Screentakes

Character and Theme-focused Screenplay Analysis

A Teachable Moment

Philomena: Looking for Truth (Not Trouble)

Posted by Jennine Lanouette on Tuesday, February 11th, 2014

Almost every film I see these days seems to demand fact checking. Sometimes I think this must be the real meaning of that buzz phrase “transmedia storytelling.” The marketing blitz draws you in and then you watch a narrative unfold that seems so overblown you can’t help going on line to sort out the real read the full article.

Depicting Torture Has Its Risks: Zero Dark Thirty

Posted by Jennine Lanouette on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013

Kathryn Bigelow has certainly been on the hot seat lately. People don’t seem to understand Zero Dark Thirty the way she intended it to be understood. Having been publicly taken to task back in December by Senators Dianne Feinstein, John McCain and Carl Levin for appearing to claim in her film that torture played an read the full article.

I Like Mike: Magic Mike

Posted by Jennine Lanouette on Thursday, July 19th, 2012

Steven Soderbergh has made himself a chick flick. Well, sort of. Having dragged my partner Ed to see it (“The only reason I’m going is because of Matthew McConaughey!”), we found ourselves in a movie theater full of chattering 20-something women. Silly me. Being that it’s telling a man’s story, I thought men might have read the full article.

Midnight In Paris

Posted by Jennine Lanouette on Monday, April 2nd, 2012

Sometimes I think the art history class I took in college was the most important class of my entire college career. It’s because of that brow-wiping “Phew!” feeling I get when in sophisticated company and the name of one or another Impressionist, Cubist, Fauvist, Dadaist or Expressionist painter comes up. In fact, I have come read the full article.

Moneyball

Posted by Jennine Lanouette on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Let me just say up front: I don’t know squat about baseball. I see it as a somewhat inferior form of narrative, a gross theatrical spectacle with plenty of built-in conflict, tons of suspense and a ticking clock tension. But there are only two possible outcomes: win or lose. And no denouement. Just on to read the full article.