Screenwriting News for the Holiday Blues!

Stocky: One Man vs Christmas Dinner

This sensational holiday vid was put together by our good friend and writer / filmmaker Tim Clague. Great job, man.

-MM

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You may have heard the gossipy lip-smacking amongst fanboys the world over following the release of I Am Legend over a billboard (visible early in the film) of a Batman vs. Superman film to be released on 5/15/10. There’s nothing to get excited about. It was just an Easter Egg-y gag suggested by Akiva Goldsman who worked on the Batman vs. Superman screenplay (when it was oh-so-close to being produced). However, due to of all this recent talk, I thought it’d be fun to post (soon) a review of Batman vs. Superman, because there are some great lessons to be learned from Goldsman’s script. (Err, I should say “Goldsman’s revision of Andrew Kevin Walker’s script.”)

Also, a new article from Miriam Paschal on the “Shower Scenes of Brian DePalma” (that’s been months in the making) will be published soon (with over 60 photos)!

So stick around. Hope you enjoy the links.

-MM

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New Screenplays:

Fox Searchlight’s For Your Consideration, which offers The Darjeeling Limited, Juno, Once, The Savages, Waitress, and The Namesake.

Universal’s For Your Consideration, which offers American Gangster, Breach, Knocked Up, The Kingdom, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Miramax’s For Your Consideration, which offers No Country For Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Gone Baby Gone, and The Hoax.

And Paramount Vantage’s For Your Consideration, which offers A Mighty Heart, Into the Wild, The Kite Runner, and There Will Be Blood.

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Lists, Lists, Lists:

Mad Screenwriter’s “New Screenwriting Books for 2008”

Lucy Vee’s Required Reading for Screenwriters
Articles about everything from Dialogue to Structure to Characters.

Best of Joshua James who turned three this year.

Rhys Southan’s List of Non-WGA Signatory Production Companies
“Most of the production companies I've found through Everyone Who's Anyone, cross-checking the companies they list with the list of struck companies on the WGA site, and making sure the non-struck companies have updated web sites and are still making movies. I'll be updating this as I find more…”

DexPac’s “Pottentially Usefull ScreenWriting Links”
(Dude – There’s no “TT” in “potentially” and only one “L” in “useful.” And you don’t have to capitalize the “W” in “screenwriting,” either.) Still, a decent list.

Dave Kehr writes about the 25 titles that were recently added to the National Film Registry: “Once again, it's a diverse, wide-ranging selection, not intended as any kind of 'best' list (though inevitably it is interpreted that way) but instead as a reflection of American film culture in all of its forms and fashions, from home movies (the extraordinary Our Day, a 1938 film by Wallace Kelly of Lebanon, Kentucky, that displays a more sophisticated sense of mise-en-scene than the great majority of current Hollywood features) to the most expensive and elaborate industrial products (Back to the Future, Close Encounters of the Third Kind).”

And here’s Roger Ebert’s 2007 Top 10 List. Here’s Jim Emerson’s list in a convenient montage format. Here are lists from NYT critics - A.O. Scott, Manohla Dargis and Stephen Holden. Here’s Girish. Her’s Caryn James on actors and their labors of love. And – OH, SCREW IT - here’s a comprehensive list of lists.

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Photostreams for the Visually-Oriented Writers:

Rodrigo Adonis

HannyB

Paul Grand

vaneska~tHOmz's photos

Jason Hightower

Merkley

Saokky

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Filmmaker’s Ronin is Looking for a Screenplay
“Serious Inquires only. If you do not understand the meaning of 3 acts or more, please do not reply. We are looking to option a feature script for a negotiable amount. Our website is under construction. If you email us the script there is about a 99% chance it will not be reviewed. Please send a hard copy only. You will be contacted if we are interested.”

14-Year-Old Needs Advice on Screenwriting
“Ok, I have a real interest in screenwriting. Ever since I was 6 & I’m now 14. I was really inspired in this field by the wonderful works of Michael Imperioli. Or as he’s probably best known as Chris Moltisanti on the Sopranos. I write a lot of stuff and my friends say I’m really talented at it, but I would like to improve a little. I would like to improve on how to think up characters and a good plot, and whats the best way to improve on scripts? If anyone could give me a good website, or some advice would be very much appreciated! Also what is the best screenwriting software for a computer? Thanks!”

Unk on Your First Ten Pages
“These first 10 pages have to grab the reader and hopefully, your audience — and inject them with quite a few things but probably most important of all? These 10 pages have to send a clear message to the reader and your audience that they are in for the read and or movie of their lives! These 10 pages need to scream out to the reader and audience that everything they ever thought they knew about screenplays and movies is now going out the fucking window because Baby… You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

John August on Characters who are not yet important
“Yes. If a character needs to be in a scene, you need to put him there. If you don’t, there’s every possibility he’ll get dropped out of the schedule when it comes time to shoot that scene. Screenplays are literary works, but they’re also instructions. Recipes of a sort. While it might be tempting to leave something out — “Of course they’ll remember that Balthazar is at the funeral!” — assumptions like this invite mistakes.”

(August would also like for you to nominate his script, The Nines, which is available for download here. Dude – it was a good script, but it’s not Oscar-worthy.)

Alex Epstein says: Don’t be afraid of Negotiating
“The only producers who can be ‘scared off’ by contracts are those who plan not to pay you what they promised. And the only producers who will be scared off by a legit agent are those who want to rip you off.”

Strongest film scripts come from dive into unknown
“Blending the unique and the familiar is a challenge for any writer, but many writers in contention for this year's original screenplay Oscar have stretched the boundaries of what audiences will accept, sometimes challenging them to find the familiar in the most unfamiliar things of all.”

Emily Blake’s Eight shows action writers should see
“3) Myth Busters. Discovery Channel.
“Please tell me you've seen Mythbusters. Adam and Jamie, two former special effects guys, and their crew test out common legends to see if they're true. From this show I have learned that you should touch metal before you touch the gas pump if you've been sitting in the car at the station, you cannot talk to each other while freefalling from an airplane, and throwing a lighted match into a pool of gasoline will not start a fire. Plus, they blow stuff up real good.”

For Whom Do We Write?
“It's the eternal question: For whom does a writer write? The lofty answer, of course, is ‘I write for me.’ A better answer must always be, it depends. Let us lucubrate together.” (Confession: I posted this link just because it said “Let us lucubrate together.”)

‘Taking Of Pelham’ Not As Easy As ‘123,’ Says Screenwriter
"Four hijackers overtake a NYC subway car, override the “dead-man’s switch” – a fail-safe which is supposed to ensure a human driver – manage to extort a $1 million ransom, and then escape off the train before sending it hurtling around the bowels of Manhattan, ensuring that police all head the wrong way. To call the plan at the center of 1974’s “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” genius is an understatement. But how in the world would it work today – with passengers all carrying cell phones, with GPS, with laptop computers and thermo-imaging? That’s the big dilemma for screenwriter David Koepp, who recently adapted the novel for director Tony Scott and star Denzel Washington."

Writer arrested after criticising Beijing Olympics
“Wang was arrested when police came and searched his home in the Quanzhou Chengbei district of Guilin on the afternoon of 13 December, removing articles, books and his computer. His family said he was accused of defamation and was taken to the Quanzhou Chengbei police station in the early evening. Later that night, the family learned that he had been charged with ‘inciting subversion of state authority.’”

Shatner May End Up in Star Trek XI, Says Screenwriter
“’Still, it could happen,’ Orci admitted after explaining to SciFi that the problem is two fold: ‘One, from our point of view, we are still hoping to find a way. Secondly, one of the difficulties that was brought up and discussed with Shatner when we all met him and pitched him ideas is that Trek fans are sticklers for their canon. [And,] unfortunately, Shatner’s Captain Kirk was killed in Star Trek VII [1994’s Generations].’”

Lost Boys 2 Writer Still Believes
“Leader of the new vamp pack is actor Angus Sutherland, real-life brother of Kiefer, here playing Shane who travels the world with his fanged chums. Yes, they're surfing vampires. But Rodionoff is quick to dismiss that these are not the stereotypical ‘bro’ and ‘dude’-dropping wave riders we've seen in cinema countless times. Roving gypsies is more like it. Traveling the world and pissed off that they've been deprived of sunlight. ‘You don't really get to see them surfing much in the movie. I didn't want them to be fake and create surfers that don't exist. If I did that, I knew my surfer friends were going to be beat me up and then the horror crowd would beat me up," he laughs. "The idea isn't that they were vampires who decided to start surfing. They were surfers who, while they were in Fiji or something, were attacked. They can't go in the sun. They have to get their kicks now in other ways - which translates to killing. They're not what you think of when you say surfers.’”


Zach Campbell’s The Moment of Death
“Like Blow-Up, The Passenger affirms the impossibility of seeing the crime in the present. Here the moment of transition from the living to the dead body is concealed, maintained offscreen through a complex camera movement that traces a hollow space, installs a void in the center of the scene, and empties out vision from within. The camera, and the spectator with it, sees from this groundless position, this invisible space in which somebody is dying. Through a complete reversal of perspective, the vanishing point, the point sanctioning the disappearance of the scene, is being projected all the way back to the viewpoint and even behind it.”

From GreenCine: Nicole Brenez, author of one of the most superlatively praised film books in recent memory, Abel Ferrara, opens the new issue of Rouge with "Shops of Horror: Notes for a Visual History of the Reification of Emotion in a Capitalist Regime, or (to put it more bluntly) 'Fuck the Money,'" a piece so musical it's got an overture. The parameters are laid - "Three low-budget auteur films" - before we head out on explorations within them, circling first close to home, then wider. Not too far along, for example: "The Shop Around the Corner takes, as its premise, the female fantasy of the Ideal Man - in order, finally, to describe the relations of force in the world of work. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie invents nightmarish narrative forms and deconstructs its narrative so as to liberate figurative possibilities linked to the female body. Go Go Tales addresses - under the cover of a lighthearted reverie - the nightmare that human relations have become in a capitalist regime."

Justine hosted a Powell and Pressburger Blog-a-Thon.

Just read Offscreen’s issue on “Popular Italian Cinema.” Here are some great essays:
* File Under Fire: A brief history of Italian crime films
* Italy by Caliber 9 –The Films of Fernando di Leo
* Crime Naples Style: The Guapparia Movie
* Homosexuality and the Italian Spaghetti Western
* All the Colors of the Dark vs. They’re Coming to Get You

Paul Thomas Anderson: Tracking through a Fantastic Reality
“André Crous argues the case for P. T. Anderson as the finest contemporary exponent of the tracking shot in all its varying glory and complexity.”


There Will Be Blood - Take 1 and Take 2.

(The script is now available here.)

Talk is Cheap: City of Lights
“What is there left to be said about City Lights? Everything that can be written, it seems, has been written. The greatest ending in the history of cinema. Orson Welles’ favorite film. Chaplin’s masterpiece that could only have been made after the advent of sound. And so on, and so on. That the masterpiece of silent cinema could only have been made after the talkies began seems an especially prescient point; watching City Lights, with its dialogue-as-robotic-squawking opening, I felt increasingly aware of the purity of silence. The silent form, as employed by Chaplin, forces a certain distance from the Tramp that allows us to empathize with him in a way we could not empathize with a character we heard speak. Of course, the other comment that begs to be made is that, with sound, the grandiosity, the mythicness of the film -- be it City Lights' ambitious comedic sequences, or its moments of silent poignancy -- could not be taken seriously.”

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On the Contest Circuit:

Movie Script Contest Announces Contest Winners

Filmmakers.com Announces Quarter Finalists

New Screenplay Contest will Produce Winning Screenplay
“The grand prize in this new screenwriting contest is something every screenwriter wants — a produced movie. MakeMyScreenplay.com will pick one winner and make the movie this year. Portland, OR (PRWEB) May 5, 2005 — It’s nice to win the grand prize in screenplay contests, but odds are, the winning screenplay just won’t get produced. If you examine the statistics of the most prestigious screenplay contest around, the Nicolls Fellowship Screenwriting Competition, you’ll see, according to their website, 68,000 screenplays were submitted over 18 years and a mere 84 fellows were selected. Of those 84 fellows, only about 35 of those have been produced. Not good numbers. But a new screenplay contest, MakeMyScreenplay.com, will produce the winning screenplay and market it to television and theatrical distributors.”

Disney Fellowship 2008 update
"So, here’s the 411 on the 2008 Disney Fellowship. The 2008 Fellowhsip year will not start until the writer’s strike is over. The selection process has continued on as usual. If you have applied for the 2008 Disney Fellowship and you have not gotten a call from them, then you did not get in. 'Dear John' letter started arriving in mailboxes this week."

Here’s Lianne’s 2008: Dates for Your Diary (Part 1)
For example, here’s January:

2nd: Nickelodeon Writing Fellowship Program

4th: Orange/Bafta 60 Seconds of Fame Contest
Create a 60-second film on the theme 'unite'.

4th: dumbFUNDED Theatre Sketch Competition
8 minute comedy sketches on the theme "‘Town & Country".

4th: HighTide Theatre Festival submissionsRequesting submissions from playwrights with plays of no more than 90 minutes and 'emerging' theatre companies looking at developing a piece.

7th: Scripapalooza Screenplay Competition Early Bird Deadline

10th: Sony TropFest Short Film Competition

11th: 17th Writemovies.com International Writing Contest Final Deadline

15th: Britspotting 2008: Call for entries

15th: PAGE International Screenwriting Awards early deadline

25th: Filmbase Short Film Awards
Applicants must be fully paid up members of Filmbase as of the deadline.

31st: Alcantara Movie Contest
Filmmakers must create a 3 minute film around the theme of the extraordinary, every day concept.

31st: 24/7 Theatre Festival Call for Scripts
Plays under 60 minutes.

31st: Drama Association of Wales One Act Playwriting Competition

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Strike-Related:

Dave Can’t Wait
“DAVID Letterman is poised to announce tomorrow that he is going back on the air Jan. 2 - with or without his writers.”

Report weighs ripple effect of writers strike on Street
"The report, a primer on the Hollywood writers' strike, seeks to figure out how the ongoing labor disruption might affect stock prices of the media conglomerates. The answer is: not much. Even if the writers' demands are met as currently proposed, their new wages and reuse fees will amount to just $32.2 million for Time Warner over the next three years. After TW, the new WGA contract would impact NBC Universal most, at $23.2 million over three years. After that it's News Corp. ($19.5 million), Walt Disney ($19.3 million), Sony ($16.9 million), Viacom ($16.5 million) and CBS ($4.9 million)."

Pants, WGA talks short of deal
"We had a substantive discussion today with the WGA and look forward to continuing these talks next week," said Rob Burnett

Writers have a lot riding on a director
“A deal on a new contract between the directors and the studios could not only undercut the writers' demands, it could weaken the position of actors. The powerful Screen Actors Guild, whose contract expires in June, has supported the writers. But Hollywood has a history of "pattern bargaining," in which the first contract settled between one of the talent unions and the studios tends to become the template for subsequent contracts.”

Alec Baldwin’s take on the Strike
“when Bruce Willis was paid $5 million for a movie, things began to change. We entered a period wherein everyone wanted, and got, more. You knew that things were distorted when agents started getting rich. Not the owners of the agencies, not the Norman Brokaws on the scene. Regular Ten Percenters began making seven figures. That was a big change. Once agents saw salaries rise and their own income potential with it, the old school practices of developing clients began to die. If you want to get repped by a good agency today, you have to walk in the door printing money.”

The AMPTP Is Probably Winning. Now They Should Shut Up.
“The AMPTP has the upper hand right now not because they are so good, but because the WGA's leadership is so bad. You don't conduct a public relations war when there is no "public" to "relate" to. The AMPTP should stop their PR releases, erase their website in favor of a simple logo and an email address. And shut their mouths. Talk to the WGA, not the public. The public is playing Guitar Hero and trying to find a Wii.”

Controversy Erupts After WGA Lets Dave's 2 Late Night Shows Return With Writers

Apple Files Patent for WGA-style Anti-Piracy Tech

127 Striking Writers With Pilots Pending Write Xmas Letter To Hollywood Bigshots

Attempt Fails To Restart WGA-AMPTP Talks; Outlook Very Grim

Here's Striking WGAE Xmas Statement

The Reality Behind AMPTP.com Rumors

WGA Allowing Writers On Indie Awards

WGA Decries Stewart/Colbert Return

AMPTP Shuns LA City Council Hearing...

