In six days, everything changes.  That’s because for the first time in Scriptshadow’s history, an amateur screenplay will make the Top 10.  I’ve been waiting for this moment for a LOOOONG time.  Now I won’t be able to post the script, so if you want to take a look at the screenplay, e-mail me and I’ll send it to you Thursday. I’m BURSTING to post this review!  Can’t wait!!!

Today’s amateur screenplay offers us the rare combination of Nazis and children’s books. Can these two elements coexist? Read on to find out.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit 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.

Genre: Biopic/Action/Drama
Premise: (from writer) With only the clothes on their backs, and a Manuscript in-hand, a Jewish-German couple narrowly escape the 1940 Nazi March on Paris, thus beginning an odyssey to save themselves and one of the most beloved children’s book characters for generations to come. http://www.sendspace.com/file/jo6f6n
Writer: Brantley Edwards
Details: 110 pages

Uh oh. What’s wrong. Why am I reviewing a biopic? Have I been held at gunpoint? Maybe I’ve gone insane. It wouldn’t be the first time. Everybody remembers my Super Bowl Tweet Party. Maybe this time I’ve gone LIN-sane!

For those of you visiting this review for the first time, I posted today’s AF script WITHOUT A REVIEW earlier in the day, allowing you, the readers, to weigh in on it first. Sometimes I feel like I influence your opinions and, for once, I wanted to get your thoughts before I gave mine. Well, now that the opinions are in, it’s time to give you my take…

It’s January, 1940. Paris, France. 38 year old illustrator Hans Reyersbach has everything going for him. He’s got a new wife (the beautiful Margaret), a baby on the way, and he’s about to release a successful children’s book. He’s like the 1940s version of Lady GaGa! Actually, disregard that analogy. He’s not like that at all.  That was dumb.

Anyway, what’s putting a dampener on all this happy-time is this pesky European war going on. You know, the whole World War 2 thing? Those meanie Germans just can’t keep their paws out of anything and rumors are they’re snatching up Jews in the night. As Hans is Jewish, he’s not a fan of these rumors. But at least he’s in Paris. The Germans would never invade Paris. Would they?

Actually, it turns out that’s the least of Hans’ worries. A Nazi special agent named Wilhelm Schultz has been sent to Paris to retrieve Hans at all costs. Apparently, the infamous Joseph Goebbels read Hans’ book to a group of children at a publicity event, only to find out later that – gasp – it was written by a Jew! Embarrassed beyond belief, and in trouble with the Furher, Goebbels decides to get a hold of this author and make him dead.

Ironically, Hans and Wilhelm actually knew each other as children, even used to play together. This allows Wilhelm the opportunity to befriend Hans – then lure him into his trap. The problem is, just before he executes his plan, word of Germany’s arrival sends Jews fleeing south. Hans decides it’s a good idea to go with them. So he and Margret flee.

But not before Wilhelm, posing as a fleeing Jew himself, gains Hans’ trust. The trio travel by foot, bicycle, and train in hopes of catching a boat to America, where Hans has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to publish his new book in the biggest book market in the world. But will his childhood friend prevent that dream from coming true? Will he snatch Hans and Margaret away in the night? Oh, and who is this Fifi fellow? Is he related to Jeremy Lin? All these questions will be answered in, “Fifi, A Monkey’s Tale.”

Fifi has a lot going for it. We have a clear goal (escape!). The stakes are high (getting caught by Nazis is typically a bad thing!). There’s tons of urgency with them always being on the run.

There was some nice use of dramatic irony as well. Wilhelm joining the fray, pretending to be “one of them,” but secretly planning to capture and ship Hans and Margaret back to Germany. That led to some suspenseful scenes early on.

(spoiler) And the twist at the end – that this is in fact E.E. Henry, the famous author of the Curious George franchise, was also a highlight, and something I wasn’t expecting at all. So all those elements made for a fun read…at times.

“At times” is the key phrase here. Because there were other times where it became clear that Brantley was still a young screenwriter finding his way, starting with the relationship between Hans and Margaret.

There just didn’t seem to be anything to this relationship. Which is a strange thing to say because the two experience a miscarriage, several near-captures by the Nazis, and Margaret almost dying. So how can I possibly say that?

