Genre: Period/Drama/Comedy?
Premise: A group of Allied men is tasked with going into Europe during World War 2 and saving all the culturally important pieces of art before they’re stolen by the Nazis.
About: George Clooney co-wrote and directed this film. The film stars himself, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, and Cate Blanchett. It was originally supposed to be released in 2013, but Clooney couldn’t finish it in time, so it’ll be released February 7th. This is Clooney’s 4th writing effort (2 features and one TV movie). Co-writer Grant Heslov is Clooney’s co-writer in crime, working with him on two of those movies, but is probably better known as an actor who’s appeared in over 60 TV shows and films.
Writers: George Clooney & Grant Heslov (based on the book, “The Monuments Men” by Robert M. Edsel).
Details: 4th draft – June 15, 2012

The Monuments Men feels like that odd-duck of a movie writer-director George Clooney is trying to make more of in an increasingly derivative Hollywood that caters too heavily to 13 and 14 year olds. You gotta love Clooney for taking on the likes of billionaire Daniel Loeb recently, who tried to trash the studio he invested in (Sony) for making so many duds, which Clooney said was “dangerous to our industry” for someone who didn’t know jack about filmmaking to say.  Indeed, the more you push studios to only go with the super safe bets, the less originality we’re going to get. Clooney believes in taking chances, in making adult movies like The Monuments Men. And I’m all in with him. We need to celebrate when our biggest and brightest stars create diversity in the market. If all I’m going to get is Transformers movies for the rest of my life, I’m walking off the stage without finishing my speech (Miss SS: “That’s the first time I thought Michael Bay might be an android that someone forgot to charge all the way.”)

So I bet you’re thinking, “Wow, Carson must’ve really loved the script for The Monuments Men with that kind of introduction,” right? Oh how wrong you’d be! You see, I want diversity just like the Cloonester. But I want diversity with GOOD WRITING, not the wandering unclear narrative that The Monuments Men turned out to be.

So it’s 1942, and Professor Frank Stokes brings it to the president’s attention that while, yes, millions of people are dying in that little war over in Europe, the bad guys are stealing all the great art and bringing it back to Hitler, which is pretty bad too. Not only that, but guys with grenades and tanks don’t pay much mind to the 900 year old paintings that are inside local churches.  If someone in the know were there, those paintings could be protected, even saved!

He proposes getting a group of men together, stodgy old art-scholar types, men who know the difference between Picasso and Park LaBrea, head directly into the war, and start saving all that art. The prez agrees and off they go, but not before a trailer-perfect basic training montage of all these out-of-shape men trying to climb over a wall.

Of the men we have Granger, a painter, Garfield, a sculptor, Savitz, the president of the Harvard Society For Contemporary Art, Campbell, an architect, and Jean-Claude, director of design at a well-known university.

Once they get to Europe, the men decide to split up, with some going to Normandy, some going to Belgium, etc. etc. From that point on, things get a little unclear. I want to be as nice as possible, but it was hard to keep track of who was where and why. For the most part, these pairs were in the forest, following one lead after another, trying to find any Nazi-stolen paintings they could and getting them back.

As they collect clues, the end of the war nears, and they get closer to the front line of Germans who are stealing this art, eventually figuring out where they’re going to be before they’re there, and trying to head them off at the pass. They’re able to get there, but with the Germans still lingering, and the Russians coming in to claim their share of the loot, it won’t be easy to get all those paintings back.

Sheesh, at 145 pages, this script was a World War in itself.  I felt like I was storming the beaches of Boremandy.  So what is a reader’s biggest fear when he opens a script this big? Why do they always complain when they see a page number this huge? Because 999 times out of 1000, it means the script is UNFOCUSED. It means the writers lost themselves somewhere along the way, following multiple threads and multiple characters into unchartered wars, and couldn’t find their way back to shore.

So guess what The Monuments Men’s biggest problem is. Any takers? Shouldn’t be that difficult.

I’m not sure how many drafts Clooney and Heslov wrote after this (this is the 4th). So maybe they fixed this issue. But boy is this script all over the place. One of the biggest problems is that the monuments men SPLIT UP. They go in pairs to different countries. So instead of getting to see all these personalities work together in a cohesive format, they’re sent off to do their own thing. That seemed like a really odd choice to me. Wouldn’t it have been so much better to see these guys tackle this thing as a group?

And that brings me to THE biggest problem. The goal here is too vague. It’s not clear exactly what everyone has to do. When you give your protagonist a goal, it’s best for them and the audience if it’s specific (Indiana Jones goes after THE ARK, not a bunch of different religious artifacts). Here, everyone’s going after “art.” Not any specific piece of art. Just as much or whatever art they come across.

I couldn’t help but think this script would’ve been a thousand times better if they were going after one very important piece of art, not unlike how they structured Saving Private Ryan. Can you imagine a funnier version of Saving Private Ryan (which is kind of how they’re marketing this anyway) with these old guys searching for a particular painting in a giant war fought by 20 year olds? It may have even been cooler if a really rich criminal hired 7 guys to go into the middle of World War 2 and steal him one of the most important paintings in the world under the cover of all this chaos (hmmm, future heist film?). Or, if they wanted to stick closer to the real story, then at least have them going after a particular group of paintings (that were all being transported together), anything that made the goal singular, as opposed to randomly spread all over the place. Because it was the “randomly spread all over the place” characters that made this thing feel so damn unfocused.

In fact, the likely reason they’re having so much trouble editing this is because they don’t have that clearly laid out goal that EVERYONE is going after. It’s all so spread out and unclear, that likely everyone in the editing room is unclear about who they should be following and who they should give the most time too.

That was another issue. Who was the protagonist? I’m not sure. I’m sure the writers would tell me, “Fuck you. Who says you only need one protagonist?” And I’d say, “Okay, fair point.” But if you don’t have a clear protagonist leading the story, you need to have clarity in the other parts of your story to offset that, and this did not.

Likewise, a ticking time bomb would’ve really helped here. There doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. Characters sit around and talk about the war and we’re unclear where they’re going or how long this is all going to last. Again, this comes back to the goal, that they must “get art,” and not a specific piece of art. How can you create a ticking time bomb on getting something if there’s no clear piece of art (or grouping of art) to get?

Probably the biggest thing that surprised me, though, was how similar all the characters were. Clooney, being an actor, knows how important characters are. But nobody really stuck out here. There was no big personality, no one who popped off the page. Often times I’d be reading and have no idea who was talking. Then I’d look at the character names and realize I didn’t remember who was who. That’s a real killer for a script, especially an ensemble, when you’re writing a bunch of characters and you want those characters to stand out from each other.

This was an ambitious idea, and something that had the potential to be cool. Despite the 1 billion stories that have been told about World War 2, I’d never heard of this one before, so, yeah, why not make a movie out of it?

But the story feels uneven on the page, and I suspect that’s the same thing that’s happening in the editing room. I know Clooney is about trying new things and not always catering to the Hollywood machine, but this script could’ve been so much better had it followed some basic storytelling devices like having a concrete goal and more urgency. The biggest problem with it, though, is that it spread itself too thin. Too many characters in too many places with not enough meat/drama packed in those places to keep us interested. Should be interesting, though, to see what the final cut comes out like.

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

What I learned: When reading a two person scene, it’s usually easy to tell who’s who, even if you’re not looking at the character names. But in a scene with multiple characters, it’s harder, because a lot of people are talking. These scenes are the true test for screenwriters, then, to see if they’re good with dialogue. If the reader is able to tell who’s who in these scenes without looking at the character names, you have done an amazing job differentiating your characters and dialogue. If not, it means all your characters sound the same, and you must put more effort into making them sound different (i.e. one always swears, one stutters, one barely speaks, one can’t stop talking, one’s a wise-ass, one’s a know-it-all, one’s a tough guy, one always sees the worst in everything, one’s religious and always bringing up God). So go into one of your scripts and pick a scene where all of your characters are talking. Without looking at the names, are you easily able to pick out who said what? If so, good job!  If not, fix it!

