Genre: Horror/Ghost/Mystery
Premise: A family moves into their dream house in the suburbs, only to find that the house has a horrifying past.
About: David Loucka’s been writing for a long time, penning films as far back as 1989, when he wrote the Michael Keaton starrer, “The Dream Team.” Still, work was pretty erratic until recently, where he’s gone on a tear. In addition to writing Dream House, Loucka is writing the The Ring 3D and The House at The End of The Street. Basically, if there’s a dream or a house in it, Loucka’s writing it. Dream House has already finished production and stars Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz. It’s directed by Jim Sheridan, who wrote and directed, “In The Name Of The Father,” “My Left Foot,” and one of my favorite films, “In America.”
Writer: David Loucka
Details: 116 pages – July 18, 2005 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

Reading Dream House was like plopping down in front of the TV on Sunday to watch your favorite football team, watching them run back a kickoff for a touchdown on the opening play, then proceed to get massacred over the next 2 hours, only to see them mount an incredible comeback in the last quarter that puts them in position to miraculously win the game. So the question is, did Dream House win the game? You’ll have to read on to find out. But I have to say, this is definitely one of the stranger screenplays I’ve read in awhile.

Will and Libby are a married couple with two daughters who have a few problems in their relationship, not unlike most couples. Will’s a hardcore workaholic, a fiction editor who’s lucky to slump into the house by 10 o’clock. Libby’s a simple housewife who just wants the best for her family.

Our story begins right after Libby threatens to take the girls and leave if Will doesn’t start giving them more time. The realization rocks Will into realizing what’s important, so he agrees to move his business out of city and into the suburbs, where he can be with his family and repair the damage he’s done.

They immediately find a broken down but beautiful house in the middle of a great suburb for an unbelievable price. But after moving in, strange things start to happen. There are weird cubby holes within the house where dead animals are strung up to the ceiling. They hear strange shuffling noises downstairs at night. Peeling away the old wallpaper, they find pentagram signs and horrifying drawings. Something is not right with this house.

But when Will goes back to the real estate agent who sold him the home, she professes to not know who he is. In fact, whoever Will speaks to either looks at him strangely or runs in the other direction. What the hell is going on??

Eventually (and we’re jumping into spoiler territory here), Will finds out that a man shot and killed his family in this house twenty years ago. The house has been abandoned ever since. Even worse, Will finds out that the killer is not in jail. He’s staying at a minimum security mental institution. Technically, he could show up at any second and blow them all to pieces. And then there’s the possibility that the town may have put him in this house on purpose. But why?

It’s hard to discuss Dream House without getting into spoilers but I’ll try and stay as spoiler-lite as possible. Still, be prepared for me to reveal a few plot twists.

Basically, Dream House is two separate stories, and I think that’s what makes the script so unique. The first story is, “What’s going on with this house and what do they do about it?” Normally, this thread would dictate the majority of the plot, a la what they did in Poltergeist. But Will actually solves this mystery pretty early on, and by the midpoint the story is effectively over. While it’s a strange choice, I’m glad he did it, because we start to figure out what’s going on pretty early (major spoiler – let’s just say it’s Shutter Island-esque), and all I kept thinking was, “Oh God, he’s not going to make us sit through another 70 pages of this even though we already know the twist, is he?”

So then this entirely new story starts, where we move from a freaky thriller into a bonafied ghost story. It’s a really strange choice that doesn’t quite work but it doesn’t quite not work either. The radical shift forces you to reevaluate everything you’ve read. And while I understand people throwing up their arms and saying, “Oh, give me a break!” once I committed to it, it actually got pretty good.

That’s because you thought you had it all figured out. As far as you were concerned the ending was a foregone conclusion. So when that ending came a full 60 pages early, it was like being abandoned. “Um, okay…what now?” I mean I challenge anybody to figure out this ending twist before it happens. Now I think Loucka could’ve done a better job setting it up, but this is an old draft, so he very well might have fixed it.

