Mario Dhingsa's Blog, page 6

Quarter-Finalist in the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition!

My children's book, 'Robot vs Dad', has made it to the quarter-finals for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition!

Thank you ScreenCraft!

2021 - you’ve already made it up to me 👍

See the full list here

#SilverScreenBlack reviews: 'Cash on Demand' (1961)

(1hr 20 mins)

4/5 (strongrooms)

Scrooge Heist: Ebenezer Cushing is forced to question his miserly ways when a thief begins taking his mountains of cash.

👍Hepcats:
Great acting from leads Peter Cushing, André Morell (who two years prior were Holmes & Watson) and Richard Vernon.
The cat-and-mouse power play between Cushing and Morell is electric.
And I haven't wanted a thief to get away with it this much since 'Inside Job' (2006).

👎Squares:
A Christmas crime caper with a calm, well-dressed, sinister mastermind with facial hair, trying to access a fortune from a vault; and a protagonist at odds with his family and yet risking it all to save them.
How is 'Die Hard' a Christmas tradition, but this isn't?...

📽️Favourite scene:
Morell demonstrating how in planning this heist, he has acquired more knowledge of the people that Cushing employs, than Cushing has gleaned in 15 years as their manager.

🧨'Cash on Demand' = 'Die Hard'?:
MORELL: "I want bank robberies to be smoother, more sociable."
GRUBER: "I wanted this to be professional, efficient, adult, co-operative."

💰'Cash on Demand' = 'Die Hard'?:
MORELL: "I am an uncommon thief."
GRUBER: "I am an exceptional thief."

😭'Cash on Demand' = 'Die Hard'?:
McCLANE: "It took me a while to figure out what a jerk I've been."
CUSHING: "What is the usual sentence, for completely failing in my duty towards my staff?"





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#SilverScreenBlack: Press Review - 'A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio' (2020)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

"‘A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio’ is an exceptional example of an incredible genre. It shows us the best of horror, through the worst of lives. It leads us through lands without hope, through houses without happiness, and into endings without redemption. And it is all spun with such skill and intensity that you will always stay for the next story, no matter how much more unsettled you will be.

This is the second anthology to 2015’s ‘A Night of Horror: Volume 1’, and is a vastly superior offering. There’s a new array of award-winning writers and directors here to propel you into the darkness and lock the door behind you. Eight short films, who’s despicable details are recounted by a lonely late-night DJ, will take you across continents, cultures and the closed doors of history. And in every corner, in every era, you will find nothing but blood, bitterness and belligerence.

Out of the gruesome eight, all are brilliantly conceived, and everyone will have their favourites. I have four that are remarkable, and they deserve to be separately reviewed in their own right:

‘Post Mortem Mary’, written and directed by Joshua Long, peeks into a mother and daughter’s unique mobile service - post-mortem photography. This is 1840s rural Australia, and the body is already two weeks old. The genius of this film lies in showing the horror through the young daughter’s eyes, and there is much horror to see here.

Adam O’Brien’s ‘A Little off the Top’ glimpses the end-game in a duel between a hair stylist and a supermodel. While this professional pair were once inseparable and sensational, this symbiotic relationship is plainly now parasitic and vicious. No one is forgiving here, and no one is turning back.

Matt Richards’ ‘The Disappearance of Willie Bingham’ charts the descent of a prisoner submitted to a revived punishment - amputation. Astonishingly acted by Kevin Dee as the prisoner, with an impressive supporting cast, ‘The Disappearance…’ captures the anger, the agony, and the rage of vengeance perfectly; and it is a bonfire that burns all.

Sergio Morcillo’s ‘Drops’ (originally released under its Spanish title, ‘Gotas’) is about a demon and a dancer, and the haunting trauma of abuse. Profound, poignant, and horrific, the film deftly shows how what doesn’t kill you may cripple you for life.

These four shorts are a stunning sledgehammer of horror story-telling. The set-ups are tantalising; the characters are believable; the acting is excellent and unnerving; the horror, grotesque but grounded, and the twists, shocking yet serious.

The horror here is not just about the monstrous attentions to detail - the scalpels and snapped bones, the stabbings and the slaughter - but about how one person can inflict an uncontrollable amount of cruelty on another, if pushed, if cornered, if ultimately and irremediably unleashed.

There is no hope left in these protagonists; only one horror replaced by an even greater one; for which there are no winners, only survivors.
If horror was a swimming pool, ‘A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio’ would be the deep end.

If horror had a jet engine, this would be the danger zone."

Review published for DissectionReflection.com [14/12/2020]

'A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio' will be available on the following platforms:
- Amazon, Google: 21/12/2020;
- iTunes: 30/12/2020

The trailer is here, if you dare...

