When I think of Cameron Crowe, the first movie that comes to mind is Jerry Maguire. But I think Say Anything may be the best script he’s ever written. One of the reasons why it’s stood the test of time is that it’s so different. I mean seriously, when’s the last time you read a high school romantic comedy where the central conflict was a love triangle between a teenage couple and the girl’s father? You haven’t. And that’s the theme of today’s tips. Be different. If you’re constantly challenging yourself to make unique choices, you’ll put yourself ahead of 90% of your competition. Now, let’s learn a little something from this script, shall we?

AVOID CLICHÉ WHEN CREATING YOUR LEADS
This one seems obvious because it’s talked about so much in screenwriting books and on websites. But here you get to see it in action. Lloyd and Diane are NOT your typical high school love story. Lloyd is not an uber geek, hanging on to the last rung of the popularity ladder. He’s an outsider with a smattering of cool friends who lives with his sister and has an unhealthy obsession with kickboxing. Diane Court is not the unobtainable prom queen princess. She’s an uber-geek, made unobtainable more by her brains than her looks. A screenplay is capable of overcoming a lot of clichés. But one cliché it cannot overcome is cliched main characters. Always make sure your main characters are original.

IN A LOVE STORY, YOU NEED TO SHOW YOUR LEADS FALLING IN LOVE
I’ve talked about this before but it’s a mistake I keep seeing writers make. You need to SHOW your leads falling in love. People don’t fall in love cause it’s a love story or because both of them are good-looking. They must experience things together to make them fall in love. Lloyd takes Diane to her first party, which is a wild experience that ends with them driving a random drunk kid around for three hours looking for his house. He teaches her how to drive. They make love in the back seat of a car. He moves some broken glass out of her path. They muscle through an awkward dinner with her father and his friends. Instead of a bunch of boring scenes where two characters talk about their “opinions” on life, we SEE these two experiencing things together, and those experiences are what sell us on their falling in love.

YOUR CHARACTER SHOULD NEVER BE SITTING AROUND, WAITING FOR THE STORY TO CALL ON HIM
I always find it funny when a character is sitting around, doing nothing, and all of a sudden a call comes in from one of the other characters. “Rick, it’s time to go to Bill’s party!” Our hero LEAPS into action and we cut to the next scene. Nobody sits on a couch staring at the wall for hours. Your characters should be doing something that pushes the plot forward or tells us about their character, EVEN WHEN THEY’RE NOT ONSCREEN. Right before the break-up scene in Say Anything, Diane calls Lloyd to talk. Crowe could’ve had Lloyd anywhere (in his sister’s apartment for example). But instead, he puts him in the middle of an intense kickboxing class with little kids, reminding us of how important kickboxing is to this guy. It’s a tiny thing, but it makes us feel like our hero is actually living a life, as opposed to waiting for a fictional story to call on him when needed.

WHEN YOU COME INTO A FAMILIAR SITUATION, LOOK TO TURN IT ON ITS HEAD
One of my favorite moments in Say Anything is when Lloyd comes to pick up Diane for their first date. Normally, these scenes play out like so: The father sizes up his prey before barraging him with difficult questions about his daughter and his life. Hilarity ensues when the young man bides time until the girl shows up. So what does Crowe do with this scene instead? Before the dad can get a word in, Lloyd hits him with, “Look, I know you’re busy. You don’t have to entertain me. But you can trust me. I’ll tell you a couple of things about myself. I’m 19. I was overseas for a couple of semesters and now I’m back. I’m an athlete so I rarely drink. Kickboxing. You ever hear of kickboxing? Sport of the future? I can see by your face, no. My point is you can relax because your daughter will be safe with me for the next 7-8 hours sir.” He totally turns the cliché on its head! This is what all of you writers should be doing.

WHERE’S THE MOST INTERESTING LOCATION TO PLACE YOUR SCENE
Remember, the most interesting place to put your scene may not always be the most obvious one. But a good way to figure out WHERE to put a scene is to consider who your character is, then put him in a setting that conflicts with him. A neat little scene in Say Anything is when Lloyd calls Diane for the first time. This scene could’ve been placed anywhere where there was a phone – a bedroom, a living room, wherever. But Lloyd is bursting with energy, an animal that constantly needs to breathe, that needs space. So where does Crowe put him in this important moment? In a tiny bathroom! What was a simple phone call scene has turned exciting, as Lloyd is now a caged animal, pacing and ducking and colliding with everything in this very tiny space while he tries to ask Diane out. Always look for the most interesting place to put your scene.

