Genre: Comedy
Premise: A group of rich friends have a monthly dinner ritual where they each bring the biggest weirdo they can find, then discreetly make fun of them over the course of the evening.
About: Add yet another project heavy-set in-boy Zach Galifianakis is attached to. The film will co-star Paul Rudd and be directed by Jay Roach. The film is actually a remake of a French film that came out about a decade ago (Having some major déjà vu here after The Tourist review). Galifianakis’ part was originally to be played by Sacha Baron Cohen when he was attached to every comedy in town. When he dropped out, so did the project, and Roach has been trying to get it going again ever since. It should be noted that, like a lot of comedies, these things are rewritten right up to the end, so a few story points may have changed from this relatively older draft.
Writer: Andy Borowitz (Revisions by Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio and Jon Vitti — Further revisions by David Guion & Michael Handelman — Based on the original French film “Le Diner de Cons” by Francis Veber)
Details: 118 pages (February 2007 draft)

I guess if there’s anyone qualified to review this script, it’s me. I’ve actually seen the original French film it’s based on. In fact, I’ve seen quite a few French comedies. I don’t know what it is about them that I’m drawn to. I mean, the French aren’t exactly known for their sense of humor. But the films are kind of like bastardized versions of our own ridiculous comedies. So they take everything about them that’s ridiculous, and make them even more ridiculous. I don’t know if I ever really laugh at them, so much as marvel at how strangely seductive and amusing they can be. So when I heard there would be an American film based off of a French film, that bases its principles off American films, I thought at the very least I might be able to offer some commentary on how insane that is.

The story is about a group of rich assholes that have a monthly dinner ritual whereby they each find and bring with them a “schmuck.” Someone so out of touch with the world, so strange, so ridiculous, that they’re unaware of just how idiotic they are. The person who brings the strangest “schmuck” ends up “winning”. Our hero, Tim, is on the verge of landing a 100 million dollar investment for his company, and his boss, in anticipation of Tim’s newfound status, has invited him to one of these infamous dinners. Tim is stressing out as there are only a couple of days left before the dinner and he still hasn’t found a schmuck. If he doesn’t impress these men, there’s a good chance they won’t let him into “the club.”

Enter Barry Speck (no doubt Zach Galifianakis), an IRS auditor who recreates famous moments throughout history (think the moon landing) using taxidermied mice. To say that Speck is a bit of an odd duck would be selling him short. The guy recreates history…with dead rodents. Tim realizes right away he’s found his golden ticket and asks Barry to join him for dinner in a couple of days. Barry, not used to any attention whatsoever, is thrilled by the invitation and accepts.

Back at home, Tim prepares his beautiful girlfriend Julie for their Jeffersons moment. But when Tim explains what goes down in these exclusive dinners, Julie is horrified and tells him he shouldn’t go. Of course, since that means throwing everything he’s worked so hard for down the drain, Tim’s quite reluctant. This inaction leads to Julie huffing and puffing and eventually claiming she needs some “time away to think about their relationship”. So she leaves. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as she does, Barry shows up. Tim asks him what the hell he’s doing here and Barry says he’s here for the dinner. Tim informs him that the dinner isn’t until tomorrow but Barry refuses to accept this. He’s convinced the dinner is tonight. Tim tries to inform him that he’s the only one between the two who would know when the dinner actually was. But Barry’s not buying it.

After Barry worms his way into Tim’s apartment, he eventually finds out that Julie’s run out on him. This hits Barry particularly hard because he experienced a particularly harsh dumping himself. After talking it through, Barry convinces Tim that Julie is probably cheating on him with her slimy boss, Kieren. Hence begins the main thrust of the story – Tim and Barry desperately trying to prevent Julie from being with Kieren. Naturally, whatever plan they come up with, Barry ends up making it ten times worse than it would’ve been had they done nothing at all. When Tim realizes just how disastrous Barry is, he tries to get rid of him. But the thing about Barry is, once he’s in your life, he doesn’t leave.

For a movie called “Dinner For Schmucks”, it’s somewhat odd that the dinner doesn’t happen until the last 30 pages of the screenplay, but like I mentioned before, this is a French film. And for better or worse, the French throw logic, along with movie conventions, out the window.

There are some good things and some bad things here. One issue I had was Julie deciding she needed to “get away” because of the schmuck dinner. I mean come on. There are worse problems going on in relationships *every day*. If that’s what’s going to break you up, then keep walking honey, cause you were never going to make it in the first place. One thing that will undoubtedly work though is Zack Galifianakis as Barry. I mean, if there was ever a more perfect marriage between actor and character, I’d like to see it. Barry is such an odd weirdo and Galifianakis has so claimed the crown on odd weirdos, that the two couldn’t be more right for each other. But that doesn’t necessarily make it funny. And that’s where Schmucks runs into some trouble. Is this movie supposed to make you laugh? Or is it supposed to make you uncomfortable with Barry’s character? Cause it definitely achieves the latter. I’m not so sure it achieves the former.

The jury will be deliberating on this one for sure. I think at best it can be a solid middle-of-the-road comedy. At worst it can be a huge misfire, with the audience sort of wondering what the focus is and seeing the humor as too weird. Regardless of what it becomes, the script isn’t quite up to snuff. It would be interesting to see what’s happened since, but I can’t recommend this draft.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I try to preach this to any writer who will listen. It’s one of my big things and that’s why I keep harping on it. Make sure your script abides by real-life logic, not movie-world logic. I simply did not buy this idea that Julie would get so upset about a business dinner that she’d leave Tim. This falls into the “movie logic” world, where you need something to happen (in this case, Tim and Julie need to be split up) so you come up with a bogus reason to do so, regardless of if it would ever happen in real life. I’m telling you, readers and audiences aren’t dumb. They’ll sniff this shit out. I realize there’s some leeway involved in comedies, but not on the critical plot turns that set up your movie. You gotta make sure that stuff is 100% believable.

