Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from IMDB) A father’s life unravels while he deals with a marital crisis and tries to manage his relationship with his children.
About: Helping keep that big spec sale dream alive, Fogelman’s comedy sold for a 2010 best 2 million dollars! What is this? The nineties?? Fogelman’s name may sound familiar as I just reviewed his Black List script, “My Mother’s Curse,” last week. The film stars Steve Carell (who was attached for the sale), Ryan Gosling, Kevin Bacon, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, and Julianne Moore. So live it up people, cause we don’t see these big sellers too often.
Writer: Dan Fogelman
Details: 121 pages – Feb 19, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. 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).

I have a lot of good things to say about this script. Plot, character, and execution come together in this tale like a concoction of Coldstone’s ice cream. And while I know some of you will pan it for its feathery light subject matter, make no mistake, there is some serious skill on display here. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this is the best executed comedy I’ve read since The F Word.

But before we get into it, let’s acknowledge the rhinoceros in the room. If you or I had written this script, there’s no way anyone would’ve read it. The premise is too simple: A man is thrust back into the single life after his wife asks for a divorce. That ain’t going to win Pitch Fest at the Expo, sunshine. But this is one of the realities of the business: Professional writers don’t need a flashy logline to get their stuff read. Their NAME is the flashly logline. And that’s a good thing. Cause when you sell your script, your name will be the flashy logline as well.

42 year old out-of-touch out-of-style out-of-sync Cal thinks he has the perfect life. He fell in love with his high school sweetheart, Tracy, when he was 17, and the two have been married ever since. They have two beautiful children, 13 year old Robbie and 8 year old Mollie, a wonderful house, and an unlimited supply of happiness.

Gosling plays Jacob

Or at least, that’s Cal’s view of things. It’s been a while since he’s seen things through his wife’s eyes, and that’s going to cost poor Cal in the form of a blindside. Usually, you have a ‘feeling’ when the old relationship is about to implode. But Cal is clueless when his wife breaks it to him that she’s been having an affair with David Jacobowitz and that she wants a divorce.

After getting over that shocker, Cal’s inadvertently thrown into the world of dating. Now for anyone who’s been off the market for a significant period of time and then come back, you’ll recall that dating changes QUICKLY. Five years ago is nothing like today. And five years before that was nothing like five years later. But here’s the thing with Cal. HE’S NEVER DATED. EVER. Tracy was his first and only. This is a world completely alien to him.

Stone plays the woman Jacob falls for.

Jacob Palmer doesn’t date either. But that’s because he’s perfected a pick-up technique that requires less than a minute of conversation. Palmer can get you from A (the bar) to Z (his place) in less time than it takes most guys to order a drink. The problem with Jacob is that that’s all he does. He sits at a bar booth every night with his perfect hair, his perfect scent, and his perfect outfit and just picks up woman after woman. He doesn’t know the meaning of love.

It just so happens that Cal starts hanging out at Jacob’s bar every night and tells anyone who will listen his sad sack story about asshole David Jacobowitz fucking his wife. Jacob is horrified by this man he deems to be one step above mentally retarded. Just so he doesn’t have to witness this pathetic display anymore, Jacob offers to teach Cal how to pick up women.

Cal’s not even sure he wants to pick up women but anything that takes his mind off David Jacobowitz’s naked body is a good thing, so he agrees. Jacob gets Cal a new haircut, new clothes, and a new attitude, and after a few conversation-related tips (namely: “don’t talk. Ever.”), Cal starts picking up women left and right.

This very hot girl plays the babysitter.

Now at this point you’re probably saying, “What so great about that? It sounds pretty boring.” And I’ll admit, the first half of this screenplay is pretty average. But where Crazy, Stupid, Love excels is in its second half, where all the characters and the intricate relationships that have been built up between them start smashing into each other like pinballs.

See what we realize, is that the first 60 pages were all one big setup, and the last sixty pages are a continuous ESPN ticker feed of payoffs. Tracy is being stalked by the man she had an affair with. Cal realizes all these one-night stands are meaningless and tries to get Tracy back. Cal and Tracy’s babysitter, Jessica, is in love with Cal. Cal’s son Robbie, is in love with Jessica. Just when it looks like Cal and Tracy are going to get back together, she learns that one of his conquests was Mrs. Thompson, Robbie’s teacher! Cal and Jacob end up becoming best friends. But then Jacob ends up falling in love with a girl, who ends up being the worst possible girl he could fall in love with. Even little Mollie is in love, with Zac Efron and High School Musical. And the further all these relationships go, the more “crazy,” the more “stupid” they get.

Blake Snyder said in his book “Save The Cat!” that there needs to be one scene in every screenplay that a producer can point to and say “That’s a movie.” In “Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot,” Snyder’s one produced credit, he said that that scene was a chase scene where, instead of two cars screaming through the streets of downtown, Stallone’s mom is driving 10 miles an hour, pulling up short at stop signs, and holding Stallone back with her arm whenever they came to a stop. That, the producer said, is what convinced me this was a movie.

