I know I know. You hate me. Once again, I’m relieving myself of reviewing duties for the day. But know that tis is only because I am extremely busy, building a better Scriptshadow for tomorrow, and more importantly, building a better world. I will be back to regular reporting duties Thursday at 12:01 AM with my review of Father Of Invention, a spec that sold with Kevin Spacey attached and that will be produced by his Triggerstreet Productions. As for today’s guest reviewer, you might recognize him as one of our most trusted and insightful commenters, Martin B. It was my idea to give him a shot at reviewing a script because I just really respect his opinion (probably because he always agrees with me). Anyway, the script he’s reviewing is a script that comes highly recommended by a very trusted source. He’s recommended about five scripts to me and I’ve liked all of them. So I’m letting Martin loose to decide if it’s 6 for 6 with …Gaza.

Genre: Drama, Human Interest.
Premise: A British mother goes to Gaza where her journalist daughter has been shot dead while reporting on the Fatah-Hamas conflict. There she must cope with a different culture and a different people, and a political game with very different rules, as she attempts to claim her daughter’s body.
About: Helen Mirren was attached, according to a 2007 report. Filming was initially to take place in Gaza, but switched to Jordan when Gaza became too dangerous. Since then there’s been no news, but it might be IMDb’s Untitled Helen Mirren Project of 2011. Frank Deasy (the writer), an Irishman living in Scotland, is listed by his agent as a playwright who also writes for television (for which he’s received an Emmy)and movies. He tackles difficult subjects — racism in Britain, depression, love in prison, abuse in children’s homes, a boxing alcoholic’s bio, rats invading Manhattan. Now he’s tackling the Middle East, but as you might expect from a playwright, it’s a character study rather than a political movie.The first draft of GAZA just managed to make the 2008 Black List with 5 votes.
Writer: Frank Deasy
Details: 105 pages, Third Draft dated 29/04/09

The story of Gaza concerns Ruth. She is a cancer specialist in London, living a disciplined and emotionally rigid life. Her late husband Simon has been dead for a year. Her television journalist daughter Joanna is on assignment in Gaza. They don’t talk much.

While Ruth examines the scans of a child’s tumor as objectively as she can, Joanna crouches in a car in Gaza frantically trying to contact Fatima, a prostitute. Nearby, Fatah and Hamas militiamen exchange gunfire. Joanna’s cameraman and driver, Sayed, films the action.

It is October 2007. Hamas has won the Palestinian elections of January 2006, but corrupt Fatah, in power since the Oslo Accords of 1993 with the backing of Israel and the West, refuses to hand over power in Gaza. So Hamas, the fundamentalist extremists, the ‘bearded ones,’ branded as terrorists because of their rocket attacks on Israel, must fight to assume the positions they were elected to.

The Fatah strongman and biggest gangster in Gaza, Majed Khazi, drives up to Joanna and Sayed. His men have fancy new weapons, obtained with the connivance of Israel. He comments on Joanna’s new hairstyle. This is significant because, as we learn later, Joanna cultivated prostitutes as informants and met them at a hairdressing salon. Most of the Gaza prostitutes are controlled by the same Majed Khazi.

Worried, Joanna and Sayed drive through the fighting to the salon. During the drive we learn that Joanna and Sayed are in love. As they arrive, the salon blows up. Fatima cannot be found. Joanna does a ‘stand upper’ in front of the bombed salon and is shot while on camera. She dies later in hospital, next to Fatima who lies there with a single bullet wound in her forehead.

This sets the scene.

In London, Ruth learns of her daughter’s death. She hesitates. “I can’t do anything without the facts.” She will learn, in Gaza the facts are forever changing.

She decides to bring Joanna’s body back to England for burial, but in Israel learns a shocking truth — Joanna and Sayed were married, and Sayed is the legal next of kin and wants to bury Joanna in Gaza. She cannot believe that her daughter would marry without telling her, and marry a Muslim (Ruth is a non-practicing Jew). What does this say about her as a mother?

Assisted by Ariel, an Israeli with a secret agenda, she travels to the Erez crossing point. She sees an old folks’ home nearby which has been struck by a Hamas rocket. She crosses into Gaza. There she meets Sayed, and the battle for Joanna’s body begins.

