Genre: Paranoid Thriller
Premise: A man becomes entangled in a secret society that forces him to murder.
About: Finished with 5 votes on the 2009 Black List. Will star Nicholas Cage, Guy Pearce, and January Jones. Shooting right now. Directed by The Bank Job’s Roger Donaldson and produced by Toby Maguire’s production company.
Status of project: Production
Status of this draft: Unknown
Writer: Robert Tannen (Story by Todd Hickey & Robert Tannen)
Details: 106 pages (undated)

Forgive me for not expecting more out of Nicholas Cage these days. Since the guy seems to be having more money problems than all seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, I figure his choices are motivated more by bags of money than his desire for challenging material. Even before our country’s gold stash had deteriorated to a point where even Michael Moore had to make a movie about it, Cage was dangling precipitously on the wrong side of quality. Most of the movies he’s been making seem designed for the 1980s direct to video market. I mean, was Banqkok Dangerous a real film? That was a joke, right? Needless to say, I wasn’t jumping at the idea of reading The Hungry Rabbit Jumps. It was more like a slow crawl, hoping someone would spot me before I made it and pull me back. But this furriest of escapades turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Maybe Cage hasn’t given up afterall.

Our hero, Nick (a little presumptuous weren’t we?), is a teacher at an inner city school. He’s a good guy who occasionally takes his wife, Laura, a violinist in the local symphony, for granted (don’t we all?). This will end up costing him, however, as when Nick skips out on drinks with Laura and her friends, she’s assaulted, raped, and nearly killed on the way to her car. Nick is immediately haunted by his selfishness and is horrified that this monster, whoever he may be, is still out there, roaming the streets.

Later, however, Nick is approached by a mysterious man named Simon. Simon gives Nick a choice. He can wait for this to play out in the creaky inefficient justice system, or he can deal with it here and now. All he has to do is say the word, and the man who raped his wife will be “dealt with.”

Oh, there’s only one catch. There may or may not be a point in the future where these people – whoever they are – will call on Nick to do something for them. Most likely, Nick will never see them again (yeah right) but in case “bad guys” shows up on his caller ID, the implication is, he should answer. Nick is told to take solace in the fact that if he is called upon, the task will be easy (double yeah right). Still fresh off the emotional devastation of his wife’s assault, Nick hears himself saying ‘okay’ and a half an hour later, the man who raped his wife is brutally murdered.

Cut to 18 months later.

Nick is now the exact opposite of his old self. He’s obsessed with his wife’s safety. He’s around her as much as possible, and when he isn’t, he’s constantly phoning her and making sure she’s okay. But that’s not the only obsessive component to Nick’s life. Nick still remembers what Simon said about needing help one day. As a result, Nick is a 24 hour bucket of nerves. He’s constantly on the lookout, convincing himself that he sees the men that were there that night, the men who may or may not be a part of this vigilante justice organization.

Turns out Nick’s instincts rock. Simon indeed strolls back into his life and reminds Nick of that little favor he owes. And just like he promised, it’s a harmless one. All Nick has to do is kill a man. If he chooses not to? Well, Nick may find himself the unwitting victim of someone else’s “favor” they owed. If it makes you feel any better, Simon points out, the man he’s supposed to kill is a horrible human being. But for some reason that doesn’t brighten Nick’s spirits. As he tries to decide what to do, and hide this secret second life from his increasingly suspicious wife, he slowly unveils the secrets of an organization that takes justice into their own hands.

One of the strengths of Hungry Rabbit Jumps is the predicament it puts its main character in. Never forget that the audience loves to watch your main character make choices. Choices are when we truly learn about a character. The more difficult you make the choice, the more entertaining it is watching them choose. Ideally, you’ll put your character in a position where both choices are “wrong.” For Nick, that moment is when he’s told, “either kill for us or we’ll try and kill you.” Nick can either a) kill a man, get caught and later executed, b) run away, fearing for the rest of his life that the organization will find him, or c) fight back and try to expose these men. Each choice presents its own set of problems and you can’t wait to see which one Nick chooses. The answer to that one choice will tell us more about Nick than 15 scenes of dialogue ever could. Never forget that.

