Genre: Crime/Thriller/Western
Premise: An ex-boxer on the run for an accidental murder picks up a young woman with a dangerous secret.
About: You may remember Zach Dean from his spec sale I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, Layover. He’s the high school teacher who was on that infamous Jetblue flight with bad landing gear. It seems like a lot of crazy things are happening on Jetblue flights these days. Like, oh, I don’t know, flight attendants GRABBING A BEER AND RUNNING AWAY DOWN THE EMERGENCY SLIDE! I suspect we’ll be talking about the adaptation of that event soon enough, but right now we’re going to discuss Dean’s first spec, Kin, which got him enough attention in Hollywood that he was able to sell his follow-up.
Writer: Zach Dean
Details: 113 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).

When I gave Zach’s previous script, Layover, a positive review, it didn’t go ever very well with you guys. Outside of a few people e-mailing me and saying they liked it (which I never understand – if you have an opinion about the script, add to the discussion by posting in the comments!), the consensus seemed to be that the script was too “workmanlike.” It hit all the beats perfectly, but didn’t have any flair or substance. It was like the perfect technical screenplay and nothing more. I don’t know if I’d go that far. I thought the opening scene was original and the script never quite went where I thought it would, which is always good, but in retrospect I agree that it could’ve flashed some more style.

I’m reviewing Kin because it’s always interesting to read the script that got a screenwriter noticed, particularly if that script doesn’t sell. You get a unique glimpse into the difference between what Hollywood deems “worthy” and what Hollywood deems “worthy of buying.” I also received two e-mails about the script from other readers. One of them said it was the best script he’d read all year, and the other said it was the worst script he’d read all year. Smelling a good screenwriting discussion, I threw it into this week’s pile.

Addison, a handsome southern gentleman with a mean streak, has just robbed a casino with his younger black widow of a sis, Liza. They seem to have gotten away scott-free, with nary a car in pursuit, when all of a sudden their car hits a bad patch of road and spins out, tumbling down an embankment. Addison and Liza live, but when a clueless cop comes to help them and notices the piles of money strewn about, Addison has no choice but to shoot him dead. And just like that, everything’s changed.

Jay Mills, a beaten down ex-boxer, has just been released from jail. Jay took the fall for his corrupt boxing manager, Reuben’s, numerous shady underground dealings. Naturally, the first place he goes after getting out is Reuben’s gym to ask for his share of the money he so dutifully took the fall for. But Reuben doesn’t like people asking him for money and proceeds to beat the shit out of Jay with a bat. Jay’s boxing skills take over, and he’s able to lay a Tyson style skull-cracker on Reuben that inadvertently kills him. Uh-oh. Time to go on the run.

In the meantime, Addison and Liza are trudging through the forest trying to get away when, at a certain point, Addison believes for whatever reason that they have a better chance of living if they split up. He tells Liza to grab some sucker off the road and hitchhike up to Canada, where they’ll meet back up again. Liza reluctantly obliges and the first car that comes by is, guess whose? You guessed it, Jay.

Up until this point, Kin is working pretty well. But as soon as Liza gets in that car, the story loses itself, becoming part Coen-style-carnage-everywhere flick and part gritty love story. The love story actually works on some levels, since both parties are hiding such big secrets from each other. But eventually Jay tells Liza about his broken relationship with his parents, who live a few hours up the road, and Liza gets this idea that they should go spend Thanksgiving with them (which is tomorrow). From that point on, the central story question becomes “Will Jay or won’t Jay go spend Thanksgiving with his parents?”

In the meantime, Addison is stumbling around in the forest and, because he has nothing to do for awhile, engages in this murder spree with a random family he runs into. Eventually, he makes his way up north where he comes across a house in the forest that belongs to….You guessed it, Jay’s family.

I think you’re getting a sense of my central issue with Kin. There are way too many plot contrivances. Addison and Liza crashing the car and having to escape, I can buy, because it’s the first contrivance, the one that sets the story in motion. But then you have Jay accidentally killing someone one hour after he gets out of jail. That’s a bit convenient for the story. Then you have Addison suggesting that they split up and meet in Canada, which makes absolutely no sense, but helps the story go where it needs to go.

Then the first person Liza runs into on the road is Jay. Another convenient plot point. Then when we need to keep the cops from catching up with them, a blizzard roles in. That certainly helps the story. Then, of course, Jay’s parents just happen to be stationed up north, directly on the path they’re already driving. Then of course it just happens to be Thanksgiving, creating a big enough “event” whereby Jay would consider going home. Then of course of all the houses Addison were to run into wandering through the forest, he runs into Jay’s parents.

