Screenwriter of BOURNE and DUPLICITY talks...

There is and interesting interview in The New Yorker with screenwriter Tony Gilroy, who was a writer on all three BOURNE movies and writer-director on MICHAEL CLAYTON and the new Julia Roberts-Clive Owen movie DUPLICITY.

Tony Gilroy Interview

Interesting that he doesn't hold anything back when it comes to directors he's worked with and some of the other behind the scenes drama on his films.

- Bill

UK TV - M4M2 - 3/18/09 - 18:30 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.

Due To The Success Of WATCHMEN...

Okay, one of the screenwriters of WATCHMEN is *begging* fans to see it again this weekend... and the numbers crunchers are looking at the drop off from Friday to Saturday to Sunday last weekend and think bad word of mouth is at work. On message boards, fans are hating every single minor change while others (okay, that's me) are wondering why they didn't *adapt* the damned thing so that it works as a movie. Can't please *anyone* with this film - and the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake is giving off a strong TAKEN vibe, and you know how well that little French film did...

But all is not lost for WATCHMEN fans! Check out this:



- Bill

The Writer Behind TAKEN

Many months ago when the trailer for the new Luc Besson movie TAKEN surfaced, I posted it here - it looked cool. The film came out, and was an unexpected hit. It's made over $100 million in the USA, and was #3 over the weekend... after 5 weeks in release. It's #2 *today*. Not bad for a French film starring an Irish actor.

Today's Los Angeles Times has an interview with the co-writer, and it's worth a read:

Robert Mark Kamen interview

By the way, this interview answered a long standing question - how did these two ever become partners? Is Besson a huge KARATE KID fan or something?

- Bill

March Issue Of Script Magazine

The March Issue of Script Magazine is on newsstands, and it features articles on WATCHMEN and THE SOLOIST and CORALINE and and article by me about writing Character Driven screenplays...



Table Of Contents:

Saved by Art: Susannah Grant and The Soloist
by Aaron Ginsburg
After being shuffled from 2008 awards contention, The Soloist was moved around Paramount’s 2009 release slate, finally settling in late April. Though the move may have been initially disappointing, there’s something fitting about releasing the story -- a tale of two men saved by their art -- at the height of spring. Here Susannah Grant describes The Soloist’s origins on L.A.’s Skid Row and the process of collaborating with regular people to bring their remarkable lives to the screen.

Anatomy of a Scene: Watchmen
by Bob Verini
Its release was in doubt when one studio claimed the other’s rights -- a testament to the potential blockbuster appeal of Watchmen, which after almost 25 years is finally coming to the screen. Script is there as its two writers sit down for the first time together to discuss a key sequence.

Script to Screen: Coraline
by David S. Cohen
In the late 1980s, Henry Selick joined with the Tim Burton team to create the unexpected holiday perennial The Nightmare Before Christmas. With Coraline, writer-director Selick once again sets out to prove that animation can be as scary as it is fun.

Men Behaving Awkwardly: I Love You, Man
by Ray Morton
Comedy writer-director John Hamburg discusses his take on the awkward social situations surrounding male friendships. In his newest film I Love You, Man, he explores a hilarious “bromance” between a groom-to-be and his potential best man.

Scene Fix: Backwoods Barbie
by Jenna Milly
Who can forget watching Tom Hanks discover he’s big or the freeway sign that sings “Do Wah Diddy?” Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith offer their script tips on Robyn Paris’ Backwoods Barbie in the hopes that her story will join the ranks of these memorable rom-coms with a magical twist.

Writers on Writing: The Great Buck Howard
by Sean McGinly
Larger-than-life personalities typically make for larger-than-life studio fare, but writer-director Sean McGinly went another route. His portrait of the grand showman Buck Howard, in The Great Buck Howard -- starring John Malkovich and Colin Hanks -- is drawn from his own life, and on a human scale.

Writers on Writing: Notorious
by Cheo Hodari Coker and Reggie Rock Bythewood
Notorious co-scribe Cheo Hodari Coker says, “Any screenwriter that says he’s happy to be replaced on a project is lying to you.” But Coker found himself happy, and even moved, by Reggie Rock Bythewood’s take on Biggie Smalls’ journey to manhood.

ProdCo Spotlight: Ambush Entertainment
by Joshua Stecker
The industry is full of little-prodcos-that-could with talented people to power them. However, few of those production companies break out of the gate with one indie horror flick and one Oscar® contender. Learn how Ambush Entertainment came to be such a company.

New Media: Death to the Risky Online Series
by Robert Gustafson & Alec McNayr
By now you know that a fresh approach isn’t always a welcome approach in Hollywood -- but that’s not the case in the wild world of webisodes. Take one ass-kicking stuntwoman, one comic-book writer, and one marketing mission from Sony’s Crackle.com and you have one fresh approach to online distribution.

Independents: Problem Protagonists
by William Martell
Here are 10 steps to turn your flawed protagonist into the character that drives the story. Using two hits -- the 1970s’ Five Easy Pieces and Bound for Glory -- William Martell looks at how to write the character-driven screenplay.

Documentaries: Writing Real Life
by Debra L. Eckerling
Before Roger & Me jump-started a whole new approach to filmmaking, documentaries were largely viewed as public-television fare. Now, as filmmakers experiment with story structure and technology, it’s a brand-new day for nonfiction flicks.

To Subscribe:
Script Magazine


- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Conflict Avoidance - And SPIDER-MAN 2.
Yesterday’s Dinner: One of those huge burritos from Tortas on Ventura across from Vineland.
Pages: 9 Pages of rewrite on the Country Western script... but only a couple of those pages are progress... Because I haven't worked on it for a while, I read over all of my notes and realized I had completely screwed up two whole scenes! So I had to rewrite the last two scenes I wrote - making a bunch of major changes. But I am *writing* which makes me happy... and Script e-mailed me asking where my article was. Told ya.

PS: After 5 months, English Dave's blog is back! He was off writing a novel, and now he is blogging about his adventures trying to sell the sucker. I met English Dave online, where his posts were funny and profane and full of actual information about TV writing in the UK... then I met him in real life (he's one of the regulars who show up for my online friends pub night when I'm in London) and he is the perfect person to get drunk with - slightly crazy in all the right ways. One of my best nights in London was when the pub closed and kicked us out, and we staggered across London to a private club where Dave is a member that serves after hours... and once we got there, Dave's attire did not match the dress code: A Hawaiian shirt and shorts.

- Bill

All Roads Lead To...Irresponsibility.

I am a very responsible person. When I was a kid, my family was... poor, lower middle class, working class... you decide the term. If I wanted something, the answer from may parents was: go get a job, earn the money, and then you can buy it. They began giving out this answer when I was a little kid. Family chores included yard work - mowing the lawn, raking leafs, hoeing weeds, etc. But there were other people in the neighborhood whose kids had grown up and left the house, leaving in a void in the yard work department. As a kid, I would mow other people’s lawns, rake their leafs and pull their weeds for a price. Not much of a price, but enough to buy those things I had asked my parents for - toys, model kits, colored pens for drawing, books. Comic books were not allowed, and I never really developed a taste for them. But model cars and drawing material were my addiction. I mowed as many lawns as I could to get the things that I wanted... and still had to do yard work at home and either set the table, wash the dishes or dry the dished every night (rotation with my brother and sister). And take care of my brother and sister - the way things worked in our family is that I had to look out for my brother and sister, my brother had to look out for my sister (the baby) and my sister just had to look out.

Anyway, I mowed lawns and had a paper route for a while and swept my dad’s shop and sometimes the shop next door and for a summer I was my dad’s helper - standing two stories up on a wobbly ladder holding up a heavy sign while my dad bolted it in place. I hated that... but I did it. I was responsible.

I had a job at the local movie theater (Century 21 in Pleasant Hill, CA) when I was in high school, and went from doorman (usher) to Assistant Manager to Acting Manager - full time positions, while still in high school. Oh, and I was in the drama department working backstage or onstage in a bunch of plays on my days off from work. My grades were okay, and in many classes I was that kid who did all of his homework and knew the answer to the questions and did the extra credit work. I also did some homework for other students - and this was a great writing exercise in trying to get their voice right so that they wouldn’t get in trouble. I was responsible.

At 18 (on the dot) I moved out of my parents house into an apartment. I had a job at K-Mart and then a job at Safeway Grocery. I also went to community college and made short films while working full time. One of my problems (then and now) is that I expect that if I do my part everyone else will do their part... and that has screwed me up now and then. After NINJA BUSTERS crashed and burned, so did I. I may do a “Flashback” blog entry about that - because there are some things that happened that are so famous that they were part of conversations with my friends back home over the holidays.

Anyway, once I went back to the day job, I was the guy who showed up on time every day, did a full day’s work even when the boss wasn’t watching, and would do an extra shift if asked. I have a friend who has been fired form every job he has ever had... I was the opposite - they always wanted to promote me. I was always the one they trusted the keys to. I was responsible.

When I sold a script for enough money to quit the day job, I put in my 2 weeks notice and worked just as hard during those last two weeks as in the weeks before. In Los Angeles, I subscribed to the newsletter that would become Script Magazine, wrote a letter to the editor complaining that none of the columnists had any actual experience as screenwriters and were just trying to sell books and classes... and they gave me a column to write for every issue... for no pay. I continued to write for no pay for years, and when they went to a magazine, wrote 3 columns (2 under pseudonyms) for free to save them money. I also used to have them ship me a couple of cases of magazines, and drove around to film book stores and made deals to get the magazine on the shelves. Didn’t get paid for that, either. I was just being responsible.

You may have read about my adventures working for free on my friend’s film a couple of years ago. It was hell on earth, and the film probably sucks (he has never showed it to me... but it just came out on DVD, so I’m going to rent it and see how messed up it is) but I had a good time... and was usually the first one on set. I also ended up doing the grip’s job while the grip went crazy in the grip truck. I stepped up when they needed someone to do the grip’s job... I was responsible.

