I thought I’d never live to see the day. Mark the date my friends. Monday, August 24th. Roger B. gives a negative review. It’s too bad the script wasn’t any good. I have to admit, however, Roger’s pretty entertaining when he’s negative.

Genre: Prophetic horror, Action
Premise: After a terrifying Biblical apocalypse descends upon the world, a group of strangers stranded in a remote truck-stop diner in the Southwest become humanity’s last line of defense when they discover the diner’s young waitress is pregnant with the messiah.
About: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, and Tyrese will star. Scott Stewart, the director, learned effects from the master himself, George Lucas, up at ILM. He later founded his own acclaimed effects company The Orphanage. This will be his directorial debut.
Writers: Peter Schink, Scott Stewart

Now here’s a screenplay I decided to read after I saw the Red Band Comic-Con trailer. I’m a freak for trailers. It’s an art form unto itself, and I’ll watch the more sublime previews obsessively. I disappear into the loop like a borderline autistic child. I had actually opened up the screenplay a few weeks beforehand, and skimmed through the first few pages. It looked pretty good, but I decided to save the read for later. Then that trailer hit MySpace and I was glued to the monitor. In between twitterin’, txtin’, and facebookin’ how much I loved the trailer to friends, I gave the script a read.

I was crestfallen.

I closed the script and half-heartedly clicked on the trailer like a child who just realized that the scuffed action-figure he got so much joy out of is, in reality, just a piece of plastic. A broken, lifeless, limp toy.

I was duped.

What happened?

I was into the 1st Act. It’s a pretty good-setup. Then somewhere around page 35, or maybe page 40, I dunno…I started to sense that something was rotten in Denmark. Actually, something was rotten in Paradise Falls Gas’N’Grub. Then around page 60, I’m calling bullshit on the writers. My roommate wakes up and tells me to shut-the-fuck-up and who am I talking to?

Then bullshit turns to disbelief, disgust, and ultimately boredom. But what the hell, I’m around page 90, might as well see how it ends.

Yes, I had to force myself to finish. Not because I was tired, not because I needed to take a break, but because I had completely lost interest.

I was bored.

What’s the story?

There is no story. But I’ll tell you about the plot.

The Archangel Michael, the “One who is like God”, the field commander of the Army of God, that guy in the Bible who fought some demon called the Prince of Persia, falls to earth.

Hard.

He lands in a rain-soaked alleyway, like he’s the fucking Terminator or something. Except you know, he’s not naked. Nope, he’s in full Kyle Reese-regalia. You know, like right after Reese raided that sporting goods store?

Except in this movie, Reese, I mean Michael, is already fully dressed. Presumably, a pair of combat boots and a trench-coat is the traditional attire of the Angelic Host.

Anyways, with the acumen of a Chinese contortionist, Michael cuts his wings off. With a knife.

Let me repeat that.

Michael, an angel, falls to earth, seemingly pissed. He’s angry about something. Emotional. Maybe not the best time to make life-changing decisions. I mean, in that state, even an angel might do something rash. An angel might even act like a hormonal, rebellious teenager who is having a hissy with their parents and starts making unwise decisions. You know, stuff that might have a negative effect down the road. Like say…CUTTING YOUR FUCKING WINGS OFF.

It seems like something an angel would need a teammate for, a spotter, but this guy is determined. And flexible. He cuts off his wings and flees into a sporting goods store. There he finds a first-aid kit, and somehow stitches these wounds closed. It’s impressive. On the LOST pilot, Jack, who is a surgeon, couldn’t even do this. He had to request the help of Kate, a civilian, to help stitch those hard-to-reach places. But whatever, Michael isn’t a Doctor. He’s an angel. And angels know all sorts of fancy stuff. Hell, if you put stock in the Book of Enoch, angels taught us humans all our knowledge and medical-know-how.

But apparently angels don’t need wings. They need guns. A whole shit-ton of them.

