When you read a ton of scripts, patterns start emerging. Little things occur here and there – red flags if you will – that indicate you’re dealing with an amateur. This article is not meant to attack these mistakes, but rather highlight them so that anyone writing a script can try and avoid them. I never give up on a script if I encounter a couple of these red flags, but when they start piling up, especially early on, I know I’m in for a long read. Here are ten common things that tell me I’m dealing with an amateur, and therefore ten things you should avoid!
MISSPELLINGS/MIS-USED WORDS (ESPECIALLY IN THE FIRST 10 PAGES) – Of the hundreds of scripts I’ve read with rampant misspellings, there have been maybe two that turned out to be good. The thing is, misspellings and misused words speak to a larger issue — that the writer isn’t putting enough effort into his/her script. All it takes is sending your script off to a friend for a spell check, or combing through the script religiously yourself, to fix the problem. People who don’t put a lot of effort into spelling most likely aren’t putting a lot of effort into bigger issues like plot construction, character development and rewriting. Keep in mind, professionals take a lot of pride in their work. When they finish a script, they want to present it to you in the best light possible, so they make sure everything is perfect. Therefore when everything *isn’t* perfect, it’s natural for a reader to assume they’re not dealing with a pro.
BLOCKY CHUNKS OF TEXT – I get that some scripts are going to require more description than others, but when I’m repeatedly seeing blocks of text 5-6 lines long (or longer) I know I’m dealing with an amateur. Blocks of text need to be lean in order for your script to be easy to read. Pros know this. They know that taxing the reader’s eyes is going to result in a less enjoyable reading experience. So they keep descriptions lean, and when they do have to go into detail, they break those chunks up into multiple paragraphs so they’re easier to digest. Some genres get a little more leeway in this department. For example, I’m okay with paragraphs *occasionally* getting 5-6 lines deep in a period piece. But if I’m reading a comedy, you better have a damn good reason to go over 3 lines consistently.
NO CHARACTER DESCRIPTION – This one kills me, however I acknowledge that some pros are guilty of this as well, so it’s not always a guarantee that you’re dealing with an amateur. Here’s how I look at it. Your characters are your everything. They’re the lifeblood of your movie. If we don’t know what they look like, how are we supposed to connect with them? Here’s a description for you: “Gene, 40, takes in the world behind a pair of steely gray eyes. He always looks at you for a little too long, as if he’s sizing you up for some later experiment.” Here’s another: “Gene, 40, short and stocky.” Try and convince me that the reader doesn’t get more out of the first description. Obviously, you’re going to give shorter descriptions for less important players, but an attempt should always be made to bring characters to life when they’re first described.
TOO MANY CHARACTERS – Amateur writers love introducing new characters. 20-30 characters counts are normal to them. Pro writers not only understand that too many characters become hard for a reader to remember, but that by combining characters and/or focusing on less characters, it allows them to develop those characters more, therefore making them more interesting. Keep your character count down. Only introduce characters if they’re absolutely necessary to the story.
TOO MUCH “MOVIE LOGIC” – When I’m reading a script, one of the things that separates the pros from the amateurs is how they treat logic. In professional scripts, whether it be fantasy or drama or comedy, things always happen for a reason, and that reason makes sense. In amateur scripts, choices are made more because the writer *wants* them to happen. They don’t really care if they make sense or not, as long as they solve the immediate story problem. For example, is your female lead agreeing to go out with your male lead because he’s done something to impress her, or is she simply going out with him because you need them to get together? Is your babysitter going to check out that noise in the dark dangerous basement because it makes sense or because you need to kill her off? Why is your hero, who you’ve established as afraid to fly, flying his date off to Vegas for the weekend? This may seem obvious, but I read so many scripts where characters do illogical things because the writer isn’t putting themselves in the character’s position and asking if they’d really do those things or not.
SHIFTING TONE/GENRES – One second your script is a crime caper. The next it’s a romantic comedy. Once we hit the second act, it’s a thriller! I’ve actually spoken to writers about this. Sometimes, they’re not aware of it. But other times they try and tell me that they don’t want to make a “Hollywood movie,” and are instead trying to create something original, different, and cutting edge. Well, okay, you can do that. But unless you understand intricately the genres that you’re working in and have a logical and original plan as to how to jump back and forth between genres, your script is not going to come off as profound. It’s going to come off as hackneyed. There’s only one Quentin Tarantino.
