It’s Monday so it’s time for that boring weekend to end and your script reviews to begin.  This week should be fun.  I review a recent big spec sale.  And I mean REALLY big.  We have two Blood List scripts, one of which Roger reviews today.  We also have an old spec sale in the vein of Die Hard.  So action nuts will have a chance to get their swerve on.  Finally, we have a review for a script which will likely be an Oscar contender.  People get ready.  Here’s Roger with his review of Blood List script “Sprawl.”

Previous to this Top 10 script, the only script I was privy to read on this year’s Blood List was “Chronicle”, which I absolutely love. I’m not sure why I chose to read Sprawl, other than the fact that I ran across it earlier in the year and was always intrigued by the one-and-a-half page teaser where a “meaty tendril” rips a married couple from their Volkswagon and kills the lone witness, a wheel-chair ridden bum who’s holding a cardboard sign that says, “PORSCHE FUND!” I assumed the carne coil belonged to a monster roaming the streets of Los Angeles, but forty pages in I realized I was mired in a different horror subgenre that was more slasher-killer than C.H.U.D.

At the end of the day, this is a story about a gunmetal gray Toyota Prius chasing teenagers around Los Angeles and running them over. You’ve got a bit of Stephen King’s “Christine” sans the supernatural baddie, a dash of Spielberg’s “Duel” with the faceless aggressor in a vehicle, and a sprinkling of “Death Proof” minus the transcending of genre.

The protagonist has self-esteem and confidence issues and his goal is to win the girl, but halfway through the goal shifts to one purely of survival. There’s no overarching theme that links the goal in the plot to the internal conflict in Nathan’s story, other than the fact that he has to rise to the occasion and not hesitate to make decisions. As a result, I wasn’t totally involved with the characters, but I kept reading, because, let’s be honest, when a Toyota Prius is given the same role as the shark from Jaws, you’re kinda curious to see how things are gonna pan out.

Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Premise: (from IMDB) When a debt puts a young man’s life in danger, he turns to putting a hit out on his evil mother in order to collect the insurance.
About: William Friedkin, the famed director of The Exorcist, has been sitting on a Scriptshadow favorite, the dual-female captive script, Sunflower, for a long time. Well Friedkin sadly left that project and moved onto another. I didn’t know much about Killer Joe except for the killer cast it had put together. Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Thomas Hayden-Church, and Gina Gershon. Now that I’ve read the script, I know why he jumped. While Killer Joe isn’t as good as Sunflower, it’s pretty close. This is some A-grade writing here. The script is actually an adaption of a play written by Tracy Letts (Letts also wrote the screenplay). I don’t know the chain of events that led to the deal, but Letts is the writer of Friedkin’s last film, so it looks like the power of friendships prevails in Hollywood once again. Letts moved into writing from acting, where he’s played dozens of bit parts in television shows, including Seinfeld and Prison Break.  He won the 2008 Pulitzer prize for his play August: Osage County.
Writer: Tracy Letts
Details: 123 pages – not sure when this draft was written (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 movie’s going to be good. I can’t promise you that but sometimes you read a script and you just know. There are extenuating circumstances. The wild card is Matthew McConaughey in the Killer Joe role, but even though Matthew’s on the verge of becoming a caricature of himself (“Becoming?” Who am I kidding? He already is), I believe he’ll nail this role. There’s a low-key dangerous sensibility to the character that fits right into McConaughey’s darker range, a range we saw glimpses of all the way back in Dazed and Confused. But this is all unimportant. What’s important is that Killer Joe, one of the better scripts I’ve read in awhile, is a rockin’ story.

Chris, the kind of guy who gets in trouble just by leaving the house, is manically banging on the door to his parent’s trailer when we meet him. We’re in the middle of WhiteTrashville, so it’s no surprise the family’s got issues. Chris’ father, Ansel, recently divorced his crazy wife and married Sharla, who’s so trashy she walks around the house half-naked no matter who’s around. Chris also has a sister, 20 year old Dottie, who’s pretty enough to make you stare, but slower than a lobotomized turtle.

Chris has a problem. He owes some bad people a lot of money. 6,000 bucks to be exact. In trailer park money that’s like a million dollars. And he’s begging for his dad to loan him the dough. Ansel thinks that’s pretty funny. When the hell has he ever had 6000 dollars?

