The adventures of a professional screenwriter and frequent film festival jurist, slogging through the trenches of Hollywood, writing movies that you have never heard of, and getting no respect.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Today Man First Set Foot On The Moon
As I'm sure you have heard by now, the original NASA footage of man first setting for on the moon was taped over with episodes of SILVER SPOONS during Reagan administration cut backs. If they'd only had enough money to buy a new tape...
But, as I'm sure you have also heard, there were some other tapes of the first landing on the moon, and NASA has hired a bunch of Hollywood technical wizards to clean the footage up so that it fits today's HiDef broadcast standards.
Here is that original footage of the first lunar explorers - cleaned up by Hollywood. Some of this is never before seen footage, hidden in a top secret NASA vault until it was released under the Freedom Of Information Act. As you can see, the Hollywood tech guys have restored this historical event to it's natural state...
Today is also my birthday... partially ruined when I was a kid because everyone was more interested in the danged moon landing. Damn you NASA! You ruined my young life! Couldn't you have done it a day later and ruined some other kid's birthday?
Anyway - what is the proper way to celebrate Moon Day?
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: 3 Act Conflict and Tools Not Rules. Yesterday’s Dinner: Dude, I'm in Vegas - you stand in line for an hour at the Rio so that you can spend the next two hours eating more than you can eat. They need monitors who come by your table and tell you and your friends, "I'm sorry, that's all you can eat." (But, it's wafer thin...)
Fridays With Hitchcock: Strangers On A Train (1951)
Like REAR WINDOW, this is another “Perfect Storm” movie for me: Patricia Highsmith is another one of my favorite writers and it’s a shame that Hitchcock only brought one of her novels to the screen because they seem like a perfect match. Highsmith played in the noir playground, often taking the villain’s side and showing how difficult it is to lead a life of crime. Her short stories are often brutal, and she has a way of getting under your skin so that you can’t stop thinking about some scene or nasty plot twist. When you read one of her books and someone does something very very wrong, you often think, “I could do that. I can imagine myself killing someone like that.” And you *shouldn’t* be able to imagine doing these things yourself. But her books take you so far into that world, you can imagine crossing whatever moral lines you might have.
These days, Highsmith is probably best known as the writer of THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY which was made in to a film with Matt Damon. That’s the first in a series about Tom Ripley, badguy, and by now most have been made into films. What’s ironic is that the best Ripley film is Wim Wenders’ excellent Hitchcock homage AMERICAN FRIEND... with probably the worst Ripley, Dennis Hopper. Just completely miscast. The best Ripley is John Malkovich - he was born to play the role - in the bland remake of FRIEND called RIPLEY’S GAME (title of the novel). I still haven’t seen Barry Pepper’s version in RIPLEY UNDER GROUND, the last of the original trilogy to be filmed.
STRANGERS was the first Highsmith novel to be filmed, and now they are talking about remaking it... a better idea would be to make THE BLUNDERER (filmed in France ages ago), a similar story about two men and two murders. But I don’t think anyone in Hollywood actually knows how to read, so we’ll just be getting remakes of the movies.
Oh, and add in that hardboiled novelist Raymond Chandler took first crack at the script, and the “perfect storm” is complete. Chandler and Hammett and Carroll John Daly were the founders of the Hardboiled genre, and when I was in high school I read everything of theirs I could get my hands on. Chandler wrote the novels THE BIG SLEEP and MURDER, MY SWEET are based on, and the books are sarcastic and brutal and show a corrupt Los Angeles where the people in the mansions are often more dangerous than the thugs on the streets. Though Chandler’s name is on a couple of great films, he wasn’t very successful as a screenwriter. He didn’t get along with anyone, and had a drinking problem. On STRANGERS he was replaced by Czenzi Ormonde, one of Ben Hecht’s assistants.
Nutshell: Tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets spoiled heir Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) on a train, where Bruno tells him his plan for a perfect murder - in order to have a perfect alibi and not leave behind any personal evidence, two people with someone to kill *swap murders* - they each do the other’s killing. Though Guy has a crazy estranged wife knocked up by some other guy (she’s not sure who) he would like removed from is life, he laughs it off as a joke. But after his estranged wife (Laura Elliot) is strangled to death, Bruno shows up at his doorstep and demands that Guy kill his stern millionaire father who wants Bruno to, you know, get a job. When Guy refuses, Bruno threatens to plant evidence at Guy’s wife’s murder scene that points directly to Guy. Will Guy kill Bruno’s father... or be arrested and probably convicted for murdering his slutty wife?
All of this is complicated because Guy is leaving tennis for... politics! He is working for Senator Morton (Leo G. Carroll) and dating the Senator’s hot daughter Ann (Ruth Roman) and adored by the Senator’s teenaged daughter Barbara (Patricia Hitchcock, director’s daughter). Guy thought his estranged wife was a problem while she was alive... wait until he’s accused of her murder!
Experiment This is one dark story, and the story experiment is the transference of guilt between Guy and Bruno (from the novel). The story frequently cross-cuts between both characters for suspense as well - and does it in interesting ways.
The film experiment is in sound design. There are several points in the film where a *sound* becomes the flashback. Instead of a visual flashback, we get the sound of a train or a calliope at the amusement park to remind us of a past event.
Also the use of visual symbols, from hands that are used to strangle to glasses that both Guy’s murdered wife and Guy’s girlfriend’s sister wears. If you just watch for the use of hands in the film, you’ll see they pop up again and again - aside from strangling, characters get manicures, they look at their hands, there are big close ups of *hands* doing things throughout the film. Things like this can be in a screenplay, but may be too subtle for most readers to notice. That’s no reason not to put them in, but don’t be surprised when 99% of the folks who read your script never notice.
Hitch Appearance: Carrying a massive string base trying to board a train.
Great Scenes: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN has a couple of iconic Hitchcock scenes that get swiped for other movies and homages. But even the lesser known scenes are packed with tension and suspense and just plain creepiness. This is a film that gets under your skin, because as Bruno says in a scene. Haven’t we all fantasized about killing someone? And haven’t you ever struck up a conversation with a stranger who becomes ever more stranger the more you talk to them?
The movie opens with two sets of train tracks joining into one... and two pair of legs (with very different taste in shoes that give us a clue to character) are on a similar collision course. One going right, one going left... both entering a train... then the shoes takes seats and bump into each other as both sets of legs cross at the same time. That’s the first time we tilt up to see Guy and Bruno’s faces... and Bruno insinuates himself into Guy’s train trip and his life... and comes up with his murder swap idea. Guy laughs it off and gets off the train, leaving his monogrammed cigarette lighter behind.