This story presents a myriad of problems for a writer, some of which were addressed well, others which weren’t. The first is logic. This goes back to my Wanderlust review but you have to have characters that think logically in stories. They can’t abide by this mysterious movie logic because “that’s how people act in the movies.”  That route gets you a lot of people throwing popcorn at the screen and calling “Bullshit!” (or at least it did in the 70s.  Now it just gets you more cell phones being turned on). I mean once you start finding Pentagram signs behind wallpaper, dead animals in cubbyholes, that no one’s occupied your house for 20 years because a family was murdered in it, and your realtor is saying she doesn’t know who you are – I mean aren’t you getting the fuck out of that house, like NOW? Logic dictates yes. But movie logic prevails, and as a result we lose faith in the writing. 

Also, you have to be careful with how many “What the fuck is going on?” moments you put in a movie like this. Too many and the audience gets impatient. For example we get about ten scenes with Will wandering around town, asking people what’s going on, only to have them respond, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and run away. The first couple were creepy and fun. From that point on, it’s like, “Alright already, we get it.  People aren’t helping him.”

As far as why this movie was greenlighted, look no further than my old article on actors attaching themselves to projects. (spoiler) What does Daniel Craig get to play here? Why, a crazy person! And what actor doesn’t looooove playing a crazy person. As cheap as this sounds, if you have a good idea where the main character is crazy, write it. Actors WILL want to play it.

Someone mentioned the other day Blake Snyder’s well-heeded warning of “double jeopardy,” the notion that you can make a movie about aliens, you can make a movie about vampires, but you can’t make a movie about alien vampires. I think there’s some of that going on here, though not as obvious. This is a mystery about a family stuck in a strange house. But then it becomes a ghost story. No doubt there’s something that feels sloppy about it. But I think Loucka just barely manages to tie it all together in the end. I was genuinely interested to see how it was all explained. This script is not without problems.  But it’s just such an odd duck that I have to recommend it. 

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

What I learned: I love writers who can set up characters and relationships and situations efficiently. A lot of writers will set things up by having their characters blab on and on about it until it’s drilled into our heads twenty-fold.  Not recommended.  Here, Loucka needs to get across that Will and Libby have had some recent issues in their relationship. So we start off with Will on the train. Loucka describes him as “There’s a slightly distracted look to him as though he can never leave office problems behind.” Will then gets off the train to meet his wife, daughters, and the realtor, and the first thing the wife says to him isn’t “Hi.” She doesn’t smile at him. She says, “I wasn’t sure if you’d make it.” In less than two combined lines of screenplay real estate, Loucka has shown us that Will is a workaholic and that that addiction has severely affected his marriage. It’s great writing.

This is Nolan Theme Week, where we’ll be breaking down Christopher Nolan’s five most popular writing-directing efforts in hopes of learning something about how he crafts a story.  Monday Roger reviewed The Dark Knight.  Yesterday I took on Batman Begins.  Today, I review The Prestige.

Genre: Period/Drama/Supernatural
Premise: Two obsessed magicians engage in a dangerous rivalry.
About: The Prestige was Christopher Nolan’s fifth film and fourth writing-directing effort. It was the follow-up to his first bonafied hit, Batman Begins. On the structure of The Prestige, Nolan said, “It was quite challenging to find the right structure and it took a lot of time. We really spent years working on the script. It required interlocking framing devices and interlocking voiceovers, combined with the notion of structuring using the three act structure of the trick. It took a long time, the key being the need to express multiple points of view purposefully and clearly. It was a difficult script to write.”
Writers: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan (based on the book by Christopher Priest).
Details: 128 pages

I’m going to make a pretty outrageous statement here but hey, what’s a Theme Week without a controversial statement or two? I think that if you reversed the releases of The Prestige and Inception, that you would also exchange the box office takes of each film. In other words, if The Prestige had been released this summer, it would’ve made 300 million dollars, with Inception making 53 million back in 2006.

