Genre: Comedy
Premise: (writers’ logline) A film producer known for remaking some of Hollywood’s biggest movies becomes the subject of a posthumous investigation by Entertainment Tonight.
About: Last week’s comments section for Amateur Friday was a disaster. I want to rebound here. Remember what Amateur Friday is about. It’s about identifying the problems in an amateur screenplay to help both yourself and the writer of the script get better. There’s a huge difference between constructive criticism and hurtful criticism. Let’s show some class and keep everything on the constructive side. —- 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.
Writers: Josh Ames and Richard Karpala
Details: 102 pages
Ahhh Citizen Kane. A strange movie indeed. I’m one of those people who find the film fascinating, not so much because of the movie, but because of everything that happened around the movie. The egos involved. The history involved. The scandal. The David vs. Goliath aspect. With all those rich subplots, it really is the best story behind the making of a movie ever. And I can’t tell you how weird it was when I actually visited Hearst Castle and saw the real-life Xanadu for the first time. It made the whole thing even more real. Very trippy indeed.
So naturally, anything with Citizen Kane in the title and I’m going to be interested. And this one sounded good. The idea of trying to remake Citizen Kane is beyond ridiculous, and yet in this day and age, plausible. A comedy about that process could be gangbusters if done right.
Unfortunately, the movie I was expecting to read and the movie I actually read were not one and the same. Today’s writers take a more “meta” approach in their tackling of the subject matter. And the success of that decision will probably depend on the subjectivity of the reader. Let’s take a closer look.
The script starts off PERFECTLY. Charles Foster Kane – or a modern day version of him at least – stumbles into an expansive living room with bullet holes strewn everywhere, plants on fire, and a suffocating barrage of smoke. As sad opera music plays, and in ultra-slow motion, Kane pulls off a grenade pin. “Rosebud,” he says. And proceeds to blow his insides against the walls. Talk about updating a classic!
But whatever does “Rosebud” mean? I’ll tell you who wants to know. Entertainment Tonight. They assign our hero, Frank Tesh (yes, John Tesh’s brother) to find out as much as he can about Charles Foster Kane, so as to shed some light on why that word might have been his last.
He starts off by locating Kane’s infamous mistress, Susan Alexander, a MILFy cocaine-addict who still strips when they allow her to. Susan fills Tesh in on Kane’s early life, where he first discovered his love for movies. When he was old enough, he took a 25 grand loan from his uncle and proceeded to make “Heart Songs,” a touchy feely film that won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance (one of my favorite jokes in the script).
But Kane wasn’t satisfied with his success. What he really wanted to do was make remakes, regardless of how controversial they were. And his wish was granted. Producers everywhere allowed him to remake movies like Top Gun, Forrest Gump, and Back To The Future. Kane was on top of the world.
But that world came crashing down when his wife found out about his mistress, and pretty soon Kane was divorced, alone, and miserable. Even his most trusted confidant, Leland, sells him out by writing a scorching guest review of one of his movies on Ain’t It Cool News (another favorite moment). In the end, it all became too much for him, so he took his own life.
I’m not sure where to start here so I think I’ll begin with the degree of difficulty. This is something I bring up a lot and it’s definitely something every writer should be aware of. You need to know when you’re aiming too high. A lot of writers feel that the freedom of art should allow one to go anywhere they want and if it’s funny enough or clever enough, it will all simply work itself out. Unfortunately, that’s idealistic and unrealistic. The higher the degree of difficulty, the more likely it is that your story will fall on its ass.
Here, Josh and Richard are writing a highly broad comedic update of Citizen Kane while tackling a social commentary on the state of Hollywood remakes and sequels. Do you realize how pin-point accurate the tone has to be to pull that off? I don’t know if Aaron Sorkin could throw that together in his best year. I mean the humor here is really broad – almost Airplane 2: The Sequel 
Also, once the initial fun factor wears off, we realize that we’re basically following the exact same story format as Citizen Kane, but in broad comedy form. This puts us way ahead of the story and since there are no real stakes or consequences to anyone’s actions, we’re just hoping that each of the sequences is funny.
Strangely, this script brings to light some of the weaknesses in the original Citizen Kane, which are actually the same well-documented problems I have with all stories that exist in the bio-pic format. There’s nothing truly driving the story. The mystery behind “Rosebud” is a lazy attempt at creating a reason to look back into Charles Foster Kane’s life, made all the more clear when we find out the damn thing was in reference to a relatively insignificant sled. The thing with Citizen Kane though, was that it was such a rich and thorough examination of a man, that we didn’t care that such a thin objective was driving the story.
