Search Results for: F word

Ollie Klublershturf vs. The Nazis

Posted on October 4, 2010 | by admin

The next two weeks should be fun.  We have a pretty big spec sale we’re reviewing later in the week.  We also have a “Reality Bites” type script that makes Reality Bites look like a shitty student film (which some will point out isn’t hard to do).  We have another comedy spec that’s made some headway and we’re also reviewing movie-as-script, Monsters, so try and see that to join in on the discussion.  As a bonus, I’ll also be offering my thoughts on The Social Experiment. With the addition of the new “Script News from around the Web” posts, keep checking in cause it should be rocking.  Now it’s been awhile since we’ve done a theme week, and I know that some of you hate when we cover anything that’s already a film, but I’ve always been fascinated by how much Christopher Nolan bucks conventional screenwriting trends, yet still manages to create films people love.  So next week Roger and I are going to review 5 Nolan films-as-scripts and figure out what he’s doing differently and why it still works.  Anyway, on to Roger’s review.  He decided to do something different himself and look at the piece that got Damon Lindelof (of Lost fame – yay, more Lost arguments!) into the business.  Take it away Roger. 

 
Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction, One-Act Play
Premise: Ollie Klublershturf, boy genius, must stop the Fourth Reich from murdering his family and stealing the time machine he’s invented, all of which occurs during dinner, of course.
About: “Ollie” is the one-act play Lindelof specifically wrote to get him a meeting with Carlton Cuse. It’s also been made into a short film, which played at the LA HollyShorts Festival, by director Skot Bright, starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Samm Levine, Norman Reedus, Rachel Nichols, George Segal, Lainie Kazan and Zach Mills. Before he became a professional writer, Lindelof worked as a reader for Paramount, Fox and Alan Ladd studios.
Writer: Damon Lindelof

When it comes to my favorite screenwriters, I’m always interested in that first script which serves as a calling card, that manuscript which lands them their first manager or agent, or in Damon Lindelof’s case, hooks him up with tv showrunner Carlton Cuse and lands him a spot on the writing team for Nash Bridges, which, as we all know, is just a precursor to what would become a dynamic showrunner and co-writer relationship with Cuse on the recent juggernaut of popular storytelling, Lost. 
Sure, I was obsessed with the show. We can debate its flaws, but for me, it was brilliant television. When I think about it, Lost‘s run captures a specific time period in my life, a period of six years that I devoted to learning the scriptwriting craft. The date of the first season coincides with my decision to become a creator, instead of merely, a consumer. There are moments in that show, character moments or revelations or surprises that are forever etched into my heart and mind. And, it became clear, that while listening to the show’s podcast commentaries, that Damon Lindelof had an uncanny gift for narrative. A young showrunner who shepherded a massive narrative, the guy who came up with the idea to place John Locke in a wheelchair, an idea which shocked the rest of the writers. 
In the writer’s room, he’s the guy that thinks outside of the box. 
Along with Orci and Kurtzman, Lindelof is one of today’s in-demand pop writers. I’ve always wondered what he would do after Lost and it’s no surprise that he hasn’t strayed too far away from that show’s genre-bending science fiction elements. He’s scripting the next Star Trek movie and is one of the writers on the Jon Favreau-directed Cowboys & Aliens, and if that’s not enough, he’s also been hired to pen a draft of Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel. Why is he in demand as a writer? The guy’s got the goods. 
Okay. So, what the hell is Ollie Klublershturf vs. The Nazis, Rog?
“Ollie” is the one-act play Lindelof specifically wrote to try and impress Carlton Cuse. The story goes that Cuse was talking to Damon’s agent, and he asked the agent if there was anything he could read, and the agent gets back to him a few days later and says there’s a one-act play he can read. 
Cuse was impressed, stating that the pages “were funny and well-written.” So, that got Lindelof in the room with Cuse, and they immediately hit it off and the rest is presumably history. But, here’s the kicker, according to Cuse, “Little did I know that Damon wrote this original material for the purpose of the meeting.” 

That’s a pretty good story, Rog. But what the heck is the play about?
Dade Klublershturf has brought over his latest girl to meet the parents over dinner. Dade is a bit of an idiot, frustrated with his mother, Sharon, who keeps mispronouncing his date’s name. 
Daniella is a polite enough girl, well-groomed and dressed and manicured in that modern European way. Only thing is, Sharon is a bit miffed that Dade is dating a German girl. He is Jewish, after all, and it just makes her talk about how her son has always denied his ethnic heritage. 
It’s a sore point between mother and son, but Daniella takes it all in stride. 
During this dinner argument, in-between Dade’s wheelchair-ridden grandfather, Poppy, battling his senility and what’s possibly Tourette syndrome, Ollie shuffles into the room.
Ollie, barefoot, with wild hair, goes about inspecting the room with a tape measure while examining the gaudy chandelier above them. He moves a chair a few inches and then exits the room.
Dade and Sharon continue to argue, and he pisses her off by making a joke about concentration camps. She replies, “You think joking about concentration camps is funny?”