Genre: Drama/Sci-fi
Premise: Set in the near future, a lonely man begins to fall in love with his artificially intelligent operating system.
About: Spike Jonze’s (director of Where The Wild Things Are and Being John Malkovich) latest! This is only his fourth directing effort in 15 years and his first as both writer and director. Columnist Mark Harris classifies Jonze’s career best when he says: “As he begins his third decade as a restless genre-hopper in the public eye, he remains one of the rare film artists who is equally respected in and out of the mainstream. He’s never been tagged a sellout, and—amazingly, given the accelerated pace of public taste and Internet mood swings—he has never not been cool.” You can read the rest of Harris’s article here.
Writer: Spike Jonze
Details: 125 minutes!

Sequel “Him” coming to a theater near you early 2015

I had a tough week at the movies this Christmas. I had three films I wanted to see. The first was Walter Mitty. I love coming-of-age movies wrapped inside higher concepts and this looked ambitious and imaginative from the trailer. Final verdict though? It certainly wasn’t bad, but something didn’t click. It never quite grasped what it was reaching for and the final act lost major steam.

Then there was Grudge Match. I know, I know. A lot of you pegged this as sucking brass punching bags long before I paid 10 bucks to see it but I thought it looked fun and the casting was genius. Well, wrong again Senor Reeves. This was abysmal. So boring and on the nose and PREDICTABLE. Of course, seeing as it came from the writer of “First Kid” (starring Sinbad), I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Which brings us to Her. This one had the most upside. Spike Jonze continues to be a hell of an interesting director, and like all good artists, you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get from him. The question is, what kind of “not sure” did we get? The kind we run home and tweet about, or the kind that makes us want to throw away our indie-loving Netflix Instant account?

“Her” is set in a not-too-distant Los Angeles future. Everything’s the way it is today except instead of people being obsessed with their phones 18 hours a day, they’re obsessed with them 23 hours a day. In other words, the future versions of ourselves are tuning out the real world even more than they do now.

Enter Theodore, who writes online letters for people who don’t know the difference between a metaphor and a simile (I admit to being one of these unfortunate souls), a job that allows him to exist smack dab in the middle of this reality-sucks universe. Theodore’s had a rough year. His wife left him (notated by classic indie over-exposed flashbacks of the two during happier times) and he’s still not over it, still not able to give himself to another woman.

And thennnnnn…. And then the first ever artificially intelligent operating system is introduced. This is how Theodore meets Samantha, one of those OSs. Samantha is fun, playful, and efficient, and soon begins thirsting for knowledge. But that search for knowledge quickly evolves into a thirst for Theodore! If you know what I mean.

Theodore loves it and begins to feel alive again. Not only has he fallen in love, but this is someone who can never leave him. I mean, it’s an operating system. Where is she going to go! He begins telling his friends, like depressed documentarian Amy (played by Amy Adams) and is surprised when they actually accept the relationship. But for every Facebook, there’s a Myspace, and the more Samantha learns, the more she outgrows Theodore. Will he be able to contain her and save their relationship? Or is he destined, once again, to be sad and alone???

Ben Stiller in Walter Mitty, one of my other Christmas Week watches.

I loved the setup of Her. I liked Theodore. I liked that he wasn’t over-the-top lonely. He still had friends. He still did things occasionally. It wasn’t that typical amateur writer stuff where he’s an all-by-himself 24/7 super-loser.

I liked the discovery of Samantha, their burgeoning relationship, and I liked how relatable it all was. I mean I think most people under 40 have had a relationship by now that began online, and so you’ve been through those experiences, where you’re the one dating “Samantha.” Where you’re questioning how real a person or a relationship is if you’re not physically with that person. That’s what really stood out here, how familiar these experiences felt and how accessible that made the movie.

(spoilers) Unfortunately, the script takes a strange final act turn that destroys that relatability (yes, I know “relatability” is not a real world. Just roll with me). Theodore finds out Samantha is seeing 600 other guys. Umm… WHAT??? Okay, actually, you know what? This will probably be how it happens in the future when you have Artificial Intelligence able to communicate with thousands of people simultaneously. I get that. But for right now? For here in this movie? There is no real-world equivalent to your partner cheating on you with 600 other people. Unless it’s Elliot Spitzer, of course.

And I think that’s important for sci-fi scripts. No, not that Elliot Spitzer cheat on you. But that you make sure the things your characters are going through are relatable to real world people. Or else why would we be interested? How can we be invested? That, to me, is when the movie/script fell apart.

But you could see the writing on the Facebook Wall before that if you were paying attention. Phone calls are BORING to watch. Putting people face-to-face is always better because it’s more interesting to see people duke it out in person. Now there are exceptions. If the phone calls are built into the plot (in something like “The Call” which was about a 9-1-1 Call Center – obviously, phone calls will be needed there), it can work. And the phone calling is definitely a plot requirement in Her. But man, after like 20 scenes with them on the phone together? I’d had enough. It just got too repetitive.

Spike Jonze was, no doubt, aware of this, and he did his best to keep us entertained in other ways. One of the best (and creepiest) scenes was when Samantha got a surrogate woman to have sex with Theodore while she talked to him. Watching the woman come on to Theodore with Samantha’s voice, even though the woman’s lips weren’t moving, was, as Theodore put it, “really weird.”

And there were a few quirky Spike Jonze’isms that kept things fun, such as Paul, Theodore’s co-worker who really really really (like in an unhealthy way) liked Theodore’s letters. And then there was a cyber-sex scene that had Theodore’s partner (voiced by Kristin Wiig, I later found out) telling him to strangle her with her dead cat while he fucked her. A little strange, if not crowd-pleasing. But those moments couldn’t prop up a film that probably would’ve worked best as an extended short, as opposed to a 125 minute feature (125 pages for a script where your character is going to be on the phone 80% of the time?? Come on!).

I came away from this week a little confused, because I watched three sets of writers take three different approaches to their scripts. The Grudge Match writers literally copied and pasted Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat book into their Final Draft document and saved the document as “Grudge Match.” The Walter Mitty writers were a little more ambitious and went off the beaten path, yet lost momentum in their final act as a result (once your main character achieves his goal, as Walter Mitty did at the end of Act 2, it’s hard to keep us interested for another half-hour). And then there’s Her, which took a bunch of chances, and was really the antithesis to Save The Cat screenwriting. Yet without any footing underneath it, it eventually went south as well.

I’m not sure what to make of that. But I think Walter Mitty and Her were definitely more interesting movies than Grudge Match, so maybe the lesson here is to err on the side of taking chances rather than going the obvious route.

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission (barely – I’d say a matinee at a cheap movie theater)
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: The Relatability Quotient. This is especially true with sci-fi. Keep your characters and the experiences they’re going through universal so we can relate to them. When Samantha represented our own online relationships, we identified with Theodore and cared about what happened. Once she started seeing 600 other guys, because we have no real-world equivalent for that, we began to feel disconnected from the story. How’s the Relatability Quotient in your latest screenplay?

Genre: Drama/Family/Fantasy
Premise: An ambitious man watches his life pass him by while sacrificing his dreams to help others. Feeling like a failure later in life, he tries to commit suicide, only to have an angel show him what the world would’ve been like had he never existed.
About: Directed by the great Frank Capra and starring the amazing James Stewart, It’s A Wonderful Life had quite the interesting life of its own. The film didn’t do well initially at the box office, but later became a staple on television networks leading up to Christmas, where audiences eventually fell in love with it. Director (and co-writer) Frank Capra had a fascinating career as a director. He won 3 (count’em THREE) Oscars as a director in the 30s. However, after World War 2, his optimistic endearing films didn’t play to a world whose mood had turned cynical. In fact, “It’s A Wonderful Life” was considered by many critics (at the time) to be the film that signified Capra was no longer in touch with the public. Amazingly, Capra made his last movie nearly 30 years before he died, a rarity for directors.
Writer: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, Jo Swerling, Philip Van Doren Stern and Michael Wilson
Details: 130 minutes

Gotta admit, this one always gets me. Things get a little emotional at the Scriptshadow compound when the end of It’s A Wonderful Life plays. I mean, I’m not confirming any tears here. The so-called “visual evidence” of drenched tissues reported on some websites is completely fabricated and/or tampered with. But as each year passes, and Christmas seems less like a magical experience and more like a government-driven holiday to make us open our wallets, Frank Capra and James Stewart remind me just how sweet and nice the holiday can be.

