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Have we just found the next Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Be prepared for a screenplay experience that’ll warp your mind 16 ways to Sunday.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: After an unplanned night of drinking, a man wakes up to realize he’s stuck in a movie.
About: This script finished on the 2009 Black List. The writer, Sam Esmail, had a previously well received script on the 2008 Black List called, Sequels, Remakes, and Adaptations,” which I reviewed here.
Writer: Sam Esmail.
Details: 111 pages - undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

 

 Ben Stiller for Norm?

I was really excited to read this. Sam Esmail is one of those writers who’s never going to give you what you expect. And in a profession where you can practically guarantee the expected, that’s an unexpected surprise.

The thing with these Charlie Kaufman’esque writers, though, is that sometimes their writing can be TOO unique. Sometimes they can take TOO many chances, and in the process lose their story.

Look no further than Charlie Kaufman's own latest screenplay, Frank or Francis. There's no doubt that there was some great stuff there, but it pushed against the grain so severely that eventually it just lost itself. So I was interested in what Sam would do with this idea.

The movie starts off with Norm Goldworm, a decidedly average 30 something with no friends and no life to speak of. Adding salt to the wound, he's deeply in love with a woman named Sally, who has no idea of his true feelings. So he’s decided that tonight, on his birthday, he’s going to invite her out and tell her the truth.

So he goes to the bar but it turns out Sally stands him up. As a result, he gets wasted and starts chatting up a strange woman who refuses to acknowledge his existence. This results in him drinking more, and he ends up getting SO drunk that he passes out right there at the bar.

When he wakes up, he immediately notices something is off. There's an orchestra-like tune playing in the background and instead of walking from room to room, he just starts appearing in them, like entire seconds have been skipped.

This jumping gets more severe as he goes to work. All of a sudden he'll be – BAM – inside a crowd of walking New Yorkers then – BAM – inside his office at work. It's almost like all of the boring parts of his routine are being cut out. And Norm is freaking out about it!

In addition to this, everybody he bumps into is either acting overly-dramatic or really clever. Nobody is acting normal. So he seeks out the one person who’s kind of his friend, the embarrassingly overweight Reynold, who spends most of his days in his pigsty of an apartment watching 90s teen flicks like Bring It On and Can't Hardly Wait. After some extensive discussion with Reynold, it becomes clear to both of them what’s happened. Norm is stuck in a PG-13 movie.

While Norm thinks this is a disaster, Reynold thinks it's great. Norm spends his entire life miserable, but now he only has to live the good parts. Instead of being the boring him, he can be the interesting him, the MOVIE him. And since a movie has to end in two hours, he only has to hang around for another 90 minutes before it’s over and he can go back to his normal life.

So Norm decides to do what he was originally going to do anyway, go tell Sally he loves her. But when he finds her, he also finds out she's getting married to some guy named Tom, who of course he's never heard of before this moment. So Norm professes his love for her, causing her to realize that she loves him to, and the two make love like they've been waiting for it their entire lives (but of course, because it's a movie, Norm misses the sex, only jumping to afterwards!).

When Norm finally decides to reveal to Sally that the both of them are living in a movie, she freaks out, tells him to leave, and recommits to marrying Tom THIS WEEKEND! But that's when the real bomb is dropped. Norm and Reynold realize that when the movie is over, they don't go back to their normal lives, they DIE! Which means they only have an hour left to figure out how to get out of this.

This script was bold.

I mean it took some real chances and just about every one of them paid off. First of all, the script was extremely clever. I kind of feel sorry for this Friday's amateur effort, Soundtrack, because it tackles some of the same subject matter, and doesn’t explore it nearly as extensively and inventively as Norm The Movie does.

I loved how when Norm was first getting used to the jump-cutting, he would jolt as if being transported into a different world. I loved how when he's finally going to have sex with the girl of his dreams, he skips to after the sex is over – missing it! I loved Norm discovering a note on his door from Sally and then Sally's voice reading it, and then him jumping and looking around frantically for Sally, but not finding her, then looking at the note again, and hearing Sally read it again, then jumping up and looking for Sally again, only to eventually realize that it’s a voice over of her voice reading the note. I love how the goal of our hero is to NOT end up at the wedding and TO NOT end up with Sally, so that the movie doesn’t end and he can keep on living. What a perfect way to exploit this premise.

I loved the idea of him discovering a beautiful extra, someone whose only job it was to sit around an office all day typing, then pulling her into his adventure. I loved watching this one-dimensional character being forced to become three-dimensional. I mean if you're a screenwriter and you don't love all these little nods to screenwriting, I don't see how you can like screenwriting. It’s borderline brilliant at times.

One of my newer beliefs is that if you want to make a comedy stand the test of time, you need to add *some* darkness. And this script definitely has darkness. They realize that at the end of the movie they’re going to die. There's a running commentary about the parallels between real life and movies where people only have certain purposes and how most of them aren't allowed to move outside of those designated purposes, leading to an unfulfilled life. That part of the script really rang true and it’s a testament to Esmail not being afraid to explore the suckier aspects of this situation, much like Groundhog Day did.

The only issue this script runs into is that it's similar to two very popular movies, The Truman Show and Stranger Than Fiction. It even, at one point, references The Truman Show, which I thought was a weird choice because you never want to bring up the movie you’re borrowing so heavily from. For that reason, people may be scared to make it. But here's the thing. This is a better script than either of those scripts. And I know that The Truman Show is considered to be one of the greatest scripts of all time and that a lot was changed when Jim Carrey came on, but I just feel like the imagination and the cleverness here exceed what was done in either of those movies. The question is whether the powers that be care or not. Are they willing to make a movie this similar?

Still, if you liked Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Groundhog Day, The Truman Show, or Stranger Than Fiction, you’re guaranteed to like this screenplay. It's as good an example as I’ve ever seen of mining a high concept premise. It’s just really well done.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: “Can I come up with something better than this?” - From every scene you write to every line of dialogue you write to every character you write, you need to ask yourself the question “Can I come up with something better than this?” And if your no-bullshit 100 percent real answer is, “No, I can’t. This is the best I can do.” Then great. Keep it. But if the answer is yes, then rewrite it. Because I'll tell you, from my end, I don't have time for somebody's “just good enough.” That's all I read all day is “Just good enough.” Scenes, characters, ideas, dialogue. They’re all just OKAY. It’s as if the writer wants to be commended for simply coming up with a movie that makes sense from start to finish. The scripts that always stand out are the ones where a writer has clearly gone beyond the call of duty and kept pushing themselves until they came up with the absolute best they could in every single element of their screenplay. I think this is a screenplay that demonstrates that. And I'm hoping that all of you will treat your screenplays the same.