Now part of that has to do with Nolan reaching the apex of his popularity and talent in 2010, with his fans fervent anticipation for his follow-up to The Dark Knight, and a studio willing to back anything he came up with every resource they had. But it also has to do with the fact that The Prestige is the best movie Nolan’s ever made, and I think it’s the best he’s ever made by far.

The story follows two magicians, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) who start out as partners, but after Borden accidentally kills Angier’s wife during a trick, they separate and become rivals.

Angier, a great showman with a lack of ingenuity, becomes increasingly obsessed with whether Borden, an ingenious magician with a lack of showmanship, killed his wife or not. He begins stalking Borden’s shows, looking for ways to trip him up. Borden follows suit, doing the same to Angier.

The story hits its stride when Borden creates one of the greatest tricks in the world, “The Transporting Man,” in which he’s able to transport himself from one side of the stage to the other. The trick stumps Angier, resulting in him going to the ends of the earth to match the trick, and ultimately top it.

The greatest thing about The Prestige, for me, is that the premise – two dangerously obsessed magicians trying to outdo one another– gives you exactly what you’re hoping for. One of the biggest problems I run into when I read amateur screenplays is an inability to deliver on the concept. Most writers can mine a high concept premise through one act, but almost invariably run out of ideas and simply draw upon previous movies and TV shows to finish the final two.

Nolan does not have that problem here.

As every good writer knows, the concept opens the story. It’s what hooks the readers. But if you want them to stay around, you have to create fascinating characters. That middle act is your character’s main stage.  It’s when the concept exits left and they take over the play.  If you don’t have your characters worked out, if they’re not deep and complex and interesting, your script will end up like the amateur ones I mentioned above.

Borden and Angier are the epitome of this complexity.  Each one has reversals and surprises and secrets and grow and regress and change and have so many sides to them that we don’t even remember what the concept to the film was.  We’re just engaged in these two battling each other.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a movie where a writer pushes his characters as far to the extreme as Nolan does these two. It’s really great character work.

Just like he did with Batman (and in a theme I’ll be pointing out all week), Nolan once again starts his film with a tapestry of cross-cutting storylines that confuse the audience, which, as we discussed yesterday, is a unique way to get them to pay attention.

The first is a court case in which the only thing we know is that Borden is on trial for killing someone. The second is a limping Angier travelling to a mysterious mansion in the woods. And the third is both Borden and Angier working together as young magicians.

It’s almost uncanny how similar the set ups are between this and Batman Begins. Indeed it speaks to a larger theme in Nolan’s work. I think one of the reasons he likes to confuse the audience and pack so much plot into his movies is so that you’ll come back again. He knows that if you don’t catch it all the first time out, you’re going to want to see it again. This is by no means a radical concept, but I don’t think I know a filmmaker who covets it as aggressively as Nolan. And hey, it’s working.  You don’t get to 1.8 billion on your last two films if people are only going to see them once.

What I think sets The Prestige above the rest of his work, however, is the attention he gives to his main character’s fatal flaws. Borden’s flaw is that he puts magic above everything else in his life, even his own wife and kid. Whenever you give a character a “fatal” flaw like this, you want to create a scenario in which they either overcome the flaw and reap the benefits, or refuse to change and suffer the consequences. Borden has that opportunity. (spoilers) He can give up his best trick, finally putting life above his magic, or he can continue to keep it a secret. He chooses to keep the secret and suffers the consequences. Death.

Angier’s flaw, on the other hand, is that he won’t get dirty. The reason Borden is a better magician than him is because he’s willing to do anything for the trick, a talent Angier does not have. Later, Angier is given a choice, continue with what he has and be a marginal but ultimately empty success, or “get dirty” with the most dangerous trick ever performed. He “overcomes” his flaw by choosing to perform the trick.

What makes Angier’s character exploration so interesting, however, is that normally when someone “overcomes” their flaw, they find happiness. When Luke finally believes in himself, he’s able to destroy the Death Star. When Shrek finally opens himself up to others, he finds friendship and love. But what’s unique here is that Angier’s gain after overcoming his flaw is a false one. He finds happiness, but the consequences of that happiness outweigh the happiness itself.

