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
Premise: (from writer) A man embarks on a relationship with a 9/11 widow after claiming to have lost his brother in the attacks.
Writer: Edward Ruggiero
Details: 107 pages.

I actually read Nine-Twelve awhile ago and always wanted to review it for Amateur Friday.  So when the writer, Ed Ruggiero, sent me a new draft, I thought, “Perfect.”  Don’t worry.  That doesn’t mean I’m not checking all the submissions you guys are sending me, just that I don’t like them!  No, I’m kidding.  But I do want you to remember there are a lot of submissions.  If your concept is just “okay” or “decent,” it’s probably not going to be picked.  I mean sure, it might be amazing, but I could use that same logic for each of the  hundreds of other “okay” or “decent” concepts.  So why should I pick yours over theirs?  You know?  I’d rather pick a concept that gets my juices flowing – that has a little more POP.

Artie Grossman is in his late 30s and doesn’t have much to show for it.  He has some inheritance money, which he’s learned to squeeze every penny out of, and when he’s not taking money out of his dead parents’ bank account, he’s pulling charity scams on local businesses.  Oh yeah, Artie’s not a good person.  He’s pretty much a piece of shit.  He’s negative.  He’s dishonest.  And as we’ve already established, he’s a thief.  Yup, a total winner.

But not everything about Artie is pathetic.  He actually takes care of his dysfunctional brother, Dicky, who’s so terrified of the real world that he rarey goes outside.  Artie’s working with Dicky a day at a time to get him back into society.  So we got a pathetic asshole thief and a guy who’s afraid to leave his apartment.  Talk about a gene pool.  I’m not sure even Axe Body Spray could make these two attractive.

That is unless they LIE.  And Artie is one hell of a liar.  After spotting a homely but beautiful woman on the subway, he follows her across the city into a random support group, a support group he soon realizes is for peole who lost family members in the 9/11 attacks.  Spurred on by this woman’s unique energy, he joins in, and quickly finds himself recounting a story about how his brother died in the attacks.  It’s moving and powerful and total horse shit.  But the woman, Kerry, buys into it, and afterwards the two recount their 9/11 memories with one another.

Turns out Kerry lost her husband in the attacks, and hasn’t been on a date since!  She just can’t let go.  Particularly because she had a chance to answer her husband’s final phone call, but carelessly sent it to voicemail, figuring she’d talk to him later.  She was a different person back then.  Not a very good one.  And she’s paid the price for it ever since.

However now, with Artie in the picture, she gets out there and starts to feel good again, which you’d think would make her frustrated mother happy.  But it turns out her mother doesn’t trust this new guy.  She feels there’s something suspicious about him.  A mother’s intuition is always right!  But Kerry’s too wrapped up in remembering what it’s like to feel happy again so she ignores all the warning signs (number 1 of which is – don’t date guys without jobs).

What starts out as just a meaningless little jaunt becomes serious, and before you know it, Artie is all in, which is strange.  He’s never been all-in before.  And when you’re all in, all your secrets have to come out.  You can try to hide them, but your significant other’s going to find out sooner or later.  So what’s Artie’s solution to this?  To run away with Kerry.  Go somewhere as far away as possible. In other words, avoid the problem.  But this appears to be one of those problems that’s never going to go away.

Dramatic Irony.

We know something about our hero that the romantic lead does not.  That he’s lying to her about the worst thing imaginable.  It’s dispicable.  It’s unthinkable.  And it’s great writing.  Because this entire relationship is built on a lie that we’re aware of, a lie that we know, if told, will destroy the relationship, we want to stick around and see what happens when Kerry finds out.  Dramatic irony creates suspense.  It creates anticipation.  It keeps our ass in the seats.

The question is, can one instance of dramatic irony carry an entire film?  Reading this a second time, I found myself impatient, particularly during the second act.  It felt like not enough was going on, and I realized just how much the script was leaning on that dramatic irony.  It was the ONLY thing driving the story forward, and the longer I read, the more I realized it wasn’t enough.

In contrast, let’s look at Good Will Hunting.  We have the same thing going on in that story.  Will is lying to Skylar.  To impress her, he tells her he’s well-off and has a huge family, when he’s actually poor and an orphan.  There’s not as much at stake with the lie as in Nine-Twelve, but you’ll notice that that’s only one part of the story.  We also have Will’s relationship with Sean (the therapist) that needs to get resolved, his inner conflict, his future as a math genius, his issues with Ben Affleck’s character.  There are more developments in that screenplay, more subplots, and therefore the entire movie doesn’t feel like it’s resting on a single wooden beam.

Another thing I want to talk about here is rewriting.  Now, to be honest, I don’t remember the notes I gave Ed on this script, so I’m not saying he’s guilty of this.  But when he said he had a new draft, I know I was expecting…I don’t know, just more changes.  It feels here like just a few scenes were changed and another couple added.

It’s something I’ve noticed a lot of lately as I’m reading more and more rewrites.  Not much has been rewritten!  Changing a few scenes here and there isn’t a rewrite.  A rewrite may entail redeveloping the theme, eliminating or combining characters, adding new subplots, eliminating entire subplots. coming into the story 30 pages later, changing the setting so it better matches your concept, changing your character’s fatal flaw.  If all you’re doing in a rewrite is adding or taking away scenes, you’re probably not doing enough (unless it’s one of your final drafts).