“Roberto Benigni thinks it’s funny.”
The conversation is interrupted by the sound of drilling above them, and Daniella steers the conversation towards the little boy with the tape measure that she saw earlier. 
Dade tells her that’s his retarded brother, Ollie, and Sharon corrects him, “He is not retarded. He’s a genius.”
Sharon then tells them that Ollie has been busy building a time machine. 
On this, Ollie enters the room with a paper bag in his hands. He grabs a plate and starts piling food on it. As his mother tries to introduce him to Daniella, he informs her that she’s not only mispronouncing her name, but that they’ve already met. 
Daniella is confused, is confident that they have never met. 
Ollie tells his family, while talking to Dade, that his date is about five minutes away from killing their entire family. He confronts Daniella and says, “Go ahead. Ask. This is where you usually ask me about my time machine.”
What’s in Ollie’s paper bag? Is it the time machine?
Indeed, it is. 
It’s an Atari joystick. Although the sight of it renders Dade dubious, Ollie explains that it creates a rip in the space-time continuum and allows him to travel to any point in history of his choosing. 
Daniella is unsettled, and Ollie informs her that they’ve been through this chain of events twenty-three times now. No matter what he does, he can’t save his family so he keeps travelling back in time to the beginning of the dinner so he can create a paradox and thwart her evil plans. 
The dinner is interrupted when the doorbell rings and Sharon invites two hunky (and Aryan) bible salesman into her home. 
Who are the bible salesman?
Chad and Barry aren’t really bible salesman. 
With Daniella, they’re really members of the Fourth Reich. 
Ollie and the Fourth Reich begin to interrogate each other, and Ollie accuses Daniella of having a gun. If that’s so, why doesn’t she just shoot him and take the joystick? 
Ollie says it’s because he’s always able to activate his machine and escape before she draws the weapon, “I’m learning more and more each time though, and I daresay I have prepared a series of unpleasant surprises for you Nazi bastards this go-around.” 
What are the surprises?
A letter Ollie has taped underneath his mother’s chair to prove his point that his machine works and that these dinner guests really are nefarious Nazis. 
And, he’s also rigged the chandelier to fall and smash into Chad, burying him in broken glass. 
As Barry tries to kill Ollie, Ollie is forced to use the machine and he travels back to an earlier conversation during the dinner. 
Ollie tells Daniella that they’ve seemed to have reached a stalemate, and he offers to give her the device under three conditions: (1) She must spare the lives of him and his family, sans Dade and (2) when they go back to World War 2 she must convince Hitler to pick on someone other than the Jews, preferably Mexicans, and lastly, (3) his third and final condition is that she must show him his tits. 
Does she flash her tits?
Yep. 
But, of course, like any prankster boy genius, Ollie says he was just kidding and he’ll never stop at trying to stop her and the Fourth Reich. In fact, next time he’s even gonna get her to take her pants off. 
And, he activates his time machine and escapes, once again. 
Pretty funny. But, I thought you had to write screenplays or teleplays to break into the business?
I guess that’s usually the norm, and although Lindelof is known for being a Nicholl semi-finalist, with his spec screenplay, “Perfectionists”, it was this little twenty-four page one-act play that kick-started things with him and Cuse. 
You have to admit, it takes way less time to read twenty-four pages than it does to read a hundred pages, and the fact of the matter is, this one-act play has a beginning, middle and end like any good three-act screenplay.
It has its own inherent three-act structure.
There’s the introduction of the scenario and all the players. And the middle, or Act Two, starts with the hook that Ollie really has invented a time machine, the moment where he pulls out the Atari Joystick. And the hook that spins the play into the Third Act is when Ollie informs the Fourth Reich that he has prepared surprises this go-around. 
It’s funny and entertaining. Smartly written and structured to tell a story, even though it’s only a little over twenty pages. The lesson here? You definitely don’t need a ninety page script to show people that you know how to write characters, that you know structure, that you know how to tell a story. 
“Ollie Klublershturf vs. The Nazis”, despite its length, is a narrative that still manages to unfold and entertain.
It packs a fun punch.

Script link: Ollie Klublershturf vs. The Nazis

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I like this advice Lindelof gives in an interview, “I did so much bad writing in my 20s. I got hired as a professional writer for the first time when I was 28 or 29, and I literally have thousands of pages of shit. A lot of people aren’t willing to write shit, or they write 2 pages of shit and then they stop. You have to plow through it.” It reminds me something Ray Bradbury said once, saying that it probably takes a million or two words before you become a good writer, “Everything I wrote from the age of twelve to twenty-two was really no good. Two million words were no good, except they were. Why? They taught me how to be bad, how to be mediocre.” And lastly, for some reason, it reminds me something Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica) said in Pamela Douglas’ book “Writing the TV Drama Series”: He said that when he’s looking at samples, he doesn’t pay attention to whether something is well-structured or plotted or not. He pays attention to the writer’s voice, the dialogue, and the knack for character. Why? He can always teach someone structure, beats and plotting. That’s the craft part. Craft can be learned. But the art part? That’s the talent. He can’t give or teach someone talent. Talent is a gift someone already has. And, how do you hone your talent? You plow through all the bad writing that comes out of you and look for the gold.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The King’s Speech

Posted on September 28, 2010 | by admin

Genre: Period/Biopic
Premise: On the precipice of World War 2, the son of King George V, who has an embarrassing speech impediment, is tasked with giving one of the most important speeches of the 20th century.
About: The King’s Speech just won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival. The film stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Botham Carter. For those of you writers getting long in the tooth and afraid that Hollywood ageism is conspiring against you, David Seidler, the writer of The King’s Speech, is 73 years old and just signed with UTA! Talk about paying your dues, huh? This script should prove to many that your best work is usually your most personal. Seidler had a terrible stuttering problem when he was growing up and was inspired by Bertie’s (King George VI) story. He’s been trying to get the film made for over 20 years. The script was finally made because it got into the hands of Tom Hooper’s parents (the director). They gave it to their son, who was shooting John Adams for HBO. He showed up at Seidler’s door, waving the script, calling it the best script he’d ever read in his life. In classic Hollywood fashion, they then proceeded to write 50 more drafts!
Writer: David Seidler
Details: 115 pages – Sept. 17, 2008 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).

