A Little Hard on The Beaver

Here's my entry on THE BEAVER screenplay written on 12/30/08. Now that the film has come out, I thought I'd re-run it.

Thought about running this on May 20, when the film was scheduled to open wider... but now it looks like that will not happen. According to the LA Times, THE BEAVER has flopped big time - so they have scaled back the "wide release" to only 30 cinemas after the film got mixed reviews and failed to sell any tickets.

Between writing new script tips and an article for Script Magazine and poking around on a spec about Country Western Bars, I’m reading some of the Black List scripts. First up was THE BEAVER, which got the most votes. Now, as someone who has been on a film fest jury or two, I know that just because something gets the most votes doesn’t mean it’s the best - often it means it’s the one more people agree on... and that is often the “most average” of the group. But I did go in with pretty high expectations - these are supposed to be the best scripts out there.

I should also mention that I have a huge problem with reading scripts (and this may even extend to writing them) - I am a real world, production oriented person. You may read a script for the beauty of a description - and I can appreciate that, too, but for me what is more important is: how will this look on screen? How will an actor deliver this line? How will this scene make the audience feel? Will there be enough donuts on set with sprinkles that I can snag one before the Teamsters get to them? So something that is pretty and practical is great, something that is pretty and not practical is just wasting my time and making me angry. When I read a script I’m looking at how it will translate to the screen... and then how it will translate to the audience.

The Black List "experiment" is an interesting one - the idea of finding the screenplays that development people think are the best. I think the weird thing from looking at the list is that it is skewed towards strange and quirky and arty and sometimes even "this is not a movie" screenplays. Instead of being great material that could easily be a *great* mainstream movie, it seems as if part of the criteria is that the scripts must be something no studio would ever touch... and THE BEAVER kind of fits into that theory. This is not a really clever genre script - the kind of great movie I wish Hollywood was still making - it's a weird non-genre story that I can not imagine ever selling... though I guess I'm wrong on that one, since it's now going to be a Steve Carrell movie. The Black List is like a rebel list: development people purposely picking projects their producer bosses would probably hate. At times it seems more like a "Fuck you!" list than a list of great scripts that need to be made. It'll be interesting to see how well THE BEAVER works as a movie... and any of the other strange scripts that made the list and now seems to be hot stuff in Hollywood.

THE BEAVER - the story is basically AMERICAN BEAUTY meets Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, about a upper middle class guy who comes to realize that his life is crap... but when he puts on a hand puppet, the puppet takes over in a strange version of Tourettes and he takes control of his life again. That’s a great idea for a comedy, though this is a drama - and the execution has some problems, but by the end the script has some solid emotional scenes that make it almost work.

If I’d had this idea, the problem I would see going in would be that the hand puppet could easily slide into becoming an exposition device that just blurts out what the character was thinking or feeling... and that is one of the big problems of the script. Much of the story is *told* instead of shown through the hand puppet... and on top of that, the writer decided to have the hand puppet narrate! Yikes! This results in long blocks of speeches by a hand puppet that tell us what is happening or what the protag is thinking or wants or needs. Much of the hand puppet interaction rings completely false - there is an endless speech to a board of directors (at our hero’s job) where not a single board member interrupts - even though the speech is major policy change and given by a talking beaver hand puppet. Everyone allows this hand puppet to drone on and on without interruption - which creates a pile of expositional speeches that litter the script.

The other thing about the hand puppet - it’s not funny or clever. There is *one* line about the CEO’s death by hooker, and all of the rest is just kind of bland stuff in a British accent. No great cutting remarks, nothing that you really wish you had said but couldn’t - because you didn’t have a hand puppet doing the talking for you. Since “sock puppet” is an online term for a false identity that says all of the things that you can not, I believed this sock puppet would say all of the things Walter could not. You know, the clever, cutting things that will get you fired or punched if you say them yourself. A couple of weeks ago I saw GRAN TORINO, which has got to have the most un-PC dialogue of any film in the past few years. Eastwood’s character is constantly saying things that are completely inappropriate - and that produces laughter. He calls people names to their faces! But here, the Beaver mostly just makes speeches or says something that is not clever or cutting... something that Walter might have easily said himself without fear. And, when you compare the Beaver’s dialogue to Triumph’s? Seriously - watch that first Triumph clip where he goes to the dog show and try not to hurt yourself laughing. That puppet says things you wouldn’t even think of thinking! Triumph is too honest... and you wish that the Beaver had been more honest and more funny.

