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!
Genre: Comedy
Premise: A human teenager, a vampire, and a zombie must save their town from an alien invasion.
About: Oren wrote one of my favorites scripts from last year, Shimmer Lake, about the aftermath of a bank robbery except told backwards. The script won the Austin screenwriting contest. Kitchen Sink is, from my understanding, his follow-up to that script, and made it on to this year’s Black List.
Writer: Oren Uziel
Details: 105 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’ve already sung the praises of Oren before. I thought his told-in-reverse crime caper was one of the best scripts I read all of last year. He has a real nice command of his craft and I love the way he mixes cleverness with comedy.
Now normally, if I’d read this premise, I would’ve rolled my eyes and moved on. The double-mumbo-jumbo approach has been debated to death here and the consensus is, it doesn’t work. But vampires, zombies, AND ALIENS??? That’s triple mumbo jumbo. A surefire 8 car pile-up.
I have some context here and those long time (and I mean REALLY long time) readers of the site might remember this. Joss Whedon wrote a script titled “Cabin In The Woods,” (which, if I understand correctly, has already been shot) that incorporates zombies and aliens and robots and vampires, etc., etc. I haaaay-ted it. I mean I thought it was beyond awful. And it was for that very reason – trying to mix all these disparate elements into the same flick (18-plex mumbo jumbo) – that I claimed something like it could never work.
But when I saw Oren at the helm of a script tackling similar territory, I thought, “You know what? If there’s anyone who can pull this off, it’s him.” Just the fact that he’s willing to title his script, “Kitchen Sink,” lets you know he’s in on the joke.
Kitchen Sink starts off the way you want your spec to start off: With something going on. In this case we have teenage everyman Dag and his maybe-girlfriend Lorelei sprinting through a Zombie-Vampire apocalypse. Zombies are eating humans. Vampires are eating zombies. And the few remaining humans are trying to kill both.
But not our heroes. They’re running. Towards that house! Except when they get inside…it’s filled with MORE zombies and vampires! Who continue to attack each other and who try to take down their new human prey.
But then there’s a flash of light. Everybody looks outside. Fucking ALIENS have just landed! And they start killing EVERYBODY. Aliens, zombies, AND humans. Talk about bad luck.
Somehow Dag, a hot vampire named Petra, and a geeky zombie named Ned, are able to escape into the basement before the aliens get to the house. Lorlelei wasn’t so lucky. Petra killed her pasty human ass. Once down there, they realize that if they’re going to survive against this new threat, they’re going to have to work together. Petra reluctantly accepts but Ned takes a little more convincing, since he really really wants to eat Dag’s brain.
We then cut back to a few days ago before all the chaos began. This was an interesting choice by Oren because he uses the device so we can get to know the characters before they became…well…monsters. The backstory also adds a lot more context to the relationships. For example, it turns out Lorelei, that girl who came into the house with Dag, stole Petra’s old boyfriend, which is why she vampired her ass as soon as she walked in the door.
It’s a funky construct, as we’re whisked back and forth between the more character building scenes of the past and the crazy immediate dilemmas of the present. It gets a little out there by the end (Tivo becomes a huge part of the problem – if you can imagine that) but you’re definitely rooting for these characters to succeed and take down the aliens, and wonder if their previous prejudices are going to allow them to do it.
You know, I thought the script was pretty good. I didn’t like it as much as Shimmer Lake but that probably had more to do with the subject matter. I did, however, like that Oren was trying to do something different with a zombie movie. I thought the jumping back and forth in time so we could get to know the characters elevated it in comparison to other scripts in the genre. And again, that’s what you’re trying to do when you write a spec. You’re trying to create something different, something that’s going to stick out from everything else. If you have a script about three people stuck in a house with zombies attacking from all sides….it’s time to write a new script.
My big beef with Kitchen Sink was I thought the backstory would also reveal how a regular everyday set of teenagers had turned into vampires and zombies. I was waiting for another one of Oren’s clever little revelatory explanations but instead we find out that vampires and zombies were already a part of society before this apocalypse began. It worked fine but it would’ve been way more fun to find out how the world had gone from “everything’s normal” to “zombie/alien apocalypse” in 48 hours.
I should also note that crow will be served at dinner tonight. Last week I said I was sick and tired of people throwing real life actors into their scripts. Yet Oren does it here and actually manages to make it work (for those wondering – the real life actor is Don Johnson). I think a lot of that has to do with Oren’s skill and understanding of when he can push it and when to pull back. But the main reason it works is because Johnson’s character is actually an essential part of the plot, and not just a “Ha ha! Look, it’s Don Johnson!” moment.
I thought the prose was a little thick here, not indicative of a tight spec script, with some of the action paragraphs 6-7 lines long. While this may seem nitpicky, I only noticed it when realizing that, for a fast story, the pages were taking a little longer to read than normal. I looked back and noticed that a lot of the paragraphs were too thick. Of course, this might be the beefy version which Oren planned to slim down later.
