Last week kinda sucked. Nothing even remotely captured my interest. But this week promises to be much better. We have a project with Hollywood’s new bad boy attached. We have an article by yours truly about one of the top 3 things that determine your screenplay selling. We have a really funny comedy that caught me by surprise. And on Friday I review a script that may get an impressive. I haven’t determined what to rate it yet but it’s easily the purest fun I’ve had reading a spec in awhile. Also, we’re going to introduce a new feature in the reviews which will be revealed in that Wednesday article. So I’m anticipating good vibes this week. To start us off Roger’s found himself a copy of a recent Relativity pick up…Goliath. Take us away Roger!

Genre: Action-Adventure, Historical
Premise: When the Mycenaean army surrounds Jerusalem, a young shepherd must accept his divine destiny as king if he wants to save not only his family, but the nation of Judah. But first, he must defeat the elemental force of violence known as Goliath.
About: Goliath sold to Relativity Media back in July. I’ve never heard of the writers before, so I assume they’re tyro scribes and that this is their first big sale. I did some poking around and learned that they were quarter-finalists in the 2005 Scriptapalooza Competition with their script, Our Man Lilburne, and that McKay was a semi-finalist in the 2006 American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest with The Halloween Party. They’re repped by Kaplan/Perrone and UTA.
Writers: John D. Payne & Patrick McKay

This script mysteriously appeared in my hands the other day, and somehow, made it to the top of the pile. I hadn’t heard of it, but was immediately intrigued. I’m no scholar on Judah or the Old Testament, but you could say, from an early age, I’ve always been interested in King David. See, I was raised in the South, and for much of my early life, my parents made me go to Sunday School. I’d rather not get into my thoughts on religion or faith on this forum, but David has always fascinated me. I’ve read a lot about him; I’ve read a lot of stuff written by him. And, I’ll just leave it at that.

The title made me curious.

Did someone write a script about David and Goliath? Or just Goliath? My first thought was, “Wow, this is probably really lame.” So I cracked it open and my expectations were immediately shattered. This thing boldly opens. It feels like a movie with no credits. Just the sickening crunch of bone and a body hitting the ground and being dragged to a mass grave full of dead gladiators. There’s a scarred behemoth responsible for all these deaths, and we meet this war machine as he makes quick work of three of the ancient world’s most bloodthirsty combatants.

These writers aren’t fucking around.

In two pages, they destroyed the pre-conceived notions I had about horrible faith-based movies and the images burned into my brain from Southern-fried Sunday School and those flowery illustrated bibles and their stories therein. It’s a trachea-extracting intro that reads like it was written by a veteran scriptwriter. It felt like one of those cut-scenes from God of War where a Cyclops, a Heavy Metal-inspired nightmare of flesh, is just flattening men with his big club. Because of those first two pages, I was hooked.

I needed to know more about the vision contained within the next niney-eight pages.

Who is Goliath and what does he want?

Other than being a monstrous giant whose flesh is marred with tally marks of all his worthy kills, he has the mind of an archaic philosopher who knows that he’s the personification of violence. Like the Joker in The Dark Knight or Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, Goliath is a force of nature that this region of the ancient world reverently fears. While religious texts might say his height is anywhere from six and a half feet to nine-feet tall, imaginations must wonder if the giant’s mass was some type of physical anomaly.

I like how the script handles the origin story. It’s twisted, a hint of the supernatural melded to the motivation of revenge. It’s mythic.

The mentor in the script says, “He is more a curse than a man. One created by our people.” During the Judean conquest of Canaan, a regiment of soldiers defiled the sole survivor, a beautiful woman. “Eight months later, she died in child birth, bearing a son three times the size of a normal child.” Goliath had not one father, but a hundred. He was forged with their hatred in his mother’s womb, and he lives his life as an honorable killer, preparing.

Preparing to exact justice for her dishonor.

And the ultimate target for his revenge?

The future king of Judah.

David.

I don’t get it, Rog. What makes David so special?

You’re not the only one.

Even his own family doesn’t understand his significance. He’s one of many shepherd’s sons, the runt of the litter who, compared to his brothers, is always overlooked. His own mother mocks him for not being ambitious. In fact, he spends most of his time out in the pasture playing his harp instead of tending the flock.

While young David may not find favor in the eyes of men, in the eyes of his God it’s quite a different story. In the bible, the story goes that the Israelite God no longer favored their current king, Saul. So the prophet Samuel comes along and chooses the least-likely of Jesse’s sons, David, and proclaims that this is God’s choice for king. Out of all the men in the Judaic bible, David was a guy who became known as a “man after God’s own heart”. He became such good friends with the Almighty, that God, in the New Testament and presumably for the rest of eternity, referred to his own son made flesh, Jesus Christ, as the Son of David.

That’s how big of a deal the guy became.

Goliath is interested in David because he knows he will prove a challenge. To a monster that has never met his match, he is interested in fighting a guy who supposedly carries the protection of a god. In slaying David, he will slay an entire people — the Judeans who defiled his mother. And, in doing so, he will humiliate and mark the death of the Judean god.