Now I get that the story is called “Kin” and that there’s this theme of “family” pulling these characters together in some strange cosmic way, but the sheer number of convenient events ruin any sense of reality. At a certain point we just go, “All of these things would never happen like this in a million years.”

That’s not to say everything here is bad. Dean creates gritty memorable characters that are fun to follow. And I like the way he weaves his different storylines together, both here and in Layover. It’s clear that his Coen Brothers influence has given him a strong sense of story.

But until this plot is restructured in a way whereby the audience doesn’t have to buy into so many coincidences, I don’t see it working. Some solid writing here, and I definitely see where everybody else saw potential, but the script needs some work.

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

What I learned: This may be a personal pet peeve of mine, but I don’t like it when one character says to another, “So tell me about yourself,” or “So tell me something about yourself.” The reason is, the question is obviously used so the writer can reveal backstory or character information about the character being asked the question. It feels pre-planned, stilted, stale, and always results in a boring overarching answer. It always works better when a character’s backstory is hidden inside the natural flow of the dialogue. Take these two examples…

JANE: So tell me about your life.
FRED: Well I was born in Indiana and when I was ten my sister died of pneumonia. My parents never recovered so we moved west to San Diego…

Versus

JANE (suspicious): You told me you were from San Diego.
FRED: I am.
JANE: Then how come your car has Indiana plates?
FRED (doesn’t answer)
JANE: We gonna be friends or are you going to keep lying to me?
(beat)
FRED: That’s where I grew up.
(conversation continues while Fred reluctantly explains why he left Indiana)

Hey, it ain’t going to win dialogue of the year but you see how much more interesting the second one is than the first? Always try to reveal character through the natural flow of dialogue. You don’t want to sound like your characters are interviewing each other (I see a lot of this in love stories/romantic comedies).

This is a book review. Not a script review. For those who know nothing about this book, I recommend you read it before reading any review. There are lots of surprises in the story, some of which I’ll be spoiling here. You’ve been warned.

Genre: Mystery/Crime
Premise: A disgraced journalist is hired by the head of an eccentric family to solve the murder of a girl 40 years ago.
About: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the best-selling Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson and the first in a series of three books that have come to be known as the “Millennium Trilogy.” The books are so popular that Larsson became the second best-selling author in the world in 2008, behind Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. By March 2010 his Millennium trilogy had sold 27 million copies in more than 40 countries. Sadly, Larsson never enjoyed this success. He wrote the three books for his own pleasure every day after work and they were only published after his death from a massive heart attack at age 50. Larsson left about three quarters of a fourth novel on a notebook computer; synopses or manuscripts of the fifth and sixth in the series, which was intended to contain an eventual total of ten books. Recently, David Fincher signed on to direct the film, and is currently in the middle of a months-long search for the actress who will play the famed tattooed lead.
Writer: Stieg Larsson

First off, no, I don’t have this script. So I’m ordering radio silence on requests.

If you’re like me, whenever something big comes along that people say you “have to see” or “have to read,” you immediately go into Resistance Mode. A roll of the eyes. A tightening of the jaw. ‘Don’t tell me what I *have* to see. I’ll see what *I* want to see dammit!” And then you go on an illogical months-long strike of the movie/show/book for no other reason than to prove (to no one – cause no one’s paying attention) that you are not influenced by the fleeting tastes of pop culture. Okay, well, maybe that’s just me. Either way, I didn’t think I’d ever see the inside cover of the surely overrated Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. But then vacation came along.

And as you know when you’re on vacation, you have to “do things” that are “different,” in order to justify travelling hundreds of miles away somewhere. And since I never have the time to read books anymore and nobody would stop talking about this damn tattooed girl, I realized that Mr. Larsson and I were going to have to make up. It was time to stop avoiding each other. It was time for me to read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Tattoo follows two main characters, the unshakeable journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the anti-social genius Lisbeth Salander. When we meet the bright but sad-eyed Blomkvist, he’s been convicted of slandering the snake-like businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrom in his self-published magazine, Millennium. This has put both his business and his name in serious jeopardy, and Blomkvist, who was quite a popular figure in Sweden, has been relegated to a petty criminal by the press. Things aren’t looking good for him.

But they’re certainly better than the life of 20-something Lisbeth Salander. An orphan for most of her childhood, Lisbeth’s been bounced around from family to family, guardian to guardian, most of whom were men who physically and sexually abused her. Even now, she must report to a guardian, a man who has control over her financial assets. Asking for money always requires a sexual favor in return. Lisbeth is just a tortured individual, a dog who’s been kicked every day of her life. She doesn’t trust a soul, especially men. The only happiness she finds is in her job. Lisbeth is a crack-researcher working for private eye companies to dig up dirt on people, usually large corporate types. It’s a job she enjoys because most of the people she gets dirt on are men. It’s a small way to return the favor and speed up the karmic train.