Listening Booth: Guy was taking the train to his home town to try and negociate a divorce with his estranged wife so that he can marry the Senator’s daughter. His slutty wife Miriam works in a music store with several glass-walled sound proof listening booths, and one of those booths is where they have their little conversation. It is a great location, because if we look at the booth from the outside we get picture without sound. That allows for some interesting choices for the way the scene is presented.
We begin inside the booth as Miriam refuses to grant Guy a divorce. He tries to hang on to his temper by asking her why she wants to remain married to him when she is carrying another man’s baby. Woah! This is a 1951 movie, can they talk about stuff like that? Even in a soundproof booth? What’s more, it’s later implied that she ha no idea who that other man is. She’s “playing the field” and dating a whole bunch of other men. We always think of movies from sixty years ago as being G rated, and some were... but not Hitchcock’s films. Sex was part of all of his films, and here we have a married man who is probably sleeping another woman while his wife is sleeping with just about everybody. And she thinks remaining married to Guy while his political star rises will put her in a much better position when she eventually does grant him a divorce. And what is he going to say? His wife got knocked up by some other guy? He *can’t* divorce her without looking like he’s running out on his pregnant wife.
When Guy loses his temper, we go outside the booth and see the scene from the music store manager’s point of view. Guy seems to suddenly explode with violence and attack his wife in a rage. The manager has to go pull him off of her. The great thing about this scene is that the manager has no idea what Miriam has said, no idea she’s blackmailing Guy and maybe even destroying his political career. He only sees Guy go crazy and attack his wife. If the audience is a little ahead of the curve and guesses that Bruno may act on his crazy scheme and murder Miriam, this scene ratchets up the tension. Now there are witnesses that have seen Guy attack his wife. All of these things will make Guy look guilty and probably get him arrested, tried, convicted and executed for murder.
Tunnel Of Love: The next time we see Miriam, Bruno is following her. She gets on a bus with not one, but two, hunky younger guys... and Bruno hops on the same bus. Miriam and the boy toys get off the bus at an amusement park... as does Bruno. When Miriam notices Bruno following her, he smiles...and so does she. What is clearly a killer stalking his victim becomes twice as creepy because she flirts with him. When they come to one of those carnival games where your strength is gauged by how hard you can pound a sledge hammer like mallet to ring a bell, the two boy toys just aren’t strong enough to ring the bell. Miriam looks around for the man following her... doesn’t see him, and is *disappointed*. Then spots Bruno grabbing the mallet. They smile at each other, then he easily rings the bell. She licks her lips. Most disturbing.
When Miriam and the boy toys get on a little boat that goes through the tunnel of love before berthing on an island in the middle of the amusement park, Bruno hops in the next boat. In the Tunnel Of Love - darkness and shadows. Echoes of laughter. Suspense builds. The killer and victim in the same dark place. Once the tension builds to the breaking point - what is happening in the darkness? - Miriam screams! We see the shadows of one figure grabbing another on the wall of the Tunnel Of Love - Bruno killing Miriam? No - one of her boy toys copping a feel.
The two boats are beached on the little island - filled with couples making out. Miriam runs through the moonlit trees, her boy toys chasing behind. She’s teasing them. She runs into someone in the darkness - Bruno. He flicks a cigarette lighter - Guy’s monogrammed lighter - to illuminate her face. When she sees it’s that older man who was following her through the amusement park, she smiles... and then Bruno strangles her. Miriam’s glasses fall to the ground - and in a great shot, we see the strangulation reflected in the lenses. She falls to the ground, dead. Bruno starts to leave, realizes he’s dropped Guy’s lighter, goes back for it. Picks up Miriam’s glasses while he’s at it. Then, we hear the boy toys scream when they find Miriam dead. More screams and panic as Bruno calmly pilots his little boat back to the amusement park. While everyone else at the amusement park is looking out at the island, Bruno is calmly walking in the opposite direction. The contrast is creepy.
Your Turn: When Guy returns home, Bruno is waiting in the shadows behind a wrought iron gate across the street, “I did it.” Guy joins him in the shadows, each on opposite sides of the gate - opposite sides of the bars. Bruno tells Guy that he killed Miriam, and now it’s Guy’s turn. Guy doesn’t believe him, so Bruno shows him the glasses. Guy thinks Bruno is crazy, threatens to call the police... But Bruno says he can’t go to the police. “Why would I kill your wife?”
And here we get the Transference of Guilt - Bruno’s guilt rubs off on Guy. Guy wished his wife were dead, and he gets his wish. Even though Bruno was the actual killer, that guilt is transferred to Guy. Not only will everyone else believe that Guy is somehow responsible for his wife’s murder, *Guy* will begin to believe he is responsible for his wife’s murder. And the more he tries to escape the guilt, the deeper he will sink. Evidence will begin to mount, and Guy will have to struggle to prove his innocence. Big problem - he *feels* guilty, and it’s much more difficult for an innocent man to prove what he *didn’t* do. Add to that - innocent men are often bad liars, and this is a situation where Guy *must* lie again and again to people who know him well enough that they can tell that he is lying.
While Guy is realizing that he can not go to te police without looking like an accomplice or worse, a police car pulls up in front of his apartment - police there to tell him that is wife is dead. Guy doesn’t want to be seen, and hides deeper in the shadows with Bruno, moving behind the wrought iron gate. Now both men are on the same side of the gate - the shadowed side. And the iron bars cast shadows over Guy’s face - like jail cell bars. This is a great bit, because the sides of the wrought iron gate give us a way to show the transference of guilt - a way to show that Guy is no longer in the light... and is now in the darkness. A cool device like the gate allows something internal to become external - we can see Guy’s guilt, and see the prison bars across his face.
When the police car leaves, Guy comes out from the darkness and tells Bruno he will *not* kill his father... and to leave him alone.
Bruno - Everywhere! Bruno does not leave him alone, the two are now connected by this murder. Everywhere Guy goes, Bruno is there - watching him.
Guy’s alibi for the time of his wife’s murder is a drunken Professor who was in the club car of the train with him. Note: trains again. The police find the Professor, who was on that train... but has no memory of Guy or anything else from that night. Not much of an alibi. And it would have been possible for Guy to murder his wife and then hop the train at a later station - still seeing the drunken Professor in the club car. The police label Guy as prime suspect and give him 24 hour police surveillance.