Bacon plays the guy Cal’s wife sleeps with.

Here, not only do we get that scene, but we get the reason why this script sold for 2 million dollars. It’s the climax of the story, a huge sequence where all of these relationships finally collide with one another in this glorious wacky explosion. It’s executed so perfectly and with such skill that for a brief moment, you sit up and think, “This is what screenwriting is all about.” And it really is. It’s that moment where all of the variables in your story come together in that perfect harmonic climax. It’s really good stuff.

This script also supports my belief that every character should have something going on. They shouldn’t just be an ear for the main character to disclose information to (like so many amateur scripts I read). Cal’s trying to get his wife back. Jacob’s trying to get laid. Bobbie’s trying to get Jessica. Jessica’s trying to get Cal. David’s trying to get Tracy. Even Molly, the daughter, is obsessed with High School Musical. Nobody’s left out to dry here, so we’re never bored, even though we’re jumping around to a lot of different stories.

And finally, this script does what so many comedy scripts fail to do – it packs the story with heart! And I think heart leads to big bucks. I really do. When you make a reader FEEL something at the end of a screenplay, it stays with them. It makes them want to recommend it to others. All comedies should have some heart dammit! This is proof-positive why.

Really really dug this script. Only didn’t make the Top 25 because the first half was a little predictable. Oh and hey, is this not the single most perfect role for Steve Carell that could’ve been written??

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I don’t think you should write a low-concept comedy if you don’t have some connections in the industry. Had an amateur writer tried to get reads from this, they probably would’ve been ignored, as the premise is too generic. As an unknown, you need more flash in your pitch to get noticed, so I’d stick to higher-concept fare if you can.

Genre: Drama
Premise: A selfish workaholic chef tries to get back into the restaurant game after a much publicized meltdown years ago.
About: Like a lot of projects that gain instant notoriety in Hollywood, Untitled Chef Project burst onto the scene after David Fincher attached himself to it. This would have paired him with thespian Keanu Reeves had it happened, but the project fell apart for reasons unknown. I’ll tell you one thing, these damn “Untitled” monikers sure do suck the life out of a script. Who gets excited for a project with “Untitled” on the front page? Anyway, the script made the 2007 Black List, and in a case of complete coincidence, had the exact same number of votes – three – as Jeff The Immortal. Hmm, could the low end of the 2007 Black List contain a secret stash of amazing unknown screenplays? — You may also know Knight as the writer of one of last year’s highly rated Black List scripts, the Bobby Fischer bio, Pawn Sacrifice (which you may remember I didn’t like very much).
Writer: Steven Knight
Details: 116 pages – July 25th, 2007 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. 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).

I am going to admit something that I don’t admit to many. I love Gordon Ramsey. And I love Kitchen Nightmares. I love watching Gordon Ramsey tell a chef that their food is awful. I love when he goes into a kitchen, turns over a box and finds roaches. I love when he discovers mold on a tomato, stuffs it in a cook’s face, and tells him serving that tomato is the same as pointing a gun at a customer’s head and pulling the trigger. And I love how every time, after his assessment of the restaurant, even though it’s all so clearly planned, he says there’s nothing he can do to help them and walks away. I love how we stay on the owners, who are deciding whether they should go after him or not, even though Gordon Ramsey is always exactly 500 feet away, standing on a mark determined hours ago so that he’s in the best possible light when the camera arrives. And I love how even though there’s still 45 minutes left in the show, I’m still sitting there wondering, “What if he doesn’t come back? What if he doesn’t help them?? Will the episode just….end????” If you are not a Kitchen Nightmares fan, I implore you to seek out the one where Gordon Ramsey goes into an Indian restaurant in New York. You will become a convert.

Ironically, this is exactly why I DIDN’T want to read Untitled Chef Project. I was afraid it was a script meant to capitalize on the whole Chef reality TV craze. And as far as inspiration goes, basing a movie on a reality show is one step below basing a movie on a board game.

But if there’s one thing Fincher has proved, it’s that he gets his grubby paws on the best material in Hollywood. By far, this man finds the coolest books, scripts, articles, and bios to develop. No one else even comes close. This is the only thing that gave me hope that Untitled Chef Project would be good.

Adam is an amazing chef. People wait months to eat his food, he has one of the best restaurants in Paris, and he has two Michelin stars to his name (getting a Michelin star is akin to winning three World Series in a row and being the MVP in each one). Adam has a problem though. HE’S FUCKING INSANE! The guy snorts coke while he’s preparing tuna tar-tar and would probably do heroin as well if it weren’t so logistically demanding. Not only is Adam a lunatic, he’s insanely dangerous. He’s violent, self-destructive, and maybe even suicidal. When we meet him, all of this has finally caught up with him. Adam self-destructs, losing his restaurant and losing everything else in his life.

