I know I know, this is wrong of me. After promising my Facebook and Twitter friends that I’d be reviewing a new Top 25 script this Friday, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve been waiting a year and a half for Inception now, ever since my pretend April Fool’s review of the script back in April of 2009. For that reason, I’m going to be reviewing Inception the film (not the script) on Friday afternoon, and that will stand in as my Friday script review. There will be anger, there will be outrage, but by golly, there will be INCEPTION.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: The 12 hours leading up to a corporate investment firm’s downfall.
About: Shooting in New York City right now, this film stars Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, and Stanley Tucci (talk about a cast!). Not much is known about the writer-director, JC Chandor, who, along with his producers, were able to secure funding for the film during the Cannes Film Festival. Before this, Chandor completed one short film and worked in the sound department on another. Welcome to what happens when you write a great script!
Writer: JC Chandor
Details: 92 pages – July 13, 2009 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).

Now this.

Is how.

You write.

A script.

Hit us hard at the opening bell and keep on punching.

Margin Call is a script that takes the financial crisis and actually DOES something with it. We’ve seen other writers take a crack at this subject matter, like Allan Loeb with Money Never Sleeps (Wall Street 2) and John Wells with The Company Men. But while both those scripts had nice moments, this proves that with a little ingenuity and good storytelling, David can top Goliath.

This is a movie about money. About what happens when you’re in charge of all the money in the world. About being dependent on that money. It’s about greed. It’s about realizing that no matter how smart you are, sooner or later someone smarter is going to come along and break up your party.

When that happens, what are you left with? Who are you without your money? Who are you without your “things?” We never see ANY of this in Margin Call. But we can see it in every one of the characters’ eyes as they assess the way their world’s going to change tomorrow.

Peter Sullivan is a 27 year old risk assessment analyst, which is gobbledy gook for “good with numbers.” Peter works at one of those giant investment firms you see Jim Cramer screaming about on that weird Seasame Street-inspired show of his on MSNBC. I don’t know a lot about trading but I know that when you trade billions of dollars a day, the decisions you make affect every person in America.

The script starts out with a brilliant bang as human resources systematically weaves through the trading floor like stormtroopers, tapping traders on the shoulder and letting them know that their services are no longer needed. Stinking rich one second. Checking pizza delivery jobs the next. When the slaughter is over, only 30% of the company remains. Sam Rogers, the elder statesman of the company, gives what will soon be compared to the Alec Baldwin speech in Glengarry Glen Ross. He tells them that they are survivors, and that he’ll need every one of them to save this company.

Unfortunately Peter’s boss, the eternally stressed-out Eric, didn’t make the cut. And when he’s leaving, he hands Eric a jump drive. Something he’s been working on. “Check it,” he says, with eyes that imply a hell of a lot more.

Peter does. And what he finds horrifies him.

The drive contains an analysis of the firm’s financial model – the equation they use to buy and trade everything in the company. I’ll spare you the details because I don’t know what I’m talking about but basically, the model is faulty, and if the company doesn’t sell everything they have by the end of tomorrow, there’s a good chance they’ll lose 1 trillion dollars. Not billion. Trill-eee-yan. If that happens, every single person who works in this firm will never work anywhere again.

There are lots of cool threads in Margin Call but the story comes down to a bunch of guys trying to figure out what to do. They have a doozy of a problem here. If they sell everything in a day, knowing it’s all bad, no firm will ever trade with them again. But if they try to sneak their way out of it over time, there’s a good chance the model will fail and both the government and the American people will no longer trust them. Damned if they do. Fucked if they don’t.

This is what makes good drama. You put your characters in a high stakes dilemma and you make them choose. Choice reveals character, just like real life. Think about it. When do you really find out about people? You find out about them during times of adversity. You find out about them when shit goes wrong and decisions need to be made. Some wilt, others rise. But those are always the moments that reveal who a person really is. And movies are no different. Put your character in a difficult situation where they have to make a choice and the audience will watch with baited breath. I promise you.