Guy befriends one of the detectives following him (they’re both going the same place, so why not split a cab?) but everywhere Guy goes... there is Bruno. Will the Detective notice Bruno and ask who that guy is? Since Bruno is the real killer, and killed Miriam *for* Guy, that last thing he wants is the police finding out about Bruno. The great thing about these scenes is that Bruno as been given a distinctive look, so we can have Guy and the Detective driving past the Lincoln Monument with Bruno standing at the top of the steps... and we *know* that’s Bruno’s silhouette. Paranoia builds... where will Bruno pop up next time? He seems to be everywhere!
Guy and Ann (the Senator’s hot daughter) are having a conversation in some public building when Bruno steps out of the shadows and beckons him over. Guy excuses himself and has a whispered conversation with Bruno about killing his father... not too loud - doesn’t want Ann to overhear. But Ann doesn’t need to hear the words - she can see the two men whispering together. I have no idea how popular Patricia Highsmith’s novels are in the Gay Community, but her stories often have a Gay undercurrent to them. Tom Ripley is obviously bisexual, and in STRANGERS we have two men who share a secret... and it’s almost a metaphor for a Gay affair that a straight man is trying to cover up. While Ann is watching them whisper to each other, you can’t help but feel you are watching a woman discovering that the man she loves... loves another man. After the whispered conversation, when Ann asks what that was all about, Guy lies that it was just a tennis fan... and she knows it’s a lie... and he worries that she knows it’s a lie.
A great example of contrast is a practice match Guy plays as a warm up to a big tennis tournament he’ll be playing in later in the film. This scene not only has Guy trying to act normal while Bruno puts the screws into him to kill his father and the Detective watching him is right over there... Bruno is in the stands! The stands are filled with people watching the match, all of them following the ball back and forth across te court. Except Bruno. As every head turns to follow the ball, Bruno remains focused on Guy. Bruno’s focus is so different than everyone else’s that you wonder if the Detective will notice.
He Was Strangling *Me* After the match, Bruno is chatting with Ann and some friends at the country club. Guy has no choice but to join the table... and be seen with the man he’s trying to avoid. Ann’s little sister, Barbara, asks Guy who the attractive man is... and he has to find some way to warn her away from Bruno without explaining how he knows about him. But when Bruno sees Barbara - and her glasses- the calliope music from the amusement park plays in his mind (and on the soundtrack), and he stares at her. Creepy.
Later, the Senator has a party... and there’s Bruno! Guy tries to avoid him... and Ann watches how both men behave when they are in the same room together. Bruno is the life of the party, chatting with a couple of society matrons about the perfect murder. They laugh at the conversation - he’s joking around. Who would they want to kill if they could? How would they do it and get away with it? The whole conversation is something we’ve probably joked about or thought about - which draws *us* into the guilt. And it’s the same thing as the film’s concept - isn’t there someone we wish were dead? Wouldn’t it be great if we could find some way to kill them and get away with it?
Bruno explains that the very best weapon is one that is easy to conceal and difficult to trace - your bare hands. He puts his hands on one of the matron’s necks to demonstrate... then sees Barbara watching him, and that calliope music plays in his mind again (and on the soundtrack so that we can hear it) and his hands tighten on the matron’s neck. Tighter. Tighter. Tighter! The other matron screams, and they pry Bruno off... and this is Guy’s worst nightmare. The man who murdered his wife, the man he wants to have nothing to do with, has just become the focus of attention. Guy has to find a way to get Bruno out of there before people start asking questions... and he knows that’s not going to happen. The can of worms has been opened. The big deep dark secret about his relationship with Bruno is about to be made public.
Afterwards, Barbara tells Guy that the entire time Bruno was strangling the matron, he was staring right at her. “His hands were on her neck, but he was strangling *me*!”
How Did You Get Him To Kill Her? The secret is out. Ann corners Guy and asks him, “How did you get him to kill her?” Guy can’t lie, can’t hide the truth... must confess everything to the woman he loves. What I think is interesting is that there is a similar scene in REAR WINDOW where Grace Kelly finally comes over to Jimmy Stewart’s side after spending much of the film disbelieving him. The male lead and female lead reach a point where they team up - and together they try to resolve the problem. Guy confesses everything, and even though Ann isn’t completely on his side, she’s getting there. Eventually she and Barbara will help him deal with Bruno.
Killing Bruno’s Father: But before things can get better they must become much much worse. Guy realizes there is no way out of this mess without dragging down the Senator and the woman he loves. Bruno has his lighter and Miriam’s glasses and will plant them as evidence that *Guy* killed her... unless Guy upholds his half of the deal and murders Bruno’s father. Bruno has given him a gun and a map of the house and a key to the front door. Guy makes the toughest decision anyone can make... and calls Bruno to tell him to make sure he has an alibi for tonight.
This scene combines dread and suspense... you don’t want Guy to do it. You also don’t want him to be caught doing it. There is no good way for this scene to end. Something should stop Guy from doing it... but that would mean Guy gets caught. It’s a great dilemma - and it draws the audience right into the scene. Guy crosses a huge lawn to get to the front door - will he be seen? Will he turn around and go back? By stretching it out, it becomes agony for the audience. We are on the scene-rack, and stretching the scene makes it more painful. Guy uses the key the door, and is now in Bruno’s house. At this point, he’s broken the law and is in big trouble no matter what happens. He has the gun in his pocket. He opens the map and finds the stairway leading up to Bruno’s father’s bedroom....
And on the steps is a guard dog.
Growling at him.
He must get past the dog.
Step by step as he climbs the stairs he gets closer to the growling dog.
When he reaches the dog, he holds his hand down for the dog to sniff... or maybe bite off. The dog sniffs him, licks his hand, allows him to continue up the stairs.
And this is more great dilemma stuff, because we *don’t want him* to continue up the stairs. If the dog had attacked him, he wouldn’t be able to kill Bruno’s father. But, now he can... and we don’t want that!
Guy follows the map to Bruno’s father’s room. Pulls the gun from his pocket. Approaches the bed where someone is sleeping. Suspense and tension and dread reaching a boiling point. You don’t want to see what’s going to happen next. And....
Guy whispers - more secrets - to Bruno’s father that Bruno has sent him up here to kill him, and Bruno is a very disturbed person, and needs to be locked away somewhere, and...
The light clicks on and the sleeping man swings out of bed - it’s Bruno. Nothing at all Gay about Bruno in bed having a whispered conversation with Guy at the foot of the bed. Bruno whispers that his father wasn’t home tonight - he tried to tell Guy this when he called. Bruno is not happy with the double cross - and not happy with Guy. He grabs the gun. Guy tries one last time to reason with Bruno, but that is impossible. Guy walks out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs... with Bruno aiming the gun at him the entire time. Will Bruno fire? The closer Guy gets to the front door, the more tension builds.. You *know* Bruno is going to fire. But that would wake mother...