In Bruges is one of those movies that you’re supposed to like if you’re a film nerd. Saying you don’t instantly loses you credibility. I guess I just lost credibility. I’m not sure it’s the script so much as Colin Farrell’s acting. I can never understand what the hell the guy’s saying and I don’t think he’s funny. If I need a guy to break girls’ hearts or make women swoon, I’ll hire Farrell. If I want an actor who can deliver jokes, Farrell is somewhere on the bottom of my list. But hey, people love In Bruges and I’m not going to rain on their parade. Even though I just sorta did. Today, Roger takes a look at another of McDonagh’s (the writer of In Bruges) scripts, Seven Psychopaths. If I ranked all the scripts I get requests for, this one is somewhere near the top. People love this guy. Let’s see what Roger thinks.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Black Comedy
Premise: A writer’s life is violently turned upside down when his friends kidnap a Mafioso’s dog.
About: “Seven Psychopaths” is McDonagh’s third film script. It’s his favorite unproduced script. And that’s all he’s gonna say about it. At the age of 27, McDonagh became the first writer since Shakespeare to have four plays performed simultaneously in London. His plays have been nominated for multiple Tony Awards. He won an Oscar for his short, “Six Shooter”. Nominated for Best Original Screenplay Award with “In Bruges”.
Writer: Martin McDonagh.
Details: 116 pages (undated)

Canto I.

The only writer other than Shakespeare to have four plays performed concurrently in London’s West End Theatre District is Martin McDonagh. That’s an almost four-hundred year disparity between quite possibly the world’s greatest writer and a modern day Irish playwright.

One writes in manacled iambic pentameter and the other writes in an idiosyncratic language that champions casual swearing.

Both are writers who tell stories that explore the immemorial facets of honor, love, loss, sorrow, ambition, wrath and madness with jewel-like illumination.

A Shakespearean sonnet might stir the pain that hides in scars by driving a rapier through your heart, but a McDonagh murder ballad will pummel that protective wall you constructed around your soul with the butt of a gun until it creates its own entrance, turning what was once a barrier into a gate.

And that thing you call manliness that is actually a buffer between you and the world will erode in the winds of a howling melancholy and screaming black drama, leaving you with wrists upturned and your veins exposed to the world, laughing all the while.

Canto II.

Now here’s a script that exists on the other side. The side where rules are broken and where the writer’s creativity and skill create a form that, double-fisted, punches and shoots its way through the parameter walls and stretches the tethers of the tenants to the point where they snap, the story refusing to be held in such confines.

The new form might frighten you. It might scare you away. But there’s no need to run. Read it. Don’t know how? Let it show you how. Give it a chance. Like Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” or Danielewski’s “House of Leaves”, McDonagh’s “Seven Psychopaths” is a work that showcases meta-literary pyrotechnics. You learn how to read it as you go along.

But here’s the thing. It’s actually a quiet display that does not get in the way of the story. There are points, especially near the mid-point, where it teeters on the brink, where McDonagh seems to mutter fuck-all while he tight-rope walks between pretentious disaster and pure screenplay brilliance, but then he makes it to the latter side and all you can do as a reader is shake your head in wonder and nod approvingly as you skim back over the pages you just read to see exactly how he made it across.

There’s a danger that comes with playing with the rules. But your reward, if you survive the attempt, is that you may achieve something much more interesting than what would be possible by opting to play safely in the life-guarded screenplay sandbox. There’s a part in this script where it seems like McDonagh is telegraphing the entire third act, but then he reels the story back in and we’re served with something completely compelling, fun, tense, violent and heartbreaking.

If you get to the mid-point and find yourself frustrated, like I did, just keep reading.

I promise that it’s not what you think it is.

Canto III.

Here’s the story. We have our writer Marty, who may or may not be Martin McDonagh. He’s a writer. He’s a bit of an alcoholic. He’s trying to write a screenplay he has entitled “Seven Psychopaths”. Yeah, I know. But hold on. Pay attention.

Marty’s best-friend is Billy Bickle. Billy…well…let’s just say that Billy doesn’t like Marty’s girlfriend, Kaya. Kaya doesn’t like Billy. But it’s okay, because Billy is concerned with being a good friend and he’s not afraid to tell Marty that Kaya is kindof a bitch. He’s looking out for his friend.

At one point we might even get a glimpse at Billy’s diary and learn that he’s made lists on how he can be a better friend to Marty and Hans.

Hans is –-

–hold on. Sorry. I’ll get to Hans in a second.

Did you catch the “Taxi Driver” reference there? Look again. Billy’s name. Billy Bickle.

Billy actually thinks that he’s the son of Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro’s character in Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”. No, he doesn’t think he’s the son of De Niro. He believes he’s the son of the character, Travis Bickle. He thinks Travis Bickle is real.

But it’s not…it’s not something you want to ride into him for. Billy’s a sweet guy and it’s kind of painful to watch Marty get drunk and make fun of him concerning this character trait. It just makes Marty come off as cranky and mean-spirited. And Billy is an awesome friend. I would be honored to have a friend like Billy in my life.

You see, Billy is concerned that Marty is drinking too much and that’s causing problems with work on his script. And he’s not afraid to say it. As burgeoning scriptwriters, we could all use a cheerleader like this on our sides, alcoholic or not.