Variety's AMPTP Ad Has "Technical Glitch"

Disney/ABC Twisting Truth About WGA

No WGA Waivers For Globes Or Oscars (And Other News From Tonight's Meeting); AMPTP Nominates WGA For "Worst Union"

DGA & WGA Meet To Discuss New Media

AMPTP Statement Recycles Same Old Shit

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I dedicate this final link to Mickey Lee who recently told me “I love ya man, but one more article on Diablo Cody and I'm gonna scream.”

But you see, not only have I seen Juno (and loved it) but her script is now available online (which I expect you to read, Mickey, and give me a full report – Hehehe…). Not only THAT, The City Pages of Minneapolis / St. Paul has what may be the best Diablo Cody interview - EVER. It covers the downside to success (“Yeah, I mean there's a lot of pressure. I suffer from feelings of unworthiness on a daily basis. I think of myself as a novice writer, and I am. I have so much to learn.”), misconceptions about her (“The one probably biggest misconception about me is that I'm out there courting publicity. I've never solicited an interview in my entire life. People want to talk to me. When I went on Letterman, people on the internet were snarking, ‘Oh, she must have a hell of a publicist.’ I didn't have one. I went on that show because Dave Letterman read my book and liked it. And I know that seems so improbable that a first-time writer would just randomly wind up on Letterman, but that's what happened to me. And that's how my life works, for some reason.”), and finally, some good advice (“But there's one bit of advice I have that is going to make me sound like a douche bag. And that is, when you're in a competitive environment, always give out the impression that you don't care. It makes people want you more. If you act desperate, it's over. I think a passive attitude is helpful. It comes naturally because I'm lazy. If I show up to a meeting in flip-flops, it makes me seem extremely appealing for some reason. But it wasn't something I orchestrated. I just didn't feel like putting on regular shoes.”).

Plus, you get a PHOTO GALLERY!

Below are a few of those pics. I love you, too, man.

Hehehe…

Happy New Year.

-MM

Happy Holidays!

Hey guys,

Hope all your Christmas wishes come true.

-MM

Internet’s Impact on Cinema

Hey guys,

What do people look to get out of films today? Has it changed since the explosion of the internet? I’m going to share four ideas I’ve been mulling over for quite some time about how the internet has influenced the future of screenwriting...

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1. Sex no longer sells.


I wonder if the failure of Basic Instinct II should mark the end of an era where sex in film sells. As a result of free porn on the internet, which has sent the porn industry into a financial windfall, people don’t look to movies to see nudity like they used to. Even if the hottest movie star shows skin in some new film, odds are that those images will get leaked on the web long before it ever hits the theaters, and thus, the film must fall back on something else to sell tickets – like story? I suspect sexy sells more nowadays than sex.

There was an interesting article by Dylan van Rijsbergen called Sexing the Handbag. He wrote: “Time has come to start a new movement inventing new images of sexuality and pornography. Time has come for a new Jan Wolkers, male or female, someone who can write powerful stories of authentic sexuality. Time has come for all kinds of individuals in the media, art and literature to invigorate the tired imagery of commercial porn. Time has come for a slow sex movement, which stretches sexuality beyond the single moment of the male orgasm. Time has come to return sexuality to what it has always been: elusive, exciting, intense, playful, authentic, dynamic and sublime.”

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2. No more political blab-fests.


Did you guys see Variety’s review of Lions for Lambs?

“Talky, back-bendingly liberal but also deeply patriotic, Lions for Lambs plays like all the serious footnotes scripter du jour Matthew Michael Carnahan left out of The Kingdom… Schematic idea sounds bold on paper: three separate events, played out roughly in real screen time across three separate timezones, with each potentially cross-fertilizing the others. Problem is, as the cross-cutting proceeds, it becomes increasingly evident that each yarn exists in its own, very specific frame of reference, with no real human drama to buttress the moral-political conflict… In addressing the issue of the U.S. role as both world policeman and a credible force for good, Carnahan's screenplay thus takes three clearly defined avenues of approach: the practical (Rodriguez-Finch), the political (Irving-Roth) and the philosophical (Malley-Hayes). All three avenues, however, lead nowhere in particular… The to-and-fro of their political debate [between Cruise and Streep] gives both actors a fine workout, and plays to the strengths of their screen personas. But as Carnahan's script dutifully checks off the issues, it becomes clear the discourse is leading nowhere, and is merely a rerun of arguments already extensively aired by media around the world. Roth has no new arguments to propose, and Irving's only solution is more positive action. With almost no character backgrounding beyond repping various schools of thought, the actors largely get by on screen charisma…”

There is nothing you can verbally say about anything political in a film that hasn’t already been said in previous films or somewhere else in the media or in greater detail on the internet. Why spend $9 per person to hear someone say something in a film that we’ve already read online for free? While the activism is commendable, looking forward to writing future films, I think the emphasis has to be on compelling human drama, because you can no longer have main characters designed to be simple mouthpieces of practical, political, or philosophical points of view - unless it’s truly unique.

Screenwriting has become a venue for the heart. People look to films more for an emotional and artistic experience than an intellectual one. I love what Francis Ford Coppola said in the Apocalypse Now Redux commentary: “In a way, you know, cinema is more like poetry than literature. It’s all about expressing things and saying things that you don’t say and trying to say it in another way – to use metaphor, or simile, or allegory or any of these other poetic techniques where you express one thing by, in fact, showing something quite different – and the audience puts it together. Cinema is at its best when it expresses things without really expressing them.”

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3. Screenwriters will be pushed more into the public eye.


Scripts are regularly leaked onto the web. We have to now expect our scripts to get leaked and analyzed in the media. Not only that, there’s a growing appetite by the public to read scripts, and there’s a lot more public discussion about how well a screenwriter handled a story. I think we’ve reached a place in cinema history where screenplays have evolved into an art form, and writers can no longer fool people with sloppy craftsmanship anymore. All these elements have put the screenwriter into the limelight more than ever been before (the recent explosion of articles about Diablo Cody is certainly an example of that) and an enormously strong fanbase on the web can turn some writers into huge public icons, which may or may not be a good thing.

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4. Standards of screenwriting & filmmaking will forever remain at an all-time high.


With the explosion of film bloggers (like the popular ones on my sidebar), there is now a more intense public scrutiny of films in general, such as Emerson’s study on Opening Shots. We have to be ahead of the game, more knowledged than the bloggers, and incorporate more thought into every single detail of every scene. Elite closers will no longer be able to get by on name alone and must deliver home runs every time they’re at bat. Aspiring screenwriters must now have a god-like knowledge of not only the craft of storytelling but also the craft of filmmaking as well as the world of the story you’re writing.

What do you guys think?

Ten Reasons Screenwriters Need Lawyers

I share this link (and the example below) because a producer tried to do this very thing to a TS writer. My advice to him was – get a lawyer.

In any case, (thanks to Legal Fixation for sharing this) Robert L. Seigel at the law firm Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard put together a list of ten scenarios in which a screenwriter most finds him or herself in need of an attorney. Here’s one:

8. WHEN A PRODUCER WANTS TO OPTION YOUR SCRIPT FOR THREE YEARS WITH A "NO MONEY" OPTION.

If a writer has already written a script and has found someone who is interested in further developing the script with a view towards producing a film or television program based on the script, that person who is taking on the producer role will want the motion picture and/or television rights in and to the script. Since most producers have no or very limited funds to develop their projects, those producers will want to option the rights to the script rather than purchasing the rights to the script outright. By optioning the rights to the script, the producer is taking the script "off the market" so that he or she shall have the exclusive right to further develop the script and to seek possible cast and funding for the project. The producer may offer the writer a "no money" option even if the agreement states the option price is one dollar or some nominal amount. In an ideal world or one where the rules of the Writers Guild of America ("WGA") apply, the option price would be ten percent of the purchase price for the script's rights for a period of time ranging from six months to a year and a half with the possibility of such term being extended with another payment to the writer. In the non-studio world, a producer may option a script's rights for some nominal amount for a year the right to extend such option by paying a nominal amount to the writer.

Producers generally need an initial one year option period with at least a possible renewal term of another year since it takes time for script rewrites and getting responses from possible cast representatives and funding sources. Why would a writer take his or her script out of the marketplace for no money for as long as three years? A writer has to judge whether a producer has the passion or belief in the property to work on it for what may be years to have a project produced and the experience and/or contacts to take the script to those sources that can finance the project. At best, it is a judgment call for a writer to make and will serve as the basis of any negotiations between a producer and the writer.

Screenwriting News & Links! – 12/18/07

Above is a smaller version of MM’s Photo Mosaic! Yeah, baby! I love it!

Today, I will not post links to any new interviews with Diablo Cody.

You're welcome.

Except - she is now the latest writer on writing for Entertainment Weekly. “As I had imagined it, life as a touring writer would be a soft-focus gypsy caravan, a multi-city blur of room-service Moët, artfully tousled hipsters, and intimate after-parties where everyone listens to Gram Parsons in the buttery light of dawn. Sadly, my boho-glamour fantasy wound up looking more like week 6 at Camp Winnemucca. I quickly learned that it's hard to look attractive when you live out of a Samsonite. My neglected haircut began to resemble Javier Bardem's man-bob in No Country for Old Men. Someone like Kate Hudson can make ‘disheveled’ look hot, but I looked like someone you might see queuing up at the needle-exchange van downtown.”

But that's it.

Wait - Billy Mernit thinks Paulie Bleeker is Totally Boss. Okay, fine.

Seriously, I’m done writing about Diablo Cody.

Oh, damn - Slash-Film has a script review for Diablo Cody’s new screenplay that’s also on the Black List – Jennifer’s Body.
“...it is extremely gory. One passage from Cody’s script describes a scene where blood and viscera is scattered everywhere, with Intestines strewn about “like party streamers.” One victim is described as looking like “Lasagna with teeth”. There are a couple scenes where a Jennifer graphically tears apart unknowing High School boys. Some of the descriptions gave me an uncomfortable feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. The gore described on these pages is Hard-R. However, I assume that the film will likely be cut down to a PG-13 to capture the teen audience. But I’m not really sure that is possible.”

That's it! No more! I'm not kidding!


MM’s How to Choose a Scene Location
“Ironically, little has been written in screenwriting books (and around scribosphere) about how to pick locations for your screenplay. This is important stuff! And it is such a pet peeve of mine when writers are so thoughtless, unoriginal, and uncreative about locations in their scripts. (Or they keep returning to the same boring location again and again. Or a protagonist goes halfway around the world to Italy only to spend the majority of the time in a hotel room. Are you kidding me? If you’re going to Italy, then show me Italy! I don’t need the country to be showcased like some vacation video, but please, let me soak up the sights and sounds and culture within the story.)”


Catch the Rythem wants a horror script
“Screenplay Wanted: Film Production company is looking for a screenplay with strong, character or concept driven horror, psychological thriller or suspense scripts( Action,thriller,Horrors, Psychological thriller.) Think Saw,12 angry man, Panic Room or Open Water Chopper, Usual Suspects.) No special effects driven scripts please. Mixing of genres is fine. to shoot for next two project. It must be very marketable and scary as hell!! Should be 90-120 pages in length. Please send us a synopsis/log-line about your project, if we are interested then will contact you. Your script must be original and not be attached to an option. Please e-mail information to: Script4film@gmail.com”

Slash-Film also has a script review of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.
“What happens? Does Randy die? Does Cassidy realize her feelings for him? At this point does he even care? I really don’t want to spoil it. I will say this, the match is almost fully choreographed step by step over the corse of seven full script pages. Think Rocky, which is a very apt comparison. And the ending is something you would never expect. It’s not an obvious choice. I’m sure some people will leave this movie really angry, while others will love it. One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to see it on the big screen.”

And now we have “The Screenwriting Glossary”
A
action description: the overt, physical actions that happen on screen, such as “He falls down the stairs” or “She pulls a gun, hands shaking.”
actor: a gifted individual who has studied the craft of acting in order to portray roles in performances of dramatic literaure.
alter-ego: a substitute “self” for a writer, usually a protagonist in the writer’s story.
ambience: the overall quality of mood, tone, or atmosphere in a film.
antagonist: a character that puts barriers and reversals in the way of a protagonist’s progress or objective.
archetype: a universal character modeled upon those that have been appearing in stories since the time of our ancient ancestors.
assistant director: a film crew member whose job it is to manage the set protocols and keep the film shoot on schedule.
atmosphere: the dominant mood or emotional tone of a film.
audience expectation: particular elements of a film genre which the audience consciously or unconsciously expects to see.
aural: a film element that can be heard (such as an off screen sound like a dog howling or a gun firing).

Danny Stack on Comedy Specs
“Well first, the good news. Film companies are desperate for comedy scripts. They can’t get enough of them. There are a couple of reasons for this. Comedy films are good for box office (always popular with audiences), and they are relatively inexpensive to make. Comedy does have healthy subgenres like romantic comedy, comedy crime, comedy action etc but when one of these films work, they’re mainly remembered for their comedic element.”


Bill Martel goes Postal
“Most of Stephen King’s short stories had been published in magazines called Gent and Dude, published by Dugent Publications... in exotic Florida. The editor was a guy named Maurice Dewalt. I read the King stories, and decided to write some horror stories similar to them for Dugent. Now, I was a fan of King and Matheson and Bloch and many other horror writers, and one of the things I loved about King’s work was that the lead characters were normal guys - some guy working in a factory picking up an extra shift cleaning out the basement who runs into some pretty big rats down there. I could see myself writing this kind of stuff. So I wrote a stack of short stories and began sending them to men’s magazines - even Playboy - why not? Just another day standing in line at the post office.”

Ackerman tells us The problem with colleges teaching Screenwriting
“Another gripe is that the lack of collective agreement in marking someone's work on a purely subjective basis does not for a good grade make. For instance a friend of mine on the course was told by one lecturer his script was perfect and not to change a thing, but because another lecturer wound up marking his work, he received a frankly shit grade. He was needless to say very pissed off, and for a guy who is very dead-set on riding out the full three years, turned out to be disheartened so much by this final mark, he let slip that he is considering dropping out if his next script does not achieve an above-average-grade. The disjointed nature of our timetable has brought up many questions about whether or not significant changes need to be implemented in order to improve the quantity of seminars during a week. Yes, we understand this is independent learning, but for pity's sake, if we wanted to be entirely independent and educate ourselves on this medium then we would have saved our twenty grand debt and fucking did that!! The fact is, we want exposition just as if we were living inside one of our own scripts and like any good script the exposition needs to be clear and concise so that NO MEMEBERS OF THE AUDIENCE FAIL TO FOLLOW THE REST OF THE STORY!!”

Just wait, fellas. I’ve got a new, free screenwriting book coming…


Speaking of free books, do you guys know who Yasujiro Ozu is? You should and shame on you if you don’t. (There’s a new article on Ozu in the latest issue of Cineaste.) In any case, there’s a FREE BOOK about him from noted film scholar David Bordwell called Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema. I LOVE David Bordwell. He’s also got a great new article on the many shapes and sizes of Godard. (By the way, if you understand French, here’s a new video interview of Godard. Can someone tell me what cigar he’s smoking? It looks tasty.) Anyway, back to film scholar David Bordwell. I actually bought his new book titled simply, Poetics in Cinema, which I will review sometime soon.

Yeah, baby! The new issue of Senses of Cinema

A little late sharing this, but here’s the Queer Film Blog-a-thon

Aspiring screenwriter to testify against 'Sopranos' creator
Nice going. That’s the way to get ahead.

Legendary screenplay writer Nabyendu Ghosh dead
“Ghosh, who would be remembered for writing the screenplay of such celluloid gems as Roy's 'Devdas', 'Bandini', 'Sujata', 'Parineeta' and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Amitabh-Jaya Bachachan starrer 'Abhiman', had been unwell for quite sometime.” (Note to self: rent 'Devdas', 'Bandini', 'Sujata', 'Parineeta', and 'Abhiman')

Schickel’s scathing review of “A History of American Screenwriting”
“Norman's heavily anecdotal (and error-strewn) history of screenwriting encourages us to believe that, except for the money and except, perhaps, for scriveners who add a hyphen and a second title -- "director" -- to their credits, the conditions under which movies get written have not greatly improved since Sennett's day. From the beginnings of the movies, writers have always been regarded as necessary nuisances. They provided structure and intertitles for silent pictures, but that was a medium that conveyed most of its meanings visually, which meant that the director was early established as the writer's superior. There were a few famous screenwriters in those days (Anita Loos, June Mathis, Frances Marion), but mostly it was easy to platoon anonymous functionaries off and on pictures, especially as moviemaking became an increasingly industrialized process.” (That’s actually true, Schickel. Can’t imagine it was much better for journalists. Well, I have the book and my own review is forthcoming.)