I remember last year around this time when An Education debuted and people were talking about it as an Oscar contender. I didn’t personally see anything Oscar-contention-worthy about the script, so while I know a lot of people liked it, I wasn’t surprised to see it disappear off the radar. I still don’t know why you’d make a movie about an inappropriate relationship where nobody in the movie cares that the relationship is inappropriate! But alas, I’m not here to complain about An Education.

I’m here to look for some weightier scripts. Last week’s half-hearted attempts at screenwriting left me cold so when I heard that, once again, companies were marching out their Oscar contenders, I perked up. You figure, at the very least, the scripts have to be decent, and this is what led me to The King’s Speech, the movie that came out of Toronto with the most attention.

I’m by no means an expert on British royalty so you’ll have to excuse me if I get some facts wrong. The King’s Speech is about Albert, or “Bertie” as he’s known, The Duke of York and second son of King George V. It’s the 1930s and some lunatic named Hitler is wreaking havoc up and down Europe. With King George on his last legs, a new king will have to reign soon, and that king’s voice will be one of the most important voices in the world, as it will convey to every country what Britain’s stance is on the dictator.

Enter Bertie, who has a colossal stuttering problem, so much so that his own wife, Elizabeth, is embarrassed by him. Lucky for Bertie, his older brother David, the Prince of Wales, will be taking over the throne, not him. David is a media darling and extremely popular, however he falls in love with a common woman, and is therefore scandeled out of the throne, forcing Bertie into the role he thought he was free and clear of, that of The King.

During this time, radio was becoming huge. For you youngsters, think 3-D times a thousand. Actually, 3-D’s not a good example, since it will be gone in a year. Let’s see. Like the internet! Yes, like the internet. Radio was like the internet back in the 1930s. Except there was no e-mail in radio. Or web. Or Twitter or Facebook. This reminds me, did you guys hear about that college that experimented for one week with no cell phones, texting, or internet? I guess the whole college grinded to a halt because nobody knew how to operate.

Anyway, the point I was making was that radio was huge, and more leaders were required to give public addresses. In particular, the world was awaiting the most important country in the world’s response to Hitler. Enter Bertie, a man who stuttered so bad he couldn’t find his way out of a sentence with a map.

So terrible is his problem that his wife actually seeks a speech therapist outside the royal circle. She finds a man with a great reputation, an Aussie named Lionel Logue. Lionel is of course brash, unconventional, and inappropriate, sort of like a 1930s Mr. Miagi with more attitude. Bertie hates him immediately. But after a clever first session in which he proves to Bertie that he can speak without stuttering, Bertie has no choice but to continue the therapy.

This is where the script really takes off, when these two are clashing against each other. The pitch-perfect conflict, one steeped in convention, the other dripping with disrespect, makes for some fun back and forth. Characters who buck convention and live by their own set of rules are always good, and when I heard that they got Geoffrey Rush to play this part, I knew they’d hit the jackpot.

Unfortunately, for some reason, the script deviates from the Lionel-Bertie storyline in the later half of the second act, focusing instead on in-family political issues and some nonsense with the prime minister that we don’t really care about. While I understand why so many writers get lost in this part of the script (I think it’s the hardest part of a screenplay to get right), this seemed like a pretty obvious mistake. Why go away from the best part of your story?

While it could be characterized as a hoighty-toity period piece, The King’s Speech uses the simplest most classic story structure there is. Man has problem. Man tries to fix problem. Believe it or not, it’s not that different from a script like Bad Teacher, the Cameron Diaz comedy I reviewed earlier this year. In that script, woman has problem (she needs bigger boobs so she can find a sugar daddy) and woman tries to fix problem (Steals money from the school she’s employed at).

What makes The King’s Speech so successful at this format, however, is first, irony is built straight into the concept. A man who can’t speak is tasked with making the biggest speech ever! What a great premise. Next, the stakes are extremely high (possibly the freedom of the world). There’s a natural ticking time bomb (the speech), and our character is super sympathetic. He’s an underdog! As I’ve pointed out before, there’s no character we root more for than an underdog. Put all these things together and you have a winning formula.

Now that doesn’t mean the structure is foolproof. One of the problems you run into with such simple stories is deciding how complex to make them, namely how many subplots to add and what to do with those subplots. This is a critical decision. If your subplots are too few or too thin, the story feels empty. If they’re too many or too complex, they create deep chasms of screenplay real estate that bore the audience to death. This is what I was referring to above. When we move away from Lionel and start concerning ourselves with Bertie’s brother, he’s just not tied into Bertie’s issue enough to make him interesting. Or, at least, not in the way they chose to include him.