So Chris has an alternative plan. What if they get someone to kill Ansel’s ex-wife, his mom? Chris has it on authority that Dottie (his sister) is the sole benefactor of his mom’s 50,000 dollar life insurance policy. Chris has heard of a man, appropriately named Killer Joe, who will do the job for 20k. With the rest they can pay off his debt and split up the money. Ansel doesn’t have to think about it too long. He’s in.

Killer Joe is smooth, logical, a calming presence – the kind of guy you might discuss the rainforests with while warming up some hot chocolate. But you get the sense that he is a volcano waiting to erupt. Cross this man and you will endure torture that would make the Taliban blush.

After introductions have been made, Killer Joe gives them his terms. At the top of the list? Payment in advance. Hmm, that’s going to be tough, Chris says, explaining the plan behind the insurance. They have to kill the person to *get* the money. Then this discussion is over, Killer Joe says, and walks out.

Except…Killer Joe spots Dottie and changes his mind. He could be persuaded if they gave him some kind of…retainer. The indication is clear and Chris and Ansel make a deal with the devil, handing Dottie over to Killer Joe while the transaction goes down.

As you might imagine, every possible thing that could go wrong with this plan goes wrong. And it’s all brilliant.

What can I say? This was just a really good script. It starts with the dialogue, which, as you know, I don’t talk about a whole lot unless it truly impresses me. This impressed me. It’s thin (not too wordy), it’s crisp, it moves the story forward, it’s never obvious, it’s humorous, it never gets bogged down in exposition, it’s imaginative…I feel like in most of the scripts I read, I know what the characters are going to say before they do. I was never quite sure what was going to come out of these characters’ mouths, and that’s what made it so fun.

Where Letts really separates himself though is in the humor. He really captures the social dynamic of this world. The characters think, act, and talk exactly like you’d imagine they would. You get gems like this when Chris realizes they can’t pay Killer Joe, “We could do it ourselves,” he says. Ansel replies, “You gonna kill somebody? You can’t even tell time.”

Overall, a great script to study for dialogue.

In a lot of ways, Killer Joe reminds me of an under-the-radar movie that came out a couple of years ago, “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead.” If you haven’t seen it, go get it now. It’s about people who plan what’s supposed to be a simple crime and then everything goes to hell. But I thought this was even better because in addition to all the crazy shit, Killer Joe has a great villain.

When you title your script after your villain, it’s a safe bet that he’s a strong character, and Killer Joe doesn’t disappoint. Usually, the scariest villains are the ones where you only see their good side. The reason for this is, you know that sooner or later that good side is going to break, and that there’s something horrifying  underneath. That was the genius behind Christoph Waltz’ character in Inglorious Basterds. We were just waiting for that character to pop. And even though he never quite did, our fear that he would drove our fascination with him. Killer Joe is very much that kind of character.

And again, this is how you get your script made. You create a character that a big actor can’t say no to. That’s why McConaughey signed on to this. That’s how they got the funding.  That’s why this movie is going into production.  I dare you to read this script and not be fascinated by this character. He says and does the kind of shit that actors kill to say and do.

Another thing that sets this apart is that you never know what’s coming next. Obstacles keep getting thrown at our hero. The plan keeps having to be reevaluated. If you give your character a straight path to his goal, it’ll always be boring. You give them a goal and then continue to alter the playing field? Now you have an interesting story, which is exactly what happens here.

I don’t have many complaints. I think the script could’ve been a little shorter. There’s some weird stuff in the middle where Chris is going to porno movies and starts imagining Dottie in the role of the porn stars. I’m thinking that stuff wasn’t in the play and someone told Letts to make the movie more “cinematic” so it was thrown in.

While the ending is wonderful and batshit fucking crazy, it does have a very “play-like” final moment. It’s hard to explain without spoiling it but when you read it, you’ll know what I mean.

But man, this is how you do it. This is how you write a script. The page count is long but the writing is so sparse you don’t realize it. He’s only telling us the bare essentials of what we need to know in order to keep the story moving and boy do I wish more writers would take that cue.  Killer Joe was a very pleasant surprise.

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

What I learned:  I’ve found that if your script is more dialogue based, you can make your page count longer, because dialogue reads faster (and by association is easier to get through). 