One day Blomkvist is visited by a mysterious man who informs him that retired entrepreneur Henrick Vanger, of the famous but dying Vanger Corporation, wants to offer him a job. Blomkvist travels to the isolated and spooky island of Hedeby to meet with the reclusive Henrick, who, after a considerable amount of backstory, asks Blomkvist if he would like to write a book about the Vanger family. Henrick won’t be above ground for much longer, and he thinks it would be important to chronicle the intricate cracks and corners of his large and complicated family history.

Henrick informs him that this is only the first half of the job. 40 years ago Henrick’s 16 year old niece, Harriet Vanger, disappeared here on the island. The circumstances of her disappearance have left no doubt in Henrick’s mind that she was murdered. He has spent the last 40 years researching what happened that day, and is convinced that one of his own family members killed her.

Henrick wants Blomkvist to conduct an investigation here on the island, where all his eccentric family members live, and see if he can find any new information leading to the truth about Harriet’s disappearence. His cover story will be to write the Vanger Family History, but the real reason he’s here is to find Harriet’s murderer.

Initially reluctant, Blomkvist is intrigued enough to commit, and sets up shop on the creepy island of Hedeby, where he begins an extensive look into the Vanger family history. What he will come to realize is that the Vangers are one of the most eccentric and dysfunctional families he’s ever come in contact with. And that they are very secretive. These are people who do not want to dig up their past and they don’t want anyone, especially some criminal reporter, digging it up either. The stonewalling forces Blomkvist to do most of his research through archives, which contain more information than he could possibly sift through in a lifetime, which is why he enlists the help of the gifted Lisbeth Salander.

In short, this book is fucking great. I mean there’s been a lot of talk about nothing happening in the opening 200 pages and I agree it takes way too long to get to the plot. I’m wondering if this is because Larsson never had an editor. He was writing these books in a vacuum and I think a lot of that shows, as the last 100 pages are also somewhat insignificant and probably could’ve been cut. But once we get into the central mystery of what happened to Harriet Vanger, this book moves as fast as any I’ve ever read.

Because the history behind the Vanger family is so extensive, and because there are so many members of the family with ties to so many weird and eccentric experiences, there’s an endless amount of fascinating material to explore. After hundreds and hundreds of pages, we begin to realize that Harriet Vanger is just the tip of the iceberg, and that she is actually one in a series of brutal serial murders, which have been carefully covered up over half a century. Uhhh, yeah! Count me in.

I could get into all the great things about this book (as well as some of the sillier things– Lisbeth’s hacking feels a decade late and a microchip short) but in order to keep this review relevant, I wanted to talk about how they’re going to adapt it into a film, because make no mistake, it will be a difficult adaptation.

The book has some qualities that are perfect to build a screenplay around. For example, the nice thing about Larsson droning on in the first 200 and last 100 pages about Wennestrom (a villain whom, it should be noted, we never meet), is that you can lob those parts of the story off and not lose anything, allowing you to adapt a 300 page book as opposed to a 600 page one.

But here’s the thing. I watched the Swedish film adaptation of this, and that’s exactly what they did, is jumped right into Henrick’s offer. I don’t know what it was but something felt off about it, like it was all happening too fast. The book spends a hundred-some pages introducing us to all the varied Vanger family members. Being stuck on that island with that creepy clan builds a necessary feeling of isolation and fear that jumping right in there can’t do. As a result, the Swedish film felt too much like your standard cold case mystery show on TV. The investigation felt too simple and ultimately empty.

Another issue they’ll have to deal with is the timeframe, which takes place over a year in the book. Like I always preach on the site, you want your timeframe to be tight. The ticking clock adds immediacy to your story, which keeps it exciting. But like I mentioned above, a strength of the book is the way it milks its character threads, which all seem mundane initially, but eventually pay off in huge ways. Unfortunately it takes a lot of time to set up those payoffs. When Blomkvist becomes involved in a months-long relationship with Cecilia Vanger, and then is inexplicably dumped and avoided by her, we’re terrified of what she’s capable of, especially as he starts unearthing the truth about Harriet. There’s also just tons of information he has to dig through over the months. The sheer amount of time he puts into this is what makes it so satisfying when he finally makes some progress. To put it plainly, I would not want to be tasked with figuring out what the timeframe is here, as both the short route and the long one have major pros and cons.