Enough scriptural context! What’s the damn plot?

Some Mycenaean emissaries, on the warpath to kill David, who according to prophecy threatens their empire, recruit Goliath into battle. Since he finds the practice of killing for money deplorable, he joins the Philistine Dagon-worshippers not for riches but for the chance to face a worthy adversary.

They ravage the countryside around Jerusalem, slaughtering the Judeans and blinding David’s pal, Ezra. David rescues his buddy and they flee into Jerusalem, which has protective walls but is a city that makes the modern slums of Jakarta seem like a five-star resort.

At the House of Judges, the leaders of the twelve tribes are freaking out. Although they outnumber the Mycenaeans ten-to-one, they are a nation divided because they lack someone who can unite and lead all the tribes into battle. It’s a siege and they know they’ll only last so long before everyone in the city starves to death.

King Saul, a porcine man that the Judges don’t respect, decides to visit the enemy camp via royal chariot to inquire about their demands. King Saul suspects that they’ve come to take the Ark of the Covenant (the ultimate war trophy), but instead, he discovers they have an odd request.

It’s disarming.

Grant Goliath unfettered access to their city so he can find the boy who would be the king whom threatens their empire.

What if Saul refuses?

If anyone interferes with Goliath, after three sunsets, the Philistines will crush Jerusalem.

So Goliath is released into Jerusalem, where he goes on a killing spree, executing any and all young shepherd boys that might be David.

Goliath’s only opposition is a secret society of paladin warriors, a band of Dirty Dozen-like soldiers led by Caleb, whose sole purpose is to protect David. There’s a crazy chase through the city as Caleb rescues David and introduces him to The Order of the White Stone.

David can’t believe the news that he’s the rightful king of Judah, and wishes to go to the desert and find Samuel so that he can nullify the prophecy. David is just a shepherd. He doesn’t want this responsibility.

His first order of business is to rescue his family, so he convinces the Order to rescue his family from the House of Judges, which doesn’t go all too great. Goliath chases them through Underground Jerusalem and a shit-ton of people die valiantly whilst trying to protect David.

Goliath chases David into the desert, where more people die. David eventually learns about his true destiny from Samuel the Prophet, and there’s a chase back into Jerusalem and a quest to retrieve pieces of the sacred tablets from the Ark.

Along the way, there’s a crown jewel of an action sequence that has a lot of fucking lions in it.

The script builds up to the famous duel between our two main characters, and yes, it is a doozy. Combining the intimate scale of the mano-a-mano fights in Gladiator and the Let’s Revolt attitude of Spartacus, the final pages are pretty darn satisfying.

Does it work?

Indeed, it does. The pacing is that of a chase movie, and the set-pieces seem like they could belong in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It’s a fun read. The theme is pretty epic, familiar but universal, but what makes it shine is the execution. For someone who has read the bible, it was fun to see the writers create a sort of Old Testament primer.

My only gripe is that it lays the Joseph Campbell on pretty heavy. I mean, as a scriptreader and writer, I prefer it when this stuff is more subtle. If it’s possible for formulas to be on the nose, then stories that use prophecy as a major plot device are a prime example. We’ve seen it a thousand times. A literal prophecy declaring that some ordinary person is going to become a hero and save the world?

C’mon! It’s familiar, which is good, but sometimes there’s too familiar! When someone in the general audience can think, “Oh, like in The Matrix?” Then you’re in too familiar territory.

And, unfortunately, all of the Order of the White Stone stuff falls in this realm. It works, but as a reader, I’ve seen it one billion times. I see something like that and I see the writers revealing the gears turning in their heads. They reveal their secrets, methods and reference material whenever that happens.

Luckily, I got thirty-three pages into the script before that happened, and it was the only part that felt like a miscalculation. Why not go for something more fresh?

This sounds kind of like a faith-based film. Is that assumption correct?

Thanks to that Mel Gibson snuff flick that came out a few years ago, Hollywood discovered that there’s a huge market for faith-based movies. Hell, it’s proven that many of them don’t even have to be good, as long as their audience connects with the message. Which may be good enough for the seventy-year old Georgia couple who purchases tickets for Fireproof, whom have no idea that Kirk Cameron used to star in a classic tv show where his best friend was a character named Boner (Boner!), but to the rest of us who rolled our eyes at The Blind Side, we may demand something more, I dunno, good.

I think something like The Book of Eli aspires to create a new standard for faith-based movies, or that’s at least the way I saw it when I read the script. When I watched the movie, I even remembered that Denzel associates himself with Christianity.

In any case, Goliath seems to be in the vein of this new standard, which somehow smuggles in a perceived truth in an original story that can appeal to even the most jaded movie-goer. It entertains first, and delivers a message second. It’ll draw in the Bible-thumping hordes and the sword-and-sandals demographic, and it’ll do so because it’s pretty fucking good action-adventure storytelling.

