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Genre: Animation
Premise: Woody, Buzz, and the gang are stuck at Andy’s spooky grandma’s house for the night, where the toys start disappearing one by one.
About: After Toy Story 2, back when Pixar and Disney were going to break up, Disney still would’ve owned the rights to the Toy Story franchise. They went back and forth between whether to make another Toy Story feature or to send the franchise into direct-to-video purgatory. As such, they wrote several versions of Toy Story 3. I thought I’d be reading the recently talked about version of Toy Story 3, which had Buzz Lightyear being recalled to Taiwan, but this draft of the story appears to precede even that. Interestingly enough, you can see the seeds of what would eventually become some of the major sequences in the official Toy Story 3.
Writers: Cheri and Bill Steinkellner (Revisions by David Guion and Michael Handelman)
Details: 104 pages – June 8, 2005 draft

I love reading early drafts of famous movies because you can really see the writing process in action. When you’re writing your own script, searching for that perfect plot point or memorable character, it can be hard to see the forest through the trees. Only by looking at a great movie and then going back to the early drafts where it wasn’t so great, can you see the key decisions the writer’s made to make it work.

In this case, we went from Grandma’s haunted house to a pre-school prison. On the surface, this doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal. Both locations offer plenty of hijinx and opportunity for adventure. But later I’m going to tell you why the pre-school was a waaaaay better option, saving the Toy Story franchise from going into the toilet.

Toy Story 3, the 2005 version, starts the same way Toy Story 3 the 2010 version starts, with the toys playing in Andy’s imagination. The scene is a toned down version of the huge opening from the official film. Afterwards, the toys learn that Andy’s room is going to be redecorated, and they’ll be packed into a box and sent to Grandma’s with Andy for the night.

Once at Grandma’s, a big scary Victorian mansion, the team meet two new toys, a sniffling badly cobbled together excuse for a sock monkey named Gladiola, and Jack Challenger (otherwise known as Hee-Hee), a sock monkey who’s been on more adventures than Indiana Jones.

Hee-Hee is perfect in every way and quickly wins the toys over. But Woody has some reservations about him. He can’t put his finger on it, but he’s seen this toy before. He just can’t remember where.

As the toys come up with a plan where Hee-Hee will stay with them so that Andy accidentally takes him home with them the next day, members of the group start disappearing, starting with Woody’s horse, Bullseye. This, of course, makes Woody even more suspicious of Hee-Hee.

Rumors start flying that Andy’s room redecoration will be accompanied by a more sophisticated lifestyle, and that only two of the toys will be returning. This results in everyone pointing the finger at the notoriously jealous Woody, who they believe is offing the toys one by one so that he can be one of the two toys.

As the group heads deeper into the spooky house to find the missing toys, Woody must find a way to prove his suspicions true, that Hee-Hee is somehow behind this. But the more he digs, the more it’s starting to look like someone else is involved.

One of the first things you notice about the 2005 version of Toy Story 3 is the opening. It’s very similar to the eventual movie. The toys are on a train, heading towards a giant canyon, and it’s all happening in Andy’s imagination. The big difference is scope. This version seems neutered, not as imaginative. For example, there’s no giant spaceship that comes in at the end. It’s like the writers began the idea and then got bored with it.

Strangely enough, the ending is the same as the official Toy Story 3 ending as well. Our toys get stuck in a garbage truck and are heading to the landfill. But again, it’s a neutered version. They never get to the landfill.

I can’t stress how important of a lesson this is. Big set-pieces require imagination. They’re, in essence, their own stories, and the first versions of these stories are going to be pale imitations of the final product. Every time you come up with a set-piece, put it down, and the next time you come back to the script, look for ways to make it more imaginative. Afterwards, put it down, come back weeks later, and look for ways to make it more imaginative. If you don’t do this, you’re going to end up with the garbage truck version of the Toy Story 3 climax as opposed to the huge multi-location landfill version that was in the final film.