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While the world argues over whether Jennifer Lawrence was too beefy for the role of the supposedly starved Katniss, I try and rise above the sensationalistic tabloids and wonder aloud why this movie wasn't titled "Tree Girl."

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match.
About: The Hunger Games is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Suzanne Collins. The movie came out this past weekend and grossed $152 million dollars domestically, giving it one of the best openings of all time. It's a confirmation of the way Hollywood seems to be doing business these days with their tentpoles – via book adaptations. After Harry Potter there was Twilight. After Twilight, now, there’s The Hunger Games. Whether this new trend starts to phase out the old trend of superhero movies, we’ll have to see, but it looks like it's going to be here for awhile until the next unexpected trend hits. Let's hope that trend is original screenplays from spec screenwriters!
Writer: Suzanne Collins and Gary Ross and Billy Ray (based on the novel by Suzanne Collins)

 

For a poor mining town, they sure do make stylish jackets!

Hunger Games is sweeping the nation. Which means I have no choice but to blog about it. But the truth is, I've been interested in this movie for a while, even if it’s geared towards a younger audience (it’s based on a young adult novel). Why? Because I've been saying for years they need update Lord Of The Flies. Kids being forced to fight each other for survival always felt like gold to me, so to see Hunger Games find that perfect mix of ingredients for the update was a welcome surprise.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the film, “Games” is about a post-Apocalyptic future where the land has been divided into districts. Every year, each district has to send two members under 18 (or is it 16?) to the main city where they fight to the death against the other 22 district members in a “Battle Royale” contest in the wilderness. Taking its cue from movies like “The Running Man,” the entire world watches the event on TV.

Our heroine, Katniss, is part of the poor mining town of District 12. When her younger sister - sure to be slaughtered if she’s chosen to participate – “wins” the lottery as District 12’s female representative, Katniss volunteers herself instead. She's accompanied by Peeta, a young man obviously upset that he was named after a bread, and who has had a secret crush on Katniss forever.

The two head into the city where they are paraded around in sort of an America Idol way, then train for two weeks before the big competition. They are mentored by a number of people who critique everything from their fighting skills to their style. Some of the participants take pride in the fact that they represent their districts, while others are terrified, especially the younger kids, who have no shot at winning. As the training goes on, Katniss becomes one of the unexpected favorites to win the competition, while her partner, Peeta Bread, looks like an early exit.

Once they're finally thrust into the game, we see just how brutal and violent the contest is. 12 of the participants are slaughtered immediately. Katniss is able to get away, however, where she quickly learns of an alliance that the stronger members have put together, specifically to take her out. Most surprising about this alliance is that her district buddy, Peeta, is helping them. Katniss will have to call upon her survival skills – specifically her kick ass bow and arrow expertise – if she’s to have any shot at winning The Hunger Games.

I started assessing the screenwriting in The Hunger Games almost immediately. One thing I've noticed in the past is that when you have a main character who's stuffy or off-putting or reserved or prickly, you're putting yourself in a huge hole, because chances are, we're not going to want to follow that character around for 140 minutes (yes, this was one long movie!). I've seen so many screenplays sink like The Titanic (to reference another hit film) due to this issue.

But the Hunger Games started combatting the problem immediately. One of the very first scenes was Katniss cradling her younger sister after she’d had a nightmare, singing her back to sleep. When you see somebody love somebody – be protective of somebody - this much, it’s really hard not to like them. On top of that, when her sister gets chosen to be the representative, it’s Katniss who jumps up and volunteers herself instead. This is another device that makes it impossible to dislike a character. Your hero is sacrificing her own life for someone else’s? How can you not like that person?

The trifecta comes when, during the game, Collins gives Katniss another character to love, one of the younger girls in the competition who has no shot. The two have a nice little rapport going and it's clear that Katniss will do anything to protect her, just like her sister. This protective quality of Katniss overshadows her bitchy/unlikable side, a huge key in getting us to root for her.

Moving forward, I noticed the first big mistake in the script. This whole movie revolves around the emerging relationship between Katniss and Peeta. So why is it we spend the opening of the movie with Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy? Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy obviously have some chemistry, but after their initial scene, we see Good Looking Pointless Guy for a total of 5 seconds for the rest of movie. Which begs the question – why not use this opening to establish the relationship between Katniss and Peeta instead??? Wouldn’t that have been a much better way to utilize the screenplay space?

And to show you how one mistake can lead to others, because they didn't set up Katniss and Peeta in the opener, they’re forced to explain their relationship through a series of clunky flashbacks instead (showing Peeta come out of his bakery and toss bread to pigs with Katniss looking on – I think hungrily – nearby). Not only is it impossible to understand what any of these flashbacks mean, but they’re just plain clunky.

 

Hey look!  It's Pointless Good Looking Guy!

In fact, the flashbacks here should serve as a deterrent to any writers who want to use flashbacks in their scripts. Had they just set up Kaniss and Peeta instead of Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy, the movie would’ve moved along a lot smoother. (And I know somebody is going to say, “But Good Looking Pointless Guy’s really important for the next two movies!” I don't care. I'm watching *this* movie. All I care about is *this* movie making sense.)

My next problem with the film was the most unique screenwriting problem I've ever dealt with. I refer to it as the, “protagonist hides in trees too much” problem. Katniss seems to literally spend tens of minutes during the movie up in trees. Not only does her Tarzaness obsession get weird, but I don't like any scenario in an action movie where your main character is allowed a big fat “time out.” This is a battle royale!!! It shouldn't be as easy as hopping onto the nearest Sycamore whenever you need some R&R.

The third big problem, which was almost baffling to me, was that Katniss never had to get out of any tough situations herself. She's saved every single time by somebody else. It’s like the movie’s one long string of mini-deus-ex-machinas. Katniss will be at death’s door with a girl holding a knife to her throat when, voila, someone else will kill the girl at the last second. Even when she’s up in her favorite place, a tree, she needs to be saved by someone else.

I don’t get why writers keep doing this. Don’t they know that the audience would rather see our hero solve her own problem? Isn't it so much more satisfying when they escape via their own doing? My theory is that writers take this lazy route simply because it’s easier. Why spend four or five days sweating out a memorable escape scene, like Hannibal slipping away in an ambulance pretending to be a massacred guard, when you can write another character saving them instead (i.e. one of the guards drops a key near the cage)? It’s my opinion that this is what separates the truly great writers from the rest – the ones who are willing to do that extra work.