I liked so much about this script. I liked how we went up the chain of command to deal with the problem. We start with the Nemo-sized fish and work our way, one boss at a time, to the whale.

I loved that it was a simple story, but how much bigger it felt despite that. I mean this is basically a bunch of people in suits talking. That’s it. You or I could shoot this tomorrow. But the context – with all the money and the firm – gave it the illusion of being much bigger. Very clever.

I loved the detail put into all the characters (making Peter a former rocket scientist was a nice touch). I loved the way the script built up to the final decision. I loved the disappearance of Eric (the guy found the glitch) and the escalating dilemma about what to do with him if they find him (there’s a great ambiguous ending to this that has you wondering what indeed happened to Eric). And yes, I loved the ticking time bomb of having to figure everything out by morning.

But like all good scripts, it comes back to the characters, and all the characters here rock. Each one is fully invested in the problem, so there’s never any of those wasted scenes where we’re sitting with two characters going, “Who the hell cares? Get to the people that matter!” Everybody here matters.

Chandor could’ve pushed the envelope in a few places and really shocked us, but his restraint is what ends up making this such an authentic ride. I don’t know how long Chandor’s been writing but this was good page. Good page.

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

What I learned: Each character has a lot at stake here (mainly their job, but also their future and their standing inside the company). This is why Chandor was able to nab such a great cast. When characters have something at stake, they’re alive. We CARE about what they want to do because what they want to do MATTERS. When they have nothing at stake, they just sit there. You can dress up a character in crazy antics, hilarious dialogue, and as much weirdness as you want, but unless they have a stake in the story, in the ultimate goal, they’re not going to be interesting, and they won’t be appealing to actors. Do all the characters in your script have something at stake?

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A struggling entrepreneur takes his mother on a cross-country roadtrip to reunite with an old flame.
About: Dan Fogelman wrote “Cars,” “Bolt,” and the year’s biggest spec sale so far, the untitled Steve Carrel comedy which sold for 2 million dollars. Today’s script, “My Mother’s Curse,” was purchased by Paramount and landed on this year’s Black List with, I believe, 13 votes. Before Fogelman made the jump to features, he wrote on several failed TV series. Ann Fletcher (“The Proposal”) is set to direct and Seth Rogan and Barbara Streisand are rumored to star.
Writer: Dan Fogelman
Details: 112 pages – June 5, 2007 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).

I’ll just say it. I don’t think “parent-related” humor is funny. It’s why I never watched Everybody Loves Raymond, why the Seinfeld episodes I hated most were the ones with the parents, and why I never jumped on this “Shit My Dad Says” bandwagon. I don’t know why but I guess it’s because the humor is so…obvious. Oh, those wacky parents are saying the darndest things again. What will they say next??? The only parent-related movie I like is “Meet The Parents,” which I thought was one of the best executed comedies of the last ten years. The reason it passed the “parents” test was because the parents were in control instead of out of control, and that was a nice change. To prove my point, the franchise imploded the second they brought in Streisand and Hoffman for the sequel. Once it became “parents say the darndest things,” it was the same old “Everybody Loves Raymond” jokes catered for the big screen.

Anyway, Fogelman’s a really hot writer and I thought it was ridiculous that I still hadn’t read any of his work, so I saw that this made the Black List and wanted to check out what was under the hood.

My Mother’s Curse is a simple story (a welcome change from yesterday, huh?) about 29 year-old Andy Brewster, an entrepreneur with commitment issues. He lives in LA and has created a completely organic cleaning formula, like Fantastik, but so pure you can actually drink it. This is Andy’s big pitch. He cleans up some dirt, then downs a shot of the formula. It impresses everyone who sees it, but still hasn’t made him any sales.

Before Andy goes on a big cross-country pitch fest, he stops back home to check on his single mother, Joyce. Since his father died, Joyce has lost all ambition. Her days consist of watching TV and chugging M&Ms. The only joy she has left in life is Andy coming home to visit.

So after hearing about one of Jocye’s ex-flames, Andy googles him and finds out he lives in San Francisco. Playing the role of Cupid, he invites his mother along for his business trip, planning to secretly surprise her at the end with her ex. Sounds like a trip on the Crazy Train to me.

