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Screenplay Review – Best Friends Forever (Amateur Friday)

Posted on June 8, 2012 | by admin

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top. 

Genre: Comedy
Premise: After learning that his family is leaving the town he grew up in, a heartbroken 13 year-old boy convinces his best friends to go trick-or-treating one last time in a daring attempt to break their town’s unbreakable trick-or-treating record and become legends. Writer: Eric Gegenheimer
Details: 109 pages

Okay, full disclosure here. I GREW UP in the town where today’s script is set! Oak Park, Illinois. As a result, I had a rather personal experience with the material. Everything Eric talked about, I knew. Lake Street? Walked it every day. Razzle Dazzle Costumes on the Oak Park Mall? That’s where I bought MY Halloween costume!

Needless to say, this was like walking down Nostalgia Lane. But even if I hadn’t grown up in Oak Park, I’d still be impressed, as it’s rare an amateur script is the best of the week – especially when the competition includes Alexander Payne, an Academy Award winner!

But that’s what happens when you write a smart, funny, heartfelt comedy.

Best Friends Forever, appropriately, introduces us to four best friends in the year 1987. There’s the “leader” and our protagonist, Daniel. There’s the “stud” of the group, Devin. There’s the “nerd” of the group, Will. And there’s the eternally quiet fourth member, Brian.

These four 13 year olds are in their last year of Junior High and things are starting to change for them, especially Devin, who’s pulling away in favor of going to parties and meeting girls. But the real change occurs when Daniel’s parents hit him with some shocking news – the family is moving in two weeks. His father got a job in another city.

Daniel is destroyed. He’s about to lose his friends forever. But after a little pouting, he’s inspired by a wild idea. The best times he and his friends had were during Halloween. What if they all went on one last trick-or-treating jaunt? And not only that, what if they tried to beat the 20 year old Oak Park Trick or Treat record?!

Naturally, his friends (who don’t yet know he’s moving) are skeptical. They’re 13 years old! 13 year olds aren’t supposed to trick-or-treat. Devin, especially, is against it. Trick or treating is SOOO not cool. But after a desperate plea, they reluctantly get on board. 

We meet a few more players in the meantime. There’s, of course, classic 80s bully Carter Burke. All he cares about is humiliating nerds like Daniel and his gang, and after Daniel’s father embarrasses him, he’s really got it in for Daniel. Then there’s my favorite character – maybe ever – Miles Fisher. He’s four foot five and 68 pounds, loves Star Wars, and is king of the nerds. He’s also arrogant as f#$% (“While my fellow academics may turn their noses up at the thought of asking for candy, I find the rituals of Halloween quite rewarding.”) He may not be Carter Burke, but he makes things just as difficult for our heroes, especially Will, who he tortures relentlessly. Fisher is one of those characters who if Best Friends Forever ever got made, he’d become a cinematic icon.

The rest of the story is pretty simple. The group zips around Oak Park (and River Forest, our sister community – yes, Chicago’s suburb planners had a creepy hard-on for trees) trying to get enough candy to beat the record, running into a bunch of obstacles along the way. There aren’t many surprises or twists here – which is okay, since Eric keeps the screenplay focused squarely on the characters.

My initial thoughts after reading “Best Friends Forever?” Warm and fuzzy. Eric incorporates into his screenplay something so few comedies do these days – heart. And it leaves you with a richer more fulfilling experience at the end.

That and he has a unique ability to capture familiar moments that we all remember so well. For instance, there are a ton of lines like this one: “Allison’s friends giggle in that teenage girl way where it’s impossible to tell if they’re being cute or cruel.” Seriously, right!!?? If you can make a reader identify with enough moments in your script, they’re going to give themselves to your story. Eric is a master at this.

He also does a great job putting you in the time period. I read a lot of “period” scripts where the writer gives us no visual cues of what time period we’re in. It might as well be the present. The costumes the boys wear alone (Ghostbusters, Marty McFly, The Cure) let us know exactly where we are. But there are plenty of other hilarious 80s references that continue to remind us.

But where Eric really excels is in his character development. The very first scene – a sleepover between the four friends – shows us how much these guys mean to each other. We have them arguing over what movie to watch on cable (the focus being on nudity), telling scary stories, reading comic books, sleeping in sleeping bags. After that scene, you know these four are BFF, so when we find out Daniel is moving, it’s sort of devastating. It leaves an undercurrent of sadness to their pursuit that adds a layer of depth I don’t usually see in these scripts. And that’s the way it should be. We should feel some sort of conflict in the characters’ pursuit if you want to connect with the reader.

But it ain’t all reeses peanut butter cups and 100 grand bars. There are a few apples and candy corn packets in here that keep this trick or treat bag from winning the grand prize.

Simply put, the whole “trick or treat contest” was confusing. They were trying to beat this famous trick or treater, but I didn’t understand any of the rules. Were they going to combine all their candy? If so, isn’t that kind of cheating? And I’m not saying cheating is the worst thing in this scenario but because nobody monitors this contest, “honestly” beating the champ is really all you’ve got. If you know you didn’t really win, what’s the point?

There’s also something about a “stamp card” (houses stamping your card to prove that you trick or treated) that I didn’t understand and had never heard of before. It was another unclear rule in a contest full of them.

Also, a ton of emphasis is put on this former champ, a kid who, in order to get the record, ditched school at lunch so he could start trick or treating early. Yet our friends start trick or treating four hours later and somehow still beat the record?? Not only that, but they get involved in a number of diversions that steal big chunks out of their 3 hour trick or treat time. In my estimation, they trick or treated for maybe 90 minutes total. And they still won? This is why I was wondering – did they pool their candy together? Was that always the plan or did they come up with that at the last second?

And on top of all this, there’s this sort of leisurely pace they set for trick or treating. They never seemed in a hurry. It just didn’t seem like a group of kids who had to work their ass off to get the record. And the reason this is a big deal is because this is the PLOT OF THE MOVIE. The movie is about a group of kids trying to break a record! So if you don’t convince us that your characters are doing everything possible to break it, how can I be satisfied when it’s over?

I told Eric he needs his characters to ditch school at lunch just like the former champ. And to just create more of a sense of urgency.