And that may be because this script falls into no genre - it is not a Steve Carrel comedy and even says in the script at one point that it is not a Jim Carrey comedy. So maybe they weren’t trying for humor (in a script about a talking beaver hand puppet)... But if this script was supposed to be more dramatic, like AMERICAN BEAUTY, it still doesn’t measure up. Not only is AMERICAN BEAUTY *funnier* - Lester does say many of those fantasy things you’ve always wanted to say but would get fired or punched - it’s not as *dramatic*. When Lester snaps, he does all of the things he has always fantasized about... and basically relives the time in his life where he was most happy - he becomes a teen again. He buys the car he wanted as a teen, lives life as if there is no tomorrow, and even ends up working a teen type job at a drive through. He completely changes his life after the snap...

But once Walter finds The Beaver, he changes *nothing* - he has the same job, tries to get back to his old life with his wife and kids. He has this potential power to change - the Beaver hand puppet - and doesn’t use it. Once he has the beaver hand puppet - he does nothing differently, except talk in long speeches in a British accent (why doesn’t anybody ever interrupt him?). He just lives his old life, and more or less does it the way he used to. The changes - he takes his wife out to dinner and teaches his youngest son woodworking - are things he could have easily done without the puppet... and not really any big deal.

The great comedy idea of a guy possessed by a talking beaver hand puppet is also completely at odds with the serious tone of the script. I don't see how this is going to play on screen at all. When I imagine the serious scenes with dialogue coming from a hand puppet, it just becomes silly. The puppet undercuts the drama - and is going to create unintentional laughs no matter who directs it. On the page this may work, on screen I can't imagine it working at all.

The script also has these story cheats, like the woodworking. The youngest son is given a hunk of wood and many sharp and dangerous tools... and the kid is instantly happy! No actual dramatic scenes needed! And Walter’s failing company? Hey, they sell hunks of wood and sharp and dangerous tools to children - and they are back in the black! Like by magic! And everybody loves Walter! Walter writes a book... and it’s a best seller! He’s instantly on Oprah! Yes, I know it’s only a movie - but I like to see a little work done on things like this... even if it’s just a line about how kids are tired of passive toys and games, which give them nothing when they are done playing. They want something to show for the time spent playing other than a high score on some computer screen. Some *justification* for the woodworking set to become this massive hit. Though the Beaver says he did focus groups - we never see them, so I do not believe they existed.

These story cheats are most prevalent in the older son’s story track - from the cliche portion of wall where he bashes his head regularly to the cliche rubber band on his wrist he snaps when he catches himself acting like his father to the hot cheerleader who is secretly an artist and has murals hidden in her brother’s room... yet she never acts like an artist at all. We never see her as an artist pretending to be a cheerleader - she isn’t drawing on her peechee folders (or whatever they use these days). I drew on *everything* and was drawing in class when I was supposed to be listening - and still got good grades. And I’m not an artist - I was a bored kid with some basic drawing talent and lots of imagination. I wanted to believe she was an artist because she said she was, but the *evidence* didn’t support it... so I was always waiting for the twist that her brother was the real artist and she was just a silly cheerleader. By the way, she didn’t seem particularly bright, either... nor did Porter (oldest son). We get no *demonstration* - only what is told to us by the characters... and that might all be lies.

The script takes a strange, bloody turn at one point - that makes no sense.. But kind of reminds me of the Jim Carrey movie THE MASK - and, again, that’s a film with a similar premise that explores that premise much much better than this script does. The problem with this bloody scene is that it is so out of place in this tame story that you wonder if it will survive all of the way to the screen. Basic tone issues. If you think about the violence in AMERICAN BEAUTY, it is just as big as the other events in the story so it fits. When you are doing sound editing, you may get different volume levels from different sources, and there is a filter-gizmo that goes through the entire sound track and makes it all the same volume level, so that it doesn’t suddenly BLAST at you - like those loud commercials in the middle of a TV show. I think stories need something similar - sort of a tone adjustment - that makes sure you don’t have some scene so shocking and different than anything else we have seen so far that seems to belong in some other script. I am all for pushing the envelope, and even having that one scene in your script that you know will be cut because it goes too far... but you want that scene to fit the script that has come before. The violence in AMERICAN BEAUTY was completely within the world of that story... the scene in THE BEAVER just seems to come out of left field. Hard to imagine that violence working on screen at all.