Andy and his mom get stuck in topless bars, eat a 72 ounce steak, have inappropriate conversations about Andy’s penis problems as a baby, and probably my favorite part, listen to a “books on tape” version of “Middlesex” as they drive, which has tons of uncomfortable sexually descriptive chapters. I know these types of scenes are par for the course in roadtrip comedies but Fogelman makes them fresh somehow. I think it’s because the characters, and specifically the relationship, feels so honest. It’s like we don’t need all the bells and whistles to distract us. The characters are working so it doesn’t matter where they are.

What’s the key to a good road trip script? Well, the good ones tend to have a strong goal. Wherever the characters are going, it needs to be really important to them. The audience isn’t going to care if our heroes only kind of want to get there. What’s unique about My Mother’s Curse is that only one of the characters knows the true goal of the journey. Joyce is out of the loop. This withheld information gives the story an added layer because on top of wondering what this guy’s going to say when they get there, we’re wondering how Joyce will react as well. Will she lash out at her son, embrace the moment, run away? This “why have one reaction when you can have two,” approach makes the endpoint twice as exciting.

The other thing I like to encourage on roadtrip script is having a ticking time bomb. If the characters need to be somewhere by a certain time, the script moves faster. If you remember the movie “Roadtrip,” for example, it’s about a college kid who has sex with a girl on tape, then accidentally sends that tape to his girlfriend back home. The ticking clock is he has to get back home and intercept the tape before it gets there. In the upcoming Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr. film, “Due Date,” they have to get home before the baby is born. And in a less obvious example, the ticking time bomb in Little Miss Sunshine is the pageant.

Surprisingly, My Mother’s Curse doesn’t use a ticking time bomb, and I think it suffers a little for it. Had Andy found out that the ex was leaving on an extended business trip in three days, that could’ve infused the story with some immediacy. Maybe something happens to the car late in the trip with only 12 hours to go (not unlike the grandfather dying in Little Miss Sunshine) and the rush to get there in time gives that third act an extra kick in the ass.

But hey, I think Mr. Fogelman knows what he’s doing and probably has a good reason for nixing the hurry-up option. In fact, outside of a few minor issues, I thought this script was pretty awesome. The mother-son stuff is done with just the right mixture of comedy and emotion. I didn’t break down at the end or anything but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Nobody’s reinventing the wheel here but if you want to know how to execute an idea in screenplay form, you could learn a lot from this script. Good stuff. :)

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

What I learned: Good scripts have three central areas of conflict: external conflict, internal conflict, and inter-character conflict. So in My Mother’s Curse, the external conflict is Andy trying to sell his cleaning solution. The internal conflict is his inability to commit. And the inter-character conflict is Andy and Joyce’s different approach to life. A lot of writers get lost in the second act. Remember, this is what you should be using your second act for – to explore these three areas of conflict. If you don’t, you’ll have a bunch of lame boring characters, talking to each other with nothing to say.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from IMDB) – A man travels to other planets and dimensions in search of his reincarnated lover.
About: Add Ion to the ever-expanding list of Channing Tatum projects, whose clout is now such that he’s able to sign onto movies as an actor AND producer (as he is here). Scott Free Productions and Fox 2000 purchased this script a couple of weeks ago, I’m guessing as a directing vehicle for Ridley or Tony. While this is Will Dunn’s first sale, I seem to remember him having a couple of scripts on previous Black Lists so this isn’t his first time to the dance. Channing Tatum, for better or worse, has been chosen as Hollywood’s go-to young brooding hunk. Some think he can’t act. Others, particularly women, don’t care. I thought he was good in the little seen but highly recommended “A Guide To Recognizing Our Saints.” Overall, we’ll have to wait to find out if he’s the next Matt Damon or the next Josh Hartnett.
Writer: Will Dunn
Details: 116 pages – April 1, 2009 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).