Yeah yeah, emotions and all that. This is still a screenwriting site, so when I popped “Life” in this year, I still needed an angle to explore the film from. It came to me rather quickly. I realized I wanted to know what made a story timeless. What makes something worthy of coming back to year after year? Because, as you know, the majority of movies we watch leave our brains by the time we’re back in the parking lot. If we could discover even a piece of what makes a screenplay timeless, we could all become better writers.

For those who haven’t seen It’s A Wonderful Life, it’s set during the 20s, 30s and 40s, and centers around an idealistic dreamer named George Bailey. George lives in a tiny town called Bedford Falls that he can’t wait to leave. If there’s a country George isn’t planning on travelling to, it isn’t on the map yet. And so when he hits his 20s, he readies himself for that life of adventure.

But then his father dies, who happened to be the president of the family business, an old Building and Loan that is the only respite the town has from the evil Mr. Potter, a dastardly old weasel who holds the town hostage with crippling loan terms that leave him rich and everyone else desperate. Since the Building and Loan is the only thing standing in the way of him controlling the town completely, Mr. Potter will stop at nothing to take it down.

In order to keep the town out of Potter’s hands, George is forced to take his dad’s place, and thus begins a series of events over the years where the timing is never right for George to get away. Soon he’s married with five children, barely getting by, wondering what his life would’ve been like had he followed his dreams instead of helping others. On the night he plans to commit suicide, an angel appears and gives him a spectacular gift: He shows him what the world would’ve been like if George Bailey had never lived.

Watching It’s A Wonderful Life this time around, it didn’t take long to realize why it’s the gift that keeps on giving. It’s all about universal timeless themes, things that man had to deal with a thousand years ago and things that man will still be dealing with a thousand years from now.

Helping others versus helping yourself is the main theme that plays throughout “Life.” There’s also the theme of sacrifice. There’s the theme of the underdog. There’s the theme of struggle – trying to make it through each day, despite the countless obstacles we face. We have a villain who stands for corruption and greed, something every town, city, and country experiences on some level. We have the power of love. We have the importance of family. These are things that every human being knows. Contrast that with, say, Green Lantern. What, if any, part of that movie connects with audiences on a deeper level? What timeless themes does it explore?  Of course, just covering these bases isn’t enough. You still have to do it in an entertaining way. You still have to construct a story that’s dramatically compelling.  And Capra and his 200 screenwriters achieve that in spades.

One of the biggest reasons It’s A Wonderful Life works is because you freaking LOVE the main character. I mean, could you design a persona more lovable than George Bailey? The man is the ultimate selfless human being. He sacrifices all his dreams to keep the Building and Loan from folding. He sacrifices them again so his brother can go to college. He gives his OWN money to people if the money from the bank isn’t enough. As a kid, he sticks up to the villain, Mr. Potter (heroes who aren’t afraid of villains are always likable)! Even in death, George Bailey is still giving. When he decides to commit suicide, it isn’t out of selfishness. It’s because he knows he’s worth more dead than alive, and that the money his family will get from his life insurance policy will allow them to survive.

It is through all this giving that I began to notice something. These days, screenwriters only make their characters “good” at the beginning of their script, in the form of a “save the cat” moment, designed to make you “like” them. The problem is, the audience has become keen to this device and aren’t as easily tricked. They know when you’re conning them, and therefore a save the cat moment can actually backfire. The reason George Bailey is so damn likable is because his acts of kindness never end! They happen again and again and again. That consistency makes us trust him, makes us believe he’s a good guy. And that’s why we like him so much.

Capra also understood that a great hero is nothing without a great villain. We need someone to root against just as much as we need someone to root for. Mr. Potter is almost as memorable as George Bailey, and I think it’s because of one clever choice. Putting Potter in a wheelchair. Making Potter a “cripple” distracted us from the fact that Potter is essentially a caricature. He is mean just to be mean. But dammit if that wheelchair doesn’t distract us from this truth. Villains aren’t supposed to be in wheelchairs, we say. And so, like a magician’s misdirect, it makes us think that Mr. Potter is indeed, a real person.

Capra is also wise enough to know that if a bad thing is going to happen to our hero, the villain must always be a part of it. What good is having a villain if they aren’t orchestrating your hero’s downfall! So there’s a key scene late where Uncle Billy, George’s bumbling second-in-command, misplaces 8000 dollars, which will ultimately lead George into the tailspin that results in his attempted suicide. I mean sure, you could’ve stopped there. That was enough to get the story where it needed to go. But Capra took that one extra step and made Potter realize Uncle Billy’s mistake, and snatch the erroneously placed money when he wasn’t looking.

Then of course, there’s the ending, where everyone comes to George’s house and gives him money to bail him out. You know this moment because you’ve seen it in dozens of movies. However, this is the ONLY FILM IN HISTORY where it’s actually worked. Why? Because, of course, it’s SET UP. Actually, it’s born out of a thousand set-ups. We’ve seen, over the past two hours, as George has personally helped all of these people. So the fact that they would help him back in his time of need goes unquestioned. Nobody who’s ever used this copycat ending seems to realize this, which is why every subsequent attempt has been a disaster.

It’s A Wonderful Life is about characters. It’s about struggle. It’s about holding true to your values. And it’s about good versus evil. What’s more universal than that??

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

What I learned: Have your hero KEEP being good instead of just giving him a contrived “save the cat” scene early on. This consistency will lead to an authenticity in your character, which will result in us trusting and rooting for him.

The Black List is here! I wish I could write some big fancy opening but I’m busy looking at multi-million dollar houses in the hills I’m going to buy once I win the California Mega-Lottery tonight. So here are the script loglines and my thoughts on each!  What do you guys think?  Too much cancer?

46
HOLLAND, MICHIGAN
 by Andrew Sodroski
Logline: When a traditional Midwestern woman suspects her husband of infidelity, an amateur investigation unravels.
Thoughts: This script is being directed by Errol Morris. This is his first feature. He’s done a bunch of documentaries and is quite simply one of the best documentarians around. If you haven’t seen his old doc, The Thin Blue Line, go rent it. It’s an artistic approach to what’s traditionally a very nuts & bolts style of filmmaking. As for Andrew Sodroski, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of him before. I believe this is his breakthrough screenplay. Good job, Andrew!

44
SECTION 6 by
 Aaron Berg
Logline: An exploration of the formation of Great Britain’s secret intelligence agency, Military Intelligence, Section 6, known as MI6.
Thoughts: The big spec sale of the year. I’ve read the first 15 pages of this script and found it to be very thick and hard to get through. Admittedly, it’s not my type of material, so I decided not to read the rest. The producers went on a campaign to get this script out of the public by getting all script links erased across the web. Which I think backfired. The harder something is to find, the more people want it, so the more people were trading it. So it’s definitely out there. Personally, I think this is a concept sell. Someone really really wanted to make a movie about the formation of MI6. Not a bad idea. Spy scripts sell!