It’s probably more 300 than Braveheart, and script-wize, it’s more Galahad than Medieval, but Goliath will appeal to fans of all four. It’s a blood-and-guts Bible Story Remix, so don’t be surprised if it even appeals to non-fans who get their movie recommendations from some guy brandishing a bible behind a pulpit.

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

What I learned: Smuggle in your message. Smuggle in truth. Your message, or your truth, is just your theme. Firstly, and above all, your story must be entertaining. And, it must be good. You’re telling a story, not an idea. You’re telling a story, not a theme. Whatever idea you have, whatever theme you have, hide it. Hide it underneath your story. Hide it in the hearts of your characters. If you aspire to be a screenwriter, you’re aspiring to work in Hollywood. In Hollywood, it’s like Martin Scorsese says, you’re gonna have to smuggle in the truth. You’re aspiring to work in a trade where commerce is the bottom line, not art. You’re gonna have to learn how to tell commercial stories. But rest assured at the irony: Usually, for a story to be commercial, it has to have a universal theme. If your story is entertaining, your theme is either eventually gonna reveal itself naturally, like all good metaphor does, or people are going to find it because they’re going to be searching for it. But, first, you have to reel them in and entertain them.

Genre: Drama/Love Story
Premise: (from IMDB) A penniless girl in the 1930’s is taken in by a circus freak, and even as he falls in love with her, she begins to launch a career in the circus herself.
About: Flora Plum has been in development for many years and almost went into production with Jodie Foster directing, and Russell Crowe and Claire Danes starring. The project then fell apart because Russell Crowe fucked up his shoulder. That one unfortunate ill-timed accident sent everyone racing off to other projects and Flora Plum was abandoned like a discarded peanut shell under the rafters. Steven Rogers has been around for quite some time, penning a lot of love stories such as “P.S. I Love You,” “Hope Floats,” and “Stepmom.”
Writer: Steven Rogers
Details: 103 pages – 1999 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Man, it has not been a good week for screenplays here at Scriptshadow. Well, I guess Fright Night got some good reactions, but this is the third script this week that I wasn’t into. I guess it’s only fair as we had to balance out last week. But I did hold out some hope for Flora Plum. It’s been around for awhile and I’ve heard good things about it. But the problem here is that once you read that other circus script (of course I’m talking about “Water For Elephants”) this feels like the JV version. In fact, you could tell where this script went wrong in a lot of places just by comparing it to Elephants.

I’ll give this to Flora Plum: it’s different. Set in the 1930s, we begin with documentary interviews of various circus members recalling Flora Plum, who, from their various recollections, we conclude to now be America’s sweetheart. But that doesn’t stop most of them, such as Opal, a flirty dwarf, from recalling her as somewhat of an annoying bitch. In fact, there seems to be an almost disdain for this woman from everyone interviewed, and of course this builds our anticipation to meet the girl ourselves.

Indeed we meet Flora Plum just as she arrives in town. She’s fresh-faced and naturally beautiful but lacks any definable talent and may be a little on the clutzy side. Luckily she’s the hardest worker you’ll ever find and dangerously determined. More than anything, she just wants to be a part of something, and in her eyes, the circus is her calling. Of course, throw a gorgeous knockout into a sea of freaks and you’re going to see some jealousy. Which leaves us to wonder if those earlier interviews were the truth or simply a bunch of frekazoids with an axe to grind. I mean, could this sweet girl really turn into something as hideous as they say?

After Flora gets settled in, she meets and takes a liking to Jake, otherwise known as “The Beast.” Jake is covered in hair from head to toe, to the point where he makes Robin Williams look like he has alopecia. Jake is clearly talented, but has chosen a very esoteric long-winded routine for his act. This man is Jean-Luc Goddard to everyone else’s Michael Bay. The owner of the circus, Herbert Little, eventually gets fed up with the bizarre act and cancels it, relegating Jake to the humiliating position of “sideshow.”

This part of the screenplay was the strongest, as it not only pushed the story forward, but gave us a glimpse into the politics and cut-throat world of the circus. On the outside, they all seem cute and cuddly, but underneath the dome, everyone’s trying to one-up each other. Greed, jealousy, and the bottom line dictate who gets onstage and poor becomes a victim of this ideology.

But Jake’s downfall is cushioned by the burgeoning support of Flora. She’s the one person who loves Jake’s strange act and probably the only one who believes in him. This leads to an intense friendship and before long Flora comes up with a plan. They’ll create an act together – a sort of “Beauty and the Beast” – and work their way back into the main lineup. As the circus moves from city to city, the two train day in and day out, which of course brings them even closer. However, expert acrobat Patrice, the stud of the show, starts making moves on Flora, going so far as to invite her into his act. Flora is then torn between the beastly Jake and the handsome Patrice. Does she stick with the long shot, or go for the sure thing?