Genre: Comedy
Premise: When he suspects that his long-time astronaut girlfriend might be cheating on him up on the International Space Station, Doug, a janitor for NASA, decides to head into space to stop her.
About: Space Invader has been kicking around development for a couple of years now. At one point it was gearing up for production, but like an aborted shuttle launch, fell apart at the last second. Part of the problem may be the attachment of Will Arnett. Not that I have anything against Arnett. He’s funny and actually perfect for the role, but it’s hard to justify a 50 million dollar price tag with him in the lead. Also complicating things is that Fox Atomic, who owned the property, is no longer around. From what I hear that usually throws a wrench into production. The writers, Lisbe and Reger (who sold the script back in 2007) met while writing on Spin City. They are currently working as producers on “Shit My Dad Says.” Writer/Actor Justin Theroux, who wrote Iron Man 2 and Tropic Thunder, is said to have written a new draft of this. But this is the original one that sold.
Writers: Mike Lisbe & Nate Reger
Details: 114 pages – Februay 5, 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).

Sometimes shit just makes you laugh.

This made me laugh.

From the very first page, where our hero walks towards the shuttle in cheesy “The Right Stuff” slo-mo, I felt like I was watching a movie. The gimmick where we realize he’s not an astronaut, but rather a janitor, is so pitch perfect that you know exactly what kind of comedy you’re about to get.

And you’re either going to be into it or not (a couple of you have already e-mailed to inform me you were emphatically NOT).

Despite you Negative Nellies, I really liked it.  So what’s it about? 

Doug Huggins Jr., the only cocky janitor in NASA history, never became an astronaut. His father was one of the greatest astronauts of all time but none of that rubbed off on Doug. Doug seems strangely okay with this and gets by with a little help from his best friend Glenn (who’s 30 and decides to “retire” when he inherits 150 thousand dollars, which Doug points out will mean he has to live on 3,000 dollars a year) and his perfect girlfriend Beth.

How Doug landed Beth, a beautiful astronaut about to embark on her first mission, is a bigger mystery than how we’re getting to Mars, but he somehow got her, and boy is he doing his best to screw it up. Doug’s been with Beth for five years and *still* hasn’t popped the question. Naturally this has become a point of contention in the relationship (it always is, isn’t it?).

Joining Beth up on this mission is Stamp Majors, who’s like Buzz Aldrin mixed with President Obama mixed with Bono mixed with Brad Pitt. He’s the perfect human being and universally loved across the world. But the bigger issue here is that maybe, just maybe, he has a little thing for Beth.

So when the two head up to the International Space Station and Doug sees them astro-flirt on TV, he’s convinced that Beth is going to leave him for Stamp. So what does he do? Well, he decides to go up and stop her!

Getting up to space stations is tricky but when the Latvian government mistakes Doug for his famous father, they agree to put him on their next rocket to space.

Ground control to major Tom……

Beth is more than a little surprised when Doug show up, but it appears it’s too little too late. Doug is a loser who had his chance and blew it. Stamp is perfect and every woman’s dream. Looks like the trip was for naught. It’s one thing when you drive over to your ex’s house and she tells you it’s over. It’s quite another when you show up at her space station and she tells you it’s over. Awwwwk-ward.

But Doug won’t give up, and gets into a duel with Stamp, determined to prove himself as the better man. Over the course of this duel, he finds out that Stamp is (of course) a slimy asshole who’s faking his whole Superman persona. He’s really a jerk who just wants to get into Beth’s pants. Once Doug figures that out, it’s game on.

Did I mention I liked this? It’s an original idea for a comedy, something I haven’t quite seen before, and as we discuss a lot, that’s the first step – give the reader something they haven’t seen before. It’s like slipping the bouncer 20 bucks at the club. You get to walk to the front of the line.

Now part of any comedy’s success depends on whether the reader personally finds the subject matter funny, and that’s something that’s going to change from person to person. I happen to think comedies that revolve around cheating are funny, so to take that to the extreme by having a guy fly to a space station to stop his girlfriend from cheating on him was hilarious.

Contrast this with an infidelity film that’s about to hit theaters – The Dilemma – and I don’t know what the hell those writers were thinking. The hook in that movie is that a guy can’t figure out whether he should tell his buddy his wife is cheating on him?? Where the hell is the conflict in that?? “Yes.” The answer’s “Yes.” Movie over. The focus should be on the people involved, not the people associated with the people involved. Talk about finding the least interesting angle to a story. But I digress.