39
FRISCO
 by Simon Stephenson
Logline: A forty-something pediatric allergist, who specializes in hazelnut and is facing a divorce, learns lessons in living from a wise-beyond-her-years terminally ill 15-year-old patient when she crashes his weekend trip to a conference in San Francisco.
Thoughts: I love the description of the main character (pediatric allergist). Never seen that character before in a script. But the “wise-beyond-her-years” terminally ill 15 year old?? Nooooooo. I see so many of these. That being said, these scripts are so execution-dependent that it could go either way.

27
A MONSTER CALLS
 by Patrick Ness
Logline: An adolescent boy with a terminally ill single mother begins having visions of a tree monster, who tells him the truths about life in the form of three stories, helping him to eventually cope with his emotions over his dying mom.
Thoughts: Ahhh, another dying person. Gotta admit, I’m not a huge fan of “dying people” scripts. There’s this overarching tone of depression that makes the read a slog, even if it’s “good.” But this sounds inventive and a little different at least. Ness is a novelist whose book series “Chaos Walking,” is in development to become a film.

25
THE SPECIAL PROGRAM
 by Debora Cahn
Logline: 
The true story of Jack Goldsmith, a young attorney who took charge of the White House’s Office of Legal Counsel, then courageously took on Vice President Cheney and his powerful inner circle when he discovered they were running a number of illegal activities through their so-called “Special Program”.
Thoughts: I’m still convinced that the main execs The Black List sends its voting list to work at a production company that operates out of the White House because there’s always one or two of these political scripts in the top 5, then you never hear from them again (seriously, who goes to watch political movies?). Let’s hope Debora’s script breaks that yucky streak.

24
HOT SUMMER NIGHTS
 by Elijah Bynum
Logline: A teenager’s life spirals out of control when he befriends the town’s rebel, falls in love, and gets entangled in selling drugs over one summer in Cape Cod.
Thoughts: These coming-of-age scripts all depend on voice. Because they’re so common, you have to differentiate yourself somehow. And when you think about it, this is the ideal genre to exhibit your voice, since coming-of-age movies are almost always autobiographical. Elijah looks like a first timer so he could very well be the new voice a script like this needs.

SOVEREIGN 
by Geoff Tock and Greg Weidman
Logline: A man goes to space to destroy the ship that, upon going sentient, killed his wife.
Thoughts: Well it’s a highly ranked science fiction script on the Black List so, duh, I’m going to read it, but this logline doesn’t tell us much. I don’t know what a ship going sentient means. I think these two wrote an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles together, but it may have only been Weidman. Either way, another set of newcomers, which there seem to be a lot of on this list. Which is great!

22
SHOVEL BUDDIES 
by Jason Mark Hellerman
Logline: Over 24 hours, four teenage friends try to complete the “Shovel List” (a will/bucket list) left for them by their best friend before he died of Leukemia.
Thoughts: More cancer! More dying! Actually, at least this cancer dude’s already dead. I like the idea of shifting the “Bucket List” idea to kids. And I like the tight time frame (implies the story’s going to move – very spec-friendly). But it’s hard to sell death to audiences. Nobody likes to be depressed!

20
POX AMERICANA 
by Frank John Hughes
Logline: In the Old West, a group of soldiers go on a mission to slaughter a peaceful tribe in retaliation for another tribe’s attack on a white settlement, only to suffer at the hands of a devastating disease.
Thoughts: Mmmm, suffering at the hands of a disease. That sounds uplifting. Takes a good writer to keep that slow build of a Western interesting enough to keep the Twitter-raised reader of today interested. Frank John Hughes is actually an actor who’s been in a TON of stuff (including Catch Me If You Can and Bad Boys).

REMINISCENCE
 by Lisa Joy Nolan
Logline: An “archeologist” whose technology allows you to relive your past finds himself abusing his own science to find the missing love of his life.
Thoughts: This was a huge sale that was read by everybody (which is probably why it made the list – pure numbers) but probably the more interesting story is that it was written by Jonathan Nolan’s wife, who will always be dogged by the assumption that it was sold due to nepotism. I haven’t read the script myself yet but the few people I’ve talked to who have didn’t have very nice things to say about it. With that said, kudos to her for sending it out without the “Nolan” name on it.

THE INDEPENDENT
 by Evan Parter
Logline: With America’s first viable independent Presidential Candidate poised for victory, an idealistic young journalist uncovers a conspiracy, which places the fate of the election, and the country, in his hands.
Thoughts: Okay okay. This sounds a little different. I like the idea of an independent president winning the election (something we probably need). That’s all I ask. If you’re going to write about something we’ve seen before, find a new angle. That earlier political logline felt “been there done that.” This feels fresh and new.

19
BEAST
 by Zach Dean
Logline: With the hope of starting over, a reformed criminal with an ultra-violent past returns home, but when he finds his own family leading his teenaged son down the same path of destruction, he will stop at nothing to save his child.
Thoughts: Don’t know much about Zach Dean but he seems to like these gritty crime pieces. His lone credit, Deadfall (starring Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde) is a gritty film about a casino heist. Again, the less high concept your idea is, the more execution-dependent it becomes. So we’ll only know if this thing’s any good when we read it.

THE GOLDEN RECORD
 by Aaron and Jordan Kandell
Logline: The true story of how Carl Sagan fell in love while leading the wildest mission in NASA history: a golden record to encapsulate the experience of life on earth for advanced extraterrestrial life.
Thoughts: I am an unabashed fan of Contact, and I’ve always been intrigued by this idea of humanity creating a gold record to explain who we are to others. This could be schmaltzy and melodramatic if done wrong, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to read it. Could be awesome if this sibling writing team pulls it off.

18
FAULTS
 by Riley Stearns
Logline: An expert on cults is hired by a mother and father to kidnap and deprogram their brainwashed daughter. He soon begins to suspect the parents may be more destructive than the cult he’s been hired to save her from.
Thoughts: I love this idea! I love cults. They’re fucking freaky! And I always love when a script turns and doesn’t do the obvious thing (the parents being worse than the cult). Will be reading this one for sure!

SWEETHEART
 by Jack Stanley
Logline: A young hitwoman tries to escape the business but finds herself in more danger after a high school reunion and a one-night stand.
Thoughts: It drives me nuts they don’t provide genres for these. I’m guessing this is a comedy, which would make it a re-imagining of Grosse Pointe Black, with a female lead? That is an easy way to get noticed. Take a movie that worked before and change the gender of the main character. Go ahead, try it!

17
SUPERBRAT by
 Eric Slovin and Leo Allen
Logline: Temperamental tennis champion John McEnroe is sucked into a dangerous and ludicrous law enforcement sting during Wimbledon in 1980.
Thoughts: When I was a kid, tennis was my life. I’ve been dying for someone to write a good tennis script ever since I got to LA. That time may finally have come. And I love how it’s not an obvious premise. It sounds bizarre and very un-tennis-like, which is an advantage because I think tennis is boring to the lay-person. YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! I am all over this.

16
DOGFIGHT 
by Nicole Riegel
Logline: A 15-year-old boy discovers that his kidnapped older brother has been living in a hidden, meth-producing compound, and infiltrates the camp in hopes of helping his brother escape.
Thoughts: Yeah baby. Breaking Bad meets high school! And yet another new voice! Haven’t heard of Nicole before.

THE CIVILIAN 
by Rachel Long and Brian Pittman
Logline: After an American doctor has his identity stolen by a covert operative, he must assume the dangerous mission of the one who stole it in order to clear his name.
Thoughts: Gotta admit, this one sounds a little “been there done that.” Hope it’s got some juicy offbeat choices inside. Probably won’t seek this out unless someone I know tells me it’s good. These two wrote a movie for director Rob Cohen called 1950 about an American in Korea that was supposed to be the biggest movie ever shot in Korea. That was in 2011 though and I don’t know where the project stands.

15
BURN SITE
 by Doug Simon
Logline: 
After a young teenage girl is murdered, her stepfather falls back on his dark and violent past to find her killer.
Thoughts: Okay, a little revenge title here. Sounds a bit generic but maybe they’re holding back the details. Remember that it isn’t the writers writing these loglines for the Black List (how could they? They don’t even know they’re on the list until it comes out). The agents or managers are often asked for loglines ahead of time, and they might not be so great at writing them.