In the meantime Raja, a senior Hamas commander and friend of Sayed’s sister Hanan, siezes Sayed’s camera and tape. He says he doesn’t want to project a bad image of Gaza and frighten off journalists, but it is clear he has hidden reasons for being interested in the tape.

Sayed and Ruth have many arguments during which each party displays a great deal of prejudice, ignorance and ill-feeling. Eventually, a depressed Sayed concedes defeat, saying Joanna’s heart will always be in Gaza, and Ruth sets off with the body for the Erez border post. But nothing is this easy in Gaza.

On the way to the border they are caught in an Israeli military action, a reprisal for the rocket attack. Ruth sees how dwellings are destroyed by Merkava tanks, and civilians mowed down by machine guns. An Arab boy, Khalid, is shot near her. She stanches the wound and rushes him to hospital, where she assists the handsome Dr. Nazeem as he operates on Khalid. There is a definite spark between her and London-trained Nazeem, and the boy Khalid brings out in her a compassion she forgot she had.

Meanwhile, Ruth has become suspicious of Ariel, her Israeli contact. She deduces that Joanna sent vital information concerning Raja or Khazi via email before she died, and Ariel is somehow implicated. What she doesn’t realise is she herself is unwittingly feeding him information.

Ruth gets sucked deeper into events in Gaza. As a single woman with no family she must rely on Sayed and his family and Dr. Nazeem for help. The more contact she has with them, the more she learns that Palestinians are ordinary human beings with hopes and fears, many of them with a refugee background similar to her parents who had fled from Nazi Germany. And she also learns that there’s more to life than interpreting images on a screen. Sometimes you have to put your body on the line to help the ones you love.

But she is also a pawn in a larger game that she cannot influence. Matters between Raja of Hamas and Khazi of Fatah come to a brutal conclusion dictated by realpolitik. Ruth realises she cannot bear witness to what she knows because Israel has learned it must “control the narrative” and ensure its own version of events is the accepted one.

All she can do is try to help Sayed, the man she comes to accept as a son in law. And bitterly say, when asked who was to blame for her daughter’s death, “Someone without a face, without a name — men with power, men with agendas, someone in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Damascus, or Cairo — someone in Washington or London. Someone who’s interests are served by murder and war.”

I thought this was a very human, very compelling drama. It’s a powerful and complex narrative with no comic relief. It brings to the screen a neglected and little-known region. Previously the West Bank got most of the press attention regarding Palestinians. Despite its universal theme of a mother dealing with the death of a daughter, it is too serious and deals with a region too remote to gain a large audience. Personally I thought it was impressive, but if the region doesn’t interest you it would still be worth the read.

Some background: The Gaza Strip is tiny; 40 km long and 12 km at its widest. It has a history going back 5,000 years when it was known as the land of Canaan. It has been ruled by Egyptians, Philistines, Persians, Alexander the Great, Imperial Rome, the Caliphates, the Crusaders, Saladin, Mongols, Egyptian Mamluks, Turkish Ottomans, Napoleon (briefly), Egypt, Ottomans again, and it became a British mandate after WWI. It was assigned to an Arab state by the 1947 U.N. partition plan, but administered by Egypt after the 1948 Arab-Israel war. Israel took over the administration after the 1967 Six Day War. (Thanks, Wikipedia.)

When talking about the Middle East, there is always the question of bias. According to my background reading, the portrayal of the situation in Gaza is pretty accurate. One notable omission is suicide bombers. They are not mentioned at all, despite the fact that most suicide bombers come from Gaza. (In the first draft, Dr. Nazeem’s son is a suicide bomber. In the third draft he launches Hamas’ rockets.) So Frank Deasy is writing with a typical liberal bias, castigating Western and Middle East governments without whitewashing the nasty nature of the Hamas and Fatah militias, and without offering any solution.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: It’s all about people. You can tackle the toughest and most controversial topics if you focus on the people and the choices they are forced to make. If you can convey people’s hopes and dreams, and show how they are affected by events, you can humanize a situation. Speeches, history lessons, armies and war; a mother’s concern for her child trumps them all.

Here’s a nice little article by Bill Martell on what happens during that process known as Development Hell, with stress on the “hell”. If you ever wondered how a script like G.I. Joe gets to the screen with a barely recognizable story in place, Bill’s peek behind the curtain offers some great insight.