But I think where this really becomes a movie, and maybe the one area where the movie can actually improve upon the book – is the relationship between Lisbeth and Blomkvist. Lisbeth is such a fascinating character and one of the driving forces of the novel is to see her finally break out of her protective shell and trust another human being. The novel paints a very complicated relationship between her and Blomkvist that involves an intimate work environment yet a distant personal one. What each character desires and fears always seems to be in direct contrast with one another and this broken timing weaves its way into them like a pair of frantic claws, shoving them together and ripping them apart at will, all the while leaving us confused about what’s ultimately going to happen between them. It’s a great romantic subplot because it’s different and it’s dark and it’s weird and you never have any idea where it’s going to go. Most importantly, we desire to see them end up together, so it’s like this huge bonus storyline that we’re dying to see the conclusion to, which is already sitting on top of the mother of all plot engines, with the search for Harriet’s killer.

I know Fincher is desperately searching for an actress to play Lisbeth Salander and indeed it’s the kind of role that will change an actress’ life. But I just don’t know who you can cast. Everyone’s saying Ellen Page but there’s just no way. She doesn’t have the edge that Salander needs, and yes I’ve seen her in Hard Candy. This character is like that one times 100. You need an actress with some real genuine hatred in her life to pull this off. Maybe they can get Pink or that girl M.I.A. That’s a joke by the way. I offer the question up to you guys. Who do you think should play Lisbeth Salandar?

Anyway, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has the potential to finally reinvigorate a 10 year old dead genre, the serial killer flick. There’s more depth in this one novel than there were in 100 serial killer specs I’ve read over the past few years. It’s been a long wait but I think we may finally get that “The next Silence Of The Lambs.”

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

What I learned: I love how the main character here must hide behind a lie for his investigation. Think about it, if Blomkvist was simply asking the Vangers about Harriet’s disappearance, it would be boring – way too straightforward. Instead, he must pretend he’s doing research for the Vanger Family history. This gives every conversation/interview of his an underlying subtext, and therefore keeps the dialogue fresh and unpredictable. For example, he may ask a character about her childhood, but what he really wants to find out is what her childhood friendship with Harriet was like. Trying to steer the conversation a certain way without giving away your true intentions is always going to lead to an interesting scene. It also adds an element of danger to every conversation, because we’re afraid (and he’s afraid) of what might happen if he’s caught. The integration of this tip is story specific, so you can’t just add it to any character. But if it works for your story and your protagonist, definitely consider using it.

Genre: Love Story/Dark Comedy
Premise: A married woman falls for another man while on a business trip, only to learn later that he lives right across the street from her.
About: Actor/Director/Producer/Writer Sarah Polley made waves a couple of years ago with her directing debut, Away From Her. This is her follow-up effort, which stars Seth Rogen (who will be playing the smaller part of the husband – not the “other man”), Michelle Williams, and Sarah Silverman, and is filming as I write this. The script landed on last year’s Black List with 10 votes (the same amount of votes as scripts “Buried” and “My Mother’s Curse.”) One wonders how close “Take This Waltz” is to Polley’s own life. She married film editor David Wharnsby, her companion of seven years, in 2003 and had this to say: “My relationship [with him] is the thing I’m proudest of in my life. I had a lot of opportunities to end up in some pretty bad situations and, despite all my faults, I had the sense to find someone like him and make the decision to be with him. You spend a lot of time wanting to be with the wrong person and I just feel incredibly lucky because I’ve succeeded at that one thing. I figured that out.” A few years later, the two divorced. Might Polley’s desire to be with the wrong person have done her in and also been the inspiration for this script? The ending of this story will have you wondering.
Writer: Sarah Polley
Details: 110 pages – May 26, 2009 (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I’m always game for a good infidelity script because the subject matter fascinates me. That’s why Last Night is in my Top 25. It’s slow, I’ll admit that, and a few people have e-mailed me to unleash their vitriol over reading it via my recommendation, but what I love about infidelity stories is that they put a character in an ideal situation for drama by forcing them to make a choice that will change their lives. That’s the best way to explore a character and create a dramatic situation, is to put your characters in predicaments where they have to make choices with high stakes attached. The lead up to and fallout of those situations is always interesting.

Take This Waltz explores this choice from the vantage point of Margot, a 28 year old journalist. She and her husband, Lou, have been married for five years, and have hit that place in a marriage where, well, let’s face it, it’s boring. Or at least Margot’s half is boring. Lou, a chef who exclusively cooks chicken, seems perfectly content with where they are (why is it so easy for us guys to be content?). It’s not like the couple is on the outs or anything. They still tell each other how much they love each other, albeit in bizarre strangely unsettling ways (“I love you so much I want to put your spleen through a meat grinder.”) It’s just that their marriage is as boring as an Everybody Loves Raymond rerun.