QUEEN OF HEARTS
 by Stephanie Shannon
Logline: Inspired by true events, this is the story of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” author Lewis Carroll (aka Charles L. Dodgson) and how his relationship with the real Alice Liddell and her family may have inspired one of the world’s most beloved pieces of children’s literature.
Thoughts: While typically not my thing, these scripts play like gangbusters on the Black List. Write about a famous author growing up and producers gravitate to your script like bees to honey. The Muppet Man, Seuss, A Boy And His Tiger (below). This may be the secret sauce that guarantees a Black List spot! Oh, Stephanie Shannon also won the Nicholl Fellowship with this script.

14
BROKEN COVE
 by Declan O’Dwyer
Logline: After his brother is found brutally murdered, a man hellbent on revenge returns to his decrepit Irish fishing village home armed only with a mysterious list of names his brother left behind.
Thoughts: Another revenge movie! Although this one sounds a lot less generic. The setting feels different, and the “list of names” adds a mystery box element to the idea. Great news for those of you living outside the states. Declan doesn’t live in the U.S! (see, it can be done).

GAY KID AND FAT CHICK
 by Bo Burnham
Logline: Two high school misfits become costumed vigilantes and take out their frustrations on the students who have bullied them throughout high school.
Thoughts: Uhhhh, this is easily the best title on the list (assuming you have a sense of humor). It’s a great reminder that you have to force someone to want to pick up your script amongst the others in the pile. Coming up with a clever or controversial title is an easy way to do that.

13
1969: A SPACE ODYSSEY OR HOW KUBRICK LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LAND ON THE MOON
 by Stephany Folsom
Logline: With NASA’s Apollo program in trouble and the Soviets threatening nuclear war, a female PR operative conspires with NASA’s Public Affairs Office to stage a fake moon landing in case Armstrong and Aldren fail, the goal being to generate public excitement that will aid the U.S. in winning the Cold War. But the op is faced with the biggest challenge of all: Filming the fake lunar landing with temperamental Stanley Kubrick.
Thoughts: This sounds like it could be awesome. At least for nerds. Imagine how much fun you could have with Stanley Kubrick as one of your characters. This is obviously playing off the surprise success of Argo. And this one sounds like it could be more fun. Folsom is another new writer on the scene. She’s got a tiny TV show to her name (Ds2dio 360) but that’s it.

AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE
 by Richard Naing and Ian Goldberg
Logline: A father/son mortician team try to uncover the cause of death on a Jane Doe. The more they uncover, the more mysterious and terrifying their world becomes.
Thoughts: Okay, so obviously they don’t want to give too much away here. This could be a thriller or a straight-up horror. Hard to tell. But it sounds good. Making ends meet, co-writer Richard Naing produces the reality show “Behind The Mask” about the people behind sports mascots.

THE MAYOR OF SHARK CITY 
by Nick Creature and Michael Sweeney
Logline: When a difficult film shoot spirals hopelessly out of control into a living nightmare, an ambitious young director must face his greatest fears to turn a troubled production into the biggest movie of all time. Set on Martha’s Vineyard during the summer of 1974, this is the untold story of the making of Jaws.
Thoughts: One of two scripts about the making of Jaws. I know Grendl is going to be all over this!

WHERE ANGELS DIE
 by Alexander Felix
Logline: A street-tough, white social worker in the slums of Detroit acts on a dangerous and violent personal vendetta when he protects a young girl and her mother from her recently incarcerated, AIDS-infected boyfriend, after he abruptly massacres a seedy strip club in a rage.
Thoughts: For those unaware, we discovered Mr. Felix right here on Scriptshadow on an Amateur Friday review! I LOVED it and put it in my Top 10. Alex went on to be managed by Energy, got agents at CAA. He got over 60 general meetings from the script and is up for some big assignments around town. Alex and I have been meeting every week or so and he’s keeping me up to date on what he can. The script was primed to be made before, but now that it’s on the Black List, I’m predicting really good things. Congrats Alex Felix!

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD 
by Alexis C. Jolly
Logline: Set in 1950s Manhattan, Fred Rogers journeys from a naive young man working for NBC to the host of the beloved children’s TV show, Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Thoughts: Another biopic. Another no thank you. Another WAIT, I TAKE THAT BACK! Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood?? I’m in! However, these scripts only tend to work if the real life persona is the exact opposite of the TV persona. I’m not getting that sense here so I guess it’ll come down to if Fred Rogers led an interesting life. And who better to write Mr. Rogers than someone named “Jolly!”

INK AND BONE
 by Zak Olkewicz
Logline: When a female book editor visits the home of a horror writer so he can complete his novel, she finds that all of his creations are holding him hostage.
Thoughts: I reviewed this on my newsletter awhile back. I think it’s a strong marketable idea – very Stephen King’ish – but the execution needs some work. It was too muddied in the middle. But I’ll props to Zak, some of the creatures were terrifying.

11
THE BOY AND HIS TIGER 
by Dan Dollar
Logline: The true story of Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes.
Thoughts: “Dan Dollar?” you might be saying. “I recognize that name.” Yeah, Dan’s contributed plenty of times to the Comments Section of Scriptshadow. A big congratulations to him. Another reminder that with hard work and great writing, you can make it. Dan’s proof that it happens.

THE KILLING FLOOR 
by Bac Delorme and Stephen Clarke
Logline: A war veteran slaughterhouse worker and his friend discover a small fortune in heroin hidden inside a processed cow and maneuver to hold onto their find and cash out to save his grandfather’s house as the bad guys come looking for their wayward stash.
Thoughts: Whoa! This logline’s a mouthful. Co-writer Bac Delorme is a longtime assistant director. You’re probably seen a ton of his movies. While the logline’s thrown me for a loop, I trust this one because it’s repped by David Karp at WME, who’s got some of the best taste in town.

10
I’M PROUD OF YOU
 by Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman Blue
Logline: 
Based on Tim Madigan’s autobiographical novel of the same name. A journalist looking for a story about television’s role in the Columbine tragedy interviews TV’s Mr Rogers and, as a friendship develops between the two, he finds himself confronting his own issues at home.
Thoughts: This is just too weird. Two Mr. Rogers scripts in the same Black List? This is why I’m never surprised when someone comes to me with the same obscure logline as someone else. There’s something in the air with people. We’re all feeding off the same media cycle. We’re programmed to think alike. Which explains how there’s never been a Mr. Rogers script in history and then this year there’s 2 big ones.

SEED
 by Christina Hodson
Logline: After suffering a devastating miscarriage, a young woman and her fiance travel to Italy where she meets his family for the first time, but her grief turns to shock when the local doctor declares that she’s still pregnant. And while her fiance and his family seem delighted by the news, she begins to suspect their true motives are quiet sinister.
Thoughts: I really liked Hodson’s entry on last year’s Black List, Shut In, about A woman who takes care of her comatose teenaged son at home then starts getting visits from the ghost of a runaway boy. It totally kept you guessing. So I can only imagine this one’s going to be just as good.

THE COMPANY MAN
 by Andrew Cypiot
Logline: Based on true events. CIA agent Edwin Wilson went behind enemy lines to secure weapons contracts and report information back to the CIA shortly after the Cold War. He had a meteoric rise until company policies changed and he was unceremoniously fired, but he continued to operate as a man without a country and became public enemy number one in the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Thoughts: Hmm, isn’t this the same thing as the NBC show “The Black List (ironically enough)?” I guess it’s based on a true story though. And people love spies! Why don’t I like spies? They’re inherently cool but I can’t seem to get into them. What’s crazy about this entry is that Cypiot only has one credit to his name, and it’s from 15 years ago on a TV movie! Way to stick with it, Andrew!