Tennis Match/Lost Lighter: Now we have a great piece of cross-cutting suspense. Bruno is going to plant the monogrammed cigarette lighter at the murder scene the next night... and Guy needs to stop him. Only one problem: that’s the day of the big tennis tournament. So, if Guy can win his match early, he can hop a train and stop Bruno from planting the evidence. Ann and Barbara will help him evade the detectives watching him... which is good, because the police have decided to arrest him after the tennis match. Though all of their evidence is circumstantial, there are no other suspects, and Guy has been acting really guilty.
Guy playing the tennis match is cross-cut with Bruno going out to the amusement park to plant the lighter at the crime scene... But things go wrong on both ends. Guy plays like a lunatic, trying to win the game... but his opponent is much better than he thought and the match ends up tied and is not an easy win. Bruno accidentally drops the cigarette lighter down a drainage grate at the amusement park and has to retrieve it. We cross cut between both actions - will Guy win his match in time to stop Bruno? Will Bruno retrieve the lighter before Guy can win his match? Each action is drawn out to build suspense... and eventually Guy wins his match and Bruno recovers the lighter. Now, can Guy stop Bruno before he plants the lighter on the island?
Carousel Gone Wild: Guy gets to the amusement park *seconds* before Bruno gets on a boat to the island... but the police are in hot pursuit - following Guy. We get a chase and fight that ends up on that carrousel with the calliope music, which goes out of control when the police chasing guy accidentally shoot the operator - who falls onto the controls. As the carrousel starts moving at warp drive - throwing people off - it’s as if both Guy and Bruno are on the same bit of insanity. The carrousel becomes a metaphor for Bruno’s psychosis - and Guy is trapped in it. The two men battle it out on the carrousel as the police watch. The police have found the Tunnel Of Love boat rental dude - and eyewitness who has seen the killer - and ask him if the guy on the carrousel is the same guy. He says “yes”. Now the police are sure that *Guy* is the murderer. A fellow is dispatched to climb under the out-of-control carrousel and switch it off... so that they can capture Guy. Guy continues to battle Bruno... wooden horse hooves almost smashing Guy’s face at one point! The carrousel reaches the breaking point and “crashes” (pieces go flying) (closest thing to an explosion you can get with a carrousel). Bruno is crushed under the carrousel... dying. The police arrest Guy. Not the ending you expected, huh?
The Tunnel Of Love dude says, “No, that’s not him. The other fella.” Guy tells the police that Bruno killed his wife and came here to plant his lighter. They go up to the dying Bruno and try to get him to confess... but he pins it all on Guy! He says Guy asked him to go out to the island to retrieve Guy’s monogrammed lighter, that Guy left behind when he killed Miriam! Then, Bruno dies.
Did Bruno have time to plant the lighter on the island after-all? Is Guy going to be executed for *wishing* his slutty wife were dead?
Not the end you expected, huh?
Then, as Bruno dies, his hand opens... and there’s the lighter. The police let Guy go - he’s innocent. The end.
Sound Track: Another great Dimitri Tiomkin score. Dark, lush, and with that haunting Tiomkin rhythm. Though I prefer the Herrmann scores for Hitchcock, Tiomkin’s partnership with the director produced some great work... as did Rozsa’s (which we’ll come to in a couple of weeks).
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is one of my favorite Hitchcock films, and it really holds up. The transference of guilt is great in this film, and while watching it *I* always feel guilty. If you have ever fantasized about killing someone, or wished your enemy was dead... this movie will probably haunt you long after you’ve seen it.
I'm a huge fan of Michael Mann, but thought MIAMI VICE was boring. I love THIEF, and MANHUNTER and HEAT and LAST OF THE MOHICANS... But I have no idea what is going on with Mann these days. It's as if shooting digital has destroyed his soul. His films have become bland and lifeless. Not about humans. PUBLIC ENEMIES was just as boring as MIAMI VICE. Here's why I didn't like it...
There's a title card that tells us it's the 4th year of the Great Depression... but not a single things *on screen* that shows us this... and a city like Chicago is going to be crowded with homeless people and filled with closed businesses. The reason why Dillinger (and the other bank robbers) was a folk hero is because the banks foreclosed on their homes, and bankers were getting rich, while a quarter of the country was jobless and starving. Dillinger was screwing The Man. And he was famous for never taking money from a *person* (gets a second in the film). You can do any film about these bank robbers without the context of the Depression - that's what created them and made them folk heroes. You would think that *now*, with people losing their homes and jobs, would be a great time to focus on the Depression angle of the story. But instead it is completely ignored (except for that title card).
Next - what the hell is the story? Is it a love story? Is it a cop vs. criminal story? It just meanders all over the place without ever focusing on what the hell it is. Look, you have Dillinger - there have been at least a half dozen movies made about him, and some memorable ones. What is *this* story about Dillinger? Why are we telling his story again, and what will this movie cover that Johns Sayles and Millius didn't cover? What angle will this film take that wasn't used in the great Phil Yordan version or Dan Curtis' TV versions of the Purvis story (oddly, written by Millius)? What's the "take" in this version? Nothing! It ends up being about nothing, and bland.
You always have to decide what your story is, even if it is based on facts. Mann did a great cop vs. crook story with HEAT, and he could have done that here as well. He also did a great love story in MOHICANS, and he could have focused on the romantic relationship. Plus, there are dozens of other "takes" he could have done with the Dillinger story. Each of the past versions have taken the story from a different angle, and focused on some specific aspect of Dillinger's life. Or they've taken the Purvis side of the story - after Elliot Ness, Purvis is the most famous FBI Agent. Just as Ness took on organized crime and Capone, Purvis took on the bank robbers. There were a bunch of them! And, the more the robbers trashed the banks and bankers and barons and millionaires who the public thought had caused the Depression - and probably even profited from it, the more famous they became. They were getting the revenge the public craved. They were rock stars. This was a big problem if you were the government. All of this great stuff... not in the movie.
Why I hate HD - I don't want to see Johnny Depp's old acne scars from when he was on 21 JUMP STREET and I want to maintain my fantasy that Lili Taylor isn't aging as fast as I am. I don't want to see the hot female lead's facial pores. The problem with HD is that it shows every single flaw! A movie is a dream, and the *overly* crisp, clear, shots turned this dream into too much reality. If I can see the make up, it takes me out of the story.