Depp says “Art Gone from Hollywood Cinema”
JOHNNY DEPP has accused Hollywood cinema of lacking any art, praising European filmmakers for their superior creativity. The Pirates of the Caribbean star, who has acted in over 35 Hollywood movies, as well as directing, producing and screenwriting various films, has lost respect for the American movie business. He says, "I'm not sure that art in cinema is possible any more, in Hollywood anyway, but in Europe there's a real regard for the filmmaker and the writer. And the product too, the end result. They respect authors, painters, filmmakers, film and creativity. They celebrate it. And the wine is pretty good."


1000 Frames of Alfred Hitchcock (Thanks to Mark Actenberg.)

ON THE CONTEST CIRCUIT:

Santa Fe Screenwriting Conference Set for May 27th - June 1st '08

Scriptapalooza Semifinalist set for non-Profit Production through IFP

Sundance Announces January Screenwriters Lab Participants

Movie Script Contest Announces Finalists

AWS Announces Contest Finalists

Writers' Building Announces Fall 2007 Contest Winners


STRIKE RELATED:

I get my strike news from Nikki Finke like almost everyone else, but here are some highlights:

DGA & WGA Meet To Discuss New Media

AMPTP Statement Recycles Same Old Shit

WGA Reminds Returning Jay And Conan: No Monologues

SAG To WGA: "Your Fight Is Our Fight"

Hollywood Moguls Claim "Common Goals"

Late Night Breakthrough; Dave Cooks Up WGA Deal That NBC & ABC Won't Enjoy; CBS Reacts By Re-Pledging AMPTP Unity

WGA On Monday Will Say To Moguls: "Let's Make Individual Deals"; AMPTP Says WGA "Grasping At Straws"

AMPTP Flacks Provide More Amusement

Verrone: "Room To Negotiate" On Reality

Other articles around the web:

Why a Dave deal with the WGA might make Moonves happy

WGA Files Unfair Labor Practice Charges Against AMPTP

WGA Food Drive: One Ton of Canned Food!

Los Angeles City Council and the Strike

WGA sues AMPTP at the NLRB (ASAP)

Is the WGA Just Another Lousy Union?

The Writers Guild Is Losing Ground

Fans support WGA strike with pencil stunt
“LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Fans and writers, looking for an end to the Writers Guild of America strike, sent more than 500,000 pencils to Hollywood's TV networks and movie studios.”

The Future, AMPTP Style
“In case you're wondering where the AMPTP would like to go in all this, MTV recently reduced health benefits for its 'permalancers' -- un-unionized workers who are hired as freelancers to work permanently. They just walked out to protect the benefits cuts. Ultimately the WGA is not only striking over residuals cuts. They are striking to protect everything they have won over the past fifty years. Current management attitude is 'you'll take what we give you and you'll thank us for it...' If they had their way, there would be no minimums and no health benefits... just like it is for MTV.”

AND FINALLY:

This was cool. Jim Hill Media reveals a number of cross references in Pixar films like Dinoco…

MM's Photo Mosaic

Okay, well, I'm speechless. The artist who wishes to remain anonymous tells me that she incorporated not only images we've seen on my blog but also from a wide range of films (with an emphasis on darker ones set in outer space to fill out my jacket).

So far, I've found charts from my character development series, pics from Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Casino Royale, Superman, Hitman, Banksy, The Painted Veil, and around the top of my tie, you might recognize a few friends like Laura Deerfield, Bob Thielke, David Muhlfelder, one of Mim's icons, and even some drawings by Ger.

(For a closer view, click the pic.)

Wow. I love it. Thanks so much.

-MM

Locations, Locations, Locations

INT./EXT. WHERE SHOULD THIS DAMN SCENE TAKE PLACE

Ironically, little has been written in screenwriting books (and around scribosphere) about how to pick locations for your screenplay. This is important stuff! And it is such a pet peeve of mine when writers are so thoughtless, unoriginal, and uncreative about locations in their scripts. (Or they keep returning to the same boring location again and again. Or a protagonist goes halfway around the world to Italy only to spend the majority of the time in a hotel room. Are you kidding me? If you’re going to Italy, then show me Italy! I don’t need the country to be showcased like some vacation video, but please, let me soak up the sights and sounds and culture within the story.)


I have a number of thoughts about locations.

First, know your story. The locations cannot dictate the story; the story must dictate the locations. So do the homework. Do the character development sheets. Do the outline. Have a god-like knowledge about the world of your story. Know your themes, your conflicts, and your resolutions. Then you’ll make wise decisions about locations.

Second, once you know your story, you should make decisions about the visual palette of your screenplay. I think there’s an enormous significance to a script’s visual palette and the movie images you’re putting into the mind’s eye of your reader. It disappoints when you lack originality. It disappoints when your visuals are clichéd or unoriginal or lifted from another source. (Just because you like something from another movie doesn’t mean you should incorporate it into your script. It may not necessarily be the right fit. You have to consider your story on its own terms and what’s best for YOUR story. Besides, I think you’re better off considering all of the other films that have been made about similar subjects or themes and use that to make decisions about how your script will be distinctively different not only in terms of the story but also the visuals.) You may recall my post about Away From Her where I wrote, “We also have to recognize that a screenplay is the foundation to a film’s visual palette and that lightness and darkness and tone are monumental considerations to make when comparing your screenplay to other films on a similar subject. Ebert wrote about how we see this story ‘not in darkness and shadows and the gloom of winter and visions in the night, but in bright focus. Polley told Andrew O’Hehir of Salon: ‘For me the overriding palette that we were working with was the idea of this very strong, sometimes blinding winter sunlight that should infuse every frame. I didn’t want the visual style to draw too much focus to itself. I felt like this needed to be an elegant and simple film, and that it had to have a certain grace.’”


Having said that, there are practical considerations to be made about a certain location. Is it do-able? Can you get permission to film there? Don’t even think about it. If you can’t film there, it could be reproduced in a studio, but that costs money and you have no idea what the budget will be if your script gets produced, so don’t worry about it. I think some writers choose cheap locations so as to impress people by how well they can save money, when ultimately, a writer should write to inspire people with a great story, not prove how cost-conscious he/she can be. Always aim for the best locations that serve your story but be willing to make changes as the needs of a production evolve.

There are only two kinds of locations you can choose:

NATURAL or UNNATURAL

(I first had “man-made” instead of “unnatural,” but then I could imagine someone saying, “Well, what about alien spaceships? Is that ‘man-made’ too?” Okay, fine – “unnatural.”)


UNNATURAL

There are a number of things to be said about man-made locations. Consider the setting of the story. How does this affect or make statements about the characters? You may recall in an earlier post on Cinematic Storytelling, we talked about Strangers on a Train and there was a moment early in the film in which Hitchcock cut to an exterior moving shot of the train tracks, as if the camera was bolted to the front of the train. We smoothly glide along one set of tracks, and then we come upon one and two and then multiple intersecting tracks. Suddenly the train veers off suggesting that the protagonist has done the same.


In my second Art of Visual Storytelling article, I talked about The Conversation. Harry Caul’s personal environment came out of Francis Ford Coppola’s interest in repetition through symbols of the circular. To quote Jennifer Van Sijll from her book, Cinematic Storytelling, “What is being repeated is man’s emotional weakness represented by deceit and betrayal… Harry is a surveillance expert. His outer person is symbolized by the linear. He is rational, technically competent, detached, and remote. Coppola gives him clothes and a physical environment made up of straight, elongated lines. Harry’s job is dependent on the circular spinning wheels of the tape recorder. As long as he stays detached from their content, he is competent and stable.” Harry, of course, gets drawn into the emotional lives of his subjects, which is his undoing, as the surveillance expert becomes the surveillance subject. There's a scene toward the end where he tries to change the outcome and enters the building of the man who hired him. The building is linear on the outside but circular on the inside – just like Harry. As Jennifer wrote, “Once inside, he is confronted on the circular stairwell by corporate thugs. Below him is a floor tiled in a circular pattern. Once ejected from the building, he is safe again. He walks along the linear structure almost disappearing into its gray lined walls.”

Consider Hedwig and the Angry Inch, about a young man who struggles with his sexuality set in the backdrop of Berlin, a city divided by a wall. A man-made wall, by the way, divided two lovers in Bob Thielke’s completely visual screenplay. I once wrote a script (just for fun) that incorporated the French Riviera as a setting to represent a particular character because the deeper you explore the city, the colors get darker and the streets are more twisted. I just think that we're the ones who are expected to explore the world, ya know, and internalize what we learn about cities and structures and shapes and cultures in order to incorporate those nuggets into films to show the world and movies in a new light that we haven’t seen before.

On that note, here are four inspirational visuals:

Nature overtaking man:


Nature bringing light into a character’s darkened world:


Contrast of old vs. new:


And reflection vs. reality:


Even on a more practical level, ask yourself, “What kind of statement does this location make about the character?” (That question makes me think of Billy Wilder’s The Apartment and Holly Golightly’s pad in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.) Other questions: “Can the character afford to live here?” “What feeling does this location evoke?” “Would it make the audience nervous, uncomfortable, or would it give them warm & fuzzies all over?” “Does it add a sense of wonder to the story?” “How does this location add or undermine the tension?” “What’s better for an argument – a loud marketplace or a library? While someone’s at work or after they get home? On the phone or in person?” “Have we seen locations like this a million times before?” “Where can we go that we’ve haven’t seen?” “How can I show this tired location in a new light?”


Since reading Girish’s recommendation, I’ve been going through the book, 1000 Defining Moments in Movies, and I found an entry worthy of our consideration. Contributing writer Miguel Marias offers up a key scene from Roberto Rossellini’s 1953 film Voyage in Italy starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders. To quote Miguel:

“An English couple journeying in Italy to clear up the affairs related to a recently deceased uncle’s estate have, while forced to stay together in a strange environment, wandered apart, realizing what they had so far avoided to admit through each living his or her own lives. They have just said the words ‘let’s get a divorce,’ when they have to accept an invitation to see new archeological discoveries in the ruins of Pompeii, an ancient city buried in lava and ashes after a cataclysmic volcanic eruption. The people working on the ongoing excavation slowly and carefully unearth what seems at first an arm, then two legs, then a skull from which, delicately, the earth is brushed off to reveal the plaster cast of a disintegrated head. Finally, there appear – much like photographed images appearing on a film as it is developed – the full bodies of a man and a woman who died suddenly in their sleep as they lay together in bed and who now look like the sculpture of a couple. We make these discoveries gradually and at precisely the same time as do the two characters, Katherine (Ingrid Bergman) and Alex Joyce (George Sanders), so that we can fully share or at least understand their reaction; both are impressed, and Katherine is affected so deeply that she wants to leave the place. As Alex escorts her out of the ruins towards their car, he admits, “I was pretty moved myself” – a first step towards mutual understanding, which prepares us to accept as (barely) feasible the almost miraculous reconciliation of the couple.”


NATURAL

I could write volumes about nature in films. I think to find the right placement in your story as a setting for a scene is to ask first what that scene’s about. Nature can be a sanctuary or it can be a force of death. Nature can represent anything and it can be used as a metaphor for everything. You just have to consider the relationships between forces and objects in nature and consider how it relates to your story. At Symbolism.org, they have an article on the Symbolism of Place and talked about the four basic elements of water, fire, earth, and air:

“Perhaps the most obvious general symbolism of the elements is the division between masculine and feminine. Fire and air represent the Yang within Chinese thought and symbolize the masculine archetype, the active state and the thinking function. Water and earth represent the Yin within Chinese philosophy and symbolize the feminine archetype, the passive state and the intuitive function. Fire and air have found a historical association with the sky and a relationship with the well-known symbolism of the Sky Father. The earth and water have been associated with the symbolism of Mother Earth. As Jung notes in his article "Psychology of the Transference" in The Practice of Psychotherapy, "Of the elements, two are active - fire and air, and two are passive - earth and water."

“For example, fire is associated with the sun and the light of day which relates to consciousness. It is an above space phenomena in that the quality of fire moves upward rather than downward. Our sensory perceptions relates fire to both the heat of the day and the heat of the summer season when light rules over darkness. Water is the element whose symbolism stands in direct opposition to that of fire. It is associated with unconsciousness, the darkness of night and the moon's monthly cycles which control ocean tides. While fire moves upward water moves downward and is associated with below space rather than above space. The element of air has a masculine archetype and the element of earth a feminine archetype. Again, there is a similar symbolism with these two elements and those of fire and water. Air is an above space because it is most present above the earth rather than in the earth or below the earth. Like water, the earth is a below space rather than an above space.”


I’m going to close this with another key scene taken from 1000 Defining Moments in Movies. This can show how the same location can be used for both joy and sadness. It’s taken from a 1964 Denmark film by Carl Dreyer called Gertrud and starred Nina Pens Rode and Baard Owe. Here’s what Jonathan Rosenbaum’s wrote:

“‘She awoke at last to find herself getting laid; she’d come in on a sexual crescendo in progress, like a cut to a scene where the camera’s already moving.’ Curiously, this sentence by Thomas Pynchon in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) comes only two years after the release of Carl Dreyer’s final feature. This isn’t to suggest any influence – only a striking congruence with a cut to a scene where the camera’s already moving as it follows Gertrud’s (Rode’s) determined stride across a park to keep her rendezvous with Erland Jansson (Owe), the much younger composer she’s fallen in love with. In the previous scene – ponderously paced, in a claustrophobic flat – she has just told her stuffy middle-aged husband at some length that she no longer loves him and is leaving him. And Dreyer’s sudden cut in media res to her moving towards Erland expresses infatuation and orgasmic passion like few other camera movements in cinema – as if to replicate both her impatience and her ecstatic anticipation… They meet at a bench beside a placid pond that seems to glisten with Gertrud’s happy rapture. Much later in the film, when Erland breaks her heart in the same setting, the same pond is ruffled by quiet turbulence, but here it shines with joy.”


A few links:

Photos by Mor and Szefi

Art of Visual Storytelling

1000 Defining Moments in Movies

Roundtable: Feature screenwriters

The Hollywood Reporter recently posted a roundtable discussion featuring Ben Affleck, Ronald Harwood ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and "Love in the Time of Cholera"), Diablo Cody ("Juno"), Paul Haggis, and David Benioff ("The Kite Runner").

THR: Diablo, did you think about things like that when you wrote "Juno"?
Cody: No. I was actually completely ignorant about structure, and I think I probably still am. I didn't pick up any of the manuals. But if you're a person that loves films and has been consuming them voraciously your entire life, you almost have an innate knowledge of act structure because you know how films unfold. You can see them in your mind. And so I was able to visualize it that way. "Juno" might have an unconventional structure, but I've never really thought too hard about it. And now I'm superstitious about overeducating myself.
Affleck: There is a kind of an internalizing of (structure). You mostly get educated by watching movies that you love. And there's a sort of intuitive sense of what happens.
Haggis: Does anyone here have a formal education in screenwriting?
Affleck: When I came out to L.A., it was the time of (1991's) "Slacker" and (1989's) "Do the Right Thing" and (1992's) "Reservoir Dogs," and it was the first time people thought, "Oh, you can make your own movie and it can be outside the conventional studio system." At the same time, there were those (writing) schools and Robert McKee was the big, big thing. But they had very rigid rules. I looked at (notes from his class) and thought, of course, "Here is the bible. There are rules. You have to do this." And then I was intimidated and thought, "Well, geez, I don't really know." And I eventually figured, you learn the rules, and then you're allowed to break them.
Harwood: This is the golden rule of screenwriting: There is no golden rule. Every screenplay is different, isn't it?

Read HR's roundtable discussion.

100 Movie Clichés

Hey guys,

I used to post movie clichés periodically when I first started blogging, which were from Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary and submitted by cinephiles from around the world. I still have a 60-page word doc filled with hundreds of clichés, which every screenwriter should know by heart, right? So I thought I’d share some hand-picked favorites in posts of 100. (This group only goes up to the E’s.)

I love ‘em!

See also Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics.