Well the main issue was their dialogue. It was too on-the-nose, too generic, too bland. They were either talking about how they felt towards each other (“I love you.” “But I love you more.”) the logistics of getting to the next destination (“We have three days to get to the Brazil port..”) or the occasional exchange about how hungry they were. But that was it. Honestly, those were the only three topics of conversation for about 80% of the film. There was no drama in any of these conversations, no internal relationship issues that needed to be resolved. Just two people talking about matter-of-fact things for 100 minutes.

And since this relationship took up the majority of the script, it was impossible for the script to recover. If the central relationship isn’t interesting, there’s no way your movie is going to be interesting, no matter how cool the plot is. And I’m not saying that the characters needed to be arguing or fighting, but there needed to be SOMETHING there.

For example, Margaret has had a couple of miscarriages. So what if she’s told by the doctor that if she tries to carry a baby to full term, there’s a high probability that she’ll die (which, so far, is in the script)? Then, early on, have Margaret get pregnant, and she still wants to have the baby. Hans, on the other hand, does not, because of the danger it poses to his wife.

Now, instead of a gaggle of “I love yous” and “No, I love you mores,” the two have something to disagree about (conflict!). You could complicate this by the pregnant Margaret starting to bleed as the journey goes on (I think some of this is in here – but it’s not given the right focus). The stress has increased the chances of another miscarriage, and now there’s a very real chance Hans is going to lose both his unborn baby and his wife.

Still – even if you nailed that – there was still something missing in this relationship. I didn’t know these two *at all*. They spoke to each other so generically, in such basic terms, that I never got a true sense of the pair and therefore never cared for them. And obviously, if I’m not caring for the characters being chased in a movie, there’s no movie.

So I believe a couple of big long character biographies need to be written before the next draft. Hans and Margaret’s entire lives need to be documented by Brantley. They need to have issues which need to be worked out. They need to have character flaws, which I don’t believe they have now (character flaws are basically a prerequisite for biopics – the genre was designed to explore character – so if we’re not sure what’s going on internally with the character, there’s no movie).

Another problem for me was the logistics. Despite there being a lot of chatter about where people were heading, and which boats they were getting on, I constantly found myself confused as to where we were, where we needed to go, and by how much time. I think there were a couple of boats they needed to get on but then they missed one, so now they were going to catch another one? Maybe? It was confusing and because I was never quite sure where they needed to get, it was hard to care.

There were some other things I had issues with as well. In a thrilling ride like this, it’s hard for me to imagine the characters on bikes. There’s something so…I don’t know…I kept visualizing the “Singing In The Rain” sequence in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Like they’re just biking away, backs erect, smiles on their faces. I couldn’t match that image with Nazis chasing them.

Commenters have mentioned the characters changing back and forth between languages. I agree that it’s too confusing. Any time you have to read something twice to get it means the writer hasn’t done their job. And every time someone would speak in a different language, I would have to read it twice. If this served some purpose, I could let it go. But the read would’ve been so much easier had we stayed with one language the whole time.

And then there are the clarity and dialogue issues commenters have brought up. The dialogue does feel stilted and on the nose here – most of the time repeating things we already know. This goes back to learning how to dramatize a scene. If there’s no drama in a scene, there’s nothing for your characters to say. So if you put words into the mouths of characters who have nothing to say, you’re going to get bad dialogue.

But if you *dramatize* the scene, it’s a different ballgame. Now the characters HAVE to talk because they need to deal with the situation. For example, let’s say Hans and Margaret are on a train. However, that’s *all* the scene is about – them on a train. Go try and write that scene. I’ll wait.

Let me guess. Not a very good scene right? I mean you might add some exposition there (“We have to get to Spain by Monday”), and to fill up the rest of the scene, your characters may talk about each other (“Are you doing okay? How is your wound?”). But this is just logistical stuff. You can’t build an entire scene around logistical stuff.

However, let’s change the scene around and say that, earlier, Margaret snuck on the train because they didn’t have enough money. So she doesn’t have a ticket. Her and Hans are sitting there when they notice the conductor coming down the aisle checking for tickets. Uh-oh. Oh, and did I mention that a minute ago, two Nazi officers just sat down next to them?

Go write that scene. I’ll wait.

A million times better right??!! These are the things you learn as a writer making those first steps. I know it sucks because you want to convince yourself you’ve figured it out already. But it takes time to learn these things. It takes trial and error to realize, “Oh, if I just have two people talk to each other about stuff that’s going on, it’s boring.” But when you do learn this stuff, your writing really takes off. So like Matt pointed out yesterday, keep writing!