I think a key reason why the comedy works here is that both the hero, Doug, and the villain, Stamp, are eccentric weird exaggerated funny characters. Doug is a slacker janitor who’s afraid of commitment yet completely oblivious as to why Beth would leave him. And Stamp is living a dual life – pretending to be a hero when he’s really an egotistical asshole who’s infatuated with himself. Watching these two – neither of which is good enough for Beth – battle for her heart is hilarious.

There are, unfortunately, some problems that kept this from getting an impressive. I’m not sure I ever bought the whole “Latvian” angle. A country with barely enough money to run itself isn’t going to have a space program, no matter how decrepit. I thought Lisbe and Reger walked a tough line, trying to make the comedy just broad enough so that we would buy this, but I never did.

I thought Glenn, the best friend character, was stupid. There’s this whole thing where he hasn’t gotten laid in seven years and now he’s trying to have sex with one of the Japanese astronauts…It just felt like he belonged in another movie. This is a common issue all writers run into, especially in comedies. You have someone who may be a good character, but they’re not a good character for this movie and that’s how Glenn felt.

But the biggest miscalculation is the twist ending. And I’m going to spoil it for you here – that’s how much confidence I have that they’re going to change it – so if you don’t want to know, stop reading. Late in the script, Stamp reveals he’s secretly working for the Latvian government and is holding Beth for ransom to get 10 billion dollars from the U.S. to give to Latvia. Besides the endless logistical problems with this twist (after Latvia receives the money, the American military can just walk into the country and take it back), it’s just a desperate twist. It doesn’t feel natural to the story we’ve been reading for the past 70 minutes.

Luckily, there are enough laughs in the finale to overcome it, but it’s a dark cloud on an otherwise really funny script. If they can figure out this ending (or if Theroux already did) this could be a classic. Really dug it.

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

What I learned: The forced twist – One of the worst things you can do as a writer is throw a twist in just to throw a twist in. Like I mentioned above, instead of the Stamp twist being clever, it’s desperate, like you don’t believe in your story enough to let it stand on its own, so you need to slap in some gimmick to mask the other problems the script has. It would take me too long to discuss how to plant the perfect twist, but I can at least give you a method for detecting if your twist works. Simply ask, “Does it feel right?” Be honest with yourself. Does it feel like a natural extension of your story? Take a look at Hancock, a messy ugly screenplay. There was clearly a desperation there – writers feeling like they needed to do *something* to spice things up. So they threw the Charlize Theron twist in there and, well, we all know how that played. Make sure your twist feels right before committing to it.

Genre: Dramedy
Premise: A young man moves to Los Angeles and spends the next 30 years trying to break into acting.
About: Edward Ford is considered by many to be one of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. Lem Dobbs, the writer, wrote the script based on a real person. It is loved so much that even though it was never made, it led to a ton of work for Dobbs, basically giving him his screenwriting career. Dobbs did a substantial but un-credited rewrite on Romancing The Stone. He also wrote Kafka, Dark City, The Limey, and The Score. Reading this extensive interview from Dobbs, it’s clear that he’s not a fan of Hollywood, and the fact that he hasn’t had a produced credit in awhile may have more to do with his disgust with the business than not having the opportunities. Dobbs is also a bit of a character. Check out the commentary track on The Limey, where he takes Soderbergh to task for rewriting his script. It’s as entertaining as it is awkward, but with or without the drama, there’s plenty of screenwriting advice to find. For example, Dobbs discusses Soderbergh’s choice to write “cool” dialogue without any purpose, something he finds detestable (as do I!).
Writer: Lem Dobbs
Details: 114 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).

You read an interview by Lem Dobbs and you immediately come to the conclusion that he’s a lot smarter than you. And that your analysis – or in this case my analysis – of his screenplay, will probably embody the kind of moronic thinking that has ruined Hollywood. Namely that simplistic criteria can be applied to any screenplay to determine whether it is “good” or “bad.”

For example, can 2001: A Space Odyssey, be judged by fatal flaws, likable protagonists, and a three-act structure? I’m inclined to say no, though I’ve never broken it down. I bring this up because Edward Ford is a different kind of screenplay. It’s a strange cross between Forrest Gump, A Confederacy of Dunces and the documentary, The Cruise. In fact, I don’t even know if those comparisons are accurate because this is so much its own thing.

