Genre: Drama/Coming-of-Age
Premise: A thirteen year old outcast finds a mixtape that belonged to her deceased parents, accidentally destroys it, and uses the song list to find all the music.
About: Finished with 14 votes on this year’s Black List. Mixtape may have finished even higher had it officially gone out. If there’s a script that truly embodies the spirit of the Black List, this is it. It’s the “I’m a Loser, Baby” or “Paranormal Activity” of the screenwriting world, a script that found success purely through word of mouth. Stacy Menear, the writer, doesn’t have any previous sales or credits. The film will be directed by “King of Kong” helmer Seth Gordon. Playing the part of Beverly will be Chloe Moretz (“Hit Girl” in Kickass, as well as the lead in the remake of “Let The Right One In”)
Status of Project: Securing Financing
Status of this Draft: First draft
Writer: Stacy Menear
Details: 119 pages (August 14, 2009)

Whoa. If you had told me that one of my favorite scripts off of this year’s Black List would be an emotional drama about a 13 year old girl cobbling together random songs from a broken mixtape, I would’ve expected you to also inform me that you were a robot from the future sent to save mankind. I’m still in shock after reading this, as I’m amazed that Menear even attempted the story. Its subject matter is a literary mine-field, the kind of graveyard where scripts go to die. Over-sentimentality. Saccharine. Melodramatic. One wrong step and you can fall perilously into any of those. By blinking you could be My Sister’s Keeper.

As if that wasn’t difficult enough, Menear bases the story around music, which basically nuclear charges every one of those mines. Music is one of the hardest things to write about in a screenplay because a) the reader can’t hear the music, and b) a song you love very well may be a song the reader hates. Mention an old Richard Marx tune to a metalhead and there goes your audience. Looking at this script before reading it, I anticipated a 2012 like disaster (you can use either the movie or the expected disaster for that analogy – both work).

But Mixtape is anything but a disaster. It’s an anti-disaster. It’s an antaster.

Beverly Moody has it as tough as any teenager can have it. She’s an overweight poor 13 year old girl without any friends who lives with her ultra-conservative grandmother. In other words, she was born to be bullied. In one of the many instances you know you’re dealing with a unique writer, Menear doesn’t paint Beverly’s nemesis as the typical Adonis blond-haired jock you remember from all those 80s flicks, but rather a wickedly cruel boy in a wheelchair. A bully in a wheelchair? Talk about turning a cliché on its head. I knew I was in good hands immediately.

Moretz will play the part of Beverly

The only thing that keeps Beverly going is the threadbare memory of her parents, who died in a car accident when she was a baby. Her grandmother never speaks of them, and so all Beverly has to go on is a single picture of the two when they were younger. This picture is the source of much of Beverly’s confusion and misdirection. Her parents are the complete opposite of her. Hip, cool, punk-rockers – clearly music lovers and proud rebels. How did *she* come from *them*? Beverly wants nothing more than to find out the answer to that question.

One day, while rummaging through some old boxes, Beverly comes across a mixtape made by her parents. Excited, she throws it in an aging walkman, only to accidentally destroy the tape. All that’s left is a list of odd sounding songs from the most obscure bands imaginable. If names like Bikini Kill and The Quick don’t ring a bell, you better hold your breath. They’re actually two of the more popular groups on the list. Beverly decides that through hell or high water, she must find every one of these songs.

Eventually she teams up with a fellow outcast named Ellen, a Korean girl who just moved in down the street, and Nicki, the chain-smoking “freak” girl at school that everyone is both repulsed by and terrified of. Ellen’s got a computer, which allows them to locate some of the songs, and Nicki’s a walking music encyclopedia, which allows them to find songs that even the internet doesn’t know about. Throw in Anti, the aging hipster who owns a run-down version of a High Fidelity record store, and Beverly is able to peck her way through the list.

Seth Gordon will direct.

A side effect of this journey is her connection with the music, which, to her grandmother’s chagrin, starts to change her. Beverly starts to punk herself out, if only to get closer to these people she never knew. One of the great story touches Menear uses, is he places one impossible song on the list – a song listed as “The song that reminds me of that day in the park.” It becomes the ultimate impossible goal for Beverly. To find the single song that truly defines her parents,’ the song which will allow her to understand who they really are. But how do you find a song without an artist or a title? How do you find a song that you’ve never heard before? Watching and wondering if Beverly will ever find this song is both heartbreaking and riveting, as we end up wanting her to find closure just as much as she does.

As people struggle to compare this to something for reference, I think the obvious example is going to be Ghost World. However in that film, the girls were under the delusional perception that they were hip and cool. Beverly and her friends have no such delusions. They know they’re the outcasts, the losers, the wannabes. And it’s that angle that gives them and the script so much charm. They’re the true underdogs, and we desperately want for them to win.