THE SHARK IS NOT WORKING 
by Richard Cordiner
Logline: When his big break finally arrives, an idealistic young movie director, Steven Spielberg, risks failing to complete the movie Jaws when his 25-foot mechanical shark stops working.
Thoughts: Richard is a very talented writer who I actually gave notes to on this script a year ago. He’s got another cool script as well that producers should ask him about (which I don’t think I’m allowed to mention). I remember when I read this, Richard told me “This is my passion project.” And you could tell. That passion was on the page. Congrats, Richard!

9
THE CROWN 
by Max Hurwitz
Logline: In exchange for a lighter prison sentence, a young hacker goes undercover for the FBI in a sting operation to find and steal a super computer virus with the help of a team of unsuspecting hackers.
Thoughts: Max is another young writer/director who’s worked on some small TV shows. There isn’t too much to go on with this logline (it sounds a mite familiar) but I’ll be the first to congratulate him if it turns out great.

DIABLO RUN
 by Shea and Evan Mirzai
Logline: While on a road trip to Mexico, two best friends are forced to enter a thousand-mile death race with no rules.
Thoughts: I love this concept! Death Race meets Cannonball Run. This could be awesome.

RANDLE IS BENIGN 
by Damien Ober
Logline: Follows a woman in the ’80s who works at an IBM-like company and is at the forefront of national intelligence research. When her project (named RANDLE) hits a major milestone indicating that she may have actually achieved AI, it is unexpectedly hijacked by the agenda of the company’s mysterious CEO. As she dives deeper into the corporate agenda, she learns that there may be a connection between her project and the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.
Thoughts: I thought for a second I’d stumbled on to the script itself! Big logline! This is a tough one. I kind of like it but there’s something “light” about inspecting an almost-assassination. Unless we get the tragedy of the assassination itself (JFK), do we really care?

TCHAIKOVSKY’S REQUIEM 
by Jonathan Stokes
Logline: A conductor investigates the great composer’s seemingly unnatural death and unlocks the mysteries of the man himself while preparing to debut Tchaikovsky’s final symphony.
Thoughts: Stokes has been working hard, writing small feature films here and there. But nothing had that break-out appeal. This is a strong concept though. It’s got weight.

8
LINE OF DUTY
 by Cory Miller
Logline: Macbeth meets The Departed in the modern retelling of Shakespeare’s play, focusing on the tragic rise and fall of NYPD officer Sean Stewart, a heroic narcotics detective pushed to the dark side of police corruption by his scheming wife and a well-timed prophecy.
Thoughts: Cory Miller was a former investigator on the NYPD Internal Affairs unit, so you know he’s going to bring some authenticity to this. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in writing and directing.

INQUEST 
by Josh Simon
Logline: After the death of Princess Diana, a reluctant investigator is hired to ascertain whether her death was premeditated. And in the process, he begins to uncover a conspiracy that compromises his own safely.
Thoughts: This was a really big sale earlier in the year. I read the script though and was kind of disappointed. It’s really sad. It’s basically about this father (of Princess Diana’s boyfriend, also killed in the crash) who can’t let go of the fact that his son died in an accident, so he has to create a conspiracy in order to cope. Not bad but it’s not what you expect.

CAPSULE 
by Ian Shorr
Logline: A young man’s life is turned upside down when he mysteriously begins to receive metallic capsules containing messages from his future self.
Thoughts: A bit familiar but this idea can work when done well. Ian Shorr made the Black List last year too!

FULLY WRECKED
 by Jake Morse and Scott Wolman
Logline: An R-rated talking car from the ’80s is brought back into service and teamed up with the son of his former partner, a befuddled cop looking to earn his stripes.
Management: Kaplan/Perrone
Manager: Josh Goldenberg
Producer: Hurwitz & Schlossberg Productions
Thoughts: This sounds really funny. Knight Rider meets Beverly Hills Cop?

SPOTLIGHT
 by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy
Logline: The true-life account of the Boston Globe’s breaking of the Catholic priest scandal in 2003.
Thoughts: Gotta say, this sounds a little bit snore-worthy. Isn’t the Catholic priest thing old news by now?

EXTINCTION 
by Spenser Cohen
Logline: A man must do everything he can to save his family from an alien invasion.
Thoughts: This comes from the young writing-producing team of Spenser Cohen (who also directs) and Anna Halberg. These two are a couple of the smartest up-and-comers I’ve met in town. Mark my words. At some point they’ll have the next Bad Robot!

REVELATION
 by Hernany Perla
Logline: A prison psychiatrist meets a death row inmate on the verge of his execution who claims to be the only thing stopping the end of the world. As she begins to investigate his predictions, she finds them to be eerily accurate, and that she may be a central figure in the events to come.
Thoughts: Okay, we’re getting into some high concept ideas finally. This sounds good. Love the conflict inherent in the logline (something needs to break). Hernany produced the fun horror comedy, “Ghost Team One,” and was a supervising producer on Ah-nold’s “The Last Stand.” He’s also been on a lot of sets as a crew member. So he’s had some Hollywood experience.

ELSEWHERE
 by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis
Logline: After his girlfriend dies in a car accident, a man finds his true soulmate, only to wake from a coma to learn his perfect life was just a dream — one he is determined to make real.
Thoughts: Yet ANOTHER high concept. Nice. We’re on a roll here. These are the kinds of scripts writers need to be writing to get noticed. It seems like these two made it to the second round of the Austin screenplay competition with another script, Between, but didn’t advance.

CLARITY
 by Ryan Belenzon and Jeffrey Gelber
Logline: What if a world woke up tomorrow to scientific proof of the afterlife?
Thoughts: Okay readers, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Obviously, this isn’t a logline. It’s more of a “teaser,” and I’m guessing the writer didn’t write it. But either way, it’s another high concept idea that has a lot of potential. I’d give it ten pages!

THE POLITICIAN
 by Matthew Bass and Theodore Bressman
Logline: A disgraced governor and his underachieving accomplice go on the run from the FBI, U.S. Marshals and a gang of hardened drug dealers.
Thoughts: This is that really big sale from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s assistants that made big waves a month ago. Another idea that sounds pretty bland on paper. But if the writers are funny, that may not matter. I’m curious if these guys have the goods or if they just got Seth Rogen really high and tricked him into writing a check.

AMERICAN SNIPER 
by Jason Dean Hall
Logline: Based on Chris Kyle’s autobiography American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper In U.S. Military History.
Thoughts: This is that big sale that had Steven Spielberg and Bradley Cooper attached for 10 seconds. I read the script and found it to be really really bland. A big problem here is that it’s hard to make a character who’s hiding from all the action interesting. No matter how I spin it in my head, I don’t know how you make sniping dramatically compelling. But people back in the Midwest say this guy is a bona fide hero and that the conservatives will come out in droves to see a movie about him. They just need to do something way more interesting with the story. It’s too bland and too straight-forward now.

THE LINE
 by Sang Kyu Kim
Logline: A corrupt border crossing agent must decide what is more important — saving his soul or inflating his bank account — when he discovers a young illegal boy who escaped a cartel hit on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
Thoughts: Kim is a TV writer who wrote an episode of The Walking Dead and a bunch of episodes of Crash (the TV show). Looks like he’s finally making the jump to features. This one sounds a bit garden variety on first glance.

HALF HEARD IN THE STILLNESS
 by David Weil
Logline: A young man who is inadvertently rescued after living 10 years in the basement of the child predator who abducted him, struggles to reunite with his family, while the detective in charge of his case investigates the link between his discovery and the recent disappearance of another local boy.
Thoughts: Hmmmm, Prisoners 2???