So one weekend, while on a business trip, Margot meets Seth, an offbeat guy with a unique take on life who kinda reminds her of herself before she got married. Their time together is quick – just a few flirty exchanges – and if that were it, Margot’s life would’ve been fine.

But then the two find themselves next to each other on the flight home. The five hour flight proves to be an irresistible chance to get to know each other and they eventually give into it. And if that were it, Margot’s life would’ve been fine.

Rogen will play the husband.

But then Margot finds out Seth lives directly across the street from her. This terrible cosmic coincidence is the hook for the film and pretty soon Seth’s close proximity sinks its hooks into her. She’s clearly fallen in love with this man, and there he is, only 40 feet away every night.

The excuses to go over there are innocent at first – a hello here, a walk there – but soon these meetings are turning into planned lunches. And once you hit the planned lunch well, let’s face it, there’s only one place it can go from there.

But that’s the unique thing about Take This Waltz. It doesn’t go there. In fact, Take This Waltz takes its sweet time about answering the big question of the movie: Will they or won’t they? And since the traditional course of this genre is: resist, consummate, break up, get back together, we’re impatiently waiting for that time tested song to hit the jukebox. Eventually we realize we’re not going to hear anything until the end. For those who follow the site, you know why I LOVE this decision. Keeping your romantic leads apart for as long as possible is the WAY TO GO because it keeps the conflict and suspense high. If you don’t believe me, go watch a little movie called “When Harry Met Sally.”

To be honest, I didn’t think this script was going to recover from its opening. I can already hear the commenters now: “It’s so BOR-ING!” “Nothing HAP-PENS!” And I’d agree there were times early on where the script felt like it was perched on top of a Galapagos turtle. A dead Galapogos turtle. But I’m telling you, as Seth and Margot’s relationship builds, you want to know what she’s going to do. And if you think you know, you don’t know. Margot’s no fluzie who runs off with the first cute guy who smiles at her. She truly values her marriage. But she’s fallen in love with this other man and she can’t find a satisfactory way to resolve the situation, so she just drifts into the Demilitarized Zone, hoping that somehow the decision will get made for her. Or she’ll get shot.

What I really loved about the script though was the emphasis Polley put on theme. Theme’s a funny thing. A lot of writers are intimidated by it or don’t think it’s important. I confess I once fell squarely in this camp. But when you know the central idea you’re trying to convey to your audience, you can shape everything from the characters to the plot to the dialogue around it. A well-integrated theme avoids the kind of scripts I see so often from amateurs, where everything is so disconnected and random that you’re continually losing focus trying to read it. Everything needs a center to revolve around, and that’s what your theme does.

And hey, themes don’t have to be complicated . Most of the time they’re actually quite simple. The theme here is: “Is the grass really greener on the other side?” It’s a question all of us ask in multiple areas of our life so it’s something that resonates, that makes you think. And I was definitely thinking along with these characters, wondering what I would do if I were them.

Yes there were some annoying things about Waltz. Margot and Lou were downright weird at times, bordering on an inside joke so exclusive that *they* were almost on the outside. I’m not sure telling someone you love them so much you want to watch them burn in an oven is okay no matter how well you know each other. I also was NOT cool with Seth’s job, which is a rickshaw driver. If ever there was a more quirky movie-ready job that had no basis for existing in a real-life version of this situation, this would be it.

But like I said, in the end, it won me over. The ending, in particular, is not what you’d expect from a romantic comedy (which IMDB claims this to be). And it’s just nice to see this kind of movie tackled from a different point-of-view, particularly if that point-of-view is Sarah Polley’s.

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

What I learned: Put your characters in uncomfortable situations. The more uncomfortable they are, the better. If your characters are comfortable for too long, you don’t have a story. Why? Well because if a character is comfortable, there’s no drama. And drama is the key to story, right? There’s a great scene towards the end of Take This Waltz. It’s Margot’s anniversary, and she’s across the street talking to Seth. Lou comes home early and spots them. He walks over, having no idea of their relationship over the past month, and kindly introduces himself. He informs Margot that he made them a dinner reservation and they’re already late. Seth – jealous, disappointed, amused – offers to take them in his rickshaw. Margot is horrified by the idea and tries to get out of it, but Lou is already climbing in, eager to get to dinner. The scene works because Polley creates the most uncomfortable situation possible for her protagonist. Look for these opportunities in your own script. They almost always work.