There were a few other things that bothered me. I thought the haunted house set piece was a collosol waste of time. It was one of those classic sequences us writers convince ourselves works because there’s a lot happening. But because it didn’t have anything to do with anything else in the movie (resulting in rock bottom stakes), it just sat there like a giant rotting potato.

Also, the fourth friend, Brian, needs to be re-written. He doesn’t say anything ever. And what do I tell you guys about characters who don’t talk? They disappear on the page. And that’s exactly what happened here. Okay, he’s quiet. That’s what makes him different. But that just doesn’t work in screenplays. Whenever he came up, I was like, “Who is he again?” I might just ditch this character altogether.

BUT, like I said – the character work with almost everyone else was top notch. Daniel’s storyline about moving was powerful. Devin’s obsession with girls worked well. Will’s nerdy battle with Fisher was top-notch. And Carter and his goons were great.

I think this script needs to be clarified from a plot point-of-view. But character-wise, it’s light years better than most of the amateur scripts I read.

Script link: Best Friends Forever

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

 What I learned: Don’t use words that misrepresent the moment. There’s a scene early on where Carter corners Daniel at school. This is what Eric writes: “Daniel’s eyes drop. He’s suddenly incredibly interested in the tile pattern on the floor.” While we understand the meaning of the sentence after we read it, the words “incredibly interested” conflict with the tone the moment is supposed to represent. The idea is to show that Daniel is scared. “Incredibly interested” doesn’t convey that. So the sentence initially reads confusing. I would go with something simple like, “Daniel’s eyes drop to the floor.” Or, “Terrified, Daniel’s eyes shoot to the floor.” Make sure the words in your sentences properly represent the moment!

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Screenplay Review – We, Myself and I

Posted on April 20, 2012 | by admin

She’s turned a number of your boring loglines into logline tour-de-forces. Now she gets her screenplay reviewed on Scriptshadow!

NEW Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Drama/Romance
Premise: (from Dianne) After one of her alter-egos seduces the guy she’s been crushing on, a shy college student with multiple personalities struggles to get rid of her meddlesome headmates and find love on her own.
About: Dianne Cameron has been a longtime reader and commenter on the site. She may be the best I’ve ever seen at breaking down and fixing loglines. But a logline is a lot different from a script. So let’s see if that talent extends to writing screenplays!
Writer: Dianne Cameron
Details: 104 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).

It’s pretty amazing what a title change can do. When this script was titled Plurally Inclined, I wanted to stay as far away from it as possible. The title made me squirm and wiggle uncomfortably. When it popped up in my Inbox as “We, Myself and I,” however, I couldn’t imagine NOT reading it. It was all of a sudden friendly and approachable. So my friend, a word to the wise: Never stop until you have the perfect title! It REALLY DOES affect how someone sees your script.

And now to the main event…

Heather Lee is a 19-year-old intelligent shy figure skating sophomore. Her best friend Zoe is an outgoing fire cracker hot fashionista. Her, um, little sister maybe(?), B.J. is cute and precocious. And then her oldest friend, Suzanne, is a moody French chick who spends way too much time complaining about the world.

Oh yeah, by the way, these are all one person – Heather. That’s because Heather has multiple personality disorder. All of these people are just figments of her imagination.

So Heather has a crush on frat boy Matt but has been too shy to do anything about it. Well Heather, waiters become lonely neighbors. Your alternate personality number one, Zoe, takes over your body, then takes over Matt, leading him back to his dorm room and giving him multiple…other things. By the way, Zoe is 17 years old. Which means Matt’s just committed statutory rape. I think?

When Heather finds out Zoe stole her man, she’s furious, but such is the life of a Multiple Person. It’s hard enough to control the urges of one woman, let alone four!

Anyway, the one person who understands Heather and what she goes through is her best friend Tyler. He knows about her multiple personalities and is her one shoulder to cry on. In fact, the two seem like a perfect match, yet Tyler is inexplicably dating someone else who he doesn’t have NEARLY the same chemistry with. So what’s going on?

I’ll tell you. (spoiler) – In the best moment of the script, we find out the girl Tyler’s dating isn’t real. It’s another one of Heather’s personalities! Zoinks! Tyler’s actually in love with Heather, but can’t do anything about it, since you can’t be with a girl who goes off and sleeps with other guys, even if they’re not technically sleeping with them…yet they are.

So we follow Heather as she navigates through this minefield of multiplicity, experiencing the trials and tribulations of a young woman fighting an already difficult stage of her life with 5 times the obstacles. Will she find a way to be with Tyler? Does she really like Matt? How does she satisfy her other personalities and still satisfy herself? Questions abound in “We, Myself and I.”

Okay, I have a lot to say about this one. I know people will want to talk about the pictures on the title page, but the pictures are the least important piece to this puzzle. And it is a puzzle. A great big giant puzzle we only have one third the pieces for.

I think Dianne may have bit off more than she could chew. The difficulty level for this script is through the roof. I’m not sure she knew just how challenging it would be to convey what she was trying to convey when she started this thing.

Let’s start with the rule-set. The rules in We, Myself and I are never made clear. Sometimes Heather can become one of her other personalities. Other times she can sit down and talk with her other personalities. I’m betting Dianne did her research and both these things are possible, but boy was it confusing to someone reading the story.

For instance, sometimes she seems to forget when she becomes other people (Zoe sleeping with Matt) and other times she can remember. So what *does* happen when she’s another personality? Does the rest of her just black out? Does she only remember a third of her days, for example, since she’s another personality for the other two-thirds? I know there’s only so much time and you can’t explain everything to the reader less you bore them to death, but these are extremely important details if we’re to understand what, exactly, is going on.

On top of this, what’s happening doesn’t make sense. A girl with multiple personality disorder has snuck into a college? Do her parents know about this? Are they okay with their daughter, who can become a different person at any moment, roaming around freely? Isn’t that dangerous? Wouldn’t they be worried something might happen to her? Unless she’s tricked her parents too? Although maybe her parents aren’t around anymore and I missed that. Still, that would make this way too convenient.

And wouldn’t her professors or someone at the college have figured her secret out by now? She can’t control when these personalities take over, right? So the chances of her walking around freely and never once slipping into another personality in class or somewhere else are next to impossible. Yet she still seems to be fooling everyone.