I think Brantley is where a lot of writers are who come to Amateur Friday. They’ve got some good things going on in their writing. They’ve learned to write a cool character or a cool scene here and there. But there’s still a lot to learn before their scripts can truly shine. So I’m just going to say: Stay at it Brantley! Jump to that next script, write something new, learn more, do it again. Come back to this script afterwards and apply what you’ve learned. Right now, Fifi is a fun ambitious little script. But it’s not there yet.

Script link:  Fifi, A Monkey’s Tale

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

What I learned: I’m going to dish out some really important advice here: The opening scene of your screenplay is CRUCIAL. Why? BECAUSE IT’S THE OPENING OF YOUR SCREENPLAY! It’s the very first scene the reader will read. They’re going to form an opinion on you as a writer and this story as a story before the scene is over. So why would you open with a scene that lacks drama, conflict, suspense, action, or anything that would draw an audience in? Fifi opens with two people sitting at a zoo watching animals. You do *not* want to open your screenplay with a scene that uneventful. You have to give us more! Give us a reason to want to read the next scene!

Longtime Scriptshadow reader Timothy Mannion rolls onto the scene with his first produced screenwriting credit, Brake.

Hello my friends.  Today’s name might be familiar to you longtime Scriptshadow readers.  Timothy Mannion entered my logline contest way back in the day and finished near the top with this very logline!  He since went on to option the script AND get it made, with Stephen Dorff starring.  The film will be released on VOD tomorrow and hit theaters on March 23rd.  I had a virtual sit down with Tim to find out how all this happened.

SS: I remember your logline all the way back from my first logline contest. A lot has happened since then. So let me ask you a few questions. First, how did you sell the script? Was it a lot of pounding the pavement? Asking people to read it? Or did you have an “in” somewhere?

TM: The script got a series of emails from producers based on the logline contest, of course. I also sent it to a couple of contacts that I made earlier in the year. Living in Connecticut and being so far from LA, I never thought anything was going to come from it. But, sure enough, I got a call from a director named Gabe Torres who read the script and flipped for it. He won me over with his vision and his time frame for making the dream become a reality, so I optioned the rights to him.

SS: And then how did it go from purchased script to a “Go” movie? Since the large majority of sold specs never get made, that must have been pretty exciting.

TM: It took a little while to gather financing and get casting together since it was independently financed, but in this business it was actually quite fast. I know other writers who have waited 10 years to see their script go to screen. BRAKE did page to first cut in less than a year. Really remarkable stuff. And even then, we shot in 11 days. That was probably the most exciting part, being on set every day, watching a talented director and a great actor, Stephen Dorff, work their magic. I feel very fortunate to be in the “poster” club.

SS: It seems like you conceived of Brake from a very marketable place. This isn’t Blue Valentine 2. Were you just thinking like a businessman when you wrote this or was there a deeper reason you wanted to write this script?

TM: Back when I was writing BRAKE it was “contained thriller” hour in Hollywood. You couldn’t take a step without bumping into one: the coffin, the elevator, the chairlift, the driver’s seat of a fast car. BURIED of course was the big trend setter, and I was well into writing BRAKE before I even knew about that. But after seeing how far Chris Sparling took it, I did the opposite of what others probably would have done. I saw that it worked for him so I forged on. I think some people would have said, “Oh well, he beat me to the punch.” He did, but you can throw a smarter punch, you can make yours better. It’s all learning what works and what doesn’t.

I wrote this script because simply, I couldn’t make my epic projects work. I was having trouble balancing several characters with set pieces and moving plot and action sequences and flashbacks and reversals and just the kitchen sink. I wanted to quit. I really did. And then I flipped the switch. I told myself to think of something small with 1-2 actors for 90 minutes. Keep it contained, keep it simple. And in doing so it became MY BIGGEST SCRIPT. Not in budget, but in story and in scope. It’s not a small film by any means. It has big ideas, big motivations. 

SS: Expanding on that, contained thrillers seem to be one of the best ways to break into the industry because they’re so cheap to make and are relatively easy to market. However, from a screenwriting point of view, when you’re writing about characters (or *a* character) in one place for so long, it becomes hard to keep the story fresh/interesting. How did you go about doing this for Brake?