What do you say about The Boondock Saints? For those recently dipping their feet in the Hollywood pool, the story behind The Boondock Saints is one of the more fascinating in the town’s eclectic history. I’ll definitely be getting some details wrong here but for the most part, this is what went down: Troy Duffy was a no-name bartender in Los Angeles who wrote The Boondock Saints in his free time off a rented computer. He somehow got the script into Harvey Weinstein’s hands at the apex of Miramax’s power. Weinstein agreed to buy the script for 300k, allow Duffy to direct the movie for 16 million, and to sweeten the deal (and cleverly nab some media attention), he even bought Duffy the bar that he worked at for him. It was one of those Cinderella stories that everybody loved to talk about. Well, except that a few months later Harvey changed his mind and stopped taking Duffy’s phone calls. Duffy, not exactly current on Tinsletown protocol, didn’t understand this meant his movie wasn’t happening anymore. Now a lot of what follows is rumor, but supposedly Duffy started stalking Weinstein and threatening him for backing out of the deal. We all know that Weinstein isn’t the shyest mogul on the block, and according to Troy, he began threatening Duffy’s life. Duffy went from future filmmaker to caged animal as he holed himself up in his house with a gun, waiting for Harvey’s assassins. Of course Weinstein denies all of this. But Duffy swears it’s true. This is all documented in the documentary, “Overnight”, which, while not as good as my description makes it out to be, is still a pretty strong doc.

Eventually Duffy got someone to put up money for his film and the movie pretty much went straight-to-video. Now, according to lore, the movie is now a “cult classic” because it made over six million dollars on video. I’ve never seen the film, nor do I have any desire to, but whether you believe it’s a success or not, it was good enough that someone put up money for a sequel. Roger has dug up the script for that sequel, and he shares his reactions with us…

Genre: Action. Crime.
Premise: The MacManus Brothers are living a quiet life in Ireland with their father, but when they learn their beloved priest has been killed by mob forces, the duo return to Boston to bring justice to those responsible.
About: Troy Duffy makes his directing return in this sequel to The Boondock Saints.
Writer: Troy Duffy

I have a few friends who color themselves Boondock Fans. I don’t judge them. Instead, I try to understand them. To prepare myself for this review, I had a conversation with my buddy, Ira, about why he likes “The Boondock Saints”. He’s a quarter Irish, and in-between pints of Guinness and Smithwicks, I asked him to tell me why the flick appeals to him.

“First off, these guys are Irish. And what do the Irish do best? They fight. They bleed. They die. Those are actual song lyrics by the way.”

“So you like the movie because the heroes are Irish?”

“Sure. But what makes them so great is that they have no idea what the fuck they are doing. They win all of their gunfights purely by accident. Happy accidents. Who are they when we meet them? They’re workers in a meat factory plant, I think. And don’t they like beat the shit out of a health inspector or something?”

“I don’t really remember.”

“The point is, these guys are just blue-collar second-generation Irish immigrants in Boston. Yet God calls upon them to punish the unjust. They’re like these killer saints that deliver the justice of God by the barrel of a gun. And I think that’s something we can all relate to.”

“Religious vigilantism?”

“Why not? Look at Willem Dafoe’s FBI detective character. He’s this guy who can’t always catch the bad guys. He has to work through the American legal system, our imperfect justice system. And a lot of the times, he has to watch people escape the system just to go commit the same crimes. And that’s why he likes the Saints so much. They don’t have to go through our flawed legal system. They are God’s legal system. They are God’s executioners.”

“Sounds like the last season of Dexter.”

“I’m pretty sure the writers of Dexter stole that from Boondock Saints.”

“Is that a serious statement?”

“Steal. Reference. Cite. Homage. Whatever. It just goes to show you that Boondock was ahead of its time.”

“I never really thought about it like that. Okay. So what’s your favorite scene?”

“Everything you need to know about The Boondock Saints is in the final scene. You got the cops in the courtroom at a loss of what to do. They are fucking agonizing that this Mafia Boss is gonna get away. It’s fucked up, you know? This crime lord is going to walk the streets, basically a taint upon Boston. Everyone’s just pissed. The failure of the court system strikes again. But then the Saints walk in and fucking pop this dude. BAM! BAM! In the middle of a court room! Can you not see the brilliance in that?”

“Well…okay. I do remember that. Hold on – what was that?”

“What was what?”

“You didn’t hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Is that…is that a disembodied guitar riff?”