Now let’s get back to Hans.

Hans is an older guy, closer to sixty than fifty. He’s poor but always neatly dressed. He wears a distinctive cravat that might just be a stylistic fashion choice, or he might be using it to cover up a telling scar. He has a black wife named Myra, a victim of breast cancer who spends her painful days lying in bed at the cancer word.

Hans hasn’t worked in twenty years or so, and you get the sense he’s struggling to pay Myra’s hospital bills. So he’s come up with a dog-napping scheme to help him with his financial woes. Billy helps him out. They steal dogs from people at the local park, hold them in pens and wait for the missing-dog flyers to appear. And since this is a pretty rich area, they are able to score hundreds of dollars in reward money from suddenly ecstatic and wealthy owners.

But one day they make a mistake. They nab a cute, little three-legged shitsu by the name of Bonny that both men grow pretty fond of.

Except there’s already a guy who’s extremely fond of Bonny. Namely, his owner Charlie Costello. See, when we first meet Charlie, he’s at a double funeral for some mafiosos.

That’s something else you should note. Someone has taken it upon themselves to murder members of the mafia, leaving Jack ‘O Diamond playing cards on the bodies.

Anyways, Charlie is at this funeral, and he’s consoling the mothers of the fallen men. He’s telling me, with much passion, that he’s going to crucify the people responsible for this.

Then someone arrives to tell him that something has happened to his shitsu, Bonny.

And then we truly see Charlie’s true colors.

He goes apeshit and when the Irish priest at the funeral tries to calm him down, Charlie responds by pushing him into an open grave. Yep. He pushes. A priest. Into. An open grave.

And now worlds are about to collide. People are about to die.

And it reminds me a lot of McDonagh’s play, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”. Which is about a psychopath named Padraic, a leader in a Irish National Liberation Army splinter group, who finds out his best friend has been killed.

His best friend is a cat named Wee Thomas.

Anyways, a bloodbath ensues as Padraic returns to his old stomping grounds as he avenges the cat.

So Charlie is a bit like Padraic. His interrogation starts with the woman who was walking Bonny when he went missing. She’s chained to a chair and he has a gun in his hand. And if we weren’t sure about Charlie’s sanity already, this scene provides us with frightful and hilarious clarity.

Canto IV.

It can be argued, that when it comes to plays, that what you need is three ingredients. (1) Quirky characters. (2) Good dialogue. (3) Interesting stories for each character. And off you go.

The idiom of McDonagh’s work is that, yes, he has quirky characters. And he also has dialogue that captures a sense of madness through speech. His characters express themselves through the oddness of their expressions. And not only do they seem to have interesting backstories, the stories that they are living portraying in the present to the audience are compelling and interesting as well.

But plays are different. You can tell more than you have to show, and you can get away with it.

Cinematically, it’s wise to show more than you tell.

And McDonagh has some great stories that he shows us here. You see, there are stories within stories here. The frame device is the screenplay Marty is writing, and he needs to find and populate his story with seven characters. Seven characters worthy of the title psychopath. Seven psychopaths with interesting stories to tell.

There’s a funny bit of business that involves a hungover Marty finding an ad in the paper, a call for psychopaths with interesting stories to be used in a film being written by Marty. He didn’t put this in the paper. Billy did.

And this is how we meet Zachariah. He’s very old. He arrives to Marty’s apartment to tell his tale to Marty’s tape recorder. Marty just wants to be rid of the guy, so he goes about his business making coffee and such when he hears Zachariah reveal that he lived his life as a serial killer who travelled the country killing other serial killers.

He didn’t do this alone. He had a girlfriend and partner named Maggie.

And it’s the type of well-told tale that catches your breath. And what starts out as a story about grisly serial killers turns into a sad tale of regret and love lost.

Zachariah’s motive for coming to Marty is so that Marty will post a note after the credits roll if his screenplay is ever made into a film from Zachariah to Maggie.

You see, he’s an old man looking for the woman that got away.

And it’s a powerful, touching sequence that made me cry. And then I was laughing while crying at the irony of shedding tears over the story of a couple that offed serial murderers.

And that’s what makes this script such a joy and pleasure to experience. It’s the stories and connections and reversals that rise to the surface as a man looking for his stolen dog wreaks havoc on the people responsible.

Canto V.

The characters speak dialogue that showcases McDonagh’s ear for elliptical speech. People often speak around subjects and the truth before they finally settle on it. It takes them a bit of time to figure out how they’re going to approach a subject or something that’s bothering them. But when they finally do, it’s a moment of connection that lights up the circuits and gets our agreement and empathy.

There’s a great line of dialogue, a line that resonates still:

“I think anything made with brains and heart is life-affirming, no matter how black the subject matter.”

Living in the Bible Belt, people like to make me feel weird.

Sometimes they ask me, “How can you like that? It’s not uplifting.”

Like this one time I was watching David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels”, and after it ended, my roommate, who had been grading papers in front of the flat-screen, she says, “That wasn’t very uplifting, was it?”

And she scowled at me and told me it was a terrible, terrible film.

Not totally pleasant, yes, but it was totally captivating. It had things to say. Things about grief that spoke to me, calmed me as a person who was going through his own grief. But she clocked out and chose not to believe that it had things to say.

Why?

Now I’m a guy that likes somber, melancholy, dark fairy tales dripping with sparkled chiaroscuro and luminous tenebrae…I like stories with swearing and guns and knives and people behaving badly.

And you know, people will look at me and say, with a straight-face, that there’s no value to such stories. No artistic, humanistic, or moral merit.