Now, let’s talk about why this script was scrapped in favor of the eventual pre-school storyline, cause this is a super important lesson for screenwriters as well. Put simply, the Grandma storyline doesn’t take advantage of the specific concept of Toy Story. Toy Story is about toys that come to life. Throwing those toys into a “haunted” house doesn’t take advantage of that in any specific way. In other words, you could put any characters in a haunted house and it wouldn’t be much different.

When you have an idea, you want to find a story that takes advantage of that concept in as specific of a way as possible. Putting toys in the hands of young kids is a storyline that much more specifically takes advantage of the toys-coming-to-life concept.

And this lesson isn’t relegated to the concept only. It’s something you should be thinking about with every aspect of your story. For example, a few weeks ago, I read a superhero script where the main character’s power was his ability to use fire. The big climax of the script? A shootout on the top of a building. I explained to the writer that if the main character’s big power is his use of fire, then you need to build a climax around that specific idea. Maybe he’s in an oxygen-deprived environment where he can’t use his fire. Or maybe there’s water preventing the use of fire somehow. But whatever it is, it has to be more specific to the story being told. It can’t just be a random shootout scene, no matter how cool the location is.

The 2005 version of Toy Story also violates one of the big tenants of Pixar storytelling. There’s no theme! It’s just a goofy little story about toys going to Grandma’s haunted house. There’s no bigger message – no deeper feeling when you finish reading it. The real Toy Story 3, however, is about moving on into that next phase of life, something that directly came about because the story focused on a more concept-specific idea in the pre-school.

Another thing you notice by reading this version is how forced all the motivations are. You’ll see this a lot in early drafts (or Amateur scripts, where writers don’t write enough drafts). The writers are clearly trying to come up with reasons to put their characters where they want them to be, but aren’t doing a good enough job of it.

Andy’s room is getting redecorated? That’s a pretty lame motivation to send the toys out of the house. I mean, why not just put the toys in another room? Consider the motivation for the toys leaving in the real Toy Story 3 – Andy’s leaving for college. That’s a much bigger and more realistic motivation.

Motivations are one of those annoying things that take multiple drafts to get right. If you ignore them, they’ll look like this: clearly forced writer plot points to get the characters where they want them to be. Don’t stop rewriting until all the motivations feel natural.

As much as I wanted to read the Toy Story 3 Taiwan version, this was a great reminder about the power of rewriting.

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

What I learned: How big does your rewrite need to be? If your execution is not taking specific advantage of your unique concept, as was the case here, you’re looking at a page 1 rewrite. If you were smart enough to make the story concept-specific, however, your rewrite should be much more manageable.

So it’s the first post of the year and I’m reviewing… a book?

Yes.

Because it’s not just any book. The Disaster Artist may be the funniest book ever written. There is a catch, however. If you’re going to buy this book, I highly advise you get the audiobook version. Why? Because the book’s author (who also reads it) adds his hilarious impression of the book’s eccentric subject, Tommy Wiseau, whenever he quotes Tommy. And about half the book is quoting Tommy.

To understand why this would be funny, go watch this interview of Tommy Wiseau. As you’ll see, Tommy’s accent very well might be the eighth wonder of the world. There is no origin for it, no logic, no rhythm, no reason. Every time he speaks it’s like watching two cars playing chicken on the highway.

To provide some context for the book, you’ll have to have heard of The Room. The Room is a 2003 film that many consider to be the worst movie ever made. In the tradition of Ed Wood, however, The Room is insanely watchable in a “so bad it’s good” way.

If you don’t die of uncomfortable laughter during the five-minutes-too-long love scene, you’ll fall down laughing from lines like, “Hi Doggie,” and “I did not hit her! It’s not true! It’s bullshit!  I did not hit her.  I did not!” (throws water bottle – then, completely happy within a nanosecond) “Oh, hi Mark.” Then, of course, there’s the moment where Johnny (the main character, played by Tommy) has sex with his fiancé’s dress before shooting himself.