Having said that, there’s something about this script that got to me.  I like the way Ruggiero writes.  He has a unique point of view.  I love how he’s not afraid to make his hero dark.  I understand that that’s going to turn some people off, but while I didn’t like what Artie was doing, he did keep me interested.  I wanted to see if he was going to change or not.  If he was gong to move on from this disgusting person.

I also liked the touch of humor.  There was something funny about Artie.  I can imagine a young Bill Murray absolutely killing this role (who *is* the next Bill Murray by the way).  So I guess my final suggestion would be to inject this script with MORE STUFF.  In the meantime, the voice is unique enough and the writing good enough that it warrants a read.  But I still feel like something’s been left on the table in this rewrite.

Script link: Nine-Twelve

What I learned:  What I’m looking for in a concept breaks down to three things.  The first is a high concept (i.e. Time travel, aliens, monsters – any big idea combined with a unique situation).  The second is something with some clear conflict.  Two warring families is more interesting to me, for example, than a generic guy trying to find love.  The third and final one is irony.  If there’s an ironic component to the concept, I get excited. Look at the irony in this logline.  A man pretending to have lost someone in 9/11 starts a realtionship with a 9/11 widow.  That same concept isn’t nearly as compelling if, say, a man who just lost his arm starts a relationship with a 9/11 widow.  There’s no irony there!

SS:  Can you tell us a little about your screenwriting background? Before The Flight of Nez Perce got on the Black List, how many scripts had you written? How long had you been writing?

ENM: I started to really focus on screenwriting shortly after graduating from film school. Like many other people, I came to LA with dreams of being the next Steven Spielberg, but quickly discovered they weren’t just giving those jobs away. Writing was the one thing I could do in the midnight hours that didn’t require a crew or significant amounts of money. So, every night after work, I’d come home, sit down at my computer, and force myself to write until one or two in the morning.

My first real effort was a screenplay called THE LAST LONE INVENTOR, which chronicled Philo T. Farnsworth’s epic “David vs. Goliath” battle with David Sarnoff over the invention of television. It was based on a book that a friend of mine had optioned. We were about 110 pages into the script when it was suddenly announced that Steven Spielberg and Aaron Sorkin were doing a Broadway play based on the same story. As you can imagine, that promptly killed our project. So I put that script into a desk drawer – where it remains to this day – and decided to focus on another story I had always been passionate about: THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE.

SS: Did you get your agent before that happened? How did you get your agent? Actually, how did you get your manager AND your agent?

ENM: After I finished THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE, I gave it to a few industry friends to read. We were all working as assistants at the time and my assumption was they’d skim through it, have a good laugh, and then ridicule me for wasting six months of my life. As your guest reviewer rightly points out, it’s not exactly a “four quadrant summer tentpole” movie. But, much to my surprise, they liked it and started passing it around. One of my friends, Adam Yoelin – who is now an executive at Flynn Picture Co. – sent it to Britton Rizzio at Circle of Confusion. She read the script, asked me to lunch, and signed me before the check came. I was honestly thrilled. A few months later, an executive at Dreamworks sent the script to Charlie Ferraro and Jenny Maryasis at UTA. I ended up signing with them, as well. And the rest, I guess, is history.

SS: Desperate Hours sold to Johnny Depp’s company. How did that happen? Can you explain how the sale went down?

ENM: The process was actually pretty simple and straightforward. After I finished the script, my agents sent it out to a few places. Johnny Depp’s company really responded to the material and brought it to GK Films, where they have a producing deal. Graham King read the script and offered to buy it. The entire thing went down around Thanksgiving and made for a very nice holiday weekend.

SS: I tell a lot of writers to avoid period pieces because they’re such hard sells. You obviously haven’t been listening! For those other writers out there who love this genre, what’s your advice to them? How do you write a great period piece and how do you sell a period piece?

ENM: I’d offer three pieces of advice, for whatever it’s worth.

First, make sure that the story you’re telling has a modicum of cultural relevancy so that it resonates with audiences today. The best “period pieces” have always had more to say about the times in which they’re made than the times in which they depict. Take any John Ford western from the 1950s and compare it to the westerns of the 1970s, for example. Or consider for a moment why Arthur Miller wrote THE CRUCIBLE during the McCarthy hearings. The power of history has always been rooted in its ability to inform the present through events of the past.

Second, if your goal is to sell a piece of material (as opposed to finding representation or creating a calling card for yourself), then I would highly encourage writers to tell stories that are contained, modestly budgeted, and offer great roles for leading actors. There’s a reason why DESPERATE HOURS sold while THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE remains on the market. Writers should bear this in mind before putting pen to paper.

And finally, at the end of the day, period pieces may be tough sells, but it’s also important that writers tell stories they’re passionate about. That’s the only way you can hope to distinguish yourself on the page. Personally, I can tell you that every good thing that’s happened in my life – both professionally and personally – has come as direct consequence of doing something I really believe in. The deck is already stacked against you as a writer. There’s no reason not to swing for the fences.

SS: One of the biggest problems I see with amateur period pieces is that the writer doesn’t seem to know that much more than I do about the subject matter. With you, it’s the opposite. Desperate Hours is so rich with backstory and history. How do you achieve that? What’s your secret?