BE UNIQUE WITH YOUR PARENTAL RELATIONSHIPS
One of the things you’re constantly dealing with as a writer is your characters’ parents. The role parents play (or don’t play) in your character’s life will have a huge effect on the character and his journey. The idea is to find a unique angle to make your character’s situation stand out. The three most common parental relationship situations in movies are: Parents are together but unhappy, Parents are divorced, and one of the parents is deceased. All of these can work (this is what they use for Diane’s character actually), but what I loved about Say Anything was that they eliminated Lloyd’s parents from the equation altogether and had him living with his sister and her son. It was this weird unfamiliar family dynamic that really helped explain why Lloyd was so weird and unfamiliar.

WHEN YOUR SCRIPT IS GETTING TOO SERIOUS, INFUSE IT WITH SOME FUN
If you hit us hard with a series of really intense scenes, the audience needs an outlet to get that tenseness out of its system. Say Anything hits its most intense segment when the IRS auditors bear down on Diane’s father, he encourages her to leave Lloyd, she breaks up with Lloyd, and then the subsequent depression Lloyd goes through. Cameron Crowe realizes he needs to give the audience a release, so he writes one of the funniest scenes ever written in a high school flick, when Lloyd goes to the Quickie Mart and is subsequently given the worst relationship advice in history. Too many writers are afraid that humor will “ruin the tone” of their serious movie or their serious sequence. Nothing could be further from the truth.

MILK THE EARLY PART OF THE SCENE WHEN YOU HAVE DRAMATIC IRONY
Remember, dramatic irony is when we have knowledge that our main character does not, usually that they’re in trouble. When you do this to an audience, you want to milk it as much as possible. So in the famous “I want you to have this pen” break-up scene in the car, we know Diane is going to break up with Lloyd beforehand. For that reason, Crowe plays up Lloyd’s happiness for the first half of the scene. In fact, Lloyd is on the total opposite end of the spectrum. He’s realized he’s in love with Diane! So much so that he needs to tell her. Right now! Crowe milks Lloyd’s excitement about the relationship all the way to the boiling point when he finally allows Diane to put us out of our misery. If you’re going to use dramatic irony, make sure you milk it!

A TALKY CAHRACTER ALLOWS YOU TO GET A LOT OF CHEATS IN
I never realized this before but Lloyd Dobler is a great big cheat character. What makes him so memorable is that he overtalks (in an endearing way) and will always tell you what’s on his mind. As Say Anything unfolded, I began to realize how useful this personality trait was. Lloyd would say things that would normally be considered “On the nose” (paraphrasing: “I feel good around you.” “When you and I are together it just feels right, you know.” “I like you a lot.” “I have a good feeling about us”), but since that’s his personality, we don’t question it. Ditto on exposition. Lloyd can launch into a half-page diatribe about how his father wanted him to join the army and we don’t bat an eye, because it’s who he is to say those sorts of things. I’m not saying every story should have one of these characters. But if you do have one, take advantage of it.

THROW A NEVER-BEFORE-USED PLOTLINE INTO YOUR ROM-COM
A while back, I read an article about this movie, where the author pointed out that Crowe’s big mistake with Say Anything was the weird IRS scam subplot with the father. If he would’ve ditched that, Say Anything would have been a lot better. I initially agreed with this. I always found that storyline to be tonally inconsistent with the rest of the film. But upon watching the movie again, I’ve changed my mind. That storyline is part of what makes this movie so original and so memorable. You’ve never seen anything like it in a rom-com before. It’s just so odd that you can’t forget it. Sure, Crowe could’ve done something more traditional, like make the dad a slightly intimidating blue collar worker who’s overprotective of his daughter, but we’ve seen that before. The way the father’s whole storyline plays out is so unique that it sticks with you afterwards. That’s what we’re all trying to do. Write things that stick with people long after they’ve left the theater.

This is a great movie. And except for a couple of dated musical choices, it still stands up today. I strongly advise revisiting it and watching these screenwriting tips in action.

Genre: Drama/Comedy/Family/Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Fish-Out-Of-Water/Thriller?
Premise: After being the first person born on Mars, 15 year old Gardner falls for an earth girl via an online relationship.
About: There isn’t much information on this one. I don’t think it ever sold. I believe Allan Loeb is developing it with the person he created the idea with. As we all know, Allan Loeb is one of the hardest working and highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood, working on films as far ranging as Things We Lost In The Fire to The Dilemma to Wall Street 2. He’d been writing for something like 12 years with no success before he broke through with “Fire.” I reviewed one of his spec scripts a couple of years back, “The Only Living Boy In New York.”
Writer: Allan Loeb (based on a story by Allan Loeb and Richard B. Lewis)
Details: 122 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).

