Posted: March 20, 2015 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ben Chaplin, Cate Blanchett, Chris Weitz, Cinderella, Derek Jacobi, Helena Bonham-Carter, Holliday Grainger, Kenneth Branagh, Lilly James, Nonso Anozie, Richard Madden, Sophie McShera, Stellan Skarsgard | 4 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
There is one absolutely lovely and magical moment in the new live action, non-musical Disney version of the animated, fully musicalized Disney version of the classic Charles Perrault fairy tale Cinderella.
Our titular character, frustrated and defeated by the cruel treatment at the hands of her step-mother and step-sisters, takes to horse and rides off into a distant woods where she stops the Prince from hunting down a stag.
What’s wonderful about this scene is that the previously optimistic (and rather annoyingly Pollyanish at times) Cinderella is finally the person she really is, beaten down, sad, furious at the circumstances she has found herself in, while the Prince, in turn, is finally the person he isn’t: here he pretends to be a mere apprentice and not royalty.
Who’d have thought something this sophisticated, clever and witty would have come from a carefully fine-tuned and micromanaged to the nth degree movie from the Disney studios, but the screenwriter Chris Weitz (who has given us such fun bon bons as Antz and About a Boy) pulled off something of a coup in this particular scene.
Other than that, for my money, Cinderella is something of a mixed bag when it comes to success. I know it’s been socking it away at the box office, but I’m afraid that it only intermittently works for me. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: May 8, 2014 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Blue Ruin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Fading Gigolo, Jamie Bell, Jeremy Saulnier, John Turturro, Lars von Trier, Liev Schreiber, Macon Blair, Marco Pontecorvo, Nymphomaniac Vol. II, Shia Lebouf, Stellan Skarsgard, Vanessa Paradis, Willem Dafoe, Woody Allen | 7,263 Comments »
Fading Gigolo is about a man, Fioravante, who, without intending to in any way, shape or form, falls into being a gigolo (don’t you just hate it when that happens?).
It’s written by, directed by and stars John Turturro. But it probably should be noted that it co-stars Woody Allen. The reason this is significant is that in many ways, Fading Gigolo is a Woody Allen film that isn’t written by, isn’t directed by, and doesn’t star the famed writer/director himself.
It has the wit of a Woody Allen film. It deals with the Woody Allen themes of love and neuroses. It takes place in New York. Woody Allen is in it.
Posted: April 15, 2014 | Author: Donald | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Christian Slater, Daniel Landin, Jonathan Glazer, Lars von Trier, Mica Levi, Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1, Scarlett Johansson, Shia LeBeouf, Stacy Martin, Stellan Skarsgard, Uma Thurman, Under the Skin, Walter Campbell | 5,753 Comments »
I feel I should start this review with full disclosure. I do not like the movies of Lars von Trier, I do not like them, Sam I Am. I find them preposterous, ridiculous, over the top, impossible to connect with emotionally, and, most importantly, just plain boring the vast majority of the time. I only keep seeing them because of the critical reception his movies receive and the reputation he has within the film community; so I realize that attention must be paid.