But here’s the thing - a movie and a screenplay can be saved by their ending... and as a story continues, we tend to become invested in the characters... so by the time I reached the end of THE BEAVER I wasn’t thinking about all of the problems as much as I was thinking about all of the things it did well... and that end (which oddly uses the narration I disliked from the beginning) had me liking the script despite its flaws... even though the ending was also kind of a cheat. Instead of solving Walter's problems, he's kind of pushed aside in the story in favor of the older son and cheerleader subplot. It's the old switcheroo - which is not what you expect from a script that's #1 on the Black List, but at least gives us a big emotional resolution on the page. I can see why it got a bunch of votes - but still can’t see how it will work on screen as a Steve Carrell movie without some heavy rewrites. I'm wondering if that end that made me tear up on the page will just seem like some completely out of left field tack on when it hits the screen. Reading a script takes more time than watching a movie, and what seems like a gradual change from Walter's story to the oldest son and cheerleader story on the page might really seem like a cheat on screen. You have to read past the language in a script and see what ends up on screen... but maybe they'll fix the flaws and this will be Carrell's biggest hit since 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN?

Next, I think I’ll read Scott Frank’s script... which was at the bottom of the Black List.

Classes On CD On Sale!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Holiday Block older tips that need a rewrite and haven't run for a while.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Mom's home cooking.
Pages: Poking around on this old thriller script that takes place in a Country Western Bar - I hope to kick off the new year by finishing this sucker.

MOVIES: GRAN TORINO - The Clint squint is back! The second Eastwood movie to come out this season is completely different than THE CHANGELING in almost every way. From the trailer, it looks like GRUMPY OLD DEATH WISH - and it is - but the film is also much more. It’s a comedy. Now, when you think Clint Eastwood and comedy, you instantly think of orangutans or chimpanzees... but Clint is the closest to a lower primate in this film. He plays an old, racist, foul mouthed and really grump retired auto worker named Walt who lives in the same house in the same neighborhood he has always lived in... only the world has changed around him. What was a great neighborhood in the 40s or 50s is now broken down slums filled with immigrants. Hmongs - from Laos and Viet Nam. He hates ‘em. He has a dozen names for ‘em, each one more outrageous (and funny) than the one before.

Walter is a guy who is too old for the bullshit of being polite - maybe he always was - so he has an insult for everybody. The movie opens with the death of his wife, making Walter all alone in his old neighborhood... and when people try to comfort him, he snaps at them. He calls his Priest a virgin, and then goes on to trash him and all of the BS parts of religion. When his sons try to get him into a home for “active seniors” he tells them off - saying things that no one would ever really say... they might think them, but they’d never actually say them. That is Walter’s charm - he says what we think but would never say. All of the terrible things, all of the impolite things, all of the funny things. He’s like the late, great, stand up comic Sam Kineson.

This character of Walter says so many evil, racist, impolite, and downright mean things - you wonder what would have happened if another actor had been cast in the role. We know Eastwood, we like him... and Eastwood has a way of saying all of these terrible things so that they are more comedy than derogatory. Instead of hating Walter - which we might have done if another actor had played the role - we grow to like him because he says exactly what he thinks without any filters. Eastwood makes him not evil, just cranky. But some other actor - even a well liked star of Eastwood’s caliber - might not have been able to pull off this character. This is about the most unlikeable lead character I've ever seen on screen. I can just imagine all of the development notes this thing might have gotten about making Walter "more likeable"... probably from the save Devos who voted for THE BEAVER!

The trailer might make you think this will be wall-to-wall kick ass, but the film does something different. It takes this grumpy old man who is set in his ways and hates the immigrants who surround him, and through the story, forces him to deal with the world around him and become a member of his new neighborhood. After the kid next door tries to steal his prized Gran Torino, Walter has to deal with the kid and his family - he can’t just hurl insults at them from his porch - and discovers that these people who look very different than him are actually more like him than his own family. He takes the boy under his wing and teaches him to become a man... and that’s the meat of the story. Sure, there are kick ass scenes and Clint does an interesting variation on DEATH WISH, but most of the film is the growing relationship between Walter and the family next door... and how he becomes so involved with them that their problems become his problems (then there’s that ass-kicking portion of our show).

