Month: February 2016
My 2015 Oscar Predictions
BEST PICTURE: The Revenant
BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Brie Larson, The Room
BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Sylvester Stallone, Creed
BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORRTING ROLE: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
BEST DIRECTING: The Revenant
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Big Short
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Spotlight
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: Inside Out
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Amy
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Son of Saul
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Revenant
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST FILM EDITING: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST MAKE UP AND HAIR STYLING: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST MUSIC ORIGINAL SCORE: The Hateful Eight
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST SOUND EDITING: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST SOUND MIXING: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: Til It Happens to You, The Hunting Ground
BEST SHORT FILM ANIMATED: Sanjay’s Super Team
BEST SHORT FILM LIVE ACTION: Ave Maria
BEST SHORT FILM DOCUMENTARY: A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 2/26-3/4/16
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 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. Only $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r,
And check out my script consultation services http://ow.ly/HPxKE
My recommendations for movie watching this week in L.A. 2/26-3/4/16
ON NETFLIX: Bus Stop, written by George Axelrod (from a play by William Inge) and directed by Joshua Logan, is one of Marilyn Monroe’s greatest performances. In it, she plays Cherie, an absolutely awful singer (her rendition of That Old Black Magic has to be seen to be believed) who finds she has earned the attraction of a somewhat naïve rancher who wants to marry her though he barely knows her. It all resolves itself at the title location. With an excellent supporting cast, Eileen Heckart, Arthur O’Connell, Hope Lange, Hans Conreid and Don Murray in the Oscar nominated role of the rancher.
ON HULU: Mommy is French Canadian Writer/Director, as well as wunderkind, Xavier Dolan’s best film since his first, I Killed My Mother (yeah, I know, kind of makes you think). A widowed mother has to decide what to do with her mentally troubled son. She sees hope when a neighbor seems to have a calming effect, but things do not quite go as she would like.
SPECIAL SHOWINGS: The Oscar nominated short subjects (live actions, documentaries and animation) will be shown in various locations and theaters up until the Academy Awards are held
FIRST RUN and OPENING: Eddie the Eagle, Only Yesterday, Deadpool, Where to Invade Next, A War Continue reading
THE UNWITCH HORROR: The Witch
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
Well, The Crucible it ain’t.
The Witch, the new slow burn of a movie that was a hit at Sundance and is taking the art houses by storm, is a film where I feel I’m on the sidewalk looking through a window at a party that I can’t join. It just didn’t work for me.
There are several reasons as to why, but the simplest reason is that it didn’t remotely scare me and that slow burn of a build up never made me remotely tense or nervous. I found the story as a whole to be slow and tedious. Yes, there are a few jump and go boo moments, but in the end, even those didn’t do much to get my fears going.
So, basically, if the movie scared you, then you’ll probably like the movie. If you didn’t, as I didn’t, then you won’t. Continue reading
THERE WILL BE BLOOD: Deadpool
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’m sure that Deadpool isn’t the first post-modern comic book movie, but I’m sure it has to be one of the most obvious ones, one that absolutely revels and glows in all its post-modernism glory. It not only feels as if it comments on such films, it feels as if it comments on comments on such films.
The style and tone is set by the opening credits which aren’t made up of the names of the people who actually did what the credits claim they do, but are more generically described. I don’t remember them exactly, but there was God’s Perfect Idiot as the star; The Obligatory Cameo; Asshats as the producers, and perhaps my favorites, the Screenplay is by the Real Heroes of the Movie, while the direction is by an Overpaid Tool. Continue reading
THE MOORE THE MERRIER: Where to Invade Next
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
In Dan Ariely’s book The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Home and at Work, the author talks about how logic isn’t always the best way to go and that, at times, it makes much more sense to act in a counter-intuitive manner. One of his chapters is devoted to an age old fault that most people find difficult to ignore: that if someone else comes up with a solution to something, it’s not worth considering since you didn’t come up with it yourself. We, as humans, are more likely to ignore good advice simply because we didn’t think of it first.
This was something that happened to me while I was watching Michael Moore’s new documentary, Where to Invade Next. The basic premise of the film revolves around our intrepid and peripatetic hero Moore, traveling from nation to nation in Europe and studying how each has managed to resolve issues that are verily plaguing us, whereupon at the end, he plants an American flag whenever he takes that solution for the U.S.
His first stop is Italy, which has an incredibly large number of holiday and vacation days, as well as five months for pregnancy leave, shorter work days and two hour lunches. The workers are much happier and seem to enjoy life a lot more, since there’s more life to enjoy. With the result that Italy is just as, if not more, productive than the U.S.
And this is where my defense mechanism kicked in. I said in my mind, yeah, maybe, but Italy has a lot of problems, which means I’m not so sure we should consider adopting such a work place attitude. Continue reading
My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 2/19-2/26/16
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 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. Only $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r,
And check out my script consultation services http://ow.ly/HPxKE
My recommendations for movie watching this week in L.A. 2/19-2/26/16
ON NETFLIX: Writer/director Rick Famuyiwa’s comedy Dope is one of the best films of 2015. It revolves around three “nerds” trying to navigate high school who find themselves caught up in a drug conflict after they try to be cool. A fun film with sharp dialog and characterizations.
ON HULU: Blow Out is perhaps one of writer/director Brian de Palma’s best films. Starring John Travolta as a sound engineer for movies who one night accidentally records a gun shot that causes a car accident and the near death of a party girl, Nancy Allen. A tribute to both Alfred Hitchcock movies about an average man who finds himself caught up in something bigger than he is, as well as the movie Blow Up, about a photographer who accidentally takes of something he maybe shouldn’t have, it’s taught, fun movie.
SPECIAL SHOWINGS: The Oscar nominated short subjects (live actions, documentaries and animation) will be shown in various locations and theaters up until the Academy Awards are held
FIRST RUN and OPENING: The Witch, Embrace of the Serpent, Race, Risen, Deadpool, Where to Invade Next, A War Continue reading
My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 2/12-2/19/16
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 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. Only $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r,
And check out my script consultation services http://ow.ly/HPxKE
My recommendations for movie watching this week in L.A. 2/12-2/19/16
ON NETFLIX: Une Nuit (or Paris at Night) written by Philippe Isard, Simon Michael and the director Philippe Lefbevre, is a slow burn of a movie about a vice officer (Roschdy Zem) who goes about his usual night trying to avoid a trap that has been laid for him with Internal Affairs and trying to keep a lid on Parisian nightlife. I found it a fascinating look at this aspect of Paris after hours, with an almost documentary feel to it.
ON HULU: Elevator to the Gallows, written by Roger Nimier and Louis Malle (from a book by Noel Calef) is Malle’s first feature, and quite a debut. It’s a film noir about a man who kills his mistress’ husband and then things start going a little wrong when an elevator doesn’t quite work as he might wish. With Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as the lovers.
SPECIAL SHOWINGS: The Oscar nominated short subjects (live actions, documentaries and animation) will be shown in various locations and theaters up until the Academy Awards are held
FIRST RUN and OPENING: Deadpool, Where to Invade Next, Boy and the World, Bad Hurt, Glassland, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, A War, Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong Continue reading
I’M READY FOR MY CLOSEUP, MR. DEMILLE: Hail, Caesar!
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