There’s no secret, it’s just a matter of doing your homework. I read more than 10,000 pages of research material before starting THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE. For DESPERATE HOURS, I read books on everything from the Rough Riders and the Spanish-American War to World War I and the Influenza pandemic. I also tracked down survivor testimony and even spoke to a few people who had lived through the crisis. I’m currently writing a movie for Alcon Entertainment that takes place in Romania during World War II. I knew very little about that country’s history when I started, so I got my hands on every book I could find and also read biographies on all the real life people who are depicted in the movie.

The research ends up being a lot of work, but I think it’s essential for the script to feel authentic. And, if I’m being completely honest, I have to say it’s also my favorite part of the process. I feel very fortunate to have a job where I get paid to educate myself. Very few people are that lucky.

SS: One of the things I loved about this script was the inherent conflict within all the relationships. They all dated back to many years ago and needed to be hashed out here and now, within the timeframe of this story. What’s your approach to your characters and your relationships? Do you hash all that out ahead of time or do you figure it out on the way?

ENM: I’m sure every writer’s process is different, but I’ve found that I really need three things to get started: the world, the theme, and “the way into” the story. Once I have those elements, the narrative starts to unfold and I’m usually able to figure out the rest as I go along. For example, it wasn’t until the second draft of DESPERATE HOURS that I had the idea of combining the town’s sheriff and the mayor into one character in order to underscore the town’s utter devastation. Similarly, Edward’s limp was just a character trait until I suddenly realized that I could use it to catalyze Tom’s turning point in a critical moment of the story. This type of approach probably results in a longer writing process, but it’s honestly how I get my best ideas.

SS: That leads to an obvious question – How long did it take you to write Desperate Hours, from conception of the idea to the final draft? How many drafts did it take you?

ENM: The process took about a year from start to finish and I ended up doing three separate drafts before turning it into my manager. That probably seems like a long time, but in my defense, I booked a couple jobs in between and, as I mentioned earlier, there was a considerable amount of research involved.

But if I’m being completely candid, I also have to admit that I was unaware when I began just how difficult it is to construct a truly effective “slow burn” thriller. Writing DESPERATE HOURS gave me a whole new level of appreciation for HIGH NOON. That film is so elegant and deceptively simple. Figuring out how to ratchet up the suspense scene by scene, while developing theme and characters in concert with a real time plot is, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as a writer.

SS: Since rewriting is the area where scripts get perfected, I’d love to know what your rewriting process is like.

ENM: For me, rewriting isn’t just where scripts get “perfected” (if that’s even possible), it’s where the real writing begins. Once I’ve finished the first draft, I print out a hard copy and go to a neighborhood restaurant with a red pen and just start to tear the thing apart. I write whole new scenes by hand, move things around, combine characters, etc. By the time I’m done, there’s usually more red ink on the paper than there is black.

I really love this part of the process because it’s invigorating. You begin to imagine the story and the characters in a whole new way. It’s almost as if you can put yourself in the audience’s position for the very first time. It’s here that you begin to come up with all those great little moments of connective tissue and “scenes between scenes” that really flesh out the arc of the story and propel the characters forward.

SS: Another thing I really loved about your script was that each act was distinct and unique. You had the first act, which had our hero coming back into society, the second, which centered around the mystery of the girl, and the third, which was the town invasion. Do you deliberately try to make each act unique or was that just a byproduct of this story? How do you approach structure in general?

ENM: That specific example was a byproduct of the story, but I do give quite a bit of thought to structure before I begin writing. I just ask myself the basic questions: What am I ultimately building towards? What’s the thematic arc of the story? And what’s the most effective way to take an audience on that journey?

For example, what I always found so gut wrenching about the Nez Perce story was the fact that 800 people, mostly women and children, began a journey and less than half of them survived. So the logical question then became, “How do you make an audience feel that kind of loss?” And what I ultimately concluded, for better or worse, is that the movie needed to be an ensemble – centered around Joseph – and that it needed to be populated by a large community of characters – each with their own personal stories – who would then be killed off in a very brutal fashion. I knew what I was building towards the entire time: the penultimate scene on the train where Joseph and Oyema glance at each other and the audience realizes they’re the only ones left.

SS: You caught some flak (from others, not me) about your script starting too slow. Why did you start it slow and how did you plan to keep the reader interested when you really weren’t getting into any story until the second act?

ENM: Well, I’d start by asking all those people who threw up flak to stop and consider how their favorite “period pieces” are structured. The Godfather begins with a twenty-minute wedding sequence whose sole purpose is to establish the world of the movie and introduce you to all the characters. Braveheart spends its first forty-five minutes building a love story only to have it end tragically and trigger the main plot. Road to Perdition spends its first thirty minutes setting up the world of Michael Sullivan and then uses the ACT I climax to incite the rest of the movie.

When it comes to period pieces, I think it’s critically important to establish the world and characters first before triggering the main plot. In my experience, when you try to do all three things at once, you end up creating something that’s muddled and contrived. Honestly, it’s one of the main reasons I think movies are really suffering today. Everyone feels like they need to hit the ground running. The problem is, when you hit the ground running, you don’t have enough time to really hit your stride.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, starting a movie like DESPERATE HOURS or THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE with a “slow build” allows you to pull the audience in and make them really care about the characters. In my opinion, this is the most important thing you can do in the first act and it will always pay dividends later on when you start turning the screws and putting your characters through hell.

