REEL MOTHERS: Movie reviews of I, Tonya, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri by Howard Casner
Posted: December 14, 2017 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Allison Janney, Craig Gillespie, I, John Hawks, Lucas Hedges, Margot Robbie, Martin McDonagh, McDormand, Missouri, Paul Walter Hauser, Peter Dinklage, Sam Rockwell, Sebastian Stan, Steven Rogers, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Tonya, Woody Harrelson, Zeljko Ivanek | 728 Comments »
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Warning: SPOILERS
I, Tonya, the new film from writer Steven Rogers and director Craig Gillespie, is a fictional account of the ice skating scandal where the husband of skater Tonya Harding, along with her bodyguard, conspired to break the leg of Tonya’s main rival, Nancy Kerrigan.
No matter what else it may be, I, Tonya is very successful and could easily be a real crowd pleaser. Structurally, it’s a forthright dramatization of the events punctuated with talking head interviews of the characters looking back on events. It’s often extremely funny and at times manages to show some empathy for the title character.
Though it is effective, it also at times feels a bit condescending and exploitive, as if the filmmakers were treating this as an elongated Jerry Springer show. So the laughs are sometimes a bit cruel and at the expense of the real life counterparts.
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 »
THRILLS BOTH CHEAP AND EXPENSIVE: Movie Reviews Cheap Thrills and Captain America: the Winter Soldier by Howard Casner
Posted: April 9, 2014 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anthony Mackie, Anthony Russo, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Cheap Thrills, Chris Evans, Christopher Markus, Cobie Smulders, David Chirchirillo, David Koechner, E.L. Katz, Ed Brubaker, Emily Van Kamp, Ethan Embry, Joe Russo, Pat Healy, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paxton, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Stephen McFeely, Trent Haaga | 1,682 Comments »
In the 2012 drama, Compliance, Pat Healy played a sociopath pretending to be a police officer who manipulates the workers at a fast food restaurant into do some pretty disgusting things (and I don’t mean to the food, though from what I understand, fast food workers wouldn’t need much manipulation for that in the first place).
In his newest movie, Cheap Thrills, he’s on the opposite side of the fence, playing a poor schnook being manipulated into doing disgusting things by a pair of sociopaths. Read the rest of this entry »
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