Well, what a shitty stance that’s more a matter of taste and bias then it is of criticism. Than it is of giving a story a chance.

And it frustrates me, because I’m a person that tries to find the beauty and truth in everything. I want to say, didn’t you pay attention? There’s light here, there’s gem-like soul-stirring stuff going on here, and sometimes you need some of the darkness to accentuate the light, the life. It’s like alchemy, chemistry. You need the vile stuff, the dark stuff, to cull out the light.

Canto VI.

Because I’m going to tell you right now, there are multiple moments in this story that violates Stuart Beattie’s screenplay axiom: “Never kill the dog.”

Animals die in this thing.

And so do people.

Life is hacked to death with a machete. It melts in pools of acid. Flare guns are shot into mouths, bullets bounce around inside bodies. There’s fisticuffs and bloody physicality. Men break up with women. Women and men both die tragic deaths.

And I don’t really think there’s any bias or prejudice betwixt the things that die in this script.

Canto VII.

But there’s men professing love for each other. It’s not homosexuality. It’s the manly Romantic friendship found between two males in Victorian times and literature. You know how people would snicker in the theater during “Lord of the Rings” whenever Frodo and Sam gazed at each other? How people mistook that for them being hard and wet for each other?

There’s that except it’s not two dudes who want to fuck each other (it wasn’t in Tolkien either).

It’s a sense of honor, of loyalty, of friendship.

It’s also a meditation on Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”. Chinks in the armor and macho exteriors that lay bare the insecurities, the tenderness, the red-beating hearts of these characters. Push past through the posturing and physicality to see these men naked, offering their beating hearts in outstretched supplicant hands.

There’s writer as warrior.

You fight for the time and dedication to write, and sometimes you lose the simple pleasures of life in exchange. If you’re in a relationship, it’s a hard juggling act. Because writing has become your mistress, and your stories have become your children. You have to decide, who is going to be the wife, and who is going to be the mistress? Your writing? Or your mate?

I think there’s a sacrifice that comes with choosing a path as a writer, with things like logophilia or cinephilia. When you’re so haunted and obsessed with words and images you find the rest of the world passing you by as you lose yourself in the loop. Sometimes it’s out of your control.

And sometimes when you’ve worked months or years to complete something, you’ve shed friendships and jobs. You’ve opted not to settle on a straight career path and a yuppie life because you’re working something minimum wage while you live in a ratty apartment with Good Will décor as you spend the majority of your time writing.

A lot.

Like Seven Samurai, these guys uphold their honor to each other, their friendships for the greater good, but it’s the warriors who ultimately lose. They have lost their lives and Marty has lost his friends. As Kambei muses, “Again we are defeated.”

Because in the end, Marty has even lost his girl because his writing is important, and she is, after all, a fucking bitch.

And with Marty alive, life-sustaining work has prevailed over war, left all warriors (Billy and Hans and the others) as the defeated party.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[xx] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: When you’re someone like Martin McDonagh, you don’t compromise. People don’t tell him, “That’s a great first draft.” He has the confidence and the stubbornness and the belief in his own work to say, “We’re shooting it my way and we’re not going to change a fucking word.” And you know what? That’s what’s gonna happen. If you’re going to last in this business, you have to believe in yourself. You have to believe in your scripts. The moment you lose belief, the moment you quit and give up. It’s over. Otherwise, how are other people going to believe in you? Are you writing for a paycheck? Or are you writing because you need and have to tell stories? Are you writing a story to tell it to other people, or are you telling it to yourself?

Genre: Dramedy
Premise: An ex-inventor tries to reconnect with his daughter after a 12 year jail sentence.
About: Kevin Spacey, Camille Bell, Heather Graham, Virginia Madsen, and Johnny Knoxville to star. Pic will be produced by Krane Films and Trigger Street Productions, Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti plus Jonathan Krane, Anthony Cohen, and Ken Barbet. Father of Invention was filmed in News Orleans. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I was worried about the director, Trent Cooper. His only big credit is Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector. That’s not even the first Larry The Cable Guy. But hey, everybody gets their breakthrough shot, and after that you get to show what you’re really made of. If Cooper had anything to do with this script, I’m willing to give him a chance.
Writer: Johnathan D. Krane (current revisions by Trent Cooper)
Details: 109 pages (4-30-09)

Wow, what an unexpected treat. “Father Of Invention” is a script I’ve been avoiding forever because let’s face it: the title kinda blows. But now that I’ve finished it, I’m kicking myself for not reading it sooner. I still don’t know exactly how to describe the screenplay. I know that while reading it I kept thinking it was like a weird bizarro companion piece to American Beauty. There are a lot of similarities between the main character, Robert Axle, and the nostalgia-obsessed Lester Burnham. Yet Father of Invention is its own unique experience. And as it stands, it’s one of the better scripts I’ve read this year.

Robert Axle has just been released from a dozen year stay in the slammer. Our hero used to be an inventor, or “fabricator”, as he likes to put it. He thinks up all of those crazy useless gadgets people actually spend money on at 3 in the morning watching QVC. Problem is that one of these gadgets ended up de-fingering 6000 customers (turns out if you used it for 19 hours straight it slid open and chopped your fingers off). So no biggie. All Axle had to do was forfeit his 1.7 billion dollar company and take a 12 year seat next to a building full of hardened criminals.