-MM

-----------------------------------------------

1) 'Brains in vats' movie
Named for Wilder Penfields brain experiments in the mid-20th century, these are movies in which the reality of events is caused by some sort of device that makes the brain "think" it is experiencing those events. See "The Matrix" movies, "Existenz," "Total Recall," "Open Your Eyes," "Vanilla Sky" and others. Currently in vogue as a replacement for the dreaded "It Was All a Dream" movie. MIKE SPEARNS, ST. JOHNS, NEWFOUNDLAND

2) "Miss Blanche?" Character
Any character in a film who is a false hero and exists only to get killed for shock value -- usually seconds after theyve found out the villain. Examples: Detective Arbogast in "Psycho," the cop in "Misery," the brother in "The Stepfather," the football player in the remake of "The Blob," and, of course, the maid in "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?" (The title comes from her last words.) ROB MATSUSHITA, Madison, Wis.

3) "Tell Me Where You Are And I'll Come And Get You."
Telltale line that finally makes obvious to everyone (except the hero) that the heros trusted friend or supervisor has gone over to the bad guys. JIM LEE, Cary, North N.C.

4) 'The Center of the World' vs. 'Freddy Got Fingered' Syndrome
The worse a movie is, the more forgiving the MPAA will be when rating it. Ed Pegg Jr., Champaign

5) 'This just keeps getting better and better'
Line uttered for no reason other than that it makes a great button for the trailer ("Men in Black," "EDtv," "The Mummy"). Michael Schlesinger, Culver City, Calif.

6) 'We've been expecting you...'
Whenever a hero fights his way into the villains fortress, escaping multiple assassination attempts, he will be caught and taken to the villain, who will invariably greet him with, "Weve been expecting you." GERARDO VALERO, MEXICO CITY

7) 45 Caliber Pick-Up
Almost all movie poker games involve a threat of immediate violence, even when the players are friends. Ian Waldron-Mantgani, Liverpool, England

8) Airline Flight Rules
Movie characters travel only first class. They are never seated near crying babies. All flights are full, but they are always able to walk right on and take their seat without waiting behind someone cramming a suitcase into an overhead rack. Although other passengers on the flight may recline their seats, the main characters can only be seated in the full upright position, because if they reclined the result would be an unattractive camera angle up their nostrils. JAMES

9) Alan Alda Rule
Any character in a murder mystery who is excessively helpful to the main character invariably turns out to be the killer (if theyre not dead by the second reel). Named for Alda because hes done it at least twice. BOB MATSUSHITA, Madison, WI.

10) Ali MacGraw's Disease
Movie illness in which the only symptom is that the sufferer grows more beautiful as death approaches. (This disease claimed many screen victims, often including Greta Garbo.)

11) All-Seeing Camera
The remarkable ability of a stationary surveillance camera or news camera operated by a lone cameraman to film or video an incident from several different angles and distances all at once. When played back, the resulting film or videotape exactly duplicates the original point-of-view of the audience, right down to the sequence of the montage. See "Enemy of the State," etc. MERWYN GROTE, St. Louis, Missouri

12) Angel Limited-Involvement Rule
Modern movie angels mostly seem to visit earth in order to smoke cigarettes, eat pizza, and show what regular Joes they are. Although famine, war, disease and higher prices torment the globe, they solve such problems as a guy who has stopped dating because hes lost his faith in women.

13) Anti-Anti-Auto Theft Device
Any actor can start any car by pulling any two wires from under the dash and touching them together to make them spark. This not only starts the car but it also defeats the steering columns locking mechanism. COLOM KEATING, Santa Monica, Calif.

14) Antiques Of Death
Straight razors, ice picks, paperweights, fireplace pokers, meat cleavers, crowbars, dueling pistols, ceremonial daggers, swords, sabers, battle-axes, giant marble ashtrays and other archaic, cliche weapons of mayhem that always seem to be handy for movie murders, even though few homes might actually have any such antiques readily available for an impromptu killing. MERWYN GROTE, St. Louis, Missouri

15) Archivist Killer Syndrome
Many serial killers could also find employment as the authors of double-acrostics and conundrums. In searching for such killers, hero detectives invariably find an abandoned apartment with newspaper clippings and photos on the wall showing the killers a) victims b) pursuer c) next victim and d) a message to his pursuers. See "In the Line Of Fire," "Seven." DAVID T. G. RICHES Etobicoke, Ontario

16) As Long As You're Up, Get Me a 2 x 4
When a fight in a bar breaks out, nearly everyone in the place begins fighting, spontaneously and without cause--even with people theyve have been sitting next to for some time. JIM SIMON, Villa Park, Ca.

17) Auto Autopilot Exemption
An actor required to deliver key dialogue while driving a car is allowed to take his or her eyes off the road and maintain steady eye contact with the front-seat passenger for up to five seconds without being subject to real-life consequences like rear-ending a cement mixer or taking out pedestrians. DAVID MAYEROVITCH, Toronto

18) Auto Death Knell
If a character dies in a car crash, he will do so in a way that causes the horn to blare continuously. JOHN SHANNON, Oceanside, CA

19) Autobiographical Cameo Perk
If a flattering movie is made about a person who is still alive, watch for that person to make a fleeting cameo in the film, a perk for relinquishing the rights to his existence. Examples. Melvin Dumar selling sandwiches in "Melvin and Howard," Jim Garrison playing Earl Warren in "JFK," Blaze Starr as a stripper in "Blaze," or Jim Lovell playing an admiral in Apollo 13.

20) Automatic Customer Bell
All establishing shots of small town Main Streets are inevitably accompanied by the sound of a bell ringing as a customer opens a door.

21) Awake and Ready to Scare
When a character touches another to check whether theyre sleeping or dead, the immobile person inevitably wakes up and grabs him in tune with a strong musical note. GERARDO VALERO, MEXICO CITY

22) Backlit Horizon Phenomenon
The ever-present white light whose source is always just beyond the horizon line where no practical light source would be. This phenomenon allows dramatic entrances to secluded locales, e.g., the appearance of the Ring Wraiths on the road in "The Fellowship of the Ring" and the appearance of the Nigerian soldiers in the jungle in "Tears of the Sun."PATRICK LEMIEUX, TORONTO

23) Backseater Mortality Phenomenon
Whenever the hero is the pilot of a warplane that has a crew of two or more, any crewman that is not a pilot is marked for death. See "Top Gun," "Flight of the Intruder," "Enemy Mine," "By Dawns Early Light," and "The Empire Strikes Back." JEFF CROSS, Marblehead, Mass.

24) Bad Guy Credentials Demo
In any movie where the villain is a really, really bad guy, whose dysfunction and malice transcend that of the ordinary evildoer, he establishes that fact early in the film by coldly killing one of his own men. (See Darth Vader, many Bond villains, Russian Mafia leader in "The Jackal," etc.) DIRK KNEMEYER, Bowling Green, Ohio

25) Bartlett's Law
Whenever one character recites a quote from memory to another, the second person already knows it, and tells him or her the origin. If it is from the Bible, the second person always knows which chapter and verse. MIKE PEARL, ORANGE, CALIF.

26) Based on a true story
Hollywood shorthand, meaning: Depressing, morbid, downbeat, including scenes so shocking or lascivious that no producer would include them in a movie unless he could excuse himself by saying these things actually happened. RICH ELIAS, Delaware, Ohio

27) Because It's Called Sound Effects Rule
In real life, when someone hangs up the phone on you, you hear a click and then silence (about 30 seconds of dead air before an obnoxious reorder tone). In the movies, when someone hangs up at the other end, you get a new dial tone immediately. JOHN FARMER Manhattan Beach, CA

28) Big Name Poster Rule
When entire trailer or poster for a movie consists of the names of the two stars, as in STALLONE-STONE or WESLEY-WOODY, this suggests that getting those two names represents most of the films budget, and that finding a script was a lower priority. MARK McDERMOTT Park Forest, IL

29) Big Wet Dog Shakedown
All wet dogs shake themselves dry only while standing next to well-dressed movie characters.Steve Wideman, Birmingham, Ala.

30) Bloody Fingertip Rule
If a character sees anything looking like blood, he must put his finger in it and hold it up before realizing that it is blood. Corollary: If the substance is not blood, the character must smell it or taste it before realizing what it is.Gerald Fitzgerald, Dallas

31) Bloody Steak Rule
When characters order steaks, they always ask for "rare," which people hardly ever order in restaurants, instead of "medium rare" or "medium," which is what most people order. This is because the kind of character who orders a steak in a movie would sound like a wimp asking for "medium." JER MORAN, HOUSTON

32) Bow Tie Rule
A young character wearing a bow tie is always an obnoxious conservative; an older character wearing a bow tie is always a liberal wimp. Stuart Cleland, Chicago

33) Brass Ring Rule
Any time you overhear incidental dialogue from minor characters about some impossible feat, occasionally attempted but never achieved, someone, usually the hero, will accomplish the feat within the last ten minutes of the movie. BRANNON MOORE Seattle, WA

34) Breaking Bad News
Anyone holding a vase or other glass object will drop that object upon hearing bad news. Usually the object will fall and shatter in slow motion, typically from multiple angles. TERRY MCMANUS, Chicago

35) Breathing Corpse Syndrome
No one in the movies or on television has ever looked convincingly dead, a condition much harder to fake than an orgasm. PROF. TERRY EAGLETON, Oxford University, England

36) Building Code Violation, cont.
Whenever an object or person is thrown through a glass window in a movie, it invariably shatters into vicious shards. Even in the future, safety glass is not used (see "Minority Report"). MARYANN MYNATT, BOLINGBROOK

37) Bullet Velocity Rule
In action movies, the speed of a bullet is slowed down enough so that the hero can jump out of the way. In sci-fi movies, the speed of light is slowed down enough for the hero to jump out of the way of a laser beam. The scientific formula is: Hollywood Bullet Speed = (Real Bullet Speed) (Importance of Character), where the more important a character is, the higher the number. Dave Edson, Eugene, Ore.

38) Bullitt Legacy Rule
Every movie set in San Francisco involves at least one car flying through the air on its way downhill. Manminder Singh, Hightstown, N.J.

39) Bureau Of Lame & Anemic Name Changes (Blanc)
Supersecret Hollywood Agency specializing in changing unusual and clever film titles into titles that are banal and uncommercial. Samples: "Cop Gives Waitress $2 Million Tip," became "It Could Happen to You;" "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" became "About Last Night...;" "Stab" became "Still of the Night," "Cloak and Diapers" became "Undercover Blues," etc. MERWYN GROTE, St. Louis, Missouri

40) But Is It Today's?
In a time travel movie, the hero finds out the date by picking up a newspaper in a trash can. STEVEN SOUZA, Honolulu, HI.

41) C.P.S Rule
When a character drives somewhere in an overcrowded, gridlocked city such as L.A. or New York, there is always a Convenient Parking Space directly in front of his destination. JOHN JAKES

42) Ca-Chuck! Rule
All movie guns will need to be "cocked" before firing, and the sound made is always the "ca-chuck" sound made by a pump shotgun. Bad guys will never cock their guns until the last instant before firing at the good guys, and the ca-chuck sound will always alert the good guys in time for them to duck. In some movies, such as "Runaway," this rule even applies to revolvers. Tom Helderman, Grand Rapids, Mich.

43) Cameron's T's & A's I'm the King of the T&A World!
All feature films directed by James Cameron since 1984 have names that begin either with the letter A or with the letter T: "The Terminator," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," "Titanic," "True Lies," "Aliens," "The Abyss." Juha Terho, Helsinki, Finland

44) Candles at Wholesale Rule
In any movie scene involving candles, there will be hundreds or even thousands of them, even if the characters live in poverty. We are left to wonder how one person, or even everyone in the cast, could light them all before the scene began. See "Because of Winn-Dixie." R.E.

45) Carmen Coincidence
Whenever a movie shows a scene from an opera, it must have some creepy resonance within the films own plot. Ian Waldron-Mantgani, Liverpool, England

46) Cartop Chases
When there is a foot chase in traffic, the hero will inevitably jump up on top of a car that is stuck in traffic, and leap from car to car, even though it would be faster and safer to stay on the ground. (See George Clooney in "The Peacemaker." NEIL GABRIELE, New York, NY.

47) Casting is Destiny
Many Hollywood movies are shaped more by what the audience expects from their stars than by what their writers put into their scripts. RICH ELIAS, Delaware, Ohio

48) Catch-Up Movie
A film that frustrates the audience because the characters spend the bulk of the film slowly and laboriously learning information that the audience was given during the first 10 minutes. (See "In Dreams.") Stuart Cleland, Evanston

49) Cemetery Weather
Cemeteries generate their own weather. In a surprisingly large number of scenes at cemeteries, particularly if a funeral is in progress, it is raining --and not just sprinkles, but biblical downpours. G. W. ROLES, Washington, DC

50) Centered Passenger Rule
When there is one passenger in the back seat of a car, he always sits right in the middle, to be more easily seen by the camera.

51) Checker Cab Magnetism
Any character who calls for a cab in a New York movie will be picked up by an old-fashioned Checker cab, although they have not been manufactured in years and, at last count, there were only four still on the streets. AMY CASH, Elmont, N.Y.

52) Checkmate Reflex
To quickly establish the hero (or villain) as a true (but erratic) genius, he will play a game of chess early the movie, and quickly trash his opponent with a surprise mate-in-one. See Jeff Goldblum in "Independence Day." IVAR LABERG, Oslo, Norway

53) Child of Sorrow Syndrome
When the hero, regretting the choices hes made in life, returns home in defeat, his bitter self-indictment will be interrupted by his wife, who will say, "Im having a baby." (see "Mr. Hollands Opus," "Its a Wonderful Life," etc.) JIM BECKERMAN, The Record, Hackensack N.J.

54) Child Safety Rule
In any monster movie or disaster film, any child under the age of 13 must survive. In rare instances where a child is killed, the death may not be shown directly. GERALD FITZGERALD, Dallas, TX

55) Chinese Chase Rule
In any Asian city, or any city with a Chinatown, all chase scenes happen to occur on Chinese New Year, and lead directly through a parade. NEIL MILSTED, Chicago

56) Chinese Takeaway
If any American action film of the last decade contains a particularly inventive stunt, theres a better-than-even chance it was swiped from a Hong Kong action film the director recently saw on video. MICHAEL SCHLESINGER, VP for Acquisitions and Repertory Sales, Sony Pictures, Culver City, CA

57) Cleopatra in the Commissary Phenomenon
In any movie about the movies, in any scene shot on a studio back lot, countless extras walk around in outrageous period costumes that havent been used in years, and recognizable historical figures like Cleopatra, Lincoln and Napoleon are often seen lined up at the catering line for lunch. (See the two Redcoats in "Get Shorty.") GREG BROWN, Chicago.

58) Cliffhanger Lunge
Though unable to stretch his hand far enough even to meet the fingertips of the poor sap perilously close to falling to his death, when the support finally gives way and the hand slips even farther out of reach, the hero is suddenly able to lunge 2 feet and grab a wrist.Paul Chapman, London, England

59) Climbing Villain Syndrome
Villains being chased at the end of a movie inevitably disregard all common sense and begin climbing up something - a staircase, a church tower, a mountain - thereby trapping themselves at the top. Tony Whitehouse, Verbier, Switzerland

60) Clothes Make the Impostor
Whenever a hit man has to kill someone in a guarded hospital room, he will duck into a linen closet, emerge wearing a lab coat and carrying a clip board, and walk around the hospital as if invisible. None of the other doctors or nurses will notice that this guy has never worked there before. MICHAEL FURL, Kankakee, IL

61) COFKeyType (Computer Operation by Frenetic Keyboard Typing)
In almost all movies involving the operation of computers, the user operates the machine by incongruent and frenetic banging on the keyboard, ignoring the mouse and system graphic interface elements. This results in instantaneous, nanosecond access and downloading of data. (See "Jurassic Park," "Disclosure.") CARLOS GREENE, Mexico City

62) Coincidental Lighting
In any scene in a thriller involving a thunderstorm, when any character is looking for a pet or friend, there will be a deafening clap of thunder and a flash of lightning illuminating a corpse, or the murderer. If the character is searching for something, the lightning will illuminate the fact that the something is dramatically missing. JIM LEE, Cary, N.C.

63) Collapsing Staircase
When a character is rescued from a staircase during a disaster movie or thriller, the staircase always collapses the moment the rescue is completed. SCOT MURPHY, Highland Park, IL

64) Complimentary Dirt Rule
Explosions always enhance a stars looks by placing just the right touch of dirt across the cheekbones--never on the end of the nose. BRENDA YOU, Chicago

65) Contents May Have Shifted During Handling Rule
Any time the hero hands somebody a bag or box containing the Maguffin, if the recipient fails to look inside the bag/box, the hero has pulled the old switcheroo and handed the other guy a bag/box full of lead weights/old newspapers/worthless junk, etc. (See "The Score.") Mark Oristano, Dallas

66) Cooperative Shooter Rule
No matter what kind of cover the hero hides behind, it will stop enemy bullets. In "Beverly Hills Cop 3," Eddie Murphy uses a park bench for cover, and the bad guys to shoot all the slats and none of the gaps. DON HOWARD, San Jose, CA.