This one just sounded too bizarre to pass up. A kid – born on Mars – who falls in love with an earth girl over the internet. Now THAT is wild. And in more ways than one. Because when I heard that idea, I immediately thought of a dozen story problems they were going to run into. And I just didn’t see any of those problems being solved. Because I’ve seen them hundreds of times in scripts before and they’re notoriously difficult to overcome. Anyway, I don’t know what I was expecting when I opened this screenplay, but I knew it was going to be worthy of discussion.

Astronaut Sarah Elliot is preparing to be one of the first colonists on Mars. A day before her launch, she celebrates with her boyfriend with a little nookie nookie, if you know what I’m saying (I’m saying sex). Bad idea. Sarah ends up pregnant (which they find out quickly after launch), which means she’ll now be having a baby…on Mars. This is how Gardener Elliot comes into the universe, as the first known “alien” (born on another planet) in human history.

Sarah dies and Gardner grows up on Mars, mostly under the care of Kendra Wyndham, the only person on the red planet who doesn’t treat him like a freak show. Once Gardner hits his teenage years, he starts communicating with people back on earth, specifically a young alternative troubled girl named Root Beer. He falls for her, but doesn’t tell her his true identity.

Back on earth, the totally uncool head scientist of NASA, Ed Jurado, wants to use the first person born on Mars as his own personal guinea pig, so he orders Gardner to come back home on the next flight. Kendra comes with him, and nine months later Gardner sets foot on earth for the first time.

When he realizes he’s there to be studied though, he makes a run for it, looking for his online crush Root Beer and then his mysterious father (who was never informed of Gardner’s existence). After a few fish out of water sequences, Gardner makes it to Colorado where he finally teams up with his little bottle of A&W, and the two head to California, where they believe his father is living.

Ed Jurado and his nasties are always hot on their trail, while Kendra is forming her own one-woman show to divert them and save Gardner before he’s turned into a permanent lab rat. May the best…space…….person…team win.

So, like I said, when I heard this idea, I could see the problems from a million miles away (no pun intended). These are screenplay problems that even the best screenwriters in the world are going to have difficulty solving, so I was curious to see if Loeb could hurdle them. Here are the first three that came to mind.

1) Relationships over the internet are boring and un-cinematic. How would they deal with this?

Well, about midway through the movie, our young heroes finally meet, allowing them to be, in fact, face to face, at least for the second half of the movie. But it’s too little, too late, because, as I feared, up until that point you have two people e-mailing each other. And I don’t care if you’re the most original most amazing writer in the world. You can’t make two people e-mailing each other interesting. And no, don’t use “You’ve Got Mail” as an example. You’ve Got Mail is a terrible movie. But even if you argue that it’s a good movie (and you’d be wrong), the newness of e-mail was what allowed that script to overcome that rule. Keep your characters face to face people. It’s waaaaay more interesting.

2) How do you set up the Mars situation quickly?

When I heard this idea, I knew they were going to have to use a lot of exposition just to explain why this kid was on Mars in the first place. Whenever you have to explain something complicated, it eats up valuable screenplay real estate, real estate you should be using to tell your story, not explain what happened before the story. Sure enough, Out of This World has to burn its entire first act just to explain how our main character was born on Mars. This means the real story, coming back to earth, doesn’t get started until the second act. I would never want to be tasked with figuring out how to make this work. It’s just too complicated and no matter how you slice it, it requires endless explaining.

3) How is hooking up with a girl going to feel important to an audience when compared with a kid living on Mars?

To me, the bigness of this idea rests with the Mars angle. So doesn’t making the goal of our hero to hook up with a girl back on earth feel…I don’t know, a mite insignificant in comparison? I mean I get that the goal here is to have the reader love the characters so much that their relationship WILL feel like the most important thing in the script. But this goes back to problem number 1. How do you do that when you can’t even put your leads on the same planet for the first half of the movie? We’re just talking about impossible-to-solve screenplay scenarios here.

The uneven setup helped contribute to a few more clunky situations. Gardner gets to earth at the midway point, making what was a long-distance love story now a fish-out-of-water semi-comedy. Changing genres in the middle of your script is never a good idea. And the messy way it’s executed here doesn’t do the script any favors. It basically turns into the teenage version of Starman for the second half.

As if that weren’t bad enough, so that we don’t forget about Root Beer, the story is forced to keep jumping back to her. We already have an extremely complicated story with Gardner. That we now have to jump away from this story to highlight Root Beer makes things even clunkier.

And then there were just a lot of lazy choices. The villain, Ed Jurado, was one of the more one-dimensional villains I’ve read in forever. There’s a setup and payoff with 15 year old Root Beer owning a crop duster and using it to help them escape the government baddies, despite not believing any of Gardner’s story about being hunted by the government because he’s from Mars. Yes, we have a 15 year old pilot on our hands. And then there was the IM’ing when Gardner was on Mars. Mars is like 50 million miles away. It has at least a 45 minute delay in communication. That’s going to be one boring IM session.