TM: This is the critical aspect of the contained thriller. Can you keep the plot moving… without ever having your character literally moving? Fortunately for BRAKE our character is moving, he’s just not in control of the situation. But for other contained thrillers I think three things are needed to pull this off. 1) Ticking time bomb device. Gotta have something that the reader/audience clings to. Even the oldie but goodie’s work. Cellphone dying, lack of oxygen. But go further. Push it. In BRAKE it’s a literal clock that counts down. Every 4 minutes you’re waiting for… SOME THING. 2) STAKES, STAKES, STAKES. Every single page the stakes have to be raised. The situation needs to get worse for your protagonist at every turn. If it doesn’t then why am I reading it? And even then, you as the writer have to create “small wins” for the character. But not too many – the antagonists and the situation have to be one step ahead. 3) Make it personal. It’s hard to work the back story of your character into this hectic situation, but if you can fold it in then we get to see that character in a vulnerable situation with this added weight of personal pressure on top. That’s the good stuff.

SS: In general, how do you approach writing a script? Are you an outliner? A pragmatist? Or do you just jump in there and rock out?

TM: I usually outline. Although, on the last one I winged it… and I paid for it! I think outlining at least gives you a direction for where the story is going. Hell, if you take a left turn during the writing process all the better. But knowing your ending, knowing your all-too-important third act ahead of time, is critical.

SS: Are you someone who tends to follow the “rules/guidelines” of screenwriting? Or are rules outlawed in Timothy MannionLand?

TM: The most important thing I’ve learned was the rules. Learning structure was critical to my success. And now I bend them and sometimes break them completely. But I know if I didn’t learn the basics first, I wouldn’t be anywhere today. Learn them, and if you disagree, well, forget’em.

SS: Brake was your first sale. How many screenplays had you written before that?

TM: I wrote three scripts before BRAKE. All action-oriented.

SS: Were any of them any good? If so, give us a pitch or two!

TM: I wrote one called JULIET 7 about an alien prisoner of War being help captive in an underground silo and an invasion of spaceships that come down, trying to free it. It was a found footage idea, with 4 teenagers being caught in this chaotic situation where we change POV three different times. Looking back with all of this FF craze now happening, I probably should have finished it. (from Carson: That idea actually sounds pretty cool! With FF footage film here to stay, I say you finish it). 

SS: What do you think you know now as a screenwriter that you didn’t know, say, 3 years ago, around the time of the logline competition? What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned since then?

TM: I learned that larger than life characters are critical in this game. I read scripts where the characters are flat. The concept is good, it’s executed well, good set ups and reversals, great set pieces. But there isn’t one defining character. You need a standalone character that makes the reader/producer/audience say WOW, this guy/girl is amazing. I’ve learned that after BRAKE and I’m still learning that today. Actors want to play timeless characters. Look around: Han Solo, John McClane, Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, Beatrix Kiddo, Anton Chigurh, Lisbeth Salander, Hans Landa, Tyler Durden, The Dude, Clarice Starling, Ellen Ripley. You name it. It’s why people go to the theater.

SS: What lessons have you taken away from Brake specifically? After watching it go from your personal laptop to digital celluloid?

TM: I’m still processing this to be honest. But I did learn that anything is possible in this industry. You can be a nobody one morning and then your inbox is flooded with emails and your phone is ringing with people who love your work by lunch. And that – ironically – doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s possible! Anything is possible… AS LONG AS YOU KEEP WRITING.

SS: A lot of writers want to know (specifically) how to land an agent or manager. Could you go into detail about the process of landing a manager/agent? Starting with how long it took after your very first query to land representation?

TM: I queried on my second script. Thought it was awesome. It was a mess. Same story with every writer, I guarantee it. Even the ones who have broken in have this story. My third script didn’t leave my computer, no one has ever read it. I was kind of rep-shook at that point. Rejection always hurts. But everyone has been there. The forth script was BRAKE and that was taken off the table before I ever sent queries out to managers, so I did it backwards. But then I landed a manager with cold email queries. It didn’t take long because I had small success. I had several offers of representation. Hell, I have a great story where a management company called me 11 months after the initial query for BRAKE was sent. I let this manager go for 5 minutes about what he liked about the script, where he thought it might need a slight tweak, then I told him the script was already sold, shot and in post-production. He just laughed and said congratulations. Things like managers/agents are nothing to worry about until your script is READY. And by ready, I mean great. Everyone wants to rush to that step, but in doing so you bypass the most important part: the writing. 