In order to keep the story moving, Rogers wisely throws Blade Devin into the mix. Devin has the best circus in the region and he’s actively searching for a new act. Word has it that he’ll be at their New York show and whoever shines the brightest, that’s who he’ll pick. It isn’t just Flora, Jake, or Patrice who are gunning for the spot, but everyone in the circus. But the bigger question is, who will Flora choose to perform her act with? Jake or Patrice?

Flora Plum wasn’t a bad script. I think if I never read Water For Elephants, I might have liked it more. But comparing the two you can see this script’s faults a lot more easily. Let’s start with the most important element – the love story. Flora Plum has the beauty and the beast thing going as well as the love triangle. But Water For Elephants had forbidden love going for it. Our hero didn’t just fall in love with a random act. He fell in love with the CIRCUS OWNER’S WIFE, someone he couldn’t have. Not only that, but that owner is a raging terrifying psychopath. We genuinely feel like if he finds out that his wife is with this guy, he’ll kill him. So the stakes are through the roof. Here, Flora and Jake’s relationship is pretty much in the open. The only thing at stake is feelings, which can work if we really love the characters, but still, it didn’t come close to the tension and undercurrent present in the Water For Elephants relationship.

Another problem is that the love triangle here doesn’t work. It’s never clear to me if Flora even likes Patrice. And most of the time, she’s overtly uninterested in him. Incidentally, Patrice is no different. One second he seems content with trying to steal Flora from Jake, the next he doesn’t know who she is. And not in a “stuck up” way. He literally doesn’t seem to know who she is. The whole storyline was just way too inconsistent. And since it was never clear where all the characters stood, it was hard to get a handle on what was going on.

What really set Elephants apart, however, was that even though there were a million interesting characters to choose from, it always focused on the right ones. Flora Plum, unfortunately, drops us into storylines we have no interest in watching, and so the narrative keeps getting chopped up by insignificant secondary scenes. For example there’s an “aging star” character who’s watching her limelight fade who I could care less about. After awhile, I began to treat these moments like commercials. I’d watch them begrudgingly hoping for the main show to start back up again.

I think the script does some things right. It has some charm. There are places where the relationship between Jake and Flora really shines. I could imagine Russell Crowe, full on make-up with the wolfman hair and everything, staring into Flora’s eyes, sad and desperately in love, and really see it working. The script had one of my favorite lines I’ve read in a script in a long time. Jake is asked, after his performance, how his act went. He replies. “The act was a success. The audience was a failure.” There’s also a late story twist which caught me off-guard and worked quite well. I feel like the elements are here for something special.

But in the end, this just doesn’t pack the firepower Water For Elephants did, and no matter how hard I tried to judge it on its own merit, I couldn’t get past that.

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

What I learned: This is a rehash “what I learned.” I was trying to figure out why this wasn’t pulling me in the same way Water For Elephants did. There were a lot of reasons, but the main one? No villain. There’s no true villain here to root against. In Water For Elephants, you have a ruthless terrifying villain that with every fiber of your being you want to see our hero destroy. You’d be surprised at how much better a villain – any villain – can make your story. So if you choose not to have one, make sure it’s for a good reason. The lack of one here really hurt the story.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A mild-mannered IT guy receives an ‘owners manual’ that tells him how to fix his life.
About: Made last year’s Black List with 5 votes. Very quietly the heavy-duty comedy producing team of Will Ferrell, Chris Henchy, and Adam McKay are attached. Might this be a future Will Ferrell vehicle?
Writer: Greg Ferkel
Details: 108 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

A possible candidate to play Owen?

I must admit I like these kinds of comedies – one step removed from reality, somewhat fantastical, an intriguing hook. Yet I also know that a lot of you hate them. And so I’ll just tell you right now, if you don’t like high concept comedies, there’s no use in continuing with this review. You’re going to hate Owen’s Manual with a passion. But if you like them, you’ll be happy to know that Owen’s Manual is a nice little entry into the genre.

So why do writers favor struggling average-looking heroes who’ve let themselves go, have no direction, and can’t get a girl to save their behinds? Because that character is the average screenwriter! I mean not all screenwriters of course, but a lot of them. And since those are the people writing your stories, you’re damn skippy they’re going to use those stories as wish-fulfillment. Translation: Seth Rogan and Michael Cera aren’t going anywhere!

To that end, Owen is no different. He’s a schlubby IT guy who works at a magazine called “Hip Parent,” where he’s perfected the art of getting stepped on. Owen gave up his life a long time ago to play the role of lewwwwwssserrrr.

Then one night, Owen catches an infomercial promoting one of those gyrating weight-loss belts. Figuring “what the hell,” he grabs the phone and orders one. A couple days later a UPS box shows up except there’s no gyrating inside. Just a manual. But this isn’t any ordinary manual. It’s a “how-to” guide for fixing Owen’s life. The table of contents reads like it’s been sitting on his shoulder for the last five years. “How to get your boss off your back” “How to get that girl at work,” “How to make sure nobody takes advantage of you anymore.”