SS: You told me that your biggest weakness is your dialogue. Why do you think it’s a weakness and what do you do to combat that weakness?

ENM: Yeah, I do feel like dialogue is my biggest weakness and it looks like many of your readers agree with me! LOL.

What I’m really trying to work on right now, especially with my historical scripts, is cadence in the language and making each character voice sound unique, as opposed to different versions of myself. David Webb Peoples really sets the gold standard here, as far as I’m concerned. Whenever I want to feel bad about myself, I watch UNFORGIVEN. I am so envious of the dialogue in that movie and how it sounds so crisp and authentic. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that’s how people spoke in 1870s Wyoming.

As far as “combating my weakness” goes, I’m honestly not sure. Part of me hopes it’s a function of age and that I’ll improve as I get older. I suspect it’s like developing any other muscle. You just have to work hard and see if it gets stronger.

SS: I’ve been running into a lot of writers lately in their 5th or 6th year of writing who are frustrated that they haven’t made it yet. It looks like it took awhile for you to break through. What would you tell those writers? How did you yourself find the motivation to keep going?

ENM: I would just say keep trying and be yourself. I struggled for years, in part, because I was trying to imitate others instead of developing my own voice. Find the stories you’re passionate about and don’t try to be something you’re not. And, most importantly, if you love writing, then keep doing it – regardless of whether you “break through” or not. Paper is free. Ideas are free. There’s no excuse to quit. So keep typing and remember that Norman Maclean was in his 70s when A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT was finally published. I’m sure he would’ve loved for it to happen sooner, but he got the last laugh just the same.

By the way, do you know what I love most about A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT? The slow build. :)

SS: Last question: When are we going to see Desperate Hours made??

ENM: That’s a question for the studio, my friend. :)

Genre: Tarantino
Premise: (from IMDB) With the help of his mentor, a slave-turned-bounty hunter sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
About: This is the next Quentin Tarantino film, coming out Dec. 25.  Django Unchained stars Jaime Foxx as Django, Christoph Waltz as Dr. Schultz, Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie, and Samuel Jackson in the fearsome role of Candie’s 2nd hand man, Stephen.  QT has wanted to do something with slavery for awhile, but not some big dramatic “issues” movie.  He wanted to do more of a genre film.  Hence, we got Django Unchained!
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Details: 167 pages, April 26th, 2011 draft

These days, much of the time, I read scripts with a workman-like focus.  That’s not to say I don’t enjoy reading.  I love breaking down screenplays.  But there’s always another script to read, another friend or consult or review to get to.  Which means I have to stay focused, I have to get everything done.

Rarely do I read a script where I turn off the script analysis side of my brain and just enjoy the story.  It happens two or three times a year.  With Django, it actually went beyond that.  Halfway through the script, I was so pulled in, I canceled everything and made a night of the second half of Django.  I cooked dinner.  I opened a nice bottle of wine.  I pushed back deep into the crevice of my couch. I ate, drank and read.

Okay okay, so I didn’t actually cook anything.  It was a lean cuisine meal.  And I popped open a bottle of coke, not wine.  I hate wine.  But the point is, Django Unchained was that rare reading experience where the rest of the world disappeared and I just found myself transported into another universe.

And you know what?  I’m not sure why the hell this thing worked so well. It was 168 pages.  There was usually more description than was needed.  Many scenes went on for ten pages or longer.  BUT, Tarantino found a way to make it work.  What that way is, I can only guess.  Maybe it’s his voice?  The way he tells stories makes all these no-nos become hell-yeahs.  And that’s not to say he bucks all convention.  There’s plenty of traditional storytelling going on here.  It’s just presented in a way we’ve never quite seen before.

Django’s a slave who’s recently been purchased by a plantation owner.  Part of a bigger group, the slaves are being transported to the new owner’s farm.  There are a lot of nasty motherfuckers in this screenplay, guys way worse than the brothers pulling Django along this evening, but these men are still the kind that need a good bullet in the head to remind them of just how shitty they are.

Enter an upper-class German gentleman who appears out of the woods like a ghost.  Dr. King Schultz is as smart as they come and as polite as you’ll ever see, and he’d like to ask these brothers which slave here goes by the name of “Django.”  Predictably irritated, the brothers tell him to take a hike or take some lead.  While respectful, Dr. Schultz doesn’t like to be told what he can and cannot do.  So he smokes one of the brothers, disables the other, and makes Django a free man.

You see, Dr. Schultz is a bounty hunter.  He gets paid lots of dough for the carcasses of wanted men.  And it appears he’s looking for Django’s former owners, three rusty no-good brothers (there are lots of siblings in Django Unchained) who’ve changed their names and are hiding out on some plantation.  Dr. Schultz will pay Django a nice sum if he can identify these men so he can kill them.

Now these men also happen to be the men who raped and branded his wife, Broomhilda.  So yeah, Django knows who they are all right.  He’ll help the strange German.  Plus, with the money he earns, he can go off and search for his wife, who’s since been sold off to another owner.  Django doesn’t know who or where, but Schultz tells him he’ll help him find her.