Oh, and what's with these odd shots where the guy doing that talking is completely out of focus and the guy in the background coming through a door is in focus - even though he's an unimportant character? Hey - that's a Zenith radio! And - no more shaky cam ever. That's *so* worn out its welcome. This movie made me vow to shoot my crappy little feature 100% on a dolly. No hand held shots at all. I want to see the movie I'm watching, not some shaky blur. There were shots in PUBLIC ENEMIES that were all blur - what the hell was that?
Okay - What's with Johnny Depp's moustache? Is he unable to grow one? Dillinger had a moustache. Depp spends most of the movie without one, and when he has one it looks like the one I tried to grow at 13. And it comes and goes - one scene he'll have the moustache, the next he won't... then it's back again! Least they could have done is given Johnny some hormone shots or something so that he could have a moustache throughout the film.
And Depp seems subdued. Look, Dilinger was a larger than life guy. He was a rock star in his time. He was famous. He was also an armed robber - not some quiet guy. Depp gives the guy almost no swagger. Look, if you are the one leading a bunch of other armed robbers, you are the Alpha Male in a group of Alpha Males.
Who are all of these guys? This film had the shallowest characters of any film I've seen this year (haven't seen Transformers 2 yet). I had no idea who any of the characters were... and didn't learn anything about who Dillinger was (or Purvis - and Purvis wrote his freakin' life story before he died and was interviewed by dozens of magazines and sold stories to Hollywood). But I went through the whole film not knowing which guy was Homer Van Meter. None of these characters had any character. It's like they ordered 2 dozen warm bodies in costume to wander around the scenes and occasionally fire guns.
This goes with the "take" problems - if you have a story with a famous FBI Agent and a famous Bank Robber, I need to know who is the lead character. Is this the story of the FBI Agent tracking the notorious bank robber? Or the notorious bank robber trying to evade the FBI Agent? Either way works, but both just confuses me.
And some stuff was just stupid - At the end of the movie, Purvis says when he lights his cigar, that's the signal to capture Dillinger... um, have we ever seen Purvis smoke a cigar up to this point? No! It's like, because that was the actual signal in real life, it's in the movie... but someone forgot to show Purvis smoking cigars before that (and it was a Purvis trademark - he had a box of Monte Cristos, and smoked one after capturing anyone on the Bureau's wanted list). (By the way, using the cigar as the signal was kind of ballsy - since Dillinger hadn't been captured, yet - so it showed overconfidence in Purvis. That might have been explored in the story, but instead it was ignore.) Who was Purvis in this film? Was he the do-gooder who learned that he had to do bad to catch Dillinger? The one good scene he has is completely undercut by the scene that immediately follows. By the way - if we are sticking with the facts - Purvis had a beautiful voice, and would sing if anyone asked. Strange detail that shades the character. But Purvis has no character and seems like a cardboard cut out, except for that one scene. None of the characters in this film have any character! They are chess pieces, moved around the story for no purpose.
I'm a big fan of Stephen Lang, a Mann stock company player, who played Winstead - the guy who actually shot Dillinger (I think along with Jelly Bryce), who was a no-nonsense shooter. A throwback to cowboy lawmen. Winstead and Bryce were kind of back sheep Bureau agents, brought into the organization to do wet work. Though there's a moment in the film where Lang gets in a great line about Dillinger not watching Shirley Temple movies, the whole concept of this character was lost in the film. The new suit & tie FBI were a bunch of college boys who had little ability to capture criminals. They had to recruit guys like Winstead and Bryce to do the dirty work. Mann could have used that as an angle - bad guys were *not* a bunch of suit & tie guys, so you needed gunslingers to go after them. Kind of a WILD BUNCH in reverse - where the world may have become more civilized, but the government still needed crazy violent gunslingers to go after these robbers. Cowboys in a modern world. And that's where these guys came from - the Texas office of the FBI. (Was Bryce even in this film? He was the other guy to shoot Dillinger - a gunslinger - and after Dillinger, was put in charge of teaching FBI college boys how to shoot guns.)
While watching the film I kept thinking about Mamet & DePalma's THE UNTOUCHABLES - a film filled with great scenes and great characters and great lines. Also about Chicago and FBI. How many great scenes can you remember from UNTOUCHABLES? How many lines of dialogue? How many characters? Let's just look at Charlie Martin Smith's character - don't you love it when he finally gets a gun and participates in the raid? Remember Andy Garcia? That was one of his first movies - and he stole the show. I mean, there are scenes with him and Costner and Connery where Garcia's Stone character is so fascinating you focus on him! Okay... remember how creepy Billy Drago was as Frank Nitti? In that white suit, snearing and making those quiet threats? Now, compare the Frank Nitti character in UNTOUCHABLES with Nitti in PUBLIC ENEMIES. Yeah, that guy with the moustache Johnny Depp should have had who is in a handful of scenes you don't remember... because the character had no character! No attitude, no distictive way of speaking, no dintictive way of dressing, no goals or motivations or anything. He's just a guy in some scenes. Again, Nitti was the head of the Chicago mob at the time - one of the most powerful men in the world. Capone's #2 guy who was running things while Capone was in the big house. So this is not some bland Italian guy, this is another Alpha Male. An interesting guy, because Frank Nitti was a trigger man - a violent brute - who now had to be the leader. Imagine if Sonny from THE GODFATHER ended up running the family instead of Micheal? That's who that character *should have been*. Instead, we get some Italian guy.
Mostly while watching PUBLIC ENEMIES I thought of DILLINGER (1973), the John Millius low budget film which was probably made to cash in on the success of BONNIE AND CLYDE, but ended up being one of those great films you might have seen at the drive in or on VHS. DILLINGER starred the amazing Warren Oates, who was a solid character actor and scene stealer you may remember from Peckinpah flicks. Oates had charisma to burn, but wasn't pretty enough to be the leading man, so he ended up the sidekick or the cowboy or the crazy Colonel in Speilberg's 1941 (written by Millius!). He was a character actor who was a character. DILLINGER had so many quotable lines and rich characters that my friends and I would often say, "Things just ain't workin' out for me today" or some other line from the film. The movie is filled with "bumper sticker dialogue". Now, I have to say after seeing maybe thousands of movies, I can not remember a single line of realistic dialogue... but I remember "Go ahead, make my day" and hundreds of other lines of *great* dialogue. And I remember the films those lines came from better than I remember some realistic drama. DILLINGER is filled with great lines, and lines that expose character, like Purvis telling another agent, "Shoot Dillinger and we'll figure out a way to make it legal."