This year I started with a bunch of new Script Tips, and I’ve been adding more as we go and rewriting old ones - Monday was a page one of an old tip. I want to make sure the website is a good source of information for screenwriters. That’s one of my responsibilities. A lot of people have ditched their blogs, and that’s tempting... but I’m going to try to keep it going (and get back to the Hitchcock Fridays) - It’s another responsibility. I also have these pesky script jobs every now and then - and those are my responsibility. Plus, my website has a message board where you can ask screenwritng questions and I answer them. There’s one I haven’t answered yet... and it bugs me. Oh, and I spent some time in line at the post office today to mail out some CD and Blue Book orders. More responsibility.

So, before the holidays, an organization asked if I would help with a contest. Hey, more responsibility! I tried my damndest to say no, but they explained how great it would be for me to do this and eventually I said yes. That was a mistake. I already have way too much to do, and things fall through the cracks sometimes because I’m busy doing all of the other things. And now, one more thing.

And something I did not really want to do.

So, it became a dreaded priority... that I would avoid... becoming irresponsible.

And that began a domino run of irresponsibility, because on the big To Do List, I had to do the dreaded priority before I did anything else... and that meant while I was not doing the dreaded priority I was *also* not doing anything else that needed to be done. Which may have been a major part of my doldrums. The Hitchcock Friday thing - responsibility I wanted to avoid (along with that dreaded priority project). Blogging - responsibility I wanted to avoid (along with that priority project). And by having so many things I was responsible for, and not wanting to do one of them... I ended up not doing any of them. I became the most irresponsible person on earth. I did *nada*. Well, I did write some new Script Tips, but not as many as I had planned on writing.

After getting some advice from a regular reader of this blog to just get ‘er done - I spent the last day and a half finishing the thing and now I am a free man.

Now all I have to do is write an article for Script, stand in line at the post office again, hopefully finish this half written new tip for Monday, and...

Finish this damned spec script that has been in the home stretch since the beginning of the year. I think I have about 4 days left on it, and Wednesday is DAY ONE. I hope to be writing FADE OUT on Saturday night.

Okay, now you probably want to know if I’ll ever get around to writing up that DARK KNIGHT review...

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: REVEALING INFORMATION - Which includes a 7 minute film.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Togos sandwich while working.

Bicycle: It rained yesterday and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so today I rode my bike. Medium bike ride to a Starbucks. After my last epic ride I was kind of blah the next day - I think I may have been dehydrated. Today's ride was more reasonable, and I plan on riding Thursday if it is not raining.

French Oscars

Why the French version of the Oscars (the Caesars) are better than the US version - Wardrobe malfunctions that nobody seems to care about except Emma Thompson. In this clip, notice that the MC and the rest of the audience don't see anything wrong with a stray breast popping out...

CAESAR AWARDS - Breast Unsupported Actress

- Bill

Movies On The Radio

On Wednesday I was a guest on the Screenwriter’s Utopia radio show. I think I may have been one of Chris’ first interviews on his website over a decade ago, so it was kind of cool. The subject was The Oscars, so I did some research and made sure I was prepared, with notes set out in front of me when I called in...

I like to be prepared. I was on some panel a few years back on some subject that I had an opinion on, but didn’t really know much outside of my personal experience... so I hit the books and did some research and had some great notes on the subject so that I could sound like an expert. Let’s face it, we all have opinions on all kinds of things we don’t know a damn thing about. This stimulus package? Hey - any money given out for infrastructure projects should only be used on *existing* roads and bridges and stuff - no new stuff! The new stuff can be pork! But, I actually know nothing about any of that stuff... I just have an opinion. We all have opinions, and they are all worthless. Only the facts count. What I believe doesn’t matter - the truth is what matters. So I made sure I wasn’t talking out of my backside and had the facts... and probably should have handed my notes to the moderator, because after we introduced ourselves he threw it open to questions and the very first question was off topic and the whole discussion never even touched on the subject of the panel... and all of my research went to waste.

And, true to form, after a couple of Oscar questions... the subject changed to me. Now, this is my least favorite subject. If you read my article in the new issue of Script Magazine, it’s all about two movies - not about me. When I wrote that out of print book the note I got from everyone was “more personal stories”... I argued that I’m not William Goldman, but everyone said I have such funny stories about how my scripts got screwed up, I should include a couple. When I first began doing classes (at Raindance) they were all about writing screenplays with nothing about me or my experiences... except the Q&A section of the class ended up being all questions about my experiences and my writing and “how did you sell your first script”, etc. So the class evolved to include some horror stories...

I think I’m a boring subject.

I was also not prepared to talk about myself.

And in a class or in a script tip or whatever - when I talk about some experience I’ve had on the front lines in the world of writing the screenplays you would not want to have on your resume, I do it to *illustrate some aspect of screenwriting*. Just like my subscription to Playboy, references to my career are strictly for educational purposes.

So when they began asking me questions about my so called career without any noticeable educational purpose, I had no idea where it was going an no idea how to form my answer. And sometimes when the purpose of the question became clear, I realized I had given the completely wrong answer... They asked me about breaking in through direct to video movies, and I gave the factual answer - the middle has completely dropped out of the DTV business, leaving studio sequels (AMERICAN PIE 27: STIFFLER’S MOM GOES TO BAND CAMP) and movies made for pocket change by Asylum. The studio sequels are studio movies - and getting that job is the same as getting any other studio screenwriting job (not easy). The surviving low end D2DVD guys like Asylum make movies for next to nothing and pay writers a couple thousand bucks (or less) for the script and rewrites. You can’t make a living doing that. And with DVD sales flat right now (bad economy, people are renting more than buying) the DVD world is even more difficult to break in to, because they will probably be making fewer original DVDs until this whole economy thing gets straightened out. Anyway, that was not the answer they wanted to hear - I think they wanted to know some easy way to break in. Instead, I was Debbie Downer.

Then I said, if some company like Asylum is only going to pay you $1k for your script, you’re better off making the film yourself... And that was not the answer they wanted, either. As someone who frequently stresses that money is supposed to flow *to* the screenwriter (rather than away from the screenwriter into someone else’s pocket), I understand their POV.

Anyway, all kinds of things that were not the Oscars were discussed, but it came off more the free-form screenwriting conversation I might have in the Driskill Bar during the Austin Film Festival after several beers (though, no alcohol was consumed during the radio interview). One of the reasons why I prefer doing online interviews than “talkers” is because I can come up with a good answer, instead of fumbling around for a while until I come up with a good answer... if I ever do. And, I guess, because as a writer - I would rather *write* the answers. But it was relatively painless, and I hope to be a guest on the show again sometime in the future.

Damn! This whole blog entry ended up about me!

I’m still trying to get caught up - I have a bunch of things on the To Do List, and it keeps growing. I have a bunch of half written blog entries that I need to finish...

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Character Secrets - and The Tuxedo.
Yesterday’s Dinner: McD's - on the bicycle - The bacon angus burger.

Bicycle: I only slept 4 hours on Monday night, and had the same problem on Wednesday night... so Tuesday and Thursday were just screwed up. Instead of getting on the bicycle and trying to get some blood flowing, I sat around and ate a bunch of junk food. Making me feel even worse. So today (Friday), having slept okay last night, I decided to take an epic bike ride. Actually, I never decided... I was sitting in one Starbucks and decided to ride to another Starbucks, and just kept riding. There’s a Circuit City in Van Nuys, and DVDs are 60% off, and there’s a bike path that goes from the North Hollywood subway station across the valley, so I just started riding. It's not a short ride. Once I got to Circuit City - sweaty - I went to the DVD racks... picked over, not much left. Lots of copies of HANCOCK and CRYSTAL SKULL (I mean *lots*) and as the guy on the other side of the aisle joked to his buddy, Nic Cage movies were over represented, there really wasn’t anything I wanted. But at 60% off, I grabbed that DMX Iceberg Slim movie - $4 - and stood in the never-ending line... which suddenly came to a dead stop when the cashier’s day came to an end and her replacement hadn’t arrived, yet. Ten minutes later the guy shows, and after all kinds of drama, he starts doing his job and the line starts moving again. And I pay my $4 and can get back on my bike and ride home... except I stop at this Starbucks about 3/4s of the way home to rest and check my e-mail and type up this blog entry. Now I’m going to ride the rest of the way home - I think my legs are ready for it. Anyway - a good bike ride today.

Movie Mix Ups!

Someone on a message board asked if anyone had the script to BLADES OF GLORY, and I answered that I had the script to BLADE and the script to GLORY... would that work?

Okay, if you combined BLADE and GLORY into one story - BLADES OF GLORY - what would that story be about? What is the one paragraph pitch for that movie?

Just for fun - what is your movie mash up that takes two existing movies to create a third existing movie - and what is the one paragraph pitch for that movie? The comments section awaits your pitch!

- Bill

My movies continue to attack the United Kingdom...

M4M2 - Sunday 2/22 - 20:05 - 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.

Monday 2/23 - 17:30 - 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.

Tuesday 2/24 - 20:05 - 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.

You Have been warned!

- Bill

New Steven Seagal Movie

Before we get to today's action flick trailer, I just have to mention that FRIDAY THE 13th broke all kinds of records over the weekend. It made $19 million on Friday alone, which is more than it cost to make. For the standard Fri-Sat-Sun weekend it made over $40 million, which is the biggest opening weekend for a horror remake ever. And it ended the holiday weekend with over $45.2 million (estimates, real numbers to come as soon as they finish counting up all of that money). Hey, box office is still up (President's Day Weekend up 32% over last year) and ticket sales are still 20% higher than last year - everyone is going to the movies. That's great for all of us.

But this redoodle of FRIDAY THE 13th is good for *me* because my big remake project has the same producer (he's produced many other movies, but I care mostly about mine), and with F13 being hot, I hope my project will get fast tracked onto the big production boards. And that might nudge some of these other circling scripts onto studio landing strips. Heck, maybe I'll even get an agent out of it.

Now to the trailer for the Steven Seagal film I wish that I had written...


Don't you wish you had written that?

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT RATINGS?.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Subway.
Bicycle: It's been raining like crazy in Los Angeles, so I haven't been on the bike in a while... and when you add in the holidays, I'm getting fatter just typing this. So Saturday we had a dry day and I took a long bike ride... and Sunday my legs were painful jello. We have more rain coming, but I need to get my legs back in shape before they turn to permanent jello.

Record Ticket Sales In January

From an AP story on this weekend's box office numbers...

