Two movies have opened recently that have as its premise what happens when you welcome guests into one’s home. The basic moral of both is that, well, maybe it’s best not to.
The Trust, the new semi-caper film from writers Benjamin Brewer and Adam Hirsch and directed by Alex and Benjamin Brewer, starts out somewhat as a shaggy dog story. Which works rather well since the two central characters, both Las Vegas PD police officers (Nicholas Cage and Elijah Wood), look and act like mutts one might find at an animal shelter, desperate to be adopted before they end up in the incinerator.First, a word from our sponsors: I have just launched the indiegogo campaign for my short film 14 Conversations in 10 Minutes. Check it out http://ow.ly/SblO3005HHu. Below is a video sample of the short. Think about contributing (the lowest contribution is only $5.00). Please view and share anywhere and everywhere.
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
ON NETFLIX: This week a television series: Occupied, created by Karianne Lund, Jo Nesbø, Erik Skjoldbjærg, takes place in the near future when Norway decides to stop producing oil and instead produce the more environmentally friendly element thorium. Russia, backed by the EU, has a velvet glove takeover of the nation. A tense and engrossing series and a must see. Russia was not happy with it, to say the least.
ON HULU: Based on a true story, Memories of Murder, written by Sung-bo Shim and my favorite Korean director Joon-ho Bong (in spite of Snowpiercer, which I refuse to mention…oops), is about the first recorded Korean serial killer. A strong procedural as well as strong character study of the city mouse (a Seoul police detective) who comes to the country mouse (a local detective) and they join forces to find the murderer before he strikes again.
OF SPECIAL NOTE: Laemmle’s Royal is showing a new restoration of Carol Reed and Graham Greene’s movie The Fallen Idol. Highly recommended.
FIRST RUN and OPENING: Alice Through the Looking Glass, X-Men: Apocalypse, The Idol, Presenting Princess Shaw, Australia’s Lost Gold, The One’s Below, The Nice Guys, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Love and Friendship, Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero, A Bigger Splash, The Measure of a Man, The Lobster Continue reading
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
The first third of High-Rise, the new movie based on the J.G. Ballard novel (he also gave us the autobiographical Empire of the Sun and the unautobiographical, we hope, Crash—no, not that Crash, Ballard gave us the one where people get turned on by auto accidents), has a nice quirky, what-the-hell sort of quality to its writing (Amy Jump, of Kill List and Sightseers) and directing (Ben Wheatley of ditto); they both seem to be having a great deal of fun, if nothing else.
ON NETFLIX: To Catch A Thief, written by John Michael Hayes and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is not top drawer Hitchcock, but it’s still pretty good. A retired cat burglar must come out of retirement when someone starts using his MO to steal jewels. This leads to Grace Kelly using double entendres over a picnic to woo Cary Grant. Fun.
ON HULU: The Demon, written by Masato Ide from a story by Seicho Matsumoto and directed by the Japanese Alfred Hitchcock, is a brutal and riveting tale of what happens when a man’s mistress drops his three children with him and his unsuspecting wife. As pressure mounts, the lives of the children become at stake.
FIRST RUN and OPENING: The Nice Guys, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Angry Birds, Love and Friendship, Maggie’s Plan, Weiner, Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero, A Bigger Splash, The Measure of a Man, A Monster With A Thousand Heads, The Lobster Continue reading
ON NETFLIX: In 1845, a group of pioneers take a shortcut at their guide’s behest in order to get over the Cascade Mountains. They get lost as writer Jonathan Raymond and director Kelly Reichart take them all down a road of existentialism. Are they really lost, and if they are, what do they do? An intriguing small western starring Michelle Williams.
ON HULU: This time round, I am going to recommend a television series, the anarchic and almost nihilistic, but very darkly funny animated Rick and Morty. The premise is difficult to explain clearly, but it’s about an alcoholic scientist who takes his often clueless nephew on a series of outrageous adventures.
A SPECIAL SHOUT OUT FOR: Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero, written by Amir Ohebsion and its star Maz Jobrani, and directed by Jonathan Kesselman, “A wannabe private investigator wins the Green Card lottery and moves to America to pursue his dream only to find himself embroiled in a conspiracy to start the next world war.” It plays at the Laemmle Music Hall 3 and the Town Center Five
OF SPECIAL NOTE: Jean Luc Godard’s great film Band of Outsiders plays at (It’s the one where our heroes run across the Louvre)
FIRST RUN and OPENING: The Lobster, Money Monster, Highrise, Last Days in the Desert, Captain America: Civil War, A Bigger Splash, The Dark Horse, Elstree 1976, Sing Street, The Meddler Continue reading
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
It takes a while for the new superhero movie Captain America: Civil War to reach the scene that everyone has paid their hard earned bucks to see: a knock down drag out between the two sides of the Avengers, one headed by Iron Man and one headed by the titular hero.
But when it gets there, it proves to be more than worth the wait.
Let’s just say, it ain’t your parents’ Sharks versus the Jets.
In fact it’s one of the wittiest and smartest over the top superhero fight scenes we are likely to see for some time. It’s not just the dialog that is clever and earns its laughs, it’s also the way the fight plays out, which character gets pitted against which and how their superpower works against each other. There’s such a slick smoothness here, as if the planning of it was completely effortless; everything just fits together so well. Continue reading
Green Room, the new thriller from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier (the follow up to his well-received indie film Blue Ruin, but no, he’s not doing a series of titles with color in them), has a marvelous set up. 
ON NETFLIX: I’m not saying that Robinson Crusoe on Mars, written by John C. Higgins and Ib Melchior and directed by Byron Haskin (loosely adapted from the novel by Daniel Defoe) is a good movie, but it’s a fun one, with all the cheesiness included. Paul Mantee plays an astronaut stranded on Mars (long before Matt Damon) and Victor Lundin is a slave that escapes from a group of aliens who mine on Mars. Adam (Batman) West is also around, at least for awhile.
ON HULU: Stakeout, written by Shinobu Hashimoto (he worked on a number of Kurosawa films) and directed by Yoshitaro Nomura (Zero Focus, Castle of Sand), is a film noir as if Ozu had directed it. Two police detectives go to a town in the South of Japan because they believe a man who killed a pawnbroker may visit his old girlfriend. Methodical with its own pacing, it’s rich in character study with a story that slowly, but certainly, draws you in. A Japanese filmmaker who isn’t as well known in the U.S. as he should be.
OF SPECIAL NOTE: Dragon Inn (1967) is playing at the Nuart
OF SPECIAL NOTE: Jean Luc Godard’s great film Band of Outsiders plays at Cinefamily at The Silent Movie Theater 5/6-8, 10-12 (It’s the one where our heroes run across the Louvre)
FIRST RUN and OPENING: Captain America: Civil War, A Bigger Splash, The Family Fang, Dheepan, The Dark Horse, Being Charlie, Elstree 1976, The Invitation, Viva, Sing Street, The Meddler, Hockney, The Wait Continue reading 
Howard Casner - Rantings and Ravings 