Genre: Drama
Premise: We chronicle the infamous career-long battle between screen legends Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, specifically on the set of the only film they ever made together, “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane.”
About: I believe this script is optioned but has not been purchased. The details are a little sketchy. What I can tell you is it came highly recommended from a trusted source. The main film it chronicles, “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane,” was made in 1962 for 980 thousand dollars.
Writers: Jaffe Cohen & Michael Zam

Can somebody say, “Cat Fight?” Rrrreow. I’m going to be honest with you, I’d never seen a Joan Crawford or a Bette Davis film until yesterday. In fact, my cinema I.Q. goes down about a hundred points when discussing anything before 1960. I love Jimmy Stewart. Citizen Kane is rad. Hitchcock rocks. But outside of a few other highlights, it’s all a bunch of black and white over-glamorized over-acted close-ups. I know, I know. The Golden Era of Film and blah blah blah. It’s just really hard for me to get into that time. That’s a long way of saying I knew very little about Joan Crawford and Bette Davis before reading this script. And I definitely didn’t know anything about this lifelong rivalry/feud of theirs. So before I read it I did a little research into the women that pioneered the word “diva” and came away convinced that both of them were completely fucking nuts.

I’m basing this off the writers’ descriptions but for the uninitiated, *on-screen* Joan Crawford was basically the hottest movie star on the planet (Megan Fox type?) and *on-screen* Bette Davis was basically the best actress on the planet (a kind of Kate Winslet?) But we’re not meeting these actresses in their prime. No no. We’re meeting them after all the bright lights and adoring fans have disappeared. They’re in their 50s now, still respected but too old to be headlining anything.

Joan approaches auteur director of his time, Robert Aldrich, with a book she wants to turn into a movie called, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” You might recognize Aldrich’s name. He was the director of The Dirty Dozen. But see that movie was still another five years away. At this point, he had about as much clout as Pauly Shore in getting his next movie made. Anyway, “Baby Jane” seemed like a good bet as it was a contained dark thriller, and another contained dark thriller had just opened in the U.S.. You might remember it. It was called “Psycho” (How appropriate, right?). The issue was a simple but daunting one. The movie centered entirely around two women in their 50s, and Joan wanted Bette Davis to play opposite her. Everybody knew these two detested each other but the reality was, they had become a couple of old movie stars cashing in on their former glory. But the press and media attention surrounding them working together would be unmatched – potentially catapulting them back into superstardom, particularly if the movie delivered. As reluctant as Bette was at first, she too recognized the opportunity here, and signed up.

Now here’s where things get funny. The synopsis of the film reads, “Two aging film actresses live as virtual recluses in an old Hollywood mansion. Jane Hudson (Bette Davis), a successful child star, cares for her crippled sister Blanche (Crawford), who’s career in later years eclipsed that of Jane. Now the two live together, their relationship affected by simmering subconscious thoughts of mutual envy, hate and revenge.” Not only were they playing opposite each other, they were playing opposite each other in roles that perfectly fit their real life personas! It would be like putting Bruce Willis in a Michael Bay movie about an actor and director who hated each other (then again it seems like everyone hates Bruce Willis these days).

As soon as production began, the claws came out. Joan gave all the crew members gifts so they’d treat her better than Bette. Bette way overdid her make-up and costume to make sure she upstaged Joan. The two pouted, threw fits, talked behind each others’ backs to the media. And poor Aldrich had to endure it all, spending the majority of his time playing babysitter to these alcoholic chimney smoking lunatics rather than directing (I hear those eyebrows alone are a direct result of helming “Baby Jane”). And yet because there was so much real life going on behind each performance, the dailies came back celluloid gold.

To be honest though, I was a little disappointed with this portion of the screenplay because my research led me to believe this was the on-set battle to end all on-set battles. Yet the actual blows seemed minor by today’s standards. For example, in a scene where Bette serves Joan a dead rat, Bette switches out the rubber one with a real one. Or later, Joan replaces Bette’s chocolates with packed meat. Packed meat?? I thought these two hated each other. What about poison?? Then there was a scene where Bette, who had a bad back, had to pick up Joan, so Joan added a belt of heavy weights underneath her clothes to make herself extra heavy. Is it just me or are these the kinds of hijinks you might expect on an episode of I Love Lucy? When I compare them to what went down with someone like Orson Welles, who was basically blacklisted out of Hollywood for upsetting William Randolph Hearst…it just didn’t feel like that all-out war I was hoping for.