Citizen Kane: The Remake has replaced that richness with shenanigans – and many of them- which means, unfortunately, there isn’t a shred of story left to grab onto. In fact, the secret behind what Rosebud means (it’s a tube of lipstick Kane used to wear as a child) is given to us midway through the script, technically leaving no more reason for the story to continue. We know what it means. So why are we still following the guy who’s trying to find out what it means?
But the bigger issue here is the same problem I have with most of the comedies I read. Citizen Kane: The Remake is more about stringing together funny scenes than it is about telling a story. And when all you have to connect with your audience is laughs, they start tuning out on you around the half hour point (this was the exact moment, in fact, where I started pulling away from Citizen Kane: The Remake). This is why in the history of sitcoms, whenever they’ve tried to do an hour special, it’s never worked. Because after a half hour of jokes, the audience needs something more to keep them interested. They need characters to care about, relationships that need mending, a story to latch onto. There’s none of that on display here. It’s just cold hard comedy. And as a result, I became more and more distanced from the material as it went on.
There’s a part of me that wishes Ames and Karpala would’ve taken a more traditional route here and followed a director who was trying to remake Citizen Kane. It wouldn’t have been as inventive or daring, but it would’ve been much more manageable. Watching a Michael Bay like idiot suggest to a producer who held Citizen Kane close to his heart how he wanted to stage that opening scene (with Kane dropping the grenade during a slow operatic score) would’ve been priceless. But I’ll give it to Josh and Richard for taking a chance. They went for something a little left of center. They just may have underestimated how difficult it was to pull off.
Script Link: Citizen Kane: The Remake
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Beware of the 3 a.m. idea! These are ideas that make you laugh your ass off at 3 in the morning. But that does not mean they should be included in your screenplay. In fact, most of the time, they definitely shouldn’t be included in your screenplay. I mean, apparitions of John Tesh (who’s not dead so why would there be an apparition of him?) playing a piano in the corner of the room during all of Frank’s interviews? Sometimes you need to police yourselves. You need to say, “You know what? That’s too much. We need to dial it back.” There is a limit, even in broad comedy.
I’ve reviewed a lot of scripts here on Scriptshadow, and one of the unfortunate things about the way the blog is constructed, is that whenever I come across a good script that’s been lost amongst the glut of endless projects weighing down the Hollywood sign and everything around it, it’s forgotten less than a week later, as newer fresher script reviews take its place. So I’ve been meaning to look back over my reviews and find a handful of scripts that deserve to stay in the limelight, scripts that I think some ambitious producer or director could turn into a great film. Now I realize that there’s a reason these scripts haven’t been made yet. They’re gambles. None of them has that moist dewy high concept center that make them a “sure thing,” but that’s what makes them such great scripts. They all take chances. And it’s time for some producer to take a chance on them.
MIXTAPE by Stacy Menear
Premise: A thirteen year old outcast finds a mixtape that holds the key to learning everything about her deceased parents. But after accidentally destroying the obscure compilation of songs, she must rely on the song list to find all the music instead.
There’s tough sell and then there’s *tough sell.* If centering your script around a 30 year old good-looking male lead is the best way to get your movie made, centering it around a 13 year old chubby introverted girl is probably one of the worst ways to get your movie made. But this script has more heart in its 119 pages than every movie that was released last summer combined. You immediately fall in love with Beverly, the main character, and when that impossible journey of finding these obscure music tracks looks like it’s going to end in failure, and that Beverly will never truly get to know her real parents, it kills you. Obviously, finding the right actress to play Beverly is key (Chloe Moretz is attached to star but she’s attached to star in a lot of things), but this is one of those movies that I guarantee festival audiences will fall in love with, which should propel it to a strong limited release. Are you listening indie producers?
THE GARDENER by Jay Sherman
Premise: A reclusive gardener’s life is turned upside-down when he’s given a unique plant that exhibits shocking properties.
It’s not too often you mistake a script for another script, sit down to read it, realize it’s the wrong script, but still enjoy it anyway. Yet that’s exactly what happened with The Gardener. Nobody really jumped onto the Gardener train with me when I first posted it back in the day, and I guess that’s because it’s a pretty weird concept, but man is it a fun weird concept. Here’s why I think this movie should be made. Even without the high-concept elements, even without the weirdness, it would still be a good movie, because there’s still a series of compelling real-life storylines going on here, and all of them are relatable. Hey, they made a movie about going into John Malkovich’s brain. Why can’t they make a movie about living plants?