But let’s be honest here. Hungry Rabbit Jumps isn’t the Godfather. It does sort of have that direct-to-video feel to it. The thing is, it’s an exciting direct-to-video feel. The pages turn faster than a flip book and the twists and turns, while occasionally cheesy, satisfy the same dirty side of you that occasionally needs to binge on a bag of barbeque Ruffles or a Sunday Night mini-marathon of Jersey Shore. You definitely feel filthy afterwards, but it’s satisfied filthy, like you’ve gotten away with something you’re not supposed to.

If you want to get nit-picky, Hungry Rabbit definitely provides you with some ammunition. This organization has been operating for years essentially by employing non-killers to kill. Since it’s hard enough to kill someone if you *do* know what you’re doing, throwing clueless suburbanites into the line of fire and having them come away unscathed for countless years isn’t realistic. People are going to get caught. People are going to spill the beans. But the thing about “Hungry Rabbit” is, it establishes a tone that conditions you not to worry about these petty details. It’s a fun surface-level thriller and just like all surface-level thrillers, if you dig too deep, it probably doesn’t add up. Even North By Northwest has some fatal logic holes, right?

Hungry Rabbit Jumps was a nice little diversion and definitely worthy of its five votes on the Black List.

Script link: Hungry Rabbit Jumps (This script is meant for educational purposes only. If you are the writer or copyright holder of this script and would like it taken down, please e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com and I will do so immediately)

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

What I learned: I learned that therapy sessions have become a place for writers to cheat. By that I mean, you’re never supposed to have your characters say exactly what they mean. It results in the dreaded feedback that your dialogue is too “on-the-nose”. Why is on-the-nose dialogue considered so terrible? Well A) it’s much more interesting if your character talk around their feelings and b) people rarely say what’s on their mind, so when they do it doesn’t feel realistic. Yet I realized something as Nick and his wife were in couples therapy, working through their reaction to the assault. As they bickered with the therapist, he simply said, “Talk to each other.” And they proceeded to tell each other *exactly* how they felt. They got to speak those “on-the-nose” lines that are considered a dialogue death sentence . And yet it didn’t feel fake or forced because it made sense within the context of the scene. It’s a total cheat, but it’s a great tool for you to use if you need it. (Like any tool though, don’t *overuse* it)

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A guy decides to stalk his ex-girlfriend.
About: Carnes & Gilbert were on Variety’s “Top Ten Screenwriters To Watch” list of 2005. They sold “Stalker: A Love Story” to Paramount for 1.75 million dollars. The two also wrote Mr. Woodcock. More info here.
Writers: Michael Carnes & Josh Gilbert

For those of you who have read a significant number of scripts, you know how it is when you’re smack dab in the middle of something that just ain’t working. Now for those of you who read scripts casually, the reaction to such a situation is easy. YOU STOP READING. I don’t have that luxury. Quitting in the middle of the script means I just wasted 45 minutes and now have to start all over again. It’s for this reason that I can’t solely post positive reviews. And that’s too bad. Because I wish Scriptshadow could be a place of celebration and candy and rainbows and the occasional unicorn (no leprechauns though). I hold no ill will towards writers and I get no satisfaction from pointing out when something doesn’t work. But man, I have to be honest with you, “Stalker: A Love Story” was not good on many levels. And it really is confusing when you’re talking about a near two million dollar sale. “Am I missing something?”, you think. I’d assume the most common response to being stalked is feeling violated. And I felt very violated reading this script.