Away the two go, infiltrating the plantation where the brothers are hiding out, and Django gets some sweet revenge on his former slavers.  The two are such a great team that Schultz recommends they extend their contract and start making some real money upgrading to the big names, the kind of names that need two people to take them down.  Besides, he persuades Django, if they’re going to save Broomhilda, Django has to be in tip top shape.

So the two go off, hunting wanted men, and in their downtime, Schultz teaches Django how to read and shoot.  Eventually, Django becomes the most educated badass cowboy around.  And it’s a sight to see.  And a sight people aren’t used to seeing.  When townsfolk observe an educated free black man riding into their town on a horse, they think it must be some kind of joke.  And at first, Django feels like a joke.  But after awhile, he starts seeing himself the way Schultz does, as a man who deserves to be respected.

Once they’re ready, the two come up with a plan to save Broomhilda.  Unfortunately, Broomhilda is being held by one of the nastiest plantation owners in all the state, a detestable villanous soul named Calvin Candie, and Calvin Candie won’t just see anybody.  If you want his attention, you have to pony up.  Which means Schultz and Django must pretend to be looking for a fighter in one of Calvin’s favorite hobbies – Mandingo fighting.  Basically, these are slaves forced to fight other slaves for white men’s entertainment.

In their scam, Schultz will play the rich interested party, and Django will play the “Mandingo expert” he’s hired in order to find the best fighter.  Calvin could give two shits about the two until Scultz says the magical words, “Twelve thousand dollars.”  Now Calvin’s ready to talk, and he decides to take them back to his plantation where the talking acoustics are a little nicer, the amusement park-esque estate known as “Candyland.”

While at Candyland, the two covertly scope out Broomhilda’s whereabouts, except that Calvin’s number 2 guy, groundskeeper Stephen (who’s, surprisingly enough, Calvin’s slave), suspects something is amiss with these men, and starts to do some digging.  It doesn’t take him long to figure out their intentions, intentions that have nothing to do with buying a Mandingo.  He lets his boss know, and for the first time since we’ve met Django and Shultz, the tables have turned.  They’re not in control of the situation anymore. Once that happens, our dynamic duo is in major trouble.  And it’s looking unlikely that they’ll find a way out of it.

Let me begin by saying that a big reason this script is so awesome is because of the GOALS and the STAKES.  There’s always a goal pushing the story forward, which is extremely important in any screenplay but especially a 168 page screenplay.  If your characters don’t have something important they’re going after, a solid GOAL, then your story’s going to wander around aimlessly until it stumbles onto a highway and gets plastered by a semi.  A gas tanker semi.  A gas tanker semi that explodes and starts a forest fire.

The first goal is Schultz’s goal of needing to find these brothers.  Once that goal’s taken care of, the true goal that’s driving the story takes center stage – Django needs to find and save his wife.  But, you’ll notice that even when we’re not focused directly on that, we have little goals we’re focusing on.  It may be to kill one of the many wanted men they’re hunting.  It may be to learn to read or fight or handle a gun, so that Django can be equipped for his final showdown.  QT makes sure that we’re always driving towards something here, and he does it with goals.  Goals that have stakes attached to them.  How can the stakes be any higher than your wife’s safety and freedom?

But that’s not the only reason.  Outside of Mike Judge, I don’t know any writer who can make his characters come alive on the page better than Tarantino.  He just has this knack for developing unique memorable people.  I can go through 5-6 scripts in a row and not read one memorable character.  This script has like two dozen of them.  It’s amazing.  Sometimes it’s because he subverts expectations – Dr. Schultz is a German in an unfamiliar land who’s as dangerous as fuck yet always the most polite man in the room.  Sometimes it’s through irony – A slave bounty hunter hunting the very white people who enslaved him.  And sometimes it’s just a name – Calvin Candie.  I mean how perfect a name is that?  How are you going to forget that character?

I tell writers NEVER to overpopulate their screenplays with large character counts because we’ll forget half the characters and never know what’s going on.  But when you can make each character this memorable?  This unique?  You can write however many damn characters you please.

And the dialogue here.  I can’t even tell you why it’s so awesome because I don’t know.  There are certain elements of dialogue you can’t teach and QT is one of the lucky bastards who possesses that unteachable quality.  But I will tell you this, and it’s something I’ve become more and more aware of in subsequent Tarantino movie viewings.  He depends on a particular tool to make his scenes awesome, and it’s the main reason why he can write such long scenes and get away with it.

Basically, Tarantino hints that something bad/crazy/unpredictable is going to happen at the end of the scene, and then he takes his time building up to that moment.  Because we know that explosion is coming at the end, we’re willing to sit around for six, eight, ten pages until we get there.  The anticipation eats at us, so we’re biting our nails, eager to see what’s going to happen.  In these cases, the slowness of the scene actually works for the story because it deprives us of what we want most, that climax.

For example, there’s a scene in the second act where the young man who’s bought Broomhilda and since fallen in love with her, takes her out for a night on the town.  He unfortunately walks into one of Calvin Candie’s establishments and before you know it, Candie himself has invited him over to his table to play poker with the big boys.  Broomhilda knows something’s not right, but the poor soul is too flattered to listen to her.  This scene goes on and on and we see that Candie is becoming more and more sinister, and we just know this isn’t going to end well.  We know something terrible is going to happen.  So of course, we’re on the edge of our seats dying to see in what terrible way it will end.