This begs the obvious question – why not make this a comedy? If it were a comedy, the audience wouldn’t be asking any of these questions. Or, I should say, they wouldn’t care as much. But by treating the subject matter seriously, you have no choice but to explain these plot holes. And the fact that they aren’t explained undermines any chance of us taking the story seriously.

Personally, I think it would be a lot more interesting to tell this story as a comedy from the point of view of a guy who starts dating a girl who has multiple personality disorder. Now you don’t have to worry about covering this complicated rule-set because Heather would no longer be the main character.

In addition, I’d probably take out the college setting. There’s something very “low stakes” about college. People go to college to take classes and party. There’s nothing to lose (unless you stress a scholarship or graduation they’re in danger of losing). It feels like the kind of subject matter that you’d have more options with in the real world. And plus we’d take it more seriously (if that’s the route Dianne wanted to stick with). I never felt that Heather was in danger of losing that much in this story.

On top of this, I’m not sure there’s any GSU. Not that GSU is the end all, be all, but I definitely felt like this story was lacking momentum and forward thrust. What were we pushing towards? What was the point of all this? Was it just to experience a semester in the life of a young woman with this disorder? I guess you could go that route but from a story point of view it just isn’t very interesting.

The lack of GSU also led to murky writing choices. If your main character’s not after something (a goal), you, the writer, don’t really know what to write next so you basically guess. I remember at one point, for example, towards the end of the screenplay, we switch over to Matt as sort of a mini-main character. I barely knew Matt and definitely didn’t care enough about him to be alone with him for a sequence. At that point I truly had no idea where the story was going anymore.

In Dianne’s defense, I see even the biggest A-list writers struggling with this idea. It’s just so complicated. My suggestion would be to simplify it as much as possible and make it a straight comedy. It would make writing the story so much easier. But I wish Dianne the best of luck with it. Her contributions in the comments section have been invaluable!

Script link: We, Myself and I

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Be aware if you’re writing a rules-dependent script. There are certain stories where the rules have to be spelled out clearly for the audience or else we’re not going to know what’s going on. Sci-fi (Matrix, Inception) and fantasy (Lord Of The Rings) usually fall under this category, but every once in awhile you write a story like We, Myself and I that requires the same amount of explanation. In these cases, you have to think about EVERY SINGLE QUESTION THE AUDIENCE MIGHT ASK ABOUT THE RULES and make sure they’re answered. Not only that, but make sure they’re answered invisibly – hidden inside dialogue and action so as not to draw attention to themselves. Star Wars does a good job of this. We learn the force through actions (Darth Vader force-choking an official for questioning him) and intriguing backstory (Obi-Wan telling a desperate-to-know Luke about how his father used to be a jedi). Diane DID use a lecture scene explaining what multiple personality disorder was, but not only did it feel forced (a professor who just happened to be talking about the very disorder our main character suffers from in a lecture?) but it wasn’t enough. It was only about 30% of what we needed to know. Rule-sets have no “one-size-fits-all” solution, but as long as you’re aware of what the audience needs to know in order to “get” your story, you should be able to write in what you need to.

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Screenplay Review – Gaslight (Roger Review)

Posted on April 3, 2012 | by admin

Roger Balfour comes back from the dead again to review a script that I’m reasonably certain was written exclusively for him. Jack The Ripper…and vampires.