PREDICTABLE – I excavated this out of some notes that I gave because I think it’s the perfect way to describe this issue. You don’t want your plot to be too predictable! Readers being able to predict every plot turn is death for a writer. It means you’re not doing your job, which is to tell a story that we’ve never quite seen told this way before. You want to use our assumptions against us. You want to think, “Okay, they think we’re going to do *this*, so instead we’re going to do *this*.” This is a great way to think while writing in general, because it challenges you to go against the obvious choice, a surefire way to make your screenplay more original.
MELODRAMATIC – New writers aren’t yet aware how much is enough when it comes to evoking emotion, and usually way overdo it as a result. Someone dies. A couple of scenes later someone gets cancer. A couple of scenes later there’s a car crash and someone goes to the hospital. It feels to the writer like they’re creating captivating drama, but the overindulgence of it all actually creates the opposite effect, making it feel ridiculous and unrealistic. Pick and choose your spots where your script gets heavy. And don’t cram too many intense dramatic moments together.
BORING ON-THE-NOSE DIALOGUE – This is probably the biggest clue that you’re dealing with an amateur. The dialogue is really straightforward and boring. Characters say exactly what they mean: “You make me so angry!’ Characters get way more specific than people in real life would: “I’m going to head over to get a cheeseburger at Portillo’s and then call my mom.” (instead of “I need a chili dog before my stomach starts eating itself.”) There’s no nuance or slang. People talk like robots. There’s no subtext or conflict. Characters aren’t hiding anything from one another (which always makes for interesting dialogue). You need to understand all of these things in order to get that dialogue to pro level.
And there you go. Those are the things that scream “amateur” to me, but if you’re a fan of this site, then you’ve read your share of screenplays as well. What are the things that clue *you* in that you’re reading an amateur as opposed to a pro?
Genre: Comedy
Premise: After agreeing to groomsman duties at his sister’s wedding, Noah Palmer realizes he may have made the mistake of his life after finding out that the woman who broke his heart is also part of the bridal party.
About: Your Bridesmaid is a Bitch landed in the middle of this year’s Black List. Duffield must have worked on his craft for a long time before breaking through with “Bridesmaid,” because this is some of the best writing I’ve ever seen from a newcomer.
Writer: Brian Duffield
Details: 94 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).
My sense of humor hasn’t always gelled with the readers of this site so whenever I add a comedy to my Top 25, there’s usually an outcry plus at least a couple of suggestions that I might be mentally handicapped. Several people usually declare they’re never coming back, but luckily only 13% of those keep their promise.
I loved this script. I thought it was great. I would go so far as to say it’s the best comedy I’ve ever read tackling heartbreak. And this, to me, is what separates the pro comedies from the amateur ones, scripts where the emotions and backstory and depth of the main character are just as important as making the audience laugh. I’m happy to say it’s been a long time since I got my heart broken, but this script took me right back to those days and made me feel like I was there again.
Almost-30 Noah Palmer is failing at life. He lives in Hollywood. He doesn’t have a job. He’s still getting over his nine year girlfriend, Anna, who left him a few years ago (after he proposed to her!) for some French Fucker named Felix Trezeguet. So basically he’s miserable.
All Noah wants to do – all he cares about – is creating enough distance between himself and that relationship so he can get on with his life. But it’s unclear when that magical moment is going to arrive because no matter how Noah spins it, he can’t stop thinking about Anna.
When Noah’s sister, Molly (who also happens to be Anna’s best friend) calls to inform him that Anna will be the bridesmaid at her wedding, and “is that okay?” Noah has to suck it up and do the impossible: spend an entire weekend around the girl who destroyed his life. Check that. Spend an entire weekend around the girl who destroyed his life AND her French Fucker boyfriend who stole her from him.
It doesn’t look like Noah’s going to be able to pull it off but he loves his sister more than anything and decides to suck it up.
The genius of this script starts early on. A common mistake with beginner writers is to put two characters in a room with no tension, no external conflict, and no subtext surrounding them – then just have them talk. The dialogue is ALWAYS boring when you do this. There’s simply nothing going on in it. Here, Noah shows up at his sister’s house with 10,000 wedding guests milling about, and is spotted by the cool but slightly clueless husband-to-be, who pulls Noah over to the couch and starts asking him about Los Angeles.
The groom is completely oblivious, of course, to the fact that Anna and the French Fucker are a mere 2 feet away, and can hear everything that Noah says. Because of this, the dialogue is a thousand times more interesting because Noah’s not just answering a simple question, he’s answering questions knowing the girl he’s still madly in love with AND HER BOYFRIEND can hear him. So he of course has to lie, which he’s not very good at. And this gloriously awkward sequence becomes a harbringer for things to come
Anna is the worst kind of ex-girlfriend. No, I don’t mean she’s a bitch. She’s the opposite. She cares about Noah. She’s oblivious to how much she’s destroyed his life. A part of her even still likes him, even though she’d never leave the French Fucker for him. As you probably know if you’ve ever had your heart broken, this is the worst kind of dynamic possible, because it leaves open hope. It keeps the possibility open that someday, somehow, you might just get back together again. And man does that fuck with your mind.