There’s so many things I loved about this script. Like the contrasts. For instance, how this awkward nerdy girl had a pair of the coolest parents ever. Her attempts to change, to become like them, in order to understand them, and not quite understanding what she’s doing along the way. Like paying lip service without knowing how to sing. It works perfectly. Even the grandmother, who could’ve been a throwaway character, has a vested interest in the journey. She already lost one daughter to that lifestyle. Now she must watch idly as her granddaughter eases into that world as well, knowing that she’s helpless to stop her.

I’m still trying to figure out why this script resonated with me so much when so many others like it fail. Maybe it’s the exploration of people through music. Maybe it’s the obvious love Menear has for his characters. Maybe it’s that he’s not afraid to put those same characters through hell. Whatever it is, it worked. I’d probably say this is the best script I’ve ever read about music. And that’s coming from someone who hates punk-rock.

This is one of those rare scripts that gets it all right. I have no choice but to put it in my Top 25. (by the way, here’s another take on the script)

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

What I learned: Although it’s not done here in Mixtape, I’m seeing it done more and more these days. Back in the old world, it was considered script suicide to list actual songs in your screenplay. For various reasons (mainly that the writer ain’t gonna be the one choosing the music when the movie comes out, but also who’s to say that the reader even knew what song you were talking about) it was one of those rules you simply didn’t break. But Youtube has changed all that. Nowadays, you can list a song with a note (“check it out on Youtube”) and allow the reader to instantly hear the song you have in mind. You still run the risk of turning the reader off if they hate the song, but now they at least know what song you’re talking about. I know I’m in the minority, but I’m one of those people who believes that as more and more people read PDFs on their computers and ebooks, that multimedia writing will become more common (which I favor). That means music, pictures, and videos embedded right there in the document. I’m interested to hear what you guys think of this practice? In favor of it? Or would you rather stay old school?

note: If you look to the Top 25 list, a few of the scripts near the bottom half have moved around. Some of these scripts just stay with me while others fade away, forcing me juggle them around. The Voices is up there too now.

Not all the Black List scripts smell like roses. Inevitably, you’re going to run into a script with some thorns. It’s not that the script is “bad.” I like to think of it as you and the writer have different gardens in mind. I’ve stepped into a few of these gardens. And not surprisingly, they’re all comedies. I say “not surprisingly” because this darn comedy genre is so stinkin’ polarizing. It’s inherent in its make-up. It’s probably why my dislike of 500 Days Of Summer (the movie, not the script) caused such a backlash in my Top 9 Movies Post. What others thought was hilarious and real, I found slow and plodding. You can’t spell plodding without “odd” though and my sense of humor is definitely that. I prefer the understated ambiguity of the humor in, say, Rushmore, to the loud demonstrative laughs you find in films like Wedding Crashers. The thing that always confuses me, though, is these comedies that *everybody* loves. Movies like The Hangover and Dumb and Dumber. Despite their wacky zanyness, they have uber-mass appeal. How do they do it? I guess when you’re able to answer that, you’re ready to open your own studio. For better or for worse, here are some Black List scripts that weren’t for me. Just opinions folks. Smother them in bowls of salt.

DOC AND HOWIE WHACK A GRANNY by Steve Leff
18 votes
Premise: “Two men, Doc and Howie, inadvertently kill an elderly woman when they neglect to help her carry groceries up stairs. The incident puts them in position to get closer to the woman’s attractive granddaughters, and they struggle with deciding whether to tell the women the truth about the circumstances under which they met.”
Is Doc and Howie Whack a Granny the “Dude, Where’s My Car” of this generation? (or maybe I should ask, is “Dude, Where’s My Car” really a remnant of a previous generation?) I’ll leave that up to you. As for me, I felt like someone looking for a Christmas party and stumbling into a Vegas Halloween bash. Vulgar for vulgar’s sake shuts me down faster than a bad sweet potato. By page 3 our characters are discussing the intricacies of low vaginas. By page 5 how ball sweat affects blowjobs. I’m not going to pretend like I’m above this kind of humor. It’s just not my thing. If there’s something to take away from the script, it’s that they nailed the title. And when you nail a title, you get a ton of reads (I mentally put it at the top of my read pile after going through the list). Despite my post-Christmas Scroogeish-ness on “Granny”, this was one of the higher rated comedies on the list and I can see it playing strong to a young audience. Check it out and let me know what you think.