Genre: Period Piece / Thriller / Gothic Horror
Premise: Secretly imprisoned in a London insane asylum, the infamous Jack the Ripper helps Scotland Yard solve a series of grisly murders whose victims all share one thing in common; dual puncture wounds to the neck.
About: Writer Ian Fried came out of the gates swinging when his The Ever After Murders landed on 2010’s Black List. Gaslight was on 2011’s Black List and was scooped up by Exclusive Media’s Hammer Films (yep, Hammer Horror) after the success of its British horror flick, The Woman in Black.
Writer: Ian Fried
Details: 127 pages – 6/26/11 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).
What a great year for screenplays, right guys? Last week, there was a three-million dollar sale (eat your heart out, Shane Black). According to Scott Meyers at Go Into The Story, there have been 32 spec sales this year. That’s a 33% increase from last year. But, most of the acquisitions seem to be what I like to call safe purchases. Stuff that’s not too expensive to make or belonging to a low-risk genre.
That’s why, back in February, I was excited to see that one of my favorite scripts of last year had sold. Gaslight hit the market in June 2011 and made quite the impression. It’s not Found Footage, it’s not a Romantic Comedy, it’s not a Modest Budget Thriller. It’s a Gothic Period Piece with horror and fantasy elements, and other than using a mix of historical figures and characters from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it’s not based on a graphic novel or Young Adult property. Nor is it a piece of Twilight fan-fiction where all the names have been changed (cough, Fifty Shades of Grey).
We all need a little variety in our Story Diet, but it’s hard to sell such a beast, a fantasy (I would argue that this is dark fantasy) spec that’s not based on preexisting material. I imagine it’s even harder to sell one that’s also a Period Piece. Not even Guillermo Del Toro, the King of Dark Fantasy, and his super friends James Cameron and Tom Cruise could convince studios to greenlight the HP Lovecraft adventure At the Mountains of Madness. A similar struggle is also happening with Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower.
It takes balls to write something like this, and the route to production is a tougher one. It’s easier for a creative exec to say “No” to such a spec (risks and costs are too high), and in this day and age, most of them do (unless you’re Helgeland spawn).
So, it’s good for us all when a genre behemoth like Gaslight sells. It proves to us that there are people in Hollywood with discerning taste who get excited by such heady story fare.
Although the script was the talk of the town for a while, it didn’t sell until eight months later when Hammer Films decided to take the plunge after its success with The Woman in Black. (And can I just say, Kudos to Hammer for being willing to pull the trigger on great stuff like Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker, a steampunk novel I championed on this site over two years ago.)
So, what’s this sucker about, Rog?
As any good Gothic tale should start, we begin with death in the midst of a storm. We’re aboard a Russian Immigration ship, which we learn later is appropriately named The Demeter, where the First Mate finds the slashed and marbled remains of the Captain. He runs through the ship, witnessing ghastly sights such as the boil-covered and bloated bodies of the Russian passengers as he searches for the killer. And as any good horror teaser unspools, we can guess the fate of the First Mate as the last thing he sees is a shadow-covered phantom coming at him.
Cut to the establishing shot of Victorian London, the land of fog-drenched cobblestone streets, the threat of a cholera-outbreak and bloody murder. We’re at the scene of a Jack the Ripper-esque kill site, where an alabaster skinned beauty sports twin puncture marks on her neck and has been exsanguinated. She’s surrounded in gold coins. A mason jar filled with congealed blood sits nearby. It’s a gruesome scene and our Scotland Yard boy Donald “Monster Hunter” Swanson notes that the gold coins aren’t local currency.
So from the very beginning we have this mash-up of Ripper-style killings (slashed bodies and female corpses in alleyways) with distinctive clues pointing to a Bram Stoker-style vamp (dual puncture wounds and exsanguination). So, who exactly is the culprit? Is it Dracula? After all, the very first scene took place aboard The Demeter (a vessel all Stoker fans should recognize). Or, is it Jack the Ripper, trying to misdirect the investigators? Or, is it someone and something else entirely?
That’s the narrative question of this whodunit, and I would not spoil the answer for anyone, but I did forget to mention this savory detail: The label on the mason jar full of red sticky reads, “Lucille Westernra”. Does that ring a bell? It should, because that’s the ‘ol red-headed slut from Dracula. That’s right, that’s Lucy’s body marinating in the alleyway.
Why is the Scotland Yard Inspector nicknamed “Monster Hunter”?
Well, we can single out one suspect because he’s already being kept under lock and key. Chief Inspector Swanson took down the Ripper a while ago, losing someone he loved dearly in the process (and baring the psychological and emotional scars as a result). Jack the Ripper is now known as Patient 1167 and he’s caged like a Victorian Hannibal Lecter in the basement asylum underneath Carfax Abbey operated by…wait for it…Dr. John Seward.
Another individual from Bram Stoker’s novel who helped take down Dracula. Interesting, that.
Swanson’s boss, Commissioner Bradford, puts some pressure on our Monster Hunter to consult Patient 1167 because the serial murderer is the closest thing to whatever’s out there leaving a trail of bodies and frightening the London public. The newspapers and turn-of-the-century paparazzi are already spreading fear about the murderer, and with the worry of a cholera outbreak, it’s only a matter of time before mass hysteria takes to the streets.
Swanson is the best person for the job, despite being emotionally damaged from his previous encounters, because the other detective in line would botch the investigation and Scotland Yard would have another Sweeney Todd fiasco on their hands.
What’s Jack the Ripper like?
A beefy and mustachioed Hannibal Lecter with a penchant for self scarification mind games. He’s a cocky hulk with silver-capped teeth (the ones that aren’t rotting) who seems to know too much about the murders.
Of course Swanson is reluctant to talk to him but he really has no choice, so we get a sense that he’s facing his fears every time he visits the killer.
Luckily, Swanson has the help of one Florence Nightingale, whom he has a romantic background with. The nurse turned doctor is recruited by the detective because he’s curious about the nature of the blood that’s left inside the mason jars. She proves useful, because she’s the one that figures out that the blood left behind is diseased.
Astute Stoker fans will recognize the cast of corpses and potential suspects as more and more bodies begin to pile up around London, but I challenge the audience to guess who and what is responsible for these crimes. As Swanson is forced to have more face time with Jack, the more clues he gets to aid him in his quest.
Sounds a lot like Silence of the Lambs. Is that the template?
Yes, but that’s not too hard to figure out from the logline. Think the familiar template of Silence of the Lambs combined with a rogue’s gallery of drug-addicted victims and suspects from Bram Stoker’s Dracula with a smattering of Victorian CSI and you get the idea. It feels like everyone is hiding a secret and I think that’s crucial in making a murder mystery work.
But you know why I like this script? I was not disappointed by the reveal of the villain. Part of me was scared that I was going to be disappointed after such a buildup, but I’m pleased to report that the villain, his motivation and his plan are really cool. It was just something that satisfied my imagination and I even wanted to know more about the back-story. The third act is full of havoc and I think it’s something that deserves to be on the silver screen.
I also have an appreciation for the world-building in this script. Not only is there pressure coming down on Scotland Yard from Queen Victoria, but newspaper headlines and even a cinematographer recording footage of the unfolding investigation really helps root the story in a believable world. We get a sense of how the events are affecting characters in different layers of the London society. The writer also did his research, using details from Stoker’s novel and historical events (even using Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show which was in London at the time) during the time period to add realism and flavor to the story.
So, what’s the verdict, Rog?
Hollywood espouses that it wants fresh but familiar, so when considered as part of that formula, it’s rather quite brilliant. Sure, there are the familiar beats of our detective consulting with the dangerous Jack a la Starling consulting with Hannibal Lecter (and yeah, of course Jacky is gonna break out and complicate things), the comfortable rails of a crime procedural and a ghoulish plot against London.
But, there’s also the freshness of the setting. Sherlock Holmes may have made Victorian London familiar to audiences today, but there’s something atmospheric and distinctively imaginative about London during this time-period, so much so that the whole steampunk genre thrives on its aesthetic.
It’s the combination of historic police procedural combined with vampires versus Jack the Ripper that gives this script edge, the sum of its familiar parts that makes Gaslight so fresh. It’s a Gothic amalgam of a serial killer tale and creature feature. The fact that the writer pulls it off makes this thing a marvel. Usually such fare goes off the rails or the parts don’t work as a whole, but everything feels pretty seamless here.
Critically, I think amping up the Jack role would give this script even more of an edge and make it feel less predictable, especially to those of us who know The Silence of the Lambs by heart. What makes him tick? Why is his capture kept a secret? These are a few questions I had about him while reading the script. When I see the logline to this script, and I imagine when I see the trailer, my expectation is that I’m gonna get to see Jack the Ripper help Scotland Yard fuck up the undead. The thought of that makes me geek out, and I would have liked to see the nucleus of this concept exploited more.
Thematically, although the character stuff with Swanson is good, I feel like it could also be tweaked to make it great. As writers, sometimes we have to decide to either give a character what they want, or what they need. Right now Swanson is a man who has lost, and in the resolution, he may get what he wants, but I feel like the writer should give him what he needs. Does that make sense? He may accomplish his goals as a Scotland Yard detective, but on a heart level, I still think there’s more to be explored here. Perhaps the key is his unrequited romance with Florence Nightingale. I like how it ends, but it feels like there could just be something more.
Regardless, Gaslight is solid. It goes from murder mystery to an apocalyptic and action-packed third act, and it works. It takes a master world builder to drop someone like Jack the Ripper into the Dracula mythos and sustain the story for over a hundred and twenty pages. Not only that, but I think it holds its own with Frank Darabont’s great Frankenstein script. The undead have never been so classy.
[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Dramatic Reversal. This is a simple but powerful tool when writing a climax. Call it formulaic, but every climax when the conflict is man versus man (especially in adventure and action flicks) involves a moment of isolation where it’s just the protagonist facing down the antagonist. The Dramatic Reversal occurs when all the odds are stacked against the protagonist. In Star Wars, think when Luke is about to be blown into smithereens by Darth Vader and the TIE fighters. For an intense moment, it seems like all is lost. But then Han Solo swoops in with the Millenium Falcon, saving Luke’s ass so he can take out the Death Star. Gaslight has an effective moment of Dramatic Reversal where we think all is lost, but the person we least expect explodes into the scene and changes the course of events so that the odds are favorable for the protagonist. This is effective because at some point, the protagonist made a hard choice that carried them into the climax and put their life in danger. It may seem like they’re about to be punished for making this choice, but then narrative poetic justice sets the scales right and then it feels like the protagonist has been rewarded for making the right decision. Which is to say, always have a chess piece ready to bail out your main character, and make sure it’s organic to avoid being accused of using a deus ex machina.
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Screenplay Review – Soundtrack (Amateur Friday)