Cut to a few years later and Adam has picked himself back up. He lives in London and he’s been getting that urge to start a new restaurant, which means finding a team. For those of you who saw Inception, this is like the first half of that movie but without all the exposition. It’s time to find out who’s going to go to war with him.

The key to every team, and particularly every chef, is a great sous chef (the right hand man).

So Adam sets up an interview with his top prospect, the talented, beautiful, and guarded Sweeney. But Adam doesn’t have any money for an office yet. So where does he interview Sweeney? Why McDonald’s of course. And this was the first moment I realized that Untitled Chef Project was different. Well, when Adam was ingesting lines, fighting off drug dealers and preparing a meal at the same time, I knew the script was different then. But when the best chef in the world starts philosophizing about how great McDonald’s is, you know you’re in for something fun.

Anyway, Sweeney knows about Adam’s shady history, but can’t pass up the opportunity to learn from someone of his stature, so she says yes. Adam completes his rag-tag group of culinary-geniuses, talks someone into giving him a million dollars, and opens his restaurant in the middle of London.

You’d think with someone as genius as Adam, building a great restaurant would be easy. But Adam is…different. Not even perfection is perfect enough for him. This is a man who refuses to allow even a single mistake. Michelin stars are only awarded to those dining experiences which are perfect. Not a single thing can be out of place: not the service, not the food, not the atmosphere, not even the damn silverware. And because Adam is trying to achieve something that no other chef has done – get a third Michelin star – he demands of his workers that they be Gods. Every. Single. Day.

As if to show just how serious he is, one of the early nights has a couple of screw-ups. Adam gathers everyone in the kitchen and proceeds to lose his shit in a way that would make Bob Knight say, “Whoa, you went too far there dude.” Adam becomes so angry in fact, that he actually holds a knife to Sweeney’s throat. And you really believe that in that moment, he’s thinking about killing her. You believe he’s actually considering it. Let me give you some perspective here. THIS IS THE FEMALE LOVE INTEREST! You have your protagonist about to KILL the female lead in your movie!!!

As the script hits the second half, it begins to focus more on this love story. But fear not all you readers who hold Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughey DVD burning parties. This is not romance of the pillow talk variety. Knight wisely keeps these two separated for as long as possible, so that the tension and conflict are maximized. We’re wondering if Sweeney can see this man as anything but the crazy lunatic he is. We’re wondering if Adam can find enough of his heart to let another human being in. It does not read cheesy. It does not feel saccharine. It’s harsh and it’s real and it’s pitch-perfect.

This is a character piece that explores one of the most interesting characters I’ve seen all year. It’s about a man obsessed with himself and obsessed with his work. He’s unable to enjoy life, unable to enjoy the people around him, and he takes that out on anyone who steps in his path. There is a great emotional scene near the end of the script where Sweeney asks Adam for a day off to celebrate her daughter’s birthday, and his answer and the subsequent scene afterwards hit you in a way that scripts just aren’t supposed to do. You’re supposed to need the sweeping music and the perfect cinematography and the actor’s faces for this shit to work. Here, it works right on the page.

There is WAY more to this than I’m letting on. But it would take me too long to get into it all. Likewise, it would take me forever to discuss all the great scenes here. There’s a hilarious scene where Adam adds marijuana to a dish to influence a local food critic. There’s his insistence that, after a bad night, they give away free food for a week, something he knows very well could bankrupt the eatery. There’s a wonderful date scene where Adam and Sweeney finally go out, but with so much sub-text going on that it becomes one of the best “first date” scenes I’ve ever read.

But I think probably the coolest thing about this script is that the lead character is both the hero and the villain. He’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And it’s such a great reminder that if you want to get your script noticed, write a part that an A-list actor would love to play. Go read this script right now and tell me if you were a movie star, you wouldn’t want to play this role. I dare you.

And you know what’s nuts? You know who the perfect actor would be to play this part? The one who would heads and tails kill it? Mel Fucking Gibson. I’m not kidding either. He would be perfect for this role. But the guy had to go TNT on his career last week and I don’t think we’re ever going to see him again as a result. It’s probably deserved but if this guy ever wants to jump back into acting , this better be the first script he looks at.

Anyway, this script is fucking awesome, and it’s not just going in my Top 25. It’s going in my Top 10.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: In Untitled Chef Project, Adam has a rival who owns a competing restaurant. Naturally, he’s trying to take Adam’s restaurant down. So Adam’s manager wants Adam to go there and check the restaurant out – see if there’s anything they’re doing better there than they’re doing here. But he knows Adam’s rage will get the better of him so he suggests that Adam take someone with to prevent him from beating the shit out of the other owner. Well Adam doesn’t know anybody. He’s too wrapped up in work to have friends. This leaves him with only one option: Sweeney. Now, after 80 pages of this sexual tension building up between the two, they’re finally going out on a date. But they’re not REALLY going out on a date. No, this “outing” is all under the pretense of business. So Sweeney can’t really say no. Now since Adam knows his rival is a slimy piece of shit, he can’t let him know that Sweeney is his sous chef, since he knows he’d try and steal her. So he suggests that the only way they can do this is if Sweeney pretends to be his girlfriend.