I believe the Hmong actors are civilians, but they give really good performances for non-actors in a film shot at Clint-speed (he shoots really fast, few takes, usually no rehearsals). Sue, the girl next door, comes off really well - she has a great personality and you believe this old fart might be talked into coming over for a big family dinner (and free beer) by her. Tao, the boy, gets to act sullen and introverted - much easier for a non-actor, but the kid also pulls it off. You believe every single one of these characters. I think the Priest needed a little rewriting - he’s okay, but the character comes off very passive and kind of bland. I’ve been rewatching a bunch of Noir films, and one of the great things about casting someone like Robert Mitchum or Burt Lancaster in the lead in those films is that they brought personality to the roles. Both of those actors were incredibly versatile, even though you might not notice it from only seeing a couple of films, but when you cast someone like Lancaster he could make low key characters interesting with a line reading or a gesture or some other character thing he would bring to the role. If the Priest role had been played by one of those old school actors, it might have been more interesting.... but he comes off kind of flat in the film.

POTENTIAL END SPOILERS

Okay, I always try to disguise things so that I don’t completely spoil the movie, but I thought I should warn you anyway. The big problem I had with GRAN TORINO was the end. Eastwood’s revenge plan requires that the ultra close-lipped Hmongs who would never rat on even the most evil member of their community actually talk to the police... or the whole revenge plan falls apart. It is clearly set up that the Hmongs would *never* go to the police - yet Clint’s plan requires it... so the whole revenge plan kind of folds in on itself. For Clint’s revenge plan to work, a Hmong must do what they never do and go to the police... but if the Hmong would go to the police we wouldn’t really need Clint’s revenge plan - the cops would take care of it. It wouldn’t be as exciting as Clint’s plan, but it would be a potential resolution. Oh, and for the Clint revenge plan to work, the Hmong character must talk to the police at a specific time in order for the police to act in a specific way at the specific time that all fits in Clint’s revenge plan. In other words - it’s all up to chance and coincidence. A *better* method would have been to use the Priest character (who has a silly scene at the end already) and have him be the one who brings in the police at the right place and at the right time for Clint’s revenge plan to work. Clint might have given the Priest some information about his revenge plan, knowing that he would go to the police, but also lied about time or place so that the police wouldn’t get there too soon and prevent him from kicking a bunch of low-life ass. The Cavalry would show up in time to see that it was a fair fight and not Clint going psycho (so we can have a happy ending), but Clint could still kick enough ass to give us the movie we paid to see. Those of you who have seen the movie know what I am talking about, those of you who haven’t hopefully won’t guess the details of the end from that.

END OF SPOILERS

So GRAN TORINO manages to be two movies in one - a heartwarming story of an old guy who is alone in the world and finds friendship and community... and a badass GRUMPY OLD DEATH WISH flick about an old Korean War vet who is completely underestimated by the gangs and drug dealers and scumbags who are ruining his old neighborhood. While watching, I wondered if this whole script was sparked by the line “Get off my lawn”. And no one growls like Clint!

PS: My interview continues on the Writer's Bloc Show on Virtual TV Network, with the LAST part, about the postponed movie #20 and VOLATILE:

THE WRITER'S BLOC: ** Bill On TV **

PPS: More of my damned movies showing on Sky in the UK! I'm sorry...

M4M2 (UK): Friday Jan 2 - 15:10 - 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.

You have been warned.

- Bill

Scott Frank’s Flaming Sperm

Okay, maybe I’m and old fart who is set in my ways like Clint’s character in GRAN TORINO, but BEAVER disappointed me... and Scott Frank’s AFTER HAILEY was just great writing that actually made me cry three times.... and I predict someone will win an Oscar for playing the role of Richard when this sucker’s made. This script - at the bottom of the Black List - makes me wonder if that crazy theory of mine that the scripts on the Black List are a big "fuck you!" to the producers these Devos work for is true. Is the Black List completely reactionary? Is it not about finding the best, but finding the scripts that symbolize the anti-Hollywood?

There is no such thing as a perfect script or a perfect movie or a perfect person - everything is a mix of good and bad. When you read a script or see a movie, there are things that don’t work and things that do - and when there are more things that work than not, it’s a good movie. When there are more things that don’t work than do, it’s a bad movie. And there are degrees of good and bad based on how much stuff works. Same with all of these scripts - and for me, AFTER HAILEY had more stuff that worked than didn’t... and even though it's an arty drama, it's the kind of story that works on screen.