BLUE by Lindsey Rosin
Premise: In 1998, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a high school girl becomes a local celebrity when she produces a line of dresses based on the famous blue dress Monica Lewinsky wore while having “relations” with the president.
I love this little story. And I believe it’s the only script on the list that hasn’t been purchased yet. I’ve read a lot of screenplays about high school and I can’t remember one that captured the fear, the confusion, the anticipation, and the excitement of being a teenager as honestly as this did. I also loved how packed the story was. Every character has a purpose. Every storyline challenges our hero. And it’s got one of the more clever indy hooks (with the Monica Lewinsky dress) and superb character work I’ve seen in an indie screenplay. Just a really neat little script.
LONNY THE GREAT by Jay Reiss
Premise: In order to earn the respect of his famous father, a young man must go on a great journey to find his idol, a “Cat Stevens” like 70s alternative-dance icon who’s since gone into hiding.
Granted this would cost a little more dough than the above mentions, here’s why I still think this movie needs to be made: Because Wes Anderson doesn’t write good movies anymore. There. I said it. The cat stevens is out of the bag. But it’s true. Everyone’s just afraid to admit it. He’s copying themes and characters that he’s already written in much better movies, just like what happened with Woody Allen 20 years ago. Lonny The Great is the kind of script a young Wes Anderson would write. It’s funny, it’s quirky, it’s ambitious, and it has an interesting main character we want to follow. The structure’s all over the place but it’s a testament to how great Reiss is with character that it still works.
HOME by Adam Alleca
Premise: A paranoid delusional ex-convict is left on house arrest in a cabin out in the middle of the woods.
The contained thriller is PLAYED OUT. Right? Wrong. It’ll never be played out. Because you can always shoot contained thrillers for 1/20 the cost of normal movies. That’s never going to change. The problem is, everyone is writing them. So how do you stand out? I’ll tell you. You create interesting characters we care about (can’t spell “character” without… “care”), introduce exciting plot twists, and always keep the reader guessing. Home does this better than any contained thriller I’ve read all year. The gimmicky set up had me convinced this was going to be more “been there, done that,” but the execution (even when it goes off the rails at the end) was superb.
SUPERCONDUCTING SUPERCOLLIDER OF SPARKLE CREEK, WISCONSIN by David Koepp and John Kamps
Premise: A secret supercollider underneath Sparkle Creek, Wisconsin starts wreaking havoc on the small town.
This was a HUGE spec sale from David Koepp and John Kamps (2.5 mil!) back in 2001 so this is hardly a “little known” script, but what surprises me is just how dead the project is. This is a great idea for a movie! We’ve never seen anything like it before. And not only does it have that high-concept hook, but it wouldn’t be expensive to make either. It’s set in a small town. And all of the effects are basic shit filmmakers 20 years ago could’ve pulled off in-camera. So those won’t be that expensive. The bigger problem here is with the main characters. They’re not interesting. Their love story isn’t interesting. But that can be fixed. It’s not hard to come up with a compelling love story with tons of conflict set in a small town. I think of all the scripts I’m highlighting today, this one has the biggest chance for success.
PASSENGERS by Jon Spaihts
Premise: A spacecraft transporting thousands of people to a distant planet has a malfunction in one of its sleep chambers. As a result, a single passenger is awakened 90 years before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he wakes up a second passenger who he’s fallen in love with.
Well well well, isn’t this a surprise? Those of you who’ve been reading Scriptshadow fore-ev-ah know that I did not get swindled in by this Black List favorite that was the belle of Hollywood’s ball (and Keanu Reeve’s eye) when I first read it. But after recently engaging in an hour long conversation with a writer who loved the script, I started to see it in a whole new light. Although the logic problems in the script kill me (there’s no backup plan for someone accidentally coming out of cryo-sleep early???), this is a love story we’ve never seen onscreen before. Imagining these two tiny people walking around this vast empty ship — I think it could be iconic if done with the right director. And because there’s only two characters, some clever green screen would actually make this cheap to shoot. One thing I didn’t give enough credit to Spaihts for in my initial review was, he wrote a unique story. And in a world where everything is copied, remade, and reimagined, you have to give him credit for that.