Luckily, Best Actress wasn’t just about “Baby Jane.” It was about what happened afterwards when Bette Davis was a shoe-in for an academy award then lost because Crawford called all of Hollywood and told them not to vote for her. It’s about these desperate actresses so terrified of being left behind, that a year later after each had endured another bomb, they actually worked together again (in a movie Crawford was later fired from), choosing pure misery if it gave them even an inkling of a chance to hold onto that spotlight for a little longer. And it’s about these two kooky human beings developing a strange bond and respect for each other, despite all that happened between them.

Best Actress was fun. It taught me about a piece of history I knew nothing about and it did so in an entertaining way. The strength here is obviously these two titans, their obsession with fame, and what it brings out in them. I actually realized after finishing the script that its structure was quite loose. Yet it works because we were so obsessed with these insanely complicated characters. As far as its faults, there are a few. I did wish their on-set war was a bit more extreme. Audiences these days aren’t going to think much of an actress trying to throw out another actresses’ back. You might be stuck with history here, but if there’s any way to make these things more menacing, more intense, I believe the script will benefit from it. But other than that, Best Actress was a nice change of pace from all the thrillers, comedies, and action flicks I’ve been reading of late. Check it out if you’re in any way curious. Then do what I did and go rent “All About Eve” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” Watching each is a riot once you have some background on the two.

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

What I learned: Despite its loose structure, Best Actress works. Why? Simple. It goes back to the most basic element of drama: conflict. You have two people who hate each other. That simple conflict drives the entire movie. Now conflict comes in many forms and you don’t want to have two people at each others’ throats for every movie. But if it fits, that intensity, that energy, can add a surprising amount of drama to your story.

So I’m introducing a new script reviewer today because he’s a great writer and passionate about the craft (and he writes me weekly e-mails telling me how awesome Scriptshadow is). He kept raving to me about this awesome script he read that he just had to tell the world about. I tried to explain to him that I already had a backlog of script reviews in queue. He ignored me and sent the review anyway. Once I saw how passionate he was, I knew I had to post it. So I’d like to introduce everyone to… Michael Stark.

Random observations before I give Michael the reigns. Strange that the script title is also the name of Freeman’s most famous character? And what the hell happened to Bruce Willis??? When did he become a cranky old man?? It’s sad. I’ll still see anything he’s in. But after this interview, I won’t ever look at him the same way again.

Genre: Action/comedy
Premise: A retired Black-Ops Agent must reassemble his old team to fight the new generation of high-tech assassins hunting him down.
About: Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman already attached to this comic book flick. ‘Nuff said.
Writers: The Brothers Erich and Jon Hoeber adapting a Sir Warren Ellis Graphic Novel
Details: 120 pages (November 14, 2008 first draft, revised)

First off, I’m old school. Not just kind of old school, but real old school. I’m typewriters and rotary dial phones and vinyl records and staples-in-the-navels of centerfolds kind of old school. So, I just can’t get into reading scripts as pdfs. Can’t stand it. I loved the fact that they had to pulp some thousand-year-old Sequoia just so I could read your fucking work of genius. Screenwriting is an art. It requires sacrifice. Trees must die! Toner cartridges must get depleted. There might even be papercuts.

I know the industry is trending green these days, but I swear on the life of your vegan girlfriend’s pound-rescued crack puppy that I promise to recycle all the paper you send me. I’ll fold every page of your fucking work of genius into assortments of barnyard origami to leave at crime scenes. I’ll wrap my kid’s peanut-free school-bound sandwiches with your untroubled third act. Hell, I’ll chew on every page of your sparkling dialogue till I can spit out a fine paste that’ll turn your high concept into reprocessed, adult diapers for June Allison.

Just gimme your words on paper. I need to have you in my hands. I gotta feel the true heft of your tome. I wanna get blisters on my fingers from turning the pages so goddamn fast. I want to take you in the can with me cause I just can’t put your magnum opus down. I want to jot down notes you’ll never read in the margins. I want to spill coffee all over your script at the Farmer’s Market and play keep away with it from Andre De Toth, whose depth perception has been kinda off these days. And, of course, for my troubles, I’m gonna steal your 1.5 inch brads when I’m finished, cause I’m not only old school, but I haven’t worked in like fucking forever and I gotta scrimp and scrounge and steal wherest I can.