Now that Robert’s out, he can’t wait to seek out some new ideas. Even on his bus ride into town, he’s already trying to combine everyday gadgets into some new super-gadget that nobody’s thought of yet. But life on the outside is a lot different in 2009. And in one of the funnier moments, Robert spots a kid and starts pitching him on a new revolutionary invention he’s thought of: “Would you buy a phone that also reads…e-mail?” the kid takes out his phone. “You mean a Blackberry?” Yeah, it’s safe to say Robert’s a little out of touch. And then there’s his daughter, Claire. At one point she was the apple of his eye. But as soon as he made his first billion, she could’ve been an apple orchard and he wouldn’t have noticed . She’s never forgotten how he changed. So when Robert shows up at her door begging for a place to stay, she ditches the hugs and kisses in favor of a good old fashioned: “Get the hell out of here!”

Eventually the selfless Claire comes around but not without a strict set of laws. He can stay for one month (ticking time bombs people!) if he agrees to get a *real* job (nothing that has to do with inventing) and doesn’t bother her two roommates. That shouldn’t be a problem with Phoebe, an angry hot lesbian who hates Robert’s guts the second he steps through the door. At least there’s the eternally optimistic Donna, who lives life like her favorite song is always playing. But even her parents have told her to stay in her room where she’s safe from the “convict”. Ouch.

Of course, Robert can’t stay out of the inventing game for long. And after he’s fired from his job (which he doesn’t tell Claire) he gets an idea for a GPS type watch to keep track of your kids. Immediately he’s putting a plan together, targeting investors, building a prototype. The problem is Robert Axle’s name is poison. This is the guy that chopped off 12,000 fingers (the device took two fingers from every person it maimed). The label doesn’t exactly inspire confidence these days. This forces Robert to get creative and recruit the asshole who fired him to be his pitch man (I’m assuming this part will be played by Johnny Knoxville – who’s a perfect fit). But when Robert can’t come up with the money to pay for a prototype, he makes a really bad decision that will come back to haunt him, and ultimately destroy all that good will he worked so hard to build up.

The characters are so well-drawn in Father Of Invention. I kept having to sit back and admire the intricacy in which these people were crafted. It’s hard enough writing one memorable character. Having 5-6 is the equivalent of hitting the cinematic jackpot. I loved how you would think you had everybody tabbed and then, BAM, the characters would do a 180 and completely surprise you. But where this script really shines is in the complex relationship between father and daughter. We want Claire to love Robert again so bad that we’re continuously heartbroken every time they can’t quite make it over the hump. Here is one of those scenes, where Robert’s trying to erase a lifetime of poor parenting in 5 minutes.

INT. NEIGHBORHOOD BAKERY – MOMENTS LATER

Claire and Axle sit opposite each other. Claire’s head buried
in the paper. Axle watches her.

AXLE
When did you learn to sew?

CLAIRE
About six years ago, when I started
the Center.

AXLE
It’s nice, the sewing. Are you gay?

CLAIRE
What kind of a question is that?

AXLE
If you are, it’s cool with me. I just
want you to be happy.

CLAIRE
Just because my life isn’t bogged
down by some man child who wants to
have a say in everything I do, who I
do it with and when it gets done?
…No I’m not gay. I wish it were
that simple.

AXLE
Well none of you girls seem to date
and I find it a little bit odd.

CLAIRE
Donna has been engaged to three
different men and never gone through
with it. No man will ever measure up
to her father. Phoebe dates but
doesn’t bring girls home to meet us
because she thinks we would judge her
and I am very much looking forward to
falling in love but not until I get
my shit together.

AXLE
See there, three things I’ve learned
about Claire Axle: started sewing six
years ago, doesn’t have time for men
and loves the paper.

Claire puts the paper down to address her father directly.

CLAIRE
Two more things: My last name is not
Axle and I’m fond of boundaries.
Hence our thirty day agreement. Which
I refuse to budge on.

He takes a section of newspaper. Tries to give her space.

CLAIRE
And I do have time for men, just not
love. I’ve been having, rabid, erotic
sex with men since I was twelve.

Axle is stunned silent. She lets him suffer then —

CLAIRE
Kidding. I was seventeen.

He breathes a sigh of relief.

CLAIRE
The guy was thirty nine.

Axle sits up straight. This is killing him.

CLAIRE
Kidding about that too. He was
sixteen. …We did it in your office.

His head drops to the table, THUNK, like he’s dead.

CLAIRE
On the desk.

He bangs his head again. She grins, loving this.

CLAIRE
(softening)
My first memory as a human being was
the house on Inverness Court. You
used to sit on the floor with me,
trying to get me to understand how my
stuffed animals and Barbies were all
linked together by atoms and
molecules.

AXLE
Your mom thought I was crazy. I knew
you were smart enough to know what I
was talking about.

CLAIRE
I had no clue. I was just glad you
were on the floor with me.

She goes back to her paper. Axle reflects.

I realize I’m making this script sound pretty sappy but it’s actually hilarious. Phoebe is an actress’ dream she’s so funny. There’s a scene where her and Robert have to steal back Guitar Hero from her ex-boyfriend (yes, you read that right – she has an ex-boyfriend) that’s so ridiculous it actually works. Super-positive Donna’s optimism complements Phoebe perfectly, and when her world is shattered late in the story, instead of getting all mushy, they play it for laughs and it comes out pitch perfect. But Father Of Invention’s greatest feat is something I’m continually trying to tattoo onto your collective brains: Give us something unique and we will respond! Father of Invention simply isn’t like anything I’ve read before.