67) Crazy Collage Syndrome
Psychotic stalkers sublimate their destructive impulses by creating a collage of newspaper clippings, candid photos and charcoal sketches of their victims. This collage is glued to the wall of the stalkers one-room apartment, to be found by police officers bursting in just after the stalker has fled.Joe Zarrow, Herndon, Va.

68) Crime Sometimes Pays
Villains who outshine heroes are resurrected in sequels as quasi-good guy. Examples include "King Kong," "Godzilla," Jaws in the James Bond movies, the "Terminator" and "Rambo." Even more frightening: When villain become heroes, by remaining villains (Freddie, Michael and Jason). MERWYN GROTE, St. Louis, Missouri

69) Crystal Sideboard Rule
In any movie featuring an older businessman married to a younger woman, if his home or office contains a sideboard with cut-crystal decanters of dark spirits, there is a 50 percent chance the wife will be dead or in jeopardy by the end of the movie. These odds increase to 75 percent if the husband is played by William Devane, and to 100 percent if the movie is a "cable original." DAWSON RAMBO, Tucson, Ariz.

70) Curtain Going Up!
Whenever a character does something secret or embarrassing behind a curtain during a performance, the curtains inevitably open, revealing the person caught in the act. Recent examples include "Love Actually" and "Moulin Rouge!" Kevin Chen, San Mateo, Calif.

71) Dapper Demon Rule
Satan is always impeccably dressed in the movies, with suits, silk ties, expensive shoes. He never wears jeans and T-shirts. Sandals, shorts and a tank top would better fit the heat of the underworld. Steven Dalli, Los Angeles

72) Dead for Sure, No Doubt About It
In a movie, the absolute proof of the death of a character is when blood drips slowly from the corner of the mouth. This is in too many movies to document. An interesting variation was the dripping of liquid metal from the evil mutants mouth in "X-Men 2." As a physician, I can tell you that blood coming from the mouth after a fight is either, 1) a sign of a communication of the esophagus with a major blood vessel, which would be fatal, or 2) a cut.

73) Dead Man Sleeping
When a dead mans eyes are closed in the movies, the lids are shut with one hand, never two, and both at once, never one and then the other.

74) Dead Man Talking
A character who is dead before the end of the movie is still allowed to narrate the film, making you believe he survives, as long as it moves the story forward. (See Joe Pesci in "Casino," William Holden in "Sunset Boulevard"). RHYS SOUTHAN, Richardson, TX.

75) Deadly Tweener Syndrome
The Tweener is, in horror movies, that creepy character introduced at the beginning of the movie who seemingly lives between two worlds: The “normal” world of the main characters and the dark, creepy world of the cannibalistic or sadistic family, clan or tribe. The Tweener either warns the main characters to beware of a certain road or area, or directs them into the path of horror by offering a shortcut. Either way, the Tweener will later take part in the cruel

76) Delta H Of Crania
The factor in modern probability theory which accounts for the tendency of movie slot machines to pay off when smashed into head-first by someone in a brawl. Can also be applied to actuarial systems involving jukeboxes which start playing appropriately ironic songs under similar conditions. ANDY IHNATKO, Westwood, MA.

77) Deserting Before Dessert
No one finishes a meal in the movies. Meals are interrupted by important calls, the appearance of an ex-lover, or a trivial argument. No one eats more than two bites of a hot dog, cotton candy, popcorn. If dessert is served, it will end up in someones lap or dumped on his or her head. Only exception: STARVING MAN SCENE, which shows famished character polishing off the last speck of food, then placing his knife and fork on the plate to form an "X". MERWYN GROTE, St.

78) Disappearing Nude
A woman seen nude in bed with the hero in the opening scene will never be seen again. DAVID STEVENS, Irving, Texas.

79) Disbelief of Suspension
Rope and plank bridges are never shown in a film unless they are going to fail. Ropes will be cut, burned, or frayed. In the case of planks, someones foot will fall through the rotten wood. LIBBY WEBSTER, Columbus, Ind.

80) Disclosing Whisper Law
If a character is looking for an object, and the audience doesn’t know what the object is, the character will mumble it out loud to himself as he frantically searches for it. (See "Mission Impossible") RHYS SOUTHAN, Richardson, TX.

81) Disconnection
Any character who says, "I cant tell you over the phone..." doesn’t have long to live, and will die at the rendezvous: (a) without uttering a word, (b) mumbling a red herring, or (c) giving an obtuse clue (e.g., "Beware of the dwarf" in "Foul Play"). DON HOWARD, San Jose, CA.

82) Dispose of carefully
Despite the fact that they can be reloaded, the value of any revolver in a Civil War-era movie decreases steadily with each of the six shots that it fires. By the time the gun is empty, it has become worthless, invariably causing its owner to either (1) throw it aside or (2) chuck it at the enemy. Samuel Anderson, Moorhead, Minn.

83) Doggone It Rule
Movies put dogs in stories and then don’t let them do what a real dog would do. See "Fatal Attraction," where Michael Douglass family owns a dog that is home during the noisy and gruesome bathtub scene but never comes sniffing around to investigate. MARY STEINBERG, Chicago

84) Doing Radio
A characters lines describe what we can see happening on the screen. Critic Rich Elias tags an all-time classic when he observes that Jack, in "Titanic," says, "Lets get out of here! This place is flooded!" Tom Norris, Braintree, Mass.

85) Don't Leave Home Without It
A childs backpack invariably contains everything needed to survive most disasters, and is also a help in traveling back in time. See "A Kid in King Arthurs Court" and "Far From Home: Adventures of Yellow Dog." PRILLIE HULS, St. Joseph, IL

86) Don't shoot the piano player
In movies, whenever a person asks a pianist whether he or she knows a tune, the answer is always a nod, followed immediately by the opening notes. ALBERTO DIAMANTE, TORONTO

87) Don't Wait For Me
Whenever the hero in a movie says "If Im not back in 5/10/15 minutes, get out of here/blow the whole thing up/call the cops," etc., he will be late. But his companions will ignore his instructions and wait until the hero (who is always wounded) returns. There is a 20 percent chance that they will go out to look for him and also get wounded. ROLAND FREIST, MUNICH, GERMANY

88) Dorm Roommate Rule
When its two-to-a-room in a college dorm, its highly likely that the protagonists roommate will be a punk rocker/goth and almost certain that the roomie will have sex with someone in their bed while the protagonist tries to do homework. See "The Butterfly Effect." MATT MINTZ, MURRIETA, CALIF.

89) Dr. Exposition, I Presume
All movie scientists who are neither the hero nor working for the bad guy are always doctors, and are, without fail, in the story only to present a crucial bit of information or explain some scientific concept to the hero, following which they are killed while doing further research on the problem. BRANNON MOORE Seattle, WA

90) Dramatic Desk Sweep
In a fit of anger or frustration, main character dramatically sweeps everything off desk. We never see anyone replace items, but surface is in perfect order in later scenes. Only exception: If one item was a framed photo of a dead lover or family member, the glass will be cracked, giving photo deeper meaning. Kim Costello, Downers Grove

91) Dude's Landing
In any movie where greenhorn city folks arrive in rugged terrain, there is always a scene of a grizzled local old-timer, his eyes narrowed, watching them arrive. He wisely foresees what theyre in for.

92) E.T. Ratio
The more coverage Entertainment Tonight gives to a big stunt (such an the explosions in "Lethal Weapon," "Blown Away," and "The Specialist", the fall in "Terminal Velocity," or any chase scene), the greater the likelihood the stunt will be the only thing in the film worth seeing. MERWYN GROTE, St. Louis, Missouri

93) Ebert's First Law of Symbolism
If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn’t.

94) Economy Class Crashes
No airplane that disappears out of sight over a hill, treetops or buildings ever lands safely; instead, a fireball explodes behind the foreground object.

95) Either Enron, or a Ghost
In potentially ominous situations, when the skies are clouding over and something bad is about to happen, the electric lights will blink, stutter and buzz, as if possessed by a ghostly outage. ROGER EBERT

96) Eleventh Law of Cartoon Thermodynamics
by Trevor Paquette and Lt. Justin D. Baldwin Cartoon Law XI ============== Any given amount of explosives will propel a body miles away, but still in one piece, charred and extremely peeved.

97) Emergency Tour Guide
The person in every crowd at a disaster scene who fully extends an arm to point at the obvious thing that everyone is already looking at or running from. Example: The woman near the end of "Armageddon" who points at the fireball in the sky that everyone on the whole planet is already watching. CHRIS JONES, Snellville, Georgia

98) Empathy Deficit Disorder
Affliction where film audiences cant seem to understand that not every scene in which a character appears with a mental disorder is funny. See Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and Richard Gere in "Mr. Jones." The audiences I saw these movies with laughed from start to finish, thinking if the character was mentally ill and there was even one amusing scene, the entire movie was slapstick comedy. KATHLEEN WILSON, Roanoke, VA.

99) Ethnic Defaults
All Asian people know karate. All Latin people dance salsa. Any Russian character is related to some ex-KGB agent now working for the new Russian Mafia. ALEXIS S. MENDEZ, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico

100) Eventually Suspicious Unsuspecting Suspect
He doesnt know anything, but they think he does. Hell probably never know anything, but they abduct and interrogate him at gunpoint, so they can find out what he knows. He somehow escapes, and motivated by his terrifying experience, he eventually finds out not only what they thought he knew, but everything else. RYAN WHITNEY, Washington, D.C.

Koepp Talks More About Indy Four

[Above is the new, official teaser poster, which was created by Drew Struzan, who I guess has done posters for all the Indy films.]

Okay, as many of you may know, it’s already been widely reported that Darabont is considering arbitration over Indy IV. In an interview with MTV news, Frank Darabont mentioned that some of his suggestions, such as casting John Hurt and bringing back Karen Allen, have come to fruition, although the idea of Shia LaBeouf's character was not his. He said, “I haven’t read the script, [but] at a certain point I will because I’m sure there will be an arbitration over writing credits,” he revealed. “I keep hearing from people who are near the production and they keep saying, ‘You know, they’re using more of your ideas here than you may have thought.’”

I can’t find the link anymore, but I also watched a different Darabont video interview in which he was promoting Mist and he talked a little about his Indy script and said that his favorite line in Raiders was always, “It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.” He said he riffed on that and, in his Indy IV script, he had Indy saying, “It's not the mileage, honey, it's the years.” Hehehe... Great line.

Anyway, in a new interview, Koepp was asked if he used Darabont's screenplay as a reference. Koepp said: “I looked at everything that everyone had written. It's been in development since the early '90s; anything that was any good, I tried to use -- sometimes it stayed, sometimes it didn't. We're all assistant storytellers; there was a ton of material there already. Part of my job was shaper, and part of my job was coming up with new stuff.”

I would’ve done the same.

But you better believe Darabont will seize any opportunity to get his hands on some of those massive residuals.

Also:

John Rogers had a great article on Writing Arbitration Letters.

Read the WGA Arbitration Process and definitions of various credits.

More Indy IV stuff:

Here’s my article on the sordid history of Indy IV.

Cate Blanchett & Ray Winstone's characters revealed

Frank Marshall shares more Crystal Skull info and locations

Karen Allen’s shock about Returning

-MM

Screenwriting News & Links! 12/12/07

I’m not talking about the strike today nor the new AMPTP website.

I’m just not.

But I will share this:

The Striking Writer Martini

YEAH, BABY!

The drink was created by screenwriter Nian Aster and first offered at “The Backstage Bar” (pictured above) then “La Campanile,” “M Bar,” and “Chan Dara” with a DISCOUNT for guild members. Woo hoo! "Cinespace” on Hollywood Boulevard is hosting a complimentary evening TONIGHT for striking writers with FREE beer, shots, and Striking Writer Martinis. (No, I won't be there.)

But here’s the recipe:

The Striking Writer Martini
2 oz vodka "to fortify against the cold Strike Winter"
2 oz cranberry juice "as the writers are seeing red"
1 oz sweet and sour mix "they’re grateful for solidarity in this bitter struggle"
4 drops vanilla (or use vanilla vodka) "to symbolize the 4 cent raise they asked for"
"There’s no cherry in this drink, as writers aren’t getting a piece of the pie. Garnish with a half a redvine, as they hope to be back on the set soon."

Okay, onto the links:

Are you on the Black List?
This is a list that was started a couple of years ago by an exec at Leo DiCaprio’s prodco, Appian Way. This guy polled his 90+ peers to send him their 10 favorite, new, unproduced screenplays to read over the holidays. The list got e-mailed around and suddenly became a phenomenon. I didn’t see last years, but back in 2005, the top entries were Things We Lost in the Fire, Juno, and Lars and the Real Girl. Get the list here.

The Day I Met The Unknown Screenwriter
Hilarious! I’m sure articles like this will be written about me someday…

The Allan Weisbecker Interview
Last week, the L.A. Times had Screenwriters Stranger than Fiction, but they missed the strangest one of all – Allan Weisbecker. He’s a surfer, author, screenwriter, and former drug smuggler - a man who physically threatened John Cusack and to whom Sean Penn once wrote "I encourage you to stay (in Central America) until something that resembles death.” Here was Allan's taste of the biz: "One assignment I turned down was based on a studio executive’s idea that a great white shark befriends a young boy. The great white is severely misunderstood; in the end the boy saves his buddy from the evil shark hunters. Sort of a cold-blooded Free Willy. The exec’s solution to the problem of how to make this believable was the following: 'We just have to make the shark… you know… fuzzy…'"

They need screenwriters in Dubai
“For Nayla al Khaja, a central obstacle is the lack of good screenwriting. 'Forget about the [Hollywood] writers' strike,' she says, 'we don't have writers.' And freedom of expression is another issue.” Sounds just like Hollywood.

Chris Soth’s Very Common Screenwriting Misstep
It takes him 10 paragraphs to get around to his point, but he finally gets to it: “Almost everybody makes their first act 50% too long. The point I recognize as the first act is usually around the 45th page. So…to put it in the parlance of my website and practice…” Yeah, we’re way ahead of you, buddy. See Mahler’s Script-Beat Calculator.

Alex Epstein has a thing for Verbs
“But as you break down a script, you identify an action that goes with each line. ‘I am insulting her.’ ‘I am begging for forgiveness.’ ‘I am seducing her.’ ‘I am scaring her.’ Since the lines of dialog which the actors are breaking down are coming from you, the writer, you should also have an action in mind for each piece of dialog.”

Billy Mernit Interview
Billy: "So go write a great horror rom-com! Like say, SHAUN OF THE DEAD. That's the "little black dress" effect of this ever-hardy genre: you can combine it with just about anything, and if you do it well, it'll fly. I've seen a plethora of vampire romantic comedy projects over the past few years, and I'll wager one will break out and hit it big. But to answer your question re: the spec market more specifically, what I can tell you is: every studio in town is still looking for good romantic comedies. They're usually cheap to make, they have a built-in demographic (that's expandable), they attract talent -- and they're very good showcases for a fledgling writer's character-driven plot and dialogue chops." Also, find some strike-related comfort with his Quixotic Radicals.

John August talks about unfilmmables
"There are two kinds of 'unknowable' information you can safely slip into your script. Things that are inherently apparent on screen… Details that add flavor, but don’t provide crucial information." (By the way, the “evaluator” mentioned in the question and complained about a supposed “unfilmmable” is a retarded dingleberry. This is exactly how bad myths about screenwriting get their origins. Someone sends in a script, an “evaluator” sends feedback saying “you can’t do it like that” and this gets shared with all the screenwriters around town and suddenly turns into a movement of “can’t do that” when the problem all along is that the “evaluator” is a retarded dingleberry. -MM)

Bill Boushka says Atonement is a great example of layered screenwriting
“The screenwriting concept itself is fascinating: to mix imagination with 'reality' as if they were interchangeable because the writer himself or herself wants to change the world.”