I wasn’t so much interested in the quality of this early Will Dunn draft (I knew it wasn’t the draft that sold) as much as I was interested in what the movie was about. I have a baffling habit of forgetting that IMDB can actually tell me the premise of a script ahead of time, so I end up reading scripts that I don’t necessarily need to read. But that’s fine. I love sci-fi and whenever a sci-fi scripts sells, I crave the where, the what, the why, and the how.

I don’t have any info about the where the why and the how, but I can tell you about the what. Or at least, I can *try* to tell you about the what. See, the first thing you’ll realize about Ion is that it’s kind of….confusing. I don’t do any drugs but I felt like I was on drugs when I read it. This isn’t the easiest story to follow by any means, so I’ll try and do the heavy-lifting for you.

Ion, the main character, is a “Scout.” He lives on a planet, presumably a version of earth (though that’s just a guess), with a species of humans that don’t age. Because these humans never die, they eventually wear out their worlds and need new ones, kinda like underwear. Ion has a unique ability to find these alter-Earths, so they send him out into parallel dimensions to locate these planets. As soon as he finds them, he sends a signal, which acts as an intergalactic lighthouse, and the rest of the Immortal Humans fly in and set up shop.

However, after doing this for thousands, maybe even millions of years, Ion’s over it. He doesn’t want to see these reasonably untouched quasi-earths get ravaged and decimated over and over again. It’s not cool. On top of that, Ion is in love with a woman named Alice who lives on each of these planets. Or I should say a different version of Alice lives on each planet. Don’t worry, Ion’s not a player. He’s not collecting Alices or anything unscrupulous like that. It’s just that the damn leader of the Immortal Humans, Azrayl, keeps killing every Alice Ion falls in love with (I have to admit, I’m not sure why), forcing him to keep finding her over and over again.

Anyway, so our story begins when Ion destroys the current signal transmitter and crash-lands on our planet back in 1947. He’s captured by the military (and yes, it is the event you’re thinking of) and held prisoner for 60 years while they study him. In the meantime, Ion remote-views the planet (traveling across earth with your mind) to find Alice — or I should say, this earth’s version of Alice, who’s named “Amara,” — so he can be with her.

During the story, we’re also flashing back thousands if not millions of years ago, to, I believe, the first time Ion and Alice found each other. This is used to show how badly they’re in love, contrasted with the present day, where the new Alice doesn’t even know who Ion is.

It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s wrong here. There’s too many exceptional things going on at once. We’re traveling to other dimensions, we’re flashing back to another world millions of years ago, we’re jumping through multiple decades here on earth, we’re remote viewing other places on the planet, and we’re engaging in a relationship with a woman completely different from the one Ion is supposedly in love with.

Obviously, it’s hard to enjoy a story if you don’t know what’s going on, and most of the time I didn’t. I needed to remind myself that early drafts for complicated scripts like Ion are often an exercise in jumbleality, and that a lot of the confusion gets fixed in rewrites, but man this tested every fiber of concentration I had because there was nothing to ground any of the story. It was so all over the place.

It’s my guess — and a wild one at that –that this is Ridley Scott’s edgy answer to Cameron’s Avatar. And if you pressed me to come up with one of those Hollywood pitches, I’d probably describe it as – Are you ready for this? – “Avatar meets 2001.” As crazy as that sounds, I think it’s a pretty accurate representation of the material. Dunn has a wonderful talent for description, as well as an innate ability to evoke emotion. This script drips – and I mean you can feel the drops on your arms – with feelings of loss, emptiness, and fear. And I get the sense that that’s what Ridley latched onto, and why he gave this script a shot.

But you guys know me. I need my scripts to make sense. I need at least some aspect of the story to fit inside the confines of normalcy. Ion reads like a science fiction poem from someone losing their mind. While that may be its biggest strength, it’s also its biggest weakness, and that left me with more questions than answers. I can’t recommend something I don’t understand, so I have to say, with some sadness, that Ion falls short.