My only fear for the film is if they try to make it too kooky. It walks such a fine line between drama and comedy that this is one of those things you can screw up with even the slightest miscalculation in tone. My hope is that they’ll err on the side of drama so the film stays grounded. Either way, this was a fun read.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A lot of movies start with the character at the lowest point in their life. Maybe they just got out of jail. Maybe they just had someone close to them die. Maybe they’ve been fired. This dramatic device works well because when we meet a character at his lowest point, we’re curious to see whether he can climb back up the ladder and find success again, or fall back into his own self-destructive ways. It’s a tried and true device and a great template for a story.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: Terrorists plant an atomic bomb in an American city and threaten nuclear devastation unless their demands are met.
About: This is that infamous script that Spielberg called the best he had ever read at the time, which was back in 1990. It was purchased for 500k against 1m and Spielberg was going to direct it himself but it got stuck in rewrite hell (how a script even goes through rewrites when you call it the best script you’ve ever read is a testament to just how hilarious Hollywood can be). This is the original sale script. The first half of the writing team, Dworet, is also a doctor and along with Pool, was hired to write the plague thriller “Outbreak” for 250k after Ultimatum sold. Since then, neither writer has secured any produced writing credits, although Pool did get a ‘Story By’ credit on Armageddon (a scary reminder of how fickle Hollywood can be).
Writers: Laurence Dworet & Robert Roy Pool
Details: 127 pages (March 1, 1990)

Did Steven Spielberg go through any traumatic experiences back in 1990? Cause I’m having a hard time figuring out what it is he saw in this script. Okay maybe that’s being harsh. We do have to take into account that it’s been 20 years and the political and social climate has changed quite a bit since then. Although I was too young to care, I do remember there being a lot of fear of someone walking into a city with a nuclear bomb in a suitcase and blowing everything to hell. Yet here we are, 20 years later, and 20 years more capable of achieving something like this, and yet the idea still feels old-fashioned.

It’s this simplistic hokeyness that dogs The Ultimatum from the first tick. J. Robert Scott works for the National Security Council when he’s informed that a nuclear bomb suitcase is about to be detonated somewhere in the U.S. Turns out he’s got a more important council to deal with first though. I’m talking about the National Marriage Council. Yeah. Guys. You know what I’m talking about. Seems Scott’s marriage is hanging by a thread after he dipped his pen in the company ink. Or sharpened his pencil in the company pencil sharpener. Or however the fucking phrase goes. What I’m trying to say is that he banged some reporter chick named Ginny. Which is the first problem I had with the script. You don’t have sex with someone named “Ginny”. You walk “Ginny” across the street. You change “Ginny’s” bedpan. But you don’t engage in intercourse with her. Anyway, Ginny is moderating a presidential debate because there’s a presidential election going on and in two days, America will have a new leader. Yes you can.

That’s when the call comes in. The one about the suitcase bomb. Some really nasty terrorist organization claims to have a nuclear bomb which they will walk into the middle of the American city of their choosing and blow up if the president doesn’t — get this — force the Zionist Jews to leave the Holy City. This was the moment where my spidey senses began to tingle. I know terrorists aren’t the smoothest rocks in the desert, but what makes anyone think that millions of Jewish people are going to get up and leave their city under the threat of another country being bombed? That’s like me walking into my local ice cream shop and saying “Give me all your ice cream or I’m going to trash my neighbor’s living room.”

Anyway, Scott works hand in hand with the president to sniff out which city the terrorists are planning to turn into Chernobyl, in hopes of getting there and disabling it before it blows. They must manage this without anybody finding out what’s going on – since if they do, there will be 25 cities recreating that end scene from Deep Impact. It will be mass chaos I say. MASS CHAOS! Scott’s ex-hookup bootie-call grandmother, Ginny, smells a coverup, and changes into her super-reporter costume to hunt down her Pulitzer.

The focus actually bounces back and forth between Scott and Ginny, as Scott tries to find the suitcase and Ginny tries to break the biggest story in United States history. None of it is any interesting though because Ginny is always light years behind Scott. For example, Scott and the president take a course of action (i.e. “It’s probably in Chicago. Let’s go there.”) Then 20 pages later Ginny will find some plane receipt and go, “They went to Chicago. We have to follow them!” I’m not sure what the dramatic advantage of being 20 minutes behind the audience holds but it’s used to great effect here.

The script is also weighed down by an insufferable amount of characters. Even with a trusty cheat sheet I was still having to take coffee breaks every fifteen minutes to give myself pop quizzes so I could remember who the hell was who. And since everybody’s last name was Johnson or Smith, let me tell you, it wasn’t easy! (Although I did get a B+ on my last quiz). When a new character was introduced on page 97 – yes, you read that right – NINETY-SEVEN, I officially gave up on finding that damn suitcase. Let the damn city blow if it means I have to memorize one more character who never shows up again.

But I digress.

Ultimately, what The Ultimatum amounts to is one giant McGuyver episode. There’ a bomb. It’s going to blow up. Someone stops it with one second left. If this is what passed for spec material back in 1990, I feel like a 49er who came in 59. This was not pleasurable.

Script link: The Ultimatum (If you are the writer or copyright holder of this script and would like it taken down, please e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com and I will do so immediately)

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Don’t ever introduce a new character on page 97. Just don’t do it. Ever.