Finally, I have to mention the dialogue in this script, specifically between Bertie and Lionel. Once again, it proves that the SITUATION is the most important factor in creating great dialogue. The dialogue here comes because you have an uptight man who demands respect working with a selfish man who respects no one. Before you’ve even written a word, the conflict you’ve created by placing these two characters in the same room is going to lead to great dialogue no matter how inexperienced you are.

It’s really too bad that the dreaded late second act blues hit this script because it was shaping up to be an impressive. Still, this was an enjoyable read and I’m not surprised it’s playing so well to audiences.

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

What I learned: Failed period pieces often try to cover too much territory. It’s as if the writer feels he/she must live up to the weightiness of the time and the material by exploring as many different aspects of the subject matter as possible. Instead, the next time you write a period piece, consider telling a simple yet powerful story that audiences can understand and relate to, like The King’s Speech.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The High Lonesome (Roger Review)

Posted on September 26, 2010 | by admin

First thing’s first.  If you want to complain about the new look of the site, I’ve created a forum for you!  A lot of people have said to just go back to the old look but unfortunately that’s one thing I can assure you isn’t happening.  I’ve always despised the look of the site and while I’m clearly not an esteemed member of the design club, I’ll keep tweaking it until it’s acceptable.  If you’re a graphic design master and want to shoot me some tips, feel free to!  

You’ll also notice there are now ads on the site.  People have called me a moron for not monetizing the blog earlier and I guess you can say I finally came to my senses.  My adsenses.  Heh heh.  If you’ve spent countless hours here and always wished you could help out somehow, support the site when you see something that interests you. :)  It will definitely be appreciated.  

This week Roger starts us off with a Western.  I then review scripts for two movies that played over at Toronto, both of which are getting some early Oscar buzz (Oscar buzz?  In September??).  I’ll also review an enormous super-thriller that’s been kicking around development for awhile. And for those freaking out because I didn’t do Amateur Friday last week, fear not as I am doing one this Friday.  In my world, Friday is September 31st.  Now, here’s Roger with a review of a Richard Donner project.  Enjoy!  