UNTITLED CHEF PROJECT by Steven Knight
Premise: A manic narcissistic workaholic chef tries to get back into the restaurant game after a much publicized meltdown many years ago.
Of all these scripts, the one I’m the most shocked hasn’t been made yet is this one. I mean, whoever plays the title role in this movie is going to win an Oscar. Hands down. It’s the kind of stuff actors’ dreams are made of. And it’s funny. This movie is so damn funny! And I love the love story here. It’s so unconventional and fresh. As fresh as the food that’s prepared at our hero’s restaurant. There is no doubt in my mind that this would be a great film. So why the hell has everyone abandoned it?? This is not the kind of project that deserves to be lost in Development Hell. Find your lead actor, whether it be Denzel, Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Tom Hardy or whoever and start production on this tomorrow! Before my food gets cold. You’re really dropping the ball if you don’t get this made!
OH NEVER SPECTRE LEAF by C. Ryan Kirkpatrick and Chad Musick
Premise: After a freak plane crash, an awkward teenage boy must enlist the help of a sexually frustrated dwarf, a smokin’ hot cyborg, and an idiot in a bunny suit to defeat the Nocturnal Wench Everlasting and restore sunlight to the bizarre land of Spectre Leaf.
Okay no doubt this would cost a little extra cash, but in my biased opinion, Spectre Leaf is a thousand times better than all these mash-ups hitting the airwaves right now. My problem with those projects (Snow White and the Huntsman, Peter Pan, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) is that they’re sheep in wolf’s clothing. They promote themselves as different, yet they’re as tame as a Wednesday evening Justin Bieber concert. I promise you that there is nothing tame about Oh Never Spectre Leaf. These guys pull no punches and rarely write what you think they’re going to write. True, while the overabundance of adrenaline will (and has) turn off some, the non-stop streaming of imagination these two put into every page means there isn’t a boring moment to boot in Spectre Leaf.
THE NUMBERS STATION by F. Scott Frazier
Premise: A black ops agent is assigned to protect a female operator who works out of a “numbers station” deep in the Arizona desert.
I’m not really a minimalist fan because if movies go on for too long without much happening, I start jonezin for some story. But in this minimalist thriller, the slow build-up helps escalate the tension and suspense required for the second half of the story to work. I’m not in love with the draft I read, but I loved where it could go with a few rewrites. I wouldn’t mind the numbers, and their secret meaning, to be tied in closer with the plot, so that our protagonists are not only fighting for their lives in the end, but also realizing the much bigger implications involved. Of course, one of the reasons this thriller is so charming is that it doesn’t give you all the answers, forcing you to figure out some key pieces of the story on your own. Most writers don’t know how to pull this off, but Frazier understands the balance perfectly. I’d love to see this movie get made.
There are plenty of other scripts I could’ve pointed out. The Ornate Anatomy Of Living Things, Junior Executive, Sunflower. All great scripts. But they’ve already gotten a lot of play on the site. I was hoping to dig a little deeper, and when I went back through all my reviews, I was surprised by how powerfully some of them affected me. Passengers, for example, is a script I was never into, but when I went back to it, I realized that I remembered every scene. That told me there was something more going on there. For that matter, all of these scripts stayed with me in some way, and I’ll be really excited if a few producers out there see the same thing and get these projects where they belong, at a Rodeo Drive intersection under a green light.
Genre: Romantic Dramedy
Premise: A frustrated 35 year old magazine columnist forms a friendship with a 16 year old female blogger while researching her for an article.
About: Point A landed on the 2010 Black List. It’s written by Chris Rubeo, who wrote and directed the 2003 Indie “Hale Bopp,” but has been kicking it underground-style ever since. After Point A landed on the Black List, it was optioned by Darius Films.
Writer: Chris Rubeo
Details: 109 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).
I’m going to get a little “Days of Our Lives” here for a second, but bear with me cause I promise you this is going somewhere. Actually, I can’t promise that. But hear me out anyway. I had this friend, a woman I knew, who was going through some tough times in her marriage, and she started having an affair with this guy who was another friend of mine (why do I hang around these morally bankrupt people? A question for another day). I never felt comfortable hearing about the whole thing but because I was so involved in these people’s lives, there was no way around it.
Well one evening, we were at a bar, and someone in our group brought up this reality star chick (can’t remember her name) who had recently cheated on her husband. And my friend (the female) jumped in and gave this five minute monologue about how much of a whore this woman was for cheating on her husband. Now naturally, I’ve got a really confused look on my face because, um, wasn’t she doing the same thing? Yet as I watched her say this stuff, she didn’t have the slightest hint of guilt or hypocrisy on her face. She really believed it! And while at first I didn’t understand this, later that night I had an epiphany.