So Michael starts filling rifle bag after rifle bag with FEROCIOUS firepower. Whatever he’s preparing for is going to require lots of explosions and kill-shots. But shit, this store is locked. How is he gonna get out? Not quietly, that’s for damn sure…

BOOOOM! That’s how! The explosion cuts a cross-shaped exit out of the sporting goods store. Oh shit! This catches the attention of two on-duty black-and-whites. In fact, the fiery debris of Michael’s ostentatious exit rains down on their hood. But Michael doesn’t give a shit! Why? Because he moves so fast it’s like a blur, that’s why!

He quickly grabs a cop and tries to talk sense to them. It’s an urgent bit of business. Michael has a child to save! Which gives him the searing authority to be as capriciously brazen as he needs to be. But oh shit, son, that cop with the gun aimed at Michael starts to vibrate like a human dildo. Sodium lights start to hum and flicker. Something supernatural is happening!

Bones crack, and a hideous smile forms on the copper’s face. And then he says something that makes me think of Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys: “What are you doing Michael? These weren’t your orders.” Except it’s not Kiefer. It’s never explained, but I’m pretty sure it’s The Big Guy Upstairs.

God.

So how does Michael respond to this? He pretty much tells The Almighty to fuck off. “I’m following my own orders now.” God doesn’t seem very concerned. God informs Michael that then, he too shall die, along with the Christ child.

Wait. What?

Yeah, dudes. Christ, the son of God, is returning back to His Creation again. In the form of a baby. He’s gonna be human again. And God the Father wants his Son dead. What is that? Filicide? But aren’t they one and the same as well? That’s also suicide, isn’t it?

But enough semantics. You don’t need to think about the concept of the Holy Trinity to understand this movie. In fact, it’s best not to ask these type of theological questions at all if you want to enjoy this prophetic horror narrative!

God isn’t really concerned with Michael’s rebellion. Why be concerned when you have an entire heavenly army at your disposal? If that’s not enough, God can just demonically possess humans with his angels and turn them into fast-motion zombies. He can use hordes of these things to dispose of Michael. Because when you’re God, even angels can be like demons! Even angels can drop F-bombs like I, the foul-mouthed Roger Balfour!

What’s the rest of the plot?

While the rest of the world is being terminated by God’s Own Army, we get to meet the important players. Our ensemble cast, if you will. We get to meet Charlie, our twenty-something Mother Mary of the Paradise Falls Gas’N’Grub congregation. A colony of ancient silver Airstream trailers in the middle of the desert. Humanity’s Alamo is the truck-stop diner that serves as the Paradise Falls nexus. I like the name of our setting. It’s so Miltonian. I’m into that kinda shit. Puns…

Ahem, so. Jeep is our hero. I don’t mean the vehicle. There’s a guy named Jeep in this thing. He rises up to be our hero. I like him. He’s the son of the owner of the gas-station and diner, Bob. Bob has a cook named Percy. Percy is a war veteran who has a metal hook for a hand. I like that detail. I like slasher movies, and I like pirates, and what do these things both have in common? Hooks. So that’s pretty cool.

Percy is going to try and lay some wisdom down on Kyle Williams, our black Escalade-driving cool-as-ice gangbanger. He’s handsome as hell, thug-style, bwoi! Kyle’s just driving through, but when the apocalypse rides in on angel’s wings, he’s here to stay. Kyle’s gonna try to put those sweet baby-face moves on Audrey, the provocative teenage daughter of Sandra and Howard, our requisite salt-of-the earth suburbanites.

So them’s our players.

They only exist to have horrible, horrible deaths. One dude even gets nailed upside down to a cross, like St. Peter. But unlike St. Peter, he also has explosive, acidic boils all over him. It’s a nasty biological bomb. That happens sometime after the first wave of attacks.

So yeah…Michael shows up, arms everyone with guns. Makes them defend the truck-stop diner while wave-upon-wave of angelically possessed fast-motion zombies, referred to as The Possessed, attack the diner. They have to hold them off so Charlie can push her baby out, who presumptively is going to grow up to become Neo from the Matrix movies. A lot of these details are referred to vaguely, or completely left to the imagination. Kind of like a Mad Libs tablet…or not. I think the idea is that Jesus Christ, angel-slayer, will reach adulthood and war against the Divine Army, showing God, his Father, that humanity and its institutions are in fact, pretty fucking groovy.