But maybe I'm being a little harsh. Suzanne Collins did just write a screenplay that made more money in its opening weekend than every other film in history except for two. But if I can’t analyze a screenplay to death then what’s the point of this site? :)

And in the end, I did like this movie. I thought Collins did a tremendous job with the characters (Effie Trinket was great!). There was some clumsy stuff near the middle with the love story, but I definitely loved Katniss and wanted her to succeed. And if you really want the main character to achieve her goal, then the writer’s done her job. Combined with the cool subject matter, I was totally on board with The Hunger Games.

[ ] guaranteed death
[ ] Lousy odds
[x] odds are looking decent
[ ] odds are in your favor
[ ] guaranteed winner

What I learned: The big thing I learned here - or at least was reminded of - was how protectiveness over another individual can make an unlikable character extremely likable. This is a huge advantage when you think about it because lots of stories require you to start with a protagonist who has negative traits. So if you don't have tools in place to offset those negative traits and make your character likable, chances are we're going to dislike them and, by association, your story.

type='html'>Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: (from IMDB) A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.
About: This is a loosely connected “prequel” to Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. Hollywood’s new go-to sci-fi scribe, Jon Spaihts (Passengers) wrote the original draft. Lost alum Damon Lindelof came in to clean it up.
Writers: Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof

I’ve tried to avoid all online Prometheus discussion but it’s been difficult. It seems like everyone’s got an opinion on the movie. From what I’ve been exposed to, the criticism seems to be pointing towards the script. And that surprises me. Because I thought the script for Prometheus was pretty damn good!

I mean, let’s go back in time here for a second. Do you remember Alien 3? I don’t have any idea what that movie was about. I think it was about Ripley having an alien baby in a Brooklyn jail or something. And Alien 4? Wynona Rider played a robot in that movie. Nuff said.

Prometheus, even though it’s only loosely connected to the Alien mythology, is the best Alien film since Aliens BY A COUNTRY MILE. Now I know that’s not saying a whole lot. But even had those films never been made, I’d still look at this as a really good film, and EASILY one of the best films of the summer (it might even be the best – I’ll wait til fall to make that judgment).

So what’s it about? Well, I’ll try to stay as spoiler-free as possible but there’s a lot going on here so you probably want to avoid the rest of the review until you see the movie.

“Prometheus” is a “deep space” vessel that takes humans to faraway planets to explore them. But this particular expedition is special. Scientist Elizabeth Shaw and her husband have discovered a series of cave paintings that turn out to be a map to a planet in another solar system.

Trillionaire Peter Weyland is impressed enough with their research that he bankrolls an expedition there. The idea is to find aliens and ask the big questions. Where do we come from? What is the meaning of life? Weyland will actually be dead by the time Prometheus makes it to the planet but he wants to make sure that future generations don’t have to die, like him, not knowing these answers. 

Besides Shaw and her husband, Prometheus carries a crew of about 15, headlined by heartless crew supervisor Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and android David (Michael Fassbender). Meredith thinks this entire expedition is bullshit and just wants to get it over with and go home. David is a bit like a pissed off grown-up Pinocchio. He just wants to be real. And he’ll do anything in his power to have that.

Well, when they get to the planet, they immediately come upon a series of artificial domes. Once inside one of these domes, they find the remains of an ancient intelligent species who were trying to get away from something. This becomes the central mystery of the movie. What were these aliens trying to get away from? What is it that got them all riled up? And even more importantly, who killed them?

As the crew of Prometheus tries to figure this out, we learn that the key players on the ship have a few secrets they’ve been hiding. When those secrets come out, and are combined with a suspicious virus found on the planet, these guys aren’t going to be worried about the meaning of life. They’re going to be worried about saving their lives.

Okay, one of the first complaints I’ve heard about Prometheus is that it’s slooooow. From someone who attacks tons of amateur writers for taking forever to start their screenplays, you’d think I’d be all over this. But to me the opening of Prometheus wasn’t slow. As long as you’re building towards something, as long as we’ve set up a goal, then the story is progressing. The speed at which that story will progress is relative to how interesting that goal is to the individual audience member. If it’s a goal we want to see achieved, the story will move rather quickly. If not, it won’t.

In this case, the crew is going to check out a planet where our possible ancestors came from. That’s a pretty damn strong goal. And if you’re still not sold on the pace being quick enough, go watch Alien again. I mean if you want to see a movie where “nothing happens” for the first 30 minutes, watch that film. They spend like 15 minutes of screentime waking up and turning on the ship. I think there’s a 3 minute scene of JUST the ship landing.

But really, both movies have a similar setup. There’s a mystery that needs to be solved (in Alien, the ship has pulled them out of hyper-sleep because of an unknown signal on a planet they’re passing) and a crew has to go solve it. Where Prometheus splits off from both Alien and Aliens is that once that initial mystery is solved (spoiler: our crew finds out this species is, indeed, responsible for human life), a NEW mystery is introduced (what were they doing here?). Whereas in Alien and Aliens, after the initial mystery, they turned into straight horror movies, this movie is more about finding answers. It’s designed to be slow, to build, to make you wonder. And again, your enjoyment of that will depend on how interesting the mysteries were to you individually. I *did* want to find out what these aliens were up to, so I was totally into it!

The next big complaint about Prometheus was that it had tons of plot holes. Well here’s the thing about a good mystery. If you’re into it, you’re not scrutinizing the plot. Sure, there can be a plot hole so big, you can’t ignore it. But in my one run through the movie, I didn’t see any of these big plot holes (though I’m sure you guys will point them out!).

Was everything always clear to me? No. I felt there was some murkiness involved with the aliens. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were running from. But in the end, I got it. They came here to experiment with these weapons and shit went wrong. Was it the greatest explanation known to cinema? No, but it made sense to me. I was satisfied.

And yes, I saw the hilarious Red Letter Media video detailing a lot of these holes. But come on, any script enthusiast can do that with any movie. I mean I can do it with that guy’s favorite movie of all time, Star Wars. How come the most sophisticated battle station in the universe can’t track where our heroes are inside of it? How come Storm Troopers aren’t waiting outside the trash compactor in case our heroes escape? How come when Storm Troopers are looking for rebels on Mos Eisley, they give up because…a door is locked (“It’s locked. Let’s keep moving.”)?