If you liked Zombieland
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Spec scripts should be written as if the people reading them have at least a mild case of ADD. When I receive a script from an established writer, I’m not getting antsy if the first four scenes are slow. I know the writer. I know what he’s capable of. So I know that eventually he’s going to steer me down the right path. When I’m reading an unknown writer, however, and they’re drawing everything out, taking their sweet time, I start getting antsy as hell. I begin to think, “This writer doesn’t know what he’s doing” because 99 times out of 100 when this happens, that’s the case. That’s not to say this won’t be the 1% execption. But I’m much less willing to let them prove me wrong cause I don’t know them. So I become distracted. I’m not paying attention as much. I’m moving through the script faster, trying to get finished sooner. When you look at the beginning of Kitchen Sink, we’re thrown right into the mix in the very first scene. We’re told by the writer, “I’m going to keep this entertaining. Don’t worry.” And whenever the script gets slow from that point on, another fun scene is thrown in that jolts us back again. That’s what you have to do with a spec. And no, that doesn’t mean you have to have aliens running around in your movie. Maybe someone gets shot in the first scene. Maybe someone’s told they’re a Russian spy (Salt), maybe we see people loading an obscured beast into a trailer (Jurassic Park), maybe someone’s landing on a new planet (Avatar). You gotta bring us into your world and keep us there when writing a spec so remember to infuse it with a number of entertaining scenes. Remember, readers expect spec scripts to move faster than other material.
Genre: Comedy
Premise: 13 year old Miles Calhoun excels in…just about everything. So when his parents continue to hold him back, Miles decides to do what any exceptional 13 year old boy would do – file for legal separation.
About: History of Fools finished in the Top 13 of the Scriptapalooza contest back in 2005. The notoriety got it some reads around town and it ended up on the Black List a year later with 5 votes. Eric Podell did a video Q&A about the script which you can find below.
Writer: Eric Podell
Details: 114 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).
Wes Anderson once said that he starts all his screenplays with a character. My brain doesn’t work that way. I need the stabilizing force of a concept before I can start building a story but the more I think about it, the more I think starting with a character is an intriguing way to go. Because if you only start with a character, you have no choice but to make him interesting.
However this leads to a problem. If you get too caught up in your character, you run the risk of neglecting your story. Or your character becomes bigger than your story. This is exactly what I believe happens in History of Fools.
When we meet Miles, the 13 year old maestro of mischief, he’s typing a manifesto to his parents detailing why they don’t understand him. He’s a great painter. Plays bass with the best of them. He even writes award-winning short stories. And yet his parents impose ridiculous archaic notions on him such as “curfew” and “rules.” All Miles wants is to be set free so he can fly. Fly away into genius’s embrace.
I knew I liked Podell as a writer right away when we get the “beautiful girl moves in next door” scene. You know, the scene we’ve seen a billion times before where the family of the beautiful girl moves in next to our hero? Except that’s not what Podell does. Instead, Miles welcomes the family in their house search, posing as a (13 year old!) real estate agent as he shows them their potential new home. At the end of the tour we find out, of course, that this is HIS HOME, which Miles is trying to sell off in order to piss off his parents.
And just like that, we’ve set up the central conflict in the movie.
The funny thing is, his parents are great. They’re the nicest parents in the world. They just don’t treat Miles the way he believes he should be treated – like an adult.
Miles is able to pass the time pursuing his new neighbor, but when his father gets laid off and his parents’ watchful eyes become even more imposing, conflict within the household reaches an all time high. Eventually they send him off to camp, which infuriates Miles so much, he leads a revolt during lunchtime and gets kicked out.
We can practically hear the water boiling over back home, and after his parents force him to get a job, Miles has had enough. He goes to a lawyer to find out what it will take to get a legal separation from his parents. The lawyer gives him a list of what the requirements are (neglect, abuse, etc.) and Miles goes about manufacturing scenarios to obtain the evidence needed to make his case.
I’m not going to tell you how it ends other than to say Miles might learn a valuable lesson: Mainly, be careful what you wish for.
I loved this character. I think you’re always going to get an interesting character when that character’s actions play against his or her age. So if you’re a 35 year old acting like you’re 14, you’re going to have some funny stuff. Likewise when you’re 14 acting like you’re 35. There’s a built-in conflict there that manifests itself without you even having to try (which is probably why I liked The Escort so much). Throw in a dose of arrogance and cup of selfishness and you’ve created a character who pops off the page.