What’s The Room about? Well, to hear it from Tommy’s perspective, it’s a complex character drama about seven people whose lives intersect on a daily basis as they come in and out of this room (Johnny’s apartment). But things start to unravel when Johnny’s fiancé starts cheating on him with his best friend, Mark.

Mark, it turns out, is played by actor Greg Sestero, who is the co-writer of the book (Tom Bissell is the other writer). And Greg finally puts to rest the mystery of how this movie was made. And when I say he finally puts it to rest, I mean he goes into EVERY SINGLE DETAIL of the movie’s pre-production and production. Which would seem like overkill. But it’s not overkill when you have the most interesting man in the world to talk about.

Some of the highlights of Greg’s memories of Tommy include how the original actor slated to play Mark was an actor named “Dan.” But Tommy always called him “Dawn.” Whenever anyone would say Dan’s name around him, Tommy would say, “Who is that??” since he knew him as Dawn. This forced everyone to gradually call Dan “Dawn” as well.

Then there was Tommy’s decision to replace Dawn with Greg during production. Except he didn’t want to fire Dawn as he feared confrontation. So his plan was to shoot all the scenes with Greg under the pretense that the “producers” (there were no producers) wanted to see tape on Greg. Then when Dawn would come in to do the scene, Tommy would instruct the cameraman to only pretend to record him. As you would expect, this didn’t end well.

Tommy also did such things as buy a two camera set-up so he could record in both film and HD at the same time. Whenever anyone asked him why he would do such a thing, he would say because it was “big American production.” Whenever they went out to eat, Tommy would always order a glass of hot water (he got in an argument with the waiter every time he did so). Tommy would hold impromptu five minute silences for America. He would drive five miles per hour wherever he went. He didn’t know how to use windshield wipers so when it rained, he would push his face against the window to see.

Maybe the funniest moment in the book has no relation to The Room at all. Tommy and Greg first met in an acting class in San Francisco many years before The Room. Tommy, who had a tempestuous relationship with the acting teacher for always vehemently dismissing her critiques, had picked a famous scene from his favorite play, A Streetcar Named Desire, to perform with an unfortunate female student.

As you all know from the scene, in it, Stanley is screaming at Stella up on the stairway. With “Intense Emotion” being Tommy’s favorite thing to play as an actor, he went… shall we say, “overboard.” Tommy rarely remembered a single line when he was acting, much less an entire scene of them. This forced him to always make up his own lines.  In this case, he didn’t remember any lines.  So he just continued to scream “Stella!!” over and over again, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 times. All of this while never once looking at the actress actually playing Stella, who stood dumbfounded next to him. Tommy instead delivered the scene directly to the audience. According to Greg, everyone in the room realized that they had just witnessed the single most horrible performance in the history of the world.

“You’re tearing me apart Lisa!!!”

One of the biggest focuses of the book is the mystery behind Tommy’s fortune. For those who don’t know, Tommy financed the 6 million dollar “The Room” all by himself. Yet no one could identify where Tommy made his money. Greg makes it a point to ask Tommy, over their 10 year friendship, questions about his past, but his past is the one thing Tommy won’t give up. It’s clear that something horrible happened there and to bring it up is the equivalent of yelling “Al-Queda” on a packed flight just before it leaves the gate.

While the book is mostly laugh out loud moments (I literally laughed over 200 times) Greg realizes that if this book is going to resonate he’s going to need to explore Tommy on a deeper level. It’s actually a great reminder for screenwriters. Audiences will laugh at jokes for awhile, but sooner or later they want a reason to stick around.

Part of the appeal here is seeing how misunderstood Tommy is, how lonely he is, yet how hard-working and optimistic he stays. Greg points out that at one point, years before they made The Room, Tommy, who lived in San Francisco, would actually fly down to LA every Thursday night to take an acting class, and then fly back home the same night. Of course, because Tommy is also a living contradiction, he showed up 4 hours late filming The Room every day.  Go figure.

