Month: June 2017

Submit to the TV Festival (Pilot, Spec) – Deadline Today

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SUBMIT your TV PILOT or TV SPEC Script
Voted #1 TV Contest in North America.

Deadline: TV PILOT/SPEC Script Festival – Get FULL FEEDBACK. Get script performed by professional actors
http://www.wildsound.ca/tvscreenplaycontest.html

Watch WINNING TV PILOT Screenplay Readings
http://www.wildsoundfestival.com/tv_pilot_readings.html

Watch WINNING TV SPEC Screenplay Readings
http://www.wildsoundfestival.com/tv_spec_readings.html

READ 100s of testimonials for past submitters –
TV Screenplay Testimonials from the WILDsound Festival

WATCH RECENT TV SCREENPLAY FESTIVAL READINGS (Winners every single month!)

ACTORTV PILOT Screenplay – THE SPECTRAL CITY
July 2016 Reading
Written by Arthur Vincie		ACTORTV SPEC Screenplay – BROOKLYN NINE-NINE
June 2016 Reading
Written by Linsen Oyosa		ACTORTV PILOT Screenplay – WILD MAGIC
June 2016 Reading
Written by Julie Nichols
ACTORTV PILOT Screenplay – CIVILIAN
June 2016 Reading
Written by Gina Scanlon		ACTORFAN FICTION Screenplay – SPACE 2099 (based on Space 1999)
June 2016 Reading
Written by Kevin D Story		ACTORTV SPEC Screenplay – THE MINDY PROJECT “Culture Club”
May 2016…

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Submit to the Novel Festival (Full, 1st chapter, performance reading) – Deadline Today

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DEADLINE June 15th: 1st CHAPTER/FULL NOVEL Festival.
http://www.wildsound.ca/book_contest.html

Get your story performed at the Writing Festival. FULL FEEDBACK on all entries.

NEW OPTION: Or, just submit for an actor performance reading transcript of your novel (any 5 pages of your book). Great way to promote the sales of your book if you’re already published. (see examples on the video playlist below)

Watch past winners. Winners every single month!

Watch the June 2016 Winners.
June 2016 Novel & Short Story Winners

Watch the May 2016 Winners.
May 2016 Novel & Short Story Winners

Watch the April 2016 Winners.
April 2016 Novel & Short Story Winners

Watch the March 2016 Winners.
March 2016 Novel Winners

Watch the February 2016 Winners.
February 2016 Novel Winners

Watch the January 2016 Winners.
January 2016 Novel Winners

Watch the December 2015 Winners. At least 3-10 winners every month:
December 2015 Novel Winners

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Film Review: THE SKYJACKER’S TALE (Canada 2016) ***

festreviews 2017 movies, movie, Movie Review, Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

THE SKYJACKER_S TALEAfter five citizens of the Virgin Islands are convicted in the 1970s of a massacre at one of the island’s fancy country clubs, their ostensible leader stages a skyjacking and escapes to Cuba.

Director: Jamie Kastner
Writer: Jamie Kastner
Stars: Ishmael Muslim Ali, Isabella Carr, Bradley Gordon

Review by Gilbert Seah
 
These two years have seen a presence of excellent African American films including the Best Film Oscar winner, MOONLIGHT. The documentary THE SKYJACKER’S TALE is one of them, telling the little known story of Ishmael Muslim Ali (aka LaBeet). The film’s timing is perfect as Kastner captures Ali’s first interview since his hijacking.

Kastner cautiously plays both sides. Kastner makes it clear that Ali had been sentenced to 8 years lifetime imprisonment to be served consecutively – whatever that means. Ali was brutally tortured in jail too. So when he was transported on an American Airlines plane, it would only seem natural for him to try an escape. After all what has he to lose, but lots to gain?

The two reenactments of the massacre of the 8 people at the St. Crois’ Fountain Valley golf course (which Ali was convicted of) in he Virgin Islands and the plane hijacking make this documentary are exciting as any action fiction feature. And this is the real thing.

There are many reasons and much to enjoy in Kastner’s documentary. For one, it is short at 76 minutes and to the point. It is exciting and based on true events. The subject has his say in the interview, from start to the end of the film. Kastner shifts the audience’s point of view of the man. In the start, he is described by others as a terrorist, a truly evil person and a killer. By the end of the film, the audience sees a different person – one that is totally mistreated by society. Ali has a dream of escaping and it is difficult not to side with someone who lives up to his dream.

