The Six Types Of Failed Screenwriters

(Formerly known as Deleted For Controversial Material, the post is back because fuck you :p I'm surprised I still have it...)

AUTOBIOGRAPHIST
Has one script, usually a "urban" drama / crime drama or similar inner city potboiler. Loves it like a mother, e.g. won't stop talking about it, and won't do anything to change it no matter how many ways and in how much detail you explain how awful it is.

CLOSET BIGOT
Let's be clear here: this writer is NOT a racist, sexist, homophobe or xenophobe. The CHARACTERS are. Trouble is, that includes the hero.

LAZY NOVELIST
Turning your beat sheet into a novel is always a much better idea than writing another screenplay. You take complete control of your vision, in the form of a tome you can publish online, today, for the world to endure. Trouble is, it takes forever, and your sale will be roughly, if you really advertise, about $8. Plus you have to know what dangling participles are, how to use adverbs, where to put punctuation, and other things that won't get you meetings in LA.
So the Lazy Novelist drifts in the netherworld, cranking out 160 page specs with the act 2 break on p 34, packed with thick direction blocks, clumsy formatting and soliloquys on every other page. Concise premise? Likable characters? That's for those hacks in Hollywood the Lazy Novelist never got to be.
Which brings us to the...

OUTSIDER
Extremely disciplined, fervent student of structure and characterization, and a true movie fan. S/he also studies the business, and follows sales and trades and the inside scoops and lingo…from her/his house in Wisconsin. Or South Dakota. S/he would go indie and film the script on a shoestring, but s/he's really busy with work, kids, sick parents, things like that.
Probably knows the…

CONTESTANT
Is really excited that s/he won the Tuscaloosa Film Festival script contest. S/he also "placed" or was a quarterfinalist on any other number of other contests where the requirements to place basically involve your script not being written in crayon. There are only two contests in the world where Third Place means anything at all (barely): The Olympics, and Nicholls. And no agents or producers in Hollywood ever ask you what contests you placed in. The Contestant's specs are proof why.

ONLINE BLOWHARD
Hey! This isn't funny anymore! :p

If religion is an opiate...

...then literature is like cannabis. A novel (or for that matter, a great movie or play) is a thick spliff that sends you into the realm of imagination, totally and completely, for a couple hours at a time. It opens the portals, man, and it sends you back to reality just a little bit different. A great story is like a great joint.
An online game is like a crack pipe. Why do you think they call it "World of War-crack"? Would it's fans be "World of War-crackheads"? I'm not militantly against video games - some of them do stimulate the memory and teach online skills - but I've seen things in the online game world lately that has disturbed me a lot, things I can't talk about here. Video games and porn are mostly designed to make you a little bit dumber and less socially competent and able to think critically or question the world around you. It's designed to reduce you to a helpless consumer wanting only more stimulation and more product. It's not a coincidence video games and porn are being scrutinized by addiction treatment professionals in greater numbers and their users are forced to seek help because of the damage to their lives these activities cause. Just like crack.
There's no ulterior motive to this post, I just thought it needed be said.

Grading The Movies, 2010 Edition

Let's get down to grading these papers - everything I actually got to see on a big screen (some via a Blu-Ray projector, which will have to count from now on) in order of my preference, with scholastic grading applied. There's still a few days between Boxing Day and New Year's Day to see True Grit and a couple other movies that are playing so this stands a chance of getting revised over the course of the week. So this list will go up at DVDTalk and OKCupid when that happens, and I welcome any twitter followers as well!

MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Inception
HONORABLE MENTION: Nine (2009)
RUNNER UP(S): The Millenium Trilogy (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Girl Who Played With Fire, Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest)

Machete
Shutter Island (2009)
Micmacs
Harry Brown
Black Swan
Red
Never Let Me Go
Ou Est La Main
Sherlock Holmes
Inside Job
Life During Wartime
The American
The Tempest
City Of Your Final Destination
The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Phil Spector
The Ghost Writer
The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus
L'empreinte De L'ange
Date Night
Catfish
Iron Man 2
Tron: Legacy
George A. Romero's Survival Of The Dead
Countdown To Zero
Avatar (2009)
Salt
City Island
The Expendables
The Lovely Bones
Freakonomics
Legion
Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland
The Room (an eternal Turkey)

BEST REVIVALS AND RESTORATIONS
Metropolis
Steve Shelley's Archives (Pink Floyd specifically)
The Third Man
Kid With The Golden Arm
Dirty Money
The Godfather
Dario Argento's Deep Red
Election
The Brood
Superfly
The Crazies (George Romero 1973 original)

What do you think?