Luckily, Noah meets the beautiful and Mila Kunis-in-Forgetting-Sarah-Marshall-type-cool Kelli, who’s sympathetic to Noah’s plight and gives him a shoulder to cry on. Their sexually charged weekend friendship is held back only by the fact that Noah is still hopelessly in love with Anna and unless he can talk to her and have some kind of closure, there’s a good chance he will never get over her and never be able to live a normal life again. Everything comes down to how this ends with her (stakes!)
I’ll be the first to admit that the situation here is familiar but holy hell does Duffield nail the execution. I mean this guy is a really good writer. Not only is the structure here flawless, but the dialogue is really great and he’s just a really fun writer to read.
I’m not the biggest fan of “aside” writers – writers that write little asides in their scripts – because I think it’s cheesy. It took this script for me to realize that I only didn’t like it because the writers weren’t good at it. All of Duffield’s little asides were funny. Like this one when Noah is renting a car: “Noah waits in the rent-a-car-wait-for-fucking-ever-eventhough-it’s-Harrisburg-and-you-pre-ordered-line.” Or this to set up a montage: “BEFORE-NOAH-WAS-A-WHINY-BITCH MONTAGE.”
Just the way he described characters told me he was a writer with a real voice. Here he is describing Noah’s blind date in the first act: “She looks like a girl that was homeschooled, then lost her fucking mind during college, and now is a mix of the two. She wears a church-friendly sleeveless dress. Braided hair. Very cute.” I’ve never read a description like that before.
Or when Noah and Anna would talk around other people, they would converse in this annoying morse code tapping. It was completely original but more importantly, it suggested a real relationship. It suggested that these two had really been together and weren’t just two paper-thin character names thought up by a writer. You could feel the history here.
But the main reason this worked for me was that I felt Noah’s pain. This might be one of the best scripts I’ve ever read at getting inside the mind of a heartbroken man. I was just talking about this with a wonderful young writer who’s pissed at me for saying he still has some work to do. You haven’t mastered writing until you make the reader feel what your main character is feeling. That takes time. That takes a lot of practice. And when you read Bridesmaid, you *will* feel Noah’s pain. I promise you that.
And that’s why I related to this so much. That’s why I cared whether Noah found peace at the end.
The only reason this script doesn’t finish higher on the Top 25 is that sometimes it thinks it’s more hip than it is. After the huge big final talk (mini-spoiler) between Anna and Noah…they fist bump? I don’t know. That’s a little too trendy “trying to be hip’ish” to me. There were a few moments scattered about like this that briefly took me out of the story.
But man, I didn’t even get into half the stuff that worked here. This is a really really well-written script, easily one of the best comedies I’ve read in awhile, and it achieves that honor because it’s about character first. Of course, that probably means you’re all going to hate it, which of course makes you all dead wrong. :)
Top 25’er!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!)
[ ] genius
What I learned: When you’re writing a comedy, don’t try and manufacture comedy out of thin air. In other words, don’t hang your characters out in random locations that have little to do with the movie and try to think up funny things for them to say. Put your main character in the toughest situation possible and watch them try to get out of it. That’s where you’re going to find a lot of your comedy. So in the example I used above, Noah is put in a situation where he has to talk about his loser life to a guy who only wants to hear about how awesome living in Los Angeles is, with his ex-girlfriend within earshot. Meet The Parents (the original) was the king of this. Ben Stiller was constantly put in tough situations that he would have to dig himself out of.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: An alcoholic owner of a wilderness sanctuary whose daughter went missing many years ago learns that a man is hunting young women on his property.
About: A Good Hunter is one of the five 2010 Nicholl Fellowship winners.
Writer: Micah Ranum
Details: 115 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).
We’ve spoken in the past about how The Nicholl Fellowship tends to favor weightier screenplays. Period pieces, death, a disease or two – all those things are preferable. But the competition occasionally saves a slot for a more visceral thriller type script that’s executed to perfection. A couple years back they gave the award to a groovy little contained car thriller called “Snatched,” and this year they gave it to the equally fun if slightly flawed thriller, “A Good Hunter.”