Like I always say, how compelling your character is rises in direct proportion with how difficult you make their choices. (spoilers) Angier is faced with the ultimate choice – a choice that will determine how much he cares about his job – Is he willing to die for it? Not once but every single day? A character that’s faced with that choice, who ultimately chooses to die, is infinitely more interesting than a character who’s never been presented with that choice at all. That’s why fatal flaws are so important for characters. If you don’t know what their flaw is, you don’t know what kind of choice to present them with later in the story.

There’s a small segment in The Prestige, after Scarlett Johansen’s character has joined Borden, where the script gets repetitive. Again, at 130 minutes, Nolan is going with a screenplay that’s 10-15 minutes too long – and this portion is exactly why it feels that way. But outside of that small hiccup, this is a really great movie, one that if you haven’t checked out, you definitely should.

Script link: The Prestige

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

What I learned: I think the opening of The Prestige is better than the opening of Batman Begins and here’s why. When Nolan was cross-cutting between the three storylines in Batman begins, he doesn’t set up a mystery, doesn’t insert a clear question in the audience’s mind that they want answered. Without that question, the cutting feels random (which is why I referred to it as random yesterday). But if a mystery is presented, the audience is then looking for an answer, and that allows them to participate in the surrounding scenes. So in The Prestige, we get a court scene where Borden is being accused of murder. The mystery is, who did he kill? When we’re watching the early scenes where Borden and Angier are working together now, they take on a heightened level of suspense. We know someone gets murdered. But who? When? We get to participate in that mystery.  As a result the opening is still scattershot, but executed in a much more skillful way than in Batman.
*

Genre: Comedy
Premise: When egomaniac magician Burt Wonderstone’s partner quits, Burt finds himself trying to rediscover his magic mojo solo, all the while fending off an edgy magician with a new style of magic.
About: Chad Kultgen wrote the original spec that sold a few years ago. Those who have been on the site for awhile may remember Kultgen wrote “Dan Minter: Badass For Hire.” Kultgen is also a novelist, having written two books, The Average American Male and The Lie. Jake Kasdan, who directed Walk Hard, Orange County, and the upcoming Cameron Diaz comedy, “Bad Teacher,” will be directing. Steve Carell is attached to play the lead. This is said to be in the vein of Zoolander (although it reads a little less broad to me).
Writers: Chad Kultgen (Story by Chad Kultgen & Tyler Mitchell), Revisions by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley and Jake Kasdan.
Details: March 17, 2010 – 114 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

Steve Carell for some reason is abandoning The Office next year and the TV world is abuzz with who’s going to take his place. If you’re like me, you’re thinking, how is it possible to replace Steve Carrell in The Office? Well guess what? It’s possible. I have a name for you. How ‘bout a little someone called Ricky Gervais!? He would not only fill Carell’s shoes, he’d bust out of them. Gervais is the only choice where you’d actually upgrade the Dunder-Mifflin’s boss position. I mean what’s Gervais done lately anyway? He hasn’t broken out as a movie star. He knows the role can turn people into stars. He still hasn’t caught on with the American audience – what better way to do it than here? He owns the damn show so it would be as easy as saying, “Me.” I don’t know why they don’t just announce this now. I mean it’s a match made in Heaven.

But back to Carell. He’s attached to a billion projects but this looks like it will be his first post-Office role and you know what? It’s perfect for him. I don’t know what it is about this guy but whenever you read a character imagining Steve Carell’s face, it instantly becomes funnier.

Burt Wonderstone is half a world-famous magic team with his long-time best friend Anton Lovecraft. The two have been performing magic since they first learned to shave, and discovered that the power of magic could lift them out of the Dungeon of Dorkville, of which they were they were the king and queen.

But things have changed in the last 20 years and now Burt and Anton don’t get along with each other. Sure they still smile and put on a good act, but as soon as those curtains drop, they’re like a bitter old married couple praying for a divorce.