The story is simple - plot 53B - a wayward son comes home for a family event. There have to be a hundred movies with the same basic plot... and there would probably be more of them if it weren’t so basic. Hard to get financing when your story is this routine. And that’s one of the flaws of the script - we’ve seen this a million times before.

Our protagonist, Doug, is a hot-shot young photographer for Newsweek who never gets involved or emotional while taking pictures of war or disasters or poverty - it ruins the shot. He sees the world through his view finder - detached. In Iraq he meets a beautiful recently divorced magazine editor at least a decade older than he is and they have an affair... and then get married. She is Hailey, the love of his life.

Two years later, Doug is returning home for his sister’s wedding... without Hailey. One of the cool things that Frank does is parcel out information a little at a time, creating a question, a mystery, and then answering it a few scenes later. Where THE BEAVER *told* the story in a bunch of exposition, here it unfolds before us - as if we are watching Doug’s life as it happens. As we watch Doug settle in to his old house - where he once lived with Hailey - we begin to piece together that she is dead... but not how she died. That mystery runs most of the script, and we don’t really get all of the information about her death until the very last scene.

Doug has got to be the least responsible person in the world, and seeing him deal with all of the things he has spent his life trying to escape from creates some great big dramatic moments. This is a small story, but really well written and *skillfully* written. Some minor scene that may have been blah in some other writer’s script is filled with big emotional moments, here. Doug must learn to stop seeing the world through the viewfinder and start actually living it. He is an extraordinary person in an ordinary story - a famous photo journalist who could probably walk into any bar anywhere in the world and be recognized - famous in Mozambique. His photos are famous. The reason he initially hooks up with Hailey is because he is this famous magazine photographer among dozens, maybe even hundreds of photogs and journos in Iraq. But now he’s back home, where he’s just Doug.

Doug has a stepson who isn’t that much older than he is, and he must learn to raise the kid. Hailey’s always-angry and usually violent ex-husband and his trophy wife are part oi this equation. Doug has another sister who is breaking up with her husband and crashes at his place... which used to be his and Hailey’s place. And because he’s the famous dude come home, he ends up sleeping with his best friend from high school’s horny wife... and almost getting caught again and again. Doug has *all kinds* of family issues - the most interesting of which is his father Richard who has suffered a stroke and is now hovering somewhere between absent minded and dementia. He doesn’t remember that Hailey is dead... and also doesn’t act like an adult. Completely unpredictable... and creates problems wherever he goes, I predict that the actor who plays Richard will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor - this role is so well written and so meaty I think the orangutan who played Clyde in those Eastwood boxing movies could get a nomination for playing this role. All of the characters, all of the dialogue, all of the scenes and situations are the best version of Plot 53B so far (except, maybe for HAMLET).

The stepson says that a gathering of Doug’s family is like having a brick of C4 explosives under the table that could go off at any moment, and that is one of the great things about this script. It is filled with “Oh crap!” moments where things go completely wrong, and at any time a quiet moment might turn suddenly dramatic or even violent. In every scene there is drama simmering below the surface - and it often explodes. But the script is also funny as hell, and has so many big tender moments that three of them actually had my tear ducts working. One of the great skills Frank has is to plant something that pays off again and again and again - in different and unexpected ways. Just when you think this thing was planted for one payoff... there is an even better pay off, then - later - a better pay off than that. And you never see them coming.

Because it’s Scott Frank (or, maybe this was in the novel it’s adapted from) someone does pull out a gun and actually shoot someone - those dramatic family explosions include fist fights and shootings - and what is amazing is how even the violence pays off in interesting character-oriented ways. One character has their greatest moment due to the presence of the gun. The film has a different story, but much of the same feel of Frank’s THE LOOKOUT - a character dealing with past mistakes and past tragedies. The strength is this script is the writing, not the story... and that may be why it only got 5 votes. It’s probably the least flashy script on the Black List.

The script is littered with “we see”s and camera direction stuff, and at 127 pages, I think it would have come out danged close to 120 without them... and you’d never miss ‘em. Those things take me out of the story and take up space. Another thing that bugged me was having everyone called MAN or WOMAN if they speak before being introduced - I have no idea whose fool idea this is, but if you’re doing breakdowns you end up with this character MAN in almost every scene, but when it comes to casting MAN it ends up not a character at all - but all of the male characters the first time they speak. I can understand if you are trying to keep the identity of a character secret, but when the same actor is going to play MAN and RICHARD, you’re just making it pointlessly confusing by referring to him by two names. The breakdown and scheduling programs go by the character name - and MAN and RICHARD are two different names and that makes them two different characters.