“Hey.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………..”Hey.”

I will say this about Loeb’s writing though. He has an amazing ability to string words together in a pleasing easy-to-read way. I don’t think I’ve ever read a script I’ve disliked as fast as I did “Out Of This World.” I know that’s a bit of a backhanded compliment but seriously, after reading The Infiltrator, where every word felt like it had a stop sign at the end of it, this was one continuous stream of green lights. Maybe this is part of why he’s such an in-demand writer. His scripts are so easy to read.

Is there a story in here? I don’t think there is. It’s just too complicated. But if I were judging what worked best, I would say the fish-out-of-water stuff. That’s where you’re going to get the most bang for your buck. So if you can get Gardner down to earth a LOT sooner, have him interact with the earth, and maybe meet Root Beer THEN as opposed to earlier on the internet? I suspect this story would be a lot cleaner and a lot better. But yeah, I couldn’t get into it.

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

What I learned: Just because an idea is cool or interesting or even great, it doesn’t mean it should be a movie. Sometimes you have ideas that simply can’t be executed. It unfortunately takes time and experience to learn which ideas fall into this category, but I will say this: Sci-fi or fantasy ideas that require a ton of backstory (as is the case with Out Of This World) are usually the biggest culprits. That’s not to say that’s the case with all of them (Star Wars was pretty good I remember), but just be wary of those ideas when they pop into your head. Make sure they’re workable in story form.

Genre: Spy/Thriller
Premise: As the IRA moves in on one of their big targets, they begin to suspect that there’s a spy within the organization.
About: Josh Zetumer originally tried to break into Hollywood writing a bunch of epic period/gangster/mob type scripts, stuff like The Departed, but wasn’t having any success. So he reevaluated his approach and came up with a much simpler concept, writing about a couple of men up on a mountain battling one another. That script, Villain, is what broke him in, and I reviewed it about a year ago. Since then, Josh has been working on a lot of big projects around town, including the Robocop remake. When he pitched his take on The Infiltrator, the producers loved it and gave him a shot at the script, which is based on an “Atlantic Monthly” magazine article. Leonardo Dicaprio is attached to play the cold-hearted spy hunter, Scap.
Writer: Josh Zetumer
Details: Revised draft – June 5th, 2007 (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 know The Infiltrator is not a bad script because it was recommended to me with high praise by one of the readers. Which is why I’m struggling to figure out why I didn’t like it. It may have something to do with my lack of excitement over the straight spy genre in general. I like the high concept spy genre, stuff like “Salt” (the original script – not the movie). I like the comedy spy genre, stuff like “The True Memoirs Of An International Assassin.” Actually that’s more about hit men.  But the point is there’s something that feels – I don’t know – cliché to me about the straight spy genre. And that bias was on full display during my read of The Infiltrator.

It’s 1993. Kevin Fulton leads a double life. He tells his wife that he’s a good man, an honest man, a working man. But the truth is, he’s anything but. Fulton works for the Irish Republican Army, which is, if you’re to believe the media and movies, a really nasty organization. A typical Sunday for Fulton might include blowing up a political bigwig along with his family, which in my experience doesn’t make your organization very endearing.

After one of their missions goes sour and their captain is killed, the IRA wants to bring in the mysterious and elusive Scap as the new team leader. Fulton, who thought he was going to head up the group, is pissed. So when Scap joins the team, he gives him the cold shoulder. Which is fine by Scap, because he doesn’t like Fulton either.

(SPOILERVILLE) But it turns out Fulton has more of a reason to be pissed than we thought. Fulton is a British spy! And he’s working his way through the organization to try and take it down, Fulton style.

It would appear he’s doing a pretty good job. UNTIL. He realizes that Scap is the IRA’s number one spy hunter! Scap was specifically assigned to this group to take Fulton down! I think! I’m not totally sure, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Their team’s mission, if they choose to accept it, is to recruit money out of some American bigshot so they have the cash to fund more invasions and murders and bomb plots. I think. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure, because the plot was really confusing. But I don’t think that stuff matters. The marquee here is the showdown between Scap and Fulton. And it’s not looking good for the good guys (which is Fulton) (I think).

Okay so, I didn’t like this script. And the main reason I didn’t like it is because I never knew what was going on. Now whether this is because I don’t understand the genre, or because the story wasn’t clear enough, I’ll never know. What I do know is that for the majority of the read I felt like the guy trying to get into the huddle to hear the play but could never manage to squeeze my way in. “Wait a minute, what’s the play? What’s going on? Hold up, can you repeat that again? Hey guys!?  Guys!!?”