“Hunter” starts out in solid spec script form with an exciting opening scene that draws you right into the central conflict. A beaten up, scratched, bloody 17 year old girl is running through the woods, presumably for her life. I’ll call her Britney for the hell of it. All we see from her pursuer are a couple of dark black boots. Whereas Britney is frantic, our hunter is as calm as can be. Then, out of nowhere, we see a SPEAR whizz through the air and – Fwoomp! – impale poor Britney. Just like that, Britney gets speared. (bada-BUM!)
40-something Rayburn Swanson is not a very pleasant guy to be around. When he’s not buzzed he’s drunk. And when he’s not drunk, he’s wasted. And when he’s any of the above, he’s an asshole. When we meet him, he’s kicking a couple of hunters off his thousand-acre wilderness sanctuary for shooting animals they don’t have the right to shoot.
A couple of scenes later we learn why Rayburn’s such a drunken asshole. His little girl, Gwen, disappeared seven years ago. She’s been missing ever since, and Rayburn drinks to keep the pain at bay. He still holds out hope that one day he’ll find Gwen because that’s all he has. If Gwen’s dead, he might as well be the same.
On the other side of town we meet Sheriff Alice Gustafson, a tough cookie in her 30s who has some family issues of her own. Her pathetic brother Brooks hasn’t been taking his meds lately and when there’s something bad that’s happened in town, he’s usually the first person they look to. Leading the double life of protecting the town and protecting her brother is not easy.
Holed up in his house, Rayburn’s trying his best to drink away another weekday when he happens to glance up at his video monitors and see a young girl of 16 years old running through the woods on his property from – you guessed it – Black Boots Guy. Rayburn grabs his shotgun and heads into the forest to find the girl, which he eventually does. But now, instead of Black Boots hunting the girl, he’s hunting the girl and Rayburn.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Gustafson finds the body of the first girl, and is shocked to discover the gruesome manner in which she’s been killed – with a spear. She begins an investigation into the spear’s origins at the same time Rayburn and Girl #2 are being hunted.
Both of these hunted girls, strangely, have large scars on their necks. Whoever this monster is, he destroyed their voice boxes, so neither of them can talk (or scream). This becomes a big deal when Rayburn realizes that the girl he’s protecting knows his daughter! Which makes her the only lead he’s had for seven years. But the only way for him to find out the details is to get her out of here safely where she can write down what she knows. Talk about high stakes!
Eventually Rayburn and Gustafson’s paths collide, and because certain unexpected events transpire, let’s just say Gustafson doesn’t help the person you’d think she’d help, and this mystery of who Black Boots is and how he’s tied in to Rayburn’s daughter is deeper than you think.
A Good Hunter is a fun little ride. You have several intriguing mysteries driving the story, including the most compelling one – where is Rayburn’s daughter and is she still alive? You also have a strong main anti-hero. I was just talking about this in yesterday’s review of Megalopolis. Even anti-heros need traits that make us want to root for them. My argument in Megalopolis was that our anti-hero did a number of awful things and nothing good.
Here in A Good Hunter, Raybrun’s an asshole. He’s a genuinely unlikable guy. But he also lost his 7 year old daughter. That alone cancels out most of the bad and actually gets you rooting for this guy. Cause who doesn’t want to root for someone who lost their daughter? But it also EXPLAINS why he became this way in the first place. Since his negative traits exist for a reason, we’re more likely to accept them.
I also loved how we were introduced to Rayburn. Whenever you introduce a character, you want to show, through action if possible, who he is. So Rayburn starts off yelling at these shithead hunters for hunting on his property. Then, after he’s kicked them out, he jumps in his car, but it doesn’t start, something that’s clear from his reaction is not an isolated occurrence. He ends up having to ask the guys he just cursed out for a jump (which they don’t give him). As a result, in just one scene, we know our main character is both an asshole and a fuck-up. That’s what they mean when they say, “Tell us who your character is through action.”
Also, Ranum goes the extra mile to give each of these characters real lives. Gustafson could’ve been another obvious over-the-hill male sheriff we always see in these kinds of movies. Instead she’s a woman with a troubled brother as well as a complicated past with her father. While I didn’t agree with all the choices behind her backstory, I loved how much depth there actually was. Even if you don’t show it, all your characters need fully fleshed out backstories. That’s what makes them feel three-dimensional.
The reason why A Good Hunter doesn’t get that big fat “You Have To Read This” approval is that the ending gets really convoluted. I’m not going to spoil it but on top of a so-so reveal of who the killer is, we get a fairly complicated and not really rational explanation for why the girls were being hunted. The hunting aspect was one of the drawing points of the screenplay, so it should it should probably make sense.