Posted on March 30, 2012 | by admin

A couple of weeks ago, you guys got to choose from ten loglines to determine which script should be reviewed for Amateur Friday. Today’s script finished in second place!

NEW Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: When a burgeoning composer hits his head, he begins to hear his life’s soundtrack; a soundtrack that is prompting and pushing him back to his ex-fiance. But will he follow the guidance of the music?
About: Last week I held a mini-competition for 10 amateur Friday submissions and let you guys pick your favorite loglines. Soundtrack finished second, but when the first 10 pages of the Top 3 vote-getters were posted, Soundtrack received the best response of the bunch. Don’t worry, I’m not shafting the winner, Breathwork. I’ll be reviewing that next Friday (and I must say, it should be an interesting discussion – e-mail me if you want it). In the meantime, keep sending in those Amateur Friday entries (follow the submission process above!). With this new “Choose From 10” format I’m instituting, more of you have a chance to get your scripts seen by the world!
Writer: Nathan Shane Miller
Details: 104 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).

Andy Samberg for Ian?

I want to say a couple of things before I start reviewing today’s script. First, my latest obsession is figuring out what makes a script “impressive” as opposed to “worth the read.” What is that special ingredient that lifts it up into that rare air?

A big part of it, I realized, was connection. You, as the reader, have to connect with the story and the characters on a personal level. If you don’t, no matter how well that story is executed, there’s going to be a divide between screenplay and reader. So the question is, how do you do that?

What I realized gave you the best chance was creating characters with depth, who are sympathetic, who are empathetic, who are relatable, and who are identifiable. If there’s something in ourselves that we see in the character, we will want to follow that character, and by association that character’s story.

But achieving that is tricky to do. You have to build a history into your character. You have to put them in situations that are relatable to others, yet still have those situations feel original and fresh. How in the world do you make something relatable yet different? I’m not sure I’ve figured that out yet. But the point of this long winded rant is that you need to be focusing on the story of your characters as opposed to the story of your story. Because your characters are what we’re going to connect with the most.

So how does Soundtrack make out in all of this? Grab your fiddle, strum a tune, and find out.

30 year old sorta-successful composer Ian is having a tough go of it. He’s got the biggest potential job of his life coming up, and he still hasn’t figured out the theme song for the main female character in the movie!

A big part of that is that he still hasn’t gotten over his ex-fiance, which is strange, because he doesn’t seem to like her all that much and he already has a new girlfriend, Tracy, who, while a little materialistic, is super supportive of his career. In fact, she’s the one who got him the meeting with the big producer who’s going to change his life.

But a few days before the meeting, Ian slips and bumps his head on the kitchen floor, and when he wakes up, well, I think you know what happens next. He starts hearing the soundtrack of his life!

No doubt, this is the best part of the screenplay. Nathan has taken the Blake Snyder “fun and games” adage and really gone to town with it. For example, when the not so nice Tracy approaches, Ian hears the “Imperial March,” Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars.

When someone he doesn’t like approaches his door, he hears the Jaws theme. When he’s late for work, he hears an adrenaline fueled action theme. But easily my favorite moment was when he goes to see the doctor, who happens to be Asian, and inadvertently hears really racist stereotypical Asian music – not easy to explain when the doctor, in order to help him, wants to know *exactly* what he’s hearing at this moment.

But while this may be funny for us, it’s not funny for Ian, who must now pitch his idea to a producer with the soundtrack of his life pumping through his eardrums. Naturally, the pitch ends in disaster (he should have read Mike Le’s pitching interview!) but the producer decides to give him one more chance. Come up with the female lead’s theme by the end of the week and he’s hired.

However, no matter how much Ian brainstorms, he can’t figure it out. Eventually, he realizes that the only person capable of giving him the feeling he needs to complete the theme is his ex-fiance, Kaitlyn. Since Ian backed out of the wedding, though, Kaitlyn isn’t exactly rearranging her schedule to help him. In the end, Ian will need to reconcile the mistakes he made with Kaitlyn to save his career.

The reason I didn’t pick up Soundtrack earlier was simple. I’ve seen these kinds of premises before, and they almost always play out the same way. Great opening. But as soon as the charm of the concept wears out, the story collapses. In other words, after that “fun and games” section, the writer sort of realizes, “Oh shit. I have to actually write a movie now.” And while Miller lasts longer than others, Soundtrack definitely suffers from the same issue. I mean, I don’t even think there were any music cues for the last 45 pages. It was almost like the story lost confidence in itself.

But what about the characters?? Isn’t that how we started this review?