#SilverScreenBlack reviews: Four Films in One Night!

Four films in one night!
Film One: 'The Draughtsman's Contract (1982),
Film Two: 'The Deep Blue Sea' (2011),
Film Three: 'Fear City' (1984)
I tried watching them all... and couldn't finish any of them! Really didn't like these; but if you've enjoyed them, please let me know what I was missing!

Film Four: 'Seize The Day' (1986)
My rating: 4/5
👍Robin Williams plays a salesman on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Separated, unemployed, isolated and eventually broke, Williams' self-destruction matches the same tortured highs and wrath-filled lows as Toni Collette's Very Bad Week in 'Hereditary'.

👎This is one of Williams' finest work in his entire career, but it's also one of the most depressing films you'll ever see. How can I go on to recommend this to you? It makes 'Falling Down' look like 'The Goonies'. It makes 'Glengarry Glen Ross ' look like 'Daddy Day Care'.

🥇Best quote:
"Don't marry suffering the way some people do. They marry suffering. They eat with suffering. They sleep with suffering. And if they find some joy in their lives, they think they're committing adultery."

🙁Best depressing quote:
"I mean I work hard all my life, but everything just flows away from me like water down a drain."

⏳Best lockdown quote:
"Leave my toast alone! Don't eat from other people's plates!"





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#SilverScreenBlack reviews: 'Victoria & Abdul' (2017)

(1hr 47mins)

4.5/5 (mohurs)

The Battle of Osborne House: The fondest of friendships raises the worst of resentments from an envious, outraged court.

👍Banquet Hall of Eternity:
The film works so well because of the superb pairing. Ali Fazal as Abdul Karim is incredible - charming, learned, earnest, and tragic (I wish he was my friend!).
And Judi Dench is expectantly excellent - utterly alone, and unable to trust anyone, including her own children.
Also wonderful to see Dench reprise her role of Queen Victoria, making this a seamless sequel to 'Mrs Brown' (1997).

👎Bitter Bertie's bedroom:
Edward VII, Victoria's successor, ordered almost the entirety of Abdul and Victoria's correspondence to be burnt, and the depth of this cross-cultural friendship was so successfully swept under the carpet, that it was only rediscovered in 2010, when Karim's diary and letters were released by his family.

📽️Favourite scene:
Queen Victoria being threatened by the Royal Household.
She'll be declared insane by her own physician if she insists on knighting Abdul.
But for an 81 year old, she's one hell of a fighter...

🥇Best quote:
"The skill of a carpet is to bring all the different kinds of threads together, and weave something we can all stand on."

🙁Best depressing quote:
"I'm so lonely. Everyone I've really loved has died... and I just go on and on."

⏳Best lockdown quote:
"Oh, to be by oneself and live a simple, rudimentary existence."





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#SilverScreenBlack reviews: '1917' (2019)

(1hr 55mins)

4/5 (orders)

Run Corporal Run: Two soldiers race through France to prevent a brother receiving a bullet, and a battalion being decimated.

👍Urgent missions:
Great direction (Sam Mendes!) and cinematography (Roger Deakins!).
Incredible sets and groundworks.
Brief but brilliant work from Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch.
And finally seeing Sikh and black soldiers in a World War One film!

👎Bad decisions:
The film features some of the worst shooters in the German army.
Certain plot points are a little too convenient.
And like 'The Revenant' (2015), it loses its narrative and tension halfway, when the protagonist reaching the third act becomes a certainty.

📽️Favourite scene:
The initial entry into No Man's Land and their approach of the German line.
Never has one rat raised so much hell.

🥇Best quote:
"Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone."

🙁Best depressing quote:
"I hoped today might be a good day. Hope is a dangerous thing.
That's it for now, then next week, Command will send a different message. Attack at dawn.
There is only one way this war ends. Last man standing."

🎼Best song before the inevitable:
#I am a poor wayfaring stranger,
I'm travelling through this world of woe.
Yet there's no sickness, toil nor danger,
In that bright land to which I go.





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#SilverScreenBlack reviews: 'Dreamscape' (1984)

(1hr 39mins)

3.5/5 (psychics)

The Dream of the Jackal: A team of dream-travelling telepaths begins rotting from within, when a President proposes a radical peace.

👍Lucid dreams:
Excellent casting! Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw and Max von Sydow are immensely charming and watchable, George Wendt is shadowy and sensational, David Patrick Kelly is brilliantly sinister, and Christopher Plummer is unbelievably terrifying.