Kastner has also assembled an impressive list of interviewees to aid the film’s credibility. Among them are the police officials (who admit to torturing Ali), the St Crois prison guards, the prosecutor and defendant lawyers. For the hijacking, Kastner also got the pilot, flight attendant and a passenger to talk on camera.

The film is not without humour. The film ends on a funny note where Ali reveals how he smuggled the gun from prison on to the plane through the metal detectors.

As stated by one of the talking heads in the film, the issue at hand is not whether Ali was guilty of the crime. The issue was the wrong-doing done by the justice system and the prison authorities and guards – especially the torture of hanging the men from the trees, using electric cattle prods and water torture.

By the end of the film, the audience is totally on the side of Ali, hoping he is successful in his escape to Cuba. This he was. When imprisoned in Cuba for the hijacking, he claims on interview that he was glad to be imprisoned in Cuba, away from the f***ing Americans.

After the opening of this disturbing document of injustice done on the black people, the coming week will see the equally arousing bio-pic of the true story of rap singer Tupac (ALL EYEZ ON ME) who was shot dead at the age of 25. He too was imprisoned and tortured in prison.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ydbAhwJ4MI&feature=youtu.be

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month:http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

Film Review: THE BAD BATCH (USA 2016)

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Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

the bad batch.jpgA dystopian love story in a Texas wasteland and set in a community of cannibals.

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Writer: Ana Lily Amirpour
Stars: Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Jayda Fink

Review by Gilbert Seah
 
Writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour is best remembered for her breakout animated vampire feature A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT that featured strong visuals. She returns with another female protagonist sort-of vampire horror feature, this time set in a land of cannibals.

The BAD BATCH is a gruesome watch especially in its first 15 minutes. The film is tamed down after that, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one looks at it. In its first 15 minutes, Arlen (British model Suki Waterhouse) leaves Texas, U.S. and enters a no man’s land of toxic waste and odd communities. One is cannibal community where she is captured unconscious. Her lower arm and leg are sawed off and barbecued as a meal.

She escapes on a skateboard, lying sideways while using her one arm and leg to propel herself. Quite the horrific sight, which is unmatched after.
Amipour has progressed to this $6 million production that displays excellent production values. The art and set direction is excellent from the crows that peck and pick out the body parts of the corpses in the desert to the piles of toxic waste that fill the landscape. Amirpour has also cast known name actors in this film – Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey. But these three are highly unrecognizable, so it is best to carefully to watch out for them.

The film is set in a dystopian future America, where undesirables – the bad batch (they have numbers tattoo’ed on them) – are banished to a fenced-in desert outside the Texas territory, their US citizenship revoked. One of the condemned is twentysomething Arlen (Waterhouse).

After Arlen escapes from the cannibals losing one leg and an arm, she stays at Comfort, a hedonistic community run by a cult leader (Reeves). Over the next few months, as Arlen adjusts to the “bad batch” life, she discovers that being good or bad mostly depends on who’s standing next to you. She enters again the cannibal community to exact revenge, killing off a mother while adopting the motherless daughter (Jayda Pink). The husband, a hunky cannibal with the words ‘Miami Man’ tattoo’ed across his chest comes hunting for them. Arlen falls in love with him. The film takes a different turn.

The main trouble with the film are the loose ends and credibility of the script. What is Arlen’s background and what was her sentence? Her falling in love with Miami Man stretches credibility. Why would the little girl who witnesses Arlen’s shooting of her mother go on to live amicably with her? And most important of all, why does Arlen have a change of heart?

The film boats a diverse soundtrack that includes oldies like Culture Club’s Karma-Chameleon, Ace of Base’s All that She Wants and a killer soundtrack by electronic duo Darkside.

The film won the Special Jury Prize at Venice 2016 and it is easy to see why. Despite its flaws it shows great originality, look and attention to set and art details.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUqfP1S-9ok
 

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month:http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

Film Review: EAT ME! (Bulgaria)

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Played at the May 2017 EUROPEAN Short Film Festival

Eatmeposter jan 2017small

Glittering socialite Laura starts slipping from the daily reality of a weight obsessed rich man’s mistress. While on a fancy dinner with her gluttonous lover she enters a strange world where food dances and sings. The whirlwind of dance blows the air out of Laura’s head and she becomes a different type of girl…

How people treat each other is mirrored in the way we treat our environment and our food. That’s why “Eat me” focuses on our attitude to food, its dubious contents and food waste through the prism of a skewed relationship.