Sunday Book Review is BACK! Watch Scriptshadow on Sundays for book reviews by contributor Michael Stark. We try to find books that haven’t been purchased or developed yet that producers might find interesting. Here’s Stark with Berlin Noir.

Genre: Detective / Mystery
About: Bernie Gunther, a hardboiled gumshoe working 1930’s Berlin.
Writer: Philip Karr – Best selling author of high brow historical fiction, now penning the über popular children’s series, Children of The Lamp.
Staus: ??? I’ve read that the film rights to all his books have been snapped up, but can’t find anything current. Readers please chime in.

Welcome back to another sporadic, Sunday Scriptshadow book review, where if we ran a film studio, there would be an immediate moratorium on sequels, remakes, reboots and board game adaptations; Carla Gugino would be in practically everything we shot and our favorite books would finally, finally, finally be churned into movies.

Yes, our little fantasy movie studio would probably go broke pretty fast, but at least it got us out of the house. I’d be fun to start every day like the long tracking shot that opens the Player. And, well, that, and the Carla Gugino thing.

Okay, before the main attraction, here’s a little something from the Minister of Propaganda to get you into the proper wild-goose-stepping mood:

Long time reader, Jean, recommended we take a look at Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir, a series of detective novels set in Nazi era Germany. Sounded right up my Nightmare Alley, so I gave the first of the lot, March Violets a thumb through. And, great-shades-of-my-father’s-bad-memory-must’ve–been-passed-down-one-or two-generations-Old-Testament-style, I immediately recalled why it sounded so familiar. I had read it when it first came out twenty years ago! Didn’t know Kerr had written any sequels, so I’ve been noshing on pig’s knuckles and totally absorbed in all things Bernie Gunther the past few weeks.

So, why would these novels make a great damn movie or BBC or HBO TV series? Location! Location! Location!

Take Philip Marlow and stick him in a decadent Otto Dix drawing of pre war Berlin. If you like your detective fiction dark, you can’t get much darker than this time period when life even for the uncircumcised wasn’t exactly a cabaret.

The seven Gunther novels span from Hitler’s rise in 1936 to 1950’s Cuba. It’s an extensive, well-researched scope. Sort of reminds me of Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko, who sees his mother Russia change so drastically while he’s on the beat and Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins, who also lives through and thus provides commentary on the sweeping social changes around his homebase of Los Angeles.

Like most traditional gumshoes, Gunther hasn’t lost his tough-guy’s sense of humor even as the Nazis’ atrocities spill across the country. Perhaps, it’s the one thing they can’t take from him. An ex-policeman, he was famous for catching Gormann, the strangler, but left the force before he was squeezed out. Seems our Bernie had little interest in joining the National Socialists, pretty much career suicide at the time.

He becomes a P.I., specializing in missing persons, which means some brisk business, cause a helluva lot of people are disappearing around Hitler’s Berlin. Bernie isn’t an anti-Semite (would we like him if he were?) and most of his clientele are Jewish, desperate souls looking for their forced disappeared loved-ones.

Kerr doesn’t break from the literary shamus tradition of the hard drinking, chick magnetizing detective taking two cases, which shall at some point intertwine. In March Violets, Gunther is hired by industrialist, Hermann Six, to find out who murdered his daughter and son-in-law, burned down their house and took off with the cluster of diamonds in their safe.

This case will criss cross with an even more famous client hiring him, Hermann Goering, who is looking for a missing informant. On a side note, we learn the Nazi also has a penchant for lion cubs and the novels of Dashiell Hammett. “He’s an American,” Goering says. “But I think he’s wonderful.”

The case becomes even more complex as Gunther discovers that Six’s son-in-law was working for the SS and that his safe contained papers that some very senior officials need to get their paws on. This leads our gumshoe further down the slippery cesspools of Nazi society, ending up in Dachau itself.

Kerr sets the book during the Olympics, giving the city a temporary facelift for the tourists. Still, the menacing underbelly is everywhere you look – the corruption, the seedy night clubs, the new autobahn that will make invasion of neighboring countries that much easier and the violent pressure cooker of anti-Semitism that’s just about to explode into an all out Kristallnacht.

The next book, The Pale Criminal, is my favorite so far of the series. Bernie is hired by a rich publisher to find out who is blackmailing her about her son’s homosexuality. Gunther, is blackmailed himself by the SS, forced to rejoin the police and lead the search for a serial killer targeting young, blond, totally Arian, German girls.

Like before, his cases will criss cross, revealing the rather sadistic, political agenda behind these murders and how it all ties in with the Nazi’s Final Solution.