Labor Day Schmabor Day. Scriptshadow doesn’t take days off. What is Labor Day anyway? A day off in celebration of “labor”? We need more holidays like that. Here’s my question. Us U.S.’ers have been around 300 years and we have about a dozen holidays that give us days off. How is it for you countries who have been around for 2000 years? Do you guys have like 100 holidays? Every other day must be a holiday. What am I even talking about right now? Back on point. Today, we actually have a spec sale to cover. Outside of Fuckbuddies – which was really a replacement for the case of the disappearing Cameron Crowe – we haven’t had many of these lately, cause there just haven’t been that many. Which means all of you are slacking! Get out there and sell some scripts so I can review them! – I haven’t read Barnaby James but from the description, it just goes to show that you don’t need to write the next high-concept comedy or thriller to sell a script in this town. And that if you have a script that’s a little different, Appian might be interested (remember – DiCaprio bought the very “un”spec-like “The Low Dweller”) – As for the rest of the week, expect a rare double-review where I team up with one of our readers to tackle the latest from one of the bigger writers in town (and someone I’ve reviewed a few scripts from on the site already). Also expect another rarity: Me reviewing a horror script. A horror script I thought was quite good in fact. Also we’ll take a trip back to a script that Spielberg, when he read it, said was the best script he’d ever read up to that point. The script never got made. Also, I’m learning that Spielberg says that kind of thing a lot. And as for the final review, we’ll keep that a mystery for now. Here’s Roger Balfour with his review of The Many Deaths Of Barnaby James…

Genre: Horror, Dark Fantasy
Premise: A teenage apprentice in a macabre circus for the dead yearns to bring his true love back to life, but not before encountering the many dangerous and gothic characters that stand in his way.
About: 2008 Black List script. Sold to Appian Way in March, 2009. Remember, Appian is Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company. Nathanson is repped by CAA and Benderspink. His script “The Occasionally Interesting Anti-Adventures of an Unnamed Girl” is in development with Scott Rudin at Disney.
Writer: Brian Nathanson
Details: 114 pages (undated)

You ever wonder what the world would be like if Chuck Palahniuk wrote “Something Wicked This Way Comes”? Or what if John Bellairs had a love-child with the Blood Countess herself, Elizabeth Bathory, and their baby boy grew up to write screenplays?

Yeah, these thoughts never occurred to me either, until “The Many Deaths of Barnaby James” found its way onto my hard-drive.

Let’s all pretend it’s a late cider day. The once green leaves have faded to blood-red and autumn herself has wrapped her crisp cloak around your shoulders. Gather ‘round the fire and focus on Roger in the chair as he tells you the one about Barnaby James and his many deaths.

Once upon a time…

…there was a transgendered club owner who called herself Lady Liberty. Spindle-shank skinny and all tattoos and lipstick, a spiked tiara protrudes out of her bluish-green wig. She’s the force of nature behind The Pound, the Mortecita den of sin where the especially seedy and select can be serviced by boys and girls appareled in scant, bordello-red leather.

If your name’s Callahan, you’re probably interested in other taboos of the flesh. Lady Liberty can accommodate you, too. As a VIP, you’ll be escorted past Malacoda, the chain-wielding bouncer, and led into the basement that’s fondly referred to as The Meat Room.

And there you will find stacked glass cases that align the walls like some Freak Show exhibit curated by Eli Roth or Darren Lynn Bousman. Because inside each glass case is a prisoner, a live human being on display as if they were action figures at Toys ‘R Us. It’s a veritable smorgasbord for those who have a taste for American red meat.

Just seeing this live menu causes your eyes to turn yellow, your fangs to jut out.

It triggers The Change.

Because if your name’s Callahan, you’re also a feeder. One of the cursed. And the cursed gotta eat. But don’t touch Play-Thing, the mangled, gibbering mass of scar tissue with female genitalia. She’s already reserved for someone else. But that plump brunette next to her? She’s all yours, friend.

Bon appétit.

But this story isn’t about Lady Liberty or Callahan or the other characters that populate this story. Not really. This is about Barnaby James. Everyone else is more or less a monstrous obstacle on Barnaby’s Campbellian road of trials slash rite of passage.

Who’s this Barnaby chap and what’s with this many death business?

You know anything about Saint Nicholas? And I don’t mean Santa Claus, although this dude’s the prototype. No? Well, he’s a miracle worker of sorts. There’s the legend about the malicious butcher that lured three children into his house. He killed them and put the butchered remains in barrels. Saint Nicholas is the dude that saw through the butcher’s ruse and resurrected the slain children.

I mention this legend for two reasons. 1) Resurrection is both crux and MacGuffin in this dark fairy tale and 2) when we first meet Barnaby he’s digging up a grave in the Church of St. Nicholas cemetery.

Barnaby’s a grave boy.

He works for Azlon. Azlon is showman, businessman, barker and owner of the Black Top. The Black Top is a mysterious travelling carnival and circus. Think Vaudeville cross-pollinated with the Grand Guignol. A sprinkle of Caligari here and a dash of Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl” there.

And, oh yeah, all of the performers are resurrected corpses.

Azlon possesses a wand. It’s about ten inches long. Metallic. It has ancient writing and strange swirling symbols chiseled into its sides.

Now here’s the racket. Grave boys like Barnaby dig up these corpses, and Azlon arrives with his wand. He jams the wand into a specific spot between the corpse’s neck and chest. The wand plunges into the flesh and leaves a telling mark on the body. Purple ichor bubbles out of the mark, enlivening decayed flesh, making the body new again. The deal is, these people are given a second chance at life, but it’s in servitude to Azlon and his Black Top.

You don’t like the terms of the deal, say hello to the business-end of Azlon’s other wand — his boom-stick. After all, the Reaper will gladly chaperone you six feet under for a second time.

Now, Barnaby, he doesn’t remember much before his life with the Black Top. He doesn’t remember how he died. He remembers that he was raised in an orphanage. He remembers that he was rescued from the orphanage by a farmer. He remembers that he worked as a farmhand.

And he remembers Delilah.