Of course, that’s what the Nicholl is about. Finding talented writers and teaching them how to fix their stories. So I’m sure the next draft will address this. And hey, you can’t deny that it was a blast getting there. I thought A Good Hunter was a solid little thriller with more character development than you usually see in the genre. I can see why it was picked.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I talk a lot about degree of difficulty. If you’re relatively new to the screenwriting game, or even if you’re a solid intermediate, why try and do the impossible 3 and a half backflip super twist at 40% efficiency when you can pull a one and a half at 90% efficiency? Your chances for success are way higher. A Good Hunter is a simple story. Guy tries to save girl from killer. So – relatively speaking – it’s not that difficult to pull off. I’m not saying you can’t pull off your sprawling 1950s crime epic that cross-cuts between Gandhi’s uprising in India. But since the degree of difficulty is so high, chances are you won’t.
Genre: Drama/Period/Thriller
Premise: November 1944, Strasbourg, France. A Solider wakes up with amnesia in “La Zone Occupée”. The only thing he remembers is his duty to deliver a package on the corner of Rue St. Aloise and Rue Du Cheval at 10:30pm. No name, no date, and under no circumstances is the package to be opened.
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.
Writer: Samuel Clark
Details: 97 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).
Samuel’s been a Scriptshadow reader for a long time, offering up very well-thought out responses whenever he joins in on the discussion. He’s submitted a few entries for Amateur Friday but none of the loglines really caught my eye – until this one.
I know they say amnesia is one of the most overused devices in screenwriting, but for whatever reason, I never get bored with it. Now of course if you apply it in a really stupid way or don’t attempt to do anything different with it, it gets lame fast. But in no way does a story that begins with a character who’s lost his memory turn me off.
And that’s exactly how “Rue Du Cheval” begins. It’s 1944 France, and Pierre, a soldier in his late 20s, wakes up in a makeshift church/hospital with a bandage over his head and no memory of how he got there. With him is a package that reads: “Deliver the package. AT ALL COSTS! 10:30p.m. On the corner of Rue St Aloise and Rue Du Cheval. DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.”
Confused but determined to carry out his duty, Pierre heads over to the address a couple of nights in a row, but both times gets there late. Eventually, he stumbles into a nearby bar run by the pretty but sad manager, Hannelore.
When one of the nastier German generals stops by the empty bar for a late drink, he notices Pierre’s package and starts asking him about it. It gets to the point where Pierre has no choice but to shoot and kill the man, as well as the officer who’s with him.
After this shocking turn of events, Hannelore and Pierre look at each other, realizing they’re in this together til the end now.
Pierre starts splitting his time between Hannelore’s place and the church, continuing to try and deliver the package every night, but he’s always too late or the area is too well guarded. During this time Pierre is also having dreams about the package, remembering bits and pieces of how he became involved and why it might be so important. However the dreams always end before he can find out all the answers.
As more German officers start snooping around the bar, looking for Ullrich, Pierre and Hannelore realize they’re going to need to get rid of the bodies soon, and start planning to take them to a far away river, which will require passing a couple of German checkpoints, not an easy task.
Pierre continues to try and deliver the package in the meantime, but the stars continue to misalign and he’s never able to accomplish his mission.
Samuel Clark noted to me in his e-mail that this script was very European in nature and I agree with that. This definitely doesn’t take the obvious route that a Hollywood version would explore. However this is both a blessing and a curse for the story, as I think the Hollywood approach could’ve helped solve some of the more redundant problems in the script.
My big beef with Rue Du Cheval is the repetitive nature of the screenplay, starting with Pierre’s continued missed attempts to deliver the package. The way I envisioned the story when I saw the logline was that it was going to be one long extremely difficult journey to deliver this package to its destination. The fact that the destination is only a couple of blocks away presents some problems.
First, you have to figure out a reason why the main character can’t just deliver the package right away. And that reason turns out to be that he gets there a few minutes late. I wasn’t thrilled about this reasoning (10-20 minutes difference in the delivery time being a major obstacle that prevents our hero from achieving his goal feels a little too simplistic) but I went with it. My problem is that this obstacle repeats itself over and over again throughout the story. The combination of – what was in my mind – a thin obstacle, along with our protagonist conveniently missing the drop over and over again was simply too difficult to buy into. To be honest, it felt like we were stalling the story so it could last a full 100 minutes.
Another aspect of the script I had a problem with was the dream sequences. I’ve always felt that dream sequences were kind of film-schooly, an excuse to create trippy visuals that didn’t need to make sense. To Clark’s credit, he uses the sequences (at times) to reveal backstory about Pierre’s situation, but he ended up killing one of the best mysteries in the process.