One day Burt happens upon a public taping of some guy named Steve Haines (a clear take-off of David Blaine and/or Criss Angel). Haines is non-descript, awkward, and, well, boring. But when he cuts his own face open and peels back the skin to perform a magic trick, the nearby crowd goes wild. Burt doesn’t know why but he feels threatened.

Soon Haines is everywhere, performing “tricks” like not going to the bathroom for five days in a row. Burt insists that Haines is not actually performing magic – just hurting himself. Unfortunately, no one’s listening. When he and Anton’s own crowds start disappearing, it’s clear they have to change their magic to cater to this new type of crowd, something Burt refuses to do.

After a particularly disastrous show, Anton’s finally had it and quits the team, leaving Burt all alone. Burt responds by taking his act solo, but isn’t bright enough to incorporate Anton’s absence, therefore doing the exact same show, reading both his own and Anton’s lines as if Anton’s still there (this was my favorite scene in the script). Soonafter, he’s canned, and  when the economy comes crashing down, Burt’s latest trick is that he’s broke.

Burt must then reconnect with his love of magic, reconnect with his best friend Anton, and find a way to defeat the annoying poser Haines. Can he do it all without self-destructing?

Burt Wonderstone is an interesting script to study because it kind of eschews traditional structure yet still finds a way to work. The story favors a lopsided first act, whereby we witness Burt’s downfall for 60 full pages – in other words half the script. That means the actual plot (Burt trying to resurrect his career) doesn’t kick in until the mid-way point, which, in most cases, is way too late.

Why this drawn out act doesn’t spin the script out of control may be a matter of opinion, but I have a couple of theories. First, as I’ve mentioned before, we love train wrecks, especially if they’re funny train wrecks. We enjoy watching a character self-destruct, especially if that character deserves it, and Burt Wonderstone does.

But there’s also this almost imperceptible lovable quality about Burt. We do care for him. And because we care for him, there’s a part of us that wants to see him redeemed.  We wanna take the mixed-up guy by the shoulders, shake him, and say, “You’re better than this!” 

It’s a fine line the writers walk, because if he’s too much of an asshole or too selfish to others, they run the risk of us not liking him. But the writers keep us just enough on his side to root for a comeback.  

I also thought Steve Haines was a brilliant character. They probably could’ve made him even more of a villain, but who doesn’t want to punch David Blaine and Criss Angel in the face? This is a device I always recommend when you have a hero who isn’t overtly likable. Make it so we hate the villain beyond belief. The more we hate him, the more we’re going to side with our hero.

The script is lucky it’s so funny though because there are a few problems here. We were talking about the lack of development in female characters yesterday, and Burt Wonderstone is a prime example. I don’t have any idea what Nicole, the assistant, is doing in this movie. There’s no conviction to her character, nothing to make her stand out, and because she’s not a love interest, she ends up falling through the cracks.

I’ve found in general that readers tend to get confused when you have an attractive female lead that isn’t a love interest. If you don’t do something between her and the main character, the audience, conditioned by thousands of movies, gets antsy, and in some cases angry. That’s not to say every woman in every movie should be a love interest, but if she’s not, she needs some other distinctive characteric – something going on – to justify her purpose in the screenplay, and Nicole doesn’t have that.

Anton also gets lost in the mix . I got the feeling this script was exploring the theme of friendship and what really matters in life (the people around you), yet Anton disappears for something like 50 pages, then pops up like the gopher in Caddyshack.

The ending feels like a November landing at O’Hare as we have a scene that feels like the climax, only to have a second climax appear ten pages later. They might have been between drafts here which would make it understandable. It was just kinda messy.

And yet, through it all, this script won me over. It’s a funny premise, a funny character, and has a ton of funny scenes. The scene with Burt and Anton in the glass box above the casino has the potential to be an instant classic. Good stuff here.