This is just how it’s supposed to be done. Call me old fashioned, but screenplays are made to be read in one sitting. You wanna know why spec scripts aren’t selling right now? It ain’t the economy, stupid. It’s cause you listened to that liar, Al Gore, and you’re now dutifully sending them all out as pdf files! Producers and executives and movie stars and their assistants already have the attention spans of retarded, sugar-smacked hummingbirds. You think they’re gonna really read anybody’s script on their computers with all them fine distractions already loaded on their desktops like tournament canasta and barely legal porn?

Honestly, how many of you have actually read an entire screenplay on your computer in one sitting? Don’t tell me you didn’t check your facebook 18 times after you opened up the file. How often did you tweet before the second act rolled around? How many hands of solitaire did you play? Bet you already IMDBed the key grip of this flick while you’ve been skimming my opening rant.

Believe me, I’m equally guilty. I haven’t been able to do a single one-shot read through on my laptop of anything since this techno geek takeover. Nope, not once. Not till someone sent me Red.

That’s how engrossing this script was. Even the most ADHD of you fan boys will soar through this without once checking your emails or twiddling out a text. It’s just that absorbing.

Okay, maybe I’m overselling it a wee bit. The thing isn’t a great work of art. But, it is a great work of craft that’s worth studying. So, if you have a hankering to write an action film, you’ll learn a lot about plotting, pacing and narrative drive from reading Red.

Let me impart some wisdom on all you young scribes out there. I’m not advocating you forego the usual study of Chinatown, The Untouchables and the complete works of Joseph Campbell. But, if this script got both Bruce and Morgan so hot and bothered, I’d download it while you still can and scrutinize the shit out of it. Reread the mother till it becomes your mantra. When you get your next draft of “My Catalogue of Cool Shots” into something this tight, I guarantee it will get sold. Yup, even if you sent it off as a fucking pdf file.

So, why am I so impressed by yet another adaptation of yet another graphic novel? Well, for one, the source material is from Warren Ellis, the Godfather of funny paper scribblers. The screenwriting brothers in charge of distilling this comic into cinema are Erich and John Hoeber. They might not have made movie alchemy with their recent “Whiteout”, but the boys definitely spin yarn into gold this time around.

Now, I must warn you. You’ve seen this plot before. You’ve seen it many times before. Nothing new under the sun here – especially if you’ve ever seen a Jason Bourne flick or read any David Baldacci or Lee Child potboilers. Did the Brothers take all the genre conventions and spin them on their heads Electric Boogaloo style? Not exactly, it’sbstill pretty much standard fare. You have the same stock, way-high-up-in-the-Washington-food-chain villains and side switching patriotic uber-thugs revealed at the end. And, the Bruce Willis character is pretty much a Bruce Willis character only a little bit older — and, apparently, gonna actually be played by a little bit older Bruce Willis.

So, Mr. Hype Meister, why should I read this damned thing? For the pace, baby, for the pace. This thing leaps out of the gate and keeps building and escalating with a rare economy of action. Meaning, there are no superfluous scenes or even extraneous lines of dialogue. Every single set up has a payoff!!! They didn’t throw in a car chase barreling through the unfinished Panama Canal during an asteroid storm just for the sake of getting your attention. This is a lean cornbeef sandwich without an inch of fat kind of storytelling. Hell, even the crusts of the rye bread have been trimmed off.

This is one lean, mean fighting machine of a screenplay!

So, what it’s all about? Frank Moses is a retired Black-Ops agent. He hasn’t pulled a Burn Notice and isn’t scrambling to get back in the show by helping a new troubled civilian every episode. Frank basically keeps himself under the radar, adjusting to his AARP status by keeping fit with early morning sit-ups, trying his hand unsuccessfully at gardening and listening to his classic collection of 50s vinyl. His only contact with the outside world is with Sarah, the operator of the government office whose pension checks he accidentally-on-purpose keeps losing to perpetuate their little chats.

Their burgeoning friendship doesn’t seem forced at all. It’s funny, sweet and real. The writers allow us a little downtime to develop this. When we open, Frank just seems like an average Joe struggling with the boredom of retirement. You get the hint that he might be ex-military cause of his regimented morning routines. But, there’s no hint of the two-fisted events to follow. Maybe I was sent a sweet romantic comedy for the Angela Lansbury set.

We don’t know anything about Frank or his mercenary past till page 8 when a crack team of government killers suddenly turn up to his abode to take the old dude out. His ex-spy status has just turned from “Green” to “Red”. “Red” as in when someone uptown wants you seriously dead “Red”. And, we’re kinda amazed to see our rose gardening retiree so effortlessly, single-handedly take out their whole unit. He’s old, but not Bucket List or Bubba Ho-Tep old. Ain’t no Death Panel for our Frank Moses.