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack
12 votes
Premise: “A divorcing couple tries to maintain their friendship while they both pursue other people.”
This is the one script from the list that made me sit up and go “huh?” I didn’t get it at all. I can’t stand scripts with muddy setups and this one came in like Arnold Swarchenegger at the end of Predator. The beginning is a big montage. Although we watch Celeste and Jesse get married, they also get divorced. Except when their divorce happens it’s never mentioned. For that reason, when the real script begins and their friends yell at them in reference to their divorce, I had to stop, rewind, check the montage again to see where they got divorced. It wasn’t there. And that’s when I officially checked out. If the writers aren’t taking the time to make things clear, then why even bother reading it? But even if that’d never happened, the script has a very strange tone to it. Celeste and Jesse have all these inside jokes going on, which they laugh at but nobody else does. Problem is, we don’t laugh at them either. It’s like those two best friends at a party who only care about making each other laugh, and actually revel in the fact that nobody else knows what they’re talking about. Wonderful for those two. But to everyone else they’re flashing a big fat sign that reads: “You’re not invited.” I never felt like I was invited to this story.

BETTY’S READY by Jaylynn Bailey
11 votes
Premise: “After she discovers that her boyfriend is gay, a high schooler, determined to lose her virginity before she goes to college, pursues several possible ‘candidates’ before she finds love with her geeky neighbor, who has always loved her.”
More vulgarity, this time from Miss Jaylynn! I swear I’m not a prude but if in the first couple of pages a female character likens a smell to “day-old twat” I immediately know I’m not the audience for this film. I do find it strange though, that the scripts Hollywood seems to be favoring from women these days are the ones that take on an almost male-like vile-ness. I Want To Fuck Your Sister, Desperados, The Hand Job. I guess the idea of a girl being able to out-dirty the guys has a delicious shock value to it. However, none of this is the reason I didn’t dig Betty’s Ready. My problem was the character of Betty herself, who from the get go was fairly angry and bitter. I simply couldn’t identify with her.

GOOD LOOKING by Chris McCoy
8 votes
Premise: “In a future where dating services perfectly match soulmates, a man rejects the person chosen for him.”
Dreamworks bought this early in the year. I think there’s something in this premise, but it’s not quite there yet. In fact, I’d be interested if the voters read a newer draft of the script, as the one I read was the draft that sold. Funny story – as I started reading this, I realized it sounded familiar. After a few pages I said, “Hey, I think I already read this.” And indeed I did. I reviewed it all the way back in April!

ALLIES WITH BENEFITS by Elizabeth Wright Shapiro
5 votes
Premise: “The female President of The United States falls for her old college fling, the now Prime Minister of England.”
All the way on the other end of the spectrum from “Betty’s Ready” (and I guess partly contradicting my previous statement) is Allies and Benefits. This female-written script is as safe as a down pillow, and I think that’s its biggest problem. You know how even the best down pillows have the feathers sticking out that occasionally prick you? That remind you comfort can’t be enjoyed unless you understand dis-comfort? Allies With Benefits didn’t have any of those feathers. It was too smooth. It sorta reminded me of the pilot episode of Grey’s Anatomy (yes, I saw the pilot episode of Grey’s Anatomy!) but with world leaders as main characters. That’s something else I couldn’t get past. A president’s life is so out of the ordinary that unless the movie is written to specifically explore that unique life, it’s difficult to identify with them. Putting your leaders in a romantic comedy is even more daring because you have to balance this complicated ordered world they’re a part of with the fluffy romantic comedy conventions we expect from the genre. It’s like trying to slam peanut butter and mayonnaise together. Everybody likes peanut butter. Everybody likes mayonnaise. But I think the Canadians are the only ones who like them together. There are some cute moments here and it passes the poster test (you can see the poster to this movie without blinking) but I wanted more pricks. I wanted more dirt. Highly intrigued to hear what other rom-com lovers have to say about this.

note: If you’re looking for Black List scripts, they’re around. Ask in the comments section.

Hip hip hooray! It’s the new year. I’m not much for resolutions but I have set myself a few big goals for 2010. The first is to post my plans for Scriptshadow – some changes I want to make, some additions, goals to get more of you working as professional writers. But it’s such a huge post that writing it feels like I’m tackling War and Peace. I’ll try to have it up some time in the next couple of weeks. If I don’t, feel free to give me a nudge. While I deal with that, let’s turn it over to Roger, who’s reviewing today’s very cool sounding script, “Kingdom Come.” Why they haven’t adapted Lord Of The Flies in 20 years is beyond me. Whoever has the rights, make it happen. Do it right and it would be huge.

Genre: Horror
Premise: When the entire staff of an isolated reform school disappears in the middle of the night, the rebellious students not only must survive each other – they come face-to-face with a much darker force lurking in the icy wilderness. Supernatural Lord of the Flies with echoes of The Shining.
About: Alex McAulay wrote the novels Bad Girls (MTV Books), Shelter Me, Oblivion Road, and Lost Summer. Chris Sivertson is the writer-director who adapted the Jack Ketchum novel, The Lost. He also directed I Know Who Killed Me (for which he won a Razzie Award – although I’m guessing that had more to do with Lindsay Lohan being in the movie) and Wicked Lake. The script made the rounds a couple of months ago but ultimately did not sell.
Writer: Alex McAulay & Chris Sivertson
Details: Draft dated 9/9/09

Do we get a reimagining of this classic tale?