Owen dismisses it as a practical joke, but when his boss calls to have Owen, once again, fix his laptop, Owen, out of curiosity, follows the instructions in the manual. The exchange reveals that the boss’s 10 year-old son has been surfing porn (hence why it’s had so many problems), which he happens to be fixing just as his wife walks by, which results in his wife believing he’s a porn addict, which results in the boss taking an extended leave of absence from work.

Freaked out, Owen calls the help number on the manual and gets in touch with the smooth-talking Rajeesh, a call tech for these life manuals. Owen asks him all the obvious questions and Rajeesh assures him that if he just follows the manual, all his problems will be solved.

Owen’s suspect at first but eventually starts following the manual religiously. He takes Cara out. He stops allowing others to step on him. He becomes nicer and more accepting of people. Sure enough, his troubles begin to dissolve away.

In the meantime, Owen gets a call from his old girlfriend, Hayden, who’s drop dead gorgeous and since their time together in college has won the Nobel Peace Prize. She’s getting married in a couple of weeks and because Owen knew her before the fame, she wants him to give the toast at her wedding. There’s a part of Owen who’s, of course, still in love with Hayden, which complicates his evolving relationship with Car.

The problem is that Owen starts getting too dependent on the manual, and when he realizes that the manual only solves problems up to the date of its publication, that means he’ll have to solve any new problems by himself. Because Owen’s become so dependent on the manual, he doesn’t know how to figure things out anymore. And we’re left to wonder if he’ll be able to figure it all out in time for the big wedding toast.

Owen’s Manual is both funny and clever, especially the first half of the script, which really moves. I love this concept because I think we all wish we had an owner’s manual to our lives. If the answers were written down in an instruction booklet that we kept on our ipods, everything would be a lot easier. So to watch that fantasy play out and the complications that arise from it was fun.

But this script is not without problems, starting with Cara (the hot girl at work). Cara is our female lead, and I never trusted her. We meet her as she takes advantage of Owen, slyly convincing him to write her article for her. I always say watch how you introduce your character because that first impression is what’s going to stick with the audience the strongest. If you have a character taking advantage of our hero in her very first scene, are we going to like that character?

The script also dips into dangerous territory by making its protagonist passive. A passive protagonist isn’t a death sentence, but when your hero isn’t dictating the action in the film, it’s usually a lot slower than when a protagonist *is* dictating the action. To the script’s credit, the reasoning for Owen’s passiveness is directly linked to the concept (he has to *follow* a manual), so it didn’t hurt the screenplay too much.

Probably the biggest misstep though was the Hayden storyline. Our hero’s being lured to this wedding for a character we haven’t met, don’t know and don’t care about. It never felt organic and as a result, we’re physically watching the strings being pulled as they’re being pulled. If you look at a very similar story, Office Space, and imagine Peter Gibbons getting a call from his fiancé in Hawaii and flying out there for the third act, it just feels all wrong. And that’s how it felt here.

I think the reason for this straying had something to do with the lack of a clear theme. I couldn’t figure out what the script was trying to say. Was it saying you need to make your own decisions? That you can’t depend on others? For awhile, yes. But then in the end, all of that is completely abandoned in order the hash out the complexities of the Hayden marriage storyline, leaving me with a big question mark on my face. Uh…okay? What was the whole point of that again?

Those types of things make this feel like an early draft, which it very well might be. But in spite of these issues, I enjoyed it enough to recommend it. If you’re a high-concept comedy guy like myself, you’ll want to check this out, for both the good and the bad.

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

What I learned: Sometimes storylines weren’t meant to come together. If you’re flexing every single writing muscle you have to force two storylines together in a finale – if each word is dripping with sweat from the Herculean effort you’re making to somehow combine these two worlds, maybe it’s time to admit that those storylines can’t coexist. That’s the case here with Owen’s Manual. The Hayden stuff just never gels with the story, which is why the third act derails. Never be afraid to cut out that storyline that isn’t working.

Watch Scriptshadow on Sundays for book reviews by contributors Michael Stark and Matt Bird. We try to find books that haven’t been purchased or developed yet that producers might be interested in. We won’t be able to get one up every Sunday, but hopefully most Sundays. Here’s Michael Stark with his review of “King of The Sunset Strip.”

Genre: True Crime / Memoir
About: Young Hollywood actor leaves the Mickey Mouse Club for Mickey Cohen’s gang. Think Public Enemies meets What Makes Sammy Run with a dab of The Freshman thrown in.
Writer: Steve Stevens (who has constantly worked in Hollywood for over 50 years) and journalist, Craig Lockwood
Staus: According to the book, Steve’s son, Mark, had written a screenplay, but I can’t find the development stats anywhere. Trust me, this one would make a great flick.

“Someone’s gonna die cause some broad is banging a bullfighter? It ain’t gonna be me.” — Mickey Cohen on both Sinatra’s and Bugsy Siegal’s women troubles.