Now the reason I went into such extensive detail about this is because THIS is how you build a great date scene! You create a series of situations that work against the date. By doing so, you add mounds of conflict and subtext, which makes the date way more interesting than it ever would’ve been had it just been two people going out. When I read amateur scripts, the date scenes are always boring because they don’t have ANYTHING ELSE GOING ON. Look at how much is going on here. Adam didn’t want to take Sweeney in the first place. Sweeney is excited to be here but knows she shouldn’t be. The two have to act like they’re together, even though they’re not. Adam has to concentrate on what his competitor is doing, so he can make his restaurant better. Adam doesn’t want to ruin the work relationship he has with Sweeney, and is trying to keep this professional. Do you know how easy it would be to write dialogue for this scene? There’s so many things going on to draw from.

Now I’m not saying that every date scene has to be this complicated. Complications will vary depending on when in the story the date happens and what kind of story you’re writing. But you should always look to complicate the surrounding variables of the date to make the scene more interesting. Two people just straight up talking at a table is the most boring thing you can do in a film. Look to make it interesting by adding other variables to the mix.

Hey hey hey! I don’t know what it is, but “Teen Wolf meets The Hangover” actually sounds pretty damn cool. That’s saying a lot for someone who only likes one werewolf film (An American Werewolf in London). As for my reviews, this should be a fun week. On Friday I bust out our first Top 25 entry in a loooooong time. It’s a script that debuted in 2007 and almost made it into production then fell apart because the director has like 80 projects on his slate. Can’t imagine someone won’t make it at some point because it’s awesome. Read a heartfelt road trip comedy that was good, and Tuesday I’ll be reviewing a recently sold sci-fi spec that was…well, it was out there. Anyway, here’s Roger the man with his review of Werewolves of Reseda. Enjoy!

Genre: Supernatural Comedy
Premise: Teen Wolf meets The Hangover. A trio of guys turn into werewolves and their suburban family lives benefit from it. Or do they?
About: Brian Charles Frank has story credit on Spencer Susser’s Hesher, which is pretty cool because it seems like he’s associated with the Australian filmmaker collective, Blue-Tongue Films (Animal Kingdom, The Square, I Love Sarah Jane). Hesher debuted at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and stars Natalie Portman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Supposedly, Werewolves of Reseda is Steve Pinks’ directorial follow-up to Hot Tub Time Machine.
Writer: Brian Charles Frank

Teen Wolf!

I’m always hesitant about reading scripts that have one of three things in them: 1) Vampires, 2) Zombies and 3) Werewolves. It’s not that I don’t love all these creatures, it’s just that most screenplays (amateur scripts aside) that feature them are way too familiar or clichéd without bringing anything new to the genres. Also, I had just finished reading a book by Stephenie Meyer and my head was tired of processing her version of the vampire. To her credit, she was going for something fresh, but I felt like I was eating stale popcorn. I couldn’t get excited about vampires that spend most of their time running fast through meadows of flowers and playing baseball instead of murdering and feeding off human beings.

I needed a palette cleanser and I saw the title of this script poking out of the stack, “Werewolves of Reseda”. Who has the balls to put werewolf in their title? And Reseda? Isn’t that where Daniel LaRusso moved to in The Karate Kid? I was intrigued. I opened it with the small hope that I would at least find a scene where a werewolf mauls someone, and that I did find, but I also found a scene where a stoner, experiencing a Last-Night-I-Was-Bitten-By-A-Werewolf Hangover, attempts to pee but discovers that he can’t control the ropy, firehose spray that’s knocking him backwards and shooting everywhere but the toilet.

I was just delighted to find something that reminded me of Office Space, but with werewolves.

And pee jokes.

What’s the story?

Ben Kavanaugh used to wear a cockring. He also used to DJ and make his own beer. Now he spends his days inside of a cubicle at an ad agency, slaving over spreadsheets for his douchey boss, Rod Sloane, a man who is eager to use Ben as his stat jock and numbers guy, but refuses to be his Facebook friend. At his home in the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley, Ben lives with his yoga-instructor fiancé Sophie (this is probably an early draft, because sometimes she’s referred to as his wife, and other times as his fiancé), her mother Margaret, and Margaret’s Pomeranian, Crackers.

There’s trouble in paradise when Sophie tells Ben, “That advertising job was supposed to be a temporary transition. But it’s taken the spark out of you.” Seems like this isn’t the life neither of them imagined, and the blame seems to fall on Ben because he’s not happy with himself. He’s in a rut, so far past the point of suburban contentment that he might even be apathetic. She tells him that if they’re going to be together forever, things are gonna have to change.