I think we’re all wondering what the hell is in this package. When we’re told that it’s the key to ending the war, that takes a lot of the mystery away. You can make an argument that this information raises the stakes for our hero (a package that ends the war is a really important package), but to me, sacrificing the biggest mystery in your script was a lot to give up for those added stakes.
As for the good stuff, there’s plenty of it. I thought all the Ullrich bar stuff and the killing and suqbsequent hiding of the bodies was good. I really liked their trip out to the river where they stashed the bodies in beer barrels and the subsequent checkpoint scene. It was an easy script to read.
It just took an adjustment to get used to the fact that THAT story (dealing with the aftermath of the killings) was the real story, and the package stuff was secondary. I think I would’ve preferred the package story being the star, since that’s what lured us in and that’s what we were originally excited about.
Samuel’s a good writer. Everything is succinct, descriptive, there’s plenty of conflict here. In the end it comes down to the treatment of the idea being a little different from what I was expecting. Will be interesting to hear if you guys agree or not.
Script link: On The Corner of Rue St. Aloise and Rue Du Cheval
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Get on message boards. Comment in the comments section. Develop relationships with people online. Throw them a nice e-mail every once in awhile. People are more likely to read your script if they’ve heard of you in some capacity and that takes time. It takes getting to know someone. I’ve seen Samuel on here forever. He’s e-mailed me a few courteous e-mails before, asking me to read his scripts. So when he finally came up with something that sounded good, I was more than happy to oblige.
Yeah yeah yeah, I fully own up to having a few “pretentious film snob” entries on my list – trendy little cinematic morsels that made a lot of noise on the indie circuit but which the majority of America could care less about. But I stand by my entries because I’m a dancing fool and because I believe they were great films, especially my Top 5, which were all awesome.
However before I get to that Top 10, I have to take on a few of the less than stellar entries of the year. I don’t usually do “Worst Of” lists because I’d much rather be celebrating film than condemning it. We have enough condemners in this industry. But there are films that need to own up to their badness, films that actually made you angry that you wasted your time on them, and so I’ve reserved five slots to discuss the very worst films I saw this year.
CARSON’S 5 WORST FILMS OF 2010
5) YOUTH IN REVOLT
I wouldn’t say I was eagerly anticipating the release of Youth In Revolt. But the script made some noise around Hollywood and it looked like it was trying to do something different, which I always appreciate. Well the movie was was different all right. Like the wanna-be bastard child of Napolean Dynamite and Juno, this film just hung there like an abandoned ornament on a dead Christmas tree. Script-wise, the story never finds its focus. We’re at his house, we’re at a trailer park, we’re back at his house, we’re back at the trailer park, we’re at a prep school. Every time it looked like the movie had found its base, it would stray off again in another direction. A “best friend” character is introduced halfway through the movie. The hero’s alternate personality disappears for long stretches. Quirky characters are given precedence over plot. This was just a mess. Blech!
4) WINTER’S BONE 
3) ALICE IN WONDERLAND 
2) GET HIM TO THE GREEK
Russel Brand is hilarious. Jonah Hill is hilarious. Russel Brand and Jonah Hill in Get Him To The Greek is not hilarious. There’s lots of yuckiness to go around here but it starts with the similarity of the characters. These two are supposed to be as opposite as water and wine. Yet both characters are shockingly similar. Brand’s lost a girl. Jonah’s lost a girl. Brand’s unhappy with his life. Jonah’s unhappy with his life. Brand mumbles through the story depressingly. Jonah mumbles through the story depressingly. The whole thing that makes these movies work is the differences between the leads! Go watch The Other Guys to see what I mean. Without that, you’re nixing 90% of your comedy. And if that wasn’t a big enough blunder, neither character here gives a shit whether they get to the Greek or not! The movie is called “GET HIM TO THE GREEK!” and people don’t want to get to the Greek. Am I the only one who sees a problem here??
1) GROWN-UPS
I’m trying to contain myself, to not go off on a Vogler-like rant. But I think all of you can relate to how much time and effort goes into creating something good in this business. How frustrating it can be to not have the resources or connections to DO something when you have a screenplay worthy of people’s time. So when something comes along that isn’t just bad – but where every single person involved seems content with creating an underwhelming piece of dog excrement…it gets you a little riled up. Adam Sandler has become a joke. I actually used to like him. Happy Gilmore is still one of my favorite comedies of all time. When you watch that movie, you can see how committed Sandler is to that role. Contrast that with here, where he might as well be making this movie in his back yard with a video camera. That’s how uniterested he is in the process. That’s how little he’s trying. And to make it even worse, he surrounds himself with writers and actors who also are content with mailing it in – guys like Rob Schnedier and Chris Rock and David Spade. None of these guys give a shit anymore. And that’s fine. Nobody says you have to care. But please don’t waste our time with these abysmally bad movies just so you can buy the latest model Mercedes. The most frustrated I’ve been during a movie all year.
