By far, one of the biggest mistakes I see amateur writers making is that they’re NOT WRITING MOVIES. They’re writing the screenplay versions of novels. That is to say, the story only works in written form. It isn’t meant to be put up on the screen because there’s nothing cinematic about it. How do you […]

Genre: Horror Premise: (from IMDB) A group of friends travels to Sweden to attend a reclusive mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult. About: Writer/Director Ari Aster was anointed to “next big thing” status when his intense not-for-everyone […]

Genre: Drama/Comic Book Premise: The origin tale of Arthur Fleck, the man who would become the most famous villain of all time, the Joker. About: Todd Phillips, the director of the Hangover movies, said he was sick of woke culture destroying comedy and wanted to try something different. Since there is no official origin story […]

Last week’s Amateur Showdown was basically a 3-way tie (14 and 1/2 votes for Money to Burn, 13 votes to Odyssey, and 13 votes to The Black Petrel) with some hints of suspect voting, which means I get to decide which of the three I want to review. I went back and forth between Money […]

I received an interesting e-mail last week which I initially disregarded but couldn’t stop thinking about. It was a beginner screenwriter who said he’d been reading my site and others for the last three months in order to learn everything possible about screenwriting so that he could write a great screenplay his first time out. […]