Every situation has an external reality and an internal reality. The external reality – the one everyone on the outside sees – is simplistic and stereotypical. A woman cheats on her husband? She must be a whore. The inner reality is much more complicated. There may have been years that led up to that decision. There may be a complicated history between the married couple or the affair couple that led to that choice. Whatever the case, what’s perceived on the outside is never as complicated as what’s happening on the inside, to the point where someone who’s having their own personal moral struggle can’t even acknowledge the possibility that someone in a similar situation might be having theirs.
And that’s what Point A is about. It’s about that “Oh gross” reaction we get when we first hear about a 35 year old man getting involved with a 16 year old girl. Yet as the facts and the details start to dribble in, we slowly start to understand why it’s happened. We may not think it’s right. We may not agree with it. But at the very least, we can see why it happened.
35 year old Josh Bennett, a handsome easy-going type, works for one of those “Maxim” type magazines, writing crappy articles for 20-something men that require exactly 3% of his talent. Josh is notably frustrated with his career and wants to take some real journalistic chances with his next column. Instead, his boss assigns him to find a hot slutty local female blogger they can throw some skimpy clothes on and feature in the magazine.
Josh eventually finds 22 year old Cloe, a blogger with a unique refreshing view on life. He meets her for coffee and quickly realizes that Cloe’s not 22. She’s 16. Despite this, Josh decides to go through with the article and starts meeting with Cloe on a continual basis, learning about her life and what she does.
Of course, when you spend enough time around anyone, you start to form a connection with them, and the connection between these two people, each with their own frustrations and insecurities, manifests itself into an intense friendship. Luckily, Josh has some perspective. He’s recently proposed (even if he was forced into it) to his longtime commitment-obsessed girlfriend, and isn’t about to screw up the very adult life he’s stepping into for a young girl (or is he?).
But the friendship with Cloe is forcing him to face some tough questions. Like what inspires him? Why doesn’t he pursue his dreams anymore? Why doesn’t he leave the job he hates? At what point in life are you not allowed to have fun anymore? And why is it that when he goes to sleep at night, it isn’t his future wife that he thinks about? It’s Cloe? Josh is going to have to figure all this out soon, cause that wedding date is racing up fast.
I really liked Point A. The story started out a little familiar and Cloe’s initial dialogue felt false, as if a 35 year old was speaking through a 16 year old in the assumed non-sequitur philosophical rambling fashion someone of his age would suspect a 16 year old would speak, but once we got beyond that and these two just started talking to each other like real people, the dialogue was quite good.
And a lot of that had to do with the foundation of conflict set up in the movie. Whenever you’re putting two people together in a relationship in your screenplay, you need to find a “blocker,” something that prevents those two from being together. Making one of these characters a minor may sound simplistic, but it’s a time-tested device that usually works because we get it right away. We know there is no way these two can be together. He’s 35 and she’s 16.
Also, the universal themes keep the story relatable. Cloe, like a lot of high schoolers, wants her life to begin. Wants to be taken seriously. And Josh is wondering if his life is over, if it’s time to put aside all the surprises and the dreams for something more stable. Yeah we all have to grow up, but different people grow up in different ways. And Josh isn’t sure his growing up is over yet.
When you combine these two things – the age conflict hovering over their relationship and these universal questions they’re struggling with – I don’t know…it sounds like it shouldn’t be enough but it is. I was genuinely interested in every conversation they had.
But I think what really separates Point A from similar scripts is the impressive balancing act it pulls off. There are a lot of things that need to go right for this kind of story to work. Josh can’t look like a predator. Josh’s dismissal of his fiance can’t be too cruel. Josh’s issues must feel real and relatable. The girl has to be pursuing the guy, not the other way around. You have to build up the relationship long enough before anything happens. It’s a thin tightrope you’re walking and I’ve watched many a writer fall off. But Rubeo clearly thought all this stuff through and somehow, someway, keeps it classy.