By the way, that leads to a great little fact that didn't make it into PUBLIC ENEMIES but was part of the Millius film: When Dillinger was shot down by the FBI, the only crime they had him on was transporting a stolen vehicle across state lines. Would have been nice if that had been in the Mann version, since it's unusual to gun down an unarmed car thief (even if you suspect him of robbing a whole bunch of banks). And, though I'm fuzzy on which character was which, I think Stephen Dorf played Homer Van Meter, and was shot in the woods in PUBLIC ENEMIES... when in real life (and the Millius version) Van Meter was shot by a group of policemen and vigilantes (after the reward) who just blasted him to pieces. They blew his fingers off while he was still alive, then kept shooting at him until he was hamburger. This was a big scene in the Millius version - as a group of vigilantes surround Van Meter and just keep firing until the smoke from their guns fills the screen.
Millius loves to pair two strong characters on opposite sides of the story and have them battle each other... learning to respect each other along the way. As cheesy as RED DAWN is, there are great scenes with Ron O'Neal as the Cuban General as he grows to respect the Wolverines... and eventually allows Patrick Swayze to carry out his wounded brother. THE WIND AND THE LION is one of my favorite films - Teddy Roosevelt played by Brain Keith vs. Sean Connery's Raisuli. CONAN THE BARBARIAN - Conan vs. Thulsa Doom. The relationship between Purvis and Dillinger is the center of the Millius version, with each man coming to understand the other as the story goes on. In a way, Purvis has the character arc. He begins just wanting to gun down Dillinger, and eventually finds him a worthy opponent - not like some of the other bank robbers he's chased. Millius created a device to have these guys face off throughout the story (much like that great steps scene between Capone and Ness in UNTOUCHABLES or the coffee scene between DeNiro and Pacino in HEAT) where Dillinger would call Purvis from some pay phone to taunt him... and eventually just to talk to him. They were the only two people who understood this situation they were both in. Great scenes.
The best part of Millius' version is Warren Oates, who plays Dillinger as a charming good old boy with a crazy streak. Look, the guy was probably a sociopath, but aren't they charming? You understood how Dillinger could find regular people, poor people who had been screwed over by The Man, to hide him or help him. And, as a movie protagonist, you want to hang out for an hour and a half with a funny guy who always has a clever thing to say. Instead of the antiseptic banks from PUBLIC ENEMIES, we get lots of small town banks filled with poor people who are trying to keep their homes or farms, and Dillinger strolls in like a movie star and tells them all if they stay calm they'll be able to tell their grandchildren they once met John Dillinger. In the Millius version, the robberies are almost a party, where a bunch of poor folks get to watch rich bankers get humiliated. And that was part of the true story of John Dillinger - the public saw him as a Robin Hood character, who robbed from the evil bankers (and kept it). None of that in the Mann version... just a line about his press.
Oh, and Millius version does more than just have a passing line about the press, both characters court the press... With Purvis posing for photos while smoking a cigar over one of his "kills" from the Most wanted list.
And it's not just the brilliance of Oates that make the film, the rest of the cast is great. A bunch of fine character actors doing some amazing characters. Homer Van Meter is the guy with the worst luck in the world, played by... Harry Dean Stanton! Ben Johnson is one tough cookie as Purvis - he's smoking that cigar over one of the corpses of the bank robbers he's shot dead. Richard Dreyfus is Baby Face Nelson in a crazed performance. Youngblood, the big Black guy Dillinger escapes with is played by some big Black guy in PUBLIC ENEMIES - he looks out the back window of the car, and that's his character. In DILLINGER that role is played by Frank McRae (the chief of detectives in 48 HOURS and every other movie you've ever seen, who always rants to the point of explosion) and he's got a character and attitude and makes his scenes into *scenes* - and he becomes part of the mega-gang. Geoffrey Lewis plays Harry Pierpont as a dedicated husband who kisses his wife before blasting away at G-Men. Steve Kanaly is Pretty Boy Floyd (called "Chock" in this film - because in real life, that was his nickname, he hated being called "Pretty Boy") who has a great bit where the farmer who gives him sanctuary wants to give him a Bible, and Floyd says it's too late for that... too late for him. And Cloris Leachman is madame Anna Sage, who betrays Dillinger to avoid being deported (in the Millius version, she and Purvis eat popsickles while planning the ambush). Each of them had clearly defined characters and memorable dialogue and little bits of character based action.
It's like Millius - who is not in the same political party as I am - was trying to show *people* suffering during the Depression, and some of those people had turned to crime. But they were all humans. And even the FBI guy chasing them came to see them as humans. There's a great early scene (showing Van Meter's bad luck) where they go to rob a bank... and it's closed! Boarded up! Van Meter asks an old guy at a gas station why they closed the bank, "They ran out of money." When he pulls out a gun and orders the old guy to fill up their gas tank, the old guy tells him to fill it himself. The whole town has died from the Great Depression, and everyone left has lost hope. The old guy would just as soon get shot... and this gives us a look at the world this story takes place in. When entire towns can die.
The Sayles version is even more commie - it focuses on The Lady In Red and charts her struggles trying to find work during the Great Depression in a series of sweat shops, until she has no choice but to become a prostitute... and hooks up with Dillinger. Again - you can't escape the Great Depression when you do a movie about Dillinger - that's what created him. The Sayles movie is a strange female empowerment flick, with Pamela Sue Martin learning how to become a bank robber and carrying on after Dillinger is killed. Sayles does his usual ensemble thing in the background, and there are all kinds of great roles in the film (I think Christopher Lloyd is in there, but I haven't seen it in years). Telling the story from the female lead persepctive was an interesting "take"...
The problem is - there are so many *better* versions of the Dillinger story out there, Mann needed to figure out what made this one different and then make sure all of the elements of the film were at least as good as the other films. And taken more time on the script - giving each of the characters some character. One of the problems with Micahel Mann's scripts is that he has all of this stuff that does not show up on screen - he writes what characters are feeling, and that doesn't stick to the screen. You might read one of his scripts and think the characters are there, but it's all in cheat lines that are not actions or dialogue... and never make it to the screen. Time for him to quit cheating.
Michael Mann used to be one of my favorite directors - a thinking person's action guy. But he's been going downhill since COLLATERAL. He needs to dig deeper into the characters and show us the people... not just see the movie as some sort of chilly technical exercise... then bring in the composer to score the hell out of it trying to create some feelings where there aren't any. Movies are about people.