Genre: Western
Premise: A deaf gunslinger running from his past finds his destiny in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he becomes embroiled in a war between rival railroad companies.
About: The only information I can find is the sentence that was attached to the script, “All Richard Donner will say on the project, a Western, is: ‘It’s got an incredible character in it that makes it unique.’” If, for some insane reason, you don’t know who Donner is, he’s the director responsible for such classics as Superman, The Goonies, and Lethal Weapon. Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale, L.A. Confidential, Mystic River) is the screenwriter telling Donner’s tale.
Writers: Story by Richard Donner; Screenplay by Brian Helgeland
Details: Draft dated October 30, 2000
Brian Helgeland is the guy most likely to rewrite your screenplay should a) you manage to sell it, and b) it’s greenlighted with either Scott Free Productions or The Donner’s Company as producers. Richard Donner is the guy that convinced everyone to go the straight route on a Superman movie, and for his efforts created a modern classic that all geeks favorably point to when arguing about the cinema of superheroes. His name is associated with the zeitgeist of popular 80s flicks, The Goonies and Lethal Weapon, and although he’s directed a ton of movies and television episodes, he’s only been attached to two Westerns, Maverick and the 60s tv show, Wanted: Dead or Alive.
So, my interest was immediately piqued when this script made it into my hands with the note, “All Richard Donner will say on the project, a Western, is: ‘It’s got an incredible character in it that makes it unique.’
Who is this incredible character, Rog?
John Bowman Young is in love with a girl.
When we meet him, he’s one of the Union soldiers at war with the Confederates at Gettysburg. He’s scared and fighting for his life, and in the midst of all the chaos, he tenderly takes a moment to place a Bible under a dying friend’s head in an attempt to comfort him during his last moments.
If you’ve ever asked the question, ‘Why does Brian Helgeland get to rewrite everyone’s work?’, then this script will help tell you why. There’s both powerful and economic storytelling here, and during this war sequence we flash back to visions John is having of his circumstances in Boston before the war.
As John defends his dying friend, we meet the gal he’s in love with, Mary Deacon Powell. We’re told everything we need to know about them. How he first saw her during a downpour on a cobblestoned street in Boston, how he escorted her home to her mansion through the rain. How, at a Boston Society Ball, he watched her dance with the rich Alfred Roebling, the son of railroad tycoon, Temple Roebling.
Although John dreams of marrying her, he knows that this ambition doesn’t match his wallet. Temple has a proposition for John. He offers the young man four thousand in gold to serve as a draft replacement for his son, Alfred, “Money which would be worth ten times as much by war’s end.”
Mary protests, says that the only thing she wants is for him not to go. Says that the only thing she wants is him. John ignores her, and all she can do is give him a keepsake, a locket containing a lock of her hair.
And, the war ends.
But, before it does, he holds onto the locket as he’s charged by bayonet-wielding Rebels, accepting his death, but as he drops to his knees, a cannon unleashes hell just above John’s head, cutting down his attackers.
The cannon saves him, but at the price of his hearing.
John Bowman Young returns home from the war, deaf.
There’s a brilliant scene of John making the trek back to Boston, always moving against the grain of crowds of people, and he’s walking away from Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address on a military platform.
He stares, and of course, he hears nothing.
What happens back in Boston?
Heartbreaking stuff.
John makes his way to the bank and discovers that there’s no money waiting for him in his name. Zilch. Apparently, Temple duped him. Regardless, John sets out to find Mary.
Only to find her with Temple’s son, Alfred. He follows them on a busy street, and to all appearances, it looks like they’re a bonafide couple. In actuality, Mary is telling Alfred she misses John, but to a man who can’t hear, he can only react off the visual cues. When a woman screams because John is almost hit by a carriage, Mary spins around to see John, but John flees.
Mary recognizes him and screams, “I –“ but the ‘love you’ is silent in John’s world, and he leaves Boston despondent, full of despair. It’s a tragic case of Shakespearean miscommunication, with John assuming the worst and acting off of his perception of events, not the reality.
Where does John go?
He heads West, full of grief, hoping to find peace as a homesteader in the great move to settle the land. He can’t really stand being around people anymore, so instead of joining the Manifest Destiny caravan, he travels alone on foot. He acquires a best friend, a starving redbone coonhound named Moocher. They scavenge wagon train camps for food on their journey, and one day, he sees his reflection in a pool of dirty war. He hates seeing what he’s become.
He silently screams and howls, catching the attention of some Pawnee Indians led by a man named Six Killer. Six Killer allows John to stay within eyesight of them as they all travel, convinced that the crazy are good luck. The Indians call John, “Screams Alone”. He validates his presence when he saves the Indians from a buffalo stampede during a thunderstorm because he hears their approach when no one else can.
He’s sort of inducted as an honorary member of the tribe, but he’s forced to part ways with Six Killer when they decide to head to Canada. In an emotional scene, the band of Indians all start to scream and holler, but John doesn’t understand because he can’t hear them. “They just want you to know, you no longer scream alone! We scream with you.”
In Kansas, John learns that the Independence Mercantile Bank is refusing his loan to become a homesteader because he’s deaf.
So, in an act of desperation, he uses all the money he has to purchase a gun and one bullet. Hey, it’s all he can afford.
And, he attempts to rob the bank.
How the hell is a deaf man going to rob a bank with one bullet?
With the help of T.Z. Spaulding, of course. See, John is in the middle of trying to rob the bank when another robber arrives, and realizes what’s going on. Spaulding is quite entertained by the scenario, and he decides to help John rob the bank.
Which they do.
And the first half of the Act Two is about Spaulding and John’s relationship. You see, Spaulding is a famous gunslinger, outlaw and bank robbery. He’s the Wizard of the Pistol. He teaches John everything he needs to know about being an outlaw and thief. He’s a great raconteur, and in fact, he’s even writing a book about himself, “And you’re making an appearance in chapter ten.
“Deaf bank robber with one bullet and no horse.”
This section of the script is great fun, and a nice break from all the grief and sadness that permeates the first act. They rob trains and banks and John learns a thing or two about himself. But, good times can’t last forever and it’s not long before a posse is sent to hunt these two down.
Things don’t end well for Spaulding, and John sort of picks up his mantle, and through the book his mentor was writing before he died, he learns the intricacies and theory of becoming a gunslinger.
John becomes adept with all kinds of guns and tricks and flourishes, and he sets out to get revenge on the outlaw that tried to kill Spaulding, and in the process, took his thumb. John learns how to kill when it’s required, and he develops a reputation that brings him all sorts of trouble.
So, what happens?
John arrives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a hotbed for the war being waged between two railway companies, Union Pacific and Great Northern. Two Union Pacific detectives arrive in town to recruit John as a hired gun, but they end up becoming his enemies. Each day, more men arrive, Pinkertons, outlaws looking to make a name for themselves, and a mysterious Man in Black, all taking sides in the battle to control the railway lines.
The situation is simmering, but really starts to boil when Alfred Roebling arrives in town, the scion of the Great Northern company, with his son and wife who is…you guessed it…Mary.
Farragut and Sunday, the Union Pacific detectives, conspire to assassinate Roebling, but of course, they’re going to have to get through John, first.
To complicate matters, John is in love with a prostitute named Liza, and our hero is forced to face all the demons of his past whilst trying to protect the people he cares about and get out of all the expectant violence alive.
Does it work?
Oh, man, does it.
This is a great script about a grief-stricken man trying to cling to hope and find peace and redemption. There were several times where I teared up because of the things said about loneliness, love lost, and hope. I mean, this is a Western that’s really about the characters and relationships and the hurt we hold inside us.
But, don’t get me wrong, the action and gunplay is awesome as well. It’s great to see how John deals with several life-threatening situations, compensating with cleverness and his other senses for his lack of hearing.
You know how we always talk about fully exploiting your concepts? Well, the concept of a deaf gunslinger is explored in exciting and painstaking detail, and it’s such a good journey. There are some cool gun rigs John wisely comes up with, and you can imagine all the duels and confrontations playing out awesomely on screen.
None of it is boring.
“The High Lonesome” is an emotional page-turner that feels like a great Western. It’s hard not to envision something special here, a deaf gunslinger looking for peace against the backdrop of the Civil War and Manifest Destiny, a man attempting to cling to hope in the throes of despair. It’s one of those journeys that you can’t forget, and you feel like you’re along for the ride every step of the way. What the story says about friendship and healing is powerful stuff, expressed in T.Z. Spaulding’s words to his friend and confidante, “…just remember hope, the patient medicine for disease, disaster and despair.”
Indeed, this is a journey of hope.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There’s a current trend with pacing that tends to rush a story. I can see people reading this script and saying, “Wait, all the stuff in the logline and Cheyenne doesn’t begin to happen until the mid-point. Is there any way you can tighten things up and get it to start at the beginning of the 2nd Act?” I don’t know when or how this Haphazardly Rushed Sense of Urgency started, but sometimes people are so eager to make their plot move fast that they neuter their characters, sense of pace and overall story. Stories are journeys that unfold, and not all require the plot events of the logline to take place as soon as fucking possible, especially when the character stuff is so rich and required. “The High Lonesome” wouldn’t have worked without John’s journey and transformation, which all happens before his arrival in Cheyenne. Without it, the events in the third act wouldn’t pack the emotional punch they do. Sometimes, people just need to slow down and let their story unfold. Ignore the cookie cutter beats and let character be the engine that drives the story.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Booth

