My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 4/1-4/8/16

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. 4/1-4/8/16

ON NETFLIX:  Anchors Aweigh is the movie in which Gene Kelly dances with Jerry, the mouse (it was supposed to be Mickey Mouse, but Disney wouldn’t agree to it).  It’s also the one where Frank Sinatra learned to hoof.  This musical about two sailors on leave, written by Isobel Lennart (who also wrote or worked on such films as Love Me or Leave Me, The Sundowners and Funny Girl) and directed by George Sidney, is a great example of the golden era of Hollywood musicals.  Also with Kathryn Grayson, Dean Stockwell (his screen debut), Grady Sutton and Jose Iturbi (as himself).  Kelly was the choreographer.

ON HULU:   Séance on a Wet Afternoon is about a psychic who has her husband abduct a child so the psychic can “use” her powers to find her and achieve notice.  A solid and tense little neo-noir from England, written and directed by Bryan Forbes who started out doing some minor classics (Whistle Down the Wind, The L-Shaped Room, King Rat, The Wrong Box, The Whisperers) who eventually ended up doing more mediocre mainstream films later in this career (The Slipper and The Rose, The Stepford Wives). With Richard Attenborough and Kim Stanley (who got an Oscar nomination for her performance).  In an earlier version of the story, both the leads were gay; the movie was offered to Alec Guinness and Tom Courtenay, both of whom turned it down.

FIRST RUN and OPENING: April and the Extraordinary World, Everybody Wants Some, Krisha, The Dark Horse, Standing Tall

TONE DEAF: Marguerite and Hello, My Name is Doris

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

When Tommy Wiseau released his film The Room, it was so awful that it inadvertently became a cult hit, especially on the late night circuit.  But people often wondered whether the filmmaker knew just how execrable his movie really was.

I thought of that as I watched Marguerite, the new French film from writers Xavier Giannoli (who also directed) and Marcia Romano.  It’s a story about a patroness of the arts who gave recitals in her home to raise money for various charities.  When all the other performers had rendered their absolutely ravishing arias and duets, Marguerite would then conclude the evening by singing herself.  And out of her well meaning mouth came notes so awful, it made fingernails on a blackboard sound like one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto.

But did she know? 

My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 3/24-4/2/16

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. 3/24-4/2/16

ON NETFLIX:  In writer/director Jason Krawczyk’s film He Never Died, Henry Rollins plays an immortal angel stuck on earth for, well, eternity.  It’s not as great a life as it may sound.  And then his daughter shows up on his doorstep and all hell (literally) breaks lose.  One of the best independents of last year.

ON HULU:   That Man From Rio is a delightful tongue in cheek action film.  Written by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Ariane Mnouchkine, Daniel Bollenger and the director Philippe de Broca, the movie is, like Charade, one of the best Alfred Hitchcock films that Hitchcock didn’t make.  And with an Indiana Jones type ending.  Jean Paul Belmondo gets a week’s leave from the army, and ends up chasing his girlfriend, Francois Dorleac (Catherine Deneuve’s older sister who died tragically young) across Paris and all the way to Brazil due to three statues taken from the indigenous Brazilians that may or may not lead to a treasure.

FIRST RUN and OPENING: Batman v. Superman: The Dawn of Justice, Midnight Special, Lolo, Too Late, Mountains May Depart, Valley of Love, Remember, Take Me To The River, Born to Be Blue, My Golden Days

SOUL SEARCHING: Knight of Cups and Confirmation

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

Knight of Cups, the new film from art house fave writer/director Terence Malick, begins with some excerpts from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, spoken, I believe, in the dulcet tones of Sir John Gielgud.  The Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory about a man who is weighed down by his sin and must seek a path to righteousness, but he finds many dangers, toils and snares along the way. 

I suppose the allegory in that classic is supposed to also be an allegory for Rick, the central character in Malick’s drama, and his journey.  Rick is a screenwriter who basically just drifts from place to place, observing the world he encounters while avoiding screenwriting as much as possible.  It’s sort of like a movie by Federico Fellini, 8 ½ or La Dolce Vita, character studies of a men who are spiritually lost or have writer’s block, set against dwarfing architecture and a somewhat impressionistic view of the local’s lives.

I have to say I liked Knight of Cups, though I also have to say I’m surprised that I did.  In Malick’s last film To The Wonder, the filmmaker told an almost impossible to understand story, made almost impossible to understand because it was not told in chronological order.  And since you were spending so much time just trying to understand what was going on, it was difficult to become emotionally involved in the movie.  And it didn’t help that when you did figure it out, it was a pretty bland and banal story line.

IT’S A DISASTER: 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Wave

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

 

10 Cloverfield Lane is a somewhat awkward mating of two genres: the women in danger film (aka, a female thriller) and an alien invasion film.

What’s so surprising is that despite the clunkiness of said mating, the movie is very enjoyable and more or less works on its own terms.

The basic premise here revolves around a young woman who leaves her boyfriend for reasons unknown and on her way to wherever it is she is going, if she’s actually going somewhere, her car is broadsided and goes over the side of the road. She loses consciousness only to wake up in an underground bunker replete with a conspiracy theorist who claims that America has been attacked and they may be the only survivors.

Is he crazy? Is he telling the truth? Or is he both?

My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 3/18-3/25/16

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. 3/18-25/16

ON NETFLIX: Galaxy Quest, written by David Howard and Robert Gordon, directed by Dean Parison, was an unexpected delight when it came out. A group of actors from a popular, though long cancelled, sci-fi television series find out that aliens have mistaken the series for reality and abduct the actors for help in defeating their cruel foes. A first rate cast including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shaloub and Sam Rockwell, among others, make this movie one hysterical satire.