“I think…I think it is!”

Rockin’ music overtakes us as we DISSOLVE TO…

Just me at my computer. Thinking about this script.

Perhaps I just prefer my flavor of vigilante to be of the Charlie Bronson or Frank Castle variety, because to me, reading The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day was basically the equivalent of reading really horrible Quentin Tarantino fanfiction.

I kinda liked the first act though. Which just goes to show you guys I was willing to give the Saints a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance, right guys?

This motherfucker starts off in Ireland. The boys are now rugged sheep-herders with piercing eyes and luxurious beards. Think Alan Moore without the wizard costume and with more muscle on his bones. If the locale doesn’t prove to you that they are Irish, why don’t you fucking take a look at the Celtic Crosses inked to their forearms. Do you doubt their heritage now?

I thought not.

And if you’re bored, don’t be. Because someone, let’s call him CREW CUT, fucking murders a priest in the first five pages. I know. It’s fucking brutal! And if it’s not brutal enough, what if I were to tell you that this execution is intercut with wolves attacking the sheep Connor and Murphy are trying to defend?

What if I were to tell you that the priest gets a bullet to the back of his head and pennies put on his eyes? What if I were to tell you that a sheep dies? What if I were to tell you that this dude, Crew Cut, is using the modus operandi of the Saints whilst killing a man of the cloth to lure them back to Boston? What if I were to tell you that the boys blast away the wolf that kills the sheep and that the rest of the wolfpack runs away?

Would you think it’s not brutal enough now, faggot?

I think my friend Ira would say that everything you need to know about The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day would be in this one sequence of glorious intercutting.

And he might be right. Because it’s fucking symbolism. And everyone knows that symbolism is the fucking shit.

Cue MOODY MUSIC…

As the boys cut their hair and luxurious beards with sheep shears.

Apparently, a disturbance in the Force has informed them that shit has hit the fan in Boston. They must meticulously groom themselves and ritualistically fill in each other’s tattoos as if they were completing pages in a Celtic-themed coloring book so they can sneak back into the States by stowing themselves on a cargo freighter, The Killian Farris.

Once aboard, they successfully watch a cage match between a swarthy French giant and a pony-tailed Latino with a perpetual smile. Fucking awesome, right? Well hold the fuck on, because it gets awesomer! The Latino, even though he has a ponytail, the sides are shorn! And his hands are chained behind his back! So it’s like a manacled David fighting a froggie seaman Goliath! No, not semen (faggot), seaman! And get this, if you didn’t think this Latino cat was suave already, bobbing and weaving those brutal blows from the giant, let me tell you his name. Then there will be absolutely no doubt in your mind that this kid is the fucking shit. Hold on…wait for it…and while you wait for it…try to imagine some fucking cool music setting the mood…okay…his name is…ROMEO!

Yeah Jefe, you should fucking cheer.

And if you don’t think Romeo is tough, then FUCK YOU, pal! Let me shove some of his dialogue down your ear-hole so you know that he’s tough:

“You should never fight a Mexican, Frenchy. Pound for pound the toughest mother fuckers on earth. Know why? We like pain. We like it, Pierre. I mean think about it, ‘Tabasco sauce.’ What kind of fucked up people would even invent that shit?”

It’s a good question. Whom indeed, Romeo? Whom in-fucking-deed. Because according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t Mexicans. It was this mother fucking Maryland-born former banker named Edmund McIlhenny. Which sounds suspiciously Irish.

But no matter, this is enough to impress Murphy. The MacManus Brothers need a fucking mascot and if you got brains you need not apply.

But hold on. What is Duffy trying to say? Is there something deeper going on here? Is the writer of The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day suggesting that all Mexicans really wish they were Irish? Or merely that they wish they invented Tabasco sauce? Yes, what exactly is the subtext of this relationship?

Does it fucking matter?

Because as I was reading the script, I literally felt the phantom of an astral-projected Duffy whisper in my ear, “When reading this script, your name is no longer Roger. It’s Peaches, faggot! So don’t ask questions, Peaches. I locked the door from the outside until you reach the end. Keep reading, bitch!”

I felt like I was about to go deaf reading this thing. Dialogue is not spoken, it’s shouted. Intimate moments involve brotherly roughhousing during hits on bad guys. Whispers are frothy epithets and spittle catapulted out of mouths. If someone raises their voice it’s accompanied by gunshots and questionable one-liners. Both make you flinch. So it’s kinda like a double flinch and then you die.