North American box office revenues were up nearly 20 percent in January over the same period last year, reaching a record $1.03 billion for the month. Attendance was up 16 percent over last year, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media by Numbers.

"This is exactly how you want to start a year," Dergarabedian said Sunday. "I think people feel movies are a good value for their dollar. Going to a movie is a habit people aren't willing to break."

Hey, money may be tight but movies are doing well - someone tell Wall Street!

And that's not just a record January as far as money is concerned - it's a record for *ticket sales* - which means more people are going to the movies!


- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: INTERESTING PROTAGS - Making your Protagonist more interesting than that supporting character in scene #37.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Food Court BBQ chicken.

Movies: TAKEN - I don’t think it’s any surprise to you that I love kick ass action movies. When I first saw the *trailer* to TAKEN, I posted it on the blog because it looked like the kind of movie I would see on opening night. You know, a foreign film starring a serious actor. I was on somebody’s list and saw NIKITA at a screening long before the film came out. They told me it was a French action film, and as a fan of Melville and Chabrol and some of the other French genre guys, this excited me. But I was unprepared for even the opening shot! Wow! This guy Luc Besson was great! So I immediately rented SUBWAY and couldn’t wait for LEON and have seen everything he’s done since then... and wish he’d go back to directing. But directing a film may take a year or two, and he can co-write and produce a handful of films a year. I have no idea how he hooked up with the KARATE KID writer, but I wish it had been me instead. The films he and RMK have co-written always seem like they needed a couple more rewrites and maybe someone every once in a while to say “Bad idea, let’s do something else here” - but they are always good junky action entertainment. I was there on opening night for TRANSPORTER 3 and I was there on opening night for TAKEN.

Liam Neeson is one of those actors with a foot in serious drama and the other foot in the DARKMAN costume - I think he likes movies like this. Great that he’s playing the lead, here, because it turns a pretty much by-the-numbers revenge film into something better. It’s not a great film by a long shot, but imagine if they had cast Ah-nuld (oh, wait, they did and called it COMMANDO). Neeson brings not only acting to the role, but *attitude* - he can be serious and playful at the same time. When Neeson is torturing somebody, his taunts are light and amusing.

One of the things I liked about the film is that they allow Neeson to do some acting - he’s a divorced dad who seldom saw his daughter while she was growing up, and now that she’s almost an adult has retired and put his life on hold to try to make amends. They get the divorced dad thing right - it’s messy, with all kinds of unresolved issues. There is no happy ending - family gets back together feel in this film - this is a family torn apart and it’s going to stay that way. Neeson has never missed her birthday, and is stressing over her birthday gift - a karaoke machine. He reads over the specs and keeps going back to the electronics store - showing that he’s a guy who is all about the details and thinks through everything. When he wraps the gift, he carefully creases the corners of the wrapping paper - making them perfect. He is Mr. Precision.

We get a great scene at the birthday party - his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) has married a millionaire (played by completely underrated brilliant actor Xander Berkeley) and the party is at this mansion with heavy security. Neeson wants to give the gift to his daughter personally, but security wants him to put it in the assigned place. He is a complete outsider here, and they seem to be doing everything they can to get him to turn around and go home. But he gets past them, to his daughter and ex-wife. Ex-wife is still needling him, and *she* wants him to put the gift in the assigned place. He refuses, and has his daughter (Maggie Grace) open the gift in front of him. Now, we expect this to be the greatest gift ever, because he has spent so much time and effort selecting it... but the great thing about TAKEN is that again and again it does the unexpected. A boom box - because she wants to be a singer. Janssen snipes that she wanted to be a singer years ago... but Grace gives him a big hug anyway... and then Berkeley comes in with his gift - a Thoroughbred horse! She goes crazy, runs to the horse... leaving Neeson’s gift on the ground. Heart breaker. Major heart breaker.

The most OTN scene in the film is the barbeque with Neeson’s ex-spy guys. It’s a huge exposition dump disguised as guy banter - but the banter isn’t funny enough to make it work. At the end of the night they ask Neeson if he’d like to do some security work with them - these ex-spies now guard rock stars for a living. Neeson has always said no, but says yes this time... and helps guard this Shakira-like singer at a concert. Before the concert, he tells the singer that his daughter wants to be a singer and does she have any advice... and she just *slams* him. Again, in the Hollywood version she might have given some advice or at least not been so brutal. After the concert, when they are hustling the singer off stage, someone opens a door and a bunch of fans charge at her. The rest of the guys control the flood of fans, while Neeson gets the singer to her waiting car... but someone is waiting in the dark with a knife and attacks. Another unexpected event - we thought this was all about the fans, not an attack on the singer with the fans as the diversion. Neeson is prepared, takes down the attacker, stomps him, and gets the singer to the car and the car the hell out of there... in almost one fluid move. This guy is a badass!

Now the bitchy singer thaws and gives Neeson a business card with all of her contact info, and says if his daughter really can sing, she’ll do everything she can for her. Neeson realizes this is something rich stepfather Berkeley can’t do for his daughter - the business card is his big chance to connect with her. He arranges to have lunch with her, no ex-wife to ruin everything... but when Grace shows up, so does Janssen. But no matter what his ex-wife says, it can’t beat the business card, right? Maybe it’s *good* that Janssen showed, he can kind of rub her nose in it... But before he can get to the business card, his daughter asks a favor - she wants to spend the summer in Paris with her friend, and because she’s under 18, needs Neeson’s signature on a permission slip. The summer Neeson was going to spend getting closer to his daughter? She’s going to be in Paris. The whole conversation turns to allowing his 17 year old daughter to go to another country - where she could get into all kinds of trouble. The business card - which is what we expected the scene to be about - is forgotten.

When Grace and her friend get to Paris, they split a cab with a cute guy... and Grace discovers that the relatives of her friend they were supposed to be staying with are on vacation for the summer - so it’s just two boy-crazy girls in a Paris apartment. While she’s on the phone to Neeson, admitting that there is no adult supervision - some guys break into the flat and grab her friend. It’s sudden and unexpected and the struggle knocks over half the furnishings. Neeson tells her to find a bedroom and hide under the bed, then talks her through what will probably happen - including that killer line from the trailer where he says “You will be taken”. Hey, we though ex-spy dad would have some sort of plan to prevent that from happening! Nope. It’s inevitable. But we get a clever bit, here - Neeson tells her to leave the phone under the bed and yell out a description of the guys who grab her so that he can hear. The guys come into the bedroom, do a search, and leave without finding her... we are sure she’s safe! Then - YANK - someone grabs her feet and pulls her from under the bed. She screams her description, one of the badguys grabs the phone, Neeson makes his threat... and the phone is *smashed*.

But Neeson has recorded the phone call, takes the recording to one of his ex-spy buddies for analysis. Now, when they introduced all of these guys, I was sure they would end up part of the movie later on... but they don’t. The guys were played by recognizable character actors, so you think they will come back later in the story, Nope, This is it. One of the guys uses voice print technology and finds out that these guys are from Albania and even the exact village, based on their accent. Neeson packs his bags and jets to Paris to kick some Albanian ass.

Oh, and there’s a great bit of unexpected plotting here - two *wealthy* American girls are kidnaped. When the cute guy they share the cab with drops them off, the girlfriend says they have the whole fifth floor of the building... and the cute guy notes the expensive luggage and clothes and everything else. So, when the girls are kidnaped, we immediately think there will be a call to Xander Berkeley with a ransom demand. But there is no call. After being lead to believe this will be about ransom, it’s not. It’s a “white slave” ring - kidnaping tourist girls, getting them hooked on drugs, forcing them to work as prostitutes. Not what we expected. After setting up how rich Berkeley is for the first third of the film, the story does something else. That’s the thing I liked most about this film - whenever you thought you knew what would happen next, they did something you’d never expect.

Plus, these nasty Albanians can turn a carefree American girl on vacation into a drugged out whore in 96 hours - which gives us a ticking clock.

We get a couple more fairly clever scenes - one where Neeson walks through the Paris flat while listening to the phone call recording and matching destruction to sound. This helps him find clues in the flat. He finds the bedroom his daughter hid in, finds the smashed cell phone... and pulls out the chip. Takes the chip to a prints digital photos in some shopping area, and clicks through all of the cell phone photos his daughter took - including one of the two girls taken by the cute guy - and Neeson finds a reflection of the cute guy, blows it up, prints it...

And starts up the ladder of bad guys until he gets his daughter back.

Every time you think he’s finally found her, he hasn’t. We keep coming to that end scene where he kicks down a door, kills a bunch of scumbags, and rescues her... only she isn’t there. She’s been sold to somebody or transferred or moved, and Neeson must start all over again. There are many more completely unexpected things: A scene where he begins bothering a streetwalker to flush out her Albanian pimp - you expect Neeson to kick the pimp’s ass and force him to give information.... but he just apologizes and leaves, after planing a bug on the pimp. A scene where he’s kicking ass in a make-shift whorehouse at a factory - blankets hung on clotheslines to create rooms - and searches each “room”... spotting his daughter’s jacket (set up in earlier scenes) on the floor near a girl with long brown hair (like his daughter’s) who has just taken a conga-line of factory workers. You steel yourself for the heartbreak when he turns the girl’s face so that he can see it... not his daughter. But a clue to her - the drugged out girl remembers a street name and the *distinctive* color of the door to the building where they got her hooked on heroin. There’s a *great* unexpected scene where Neeson is cornered and shoots a *completely innocent* person in order to escape - doesn’t kill the person, but this is someone you *like*. Completely unexpected and brutal.

The film may be a straight ahead revenge flick, like GET CARTER or POINT BLANK, where the protagonist kills his way up the ladder until he gets to the person ultimately responsible, but even though the story itself is linear the scenes within the story are not. Unexpected things happen, and *anything* can happen. Neeson doesn’t win some of the fights, bad things happen to innocent people, and we are often lead to believe one thing will happen in a scene and then the exact opposite happens.