And change they do.

Ben takes Crackers out for a walk, partially to get out of the house but mostly because Margaret is shrieking at him, and he runs into his stoner “neigh-bro”, Warren Klingenmeier. Kling’s out smoking weed in the bougainvillea because his female roommate, Bai, is on her period. Ben is reluctant to blaze with Kling, because weed makes him paranoid, but Kling tells him to chill, “Don’t be a pussy, dude. I have Altoids.”

They decide to take a walk near the concrete flood channel of the La River when they run into their African-American neighbor Moran Norris, and his German Shepherd, Michelle Obama. He seems stressed out about his family life with his wife Juanita and their two children, Venus and Serena. Moran’s wife forces him to wear wool sweaters, which becomes a gag that reminds us that Liam Neeson wears similar sweaters.

When Crackers runs off and they have to chase her into the wooded flood channel, they all get attacked and bitten by a werewolf, all set to the tune of Cornershop’s Brim Full of Asha. They’re saved by Rudy, an Animal Control Officer armed with a tranquilizer gun. As Rudy and an E.M.T. treat their wounds, Moran quips, “That thing almost gave me my second vasectomy.”

Rudy takes off his shades to reveal that he’s missing an eyeball, and in full comical raconteur mentor-mode, he explains that it was probably just a feral dog, but that they should continue treating their wounds with ointment until the next full moon. He assures them that this is just an expression. As he’s dropping them off at their houses, he jokes, “And if you experience any…unwanted side effects, especially at night, chain yourselves to the basement until it passes.”
If they were bitten by a werewolf, doesn’t that mean they’re gonna become werewolves?

Yep.

The next morning Ben wakes up with bad-ass mutton chops, long nails, a crotch bush and super-hearing. And he also wakes up ambitious. He confronts Rod in his office and tells him that he wants to be on the lead sales team. Rod scoffs. Undeterred, Ben follows Rod and his number one closer, Vance, to a steakhouse where he crashes a client meeting. He manages to impress Jo Childs, the Filipino owner of a beer distribution business and Rod is forced to promote him to the lead salesman on the account. Ben’s aggressiveness captures the ire of Vance, the de facto alpha dog of the agency, but Ben, with his newfound confidence, references Road House when confronted by him, “I fucked guys like you at boarding school.”

Meanwhile, Kling and Moran experience similar changes and outlooks on life, and there’s comical stuff that made me giggle like Kling chasing down a taco truck and Moran wolfing down raw bacon in front of his children. Things get out of hand when the guys decide to go party at Chili’s and they get a little too drunk, upsetting some cops at another table, “You’re coming downtown with us.”

“For what?”

“Public intoxication and disturbing my fucking onion rings.”

“That is bullshit, your honor.”

Our trio consider battling the cops, but Vance defuses the situation, revealing that his family owns the building. Vance takes them into his office, a master man-cave that even has a statue of Lee Marvin. He eventually pulls a rifle off the wall, “A Mannlicher Schoenaur two-five-six. Austrian. The exact same rifle Ernest Hemingway used to hunt elephants in Africa.”
Things get even more interesting when he pulls out some silver-tipped cartridges, and confronts them about being werewolves.

Vance is a werewolf hunter?

It seems that way. At first. He threatens them, but right as things get really tense, he reveals that, he, too, is a werewolf. You see, he was just fucking with them. He welcomes them to The Pack.

He informs them he’s here to help them keep their werewolf cravings, temper and boners under control. Can’t have the public learning that werewolves are running around in Reseda. He kicks open another door and reveals The Lair.

What’s The Lair?

It’s basically the ultimate guy hang-out. It has leather booths, flatscreens, the works. It’s where all the werewolves of Reseda come to relax. There are even topless women giving werewolves massages. Moran is flabbergasted. “This place has been behind Chili’s all this time? Fuck.”
Vance introduces them to Science, a cool were-nerd who is going to show them ropes of keeping their true nature incognito. He gives them all werewolf kits, “Portable razor. Use it often. Condoms. You will be getting Australian rock band pussy. Breath mints –- it’s worse than you think.”

Our three guys are going through initiation, and we learn that they must obey three rules. Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell. Don’t Bite. We also learn that there’s going to be a killer Halloween party, and that a very special moon is coming up. The Native Americans called it The Wolf Moon and it happens only once every hundred years. The Pack seems pretty pumped about the Wolf Moon, which I guess is supposed to be another reason to party.

OK. This all sounds pretty funny. But, where’s the villain?

Of course, it does seem strange that Vance is buddy-buddy with our guys all of a sudden, and it’s true that he has a scheme to destroy Ben’s relationship with Sophie because he’s miffed at Ben challenging his alpha status at the ad agency.