Review by Kierston Drier

A twenty minute dive into food and psychology, EAT ME, is an adventurous musical romp telling the tale of a beautiful young woman having dinner with her very hungry partner. She fights the internal battle between craving and self control, as she stares…

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Film Review: THE ARK (France)

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Played at the May 2017 EUROPEAN Short Film Festival

Affiche10

A rhino is walking into the ruins of a cathedral under a heavy rain.

 

Review by Kierston Drier

A two minute animation directed by Jean-Baptiste Aziere, The Ark is a powerful, riveting and emotionally provocative piece. Highly symbolic and deeply moving, it follows a Rhino slowly making its’ way to a dilapidated Christian altar where it bows with it’s final breath, then falls to its’ knees. It gives us no answers, asks us no riddles- it is simply a sharp, dramatic piece that will take your breath away.

You may argue that this is a piece about religion, or a piece about spirituality and the animal kingdom, or that it is about environmentalism, you may even argue it has no deeper meaning that what is visually there. But it cannot be denied- this is a film so hauntingly beautiful and…

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Film Review: SEEDS (UK)

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Played at the May 2017 EUROPEAN Short Film Festival

A young female astronaut trains for the first expedition to Mars.

 

Review by Kierston Drier

A gorgeous and deeply layered piece of cinema, SEEDS does what all science-fiction genre piece hope to do: dissect a part of our modern world by throwing it through the lense of the future. A young female astronaut must decide to leave her brother (the only family she has) to go into isolation training for a settlement to be built on Mars. She will likely never return. There is an echo of other well loved science fiction pieces like “The Martian”, or even “Stranded” in this piece, although in SEEDS, our heroine is only prepping for her journey. But this film, like others before it, puts human relationships under a microscope through the examination of isolation and space. Bravo to SEEDS for being able to…

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Film Review: FAREWELL (Switzerland)

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Played at the May 2017 EUROPEAN Short Film Festival

Plakat

What happens if you want to say goodbye to a loved one but this suddenly no longer find ? The short film “Farewell” tells how want to accompany a group of friends with different characters their deceased friend and brother on a last trip and so much goes wrong.

In bizarre and comical way this short satire will pull you in its spell – and what, if such a thing happened once to me?

Review by Kierston Drier

When we love something, we let it go. Right? It is certainly something we have all been taught. But when you have your buddy’s urn with his ashes in it, you might want to keep it where you know you can find it- just in case. But for five friends charged with the task of caring for their dead friend’s ashes, things don’t…

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Film Review: CARS 3 (USA 2017)

festreviews 2017 movies, movie, Movie Review , , , , , , , , ,

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

cars 3Lightning McQueen sets out to prove to a new generation of racers that he’s still the best race car in the world.

Director: Brian Fee

Stars: Owen Wilson, Cristela Alonzo, Chris Cooper, Nathan Fillion, Armie Hammer

Review by Gilbert Seah

CARS 3 is the debut animated feature by Brian Fee, the storyboard artist of the other two CARS films and a few other Disney features. As this is a film that Fee has something to prove, the animation is as expected top-notch, as in all the Disney/Pixar films.

The trailer of CARS 3 which shows racing car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) wiping out on a banked racetrack with a fade to black and voiceover promising that things will be different, many will be expecting a blacker sequel and one that would prove more interesting than the other two trivial CARS films. Not so. The terrible crash is just the catalyst for McQueen to want to race again to prove himself. So, there is the usual predictable stuff such as: “You have it in you.” You can prove yourself.” etc. etc. So, all hopes for a blacker CARS film are torn to bits.

The film features a next generation of race cars that includes Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer). The cars in the film begin questioning if the famous Lightning McQueen will throw in the towel after he endured a terrible crash. McQueen’s sponsor, Rust-eze, is bought by Sterling (Nathan Fillion), a car who thinks McQueen cannot maintain his image by racing. Lightning asks for a chance to race in the Florida 500 and begins to train with race technician Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), who’s always had her own racing dreams. That pretty sums up a plot that not many can get excited with.