My basic complaint is this: The setup makes absolutely no sense. David and Amanda are in a relationship. Fine. Sounds good to me. But David, an architect, is a workaholic and isn’t very into Amanda. He doesn’t like to do things with her. He’s the kind of boyfriend you say something to and then, forever-later he looks up and slurs “Whah?” So to be clear: David loves his job and doesn’t love his relationship. Amanda finally realizes that he’s never going to change and dumps David. She’s through. How does David react? Eh. Shrugs his shoulders and says, “Oh well”, then moves on. Let me reiterate: David doesn’t seem to like Amanda at all.

So then we get a “Six Months Later” title and David is still happily plugging away at his job. In fact, things are going so well he’s just been offered a contract on a new building. Hooray. Once again, Amanda isn’t even a blip on David’s radar. He probably doesn’t even remember her name. One night while David is pulled out for drinks, he runs into Amanda’s friend, who informs David that Amanda is in a new relationship. And in a span of about 3 seconds, David decides that he’s always loved Amanda and is going to stalk her until he gets her back.

Uh…..WHAT???

How does this even make a remote amount of sense? I don’t like you. Now I’m infatuated with you?? I’ve seen Fraggle Rock episodes with more logic. It was so outrageous of a character change, I scrolled around to make sure I hadn’t accidentally opened another script. I can MAYBE see this working if David realized what he lost the second Amanda broke up with him. But six months later? After we’ve established he doesn’t even like the woman?? Someone had just sent me a one-way ticket to Bizarre-o World.

From that point on Carnes and Gilbert had no chance with me. If characters could just turn into different people without explanation, why not add wizards and dragons while you’re at it? But it was the missed opportunity of “Stalker” that ate at me most. Why didn’t the writers go for an edgier comedy? Having your main character be a stalker is something that’s never been done before in a comedy. You could’ve created something truly groundbreaking here, which is exactly what the title implies will happen. And I’m sure that expectation had plenty to do with my disappointment. But man, I feel like they really missed the boat. Instead of doing something different, this turned out to be one of the most standard of standard romantic comedies I’ve ever read.

As for the rest of the script, David turns to his Indian neighbor, Pumpang, for support. Pumpang is actually *the* most broken up about the dumping of everyone. He loved David and Amanda together and when their relationship ended, he spent days on end crying (as opposed to David – who didn’t cry at all). When David’s amateur efforts at stalking fail, Pumpang introduces him to a spy store, where the two buy all sorts of gadgets and listening devices so they can more accurately stalk Amanda. Now when I say “stalk”, I use that term very loosely. Because every stalking scene is played purely for laughs. There are no consequences or stakes to what they’re doing. We know that even if David gets caught, he’ll be fine. Without any sense of danger, none of the stalking scenes held any tension.

Anyway, David lets his co-worker, Karen, in on the whole plot. Karen has seen every romantic comedy ever made and is constantly using examples from them to get David to move on. It turns out Karen might be a bit of a stalker herself though when it’s eventually revealed she’s infatuated with David. Although she never felt like a real person so I couldn’t get into her. And to complicate matters, Amanda’s new boyfriend is also David’s client for his new building. Except it doesn’t really complicate matters at all. It just feels like an interesting coincidence. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else to the story but I’m coming up blank.

In the end, David gives a big long speech to Amanda about perfection. Her current boyfriend may be perfect. But David is imperfect, which, he points out, is exactly why she fell in love with him. Since the theme of perfection or even the hint of its importance was never once mentioned in the screenplay, this speech comes out of nowhere. Luckily for David though, it’s enough to convince Amanda, and the two live happily ever after.

Was there anything positive about the script? Well, I thought the title was great. It was the reason I was excited to read the screenplay in the first place. Pumpang’s obsession with getting David and Amanda back together was kind of cute. But in the end, there were an avalanche of negatives with Stalker. I congratulate Carnes and Glibert on a great sale. But for me, personally, I couldn’t get into it.

