Other Mommy Unfriends The Social Reckoning! Plus, The Most Baffling Movie I’ve Seen All Year!
First of all, thanks for all of you who took the time to vote this weekend in Amateur Showdown in what turned out to be a very close competition. I took away five first time votes from Deer Day as they seemed suspicious and yet, still, the unique high concept premise edged its way to a victory.
So, congratulations to DEER PEOPLE. But I do not yet know if I’m going to review that script. I may review one of the other leaders and allow Kool-Aid Man to rewrite it, as he says he’s aware that it’s very rough. So, tune in Friday to see what I review. It was a close race so it could be anyone. And oh, in case anyone forgot, a little script called The Ballad of the Ember Knight once finished second-to-last in an Amateur Showdown. So we may be striking gold this weekend.
Okay, let’s talk about the box office. Other Mommy got dogged hard after getting abysmal reviews. And hey, I get it. I read the book (written by the Bird Box author) and it wasn’t great. But Other Mommy pulled in 30 million bucks this weekend because it aced the key screenwriting skill that matters: If you deliver on what you promise, audiences will forgive you for almost everything else.
This script was about a creepy antagonist and scary scenes. That’s the promise. That’s what people are showing up in hopes to see. So, if you deliver on those two things, the audience will leave happy! Those trailers were fucking scary, yo. I was watching through my fingers.
This is why I always tell writers to prioritize the thing their movie is selling. If you’re writing an action movie, you shouldn’t obsess over whether the exposition in your dialogue on page 74 is perfect. That’s not what people are coming to see. They’re coming to see action scenes that they can excitedly tell their friends about later.
The other big release this weekend was The Social Reckoning, which, let’s be honest, should never have been made. They probably could’ve doubled their box office if they’d gotten Jesse Eisenberg back, who Sorkin desperately attempted to lure to the sequel. But Eisenberg seems to be on some kind of spiritual journey these days. Every time I hear him talk, I feel like I need to swaddle him in a blanket. He’s dealing with his own shit and clearly has no interest in returning to the Zuckerberg universe.
Despite that, you’ve got Jeremy Strong, Jeremy Allen White, and Mikey Madison. If you told me three years ago that these three were headlining a movie, I would’ve told you it was the hottest project in Hollywood.
But in 2026? It feels like the most dated cast around. Which is CRAZY to say because they’re all really good actors. I love Mikey Madison. I thought she was amazing in Anora. Jeremy Allen White is always good. Jeremy Strong and his method-loving ass gets shit done even if Brian Cox hates him more than week old bagels.
But it’s Mikey Madison who’s going to wear this failure the hardest. This was her big chosen film after Anora. The one that was supposed to shoot her into the stratosphere. And she blew it by choosing this project over all the others that were offered to her. There’s no other way to frame it. She blew it.
It reminds me how careful you have to be when you become hot in Hollywood. I’m not just talking about actors here. I’m talking about screenwriters. Those moments when everybody wants to work with you? They don’t come around often. And you’ve got to make the most of them.
Of course, nobody knows what’s going to hit and what isn’t. But the big thing you have to watch out for is feeling yourself too much. And Mikey Madison was feeling herself. She’d just won an Oscar. She was a serious actress now. She wanted serious roles that reflected that.
The Social Reckoning is exactly the kind of movie you take when you’re in that mindset. It’s important. It’s prestigious. It’s got a big message. It’s the kind of thing that screams OSCAR CONSIDERATION.
The problem is that nobody cared. And I don’t think anybody was ever going to care about this movie. Even if David Fincher had directed it. Because the movie is the embodiment of the self-important, I-have-a-message, please-give-me-an-Oscar film that audiences don’t just dislike. They hate. They hate when you slam that message into their face like a raspberry pie.
It’s the movie equivalent of a pick-me girl. You look at this film, shake your head, and say, “Have some respect for yourself, Social Reckoning.”
Okay, now let’s talk about one of the most baffling movie-watching experiences I’ve had in a while. I finally watched The End of Oak Street this weekend.
I’ve wanted to see this movie forever. It finally went down in price on streaming, so I dusted off my 1960s popcorn maker, switched on the “mega-butter” setting, and settled in for a movie I genuinely had no idea what to expect from.
And, man.
I don’t even know where to begin with this thing.
First of all, this is my jam as far as concepts go. If you’re wondering what kind of concept Carson loves, THIS IS IT. An entire neighborhood gets transported back to the prehistoric era, where they have to survive dinosaurs? SIGN. ME. UP. That’s an amazing premise.
But what I witnessed was such a bizarre execution of that premise that I currently look like that spinning pinwheel you see on your computer screen when it’s frozen. My brain is unable to comprehend how odd this movie was.
Just to be clear, there were parts of this movie that I LOVED. And then there were parts that were so awful I genuinely thought I was watching one of the worst movies I’d ever seen.
Let’s go back to what I said about Other Mommy: Give audiences what they came for.
In The End of Oak Street, we’re coming for dinosaurs attacking people in a suburban neighborhood. And we get that! There’s a scene where a giant eel dinosaur slides into a house that I thought was brilliant. It was tense. It was unique. We weren’t really sure how the family was supposed to stop this thing. It didn’t feel like another recycled Jurassic Park scene.
Even some of the more traditional dinosaur stuff, like the T-Rex chasing people, was fun.
But then you’ve got Ewan McGregor. If this were the first movie I’d ever seen Ewan McGregor in, I might’ve concluded that he was the worst actor in the entire universe.
It was like somebody was standing off-camera reading him his lines and he was just repeating them back. It’s honestly made me reevaluate him as an actor. He was amazing in Trainspotting. But I don’t know if I can point to a single other stand-out Ewan McGregor performance. Go take a look at his IMDB. And don’t try to sell me Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was okay in the role.