Tarantino also did this, most famously, in the opening “Milk Scene” of Inglorious Basterds.  A German Commander shows up at a farm house looking for fugitive jews, and we just know this isn’t going to end well.  That’s why the German commander can ask for something as unexciting as a glass of milk.  That’s why he can talk about mundane things for minutes on end.  Because we know this isn’t going to end well, yet we’re dying to see how it does end.  Go through Django Unchained again and you’ll see that there are LOTS of these scenes, and one of the biggest tricks Tarantino has in his toolbox.  He keeps going back to it, and it works every time.

But what I think really separates Tarantino from everyone else is that you never quite know where he’s going to go.  You can predict most movies out there down to the minute.  But with QT, you can’t.  And it’s because he already knows where you think he’s going to go, so he purposely goes somewhere else.  Take the opening scene, where we see a polite white man being kind and cordial to a slave.  Not prepared for that.  Or when we see that Calvin Candie takes his orders from a black man, his slave, Stephen.  Or how when Broomhilda is first purchased, she’s actually purchased by a shy young white man who quickly falls in love with her and treats her kindly.  I was always trying to predict where Tarantino would go next, and I was usually wrong.  And even better, the choice he ended up going with always ended up in a better scene.

My complaints are minimal.  There was only one area of the script that felt lazy.  (spoiler) Late in the third act,  Django’s life is spared because, apparently, he’ll experience a much worse death “in the mines.”  This allows him to be transferred off the plantation, which of course allows him to trick his transporters and go back to save Broomhilda.  Come on.  No way the Candie family doesn’t torture and kill him right there.  No way they let him go off to the mines.  So I was disappointed by that because it felt like a cheap way to give Django his big climax.  With that said, the big climax was phenomenal.  Average Joe Writer would have had Django go in there Die Hard style.  QT took a slower more practical approach, and created a much better finale because of it.

So you know what?  I can’t believe I’m doing this since I haven’t done it in two years before a month ago, but I’m giving another GENIUS rating.  This script is freaking amazing.  It really is.  I don’t know if the Academy knows what to do with a movie like this, but if we’re talking writing alone, this script should win the Oscar.  And, heck, it should win for best film too.

What I learned: Always look for ironic moments in your screenplay.  Audiences LOVE irony.  Django, a slave, must play the role of a slave driver near the end of the film.  He must treat other slaves like they’re dirt.  He must talk to them like they’re dirt.  It’s tough to watch but also fascinating, since he himself was, of course, a slave a short time ago.

Genre: Drama
Premise: When a large natural gas corporation comes into a small town to buy up its natural gas deposits, a few resistant residents make the reps pursuit a living hell.
About: This is the script that Matt Damon and longtime “The Office” co-star, John Krasinski, wrote together.  This would be the first script of Damon’s since Good Will Hunting. The film has been shot and I believe is coming out later this year.
Writers: Matt Damon and John Krasinski
Details: 113 pages – undated

Ben.

And Matt.

And Matt.  And Ben.

And John?

From The Office?

Wait a minute.  What’s going on here?  A love triangle?

Alas, it seems the most famous bromance of the last 15 years is officially kaput.  Matt has moved on to someone younger and prettier.  Not sure how Ben feels about this, but maybe making the dark and brooding Argo was his way of dealing with the pain.

I’ll be honest, when I heard about Promised Land, I was worried for a couple of reasons.  First off, two actors writing a script?  I mean, I don’t want to stereotype or anything, but what do actors know about writing?  Is that any different from Aaron Sorkin saying, “I’m going to go star in my own movie?”  Even if Damon had written a script before, he certainly doesn’t have the time today that he did before Good Will Hunting.  And who’s to say Krasinski can write?  Why do all of these actors all of a sudden think they’re Ernest Hemingway?

And then there was the whole political thing.  Damon’s not shy about voicing his political views, and I’d been told this script was a political statement about something called “Fracking.”  Ugh, so now I was being preached to by an actor about his political stance on something that sounded like a bad debate topic?  Kill me now.

And then I read Promised Land.  And I really fracking liked it.

Closing in on 40, Steve Landsman is ready to take that big leap in his career – the one that comes with the free car, the top level medical benefits, and the bank-busting salary.  He’s going to be a vice-president in one of the biggest natural gas companies in the world.  All he’s gotta do is close this one last town, McKinley, NY, which should be as easy as the drive down from Manhattan.

For a little background, these natural gas companies are trying to pick up the ball that the oil companies dropped.  We’re so dependent on oil-rich countries, many of which drive up the prices cause they hate us so much, and yet we have our own huge energy supply right here in our own back yard – natural gas!

This gas is buried deep in deposits all over North America, and all it takes to extract it are these big wells that the natural gas companies build.  Problem is, most of the land where you find these deposits is privately owned, which means you have to pay the owners lots of money to allow you to drill on their land.  Which usually isn’t a problem.  Throw a million bucks at Honey Boo Boo and Co. and chances are they’re going to help you build the drill themselves.  Assuming they don’t eat it first.

That is until McKinley, New York.  You see, Steve and his partner, 55 year old Sue Thomason, are thrown a curve ball when one of the local science teachers, a man who used to teach at M.I.T., starts educating the townspeople on the dangers of “fracking.”  It turns out that the side effects include gas-tainted drinking water, to the point where you can light an icy glass of H2O on fire!  Escaped gas can also end up killing farmland and animals.  You can say the word “natural,” all you want.  But it’s still gas.