Where were we? Oh yes.

The Saints need Romeo. He has connections in the Boston underworld that can help them find the killer of the priest and exact revenge on everyone involved while simultaneously clearing their names of the crime. Yeah. I know. But sometimes you just gotta fucking murderlize other human beings to clear your name of a crime you didn’t commit. They call that cleaning the slate.

It reminds me of that classic 1988 beat’em up arcade game, Bad Dudes. “A fucking priest has been murdered in your trademark style from when you were a vigilante. Are you a bad enough dude to clean the fucking slate?”

Romeo needs Murphy and Connor because he wishes he were Irish. And he wants to prove to his Uncle Cesar that he’s a bad enough dude to be the third wheel to The Brothers Boondock. Because that’s how you prove you’re truly macho. Their company is the litmus test of your manliness.

And unfortunately, my patience.

What about Smecker you ask? The Willem Dafoe character from the first film? I’m glad you asked.

Cue AWE-INSPIRING MUSIC…

And meet Special Agent Eunice Bloom. Smecker asexually reproduced her, I mean…plucked her straight out of a class at Quantico. His protégé. This is the character he truly wanted to be in the first film, fallopian tubes and all.

All you need to know about Eunice Bloom is illustrated in the Act Two Climax.

WHIP PAN TO…FANTASY SEQUENCE…WITH COOL COUNTRY WESTERN MUSIC!

Eunice is now in full cowgirl regalia: Leather chaps, rawhide coat, boots, cowboy hat, and a pair of gleaming six guns on her hips. She’s going to visualize the crime scene The Boondock Saints and Romeo left behind in a luxury condo while trying to murder a crime boss who locked himself in his custom-built panic room.

She screams, “YEEEEE HAAAWWWW!!!!!” as this fantasy sequence is intercut with the boys and their awesome shoot-out.

You see, this fantasy sequence is required because Eunice’s boss, Kuntsler, is trying to take over her investigation from the inside. Julie Benz needs to prove to him that she is a better detective than her blood-splatter analyst boyfriend slash serial killer boyfriend on Dexter.

And what better way for Eunice to do it than to show the audience that all these characters are just modern-day cowboys and outlaws up to their same old shenanigans?

Roger, come on. You don’t have to make scenes up. Seriously, what was your main problem with the script?

Like I said, I was interested in the first act. But this thing just seemed to lose my interest afterwards. It’s a one-trick pony repeating the formula from the first movie. The action sequences feel one note. The cops and Eunice stumble onto a crime scene where bad guys died. Eunice visualizes the crime scene to tell the police what actually happened. Over…and over…and over again.

Sure, the tenuous villain who drew the Saints out of hiding has a master plan, and it involves the father of the Saints. But it doesn’t really work. It doesn’t so much unfold as it’s haphazardly shimmied into the 3rd act. It feels like it’s coming out of left field.

This story is about a character that’s only in the script for maybe two or three scenes. It’s just bad architecture. The payoff is limp.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my fucking interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: If you want to be cool, you should rip the fucking period key out of your keyboard. That way you are forced to use more exclamation points. I think a ratio of 3:1, exclamation points to periods, is what you should shoot for. The more the merrier, right? Also, I think the more CUE ROCKIN’ MUSIC slugs the better. Except you should mix it up. Instead of ‘rockin’ you can substitute words like: ‘hauntin’, ‘festive’, ‘moody’, ‘hard core’, ‘pulsating’, ‘cool’, ‘Country Western’, ‘scratchy’, ‘thunderin’, ‘slammin’, et cetera. The possibilities are pretty fucking endless, if you think about it.

So I sat long and hard thinking of a way to do a Scriptshadow contest without monopolizing every hour of my day for five months straight, and I think I’ve come up with a solution. A staggered submission process that starts with a logline, and ends with me reading a select group of scripts. Here’s how it would work. The initial stage of the contest would be the logline. Anyone who wants to enter sends me a logline. Four weeks later, I announce the Top 100 loglines. The “winners” of that stage will then send me a 250 word paragraph summarizing their script. 4 weeks later I announce the Top 50 summaries. The “winners” of that stage will send me a full 1 page synopsis of their screenplay. The Top 25 synopses from that group will send me their screenplays. I’ll then pick a winner from that group. The winner will receive a review on Scriptshadow (which will almost certainly be favorable) and that review should garner, at the very least, a few requests from mangers and agents.