All in all, the plot holes he mentioned were pretty small. Yeah, I too wondered why someone would run in a straight line when the ship above them was falling down in a straight line. But that wasn’t a script killer for me. There was FAR MORE good here than there was bad. And script-wise, for a big budget summer movie, I’d argue that outside of Pixar, this is as good as it’s going to get. I mean, it certainly made more sense than freaking Inception.

The moment for me when I gave myself over to this movie – when I said, “You know what? This is a legitimate flick,” was the surgery scene. (Major spoiler) In the middle of the movie, Shaw is impregnated with an alien fetus that is growing rapidly inside of her. The ship is equipped with a sort of robotic automated surgery tube. You go inside of it and it performs whatever surgery you need. Shaw realizes that the only way she’s going to get this fetus out of her is to perform surgery on herself. 

Unfortunately, the machine doesn’t perform abortions. So she has to manually program a surgery into the machine that’s only SIMILAR to an abortion. She hops inside this thing, all the while feeling this entity inside of her trying to bust out, and watches as the machine rips her stomach apart and takes the foreign body out of her.

The alien organism is alive by this point, and trying to reach its tentacles down and kill Shaw. The only thing preventing it are the machines’ fragile clamping auto-tools. So Shaw is trapped inside a 2’ by 7’ coffin with a killer alien inches from her body, while getting sewn up from a machine performing an incorrect surgery on her. I mean THAT’S A FUCKING SCENE!

That’s what told me these writers had come to play ball. There are SO FEW SCENES you can write into a major Hollywood film these days that haven’t been done before. Yet I’d never seen that scene before. I was riveted.

[ ] what the hell did I just see?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

WHAT I LEARNED – If there’s anything to learn from this, it’s the gamble you take when you rest the majority of your story on a mystery as opposed to a threat. The first two Alien movies worked so well because of the established threat. If you don’t have that threat, your mystery better be uber-inspired, because you’re asking your audience to care only about that. Since audiences aren’t very patient these days, that’s a risky proposition. But I thought Prometheus’ gamble paid off and it worked. What did you guys think?

type='html'>Genre: Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) A Naval veteran arrives home from war unsettled and uncertain of his future - until he is tantalized by The Cause and its charismatic leader.
About: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights) had been talking about making this movie for awhile, but backed off it a couple of times before finally committing to it.  The main issue seemed to be that the script was based off of the early days of L Ron Hubbard and his spooky little cult religion, Scientology.  To get around this, Anderson simply states that the movie has nothing to do with Scientology, which it of course does, but keeps him safe from the evil-doer scientists in the aforementioned religion, who have been known to ruin people's lives who take them on.
Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson

I have seen many movies in my lifetime.  Good movies.  Bad movies.  Fun movies.  Weird movies.  But I don't think I've ever seen a movie as boring as The Master.  A long time ago, Paul Thomas Anderson's script was floating around and I was wondering if I should read it, but everybody who'd read it said the same thing: "It must be a really early draft because it's barely readable.  Nothing makes sense."  I didn't want to review something that raw so I moved on.  But it looks like that's the actual draft he shot!  I don't know if Anderson is getting lazy, if he's taking too many drugs, or if he just doesn't care anymore, but this has to be one of the worst scripts I've ever seen turned into a film.

One need look no further than The Master's story to see how little effort was put into the script.  Imagine a first draft, but the kind of first draft where you're not even trying - where you're just attempting to find a few good scenes - where your goal is more to get to the end than construct a compelling drama.  That's The Master.  It's almost comical when you try to summarize it, because it's so random, so directionless.  But I'll try my best.  Here's my summary of The Master's plot...

It's the 50s I think.  And we're introduced to a soldier named Freddie.  Freddie has some sort of mental condition although we're never told or given a hint as to what it is.  Like a lot of things in The Master, it's vague - not on purpose, but because Anderson was too lazy to figure it out.  Anyway, Freddie's the kind of guy who will masturbate out in the open, in front of everybody.  So yeah, we love this character right away.

In addition to this, Freddie hovers back and forth between a socially awkward weirdo who can barely interact with other human beings and an ultra smooth lathorio who women can't keep their hands off of.  How is this possible?  I'll venture to take a guess.  Because Anderson didn't know anything about the character and made it all up on the fly.

In addition to Freddie being a nerd/ladie's man, he also has a talent for mixing alchohol in weird and unique ways.  He can whip up a doozy of a drink with a full bar, but sometimes goes too far and adds questionable ingredients, like paint thinner!  This ends up eventually killing people wherever he goes, so he always gets chased out of every group he becomes a part of.  Hmm, a nonsensical alcohol mixing paint thinner backstory.  Riveting.  And totally relevant.

So after bouncing around, Freddie happens upon a strange miniature cult leader/boat enthusiast/author named Lancaster Dodd.  Dodd doesn't like being on land because...um, because he doesn't like people approaching him or something??  Dodd likes Freddie for no reasons that are apparent to the audience.  He just likes him because the script needs him to like him.

It is through this weird friendship that Dodd, who is in the process of creating a new religion, decides to make Freddie his main disciple.  His reasoning, according to him, is that Freddie is "fearless."  But it's pretty clear that Freddie is just stupid.  And weird.  That's one of the only consistencies about The Master - that nothing makes sense and everything often contradicts itself.

Unfortuantely for the actors, and the audience, Anderson has no idea where to go with the story from here.  We just sort of stumble along, with the only real hint of a plot being the release of Dodd's second book.  But even that seems to be forgotten for most of the screenplay and is sprung upon us out of nowhere near the end of the second act (if there even were acts?).  The story here was so formless and random that I remember at one point thinking the film could either end in 5 minutes or 50 minutes. That's how little purpose or direction it all had.  You just had no idea where the hell it was going!

And that can be fun if there's an actual story.  But there wasn't any.  It literally felt like Anderson woke up each day of shooting, asked the actors what they wanted to do, and just played around with a bunch of random scenes until they shot something they liked, logic and story be damned.

I'll tell you the scene that really did it in for me.  It's a scene on the ship when Dodd first calls stowaway Freddie into his quarters.  Dodd starts off the scene by scolding Freddie for being a deadbeat drunk, telling him that he'll never amount to anything because of his dependency on alcohol.  The two then talk for a few minutes and how does the scene end?  By Dodd saying he got wasted on Freddie's special alcohol mix, loves it, and he desperately wants him to make more so they can get drunk again.