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

What I learned: There’s a scene in the middle of “Stalker: A Love Story,” where David is pressured into going to an Asian Massage Parlor. I won’t get into how many Asian massage parlor scenes I read in a week, but what upset me so much about the scene was that it had absolutely nothing to do with the story. In other words, you could’ve taken the scene out and nobody would’ve been confused as to what was going on. If your scene isn’t essential to the screenplay, don’t write it. And if you have a really funny scene you’re dying to put in your movie but it isn’t essential to the story, take the extra time and FIND A WAY TO MAKE IT ESSENTIAL TO THE STORY. Now you have a funny scene and it makes sense. Everybody wins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the official announcement for the Logline Contest Top 25, a free contest I held that started with nearly 1000 logline entries, and is now down to the Top 25 scripts. To catch up on the contest, go here to read the original post, and here to read the Top 100 loglines.

Well, here they are, the Top 25! I’m wondering if I shouldn’t start a whole new thread titled, “Readers agree you may as well have not entered Carson’s contest if you didn’t have a thriller, a comedy, or a sci-fi script,” because I know those comments are coming. I don’t really know what to say except that I never discounted any script that wasn’t in one of those genres. These scripts are simply the ones that spoke to me. It should be noted however, that comedy and thrillers accounted for about 65% of the entries (with comedies around 50%), so the genres I picked weren’t ridiculously off from the entry percentages. I hope you’ll all keep in mind that the contest didn’t cost anyone anything and was as much a learning experience for me as it was for you. So please try to keep the comments celebratory, as I want this to be about commending the people who got through, not forming conspiracy theories about the people who didn’t.

As for those of you who didn’t make the Top 25? Keep your chin up. Just because I didn’t fall in love with your script doesn’t mean somebody else won’t. God knows people disagree with my reviews all the time. Also, choosing whether an entire script was good based off the first 10 pages wasn’t easy, especially when it was a slower story. As a result, it was harder to judge those types of scripts. I actually narrowed the field down to 38, and then had to make some tough choices from there. So you may have been one of the unfortunate late cuts. I can honestly say that outside of, maybe, four scripts, the level of writing here was really good. Nobody embarrassed themselves, and I think that speaks a lot to the kind of people who visit the site. Good writers understand that they need to read other scripts to get better. Bad writers tend to think they know it all. So I’m not surprised that the people who entered the contest knew what they were doing.

Now for a bit of a surprise. Anticipating that some entrants wouldn’t make the deadline for the 10-page round, I came up with a list of about 30 alternates to fill the unused slots. After thinking it over, however, I decided to expand that list to 75 loglines I thought had potential. I would then give 3 of those scripts slots in the final round (so instead of it being a Top 25, it’s actually now a Top 28). Although some might cry foul, I think it was the right thing to do because there were a lot of loglines that had potential but weren’t convincing enough to make the Top 100. I wanted to give some of those a chance. The top 3 from that list are noted as the “Second Tier” winners at the bottom. I want to thank Kristy at MSP and Colin J. Louro (Colin’s blog) for helping me whittle those scripts down, as I didn’t have enough time to do it myself.

I’d like to wrap it up with a few things. If you see yourself on the list, you have until Monday January 11th, at 11:59pm Pacific Time to send me a PDF of your entire script (this is one more week than was originally planned). If you are one of the alternates listed below, you will be notified on January 12th if you’ve made the final round dependent on someone dropping out). You will then have until Monday, January 18th at 11:59pm Pacific Time to send me your script. So I’d advise the alternates – particularly the high alternates – to start work on your scripts now, as I anticipate at least a couple of people not making the deadline. Finally, if you are one of the finalists here and would like your e-mail listed so that managers/agents/producers can contact you, please e-mail me at Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Congratulations to everyone who made it. I look forward to reading your scripts! :)

Comedy
The Rules of Cusack by Josh Penn Boris (Toluca Lake, CA) – John Cusack helps a young man find love using advice from his films. However, problems arise when Cusack falls for the same girl and his perceptions of movie life and real life begin to blur.
E-mail: penn17@gmail.com

Thriller
Silent Night by James Luckard (Los Angeles) – With a brutal serial killer stalking Nazi Germany at Christmas, the Berlin detective on the case gets reluctantly partnered with a Jewish criminal psychologist released from Auschwitz to profile the killer.
E-mail: jamesluckard at yahoo dot com

Comedy
Humans! By Josh Eanes (South Carolina) – In a world populated by sentient zombies, an outbreak of humans threatens the lives of two ordinary zombie youths, as does an increasingly chaotic military response.