The bigger problem here may be that the story is plot 53B - it’s a great script with a generic idea... which means it’s all about the execution and the casting. The execution is great, but this is going to end up a prestige film - one of those movies released around this time of the year for Oscar consideration. The mass audience isn’t going to see it because of the idea - they’ve seen it before - so the cast is going to make or break this film... along with the critics. There’s a Dustin Hoffman/Emma Thompson “last chance at romance” movie (plot 27D) that’s coming out - and even with those two big names, the critics are tearing it apart and saying we have seen this story a hundred times before... we’ll see how the audience responds. The story we’ve seen before - no matter how great he execution - is a tough sell to most of the people who buy tickets. If the cast is appealing and the critics love it, it may still flop... but at least it has a chance.

This is a trap screenwriters seem to fall into when they get to make their own films. One of the reasons why I am a big fan of Scott Frank is because he usually works in the crime genre - his big break was DEAD AGAIN, a mystery thriller about reincarnation starring Emma Thompson as an amnesiac who was either a victim or a killer in her past life... and Frank kept you guessing until the very end. (Hey, also about regrets from the past.) Frank adapted two Elmore Leonard novels to the screen - and both were critical and financial successes (GET SHORTY and OUT OF SIGHT). Elmore Leonard calls him “his screenwriter”. I read the Cohen draft of MINORITY REPORT, and it was crap... then read the Frank draft and it was brilliant - all of the great things in the film are from the Frank draft. If you want a great crime-mystery-thriller type script, Scott Frank is the man.... But when he got a chance to make his own movie, he made THE LOOKOUT... which is more character study than crime drama. Look, I loved THE LOOKOUT - I wrote an article for Script about some of the swell, clever writing. I own the movie on DVD and watch it often. But no matter how great that film is, it is not MINORITY REPORT or DEAD AGAIN or GET SHORTY... and the film didn’t burn up the box office.

Take Tony Gilroy, who took a Robert Ludlum potboiler and turned it into a franchise that is not only the most freakin’ exciting action films made in a decade, they are also intelligent and character oriented and haunting. When the BOURNE movies are so powerful that they change James Bond... and recharge that series with CASINO ROYALE (until QUANTUM killed it) - you have a writer who knows how to please the audience and the critics. So they give Gilroy the chance to make a movie, and does he make something that will catapult him to the top? Does he write the script that will be a huge financial success and insure that he will be able to call the shots from now on? Does he write a critically acclaimed #1 box office filmn like BOURNE IDENTITY that will turn him into the new Spielberg? No, he falls into the trap and makes MICHAEL COLLINS, a really good character study that doesn’t make much money... though, I own that one on DVD, too and really like it. Basically, the writer’s trap is to make the film that other writers will really love... but won’t do very well with the mass audience that controls what films get made and who makes them. These guys end up making small films that either result in them being able to make more small films... or them not being allowed to make anything ever again. They make that one personal film that no one would ever buy or ever let them make in the past... without asking “Why?” Why wouldn’t anyone let them make it? Why wouldn’t anyone buy it? Why do they think this is the best script to make now? Why do they event want to make this script?

Instead, why don’t guys like Scott Frank and Tony Gilroy do what they do when they’re writing to sell - come up with a great genre story that will sell tickets like crazy... and write it with skill and passion and the focus on characters that makes them great writers? Do a variation on that Clint Eastwood "One for them, One for me"? Start with the *high quality* crowd pleaser that will make the studios so much money that they won't care if they make a personal film that doesn't make much money... they will *still* fund the next film. Instead of starting out by directing a tough sell, start out with a hit and write your own ticket!

I suspect Frank is looking at AFTER HAILEY as a potential directing follow-up to LOOKOUT... and it’s taking him in a difficult direction. Sure, if the film is well cast and becomes that must-see movie for us older audience members it might end up a hit... and if some cast members are nominated for Oscars, it can make some money and help his career... But he has proven that he can write an exciting genre movie that also makes you think and has all of the great character work and story-telling that AFTER HAILEY has, so why not do that for himself? Why write the intelligent and emotional crowd pleaser for Spielberg, and write the small film for yourself? Why not write the great crowd pleaser for yourself?