Let’s start with Fulton and Scap. There’s a scene, midway through the movie, where Fulton’s undercover team tells him, “They brought Scap in to expose you. He’s a spyhunter.”

Okay, so hold up. If they brought Scap in because they knew Fulton was a spy, why doesn’t Scap just kill Fulton right away? Why wait? Is this some spy protocol I don’t know about? I’m not being facetious. I really want to know. I guess if they keep Fulton alive they can try and extract some information out of him before sending him to that big spy agency in the sky? But to me it didn’t make sense.

What made even less sense, however, was that Fulton continued on with his undercover mission after knowing that the IRA’s number one spy hunter was not only IN HIS UNIT, but also KNEW HE WAS A SPY. Am I the only one who thinks this is suicide? Yeah, go hang out with the notorious spy hunter who looks like he blends human flesh into his smoothies every morning. That makes sense.

The next big problem for me was that I had absolutely ZERO idea what the story was about. Virtually nothing was explained other than they were supposed to meet a rich American dude named Cavanaugh. The whole time I kept asking, “Where are they going? What are they doing? Why are they doing it? What is the plan? What is their objective?” I had no idea. So every scene was me playing catch-up, which would’ve been fine if I were trying to catch up on some cool mystery. But instead I’m playing catch up on things like, “What is this scene about?” Or “Where are we?”

Is this common for the spy genre? Where nothing is revealed and every scene is a black hole that all information gets sucked into? If so, I don’t think I can ever like spy flicks. It would be like watching the final sequence of Star Wars without having the benefit of the mission prep scene beforehand. If you don’t know what the characters are specifically trying to accomplish, how can you become invested in their pursuit?

That explains nearly every beat in Infiltrator. They need to blow up a politician and his family. Why? They meet Cavanaugh. Why? They’re asked to kill a man for Cavanaugh. Why? They’re asked to go kill a man on a plane. Why? I guess the mystery is supposed to be part of the fun. But all it did was frustrate me, as I never once knew what was going on.

Now on the plus side, Zetumer has nailed a key aspect that gets scripts made into movies. He’s created two badass characters and pits them against one another. Actors love this shit. They love it. And if actors love it, they’re going to sign on. And when big actors sign on to your movie, your movie gets made. True this one hasn’t been made yet, but DiCaprio’s still attached and I’m guessing, from what I’ve read, that the lack of movement has more to do with there being no discernable plot yet, and not with the characters.

Now I’ll concede a couple of things before I go. I don’t know this genre very well. So I may not get why certain things are done the way they are. My boredom could have also lead to me missing key plot points and therefore not understanding what was going on. And there’s a chance that one of my main problems with the script – whether Scap knew Fulton was a spy or not – was explained by Scap NOT knowing Fulton was a spy. Or at least I’m hoping that’s the case. Cause I still don’t understand why Scap didn’t just kill Fulton as soon as he knew he was a spy.

I was in the dark too often on this one guys. I didn’t enjoy it. Did you?

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

What I learned: Maximize your scene’s potential. If you write a scene with a rat trying to get some cheese, and you show the rat casually scurrying up, smelling the cheese, taking the cheese, and eating the cheese, only to have a cat leap out of nowhere and pounce on him, I’m going to be bored with the first 90% of that scene, because I never knew there was a threat involved. But if you show me that the rat knows there’s a cat somewhere in the room BEFORE he goes after the cheese, now you have me interested the entire time, since I understand what the threat is before the pursuit. Infiltrator never lets us know about the cat. The threats always come afterwards, making everything leading up to the pursuit unexciting and uneventful.

Genre: Comedy/Drama
Premise: A man in his 50s is laid off from his long-time job, forcing him to enroll in college for the first time.
About: You know Tom Hanks the actor. But do you know Tom Hanks…THE WRITER!? Yes, Tom Hanks scripted today’s screenplay, Larry Crowne, and used that credit to somehow finagle a lead role in the film. Dammit that nepotism. He also got his golfing buddy Julia Roberts to join him (they’re not really golfing buddies. I made that up). Sensing that maybe his script wasn’t up to snuff, he recruited his producing partner on My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos, to come in and give the script a polish. Larry Crowne hits theaters July 1st.
Writer: Tom Hanks (with help from Nia Vardalos)
Details: 117 pages – November 2009 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’m an official card-carrying member of the “Tom Hanks Can Do No Wrong” Club. Part of the reason I think Hanks has been so successful in his career is that, unlike most actors, he not only understands character, he understands STORY. He knows how to pick material better than just about everyone out there. Because of this, you’d think Hanks would be a good candidate to write a screenplay. If he understands the two most important factors that go into writing a script (character and story), why shouldn’t he be able to write one?