Well, let’s start with the main relationship. I thought it was pretty sloppily handled. For the majority of the script, I had no idea what the specifics of Ian and Kaitlyn’s relationship were. I didn’t know if they’d gone out for 10 weeks or 10 years. I didn’t know who broke up with whom. Heck, I didn’t even know they’d been engaged until halfway through the script. The whole relationship was so vague that I spent more time trying to figure it out than I did simply enjoying their scenes.

This lack of clarity extended to Ian’s motivation in the relationship as well. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what he wanted out of the relationship. Did he want Kaitlyn back? Did he not want her back? Did he like her? Did he not like her? I never once got a read on his feelings, and a big part of that was how unclear their backstory was.

This vagueness was a problem in other parts of the screenplay as well. For example, I had no idea that his current girlfriend was a bad person until the musical cue of the Imperial March started playing. I was baffled. “Why is the Imperial March playing while his kick-ass girlfriend is around (who got him a great opportunity with this big producer!)?” It just didn’t make sense. Eventually I realized the girlfriend was materialistic and bad for him, but I certainly didn’t know that early on.

The moment where I officially checked out of the story though was when Ian went to Kaitlyn’s parents’ house. I had no idea why they were at the house. One second they were talking at Kaitlyn’s and the next she was like, you need to apologize to my parents! Then we spend 20-some pages at their house out of nowhere. I just didn’t know where the story was going anymore. I still wasn’t even sure if Ian liked Kaitlyn so there were absolutely no stakes to getting her parents to accept his apology.

Overall, Soundtrack was an odd duck. It started out strong. The soundtrack gimmick was great. I thought Nathan’s writing was good. He moved things along at a brisk pace. Then it hit the midpoint and started to lose steam, and by the end, I didn’t really know what we were focusing on anymore. But Miller shouldn’t be too down about this. I see good writers get stuck in this genre all the time. Maybe picking a concept with a little more meat next time will help.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Like I said, this happens a lot with these high-concept ideas. The script starts out strong because the hook is fun. But when it’s time for the script to depend on the story and not the hook, it isn’t prepared to do so and falls apart. To avoid this, make sure the basics are in place. Your character goal should be strong. Your character goal should be clear (I’m still not sure what he was trying to do with Kaitlyn so it definitely wasn’t clear in this case). And make sure the central relationship is compelling enough to last an entire movie. Again, the main relationship was so muddled/undefined that when it was time for the script to rest on it, it wasn’t prepared to do so. Get those basics in place and your script has a much better chance at working.

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Screenplay Review – The Counselor (The Return Of Roger!!!)

Posted on February 21, 2012 | by admin

An old friend drops by Scriptshadow to review a screenplay from one of the biggest writers in the world, Cormac McCarthy!

Carson here.  Lots of interest in today’s script.  I was going to review it but I know next to nothing about Cormac McCarthy.  I knew if I was going to do this right, I would have to find the greatest living Cormac McCarthy fan in the world, a man who used to grace Scriptshadow with his presence on a weekly basis. But how to find him?  Last I’d heard, Roger Balfour had conned his way onto the set of The Hangover 2 as an extra.  Not sure if he made the cut.  Well, after exhausting my entire Rolodex, I finally found him, dehydrated and half-comatose in a South American dog breeding clinic. When I asked him to review Cormac McCarthy’s first screenplay he replied, “Where are my pants?”  That was good enough for me.  — Now I’ve been hearing all sorts of things about this script.  Some have called it unreadable (literally! – Cormac invents his own screenplay format!).  Some have called it genius.  And the people who call it unreadable can’t fathom how anyone could like this script.  They think the lovers are reading it through Cormac-tinted glasses.  Anyway, I’ve been too afraid to open it.  I’ll let Roger take care of that.  Oh, and just a reminder.  The Disciple Program debuts in three days!!!!!!

Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Premise: A respectable lawyer gets in over his head after becoming involved in the illegal drug business.
About: Deadline Hollywood described this script as “No Country for Old Men on steroids”. McCarthy was at work on three different novels when he turned this screenplay into his agent. Ridley Scott soon attached himself to the project as director, with his Prometheus star Michael Fassbender in mind to play the lead. Interestingly, there are also two female roles up for grabs “who intrude to play leading roles”.
Writer: Cormac McCarthy
Details: PDF created on January 20, 2012
Now this is what a writer looks like!
This script made me want to commit suicide. It was so bleak, it made me want to overdose on heroin while skydiving into an avalanche of naked women.
Whoa. Rewind. Roger, where have you been the past year and a half?
Brian K. Vaughan says that the ages between 22 and 27 are important years in a male’s life. The things that happen during that timeframe shape and guide the transformation of a boy into a man. I spent the past year and a half becoming a man.
My journey started in the Philippines, where I worked in the anime industry as a Foley Artist. It was here that I learned someone has to create the sound fx for a tentacle violating an orifice. That someone was me. Sometimes I would do nothing but stand on a soundstage and plunge my hand in and out of a peanut bar jar for fourteen hours straight. I grew a beard and air-licked microphones, the resultant sound was used in children’s cartoons in Australia. But life couldn’t be squishy and honey-roasted forever. 
You can only hide from your destiny for so long before it comes looking for you. And if your destiny is writing, then your destiny kicks you in the teeth, yanks you out of your cushy Foley Artist gig and turns you into a creature of dreaming and longing. 
I spent a lot of time writing poems about He-Man while sitting alone in hotel rooms eating Ritz crackers. I snorted chamomile tea and cat nip through rolled-up Bukowski poems and called it the hipster speedball. The hipster speedball helped me write and publish an Animorphs novel that was about a boy who grows an owl’s beak that was really a Bildungsroman about first boners. I posed for my author photo in front of a shelf full of Star Trek novels and was called gorgeous. I wanted to write a sequel but couldn’t. I got fingered by the ghost of Hal Ashby and for a week all my dreams were like Wes Anderson movies yet to be made. I watched the first season of Downton Abbey in one sitting with a 20-year old girl who thought she was the fifth Pevensie sibling. We held hands the whole time and shared an Edwardian world together but afterwards we never saw each other again. Like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, I made my own Wilson out of a prenatal body pillow and dealt with my sadness by straddling Wilson and making Wilson watch me punish my Sailor Moon bedsheets. I read fantasy novels and ate confectionaries and did p90X. I became better, stronger, faster and wondered how Tron Legacy got made and if Oblivion would be better. I wondered why they never did a storyline on The Gilmore Girls where a guy dates both the mom and the daughter at the same time. I decided to amend this oversight and wrote the teleplay on spec with me as the guy and when I presented it to Amy Sherman-Palladino she politely informed me the show had been cancelled and she consoled me as I wept into a burrito by saying, “There there, young Balfour. There there. You wrote a Gilmore Girls script. You are a true man, now.” 
Sorry we asked. So, you read Cormac McCarthy’s The Counselor?
Twice. The first time because I’m a legitimate Southern-fried McCarthy scholar and the second time because I only vaguely understood it the first time. Have you ever tried to watch a movie and halfway through, think, “Man, I don’t think I understand the plot but I’m pretty excited by all the violence”? I did that a couple weeks ago when I saw Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. Sometimes when I see art films, I think, “Man, this is pretty unconventional but I also feel sad and I kind of want to stick my head in an oven like Sylvia Plath.” I did that a couple of weeks ago when I saw Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine. The Counselor kind of combines both of those ambivalent sensations and does so with Faulkner-in-Sanctuary-mode panache. 
You ever receive a screenplay and open it up and think, “What the fuck is this? A play?” Because I did that, too. As someone who works as a screenwriter, as someone who took many years to adapt to the industry’s formatting and conventions, my first instinct was to scream, “Fuck this guy! How dare he invent his own screenwriting format! Who the fuck does this guy think he is?!”
Oh, it’s Cormac McCarthy. He won the Guggenheim Fellowship, also known as The Genius Award. In addition, not only has he won the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN Award, but he also won Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Road. With those kind of laurels, you can kind of do whatever you want. 
Still, this raises the question, in the world of screenplays, do we still hold such an author to the same standards as everyone else? When it comes to story and character, yes. But, when it comes to formatting and breaking rules, you’re just gonna have to leave your specialized mindset at the door. There’s an excellent article on creativity in Psychology Today that says, “The more expert and specialized a person becomes, the more their mindset becomes narrowed and the more fixated they become on conforming what they believe to be absolute. Consequently, when confronted with new and different ideas, their focus will be on conformity. Does it conform with what I know is right? If not, experts will spend all their time showing and explaining why it can’t be done and why it can’t work.”
I’m not here to do that. Look, even in the world of novels, McCarthy has always gone against the grain. The man doesn’t like semicolons and uses commas sparingly, so the glue holding all the sentences together are contractions. He never uses quotation marks either. Why should we expect anything different in one of his scripts? He doesn’t see the need for slugs. Diagramming some of his sentences in the AD lines is like a choose-your-own-adventure story. He still writes on an Olivetti typewriter. These pages were probably collected in a shoebox and then quickly retyped by an assistant into MS Word. 
It’s kind of like having a not-playfully racist grandfather who is set in his ways. Sure, you can try to tell him that the word “negress” is not considered proper lexicon in polite society, but what’s the point? He’s just gonna keep on truckin’ till his number’s up. (Double Cliché). 
So, what’s the story about, Rog?
Think Body Heat or the Edgerton’s The Square but set against the backdrop of the border world McCarthy explores so well in his Border Trilogy and novel, Blood Meridian. If these stories exist in a Venn diagram, they take place inside the circle where the not so insulated worlds of Mexico and the United States collide. This territory is a no man’s land where characters from the so-called civilized world experience great violence and brutality, where destiny has its own gravitational pull and the best at surviving the territory are those who are so damaged they’ve transcended polite society’s moral code. It is a place heroism is not rewarded. It’s punished. If you don’t believe me, look at the ending to No Country for Old Men. In the face of evil, only other predators have a chance at surviving.
So, it’s no surprise that McCarthy chooses to tell a cautionary tale set against the drug war violence that is taking place in Mexico right now. In Mexico, murder has become a national pastime. It is a collective enterprise. And, it is spilling over into our border towns. 
Who are the characters?
This is the tale of the Counselor, a man, who when we first meet him, is in bed with the love of his life, Laura. We see him in Amsterdam, in a jeweler’s shop, procuring the perfect diamond for his bride to be. We’re treated to a philosophical and prophetic lesson from the Dealer. He tells the Counselor the Jewish civilization is the only true civilization, and that any country that has driven the Jews out has never been the same. He waxes a McCarthy monologue about the one true God, who is immovable, and tells us that stones are the true witnesses since they’ve been around since the beginning. When the Counselor picks out his diamond for Laura, the Dealer says, “This is a cautionary stone. You will see.”
Intercut this with the intriguing couple of Reiner and Malkina, who are in the Southwest desert hunting with their pet cheetahs. Yes, this couple, who seem like some kind of S&M Hemingway power-duo, own cheetahs. More specifically, they are Malkina’s cheetahs, and Malkina is the one we ought to be paying attention to. A native of Buenos Aires, we notice the Egyptian cat tattooed on her brown skin. She’s sexy, possessing a Moriarty-like intelligence so cunning even her beau, Reiner, is terrified of her. Another important note about Malkina is that she knows her way around technology, around computers. She might also be quite mad. Perhaps we’re supposed to think she makes Lisbeth Salander seem like a Disney princess in comparison.