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

What I learned: You want to avoid flashbacks in your movies because they stall your story’s momentum, or even worse, reverse it. But the one genre immune to flashbacks is comedy. I don’t know why but as long as they’re funny, we don’t seem to mind them. Just be careful not to overdo them. The flashbacks in Burt Wonderstone, showing how Burt and Anton got into magic, were fun, but probably went on for a little too long. Get to the flashback, make the joke, convey any information you need to convey, then get out.

Genre: Drama/Coming-of-Age
Premise: A dysfunctional group of friends living in San Francisco post-college find that making it in the real world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
About: This script finished with 9 mentions on the 2006 Black List. Not knowing anything about the writers, Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz, I did some research after reading the script and found out they’ve recently written the remake script for Little Darlings for J.J. Abrams. The original movie starred Tatum O’Neal and Matt Dillon and was about two 15 year olds from opposite sides of the tracks competing to see who could lose their virginity first (someone called this movie a hit – but it’s not officially available on anything other than VHS). They also have another project in development with Elizabeth Banks in the lead based on the book “What Was I Thinking?: 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories.” It Is What It Is is listed as in development but doesn’t seem to have any movement right now.
Writers: Susanna Fogel & Joni Lefkowitz
Details: 120 pages – Sept 25, 2006 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

Black List Time Machine! I took the Black List Time Machine back to 2006 to find this gem. Those early years unfortunately didn’t benefit from the Scriptshadow/widespread script reading presence, so many have since been forgotten. Do not shed a tear though cause I’m bringin’em back baby!  

I’ll admit though, when I started reading this and realized it was a 20-something “trying to find our way in life” flick, I groaned. I actually like the idea of these films. Leaving institutional life for the first time and realizing  all the promises that were made to us weren’t even close to true is a right-of-passage we’re all familiar with. But most writers take the subject matter to the self-important extreme, and we end up following a lot of depressed 20-something losers complaining about making the rent.  Borrr-innnnggggg.

Well I’m happy to say that “It Is What It is” is one of the best versions of this format I’ve read since Happy Thank You More Please. Sure it gets a little self-important at times, but the characters are all well thought out, the situations interesting, and the dialogue fresh. And oh yeah, it’s funny too!

There are four main characters here. We have the quirky semi-alcoholic Eliza, who’d really love to be a photographer but is stuck designing tween underwear for Forever 21. We have the unlucky-in-love trust fund baby Grant, our Jeff Goldblum character from The Big Chill – who no matter how hard he tries, can’t ever seem to get out of the “friend zone” with women. We have stiff-as-a-board Barry, whose disdain for spontaneity explains his desperation to be a lawyer. And we have Jules, a slutty tomboy who invades on our friends’ tight knit circle.

There are a lot of complications for our characters (as there well should be) and they start with Grant, who’s been desperately in love with Eliza since the Renaissance Era, but has settled into that horrible best friend consolation bubble hoping that one day she’ll change her mind. When she meets a guy on Myspace and falls head over heels with him, Grant realizes that that day isn’t coming anytime soon.

Barry’s about to embark on his prestigious law career which will finally allow him to pay back the mountain of debt he’s left behind when his longtime girlfriend tells him no mas. She’s concluded that he’s more boring than elevator music and just like that, a man whose whole world is stability, is no longer in a stable relationship. Everybody somehow convinces Barry to make a “bucket list” of crazy ass things he’d never do and finish it before he enters the corporate world. Get high, have a one night stand, that sort of thing. He doesn’t want to do it but peer pressure gets the best of him. 

Later on, Grant meets the tomboyish Jules, who’s in town to visit her feminist lesbian mother she has a Coke Zero relationship with. When Grant brings her into the tight-knit fold of the three amigos, it throws the delicate balance of this triple-friendship off. Barry immediately likes her, but Eliza sees her as a potential threat.

For a moment it looks like everything’s going to fall apart (story-wise) when Jules’ mother reveals she has a brain tumor and a one night stand from Grant’s past shows up telling him he’s the father of their child. I thought, “Uh oh, and into Hallmark Country we go!” But the writers, thank God, ignore the sappy trappings of the tumor stuff and the Grant-baby story actually turns out to be the engine for some great character exploration. 