Slipped into this is Greg’s own journey. And it’s a harsh look at Hollywood. Greg is trying to become an actor but even though his looks give him an above-average audition rate, he rarely lands any roles. Hearing him go through stretches where he doubts himself and wants to quit, is a familiar monologue any artist can relate to.

But I actually think there are some great screenwriting lessons to be learned from The Disaster Artist, starting with that one. Greg was 23 years old when he wanted to give up. Granted he didn’t go to college, so he started acting at 18, but I’m of the belief that if you want to be something, you commit yourself to it. Giving up at 23 – one year after you would’ve graduated college, is a wussy move. That’s the main way Hollywood gets rid of its wannabes. If they’re going to give up that easily, then they weren’t meant for the business anyway. Greg even notes that Jack Nicholson went through 350 auditions before he got his first part. It takes awhile to build connections and to get better at your craft. It never happens overnight. And the same can be said for screenwriting.

Also, as crazy as Tommy Wiseau is, there’s something admirable about the fact Tommy made this movie. There are too many people who only talk about doing something in this town yet never do anything about it. He went out and actually made something.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  “Well yeah, he had 6 million dollars.” But when you read this book, you learn that Tommy could’ve made this movie 10 years earlier, or 20 years earlier. He had the same amount of money then. So why didn’t he just bankroll the film then? It’s because money isn’t the real reason we don’t do something. It’s fear. It’s fear of putting a piece of yourself out there. Money is great but movies can be made for very little money these days. If you really want to do it, you’ll find a way. Tommy finally forced himself to make that psychological leap, got over his fear, and did it. And there’s something to be said for that.

Hopefully, some of you guys can make that leap this year as well.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Or, I should say, Happy New Year in 15 hours or whatever it is. If you’re anything like me, you’ll pour yourself a drink, turn on Ryan Seacrest or Anderson Cooper, look at the big ball ready to drop in New York City, get all warm and cozy, do a double-take, and say, “What the hell am I watching this for?? This is the dumbest excuse for entertainment I’ve ever encountered.” Then turn it off and go to sleep early.

2014 has been a strange year for the screenwriting community. We’re at a crossroads, with previous paradigms dying and new ones struggling to form. The closest we have to a working model is: Shift over from writing features to writing television. The problem is, if you’re anything like me, you love movies. You want nothing more than to write them for the world. So that paradigm doesn’t work for you.

Well, I don’t think it has to be all or nothing. Chances are, you have a few feature ideas that would work well within a longer format. And since a lot of TV shows these days are basically long movies anyway, are you really missing much by writing them? Either way, you should add at least one TV pilot to your portfolio. Trust me, when you break through with your feature script and every producer you meet wants to know what pilot you have in the pipeline, you’d be wise to be prepared.

But this speaks to a larger problem. Why is the feature screenwriting world sucking so badly? I’m not as down on this year’s Black List as some. But I admit that it’s probably the worst collection of scripts yet. And there were no super-sales to speak of either. I don’t know if it’s because all the good writers are moving over to television, if the market’s new focus on super-franchises (with their big expensive veteran writers) has placed less importance on the emerging screenwriter, if specs-turned-failures like Draft Day and Transcendence have scared studios off, or if writers simply aren’t doing the work.

It very well could be that last one. Writers are putting in less work at a time when they need to put in more – when the competition is as fierce as ever. Screenwriting takes a long time to master. There are too many key elements to learn all at once. You have to write a script, fail, write another one where you learn from your mistakes, fail again, write another one where you learn from those mistakes, fail again, and keep writing until you finally figure out what works for you. It’s like any other skill. You need to practice. And I don’t know if writers are out there practicing enough.