👎Lurid screams:
The narrative is a little loose, and an astonishing third act could have been the basis for a much better film.
Even though 'Inception' is a full hour longer, it still pulled off a much tighter plot than this.
(Which is a pity as the stakes in 'Dreamscape', where dream social workers become terminators, are so much more higher.)

📽️ Favourite scene:
The President's final dream through a nuclear apocalypse - Snake man, spiked nunchaku, demon hounds, and the murdered undead.

🥇Best quote:
"These are the guys even the CIA are afraid of. He wants more than spies. He wants assassins."

🙁Best depressing quote:
"I'm a realist. We live in a dangerous, hostile world. I will do whatever I have to to keep this country safe. Now we can go into an enemy's dream, kill him, and make it look as if he died in his sleep."

⏳Best lockdown quote:
"It's my responsibility to bring the world back from the brink."

#SilverScreenBlack reviews: 'Frances Ha' (2012)

(1hr 25mins)

Mario's rating: 4/5 (roomies)

Dancer in the Dark: A struggling artist sinks below the sight of her true love.

👍Two days in Paris:
Beautifully shot with lively dialogue and an energetic soundtrack.
But the film's secret weapon is Greta Gerwig's Frances - loveable, watchable, emotional and incredible.

👎Six weeks in the dorms:
The plot may meander a little too much.
The object of Frances' affection doesn't deserve that amount of attention from her.
And the ending may not be that convincing.
(Such a shame for a film that could have reached the heights of 2015's 'Carol'.)

📽️ Favourite scene:
Frances pirouetting through Manhattan to David Bowie's 'Modern Love'; in a rare moment of joy, contentment and self-confidence.

🥇 Best quote:
"Don't treat me like a three-hour-brunch friend!"

🙁 Best depressing quote:
"It's weird. You have an older face. You seem older. Like, a lot older... but less grown up."

⏳Best lockdown quote:
"I have trouble leaving places... I can't even get out of the house on my feet."





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#SilverScreenBlack reviews: 'Bone Tomahawk' (2015)

(2hrs 6mins)

Mario's rating: 4.5/5 (trip wires)

Unforgiven (indigestion): A search party struggles to save their snatched kin from desert cannibals.

👍Devoted husbands:
A cast this good really does deliver acting this great!
Patrick Wilson, Kurt Russell, Matthew Fox and Richard Jenkins are all superb, but look out for great guest appearances by David Arquette, Sean Young and James Tolkan.
And although the film is over two hours long, there's a tremendously held tension throughout it, by director S. Craig Zahler.
Surviving this desert journey is just as tough as saving those kidnapped.

👎Delicious man-steaks:
Not for the squeamish - this isn't the kind of horror that's best left implied.
While this leads to one of the greatest genre twists since 'From Dusk Till Dawn', it may prevent repeated viewings.
(Which is a pity, because the first 90 mins are Oscar-worthy character portrayals by all four leads.)

📽️ Favourite scene:
Kurt Russell's last stand, as he is tenderised for the menu.

🥇 Best quote:
"This is why frontier life is so difficult. Because of the idiots!"

🙁 Best depressing quote:
"There are 16 major veins in the neck, and you have to cut through them all."

👋Best final goodbye:
"Say goodbye to my wife. I'll say hello to yours."





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#SilverScreenBlack reviews: 'Séance on a Wet Afternoon' (1964)

(1hr 51mins, UK)

Mario's rating: 4.5/5 (spy holes)

Marriage Story: The kidnapping of a rich daughter raises the pressure in a rotting marriage, and the reprisal of a patient spirit.

👍Rule-breakers:
Kim Stanley and Richard Attenborough's performances are incredible.
I haven't seen a wife this manipulative, delusional and dangerous since 'Gone Girl'; and a husband this broken, bitter, and blinded since 'Breaking Bad'.

👎Hostage-takers:
The film originally flopped in 1964.
Kim Stanley was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but lost to Julie Andrews in 'Mary Poppins'.
And I know how it sounds, but don't be put off by the film's title! The only thing wet about this movie is the sweat dripping from your forehead by the end of it.

📽️ Favourite scene:
The ransom drop-off in the London Underground.
The score by John Barry is one of his (forgotten) best.
And Attenborough's spycraft and police evasion reach the heights of Jason Bourne.

🥇 Best quote:
"You can't buy your own happiness, at the expense of someone else's unhappiness."

🙁 Best depressing quote:
MYRA: "Why did I ever marry you Billy?"
BILLY: "I don't know, dear. Why did you?"
MYRA: "Because you're weak. And because you need me."

⏳ Best lockdown quote:
"What we are doing is a means to an end. Now you agree with the end, don't you? Well then you must agree with the means! You can't have one without the other."





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