More scripts take nonlinear route
"Forget Screenwriting 101. Some of the year's most audacious screenplays throw out the rulebook, jumping back and forth in time instead of unfolding in a linear, three-act fashion. Such experimentation is as old as the movies themselves, dating back to such storytellers as D.W. Griffith (Intolerance) and Abel Gance (Napoleon). But the tendency has become increasingly common in recent mainstream releases, from Michael Clayton's car-bomb opening to Atonement's fragmented, time-jumping intrigue."

An Open Letter To Robert McKee: The Hero’s Journey
“Robert, I like you. Don’t take this the wrong way.But in your book, “Story,” you give the Hero’s Journey barely a passing mention.OK, you do call it the “Quest” and on page 196 you do say that “all stories take the form of a quest.”Having admitted that, surely you should have devoted more than a paragraph to it. This is a screenwriting book, right?First, why not call it the Hero’s Journey? Using the common and well known frame of reference helps screenwriters, instead of confusing them.Second, calling it a “quest,” is misleading. It implies that it covers a particular genre - Lord of the Rings, Arthurian Legend etc…” I love you, Nabil.

Remember The Key To Reserva?
It's an ad, of course, and Brandweek tells the story behind the short.

David Benioff Interview
"One of the biggest challenges for Benioff was simply carving the sweeping, three-decade-long events of Amir’s story into a two-hour motion picture. 'Time jumps are difficult to navigate in a movie,' explains Benioff, 'and because the novel covers almost 30 years, figuring out an efficient screenplay structure wasn’t easy. The novel shows Amir at many different ages, but I decided early on that I wanted only two actors playing the role. Any more than that and I think you might lose the connection to this wonderful character. So the screenplay streamlines the novel’s narrative – it incorporates almost all of the major beats but simplifies the chronology. Luckily, the heart of Khaled’s story is so strong I believe it maintains its power even within the restrictions of space and time of the screenplay format.'”

Paul Schrader Interview to promote The Walker
Q: Your career as a screenwriter has been full of landmark films. Have you been able to have the directing career you wanted since "Taxi Driver”?
PAUL SCHRADER: I don’t know. Look, when you get lucky in life, hopefully, and you happen to turn and the wind of the zeitgeist changes direction and hits you square in the face, when that happens to you, all you can really do is be grateful and move on because there’s no reason that will ever happen again. You know Coppola makes "The Godfather,” right film, right time, right place, right everything. People have said to me, you know, "How’s it feel to be involved with such a famous film and then everything afterward sort of seems like a decline?” Well I take the opposite point of view. To get validation that early in life and in your career takes an enormous pressure off of you because I know people my own age who have never had that validation and probably will never get it in their own lifetime. I got it young. I was free to move on, make films, some better than others, some more successful than others and I’m thankful for "Taxi Driver” and obviously when you direct films, you would like more people to see them and on the other hand, when you make a film like "The Walker,” you know you’re making kind of a boutique film anyway. It’s kind of a chamber piece. It’s a character study. It’s a lot easier to finance and sell a movie about a 20-year-old with a gun, Travis Bickle, than it is a 50- year-old with a lavender kerchief in his pocket.

Painfully single American screenwriter says all British women are fat, frumpy, ugly, not obsessed enough about their appearance, unfriendly and dress like hookers.
Tad, SHUT UP.

Interview: I Am Legend Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman
Q: Are there a lot of changes you bring to it on set? Is there some sort of idea that comes around when you're working with them?
Akiva: Oh yea. I think that fundamentally movies evolve while you're making them. I think you have to be reasonably nimble as a filmmaking collaborative to try to process and incorporate new ideas. Because the movie teaches you how to make the movie. You don't really know until you're there what it's going to look like or feel like. So you sort of need all hands on deck all the time in order to do the best possible version of the scene you were going to do that day or a new scene that you didn't think you were going to do that day.

Laini Taylor tells us What writers can learn from The Golden Compass
"Now that my grief has subsided, I’m [almost] glad it was not awesome, because it creates a perfect case study of good storytelling vs. bad storytelling. It shows how two people can take the exact same story elements and one of them (Pullman) can craft them into something compelling and heartbreaking and filled with suspense, and the other (Weitz) can rob them of all drama and meaning, make you not care at all, and worse, make you not even know what you’re supposed to be caring about."

Who Strikes?
"The United States features a lovely quirk of copyright law known as 'work for hire.' The work-for-hire doctrine states that employers may commission employees to create certain works of intellectual property while still retaining authorship. In other words, when I write a screenplay in France for Canal Plus, I'm the author. When I write a screenplay in the United States for Universal Studios, Universal Studios is the author."

Diablo Cody! Diablo Cody! Diablo Cody!

"Juno" writer went from stripping to Hollywood
"It was easy for me," Cody said of the writing process, "but I like to say ignorance is bliss. I had nothing to lose. I lacked any formal knowledge of screenwriting. I just did it, it was that simple. When you live in the real world, you exist in the mindset of 'just do it.' You wake up every day and there are things that you have to do. So I just wrote the movie." She wrote it on breaks, in the evenings, at a Starbucks or in a Target store on the weekends. "I always felt so embarrassed and delusional. I even get embarrassed now if I sit in the Coffee Bean in Los Angeles and work on a screenplay. I always think everyone's looking at me with pity, like, 'Oh, there's another struggling screenwriter, another loser.' I don't like to reek of desperation, and at that point in my life I certainly did."

Interview: Diablo Cody
Q: Did you read screenwriting books?
DC: No. I've never read a screenwriting book. I'm really superstitious about it too. I don't even want to look at them. All I did was I went and bought the shooting script of "Ghost World" at Barnes and Noble and read it just to see how it should look on the page because I like that movie. So it was kind of a weird coincidence that the producers wound up producing "Juno" as well.

Interview: Diablo Cody: Dancing as fast as she can
"I loathe shopping," she groaned. In Nordstrom's shoe department, she said, "Look at this madness. My feet are so wide and these are delicate little European lady shoes." When the clerk suggested high heels, Cody shook her head. "I wish, I wish, I wish. No, I actually can't wear heels. I have nerve damage in my feet from stripping."

Unlikely Former Stripper-Blogger Goes Big Time: Diablo Cody Pens 'Juno'
HW: Did the script change a lot along the process?
DC: No, I feel like I was so lucky in this regard. There wasn't a massive development process. There was never a formal re-write from the beginning which was really weird. I feel like a lot of the editing was in post-production to be honest. I was on set, which I know is rare for a writer, so I was extremely lucky. Jason [Reitman] is a very collaborative person.

Diablo Cody, from stripper to The Screenwriter
In an interview for December’s Mpls.St.Paul magazine, Cody’s friend Steve Marsh asked her if “Juno” became a major success, would it mean Bye-bye Jonny (her husband)? “Are you kidding?” she replied. “That’s a ridiculous question. He’s not going anywhere. Everything we do we do side by side. I’ve got him tattooed on my arm, for God’s sakes.”

And on the Contest Circuit:

Screenplay Festival Announces Finalists

2008 PAGE Awards Call for Entries

MM’s Book Announcement!

Hey guys,

I'd like to announce that I will be publishing right here on my blog the world’s first FREE SCREENWRITING BOOK!

I say it’s high bloody time we move away from this profit-driven classroom-style how-to industry led by self-proclaimed gurus who have never once written “FADE IN” in their lives and let writers debate the inexplicabilities of storytelling amongst fellow writers who are on the frontlines every day writing and studying the craft. Just as Radiohead changed the face of music with free downloads of their new CD, just as free internet porn sites have sent the porn industry into a freefall plunge, the truths of screenwriting shall also be free, shall set you free, shall open up the floodgates to what should be ongoing discussions about the craft, because we should grow together as a community by challenging each other, not pay to be taught by non-writers.

Okay, a few details. I don’t know when it’ll be ready, except to say sometime next year. I'll announce the title later along with a few other updates. This will not be the ultimate resource on screenwriting, but it will discuss many, many important topics for aspiring writers, which have not been adequately covered by the gurus, a sort of writer's eye viewpoint from one who's in the weeds and trenches every day. I'm also going to argue against a lot of ridiculous conventional wisdom (even about some of the most core principles), which I don't believe anyone has ever really done either. It’ll be stuffed with alternative, underground truths you haven’t heard anywhere else.

I’ve already written 4 or 5 chapters. Believe me when I tell you - it's spirited. Bill Donovan, the editor of Creative Screenwriting, once sent me an email and told me, “You feisty.” Yeah, well, this whole book will be written with as much passion as you’ve ever seen on my blog.

I'm also announcing this today because I’d like to periodically post excerpts of the book that I feel may need some feedback and/or debate. And if you’re new to screenwriting, I’d like to recommend the following books just to prepare you for what's to come:

Story by Robert McKee
Making a Good Script Great by Linda Seger
Psychology for Screenwriters by William Indick
20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias
Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Ph.D.
How NOT to Write a Screenplay by Denny Martin Flinn
Cinematic Storytelling by Jennifer van Sijll
The Story of Film by Mark Cousins


Yes, Robert, I plan to do just that. You’re going down, my friend.

-MM

Talks Breakdown - Moguls Walk Out

Talks Day #8: Moguls Walk From Talks After Issuing An Ultimatum To Writers; Both Sides Accuse Each Other Of Lying

Striking writers, studios break off talks again

TV season's down for the count

Sigh...

Screenwriting News & Links! 12/7/07

4 Screenwriting Tips that Annoy Me
I love you, Mark Albracht. I’m going to print and frame your article. And if we meet, I’m going to ask for your autograph. You’re a golden god. Mark this down as MM’s Favorite Screenwriting Article of 2007.

On the flipside, here’s the Worst Screenwriting Article of 2007:

How to Write a Screenplay in Two Weeks!
“So you want to write a screenplay. It's not as daunting as it may appear. Follow these simple steps and you'll churn out a masterpiece in just two weeks... Difficulty: Moderate”

DIABLO CODY! DIABLO CODY! DIABLO CODY!

I really hope she doesn’t let all this get to her head:

Diablo Cody: from stripper to screenwriter.
Off the Stripper Pole and Into the Movies
Diablo Cody says attitude towards women in Hollywood is "nauseating"
Tattooed Screenwriter Diablo Cody Is Bloodied But Unbowed by Hollywood Blogs Like Us.
You can also read an excerpt of the Juno screenplay. It’s a good scene.

Oh, and some guy named Jason Reitman was interviewed here.


David Koepp is just hoping to God he didn’t screw up, which isn't any more encouraging than when he said, "I'm going to get my ass handed to me." And if you’ve heard the same cameo rumors that I’ve heard, you’d be saying the same thing. While we won’t see a trailer until February, we should see the first teaser poster later this month.

Without a Writer, is a Joke Still Funny?
No.

Screenwriters Stranger Than Fiction
We should all be offended by this.

Screenwriter uses art to save child soldiers
“His screenplay, titled "Ana's Playground," has captured film industry awards, as well as the attention of political activists working to stem the tide of children being pressed into service as soldiers around the globe. After winning best screenplay honors last year for his original short version of the script, Howell was encouraged to expand the story so that it could be considered for feature-length film production…”
Good for you, man. That's so damn cool. I love it.

Where Did ‘The Golden Compass’ Go Astray? And Was Tom Stoppard's Original Script a Masterpiece?
"Like many fans, we'd always assumed that Stoppard's draft must have been a work of genius, and that his replacement by Weitz surely doomed the project. Much to our surprise, upon reading the screenplays, we're wrong. Had Stoppard's screenplay been filmed, the movie would have been ponderous, a bit dull, and far too long. Weitz's original script was actually great and makes us sad about the movie that could have been."

Haggis reveals interesting change to early Casino Royale script
"They came to me and I said: 'I think the biggest problem with the script is that you don't have an act three. Would you like one?' And they said yes..."

New Screenplays:
No Country For Old Men
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Gone Baby Gone
The Hoax

LionsGate has some bucks
“Lionsgate, the leading independent filmed entertainment studio, reported record high quarterly revenues of $343.5 million and a net loss of $56.2 million for its fiscal quarter ended September 30.”

Say “Hello” to Daniel Battsek, President of Miramax
Hey, you might meet him someday.

John August Doesn’t Announce Post-Strike Live-Action Tim Burton Film

To hell, with the truth
"What if the big stories of 2007 were put on film?"


On the Strike:

Writers finding solace, stories on picket lines
"[TV writers] are truly a different creature," says Alec Sokolow ("Toy Story"), who prefers picketing at Sony because its older crowd tends to be less TV-centric. "They love a certain social herd-like interaction. Most feature writers don't get that opportunity, so you get together and very carefully begin a conversation with somebody, and then decide if somehow it's gonna lead you to more Xan- ax."

The Picket Line Is The Place to Meet A Writer in L.A.
"Fans Turn Out in Numbers, And Bored Scribes Bask; 'They're Nice, They Talk'"

Film scripts into TV pilots?
"CBS considering finished unproduced works"

Will weak box office end flock to docs?
"Distribs find niche films can't support hefty prices"
What have I been saying? DOWN WITH THE DISTRIBS!

WGA Talks More About Fixed Residuals

Angry Studio Chiefs Claim Writer’s Demands Could Kill Internet Streaming
"Moguls remain restrained in public but privately are angry about the WGA’s latest demands; which is going to make it nearly impossible to do a deal by Christmas. Directors Guild waits and watches, but not for long."

Studio Head Roger A. Trevanti Explains the AMPTP’s Complicated Proposal in Simpler Friendlier Terms.
“I hope you writers get ass cancer and die.”

WGA likely to see final offer from majors
According to Variety, “With few clear signs that the five-week writers strike will end soon, the WGA faces the daunting prospect that the majors will lose patience with the slow pace of negotiations and make a final offer as early as next week.”

Sigh…

On the Contest Circuit:

Movie Script Contest Announces Feature Script Semfinalists

MoviePoet Announces October Contest Winners

Writers Place Announces May-October 2007 Finalists

Kaos Films Announces British Short Screenplay Contest Winners

WriteSafe Announces 3rd Quarter Contest Finalists

American Gem Announces Quarter Finalists

Final Draft Announces Big Break Contest Winners

(Second place was our good friend, Ger! I was one of the first to read Knight Knight! and gave him some feedback. I loved it.)

Song Meme

Our good friend, Patricia, tagged me to post some inspirational songs for screenwriters. I’ve picked three.

This first song comes from a band that got a write-up in the L.A. Times not long ago (and here, too). It’s the only song about screenwriters I'm aware of, and it “would become one of the signature L.A. songs of the 1990s, a spoken-word barrage with an eerie, industrial-pulse backdrop...” By the way, Mike Doughty has never been to Reseda.

It’s called “Screenwriter’s Blues” by Soul Coughing.




This next one is the greatest lesson a screenwriter will ever learn.
“Show Don’t Tell” by Rush




And finally, for personal inspiration, I’d have to go with “Lightning Crashes” by Live taken from a live Live concert.

The Ending for “No Country”

* MAJOR SPOILERS *

So I was telling a writer friend of mine about the Act Two Climax & Third Act decisions the Coen brothers made for their film, No Country for Old Men. (“Okay, stop right there, MM. They didn’t make those decisions about the story. Everything in the film happened that way in the book.” The Coens are responsible for their film. They didn’t have to follow the book chapter and verse as they did, but they chose to do so. Everything we see in the film is the result of all the decisions the Coens made for their film, including the plot.)

Anyway, I told this friend of mine about the movie and Moss, the protagonist, who finds two million dollars of dirty money; about Chigurh, the brutally evil antagonist with the brutally evil haircut who is hot on his trails; and Ed Tom Bell, the concerned yet, ineffective, sheriff. And this plot, as it always must, leads up to the inevitable Act Two showdown between Moss and Chigurh. So what happens, you ask yourself as you watch the film... Does he kill Chigurh? Does he get to keep the money? Or will the Sheriff step in to hand down some old school western justice? We don’t see it. We’re robbed of the showdown. We learn that Moss is dead. He got killed in a scene that took place off-screen. All we see are the police cars, the flashing lights, and the yellow tape in front of two hotel rooms. Moss’s wife shows up, bursts into tears, and hugs Bell. That’s it. In the next scene, Bell visits Moss in the mortuary. We’re not even allowed to see his face. Then, Chigurh hunts down Moss’s wife and kills her when she returns home from the funeral. After that, he gets away. The last image is of Bell babbling in his dining room about his dreams. Fade out.

Do you know what my friend said?

“That is so wrong.”