In a weird way, it’s a lot like “Dawn of the Dead”, which is a much better movie. Both versions. It’s about survival! But with “Legion”, it’s survival and ‘splosions before everything else. Even story, sadly.

And it’s also like “The Terminator”.

It’s really like “The Terminator” when Michael says, “If you want to live, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

I typed the phrase, “if you want to live” into the search bar on this pdf script. It came up twice. Both times uttered by Michael. It’s very Terminator.

In the third act, even the T-1000 shows up in the form of Gabriel. He’s Michael’s Lieutenant. Except he obeys God. Even when it comes to exterminating mankind. And Michael is in his fucking way.

Things don’t go very well for Michael. There are a few things working against him. 1.) Gabriel has a pretty bad-ass mace. 2.) Gabriel has wings. 3.) Michael cut his wings off when he got to earth.

Oops.

But it doesn’t matter. Michael is covered in tattoos. The tattoos are actually Instructions on raising the Christ-child. Training him. Preparing him to be John Con…a leader. When Michael is killed, the tattoos will disappear from his divine dermis and supernaturally appear on the flesh of Jeep.

Which makes me think why he didn’t just off himself when he got to earth. But there I go again with those questions.

Jeep is the father-figure. I mean, he’s not the actual father of the Christ-child. That’s some random dude who only exists in Charlie’s Mary Magdalene-past. Regardless, Jeep loves Charlie. He wants to be her husband. He wants them to be a family.

He gets his wish when Gabriel kills Michael and when he and Charlie kill Gabriel. With a grenade.

Grenades kill angels. Pretty cool, huh?

So our tale ends with Jeep and Charlie riding off into the post-apocalyptic sunset with their new baby.

Instant family. Just add Jeep! And he’s got those Instructions tattooed onto his flesh. It’s gonna be A-OK…or is it?

In your Hollywood screenplay, injecting room for those nawty sequelz.

Wow. Anything else you care to say, Roger?

In terms of suspension of disbelief, horror is a genre that certainly gives you some leeway. You have some slack to play around and be crazy. Get some blood and gore on those hands. But it doesn’t mean you have a free pass to throw character, logic, and story out the window.

You have to find that balance. This script attempts to establish a story between Jeep and Charlie, and it’s promising when we first meet them, but their story, and all concrete sense of character, are pushed to the background as soon as the repetitive and numerous action sequences arrive. I literally felt my eyes glaze over as soon as gunplay, explosions, and gore rammed its way into the foreground.

And it’s not anything new. All the money shots are in the trailer.

Little details are planted to suggest that some of these characters have interesting back-stories, but it’s all too little too late. These characters are one-dimensional in a flat world.

There’s even a moment where the emotions and sentiments feel flat-out wrong. When Gabriel points out that Michael no longer has wings, Michael replies, “To no longer feel their burden…is a dream.”

I’m sorry, what?

I just don’t buy that. It feels forced. Flight is both an archetypal dream and a fear…and there’s no explanation to why God is doing what He is doing and why Michael hates his angelic status so much.

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

What I learned: I’d also like to point out, that when you’re playing with mythology, theology, and lore to create a world, to fucking do your research. Check out some library books. Do a little reading. Hell, check out Wikipedia at the very least. I know novelists who cut-and-paste their baddies from the monster compendiums on Wikipedia for fuck’s sake. It’s lazy, yes, but it’s at least something. The writers of “Legion” should be damned to a Southern Baptist-fried Vacation Bible School to at least glean a basic knowledge of theology.

When I saw the trailer, I thought it was interesting that someone tipped the demonic convention of prophetic horror on its head by having angels be the baddies. It could have worked, but in this story it just came off as ignorant.

You want to see and read some good, post-apocalyptic, prophetic horror narratives that manage to create interesting worlds and have great characters? Check out Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” and Garth Ennis’ “Preacher” (someone with true anger and knowledge who is criticizing the Church and questioning theology). Want to see angels as baddies done intriguingly? Check out the CW’s “Supernatural” and Caitlin R. Kiernan’s short story cycle, “Alabaster”.