SS: Any advice you might have for other screenwriters out there? Guys who were in your position a couple of years ago? How can they become a paid screenwriter ASAP?

TM: Advice is hard to give because who I am, really? The only thing I can tell you is if you want to do this, you have to do your homework before you start the writing. Concept, concept, concept. Character, character, character. Nail them down. Don’t waste time if you want to make a career out of this. These two points are critical. And trust me, in the last couple of days I suffered from not taking my own advice. Screenwriting is as hard as it is. So don’t set up roadblocks that hinder. You’re supposed to be doing that to your characters! And most of all, keep writing. If you stop, you’re done. If you don’t, you’re still alive. Anything is possible. Oh, and if you want a shortcut to get paid, write something that can be done on the cheap. People are committing less and less money to financing these days. But a small, compelling piece of work can be scooped up because it’s low risk, high reward. That’s simple logic that gets passed over, but it’s true.

Red-hot screenwriter Aron Eli Coleite bursts into the Top 10 of 2011’s Black List with his end-of-the-world screenplay, “The End.”

Genre: Drama/Sci-fi/Apocalypse
Premise: (from Black List) Four people – a veteran broadcaster in London, a sixteen year old girl and her best friend in Ann Arbor, and a devoted family man in Shanghai – each try to make peace with their lives before an interstellar event ends the world in six hours.
About: This script was purchased by Warner Brothers and made the 2011 Black List, finishing with the 9th best tally of the pack (28 votes). Writer Aron Coleite’s career has really picked up in the last year. The former Crossing Jordan and Heroes writer recently wrote an episode of ABC’s new show, The River (co-created by Scriptshadow Top 25’er “The Voices” writer, Michael R. Perry), sold a pitch to New Regency for mid-six figures (a supernatural prison break movie), and also sold a new procedural to Jerry Bruckheimer. I’d say that’s a pretty good year. Too bad he’s chosen to end the world before he can enjoy all that success.
Writer: Aron Eli Coleite
Details: 104 pages, September 23, 2011 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).

I used to love end-of-the-world screenplays. We all know how I feel about Seeking A Friend At The End Of The World (which just came out with its first trailer! Hooray!). And then of course there’s Top 10 script How It Ends. Since then, however, I’ve read about five of these puppies, and for whatever reason, my Apocalypse funny bone isn’t being tickled anymore. I don’t know if I’m looking for a new angle (puppets maybe?) or if the effect has simply worn off, but I just don’t get jazzed for life as we know it being scrambled in a galactic frying pan anymore.

Part of the reason this script didn’t work for me was because it was a real downer! I mean, this is an extra large serving of depression, hold the onions. Not that that can’t work. Deep Impact – another depressing end of the world movie – brought in a lot of dough. But after reading this I was just like….I need to go buy some ice cream or something. I’m depressed!

The End follows three main characters (in three separate storylines) six hours before the world’s obliterated by a gravitational black hole or something. It’s not clear when the information of the world’s demise is received (Are they just learning about it now or have they known for days – not sure) but the point is, time’s running out!

The first of our characters is a 35 year old Wae, a janitor at a Shangai Wal-Mart who only cares about one thing, finding the perfect egg (the egg must be a very specific measurement – still not sure what that was all about). It’s the middle of the night in Shanghai, and Wae plans to walk home, with the world crumbling around him, so he can make his son an egg for breakfast.

Next there’s Sir John Bainbridge, a 70-something BBC radio personality. While everybody else in the world has run home to their mommies, John’s decided to stay on the air. He is, therefore, the only person on the radio, which means everybody’s tuned into him. What starts off as one man’s assessment of the world’s destruction (and a clever way to dish out exposition) eventually becomes an exploration of a broken old codger’s dysfunctional family.

Finally, there’s Olive, a 16 year old Christian whose family is struggling to make it to church for the End Of Days sermon, which I’m hearing is one of the most popular of the year. It might even beat Christmas. However, as she gets closer, she thinks that instead of spending her final moments listening to some boring priest drone on about, like, death and stuff, she should spend that time with her secret (older) boyfriend! And maybe, if she can find a way to him in time, she can marry him, lose her virginity, all before she’s beamed up to Cloud City. So she enlists the help of her childhood best friend, the goofy “Zebulon,” and the two race against time to make it happen. Of course, while locating everything they need for the wedding, it becomes clear that Zebulon’s secretly in love with Olive.