The first time I heard of this script the person referring to it used the phrase, “Harry Potter on Acid”. I love wizards like Tiger Woods loves extramarital sex. Now imagine my demeanor, think of the lust in my geek loins when my eyeballs locked on that phrase. Harry Potter on Acid, holy fuck dude! I’ve never done acid before, but I understand it has Fuck Shit Up Properties. Of course I want to read about the world where boy wizards trip balls and where everything seems so psychedelically scary, that it’s like the writer’s pen is wielded with that specific Hallucinogenic Edge that men like Hunter S. Thompson and Alejandro Jodorowsky know so well.

What I learned: Don’t get so sidetracked with your supernatural and fantastical elements that you forget about your real story. Fantasy works best when it’s about people that feel like real human beings. And for this reason, I feel like “Kingdom Come” tells a situation, not a story. Stories are about people, not scenarios (or MacGuffins, or monsters, or portals to other dimensions, or explosions). Think of the potential for conflict when two people, who clash about everything, are put in the same room together. Now lock the doors. Your story is about what happens between these two people when they start to interact. It’s not about the walls of the room they’re in (even if the walls are closing in on them, about to smash them). In the same way, if you create a microcosm, focus on the human drama that arises between the characters. Not on that demon that lurks in the shadows, waiting to fuck shit up. Okay, maybe you can give him some of the limelight, just don’t let him take over the show. Unless it’s the Crypt Keeper.
He’s okay.

LAST REVIEW OF THE YEAR!

Genre: Coming-of-Age
Premise: A recently fired salesman comes home to find out he’s been kicked out of his house by his wife. So he takes his things, which she’s left outside, sets them up in the front lawn, and starts living there.
About: As many of you know, this is my favorite script! So I decided to finally review the damned thing! What a novel idea, right? To actually review the script that I like the most. So yes, the rumors are true. First time screenwriter/director Dan Rush will be directing Will Ferrell in the movie. Producer Wyck Godfrey describes the movie (which starts shooting March 1st) as Leaving Las Vegas with the humor of Bad Santa. I thought about that long and hard and determined that that’s a pretty accurate way to describe it. As a side note, this script finished Top 15 (I believe) on the 2007 Black List.
Writer: Dan Rush (based on short story “Why Don’t You Dance” by Raymond Carver)
Details: 110 pages (Draft 4/4/08)

Some people have asked why this script is number one on my list. They argue that it’s a very ordinary if not quirky tale about a guy who sits on his ass for 90% of the movie. Well as I’ve always argued, the one thing you can’t control as a writer, the one x-factor you’re helpless against, is if the person who’s reading your script identifies with the subject matter. A guy who doesn’t like vampires is never going to like Twilight. A girl who doesn’t like coming-of-age movies is never going to like Garden State. There are movies with universal themes that can sometimes pull people in no matter what the subject matter is, but for the most part, if the person isn’t into what you’ve chosen to write about, you’re dead to them from page 1.

To take that notion even further, to truly connect with a reader, you must create a character that the reader feels is, in many ways, them. This is probably obvious. If you go back to the movies that have moved you the most, chances are, there was some key element of the main character that you yourself were experiencing in your own life. The more intense and life-affecting that element is, the more drawn in you became. Like subject matter, this is something you have no control over as a writer. Some people are going to identify with your character, others will not. Of course you can shape and mold your character to be relatable, likable, sympathetic, and altogether impossible to dislike. But it won’t be the same as if the reader connects with the very core of that person. When a reader discovers a character who they feel is them, they don’t read your story, they experience it.

Everything Must Go came along at a time when things weren’t exactly going my way. Without getting into specifics, there were several situations that made me feel like the world had turned against me. And the way I decided to deal with this misfortune was to basically say, “Fuck You.” I planted my feet firmly in the ground, crossed my arms, and told the world I wasn’t moving. That stance led to an interesting journey that was at many times very painful, but ultimately allowed me to discover a part of myself I never knew. When Nick Porter, the main character in “Everything Must Go,” refuses to be kicked out of his house by his wife and, in protest, starts living in his front yard, I felt like I had met a kindred spirit, a man who understood exactly what I was going through.