The blog End Of Show is reporting that The Social Experiment, written by Aaron Sorkin, is officially a Go picture. You may remember from my review of the script how much I liked it (it now stands as #10 on my Top 25). Because, up until that point, the idea of a Facebook movie was getting a lot of negative buzz, the review alleviated a lot of fears. Less than a week later, Sorkin signed on to rewrite Sony’s “Moneyball” (script review here), and most of that negative buzz went the way of the dodo bird.

But don’t be fooled. This is still a big gamble. I can’t remember the last time somebody made a serious pop-culture movie so soon after real life events. Usually these stories go straight to basic cable or network TV. This has gotta be nerve-wracking for Sony as we all watched the “cool factor” of Myspace go from 60 to 0 in about 8 days. They should probably simultaneously shoot a movie about Twitter to cover their asses. Or should Twitter be the sequel? Regardless, it is a great script. I was riveted for 160 pages. It’s hard to rivet me for 10 pages. I’m not easy to rivet. The only issue I see with the film is that it’s not very cinematic. I guess that’s why they brought in Fincher. Man, I really hope this movie does well. Cause if it doesn’t, I’m sure some people are going to point the finger at me. “You’re the one who thought it was good!” Hmm, I wonder if I can be fired at Sony if I don’t work there. :)

Genre: Drama (Independent)
Premise: A high school teacher deals with the death of his daughter in his own unique way.
About: This received one teensy tiny vote on the 2005 Black List, the first year the list was released. On that year Juno was the number two script on the list and Lars And The Real Girl was number three. Both went on to garner Oscar nominations and Juno won. So the list has some pedigree. Makowka is also the first director to take advantage of Michigan’s new 40% film production tax incentive, shooting his new film, “Tug,” completely in Holland, Michigan. As a note to how quickly a working writer must think on his feet, “Tug” was initially set in Los Angeles, but when it was realized how much money they could save in Michigan, Makowka rewrote the entire story to take place in Holland (despite never having been to Michigan!)
Writer: Abram Makowka

I’m not quite sure how to follow up a review where two of the most beautiful actresses in the world partake in an aggressive lesbian love scene. I suppose I’d have to be the one to leak an Angelina Jolie sex tape. Or maybe be the blogger that found Bin Laden. So, instead of trying, I’m going to go all the way to the opposite end of the spectrum and review a quiet little script that received a single solitary vote on the 2005 Black List called “Anatomy Of A Stick Figure.” Why? Because when I started Scriptshadow, I imagined reviewing a lot more of these scripts and now I feel guilty. That’s why.

Hale, 40s, is a high school history teacher with a genuine love for teaching – the kind of guy who could stand toe-to-toe with Mr. Holland and come away unscathed. Hale spends the majority of his time putting together 16mm films that distort history in a way that forces his students to question everything that they know about the past. Hale is also a little distant. No, let me take that back. He’s a lot distant. When he’s not up in front of 25 sets of intensely focused eyeballs, he becomes so disconnected with the world, he might as well not even exist. This is problematic in that he has a wife, Aris, whom he despises, and a 16 year old daughter, Sal, who despises him. Despite Hale using everything in his limited arsenal to make a connection with his daughter, it always ends up in her hating him more.

Sal looks for comfort in her rebel almost-boyfriend, Lewis, who’s too busy incurring the wrath of his abusive deadbeat father, Pete (known as Popsicle Pete because he drives an ice cream truck) to give Sal his full attention. But as the story progresses and the two grow closer, Sal sneaks out one night to meet with Lewis. Instead she gets stuck in his house with Popsicle Pete, who gets her drunk and tops it off with a little bit of crack – White Trash, USA-style. The next morning Hale and Aris wake up to find their daughter in her bed, dead.

One of the cool things about Anatomy is that it’s never too up and it’s never too down. People are sad about Sal’s death, but the focus shifts more towards Hale’s inability to deal with his emotions, as he hasn’t had to use them in sixteen years. He finds himself pulled into an unexpected friendship with Lewis, and for the first time in a long time, Hale is actually able to open up to someone.