Well, the more I study and appreciate this craft, the more I come to the conclusion that you need to DEDICATE yourself to screenwriting to be good at it. Yeah sure, every once in awhile a neophyte writer gets lucky. But most of the time, you gotta know this world inside out to write something great. As valid as Tom Hanks attempts with Larry Crowne are, he’s not a full-time writer. And that shows up in almost every facet of the script.

Larry Crowne works at a Costco-like store called Unimart. He’s one of their best employees. One of their happiest employees. And one of their most well-liked employees. So far, sounds like a Tom Hanks film. But with the economy slumping, Unimart has to downsize. And when management is figuring out who to fire, they realize that Larry’s never been to college, and therefore can never be eligible for a promotion. Larry is given the old “Clean Up on Aisle 27” order, and just like that, he’s out on the street.

After freaking out about house payments and interviewing for every job in the city, Larry realizes that his only real shot at getting a job again is going back to college. So he enlists at a local community college where he takes a handful of courses, highlighted by a public speaking class headed up by the Queen Bitch of the school, Mercedes Tainot.

Mercedes is angry. Scary. Pissy. Bitter. She’s not a nice gal. And she has good reason. She graduated from prestigious Vasser, yet she’s teaching at a dried up third rate community college. Not only that, but her husband sits at home all day, running his “blog” and surfing porn. Please, somebody kill her now.

While this would seem to indicate the beginning of a Larry/Mercedes courtship, Mercedes actually disappears from the script for awhile, while Larry befriends one of his fellow-students, the rebellious Talia, who surrounds herself with admirers and runs a local scooter gang. She recruits Larry into the gang and pretty soon they’re hanging out non-stop, despite Talia’s surprisingly chill boyfriend reminding Larry that he’s the man of the family.

Eventually, Larry starts chipping away at Mercedes’ rough exterior. He begins excelling in her class. He gets a part-time job. And he realizes that everything’s going to be okay. And that – my friends – is Larry Crowne in a nutshell.

This is actually a good idea for a movie – and a topical one at that. A laid-off 50-something is forced to go back to college. There’s potential for both comedy and drama in that premise. But Larry Crowne never really explores that potential, instead preferring to zip in and out of several disconnected storylines, unfortunately getting lost in the process.

Let’s start with the details. This is something I’m becoming more and more aware of that separates pros from beginners. Beginners don’t think the details of their screenplay have to make all that much sense. As long as there’s a vague understanding of what’s going on, they feel they’re doing their job. Nothing could be further from the truth. When details are mushy, when the peripherals are unclear, it’s like putting a foggy window between your story and your reader. Yeah, they can see everything, but ultimately they’re squinting the whole time, trying to figure out what the hell is what.

What is Larry Crowne really doing here? Is he trying to get a college degree to get back in the job market? If so, why is he only taking three classes at a low-level community college? Is that really going to impress an employer more than a 20 year job at Unimart? And why, of these three classes that he’s taking, would one of them be a public speaking class? I think someone points out that this class is necessary because it will help him in interviews or something.

Um, what?

If you’re going to build your entire premise around your 50-something hero going back to school, then you have to make it real. You have to commit to it. We as an audience have to believe that this is going to improve his life. Taking three classes at a lame community college is about as convincing a career move as sitting at home and watching Maury Povich reruns.

Further muddying the waters is the lack of a cohesive time-frame. This is why ticking time bombs are so important. They frame your story for you. I’m not sure if Larry is taking only these three courses. If he’s planning on a full 2 year course load. If he’s using this to eventually transfer to a major university. What’s the overall plan here? None of this is ever explained! Which makes everything in the movie feel unconvincing.

The script also had a strange approach to its main romantic plot. It starts off focusing on Talia, the scooter-scurrying Queenpin. And then about 60% of the way in, it anoints Mercedes as the female lead, which forces us to completely re-evaluate the story.

In fact, we’re never quite sure what Mercedes is doing here. She makes this grand entrance as a supremely bitter bitch, and then she’s gone for like 30 pages. Every once in awhile we’ll get a quick scene or two with her and her husband, but then she’s stashed away in a box for another 20 pages.

And that’s a shame, because Mercedes is by far the most interesting thing about this story. In fact, if this movie was about her, it would be much better. She’s the one arcing. She’s the one learning the most about life. I would’ve had more Mercedes in this movie and I would’ve had more scenes between Mercedes and Larry. That’s when the script is at its best.

My biggest problem with Larry Crowne though is that there are no stakes to the story. We never truly believe that Larry Crowne is in any trouble. Yeah he’s lost his job and he’s about to lose his house. But there’s this pervasive feeling throughout the script that everything’s going to be okay. Even his friendship/relationship with Taken Talia is easy-breezy. The boyfriend actually comes to Larry early on and says (paraphrasing), “I know you’re going to fall for her. But please respect that she’s mine.” If the boyfriend is already on to Larry, how are we supposed to fear that Larry will be caught? I was never worried for Larry. Not once.