Anne Hathaway, meanwhile, was trying her hardest. Maybe a little TOO hard at times, like she always does. But at least she was trying.
And then you’ve got these completely baffling creative choices. There’s a LONG SCENE in this movie where two giant dinosaurs are having sex. You read that right. There is a dinosaur sex scene in this. And it’s a major scene! It’s not something we see in passing. I’m sitting there going, “What am I watching right now?? Is this really happening??”
Who thought this was a good idea??
It reminded me of Rian Johnson inserting his weird sense of humor into The Last Jedi. You’d be watching this serious Star Wars movie and then some out-of-left-field joke would show up and suddenly we were in some 2 million dollar Rian Johnson indie flick.
Same thing here.
We’re watching this intense survival movie about a family trying not to get eaten by dinosaurs and suddenly we stop everything for a dinosaur fucking scene. I froze. There’s another scene where dinosaurs are eating and shitting at the same time. It’s this bizarre humor that completely takes you out of the movie. David Robert Mitchell. Time to retire that comedy pen. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it’s not your forte.
But here’s the biggest issue I had with the film, and it’s something I think every screenwriter can learn from. Whenever you write a big concept movie, the first thing screenwriting teachers tell you is that you need compelling characters. You need relationships. You need character arcs. Otherwise you’re just watching a Michael Bay movie where things explode for two hours.
And that’s good advice!
The problem is that writers often take that advice and create the SCREENWRITING VERSION of compelling characters. They start checking boxes. Okay, this character needs a flaw. This relationship needs conflict. These two characters need to be estranged. This person needs to learn a lesson. And by the end, everybody needs to resolve their issues.
In The End of Oak Street, the parents, Denise and Greg, are on the verge of divorce, and they’re keeping it from their kids. That’s our family conflict. That’s our broken relationship. We’ve got our emotional storyline.
Except none of it feels real.
And THIS IS THE BIGGEST LESSON I WANT YOU TO TAKE FROM TODAY’S POST. If you’re only creating character storylines because that’s what a screenplay is supposed to have, IT WILL FEEL FAKE. You need something real to latch onto.
Let’s say you’re writing about a marriage that’s falling apart. If your own parents went through a horrible divorce, you’ve got a direct connection to that experience. You remember the little things. The weird arguments. The awkward silences. The stuff people said that they probably shouldn’t have said. You can bring all that into your screenplay!
Maybe your parents didn’t get divorced, but your best friend’s parents did. You spent a lot of time at their house. You saw what was happening. You absorbed some of that reality. Okay, you’re a little further removed, but you’ve still got something genuine to draw from.
But what if you’ve never been anywhere near a broken marriage? What if everything you know about divorce comes from movies and television? And now you’re writing this big divorce storyline because screenplay books say you need a moving character storyline.
I GUARANTEE YOU IT WILL FEEL FAKE.
The arguments will feel manufactured. The emotional beats will feel forced. The characters will say things because the screenplay needs them to say things, not because real people would actually say them.
That’s exactly what happens in The End of Oak Street. Every scene involving this marriage felt written. You could practically see David Robert Mitchell sitting behind his computer deciding which emotional beat needed to happen next.
Which is crazy because his first movie, It Follows, was the exact opposite. Everything in that movie felt natural. The characters felt like real people. Nothing felt pushed. Here, everything feels pushed. And sometimes the results were downright ridiculous.
There’s a scene where the family has just been transported millions of years into the past. They’ve already been attacked by dinosaurs. They’re boarding up their windows, trying to keep these prehistoric monsters from eating them. And Denise suddenly smells alcohol on Greg’s breath. So she starts browbeating him about drinking.
LADY!
YOU’VE JUST BEEN TRANSPORTED MILLIONS OF YEARS INTO THE PAST AND THERE ARE DINOSAURS TRYING TO EAT YOU!
Why the fuck are you worried about your husband having a sip of whiskey???????
That’s what happens when you’re forcing a character storyline instead of letting it develop naturally. You end up creating moments that make absolutely no sense because you’re so determined to hit your screenplay beats.
And this applies to every kind of character. If you’re writing about a drug addict and you’ve never been an addict, never known an addict, never been close to anyone dealing with addiction, you’re going to fail at making them feel authentic. You just will. I promise you.
The only time you won’t is if you do an insane amount of research. I’m talking meeting with multiple addicts and having hours upon hours of conversations with them where you try and understand their lives. But writers these days will never do that. And you won’t either. You’ll go to AI cause it’s easier. It won’t work.
So, what am I saying? You need to personally experience everything you write about? To some degree, yes! Not directly. Like I said, you can have second-hand experiences. But if you try to write about an Only Fans model and you’ve never experienced that life or know one of these models closely, good luck. Seriously, good luck trying to make that character feel authentic.
That’s what made The End of Oak Street such a frustrating experience for me. One minute I’m watching a really cool dinosaur sequence. The next I’m watching some of the fakest family drama I’ve ever seen. Then I’m watching dinosaurs have sex. Then I’m watching another cool action scene. The I’m watching a dinosaur shit. I’ve never been yanked back and forth so violently before in a movie.
And it’s too bad because the premise is absolutely KILLER.
I suspect that’s a big reason the movie didn’t break out into a bigger hit. People saw it, kind of liked the dinosaur stuff. But they thought the character work was abysmal. So it didn’t hit them on that gut level. And when a movie doesn’t hit you on a gut level, you don’t recommend it to other people. That and Ewan McGregor recently received an acting lobotomy.
Anyway, I’m curious what you guys thought of the film. Did you like it? And what else have you been watching lately?
Let me know in the comments!