While reading Ford, I kept going back and forth between, “This does not work,” to “Maybe I just don’t get it.” One thing it does have going for it is that it’s different. It’s not like many scripts you read. The question is, is it different good? Or different bad?

Edward Ford is a deceptively simple man. Sure he’s weird. Yeah he’s eccentric.  But he desires only one thing: To be a bad guy in B-movie Westerns. Yes, Edward wants to be an actor. But you get the feeling even that accomplishment would be tainted if he couldn’t snarl at a Robert Redford or a John Wayne before quickdrawing a six-piece with the twang of an Ennio Morricone score playing in the background.

Problem is, Ford’s not a very good actor. And he’s got about as much “bad guy” in him as Tom Hanks on laughing gas. Edward wouldn’t kill a fly if doing so cured cancer. Yet here we are, in the sixties, with a 20-something Ford arriving in Hollywood, ready to make a name for himself.

Ford finds out quickly that Hollywood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There isn’t a movie premiere on every corner three times a week. You have a lot of free time (especially if you’re an aspiring actor). So Ford fills that time with his passion, watching movies.

Not only does Ford go to the movies all day every day, he develops a sort of primitive IMDB, taking notes on all the actors in the films, writing their names down on cards, then filing those cards back in his apartment in a giant database drawer. Today this would be considered forward-thinking. Back then it was just weird.

Eventually Ford finds his future wife, Mitzi. He doesn’t really like her and she doesn’t really like him but on the plus side, she forces Ford to network more. It’s “who you know in this town!” she says, and he won’t know anyone unless he starts talking to them. Within a few days, Ford is hanging out with some of his favorite B-movie Western stars, just because he went up and talked to them. Strangely, however, Ford doesn’t think to use these connections to get any parts. He just enjoys their company and keeps on living.

This laissez-faire attitude takes Ford through the 70s and eventually the 80s, as he drives a cab, does third-rate Christian theater, has sex with a lot of ugly weird women, and keeps trying to get that elusive SAG card (the card that gets you into the Screen Actors Guild).

But because Ford is so mellow, so clueless about the industry, he never gets anywhere. In fact, Ford doesn’t even seem bothered by the fact that he never gets anywhere. It’s more a curiosity to him, like trying to figure out why some people win the lottery and others don’t.

Ford makes a few friends along the way, including a TV writer with anger issues, an “Ed Wood” like director, as well as the director’s son, who is so taken by Ford’s oddness that he wants to make a movie based on him. But really the script is about a guy who moves to Hollywood and never makes it. Some might call it depressing, others accurate, but I think the legacy of Edward Ford is that when it’s all said and done, you don’t know what to think. It’s a really odd script!

I guess I’ll start with the biggest problem I had: the lack of conflict. Conflict occurs when two opposing forces meet. In this case, that would be Ford and Hollywood. Ford wants in. Hollywood doesn’t want to let him in. That’s where the majority of the drama is going to be found.

The thing is, I never got the sense that Ford cared whether he succeeded or not. He talks about his desire to get his SAG card. We even see him go out on auditions. But he’s always indifferent to whether he succeeds or not. I got the sense that he could just as easily be in Oklahoma City and be content. If your main character doesn’t display passion about his goal, then how are we to muster up any enthusiasm to root for him?

Another problem is that watching someone watch movies isn’t dramatically compelling. By no means are we stuck in a theater for ten pages at a time, but it is a big part of the script, and while it does inform us to one of Ford’s quirkier characteristics (his card filing), it pushed me away from the character. Several times I wanted to scream, “Dude! Stop sitting on your ass and go get an acting job!” It was infuriating.  Although I concede that may have been the point.

The script also has a very drifty quality to it that takes getting used to. Once we realize Ford isn’t going to actively pursue his goal, there’s nothing to really drive the story. As a result we simply exist along with him as he makes friends, loses friends, does his job, goes to the movies, etc. That’s the part that reminded me of Forrest Gump. The difference in Gump, however, is that his drifting is a series of spectacles, mind candy that’s fun to watch. Here, Ford’s existence is very mundane, bordering on depressing. He’s not an easy character to get excited about.

What I liked about the script was how it captured Los Angles and the pursuit of the dream. Speaking from experience, it’s very easy to get lost in Los Angeles, to let the city and entertainment business beat you down. If you’re told “no” enough times, you retreat back into the city’s concrete shadows, and years start drifting by without you even realizing it. It’s pretty scary and I think part of the reason this script unnerved me is because it reminded me of that.

