Genre: Comedy
Premise: A couple of lifelong friends, now in their 40s, are shocked to find out that their kids have been secretly dating and are now getting married. Hilarity ensues when the parents try to hijack the wedding.
About: This will be screenwriter Jeremy Garelick’s first directing effort. He’s the writer of The Break-Up and has a ton of projects working their way through development around town. Garelick has been trying to make it into the directing chair for a while but no one would give him a chance. It wasn’t until he spent 25,000 dollars of his own money to shoot a 6 minute scene from one of his scripts (titled “The Pretender”) that studios started taking him seriously. Yay for creating your own opportunities.  The Insane Laws will star Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman.
Writer: Jeremy Garelick
Details: 107 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).

I thought The Breakup was a solid entry into the romantic comedy genre. What I liked about it was that it never did what a typical romantic comedy would do. Every choice, in fact, seemed to be the opposite of what you’d get in a standard rom com. It was also one of the last times I remember Vince Vaughn playing a real character. Vaughn has been a victim of his own success, playing variations of giant goofballs who spend more time riffing on things like different types of female nipples than they do actually inhabiting the story they’re in.

Since Garelick was the writer of that film, I figured this script had a shot at being decent. Maybe instead of another series of standup comedy bits, Vaughn would actually play a real person.

Jeff Tucker and Monte Mays have been best friends forever. Monte is the crazy guy who will call you up in the middle of the night pretending to be a mob boss who’s putting a hit out on you. Jeff is the more conservative one – the smart practical guy with the smart practical job who’s so caught up in his own life that he actually falls for calls like that.

The two are now in their 40s and both doing well in their own respective ways. Monte owns a flourishing retro videogame company and Jeff ended up marrying a super-rich maybe-a-little-too-uptight-woman who’s thrown him into a higher tax bracket.

Taking inspiration from the Chinese, the friends also each have one child. Jeff has Noah, a smart cultured 19-year-old. And Monte has Eve, his slightly reserved but talented pride and joy – the kind of girl who can be anything she wants to be.

Unfortunately, lately, it’s been hard for the two friends to get together. Family life and the real world have made each of them super busy. So they decide to have a big double family gathering to make up for lost time. After establishing that Monty and Jeff have about 1600 annoying inside jokes with each other, their son and daughter request to make an announcement. Eve is pregnant. They’re having the baby. And, oh, they’re getting married.

Now you have to understand that Jeff and Monty had no idea their kids were even dating, so this is shocking to them. Monte, in particular, doesn’t handle it well. In fact, he wants to cut Noah up into a bunch of little pieces and feed him to the local zoo animals. But after everybody calms down, they realize this is going to be a great thing (They can be one giant family!), and the real work begins – prepping for the wedding.

Adding a little bit of a ticking time bomb, neither family wants the embarrassment of people knowing Eve is pregnant, so they decide to schedule the wedding before she starts showing. A short prep time means a mad dash to get everything done. And this, of course, is where all the comedy comes from (assuming you share the same definition of comedy as the film’s collaborators). The problem is that Jeff and his wife want a tasteful wedding and Monte and his wife want a fun wedding. Since that means a disagreement on just about every decision, hilarity ensues.

I’ll probably forget about The Insane Laws by this time next week. There’s nothing here to get that excited about. That said, it isn’t bad. I mean, it’s better than The Dilemma and Couples Retreat. And I think it’s a nice update to Father Of The Bride. I like how they added a new spin by focusing on two neurotic families as opposed to one. And Garelick’s a pretty funny guy. The jokes here are way sharper than the jokes in those other Vaughn catastrophes (I laughed my ass off at “Dos Beckys” – the supposed mythical woman with two vaginas – and the stuff about the Samoan porn, which I realize sounds dumb without context).

But I did have some story problems. I thought it was curious, for example, that we never got to know the kids. I mean, at all. They have a quick intro at the beginning of the story then become as hard to find as the chupacabra. On top of that, they’re just extremely boring. This wasn’t a huge problem because the movie is more about the parents. But since the wedding is the driving source of all of the drama and conflict, it seems strange that we know nothing about the two people actually getting married. It reminds me of a good tip you always want to keep in mind. Pretend like you have to sell every single role in your movie to an actor. Would an actor want to play this role? Taking money and opportunity out of the equation, I don’t think you’d find a single actor or actress who would want to play Noah or Eve. That’s a problem.

Another thing that bothered me – and that bothers me in general – is when writers give their characters really trendy weird jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with reality – the kind of job that nobody on the planet could relate to. So Monte, for example, sells vintage video game units – like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. I mean, yeah, it’s kind of cool, but it’s such a weird job and has so little to do with the story, that it just feels like it’s there because it’s quirky and different.