Uhhhhh...what????  "You're a stupid drunk.  Clean yourself up.  Oh hey, let's make some more alcohol and get wasted."  This epitomizes just how nonsensical and high Anderson was when he was writing and shooting this.  Absolutely NOTHING made sense.

And there was no BUILD to this story.  Dodd was at the same place in his career at the end of his movie as he was the beginning.  This would've been so much better had we watched Dodd rise up as an unknown nobody into a dominant cult leader with sweeping power and influence, much like Anderson did with There Will Be Blood.  You then pitt people against him, people to call him out, and relish in the sustained conflict that storyline offers.  We almost ALMOST got a hint of this early on, and not surprisingly, it was one of the best scenes in the movie.  At a party where Dodd is explaining his philosophies, a man walks in and challenges him in front of everyone, calling his work a sham.  Dodd is forced to defend his stance, and it's an intense and riveting standoff.  We needed more scenes LIKE THAT.  Instead,  the conflict amounts to Dodd encountering a series of tiny inconsequential incidents which had no consequences whatsover.  Dodd was never in any danger or trouble.  So who cares?  Even when he goes to jail for...I don't know, being "cultish" or something, he's out of there in a day and back to his life.  Where were the stakes????

There was so little here that was thought through.  And it's a shame.  Because the cinematography was amazing.  The score was great.  The actors came to play.  Hoffman, especially, was great.  But even though Phoenix's performance was memorable, it was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  Not because it served the story, but because Anderson clearly told him to act however fucking crazy he wanted to, then yelled action. Talk about an uncontrolled and random performance.  Again, I still don't know if Freddie is a stud or a dork.  I don't know anything about him.

Obviously, I'm disappointed by this effort.  Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the few truly original voices out there that Hollywood allows to make movies.  He owes it to himself and to us to give everything he can on the script, and not just one-draft it ala prequel George Lucas.  The abysmallness of this script is right up there with Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.  Just embarrassingly awful.  So upset by this script and film.

[x] what the hell did I just watch?

[ ] wasted 2 hours

[ ] worth the price of admission

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I learned: Laziness in scriptwriting ALWAYS COMES BACK TO BITE YOU.  You can't hide it.  Readers aren't stupid.  They will always spot it.  They will always call you out.  And we all know when we're doing it.  We all know when we're being lazy.  We all try to talk ourselves into why it's okay for that specific scene or moment.  DON'T FALL INTO THAT TRAP.  Don't let a single piece of your script be lazy.  It will come back to bite you, I promise.

type='html'>Genre: Sci-Fi/Drama?/Horror?/Supernatural?
Premise: (from IMDB) In 2072, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent 30 years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like Joe, who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by transporting back Joe's future self.
About: Rian Johnson, who broke onto the scene as a writer/director of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring "Brick," rejoins the actor for his latest film and first foray into the sci-fi genre, "Looper."
Writer: Rian Johnson

What.

The F*ck.

Did I just watch?

I have seen some weird-ass movies in my time, but Looper's made it to to the top of my current WTF list.  What's so baffling about this uneven, strange, mutation of a movie is that it's shot in such a way as to almost force you to take it seriously.  The actors are big.  The cinemtography is top-notch.  The production value is impressive.  The problem is that this is one of the wonkiest screenplays I've ever seen made into a film.  We are talking bizarre choice after bizarre choice.  But before I even get to the screenplay, I cannot NOT talk about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face!

So when I decided I wasn't going to review this script, I skipped all marketing for the movie.  I don't get to see that many movies where I haven't already read the script and I wanted to go in fresh. So while many of you had probably been properly prepped for the Mr. Potato Head technology used in this film, I knew nothing about it, and therefore thought the concessions guys had dropped an ounce of acid into my coke.

The first time I saw Gordon-Levitt onscreen I thought, "Man, he's getting old."  Then, as time went by, I thought, "Or wait, he's had work done."  And that occupied my thoughts for like 15 minutes - as I kept asking the question, "Why would Joseph Gorden-Levitt have work done on his face??  Is he really that vain?"  I was so confused.  Until I realized that his lips looked eerily similar to the lips of someone famous.  I eventually realized that someone was Bruce Willis, and the purpose of the face-morph-a-thon became clear to me.  But then I couldn't stop thinking about that skit on Conan O'Brien where he'd show you what the baby would look like if two celebrities had a kid.  That's honestly what  Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Bruce Willis kept reminding me of!

I'm also dying to know if Gordon-Levitt approved of this ahead of time.  Actors are all about their eyes.  It looks like Willis' eyes were glued onto Gordon-Levitt's face.  When you couple that with his glued-on mouth, did Gordon-Levitt do any actual acting??  While I continued to be baffled by that, I eventually realized it was a harbinger of the circus that was to come. But I'll get to that later.

So what's Looper about?  It's basically about this guy who lives in 2042(?) named Joe.  Joe is a looper. In the future, time travel is illegal but the mob doesn't care and uses it to dispose of bodies.  You see, in the future, it's impossible to dispose of bodies (even though we - spoiler - see Old Joe's girlfriend killed in the future. So apparently it can't be that difficult), so they send these people back to the past, to 2042, where "Loopers" are waiting for them and shoot them as soon as they arrive.  That's Joe's job, to kill these people and dispose of their bodies.  Why they can't just kill the bodies in the future and THEN send them back so as to keep the job simpler is never explained, but my guess is that it would've ruined the plot point needed to create the rest of the story.  Not, of course, because it actually makes sense.

Now here's the thing.  This future crime organization doesn't like the idea of Loopers running around willy-nilly because they very well might tell someone that they (the mob) like to play hide and seek with the past.  So 30 years after your Looper contract ends, they capture you and send you back and have your young self kill YOU (your old self).  You don't know you're killing yourself yet because they send the future people back with bags over their heads.  You only realize it afterwards.  This is called "closing your loop" and it means you're retired.

So let me get this straight.  This organization isn't concerned that you might say something in the 30 years leading up to that moment, only once you hit the 30 year  mark?  Yeah, that makes perfect sense.  30 years later is almost always the moment when people start giving away secrets.

But whatever, I'll go with it.  The movie's still cool, even if Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face is freaking me the hell out.  I'm no longer scared of clowns.  I'm scared of Gordon-Levitt-Willis's.  If they want to make a horror film, cast this man!  Cast him now!

What happened to your FACE???

Anyway, we're told about someone from the future called the "Rainmaker."  Apparently he's closing all the loops because...I don't know.  Because that's what the script wants.  Not because it makes sense.  So Old Joe is sent back to be killed by Joe, but Joe botches the execution and Old Joe escapes.  There's this really tough future mob boss who looks like Jeff Daniels who can't have future people on the run in the past!  So he orders his men to kill both Joe and Old Joe.