The same problem of animation of cars till exists in all the CARS franchise. Cars are inanimate objects with no limbs nor faces. So it is more difficult to animate cars – to give them expressions and make them distinguishable one from another. A tactic is of course, as used by the animators, is to make the colours bright and different or have different car types on display such as tow trucks.

It is also difficult to get excited over one cartoon car wining a race against another cartoon car. Or for one cartoon car to fall in love with another or feel anything towards a jealous car.

CARS undoubtedly has good animation. The audience can feel the thunder of the race as the audience is given a drivers-look of a race. But the film lacks the humour (goofy or otherwise) and inventiveness that help films like the recent CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS and BOSS BABY become memorable.
THE CARS films have not made the Studios that much money compared to the other animated features. But more than a fair income comes from the share of the toy franchise. So, do not expect much from CARS 3. For it is he same old stuff. Unless one is interested in the animation process, CARS 3 is nothing more than one dull drag of a race.

But wait! There is a short animated feature called LOU preceding CARS. It involves a schoolyard bully who learns that being nice conquers all. The largely silent LOU is smart, well animated, inventive and funny. It subtly teaches kids that bullying is just not cool. Rating for LOU: ****

****
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4K7JgPJ8-s

 

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month:http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

Film Review: THE B-SIDE: ELSA DORFMAN’S PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY (USA 2017) ***

festreviews 2017 movies, movie, Movie Review, Uncategorized , , ,

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

the b sideA look at the life and work of photographer Elsa Dorfman.

Director: Errol Morris
Star: Elsa Dorfman

Review by Gilbert Seah
 
The B-SIDE displays documentarian Errol Morris, known for his darker subjects like MR. DEATH and THE FOG OF WAR in lighter mode with Polaroid Artist, an always cheery Elsa Dorfman.

Elsa Dorfman, the subject of Errol Morris’s new documentary appears at the film’s start, in light mode, at her Cambridge, Massachusetts studio talking to the camera. The telephone rings at the midst of her talking and she asks whether she should answer the phone. She is given the ok and ends up speaking to both the person on the telephone and to the audience. The B-SIDE is a documentary about photographer portraitist Elsa Dorfman. Dorfman who used the large-size Polaroid 20”x24” camera for over 30 years to take thousands of portraits, including those of old friends like poet Allen Ginsberg and singer Jonathan Richman. Other famous people photographed include Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Robert Lowell, W.H. Auden. Now 80 (late 70s when the film was shot), she opens up her archives and memories.

The film takes its title from the music industry term “b-side.” When using the Polaroid camera, Dorman would take two photos, keeping the rejected one for herself. Sometimes the b-side can surprise.
Most of the screen time is devoted to her talking about her life and work as well as answering questions asked on camera by Morris. The film has a causal easy-going look, but the material is in no way compromised. Morris gets as much material into his documentary this way.

Unlike many documentaries, Morris does not include many talking heads. The only person doing the talking is Elsa Dorman herself.

Elsa is a person who giggles a lot on screen, like a schoolgirl. Though irritating at the beginning, her mannerisms slowly grows on you. Elsa eventually comes across as a pleasant and clever person who deserves to have her say, even of herself rather than having others talk about her.
Elsa is shown to be quite opinionated. She openly displays her disgust at the buyers of the Polaroid Company when it went bankrupt due to technology. She always considers herself as a nice Jewish girl.

Much can be told about her character and about her relationships from her sayings. She mentioned that her husband would pose for her regardless of how busy he is, even though he might only wish her a Happy Birthday at the end of the day. But this shows a lot – that Harvey and Elsa are truly in love as he would go out of the way to pose for her whew asked. She also mentioned a really bad day, the one on the telephone when her father died and mother said goodbye to him.

Music includes a song Broken Blue Bones, written and performed by Allan Ginsberg. Ginsberg, a close friend of Elsa, is featured in many of her photographs. Ginsberg, given more screen time comported to others, definitely had an impact on her, as a friend and fellow artist.

As Elsa Dorfman is not that famous outside her circle – Morris’ film will give her some well deserved exposure, pardon the pun!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSOazX_RiOI

 

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month:http://www.wildsoundfestival.com