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

What I learned: Think of the reader as a cup and every complicated thing you want that reader to remember is added to that cup. Traveling to other earths in different dimensions? That’s a few ounces. A subplot that evolves via a 1000-year flashback? That’s a few ounces as well. A female lead who changes depending on what planet she’s on? Another few ounces. At a certain point, the cup’s going to overflow. The reader isn’t going to be able to keep up. This is something you have to pay particular attention to when you write sci-fi, because there’s always a lot to explain in a sci-fi story. If the cup gets too full, the brain shuts down and you’ve lost your reader. That’s unfortunately what happens here. Now every story’s different and there’s no perfect way to measure what the audience will or won’t understand. But if you keep this rule in mind, that the cup, at some point, can overflow, then there’s a good chance you’ll stop before the top of the glass.

Hey hey hey! I don’t know what it is, but “Teen Wolf meets The Hangover” actually sounds pretty damn cool. That’s saying a lot for someone who only likes one werewolf film (An American Werewolf in London). As for my reviews, this should be a fun week. On Friday I bust out our first Top 25 entry in a loooooong time. It’s a script that debuted in 2007 and almost made it into production then fell apart because the director has like 80 projects on his slate. Can’t imagine someone won’t make it at some point because it’s awesome. Read a heartfelt road trip comedy that was good, and Tuesday I’ll be reviewing a recently sold sci-fi spec that was…well, it was out there. Anyway, here’s Roger the man with his review of Werewolves of Reseda. Enjoy!

Genre: Supernatural Comedy
Premise: Teen Wolf meets The Hangover. A trio of guys turn into werewolves and their suburban family lives benefit from it. Or do they?
About: Brian Charles Frank has story credit on Spencer Susser’s Hesher, which is pretty cool because it seems like he’s associated with the Australian filmmaker collective, Blue-Tongue Films (Animal Kingdom, The Square, I Love Sarah Jane). Hesher debuted at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and stars Natalie Portman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Supposedly, Werewolves of Reseda is Steve Pinks’ directorial follow-up to Hot Tub Time Machine.
Writer: Brian Charles Frank

I’m always hesitant about reading scripts that have one of three things in them: 1) Vampires, 2) Zombies and 3) Werewolves. It’s not that I don’t love all these creatures, it’s just that most screenplays (amateur scripts aside) that feature them are way too familiar or clichéd without bringing anything new to the genres. Also, I had just finished reading a book by Stephenie Meyer and my head was tired of processing her version of the vampire. To her credit, she was going for something fresh, but I felt like I was eating stale popcorn. I couldn’t get excited about vampires that spend most of their time running fast through meadows of flowers and playing baseball instead of murdering and feeding off human beings.

I needed a palette cleanser and I saw the title of this script poking out of the stack, “Werewolves of Reseda”. Who has the balls to put werewolf in their title? And Reseda? Isn’t that where Daniel LaRusso moved to in The Karate Kid? I was intrigued. I opened it with the small hope that I would at least find a scene where a werewolf mauls someone, and that I did find, but I also found a scene where a stoner, experiencing a Last-Night-I-Was-Bitten-By-A-Werewolf Hangover, attempts to pee but discovers that he can’t control the ropy, firehose spray that’s knocking him backwards and shooting everywhere but the toilet.

I was just delighted to find something that reminded me of Office Space, but with werewolves.

And pee jokes.

What’s the story?

Ben Kavanaugh used to wear a cockring. He also used to DJ and make his own beer. Now he spends his days inside of a cubicle at an ad agency, slaving over spreadsheets for his douchey boss, Rod Sloane, a man who is eager to use Ben as his stat jock and numbers guy, but refuses to be his Facebook friend. At his home in the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley, Ben lives with his yoga-instructor fiancé Sophie (this is probably an early draft, because sometimes she’s referred to as his wife, and other times as his fiancé), her mother Margaret, and Margaret’s Pomeranian, Crackers.

There’s trouble in paradise when Sophie tells Ben, “That advertising job was supposed to be a temporary transition. But it’s taken the spark out of you.” Seems like this isn’t the life neither of them imagined, and the blame seems to fall on Ben because he’s not happy with himself. He’s in a rut, so far past the point of suburban contentment that he might even be apathetic. She tells him that if they’re going to be together forever, things are gonna have to change.