TIME & TEMPERATURE
 by Nick Santora
Logline: Based on a true story, Dale Julin (a low-level Fresno affiliate morning show host) stumbles upon the biggest story of his life — and though he has reached the midpoint of his career without ever being a “real journalist” — risks his safety and his marriage to uncover the truth that a small atomic bomb exploded in Central Valley, California, during the Korean War — a secret that has been hidden for decades.
Thoughts: Okay, this sounds pretty cool. But I’d ask, what are the stakes? Much like the Reagan assassination script earlier, who cares if he finds out a bomb was dropped 50 years ago? What changes? Santora is a HUGE TV writer and producer, producing such shows as Prison Break and Vegas.

CAKE
 by Patrick Tobin
Logline: A woman who’s been suffering from chronic pain since the car accident that cost the life of her child finds the will to go on from the most unexpected places.
Thoughts: Whoa, not going to lie. This one sounded reaaaaalllly depressing and boring. So I went on a hunt for a better logline than the Black List presented. I found this, which sounds much better. This should be a lesson to everyone writing generic loglines! Be more specific! – A dark comedy about a self-destructive woman whose obsession with the suicide of someone in her chronic pain support group leads to an affair with the dead woman’s husband, a drug run to Mexico, and a stop at one of the last drive-in theaters in the country.

THE END OF THE TOUR 
by Donald Margulies
Logline: Upon hearing of David Foster Wallace’s suicide, writer David Lipsky recalls his 1996 interview with him.
Thoughts: Wallace is a writer probably best known for his novel, Infinite Jest, which I keep seeing at bookstores and wanting to buy but it’s so damn big. Sadly, these scripts where it looks like depression on top of depression aren’t for me. I need some hope in my stories. Plus this doesn’t so dramatically compelling at all. Someone’s remember someone’s interview? Eek, how do you make that exciting?

NICHOLAS
 by Leo Sardarian
Logline: With the Roman Empire on the brink of collapse, a fourth century bishop takes up arms to lead the armies of Constantine the Great into battle against the ruthless emperor, changing the face of Rome and begetting one of the greatest legends in history.
Thoughts: This sounds epic. It’ll all depend on what kind of filmmaker they get to film it. But I like this kind of period piece. If you’re going to do one, might as well make it big! — Sardarian is another writer who came to Hollywood and did a whole bunch of film jobs (casting, production, PR) to grow his network and establish himself in the industry. He then used those contacts when he wrote something great. That’s the way you do it, folks!

MAN OF SORROW 
by Neville Kiser
Logline: Based on true events, the story centers on Oscar Wilde who goes from renowned playwright to losing everything personally and professionally.
Thoughts: Okay, I can dig a grandiose tragedy about a famous person. And I don’t know as much about Oscar Wilde as I probably should, so I’m in. Kiser has spent most of life battling whether to pursue film or become a man of the cloth. Right now, film is winning.

DIG
 by Adam Barker
Logline: After his villainous father-in-law kidnaps his daughters, Sol, a tough-as-nails mountain man, travels across the frigid Appalachian mountains seeking vengeance.
Thoughts: Our THIRD revenge script. Hey, revenge provides a clear-cut story with a clean goal for the protagonist (kill the bad dude) so it usually works.

THE FIXER 
by Bill Kennedy
Logline: A man who works in wealth management, and also has his hands in a number of less than ethical enterprises, begins collaborating with a Los Angeles-based drug dealer. The dealer just so happens to have the man’s son as one of his runners in the drug-fueled LA nightlife.
Thoughts: Honestly, I had to read through this logline 3 times to fully understand it, which is never good. Where are our Scriptshadow logline geniuses to fix this up???

SUGAR IN MY VEINS
 by Barbara Stepansky
Logline: A 14-year-old female prodigy finds companionship for the first time when she befriends a handsome older man.
Thoughts: Always seems to be one of these “inappropriate relationship” scripts on the Black List every year. But the prodigy aspect adds just enough of a twist that I’m intrigued. Stepansky has written and directed a lot of shorts and small films, one of which was titled, “I Hate L.A.”

SEA OF TREES
 by Chris Sparling
Logline: An American man takes a journey into the infamous “Suicide Forest” at the foothills of Mount Fuji with the intention of taking his own life. When he is interrupted by a Japanese man who has had second thoughts about his own suicide, and is trying to find his way out of the forest, the two begin a journey of reflection and survival.
Thoughts: Our favorite Buried screenwriter and the king of the contained thriller is back! But Chris seems to realize that it’s time to grow a little and this definitely sounds different. I don’t like depressing movies (if you couldn’t tell yet) and don’t like movies/scripts where characters are planning to kill themselves (unless it’s a comedy). But Chris has such a breezy easy way about his writing that I’d still read this.

MAKE A WISH
 by Zach Frankel
Logline: A 14-year-old boy with terminal cancer has one last wish — to lose his virginity — and convinces his reluctant football star Make-A-Wish partner to help him score.
Thoughts: If an alien were to come down to earth and learn about the world only through the black list, he would think that every 15 year old boy and girl is dying of cancer. Enough with these ideas! Ahhhhh!!! Although I do like the comedy angle and the idea that he gets a football star to help him get laid. That gives me a sliver of hope. But still.

6

BURY THE LEAD
 by Justin Kremer
Logline: A desperate, attention-hungry journalist concocts a story that ironically proves to be true and finds himself engulfed in a dangerous underworld of murder and mayhem.
Thoughts: This sounds good. Reminds me of that old Mel Gibson movie, Conspiracy Theory, a little bit. Kremer made last year’s Black List as well. Congrats, Justin, on two in a row. ☺

FROM HERE TO ALBION
 by Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani
Logline: A tragic accident in a coastal English town sets off a chain of violence when a malevolent assassin attempts to punish all involved, including a dirty cop who is intent on covering up the truth.
Thoughts: Some crucial piece of information is missing in this logline that’s making it sound generic. Co-writer Haines has reached the Nicholl Semi-finals a few times and has directed a couple of award-winning shorts. Take your career into your own hands people. Direct some shorts!

FREE BYRD
 by Jon Boyer
Logline: After being diagnosed with dementia, a retired fifty-something stunt motorcyclist sets out to perform one last jump.
Thoughts: Hey, I know Jon! One of the nicest writers out there. Excited to see him make the list. And this idea sounds really original. Have never heard of anything like it before. I shall be checking it out! Congratulations, Jon!

BEAUTY QUEEN
 by Annie Neal
Logline: An unhappily married woman and her best friend go on a road trip to Las Vegas to compete in the Miss Married America competition.
Thoughts: I don’t know what the Miss Married competition is, so I’m not sure I can comment on this. But it does sound like a script written by women for women, so I’m not going to put my judgment stamp on it!

THE REMAINS
 by Meaghan Oppenheimer
Logline: Three former childhood friends with a complicated history get back together to spread the ashes of their friend who recently died.
Thoughts: Death. Spreading ashes. Noooooooooo. Oppenheimer also got on the Black List in 2010 with her script “Hot Mess.”

LAST MINUTE MAIDS 
by Leo Nichols
Logline: Two lovable losers run into trouble after they start a service cleaning up the stuff you don’t want your loved ones to find once you die.
Thoughts: Oooh, very clever idea!

PAN 
by Jason Fuchs
Logline: A prequel to JM Barrie’s Peter Pan. When an orphan is taken to the magical world of Neverland, he becomes a hero to the natives and leads a revolt against the evil pirates.
Thoughts: I’m going to tell you a secret right now. If you’re ever in a pinch for an idea – incorporate Peter Pan somehow. Hollywood LOVES Peter Pan. I see so many Peter Pan specs sell. You gotta find a unique angle. It can’t just be any old Pan script. But if you do, it will sell!

DUDE
 by Olivia Milch
Logline: The story of four best girlfriends who must learn how to move forward without moving on, as they come down off their “high” of high school in this “Fast Times-esque” teenage comedy.
Thoughts: This is so general and so about teenage girls, that I don’t think there’s any chance I would be interested in it. That’s not to say others wouldn’t, but this ain’t my thing.