She’s a published author, by the way. Did she say that because she only wants to watch formulaic films over and over? Hardly. Perhaps it was because those decisions are so outrageous, they go against everything we hold dear about storytelling? Hmm. Of course, there’s much more to the ending than what I wrote, but I believe this is how most people around the country are reacting to the film. I’ve read (and received) comments about audiences walking out of the theater put off by the anti-climactic ending. Immediately following the fade out in my own screening, I heard a teenage girl yell out, “What? What was that?” The fanboys have also been quite vocal about their displeasure. Mr. Massawyrm wrote, “But it is all wasted. Every bit of it. Because no matter how great everyone is, no matter how tight the dialog, hell, no matter how good the story is as it chugs along, it never makes up for the monumental suck that is the third act. Anyone who was hoping for the triumphant return of the Coen's are gonna be let down something fierce. It's like having great sex but never being allowed to cum.” So, apparently, audiences around the country are leaving theaters grumbling angrily about not cumming in a film that’s sitting pretty with a 96% approval rating from the critics at Rotten Tomatoes.

What’s a screenwriter to think about these things?


I’ve seen the film twice. There have been good articles about it, but I don’t think they’ve really nailed the story (to my satisfaction) just yet. Look, the Coens are hucksters in the way they love to bend, break, and defy genre expectations. That’s what they live for. And need I remind you that before this production, they were still feeling the sting of two bad films under their belts (Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers) and they were looking to do something outrageous to get themselves back in the spotlight again. So what’s more outrageous than killing off the hero and letting the bad guy get away? It’s folly, my friends, FOLLY, I say, to attribute any deeper meaning to the film than that. They don’t care about making statements. That's not what they’re about. We already know from the podcast interview that what appealed to them most about adapting this book was the fact that the protag dies in the Act Two climax. Hell, that appeals to me, too.

The “No Country” novel bends genre conventions because it’s setup as a western / thriller but then it defies every expectation by ending as a tragedy. And tragedies are always moral tales because they emphasize the circumstances that lead up to the tragedy so that we will hopefully take those lessons to heart and avoid the same mistakes. This is a moral tale in the same sense that Barton Fink was a moral tale about the rise of Nazism and a warning to writers like Fink who sell out while telling themselves they’re doing the right thing “while the holocaust approaches and the nice guy next door turns out to be a monster.”


So how is this a moral tale? What the dramatic structure does, in essence, is condemn Moss for his greed and pursuit of a bunch of dirty money that he knows will bring him nothing but trouble. What they’re saying, basically, is that a good man (or even a halfway good man) who dabbles in a little evil has no hope of defeating those who are truly evil at their own game of killing for money. Despite the fact that Moss was a Vietnam vet, which perhaps fed his own self-deception about being able to deal with this, he was too inexperienced and too weak – he was too good, in fact – to compete with the likes of Chigurh. You may recall how Moss returned to the scene of the crime because he felt sorry for the Mexican asking for “agua.” Do you think Chigurh would’ve done that? Common sense tells you the poor man would’ve been dead by the time he got back there anyway, but hey, Moss is a decent man. While he’s knows he’s about “to do somethin’ dumber than hell,” he’s going to do it anyway, and he’s nearly killed for it. Yet, in a strange twist, going back was also the thing that almost saved him.

Almost.

Of course, everyone’s noticed how the Coens made connections throughout the film between Moss and Chigurh (they both pay a huge sum for a shirt that would hide their open wounds, they both shoot at animals that get away, they both say “hold still,” and they both have bad haircuts. Hehehe…). Those connections, I think, were meant to show that Moss’s actions were the beginnings of a personal descent into evil and the inevitable, awful end to that road, the worst outcome imaginable for Moss, is to become like Chigurh. They’re connected because Moss is headed down a path that Chigurh already walked long ago. (At least, that would be the only reason why I’d make connections like that.) Plus, we know that Moss isn’t about to give up that money. Thus, the road to hell is already laid out before him. At the end of that road is Chigurh – literally and figuratively. Ultimately, it’s better for Moss to die than to live with the money. It’s a great decision. Besides, imagine how miserable his life would be if his step-mother found out he came into money and was rich? Oy vey…


So Moss dies. This was actually setup a few times with Bell’s warnings to Moss’s wife that the man is “in over his head,” which we dismiss as typical, genre dialogue, but here Bell’s words are prophetic. Not only that, letting Moss die off-screen, I think, makes a cinematic statement about the sheer inevitability of his death. It’s as if they were saying, “It was so conclusive and so obvious he would die that it wasn’t even worth filming.” That’s how strongly they felt about how Moss had no chance at all against Chigurh. (Personally, I would’ve shown it. It’s a cheap trick to lead the audience on with a traditional thriller narrative and then pull the rug out from underneath them. Besides, showing Moss’s death would’ve punctuated the tragedy even further.)

Of course, there is evidence that what happened at the hotel was more complicated than a simple battle between Moss and Chigurh. The crime scene was a huge mess. It’s possible that the Mexicans had learned about the money and killed Moss first. Then Chigurh showed up, killed the woman by the pool, as well as the Mexicans, but then the heat became too much and he fled. (Remember all that shooting going on in the street when Bell arrived?) Then, Chigurh returned to the room later to collect the money, which is why he was in the room next door when Bell returned to the crime scene of the hotel room. (Chigurh was not in the same room as Bell. He was next door. When Bell returns to the crime scene at the motel, we’re shown two hotel doors and a yellow crime tape across both rooms. After Bell enters the room and walks around, he turns on the lights and sits on the bed. You can see the door. Chigurh is not in the room. He’s next door. He’s always next door. I suspect we caught him right before he was about to leave and he chose to wait it out in order to keep it quiet.)


But back to my point. Moss dies unexpectedly, and we, as an audience, emotionally cling to Bell, the ineffective sheriff, hoping that he will finally bring some justice to Chigurh. I love this trick of killing the protag and then clinging to a supporting character like Bell. Hey, who better to take down Chigurh than a bad ass Tommy Lee Jones in a big cowboy hat? His character even comes from a long line of old school lawmen. He was born for this moment, man! But, alas, those are pipe dreams. Bell is so gob-smacked by the horrors of Chigurh’s nature that he goes into retirement and babbles on about his dreams to his wife.

Chigurh would escape, only to be sidetracked temporarily by a car accident. Chigurh had the green light, didn’t he? This was out of his control, a random accident setup in the narrative by all those talks about flipping the coin and thus, subtextual conversations about fate and chance of which he would become a victim. (By the way, I didn’t entirely agree with Matt Zoller Seitz about Chigurh flipping the coin out of guilt. He was a simple gambling addict. He so perfectly inhabited evil and was such a masterful expert at killing people that the only way he could find vicarious thrills in life was by gambling with other people’s lives. It also gave him a sense of validation about what he was doing. He lived by a rule book, which is why he thought he had to kill Moss’s wife, but when it wasn’t in the rules in his mind, he left it up to chance to give him permission (and validate his need) to kill. You gotta love Moss’s wife for refusing to “call it.” She wasn’t going to play by his stupid games. She wasn’t going to give her life up on a coin toss, and let “chance” or “fate” decide if she lives or dies. She was strong enough to say “no” to Chigurh so that in his mind he knew that her blood would be on his hands because he chose to kill her outside of his own rules and without the thrill of a gambler’s rush.)

By the way, there are some legitimate complaints to be made about the characters. They could’ve had more depth. I liked what Stephen Hunter said in The Washington Post:

“You can't say it cuts to the chase. There was never anything to cut from to the chase. It's all chase, which means that it offers almost zero in character development. Each figure is given, a la standard thriller operating procedure, a single moral or psychological attribute and then acts in accordance to that principle and nothing else, without doubts, contradictions or ambivalence. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), the laconic vet who finds the stash, is pure Stubbornness. His main pursuer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem in Robert Wagner's haircut from "Prince Valiant"), is Death, without a pale horse. Subsidiary chaser Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) is Pride, or possibly Folly. Tommy Lee Jones appears in the role of Melancholy Wisdom; he's a lawman also trying to find Llewelyn but not very hard. He'd much rather address the camera and soliloquize on the sorry state of affairs of mankind, though if he says anything memorable, I missed it.”


But back again to my point about Bell. The fact that Bell doesn’t give us any justice in the end cuts the heart even deeper than losing Moss. Why would they do it this way? They already bent the rules by killing the protag. Wasn’t that enough? Did they really have to let Chigurh get away, too, and make us sit through ramblings about loss of money or love of a father from a weak, emasculated, old man who can’t do his fucking job any more? This decision about the ending and Bell is, I think, rooted in not only the motivations of the Coens to do something outrageous for the sake of attention but also the motivations of Cormac McCarthy. You can get away with a lot more in a novel than a screenplay because you can write beautifully about things happening off-screen and the reader won’t mind. That doesn’t usually translate into great cinema. But the final scenes in the novel could have been more about McCarthy than it was about the story itself and could have been about McCarthy’s identification with Sheriff Bell’s inability to come to terms with the evils of the modern world, of a longing for a time past when men had honor and codes of conduct, and a desire to hold dear what’s truly valuable in this evil world. In one review of the book, William Deresiewicz said of the ending:

“As the novel nears its end, however, Bell’s very doubts about the value of his life’s work become the excuse for an affirmation of timeworn verities: the endurance of truth, the existence of God, the nihilism of unbelief, the goodness of the old ways. The sheriff is clearly McCarthy’s mouthpiece here, and so we find the erstwhile apostle of ignorance giving us chapter and verse about what to believe and how… What Bell is confronting, we’re told again and again, is a new kind of evil. Apparently the Old West, like the rest of human history, was just one big family. Like Waugh, again, McCarthy has forgotten that his critique of modernity is only a subset of his critique of humanity. And the problem with the present, apparently, isn’t just drugs, it’s also abortion, kids with green hair and the loss of good manners. McCarthy the conservative has conscripted McCarthy the artist for service in the culture wars, and the result turns out about as happily as such arrangements usually do.”

Personally, (thanks to Jim who pointed this out) I think Bell’s dreams were nothing more than a hint at what would be McCarthy’s next novel, “The Road,” “a post-apocalyptic novel about a father carrying the fire to keep his son alive in a world of desolation.”

Which means that those dreams were not really about the story.


When it comes to the ending, I think you have to ask yourself, “By going against convention and denying everyone the satisfaction of justice, what truth is being illuminated?”

And anyone who really tries to search for that answer as it relates to No Country For Old Men will go down a thought process that dabbles in extreme nihilism that will never be true.

But you see, it was never about deeper meaning or making nihilistic statements about the world. It was about doing something outrageous and whatever people got out of it, they got out of it. But defying conventions makes statements whether it’s intended or not. And the nihilistic statements that are inevitably being made with this ending are wrong and critics should’ve been more vocal about it. But the Coens are forgiven because the first two-thirds of the film are so undeniably spectacular. On the other hand, the ending offers a crumbling, smalltown midwest authority figure that cannot come to terms with the bigger contemporary evils of life, left floundering and failing, which practically strokes the snobbery of big city movie critics who can’t help but agree ("Yes, that's true! That's true! No smalltown midwest authority figure could possibly be smart enough to grasp the contemporary evils of our time!"), and they can use their positions as all-important critics to explain to the benighted masses (which they have failed to do, I might add) why we should love a story where the "hero" gets killed and the "bad guy" gets away and there is no "justice" in this world except cosmically hilarious moments of "chance." Is it any wonder people today won’t listen to critics?

Only the Coens can get away with that. I have one piece of advice to give to newbie screenwriters who might be studying this script:

Don’t try this at home.

-MM

Recent Script Reviews (& Cool Posters)

MM's 200-Word Review!

In honor of David Muhlfelder and his unfailingly accurate reviews that are usually 200-words-or-fewer, I, Mystery Man, will now endeavor to write my first 200-word review.

[The above paragraph doesn't count.]

Gulp...

[The "gulp" doesn't count either.]

---------------------------------

Hello, my friend, I've been meaning to read this script since - oh shit, I only have 200 words. Um... how much fun is this? Anyone who loves the classic Bonds would naturally enjoy this send-off. I think David leans more toward humor over intense action, which is fine because it's SO much fun. (Too many films have excessive action to compensate lack of good characters.) This spec is evocative of Bond in structure ONLY because Thorne is amusing in all the ways he ISN'T Bond - love of golf, fear of flying, and "neat" bourbons. (ScriptShark's "AM" couldn't have been more wrong about Thorne needing work in manifesting "internal and external goals.") The butterflies were ingenious - visual, delicate, and deadly, like the antagonist. Exposition could have been tightened up. Great exposition is usually served in the context of something else. The characters could have been tightened up, too, as some didn't serve the story that much - Ellery, Blair, Benton, and... General LeMay? I did agree with AM that I'd distance this story even further from Bond and make it your own. You don't need Bond. You already have plenty of great strengths to draw people into your world.

---------------------------------

Screw it. That's 201 words. I can't do it! Hehehe...

Great job, man.

-MM

As always, let's start with praise. This had all the markings of a devoted student - the short scenes, the short action paragraphs, the trimmed-down dialogue, the well-executed setups and payoffs, and the great format. A few words on format - study my notes on how to handle INSERTS and ON MONITORS. Use them only when you want us to read the words of something and then bookend the INSERT with a BACK TO SCENE. The Secondary Headings were so great and welcome, but you don't need those extra spaces above the headings or other slugs like "LATER." Avoid "then" in the action lines. Also, some words in the action lines didn't need to be in caps, like the important actions or the characters who were inconsequential to the story. Don't use "(cont)" when a character speaks twice in a row. You're breaking one of Trottier's Ten Commandments in doing that. Only use "(more)" and "(cont'd)" when dialogue carries over to the next page. Don't italicize words in the dialogue, just underscore the really important ones and only if the emphasis isn't implied. I also think you should've used a MONTAGE every time you used a SERIES OF SHOTS, and you need to understand the difference between the two. A MONTAGE is a kind of music video set to a theme of some kind, usually the passing of time, whereas a SERIES OF SHOTS is usually a list of tight shots that leads to a dramatic climax, like, for example: A) a look, B) a hand moves, C) a bead of sweat, and D) a gun goes off. See what I mean? Montages are listed with dashes instead of letters, too.


All in all, great job with the format. There's one point I want to make with respect to the action lines. I loved how you began some of your scenes with establishing shots before revealing the character in the room. For example, in the beginning in the Bureau de Change, you showed us "Manicured fingers efficiently count currency. Dollars are placed into an envelope and slipped under the glass partition. Euros FLUTTER through an electronic counter" before you introduced Toby Sharpe. Similarly, in the advertising agency, you imply a tight shot and then go wide to reveal the character. We first see "Files and papers piled chaotically on an ’L’ shaped desk" before we're introduced to Sally Pickles. I love that. That's Cinematic Storytelling. I recently wrote an article called Write the Shots:

Just because we no longer write camera angles does not change the core principle of action lines in that we should write the shots. I also quote a friend who is a screenwriting professor, former pro reader for Universal, Jennifer van Sijll, who wrote: “Writing cinematically is not the same as Directing-the-Director. Directing-the-director is when you write: “JOE’S POV WINDOW– LOW ANGLE,” instead of “Joe looks up at the window.” They mean the same thing. The first unnecessarily draws attention to camera information taking us completely out of the story. The second method implies it’s a POV shot and a low-angle, but it does not distract us with technical jargon. Similarly if a tracking shot is essential to a scene it’s better to say “Joe jogs alongside Susan” rather than “TRACKING SHOT – JOE AND SUSAN JOGGING which is considered directing-the-director.”


…another aspect I'd like to praise is the way that you cut back and forth between two storylines taking place at the same time. All aspiring screenwriters should be able to do this well. I pushed Bob Thielke into doing this with one of his Father Max scripts, I think, and now he does it all the time. It's addictive. And I liked the way you were working in contrasts between the way Toby and Sally were dealing with it. I have one suggestion for you, though. Particularly in the beginning of this script, when you have a sequence involving, say, Toby, it should have a beginning, middle, and end, and THEN you switch over to a sequence involving Sally. Or in other terms, make your point with a simple setup and payoff and then switch to the other person. At times, like on page 10, Sally would be doing something, like walking down a corridor, and you'd leave us hanging by cutting to Toby, leave us hanging again, and then cut back to Sally. Well, (like on page 10) you should go from Sally down the corridor to the Sally smoking scene and THEN cut to the Dr. Patel scene. Leave us hanging ONLY if the one story line AFFECTS the outcome of the other storyline. As it is, keep 'em separate until they meet.