Up until this point, we still had a movie.  I didn't like all the wonkiness (why do they need these special guns again other than that they look cool??) but it's a solid setup.  It's a cool idea for a thriller on the run.  The old guy can't just run away.  He has to make sure his young self survives too.  Because if young self dies, old self dies.  That's cool!

EXCEPT!

EXCEPT somebody decided to introduce TELE-FUCKING-KENISIS into the story.  WTF???

Apparently, in the future, there's telekinesis!  Why?  I'll tell you why.  Because Johnson needed some reason for the cool shots later on where everything floats.  But I'm getting ahead of myself - time jumping if you will, so I need to stay in the present.  10% of the people on the planet can float quarters over their hands.  I swear - TEN FULL MINUTES of this movie is dedicated to explaining that people can float quarters over their hands.  It's such a strange weird nonsensical variable that's thrown into the film that there's no other way to respond to it than: WTF???

Anyway, that was the weird choice that destroyed the movie.  But here's the story decision that destoryed the movie.  Joe holes up in a farm and decides to sit there and wait for his older self to show up so he can kill him and get his life back.  The owner of the farm is some woman and her Omen child, who I'll get to in a sec.

What baffled me is that Johnson completely KILLED the momentum of his story!  As I always tell you guys, NEVER put your character in a location for a long time WAITING FOR SOMETHING.  Waiting is NEVER INTERESTING.  Your character becomes inactive.  He's no longer doing anything.  The story slows to a halt.  And everything becomes BORING!

Just ask yourself, how exciting is it to watch someone wait for anything.  It isn't!  EVER!  Now if you have some element of conflict constantly coming at your characters (something attacking them for instance) then you can make it work (even though I still hate the waiting element), but just having someone wait?  And wait?  And wait??  It's script suicide!  You will bore an audience to pieces.

But what really rolled me, what really had me throwing my hands up in the air, was when The Omen child showed up.  All of a sudden, this little kid (who we're assuming is the "Rainmaker" - which might be cool if I understood who the heck the Rainmaker was and why he was so important) turns out to be this little Omen boy, who gets really angry and when he gets angry....his TELEKINESIS GOES OUT OF CONTROL!  And everything in the air floats.  And he can rip your body to shreds on a molecular level.

Ummm, WHAT????

When did this become a Steven King novel?!  I thought this was about a guy who has to kill his future self!  What the hell is going on right now???

Every scene with the kid was comically bad.  And nothing about him made sense.  He would trip down the stairs and that would trigger one of his super-telekinesis freak outs, which would result in people exploding!  By falling down the stairs!!  It was just so bizarre.  And what did any of this telekensis stuff have to do with the Looper stuff!  The Rainmaker of the future was "closing loops."  Why?  And why did he have to have special telekinesis powers to ask Loopers to close loops?  Didn't he just need the power of asking?

I could go on about how bad this was but what would be the point?  What this script needed was someone to tell Johnson to ditch the whole Rainmaker, Omen, Farm plot and focus on the intricate world of looping and the unique setup of two people on the run, one of whom can't survive unless the other survives.  Someone please close my loop.  Then blow me up on a molecular level.

[x] what the hell did I just watch?

[ ] wasted 2 hours

[ ] worth the price of admission

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I learned: Never hole your characters up in a location and have them wait for something for too long UNLESS they're constantly battling lots of outside conflict.  Main characters waiting for shit to happen is the worst thing you can do to a story.

type='html'>Genre: Action
Premise: When a former MI:6 agent-turned-hacker starts hunting James Bond's boss, M, Bond will have to turn back the sands of time to save her, as well as himself.
About: Bond is back!  And in an unconventional choice, the director of American Beauty, Sam Mendes, is at the helm.  Turns out all it took was a chance encounter with Daniel Craig at a party and for Craig to ask, "Fancy doing the next Bond?" and that was it - Mendes was in.  That's the secret to success in this industry.  It's not about spending millions of hours practicing your craft.  It's about practicing how to get Daniel Craig to ask you if you'd fancy doing the next Bond.  Don't you guys know this? -- Skyfall has already made 2.5 trillion dollars at the box office and, from my understanding, they're going to use the profits to build a life-size diamond replica of the abandoned island featured in the movie which they will name "Diamonada Island."
Writers: Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and John Logan (based on characters created by Ian Fleming).

"Boring."

"James Boring."

Oh calm down.  I'm just kidddd-ing.  Okay, so I'm only half-kidding.  I mean let's be real - Daniel Craig doesn't exactly exude personality. And extended periods of his huffy brooding stares can make a man lose faith in the entertainment spaceship.  I know we've graduated from the wise-cracking winking-at-the-audience Bonds of the past, but it wouldn't hurt to loosen up a little bit, would it?  It's hard to identify and care for a hero who's sooooo guarded.

With that said, this had to be one of the wackier Bond films I've ever seen.  In fact, I was just telling someone, "That didn't feel like a Bond film at all."  Yet I was mostly entertained.  And I say "mostly" with reservations because there were long stretches of this script where not much happened.  Most of the good stuff came from the bad guy, played by Javier Bardem.  Yeah, Bardem's played versions of this character before.  But he's such a blast to watch that you went along with it anyway.

Although here's the thing with Bardem's character.  Even though he ignited the film, he kind of tainted it also.  I don't know what movie he thought he was in, but it definitely wasn't the one I'd been watching for the previous hour.  Since the dawn of Daniel Craig Bond, the Bond character is more serious, the Bond tone is more serious, and the Bond villains are more serious.  So to see Bardem play this creepy broad 80s Bond villain, I thought I'd been slipped whatever drug Mendes was on when he conceived of that opening title sequence.

And that wasn't the only time I confused Skyfall for an acid trip.  Mendes brought a more "artsy" vibe to the series, and decided to turn Bond into poetic opera as opposed to hard core action.  The Shanghi high-rise assassination sequence was a personal fave, with all the neon lights dancing along the endless panes of glass.  I'm not sure why Bond sat there and watched a man assassinate his target before doing anything - but why should that matter when there's an 80 foot digital jellyfish swimming around behind him???