One of the problems is the amateur screenwriter isn’t kept accountable. You don’t write as much as you should because you don’t have anyone telling you to. This is why you can get to the end of a year, like we are now, look back, and say, “Where did the time go? Why don’t I have a screenplay written?” Screenwriters work in the Las Vegas of jobs. There are no clocks. Just the sudden shocking realization that, holy shit, it’s 2015!

So the first thing I’m going to ask you to do is set some goals for yourself. You’re going to write two, or if you have a lot of free time, three, screenplays in 2015. An easy way to hold yourself accountable is to pick three screenwriting contests spaced throughout the year and enter each of them with a new screenplay. Don’t worry about winning. Don’t worry if you think contests are bullshit. Use them as motivators for finishing your screenplays. I can give you one date right now. June 1st. That’s the deadline for The Scriptshadow 250 Contest. Boom. You have your first script deadline.

Another thing I want you to do is drop the excuses. One thing I’ve come to learn about writers – and I’m just now coming to terms with my own problems in this space – is that the majority of them are afraid of action. They’re afraid to finish a work (whether it be a book, a screenplay, a project) because that then means their script will be out there for the world to judge.  Which means people may not like it.  Which means they’ll be miserable.

So they tell themselves that they have to study screenwriting more or do more backstory work or read more screenplays or whatever – all so that they can “truly” be ready to write that screenplay. What they don’t realize is that they’re creating barriers to finishing, to putting themselves out there, and if they keep that up, they’re never going to finish anything.

The lies we tell to protect ourselves aren’t limited to procrastination. We might blame the rest of the world for not “getting” us. Or we might blame Hollywood for their “shitty” movies as a reason why they could never understand our “good” script.  And if that’s the case, why write anything at all?

We have to start being honest with ourselves. The mind is a very complicated device but the one constant it craves is the status quo. The mind doesn’t want change. Change requires new challenges and unfamiliar situations and life adjustments.  And the mind’s terrified of that. Why go through all of that when it’s so much easier to sit around and rewrite your opening scene for the 80th time? If you never finish, your life never changes.

This can be applied to EVERY aspect of your life. From work to personal relationships to losing weight. Change is a hurdle we’re biologically wired to avoid. So to leap that hurdle takes a lot of effort. The good news is, if you can take that first step towards change, the rest of the change becomes easier.  And lucky for you, a new year brings with it the perfect excuse to make that change.  As you step into Thursday, you have the opportunity to reboot your life.  Take it.

So where does that leave us on the artistic front? The town would like you to believe that the only outlet for creativity is through television. But I don’t think that’s the case. Whenever an industry becomes too reliant on one thing – as the studios have with comic book movies (and huge franchises in general) – a door opens up for a revolution in the opposite direction. Audiences WILL get bored and they WILL crave something new. Why can’t you be the person who brings it to them?

I still remember when The Matrix came out. At the time, cinema was dominated by cheesy Bruckheimer films and all those “earth gets blown up” movies. But they were clearly running out of ideas and audiences were hungry for something different. Then this Matrix movie came out and everyone was like, “Whoa. What’s this??” They’d never seen anything like it before. Ditto when the original Star Wars came out. Whenever an industry gets stagnant, that’s the time to strike.

And hey, if you want to play it safer, I can respect that. A lot of people break into this business by giving Hollywood what it wants. If that’s the case, my suggestion would be to write a feature inside your dream genre (i.e. Action-Espionage). Make it the same-but-different (a confusing way of saying give the genre a slight twist, like Matthew Vaughn is doing by turning the James Bond franchise younger and funnier with “Secret Service”) and don’t expect to sell it. Treat it as a writing sample with the hopes of getting assignment work in that genre.  So if you do a great job with an Action-Espionage script, who knows? Maybe you’ll get to write Bourne 6. That’s just as awesome as selling a spec, in my opinion.