To make things worse, an environmentalist named Dustin moves into town representing a group called “Athena.”  It turns out the science teacher spiel was only the tip of the iceberg.  Dustin starts giving the town a full-on crash course in the harms of fracking.  All of a sudden, money doesn’t seem so important to these folks anymore.

Back at headquarters, the company starts worrying that Steve isn’t up to the task, and considers sending in a clean-up team.  Knowing that would be the end of any vice-presidential standing in the company, Steve refuses the help and ensures HQ that he can get this done.  However, he has a big fight ahead of him, as it seems like with every passing hour, the town is less and less interested in buying what it is Steve’s selling.

Promised Land possesses some good old-fashioned storytelling in its bones.  I loved that even though this was a “small” “independent” project, it still relied on tried and true storytelling tools, particularly GSU.  The goal was to make the deal with the town’s residents. The stakes were Steve’s promotion (and potentially losing his job). The urgency was the town vote coming up.  It just goes to show that simple storytelling techniques can work magic when integrated naturally.

I’ve also found that these “big city know-it-alls” vs. “small town hicks” storylines usually work.   The conflict is already built into the situation.  It’s a very familiar conflict at that, so it doesn’t take much for an audience to get invested.  And what I liked about Promised Land was that it put you inside the shoes of the “bad guy” during that situation.  That’s not easy to do because it’s hard to like the bad guy.  What I think made it work though is that Steve believed he was doing good.  He’s making these people rich.  When he realizes maybe that’s not the best thing for them in the long run, that’s when he starts questioning himself, resulting in some inner conflict he must deal with.  Any time your character has to battle with something inside himself, you’ve probably got yourself an interesting character.  In all the bad scripts I read, the characters are usually too simple and have nothing going on inside.  Not every hero will be struggling with something inside, but if it works for your story, I’d suggest doing it.

The script also introduced new plotlines right when it needed to.  One of the common problems with amateur scripts is that they run out of story somewhere in the second act. Introducing new developments is a great way to keep the second act alive.  So with Promised Land, the key development was the introduction of Dustin.  Now, instead of just having to worry about the people of the town, Steve had to worry about this whole other organization, making his job even more difficult.  And the way Dustin weaved his way into the very fabric of the town, even going so far as to steal Steve’s girl, made him a great bad guy.

Although I’m not going to spoil it here, I also loved the twist ending, which I didn’t see coming at all.  Twist endings in scripts that don’t usually have twist endings are often the best kind, because you’re so not expecting them at all.  I mean we’re not talking a Sixth Sense twist level here.  But it was still a nice surprise.

I don’t have many complaints about Promised Land.  I thought the love story between Steve and Alice could’ve been better handled.  It felt like the writers weren’t sure where to go with it.  And I thought they could’ve done more with the science teacher, Yates.  It’s such a great surprise when they find out he’s some legendary professor teaching high school science here for fun.  But then he sort of fades into the background, allowing Dustin to take center stage.  Yates never got his moment.

I admit, going into this I expected some pretentious self-important story about the dangers of fracking.  Instead I got an accessible entertaining story that nailed exactly what it was trying to do.

What I learned: Remember, if you have a main character who’s tough to like, introduce an oppositional character who we hate even more.  We’ll like our tough-to-like character if only to see him topple this annoying asshole. This was the role that Dustin played in the story.

Genre: Comedy/Horror
Premise: A college student home for the holidays discovers that an internet porn film turns its viewers into homicidal maniacs. As the epidemic spreads, he has to save his longtime crush while struggling to control his own urges.
About: Adam Penn worked as an editor on Nip Tuck and, more recently, American Horror Story.  He is yet to claim a feature writing credit, but did write an episode of “Black Box TV.” This script landed on the 2008 Black List.
Writer: Adam Penn
Details: 111 pages – August 4. 2008

One of the things I like to do is pull old scripts out of the Hollywood’s junk bin and see if they’re still good – see if they’re worthy of getting another shot at the title.  Everyone knows this town has the attention span of a squirrel.  That means the occasional quality script can surface which either isn’t marketable enough or doesn’t reach enough desks at the time, and, as a result, fade into obscurity.  Which is a shame.  Because every once in awhile, one of those scripts is a A Desperate Hours, or a Dead of Winter.  At one point even The Grey was forgotten.  I mean come on Hollywood!

So when I saw this title and this premise, I thought, “You know, if done right, it’s one of those scripts that just might be wacky enough to work.”  I mean sure – it’s also one of those scripts that could go off the rails faster than a train with a texting conductor.  But I was feeling lucky.  What about you?  Do you feel lucky?  Punk?

No?  Okay, I wasn’t trying to put any pressure on you.  Sorry.  But right.  “Peacoat Miller.”  I’ve labeled screenplays like this, “The Crazy Screenplay.”  That’s because they throw everything and the kitchen sink at you, thinking you’ll be so delighted with all the absurdity that you won’t be able to control your laughter.  We’ve seen these screenplays before on Scriptshadow.  Heck, we’ve even reviewed one that was literally called Kitchen Sink.  And that script was pretty good.  So why can’t this one be?

Penn plops us down in Rockville, Maryland circa 2008.  No, this isn’t a flashback.  This is when the script was written.  21 year old Peter “Peacoat” Miller  wakes up one morning staring up at a decapitated cat clockwising around on the ceiling fan.  On the plus side, don’t have to budget for Meow Mix anymore.  On the minus side?  How the hell did this happen???

He dials up his best friend, Egyptian mega-nerd Wesam Fahmy, and informs him about the murdered cat, to which Wesam doesn’t seem too concerned.  But he helps Peacoat recall what he did the night before, which basically amounted to nothing except for watching a porno clip of an “average asian chick getting it from behind.”

Well, they go back to that clip and, low-and-behold, it turns out it puts you in some sort of serial killer trance that forces you to go out and kill people in really violent ways!  Like by tearing their faces off!  There is a LOT of face-tearing-off in “Peacoat Miller.”  Which should give you an idea of what you’re in for.

But before we get to that, Peacoat heads to his shrink, the oversexed Dr. Kaiser, to try and get some insight into why he woke up with a dead cat on his fan.  It was at this point that I knew the script wasn’t going to be any good.  Whenever characters go places for vague reasons, it’s a guarantee that the script is going to be sloppy.  He wakes up with a dead cat on his fan so he goes to a shrink he hasn’t seen in two years??  I mean there’s sorrrrttttaaaa a kind of logical connection there but it just seems like something you’d do like 3 months down the line, not now.  Clearly, Penn wanted to get the loopy sex-crazed Dr. Kaiser into the story somehow, so throwing Peacoat into a session with him, even though it didn’t make any sense, was the gameplan.

It’s at Kaiser’s offices where Peacoat runs into the sarcastic and dangerous Valentine, a girl who caught him masturbating to Jet magazine when he was a kid, and who he hasn’t spoken to since.  The two engage in some flirty dialogue, and she mentions some end of the year party he should come to even though he wasn’t invited.

Peacoat’s thrilled that he and Valentine are finally talking, but has to find out about the cat murder stuff before he can book her on “Say Yes To The Dress.” He discovers that the naughty video turns you into a killer, and that he’s not the only one affected.  News coverage shows people everywhere are randomly murdering neighbors…and ripping their faces off!

Which means he has to figure out a way to stop all this, especially because the love of his life, Valentine, is going to be at a party FEATURING the infamous video.  EGADS!

Okay so look, I understand that when you don’t like the humor in a script, there’s no hope of you liking the script. The characters can be good.  The plot can be interesting.  But if you aren’t laughing at a single joke, the script is done in your mind.  And to put it plainly, that’s how I felt.

But the truth is, I didn’t think there was any structure/story either.  It didn’t seem like anyone was in a hurry to do anything until the very very end.  So we’re going through an entire second act where characters talk about being concerned.  But they don’t exhibit any traits that would make you think they were concerned.

You get some leniency in this department if you’re writing a comedy, sure, but the comedy didn’t even seem like comedy to me.  It just felt like a bunch of really weird crazy shit happening.  Even Dr. Kaiser, who was probably the best character, elicited only smiles.  I wanted him to be funny.  The idea of him was funny.  But he wasn’t funny for some reason.

The dialogue also annoyed me.  It felt like it was trying too hard to be clever.  We get lines like,  “We don’t know shit. Chick could’ve seen a mouse. I’m done playing John McClane. Sam needs to get his drink on, his smoke on. Go home with somethin’ to poke on.” I did a little research and checked out when Juno came out.  Sure enough, it came out in 2007, the year before this was written, and I remember for awhile there, trying to write like Diablo Cody was all the rage.  Many writers did it without even liking what they were doing.  They just thought that’s what everyone wanted.  It feels like Penn was one of these victims.  I’m not even sure he’d be convinced that this is good dialogue.

If you want to go back to my article about storytelling, Penn is telling a story here.  He starts out with a mystery.  Why is Peacoat killing things?  The problem is, the answer to that mystery pops up immediately.  When that happens, you want to follow it with a goal.  We know what’s causing this – so the GOAL should be to stop it.  That should be the logical driving force for the rest of the script.  And it sorta is.  Except that it isn’t.  Peacoat and Wesam stumble around for the rest of the script not doing much of anything.  In a screenplay – especially a comedy – you want there to be a sense of urgency – a sense that  things need to be taken care of now.  And just saying “other people are dying” isn’t enough!  We have to see your characters actively going out there and doing something about it, especially in the second act, where it’s so easy for your script to get slow.  Check out tomorrow’s script review to see how to properly add urgency to your hero’s pursuit.

I wish I had some nice things to say here but this felt like one of those early attempts at a screenplay.  You’re trying to write what you think Hollywood wants, instead of going with your own gut and your own voice.  And because it appears Penn was still learning the craft when he wrote it, the structure was weak, making for a really uneventful second act. This one definitely wasn’t for me.  

What I learned;  Whenever you write a party scene (or gathering, or ball, or event) make sure to give your main character a clear objective for the party in order to keep things focused.  With there being so much going on at a party, it’s easy to lose your way, or drift into tangents that the audience doesn’t care about.  By giving your hero an objective, you give the part a clear focus, which should keep the sequence easy to follow.  So in the case of “Peacoat Miller,” the objective was Peacoat’s pursuit of Valentine.