As our guys get drunk on their newfound powers and abilities, their private lives begin to spiral out of control. If Sophie is impressed with Ben’s newfound spark at first, I guess you could say she’s unprepared for the ridiculous acts of manhood that eventually push her away. He gets territorial when her star yoga student, Alan, wants to finance her dream of starting a new yoga studio, “I will beat you at yoga.”

“It’s not a competition, bro.”

“I will fucking kill you at yoga.”

“Fine, you’re on.”

“Loser has to get a bowl cut.”

In another scene, he challenges Alan to a beer chugging match with his fabled family Kavanaugh Horn. Alan’s response is pretty funny. “I was Captain of the Boat Race team at Sigma Nu at Yale. We pounded beers from Martin Van Buren’s skull. I think I can handle a rusty goat horn.”
Kling, the stoner of the trio, manages to bang Bai, the roommate he’s been in love with. But he becomes intoxicated with his newfound ability to bed women, and he throws her to the side as his animal nature takes over, completely debauching himself. Moran is also in dire straits when his reckless behavior threatens his family unit.

There downward spiral is part of Vance’s plan, and we discover that he has something even more nefarious planned for our heroes during the legendary Wolf Moon. And it’s in this last third of the script that Rudy comes to the rescue and the mythology of Reseda and its werewolf history is brought to light. And of course, the resolution involves some pretty bitching werewolf fights.

Cool. But is it moving?

If silly is what you want, silly is what you get. We get that in spades here. Like a lot of these frathouse comedies, perhaps the most satisfying conflict is whether the hero is going to win the girl. It’s not like we see go to see these movies for emotional depth, so I’m not going to try and reduce the script to a pithy sentence about theme.

I do think the structure can be tightened up. As far as character goals go, nothing really feels immediate and the laughs take center stage and what story there is feels tangential. For example, we learn Ben’s dream late in the script, which is to run his own brewery. Sure, there are some hints early on, but I feel like it could be fleshed out more early on. The mid-point to the third act feels so cluttered with important information that it all feels bottom heavy.

The Wolf Moon and its mythology comes so late in the game, and it’s a bit confusing in that convoluted info dump type of way, so much so that I wish bits and pieces were peppered throughout the script so it didn’t feel so cluttered. Vance’s master plan depends on this mythology, after all. It needs to feel simple.

Regardless, I liked “Werewolves of Reseda” because it reminded me of a Todd Phillips comedy (and I think it can be just as successful).

But with werewolves.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Villain bait and switch. Want to make those Act 3 confrontations more surprising? More rich? More fun? Do a villain bait and switch. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Remember in The Lost Boys when the heroes kills Kiefer Sutherland? The whole movie we’re pretty focused on him being the main threat. He gets a lot of screen time as the villain, and even though we like to watch him, we want to see our guys beat him. But when they do, it’s revealed he’s not the Master Vampire. The true threat is revealed and we discover that the heroes haven’t won yet. They have to defeat this new guy, who we’ve seen before, but have sort of forgotten about. Well, this happens in “The Werewolves of Reseda”. And it’s just as exciting. It gives those final confrontations that extra edge and it makes us think of these otherwise nebbish characters in a different light. Especially when we go back to see how it was done.

Welcome to another week of Scriptshadow. This weekend my faith in movies was reinstated with the addition of the best movie I’ve seen all year, Toy Story 3. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: Every studio should follow the development process of Pixar. They know how to get their scripts in shape. Even when I don’t like their movies, the scripts themselves are solid. I mean the last 30 minutes of that movie – wow! So great. Anyway, tomorrow I’ll be reviewing a flick hitting theaters in July. It’s a bit of a touchy feely story so prepare yourselves. Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be looking at some much talked about recent specs. Then Friday, as promised, I’ll be reviewing an amateur script. For those not around for that post, I’ve vowed to review a reader script on the last Friday of every month. If you want to submit a script of yours, send the script, your logline, and your pitch (give me your sob stories, give me your frustration!) to Carsonreeves3@gmail. Just know that I will post your script and I will be honest in the review. So if you can’t take criticism, do not submit. You can check out Amateur Week so you know what to expect here. Now, let’s hand it over to Roger for his review of…Pandora.

Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Premise: The residents of a small Texas town are shocked when 7 local residents are killed in a bank robbery gone wrong. Although the culprits are immediately captured, they are kidnapped from the local jail and held for ransom –- the town now has to buy back their killers –- and this is when things really start to go awry.
About: “Pandora” was on the 2007 Black List with 2 votes (Seriously, guys, that’s all? Seriously?) Gajdusek was the Story Editor for the awesome Dead Like Me and wrote Trespass, which Joel Schumacher is directing with Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman attached to star. A seasoned playwright, he’s also a member of New York’s New Dramatists.
Writer: Karl Gajdusek

Why the fuck is this not a movie?