He remembers her porcelain skin, her red hair. He remembers that he loved her. He still loves her. He loves her. And every time the Black Top passes through Mortecita, the longing for Delilah becomes overwhelming. Because Mortecita is Delilah-Ground Zero. It was their home before all the bad came to pass, and it’s her home now.

Mortecita is the resting place for Delilah’s corpse.

And every year Barnaby begs Azlon to resurrect her. She’s an angel. She’s so beautiful she could be a lead attraction. It’s how Rob Zombie must feel about Sheri Moon Zombie. But every year Azlon must dissuade the boy. But this year, Barnaby is not going to take ‘No’ for an answer.

Nope.

Barnaby steals Azlon’s wand and escapes the Black Top. He embarks on a journey to find the final resting place of sweet Delilah so that he can resurrect her. Lovers reunited.

You still haven’t told us about Barnaby’s many deaths…

And spoil the fun? Okay, I’ll throw out some bones.

Barnaby has a huge problem. And that problem is the bounty hunter employed by the Black Top. They call him The Fiddler. He’s sort of an assassin-troubador. A murderous minstrel. Has a nasty switchblade attachment on his fiddle bow. Likes to kill things.

If Barnaby’s presence in Mortecita isn’t enough to send its underworld into a frenzy, then the unleashing of The Fiddler all but guarantees a maelstrom of people stabbing each other Michael Myers-style to simply make it to dawn alive.

And like Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and countless other fairy tale children before him, Barnaby has wolves and witches of his own to contend with…

A) Jayce. Twenty-seven. A modern day Don Juan. A necrophile. I wish I could make the word ‘necrophile’ blink. But I guess it pops out on its own, doesn’t it? When we first meet Jayce, he’s going to town on a corpse in the Mortecita cemetery. With his dong. Yeah. It’s gross. Anyways, Jayce is in a relationship with…

B) Elena. Early thirties. Although ‘relationship’ is probably too strong a word because she’s more of a beard for Jayce. She’s a Bible-quoting born again who doesn’t put out. But she has her reasons. Elena is a feeder, a were-creature, who is trying to be free of her curse. And Elena’s ex is…

C) Callahan. But we already met him. He’s not so keen on letting Elena put her sinful and flesh-eating ways behind her. He wants his were-mate back, and he’ll do anything to get her back. Even if it means dragging her to The Meat Room himself so she can no longer fight her primal urges.

D) Figueroa. Forties. A salty old dog of a tattoo artist. Sort of a liaison between those that are undead, or if you wanna be PC, ‘re-born’, and the waking world. Barnaby goes to him to cover up the mark on his chest and to find the whereabouts of Delilah’s body. He might even murder Barnaby to get control of the wand…

So yeah, a dark forest of nasty adults. Barnaby may or may not die a few times trying to navigate his way through the forest.

Sounds twisted. Did you like it?

I thought it was pretty damn good. It’s a matter of taste on two fronts. 1) Subject matter and 2) narrative structure.

The content is not going to be for everyone. But that’s okay, nothing is for everyone. I’m a stickler for dark fantasy and fucked up fairy tales. I like both Lemony Snicket and Mario Bava. If those two want to team-up and try to scare the bejeezus out of me, I’m all for it. And that’s what this story feels like. It has claws poking out of it.

If you’re like me, and your favorite holiday is Halloween, then you might love this thing. Because this story pushed all my Halloween buttons, and that’s no small feat. After I finished reading it, I wanted to hand the script to my favorite tattoo artist and say, “Here’s your reference point. Read it. Be inspired. Now slap a full sleeve on me.”

The sense of melancholy in the third act is so intoxicating I might have even shed a tear.

This thing just isn’t all flash, there’s some real storytelling chops at work here. It’s unique. It feels new.

It’s “Sweeney Todd” on X-rated over-drive. It’s “Into the Woods” if every character was trying to kill each other. It’s Sondheim and Hans Christian Andersen distilled through Tim Burton and Dario Argento.

The structure irritated me at first because it was jarring to be pulled out of Barnaby’s point-of-view. I was already settled in with the character and I didn’t want to leave him, and the writing was so good I was kind of surprised that the writer chose to structure the story as a Rolodex-shuffle of rotating perspectives.

But it’s necessary for the story to work. It’s devious. Like Lemarchand’s box. We meet the characters and then Barnaby collides into them. There’s some bait-and-switch moments, and they work. The ending caught me off guard.

Reminded me of a Robert Cormier story. If you know his books, you know he writes about teenagers. And no taboo is forbidden. Every topic is fair game, however shocking. But more interestingly, his protagonists rarely win. And that’s heart-wrenching.

So if you’re willing to go along for the ride, you might also notice this story is laden with the monomyth. From a Campbellian perspective, the writer is tilling some rich fields. It’s not something that calls attention to itself, and I like that about it. But it’s certainly there for those of you who like Joseph Campbell and are into the Hero’s Journey.

If I lived in Los Angeles, and if he were so inclined, I’d love to take Nathanson out for a nice, dark stout and tar-tar and discuss our future careers in serial murder.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Are you using structural trick-flourishes for the sake of style alone? Or does the nature of your story necessitate it? Because the punishment for the sin of the first is that it will damn your story under the label of ‘gimmickry’. You don’t want to be known as the guy or gal that’s all style and no story, do you? But if your story necessitates a structure and style that deviates from traditional dramatic structure and you can pull it off, then more power to you. You must ask yourself, what will make your story more powerful? Do you want to make “Smokin’ Aces” or do you want to make “Pulp Fiction”? There’s an important distinction in there, somewhere…