PATIENT Z
 by Michael Le
Logline: In a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies, a man who speaks their language questions the undead in order to find a cure for his infected wife.
Thoughts: Zombies shalt never die! So stop trying to kill them!

MISSISSIPPI MUD
 by Elijah Bynum
Logline: In the middle of major financial problems, a down on his luck Southerner’s life begins to unravel when he accidentally runs over and kills a runaway girl.
Thoughts: Well well well, we’ve got the rare DOUBLE OCCUPANT on the Black List. Bynum also wrote the script up above, Hot Summer Nights. Hey, as long as it’s better than Mud (the most overrated movie of the year), I’ll read it!

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A young family must deal with a legendary party-happy fraternity moving in next door to them.
About: This flick stars Seth Rogen and Zac Efron. It seems to have been written on assignment, as references to all the real actors are scattered everywhere in the script. The writers also appear to be longtime collaborators with Judd Apatow, starting as low-level producers on his movies, then moving up the ladder. This will be their first feature credit. Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) is directing.
Writers: Andrew Jay Cohen & Brendan O’Brien
Details: 111 pages

Man, it’s been a weird weekend, hasn’t it? I went up to Portland for Thanksgiving, where I’ve realized every guy has a shaved head and two-foot beard. I don’t want to say it’s starting to get clique-y, but it was no fun feeling like one of the uncool beardless kids. I then come home to find out that Paul Walker, the star of a franchise based on really fast cars, died in a really fast car accident. In the midst of thinking how shitty that was, my mind drifted into the logistics of finishing a film so dependent on Paul’s character (Fast & Furious 7). This will be the most difficult rewrite a movie of this size has ever had to deal with, with a cast-member’s death during production. I honestly don’t know how they’re going to do it without completely rewriting the movie and starting over.

Then I went and saw Delivery Man, wanting to laugh and feel better about life. Strangely, the movie took every opportunity where a big laugh was about to come and pulled back. It was like that girl who keeps leading you on, implying she’s interested, yet every time you ask her out, she comes up with an excuse. Talk about frustrating.  And then I finish the weekend with this script, which starts off with our three main characters talking to someone with their balls hanging out of their zippers. At that point, what do you do?

I know, I know. You’re expecting another “Comedy Screenwriting Apocalypse” review from me. And after that scene, I was too. Well the JOKE’S (get it? Cause it’s a comedy!) on you. Because I liked Townies. It’s one of those “in spite of” comedy experiences where you’re defending your laughing to other people, but you’re laughing nonetheless.

And speaking of jokes, I gotta give it to the man I thought was a joke, Zacky Efron. 99 out of a 100 of his types have come and gone in this business in the blink of an eye. But he’s still around, even though he looks like a weird white version of a Japanese animated character. The guy’s getting involved in the right projects, and this is another perfect match for him. Way to go Zac.

Mac went to college in the 90s when cell phones were mini-tanks being bought up by former Russian provinces for future wars and you communicated with others via how grungy your clothes looked and how many Nirvana lyrics you could recite by memory. Gold stars if you were able to pull off a full goatee.

And you know what? Mac loved college. He loved it so much that he married his college sweetheart, Kelly, and bought the piece of shit house they lived in while at school. Well, a lot of time has passed since then. The two have a daughter now. And they’re STILL living in the same house. As you’d expect, the wifey is NOT okay with this.  She wants to move to a “normal” neighborhood. But Mac can’t stand the thought of moving out of this box of wonderful memories. He’d stay here for the rest of his life if he could.

So yeah, everything gets janky when Kappa Sigma moves next door. All of a sudden, Mac and Kelly are trying to raise a child next to a frat house. This house is led by the one and only Teddy Sanders, a senior who is bent on continuing Kappa Sigma’s tradition of pioneering partying. These guys are the Facebook of the frat partying world, inventing things like Beer Pong and the “boot and rally” (which I’d never heard of until this script – why would you want to throw up in your boot?).

So Teddy wants to create the greatest end-of-the-year party in college history where every single frat member will get laid (he’s calling it “The Full House” – not sure why).  This is the last straw for Kelly.  She tells Mac if he can’t do something about that frat, she’s out of here.  The screenplay then amounts to Mac and his loser buddies trying to get the frat kicked out so he can continue to live in his house. But when Teddy and the frat learn they’re being fucked with, they call an all-out war on Mac. Needless to say, there will be many a casualty before this is over.

Townies opens with a montage showing our main characters growing up in college. I wouldn’t say it’s boring. But it’s not the kind of thing you’d ever see in a spec script (which this isn’t). Montages are generally boring, used to show the passing of time. The beginning of a spec is when you want to pull your reader in. Not bore them away. Which is why I’m always fascinated by this dichotomy.

When you’re writing on assignment, you have so much freedom to take your time. You’re working with producers who generally know what’s coming, so shit, if you want to start your script with a character-intro montage, start with a character-intro montage!

If you’re writing a spec, however, you’re working with no one, and therefore you have to write a compelling first scene that immediately pulls the reader in (like the boat scene I just discussed in Deep Blue Sea in the newsletter). I find it funny that a slow opening scene or a compelling opening scene in the movies is often dictated by whether the person is writing on spec or on assignment.

Anyway, Townies doesn’t get laid. But it does hook up. The structure of this script is solid. You have Mac, whose goal is to take down the frat house. You have Teddy, whose goal is to throw the most epic party ever. And you have Kelly, whose goal is to buy a new house. Since all of these goals are in conflict with each other, you have a lot of funny scenes.

And you have a story that’s constantly evolving in order to keep this plot – which could’ve run out of ideas in twenty pages – moving.

What I mean by “evolving” is, this starts out with Mac and his friends trying to take down Kappa Sigma. Right as that’s about to get old, they convince Kelly to help them. Kelly (who’s smarter and more manipulative than them) adds a new dimension to their strategy. She gives them ideas they never would’ve thought of. Then, as that thread’s starting to burn out, Teddy catches wind that Mac’s trying to take him down, and he turns the tables and goes after THEM.

Identifying those moments where a story thread is running out of stream and finding a way to infuse the story with a new hit of heroin is one of those essential storytelling skills that isn’t talked about enough. Had this script been written by an amateur, it probably would have been one continuous set of attacks by Mac that would’ve gotten stale quickly. It’s important to look for those things that shift the balance of the story just enough that it feels a little different.

And you know, I laughed a lot here. There’s a scene where Mac and Kelly’s daughter swallows a condom thrown over from the frat (thinking it’s a balloon). They take her to the hospital and must explain how their six year-old daughter swallowed a condom. There were these hazing flashbacks that are beyond anything you can imagine (think Human Centipede), where college dishes like “the vommelette” are introduced. I kept shaking my head, not believing I was laughing. But I couldn’t help myself.  There’s some inventive stuff in here!

The only big issues I found were that the relationships at the frat weren’t well-defined. It wasn’t clear whose was whose girlfriend – that kind of thing. And we seemed to be on the cusp of developing Teddy as a character (a brief glimpse of him realizing he was ill-prepared for the real world) but nothing came of it. I like when villains change. So it sucked that we didn’t get to see him arc more. I give them credit for trying, though. A lot of writers would’ve never taken us in that frat house to begin with unless our main characters were there. Cohen and O’Brien tried to give that world a little more weight.

I don’t know if I’m ready to anoint this a classic. But it’s a good comedy. Assuming people want to see it (I think they will), they should leave the theater telling their friends to see it as well. And if that’s the case, we’ll have a hit on our hands.

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

What I learned: When you’re giving your main characters goals, look to put all of those goals in conflict with one another. That’s what creates drama in your screenplay. Teddy wants to keep the frat house. Mac wants him out. Kelly wants to move to a new house. Mac wants to stay in this one. None of the principle characters agree. Which is what leads to conflict. And conflict is what makes comedies funny (think about it, when has a comedy been funny when everyone’s on the same page?).