Now here’s the thing. The contest *is* free *if* you only send in one logline. For each additional logline you submit, it will be one dollar. You can submit as many loglines as you want. I figure this won’t only help me, but it will allow you to try a bunch of different loglines, even for scripts you haven’t written yet. If you make it to the final stage (final 20), I’ll give you an extra month and a half to turn in your script. That way, along with the two months you get during the initial stages, you’ll have enough time to write the script if you keep advancing.

I know some of you will probably want the additional logline costs to be cheaper. But I think it’s fair. The contest is free if you want it to be. For those concerned that I’m rewarding scripts that haven’t even been written yet (and therefore can’t possibly be any good) I’m fairly confident that the screening process will prevent any bad writers from getting into the Top 20. It’s kind of hard to fake being a good writer in a one page summary. So yes, it’s not perfect, but it’s a good compromise since I don’t yet have the time or the resources to run a “proper” contest. The contest would probably be announced in the next 4-6 weeks.

Suggestions? Improvements? What do you guys think?

Okay, I wasn’t going to post this because everybody in the world picked it up and, I feel, it’s already gotten its due. Even Nikki Finke posted it on her page. But I’ve received a ton of e-mail from people asking, specifically because I read so many scripts, what my opinion on the matter is. Josh Olson is the screenwriter of “A History Of Violence.” They posted this article of his in Village Voice. And I am re-posting it here. Read it (but remember I DID NOT WRITE IT) and I’ll follow with my thoughts.

I will not read your fucking script.

That’s simple enough, isn’t it? “I will not read your fucking script.” What’s not clear about that? There’s nothing personal about it, nothing loaded, nothing complicated. I simply have no interest in reading your fucking screenplay. None whatsoever.

If that seems unfair, I’ll make you a deal. In return for you not asking me to read your fucking script, I will not ask you to wash my fucking car, or take my fucking picture, or represent me in fucking court, or take out my fucking gall bladder, or whatever the fuck it is that you do for a living.

You’re a lovely person. Whatever time we’ve spent together has, I’m sure, been pleasurable for both of us. I quite enjoyed that conversation we once had about structure and theme, and why Sergio Leone is the greatest director who ever lived. Yes, we bonded, and yes, I wish you luck in all your endeavors, and it would thrill me no end to hear that you had sold your screenplay, and that it had been made into the best movie since Godfather Part II.

But I will not read your fucking script.

At this point, you should walk away, firm in your conviction that I’m a dick. But if you’re interested in growing as a human being and recognizing that it is, in fact, you who are the dick in this situation, please read on.

Yes. That’s right. I called you a dick. Because you created this situation. You put me in this spot where my only option is to acquiesce to your demands or be the bad guy. That, my friend, is the very definition of a dick move.

I was recently cornered by a young man of my barest acquaintance.

I doubt we’ve exchanged a hundred words. But he’s dating someone I know, and he cornered me in the right place at the right time, and asked me to read a two-page synopsis for a script he’d been working on for the last year. He was submitting the synopsis to some contest or program, and wanted to get a professional opinion.

Now, I normally have a standard response to people who ask me to read their scripts, and it’s the simple truth: I have two piles next to my bed. One is scripts from good friends, and the other is manuscripts and books and scripts my agents have sent to me that I have to read for work. Every time I pick up a friend’s script, I feel guilty that I’m ignoring work. Every time I pick something up from the other pile, I feel guilty that I’m ignoring my friends. If I read yours before any of that, I’d be an awful person.

Most people get that. But sometimes you find yourself in a situation where the guilt factor is really high, or someone plays on a relationship or a perceived obligation, and it’s hard to escape without seeming rude. Then, I tell them I’ll read it, but if I can put it down after ten pages, I will. They always go for that, because nobody ever believes you can put their script down once you start.

But hell, this was a two page synopsis, and there was no time to go into either song or dance, and it was just easier to take it. How long can two pages take?

Weeks, is the answer.

And this is why I will not read your fucking script.

It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you’re dealing with someone who can’t.