Seriously. Is there someone to blame for this? Because it seems like a tragedy to me that this doesn’t have a home. If I’m wrong, and it does, then good. But, why is taking so long?

This may sound like a shocking statement, but I believe anybody can be a screenwriter. Everybody in the world has at least one interesting story in them. Life is too crazy not to have an awesome story in the vault. But the reality is, it takes a shitload of time to learn how to *tell* that story in the bastardized format that is a “screenplay.” How long it takes generally depends on how talented you are. For some people it only takes a couple of years. For others, it may take two decades to figure out. So a lot of screenwriting comes down to perseverance and a willingness to learn.

I bring this up because every screenplay is kinda like a final exam. It’s a test of everything you’ve learned *up to that point.* So while you may ace that particular exam, it doesn’t mean you know everything about the subject. I guess an analogy would be, passing the bar proves you know a hell of a lot about the law, but it doesn’t mean you’re ready to try your case in the Supreme Court.

So what I thought I’d do is help you avoid some of the more common misguided screenplay attempts I see amateurs make. I wouldn’t say these scripts are easily avoidable because if they were, I’d see a lot less of them. But at least this way you can ask the question. “Am I about to write this script?” Or “Did I just write this script?” As long as you’re asking the question, you have a chance at salvaging the material. So below are five and a half types of bad amateur screenplays I keep running into. And I consider myself an expert. I’ve written each one of these at least once!

THE TECHNICALLY PERFECT BUT ULTIMATELY BORING SCRIPT
This is a toughie. Even professional writers make this mistake and that’s because the line between technical and natural isn’t always easy to identify. However, these scripts usually come from writers who take the screenwriting books a little too literally and who outline every single beat of their story down to the commas. The main character has a clear goal. The act breaks come at the right time. The character motivations are strong. Twists and turns happen at just the right moments. And yet…and yet there’s something extremely boring about it all. Even if we don’t know what’s going to happen, nothing that happens is ever surprising to us. There’s no heart, no soul, no life in the screenplay. “A+” from Robert McKee and Blake Snyder. “F” from the reader.

How to avoid it: There are two main reasons these kinds of scripts happen. First, like I mentioned above, it happens when writers follow the rulebook too literally. If the reader can feel the beats of the story, if they can see the first act turn coming a mile away, if the midpoint is accompanied by a billboard, you’re not doing your job. Great writers learn that in addition to following the rules, it’s their job to MASK the rules, to cover them up so it all flows naturally. This is usually achieved by rewriting – going back into your story and smoothing out all those obvious technical beats. Second, you still have to make interesting choices. Giving your protagonist a goal is one of the most basic elements of storytelling there is. But that doesn’t mean any goal will work. In fact, 100 writers might come up with 100 different character goals. Your job is to beat out the other 99 writers and come up with the most interesting one. Take a movie like Back To The Future for instance. Imagine if once Marty got back to 1955, he didn’t have to get his mom and dad back together, but instead had to win a rock and roll contest at the high school. That choice would’ve made the movie way worse, right? So don’t just make choices, make bold and interesting choices.

THE FAUX MASTERPIECE
I’m going to give credit for this one to Jim Mercurio. When he spoke of the “faux masterpiece,” he described it like this: “That’s when you try to tackle something huge like a critical piece of history – the Holocaust, slavery, World War II – or try to set an expensive politically-charged love story against that sort of backdrop. You might be a deep thinker and have an unparalleled understanding of the subject, but as a beginning writer, your craft is not going to be able to do the story justice.” I’d expand this definition to include huge Lord of The Rings like fantasy epics, or overlong sci-fi epics like Avatar. These “masterpieces” require so much skill it’s terrifying. They need to be historically accurate on everything from the dialect to the activities people do. It’s hard enough to build a couple of interesting characters into a script. These scripts require dozens of characters, all of whom are usually thin and boring. With these extra characters come extra subplots. Weaving these subplots in and out of the central plot requires a tremendous amount of know-how for even a 100 page screenplay. There may be 10 screenwriters on the planet who know how to do it for a script that’s 150 pages. These scripts also tend to require an inordinately massive goal to keep the story interesting for such a long period of time (i.e. William Wallace’s pursuit of freedom for an entire country in Braveheart; The Marines trying to destroy the Na’vi homeland in Avatar) which amateur writers almost never include. It’s basically everything that’s hard about screenwriting times a thousand. That’s why taking on an epic masterpiece is…well…an epic mistake.

How to avoid it: I honestly wouldn’t touch an epic unless you’ve written at least seven scripts or a few novels.