And because I’m piling on, here’s one more question I’d like to pose. How does a man who has made 20-30 million dollars a year for fifteen years have any inkling of what it’s like to struggle? What it’s really like for the average Joe out there to lose his job? I don’t say this in a ‘how dare you’ way. I’m genuinely interested in how someone in that position could ever understand real ‘holy shit I’m one month away from being homeless’ struggle. And I think that ultimately shows through in Larry Crowne. Larry Crowne is never in any danger because Tom Hanks has never been in any danger.

There was some cute stuff here and there in Crowne. Talia was a fun character. The scooter gang had some giggle-worthy moments. And the late-script stuff with Mercedes bordered on great. But it was too little, too late. Larry Crowne didn’t have the depth or the focus or the ambition required to pull this idea off.

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

What I learned: Get into all of your main story threads as quickly as possible. Remember, you don’t have a lot of time in a screenplay. You can’t afford to drag any of your main threads along. Get them started early so you can explore them to their fullest. Larry Crowne took its time with the Mercedes Tainot plot and, as a result, was forced to cram the bulk of it into the third act. It feels rushed because it is rushed. And this is due specifically to the writer taking way too casual of an approach to the thread early on.

Genre: Horror/Zombie
Premise: After a Zombie outbreak erupts, a devout Street Preacher must struggle to make it home and save his pregnant wife and young son while determined to keep to God’s commandments—especially, thou shalt not kill.
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, however, to use an alias and fake title).
Writer: Adrian Damian Ceranowicz
Details: 92 pages

I picked Day of Reckoning because it was one of the better structured loglines I’d received. It was not, however, a great idea in and of itself. As I’ve stated before, the zombie genre is one of the toughest to infiltrate because every single zombie idea has been done before. You have to do something different to stand out. That’s why the late-incubation zombie spec Maggie made so much noise. That’s why Oren’s script, “The Kitchen Sink” made so much noise. If you’re just trying to write a good ole fashioned homage to your favorite zombie films, you’re throwing yourself to the zombies. Because a producer knows he can’t sell that. Does this mean The Day Of Reckoning is DOA. No. You still have one last ace up your sleeve. Execute your idea perfectly. Not 80%. Not 90%. Not six championships, not seven, not eight, not nine. We’re talking about a 100% perfect execution of your premise. If you do that, you can get away with an average idea. So, did Reckoning do that?

30-something priest Burt is still coming to grips with the death of his 8 year old son a year earlier. Times are tough, but his pregnant wife Betty and his other son, Isaac (the son’s twin) are slowly starting to get back to normal. The thing that keeps Burt going is his faith in God. He assures his family that everything’s going to be okay as long as they keep the faith.

Dedicated priest that he is, Burt, his brother, and his father, head over to the local university and start blasting bible passages out of a bullhorn. Cause, you know, college kids love that. Pretty soon they’ve drawn a small crowd of hecklers, and Burt’s getting into it with them.

One of these kids asks him if you automatically go to hell if you kill someone. Burt says, yes, every time. “Even if it’s in self-defense?” the coed asks, worrying about his soldier brother. “Every time,” Burt assures him. A few hours into this God and pony show, some strange looking dudes with stumble-itis start eating the crowd. Oh shit! ZOMBIES!

People are bitten. People start running. And within minutes, it’s clear that the town is under attack. While the college kids seem to be aware that these are zombies, our hero, Burt, does not. He just thinks they’re a bunch of seriously sick individuals.

Well, after his dad gets bitten, Burt realizes there may be more to this than he thought, and he and his brother find a car to drive him to the hospital. But man, there are like, zombies, EVERYWHERE. They don’t get very far, and soon Burt’s brother is bitten as well.

Back at the house, Betty and Isaac are fending off their own set of zombies, and when Betty finally gets a hold of Burt, she tells him that they won’t be able to hold them off forever. So Burt changes gears and heads back to save his family, all while not being able to kill the monsters in his way, lest he get sent to hell.

The Day Of Reckoning is a noble effort in that it wants to explore the emotional component of a zombie attack. It’s trying to make a bigger statement than just, “Zombies eat people.” But in making everything so over-the-top serious and so over-the-top dramatic, combined with the fact that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, it comes off as unintentionally clichéd, a simplified version of many zombie films we’ve already seen before.

