewis, Kim Basinger, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, L.A. Confidential, Leigh Bracket, Lethal Weapon, Lois Smith, Los Angeles Plays Itself, Matt Bomer, Myrna Loy, Nicholas Cage, Night Moves, Rififi, Robert Altman, Robert Benton, Robert Towne, Roman Polanski, Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Shane Black, The King of Comedy, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, The Nice Guys, The Trust, Who Framed Roger Rabbit | 545 Comments »
First, a word from our sponsors: I have just launched the indiegogo campaign for my short film 14 Conversations in 10 Minutes. Check it out http://ow.ly/SblO3005HHu. Below is a video sample of the short. Think about contributing (the lowest contribution is only $5.00). Please view and share anywhere and everywhere.
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? 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 Trust, the new semi-caper film from writers Benjamin Brewer and Adam Hirsch and directed by Alex and Benjamin Brewer, starts out somewhat as a shaggy dog story. Which works rather well since the two central characters, both Las Vegas PD police officers (Nicholas Cage and Elijah Wood), look and act like mutts one might find at an animal shelter, desperate to be adopted before they end up in the incinerator.
The two decide to rob a convenience store after they notice that said store receives regular deliveries, large bags, which disappear inside the premises. In return, nothing comes out; nada; zip; not a thing. So what exactly are the owners hiding inside in that new, state of the art, almost impossible to get into, concrete and steel freezer that is just simply too high end for a mom and pop operation such as it is?
The two decide to go after a pig in a poke and break in and take whatever they can find. And though each have their own personal motivations (Wood’s character Waters is bored and burnt out, and Cage’s character Stone has ideas for the force that go underappreciated), in many ways they really do it for the best of all reasons—they can. Read the rest of this entry »
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 | 765 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 »
Posted: July 18, 2014 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alexandre Desplat, Amanda Silver, Andy Serkis, David Ives, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Emmanuelle Seigner, Gary Oldman, Gene Siskel, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Life Itself, Mark Bomback, Martin Scorcese, Mathieu Almaric, Matt Reeves, Rick Jaffa, Roger Ebert, Roman Polanski, Steve James, Toby Kebbell, Venus in Fur | 5,281 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
Warning: SPOILERS
The new movie, Venus in Fur, co-written by bad boy old timer Roman Polanski (who also directed) with relative new comer David Ives, from a play by Ives that was influenced by a book by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (yeah, that Sacher-Masoch—oh, no, don’t even try it, you know very well whom I’m talking about, you can’t fool me), begins during a somewhat impressionistic rain storm on a deserted street in France (so I guess the slight touch of impressionism shouldn’t be a surprise) backed by a music score of sublime slyness.
In fact, the score is so sublime, so sly, so clever, so flippant, so wicked, so…well, just so everything that I found myself being driven crazy because I couldn’t place the composer. And then at the end, during the credits, there it is—the name Alexandre Desplat, and all I could think was, of course, who else could it possibly have been. Read the rest of this entry »