This unpredictability makes many of the scenes seem like they were made up on the spot, but really the opposite is true. These things take planning. As a writer, you either have to know your genre inside out so that you know exactly what the audience expects to happen in any given scene - so that you can do something completely different... or you have to create the expectations in the audience by leading them down the wrong path. Here we are constantly lead astray - after building up how wealthy Xander Berkeley is and dropping all of these clues that the girls were kidnaped for ransom... that’s not the case at all! After creating the expectations that Neeson is going to kick everybody’s ass - he just walks away from the pimp like an idiot tourist. After setting up a relationship between Neeson and this innocent person, he shoots them! Besson and Kamen had to create these expectations in order to subvert them. They had to know all along that Neeson would shoot this person so that they could make it seem like that would be the last thing Neeson would ever do.

One of the things I thought was clever about TAKEN was that the girls go on vacation to Paris - so that this French film can actually be shot in France.

The problems with TAKEN: Look, Paul Greengrass is now on my hit list for ruining action films. You can either do quick cuts *or* use a handheld camera. Can’t do both - because when the camera isn’t locked down and moves around, it takes our eyes longer to “grip” the image. When you do quick cuts we have less time to “grip” the image. Use one or the other and our eyes can “grip” the image and see what is happening. Use both and we don’t have time to see what that shaking image is before we are on to the next shaking image and it all ends up kind of a blur. We can process the overall concept of the scene, but not the specifics. Things get lost in the scramble of pixels and the sequence uninvolving and less affective. There are lots of ragged action scenes in the film, and another one of those car chases that looked like it might have been exciting and I wish I had been able to actually see it.

The film was also drama-deprived. Okay, I like kick ass action movies, but I also like a little drama and character woven in. It’s as if, after spending much of Act 1 giving Neeson some good acting scenes, they just got rid of anything that required acting for the rest of the script. There were even some good juicy scenes that seemed to be set up for drama - when Neeson is caring for the drugged out girl and tells her he’s the father of a kidnaped girl, there *needed* to be a scene. Heck this drugged out girl has a father, too - she’s exactly the same as Neeson’s daughter! Why not make that into a scene? Why not hold back a smidgen of the Neeson-wasn’t-there-for-his-daughter and use it here? Why not turn the girl into more than just a clue to the next round of scumbags for Neeson to kill? And in several other places in the film, I would have given Neeson a chance to do some acting. There was more drama in the last Jean Claude Van Damme movie!

Also, the villains were cardboard cut outs waiting to get killed. Sort of central casting bad guys. This goes back to Hitchcock, the better the villain, the better the movie. In the first PIRATES movie Barbosa becomes more frightening when his motivation is revealed and we *understand it* - now it’s not just a bad guy doing bad things, he has a motivation that makes so much sense we know he can’t be deterred. Barbosa has too much at stake to be talked out of this or give up if it becomes too difficult - and that makes him more frightening that the cardboard cut out bad guys in this film. They needed to take the villains - even the Albanians - and give them a human moment where we understood their motivations and understood that they would rather die than give up the information about Neeson’s daughter. That makes the task *more* difficult and *more* dangerous. Good villains make good movies. Cardboard bad guys make crap action movies like this - hey, great to see a guy kick ass, but better if it’s not just action porn and I *feel* something.

Still, pretty good action porn, mostly due to the brutal and unexpected stuff and Neeson... and a non-Hollywood ending.

- Bill

Zombies Invade Austin & With A Melon?

Yes, those clever zombies are back again. This time they are attacking Austin, TX... but at least it's being controlled:



***

And NBC has rejected a commercial from PETA for the Super Bowl. PETA asked NBC what it would take for the commercial to air. NBC suggested the following cuts be made:

:12- :13- licking pumpkin

:13- :14- touching her breast with her hand while eating broccoli

:19- pumpkin from behind between legs

:21- rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin

:22- screwing herself with broccoli (fuzzy)

:23- asparagus on her lap appearing as if it is ready to be inserted into vagina

:26- licking eggplant

:26- rubbing asparagus on breast

- Bill

Two Sides Of Stubborn

Emily over at Bamboo Killers will probably kill me for this, but you need to go over and read her new blog entry...

Bamboo Killers - Making A New Me

It is a great lesson in *screenwriting* even though it's all about her adventures as a high school teacher. One of the good things and bad things about most of us trying to make a living putting words in actor's mouths is that we're stubborn. That is a great character trait when everyone is telling us we'll never make it in this business - we stick with it. But also can be a problem when we hit a hurdle we can't make it over, and keep trying to do it the same way again and again and it doesn't work.

The great W. C. Fields said, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it."

But Emily has the better solution - if what you are doing isn't working, try doing something else. We all stick by our guns and resist changing... but changing is often the way we solve our problems. Great to be stubborn and stick it out when everyone tells you that you don't have a chance in hell, but not great to be stubborn when your method isn't working. Time to back up, look at what you are doing and see if there is a better way... even if that better way may be something you don't like. Like the kids in Emily's class who hate doing school work, the road to success isn't only doing what you like doing, it's doing what will be best for you in the long run. Sometimes you won't like doing it, but it's what has to be done.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Doing That Indie Thing which was a new tip last year at this time..
Yesterday’s Dinner: brown bagged it on my bike.
Pages: Finished and turned in the rewrite on the remake project, now writing some new tips and working on this country western bar spec.
Bicycle: After three weeks of not riding over the holidays plus a week of iffy weather when I returned, I rode to Eric's store opening... then we had a week of rain... and I rode yesterday and have sore legs today. So, I'm back on the bike today - doing a subway/bike excursion into Hollywood for a ScreamFest mixer.

Another one of my movies attacks England...

UK's M4M - Wednesday 28th - 10:45 - 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.

Home For The Holidays Recap (part 2)

I was going to do blog entries over the holidays, but just never really got around to it. Instead I did all kinds of other things, including a bunch of new Script Tips. So here is the capsule version in two parts...

PART TWO: GUYS MOVIE PROJECT

Part of the holidays is spending time with old friends, and this year that focused on our movie project. Before I even went home, I sent Van and John an e-mail reminding them of the project so that they could be thinking about it before our first meeting. I decided to change the logline slightly, to make it a more dramatic situation.

NEAR HIT
Building Contractor Dave Jackson checks into a San Francisco hotel for his second honeymoon... without his wife. She's just begun divorce proceedings against him. He's alone in the city. A knock at the door. When Jackson answers, no one there. Just a manila envelope. Inside the envelope: A man's photo, several bundles of hundred dollar bills, and a 357 Magnum. Jackson realizes the envelope has been delivered to the wrong room... And the hit man is after him! Caught between hitman and victim, regular guy Dave Jackson must fight to survive.

In the earlier version he was in the hotel for a class reunion, which doesn’t make as much sense as the second honeymoon thing... and getting dumped by your wife also makes for a juicy opening scene.

Now, our meetings work like this: we meet in some restaurant, have dinner, see a movie, then head to a bar and talk about the project... and anything else. John and Van both have experience making short films, and Van has DPed some features, and one of the great things about this project is that we already have some equipment and access to some of the things we will need - and we are making lists of things we have or can get to increase production value along with story ideas. Sometimes these are the same thing - if someone has access to a cool location, that location may spark a scene. For me (the guy who has to write this) the most important things are the cliffhangers - we need 11 of them. This is a multiple experiment: Though the main reason for making this film is probably just to have a good time with old friends, I also have a bunch of articles on writing on a budget and tricks for making a low budget project look like a big budget film, and I’m gong to fold that into a book on making your own film... and it would be stupid of me not to have actually done it. So making this movie is research for that book - so I’ll be writing some new articles that will take the film from planning stages to the shelf at Blockbuster (hopefully). But the other part of the experiment is “new media”. It’s being written as a 12 part web series, so that I can learn about that and include it in the book. You guys will probably get some of this before anyone else as blog entries. But the key to the webisodes are strong cliff hangers at the end of each episode - I’m modeling this after the old movie serials and kind of after the TV show 24. But the cliffhangers are the tough part, so much of our meetings (when we aren’t just hanging out) is trying to figure out those 11 cliffhangers.

Well, John and Van are completely different types. John is someone who thinks over a situation before he acts... Van acts first, thinks later. John is funny because he will start to say something, then stop mid sentence to think, then complete his sentence (or, stop again after a few words). Van just blurts stuff out. So at our first meeting, John says almost nothing about the stuff I’ve e-mailed him. Van is coming up with crazy ideas that make no sense. “What if the guy goes back to the hotel, and his wife’s super-hot friend is there, and they have wild monkey sex... then his wife walks in!” “Okay, Van, but why would he go back to the hotel if he knows that’s where the hit man is staying?” “He forgets his keys? Hey, maybe he *knows* the super-hot friend will be there?” John just sits there - maybe thinking.

Van’s idea ended up being great... because it sparked a better idea (from me) - since this hotel room was supposed to be for a second honeymoon/anniversary thing, what if the *wife* shows up at the hotel to make up with him? And the hit man captures her? Okay, that’s a cliff hanger! It also sets up a scene where the hit man uses the wife to lure the hero into a trap - which can be another cliff hanger!

Meanwhile, nothing from John on the story stuff from the e-mail.

EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT

One of the things about being home for the holidays is seeing how much everything has changed. Back in the old days, John, Van and I would probably be drinking in TR’S BAR & GRILL in Concord. The downtown section of Concord had become a slum - pawn shops and sleazy bars and dirty and ugly. So the city decided to renovate the area a few decades back. The big concern was the old bank building, which was built in the 20s or 30s and looks just like those banks they rob in 1930s gangster movies. It was a cool building... then a pawn shop. But when they kicked out the pawn shop, TR’s moved in, and went with the old building motif. They put in an upscale bar and restaurant that looked like something from the 20s or 30s - wood and leather and all kinds of Teddy Roosevelt memorabilia like dead animal heads that watched you drink. (Yes, I know Roosevelt was dead by the 1920s, but this was an old bank building, not a log cabin in the woods.) The great thing about TR’s was that it was both an upscale bar and a neighborhood bar. The Old Hideout Bar down the street was a really low end neighborhood bar where all of Concord’s drunks congregated. When they closed that to put up some more reputable business, the drunks moved down to TR’s... and were not kicked out. This gave the place lots of atmosphere - it was like a speakeasy, with wealthy clientele sitting next to people who spent the better part of the day drinking. And the drunks were always on their best behavior at TR’s - because they *would* be booted if they caused trouble. So they didn’t bother anyone, but would add their 2 cents to any sports or political debate; and were respectful of everyone else in the bar. TR’s was a great place to just drink, or to take a date you want to impress for dinner. A fun place...

