POP ART: Episode 23, The Goonies/The Bridge (1959)

“Do the shuffle Truffle.” Feeling attacked? That the world is closing in on you and your friends? Feeling the need to come together and fight back and protect what’s yours? The perfect time for Episode 23 of Pop Art, the podcast where my guest chooses a movie from popular culture and I’ll select a film from the more art/classic side of cinema with a connection to it. For my listeners, please like, follow or comment. I’m especially looking for more reviews on iTunes and I’d love to know what you think. This time, my guest is Hollywood hyphenate, writer, director, producer, podcaster Donald McKinney, III, who is appearing for the second time on the show. Donald joined me on the premier episode of the podcast where we discussed Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. This time round, Donald chose everyone’s favorite coming of age treasure hunt story, The Goonies, and I chose the dark German anti-war film The Bridge, both films about a group of teen friends who band together to save their home. And in this episode we ask such questions as: How did Josh Brolin ruin an important shot in The Goonies? Who dubs Dennis Quaid and Kris Kristofferson in German films? What is an Anne Ramsey and would you want to be one? What happened when Richard Donner went to Hawaii? What does Oedipus Rex have to do with it? Is it Captain Blood or The Sea Hawk? What happened to Casablanca when it premiered in Germany? And listen to Donald’s podcast The REAL Short Box at https://www.facebook.com/therealshortbox/, https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-real-short-box  and other streaming platforms.

And don’t forget to listen to other episodes, as well as like, comment on and follow ON ITUNES AND PODOMATIC. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pop-art/id1511098925 and https://hcasner65579.podomatic.com/, as well as iheartradio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-pop-art-65365716/, Sticher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/pop-art Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5jX4noVGArDJdmcFtmrQcGm , Anchor: https://anchor.fm/howard-casner, Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xZWI4N2NmYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw , Breaker: https://www.breaker.audio/pop-art, Pocketcasts: https://pca.st/vfjqj6j6, Radiopublic: https://radiopublic.com/pop-art-GExxNb

Previous episodes: Raiders of the Lost Ark/The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; Goldfinger/The Spy Who Came in From the Cold; Monty Python and the Holy Grail/The Seventh Seal; The Great Escape/A Man Escaped; Best in Show/Series 7: The Contenders; Robocop/THX 1138; Singin’ in the Rain/Irma Vep; Star Wars/The Hidden Fortress; The Omen/Village of the Damned; Aliens/Attack the Block; Adaptation/Sunset Boulevard; Die Hard/District B13; American Psycho/Repulsion; Dumb and Dumber/Too Late For Tears; Get Out/Upstream Color; Galaxy Quest/The Seven Samurai; Face/Off/Mulholland Drive; The Karate Kid/Let the Right One In; Finding Nemo/The Searchers; Jaws/White Hunter, Black Heart; Constantine/The Wailing; The Blues Brothers/Silence (1971).

Check out my Script Consultation Services at http://ow.ly/HPxKE. I offer several types of service. Testimonials can be found at the blog entry.

Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay?  Check out the second edition of my screenwriting book, More Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader published on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GD1XP9Y

Finally, I have published a collection of three of my plays, 3 Plays, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08478DBXF as well as two collections of short stories, The Starving Artists and other stories, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FS91CKJ and The Five Corporations and the One True Church and other stories, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KY5Z3CF.

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

 

Hail, Caesar!, the latest comic satire from Joel and Ethan Coen, is one of those films that has so much that is right with it, plus a bit more that is brilliant, that it makes it all the more disappointing that it doesn’t quite come together.

The basic premise has as its center piece one Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), head of production at the fictional Hollywood studio Capital Pictures (the same studio that the Brothers used in Barton Fink). Over the course of one or two days, he has a difficult decision to make: should he remain at Capitol where he’s constantly having to put out fires both large and small and is constantly confronted by the insane antics of his stars, or will he take a position as head of Lockheed, a safe position with a guaranteed future (this is the 1950’s after all, and TV is more than making its presence known), fewer hours and less stress on the nerves?

Well, so far so good.

HUMANITY AT ITS BEST AND WORST: Sicario and The Martian

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

Sicario, the new thriller about the drug war written by Taylor Sheridan (a first film) and directed by French Canadian flavor of the month Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Prisoner, Enemies), is, in many ways, two movies for the price of one.

The first is an action/adventure film full of car chases and gun battles and plot twists (many of which, if truth be told, I found just a tad tenuous at best) of the action/adventure variety.

The second is a treatise on the drug war.

The first film is often quite successful and impressive. The second is, at least from my perspective, quite shallow and unconvincing.

This means that for much of the time, Sicario is definitely and highly entertaining. Sheridan and Villeneuve, along with the incredibly soaring cinematography of Roger Deakins (one of our finest today), the film editing of Joe Walker, and the heart throbbing music of Johan Johannson, have crafted an edge of your seat story that never really stops and never really lets you stop watching.

THERE WILL BE WEED or THE GRASSTER: Inherent Vice

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

 

Warning: SPOILERS

I’m afraid that when it comes to me, myself and writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, the honeymoon may, at last and alack, be over.

I mean, this was no one night stand.

When I first met Anderson, he took me with his Hard Eight. And we then spent many Boogie Nights together. I did think that with Magnolia we didn’t quite come together as we once did. Still, though it may not have totally worked, it was far, far…far more stimulating than many films that did. And with Punch Drunk Love he just, well, punched, drunked and loved me.

I was delirious.

But time marches on and, like so many relationships, people change, circumstances change, conflicts emerge until the relationship starts hitting some rough shoals.