And that’s the cool thing about Point A. While you never forget that it’s a script about a 35 year old man in a relationship with a 16 year old girl, it does reach a point where you’re more focused on the two individuals as opposed to their ages. And, in the end, there’s only one question that matters in a relationship movie. Do you want to see if they end up together or not? And I did. I wanted to see if Josh and Cloe could find a way to make this work.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: (spoilers) Make sure you have a tension-filled subplot ready to go before the big kiss in your relationship movie. One of the big reasons any relationship movie works is the sexual tension. Everything’s building up to that first kiss. The problem is, once that first kiss comes, a ton of air is let out of the balloon. One of the main questions driving our interest (“Will they or won’t they?”) has been answered. Which means we’re not as interested in the story anymore. The trick is to have a replacement tension-filled subplot ready to go as soon as this kiss happens, so the story doesn’t skip a beat. Here in Point A, we’ve been spending a lot of the plot building up Josh and his fiance’s upcoming wedding. So after Josh and Cloe kiss, the tension/conflict shifts over to Josh sneaking around with Cloe, trying not to get caught by his fiance. It seems simple in retrospect, but I’ve seen a lot of writers have nothing waiting in the wings after the big kiss happens, and their story fall off a cliff as a result.
Genre: Love Story/Drama/Comedy?
Premise: After eternal ladies’ man, Todd, falls in love for the first time, he must learn to get along with his new girlfriend’s overbearing father, Harry.
About: Honeymoon With Harry is a project that’s been kicking around Hollywood for awhile, and is thought to be one of the better unproduced screenplays out there. It’s based on an unpublished novel by Bart Barker, which is also supposed to be really good (I don’t know why it’s never been published). The project is set to star Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper (though De Niro’s been waffling recently) with Johnathan Demme directing. This is an early Paul Haggis draft (from 2004) and I guess there have been a lot of writers since, with the most recent being Jenny Lumet, who wrote Rachel Getting Married
Writer: Paul Haggis
Details: 131 pages – November 8, 2004 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).
Paul Haggis is a solid writer. The guys knows his shit. So after watching/reading his last two writer-director projects, The Next Three Days 
The first of these movies is GREAT. It’s a love story. We have our hero, Todd, who admittedly sleeps with one too many women, instantly falling in love with Haley, who he meets at a bar. This girl is THE ONE. She’s sweet, she’s nice, she’s funny, she’s beautiful. And the dialogue between them is great. After noticing that she’s wearing a ring, he offers, “That’s one beautiful ring.” “Thank you.” “I’m hoping that the guy who gave it to you died in some tragic way and you’re wearing it to remember him.” A charmer indeed. But Haley’s no easy target. She takes his number and tells him she “might” call.
After sleepwalking through a few weeks of torture, Haley finally calls Todd and the two begin dating. And it’s…perfect. Even Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan would look at these two and say, “Wow, now that’s a couple.”
Of course no story works if your central couple is happy for too long. You have to introduce some element of conflict to give yourself a movie! And that conflict comes in the form of Harry, Haley’s overbearing powder keg of a father (who she still lives with). And the worst thing about Harry? He sees right through Todd. He knows his kind. And there is no way in hell he is allowing this piece of shit to be with his little girl.
This makes things pretty awkward because Todd isn’t about to give up. Even when Harry threatens to KILL HIM, Todd is right there the next day, inviting (or is it daring?) Harry to join he and his future wife for dinner.
And then – just like that – everything changes.
(MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW)
Halfway through the movie, Haley dies in a car accident. I have to tell you, since I didn’t see this coming, it was a shock. One of the things I always recommend here is that whatever your movie is about, make sure it starts being about that by page 30 (the end of the first Act). The reason is, if you wait all the way until halfway through the film to hit the main storyline, the audience is going to get impatient, or worse, confused. It’s just not the way people are used to digesting stories.
However by ignoring this rule, Honeymoon With Harry was able to surprise the hell out of us. So you have to give it to Haggis for that. I was devastated. I mean, I really liked this girl. And just like that – just like in real life – she’s gone. Where do you go from here?
The problem is that in the script world, the answer to that question poses all sorts of problems. Now that *that* story’s over, you have to start up a whole new story, and starting up a whole new story halfway into your screenplay is really fucking hard. And that’s where Honeymoon With Harry falters. Its second story isn’t one-tenth as interesting as its first one. And there are a couple of reasons for this. Todd and Harry.
I don’t know why the original author or Haggis did this. But Todd is a slimeball. I mean he’s a really sketchy dude. I didn’t mind him banging every female that strolled into the club BEFORE he met Haley because that was BEFORE he met Haley. But to keep doing it afterwards? I mean, HE FUCKS HALEY’S BEST FRIEND ONLY DAYS AFTER HER DEATH. And I get that it’s supposed to be an emotionally confused screw but still, it’s like the author is deliberately trying to make us hate this guy.