Posted on September 21, 2010 | by admin

Genre: Biopic
Premise: A look at the years leading up to John Wilkes’ Booth assassination of President Lincoln.
About: Booth is one of those scripts that’s been bouncing around Hollywood for a long time. Although all we have to go on is rumor here, it’s said that many who have read it loved it, and that the only reason it hasn’t been made is because it’s a hard sell. Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote the script with Dylan Kussman, has talked openly about his screenwriting career and about how winning an Oscar on only his second movie with “The Usual Suspects” put an enormous amount of pressure on him. He’s spoken about how freeing it was to write the script when he knew nothing about “the rules of screenwriting,” and how that allowed him to make choices he never would have made today. He talks about the subsequent decade long process of being stuck in development rewrite hell on numerous projects, which is why he seemed to disappear after Suspects, and he’s talked about wanting to quit the screenwriting business because of how difficult it is to get movies made (even for an Oscar winner!). Lucky for McQuarrie and us, Tom Cruise called him up one day and wanted to do a movie about Hitler, which has given his career a resurgence. McQuarrie’s favorite movies include, “Deliverance”, “The Verdict”, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, “The Taking of Pelham 123”, “Die Hard”, “Electraglide in Blue”, “Lone Star”, “The Big Country” and “The Lives of Others.” Kussman is primarily an actor, appearing in such films as Leatherheads and X-Men 2.
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie & Dylan Kussman
Details: March 18, 2004 draft – 121 pages (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).


I don’t know if Booth has hit “cult” status in the screenplay world yet but it is one of those screenplays that people say you have to read. I’ve been meaning to read it myself until hearing McQuarrie talk about it. I don’t know what it was but there was just this sense of…frustration when he discussed it. Maybe it was not being able to get it made but it sounded more like he knew the script had problems. I lost interest after that but finally decided to give it a read.

One of the things that drew McQuarrie to Booth was that he wasn’t your average mentally unstable weirdo stalker who thought killing a famous person would bring him closer to a higher power. He was actually a pretty levelheaded guy. In fact, he was quite popular, one of the more famous stage actors of the time. Booth toured from city to city, directing and acting in his own hit plays, charming any man or woman who stepped in his path. He was also frighteningly handsome, although if this picture below is anything to go by, there probably weren’t too many good looking people back in the 1800s.

We meet Booth on that infamous day, as he’s shooting Lincoln and jumping off the rafters, shouting those immortalized words, “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” which is probably why we’ve always assumed he was a nut. Killing people and shouting out phrases in an ancient language usually means “crazy town.”


We then jump back five years to Richmond, Virginia before it all started. This portion of the story is somewhat Wikipediaish. Booth has a big family. He doesn’t have the best relationship with them. In particular he and his brother Edwin, also an actor, don’t see eye to eye. This conflict stems from their father’s passing, who apparently drank himself to death, which (I think) Booth believes Edwin is responsible for.

Around this time, the Civil War is gearing up, and after seeing a Union soldier hanged for freeing slaves, Booth has an epiphany and rededicates himself to becoming a great actor (I’m not sure what seeing someone’s death has to do with acting either. Though Tom Cruise has taught us inspiration comes from the strangest of places).

Eventually Booth meets up with his childhood friends Sam and Michael, who are off to the war. Booth promises to join them but then makes a second promise to his mother that he’ll never become a soldier. This leaves Sam and Michael pissed and is a critical turning point in Booth’s life, as he will never get over the guilt of abandoning his friends.

However, Booth gets another chance to help out the cause when the Confederacy comes to him and asks if he’ll secretly deliver medicine to the Confederate army on his tour stops. Delighted to be of use, he accepts, and this is probably the most dramatically compelling portion of the screenplay. There’s a great scene where some officers stop him and ask to check his suitcase for weapons, the very suitcase the medication is in. Watching him try and squirm out of it is fun stuff.

As Booth’s star rises, his side falls. It’s looking more and more like the Union is going to win the war, and for that reason, people are coming up with desperate ideas. Booth is no exception. He starts concocting a plan whereby he kidnaps the president in order to bargain for many of the captured Confederate soldiers.