The 40-something Nick isn’t happy he fucked up his life. It just happened. A regional sales manager at the kind of company you’d forget two minutes after I told you, Nick’s past has been embattled with alcoholism. Although he’s doing better, a past “incident” at work has convinced his superiors it’s time to let him go. Confused, angry, beat-up, Nick heads home, hoping for some support from his wife, only to find out when he gets there, that she’s gone. And the doors are locked. And the locks have been changed. And all of his things (furniture, clothes, stereo, poker table) have been dumped “violently” on his front lawn. In a span of a couple of hours, Nick’s entire life has imploded.

This brings up the question, when you can’t go home and you can’t go to work, where do you go? Well, Nick decides not to go anywhere. In a display of defiance, he sets up all of his furniture and things right there on the front lawn….and starts living there. It’s his big “Fuck You” to the forces that be.

To make things easier, Nick positions his chair right next to his mini-fridge stuffed with as much beer as it will hold. He then simply begins watching people in the neighborhood go about their lives. This is where the meat of the story is, as Nick begins interacting with the spectrum of unique characters that reside on his block and who he’s never really paid attention to up to this point. These include his annoying stickler neighbor, a pregnant woman who just moved in across the street, and a loner 13 year old boy.

This was yet another area where my personal experiences helped me identify with Nick. A while back, I had lived in an apartment complex for about three years. For the most part, I kept to myself, and didn’t know anybody. When I finally moved out, I spent three days lugging my things down to my car. In those three days, I met nearly everyone in the complex. Some of the nicest coolest people I’ve ever met in my life! And the irony was, I was never going to see them again! This is similar to the experience Nick goes through. I felt like Nick Porter and I were the same person.

Nick interacts with these people with varying degrees of success. His sole purpose seems to be to keep his fridge stacked with beer, an increasingly difficult goal because his wife has frozen his bank account, his company has come to take his car, and the police show up to inform him that he’s not allowed to have his things on the front lawn, as it’s a violation of city code. With literally nowhere to go, Nick is on the brink of being homeless.

But luckily he stumbles into a loophole. The Texas Code allows anyone to hold a yard sale for a maximum of six days. So by throwing up a yard sale sign, Nick buys himself roughly one week (ticking time bomb) to figure out what to do with his life. The funny thing is, the yard sale actually begins to attract customers. However Nick refuses to sell any of his personal things, despite that fact that he’s dirt broke.

And that’s where the power of Everything Must Go comes from. The yard sale becomes a stand in for who Nick Porter is – all the things he’s accumulated up to this point in his life. That coffee table you put your feet up on every day for seven years? That overpriced television you spent four months of overtime saving up for. The stereo you’d turn on every night after mixing a whiskey sour. These are the things that defined your life for the past 15 years. Imagine if you had to give them away. How difficult that would be. Watching Nick struggle with this, and eventually accept it, is one of the more powerful moments I’ve ever experienced while reading a script.

Everything Must Go is not a “perfect” screenplay. I’m sure there are things you can pick apart in it. You could even make the argument that the main character is passive the whole way through (although I’d argue that because he’s taking a stand, he’s being active). Still, the things it does right, it does exceptionally well. As if everything else wasn’t awesome enough, the script even throws in a shocking little twist ending. All of that combined with the personal connection I felt for Nick Porter is why I have this at number 1. I can’t wait to see the finished film.

Note: I know I was initially skeptical about Will Ferrell playing the part of Nick, but the more I think about it, the more I think the casting works. The script is dark, but with glorious moments of black humor. Throwing a serious actor in there may not have allowed those sparks of humor to shine, and this script needs those beats to add some levity. The key is going to be how much ham Ferrel throws in the oven. If he underplays it, it could be awesome. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

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

What I learned: Sympathy sympathy sympathy. Quickest way to have us fall for your characters is to put them in an unfortunate situation. Maybe your female hero just lost her baby. Maybe your hero just lost his house in a fire. Maybe your character just got dumped by the love of his life. When we see a character who life is pissing on, we immediately sympathize with them and want them to do well. But an extension of that rule is this, make sure your sympathy is proportionately related to how potentially unlikable your hero would be under normal circumstances. So for example. Nick is a soulless, selfish, snarky alcoholic. That’s not exactly “fall in love with him” material. So what Rush does here, is he creates multiple situations to create sympathy. Nick didn’t just get fired. That wouldn’t be enough. He also loses his wife, is locked out of his house, and has his car taken away. We need that many sympathetic things to like Nick.

I’m not a huge fan of end-of-the-year lists but I know others are. And they’re always great conversational pieces. So I’ll go ahead and list my Top 10 favorite films of the year, and follow it up with my Top 8 biggest disappointments. Have fun tearing it apart. :)

10) Nothing – How pathetic is it when a whole year goes by and I can’t even recommend ten movies?