There is a Ross Macdonald novel with Plot 53B where the wayward son comes home for a family event... and there is a murder and the kid must not only deal with all of the “you can’t come home again” stuff, he has to solve the crime. Hell, the grand daddy of all Plot 53B stories is HAMLET - wayward son comes home for family event - father’s funeral - and must solve father’s murder... and that is one heck of a character oriented story that really digs deep into motivation and emotional situations and character growth... and it’s been a crowd pleaser for a few hundred years, now. The trap of writing something that will *not* be a big success with the audience, resulting in writers forever being the people struggling for power, is something to avoid. It hurts all of us. When you write enough big hits to get your own film - write another big hit! Do it right - make it a great script - but also make sure it’s something exciting enough to land you some more jobs where *you* are the one in power.

The story in AFTER HAILEY may be soft, but the writing is solid. We see Doug and his family trying to make their lives work, and get caught up in those lives. There’s a moment when the drunken stepson decides to make a speech at the sister’s wedding that has you cringing while you are reading it - expecting the worst... and when it begins to go *way* off course, you wonder if there will be more gunfire and fistfights - but as he drunkenly stumbles on, you realize this may be the best wedding toast you have ever heard. The script is a bunch of great moments, and no bad ones.

Oh, and the "flaming sperm" is Doug's description of his stepson's tattoo... which is really Hailey's comet.

I've read a few other BlackList scripts, and may get around to typing up my thoughts on them in the next month or two... but now I have to get back to work on these things called "screenplays".

Classes On CD On Sale!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Twisted Chronologies Complete rewrite of a tip from 2003.
Yesterday’s Dinner: All you can eat at China Wall in Concord.

MOVIES: THE WRESTLER - Mickey Rourke is back... again... again again. Back in the days of BODY HEAT and DINER Mickey Rourke was The Next Big Thing and everybody knew it. He was this sexy, magnetic, talented actor who could play various types of bad boys with a charm that made you love them, whether they were felons in prison or that guy in high school who had sex with every girl you ever had a crush on. As his career took off, Rourke did the usual serious actor trying to self destruct thing by choosing roles that were interesting to him... but often in the wrong movies. You’ve got to read the whole script, stars, not just the highlighted portion that consists of your lines. So Rourke ended up in some bombs right when he needed to be in some hits, and his stardom began to fade. That’s when he scrambled and started making movies for the 9 AND A HALF WEEKS guy and his wife - steamy, sexy soft core movies where Rourke got to play the sexy bad boy and be nekkid with lots of hot women. While his acting career was in trouble, he decided to quit it all, get married to one of those nekkid costars, and take up professional boxing.

Huh?

Now Rourke was probably an okay boxer when he was a kid, but as an adult his career seemed to be getting beat up a lot. He did this for several years, until nobody wanted him as an actor or a boxer. Then he crawled back to Hollywood by way of Austin and played a crazy CIA snitch in Robert Rodriguez’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO... and everybody loved him and thought he was back. Of course, all of that boxing had done a number on his face, and he wasn’t the pretty boy he once was. Now he was kind of Frankenstein Monster looking. And his career faded again... But Rodriguez is a loyal guy, and cast him in SIN CITY... and he was brilliant and all of the critics loved his performance and announced his return to stardom and... then his career faded again.

So Rourke seems to have brought all of that real life backstory to THE WRESTLER... and maybe the writer-director Darren Aronofsky brought some of his own real life backstory to the writing - he managed to take a promising directing career where he was the chosen one to bring Batman back to the screens and completely screw it up. Chris Nolan was the guy who replaced him... and THE DARK KNIGHT is the second biggest domestic gross film of all time (not adjusted for inflation). Aronofsky’s career? Kind of where Rourke’s is.