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there!!! Welcome to another sporadic Scriptshadow Sunday Book Review, where we brave paper cuts and funky, old paperback stench to bring you the books we wanna see turned into movies. It’s our way of helping our nation’s starving writers, the dying logging industry and all those underdeveloped development gals.

With my own bookshelves bare and not enough scratch for a coffee to beard my word thieving ways at Barnes and Noble, the search for my next column brought me back to a place I vowed never to return to — the damn library. I asked the bookish blonde behind the counter what was good. She dutifully told me to go take a hike in the biography section…

…Where I got jumped by the stunning, Saul Bass reds and blacks of this little honey’s spine. Hypnotized, I read the blurbs and knew I had found the one! King of the Sunset Strip instantly intrigued me cause it’s about two of my favorite subjects: Old Hollywood and true crime noir.

It’s the late 50s in the city of angels, mere moments before the Raging Bulls and Easy Riders would seize power. The mighty studio system still ran the town and it was all so deceptively glamorous and magical like Cuba before Batista fell.

19-year-old, Steve Stevens, a graduate of the Hollywood Professional School and the Mickey Mouse Club, is getting a little too long in the Ultra-Brite-white tooth for the kid roles he’s been playing. He knows damn well that not every child star makes the transition to the adult’s table. For every Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor, there’s the cautionary tale of a Bobby Driscoll (Treasure Island and the voice of Peter Pan) who ended up dead at 31, just another junkie on skid row.

(Actually, Driscoll’s story would make a great movie too if Disney would allow the slight besmirch of their hallowed name.)

Waiting around his pad for his agent to call (No 4G or answering machines back then), Stevens was way closer to going broke then breaking in. But, then, a mysterious piece of fan mail arrives under the slot that will change the spin of his axis forever. An admirer named Mr. Michael invites him to his ice cream shop, saying “You play tuff guys real good.”

That Mr. Michael, for those gangland challenged, turned out to be the colorful, celebrity criminal, Mickey Cohen, the East Coast, Jewish mob boss who was sent out West to keep an eye on Bugsy Siegal. Ax ex-boxer and Chicago enforcer, Cohen pretty much organized all of the organized crime in the great state of California.

Cohen, a skilled blackmailer, had so much dirt on the denizen of Tinseltown, that the media had to protect themselves, painting him as a modern day Robin Hood. Newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, was a close friend. Or perhaps Cohen knew who Rosebud was? Even the FBI stayed away – supposedly the mob had the cross-dressing goods on J. Edgar too.

He was a bulletproof survivor, who lived through gang wars, feuds, assorted attempted hits and all forms of federal prosecution. The man was definitely charismatic but also totally ruthless.

Does it seem a little contrived that a notorious mobster would send a young actor a fan letter? Well, put that in the truth is stranger than fiction department, cause it happened. When adapting the screenplay, this may have to be finessed a bit. Stevens played a lot of juvenile delinquent roles and Cohen must have seen a little bit of his younger, scrappy self in those portrayals. Childless, perhaps he was looking for someone to groom.

Stevens starts hanging with the mobster and the mentoring begins. A natural charmer, the kid soon wins over Mickey’s gang of tough thugs with his heartthrob smile and autographed pictures of Annette Funicello.

Against the warnings of his friends, Stevens is soon a junior member of their little crime family. The flash, the cash and the hot women were just too enticing. Now, Stevens wasn’t exactly an innocent. He had an ulterior motive too. Cohen knew everyone from the Rat Pack to studio chieftains to then Senator Richard Nixon. Being seen with the smooth criminal might just kick-start his career – if he doesn’t get kicked in the head first.

With all the sexy star treatment came some real, fucking serious danger too. Cohen was Public Enemy Number One for good reason. His hair trigger temper was infamous.

Not only did he have the cops in his pocket, but most of L.A.’s best maitre d’s as well. At the exclusive Villa Capri, while Stevens is starstruck by his fellow diners, Cohen overhears a rude comment, extracts a champagne bottle from the bucket and proceeds to wail on the loose-lipped fella with it. After the lug is knocked unconscious and dragged outside, Cohen nonchalantly returns the bottle to the shocked patrons, sits down and puts the napkin around his neck.

The gentleman mobster was sometimes something of a sociopath.

My favorite scene is when Stevens accompanies Mickey and his goons to a comedy club and the brave (or perhaps suicidal) Don Rickles unleashes his trademarked “Mr. Warmth” tirade on the gangster. The kid and the gunmen are shocked silent, waiting for a reaction from their boss. Is he gonna a grab a baseball bat and show the disrespectful comedian just how it’s done in Brooklyn? Finally, after what seems like an eternity of deliberating, Cohen doubles over in laughter. The usual mercurial mobster can take a joke tonight. It’s one of the many moments that will kill on the screen.

When Steven’s parents get into a little scrape with some hooligans in the apartment upstairs, he calls in his first favor from his “Uncle Mickey”. Goons are quickly dispatched to take care of business. It’s another good, comic scene, cause we only hear the ruckus of broken furniture and ass stomping from his parent’s living room below.