You mentioned on your profile: "I hold the structure and pacing of a story in high regard... I strongly believe that concept is king and the execution of that concept is the single most important thing a writer can do to create marketable screenplays." I think execution of a good story is more important than concept. High concept is great for summer blockbusters, but in the fall, with the quality films coming out hoping to get Oscars - anything goes. It's never what it's about but HOW it's about it. Let me ask you - what's more important? Story or character? Character. People will forgive structural issues, pacing, wandering off on tangents, etc, if they love the characters. Structure is always debatable - but having good characters - it's NEVER debatable. More often than not, newbies get produced with scripts that totally breaks structure. In fact, just recently, a first-time screenwriter, Kelly Masterson, is being praised for her work on Sidney Lumet's new film, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." Here's Ebert: "The Japanese name some of their artists Living Treasures. Sidney Lumet is one of ours. He has made more great pictures than most directors have made pictures, and found time to make some clunkers on the side. Here he takes a story that is, after all, pretty straightforward, and tells it in an ingenious style we might call narrative interruptus. The brilliant debut screenplay by Kelly Masterson takes us up to a certain point, then flashes back to before that point, then catches us up again, then doubles back, so that it meticulously reconstructs how spectacularly and inevitably this perfect crime went wrong." Just food for thought.


I liked your use of "he/she" in the action lines, as weird as that sounds. Writers with little confidence will start every sentence in the action lines with the name of a character. "Jack does this." "Jack does that." "Jack goes here." Blah-blah-blah. Well, you know that Jack only needs to be mentioned once at the beginning of the paragraph and then the rest of paragraph can have "he" and we'll know exactly who you're talking about. You're great at that. I think it's a sign of amateurish writing when they begin every sentence with the name of the protag, as if the writer has no faith in the reader that we won't know who you're talking about. It's a quicker, smoother read when you write "he/she" and it just conveys the message "I'm confident and have faith in you to get it." There were a few moments, like the top of page 17 where you could've gone further with "he" even in separate paragraphs, because we'll assume you're still talking about Jack.


Okay, let's talk about realism with characters and dialogue. I get the impression you aim for that with Jack, as a character, and the way he interacts with others. It's been the trendy thing to do. It's as if Dr. Phil's "Be real" mentality has bled over into screenwriting. We may disagree on this, but frankly, I have never once believed in realism when it comes to the craft of screenwriting. Realism has made for the most boring movies, boring scenes, and boring lines ever. I think realism is what has kept aspiring screenwriters from getting sales and breaking in and why so many films don't soar, ya know? Screenwriting is about mastering the techniques of drama cinematically. It feels good to write dialogue that's true and real, but that doesn't always make for the most interesting read. I say you should aspire to tweak your scenes to make them as compelling as possible though character depth and subtext. Jack felt like he was the same with the way he treated everyone he knew, and while that's great in real life, it's more interesting in a film if you show us different (perhaps even contradictory) dynamics to his character. He's one way with Gwendolen and completely different with Lance and Brianna, yet he's the same guy. We feel like we're getting exposed to something different about him when we see him interact with a different character. In the cases of both Gwendolen and Brianna, I felt that the women took the lead too much in the seduction, and I think those scenes are really about Jack and not the women and how Jack treats THEM and how he has this personality that, despite his inner problems, is something so charming that Gwen still can't resist the temptation of reconciliation, because he knows how to make her laugh and feel good and he still tempts her physically and her excuses to visit the house was really about her loneliness and him making her feel good, ya know? And your showing a contrast with the way he treats one woman as opposed to the other would speak to the different sides of his dueling nature, which would have been more compelling. And I think I would've liked to have seen Jack say things that were full of subtext that hinted at inner needs that define his actions as opposed to scenes of Gwendolen telling Jack verbally what he needs to learn, like on page 46.

Realism in dialogue, to me, means "too much boring on-the-nose talk." I think you can make things real and believable but still have an engrossing film by designing a heightened realism that's full of subtext. Every time I came across a line of dialogue that was on-the-nose, I would wonder "what's a good alternative with subtext?" On page 10-11, we had this slight argument about Jack smoking in the house. Gwen tells him to put it out. He does so and then says "Sorry." Well, what else could've been done? He could've been obstinate and refused. He could've blown smoke in her face. He could've seductively wooed her into having a cigarette, too, and she accepts, as if to say she still can't resist his charms. Anything other than him putting the cigarette out and saying "sorry" would've been more interesting, because as it is, it's too straightforward and real and on-the-nose. Do you see what I mean? I had thoughts like this almost every time I read something on-the-nose. I must sound like crazy man with these paragraphs, but I hope it helps.


The problem for me is that I think the plot is too thin, and I don't think that this conflict between Justin and his father, Karson, is enough to really carry a film. Pardon the expression - it wanders dangerously close to "Idiot Plot" territory. Don't be offended by that. An "Idiot Plot" is a Roger Ebert-ism, I believe. They're stories built upon a simple misunderstanding between characters that can be cleared up with a few simple, apologetic words. Of course, coming out to your father is more complicated than that, but the cast design makes this setup weak. Timothy's shop, A Magic Hand, is right next to Liz's Bar, and so you can't help but wonder how this secret could've been kept for so long. Karson is so cushioned and protected (in the context of the story) because he's friends with Timothy who's gay and you just know that he'll eventually talk some sense into him and push him into accepting Justin. If Karson was so homophobic, would he really be so friendly with Timothy? Even if he was, would it really be such a difficult transition for him to accept his son since he's already friends with Timothy? In real life, anything is possible, but in drama, I think you have to construct the cast design in such a way as to really bring home the ideas you're trying to convey about a character. If you're trying to say that Karson is homophobic, then you have to construct his life in such as way as to illustrate just how homophobic he is in order to heighten this growing tension about Justin coming out to him. As it is, the conflict isn't that big of a deal because you can already see where this story is headed before it even starts - Timothy will talk sense into Karson, who will do something big and dumb and ruin things, apologies will be made, acceptance will rule the day, and we'll get the happy ending. I also want to mention that Karson's friendship with Timothy makes his coming out even less of surprise. The fact that they're even talking to each other (and it's quickly revealed that he likes Timothy's "toys") you know that Karson will eventually come out, which is a disappointment because you want to be surprised by things like that later on in the story, not on page 3.

By the time I got to the 60s and 70s page-wise, I was writing in my notes that I think the plot has been stretched to its absolute limit and now it's just getting dragged out just to cross that 90-page mark. And going through the script a second time, I could really feel this thing dragging toward the end of Act Two. And I think it had to do with the fact that we had to wait so long for a simple reconciliation that in most stories like this would happen pretty quickly. Consider that Karson is essentially outed to his son on page 62. This whole conflict could have ended with their talk by the Hudson river on page 68. While Karson does apologize, he still says something stupid and punches Justin, which drags out this simple reconciliation. Then Karson gets punched out for being gay and we're in the hospital where, again, all of this could've been cleared up but Karson reaches out for Carlos' hand instead of Justin's, which upsets him and he leaves, and this apology gets dragged out yet even longer. On page 78, they get one step closer to reconciliation with Karson saying "I'm a dick head." You'd think that would be enough but it isn't, and it's not until page 86, in Liz's Living Room, that all of this FINALLY clears up. That's too long in a film, I think, to simply wait for two guys to apologize to each other. In real life, these kinds of things can certainly drag on interminably, but in a drama, it feels too much like a weak plot that's being dragged out for the sake of page count.


I also want to talk about inner conflicts, because I think a better construction of inner conflicts in your main characters might help this story a little. For example, this whole business with Mazzini could've been handled better. He was setup so well. We had all that talk about him, voice mails being left demanding answers about rent, and then he just shows up. Great! He invites Liz to have dinner to "negotiate." Great! And then he tells her "One day, you will say 'yes.'" Double great! But then nothing happens with Mazzini, and we never see him again. You have a number of setups in that scene without a single payoff. When he asked Liz to have dinner, I think she should've reluctantly said "yes" because she was desperate in her financial situation. She has dinner with him and negotiates. Then she meets Shell and falls in love, and thus, she's stepped into a conflict - continue seeing Mazzini and save the bar or risk everything to be with Shell? Do you see what I mean? As it is, she rejects Mazzini, nothing happens, and the plot pretty much stays at status quo when you needed a turning point in that scene with him that pushes the plot forward. Not much happens with Liz to really warrant her existence accept for the fact that she's Justin's mother and owner of a bar where everyone hangs out. Adding a subplot between her and Mazzini might help the plot feel less thin. More could've been done with her. Also, with respect to inner conflicts, Justin was just too singularly worried about his cranky garbage man father's reaction that it felt like a bit of overkill. At his age, with his life ahead of him, he should be worrying about so many other things, too, not just his father. And indeed, he was, but they were down played too much in the narrative. Karson could've been constructed differently to give him a more clearly defined inner conflict, like say, he's religious and so he has to choose between his church and his son. Or something like that. So all of this talk about Liz, Justin, and Karson, I think, leads to a discussion about inner conflicts, and I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to share what I wrote in my blog about this subject:

If you were writing a tragedy, this would be the tragic flaw. In Aristotle’s Poetics (which was his response to Plato's attack on Greek tragedy for encouraging a shameful indulgence in sorrowful emotion) this would be Hamartia – the mistake, the flaw, the failure, the fault, or the sin of the protagonist that would lead to his or her downfall. This is where we find in Sophocles' Oedipus the King and Shakespeare's Othello men who fall into pride, error, and in the end, self-destruction.

In non-tragic contemporary terms, this is the weakness of the hero, the internal obstacles of characters that keep them from achieving their end goals. It is the adventurer with the deathly fear of snakes, the spy who can’t resist women he knows will ultimately betray him, the mobster who believes in "family values," or it’s the romantic with that one little hiccup that keeps him/her sidelined in the game of love. Or it’s what characters think they want and what they really need. It’s poor Willy Loman who wants to look at his life with a sense of pride and accomplishment, but he just cannot emotionally accept his failure as a breadwinner, his failure as a faithful husband, and his failure to bring up decent sons. And it is our job to not only define what the inner conflict is but also exploit that conflict in an external way, usually through relationships, in order to maximize its dramatic potential.

There was a great post by Nienke Hinton last January over at the "Writing Life" on Inner Conflict. I loved this quote from Caro Clark:

“A character's inner conflict is not just being in two minds about something, not just being torn between obvious incompatibles (“I want to be a priest, and yet I love her”) but is about being in a new situation where old attitudes and habits war with and hinder the need for change. For instance, a man who drives himself to succeed because he doesn't want to be like his happy-go-lucky father is suddenly confronted with a situation where he isn't winning. Or an executive discovers that her ambition to be vice president of her company is being thwarted by her own self-doubt. This war inside each of your characters makes them act and react in complex ways.

“You show these internal conflicts not by means of internal dialogue (which is a cop-out and is dull), but by showing your characters responding to their own inner compulsions. She, for instance, decides to confront her own self-doubts by taking on a no-win project where the local people are opposing a development. She is determined to be hard-nosed, prove she's vice-president material. He is always confrontational, fearing that one minute of negotiation would be the first step to becoming a wimp like his father. You have a grade-A opposites-attract situation here, yet it is believable because we understand why each of them is acting the way they do, why they are foolishly stubborn, by it's important for each of them to win.”

I hope that helps. I had also discovered a wonderful webpage, Shy United, who posted a list of inner conflicts that might help inspire you.

Scorsese Does Hitchcock!

You’re going to love this.

There is available online a free short film directed by Martin Scorsese in which he shoots a sequence taken from 3 ½ pages of a "lost" Alfred Hitchcock screenplay that was called The Key to Reserva. The 3 ½ pages are undated and all that’s left of the script. We don’t know anything else about the story. Plus, there's a page missing before the last page!

This is the kind of thing that really lights the mind of a screenwriter. Mark this down as MM’s Favorite Short Film of 2007.

WATCH THE KEY TO RESERVA

Screenwriting Links & Shout-Outs!

Unk’s continuing his series on Structure with Part 7 – Monomyth:
“Through strategic use of metaphor and symbolism, the very best stories live on in perpetuity. This is why we’re still learning about myths today. This is why we pass these same myths down. Myths started out as sacred tales worthy of a tribe’s admiration, respect, and even fear. They often touched upon a tribe’s Gods and the mysteries of how life came to be so of course, tribespeople were mesmerized and passed these stories down to current day… Especially when these stories revolved around a central character…”
(He also has some great links to Monomyth, The Hero’s Journey, The Hero Myth, Mythic Journey. As always, great job, Unk.)

Joshua James is now 3-years-old. The boy popped his IMBD cherry. He gave birth to something called a “baby” which he calls Kai. Plus, he offers a plethora of Greatest Hits from his Daily Dojo. Congratulations, Josh. On everything. Well deserved.

Janet really is cute.

Dix shared some posts on giving and receiving notes:
“I was recently story editing yet another Canadian feature...a good script with a nifty hook, but a mixed genre picture (e.g. like an action/comedy, or a historical/horror). We were down to the small points of the deal, as it were, in terms of character/story/structure/dialogue/ pacing/logic notes, but with a little nudge in one direction or another, this particular screenplay could be sold to either a Lionsgate or Maple Pictures, or to the CBC. Two very different animals to say the least. It seemed the script was trying to be appropriate for both, and thus ended up not quite right for either.”
(See also Alex Epstein’s Reader Notes v. Writer Notes, or, Story Mechanics and Billy’s “Notes on Notes,” Part 1 and Part 2.)

Lianne had a great post on the 8 Stages of Writing Treatments:
“I start off by writing at least one line for each of the sections above – something that literally answers the question raised - then I go back and flesh out from there and try to write it more like a short story. I aim to end up with at least one page for each section and with a finished document of between 10-15 pages. When I’m done and am happy with the story then I’ll go through each section and separate each story beat and use that as the basis for a step outline. Worth trying if you tend to get stuck with treatments, or if you don’t usually do treatments/outlines before starting a draft and get your knickers in a twist half-way through.”

Let it be said - Creative Screenwriting Magazine should be renamed “Creative List-Making For Screenwriters.” The blog, SCR(I)NK, which is managed by Michael J. Farrand, recently posted two lists put together by CS contributor Jason Davis:
Seven Pillars of Screenwriting Wisdom: From World War I Cinema
Seven Screenwriting Tricks From Horror Films

I really enjoyed Mark Achtenberg’s comparison of Harlin and Schrader’s versions of The Exorcist Prequel:
“I caught Harlins version on the television one night and decided to hunt down Schraders version which had been in a limited release following the box office disappointment of 'The Exorcist: The Beginning'. Schraders version was titled 'The Exorcist: Dominion'. What is fascinating for the viewer of these films is that although similar, are two totally different films. Schraders version had put the emphasis on Merrin who had lost his faith during the war. He was forced by the Nazis to choose ten men for execution in retribution for a murdered soldier. He was to give them ten names or they would execute them all. Merrin chooses and is rattled with guilt and remorse and loses his faith. After the war Merrin, an archeologist, is sent to a site in Africa where they have unearthed a church, buried in the sand. Upon excavation they slowly realize the church was built over a place of evil, presumably to keep it at bay. The town is occupied by British troops and contains a thematic element of another kind of evil - colonialism. The character who becomes possessed is a young man named Cheche, an innocent deformed simpleton whom the locals deride. Merrin and his quasi-love interest/friend, a nurse, tries to help heal the young man. After a surgery, Cheche starts to heal at a rapid rate as his body starts to become possessed. As all hell breaks loose, two soldiers are murdered at the church (while stealing some precious items) and the local tribesmen are blamed. Cheche becomes possessed, the colonial oppressors are driven to madness and Merrin must confront his beliefs and exorcise the demons (his own and the actual).”
(See also Ebert’s comments on the differences.)

And finally, our friend and pro reader in the U.K., Danny Stack, has two great articles on clichéd openings of screenplays found here and here. Here are three:

1. Dream Sequence: Commonly found in horrors or thrillers. Usually followed by the protagonist snapping out of sleep and then going about his/her business. Best avoided. It’s meant to establish style and intrigue but more often than not generates confusion and irritation.

2. Drifting through clouds: A lot of coming of age/rites of passage flicks use this gimmick where the camera glides through the clouds to find the protagonist’s humble abode while he introduces us, via voice-over, to the fascinating minutiae of his life: “It was a summer I’d never forget.” If it’s not a voice-over, it’s usually singing or music from the story’s era.

3. The Prologue: A tried and tested way to begin any movie but a cliché nonetheless. The Exorcist has a good one - the best ones are where they establish something interesting but we cut to separate events entirely to begin the real story. Not easy to achieve. Recommended for skilled scribes only.