DEAD MAN FARTING: Movie Reviews of Swiss Army Man and Carnage Park by Howard Casner

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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

rev 2Perhaps the best way to describe Swiss Army Man, the new indie comedy from writer/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, their first feature film, is that it is an odd duck of a movie. Of course, it’s no insult to say that it’s not quite as odd a duck as The Lobster, but if it quacks like one, etc. You get my drift anyway.

Those of you who watch the previews of coming attractions at their local bijou, or even those who don’t, probably know what the basic premise is. Paul Dano plays Hank, a depressed loner who gets stranded on an island after a boat he rented got lost.

As he is about to do himself in, he sees a dead body washed up on shore. This non-character is played by former Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe, a role I bet never required him to pass wind.

Hank soon discovers that Manny has certain, shall we say, uses. He can fart with the power of an SST and he gets an erection that always tells Hank which way to go to get back to civilization.

And that’s just the beginning of the odd duckiness here. Read the rest of this entry »


THE GOOD, THE NOT SO BAD AND THE UGLY: AFI 2015, PART 3: NO RESERVATIONS-Movie Reviews of the movies The Lobster and Youth by Howard Casner

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

lobster 1Two movies at AFI were brought there by filmmakers who worked with an English speaking cast for the first time. Screenwriter Efthymis Filippou and writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos, from Greece, previously gave the world the oddity Dogtooth and, appropriately enough, now give us the quite possibly even odder oddity, The Lobster.

The Italian filmmaker Paola Sorrentino, who directed and co-wrote the absolutely brilliant and ravishing The Great Beauty, has now given us Youth.

Overall, they have all succeeded rather well in spite of the fact that they are creating in a language that is not their native tongue.

Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster is set in one of those dystopian futures and is located in The City, a place where everyone must be in a relationship, and if you are not (say you are widowed), you go to a hotel with others like yourself and are given 45 days to fall in love. If, at the end of your stay, you find yourself yet single, you are turned into the animal of your choice. Read the rest of this entry »