Short Subject Oscars 2010

This week is the Live Action subjects, and for those who saw last year's nominees, I can wholeheartedly say this year offers a vastly improved quintet of pieces. Hard to pick a winner out of this bunch, but for me it would be "The New Tenants". The one recognizable face is Vincent D'Onofrio, as a cuckolded husband and one of the many characters that pass through a gay couple's door in one fateful sequence of events. Sure it could be a one act play, but I'll take it on film too. I very much loved "Instead Of Abracadabra" as well, a hilarious story of a struggling magician trying to impress a girl, his conservative parents and local audiences at the same time. Very reminiscent of Wes Anderson in it's celebration of nerdy achievement and it's unremittingly cheerful outlook.
I'll be back soon with the Animated Program! ETA Watch all the shorts right now!

Ranking the Movies of 2009

It's that time of year again. Well, last year the time never occurred for personal reasons, so this year I'm back with a vengeance. A big shout out to any visitors from dvdtalk.com, and also to my tweet and Facebook followers, and friends from sites like Absolute Write. Welcome to my hole in the virtual wall.
As always, this is only theatrical films, ranked as I feel they should be. 2008 movies get a * marking. Drum roll and raise your pints, folks...

MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Moon
HONORABLE MENTION: Gran Torino (from 2008, but certainly at the top of either year's list)
SILVER: The Men Who Stare At Goats
BRONZE: A Serious Man
The Brothers Bloom
The Road
Inglorious Basterds
Broken Embraces
Soul Power
* The Dark Knight IMAX Experience
Let The Right One In
Gomorrah
The Hurt Locker
The Fantastic Mr Fox
Cold Souls
Watchmen
In The Loop
Food, Inc.
Angels And Demons
Nine (Tim Burton produced animation, will see the musical in 2010)
Antichrist
* The Wrestler
Tetro
Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans
A Perfect Getaway
Star Trek
Zombieland
2012
TURKEY OF THE YEAR: The Informant! / The Girlfriend Experience (Special mention tie. Steven Soderbergh, get with the program!)
DISHONORABLE MENTION: Frank Miller's The Spirit (another 2008 entry, but deserving of special warning to the curious)

And here are special events and revivals deserving of special praise or infamy. Support your local movie theater!

Mishima (with Paul Schrader)
El Topo (remastered and original Spanish with subtitles)
Near Dark
Monty Python's Life Of Brian
The Oscar Shorts Live Action and Animated
Alien
Jaws
All That Jazz
Todd Haynes' Safe
The Big Lebowski (with costume contest)
Barbarella
From Beyond (with screenwriter Dennis Paoli)
Piranha

And don't forget the Brooklyn Film Festival and Focus on French Cinema in Westchester, just a couple of great festivals that are coming back this year. And the greatest website of them all, netflix.com (Best Video of Hamden is pretty good, too ;) )

Hope next year is just as good!

2007 Schoolin' at the Movies

Ladies and Gentlepeoples, lock up your scotch and talk to your daughters-it's the 2007 year at the movies, through my entirely opinionated view. Away we go:
MOVIE OF THE YEAR: No Country for Old Men
RUNNER UP(S-a tie!): Eastern Promises, Inland Empire
A: Black Gold
A: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
A-: The Lives of Others
A-: Grindhouse (Theatrical Presentation)
A-: The Darjeeling Limited
B+: Michael Clayton
B: Planet Terror (Grindhouse Feature)
B-: A Sidewalk Astronomer
B-: Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea
B-: Rescue Dawn
B-: Hot Fuzz

C+: Paris, Je T'Aime
C+: The Simpsons: Movie
C+: Sicko
C: Sunshine
C: 28 Weeks Later
C-: Evan Almighty
C-: Death Proof (Grindhouse Feature)
DUNCE CAP: Pan's Labyrinth
COOL REVIVALS: The Big Lebowski, Planet of the Apes, Duck Soup, Jaws, Psycho, Mafioso, The Birds

Links going up at DVDTalk.com and highlighted at TriggersTreet.com, right away! A year where even the stinker of the year, wasn't horrible, is a good year.
Maybe my standards, and need to compete, are waning in my middle age.

does life begin at 90?

Maybe you've heard the story of the world's toughest 95 Year Old. Well, meet the world's smartest living 91 Year Old. The movie is "The Sidewalk Astronomer" and his spirit for science and the infinite was made manifest at a screening and Q 'n A in Stamford's Avon Theatre tonight. Still brimming with wit and streams of intense consciousness, Mr John Dobson discussed evolution, Mars, the power of curiosity and the future of man with equal energy and fire. If he comes to your town, do check it out.
Will we get to be that old and wise? My preconceptions of why anyone would want to live that long are a little shaken now.
The medical industry may or may not be on our side on this one. It's not like we don't want to stay young forever-more likely, we want to stay hot and attractive forever, but really living the life we have while we're here? As opposed to a life where religion and big business take turns controlling you and everything you do or think, like yours.
I don't know, but I'm going for some of that magic Raisin Bran from Trader Joe's soon....