THE WRESTLER seems to be some sort of riff on ROCKY, but don’t be fooled. It’s a gritty, emotionally savage story that pulls no punches. It's more like one of John Huston's later films, FAT CITY, about washed up boxers in Stockton, CA trying to earn a living between fights. Rourke plays Randy The Ram, who was a famous wrestler 20 years ago. Now he lives in a trailer... which he is behind on his rent for, so it’s locked up and he’s sleeping in his van until he can make back rent. He wrestles every weekend in some local exhibition at the Elks Club or something... and on weekdays he does my old job, unloading trucks at a grocery store part time. He does it by hand (you wonder why they don’t even have any hand dollies at this place). He’s always fighting for more hours, the verbally abusive grocery store manager is always giving him fewer hours probably just to piss Randy off. Whatever money Randy does not spend on performance drugs and painkillers, he spends on strippers, mostly on one that he has a crush on: Cassie, played by Oscar Winner Marisa Tomei. His fantasy is that they get married. She has a completely different fantasy, which we’ll get to in a minute. Randy also has an estranged daughter whom he has not seen in many years. He has a grade school photo of her with a half dozen phone numbers crossed off on the back. The guy is a mess.

The great thing about the film is that it takes you behind the scenes in wrestling. You see the wrestlers talk out the match before they get in the ring - and a funny scene has wrestlers arguing about which one will do a specific fight move... between *all* of the wrestlers fighting in *all* of the matches that night. You also get to see how they hide razor blades in their arm wrappings so that they can cut themselves and bleed in the ring. Real blood. Their blood. And you see how physical and brutal this form of entertainment is - these guys take a real beating putting on a fake show. I found all of that stuff interesting, and it is shown in interesting ways. A funny trip to the Dollar Store to find props to hit each other with is fun.

But this film is all about the characters and the acting, and Rourke does an amazing job playing a guy who craves the fame that has gotten away from him. There is a tragic, cringe inducing scene where he convinces one of the trailer park kids to play the Atari Randy The Ram Wrestling game with him. Rourke manages to be charming and funny and tragic all at the same time. It’s a great subtle performance. Many times in the film he must act like a big star in a situation where it is obvious that his star has faded, and he plays both things - a layered performance. There’s a scene at an autograph event - a great situation - where he looks from one ex-wrestler to another, noting each of their permanent injuries.

The two big relationships in the film are with the stripper and his daughter. Evan Rachel Wood plays the daughter, and she’s okay. There are some big meaty scenes between them, as Randy tries to make amends for a lifetime of neglecting her... but keeps screwing up. There’s a really well written scene and sequence where he invites the stripper Cassie to help him shop at a thrift store for a gift for his daughter... and that gift has a swell payoff and twist in the story.

Though Rourke is getting all of the Oscar buzz, Marisa Tomei gives another great performance as the stripper Cassie whose real name is Pam and has a son and dreams and tragedies and struggles of her own. Tomei is a fearless actress. When she won her Oscar for MY COUSIN VINNIE lots of people thought there must have been some mistake - maybe they got the wrong envelope or something. But since then, she has proven again and gain that she deserved that Oscar. Here she is a mirror to Randy’s tragedy - and has a bunch of great scenes where she gives a layered performance to match Rourke’s. She is the stripper long past her pull date, who must act like she enjoys her job when she hates it... but maybe secretly loves part of it. Name another Oscar winner who would give a performance like this - so sad, so tragic - in a microscopic G string? Tomei is topless for most of the scenes in the strip club, and she looks great for a woman no longer 20... Okay, I’ve always had a crush on her. But some other actress would have played the stripper fully clothed - and that would have been bullshit. You’ve seen that in movies before. For some reason the movie star stripper never strips. Here, she’s just one of the strippers... but older and with more mileage. Like Randy, she’s in a business where she must take care of her body by any means necessary - and her body looks just as good as the girls half her age. But Cassie’s eyes are old. She’s seen too much. There are several great scenes where Cassie is smiling with every part of her face but her eyes... I’m not sure how Tomei did that.

One of the interesting things about this story is that Cassie desperately wants to escape the spotlight and just live a normal life... she wants to live as Pam, not Cassie. But Randy desperately wants to live his entire life in the spotlight and never have to live a normal life... he wants to live as Randy The Ram and hates when people call him by his birth name Robin... the name on his W4 at the grocery store, so they put it on his name tag. These people are star crossed lovers - and are struggling with almost identical problems, just the mirror reflection of those problems. Opposite solutions.

I am not going to give away the big spoilers that actually kick the plot into gear, there is so little plot here that even to tell you the inciting incident will give away too much. This is a film with two great performances, and so many great little details that you feel like you are there... and Mickey Rourke is back! But for how long?

Pages: Friday I managed to write 25 pages of blog related material (including this entry). Yikes!

- Bill