Screenplay-wise, I'm not sure what to make of Skyfall.  The pacing never felt quite right, and instead of past Bond films where a writer would solve a problem with an over-the-top action scene, Mendes solves his problems with slow deliberate talky scenes.  I mean yeah, it's sexy watching a Bond girl shave Bond in a backlit apartment terrace in some strange beautiful country, but do we really need that scene?  Doesn't it bring the movie to a screeching halt?  (note: I've been told by Bond-heads that this woman's later name-reveal is a big deal - still, you could've done a lot more with her than this scene) There were numerous moments like this, where I said, "Let's see some action!  Let's see some fun!  This is Bond!"  When the annoying little douchey youngster dude tells Bond that they don't do exploding pens anymore, I was like, "WHY NOT???"  When I was a kid watching Bond films, I liked those exploding pens!  Are you telling me now we're too good for exploding pens??  Humph.

Anyway, I'm going off book here, so maybe I should get to the plot.  I'm excited to report that I was able to follow the entire plot of Skyfall!  The reason for my enthusiasm is that I wasn't always clear on the happenings of the last two Bond films, particularly Quantum Of Solace.  At one point I remember thinking Bond's goal was to visit as many countries as he could before the end of the week.  The Amazing Race meets Goldeneye.  Here, they did a much better job of keeping the plot clear, even if they took their precious time between actual plot points.

Skyfall starts out with a brilliant hacker who manages to get his hands on an MI:6 operative's hard drive which happens to be carrying the identities of every major MI:6 agent embedded in terrorist cells around the world.  This playful little programmer decides to start releasing these men's identities on Youtube every week five at a time.  If they don't find him soon, more and more of these superstar agents will die.

Bond, who's been weakened by a mission-gone-bad, probably isn't the one to be put on the job, but finds himself on it anyway because...well because if he wasn't, we wouldn't have a movie and Sam Mendes would have to film a bag blowing in the wind for 120 minutes.  Hmm, come to think of it, Javier Bardem giving the rat monologue to that blowing bag would've been a hell of a scene.

So Bond finally finds this do-badder who turns out to be a former agent, Silva, who's since gone rogue.   But Silva's not really in it for the exposing of agents, like we initially thought.  That was just a ploy to get their attention.  What he really wants to do is kill Bond's boss, M, for leaving him to die in the field and forcing him to get some serious dental work afterwards that MI:6 did NOT cover.

With Bond and M outmatched in the modern world due to Silva's technological superiority, Bond makes the call to go "back in time" to his childhood foster home where he and M will wait out Silva and force him to take them down without a single computer chip or text message.

So, what can we learn from the screenwriting here?  Well, the most pronounced aspect of the screenplay was the focus on theme.  The writers really pushed the "Everybody gets old" stuff, and while I found it admirable that theme took such prominence in a Bond screenplay, I'm not sure I agreed with the theme they chose to explore.  Bond getting old?  Bond is eternal.  The guy's had, what, 20 movies?  He's like the Simpsons or South Park.  He will never age!  So I just found it to be a curious choice.  In addition to that, they pushed the theme way too hard in the opening act (every other scene was about Bond getting older) and it added even more darkness to a franchise that already had its feet firmly planted in darkness.

You'll notice, however, that the script really started to pick up upon the arrival of Silva, and not just because Javier Bardem is a great actor, but because now we had a face to the villain.  Until that point, the characters spent most of their time having quiet conversations in big rooms about "who could this mysterious person be?"  It got tiresome and the writers didn't move that part of the story along nearly fast enough (see above - chick shaving James Bond's face).

But once Silva was in the picture, his goal of killing M FORCED Bond and the agency to work faster.  Gone were talky scenes in rooms, replaced by real honest-to-Goodness action.  That's what we came to see!  And look, I know you have to use the first half of your script to set up a lot of these second and third act scenes.  The scene where Bond and Silva engage in a game of "who can shoot the glass off the hot girl's head first"  succeeded mostly due to the earlier Bond scene where he struggles during target practice.  But there's ALWAYS a way to move things along faster.  You can combine scenes, cut scenes, accelerate scenes.  I just felt they were taking too much time.

Having said that, I was surprised at my reaction to Bond revisiting his childhood foster home.  The thing about these Bond movies has always been that Bond is a blank slate.  He doesn't have "issues" and "troubled backstory."  He just kicks ass and beds women.  I know they've changed that with the re-boot into "Breaking Bond," but this was the first time where I actually felt some depth to the character.  And I kind of dug it!  For once Bond felt human, and that made me want to root for him more.  He was one of us.

Unfortunately, I don't think that final sequence worked as well as it could've.  If they're giving you 200 million dollars to make a film, your set pieces better be big and they better be unique.  I mean that's the whole point of having that kind of money - you can do whatever you want.  Bond using a bulldozer to reattach a train car so he doesn't lose the target?  That's something I hadn't seen before!  A villain inhabiting a deserted city island?  Hadn't seen that either!   People using mirror tricks to shoot the bad guys invading their farm?  I've seen that plenty of times.  I'm not saying it was bad.  It worked for the film.  But this is Bond.  I wanted something more...betterish.

As you can see, this movie perplexed me.  I liked it, it lost me, I liked it, it lost me.  I felt a little bit like that 80 foot jellyfish, which is a good analogy because Bond 23 chose to swim where past Bond films would've run.  And that was sorta cool, if a little confusing.  Skyfall doesn't hold up to my nostalgic memories of the Roger Moore Bond years, but of the three Daniel Craig films, I believe this one to be the best, if only because of its unique unexpected tone.

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn't my kind of movie
[x] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Don't overstate your theme.  Usually we're talking about writers not having a theme.  But it's almost as bad if you're overstating your theme - if every scene, characters are hammering it home to the audience.  "You're getting old, Bond."  "It might be time to retire."  "It's a young man's game, Bond."  Oh, here comes the super-young handler dude to remind us how old Bond is again!  For theme, you usually wanna go with one scene (sometimes two) that states your theme out loud and then try and subtly weave it into the rest of the film underneath the surface.

type='html'>

 

I LOVED the script for HappyThankYouMorePlease. Here’s my old review to show you how much. I loved the weird story. I loved the unique characters. I loved having no idea where it was going or where it would end up. But most of all I loved the writing. It’s rare that I slow down just to admire the skill in which a writer puts his words together. But I did here. And my neck still hurts from the whiplash I experienced after realizing that “that guy from How I Met Your Mother” wrote it.