On top of that, the dialogue was great, especially anything that came out of Miles’ mouth. And why should we be surprised? When you create an exciting interesting character, they’re likely to say exciting interesting things. Listening to Miles’ acceptance speech for his short story is the culmination of all these factors at work: “Wow, this was totally unexpected. Okay, let’s be honest… it wasn’t. Seriously, did anybody read the third act of Vaghars’ “If My Dog Could Talk?” Entirely void of realism. An unintentional farce. I think if his dog could talk he’d politely ask him to put the pen down.”
My big problem with History of Fools was the story, which doesn’t get started early enough and once it does get started, isn’t convincing. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Whatever your movie is about, whatever the hook is, you have to expose that hook by the end of Act 1. So if your movie is about a lawyer who can’t lie, he better not be able to lie by page 25. If your movie is about a bachelor party where they lose the groom, they better lose the groom by page 25. This is a movie about a kid who wants a divorce from his parents. But he doesn’t try to get this divorce until the midpoint, which is why 40 pages into History of Fools, you’re sitting there going, “What in the world is this script about??”
This ends up causing the next problem in the screenplay, which is that Miles’ attempts to build a case against his parents aren’t convincing. They feel slapped together. And the reason they feel slapped together is because we’re trying to cram them all into the final half of the screenplay. Had we had 30 extra pages, we could’ve added some real depth to these pursuits. Since we don’t, they come off as simplistic and questionable. Tricking his parents to go near their computer which has been set to a porn page and taking a picture of it (for evidence) betrays the more intelligent aspects of the screenplay.
My last complaint has to do with the central relationship between Miles and his parents. Miles hates his parents. HATES them. Yet his parents love Miles and will do anything for him. As his other friends note, they’re basically two of the best parents in the neighborhood.
So we feel like at some point we’re going to get insight into why Miles has grown to hate them. And really, I thought that was going to be what the script was about – how a family gets to this point. But it’s never explored or explained, leaving us to take the family conflict at face value, which isn’t easy to do since it doesn’t make sense. I remember in Rushmore, Max was ashamed of his father for a reason – because he was a barber, an unacceptable profession for the parent of a private school student. There wasn’t any reason behind Miles’ hatred here. And if there was, it wasn’t clear.
So I definitely think History of Fools has problems. However, Podell has created a memorable main character and has some great dialogue he’s working with. If he can manage to wrap a more compelling story around it all, I think this script could be awesome.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A lot of the most memorable characters in cinema have a mischievous side. Whether it’s Lester Burnham secretly lusting after his daughter’s best friend. Captain Jack Sparrow screwing over anyone who gets in his way. Han Solo selfishly doing it all for the money. Vince Vaughn constantly degrading women in Swingers. The nastiness is what makes these characters pop off the page. But creating them is like playing with fire. Give them too much gasoline and they explode. There were a number of times here where the things that made Miles so memorable (his arrogance, his hypocrisy) also made him annoying because they went too far. I wouldn’t say he ever became unlikable, but he certainly got close. So add a little attitude to your characters to give him/her life, just be careful you don’t go overboard.
Turns out I’m more hungover from sugar plums and eggnog than I thought I’d be. Plus, let’s face it, does anybody actually work this week? I mean please. They should make the week between Christmas and New Years an official holiday. Anyway, start prepping those New Years’ lists. And get ready for my Thursday Top 10 Movies of the year post. It’s been kinda fun catching up on all the movies I’ve missed this week. Oh, and yes, I will be posting a review tomorrow. A continued Happy Holidays! :)
Genre: Christmas Comedy
Premise: A disenchanted hotel executive’s life is turned upside down after he drops a Dear Santa letter in a mysterious “Letters to Santa” sack — then must live with the consequences when his wishes come true.
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: Bryan Dunn
Details: 112 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).
Ho ho ho! Santa Carson is here. Before I get to the script, I’ll quickly run down my favorite Christmas movies of all time. First on the list is….drum roll please….It’s A Wonderful Life
So how does today’s amateur script stack up? Well, I don’t think it’s fair to compare an amateur script to the four best Christmas movies of all time, but is it at least a worth entry into the genre? Let’s find out.
“Boyishly handsome” Ray Kincaid is a hotel manager at a posh Beverly Hills-ish hotel. Things are going all right for Ray. He’s got a beautiful girlfriend in Maggie. He’s well-respected for the job he does. In fact, his boss, Phil, thinks he’s vice-president material. The only blip on Ray’s radar is his nemesis, the perfectly plastic OTHER manager of the hotel, Chip.
They say you should never count your sugar plums before they’re hatched but Ray is skating towards that promotion faster than Christi Yamaguchi. Imagine his surprise then when his boss, Phil, chooses Chip instead of him! Humbug? More like humbullshit.
Ray is so furious that he flips out Jerry Maguire style and moans to anyone who will listen about how much his life sucks. His girlfriend doesn’t act sexy enough. He never has enough time to do anything. His hair is thinning. Chip’s an asshole. And on and on and on. In one of those crazy moments we all have when we’re not flying straight, Ray scribbles together a “wish list” addressing all the things he wishes he had in life and drops it into a “letters to Santa” bag.
