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reviews
Badlands gets a workout in our new Review column
Our regular Script Factory Reviews offer a script-centred perspective on both classic and contemporary films. Appearing once a month, journalist and developer, Trevor Johnston, explores how a produced screenplay can help a screenwriter to better understand his or her own work.
In addition to the reviews below, you can also follow these links to read extracts from previous Script Factory Masterclasses, and find out what's on this month for filmmakers & developers.
The Secret In Their Eyes
Tue, 7 Sep 2010
Detective story. Romance. Political thriller. Argentinian Juan José Campanella’s Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes is all of these things…and quite possibly more. Our reviewer Trevor Johnston unpicks a great piece of cinematic storytelling which suggests that if you’re skilful enough, you can mix elements from different genres – providing the film’s controlling idea is strong enough to keep everything in check. Spoilers ahead as we ponder passion and morality, Buenos Aires-style…..
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Death At A Funeral
Wed, 14 Jul 2010
Any screenwriter will be delighted that their work’s getting filmed, but Dean Craig found himself in an almost surreal situation when his comedy Death at a Funeral was remade in Hollywood only a couple of years after the original British version hit the screens. Since the essential structure of the story remained unchanged in the meantime, this is clearly a script with pointers to offer anyone approaching their own comedy writing. Spoilers ahead as our reviewer Trevor Johnston dons black tie to investigate how you turn mourning into laughter.
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Hud
Tue, 13 Apr 2010
Bad boys. Actors love playing them, audiences love watching them. But when does an antagonist become an anti-hero, a character whom we can’t help but be drawn to even though we know we should disapprove? Inspired by the Paul Newman season running at London’s BFI Southbank this April, Trevor Johnston takes a look at a 1963 drama which introduced a great movie anti-hero and gave Newman one of his signature roles – Martin Ritt’s modern western ‘Hud’. Spoilers ahead as our man in the cowboy hat looks at the shaping of a central character the film’s iconic poster campaign dubbed ‘The man with the barbed wire soul!’.
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AVATAR
Tue, 9 Mar 2010
It may not have quite hit the BAFTA/Oscar jackpot, but it’s no understatement to say that audiences are responding to James Cameron’s Avatar - but are they entranced by the storytelling or simply wowed by the high-tech spectacle? Trevor Johnston, our man in the 3-D glasses, reveals how the script blends quest narrative, dramatic choices, love story and not a little topicality in a killer combination which has hit home at the global box-office.
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The White Ribbon
Wed, 16 Dec 2009
Are the questions more important than the answers? That’s what Trevor Johnston wonders as he furrows his brow and tries to unpick the workings of Michael Haneke’s latest celluloid conundrum, a story of dark deeds and mysterious motives set in rural Germany in the days before the Great War. Spoilers ahead – well, up to a point, as you’ll soon discover – while we untie…. The White Ribbon.
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Up
Mon, 26 Oct 2009
The latest from Pixar is a daring departure even for them, an animated adventure which features – of all things – an elderly protagonist. Does it change things when your central character has more of his life behind him than in front of him? Absolutely! says reviewer Trevor Johnston, our man in the 3D glasses, as he examines how this chronicle of dreams and disappointment puts a whole new spin on heroism. Spoilers ahead as we lift up, up and…away…
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