THE ACCIDENTAL HOMAGE SCRIPT
Oh man, every writer is guilty of this one. The Accidental Homage script is a script where a writer goes out and sees a movie they love, then writes a script on a similar subject matter which ends up being THE EXACT SAME MOVIE. Young writers are the most susceptible to this because they haven’t yet trained themselves to recognize when they’re inadvertently copying material. The ideas flow through their fingertips as naturally as the breeze and they bang out 50 pages in 3 days, citing divine inspiration. They don’t realize that the reason it was so easy was because they were essentially writing a movie they’d already seen. This can happen with your favorite movies as well, although writers tend to be a little more aware when they’re copying those. Here’s the thing: Inspiration – true inspiration – is the best thing a writer can experience. It’s writer crack. But you have to keep an eye on it. You have to be aware of when the inspiration is coming from inside of you, or coming from the euphoric influence of that great movie you just saw.

How to avoid it: My suggestion would be to not write anything that sounds similar to a recent movie you loved. So if you saw District 9, don’t go home and write an alien invasion movie. It’s just too hard to be objective about the subject matter and you’ll inevitably use too much from the film, destroying any chance of your story being original.

THE COMEDY WITHOUT A STORY SCRIPT
Okay, I talk about this one a lot so pardon me if you’re tired of hearing it. This is the script I probably see the most of because the majority of people coming into the spec world start with comedies. It makes sense. Everyone thinks they’re funny. Everyone outside of Hollywood thinks they can write a better movie than the one they saw in the theater. You put those two together and you have a lot of writers crashing Hollywood with comedy specs. Roughly all of these attempts make the same mistake. There’s no story. OR, if there is a story, it’s so neutered as to be nonexistent. Instead, the writers come up with an idea that’s just use an excuse to string a bunch of funny scenes together. Little do they know that the second they decided to do that, any chance of writing a good script died. Why? Well, let’s say you have 10 good-to-great laughs in your script, which is a lot. That means we have to slog through 9 and a half minutes of pointless nothingness to get to that one laugh. Does that sound fun? That’s why I always say: Story first, comedy second. If you have a story, something where we’re actually interested, then those other 9 and a half pages are actually entertaining. They’re something to look forward to.

How to avoid it: When you’re writing your comedy, always put your story (and your characters) before the laughs. The irony is that the script will be funnier for it.

THE NEVER STUDIED STORYTELLING ON ANY LEVEL SCRIPT
Okay, this makes the “Comedy without a story” script look like Shakespeare. It invariably comes from a first timer and someone bold enough to believe they can write a good screenplay without any previous storytelling experience whatsoever. Signs of a NSSOALS? There is no overarching plot/character goal to speak of. The script reads as if the writer is making everything up as he/she goes along (because they are). The script often jumps back and forth between genres. Because the writer hasn’t learned how to build characters yet, the characters contradict themselves constantly (i.e. An introvert will try and get his friends to go out to a party). The writer often makes the mistake of infusing “real life” into the script, and is surprised when the randomness and lengthy dialogue scenes reminiscent of real life are categorized as boring by the reader. Instead of using screenplay real estate to develop already introduced characters, new characters are brought in as if they’re coming out of a clown car, even though they have no real connection to the story and we’ll never see them again. Seemingly important subplots will end lazily or disappear altogether. Characters tend to spend most of the story talking about their situations as opposed to being actively involved in situations. Since there’s no central goal for the main character, the writer rarely knows what to do with the ending (if there’s nothing being pursued, then there’s nothing to conclude). In short, the setup is confusing, the middle has no conflict, and the resolution is unsatisfying.

How to avoid it: Here’s the good news. These scripts are actually okay to write, as long as you don’t show them to anyone else! Your first few scripts should be for you and you only (or maybe a couple of close friends). I’m warning you, you don’t want to burn a potential great contact on one of your first three scripts. Make sure you know what you’re doing first. And hey, before you write anything, there’s nothing wrong with studying the basics of storytelling. There is an art to it that’s been around for hundreds of years. It wouldn’t hurt to study that art. Also read a ton of screenplays, both good and bad. The more you read, the more you’ll be able to spot all those negatives I listed above.

THE SURREALIST TRIBUTE SCRIPT
Finally, here’s a writer friend of mine who’s read twice as many scripts as I have. I told him what I was doing and asked if he wanted to submit any “script types to avoid.” His e-mail was cryptic and I’m still not entirely sure if he was sober, but this was his submission: The “oh-so-clever quasi-surrealist tribute to Bunuel and Fellini with a little Greenaway and a lot of Lynch thrown in amidst reams of dialogue that is nothing more than misquoted monologues taken from whatever novels the author happened to have on his bookshelf in order to impress female guests on Friday nights… and heaven forbid he should take the time to correct typos, grammatical blunders and unclear/incomplete visuals since all three are, of course, part of the ‘art’ of writing one of these brilliant opuses” script.

How to avoid it: I think I know what he’s talking about. These are those purposefully random scripts that are supposed to, like, have higher meaning ‘n stuff. Basically, the scripts are more about the writer proving how smart he is than they are about the story. These scripts invariably bring about a lot of eye-rolling. As always, ask yourself if you’re putting the story first. If not, stop writing.