In the meantime, Pete has been lucky that no one’s traced Sal’s death back to him, but as Lewis begins to spend more time with Sal’s father, Pete becomes paranoid that critical information will be exchanged and his secret will be outed. As a result, Lewis and Pete’s relationship becomes intensely violent. It’s pretty clear that at some point, it’s going to be one or the other.

Anatomy is a script that never quite finds its rhythm, but in a strange way I think it works. Sal actually begins the screenplay dead. Then we jump back in time and get to know her. Then she dies somewhere around the middle. At which point we have no idea where the story’s going to go. And then this weird but interesting friendship evolves between Lewis and Hale, and Hale tries to find some peace, some connection to his daughter in death, that he never had when she was alive. As most of you know, I like it when a script keeps me guessing, so Anatomy won points for that.

If there’s a problem with the script, it’s that Makowka makes his characters really hard to like. Take Sal for instance. While she may be a confused teenager desperately searching for someone to love her, she also comes off as a whiny bitch who finds fault in everything. I’m not wishing death on this girl. But to mourn someone I never liked in the first place is a lot to ask. While Sal’s the strongest example, the truth is, it’s hard to like any of these characters. The wife is selfish and condescending. Pete is an abusive alcoholic. And Hale is so distant, we have just as much trouble connecting with him as he does with others.

Luckily Anatomy had a surprising ending that explains exactly why Hale is the way he is – and by association, why the dynamic of the family is so fucked up. It’s a nice unexpected surprise that forces you to look back on everything you read and reevaluate it. If you liked Rachel Getting Married or The Squid And The Whale, this script may just be the weekend read you’re looking for.

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

What I learned: Try to keep your tone consistent throughout your script. One of the most common mistakes I see is tone that floats all over the place. Although I enjoyed Anatomy Of A Stick Figure, there was one aspect that took me out of the story: Popsicle Pete. I don’t know if you remember reading my review for Fiasco Heights, but there’s a character in that script who also drives an ice cream truck named something like “Blowpop Billy”. Now see because the tone of that film is all video game, the name and character made sense. Here, it comes off as cartoonish and doesn’t work. Know what your tonal boundaries are and stay within them. Keep that tone consistent!

Since I’ve had to deal with a barrage of e-mails begging me for the Black Swan script (note to those looking for script: There are no pictures), I almost forgot that I did a guest review over on LatinoReview for the comedy Ed Helms just signed onto, “Central Intelligence.” You may wonder how I have the time to write guest reviews AND Scriptshadow reviews and my response would be: Yeah, I wonder too. So unfortunately I can’t give the Black Swan script away. :( Let your imagination suffice for now. :)

Genre: Psychological (Supernatural?) Thriller
Premise: A ballerina competes against a rival dancer who may or may not be another version of herself.
About: Black Swan will star drool-worthy starlets Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis and is being helmed by visionary director Darren Aronofsky. Aronofsky originally tried to set up the project in 2007 but Universal put it in turnaround. Thanks to “The Wrestler” doing so well though, Portman twirled onto the project a couple of months ago and everything’s been full steam ahead since.
Writer: Mark Heyman (original script by John McLaughlin)
Details: 131 pages – March 25, 2009 draft.

Can I just tell you why none of my review matters? Can I just tell you why my review is absolutely pointless?

Because in this movie, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have sex.

Yeah. You read that right. And not just nice sweet innocent sex either. We’re talking ecstasy-induced hungry aggressive angry sex. Yeah so…this movie is already on the must-see list of 2010. But how good is it? Does the story that surrounds the sex disappoint or excel?

Black Swan is a very intriguing story with a quiet slow burn. So slow, in fact, that I nearly lost interest halfway through it. Heyman focuses on the tiniest of things. The way shoes sound as they click against the pavement. The way a slight breeze tussles at your hair. You know how as film evolved, we’ve been encouraged to cut out all the meaningless stuff? For example, instead of showing a character walk from their house to the train, we should just cut to the train? Yeah, Heyman doesn’t do that. If someone needs to walk somewhere, we walk with them. And after awhile, it really begins to test your patience. And if you’re looking for the culprit in the 131 page screenplay length, that’s where you’ll find him. But it’s pretty clear these are the moments Aronofsky is interested in in Black Swan. He wants you living every second of this character’s life, lulling you into a sense of security so that you get used to the mundane. That way when the extraordinary happens, it slams into you like an SUV.