And now it’s gone. A pizza joint has taken it’s place, and that once beautifully rebuilt downtown section seems to be taking the slow slide back to crummy. Give it a decade, there may be a pawnshop back in the bank building.

The other big change is John’s Theatre has been closed down by the city of Pleasant Hill and may be bulldozed. I know Van from the Film Appreciation Class at Diablo Valley College and even though John also took that class I mostly know him through the acting classes at DVC and the guy who ran the theatre program, Les Abbott. John is an actor who makes movies, and has remained involved with community theatre. One of the oldest buildings in Pleasant Hill (next door to Concord) is the old school house, and it had fallen into disrepair, so the city was looking for people to help renovate it and use it as a city building. The theatre company John was involved with, Onstage (my sister was a musician in their first show, directed by Les) was looking for a home... and was a perfect fit for the old school house. John (building contractor by day) built a beautiful 99 seat theatre inside the old schoolhouse, and for 20 years they’ve been doing shows there. In fact, they often have a New Year’s Eve party that I’m invited to as a friend of the theatre. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was appearing in a show at the school house theatre... as a TV announcer who interacts with people on stage when they turn on the TV. This year they didn’t have a New Year’s Eve party because they didn’t a theatre, the city of Pleasant Hill has closed the building because it’s potentially unsafe because it is old. Um, yeah. It’s a historical building. Of course it’s old. They found some sort of code violation, which John offered to repair... but something is going on behind the scenes and they declined his offer and shut the theatre. It’s a shame, because it’s the only place to see live plays in town, and they really try to do something interesting and different instead of the same old community theatre musical crap.

NEW YEARS EVE

So, John, Van and I had a couple more meetings on the project, and Van kept coming up with crazy ideas, and John kept coming up with nothing. I was getting worried - I needed John to come up with some great ideas, if nothing else, so that he would have some of his story material in the screenplay. I want this to be *our* project, not *my* project. One of our meetings, John does come up with a potential actress, and we also talk about some locations... but not enough to balance Van’s crazy-creative ideas.

Because the Onstage New Years’s Eve party is canceled, and Van (who is some sort of unexplainable chick magnet) is going to be without a date on NYE, the three of us decide to do the usual NYE thing... which is pretty much what we’ve already been doing. Many times the three of us have done the bachelor New Year’s Eve...

One memorable year, San Francisco decided to have this big free outdoor concert with fireworks. Cool! On New Years Eve, the BART trains run until 3am, so everyone takes the train to avoid driving drunk. So that year our plan was to eat dinner, see a movie, then find a cheap bar and have a bunch of drinks - because the free concert was no alcohol, and there were police searching everybody’s bags and patting you down for weapons. We did all of the above, but hit a snag when it came to cheap bars - on New Year’s Eve even the worst bar hires a band and has a hefty cover charge. We ended up walking halfway across the city until we found a restaurant with a bar that had no cover charge. After drinking, we made our way to the concert area, went through the search (they didn’t find the booze inside us) and discovered that everyone else got their way early... and we were too far away from the music to hear any of it. Place was so crowded you couldn’t *move*, let alone get to the porta-potties. You had to plan your piss about 2 hours in advance to give you time to get there. And somehow, people got booze past the police. In one case, I saw a guy pull a bottle out of the bottom of a trash can - he had hidden it there in the morning! We stayed for the midnight fireworks, then split and found a bar for a last couple of drinks... then I went down to the BART station (subway) to hop a train back to Concord. The station is packed almost as tight as the concert was... hundreds of people! And the trains come... full of passengers... and the doors don’t open. They just zoom away. Then a couple of empty trains zoom past without stopping. People are getting angry. Finally, just before the riot starts, a train comes and opens it’s doors and we cram in. Now we have a full train - overflowing almost. And this train zooms past other stations without stopping, and I get it. The BART train goes *under* the Bay. When they had the earthquake, the bridges went down, the BART tunnels were completely unharmed. But it’s a long ride underground... with a bunch of really drunk people... and one of them pukes. On the far end of the train car. But a chain reaction starts - you know how it is - and suddenly everyone is puking. By the time we reach Oakland, the floor of the train is a river. Yech! Problem is, Concord is end of the line, and I have to ride this puke train all the way there. When the train banks on corners, the river flows one way. When the train comes to a stop, the river flows another way. Yech! It takes everything I’ve got not to add to the river. I finally get home, and want to burn my shoes. Worst train ride ever.

This year, no concert. You see, it rains in San Francisco, making an outdoor concert silly. They still have fireworks, though, but we’re gonna ditch them. The plan is - dinner, movie, drinks. And we have a great plan. One year we went to this cool and usually crowded sports bar near the Metreon Cinemas, and found out the danged place closes at 9pm on New Year’s Eve! You see, they let their employees have the night off to go to parties. So what that means is that no one goes there on New Year’s Eve, and it’s pretty easy to get in... you have your pick of tables. Then the movie - again, people are partying so you can pick whatever seat you want. After that comes the hard part - finding a bar in San Francisco without a cover charge and some live band blasting music so loud we can’t talk. But Van knows about this bar in Chinatown, where they have a *different* New Year’s Eve (I think it’s today). And this bar has a ton of character - it’s a landmark kind of place, one of the oldest bars in the city, and a neighborhood bar filled with Chinese drunks... and enough other people know about it that there are always a group of hot gals who end up there on New Year’s Eve and some college kids who go there to avoid the crowds. The best/worst thing about this place is you go down a bunch of flights of stairs into some sub-sub-sub basement that seems to be miles below street level to get to the restrooms. Keeps you in shape.

So we start at the sports bar... and who shows up but Janet Englebert and her boyfriend! I went to high school with Janet, we were in a bunch of plays together, and I had a major crush on her. The great thing about being the heterosexual guy in the high school drama department is that you often get to see girls in their underwear doing quick costume changes backstage. Okay, this is probably getting pervy, so I’ll get back to New Year’s Eve... I haven’t seen Janet in decades! She starred in one of my super-8mm movies, playing the Grace Kelley role from HIGH NOON in my FISTFUL OF MOZZARELLA movie, and Van played the Man With No Social Security Number (male lead). He’s kept in contact with her all of these years, and invited her and her boyfriend along. Janet brought a bunch of pictures of me from one of the high school shows - it didn’t look anything like me. It was great to see that stuff again. We talked about the old days, and all of the people we went to school with back then. Here’s the thing - Janet hasn’t changed a bit. She looks exactly like she did in the photos.

From there we went to different movies, and John, Van and I went to Chinatown while Janet and her boyfriend went somewhere else. The bartender in the Chinatown bar is a character, and bought us a couple of rounds. We talked a little about the movie, but again - John just wasn’t coming up with anything and Van was coming up with crazy ideas that might have worked if we were doing a sci-fi film.

AND NOW, THE PUNCHLINE

Our last dinner & drinks meeting didn’t have a movie. Van doesn’t just know every hole in the wall bar, he knows ever hole in the wall place to eat. I have eaten some of the best meals I’ve ever had at places in the Bay Area that Van knows about. Probably the best breakfast I have ever eaten was as this neighborhood place in Oakland that served home fries that were amazing. So, Van had just been paid for a job and had this Italian restaurant he wanted to go to - called Jackson Filmore - which is the cross streets where it’s located. The food was great, reasonably priced, and the waiters were great. Afterwards, Van asked what kind of bar we would like to go to - a fancy place, or a dive? We picked dive - and it was a great neighborhood Tiki Bar place. Great atmosphere and cheap beer - what more could you want?

So, we start talking about the movie project, and I finally ask John if he has any ideas... and he says, “I would if I knew what the story was.” Seems his spam filter had been removing all of the e-mails I had been sending him. Van was getting them, John was not. So we spent the last night the three of us were together to discuss the movie project telling John what the movie project *was*.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: All About Running Gags old tip from 2001, completely rewritten.
Yesterday’s Dinner: El Pollo Loco chicken, black beans, corn.
Pages: Working on the rewrite of the remake project.

Oscar Nominations

Best Picture: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "The Reader," "Slumdog Millionaire."

Adapted Screenplay: Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; John Patrick Shanley, "Doubt"; Peter Morgan, "Frost/Nixon"; David Hare, "The Reader"; Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire."

Original Screenplay: Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"; Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"; Martin McDonagh, "In Bruges"; Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"; Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter, "WALL-E."

Actor: Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"; Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon"; Sean Penn, "Milk"; Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler."

Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"; Angelina Jolie, "Changeling"; Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"; Meryl Streep, "Doubt"; Kate Winslet, "The Reader."

Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, "Milk"; Robert Downey Jr., "Tropic Thunder"; Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Doubt"; Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"; Michael Shannon, "Revolutionary Road."

Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, "Doubt"; Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"; Viola Davis, "Doubt"; Taraji P. Henson, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Marisa Tomei, "The Wrestler."

Director: David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"; Gus Van Sant, "Milk"; Stephen Daldry, "The Reader"; Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire."

Foreign Film: "The Baader Meinhof Complex," Germany; "The Class," France; "Departures," Japan; "Revanche," Austria; "Waltz With Bashir," Israel.

Animated Feature Film: "Bolt"; "Kung Fu Panda"; "WALL-E."

Art Direction: "Changeling," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "The Duchess," "Revolutionary Road."

Cinematography: "Changeling," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "The Reader," "Slumdog Millionaire."

Sound Mixing: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Slumdog Millionaire," "WALL-E," "Wanted."

Sound Editing: "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man," "Slumdog Millionaire," "WALL-E," "Wanted."

Original Score: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Alexandre Desplat; "Defiance," James Newton Howard; "Milk," Danny Elfman; "Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman; "WALL-E," Thomas Newman.

Original Song: "Down to Earth" from "WALL-E," Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman; "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman and Gulzar; "O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam.

Costume: "Australia," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Duchess," "Milk," "Revolutionary Road."

Documentary Feature: "The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)," "Encounters at the End of the World," "The Garden," "Man on Wire," "Trouble the Water."

Documentary (short subject): "The Conscience of Nhem En," "The Final Inch," "Smile Pinki," "The Witness — From the Balcony of Room 306."

Film Editing: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "Slumdog Millionaire."