Whoa! Okay, it’s time to destroy Danny Downer and get to the movies that actually brought joy to my 2010 life. And boy were there some great films that showed up. Let’s take a look…
CARSON’S TOP 10 FILMS OF THE YEAR
10) THE SOCIAL NETWORK
One of the problems with loving a script so much is that the filmed version can’t possibly live up to all the hype. That was the problem with The Social Network for me. Especially since it’s such a dialogue-driven film. With dialogue being the star, you don’t get a lot of new stuff by watching the film. It’s basically actors running through the lines you already read. Visually, Fincher did everything he could here (and did it well), but I wasn’t taken into the world as much as I wanted to be. I still think this is one of the best movies of the year though because the dialogue is so good and because the movie is a challenging one, forcing you to deal with a character you don’t necessarily like. I especially enjoyed the performance of Armie Hammer, who I was shocked (like many of you were) to find out played both twins in the film. I think you’re going to see a lot more of him. The Social Network may not have lived up to the hype of the script, but it’s still Top 10 worthy.
9) INCEPTION
Even though I have a love-hate relationship with Inception (as a screenwriter, it’s impossible for me to overlook some of the laziest exposition ever put in a high profile director’s film), it was fun getting wrapped up in the visuals (Gordon-Levitt’s dream level was my favorite) and trying to unwind the tapestry of time junking going on throughout the last third of the film. When you break Inception down, it’s a bit of a house of cards, but all the cards in this house are exquisitely designed and fun to play with.
8) THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
I already talked about how this movie affected me on a writing level. On the filmmaking side, I gotta say that I love both Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore as actors. Ruffalo in particular is the perfect everyman and about as close as they’ve gotten to Tom Hanks since he exited his prime. And Moore has drifted under the radar more than any other actress at her talent level out there. She is always good. When you combine those two with a great script, it’s no wonder this movie worked so well. Getting back to the writing though, go back and study the big lunch scene to see how professional writers construct a scene with a lot of characters. Notice how each person has their own goal in the scene, their own personal motivation, and how a lot of those goals and motivations conflict with other people at the table. It’s a great reminder of how to write an interesting scene in general. Make sure each person has their own thing going on!
7) ANIMAL KINGDOM
I was a few minutes away from giving up on this movie. Seemed like a semi-well done Australian indie version of any 500 American crime movies you could get on Netflix. But then the character of Pope arrives and the whole damn film becomes insane. Holy shit was that guy unsettling. I’m not going to put his villain in Hannibal Lecter territory or anything, but there are few villains that got to me the way this guy did. I also loved the haunting score here, the second best of the year behind Inception in my opinion. This might have made it into my Top 3 if it weren’t for the acting (or lack of acting) from the teenage lead, who was clearly, err, still figuring the whole performance thing out. It’s too bad. If he would’ve nailed his role, this movie would be an all time classic.
6) FISH TANK
Fish Tank is a weird movie. In many ways, it sounds a lot like the movie I hated so much, Winter’s Bone. Depressing subject matter. How the low-budget impedes on the story. But unlike the main character in Winter’s Bone, the main character in Fish Tank, Mia, is fascinating. She’s pissed off at the world, mainly due to a mother who doesn’t love her. She takes all her frustration out in her dance, a secret desire she’s hoping will one day lead her out of this slum. But when her mom brings in a 30-something boyfriend, the hot sculpted Michael Fassbender, Mia lets her guard down for the first time. The two develop a friendship that always teeters on the inappropriate, but still manages to be real and genuine. Fish Tank makes you feel uncomfortable during the majority of its running time, yet you can’t help but be charmed by Fassbender’s character as well, so you want to see how their relationship is going to end. I wasn’t thrilled with the final act of Fish Tank, but there’s enough great stuff here to outweigh that shortcoming.