So in a roundabout way, whether Dobbs intended for it to be or not, the script is inspiring. The message? Don’t be like this guy! Don’t wait for success to come to you. Go and seize it. Because if you don’t, your life could disappear in an instant.

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

What I learned: Dobbs was asked what he believed constituted a good screenplay. He cited Chinatown, and followed with this: “It’s literate and intelligent and fresh and compelling and unusual and deeply-felt and personal and entertaining. The dialogue sings and sparkles, there are memorable lines. You’re stimulated and engaged and surprised and moved. And even if a great director makes it his own and changes the ending and this and that, it’s still essentially what it was meant to be from the mind and heart and soul and talent and experience — both creative and autobiographical — of its sole author… Most of all [with every good script], the writer starts with himself, his own private obsessions and interests and agonies — and makes them public.”

Genre: Indie/Drama/Love Story
Premise: After a young woman in a small town finds out she’s going to die, she meets a man who will go to the ends of the earth to preserve her memory.
About: This was one of the ten finalists in the 2010 Nicholl Fellowship screenwriting contest. The Nicholl is the biggest screenwriting competition in the world. It receives over 6000 entries every year. Friends who read all the scripts recommended The Last Queen to me.
Writer: Tim Macy
Details: 104 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 wasn’t going to review any Nicholl scripts this year but a bunch of you kept e-mailing asking me to please please please review them so I finally decided to read one. I understand the curiosity. Screenwriters want to see what’s winning or placing in the biggest screenwriting competition in the world. Makes sense. Unfortunately, I think they’re curious for the wrong reasons. It seems like most writers want to see what won just so they can say, “That?? That won over *my* script?? There’s no way! Contests are shams!”

Here’s the thing with screenwriting contests. When you become a really good writer, people notice, and they start paying you for it. Once you get paid, you can’t enter a lot of these contests (You don’t qualify for Nicholl if you’ve made – I believe – more than 5,000 dollars writing). That means that the entrants in these competitions are all true amateurs. And we’re amateurs for a reason. Because we haven’t figured it out yet.

Sure we’ll have a great scene here or a great villain there. But we might not know how to build up a second act yet. We might not know how to arc our main character. We might have trouble with dialogue or not yet know how to add conflict to our scenes. We may not have discovered subtext. We might make things too easy for our characters. We might not know when to cut a pointless subplot or how to fix a romance that has no spark. There are hundreds of skills that need to be perfected in screenwriting and that takes time. It’s part of the challenge of this unbelievably difficult craft, and what makes it so fun.

So don’t cut these scripts down because they won. Try to figure out what they did right. Learn from them. This isn’t a panel of dopes deciding on these things. These are guys who know their shit. Figure out why they’re picking these screenplays over yours then use that knowledge to improve your next draft.

All right. After that long and possibly worthless rant, let’s get on to our review…

Neff is a small town 20-something girl who lives alone in a trailer. High school was pretty good to her but she’s fallen through the cracks since. She works as a checker at “Tut’s,” the local supermarket, throwing boxes of saturated fat across a scanner all day until her hands go numb.

Neff’s only real hope is her writing. She’s written a novel titled “The Last Queen” which she’s sent to every publisher known to man. They’ve all rejected her.

One night after work, Neff loses control of her car and crashes. It shakes her up a bit but she feels fine. That is until the doctors inform her that the crash has opened a vessel in her brain, and that this particular inoperable injury will kill her within a few weeks. Make sure to wear your seatbelts boys and girls. And don’t text and drive.

On the other side of town, Livingston Wells, a plain staunchy young man, has come back home to bury his father, who’s left Livingston his farm. Livingston’s bitchy older sister, Juniper, is running for Mayor of the town, and wants to buy the farm from Livingston and use it as a food source for the town, in hopes that the gesture will win her votes.

Livingston could care less. That is until he runs into Neff. You see, Livingston has been in love with Neff ever since they were kids. But high school being the way it is, she never noticed him. Before he treks back off into the real world, he figures ‘why not,’ and marches over to Tut’s to ask her out (in one of my favorite scenes of the script).

It doesn’t take long for Neff to reveal her predicament though, and their relationship is off to the races, trying to cram in as much together time as two can in a few weeks. Eventually, however, they have to face reality, and when Neff tells him about her fascination with ancient pharaohs, Livingston comes up with the idea that they build her a tomb here on his farm.