Makeup: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Hellboy II: The Golden Army."

Animated Short Film: "La Maison en Petits Cubes," "Lavatory — Lovestory," "Oktapodi," "Presto," "This Way Up."

Live Action Short Film: "Auf der Strecke (On the Line)," "Manon on the Asphalt," "New Boy," "The Pig," "Spielzeugland (Toyland)."

Visual Effects: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man."

Academy Award winners previously announced this season:

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (Oscar statuette): Jerry Lewis

Gordon E. Sawyer Award (Oscar statuette): Pixar Animation co-founder Ed Catmull

***
Hey, where's the Batman?

How come Mike Leigh keeps getting screenplay noms for improvised movies?

What are your favorites?

I'm really glad Richard Jenkins was nommed for VISITOR, he's one of those actors who have been in a million movies & TV shows and is always good. But VISITOR is really his movie, and it's hard to imagine some other actor pulling that off. He found out about his nomination when he got a phone call - he wasn't watching TV because he knew he didn't reallyhave a chance with a small movie that opened at the start of the year and is now forgotten. Surprise!

I was also surprised they didn't nom DARK KNIGHT best picture - I like BATMAN BEGINS much better, but worse films have been nominated (and won) and the awards show might have actually found some viewers this year. Or WALL-E, which made a bunch of critic's #1 spot on their top ten films. The Oscars are an Awards SHOW. Here's a link to my ideas for fixing the Oscars from last year: Fixing Oscar.

- Bill

Presidents On Film

From DAVE, screenplay by Gary Ross...

"If you've ever seen the look on somebody's face the day they finally get a job, I've had some experience with this, they look like they could fly. And its not about the paycheck, it's about respect, it's about looking in the mirror and knowing that you've done something valuable with your day. And if one person could start to feel this way, and then another person, and then another person, soon all these other problems may not seem so impossible. You don't really know how much you can do until you, stand up and decide to try."

Deja Vu All Over Again!

- Bill

PS: M4M2 Jan 18 19:10 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.

Remebering Bob Wilkins

Bob Wilkins passed away a couple of days ago from alzheimers disease. He had been suffering for several years, so it was probably a blessing that he was finally released from whatever pain he may have had. Though it is always a tragedy when someone has alzheimers, when someone was a quick wit like Bob Wilkins, it seems especially tragic. Wilkins was another of those people who influenced who I am today... and he may have been one of the earliest influences (right after my 6th grade teacher Bob Olson... but Bob Wilkins was *famous*).

By now most of you are wondering just who the hell Bob Wilkins was?

If you grab your TV remote and click around the stations, you will probably find nothing but network stuff. Even after the merger of UPN and WB into CW, the stations that were left behind got gobbled up by Fox as part of that Telenovela experiment that failed, and now is My Network. Except for the news, you probably won’t find any locally generated programs. But back when I was a kid and dinosaurs ruled the earth, there were actual *independent* TV stations that created their own local TV shows. Every city had them, and big cities probably had more than one. Small towns may have even had them, but living halfway between Oakland and Stockton, we got our TV shows from one city or another.

Our big VHF (2-13) independent station was KTVU 2 out of Oakland. Though they probably had a syndicated show or two, mostly everything on channel 2 was homegrown. They made their own kid shows: Miss Pat’s Playroom was the little kid’s activity show where you would bend and stretch and reach for the stars and color pictures and do other creative things, and then there was an older kid’s hosted cartoon show, like Charlie & Humphrey. There was a cooking show and a dance show in the afternoon where they’s play the latest records. But the staple of KTVU was movies, and you always had to know the Count & Amount in case the phone rang during Dialing For Dollars in the afternoon... hosted by Pat McCormick (the weatherman). There was also the 8 O’clock movie, followed by the Don Sherwood Show - our local version of The Tonight Show hosted by radio comedian Don Sherwood (who was Chief Santa - the Native American Santa Claus - during the holiday season). And on Saturday nights, there was CREATURE FEATURES with Bob Wilkins.

Wilkins had begun the show on the NBC affiliate out of Sacramento, KCRA, and that’s where I first watched it... but when he moved to KTVU the show really took off.

CREATURE FEATURES would usually begin with Bob Wilkins in his yellow rocking chair, smoking a big cigar, and warning the audience that tonight's movie was so bad, you don't have to wait for commercial breaks to go to the bathroom. Go anytime, you won't miss anything good. I kind of swiped that for my Action book when I talk about pacing and the Bladder Buster movie. Bob Wilkins usually didn't show Bladder Busters...

Every city’s independent station had a horror host, but Bob Wilkins was different. He didn’t wear a costume, he wasn’t trying to be scary... he was kind of like Woody Allen. He wore glasses, dressed like school teacher, and didn’t have any horror props - no coffins or headstones. He had a quick wit - a dry wit - and would say the funniest things about the films during commercial breaks. Better than Mystery Science Theater comments. In a way, his method was more Hitchcock than Elvira - he’d have some joke or skit or something between film segments that was usually more entertaining than the films. That's when you didn't want to go to the bathroom - when the movie wasn't on and Bob Wilkins was. The commercial breaks were why you watched CREATURE FEATURES.


"Our second film is Monster From the Ocean Floor. This movie is so bad that it was delivered to Channel 2 in a brown paper bag. When we're through showing it tonight, it will be part of a garage sale in Alameda tomorrow."

The films were a great mix of good and bad. He showed all of the Japanese monster movies like GODZILLA, MOTHRA, and RODAN... and his comments about these films made you love them *because* of their faults. These days I have a love for movies so bad they’re good - and I owe that to Wilkins. He showed me (and everyone else watching) that a cheesy movie could be fun. The worse the film, the better his jokes about it. And when he wasn’t showing movies featuring Japanese guys in rubber suits, he was showing awful movies featuring American guys in rubber suits. All kinds of bad B movies with monsters and creeping unknowns....

And those silly movies that you would laugh at more than scream at were balanced with really good horror and sci-fi films. I probably saw CREEPING UNKNOWN and THEM! and CURSE OF THE DEMON and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and all of the Universal monster movies on CREATURE FEATURES. George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD made its TV premiere on his show. He warned everyone that it was a really scary movie - and really gross. We would want to cover our eyes, and it would probably give us nightmares... and he was right!



When you’re a kid with too much imagination who doesn’t really fit in, horror movies were a lifesaver. Horror movies not only taught you how to conquer your fears, they showed you stories about big ugly misunderstood folks like you... who made the normal people afraid. When Frankenstein’s Monster meets his Bride for the first time, and falls in love with her at first site... but she’s just not into him... “She hate me!” I could relate. Monster movies and science fiction films sparked my imagination and made me feel normal. Every Saturday night CREATURE FEATURES would either provide a movie so bad it was good that I could laugh at, or a really scary or really imaginative movie that I enjoyed as much as the old Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies they showed on Sunday nights.

Bob Wilkins also had great interviews with all of the stars of horror movies, the filmmakers, and often showed short horror films from viewers. I remember one of the short films to this day - a man comes home from work and takes off his neck tie, takes off his coat, takes off his shoes, takes off his shirt, takes off his right arm, takes off his legs, takes off his left arm... and then what is left falls into bed! The cool thing about the shorts and the interviews with film directors - and even the local film makers who made the shorts - is that a kid like me discovered that people made movies, even people in the towns near me! That meant maybe I could make movies, too!

Wilkins was probably the first person on TV that I met in person. During summers he would have a movie club that showed kid-friendly sci-fi and monster movies in school auditoriums. Mostly just to give kids something to do over summer instead of breaking the windows of some condemned building in the old part of town. One of the schools he always showed movies in was my Intermediate School - just beyond the creek behind my house. My parents wouldn’t let me cut through the creek, so I had to go around. But I must have seen The Three Stooges visit every planet in our solar system thanks to Bob Wilkins. And he’d have raffles and give away candy bars and sign autographs... I once got an autographed picture of Godzilla at one of his movie club showings! Godzilla! What star is bigger than Godzilla?



I don't think I would be the person I am, and love the films I love, if it hadn't been for Bob Wilkins. A few weeks ago I posted on a message board about discovering BASKETCASE on a video store shelf and renting it - would I have ever done that without a show like CREATURE FEATURES in my childhood?

Bob Wilkins is gone, now. I’m sure he’s somewhere up there in his chair, puffing on a big cigar and making fun of the Keanu version of DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. I will always remember him, and his jokes, and those movies where you didn’t have to wait for the commercials to go to the bathroom. He will be missed.

Bob Wilkins tribute

Creature Features

- Bill

Home For The Holidays Recap

I was going to do blog entries over the holidays, but just never really got around to it. Instead I did all kinds of other things, including a bunch of new Script Tips. So here is the capsule version in two parts...

PART ONE: CHRISTMAS DINNER

At my sister’s house. Our family has lived in Concord forever, my grandfather on my father’s side moved there to drill water wells for farmers. My mother’s side moved to the Bay Area during WW2 because there were jobs in the shipyards and in factories. And no one ever moved away. All but one of my mother’s three sisters live in the area. One of my dad’s brothers lived with my grandparents well into adulthood, the other brother set out for parts unknown - kind of an INTO THE WILD thing. Both my brother and sister live local. So the whole family is *there*. Both sides. Nobody leaves Concord. Ever.

For as long as I can remember, we had Thanksgiving at my parent’s house and Christmas at my Aunt Sharon’s. Now, the strange thing in my family is that when my Uncle Glen moved out of my grandparent’s house, it was because he married my Aunt Sharon. My father’s brother married my mother’s sister. That kind of stuff is still legal in most states. My Uncle Glen (who was married to my Aunt Sharon before he died) had all kinds of 8mm movie stuff, as well as a bunch of toys - he was an adult who lived at home with his parents for much of his life. If this had been today’s world, he’d have a ton of video games, but back then he had those 3 minute versions of GODZILLA on 8mm. Add that to my Aunt Norma who worked at the movie theater, and you have a kid who wants to grow up and make movies. When I was a kid my Uncle Glen used to make toy trucks out of old milk cartons, pencils and 8mm film reels. Anyway, after he passed away, we still at Christmas at my Aunt Sharon’s house in the horse country area of Concord. Then, I think between her two sons (my cousin-cousins) moving away and some sort of silly family skirmish, Christmas moved to my sister’s house. Part of that might have been my sister *having* a house.