And yet despite this, Harry’s even worse! He’s mean, he’s abrasive, he’s an asshole, he’s irritating, he’s unruly, he won’t shut up, he whines, he’s a dick. There isn’t a single likeable trait on this man’s body. And yet he and the sperminator are who we’re spending the next 70 pages with! It’s like watching two people argue on Celebrity Rehab. You don’t care who wins cause you hate them both.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you what the rest of the movie is about. After Haley dies, Harry and Todd fly off to the tropical island where Haley wanted her ashes thrown. Despite each having their own ideas on how this should be approached, they must work together and compromise to get it done.
So I guess the big question is, how do you save this story? A much more traditional setup would have Haley dying at the end of the first act. Although if you do that, you lose that amazing mid-story surprise. But I don’t think you have a choice. It poses too many problems to change your story up so late in the game (plus people are going to know going in that she dies anyway). The bigger issue is that you have to rewrite Harry. This man needs a Final Draft intervention. Just an obnoxiously annoying person from top to bottom. I get that you need to create conflict between these two to keep the story juicy, but if it’s forced, if the character is all the way to one extreme, it’s never going to feel right. And Harry and Todd’s interaction never felt right.
A frustrating script with a lot of potential. I wonder if they’ve solved these problems by now (or if they even saw them as problems in the first place).
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I feel, as writers, we go through phases in the way we write our protagonists. It starts when we learn how important it is to make our hero “likeable.” Once we learn that, we go to the extreme, making our hero the greatest nicest coolest most charming person ever. But after doing that for a few scripts, we realize it isn’t realistic. And that all that glitter and gold actually makes our hero feel artificial and off-putting. So we go through phase 2, which is to start adding unlikable traits to balance out the likeable ones. “Ahh,” we say, “You thought I was going to make this character perfect? Well how bout him dumping his girlfriend at her sister’s wedding! Now you’re not so sure about him, are you?” We do this for a few scripts, proud at how balanced our heroes become, but then somewhere around this time, we hit Stage 3, which is to start pushing the envelope on our hero’s unlikeability . I’m not sure why we do this but I think it’s to prove that we aren’t slaves to traditional screenwriting structure. We want people to know that we take chances. So we load up on the unlikeable traits, making sure they outnumber the likeable ones, and almost dare our audience to root for our character. The problem with this is, of course, that if you flirt too close with the edge, you run the risk of falling off it. And that’s what happened here, with both characters. When Todd is funny and charming, we like him. But then when he sleeps with some random chick on the night he meets the girl of his dreams? We hate him. And when he continues to bang girls at the tropical resort? We hate him more. And don’t get me started on Harry, who I don’t believe has any likeable traits. Once the unlikeable traits outnumber the likeable ones in your hero, your audience is going to turn on them. Never forget that.
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Premise: A teen gang in South London defends their block from an alien invasion.
About: Attack The Block has gotten a lot of love recently as it won the audience award at the South By Southwest Film Conference. Writer-Director Joe Cornish is the creator of the iconic “The Adam and Joe Show.” This is his debut feature. Nick Frost stars. Shaun of The Dead 
Writer: Joe Cornish
Details: 113 pages — 2nd draft – further revisions – April 21, 2009 (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).
Quick question before I start this review. How come every single successful entertainment person in England is best friends with each other? Can I get someone from England to explain this to me? It’s like everybody not only knows everyone there. But they all spend Christmas together as well.
Anyway……..
I wasn’t surprised when I heard this won the audience award at SXSW because it just sounded DIFFERENT. There aren’t enough ideas that genuinely sound different these days. But this was putting a whole new spin on the “trapped in a room with a monster” sub-genre. The heroes were all wrong (they’re young punks on BMX bikes). The location was all wrong (a block? Not exactly “trapped.”). The construct here had just a unique enough spin to it to set it apart from all its predecessors, yet still feel familiar. And as I’ve said many times before, that’s exactly what you’re aiming for when you come up with your movie premise.
Having said that, I was eager to see how this would read on the page. Although I’ll defend to the day I die that the script has to be good in order for the movie to work, the intensity of the creature feature formula never plays on the page as well as it does on screen. A lot of the fun comes from seeing our characters attacked by monsters, and no matter how perfectly you describe your monster on the page, it’s never going to be the same as seeing it onscreen. That’s usually a good thing though, because that way we can concentrate on what really matters when reading the script: the story and the characters. So I guess the question is…how are the story and the characters in Attack The Block?