Now, favors in the mob have to one day be returned. Stevens is soon dragged into some rather unsavory and increasingly dangerous errands for his uncle.

When he botches one of them up, Cohen explodes. To make sure it doesn’t happen again, he uses a little negative reinforcement, unmercifully kicking the living shitlights out of the kid. Good thing there weren’t any auditions that week.

In a parallel plotline, Stevens lands a juicy role in the B-movie, High School Caesar, as a sycophant patsy to the vicious JD running the school – a part he’s been basically preparing for the past two years. Shooting on location in a small Missouri town, he thinks he’s finally escaped from Cohen’s grasp till two goons from Kansas City come down to watch over him and show him a good time.

Returning home, the errands Mickey has him running get more and more dangerous, one landing him a savage beatdown from the LAPD. Another has him witnessing a near gangland slaying of a skimming nightclub owner.

With friends avoiding him and his acting career faltering, Stevens realizes that hitching his star to Cohen’s wagon might not have been the brightest idea. Hey, did you do anything stupid when you were 19? With more hit attempts on the gangster’s life and the FBI closing in, the kid may not even get out of there alive.

King of the Sunset Strip is a quick zip gun of a read, but it ain’t James Elroy. It’s more the chatty memoir of a very talented schmoozer. Thus, If it’s gonna get made into a movie, I suggest taking a few liberties and have it merely “based on a true story.” Also, we need to focus more on the famous gangster. After doing some research, I’m shocked that Hollywood has never made a movie solely about Mickey Cohen before. Both Bugsy and L.A. Confidential feature him in smaller roles.

As the book is told through Steven’s POV, we need to have more scenes cementing Cohen’s reputation – His scandalous Hollywood shakedowns, his escalating war with Jack Dragna, the Senate Select Committee on organized Crime and, of course, his involvement with Johnny Stompanato.

Stompanato was Cohen’s bodyguard and something of a legendary chick magnet. The sex tape Cohen recorded of Stomp and Lana Turner made the mobster a load of dough. He pressed copies of the starlet’s ecstatic squeals and sold them at fifty bucks a pop. When Turner’s daughter murdered Stompanato, the ruthless businessman pressed up a few thousand more. I have yet to see one of these platters turn up on Ebay.

There’s plenty of material to flesh this film out, including Cohen’s own autobiography and Brad Lewis’ Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster. As biopics need clear arcs to keep them from meandering, Mickey’s friendship with the Mouseketeer is the perfect frame, keeping the crux of the tale in this two or three year period.

While clearly the comedic elements make it reminiscent of the charming Brando & Broderick team-up, The Freshman, (Man, why isn’t the great Andrew Bergman making movies anymore???) it could also aim towards a more sweeping crime epic like L.A. Confidential.

Either way, I’d love Brian DePalma to take a crack at it. He can atone for The Black Dahlia and prove he can make yet another Untouchables. Step up to the plate, sir. Step right up!

For Discussion: What Biopics would you like to see? And, please tell my fucking tightwad editor to give me a damn book allowance. GA rural libraries aren’t the finest funded these days.

Stark’s further rants and ramblings can be followed in his blog: www.michaelbstark.blogspot.com

Genre: Horror/Supernatural
Premise: A strange event results in nearly everyone in the world vanishing into thin air. A small group of survivors find each other and try to figure out what happened.
About: Brad Anderson, the director of “Vanishing,” has always been an interesting filmmaker to me, but truth be told his films have left me wanting more. Session 9 was cool, but I still couldn’t tell you exactly what it was. Was it a horror movie? A serial killer movie? It seemed like an excuse to shoot at a creepy location more than anything. The Machinist was okay, but confused me more than it entertained me. It too lacked conviction. I wanted that movie to slug me in the face and it seemed more intent on tickling me to death. So I think the jury’s still out on him. Anderson’s found a solid cast in his latest though, with Hayden Christensen, John Leguizamo, and Thandie Newton onboard. Anthony Jaswinski, the writer, has written a couple of movies for TV, has another couple in development, but is best known around these parts as the writer of the spec script “Kristy,” which has poked up on the Scriptshadow Reader Top 25 before. The script is about a girl who’s terrorized on a deserted college campus.
Writer: Anthony Jaswinski
Details: Blue Rev. 9/22/09 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

The Vanishing on 7th Street is a script that starts off strong but, like a lot of these scripts, gets swallowed up in its own ambition. The ultra high-concept premise lures us in like fresh garbage to a family of raccoons. The question is, is the premise *too* high concept? Wha? Huh? Buh? ‘How can that even be possible’ you ask?? A premise is too high concept when no matter what you do with the story, it will never be as interesting as the concept itself. In other words, you bite off more than you can chew. And unfortunately, I think that’s the case with Vanishing.