The old family traditions are still there: there is a competition for best name tags at the place settings, there are still jokes about the time my Aunt Sharon made the crescent rolls and screwed up the recipe so that they weighed about a pound a piece (even though my Aunt Sharon now eats Christmas dinner alone - something I still don’t understand), and when it’s time for holiday pie everyone asks for mincemeat because they know nobody made one. Oh, and the candles usually remain unlit due to someone forgetting.

So this year, sisters two girls (my nieces) show up - one is now not only married, she’s about to pop a kid! Her husband Markus is a great guy, but he’s into tattoos and piercings and my niece is head to toe tattoos. Colorful. Markus is a big guy, who looks like he’s beat the crap out of you if you looked at him funny, but he’s really a quiet shy guy... who is a fan of kung fu movies and has seen all of my stuff (before he married my niece). My other niece, who is a nurse, is engaged to the guy she brought last year - who is clean cut and kind of preppy (I think he’s in medical school, soon to be a doctor) and has a sly wit. This came in handy, because my sister’s husband’s father’s wife is the third most annoying person on earth. I think she’s a trophy wife. She needs to be the center of attention at all times, and brought a couple of hundred vacation photos (some were even in focus) and then made sure we all looked through them. She said she would have brought *all* of them, but didn’t want to bore us. And she talked a mile a minute all night long. She was at the other end of the table from me, so I survived. My poor parents sat right next to her. They probably know every single thing that happened to her on vacation in minute detail. After diner we played a board game, and she insisted on being team captain and then complained about it. Eventually everyone went home... and I realized the next time I see my nieces, one will be a tattooed mother and the other will probably be getting married to a future doctor. Things are turning out well for both of them.

Socks.

- Bill
Classes On CD On Sale!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Likeable Leads & SWINGVOTE brand new tip for 2009.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Del Taco on the road.

NEXT FRIDAY: Hitchcock Returns!

Movies: CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON - This film is almost three hours long.... and based on some old short story and, you know, *important*. So I never really expected to really like it, let alone cry a half dozen times. The concept is simple.... yet complex... Benjamin Button is born a withered old man/baby and grows younger with each passing year... ending up a baby. Someone in the film says we begin in diapers and end up in diapers - and, honestly, how many babies look like bald little old men? That’s probably what sparked the short story ages ago, and it’s what makes this film from the writer of FOREST GUMP both interesting and insightful. The film gets to deal with aging and loss and being different and feeling old when you are young and young when you look old... and how we see things and people differently. Oh, and it’s a romance and an adventure and kind of does that FOREST GUMP thing with history - though more with time periods than with specific people and incidents.

There are people who always say Hollywood should make more movies like this and fewer of those big budget special effects movies where everything is fake... except BUTTON probably has more special effects than any of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies! There are only a couple of scenes where no character is in old age make up. Because Benjamin starts old and grows young, in the early scenes he is always in old age make up. As a baby, he’s a special effect. As a child, his face is all CGI - some amalgamation of Brad Pitt and digital aging and whatever they did to create the Gollum in LORD OF THE RINGS. As Benjamin gets younger... the rest of the characters het older! So when we finally get Brad Pitt without make up, everyone around him must be in old age make up! Someone is always in make up in this film.

And because it takes place in the past... the backgrounds are all special effects. 1918 New Orleans no longer exists - they had to take 2008 New Orleans and use a bunch of special effects to transform it. And many of the locations and events in the film are special effects. This movie is all fake!

Because Benjamin is a freak, the story has many scenes about his adventures trying to fit in, and trying to act his age even though he doesn’t look it. He befriends a Pygmy - someone his own size - who takes him to the French Quarter and introduces him to night clubs and brothels and other adult diversions. He is surrounded by old folks who look just like him... and many have reverted to childhood. This film has a great running gag - one of the old guys tells him he was struck by lighting 7 times in his life - and each time he tells him of a different event, and we see the lightning strike. This is spread throughout the film and always gets a laugh. But the main thing about living in an old folks home is that characters are constantly dying. And Benjamin learns about death at an early age. Benjamin gets a job on a tugboat with a colorful crew - and every one of these characters is as different as Benjamin. The captain wanted to be an artist, but ended up running his father’s tugboat... and tattooing all kinds of interesting art on his body. He’s an illustrated man. Speaking of fathers, Benjamin’s father Mr. Button is often in the background of his life... and later a part of his life. They even steal a shot from FIVE EASY PIECES where Nicholson takes his aging father in his wheelchair out to the woods to have a heart to heart conversation as the sun sets behind them. Same shot, same scene with Benjamin and his father.

But the core of the film is the love story between Benjamin and Daisy (Cate Blanchet) the grand daughter of one of the people in the old folks home. They played hide and seek together as children and have an on again off again relationship throughout the story. This is a long film, and there is a point in the story where something happens in their relationship which leads you believe the film is probably over, so you grab your coat... and then the film goes on for another half hour. That half hour is okay, and has one of the great scenes in the film, but you kind of wish they had quit when they were ahead.

The most curious thing about BENJAMIN BUTTON is that it has lots of great scenes, and I did get misty eyed a few times and laugh at others, but it struggles to add up to a story. GUMP was also a bunch of great scenes with a similar type of story, but it seemed to add up better than BUTTON does. I think this may be because GUMP used history as a through-line, placing Gump in the center of major historical events. We not only had an event in history that we recognized, we had our protagonist right there in the newsreel footage! So we not only had Gump’s life as a through-line, we had history itself... and Gump ends up the most important man in each historical event. BUTTON never has Benjamin in the center of things - he gets to fight in WW2... but in some little sea battle that isn’t important...and what Button does in that battle isn’t very important. GUMP would have been on the Enola Gay or stationed at Pearl Harbor or on Omaha Beach... or all three... right in the middle of the big historical event. Benjamin is on the sidelines, so instead of having the world’s story to connect the scenes, we just have Benjamin’s story - and it’s too slight to connect these scenes. The story ends up episodic... and struggles to come together into a story.

Where GUMP used history as its throughline, BUTTON just doesn’t have a throughline... except for Benjamin. I’ve found that movie with external throughlines hold together more than films with internal throughlines. We can see the external throughline, but can only see traces of the internal one. Button’s life story just doesn’t seem strong enough to hold all of these pieces together. And I came away from GUMP with a handful of really memorable lines and scenes... but nothing like that with BUTTON. No lines so unforgettable that they’re going to pop up on T shirts, no scenes so good that they will be used in a half dozen parody movies. I’ll bet you can remember 5 lines from FOREST GUMP right off the top of your head... but not a single one from BUTTON. If you end up with an episodic film, at least make sure those episodes are strong enough to carry the film.

Another thing that I found curious was the scenes from Button’s life they decided to show. The theme here is time and aging, and we begin with the unveiling of a clock in a train station... and end with that same clock, no longer in use... replaced by a digital version. But once we leave the old folks home - actually a little before - we are not really dealing with time and aging as much as we are getting the diary entries of some guy with a vaguely adventurous life. He and the tugboat crew have all kinds of adventures, serve in WW2 and end up in Russia of all places. There he meets a woman (Tilda Swinton) and has an affair. Except for the one scene where they stumble into a battle, the tugboat’s WW2 adventures are kind of bland - they are still working as a tugboat. The relationship with the woman starts out sounding like it might be exciting, there are rumors that her husband is a spy, but the husband isn’t really a character in the story... and there is no intrigue or espionage involved (when there could have been). They also miss a chance to deal with aging and time - both the tugboat and the woman are a little long in the tooth, but neither is an issue in the story. I would have had the husband sleeping with a younger woman, the wife feeling old and unattractive, and really played that up. Then really played up that she thinks she’s the younger woman to Benjamin, when she is really the older woman to him. And dealt with the dynamics a serious difference in age makes in a relationship...

Or just zoomed through this stuff at high speed and then spent *more* time on the juicy parts of the story - exploring the differences in age in a relationship with the woman he loves, Daisy. The film seems to spend more time on the dull parts and then switch POVs to Daisy so that we don’t have to see the effects of aging on Benjamin when he gets to be old (but looks like a 20 year old Brad Pitt). Once Benjamin’s child is born, the film keeps jumping *decades* in the story... after showing us minute-by-minute what happens when Benjamin is living in the old folks home and on that WW2 adventure. The story robs us of the scenes that really have to do with aging - and that undercuts the theme. Most of the almost three hours ends up about Benjamin as a young man.

BUTTON ends up being an enjoyable movie while it’s on the screen, but there’s nothing that really sticks with you. It ends up a popcorn flick for critics and people who like “serious movies”. I liked it, and Pitt and Blanchett give great performances and the whole film is amazing and interesting... but an hour later you’re hungry again.

- Bill

Script Magazine: January Issue - TOC

Win, Place & Showbiz: Handicapping the Writing Awards for 2008
by Bob Verini with additional reporting by Ray Morton
It’s an awards-season tradition: Bob Verini talks to the writers in contention for Best Adapted and Best Original Screenplay nominations. This year’s field is one of the most diverse in recent memory -- as far-reaching as Australia, as quiet as a revolution, as big-budget as a government bailout, as cute as post-apocalyptic robot love. Check out the odds on this year’s contenders.

Writers on Writing: Changeling
by J. Michael Straczynski
From the time he was a young scrap-diver, J. Michael Straczynski has been both methodical and meticulous about his creations. Reconstructing a true-crime tale from 1920s’ Los Angeles was no exception. Here, he recalls the process that brought his spec to Clint Eastwood, and Changeling to theaters.

Script to Screen: The Wrestler
by David S. Cohen
Former Onion editor Robert Siegel fought his instincts when stepping into the screenwriting fray. After a few comedy misfires, Siegel decided to go with his tastes -- Easy Rider/Raging Bull-type tales -- and found his voice. Now, he skips the laughs for the tragic character study The Wrestler.

Writers on Writing: Slumdog Millionaire
by Simon Beaufoy
Heretofore known best for his full-frontal comedy The Full Monty and last year’s comedy of manners Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Oscar®-nominee Simon Beaufoy headed for the slums of Mumbai to find out what he didn’t know. Hereafter known best for his affecting adaptation of Vikas Swarup’s Q & A, Beaufoy reflects on what he learned.