A German Requiem takes ten years later and life in Post War Berlin isn’t much of an improvement under the Russians. With a hat tipped to The Third Man, Bernie travels to Vienna to help a former colleague (A Harry Lime leagued black marketer) accused of killing an American soldier.

“A good story cannot be devised it has to be distilled.” — Raymond Chandler

While I’d love to see a big screen adaptation of all these books, the way to go may be a cable series. I’d be afraid that too much of the distillation, atmosphere and historical research would get excised cause of running time. Berlin Noir is a perfect hybrid of PBS’s Mystery, TMC and the History Channel. If Kerr’s eye for detail can be correctly caught on camera, I think you’ll have an intriguing show. I’d just watch it for the angels – I mean devils – in the architecture.
.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[] worth the read
[X] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned:

“Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. “– Viktor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor and Psychiatrist

Bernie Gunther is made of some pretty strong stock, surviving the battlefield, the loss of loved ones, a stint in a concentration camp and time as a POW in a Russian prison camp.

He was world weary and cynical to start with, but after everything he’s been through, he still sees every case to its conclusion. And, he still remains a decent man — the ultimate good German.

How strong is your protagonist’s resolve? After reading Philip Kerr’s trilogy, I started questioning my own.

Stark’s further rants and ramblings can be followed in his blog: www.michaelbstark.blogspot.com

Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: A frustrated Young Adult writer obsessed with her High School days goes back to her hometown to try to win over her married high school sweetheart.
About: Young Adult is Diablo Cody’s latest script. Just this week Jason Reitman, Cody’s director for Juno, announced that he’d be directing the screenplay for his next project.
Writer: Diablo Cody
Details: 107 pages – undated draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. 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).

It hit me like a hockey stick the other day that Diablo Cody is the best self-promoting screenwriter of all time. In a profession where your job is be invisible (or at least have everybody wish you were), it’s really hard to build a name for yourself. Cody, with her heavily-trafficked blog, her impossible-to-forget name, and her great plucked-out-of-obscurity story, has become that catchy pop song you can’t get out of your head. It’s only natural that Cody began her own online talk-show recently because, well, she’s Diablo Cody!

But life isn’t all peaches and white raspberry truffles for someone who shoots to the top of the entertainment stratosphere without paying their dues. It all seems so easy when everyone’s patting you on the back and calling you a genius, but it doesn’t take long to realize that this is one of the hardest professions in the world. Just ask Christopher McQuarrie, who loves to talk about how awesome it is to win an Oscar with your first screenplay then sink to the middle of screenwriter-for-hire land for the next decade.

That’s not to say Cody is anywhere near the middle of the pack. If there’s anyone who knows how to exploit this world of new media, it’s her, and that’s going to keep her relevant for awhile. But let’s be honest. Jennifer’s Body was as anorexic to the box office as Ellen Page’s pinky toe, and while The United States of Tara was good enough to warrant a second season, I don’t know a single person who’s actually seen it. No matter how good a self-promoter you are, if you don’t contribute material, you’re about as relevant as a box of cereal. Yes, I rhyme now in my reviews.

Tomorrow I might even sing the blues. Sorry, I didn’t mean it. Does anybody have a peanut?

So it was nice to see Cody use her producing skills to hook her old Juno-collaborator into directing her latest screenplay, Young Adult. The fact that Reitman passed up a shitload of great projects to direct this PDF gave me hope that Cody was back and ready to play ball. But I don’t think I was prepared for just how dark and just how daring Young Adult was. This is a departure for both Cody and Reitman, and for strange reasons that makes my nether regions tingle.

Mavis Gary is a mid-30s writer for a young adult novel about prep school in which she doesn’t receive credit. It’s a series of books created by another author and poor Mavis is just the invisible pen, always forced to prove her involvement whenever doubts arise. Despite a 30-second work commute from the bedroom to the living room, Mavis detests her job. In fact, Mavis pretty much hates life. She lives in the bright lights-big city tundra known as Minneapolis, and makes enough money to buy cool cars like the Mini-Cooper, but Mavis can’t get over the fact that this is a far cry from her Princess-like super-status back in high school. The now-divorced Mavis is a bitter bean, and never imagined her life would end up this…empty.

So when this woefully empty life is interrupted by a picture of a baby, Mavis goes berserk, – the reason being that this is Buddy Slade’s baby. Buddy, ya see, was Mavis’ high school sweetheart, the one perfect thing she had in her life. And now here he’s gone, accidentally including Mavis on some mass e-mail send-out of his new baby’s picture. Mavis is so upset and thrown by Buddy’s budding familial life, that she inexplicably jumps in her Mini-Cooper and races back to her hometown, where she concocts a scheme to win Buddy back.