Paul is a quiet keeps-to-himself projectionist in his 40s who lives a very similar existence to his job – isolated, alone, doesn’t want to be bothered. He spends his free time like all of us do, gobbling up quantum physics in textbook form (Come on, you know you dig the quantum). When the projector stops, Paul gets up to check out what’s going on in the theater, only to see that everyone is gone. Did Paul accidentally screen The Switch? No, the audience simply…vanished.

Paul wanders into the adjacent mall, hearing the occasional scream, but notices that he’s the only one there. Instead of raiding Cinnabon though, Paul stumbles out into the streets where he realizes that all the cars have stopped, all the phones are out, and poor dogs are walking around without owners. The Vanishing has apparently spared canines.

72 hours later we catch up with Luke, our brooding hero played by Hayden Christensen. Luke split up with his wife to work here and he’s never quite found peace with the decision. As is always the case, you don’t start missing someone until the damn world’s about to blow up.

Eventually Luke runs into a group of people. The first is Paul, our projectionist friend. The second is James, a teenager who’s waiting for his mom to come back (it ain’t happening kid), and then there’s Maya, a nurse who’s a few bad meals from going off the deeeeeep end.

The group holes up in a tavern and tries to figure out why the hell people are, you know, disappearing. Some believe it’s a pissed off God. Some think the universe is systematically closing down. Others think that there’s no reason at all. It just simply…happened.

But while theories are flying fast and free, a far more pressing problem arises. The group starts to hear voices in the shadows, and become aware that the light is the only thing keeping them alive. Slip out of it and into the darkness, and the beasts/monsters behind those eerie voices pull you away. The group must formulate a plan to escape before the light runs out.

The Vanishing on 7th Street has a lot of scenes and visuals and sounds that would get any director excited. There’s a baby stroller lit under a lone streetlight. A character opens a door to another room only to find a concrete wall. Characters in hoods slide through a city bathed in pockets of light. Voices spookily taunt characters from behind the shadows. Visually and aurally, there is definitely a movie here. I just don’t know if there’s a story.

The big hook – the actual vanishing – wears off quickly and we’re stuck with these characters who technically all have solid goals (to survive) but aren’t all that interesting. They seem only a quarter or a half realized. For example, Paul, who’s a science geek, comes up with this cool theory that whoever created the universe is shutting it down piece by piece, and the people of this planet are the first to be turned off. Yet that’s all I can remember about Paul, was his theory. I couldn’t tell you about any character flaws or what happened in his life that pushed him into such an isolated existence. He’s like the hand and the leg of a person instead of the entire body.

Luke is more thought out and has the backstory with his wife, but this information doesn’t inform the story or the character at all. Besides a quick throwaway conversation, Luke doesn’t seem that interested in finding or getting back to his wife. He spoke of it being an issue, but we didn’t FEEL it was an issue. Which leads me to a bigger problem. Nobody here really had a plan. There’s this vague notion that they should find a working car (all the cars are dead) and drive somewhere. But where? I always say that once your character’s motivations are unclear, your movie is dead, because the audience isn’t interested in watching characters without a point, without a plan. And that’s how I felt once the second half of Vanishing rolled around.

Instead, the script focuses on middle-of-the-road conversations the characters have which contain little to no conflict beneath them. “Who are you?” “What do you think it is?” “I want to find my mom.” One of the reasons Aliens is so awesome is because those characters had so much going on underneath the surface. Ripley is trying to save this little girl. Burke is planning to sacrifice Ripley for money and glory. Bishop is an android, who our hero hates but must trust to survive. There was a real dynamic between the characters ripe for conflict. Here, it’s like each character is on their own island, inflicting no cause or effect on any of the other characters. It was frustrating.

Admittedly, Anderson and Jawinski seem to be tackling some really deep issues and thoughts in this movie, and I’m not sure if I’m smart enough to understand them. I definitely felt like something bigger was happening here, that symbolism and metaphors and a multi-layered narrative were all present. But because I wasn’t engaged in the storyline, I didn’t care to figure out any of that stuff.

Vanishing is a strange cross between Flashforward, The Darkest Hour, The Langoliers, and The Happening. It’s very Steven Kingish, and I anticipate King fans will dig the vibe. But the script is never better than in its opening act, and that can’t happen in a script.

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

What I learned: Think long and hard about whether you can deliver on your huge premise before you write it. If the concept that sends your story into motion is the best thing about your script, then you only have one-fourth of a script. What if aliens invaded our planet tomorrow? Okay, great concept. But then what? How do you keep that interesting for the 100 minutes after they invade? If you want to see how bad someone can screw this up, go rent Independence Day. Just make sure to also rent a gun, as you’ll want to shoot yourself by the midpoint. I think the key to these high concept ideas is making sure you have a story ready on the personal level after you hit your audience with the hook. So in District 9, the hook was, “What if aliens got stuck here and we enslaved them in a ghetto?” But the personal story was, “What if a human started turning into one of these aliens and had to find a way to turn back before it was too late?” That’s a story that can sustain itself the whole way through. The story within the story baby…the story within the story. :)