The third strand in this tapestry is a septic tank truck that is making its way from Mexico to the United States, which we can assume is loaded up with about twenty million dollars worth of Colombia’s finest. All these elements we are introduced to as the opening credits are playing. 
What’s the caper, Rog?
Much like the protagonists in Body Heat and The Square, the Counselor is motivated by his love and lust for a woman. Because of her, he wants to get rich quick. He decides to go all in concerning a business venture with Reiner, who has learned never to speak in arraignable phrases. Reiner is filthy rich because his demeanor and surroundings and the gifts he provides for Malkina tell us so. And it’s easy to see that Reiner’s source of wealth comes from mines that aren’t always legal. 
The idea is to get into the drug business unnoticed while all the cartels are busy killing each other. That septic tank truck from earlier? It’s carrying 625 kilos of cocaine from Mexico to Chicago and will sell for two grand an ounce on the street, meaning this is a twenty-million dollar payload for all involved. The Counselor asks, “If the drug wars stop this will dry up, right? “Yeah. Bad times are good times for guys like us.”
But, what happens if the cartels find out about this new start-up company? The answer to that question, as we learn in the second half of the script, is very bad things. The characters tell us that three thousand people were killed in Juarez alone last year. We learn something about the nature of the men in these cartels. Before the drug wars, thousands of young and attractive factory workers were being kidnapped and sexually mutilated. The maquila girls, they were called. 
The money trail led to the men in the cartels. “So much cash you’re using it to insulate your own house and you’re morally depraved out of all human recognition, what will you spend your money on?” The answer to that, is snuff films, and we learn that we’re probably not separated more than two degrees by someone who has seen a snuff film. 
When it comes to men who have kidnappers on full retainer, even the smallest little detail becomes life or death for the Counselor and everyone he knows. There’s a lot of talk about the dangers of dabbling into this trade, and in fact, most of the scenes in the script are characters warning the Counselor. One of the characters even quotes Blood Meridian at one point, “Yet even the smallest crumb can devour us.”
So, what’s the crumb that devours everyone, Rog?
There’s a drug runner, a character named Young Man, who is to rendevouz with the septic tank truck and presumably drive it to Chicago. Except, you know, he never makes it to the truck. 
There’s another problem. Not only does the Counselor have to worry about what may become of the drug runner, there are complications with the money people. He has to get money into Mexico and get it back out again. In order to do this, one has to filter the money through a corporation, which means there has to be a money person on the inside handling all of the bank transactions, “The biggest issue is that your guy is not going to fall in love with a pole dancer and go south with three million of your ducats. The biggest issue is that someone is going to find out who he is and what he’s up to.”
In one of the more creative ways of killing a drug runner I think I’ve ever heard about or seen, we learn that there are other parties looking to intercept this shipment of drugs and ruin everything for the Counselor. To complicate matters, the Counselor is linked to the drug runner in a way that is most unfortunate and may redefine dramatic irony. 
It’s interesting to note that the main story involves all of the men in the script, and it dovetails with character revelations concerning Malkina, as shown by her scenes with Laura (she has an ominous dream about Malkina; pay attention to the scene at the confessional) and the stories Reiner tells about her. Although Reiner, being a criminal, is concerned about the cartel men, he is genuinely frightened of his own girlfriend. His views on women could probably be called misogynistic, and it’s the type of misogyny only a man who has been twice divorced can really relish. 
Of course, everything goes wrong for our guys and the most exciting part of the script is seeing how that all unfolds. I’m not exaggerating when shit hits the fan and a line forms to kill the Counselor. My favorite part was seeing how one specific character reacts to all this misfortune and how they enact revenge on some of the parties responsible. 
What do you think attracted Ridley Scott to this script?
Ridley Scott has been trying to adapt Cormac’s novel, Blood Meridian, for a long time now. There’s even a draft floating around penned by William Monahan, but even Scott can be quoted as saying that adapting McCarthy is a difficult gambit because the work is so prosaic, and much of the power comes from the violent beauty of his language. The sentences weave a spell, and I think the closest we get to that in The Counselor are the strange monologues that hint at some darker premonition. 
Take for example a tale by Reiner about his girlfriend, the mysterious Malkina. She’s a lover of fast things. Not only does she own two cheetahs, her club is decorated with actual racing cars. Reiner is scared of Malkina, and he tells the Counselor a true story about how she fucked one of his cars. Here’s his description of her bumping her ugly against the windshield, “It was like one of those catfish things. One of those bottom feeders you see going up the side of the aquarium. Sucking its way up the glass…hallucinatory…You see a thing like that, it changes you.” 
Or, it reminds you of a face hugger sucking at the glass of a specimen jar in Alien, and you can’t help but think McCarthy was trying to seduce Ridley Scott as he wrote this fucking thing. 
So, what’s the verdict, Rog?
I think McCarthy fans, who relish the poetry, tone and cadence of his language, and appreciate his stylized and precise dialogue, will love the movie. And, I’m mainly talking about those who are fans of his play The Sunset Limited or the film version of No Country for Old Men. Because The Counselor has a lot of dialogue, and a lot of the scenes feel play-like in the same way that Tarantino conversations feel play-like. I think it hearkens back to older movies, where there are more scenes of simply people sitting in diners or at tables and desks, talking. 
It’s a challenging piece of art, thought-provoking, no doubt, but I also think it may just be this strange and alienating movie to people who aren’t already fans of McCarthy. It feels exhausting and was certainly a punch to the gut. 
If you subscribe to the Chris Columbus philosophy, the one that says, “I can understand the validity of showing people the ugliness of the world, but I also think there is a place for movies to leave people with a sense of hope. If your film isn’t going to do that, I just don’t think it’s worth making,” then you may be turned off by this work. Cormac writes about life and death, and the concept of hope is often a foreign one in his tales, more the subject of philosophical debate between characters.
My interpretation, after having a chance to let this thing settle for a few days, is that Cormac is making a point. Violence overtook Mexico because so many people closed their eyes to it. If America continues to close our eyes and ignore the drug war violence, it will only be a matter of time before it overtakes us, too. 
On another level, according to the finale, I saw The Counselor as a woman’s revenge story, a femme fatale fuck-you to all the violence done against women in Juarez, Mexico. The Counselor is kind of like the Cormac McCarthy version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 
[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Rewarding VS Punishing the Protagonist. Usually, in movies where the hero is being an actual hero, you know, making the right kind of decisions, doing heroic things like be willing to put his life in danger and even sacrifice his well-being to achieve a goal, the common thing to do is to reward the character with victory at the end of the story. But with stuff like Body Heat, The Square, No Country for Old Men and this script, these are all about guys motivated by their lust and love for a woman. They want to spend the rest of their lives with this woman, and they want to illegally land a nice nest egg on which they can retire on with this woman. They compromise their own sense of morality and ethics, and in the audience’s eyes, do something that is considered illegal to obtain this nest egg. Thus begins the downward spiral of making bad decisions that always leads to death, or punishment, for the protagonist. Things just get worse and worse. The rule of thumb for protagonists that do something that upsets the collective audience’s sense of ethics or morals or code of conduct, is to punish the protagonist. If the protagonist were to get away with the caper, this would upset the audience on some level. McCarthy is interesting because he pits this character making bad decisions against predators who just might be the embodiment of evil, so deep down you kind of want these guys to win, but it’s always the most fucked-up person that gets away with their lives in the end and wins the game. It’s something to think about.
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