The only two people Grant’s ever had sex with are Eliza, on a drunken college night, and this girl, this *beautiful* girl, who clearly took pity on him one random evening. At first Grant is horrified by the prospect of raising a kid, but as they wait for DNA results to prove he’s the father, Grant becomes addicted to the feeling of having another half, a half he’s dreamt of having his whole life.

But the girl only wants financial help from Grant – nothing more. Watching him cling to her when she won’t even give him the courtesy of PRETENDING she’s interested, is so difficult to watch I had to stop reading a couple of times. You feel so bad for the guy.

Eliza has a great storyline as well. She falls in love with this guy online, they have a whirlwind romance, and for the first time in her life, she’s able to break away from her friends. But after he casually mentions a female friend of his, she looks her up on Myspace (I presume we’d change this to Facebook) and becomes obsessed with her and her strange philosophical blog ramblings.

ISWIS has what I’m looking for in every script. It doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go. There were so many times where I was like, “Oh boy, here it is. Now we’re going to blah blah blah,” but five pages later, I was proven wrong. For example, I was sure that once Grant met Jules, the two would get involved and he would use her to finally get Eliza to like him. But one scene later, Jules ditches Grant at the bar and starts making out with a random bartender, making me rethink everything. I loved it.

I can also always tell when I’m reading a script with a female author (and in this case 2). In most dude-written screenplays, the women aren’t complex in any way. There’s a particular script I cite to others where there were 11 male characters and 7 female characters. Each male character had a 3-line introduction. Each female character never had more than a 3-WORD introduction!

It never occurred to me how insulting this might be to a female reader until I read an amateur script by a woman who approached her male characters the same way. Each had a short curt boring description, while all the women were elaborately complex. I remember thinking, “God, is this how women think of us? As a five word stereotypical blurb?” I completely changed the way I wrote women after that.

I didn’t see any glaring problems here. The script doesn’t have an all-encompassing plot, so the characters’ journeys are the only thing driving the story, and I suspect that might make it boring for some, which I understand. While the tumor storyline wisely avoided melodrama, I think there’s a stronger more appropropirate choice for this story. And there are a few times where you wanted to slap these guys in the face for acting like their lives were just – so – horrible. You’re 26 and not in jail. Your life is fine.

This is updating Reality Bites with, I presume, a hip soundtrack to boot.  The difference is, this script is actually good. I liked it quite a bit and if you like these movies, you should check it out.

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

What I learned: This is why you should never include pop references in your work. One of the lines in the script is (paraphrasing)… ‘Ooh, someone’s just been watching the Meg Ryan boxing movie.” In that moment, I was totally taken out of the story. The Meg Ryan boxing movie? That film that was out for, what, 2 seconds in 2004? It just completely ruined the flow of the read and made me very aware that I was reading an old script. Hollywood doesn’t like old stuff. They like new stuff. They like the hot new script. So don’t give them anything that’s going to clue them in on your script belonging in the Museum of Natural History.

The next two weeks should be fun.  We have a pretty big spec sale we’re reviewing later in the week.  We also have a “Reality Bites” type script that makes Reality Bites look like a shitty student film (which some will point out isn’t hard to do).  We have another comedy spec that’s made some headway and we’re also reviewing movie-as-script, Monsters, so try and see that to join in on the discussion.  As a bonus, I’ll also be offering my thoughts on The Social Experiment. With the addition of the new “Script News from around the Web” posts, keep checking in cause it should be rocking.  Now it’s been awhile since we’ve done a theme week, and I know that some of you hate when we cover anything that’s already a film, but I’ve always been fascinated by how much Christopher Nolan bucks conventional screenwriting trends, yet still manages to create films people love.  So next week Roger and I are going to review 5 Nolan films-as-scripts and figure out what he’s doing differently and why it still works.  Anyway, on to Roger’s review.  He decided to do something different himself and look at the piece that got Damon Lindelof (of Lost fame – yay, more Lost arguments!) into the business.  Take it away Roger.