Needless to say, I was interested to see what Josh Radnor was getting himself into, since he was both directing and starring in the film. The cast he lined up was good, including super-hottie Kate Mara, super duper hottie Malin Ackerman, and super duper uber hottie, Tony Hale (from Arrested Development of course). But man, after finally watching the movie the other day, I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. It was nothing like the movie I imagined while reading the script, and it jolted me into lesson mode. Because I love screenwriting (and screenwriters) so much, I sort of illogically cling to this falsehood that a great script is indestructible. That there’s no way to screw it up. Well, I have been proven wrong, and it’s time to figure out why. Folks, here’s how easy it is to turn a good script into a bad movie.

 "For the last time, can somebody please explain to me what the HELL this thing is!?"

DIRECTING IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS
One of the easiest ways to get your script made is to direct it yourself. However, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Anyone can set up a camera. But it takes knowledge and vision to be a director. The directing in Happythankyoumoreplease was, for lack of a better word, basic, as if Radnor had just completed his first year at film school and couldn’t wait to show the world what he’d learned. From the opening low-angle wake up sequence (I think low angles are the first “exciting” shot you learn as a filmmaker) to the outrageous overuse of close-ups. You’d think that New York consisted solely of big heads and bigger smiles had you only seen the city through Josh Radnor’s eyes. Haters gonna hate on Garden State, but all you have to do is watch these two movies back-to-back to see the difference between someone who has vision and someone who just got their first camera the day before production began.

BLOCKING
Piggybacking off that, no one ever moved in this movie. Except for the outside shots where Radnor and the boy walked around, every scene had two people standing or sitting while we cut back and forth between them. It was as if Radnor had walked into a wax museum and simply started taping pretend conversations between statues. This is a good lesson for screenwriters. Try to have your characters DOING SOMETHING in a scene besides just talking to one another. Have them cleaning or setting up their new TV or taking the trash out. We talk a lot about making your character ACTIVE. Extend that concept to individual scenes. Make them ACTIVE in the moment. Brownie points if their actions reveal more about their character.

 
THE COUPLE OF DEATH
Oh boy. When I read this script, the one plotline that wasn’t up to snuff was the “Should We Move To L.A. or Not” couple. I thought it worked in script form, but in retrospect that may have been because I could skim through those scenes and get to the other stuff faster. Onscreen, there is no escape. The couple’s whiney repetitive disagreements become all the more whiney and repetitive because you HAVE NOWHERE TO HIDE. You’re stuck listening to them drone on and on and on about L.A. L.A. is bad. L.A. is good. L.A. is bad. L.A. is good. I quickly labeled them THE COUPLE OF DEATH because every time they came onscreen, the movie died. This is a HUGE reminder to make sure EVERY CHARACTER COUNTS in your screenplay. If you have a boring character or a boring couple in your script, rewrite them. Or get rid of them. Or replace them. But whatever you do, don’t leave them in your movie. Or they will kill your film every second they come onscreen.

 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  THE COUPLE OF DEATH!!!

JOSH RADNOR AS JOSH RADNOR
I get it. All actors are vain. And the guy wants to prepare for his career after “How I Met Your Mother.” Don’t want to end up like Joey or the Seinfeld guys. So from a selfish standpoint, I understand Radnor’s choice to star in his own movie. Still, the number one slam dunk way to ruin a script is bad casting. The wrong actor can kill a character. And Josh was never right for this part. His face is too smiley. He’s too bubbly. I never once bought him as this down-and-out struggling dude. Maybe he does have some suffering in his past, but he certainly didn’t convey that in his performance. If you’re ever in this position, ask yourself, if I was someone else, would I really cast me in this role?

 
BE CAREFUL ABOUT WRITING YOUNG KIDS INTO YOUR MOVIE
It’s really hard to find good young actors (5-6-7 years old) who can anchor a major plot thread for an entire movie. You can scour Backstage West or Frontstage North or Facebook or talent agencies or wherever. The truth is, finding a kid who can nail a role like this is one step higher than blind luck. The boy who played Rasheen in “Happythankyoumoreplease” wasn’t terrible. But he wasn’t good either. He just said yes and no 50 times and that was it. Kids are necessary to tell certain stories. But beware when writing major roles for 5 year olds. Chances are you’re not going to find that actor.

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT LIFE – DITCH’EM
People. Unless you’re Richard Linklater, limit the “conversations about life” scenes in your movie to 1 per script. And if you really want to do the world a favor, don’t write any at all. There are few things as pretentious and grating as two characters opining about existence and life’s difficulties. I’m sure there are a couple of examples in film history of these scenes working, but I can’t think of any. More importantly though, be aware of WHY you want to write these scenes in the first place. It’s usually because your characters have nothing to do. You need to fill some time. So you think, “Hmmm…I’ll have them discuss, like, life and stuff.” Who then, are our big violators of this deathly mistake in “More Please?” Surprise surprise. None other than THE COUPLE OF DEATH! They have nothing to do. Therefore the writer is forced to give them meaningless dialogue. Always give your characters something to do people, somewhere to be, something to get. By doing so, you won’t need to give them pointless things to say.

MORE MOVEMENT – MORE ACTION - MORE CHARACTERS AFTER THINGS
Building on that, the biggest thing I’ve learned here is just how difficult it is to turn talky scripts into good movies. Talky stuff works on the page because readers love to speed through scripts and if there’s a lot of dialogue, it’s easy to get through faster. But what was so fast and easy on the page becomes slow and plodding on the screen if the actors delivering the line are standing around doing nothing. You need a means to liven things up. Woody Allen is a master at this and the main tool he uses is he always has other things going on in the scene besides two people talking. Maybe there’s subtext (one of the characters likes the other but hasn’t told them yet), maybe there’s an external force pulling at them, maybe there’s another couple antagonizing them. People are always in a state of flux in Woody Allen’s scenes, which adds energy, something sorely lacking in “More Please.”

For example, in his latest film, Midnight In Paris, there’s an early scene where Owen Wilson and his fiance are having lunch with the fiance’s parents, and two old friends of the fiance show up unexpectedly. The scene is interesting because the fiance is trying to balance entertaining two opposing groups who don’t know each other at the same time, never an easy task. In the meantime, Owen Wilson doesn’t get along with the parents and doesn’t like the friends, so he’s trying to stave off any attempts to meet up later with either party, which, of course, is exactly what his fiance wants. That’s what I mean by multiple things going on in a scene. It’s complicated. It’s dynamic. And it’s not just two people standing across from each other talking about the meaning of life, which are some of the most difficult scenes to make interesting EVEN IF you’re a great writer.

I hope there’s something in these observations that helped you. But if not, here’s one last tip. Please, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER write a COUPLE OF DEATH into your movie.