(By the way, here’s a simple way to find out if you’re a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you’re not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)

You may want to allow for the fact that this fellow had never written a synopsis before, but that doesn’t excuse the inability to form a decent sentence, or an utter lack of facility with language and structure. The story described was clearly of great importance to him, but he had done nothing to convey its specifics to an impartial reader. What I was handed was, essentially, a barely coherent list of events, some connected, some not so much. Characters wander around aimlessly, do things for no reason, vanish, reappear, get arrested for unnamed crimes, and make wild, life-altering decisions for no reason. Half a paragraph is devoted to describing the smell and texture of a piece of food, but the climactic central event of the film is glossed over in a sentence. The death of the hero is not even mentioned. One sentence describes a scene he’s in, the next describes people showing up at his funeral. I could go on, but I won’t. This is the sort of thing that would earn you a D minus in any Freshman Comp class.

Which brings us to an ugly truth about many aspiring screenwriters: They think that screenwriting doesn’t actually require the ability to write, just the ability to come up with a cool story that would make a cool movie. Screenwriting is widely regarded as the easiest way to break into the movie business, because it doesn’t require any kind of training, skill or equipment. Everybody can write, right? And because they believe that, they don’t regard working screenwriters with any kind of real respect. They will hand you a piece of inept writing without a second thought, because you do not have to be a writer to be a screenwriter.

So. I read the thing. And it hurt, man. It really hurt. I was dying to find something positive to say, and there was nothing. And the truth is, saying something positive about this thing would be the nastiest, meanest and most dishonest thing I could do. Because here’s the thing: not only is it cruel to encourage the hopeless, but you cannot discourage a writer. If someone can talk you out of being a writer, you’re not a writer. If I can talk you out of being a writer, I’ve done you a favor, because now you’ll be free to pursue your real talent, whatever that may be. And, for the record, everybody has one. The lucky ones figure out what that is. The unlucky ones keep on writing shitty screenplays and asking me to read them.

To make matters worse, this guy (and his girlfriend) had begged me to be honest with him. He was frustrated by the responses he’d gotten from friends, because he felt they were going easy on him, and he wanted real criticism. They never do, of course. What they want is a few tough notes to give the illusion of honesty, and then some pats on the head. What they want–always–is encouragement, even when they shouldn’t get any.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to tell someone that they’ve spent a year wasting their time? Do you know how much blood and sweat goes into that criticism? Because you want to tell the truth, but you want to make absolutely certain that it comes across honestly and without cruelty. I did more rewrites on that fucking e-mail than I did on my last three studio projects.

My first draft was ridiculous. I started with specific notes, and after a while, found I’d written three pages on the first two paragraphs. That wasn’t the right approach. So I tossed it, and by the time I was done, I’d come up with something that was relatively brief, to the point, and considerate as hell. The main point I made was that he’d fallen prey to a fallacy that nails a lot of first timers. He was way more interested in telling his one story than in being a writer. It was like buying all the parts to a car and starting to build it before learning the basics of auto mechanics. You’ll learn a lot along the way, I said, but you’ll never have a car that runs.

(I should mention that while I was composing my response, he pulled the ultimate amateur move, and sent me an e-mail saying, “If you haven’t read it yet, don’t! I have a new draft. Read this!” In other words, “The draft I told you was ready for professional input, wasn’t actually.”)

I advised him that if all he was interested in was this story, he should find a writer and work with him; or, if he really wanted to be a writer, start at the beginning and take some classes, and start studying seriously.

And you know what? I shouldn’t have bothered. Because for all the hair I pulled out, for all the weight and seriousness I gave his request for a real, professional critique, his response was a terse “Thanks for your opinion.” And, the inevitable fallout–a week later a mutual friend asked me, “What’s this dick move I hear you pulled on Whatsisname?”
So now this guy and his girlfriend think I’m an asshole, and the truth of the matter is, the story really ended the moment he handed me the goddamn synopsis. Because if I’d just said “No” then and there, they’d still think I’m an asshole. Only difference is, I wouldn’t have had to spend all that time trying to communicate thoughtfully and honestly with someone who just wanted a pat on the head, and, more importantly, I wouldn’t have had to read that godawful piece of shit.

You are not owed a read from a professional, even if you think you have an in, and even if you think it’s not a huge imposition. It’s not your choice to make. This needs to be clear–when you ask a professional for their take on your material, you’re not just asking them to take an hour or two out of their life, you’re asking them to give you–gratis–the acquired knowledge, insight, and skill of years of work. It is no different than asking your friend the house painter to paint your living room during his off hours.