5) SOUL KITCHEN
I don’t remember any German films making it into my Top 10 before. And I can count the German films I’ve liked in the past on one hand, so I wasn’t exactly thrilled to watch this. But my parents both said it was great, and since getting them to agree that a film is great is like getting Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston to go to lunch together, I decided to give it a shot. What a wonderful little film! It’s basically the story of a bohemian-like chef who’s scraping by with his shitty warehouse-based eatery of fried food for the working class. But when his brother gets out of jail, when the tax-man comes calling, when his girlfriend moves to China, when the food inspectors want to close him down, when his old friend wants to buy him out, when a 5-star chef tries to reinvent the menu, when his back nearly breaks, he will need to draw upon all of his passion and love for owning a restaurant to save the place. It’s one of those great movies that will cheer up anyone who’s in a bad mood. It’s a bad-mood breaker. This is on Netflix streaming if you’re interested.
4) TOY STORY 3
Toy Story 3 has one of the tightest scripts I’ve ever read. It’s leaner than 100% fat free ground beef. If you’re tired of trying to figure out what screenwriting teachers or gurus mean when they tell you that every scene has to move your story forward, all you have to do is watch Toy Story 3 to see what they mean. One thing that fascinated me about Toy Story 3, and something I didn’t know but which explains to me why Pixar’s screenplays are so good, is that they create 8 pre-viz versions of each of their films, screen them for their company, then have the writer go back and write the next draft after each screening. Imagine being able to see your movie eight times and go back afterwards and fix the issues that weren’t working. No wonder the damn script is so tight! As a testament to how well this movie worked (spoiler), there was a moment near the end where I really thought that Pixar was going to kill off all of its Toy Story characters. Of course in retrospect, that’s ridiculous, but I was so into the movie, my disbelief so suspended, that I really thought they were going to do it.
3) CATFISH
(Warning: If you haven’t heard of this movie, go see it now without reading anything about it. It’s the best way to enjoy it) I don’t think I’ve ever experienced two opposing feelings simultaneously as intensely as I experienced them here. I was equal parts fascinated and mortified during the entirety of Catfish. From the first frame, the movie has a weird vibe. It’s a documentary that starts out with its subject, Nev, a 23 year old photographer with an everlasting smile, beginning an online friendship with an 8 year old girl who sent him a painting of one of his photographs that appeared in a newspaper article. As the movie goes on, Nev becomes close with the girl’s family over the internet, including the girl’s older sister, who he develops an online relationship with. But when strange things start happening during their correspondence, he begins to suspect that something is amiss, and decides to find out who the family really is. This movie is amazing, the only time during the year where I lost track of time during an entire film. That’s how into it I was. When Nev first gets to that family’s house and walks inside and we see what’s going on there, I have never been that uncomfortable in a movie ever. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, this movie comes along and proves you haven’t.
2) THE TOWN
The Town was the biggest shock of the year to me. I was expecting something barely average and instead was blown away. No doubt Affleck was trying to do his best Michael Mann impression here, but since Affleck is an actor, he understands better than Mann the value of digging into your characters and figuring out what makes them tick. This approach made The Town, is some ways, better than Mann’s crime opus, Heat. The dynamic Affleck created in particular between his main character, his best friend, and the girl was perfectly executed and the “lunch” scene where Renner shows up during their date was one of my favorite scenes of the year. The only fault, in my eyes, is the ending. I liked that the heist was something we’ve never seen before (a baseball stadium) but it felt rushed and hackneyed, like everything in the script had been polished EXCEPT for this portion. Still, this one left me excited about the movies again and, gasp, excited about Affleck’s directing career.
1) LAKE MUNGO
I already know what you’re saying. I can hear it all the way through hundreds of miles of wires. Another movie aficionado picking an obscure film as his number 1 in order to look trendy and “in the know.” Yeah, maybe you’re right. But I challenge any of you to watch this movie and not get wrapped up in it. Lake Mungo is about a family who begins seeing their recently deceased daughter in photographs taken after her death. It’s one of the creepiest most clever horror films I’ve ever seen. The film poses as a documentary, but not in that cheap obvious Paranormal Activity way. There’s an honest feel to the approach that makes everything as real feeling as real life. The way it uses this format to release a series of surprising twists and turns, all of which catch you off guard, is so damn good there’s really not much more to say. Easily the best horror film I’ve seen in five years. If you haven’t seen this, go rent it now.
And that’s it! I’m sure I’ve made a few controversial statements that will get you guys riled up but it wouldn’t be a Top 10 list unless I did so. I did miss a few films this year, including Black Swan, True Grit, and The King’s Speech. Feel free to ask me about any of the other films in the comments section and I’ll tell you what I thought. Also, let me know if there’s a movie I absolutely must see. I owe seeing Lake Mungo to you Scriptshadow readers, since I never would’ve seen it had you not pointed it out to me. Please point out more hidden gems!