I’ll continue to subscribe to the theory that you give your character a job that tells us something about them. Bill Murray in Groundhog Day is vain and full of himself, so of course he works in front of the camera as a news personality. Hugh Grant in Notting Hill is a plain guy who’s never been anywhere, so his job is managing a tiny travel bookstore (throwing some irony in there to make it even more relevant). The best high concept comedy of all time, Liar Liar, places its character in an environment where he’s forced to lie every day, a law firm. I admit I harp on this because it’s a pet peeve of mine but I really think it makes a character better.

Sadly, The Insane Laws descends into the same kind of wacky directionless humor that has become the standard for Vince Vaughn films. The humor stems more from the situation than, say, Dodgeball, but it still feels like a bunch of wacky gags and set pieces stitched together by a weak story. And it doesn’t help that the wedding angle has been done six cagillion times. So there’s nothing really new to get excited about. I really wanted to like this but it’s just too messy to recommend. Hopefully, they find a way to make it work in production.

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

What I learned: You may not have time to extensively develop every character in your story, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon them. The most important characters to get right are your main characters. Those are the characters that are going to bring in the stars and get your movie made. Clearly, that’s what Garelick did here. But in the process, he completely ignored developing Noah and Eve. This happens a lot actually. You realize certain characters only have five or six scenes in the movie and you figure, I don’t have time to make them memorable. But good writers can make anybody memorable – even with a single scene if need be. It only takes a few minutes, for example, to show that Steve Carrell collects childhood action figures and rides to work on his bike every day in The 40 Year Old Virgin. We have a good feel for that character’s life and what he needs to change within those 3 minutes. So never give up on your characters. Always ask yourself, would an actor wanna play this part? And if the answer is no, keep working on them until the answer is yes.

Genre: Comedy?
Premise: A male stripper mentors a young impressionable kid, who ends up enjoying his new job a little too much.
About: This is the new exciting project from Steven Soderbergh, the man who’s retired more times than Brett Favre. It will star Channing Tatum (of course), Matthew McConaghy, and the new bad boy on Hollywood’s block, Alex Pettyfer.
Writer: Reid Carolin
Details: 114 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Ahhhh, Steven Soderbergh. One of the most controversial noncontroversial filmmakers alive. He’s responsible for movies like Traffic, Oceans 11, and Sex, Lies & Videotape. Unfortunately he’s also responsible for movies like Bubble. That’s why I’m always reluctant to open a Soderbergh project. I’m afraid of artsy-fartsy Soderbergh, the Soderbergh who doesn’t give a shit about entertainment. I’m even more scared of that Soderbergh these days, since he doesn’t have to worry about his next job.

But when I reached out to Scriptshadow Nation on Magic Mike, I was surprised to hear feedback like “Funny.” “Touching.” “Heartwarming.” It sounded like a real heartfelt character piece, not a glorified student film. And hey, Sex Lies & Videotape is still in my top five independent films of all time. So maybe this was going to be cool.

28-year-old Mike was born with something special. He’s got charm. He’s got looks. He’s got work ethic. And he’s got big dreams. He wants to open a restoration business that he’s been saving up for forever.

During the day, he’s a roofer, scraping by on 15 bucks an hour. But on the weekends, when the sun goes down, he’s a stripper at a hot Tampa Bay strip club. “Magic Mike” is the headline act – the one the ladies save the big bills for.

One day, during a roofing job, Mike meets The Kid, a 19-year-old bad boy in need of direction. He lives with his older sister, who may love him more than anything, but is frustrated he’s drifting through life aimlessly. Mike likes The Kid, probably because he reminds him of himself when he was younger, and introduces him to the stripping life.

The Kid immediately falls in love with it. Whereas before he was barely able to afford toothpaste, he’s now got more money than he can stuff in his pockets. Being 19 with money to burn is sort of like waking up in a candy store all alone as a 10-year-old. Where do you begin?

When The Kid’s sister, who Mike’s sweet on, finds out that her baby brother is stripping, she’s mortified. Mike assures her that he’s going to keep an eye on him. But eventually, The Kid runs into some trouble he can’t get out of. It will be up to Magic Mike to save the day. The question is, will it mean giving up all of his hopes and dreams to do so?

I wasn’t sure what to make of Magic Mike. It’s sort of like Coyote Ugly meets The Full Monty meets a trashy reality show. The biggest achievement of the screenplay is that it flips a well-known character type on its head. We’ve seen the stripper with a heart of gold a thousand times before. But have we seen the male stripper with a heart of gold? I don’t think so. And that’s what makes this script unique.