9) Star Trek – Star Trek is back! These days, whenever a moviegoer plops down in the cinema for a summer blockbuster and hates the experience, they’re often bombarded with the tried and true, “You’re supposed to turn your mind off and just enjoy it!” I hate that reasoning. It assumes that we have some knob on our bodies we can adjust to help us enjoy different kinds of movies. Like it’s our fault that we didn’t enjoy the film. As I’ve grown older, these summer movies, these films that cater to the lowest common denominator (ahem, Transformers 2) seem to install this attitude. If you didn’t like it, then *you’re* the problem. Then Star Trek comes along and shows us what a summer movie is supposed to be. It doesn’t ask you to do anything to enjoy it. It just plays out enjoyably. Star Trek probably made a lot of execs grown. “Fuck, now we have to actually make good movies next summer.”

8) The Hurt Locker – When I started watching The Hurt Locker, I was shocked by how into it I was. It didn’t take me long to figure out why. You know how I always talk about the importance of “ticking time bombs” in scripts? Well this movie was built around *literal* ticking time bombs. And not in the cheesy McGyver way, but rather inside a specific world we hadn’t seen before. Genius! It also had a brash leading mean who brought back memories of Lethal Weapon Mel Gibson or Star Wars Harrison Ford. A guy who didn’t give a shit, who was fearless. Holy shit! I was convinced I was watching the best film of the year. – But then something happened. The Hurt Locker lost its way. It made the classic screenwriting mistake. It eliminated a clear goal for the protagonist. We started getting this introspective artsy character piece that was supposed to be profound, but instead just left us wondering, when the hell is the next bomb going to blow up? And when exactly did our kick ass main character turn emo? Ugh! Where had my movie gone? I also think they made a key mistake towards the end. The final bomb is strapped to a man…*we didn’t know.” Therefore we had no personal investment in whether he lived or died. So why did I care if our hero saved him or not? I kept thinking, “Imagine if this bomb was strapped to that boy instead.” That’s an ending I would’ve been biting my nails on. The Hurt Locker still makes my Top 10 because the first half is so strong and because competition wasn’t that fierce. But man, I think about what could’ve been…

7) Paranormal Activity – I have a love/hate relationship with improvised movies. I hate them because when they’re bad, they’re worse than a high school play. I love them because improvisation stifles predictability. Logical screenwriting structure is thrown out the window to favor what the actors are feeling in the moment, and these moments tend to be the only time I’m surprised when I watch a film anymore. Because the writer is stifled, I no longer know what to expect. Done well, this can be thrilling. Paranormal Activity was one of those times where it was done well. We’re not talking Deniro and Streep here, but I thought the actors did a convincing job. I loved the slow build up, the resistance to too many scares. It made the scary moments pack that much more of a punch. I’m not sure if I’ll get blasted for this choice, because I don’t know if the Paranormal Activity backlash has started yet (Is it 2 months or 3 months after surprise hits? I’m never clear on this). But I liked PA a lot.

6) The Hangover – The Hangover is the perfect comedy. I don’t mean it’s the best comedy ever or even that it should be put in the same sentence as classics like Dumb and Dumber or Caddyshack. I mean it’s the kind of comedy idea that you hear and you immediately know it’s a movie. I’ve stated this before but when I read the script, I knew immediately it was going to be a hit. They couldn’t screw it up. Even when Phillips and his boys fiddled with the jokes, even when they took out some of the cool nuances of the original draft, they still couldn’t mess it up. Because the premise and the structure were so sound. Now did I think the movie was as good as the script? No. I thought the Tyson stuff was silly (never a fan of bringing in “real-life” celebrities for cheap laughs) and I didn’t like the addition of the baby. But it never mattered. This was going to be a good movie no matter how much they fucked with it.

5) Inglorious Basterds – Had you told me that one of my favorite films of the year would be a Quentin Tarantino movie, I would’ve laughed in your face. Then probably spit in it. I’ve never been a huge fan of Tarantino because I prefer for the story to be the star, not the director. But I’ve warmed up to Quentin over the years, mainly because I realized we need more people like him. We need the anti-establishment or else all we’ll get is establishment. And I can’t imagine how establishment establishment will get if it has no competition. Basterds has the best opening scene I’ve seen in a film in as long as I can remember (maybe of all time). The way that scene is crafted is just so magnificent. The way we shift points of view, the way we’re carefully fed information, the dread we feel, the importance put on the most mundane things (milk), the introduction of a such a great actor, the seemingly endlessness of it. We have no idea where it’s going to end up, all we know is that it’s going to be horrible. And we’re crawling out of our clothes wondering when it’s going to happen. Does the rest of the movie live up to that scene? No. I’d offer myself as a slave to Tarantino if he promises never to put Eli Roth in a film again. And don’t get me started on Brad Pitt’s acting. But this movie was so outrageous, so different, so unpredictable, and had such a great cinematic touch, that I cannot deny it a place in the Top 10.