And change they do.

Ben takes Crackers out for a walk, partially to get out of the house but mostly because Margaret is shrieking at him, and he runs into his stoner “neigh-bro”, Warren Klingenmeier. Kling’s out smoking weed in the bougainvillea because his female roommate, Bai, is on her period. Ben is reluctant to blaze with Kling, because weed makes him paranoid, but Kling tells him to chill, “Don’t be a pussy, dude. I have Altoids.”

They decide to take a walk near the concrete flood channel of the La River when they run into their African-American neighbor Moran Norris, and his German Shepherd, Michelle Obama. He seems stressed out about his family life with his wife Juanita and their two children, Venus and Serena. Moran’s wife forces him to wear wool sweaters, which becomes a gag that reminds us that Liam Neeson wears similar sweaters.

When Crackers runs off and they have to chase her into the wooded flood channel, they all get attacked and bitten by a werewolf, all set to the tune of Cornershop’s Brim Full of Asha. They’re saved by Rudy, an Animal Control Officer armed with a tranquilizer gun. As Rudy and an E.M.T. treat their wounds, Moran quips, “That thing almost gave me my second vasectomy.”

Rudy takes off his shades to reveal that he’s missing an eyeball, and in full comical raconteur mentor-mode, he explains that it was probably just a feral dog, but that they should continue treating their wounds with ointment until the next full moon. He assures them that this is just an expression. As he’s dropping them off at their houses, he jokes, “And if you experience any…unwanted side effects, especially at night, chain yourselves to the basement until it passes.”
If they were bitten by a werewolf, doesn’t that mean they’re gonna become werewolves?

Yep.

The next morning Ben wakes up with bad-ass mutton chops, long nails, a crotch bush and super-hearing. And he also wakes up ambitious. He confronts Rod in his office and tells him that he wants to be on the lead sales team. Rod scoffs. Undeterred, Ben follows Rod and his number one closer, Vance, to a steakhouse where he crashes a client meeting. He manages to impress Jo Childs, the Filipino owner of a beer distribution business and Rod is forced to promote him to the lead salesman on the account. Ben’s aggressiveness captures the ire of Vance, the de facto alpha dog of the agency, but Ben, with his newfound confidence, references Road House when confronted by him, “I fucked guys like you at boarding school.”

Meanwhile, Kling and Moran experience similar changes and outlooks on life, and there’s comical stuff that made me giggle like Kling chasing down a taco truck and Moran wolfing down raw bacon in front of his children. Things get out of hand when the guys decide to go party at Chili’s and they get a little too drunk, upsetting some cops at another table, “You’re coming downtown with us.”

“For what?”

“Public intoxication and disturbing my fucking onion rings.”

“That is bullshit, your honor.”

Our trio consider battling the cops, but Vance defuses the situation, revealing that his family owns the building. Vance takes them into his office, a master man-cave that even has a statue of Lee Marvin. He eventually pulls a rifle off the wall, “A Mannlicher Schoenaur two-five-six. Austrian. The exact same rifle Ernest Hemingway used to hunt elephants in Africa.”
Things get even more interesting when he pulls out some silver-tipped cartridges, and confronts them about being werewolves.

Vance is a werewolf hunter?

It seems that way. At first. He threatens them, but right as things get really tense, he reveals that, he, too, is a werewolf. You see, he was just fucking with them. He welcomes them to The Pack.

He informs them he’s here to help them keep their werewolf cravings, temper and boners under control. Can’t have the public learning that werewolves are running around in Reseda. He kicks open another door and reveals The Lair.

What’s The Lair?

It’s basically the ultimate guy hang-out. It has leather booths, flatscreens, the works. It’s where all the werewolves of Reseda come to relax. There are even topless women giving werewolves massages. Moran is flabbergasted. “This place has been behind Chili’s all this time? Fuck.”
Vance introduces them to Science, a cool were-nerd who is going to show them ropes of keeping their true nature incognito. He gives them all werewolf kits, “Portable razor. Use it often. Condoms. You will be getting Australian rock band pussy. Breath mints –- it’s worse than you think.”