Probably the strangest thing I noticed while reading Magic Mike was that there’s so little conflict in the script. Remember, movies are about drama. And you can’t get drama unless you have opposing forces consistently clashing with each other. Somebody wants one thing, somebody else wants another. There isn’t a whole lot of that in Magic Mike.

I mean, the first three quarters of the screenplay are like a dramatized version of a Jersey Shore episode, with the characters running around, partying, and having the time of their lives. The Kid is introduced into this world and he just has a blast with it. Mike runs around unimpeded as well. He enjoys watching The Kid flourish. And he enjoys the fruits of his own labor, hooking up with endless women, and making tons of cash.

The only real conflict throughout the first three quarters of the screenplay comes from the sister, who throws Mike for a loop when she becomes the first woman in history who doesn’t go gaga over him, mainly because she considers herself above strippers. I suppose she’s also frustrated with her brother getting involved in a shady profession, so you could argue that there’s some conflict there.

But the thing is, she’s only passively interested in stopping him. She doesn’t like it, but as long as her brother’s happy, she’s happy. There’s a little bit of conflict in her rejection of Mike, but there was something missing from the relationship. I don’t know if I wanted them to have more chemistry or if their relationship wasn’t explored enough, but I didn’t care whether they got together or not, and I don’t think a situation like that works unless that’s the case.

You could also argue that there’s conflict within Mike, who wants to do something bigger with his life. The reason that conflict didn’t work either, though, is that Mike loved stripping. He seemed to have such a great life that if his dream of opening up his own business didn’t work out, you got the feeling he was going to be fine. I mean, this guy is smart, nice and good looking. Whichever way it goes for him, life is still going to kick ass.

Now eventually, we do get to some serious conflict, but it isn’t until the final act, when everything falls to shit. I admit it gets interesting, but I kept asking: Is it worth wading through 90 minutes of pure unadulterated partying for?

If you look back at what I believe is Soderbergh’s best film, Sex Lies & Videotape, you’ll notice that there’s conflict from the very first frame. The wife is living a lie – she’s frustrated with her marriage but she’s not admitting it to herself (conflict from within). Her husband is cheating on her (conflict). An old friend of the husband’s comes to stay with them. The two of them have unsettled business from the past (conflict). The friend is a sex addict who can’t have sex (conflict from within). And the friend and the wife start to have an emotional relationship (conflict) which causes even more conflict between the old friends and the wife and husband. That’s why that movie is so good – because no matter where you turn, there’s conflict. I’m not saying that Magic Mike needs to be the same way, because it’s a different movie, but I just found it strange how easy the movie was for all its characters.

Where the script really impressed me, though, was in the writing itself. The other day, we celebrated how fun and exciting the visual writing style of Christopher McQuarrie was. Here, the writing is as sparse as I’ve ever seen it. Carolin really stands by the rule of only writing what’s absolutely necessary to convey the story. Part of this is that he doesn’t have a lot of action to describe like Christopher McQuarrie did in his script, but that’s part of being a good screenwriter. You assess the kind of story you’re telling, and if it’s a story like Magic Mike, that’s more about the characters than the action and the visuals, you don’t include a lot of description.

When you take Magic Mike as a whole, I think there’s enough here to recommend it. It’s not filled with a lot of drama but it’s an interesting angle to a familiar subject matter. There’s nothing bad about the story. There was never a time where I wished I didn’t have to finish the script. And I suppose enough happens in that final act to sort of make up for all the coasting in the first two. So while I wouldn’t call this a home run, I’d probably say it’s a solid double. Worth checking out if you can find it.

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

What I learned: The less description you use, the more powerful and memorable your words will be. We all have a person in our lives who doesn’t talk very much, so when they do, it’s usually because they have something to say. For that reason, we listen. You wanna treat the action/description in your screenplay the same way. Only talk when you have something to say. There’s a moment early on in the script where Mike is leaving his place, and we catch a glimpse of his small business sign that says “Mike’s Detailing.” It’s a small but important character detail that tells us one of Mike’s passions. Now I might’ve missed this if this script was blanketed with descriptive blocks of text. But because it wasn’t, because Carolin only wrote what he had to, that detail stuck out. There’ve been a lot of times where I’ve pointed out to writers that I didn’t understand something in their script. They’ll say to me, “What are you talking about? It’s right here on page 36! It says right there that he walks into the barbershop! See??” And the page they show me has like five 4-line paragraphs on it. And the previous 35 pages all look similar. Of course I missed it. That detail is buried under a mountain of text. So be smart about what you include when you write. Because the less you write, the more your details will stick out.