4) Sunshine Cleaning – I love Amy Adams. I love Amy Adams so much I watched Julie and Julia, where some horrible callous hairdresser gave her the worst hairstyle in the world. I enjoy the innocence and non-presumptuous she brings to every role. She’s the anti-actress, the way actresses are supposed to be: invisible. This quirky independent film didn’t fall into all the usual quirky independent traps – namely patting itself on its back for being so quirky and independent (ahem – Away We Go). Sunshine Cleaning was always about the story, and the story covered a subject matter we’d never seen on film before: a cleaning business for crime scenes. The contrast between the beautiful simplicity of this girl trying to make it in the world and the horrifying messiness of these crime scenes she has to clean up is wonderful. And what a great symbolic gesture it was to her own struggle to clean up her life. An unassuming but surprising little gem.

3) Taken – (note: I appear to be speeding towards dementia, as Taken came out in 2008 – however I will still leave it here because I have nothing else to replace it with!) Bring out the Taken bashers! I’m ready for’em. Okay look, am I going to tell you that this is some complex thought-provoking look at kidnapping? No. But Taken gets the key ingredient to this kind of film right. It uses the first act to establish a believable relationship between a daughter and a father desperate to get back into her life. That way when she gets kidnapped, we’re just as desperate to save her as Liam Neeson is. Some people have stated that the first act was too long and that the movie should’ve started with the girl getting kidnapped. Wrong-o times a billion. We wouldn’t have known her and therefore wouldn’t have given a shit if she lived or not. – Then of course you have the phone call, the single best trailer moment all year. When Liam Neeson says he’ll find him and he’ll kill him, I got chills.

2) Avatar – Avatar is on a scary run. I saw that just this Monday it made 19 million dollars. On a MONDAY. This is 3 million MORE than it was making during the weekdays LAST week. How is this film making more money as it goes on? Doesn’t that, like, go against every conventional box office rule in the book? To me, it’s clear. Avatar is the experience of the decade. It’s everything the prequels were supposed to be. A brand new universe. A film that gives us something new. Groundbreaking special effects (even if they were iffy in places). There were moments in Avatar that reminded me of the feeling I had going to the movies as a child. Specifically the flying and montage sequences. Those really captured what film is supposed to be about. In hindsight, I admit that yes, the story’s simple. But everything else is so complex that it doesn’t matter. As I pointed out in my review, there are all these little faults you notice during the film, yet somehow, when you add them all up, they equal a mindblowing piece of entertainment. This is the only film of the year I’ve decided to go back and see again in the theater.

1) District 9 – I waited 2 years for this movie. You’re not supposed to go into a film with high expectations. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment. But District 9 not only met my expectations. It exceeded them. Why? Well, much like my point regarding Paranormal Activity, the improvisational nature of this movie had me baffled. The film didn’t seem to be following any logical story structure I could understand. As a result, I had no idea what was coming around the corner. But the main reason I loved this film were all the key choices it made that made it feel real. First, the improvisation. People talked how people really talked. Second, the documentary angle. Digital handheld cameras and seeing people interviewed put us in a mindset that we were watching something that really happened. Third, the setting. Every single fucking alien film I know of was set in America. This was set in a place none of us have ever been. Just being outside of Hollywood’s preferred environment legitimized the film. Fourth, it turned the alien invasion on its head. They didn’t come here to enslave us. They crashed here and we enslaved them. Pretty much every single cliché we identify with these kinds of films is broken. And I haven’t even mentioned the effects, which were fucking amazing for 30 million dollars. The ship looked real, the aliens looked real, the weapons looked real. This movie did next to nothing wrong.

Didn’t see: Precious, Moon, The Road, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Big Fan, Zombieland, the Squeakel, Sherlock Homes, Bright Star

My 8 Biggest Disappointments:

500 Days Of Summer – Oh man did I dislike this movie. One of my favorite scripts of the year fell apart on the screen and I have three people to blame: Jospeh Godon-Levitt, Stupid Zooey-Deschenl, and the director. First off, I hate Zooey Deschenel. She’s a pretty girl but she’s a fucking horrible actress. Those big blue doe eyes don’t scream out “adorable” to me. They scream out “I’m a fucking deer in the headlights and don’t know shit about acting.” I never believe anything that comes out of her mouth. As for Gordon-Levitt, I guess he’s trying to become the next DiCaprio, but I don’t think it’s working. He so underplays this part as to become nearly non-existent. I know this isn’t a Hugh Grant rom com but lighten up dammit! Looking at that hound dog face for 2 hours had me raiding the local pharmacy for industrial sized bottles of Prozac. As far as the director, the script itself had an indie sensibility but what I loved about it was that it moved. It had an energy to it. Everything was so slowed down here to the point where I felt we were underwater. Ugh, easily the biggest disappointment of the year.