Once home, Mavis runs into the sweet but slightly clingy Matt Freehauf, an overweight bear of a guy who used to go to school with Mavis, though the two never had any history of communication. Mavis ran in different circles. Matt ran in his own square. As if being a high school nobody wasn’t bad enough, Matt was the victim of gay-bashing, and was beaten within an inch of his life, even though the beaters later found out Matt wasn’t gay. Never fully recovered, Matt must now limp around with a permanent crutch. Despite Mavis’ best attempts to avoid any contact with Matt, the two begin hanging out by default (brought on mainly by Mavis’ need to get drunk with someone).

Through pure determination, Mavis is able to get Buddy to spend a couple of lunches with her, yet is totally oblivious to the fact that he has no interest in her at all. This leads to a series of increasingly pathetic encounters between the two, where Mavis’ blatantly desperate advances clash with the standoffish Buddy in a way that made Allie dumping Kasey in the middle of the arctic after he said he’d guard and protect her heart seem like a marriage proposal. No matter how much Mavis bats her eyes, no matter how low-cut her top is, no matter how shamelessly she flirts, it’s clear she has absolutely no shot with this man, and everyone sees it except for her.

As Buddy becomes less and less interested in making time for Mavis, the main relationship shifts over to Mavis and Matt, which is really the strength of the screenplay. I know the gay-bashing thing sounds a little forced, but Cody really makes it work, as Matt is a fully-fleshed out character. And even though we’ve seen the “high school princess and nerd reunite in present day” storyline before, I guarantee you, you’ve never seen it like this.

What I really like about this script though is that Diablo Cody has gotten rid of a lot of her Diablo Cody-isms. She’s listened to her critics, and there’s no overly cute dialogue to distract us from the story. Despite this, Diablo is still able to maintain some sense of style, which I think is one of her biggest strengths. Even though I hate using the term “voice” as its one of the most subjectively used terms in screenwriting, you can’t argue that Diablo doesn’t have a unique voice.

I also like how challenging the story is. Mavis is probably one of the most likable unlikable protagonists since Lester Burnham in American Beauty. This girl is so pathetic. She lives her life by a coda of lies and deceit, and is so self-serving and cruel that you occasionally want to give her a slap in the face. But there are just enough relatable qualities in Mavis, things we don’t like about ourselves but lean on anyway, that we kind of understand where she’s coming from.

But this script doesn’t depend on our feelings towards Mavis. Even with some good qualities, there’s no way we’re rooting for her to succeed. This is another entry into the little-known Train-wreck genre. You see this in scripts like “The Voices” and movies like “Chuck and Buck,” where we as an audience know this is going to end in a really bad way, yet we can’t look away. We have to see our character crash and burn. I don’t think anyone knows that this genre officially exists, yet when I do come across it, it tends to work more often than fail.

As for the story’s faults, there are a few. While the final act has a couple of great scenes, it culminates in a scenario that’s both awkward and really difficult to buy. It was the only time I was pulled out of the screenplay and I get the feeling they’re going to be working on this scene right up until they shoot it. It’s just such a risk, and I’m afraid that right now, it doesn’t work. I’m not even sure it can work. But I understand what they’re trying to do.

The other issue is this odd completely-out-of-left-field sequence in the middle of the script where Mavis goes and visits her parents. The scene doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about her and it doesn’t do anything to move the story forward. It almost feels like the movie has stopped for intermission and then this short movie is played for ten minutes until we sit back in our seats and start again. It wasn’t a bad sequence. It was just an odd choice.

In the end, I have to say I was quite surprised by this script. And I didn’t even mention its secret ingredient, the fact that we’re constantly wondering how much of this character is Diablo Cody. There are enough similarities in what we know about her life to indicate a lot, which makes the read fascinating on a whole nother level. Anyway, this was easily the best script of the week for me. Hope you guys dig it.

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

What I learned: Whenever you bring a new character into the story, use the surroundings to tell us who they are. When Mavis wakes up in the first scene, she walks into her living room, where we spot a couple of EMPTY WINE BOTTLES on the table. That tells me a TON about the character right there and without a lick of dialogue. You can extend this to what the character’s wearing, what they’re reading or what they’re doing. Look at how we meet George McFly in Back To The Future. The guy is still wearing a hairstyle straight out of the 1950s. Later, he’s watching a rerun of The Honeymooners. Right away we realize this guy is living in the past. Pay attention to a character’s surroundings as you can use them to tell us exactly who that character is.