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Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from the writers) An American screenwriter and his nemesis, “The South Korean Julia Roberts”, get kidnapped and taken to North Korea, where they’re forced by Kim Jong Il to make a propaganda musical glorifying the revolution, all the while falling in love and plotting their escape.
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.
Writers: James Luckard & Gordon Smith
Details: 117 pages

Probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned from reading all these screenplays is how similarly people tell stories. When we start out, we believe that we’re this unique treasure that Hollywood has never seen before. We believe that we see the world in a way that nobody else can possibly see it. We think we’re more imaginative. We think we’re funnier. We basically think we’re going to change the system and become the biggest thing since George Lucas.

But then you start reading screenplays and you realize that you’re not nearly as imaginative or funny or interesting as you thought you were. You see people using the same jokes, the same characters, the same plot points, the same concepts. The truth is we’re all tapping into the same stream of information. That story you just read on CNN about a murderer who escapes prison disguising himself as a woman – sure, that might be the genesis for a good movie idea. But guess what? 20,000 other screenwriters read that same story. Which means you’re going to have some competition.

This is one of the biggest reasons why longevity improves screenwriters. Because after a while they realize how similar their ideas are to everyone else, and they start challenging themselves more, trying to come up with truly unique choices. You wouldn’t think you would need to be trained to imagine, but you do.

How does this all come back to North Korean Musical? Well, I wanted something different. I was tired of reading screenplay after screenplay that was the same. When I read this logline, it looked like somebody had come up with something truly different. A comedy musical set in North Korea? If that doesn’t promise a unique experience, I don’t know what does. So I was eager to be transported into this outrageous world.

We’re on the set of Yoojin Park’s latest film. Yoojin is the Julia Roberts of South Korea. Her success there has allowed her to make some inroads into Hollywood, but she’s a bit of a diva, and in this instance, refuses to film a scene until it’s better written. Enter Tom Collins – not the drink but the person – a “working writer.” Now his resume isn’t gonna sets IMDB Pro on fire – it’s mainly a bunch of B action movies – but hey, at least he’s in show business. Problem is, Tom wasn’t Yoojin’s first choice, so she’s kind of furious that he’s there.

Boy is she going to wish that was her only problem. Soon after, both of them get kidnapped by ninjas. Why ninjas? I have no idea. I didn’t know that North Korea was a big ninja country. But anyway, when the blindfolds are removed, they find themselves in North Korea. It turns out that Kim Jong Il wants to produce the greatest musical ever made to inspire his people, and he specifically wants Tom to write and direct it, and Yoojin to star. I think he believes that once this movie is shown, South Korea will finally want to reunite with North Korea.

Why Tom? Because Tom wrote some B action movie way back in the day called Double Barrel which is one of the most celebrated movies in North Korea history. It’s only natural then, that he write and direct North Korea’s greatest movie ever. The problem is that he and his star don’t get along at all. But since making this movie is the only way that the great leader will allow them out of the country, he has no choice but to buckle up and make it work.

What follows is hijinks galore. The great leader insists that many of his own family members star in the film, family members who couldn’t act their way out of a Jersey Shore episode. An undercover FBI agent with really bad Asian makeup is also constantly trying to get Tom to play pranks on Kim Jong Il. And a seductive Chinese government official keeps offering him freedom if he will publicly admit that America is stupid. Oh, and of course Tom and Yoojin get to know each other better and eventually start to like one another. I think that’s all you need to know.

I’ve realized that after I summarize a screenplay, that nine times out of 10 when I start the following paragraph with “Okay,” it’s usually bad news.

Okay, so the big question is, did this achieve what I was hoping it would achieve? Well, the setting was definitely different. But I would have to say, sadly, no. This was basically yet another example of a screenplay where the comedy took precedence over the story. As we all know, this drives me nuts, although I’m going to take some of the blame for this one. I mean, it was a comedy titled “North Korean Musical.” So what was I expecting?

Well, the first thing I was expecting was A MUSICAL! I was hoping for wild and crazy musical set pieces and instead I got a story about people making a musical. I’m just not sure you can write a movie titled North Korean Musical and it not be a musical. So I was really bummed there.

Another thing that bothered me was the central relationship. There’s nothing that gets to me more than a romantic comedy couple who hate each other only because the plot requires them to hate each other. There’s no basis for that hate. There’s no back story driving that hate. It’s just: This is a comedy, so the lead male character and lead female character have to hate each other.

