Three movies you may have missed with great screenwriting examples (courtesy of UCLA teacher Wendall Thomas).
Wetherby - Dame Vanessa Redgrave is one sexy beast. This is an intelligent thriller with amazing use of flashback and transitions. And the love scenes with Joely are red hot.
Dirty Pretty Things - Best Inciting Incident ever. Nothing like finding a human heart clogging up your hotel toilet. Great acting, nice use of Others in society, and a taut thriller that is both inevitable and surprising.
The Chateau - When two American brothers inherit a French castle, they are in for a world of hurt from the current tennants. Paul Rudd at his best, in an indie shot on digital. One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. How language itself can be used as all the obstacle and conflict you need. Great example of different voices in each character. And the best use of ironic subtitles since Annie Hall. Je t'aime, potate.
And in theatres now, don't forget to see Murderball and My Date With Drew. Pretty please with sugar on top? You won't be disappointed!
8 comments:
Elizabeth,
Don't know if tapes of the program are available, but last night's broadcast of Larry King featured the cast of Murderball. Unfortunately, I only caught the last half hour. As a substantial number of clips were shown, my urge to see this film have been reinforced. I'd also like to see the Aristocrats, but may end up having to wait for Netflix to provide me with both movies. We'll see. Bye for now. Sincerely,
Patrick
I'm curious - what did you think of "Crash"? I loved it (I'm a sucker for good writing and directors who set up your expectations, then subsequently destroy them)...a few quibbles, but nothing major.
Dirty Pretty Things was awesome, one of my favorites the year it came out. I've been wanting to see the Chateau and now I've got a solid recommendation.
Thanks for the suggestions. Thought Dirty Pretty Thing was great, but haven't seen the others. They'll be skipping onto the Netflix queue now.
Must see Murderball! Must see Murderball!!!
It's on my list. I'll let you know how I liked it. :)
Did you know that the writer of Dirty Pretty Things concieved the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Now you know do you care?
Thanks for the recommendations.
Meg, I really liked Crash, but Paul Haggis was really nice to me when I met him...and I'm such a suck up that means I'm instantly yours for life. So, I'm not an unbiased source. But then, who is? Kind of the whole point of reviewing movies is to give your POV.
I can tell you one of my UCLA professors was driven a little nutty by all the coincidences and accidental remeetings within a week and thought it was lazy writing. But I suspended my disbelief and went along with that, and liked the message and the acting. But I get the professor's point, it was Writer's Convenience and not organic to the story. Guess I'm willing to overlook that for a studio movie trying to make a difference and say something complicated about life.
Patrick, thanks for the heads up.
AK, right on! I really enjoyed both. Great writing, great filmmaking.
Moses, cool! Netflix has them both! Let me know what you think.
How long is everbody else's Netflix queue? Mine's over 150. Ridiculous.
Mo, yea!!!! Get out there quick, before those damn Penguins destroy it! Not looking good for our lads.
MR, I DID hear that...it was one of the recommendations behind seeing Dirty. That this guy was already rich rich rich but believed in this little film about invisible people.
Post a Comment