Away We Go – I’m not going to say that this was a highly anticipated film of mine. But I like a good road-trip movie and I felt if Sam Mendes was going to go this far out of his comfort zone that it must be a great script. Oh God was I wrong. This film is everything that’s wrong with the independent scene and very well may be the death of all quirkiness in cinema. Oh, they’re so different! Oh, they’re having a baby but they’re both aging hippies so they need to find a place to raise a family! Oh the humanity! Oh, their aging friends talk about sex right in front of their own children! Har har har! How funny is that! I’ll give you a hint. It isn’t! The only thing that made me laugh in this movie was the promotional campaign. For reasons I can’t even begin to fathom, they turned their marketing agenda into “Maya Rudolph for an Oscar.” You’d see interviews where the actors would say, in all seriousness, “Oh, Maya Rudolph. What can you say about her? She’s Maya Rudolph. One of the most talented actresses in the world.” Ummmm…did I miss something ? Was this not the same actress who was in four skits in five years on Saturday Night Live? This movie was a disaster on every level.

Up – This is my “bye-bye at least 5000 of my readers” post. I didn’t like this movie. I thought the first 10 minutes were easily 10 of the best minutes I’ve spent in a theater all year. But after that I felt the movie was for kiddies. I think the official moment I tuned out was the talking dogs. It was just too weird. I couldn’t buy into it. As the audience died of laughter every time one of them would go “Squirrel,” I cringed. The bird was weird and the villain felt cliché. I just wasn’t into this.

Terminator Salvation – I don’t know why I keep thinking this franchise is going to revive itself. I was excited for Terminator 3. I was excited for The Sarah Conner Chronicles. And I was excited for this. Yet each one let me down (well, I guess T3 wasn’t that bad). The thing with Salvation was that I thought McG was an underrated director who had something to prove. The addition of Christian Bale and Cameron’s new find, Worthington, only further enhanced my anticipation of the movie. Then the trailer came out and it was actually pretty badass. But McG made the same mistake so many directors make. They don’t understand story. Terminator Salvation wasn’t *about* anything. There was nothing driving the story *at all*. What is it the characters wanted? What were their goals? They were all murky and weak. And, as a result, we got a murky and weak movie. This was the death of the franchise for me. I won’t get excited about Terminator movies anymore….although the idea I heard online of sending Bale back to present-day London did sound pretty cool. :)

Extract – I’m starting to think Mike Judge had all the stars aligned for him in Office Space. It was that perfect con-flux that so rarely happens in the movie universe, where every choice resulted in perfection. Now that I’ve seen Extract, I realize that when Judge’s unique sense of humor doesn’t fall together just the way it’s intended to, it’s as flat as a pancake. And Extract globs along like its characters are stuck in that extract. I’m not sure where to put the blame but I’d probably start with the casting. Bateman doesn’t quite understand the Judge universe, and although Affleck is the liveliest of the bunch, he seems to be working inside his own Affleckian universe. The other problem is that Judge forgets to emphasize the key plot point which drives the story – which is that Bateman stands to become very rich if he can sell the company. But the scene where this announcement is made comes off as an afterthought, and Bateman barely acknowledges it. Since these are the stakes that drive his character and therefore the entire movie (the idea is, if he can’t stave off this lawsuit, he stands to lose *everything*) the fact that they don’t seem important to him or the plot undermines the whole drive of the film.

Up In The Air – This wasn’t a colossal letdown but it was a letdown. I wanted to give George Clooney a chance. I really did. But that shit-eating grin he always wears combined with that bobble-head move he always does confirmed my biggest fears, that he wasn’t right for the part. Thank GOD Anna Kendrick was in this movie cause without her, it wouldn’t have been worth the price of a matinee. Taking in this movie, a couple of script problems popped up that I hadn’t noticed before. First, it doesn’t really make sense that Clooney doesn’t like Kendrick’s impersonal way of firing people. Clooney is Mr. Impersonal. That’s his entire character – living a life that allows him to be as impersonal as possible. So that he all of a sudden *cares* about the people he’s firing – I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense. I could sense that Reitman knew this and his solution was to fudge his way around it. Second, the movie limps to the finish line. Why? Because there’s no plot. Every time you write a character-driven piece that’s plot light, you better know that your ending is going to have problems. Why? Well, since the plot is essentially what your character is doing, what he’s after, if there isn’t any of it, than your character has nothing to do. The last 20 minutes of this film are a wandering mess because nobody has anything to do. There’s no goal. No direction. It was unfortunate. Cause I was sure this would be in my top 10.

Invictus – I actually didn’t see this. But my disappointment lies in the fact that they made the film in the first place.