See Neff is terrified of being forgotten. And by Livingston’s estimation, the adjacent river will feed back over the burial site in about 10,000 years, exposing the tomb and allowing whoever is around at the time to dig her up. She’ll essentially become a link to the past for whoever’s around then.

Of course, as Livingston begins to build this thing, the town rebels against it, and since questionable activity from a brother doesn’t help your Mayoral race, Juniper spearheads a movement to stop Livingston from building the tomb. 

The Last Queen is reminiscent of two of my favorite movies, Field of Dreams and The Sweet Hereafter, and while it almost gets swallowed up by its own ambitions, I liked it quite a bit.

Obviously, the subject matter is pretty morbid. I mean the entire story is focused on a character who’s about to die. As a writer, it’s pretty tough to pull in anyone other than a niche audience when death is the theme of your movie.

So what do you do?

You include humor.

If you can make the audience laugh, they’ll be more willing to go on this journey with you, as we are here. I wasn’t a huge fan of The Bucket List, but that’s another movie where we know one of the characters is going to die at the end. People went to that movie in droves because it didn’t wallow in that reality. It looked (and the characters looked) for humor in it.

Here, Neff is celebrating absurd future birthdays with people she doesn’t know. She’s sarcastic, constantly commenting on the ridiculousness of the ordeal. There’s a lightheartedness to the whole thing that keeps the story from becoming a melodramatic mess. I probably would’ve liked even more humor, but what’s here is adequate.

I also want to applaud Macy for solving a tough problem. How do you write a movie about a guy willing to mortgage his house to build a tomb for a girl he started dating three days ago? We’re simply not going to buy that story without some extenuating circumstances. So Macy made the smart choice of giving Livingston a lifelong crush on Neff. Essentially, this relationship started a long time ago. Just not on Neff’s side. This may seem unimportant. But you need to make sure the logic of your characters’ choices holds up in a screenplay. If your character does something nonsensical just because you need him to to make the story work, your screenplay will scream amateur.

The Last Queen also has a couple of nice ticking time bombs going for it. Obviously you have Neff’s death. But you also have a parallel ticking time bomb in the town election, which pushes our villain, Juniper, to act now as opposed to later. These are the things that add urgency to your story, which I don’t see in a lot of contest scripts that aren’t advancing. Ticking time bombs are the easiest way to give thrust and immediacy to your story.

I did have some problems with the script, but nothing that can’t be fixed. People are going to go nuts about the on-the-nose character naming here. Neff (Nefertiti). She works at “Tut’s” (King Tut). I think Macy takes it a little too far and while this didn’t really bother me, I know it bugs the hell out of other readers.

It’s also never explained how Neff became a recluse when she was apparently popular enough in high school to be wanted by all the boys. It’s rare in small towns that that kind of person just dissolves and becomes a hermit. I mean she doesn’t have a husband, a boyfriend, a best friend, anything really. And it’s not clear to me why that is but I can take a guess.

For whatever reason, early on in every writer’s career, they’re attracted to loner characters. They like characters who are out on their own doing nothing, probably because that’s kind of how writers are. But it’s hard to make these kinds of characters interesting and I believe that’s the case here. Neff is so distant, so inaccessible that it’s hard to connect with her. In fact, her personality is so protected, we have trouble believing that she’s even interested in Livingston in the first place. And for this to work, you have to believe in the love between these two. So it’s not there yet, but it can get there.

The Last Queen was right up my alley. It has its faults but overall it’s a unique offbeat story that’s worth checking out.

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

WHAT I LEARNED: Make sure the love interest in your screenplay is just as fleshed out as your hero. When you write a script, your first job is to deal with your main character’s life: their backstory, their flaws, their idiosyncrasies, their relationships with friends and family, any inner conflict they’re dealing with, etc. But what I’ve found is that writers get so exasperated from building that character, they give only half the effort when building up the romantic interest. Their backstory is half-assed, they probably don’t have a flaw, the writer doesn’t pay attention to their relationships with others. This is a huge mistake. You want to know just as much about the other person as you do the hero. Here, Livingston has a whole life going on before Neff even enters into the equation. His father just died. He has a dysfunctional relationship with his sister. He has to decide whether to sell his farm or not. We could probably build another movie around Livingston because he has so much going on. Make sure to approach all your big characters this way.