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Why We Write and your motivations. Yesterday’s Dinner: Spinach pie and greek salad. Bicycle: Short bike ride to NoHo for coffee with a friend.
I'm sorry...
M4M2 - 7/16 - 17:20 - Black Thunder - When the world's most powerful stealth jet fighter falls into enemy hands, only one man can get it back. Starring Michael Dudikoff.
It's crazy actor Crispen Glover's music video for Michael Jackson's BEN... which makes some kind of sense because Glover starred in the remake of WILLARD.
First Time's a Charm: Away We Go Knee-deep in serious solo projects, prose-stylist marrieds Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida took the plunge into screenwriting with a whimsical 1970's-style road movie brimming with heart. Learn how an offbeat take on relationships and parenthood turned into a darlin' screenplay.
Good Character: Dexter It's not every day that the audience is encouraged to root for a serial killer, but Dexter Morgan isn't your typical murderer, and the characters that populate his show aren't your typical supporting players. Executive Producers Melissa Rosenberg and Scott Buck share their secrets for killing them with character on the award-winning Showtime series.
Scene Fix: Andromache Greek tragedies are fertile ground for screen epics. But other than retread an existing story, Kellie Rice decided to pick up where Euripides left off -- after the fall of Troy. Screenwriting duo Derek Haas and Michael Brandt assist Rice with a pivotal scene from her prize-winning script Andromache.
Going Global: Screenwriting in the International Marketplace Production -- check. Effects -- check. Screenwriting -- check? With all of the film-industry vocations that have seen an increase in outsourcing, can screenwriting be far behind? Ray Morton examines the possible globe-trotting trajectory of one of Hollywood's biggest exports: story structure.
Basterd's Father -- A History of Tarantino Does Quentin Tarantino's forthcoming Inglorious Basterds fall in line with the rest of the auteur's canon, or is it a startling departure? Through examining QT's past works and influences, William Martell analyzes the devices at work in this World War II film.
How to Show, Don't Tell A character doesn't feel sad; he curls up in the fetal position in his empty studio apartment next to a bottle of cheap tequila. Whether writing fantasy or nonfiction, poetry or screenplays, the most successful stories are shown, not told. Mystery Man explains how writers can put this age-old mantra to use.
The Days Before, The Days Before The story of Chad St. John and his time-travel epic The Days Before offers a glimpse into the many people an players involved in a spec sale. From bartending to a position on a movie star's payroll to sold screenwriter, St. John's journey is the stuff of Hollywood happy endings.
Independents: Anatomy of an Action Scene, Part 2 In the last issue, "Independents" looked at how action develops character. This time learn how to search the set for weapons, add ironic twists, and create high-concept scenes as William Martell continues his exploration of effective action.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Deadline It's do or die as the deadline looms like the embodiment of evil above the writer's head. But Don Handfield, equipped with the teachings of the great Michael Jordan, has another way to view the writer's worst enemy. Learn his secret to harnessing the power of the deadline -- a term with a fittingly depressing origin.
Writers on Writing: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra On the eve of the 2007 WGA writers strike, Stuart Beattie was asked to write a script for a movie about one of the most iconic action figures in American history. Read his account of what it took to pull together this action-packed, monster of a film that kept him writing past The End.
Writers on Writing: The Hurt Locker As a journalist embedded with an Army bomb-squad unit during some of the most intense fighting of the war in Iraq, Mark Boal was an eyewitness to the horror and heroism of combat. After arriving Stateside, he was persuaded to turn his experience into a screenplay. Here, he relives his battle to turn solid reporting into effective film fiction.
July is my birthday month. Ages ago when they had the Las Vegas Screenwriting conference in July, I would hang around in Vegas another week to celebrate my birthday. Hey, the Conference was paying for my plane ticket or gasoline & mileage. Sometimes friends would stop by for a weekend, sometimes I’d have a girlfriend who join me, sometimes it would just be me in Vegas. When the Screenwriting Conference self destructed, VSDA kind of took its place - I’d attend the event with some friends, and I had other friends who work for studios and would be there working. We’d grab dinners together and hang out in Vegas, and when the event was over I’d stick around for my birthday. Sometimes I’d be in Vegas for a little over a week after the event, and I’d do exactly what I do when I’m home in Studio City - find someplace and write all day. Big difference was - when I clocked out after finishing my pages, I was in Vegas, baby!
Last year, no VSDA... they haven’t only changed their name, they’ve stopped the expensive party in Vegas every July! I wasn’t in Vegas last year to miss it, because I thought I’d be spending my birthday month in Hawaii while they shot my movie... only that never happened. So last year? No vacation. Okay, I went back to the East Bay for Christmas and hung out with some friends, but that’s the holidays... my parents have some chores waiting for me. Last year I *did* spend my birthday with a bunch of friends, we had dinner and saw DARK KNIGHT... on opening night.
But this year - I’m going to Vegas! For 2 weeks - much of that is going to be work with a change of venue, with a few days of celebration when some friend zip over for the weekend. But here’s the thing - I also have a high school reunion in mid-August and some other family things. Though I’ll be back in Studio City for about a week in between, I don’t want to spend any of that week standing in line at the post office... and I don’t want to lug a bunch of Blue Books with me. The CDs are fairly portable, the booklets are heavy and bulky and I don’t want to drag them around with me.
So, no Blue Book orders will be processed after July 13. They’ll be available again around August 24. So order them now or order them later.
"Bill Martell is one of Hollywood's best action-adventure writers, with 17 produced films and TV shows to his credit. His "little blue books" on the art of screenplay writing are legendary," Best Selling novelist Dale Brown ("Strike Force", "Flight Of The Old Dog").
When I was a kid living in the East Bay Area, San Francisco was that big city really close... that we never went to. When we took that once every two years trip to the zoo - we went to Oakland. But the big city was right there... only a BART train trip away. We listened to KSFO radio from San Francisco, and watched Channel 4 News from San Francisco. But we never went there. So as a kid most of what I knew about San Francisco came from TV shows like SAN FRANCISCO BEAT (syndicated version of the old B&W show THE LINE UP) and STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas. Stone and Keller. I watched it every week. When I made my ill-advised Super 8mm feature a few years later, one of my actresses had been an *extra* on STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO! That was exciting! I also tracked down the novel STREETS was based on by Caroline Weston, which took place in... Santa Barbara! But still had that concept of generation gap detectives, each saw a different world and each had different ways of dealing with it. Hey, there were some sequel novels - read those, too. Still have 'em somewhere.