There’s a great story about Pablo Picasso. Some guy told Picasso he’d pay him to draw a picture on a napkin. Picasso whipped out a pen and banged out a sketch, handed it to the guy, and said, “One million dollars, please.”

“A million dollars?” the guy exclaimed. “That only took you thirty seconds!”

“Yes,” said Picasso. “But it took me fifty years to learn how to draw that in thirty seconds.”

Like the cad who asks the professional for a free read, the guy simply didn’t have enough respect for the artist to think about what he was asking for. If you think it’s only about the time, then ask one of your non-writer friends to read it. Hell, they might even enjoy your script. They might look upon you with a newfound respect. It could even come to pass that they call up a friend in the movie business and help you sell it, and soon, all your dreams will come true. But me?

I will not read your fucking script.

Josh Olson’s screenplay for the film A History of Violence was nominated for the Academy Award, the BAFTA, the WGA award and the Edgar. He is also the writer and director of the horror/comedy cult movie Infested, which Empire Magazine named one of the 20 Best Straight to Video Movies ever made. Recently, he has written with the legendary Harlan Ellison, and worked on Halo with Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp. He adapted Dennis Lehane’s story “Until Gwen,” which he will also be directing. He is currently adapting One Shot, one of the best-selling Jack Reacher books for Paramount.

©2009 Josh Olson. All rights reserved.

Carson back here. Okay, so here’s the thing. Josh brings up some great points. I have personally watched a couple of blossoming friendships destroyed because someone asked me to read their script and I gave them honest feedback. The problem is two-fold. Writers, particularly ones who are just starting out, tend to overestimate their ability to write. So when you give them feedback that says, “This wasn’t that great,” they take it as a personal attack and consider you (as Josh pointed out) an asshole. The second is that (also as Josh pointed out) people don’t seem to respect your time. Reading, thinking about, then coming up with constructive notes for a script can easily take 4-5 hours. Sometimes more. So let’s say I agree to read 4 of the 20 script requests I get in a week. That’s 20 hours right there. Who has 20 hours a week to spare?? It kills me that I have to say no to you guys when you write in, but at a certain point I have to stand up and say, “Hey, I haven’t been able to work on a script in 4 months. I need some me time!”

For that reason, I have to be choosy. I have to say no to people. I have to be the asshole. Because if I accepted every read request, it would be a full-time job (it should be noted that my situation is a little different from Josh’s. Reading scripts is kind of my job).

So I definitely understand where Josh is coming from. My advice for approaching people for reads is this. 1a) Be respectful of their time. Know that reading a script is a huge commitment, and be okay with it if they say they just don’t have the time. 1b) Show that you respect their time. Offer something in trade. If you work at a nice clothing store, offer them a gift certificate for a read. If you know they love the Dodgers, buy them a couple of tickets. Offer to babysit their kids. If you *show* them that you respect their time, they’ll be much more receptive to your request. 2) If someone in the industry does agree to read your script, you better be okay with them ripping it to shreds. You’re not asking them for a guaranteed referral to Spielberg, you’re asking for their opinion based on years of experience. If they say, “This isn’t any good. You need to do A, B, and C,” I would thank them for their time and start doing A, B, and C.

In all honesty. It’s not your fault. If you’re reading Scriptshadow, chances are you care enough about the craft to do what it takes to become a screenwriter. The problem people are the ones who come up with an “idea” for a script based on their and their friends’ experiences that’s just totally hilarious, have never written a single word before this, hit you up for a read, and treat you like an idiot for not seeing their genius. These are the people who have approached that industry friend of yours dozens of times before you came along. And since I can tell you from experience that only about 1-3% of scripts are any good, chances are every one of those scripts they read was terrible. Which means they’re expecting your screenplay to be terrible as well. If you come across as intelligent and respectful with maybe something to offer in return, you’re likely to get a much better response than High School Dropout John and his idea about a group of potheads who get stoned for 24 hours straight.

One final thing. I think Josh went about the article in the wrong way. Once you’re on the other side of the fence, it’s important to give back. And while you can’t help everyone, you should try and help where you can. Someone on a message board pointed out that Josh wouldn’t be where he was today if someone hadn’t read his script. It’s important for everyone with some level of success in the business to remember that.