This is actually what was supposed to happen all along until a few days before the kidnapping, when Booth’s conspirators changed the plan to killing Lincoln instead, something Booth was never totally on board with. And while he went through with the killing, his conspirators left him out in the cold. They were supposed to kill the entire presidential body, including the vice president and secretary of state, but they all choked and didn’t go through with it. Which kinda sucked for them, since they ended up getting hanged anyway. And that, my friends, is the story of Booth.

Whoa.

This was a tough read. There’s so much information packed into this novel-esque screenplay that every page you read feels like you’re reading four. Indeed, the student inside me wanted to highlight all the necessary passages for the test I would surely have to take tomorrow. When I do my whining on this site, it’s usually for biopics that make me feel like I’m back in school in the middle of a boring history course, and unfortunately, that’s how I felt here.

My big problem with Booth was that there wasn’t enough drama. There wasn’t enough conflict. In Valkyrie, Quarrie’s last film, there were so many scenes where people were clashing up against each other. You could feel the tension in each of the scenes. Here, it was just a person’s life unfolding before us, and that wasn’t enough for me. That’s why I loved the medicine-luggage scene so much. It was the only time where Booth’s journey was difficult – where his world was challenged and where something bad had the potential to happen.

The central conflict in Booth is internal – specifically his troubled relationship with his dead father. The problem is that the source of that conflict and the reasoning behind it are all very confusing. It’s somehow related to his brother and he’s mad at his brother for not stopping his father from drinking himself to death, so he blames his brother for killing his father but his brother also blames him for it I think and then he’s also trying to live up to his father’s name (who was also an actor) and I think somehow we’re supposed to make the connection between his unresolved relationship with his father and him killing Lincoln but I just didn’t see it. It was way too complicated.

I also found it a strange choice to put the assassination at the beginning. On the one hand, it makes sense. We all know what happens anyway. Why not start the movie off with a bang? The problem with this is, the rest of the story is so slow (and I think deliberately so), that we need something to look forward to. We need that exciting finale to pay off the huge investment we’re putting into this. But since we’ve already experienced the finale, we’re not sure what it is we’re driving towards, why we want to get to the end.

My question is, is Booth’s story worth telling in the first place? As far as I can tell, the bullet points of his motivation are, “He sympathized with the south, felt bad for not joining his buddies in the war, and eventually that guilt caught up with him which resulted in him killing Lincoln.” It’s almost as if what’s interesting about Booth as an assassin, the fact that he was pretty normal, is what makes his story so uninteresting. There’s no deep-set shocking reasoning for his actions. He was a normal guy and decided to do something stupid. I don’t know if that’s enough for a movie.

I think McQuarrie’s a great writer but this subject matter didn’t interest me.

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

What I learned: Now I know that some of you disagree with me on this but I believe, and will continue to believe, that telling a story where the audience already knows what’s going to happen severely handicaps one of your biggest advantages as a writer – the element of surprise. To me, when your audience is 30-40 pages ahead of you (or in this case, 100 pages), you have to work twice as hard to keep them entertained. Sure, if you have super-compelling characters, unlimited obstacles, and every scene is dripping with conflict, you can keep our focus so in the now that we don’t care that we already know what will happen (For example, we loved Apollo 13 even though we knew how it ended) but why make it so hard on yourself? I remember watching Toy Story 3 this year, probably my favorite film of 2010, when the toys are heading towards that incinerator (spoiler), and for the briefest of moments thought, “Oh my God. They’re really going to do this. They’re going to end these toys’ lives.” I was riveted in that moment, on the edge of my seat. Imagine if the opening scene of that movie was a flashforward showing us that those toys had made it out okay. How that would’ve eliminated every drop of mystery from the movie. How it would’ve stolen one of the best scenes of the year. Writing a good story is hard enough. Why handicap yourself?

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Now You See Me

Posted on September 17, 2010 | by admin

Genre: Heist/Action
Premise: A group of famous magicians combine their talents to perform a trio of heists.
About: This is a spec sale picked up by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. See Me is written by Edward Ricourt and Boaz Yakin. Yakin wrote the 1989 version of The Punisher, The Rookie, and directed Remember the Titans. Ricourt’s career has been a little shorter. He was a member of Marvel Studios’ writing program and wrote last year’s Black List script, Year 12, about earth 12 years after of an alien invasion.
Writer: Boaz Yakin & Edwart Ricourt
Details: 117 pages – May 2009 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).


In the world of screenwriting, it’s becoming harder and harder to come up with a truly original high concept. “Aliens invade earth” can only be used so many times. Now You See Me is the most original high concept I’ve heard in awhile. I know this because I’m far from a “bank heist” guy, but boy did I get excited when I heard about this bank heist. Unfortunately the problem with these great-sounding premises is the writers usually screw it up within the first 20 pages by giving us the most obvious version of the story. Well I’m happy to announce that that’s not the case with Now You See Me. They don’t just come up with the concept – they execute it.

See Me opens up with a great scene. Our four protagonists are up on a Vegas stage performing their first of three limited engagements. There’s Michael Atlas, our illustrious leader, Roderigo, a master craftsman of magical devices, London Osborne, a testy hypnotist, and young Alex Hero, a sleight-of-hand master. They name themselves the “Four Horsemen” and because each has become the most popular magician in their field, the fact that they’re teaming up has the world buzzing.