So Karl Malden came into my parent's home once a week, and because it was a cop show that took place in that big city close by, it was one of my favorite shows. And when there was some movie on with Karl Malden, I'd watch it. Now, he's gone.
Streets Of San Francisco:
The "Farrah" for today is great character actor Harve Presnell. He was in every movie you've ever seen as the crusty but clever old guy. I went to the evil IMDB to see if he was ever a guest star on STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, but he wasn't doing movies and TV back then. Presnell was a big Broadway musical star who "retired" to film & TV work. So while STREETS was on, he was still singing on stage in some big hit musical that my parents may have had the Original Cast Recording album of.
When he retired to TV and movies, he ended up being in all kinds of films, from FACE/OFF as Travolta's FBI Chief boss to LEGALLY BLONDE to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN to... well, just think back to any big movie that had a crusty but charming old guy and he was probably the actor playing that role. He was gruff but there was always a twinkle in his eyes. The movie you'd instantly remember him from is FARGO, as William Macy's father in law. Macy's whole plan revolves around kidnaping his own wife and getting the money from Presnell... only Presnell isn't some weak idiot like Macy's character - he's more like Eastwood in GRAN TORINO... he wants to kick some kidnaper ass.
Fargo:
Both of these actors were big stars in their time, and could just steal the screen from any other actor in the scene. Both did all kinds of great chararcter work - not the star, but the actors who often end up doing the heavy lifting and real acting. And now, both are gone.
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: The Act One Fake Out and KING KONG. Yesterday’s Dinner: Dead Chicken at El Pollo Loco.
And I am very sorry to everyone in the UK for this...
7/2 - M4M2 - 19:05 - Steel Sharks - When a United States submarine is seized by terrorists, a rescue attempt by Elite Navy Seals goes awry. The submarine crew wages a silent war beneath the waves in this tense undersea thriller.
7/4 - M4M2 - 15:00 - Crash Dive - The crew of a nuclear submarine rescues supposed victims of a boat disaster, but the victims turn out to be terrorists intent on capturing nuclear weapons aboard the sub.
But it *is* Independence Day, so maybe it's part of that.
Before Michael Mann's PUBLIC ENEMIES, John Millius made this great version of the John Dillinger vs. Melvin Purvis story that focused on the struggle between two powerful men. Millius was great at that - his WIND AND THE LION is one of my favorite films, and takes two larger than life men and pits them against each other. Here we get Dillinger working his press, and Purvis and the FBI trying to counter-act with their own press releases to the newspapers. And we get a great look at Depression Era America, where the real enemy was poverty and unemployment... and a guy like Dillinger could become famous for robbing the banks that foreclosed on farmers. Dillinger became a folk hero by *not* taking people's money, only the bank's.
I've used clips from the Millius film in my 2 day class - it has some great writing. The supporting characters are all really well drawn, even if they only spend a small amount of time on screen. One of the interesting things with Millius films is that his heroes and villains respect each other, even though they are coming from different sides. So instead of cardboard villains, you get fully formed characters who are not all bad. In RED DAWN the Cuban military leader allows Patrick Swayze to carry off his wounded brother - even though they are enemies. Millius villians respect the heroes... and vice versa.
And the great thing about DILLINGER is Warren Oates. This may be his finest role. Oates was a character actor of great charisma who stole many a scene from the movie's star. You might actually see a bad movie because he was in it - knowing he'd give a great performance. He's one of the reasons I saw Spielberg's flop 1941. Here he doesn't have to steal the film from the lead, because *he's* the star.
Dillinger (1973)
John Sayles wrote a John Dillinger movie for Roger Corman starring, um, Robert Conrad as Dillinger. Sayles took the story from the Lady In Red's POV, played by the always hot Pamela Sue Martin and showed Depression Era America's effect on women. But still, there were shoot outs and car wrecks and nekkid girls...
Hey, and here's the trailer for the 1945 movie starring Lawrence Tierney (from RESERVOIR DOGS):
Which brings us to Michael Mann's movie, which opens today. How will it compare?
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Who's driving? (the story) and JUMPER. Yesterday’s Dinner: Tuna melt at Johnny Rockets. Bicycle: Short bike ride on Sunday to see a play in NoHo.
UPDATE: Two days after posting this and contacting some WGA board members, IMDB has managed to see the error of their ways and change it back to the way it was.
IMDB has just *dumped* screenwriters from the main page for every movie. Director is listed, cast is listed... not screenwriter! We get dumped to the bottom of the page with the running time and Swedish Censor Board Rating and other "additional details". I looked up BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, and Charlie Kaufman has been pushed down there with the statistics - he's the only *person* down there! That's kind of a Charlie Kaufman script idea in the making.
Though the WGA should begin an anti-IMDB/Amazon campaign, while we are waiting for that to happen, why not write them? And spread this to any writer friends you have. If they get thousands of letters, they may read one of them.
IMDb.com, Inc. P.O. Box 81226 Seattle, WA 98108-1226
I can't tell you how angry this makes me. We work our asses off, we get crapped on again and again, we only get mentioned in reviews when the critic hates the film and mentions all of the script defects caused by those crap notes we hated or the director's stupid idea or the star's rewrite, and now *this*? If there was an IMDB employee in this Starbucks I would kick them in the face - even though that is not one of my skills and I would land on my ass.
I haven't seen it, and it seems like my boycott thing was a complete failure. The reviews - like Ebert's hysterical piece and his blog entry on how TRANSFORMERS 2 signals the end of the world, are great reading - funnier than most movies - but this review will save you having to ever see the movie...
I've written 19 films that were carelessly slapped onto celluloid: 3 for HBO, 2 for Showtime, 2 for USA Net, and a whole bunch of CineMax Originals (which is what happens when an HBO movie goes really, really wrong). I've been on some film festival juries, including Raindance in London (twice - once with Mike Figgis and Saffron Burrows, once with Lennie James and Edgar Wright). Roger Ebert discussed my work with Gene Siskel on his 1997 "If We Picked The Winners" Oscar show. I'm quoted a few times in Bordwell's great book "The Way Hollywood tells It". My USA Net flick HARD EVIDENCE was released on video the same day as the Julia Roberts' film Something To Talk About and out-rented it in the USA. I've also written a whole bunch of theatrical projects that never got made (I got paid) and was stupid enough to actually *turn down* the job of adapting Dan Brown's ANGELS & DEMONS. On the personal side - I'm single and fat and 6 foot 4 inches tall. Like dogs, hate cats. Why is the blog called Sex In A Submarine?
width=100>