It’s South London. A city block. Public housing. Not the kind of place you want to be spending your Saturday evenings. This is where we meet Sam, a mousey pretty girl on her way home from work. But she doesn’t get far before being mugged by a band of teenage hooligans who run the block. Oh yeah, those hooligans would be our heroes in the story, and they’re led by Moses, a selfish heartless bully who’s already looking ahead to the next stage of his life, a life of crime.
Before they can really do anything bad to Sam though, a meteor barrels into a nearby street and out pops a creature that looks like a shaved monkey. So what does our gang do? Why they go over and kill it of course! They then go parading around the block like cavemen, displaying the fruits of their labor to anyone who will listen.
Problem is, more of these meteors start landing, and bigger creatures, creatures that look like sabertooth werewolves emerge, and these alien monsters, for whatever reason, seem dead intent on killing our hooligans, or anything that gets near them.
You may be saying, “So aliens are invading all of London?” Well, not really. Nobody on the news seems to acknowledge these attacks. Nobody texts or e-mails or calls our characters to talk about these attacks. They seem to be centered only around this block for reasons that are anyone’s guess.
Naturally, Sam is forced to team up with the Hooligans in order to survive, and even though these guys mugged her and are assholes and are annoying and are bullies and are the kind of people you’d want to beat the shit out of if you ever got the chance to, they all eventually become friends, running around “the block,” avoiding and killing off these alien werewolves until there are none left.
Ummmm…
Hmmmm…
Truth? This script is…strange. And intense. And messy. And unsure of itself. And strange. Did I mention strange? All these things, I suppose, are normal when writing your first feature script. The difference is, people don’t usually get their first feature script made. So the story has a bizarre manic energy to it that thrives in the script’s best moments, but falters everywhere else. In the end, it was way too redundant for me and I lost interest halfway through.
Yes, it falls victim to the infamous “wash rinse repeat” syndrome. Get into fight with monster, someone from group dies, run from monster to new location, talk a little bit, get into fight with another monster, someone from group dies, run from monster to new location, talk a little bit, wash rinse repeat.
The repetition of this process – which I admit is more necessary in this genre than others – can be offset IF the characters are compelling and have enough going on. But that was my big contention with Attack The Block. I hated the characters. In today’s “What I Learned” section, I include some of Cornish’s thoughts on “likable” heroes, so I won’t get too much into detail here. But let me just say this. I’m okay with making your hero dangerous. I’m okay with your hero not being perfect. In fact, a character should be complicated. But to make your character a complete asshole who bullies and mugs people and has no remorse about it? I mean come on. I’m never going to like that guy.
And I didn’t like any of the characters in this gang. “Punks” is the proper term for them cause they’re just punks, the kind of kids who would humiliate someone on a city corner without a second thought. And these are my heroes? A bunch of assholes? This MIGHT work if a few of our heroes try to change over the course of the story, but at least in this draft (which is admittedly an early one) that isn’t the case. It wasn’t until page 100, actually, that two characters (Sam and Moses) sat down and had a real honest to God conversation about their lives. And it’s quite simple. If I’m not rooting for your characters, I’m not interested in your story.
And that’s why I can’t recommend this. While there may be irony in Attack The Block (the people who usually do the attacking are being attacked) there’s no humanity in Attack The Block. There are no real connections, real feelings, real issues. It’s just people running from monsters or getting shredded by monsters. Sam is an attempt to make some connection with the audience, but she’s dragged along almost reluctantly, as if Cornish knew he needed one decent person on this ride to offset all the cruelty.
Look, I’m sure this plays much better on screen where you’re digging the kills and laughing at the absurdity of it all. And if you’re not as sensitive as I am about how big of dicks all these punks are, you might find yourself laughing at their ongoing commentary of the situation. But in script form, where something more is needed to draw the reader in, it doesn’t offer enough.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Cornish and Wright were asked in the Film School Rejects Article about the daring choice of following antiheroes as our leads. Here’s what they had to say: Cornish: Yeah, I guess that was just because I liked those films. That was very much a John Carpenter-y thing. Specifically Assault on Precinct 13 
Carson Reaction: All true, but you have to know how to offset the character’s bad traits with good traits so that the audience still roots for them, which I did not feel was the case in Attack The Block.