But whatever path you choose, whether it be trying to change the system or embracing it, set up some goals for yourself this year – create a system where you’re held accountable (if not screenwriting contests, then something else) and then write your butt off. DO NOT create excuses for yourself for why you can’t finish the script. You may not have heard yet, but 2015 is an official NEAY (No Excuses Allowed Year). So you’re stuck with no other option than to write your scripts and send them out.

I think you’ll do a great job. And who knows. Maybe I’ll get to read one of your screenplays myself.

GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I’m going to mix it up this year with my “Worst of the Year” list and not only include the “worst” films, but films that were the most disappointing as well. The idea here isn’t necessarily to highlight the truly worst movies of the year. Those would obviously be films like Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas and Winter’s Tale, but since there’s no reason to see those movies to know they’re bad, there’s really no reason to include them.

As for my criteria for deciding the “worst of the worst,” most of it comes down to bad writing (surprise surprise). And bad writing can be broken down into three categories: A) Writers who don’t know how to write. B) A lack of effort in writing the screenplay. And C) The people involved in the film don’t care about the script.

What really gets me is B and C. It’s not really a writer’s fault if he’s bad and someone hired him to write the movie. If he’s giving his best effort, I applaud him. But if you didn’t try hard when writing a movie? Or if the people involved don’t think a screenplay is important enough in the first place? That’s a cinematic criminal offense. So those movies always get the brunt of my frustration. Let’s take a look at the nasty cinematic offerings that 2014 gave us and celebrate their journey into cinematic obscurity.

10) Interstellar (disappointment) – I avoided all spoilers going into this movie, expecting it to be the culmination of everything Christopher Nolan had learned up to this point as a filmmaker. The scope couldn’t have been bigger. Space. The final frontier. Matthew McConaughey. Interstellar was going to be amazing. That was the plan, at least. Instead, I got muddled pseudo-science, a sloppy narrative, and an ending so ludicrous even the actors looked confused about what was happening (“I’m in a black hole talking to the past. Oh wait, now it’s 50 years later and Saturn has a space station. What????”). The Nolans needed to be put in script detention during the writing of Interstellar but no one had the balls to do it.

9) That Awkward Moment (bad) – Here’s some screenwriting advice. If your screenplay is so devoid of an idea that you have to title it, “That Awkward Moment,” you probably shouldn’t make the movie. There’s something in screenwriting known as a “concept.” It’s kind of everything that the movie hangs on. Concepts need to be big and clear. What does “That Awkward Moment” mean? Someone has an awkward moment with someone? You’re going to base an entire movie on that? When movies don’t have focus, they fall apart quickly. Watching this film was a lot like watching a bunch of people dancing without any music. It was ugly.

8) Wish I Was Here (disappointment) – I wish I wasn’t here. Maybe I drank the Garden State kool-aid too fervently when Zach Braff’s first film came out, but I liked it. The main character was on a mission. He was doing something. The film had a point! Wish I Was Here, however, was just a really sad film with people talking about how their lives didn’t turn out the way they wanted them to. The script was mired with more melodrama than 20 years of televnovellas. It was peppered with scenes that didn’t push the story forward. Story threads would show up then inexplicably disappear (the home school stuff). As if a bunch of people mumbling about how shitty their life is isn’t bad enough, we had a cancer-stricken father to deal with. Ugh. This was a brutally bad movie.

7) Annabelle (disappointment) – Isn’t the defining pre-requisite of a horror movie that it be scary? I hate to use dumbed down language here, but this was really dumb. And it was cheap! From the actors to the set design to the limited locations, everything here felt like they were cutting corners. Some scope, some original ideas, and some scares would’ve gone a long way to making Annabelle watchable, but nobody appeared to be interested in doing so.

6) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (bad) – The Amazing Spider-Man is still trying to be 2002 Spider-Man, when all the rest of the super-hero world has moved on. Whereas franchises like The X-Men and Captain America seem to be making bold choices, pushing their genres in new exciting directions, Spider-Man’s still holding on to shoddy special effects, goofy characters, and sloppy narratives. That may have been fine when Spider-Man was the only game in town. But the audience’s tastes have matured, and Spider-Man hasn’t matured with them. I remember a scene in this movie where Spider-Man sneaks into his room with Aunt May about to catch him,Peter still in his Spider-Man outfit, and I just thought to myself – We saw this exact same scene less than a decade ago. Move on!