Our three guys are going through initiation, and we learn that they must obey three rules. Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell. Don’t Bite. We also learn that there’s going to be a killer Halloween party, and that a very special moon is coming up. The Native Americans called it The Wolf Moon and it happens only once every hundred years. The Pack seems pretty pumped about the Wolf Moon, which I guess is supposed to be another reason to party.

OK. This all sounds pretty funny. But, where’s the villain?

Of course, it does seem strange that Vance is buddy-buddy with our guys all of a sudden, and it’s true that he has a scheme to destroy Ben’s relationship with Sophie because he’s miffed at Ben challenging his alpha status at the ad agency.

As our guys get drunk on their newfound powers and abilities, their private lives begin to spiral out of control. If Sophie is impressed with Ben’s newfound spark at first, I guess you could say she’s unprepared for the ridiculous acts of manhood that eventually push her away. He gets territorial when her star yoga student, Alan, wants to finance her dream of starting a new yoga studio, “I will beat you at yoga.”

“It’s not a competition, bro.”

“I will fucking kill you at yoga.”

“Fine, you’re on.”

“Loser has to get a bowl cut.”

In another scene, he challenges Alan to a beer chugging match with his fabled family Kavanaugh Horn. Alan’s response is pretty funny. “I was Captain of the Boat Race team at Sigma Nu at Yale. We pounded beers from Martin Van Buren’s skull. I think I can handle a rusty goat horn.”
Kling, the stoner of the trio, manages to bang Bai, the roommate he’s been in love with. But he becomes intoxicated with his newfound ability to bed women, and he throws her to the side as his animal nature takes over, completely debauching himself. Moran is also in dire straits when his reckless behavior threatens his family unit.

There downward spiral is part of Vance’s plan, and we discover that he has something even more nefarious planned for our heroes during the legendary Wolf Moon. And it’s in this last third of the script that Rudy comes to the rescue and the mythology of Reseda and its werewolf history is brought to light. And of course, the resolution involves some pretty bitching werewolf fights.

Cool. But is it moving?

If silly is what you want, silly is what you get. We get that in spades here. Like a lot of these frathouse comedies, perhaps the most satisfying conflict is whether the hero is going to win the girl. It’s not like we see go to see these movies for emotional depth, so I’m not going to try and reduce the script to a pithy sentence about theme.

I do think the structure can be tightened up. As far as character goals go, nothing really feels immediate and the laughs take center stage and what story there is feels tangential. For example, we learn Ben’s dream late in the script, which is to run his own brewery. Sure, there are some hints early on, but I feel like it could be fleshed out more early on. The mid-point to the third act feels so cluttered with important information that it all feels bottom heavy.

The Wolf Moon and its mythology comes so late in the game, and it’s a bit confusing in that convoluted info dump type of way, so much so that I wish bits and pieces were peppered throughout the script so it didn’t feel so cluttered. Vance’s master plan depends on this mythology, after all. It needs to feel simple.

Regardless, I liked “Werewolves of Reseda” because it reminded me of a Todd Phillips comedy (and I think it can be just as successful).

But with werewolves.

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

What I learned: Villain bait and switch. Want to make those Act 3 confrontations more surprising? More rich? More fun? Do a villain bait and switch. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Remember in The Lost Boys when the heroes kills Kiefer Sutherland? The whole movie we’re pretty focused on him being the main threat. He gets a lot of screen time as the villain, and even though we like to watch him, we want to see our guys beat him. But when they do, it’s revealed he’s not the Master Vampire. The true threat is revealed and we discover that the heroes haven’t won yet. They have to defeat this new guy, who we’ve seen before, but have sort of forgotten about. Well, this happens in “The Werewolves of Reseda”. And it’s just as exciting. It gives those final confrontations that extra edge and it makes us think of these otherwise nebbish characters in a different light. Especially when we go back to see how it was done.