Scene Fix: Piano Red
by Jenna Milly
Psychological thrillers have to hit all the right notes. In this issue, Oscar®-nominees Bruce Evans & Raynold Gideon (Stand by Me) and American Psycho scribe Guinevere Turner give Bahiyyah Abdullah’s spec Piano Red a tune-up.

Interview: Peter Morgan on Frost/Nixon
by Ray Morton
At the end of an American president’s reign, Peter Morgan examines the after-effects of the abuse of power on a nation, personified in the 1977 David Frost-Richard Nixon battle of wits.

Small Screen: Burn Notice
by Aaron Ginsburg
Matt Nix, creator of Burn Notice, offered Script’s Aaron Ginsburg an up-close look at his Miami-set spy series. Ginsburg jumped at the
chance. Neither expected such explosive results.

The Case Against Character Arcs
by Mystery Man
One of the principles of structure, drilled into your brain by well-meaning gurus, promotes a discernible character arc for the protagonist of your script. Here, Mystery Man debunks the character-arc caveat.

Film School Confidential
by Mike Notzon
To be or not to be ... a film school enrollee, that is. Are screenwriters served in attending formal programs, and if so, how? AFI grads Jonathan Levine and Brad Ingelsby make their cases.

New Media: Videogame Writers Sound Off
by Robert Gustafson & Alec McNayr
Halo 3 outgrossed Spider-Man 3 in 2007, harkening a shift in the balance of entertainment-industry power. Learn how the growing videogame medium is
spawning opportunities for screenwriters.

Independents: Investing in Screenplays
by William Martell
As the spec market continues to contract and the studios scale back, William Martell dissects the nine elements that make your screenplay a great investment for a producer.

Good Examples: Best of the Best
by Ray Morton
Does anything tie the canon of Best Screenplay winners together? Ray Morton takes a closer look at nine classic films and points to the elements that make them the best of the best.

Hall of Fame Honoree: Stephen J. Cannell
by Ray Morton
A prolific career in television, fierce determination, and an unwavering work ethic: all three are characteristics possessed by 2008’s Final Draft, Inc. Hall of Fame Honoree.

- Bill
Classes On CD On Sale!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Emotional Openings & Narnia completely rewritten tip from 2001.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Mom's home cooking.

DVD: RED RIVER - When I was young I was *not* a fan of Westerns and definitely *not* a fan of John Wayne movies. The Westerns I could watch were the Leone spaghetti westerns - those were cool. But somewhere along the line I bumped into two John Wayne films that were completely unlike any other John Wayne films and opened the door to classic westerns for me: THE SEARCHES and RED RIVER. In both films, John Wayne does not play John Wayne and the stories are the kind of thing John Wayne wouldn’t be caught dead in... though, there he is.

RED RIVER is basically MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY on a cattle drive, with John Wayne as an obsessed, nasty, mean, and probably out of his mind Dunson with Montgomery Clift playing the protégée turned mutinous Matt. But the real stars of the show are about 1,000 head of cattle. The movie is about a cattle drive, and you get to see actors on horseback driving a herd. There are shots where you see at least a thousand steers interacting with the stars, and one kick ass shot that 360s around John Wayne on horseback showing steers for as far as the eye can see. Almost every shot in the film has a thousand steers in the background - if not the foreground with the actors. And there’s another great shot from inside Walter Brennan’s chuckwagon as they ford a raging river (for real) behind and ahead and surrounded by cattle. No special effects, no cardboard cows or CGI - this film is filled with real cattle.

One of the great things in the Borden Chase and Charles Schnee script is the bracelet - a “twitch” that helps tell the emotional side of the story visually. In the opening scene Wayne is tagging along with a wagon train and decides to veer off and claim some land in Texas as his ranch. There is a beautiful young woman n the wagon train that Wayne is in love with, and they have a romantic parting scene - which doesn’t seem like something from a John Wayne movie, because it’s actually romantic and tender. He gives her this bracelet that he wears - his grandmother’s - as kind of an engagement ring. He loves her, and once he’s settled and his ranch is built and up and tunning, he will send for her.

Wayne and his pal Brennan ride away, and later they see smoke on the horizon. The wagon train has been attacked by Indians. They are in Comanche country ( the Comanches needed a better PR person - in old westerns, their tribe is always the one doing the attacking and wagon burning and raping and killing). Later they are attacked by Comanches, and Wayne kills one who was wearing his grandmother’s bracelet. Without a word, Wayne takes it off the dead Indian and puts it on... and you *know* he is mourning the woman he loved, and you *know* that she is dead, and you *know* that he will never be the same.

After that they meet a kid who survived the attack, who has been wandering around with a cow. Wayne & Brennan’s cow was killed in the attack - they only have a bull. So they take in the kid, mostly for his cow, and a couple decades later that kid is Montgomery Clift and their ranch has 10,000 head of cattle on it. Oh, and the kid is wearing Wayne’s grandmother’s bracelet. The kid has become his adopted son more or less. The bracelet symbolizes love - and also lost love. And if you just keep your eyes on it throughout the film, it tells a story.

Wayne now has gray hair - which just goes to show you how this is not a John Wayne movie, because if you see the movies he was making in the 60s and 70s there wasn’t a gray hair on his head. He was John Wayne - he didn’t age. There’s a depression in Texas - post Civil War - and the only place to sell cattle is up north in Missouri. So Wayne sets out to brand his cattle and drive them north. Now here’s another place where this is not a John Wayne movie - when they are branding cattle, they have picked up some cattle belonging to other ranchers... and Wayne has them brand it all with his brand. He’s going to steal the other guys cattle. Even when he’s confronted by the other ranchers - he still brands the cattle with his brand. He is not an honest guy.

One of the great things about movies made in the Golden Age (1930s & 1940s) are the supporting characters - I mentioned this last year at this time when I watched CAPTAIN BLOOD again. There are all of these cowboys, secondary characters, but each of them has a real character and distinctive character traits. There are all kinds of great gags in the film designed to show the characters of these minor characters. They have an Indian on the crew who always wins at poker because they can’t tell when he’s bluffing - his face never changes expression. Walter Brennan loses his false teeth to him in a poker game, and this deal is made that the Indian will loan Brennan his teeth for meals, but afterwards they must be immediately returned. From this point on, every time there is a meal scene in the film it is followed by Brennan returning the teeth... sometimes just in the background of a shot. There is a character named Dave who has a wife he’s always talking about. Dave’s life is defined by his marriage - and when all of the cowboys are talking about what they will do with their money once they get paid (a great scene for showing the difference between all of these secondary characters) Dave’s dream is to buy his wife a pair of fancy red shoes. They live in a shack in the middle of nowhere, but he thinks his wife would love to own a fancy pair of shoes. There is another cowboy with a sweet tooth who is always licking his finger and sticking it in the sack of sugar on the chuckwagon... and that guy’s sweet tooth not only extends to other aspects of his character, it creates a plot event later in the film. The great thing about these little things that make each of the cowboys into individuals is that we feel like we know them, and care about them, and when things happen on the cattle drive to them we can relate. It’s like we are on that cattle drive with them.

So Wayne and Clift and Brennan and their cowboys (including a young John Ireland hired as a gunslinger) take their cattle north... and one thing after another goes wrong and we get all of these supporting characters we care about dealing with some pretty dangerous situations... and our three lead guys having to figure out what to resolve these problems. But as time goes on, it becomes apparent that John Wayne has maybe lost his mind. He isn’t sleeping. He doesn’t ever want to stop and set camp for the night... and that guy who steals sugar? Well, there comes a point where Wayne starts to tie him to a wagon wheel and whip him. When cowboys - these guys we know and love - talk back to Wayne, well, in one scene he pulls his gun and kills three of them. Not exactly what you expect in a John Wayne movie. Eventually this reaches a breaking point when they are told by a traveling cowboy that there is a railroad in Abilene that heads north to Missouri, and they don’t need to drive the cattle through the dangers of Comanche country. The cowboys, including Clift and Brennan, think this is great news. Wayne thinks it’s BS, and still wants to go to Missouri. He has a plan, and he’s gonna stick with it even if it’s proven to be the wrong plan again and again. There is a mutiny, and Wayne wants to shoot everybody... but Clift steps in. Not be a good son and help Wayne deal with these unruly cowboys, but to disarm Wayne and tie him up and maybe leave him to die in the middle of nowhere while they drive the herd to the railroad. This is a full on mutiny, and Wayne vows he will track them all down and kill them... including his best friend Brennan and his adopted son Clift. Wayne is an asshole in this film - the villain - and you can’t help but hate him.

On the way to the railroad, they come across a wagon train full of gamblers and hookers under siege by those PR deprived Comanches and Clift fights them off and rescues a hooker with spunk played by Joanne Dru and falls in love with her and gives her the bracelet... and later in the film Wayne will catch up with the rescues wagon train and spot the bracelet on the hooker and have an interesting conversation with her - both love the same man, Clift (who was Gay in real life), but Wayne hates him now. Plans on killing him the first chance he gets.

One of the things I forgot to mention was the great cussing in this film. They have this gag they do again and again where a character says something completely unprintable that the censors will cut... but someone cuts off the sentence just as it gets to the dirty word. So we get the whole sentence minus the dirty word - and know *exactly* what the character was going to say, but no dirty word for the censors to cut. This film was directed by Howard Hawks, and he did the same thing in THE BIG SLEEP when Agnes says, “He gives me a pain right in the a–“ and is cut off before she can say “ass”. You fill in the word in your mind, but there’s nothing for the censor to cut.

The whole thing is leading to this big show down between Wayne and Clift, and here’s where it suddenly becomes a movie starring John Wayne - because that showdown is over way too soon and Wayne manages to redeem himself. The film has the shortest Act 3 of any film from the period, and it makes you wonder if there was more in the script but they just truncated it to make Wayne come out okay in the end.

If you don’t like John Wayne movies, this is one to try out. He plays completely against type and for most of the movie is the villain. You also get to see 1,000 head of cattle upstaging the stars in many scenes... and you’ll find out whether Brennan ever gets his false teeth back.

- Bill