Nina is a ballerina in one of New York City’s top ballet companies. She appears to be the only sweet girl of the bunch however, as it’s established early on that these companies are packed with jackals, every seemingly sweet-natured princess scheming to backstab the girl next to her if only it gets her one rung higher on the ladder. High School’s got nothing on these bitches. Nina’s sorta friend, Beth, who has been the school’s running lead in all the productions, is nearing the end of her career, and everyone’s gunning to take her place in the next big ballet: Swan Lake.

The lead role is the part of Odette, the Swan Queen. The role is complicated by the fact that the ballerina must be able to play both sweet, the “White Swan,” and dark, the “Black Swan”. It is the ultimate challenge. Of course, Nina has the white swan down. But does she have the darkness to nail the Black Swan?

The director of the production is the handsome but sinister Yevna. He sees something in Nina but before he gives her the part, he wants to speak with her privately. It is there, in his office, that he pries into Nina’s mind, searching for her dark side, even going so far as to force a kiss on her. But it’s unclear whether Yevna is trying to seduce Nina or simply seeing how she’ll react. As the sweet polite girl she is. Or as the raging disturbed woman she will have to be. In the end, Nina is given the role. But it’s clear Yevna has doubts as to if she can pull it off.

As the days go by and Nina searches desperately to find her darkness, she begins noticing another girl around town and at the ballet company who looks exactly like her. But not just “exactly.” We’re talking identical. Yet every time Nina tries to get close, the girl turns away or hides her face. Finally, Nina meets this mysterious doppelganger after rehearsal. Her name is Lily. And while she definitely looks like Nina, she’s by no means an identical replica. Was it Nina’s imagination perhaps?

Whereas Nina is calculated about every move she makes, Lily is the opposite – uncaring and uninterested in perfection. Everything she does seems so…effortless. The two begin a tepid friendship, one which Nina is constantly trying to pull away from. But while she is afraid of Lily, she is also drawn to her in some way. And then there’s those strange fleeting moments where Lily looks exactly like her.

As they get closer to production, Nina’s world starts to spin out of control as Lily befriends Yevna and continues to move up the ballet company ladder. The girls will go out, get drunk, and Nina will show up at rehearsal late the next day only to find that Lily is standing in for her. Is Lily scheming to steal her role as the Swan Queen? Or is Nina making this all up in her head in order to find her dark side? That is the ultimate question.

As in all Aronofsky movies, there are some controversial moments. In one scene, Nina basically gets raped by Yevna. It’s cold and off-putting, and yet it’s an important moment as it demonstrates just how high the stakes are in this seemingly innocent world. The script is steeped in darkness (surprise surprise) and makes you feel so uncomfortable at times that you can’t read it without constantly resituating yourself.

Black Swan is an interesting read. As I mentioned before, it takes its time. But if there’s any director who knows how to make the quiet moments work, it’s Aronofsky. He’s rarely boring as a director. Much has been made of the “supernatural” aspect of Black Swan, with some even comparing it to, “The Others.” (one of my favorite scary films btw) But I never saw it that way. To me it was clear that Nina was always imagining her relationship with Lily. I never doubted that Lily was real. But I believe Nina made up the more elaborate aspects of their friendship in order to discover her dark side. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a talking point of the film after its release, which, if the film is good, will surely help word of mouth and repeat business.

As a screenplay, I thought Black Swan was good. It definitely could’ve moved faster and I would’ve preferred we get some answers sooner instead of being strung along with weird unexplained moment after weird unexplained moment. After awhile that just gets exhausting. But the feel of the story is just so original. It’s not quite like anything I’ve read or seen before. If you like your scripts dark and moody, check out Black Swan for sure.

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

What I learned: Don’t be afraid to explore the details in your screenplay if they help tell the story. It’s okay to create mood and atmosphere. Just make sure you don’t go overboard with it. I don’t think Black Swan would have a prayer on the spec market because it’s just sooooooooo slow at times. But some movies require you to indulge in the seemingly mundane things. That’s fine if you know when to stop.

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