ON HULU: With screenplay by Viktor Rozov and direction by Mikhail Kalatosov, The Cranes Are Flying is one of Russia’s greatest film. Set during World War II, it follows the lives of two young people, very much in love, as their lives are torn apart by Germany’s invasion. The movie wears its emotions on its sleeve, but it’s a very moving and powerful film. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.

FIRST RUN and OPENING: Marguerite, The Clan, A.K., Too Late, Krisha, Hello My Name is Doris, City of Gold, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Eye in the Sky, The Boy and the Beast, Backgammon, The Wave, Knight of Cups, Zootopia

ANIMAL CRACKERS: Zootopia

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 not sure there’s a lot more to say about the new animated film Zootopia that hasn’t been said already. It opened to a very favorable critical response (99 % on rottentomatoes.com) and a nothing to be sneezed at box office.

And I can’t argue with much that has already been said. Zootopia is, indeed, a clever, smart, feel good in a good way film and a fun time in the theater (with the best jokes centering around sloths, lemmings and how soft a sheep’s hair feels). Bored you will not be.

The only thing I can’t say is that it’s very cute. Only the central character, a rabbit, can say that, and you’ll only know why if you go see the film.

The basic story posits a world where carnivores are no longer, well, carnivorous, which enables them to live side by side in peace and brotherhood in an attempt at a kind of utopian society that centers around the capital city, Zootopia, which looks like a mixture of the Emerald City and Panem.

YOU WANT ME TO READ WHAAAAAAT? A Snob’s Guide to Alternative Sources for Structure in Plotting for Screenplay and TV Writing, Part V: Philosophical Depth

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

Also available for revising, script doctoring and ghost writing.

 

This is the fifth in a series of essays about alternative sources for structure and plotting for screenplays and television series (for earlier entry in the series, see the bottom of the essay).

By alternative, I mean sources other than the usual tomes written by the usual gurus, sources you might not immediately think about, that can be used as guides in trying to tell your story, sources that you might not have even considered of any use in this area.

The idea of writing these essays originated with the sudden rise of what is now being called a second golden age of television, as well as a paradigm shift in the way movies are made. There are now so many different ways of telling a story on television, while in movies there has been a swing away from the Hollywood/Studio type of filmmaking, that I believe thinking outside the box when it comes to finding ways to tell stories might be a wise move to make at this time.

However, before proceeding any further, I would also like to say one other thing. You may look at many of my lists and recoil at the hoity-toityness of them all and even accuse me of being a snob.

Well, what can I say? I am a snob and I’m proud of it.

But I seriously doubt it would hurt anyone’s ability to write if they let a little more snobbishness in. In fact, it might help. You never know, so give it a try.

And this essay will probably be the snobbiest of the snobbiest in that it focuses on films that take a lot of their cues from philosophers, theologians and great thinkers. These are films that really try to get to the heart of what makes us, well, us; what is the meaning of the universe; why were are here at all; why there is something instead of nothing; what is the point of being alive at all. These are questions that artists have been dealing with since time immemorial, and they still influence us today.

These are sources that have given guidance and depth to films since their inception and have influenced directly or indirectly such filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Martin Scorcese, Paul Schrader, Woody Allen, Michael Haneke, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Michelangelo Antoinioni and many, many others.

My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 3/11-3/18/16

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. 3/11-18/16

ON NETFLIX: Panic in Needle Park, with a screenplay by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne from a book by James Mill, and directed by Jerry Schatzberg, is one of Al Pacino’s earliest performances (it’s before The Godfather) and is realistic and downbeat story about heroin addicts in New York. Intense and often moving.

ON HULU: In Memories of Murder, writers Sung-bo Shim and Joon Ho Bung, who also directed, a serial killer murdering women around a small town is investigated by a detective from Seoul and two incompetent local officers. Joon Ho Bung (more famous for the monster film The Host) is quite possibly South Korea’s greatest new wave filmmakers and this thriller is one of his best.

FIRST RUN and OPENING: 10 Cloverfield Lane, Eye in the Sky, The Boy and the Beast, Barney Thomson, Nightshift (2001), Backgammon, Rabin the Last Day, Bleak Street, The Wave, Knight of Cups, Zootopia

My recommendations for film watching this week in L.A. 3/4/16-3/11/16

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. 3/4/16-3/11/16

ON NETFLIX: For those of you who have yet to see actor/writers Dudley Moore and Peter Cook comic take on the Faust story, and I guess there are some such, here is your chance. One of the best films of the 1960’s, Moore plays a short order chef at Wimpy Burger. He wants to date the curvaceous waitress there, but can’t get himself to do it. Instead, he decides to kill himself. Enter Cook as you know who to give him seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Remember, the magic word is Julie Andrews.

ON HULU: Z, written by Jorge Semprun and directed by Costa-Gravas, is one of the best political thrillers of all time and possibly Costa-Gravas’ best film. Based on a true story, the head of a anti-war group (Yves Montand) holds a rally, but the government has his assassinated. Afterwards, a prosecutor (Jean-Louis Trintignant) tries to bring the murderers to justice, but finds himself stymied at every turn. Nominated for Best Film and winner of Best Foreign Language film at the 1970 Oscars.

FIRST RUN and OPENING: The Wave, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Knight of Cups, Ava’s Posessions, Zootopia, Colliding Dreams