Okay so we have three separate storylines here. Here’s my opinion on multi-storyline scripts. You better make sure each storyline kicks ass. Cause if even one is average, your movie will suck. Nobody goes to see 2/3 of a good movie.

What USUALLY happens in these scripts, actually, is that the writer has a main storyline idea, but since he wants multiple narratives, comes up with two or three lesser storylines to fill out the script. These stories are never as good as the first one, because they were added after the fact.

Whether one thinks that’s what happened here will depend on the individual, but personally, I thought the only story worth telling was Olive’s. We have a goal (get to the boyfriend and get married), stakes (this means everything to her), and if I have to tell you where the urgency comes from, you’re going on a permanent screenwriting sabbatical. There’s also conflict and dramatic irony (we know Zeb loves her, but she does not), so this storyline really shined.

The next best storyline was Wae’s. Wae does have a clear goal (get back to his kid) but it doesn’t carry the same weight as Olive’s (make breakfast for his kid?). Also, he’s not traveling with any other characters, so there are no opportunities to explore his internal conflict through his relationships, like we see with Olive and Zeb. Instead, the only conflict he experiences is external. This results in some cool sequences (a jousting sword-slicing motorcycle duel), but overall, his trek is relatively uneventful.

That leaves us with the third and least interesting storyline, John the radio personality. To me, this storyline’s purpose was expositional (to give us a running play-by-play of the events as they unfold) with a family storyline shoe-horned in to make it SEEM like it was more than that (something about a brother he never talked to or something). There were no goals, no stakes, and somehow no urgency (despite the world ending in six hours). On top of that, it’s an old man sitting in a room for two hours. So that one was hard to get up for.

That said, there were definitely some cool moments in The End. The gravity bumps will guarantee some “holy shit” moments in the trailers. Watching two people float up above the ground as they kiss with rain shooting upwards around them, yeah – that should sell a few tickets. And when you juxtapose that with a jousting motorcycle duel to the death, I can see some teenagers saying – “dude, we gotta go see that!”

The question is, what will they be seeing? No matter which way you shake it, The End is depressing as hell. It’s like a sci-fi Babel. It makes The Grey look like a bunch of dudes who just won the Anchorage lottery. Not sure how eager people will be to run off and get depressed for two hours. Of course, I could be looking at this the wrong way. Maybe this is about the triumph of the human spirit amongst the end of times. I don’t know. I just wish I didn’t want to curl up with my teddy bear afterwards and cry myself to sleep.

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

What I learned: The best character goals meet two criteria. First, the character must desperately want to achieve the goal. So in Zombieland, even though Tallahassee’s goal was “just” to find a Twinkie, he so desperately wanted to find that Twinkie it was still compelling. Second, the goal itself must be big. So in The Hangover, the goal was to find Doug and get him back to his wedding in time. That’s a big goal. The combination of a BIG GOAL that your wants along with that goal being one he DESPERATELY WANTS TO ACHIEVE is what gives a story the most pop. That’s not to say you always need both of them. Like I just said, Tallahassee’s goal wasn’t big at all. It was merely personal. I’m just saying that your goal won’t be as powerful if it only meets one of those two requirements. That’s how I felt with Wae. I knew how important it was for him to make his son breakfast (personal side of the goal). But just the act of making breakfast wasn’t big enough for me. So I didn’t care if he achieved it or not. Olive’s goal, on the other hand – to get married – that was a goal that was both big (getting married is a big deal!) AND personal (she really really wanted to do it!).

Guest screenplay reviewer Amy Suto buys a box of chocolates in preparation for today’s 2009 Black List script and recent Sundance purchase, Celeste and Jesse Forever.

Hey everybody. As I continue to close in on the book release and re-launch of the site, I once again turn to Scriptshadow readers to help me meet my review quota.  I figured it’s Valentine’s Day (ahem – did you get your significant other something nice yet??) so why not go with a Romantic Comedy! Today’s entry is probably the most controversial entry on 2009’s Black List. The script was so universally panned that the Black List conspiracy theorists were out in full force – and with good reason (I read it and thought it was awful).  But hey, it’s the most love-focused day of the year. It’s a day when you celebrate your significant other.  So maybe guest reviewer Amy Suto will let the mood whisk her away to a positive review….  Maybe.