Comedy
Couples by Edward Ruggiero (Connecticut) – The friendships and marriages of three couples are tested after they share a group sex experience while vacationing together.

Comedy
The Man With One Arm by Stephen Fingleton (London) – A struggling filmmaker gets funding for his long-cherished spaghetti western, but is forced to make it in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
E-mail: stephen@driverfilms.com

Comedy
Short Term Forecast by Brad Sorensen (Ottawa) – After discovering a fax machine that can send and receive messages one day into the future, an impossibly inaccurate weather man struggles for career advancement while trying to maintain the space/time continuum.
E-mail: bradbeingbrad@gmail.com

Coming-of-Age
Fast Money by Angelle Haney Gullett (Los Angeles) – A young girl with a gift for numbers struggles to stay in private school and pull her family out of poverty by taking her first job – as the accountant for her neighborhood drug dealer.
E-mail: angelle.haneygullett@gmail.com

Romantic Comedy
Two Compatible by Zach Hillesland & Kieran Piller – Two genetically related test-tube babies – with two radically different sets of parents – meet in college and start dating, unaware that they are brother and sister.
E-mail: zhillesland@gmail.com

Comedy
Get Motivated by Stephen Hoover – When a company motivational camping trip turns into a life and death struggle, a put-upon underling takes action and leads an uprising against his oppressive boss. THE OFFICE meets LORD OF THE FLIES.
E-mail: dontlookbaxter@yahoo.com

Science Fiction/Adventure
Lazarus The Renegade by Bryn Owen (Glasgow) – A man awakens after five years in a coma to discover the Earth has been conquered by an oppressive alien race.
E-mail: lazarus.script@googlemail.com

Horror/Comedy
Oh Never, Spectre Leaf! By C. Ryan Kirkpatrick and Chad Musick (South Carolina) – After a freak plane crash, an awkward teenage boy must enlist the help of a sexually frustrated dwarf, a smokin’ hot cyborg, and an idiot in a bunny suit to defeat the Nocturnal Wench Everlasting and restore sunlight to the bizarre land of Spectre Leaf.
E-mail: flanagancrk@aol.com

Thriller
Hypoxia by Daniel Silk – A woman under Witness Protection awakens on a 747 to discover the pilots and passengers unconscious, the plane depressurized and masked men hunting her. With oxygen and fuel rapidly depleting, she must grapple with surrendering herself to save the 242 people on board.
E-mail: danielsilk85@gmail.com

Comedy
Is that your wife in that celebrity sex tape? By Kevin Via – An insecure husband discovers a celebrity sex tape starring his soccer mom-wife and a rock star.
E-mail: k70via@aol.com

Action
Thorne by Michael Sposito – A lonely, tormented physicist hijacks the world’s most advanced particle collider traveling back in time to save the mother he lost in the 9/11 attacks, but attempts to warn her alert the hijackers to his presence and threaten the lives of millions unborn.
E-mail: msposito_2000@yahoo.com

Thriller
Louisiana Blood by Mike Donald (Oxfordshire, UK) – When five victims of JACK THE RIPPER turn up in a swamp more than a century after their deaths, thousands of miles from the crime scene, an English Detective and a Louisiana Sheriff form an unlikely duo to unravel the ultimate conspiracy and reveal the Rippers true identity.

Sci-Fi
The Alien Diaries by Glenn J. Devlin (Arizona) – While appraising old and rare books at a restored colonial plantation, a book collector stumbles across a series of diaries that chronicle an alien visitation in 1781.
E-mail: gjdevlin@gmail.com

Comedy
Killer Parties by Ben Bolea and Joe Hardesty (Los Angeles) – In the frozen Alaskan tundra, where the sun rarely rises, four best friends struggle against the most terrifying experience of their young lives…graduation.

Comedy
Tasteless by Adam Conway – A world renowned taste tester/food critic loses his sense of taste and struggles to discover who he is once his one defining characteristic is gone.
E-mail: andydufrene2003@yahoo.com

Thriller
Volatile by William C. Martell (Los Angeles) – Eddy lost everything: his job, his house, his wife. Spends his final unemployment check drinking, wakes up with fresh stitches. Stolen kidney? Implanted bomb. Anonymous caller gives him six one hour tasks:
Steal a car, steal a suit, steal a gun… assassinate executives from the company that fired him!
E-mail: wcmartell@scriptsecrets.net

Paranormal Thriller
Destination Yesterday by Dexter E. Williams (North Carolina) – A Sacramento businessman discovers – through information provided by a mysterious woman – that his recurring nightmares of a tragic plane crash could be repressed memories of a previous life.

Mockumentary/Comedy
Bible Con by Ashley F. Miller – Comic Con for Christians — goes straight to hell when Jesus and Mary Magdalene fall in love, the keynote speaker turns out to be an atheist, and the event is besieged by DaVinci Code fans.
E-mail: ashleyfmiller@gmail.com

Thriller
Synapse by Matthew Sinclair-Foreman – During a brain operation, a man has an out of body experience in which he witnesses a murder in the hospital. Debilitated by neurological post-op side effects, he must catch the killer before his investigation turns him into the next victim.
E-mail: sinclair.foreman@gmail.com

Sci-Fi
Antarctic by Neil Dave (Los Angeles) – When an international team of scientists explore a cavern hidden deep beneath an Antarctic lake they discover an organism that predates biological life.
E-mail: floaton@gmail.com

Comedy
For Your Eyes Only by Mukilan Thangamani – On the eve of a career-defining product launch, a self-centred, misanthropic, food researcher finds her social and professional life turned upside down after the accidental leak of a salacious home video.
E-mail: mukilan.thangamani@gmail.com

Dark Sci-Fi Thriller
Elysium by Fredrik Agetoft & Magnus Westerberg
The world’s first in-orbit spa is on it’s maiden voyage, loaded with celebrities expecting the pampering of a lifetime, when all communications are lost and everyone on board has to work together to stay alive in the desert of space and reveal the dark mystery behind what has happened.
E-mail: vadsomhelst@agetoft.com

1) (Action/Thriller) Ground Work by Patrick C. Taylor (Virginia) – His flight from LA to NYC canceled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, an Arab-American hitman must travel across the country to complete a job, facing the most hostile environment possible for an Arab with a gun and a guilty conscience.
E-mail: thekeenguy@aol.com

2) (Sci-Fi/Drama/Comedy) A Constant Variable by Chris Rodgers (Utah) – A quantum physics professor finds himself on the outside of his own life, looking in, when he time travels twenty-four hours into the future and gets stuck there.
E-mail: podger7777@hotmail.com

3) (Comedy) High School Hero by Chris Fennimore – When a former high school football star on the brink of middle age can’t catch a break in life; he sneaks back into high school by claiming to have Rapid Aging Disorder in the misguided hope of reliving his glory days on and off the gridiron.

4) (Drama/Suspense) Chasing Hope by Miriam Adams-Washington – After finding a captivating old photo of the grandmother she never knew, an urban teen journeys to the Deep South for answers and stumbles upon family secrets of forbidden love, lies and a fifty year old unsolved murder mystery.
E-mail: miriamadamswashington_01@yahoo.com

5) (Suspense Thriller) Just Like Jesse James by Tim McGregor – Hearing of a folktale about outlaw treasure buried on the family farm, four cousins take up the hunt but the closer they get to the gold, the more each struggles to trust the others.

6) (Drama) Aftermath by Jared Waine – After a giant monster attack on Miami, three disparate people- a retired sailor, a burnt-out virologist, and a torn rescue worker- deal with love and loss amongst the ruins.
E-mail: violator544@hotmail.com

7) (Contained Thriller) Brake by Tim Mannion (Connecticut) – Trapped inside the trunk of a moving car, a newly-hired secret service agent must figure out if his kidnapping is part of a training exercise or an impending terrorist attack.
E-mail: timothymannion@gmail.com

Comedy
Frank Vs. God by Stewart Schill – When his home is destroyed by a tornado, and the Insurance Company informs him that the claim falls under the ‘Act of God’ exclusion in his policy, David Frank decides to sue God himself for damages, beginning a hilarious and soulful odyssey to a surprising final judgment.
E-mail: stewartschill@att.net

Comedy
Roanoke Jamestown: American Patriot by Donnie and Clint Clark (Ohio) – The untold story of one of America’s founding fathers, Roanoke Jamestown, and how he got deleted from history.
E-mail: dclark0699@gmail.com

Romantic Comedy
Make Me A Match by Andrew Bumstead – When a hopeless female mortal proves to be impervious to Cupid’s arrows, Cupid takes on a mortal disguise in order to convince her to fall in love – the problem is, Cupid doesn’t know a thing about real love.
E-mail: phillip_whitfield@msn.com

Genre: Comedy
Premise: After a woman sends an indignant email to her new beau, who’s gone radio silent post sex, she discovers he’s comatose in a Mexican hospital and races south of the border with her friends in tow to intercept the email before he recovers.
About: This is the number 8 script on 2009’s Black List. The casting cabinet has Isla Fisher placed neatly on the shelf to play Wesley. Rapoport has a bit of a reputation for writing raunchy female dialogue and situations, the kind of stuff that would make even the girls of Sex and The City blush.
Writer: Ellen Rapoport
Details: 112 pages (June 23, 2009 draft)

To prepare you for Desperados, one should know that the opening scene contains horse fucking. One should also know that the words, “enormous horse penis” are used. I’m just trying to acclimate you to the weather here. Everyone’s calling Desperados the “female version of The Hangover,” and I can confirm that tone and storywise, that’s exactly what it is. But is it as good as The Hangover, a script that made the original Scriptshadow Top 25 way back when? Or was the comparison just a brilliant marketing tool, culminating in a sweet spot as one of the official best screenplays in town?
Wesley is a cute 30-something lawyer who’s spent way too much time in the gym, pushing and pulling and shaping herself to be ready for the moment she meets Mr. Right. Problem is, she hasn’t met him yet, and she’s right on the cusp of that horrible female stage where you become the angry bitter single version of yourself. You know, the kind of guy/girl you always made fun of as a kid? But she decides to give the penis-bearing ones one last chance. And it ends in the worst blind date ever. But then, almost magically, she runs into Jared, a dreamy 37 year old Adonis with a personality as perfect as his smile. Jackpot!

The two go out a few times, and against her best friends’ (bitchy Brooke and Optimist Kaylie) wishes, Wesley has sex with him. Walking on air, she’s already hearing wedding bells. But then Jared doesn’t call. And Wesley gets so freaked she goes through that psycho stage where you check the person’s Facebook page 90 times a day to see if they’ve made any updates, confirming they’re living their life just fine and ignoring you in the process. When 24 hours turns into five days, Wesley’s had it. With the rage of all the failed relationships she’s ever had wrapped inside her, she sends him the mother of all “fuck off” e-mails. The problem is, is that Jared calls a few minutes later, calmly apologizing. It seems that he’s been in a car accident in Mexico, and he’ll be holed up in the hospital for a couple of days.
Oops.

Wesley, Brooke and Kaylie realize the only way Wesley has a chance of keeping this guy, is if they jet to the Mexican hotel Jared is staying at, break into his room, and delete the e-mail off his computer before he gets back from the hospital. So they jump on a plane and actually FLY TO MEXICO. To DELETE AN E-MAIL.

In what becomes a cross between The Hangover and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the three friends hang out at a plush vacation style Mexican hotel, while Wesley runs around trying various ways of getting into Jared’s room. In addition to that, she must deal with that disastrous blind date she had the night she met Jared – the occasionally charming Huck – as by the father of all coincidences, he’s taking a vacation at the very same hotel!

This is easily the script’s sweet spot and where a lot of the laughs are. In one scene, Wesley wraps herself in nothing but a skimpy towel outside of Jerod’s room, hoping she’ll be able to convince the maids that she’s been locked out of her *own* room. I won’t give everything away, but I will say the scene ends with a naked Wesley in the bathroom with a curious 14 year old boy, who are then interrupted by the boy’s mother.

In between attempts to delete that incriminating e-mail and get back to LA, Wesley repeatedly and reluctantly bumps into Asshole Huck. Problem is, after a few run-ins, Huck doesn’t seem so much like an asshole, and even though she’s head over heels for Jared, there’s something kinda cool about this guy. After awhile, it’s clear she’s developing feelings for him, but she ignores them in order to pursue the man she believes she’s supposed to spend the rest of her life with.

What I liked about Desperados is its theme of how we present ourselves. The way we introduce the perfect version of us to everyone, hoping that if we trickle out our faults at spacious enough intervals, that the other person won’t notice, or be in too deep to turn back. It’s such a deceptive but common tactic that it almost makes you wonder if you’ve ever given anyone the “real” you. And if you’re not giving people the real you, can you even call the relationship real? I think it’s an interesting debate and by no means does Desperados dig that deeply into it, but definitely scratches the surface.

I also liked how Rapoport explored the notion of ‘how crazy is crazy?’ And how the relative notion of crazy is always in the eye of the beholder. Wesley is out there passing judgment on the fucked up shit people do every day. Yet she’s the one flying to Mexico to delete an e-mail from a guy who isn’t even officially her boyfriend. It gets you thinking about some of the crazier things you’ve done for a guy or a girl, and how in the moment those ideas seemed totally rational.

The only thing I didn’t like about Desperados, and what kept it from what I was sure would be an impressive rating, was the ending. Rapoport wrote herself into a bit of a corner with the two guys, and at the end, she has to find a way out of it. The reasoning for why one of the guys falls out of the running is the only time in the script where the writing felt forced. And because this took me out of the story at such a critical moment, I couldn’t help but lose some of my enthusiasm for it.

But hey, this is still a really funny – sometimes even hilarious – screenplay. I’m thinking 8’s the perfect spot for it on this year’s list.

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

What I learned: (spoilers) I talked about this after my review of “The City That Sailed.” But since that review disappeared, let’s discuss it again. It’s hard to create a story based on a relationship when the people in the relationship are never together. In this case, you have Wesley and Jared who, because of the plot machinations, can’t meet up til the end. This makes a lot of writers, as well as producers and directors, nervous, because they don’t have their male and female leads together ever. Not only is that going to disappoint audiences (imagine Pretty Woman if Julia Roberts and Richard Gere weren’t around each other for 90% of the movie), but what actors want to play parts where their characters never act opposite one another? This is why a lot of writers add in a second love-interest. And usually, because audiences want to see their leads onscreen together, this love story becomes the main love story, which is exactly what happens in Desperados (with Huck). The key is to understand this problem (my lead characters are never together) before you write the script, because I guarantee you you’ll have to deal with suggestions later that your main characters are never together, and therefore you need to write in another character (or completely change your story). In the end, I think Desperados made it work because it was always less about the relationship and more about the comedy. But it’s still a slipperly slope, and I try to avoid stories like this when I can, cause they’re always tricky.