Look at a movie like The Proposal. Not a great film by any means. But you actually understood why Ryan Reynolds hated Sandra Bullock. He’s been working for her for three years and been treated like dirt the whole time. Of course he’s going to hate her. You always want your comedy to emerge from your story and your characters. If things just happen because the writer wants them to happen, the story’s going to be thin.

There were other sloppy choices as well. Tom is a writer. He was brought in to write this film. But then, once he gets there, he’s told that he’s also directing the film. This just seemed like a lazy choice. I know this is a comedy but these are two completely different skill sets. I thought with just a little more effort, they could’ve come up with a creative solution to this problem.

For example, why not make it so he has to work with a director who’s already there? And he’s this crazy North Korean director who’s terrible? Maybe halfway through the production he goes insane and Tom is forced to take over. Or why not make Tom a director instead of a writer? That would make more sense anyway. If you’re going to bring in somebody to make a film, it’s probably going to be a director and not a writer. Or maybe Tom is a writer who spent the last 10 years trying to break in as a director but no one would give him a shot. This ends up becoming his shot, and he realizes that even though he’s making a musical for North Korea, that if he can make it great, it can be his calling card for Hollywood. Now you have a character who really cares about the outcome of the film.

That would solve another problem I had, which is that there are no stakes to Tom doing well (I guess he gets out of the country, but it never feels like it’s that hard to get out of the country anyway). If your main character doesn’t really care whether he achieves his goal or not – in this case to make a good movie – then why should we care? Even if it’s a goofy comedy. This is why I’m constantly repeating this. Your screenplay is going to be in much better shape if your main character desperately wants to achieve his goal. If he doesn’t, then the audience is constantly wondering why they’re supposed to care about this person who doesn’t care about what he’s doing.

I could go on but I’d just be piling on. I’m going to say something to all future screenwriters who want to submit comedies to Scriptshadow. Unless you give me some substance to your comedy, I’m probably not going to like it. I’d like your main characters to be properly developed. I’d like your main character to care about his goal. I’d like some sort of thematic through line. I want the comedy to stem from the story and the characters as opposed to random craziness. That’s the kind of screenplay I would love to review on amateur Friday. I am not saying that that’s the only kind of comedy that does well in the marketplace. We live in a world where a Jackass movie can make $40 million on opening weekend. I’m just saying that that’s the kind of comedy that I personally respond to. I really hope that some of you guys who aren’t as anal as I am enjoy this, because it does have some funny moments. But because of the reasons I listed above, it wasn’t for me.

Script link: North Korean Musical

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

What I learned: We have another example of something that drives me crazy. A 120 page comedy. There are really two factors for a screenplay being long. The first is a large character count. Laying out character storylines takes time, which takes up pages. The second is a complicated plot. When you have lots of developments and twists and turns – the kind of stuff that needs a lot of setup and exposition – that’s going to take up time as well. The thing is, comedies shouldn’t have either of these problems. Comedies usually center on a small group of people, or even one person. And the plots themselves should never be that complicated. Don’t believe me? When is the last time you went to a comedy to see an extremely complicated plot? That’s why you get readers and producers and agents who look at a 120 page comedy and roll their eyes. Because they know that the writer has included stuff that they shouldn’t have. So keep your character counts down and your plots simple in comedies. Do so and you shouldn’t have a problem with too many pages.

Yes, after many long hours of reading, the Nicholl finalists have been revealed.  First of all, congratulations! Are you on this list? I would love to check out these scripts myself, so feel free to send them my way. And best title of the list and possibly of the year definitely goes to: “Fig Hunt: The Quest for Battle Armor Star Captain.”

– Chris Bessounian & Tianna Langham, Los Angeles, Calif., “Guns and Saris”
– Dion Cook, Altus, Oklahoma, “Cutter”
– K.E. Greenberg, Los Angeles, Calif., “Blood Bound”
– Ehud Lavski, Tel Aviv, Israel, “Parasite”
– John MacInnes, Los Angeles, Calif., “Outside the Wire”
– Aaron Marshall, West Hollywood, Calif., “Fig Hunt: The Quest for Battle Armor Star Captain”
– Khurram Mozaffar, Lisle, Illinois, “A Man of Clay”
– Matthew Murphy, Culver City, Calif., “Unicorn”
– Abel Vang & Burlee Vang, Fresno, Calif., “The Tiger’s Child”
– Paul Vicknair & Chris Shafer, Los Angeles & Hermosa Beach, Calif., “A Many Splintered Thing”