I had a bunch of issues here actually, and it started at the top, with the story itself. The scale here is too small. We follow a gang of priests who we know nothing about to a college to yell at people, and then one of them has to travel 15 blocks (I’m assuming? Give or take?) to save his family. For a movie, that’s a tiny concept. It’s almost something you’d expect a group of film school students with no money to come up with to shoot themselves (which might be the case, I don’t know). When I originally read this logline, I imagined something closer to The Road, with a husband travelling cross-country with his pregnant wife and son, fending off zombies without being able to kill them. I was disappointed when the idea was more “Zombies in Suburbia,” which I don’t think is as interesting.

My next problem was Burt. Remember guys, how you introduce your main character has a HUGE impact on how we perceive them for the next 100 minutes. A character telling a funny joke vs. a character saving someone’s life vs. a character kicking a girl out of bed after sex vs. a character standing up to authority…all of those actions have very different effects on the audience. So you have to be judicious in what you show your hero doing in those early scenes.

While having Burt head to the local university to tell a bunch of college kids they’re going to hell MAY fit in with his character, it does not endear us to him, and so we pretty much hate Burt from the start. I don’t believe in God so I’m going to Hell? Yeah, that’s the guy I want to catch a movie with on a Saturday night. I mean obviously this is subjective. A devout Catholic may LOVE Burt because of this opinion. But since this is written for the masses and not Sunday Mass, you have to be more mindful of what your hero says and does.

Next we have the second act. And while this problem is more a consequence of a previous problem (the idea being too small), it still needs to be fixed. The fact that Burt gets to his house and then CAN’T FIND IT FOR 30 PAGES is a really bad story choice. He stumbles to the left. Can’t find his house. Stumbles to the right. Can’t find his house. Passes it again. Can’t find it. Passes it again. Can’t find it. I know this is explained later (spoiler: we find out he was bitten) but it doesn’t excuse the 70s style injured damsel in distress pulling herself away from the killer at .7 miles per hour. Plus it just felt like the story was stalling in order to get to the 90 page mark. When nothing new is happening in your script for 30 pages, that’s not a good thing.

But the biggest issue of them all is the lack of punch behind the “Thou Shall Not Kill” device. This is the hook of your movie. A guy must survive a zombie attack without being able to “kill” the zombies. That’s the thing I was looking forward to the most. “Oh man,” I wondered, “How is he going to pull this off??” But Burt’s belief in this principle is sold to us via a sloppy conversation with an annoying college kid. That’s not how you sell the most important device of your movie. If you want to sell something important, you have to SHOW US. Not TELL US.

For example (and I’m not saying Adrian should do this cause it might cause more problems than it’s worth), if you started the movie a year ago with a bad guy holding Burt’s son at knife point and Burt has a choice to either KILL him or NOT KIL him, and he chooses not to kill him, which results in his son being murdered, that action (or lack of action) sells Burt’s belief in “Thou shall not kill” a billion times better than a half-hearted conversation on a college campus. Remember guys. These are movies we’re talking about. SHOW us things. Don’t tell us things.

Now there were some good things in “Reckoning.” I thought the last 15 pages were pretty powerful. From the flashbacks to the twist reveal to the gaping womb of Betty to Burt finally having to make that decision (kill or don’t kill). Maybe the script did a better job than I’m giving it credit for because I was into it. But it was too little too late. Burt stumbling around outside his house for 30 minutes was the death knell for this script. It killed every bit of momentum it had.

So “Reckoning” needs a big rewrite. The storyline needs to be bigger. Burt’s character needs to be redesigned (so we’ll root for him). Not everything can be so melodramatic. A whole new second act needs to be written without the “I’ve fallen and I can’t find my house” segment. And most importantly, the “Thou shall not kill” commandment has to be sold more convincingly. If that isn’t convincing, this movie doesn’t work.

I probably sound too harsh but I think writers forget how much effort needs to be put into a script. Just getting from point A to point B isn’t enough. You gotta push yourself. Especially with these zombie flicks since there’s so much competition. Always be asking yourself, “Have I seen this in a zombie movie before?” If the answer is yes, consider changing it. Good luck!

Script link: The Day Of Reckoning

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

What I learned: Something to consider when writing preacher characters – To non-religious people, all bible passages sound the same. So when you’ve got your preacher spouting this psalm and then that psalm and then that psalm, a large portion of your readers are hearing gibberish. Instead, try and individualize the message. For example, on page 13 Burt says, “All right. Young people, answer me this. Would you sell your eyes for a million dollars?” “Yes. No! What kind of question is that?” “How about five million?” “No! Never! Not for any amount!” “Then why are you all so eager to sell your soul for a little bit of sin?” That was the only religious thing Burt said in 100 pages that I actually thought about, because it wasn’t “random passage from Bible 8324.” It was a thoughtful point that the character himself came up with.