5) Obvious Child (disappointment) – There was something so overtly off-putting about this movie that I’m still thinking about it 4 months later. For a film that purported itself to be “important” and “thoughtful,” I was baffled that roughly half the movie had to do with shit. Really? Does every other joke in your film really need to be a shit joke? It was in such poor, but more sadly, lazy, taste, that it was hard to take anything about the film seriously. And the main character was just… I don’t know, a weird combination of annoying and sad. Watching her do her stand-up that wasn’t stand-up at all but rather her talking about how shitty her life was – I guess that was kind of the point, to show her be vulnerable and different – but boy did it make me a) depressed and b) hate her. The only thing obvious about this was its suckiness.

4) The “Blended” Trailer (bad) – That’s right. I’m putting a movie on here that I haven’t seen. Sound unfair? Sorry, but it’s an Adam Sandler movie. Seriously, go watch this trailer now to see how terribly written it is. Take note of how much exposition they need  just to have the two main characters say: “WE’RE GOING TO AFRICA!” You could’ve cut 90 seconds out of your trailer and 90 minutes out of your movie had you just showed the two families on vacation running into each other in Africa. Instead you have: “My boss canceled and so he needs someone else to go and then you need to go fill in for that other person, but wait, your boss is my boss, oh wait, I’ll call him, zoinks, turns out you know him too? That way if you go and I go… On my god, WE’RE GOING TO AFRICA!” I’m hoping these leaked Sony e-mails finally wise Sandler up to the fact he’s making the worst movies in Hollywood right now. It’s the intervention he’s needed for a long time. If it’s successful, maybe we’ll never have to hear the words “WE’RE GOING TO AFRICA!” again.

3) Deliver Us From Evil (bad) – I don’t… I can’t… I’m trying… I don’t know how to describe this movie. I thought I was going to get some cool freaky religious cult horror film. Instead, I got a man hanging out at the zoo for a couple of hours. The only common thread I could find in the film was a pale-faced bald guy who sometimes hung out at the zoo. There was also something about a cave in Iraq. Oh, and this is all based on the “real life experiences” of some New York cop. I don’t know what makes me more sad – this film or Eric Bana needing to take roles like this.

2) The Rover (disappointment) – What? Was? This movie? Let me get this straight. You set your movie in an apocalyptic future. And then the story you decide to tell in that future is, a man gets his car stolen and decides to chase the people who stole it from him?  That’s it???? But wait. It gets better. This world is riddled with deserted cars. So the man could’ve just found another car within a few hours. But no. He wants this car! Oh, I know what you’re thinking. The car must be special then. Like a 1959 Firebird or some other unique car, right? Nope. It was a garden variety SUV. I was so confused by the anorexia of this premise that I waited around as long as humanly possible, positive that an actual plot would surface. Nope. As a director, you get to make 1 movie every 3 years. With that choice, this director decided to do a movie about someone who chases someone else over a car.  I’m speechless.

1) Transcendence (disappointment) – I’m still not entirely sure how this spec script worked so well and the movie didn’t. I know the film never felt like it got out of first gear. It kept revving its engines and revving its engines, hinting at a big next level, but it never came. There was also an inexplicable stillness to the film. Once we got to this town, our characters seemed content to just… wait around. Nobody was doing anything, particularly our heroine, whose sole purpose seemed to be to wait for Johnny Depp to talk to her. And to be honest, I don’t even know if she was our heroine. By the middle of the movie, so few people had purpose, that it wasn’t clear who our hero was. I’m not going to say that Transcendence killed the spec script, but it certainly tried its best to.