After Atlas works the crowd with his disappointment over the fading economy, he invites a random audience member up on stage. Wouldn’t it be nice, he ponders, if they could get back some of that money that’s been taken from them? Behind them are a series of video screens displaying security camera feeds of a bank. But not just any bank, a bank in Paris, the very bank this audience member belongs to. Atlas’ cohorts perform some vanishing trickery, and the audience watches in shock as Atlas and the audience member APPEAR in the video feeds. In the bank. IN PARIS!


They march their way into the vault, take all the money inside, and the next thing you know, money is RAINING FROM THE CEILINGS of the auditorium. REAL MONEY. The audience scrambles about, grabbing as much as they can, and our magicians walk off stage amidst an air of mystery.

But it gets better. The authorities call up the bank in Paris. Indeed, their vault has been robbed of the same amount of money stolen in those security videos. The cops are flabbergasted. How can that have possibly happened?

Dylan Hobbes, an FBI agent who’s overworked his way right out of a marriage, is tasked with figuring that out. He’s dead set on booking these guys but that’s not going to be easy when our heroes have a couple of thousand alibis. I mean you can’t keep people in custody for teleporting to Paris, robbing a bank, and teleporting back, can you? So after a lot of strong-arming, he’s forced to let them go.

That’s when we meet Thaddeus Bradley, a broken down old curmudgeon who’s seen more magic than Harry Potter’s underwear. Thaddeus is a magician’s mortal enemy – one of those “exposer” types who peels back the curtain on magicians’ secrets to make a quick buck. It turns out he taught Atlas everything he knows. And he knows how he pulled off his robbery. The trick is catching him in the act of the other two. He offers his services and even though Hobbes hates him, he has no choice but to let him join the team.

We then follow the Four Horseman to Atlantic City, where they expose a greedy insurance scammer, and finally Los Angeles, where they try and pull off the biggest robbery ever.

Now You See Me has the kind of spirit summer movies used to have. There’s no sex-starved vampires, rushed sequels, or superheroes here. It’s big, it’s fun, and – gasp – even attempts to make you think a little. That’s not to say the script doesn’t have problems (it’s noticeably top-heavy) but the fun-factor helps it overcome them.


The strongest aspect to me is how they approached the story. If I told you I had a script about magicians who were bank robbers, the first thing you’d probably imagine is a group of magicians, some caped, some with masks, breaking into banks, throwing down smoke bombs, disappearing and reappearing inside vaults – in other words the most straightforward interpretation of the idea. The fact that the writers approach this in a completely different way – where the characters create a spectacle of their heists, performing them in front of hundreds, makes this way more interesting than anything I could’ve imagined. It’s a good reminder that whenever you have an idea, you want to sit down and look at all the ways you could execute it. The most obvious way is not always the best way, and that little extra effort you put into figuring that out, is going to pay huge dividends in the months (and maybe years) you spend on the script.

I also thought all the magicians were great. They’re not particularly deep but the mastery each has over their respective crafts gives them this heroic quality that really makes you want to root for them. Audiences like characters who are really good at what they do. I don’t know why but that’s always been the case. And to solidify the love-fest, it was a clever coup to not only have them steal the money, but give it back to the public. I mean who doesn’t like Robin Hood (unless, of course, Russell Crowe is playing him)?

Now You See Me does most of its character exploration with Dylan Hobbes, the workaholic FBI agent who never received the memo about ‘family time.’ This is probably the only character that fell flat. Dylan’s problems are generic and uninteresting and there don’t seem to be any stakes attached to them. There are all these scenes with him and his wife/ex-wife (I’m still not sure what she is), talking about how he works too much, but there’s never that ultimatum. He never gets that “It’s either your family or your work.” If you’re not going to challenge your protagonist’s flaw, then why have it in the first place?

I suppose the only concerning issue here is the progression (or I should say “degression”) of the performances themselves. The opening performance in Vegas is awesome. So much so that the other two can’t possibly live up to it. And they don’t. The second performance, in particular, which exposes a shady insurance magnate, doesn’t even set up the magnate ahead of time. So when he’s exposed, a mere 1 minute after we meet him, we don’t care. Had they set him up earlier as a true bad guy, that would’ve helped. I like that the third robbery takes place at a unique location, but that location is so cold and grey and dead, it doesn’t feel right. These guys are putting on a show. The final performance needs to be visual and cinematic and exciting. Not some ugly brick warehouse out in the middle of nowhere. Also, the order of the cities seems off. Vegas is the crown jewel. Shouldn’t it be saved for last?

But these problems are the equivalent of having bad food at a wedding reception. Who the hell cares about the food? You just wanna get drunk and have a blast. And “See Me” gets you wasted.

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

What I learned: Be careful starting your script out too big. True, you want to rope in the reader right away. But if your opening scene is the best scene in the script that means it’s all downhill from there. Spielberg has said that his only problem with Hereafter is that it starts with a bang and ends with a whimper. I couldn’t agree more. The movie starts with this awesome tsunami sequence and then doesn’t have a single scene that comes close afterwards. Now You See Me is not in that category, but I think it’ll have to raise the level of its second and final performances if it truly wants to be a great movie.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment