Hey everyone.  No official post today.  I just wanted to write a big thank you to everyone who visits the site.  And an extra big thank you to those who take the time to write out all those thoughtful comments.  All of you make Scriptshadow.  Enjoy the day off and prepare for tomorrow’s post, where I give you a realistic 3-5 year plan of becoming a professional screenwriter. 

Genre: Indie Comedy
Premise: A couple of Canadian losers drive down to New York to try and sell Christmas Trees. Dumb and Dumber meets Sideways.
About: Melissa James Gibson is a well-known Canadian playwright. As far as I can tell, this is her first screenplay sale. Paul Giamatti and his wife are producing the film. Giamatti and Paul Rudd will be playing the lead characters. Phil Morrison is directing. Morrison is best known for the well-received 2005 film, Junebug. Strangely, he hasn’t made a film since.
Writer: Melissa James Gibson
Details: 115 pages – 3/11/11 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).

The only thing I knew about this one when I started reading it was that Paul Giamatti was involved. He usually makes interesting choices so I was in. Later I discovered Paul Rudd had been cast and started wondering what the tone of the script was. Afterwards, I’m still searching for that tone. This is a weird script, starting with the premise.

Guy is a 42 year-old Quebecian who just got out of a 5 year jail stint for burglary. Guy is a thief. A lifer in the trade. Except he’s ready to end that life. Guy wants to go on the straight and narrow. So after being released, he heads home to reunite with his wife and eight year old daughter. But there’s a problem. Actually, there’s a couple of problems. His wife went ahead and told their daughter Guy had died. It was apparently too hard to tell her the truth. So Guy can’t even come into the house. He can’t meet and talk to his daughter. Which makes absolutely no sense of course. If I have a daughter who thinks I’m dead, I’m walking in and telling her I’m not. I’m sure she’ll get over it.

Anyway, that’s just the beginning. Guy tasked his old partner in crime, Rene (the one I believe got away on the job that put Guy in jail) with taking care of his wife while he was gone. Well Rene takes care of her all right. If by “taking care” you mean “has lots of sex with.” Now his wife loves Rene, and his daughter thinks of him as her father. In two words: Not good.

Well at least Rene still has all the money from their last job, right? Umm, not really. When Guy goes to collect his half of the loot that he’s been waiting 5 years for, he finds out Rene has spent it all. Nice! That leaves both of them broke. Guy wants to know how they’re going to make money – legally, but Rene isn’t being very helpful. He says he’s going down to New York to sell Christmas trees with a friend. Guy says, “Ditch the friend. You’re going with me. And we’re splitting the money.” Rene reluctantly agrees and off the two go to New York.

Once there, Guy realizes that Rene doesn’t have any of this planned out. He doesn’t even have a Lot to sell the trees on! So they start selling trees out of the back of their truck. It becomes clear that Rene is a total moron and Guy gets more impatient with him every minute because of it. Eventually, the duo start poaching on an empty lot, and things pick up. So how does this all end? Why they decide to steal a piano of course! “Huh?” You ask. “What does that have to do with a movie about selling Christmas Trees?” Beats me. Welcome to Lucky Dog.

Where to begin with Lucky Dog. Let’s start with the title, which has absolutely nothing to do with the story. That’s usually a bad sign and a harbinger of things to come. That’s followed by a nonsensical “you can’t talk to your daughter because she thinks you’re dead” sub-plot. Then, out of nowhere, the script becomes about selling Christmas trees (What does selling Christmas trees have to do with a movie about a couple of thieves?). By the midpoint I had no idea what the script was about or what was going on.

I wasn’t even sure what they were doing this for. To make money? Okay, fine. But for what? What was the ultimate goal? To make money so they could have… money? That’s not a goal. Making money for the sake of making money is never going to entertain an audience. They need a point – a REASON for wanting to make money. Somewhere near the end we learn that Rene’s going to use the money to provide for Guy’s wife and kid. Which didn’t make any sense because the whole time in New York, all Rene wanted to do was fuck other women. And I guess the reason Guy wanted the money was to buy his daughter a piano? Except we didn’t find this out until 15 pages before the ending. Strange.

Then there’s the baffling relationship between the two main characters. Rene is fucking Guy’s wife. But this isn’t a secret. Guy knows about it. Yet he never raises a stink about it. He gets annoyed every once in awhile, but all in all doesn’t seem to mind much. Here’s a scenario for you. Before you go to jail for five years, you task your best friend with watching your wife. You come back to find out he’s fucking her. Do you say anything to him or just continue your friendship like nothing happened? Apparently in this universe, you opt for the latter. That’s what was so damn strange about this script. There were so many illogical aspects about it that it was impossible to take any of it seriously.

Luckily, once they get to New York and settle in, the script FINALLY starts to find its groove. Once it became solely about selling Christmas trees, I at least understood the story. There is some funny stuff in there, such as the two believing they can sell Christmas trees on a lot that isn’t theirs.

Also, thank God for Olga, the woman who befriends Gary after buying a tree. She was the only character in the entire script who was exciting – who jumped off the page. There was an honesty and a vibrancy to her that none of the other characters had. I wondered why she was so head and shoulders above the other characters and I later found out that the script was written by a woman (I just assumed it was a man because it was a script about two guys on a road trip). Naturally, I wondered if she simply understood the female voice better, being a woman. That may sound sexist but I can’t think of any other reason why all the guy characters were muddled and she was so well defined. I actually would’ve LOVED a lot more of Olga. When she first appeared, I thought, “Thank God!” This script needed a woman – a love story. But then she disappears for the majority of the script until the strange piano theft finale.

I don’t know how to conclude this. Lucky Dog was just all over the place. The story was weird. The characters were odd. Nobody’s actions made much sense. The goal was vague. I felt like I was on a backwards merry-go-round being juggled by Godzilla. I never knew which direction was up.

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

What I learned: Maybe you guys can help me here. I’m all for a writer being “different.” I’m all for a script making unconventional choices and constantly surprising you. In fact, I often advocate for that kind of thing. I love not knowing what’s coming next. But there seems to be a line where once you cross it, “different” becomes “confusing/frustrating.” Sure, the script is giving us something we’ve never quite seen before. Plot points are unique. Characters don’t act like we expect them to. But the combination is so off-kilter that we can’t identify with anything – we can’t find our “bearings” so to speak. And that “unique” script ends up being confusing and weird. I don’t know where that line is, I just know when it’s crossed. And here it was crossed. No matter what I did, I could never get a feel for what this script was or what it wanted to be. It was simply all over the place.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A newly separated mother finds herself attracted to the 17 year old boy who moves in next door. But when she abruptly ends the romance, he’s not ready to give up on her.
About: The Boy Next Door was featured on this year’s Blood List. Barbara Curry is known for another highly acclaimed script titled “Talk Of The Town,” which was featured in UCLA’s prestigious Screenwriters Showcase Event. And there’s another thing about Barbara. She’s HOT! If you don’t believe me, go check out her interview here.  I am officially starting the Barbara Curry fan club. Who wants to join?
Writer: Barbara Curry
Details: 105 pages – undated (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).

First thing I noticed about The Boy Next Door was how tight the spacing was. Hmmmmm. Barbara? Are you trying to pull one over on us here? It looks like someone got a little scrunchy with their First Draft settings. On any other day, I’d hold it against the writer. But today I’m smitten. So I’ll let it go.

High school teacher Claire Peterson is having a rough go of it lately. She’s recently split up with her hubby and is taking care of her teenage son, Kevin, all by herself. At home things are fine but she’s got a front row seat to Kevin getting bullied at school every day. She desperately wants to do something about it but knows that butting in will probably just make it worse.

Claire’s got her own issues as well. She’s suuuuuper uptight. Her best friend Vicky, a fellow teacher, is begging her to go out and have some crazy wild animal sex so she can loosen up. But Claire’s not ready for that yet. She may have kicked her hubby to the curb, but that doesn’t mean she’s not conflicted about it.

And then everything changes. A new family moves in next door, starring model-esque 17 year old Noah Sandborn. Noah looks more like a man than a boy, and he immediately befriends Kevin, making it nearly impossible for Claire to ignore him. Pretty soon he’s chatting her up and she finds herself taken by the muscle bound youngster.

Claire is a different person around Noah. She feels sexy, desired, lustful. One thing Claire isn’t feeling though is lawful. Cause one night when she’s drunk, she takes a spin on the Noah-mobile. Noah is thrilled with this development but when Claire wakes up the next morning, she’s in damage control mode. What the HELL did she just do??? She tells Noah that she’s sorry. This was all just a mistake, and does the dart-of-shame.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem. But Noah lives right next to Claire. Noah’s best friends with her son. Noah sits front and center in one of her classes. In other words, wherever Claire goes, Noah is waiting. And he *really* wants to get back together.

Claire tries desperately to get her son to stop hanging out with Noah. But the guy’s become Kevin’s own personal bully-buster. That and there’s no perfect way to say, “Hey son. You know your best friend? I kind of had sex with him the other night. So could you ignore his texts?” I mean you thought the “birds and the bees” conversation was tough.

There’s probably a lesson to take out of all of this. Oh yeah: DON’T HAVE SEX WITH ONE OF YOUR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. But hindsight is 20/20, and Claire’s going to need more than a lesson plan to get out of this one.

The Boy Next Door is pretty good. I don’t think it’s going to knock anybody’s welcome mat off, but for what it’s trying to be – Fatal Attraction with a twist – it does a good job.

I will say this about the script. It’s PERFECT for studying dramatic irony. Once Noah and Claire have sex, virtually every scene contains some aspect of dramatic irony. In the classroom, Noah will press Claire on a question. Since nobody in the class knows what happened between them, their exchange is dripping with dramatic tension. At home, whenever Noah, Claire, and Kevin are together, Kevin is unaware of their secret, which means that each exchanged word is laced with subtext.

In fact, this script is further proof of how effective the “add a third person to the scene” rule is. Lots of scenes become more interesting once you add a third person (or people). I mean imagine Noah and Claire having that same conversation OUTSIDE of the classroom, without the rest of the class listening. There’s no more subtext. Imagine Claire and Noah having conversations without Kevin around. Those same electric scenes become dry and boring.

And I’m going to stay on my “unresolved relationships in your second act” kick here. Notice that there are TWO unresolved relationships in the movie. The first one is obvious. Claire and Noah. But we also have one between Claire and her husband, Gary. Claire needs to come to terms with what Gary did to her and decide whether she’s going to take him back or not. Barbara could’ve added a third unresolved relationship if she wanted – that between Claire and her son, Kevin. But she chose to keep that relationship fine.

Personally, I think three unresolved relationships is the perfect amount for your second act. There are 50-60 pages in your second act which gives you about 20 pages for each – the perfect amount of time. But it all depends on HOW much is going on in each of those relationships. If you have two REALLY POWERFUL relationships that have ups and downs and breakups and reconciliations, you may not need that third relationship. It’s up to you.

Another interesting thing to note about this script is that there’s no real goal. I’ve found that in these types of thrillers (The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Single White Female) the train-wreck nature of the relationship is enough to drive the story. So there’s nothing big that Claire has to achieve here until late in the script, when she must scramble to fix what she’s broken. This is a little confusing, I know. But that’s how these movies work.

On the downside, I wasn’t a big fan of how easily Claire fell into Noah’s clutches. I mean he had her drooling from the very first conversation. Within like two scenes he’s asking her about her failed marriage and she’s chatting away like she’s at lunch with the girls. This is a 17 YEAR OLD BOY SHE’S TALKING TO! You’d think she’d show a little more restraint. At least initially.

I also thought people bumped into each other too easily in the story. It seemed like every other scene, one of our characters would magically BUMP into another one randomly. This is a little talked about area of screenwriting but an important one. You can’t just have characters bump into each other because you, the writer, need to have a scene between them. It has to be natural. You have to come up with seamless ways for them to meet. This is usually annoying work. It’s not creative and not very fun. But it pays off because it keeps your story seamless. If we become aware that the writer is manipulating the characters, the story spell is broken.

But overall, The Boy Next Door was fun and silly. A guilty pleasure of sorts. I had a good time with it and therefore recommend the read!

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

What I learned: In most movie romances, you want the pursuer to have to EARN the romance. This is a MOVIE. It’s no fun when anything lands in a character’s lap. You need conflict. Doubt. That’s what makes the romance (the pursuit) interesting. Here, Claire is ready to fuck Noah from the first moment they meet. That’s not very interesting. She probably should’ve resisted him more. Noah should have had to EARN the romance. Look at Titanic. Jack doesn’t just slide up to Rose and say, “Hey girl, nice hat,” and they’re banging in the boiler room 10 minutes later. He has to STOP HER FROM COMMITTING SUICIDE. I’d say that’s earning the romance.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: Two brothers raised to believe their father died find out their mom was lying to them and doesn’t know who their father is (due to a healthy sexual appetite in the 70s). So the two set out to find him.
About: Bastards sold earlier this year to Paramount just 24 hours after being put on the market. This is Justin Malen’s second sale, the first being a script titled “Prick.” He is also working on a project titled “Trophy Husbands” for Mike Judge to direct.
Writer: Justin Malen
Details: 112 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).

Should I give up with comedies? Is every modern comedy script just an idea with comedic potential for Vince Vaughn to improvise in? Is there such thing as a comedy spec that’s just…I don’t know…GOOD?? It seems like even when a good spec is purchased, the studio finds a way to screw it up. Going The Distance was a hilarious comedy spec. Its biggest strength was its edgy dialogue. So what’s the first thing they did once they bought it? They REWROTE ALL THE DIALOGUE! I guess when a “soft” director and huggable cast is added, the studio has no choice but to make changes but man, there’s something wrong with that process that needs to be fixed.

Anybody still with me? Have I whined you away yet? I hope not. Because guess what? Today’s comedy is actually pretty good!

Peter and Kyle are twins but couldn’t be more different. Kyle’s a cross between Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt, while Peter’s a cross between a can of peas and a cherry pit.

Kyle doesn’t have a single identifiable skill. But an aspiring barbeque sauce maker spots him on the beach and asks him if he could use his silhouette for his sauce label. The sauce blows up, and Kyle becomes a millionaire off the royalties.

Peter, on the other hand, is a proctologist. He sticks his hand in assholes all day. But there’s actually a reason for that. You see, Peter and Kyle’s mother told them that their father died of colon cancer before they were born. Peter, then, is on a lifetime crusade to help others with the disease.

Well that’s about to change. In a twist only Meryl Streep with a bag of popcorn watching Mama Mia could’ve predicted, it turns out that their mother’s been lying to them this entire time! Dad didn’t die. She doesn’t even know who dad is! That’s because she was the world’s biggest slut back in the 70s. Their father could be one of a dozen men for all she knows.

The cool news, though, is that their mother was a REALLY GOOD SLUT. Like if they were ranking sluts, she would be at the top of the slut chain. She had sex with some really famous people, and right away the evidence points to their father being Hall of Fame quarterback Jack Tibbs! Kyle is besides himself. This is the coolest news ever! But Peter’s still thrown by the whole thing. He can’t get over the fact that his whole life has been a lie.

So they go and visit Jack, and even though they hit it off, Jack mentions just how much sex their mom had (a LOT!), and evidence points to there being more likely candidates than himself. So Kyle and Peter jetset all over the U.S., meeting their potential fathers, but can’t seem to locate “the one.” During that time, Peter finally unleashes the longstanding resentment he has for his brother, who’s lived this charmed life while he’s never had ANYTHING good happen to him. Looks like these two won’t just have to find a father. They’ll have to find each other (awwwwwww).

Let’s address the most important thing first. Bastards has a goal (find the dad) that a character DESPERATELY WANTS TO ACHIEVE (Peter wants nothing more than to find out who his father is and have a relationship with him). Since we sympathize with Peter’s earnestness and his frustration for always being second fiddle in his family, we root for him, and therefore want him to achieve his goal. All of this is set up in the first 25 pages. And when you do that well, your story writes itself. It has direction. It has purpose. The reader is never lost because he/she understands what the protagonist is trying to do. This is how to set up your story.

Bastards also nails the second act because remember what the second act is mainly about. It’s about exploring unresolved relationships between characters. And here we have a big one. Peter hates his brother’s perfect life. So that’s the relationship that needs to be fixed. But what I found unique, and really liked about Bastards, was Kyle’s role in all this. He was completely oblivious to Peter’s resentment. He loved his brother more than anything and would do anything for him. He was just clueless and naïve. So you didn’t have that cliché “both characters hate each other” thing that you see in a lot roadtrip movies. The dynamic was more subtle, and therefore unique.

Malen has also put story before comedy. I’ll be honest. I didn’t laugh a whole lot in Bastards. But I wanted to see if Peter was going to hash out his problems with Kyle and find his father. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. It’s probably THE BIGGEST MISTAKE amateur writers make when writing comedies. They don’t care about the characters or the relationships those characters have. They rationalize to themselves, “Well it’s just a fun comedy! I don’t have to create deep characters.” And then they’re surprised when nobody’s into their screenplay. Readers say, “I didn’t really connect with the characters.” And the writer screams back, “But it’s just a light comedy! It’s not supposed to be about the characters. It’s supposed to make you laugh!” We don’t laugh unless we care. And caring typically comes from giving us characters we identify with and care about. I believe this is why a lot of people had a hard time with Mrs. Satan. It wasn’t that it didn’t have funny moments. We just never cared for or identified with the main character.

Comedy-wise, Kyle is the big star here. He’s pretty funny as the clueless guy with the perfect life. He not only has a Hawaiian model wife and three perfect children. But his wife is of the belief that men have strong sexual appetites that need to be satiated and if she’s not around, he should satisfy those urges. Because that will make him happy. And if he’s happy, his wife argues, then their marriage will be better. So the whole time Kyle is feeling bad because he doesn’t want to have sex with other women but has to, which just infuriates Peter to no end.

I don’t know why but I kept imaging Keanu Reeves for the role of Kyle. He needs a good comedy role and since I’m a Keanu apologist, I’m secretly hoping that that’s the way they’ll go. Anything so this isn’t another Vince Vaughn comedy. All in all, this is one of those perfectly executed comedy specs. Malen really showed his command of the craft here. It wasn’t funny enough to get an impressive, but everything else was so sound that I’m strongly recommending it.

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

What I learned: A few weeks back I wrote an article about how to juice up your scenes. One of those tips was to add a THIRD PERSON to the scene. Bastards showed how to use this tool effectively. In these types of movies, you’re always going to have the scene where the characters finally blow up at each other. It’s the “You Wanna Know What Your Problem Is!” scene where each character tells the other what there big “fatal flaw” is. Because we’ve seen this scene so many times, it’s become cliché. But what Malen does here is he adds a third character – a hitchhiker they picked up – and it adds a different flavor to the fight that actually makes it funnier and a bit unique. The hitchhiker is the one that senses the tension between the brothers, instigates the fight, and then referees it. It’s a small thing but this is what screenwriting is about. Finding those little things that make scenes feel different!

Genre: Horror-Comedy
Premise: (from writer) The most reviled teen in town has 96 hours to find her soulmate or become Satan’s new bride.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writer: Gary Rowlands
Details: 102 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).

Hey, what’s wrong with using the comments section to get me to review your script? That’s what Gary did with the help of longtime reader Poe. Of course that wasn’t the only reason I reviewed Mrs. Satan. As I’ve mentioned before, the amateur script is usually the last one I read during the week. Why? Well, because it’s usually the least goodest script I read all week. So I put it off til the last second.

I’m not the only person who does this. Most readers approach it this way. They have a stack of scripts to plow through and chances are they’re putting the amateur submissions at the bottom cause history tells them they’ll be the hardest to get through.

THIS is why industry people are constantly telling you: Low page count. Lean writing style. Thriller or a comedy. Go with things that make the read faster. You see there are “easy” reads (fun subject matter, easy to understand narrative) and there are “tough” reads (complicated period pieces, tons of characters, dramas without a clear narrative). You’re usually hitting your reader at his most tired, at his most impatient state. So you want to make the read as easy for him as possible. And all I had to do was look at the title (“Mrs. Satan”) and I knew Gary’s script would be an easy read.

True to form, there’s not that much explaining that needs to be done for Mrs. Satan’s plot. 18 year old goth-ish bully Angel (heh heh) is a great big meanie. She and her friends, Lizzie and Evelyn, spend the majority of their time playing pranks on people. In fact, the movie starts off with Angel dressed up as the Grim Reaper and walking through an old folks home, scaring the bejesus out of its inhabitants. I have to admit, it was pretty funny. My favorite part was starting on the Grim Reaper (who at this point we believe is the REAL Grim Reaper), who approaches the home dourly, reaches to grab a doorknob… and it FALLS OFF. He stares at it, pissed, and chucks it away. That’s when we realize it’s Angel.

But Angel does a lot worse than that. In fact, she fabricates an entire story about the local priest “touching” her inappropriately which sends him to jail! Which proves to be a lousy decision because the priest’s nephew, a fisherman who lives nearby, actually DIES, and his first mission as a ghost is to find the devil a bride. Doesn’t take long to decide who that’s going to be.

So the nephew starts haunting Angel, telling her that the devil’s going to make her his bride in a week. She thinks he’s joking but then sees his death reported on TV. Uh oh. This shit is for realz! After brainstorming how the hell (get it! “Hell?!”) she’s going to get out of this, she comes up with the plan of getting married. If she’s already married, Satan can’t marry her.

Problem is, everyone kind of hates Angel. And even the ones who don’t hate her aren’t keen on some psycho chick wanting to get married at the end of the first date. I mean talk about clingy!

Complicating matters is that the devil’s put a spell on Angel that’s created a really bad rash on her face, making her super ugly. This forces her to, in a last ditch effort, try to marry a blind guy. But just like the other guys, he gives her the Hellsman. I mean the Heisman (I’m on fire here!).

During all this, Angel and Marlon (the dead nephew of the priest) start to like each other and now Marlon’s not so sure he wants to help the Devil. However, the Devil isn’t too keen on that plan, and makes it clear that it’s either his way, or the highway. TO HELL!

Mrs. Satan is, indeed, an easy read. It’s got all the screenwriting staples in place (the GSU is rockin’). The goal is to find a husband before the devil makes her his bride. The urgency is she only has a week to do it. Stakes are if she doesn’t succeed, she goes to hell. Definitely something worth avoiding.

However, that knowledge only gets you through the door as far as the reader is concerned. It shows that you’ve been at this long enough to understand basic story principles. Now you have to show that you understand the nuances of storytelling – the guts that make a screenplay pop.

I think the biggest problem with Mrs. Satan is Angel’s age. Having her still be in high school feels wrong for some reason. This seems like it should be a story about a 24 or 25 year old, not an 18 year old who still goes to math class every day. “Sophistication” may be my issue. Since nobody except those kids on MTV reality shows gets married (and pregnant) at 18, it just felt like Angel was dealing with an unrealistic issue for her age group.

Another roadblock Gary battles is getting us to root for an unlikable protagonist. This is a bad person. The scaring old people sequence was kind of funny. But accusing an innocent priest of raping you? I don’t know. And that’s the challenge here. You have to make your protagonist bad enough so that she’d go to hell, but “good” enough so that we’ll like her (or at least root for her). Angel was funny enough that I was usually on her side. But she did enough bad shit in the beginning that, to be honest, I didn’t care whether she ended up in hell or not. And that’s a problem, since those are the big stakes of the movie.

Gary wisely combats this with a “save the cat” moment early on, having Angel beat up the town bully who’s picking on her younger brother, but I’m not sure she earns enough points to make up for all the other shit.

It’s also said in this business that while audiences are forgiving of unlikable male protagonists, they are NEVER okay with unlikable female protagonists. I don’t know how true that is. Bad Teacher just made boatloads of cash. But I know it’s something producers are afraid of (and when you think about it, Cameron Diaz is kind of “man-ish”).

I also had some problems with Angel’s attempts to get married. You’re a hot 18 year old girl. I think you can find someone dumb enough to marry you. So I didn’t believe she’d have so much trouble in that department (I was also unconvinced that this would really stop the Devil – I mean he is the Devil. Is a fake marriage going to stop him?).

As for everything else, I’d like to see more heart and character exploration in the script. We do get Angel changing in the end, doing all these good things for others, but it seemed tacked on. Up until that point, it was hijinx galore. I would love to know WHY Angel became this way – why she got so much happiness out of hurting others. It’s implied that her mom dying had something to do with it, but it’s all rather loosely explained. I feel this script needs to be about a girl learning to respect others and help others, and while there’s some of that here, it wasn’t enough for me to become emotionally attached to the material.

Not a bad script at all, but not enough punch to get my juices flowing.

Script link: Mrs. Satan

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

What I learned: I don’t know why I keep referring back to Karl’s script this week, but there’s something we were talking about there that I think is an important lesson. You can’t get hung up on one script. You have to keep writing new stuff. New scripts bring up new problems, which improves you as a writer. If you’re tackling the same old issues over and over again, you’re not getting better. This script is a great example of that. Sooner or later, you’ll write a script with an “unlikable” main character. The trials and tribulations that come along with trying to get an audience to root for an unlikable protagonist is one of the most important lessons in your education as a screenwriter. But if you never encounter it, you’ll never know how to deal with it. I think Sean was saying this yesterday as well. Keep writing new stuff guys. And if that first script really means something to you? Don’t worry. It’s not going away. You can come back to it a year from now. And you’ll be a better writer when you do.