And the next day, everything changes.
First, he has his hair back! It’s a little thicker than he would’ve liked but beggars can’t be choosers, right? Next, Maggie’s slinked out in a nice expensive piece of lingerie, ready to rumble Tiger Woods mistress style. At work, Ray is shocked to find that there’s…ANOTHER RAY! Ray 2! But how could that be? He starts to put everything together. Asking for more hair. Asking for his wife to be more sexy. Asking for two of himself so he has more time. All his wishes came true!
Of course, what would a wish-fulfillment movie be if the wishes turned out exactly the way you wanted them to? While Ray tries to manage the big “end of the year” hotel event, everything he wished for starts working against him. His hair gets REALLY poofy. His girlfriend starts dancing at a strip club. And his doppelganger is a moron who’d rather party with the guests than get any work done.
Ray changes his mind. He wants to go back to his old life. But is it too late?
It’s Christmas. I don’t want to be a scrooge, but I don’t want to *not* help Bryan get this script into better shape either. I thought Dear Santa was well-written, had some funny moments, and showed a strong command of the three-act structure (except for one part, which I’ll get to). However there were a few things going on that prevented me from recommending it. The first thing that popped out was the “buying of the hotel” storyline. The current hotel is being bought up by new owners which means there’s going to be a transition at some point and somehow that’s going to either help or hurt Ray’s job, which of course has nothing to do with Ray currently being promoted, as that’s up to his current boss and….Well, you can tell just by that sentence that I was utterly confused by that storyline.
The problem is it’s too complicated for this story and prevented me, in a lot of places, from just enjoying Ray’s predicament. I would take all that transferring of the hotel stuff out and make the story simple. They have some huge Christmas-related event that accounts for a ton of money for the hotel at the end of the year and Ray’s gotta nail it to get the VP job. He makes all these wishes, which he thinks are going to make that goal easier, but they actually make it harder. There’s your story. You don’t need to get any more complex than that.
Another problem I had – and this is something I’ve been seeing way too much of lately in amateur scripts – is that the 1st act turn (in this case, where Ray makes his wish list) doesn’t happen until page 36! That moment should be coming on page 25 at the latest. I can understand this turn coming late in a gritty drama or a thoughtful period piece. But this is a high concept comedy, the genre best suited for the three-act structure, so it’s probably a good idea to follow that structure closely.
My third problem is in reference to the concept itself. Is this concept too spread out? The brilliance of Liar Liar is in its simplicity. He can’t lie. It’s one problem so everything about the script is centered and easy to understand. In Dear Santa, the elements are many. His wife is a stripper, he has this copy of himself running around, his adopted parents (another wish) come back into his life. So everything’s kind of haphazard and unfocused. I’m not saying it can’t work, but the randomness of it all did give me pause. I remember when he first saw Ray’s double and I thought, “That right there could be its own movie.” Then again, if you did that, it might be too much like other “be careful what you wish for” movies. So I’m not entirely sure how to address this issue. Maybe some of you readers have suggestions.
Finally, I would’ve kept everything as Christmas-related as possible in the same way that the theme of “Love Actually” focused all of its subplots on love. For example, when we have this big Jane Austen convention in the end, I don’t know what Jane Austen has to do with Christmas. It felt like a different movie. Why not turn it into something where the hotel holds the biggest Christmas Eve soup kitchen in Los Angeles and it requires an amazing amount of planning? That would feel more organic to the story.
Dear Santa had a really fun exciting energy to it. It was definitely better than the other “hotel manager” script I read not long ago, “Tower Heist,” but the script complicates itself in some ways and loses focus in others. If it could fix those problems, it would be a fun holiday film.
Scrooge out!
Script link: Dear Santa
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I randomly ran across this interview from comedy writer Adam Goldberg and really like the advice. It doesn’t apply to this review specifically, but since I only use this section to take on in-script problems, I thought it’d be fun to talk about your mindset BEFORE you write a script. “Write in your voice. Write what you know and what appeals to you. This is where you’ll have the most success. My agent once called me and told me that studios were looking for Jackie Chan movies. He also said they were looking for the “new” Kindergarten Cop. So he said — “Why not do both?” Now, who knows? Maybe I would’ve sold it for millions. But you should never write to what the town wants. Don’t write a thriller just because you hear thrillers are an easy sell. Only write a script that you know you can knock out of the park. I wrote Fanboys because I’m a giant Star Wars Fan. I wrote Revenge of the Nerds because, well, I am one. They say “write what you know” and there’s a real truth to that!”
Remember, this is Amateur Friday. We’re all in this together. Try to give feedback in a constructive manner that will help the writer in his next draft.