See, Frank is like me, old school. He listens to Vinyl, not MP3s. He does sit-ups, not crunches. He slowly courts a woman over the telephone, not going after her all balls-out like some Apatow/Smith scripted lothario. He’s a gentleman. He’s also a former one-gentleman killing machine that some big muckety-muck just stupidly forced back into the game. And, he’ll show the young turks assigned to euthanize him just how it was done back in the good old days.

He doesn’t need any real cool, high tech weaponry from the Cheney Foundation to annihilate you. He’s a Q-less, Luddite who doesn’t know gun fu or parkour, but can still take down the entire CIA with a paper clip, a long expired bottle of High Karate and a little bare-knuckled help from his Cold-War era friends.

But, first, Frank has to rescue the gal whom might be the only leverage his ex-agency has on him. She doesn’t go quietly. It exacts some smooth talking and duct tape on Frank’s part to get her out of harms way. Yes, you’ve seen this before in Three Days Of The Condor, but, didn’t I mention somewhere this was also a comedy? It’s Grumpy Old Men vs the entire Central Intelligence Agency. It’s John McClane action hero Willis morphed with the wisecracking Moonlighting David Addison Willis with some gray haired, Danny Glover Murtough “I’m too old for this kinda shit” thrown in for good measure. And, Casting Directors, the gal, should most definitely be played by a certain repartee-ready Gilmore Girl.

Now Frank is just as in the dark as we are as to why he’s suddenly chased by the best assassins our tax dollars can still buy. The rest of the first act and a good chunk of the second is him reaching out to the few industry contacts he has left – Joe, his 90-year-old-dying-of-liver-cancer mentor; Marvin (Freeman) a completely paranoid ex-compadre: Ivan, a Russian ex-spy denigrated now to desk duty at the Ruskie Embassy and Victoria, a B&B owning femme fatale who has been juggling her retirement with a little wet work here and there for the extra pocket scratch or maybe just for the kicks.

The guy running this raid on Entebbe is Cooper, the agency’s most efficient and loyal killer. Of course, he’d been trained by someone Frank had trained way back when Coop was just a young pup of a pitbull. He’s also quite the devout family man, getting a honey-do list from his wife while he restages his latest hit to look more like a convincing suicide.

So, what ensues is the old guard versus the better-armed, physically fitter, mentally sharper army of new kids.

Unlike the norm for this genre, there aren’t any red herrings, false leads or wrong turns. Remember that I told you this was an exceptionally lean and mean script. The narrative drive goes from Point A to Point Z seamlessly and without any pit stops. Each action beat gets either Frank a new team member, another obstacle placed in the way or a bit more intel on why he’s suddenly a hunted man. And, once he gets the why, our guy quickly goes on the offensive to payback the who.

The writers also chose not to bog us down with the usual detective work seen in most procedurals. Frank doesn’t have to leap through a lot of hoops to find out why he’s on the hit list. He basically has Joe run the thumb print off the thumb he ginzued off of one of his attackers and – BAM — we go from there. This was a wise choice cause it gives us far more time on Frank’s elaborate (and pleasurable) acts of table turning.

The sure to be scene stealing character is Frank’s old buddy, Marvin. He doesn’t just spout paranoid conspiracy theories, he practically foams at the mouth with them. He’s delusional and perhaps dangerous, but a total riot nonetheless. His choice as an asset is what’s so fun about this script. The audience is kept guessing if Marvin’s brain has finally been fried forever, making him a potentially huge liability (He was the agency’s main lab rat in their LSD experiments back in the 70s) or if he’s really still that super perceptive at the spy game.

Marvin gets many magnificent melt-down moments. He is suspicious of everyone and everything and it would be unwise to make any sudden movements or whip out your cellphone in his presence. While our rag tag team tries to quietly cross the Mexican border, he suddenly pulls a gun on a woman tourist, a middle-aged realtor, weaving her into his psychotic pastiche of black helicopters, satellite surveillance and the Patriot Act. I don’t want to spoil the scene, but this script adheres to strict Newtonian laws. To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

All the characters here are blessed with snappy dialogue, intriguing back-stories and sheer likeability. Except for Frank, all of the supporting players sprang solely out of the imaginations of the screenwriters. Ellis’ three-issue miniseries was really just a cocktail napkin of carnage for the Hoebers to build off of.

Now, the sheer likeability factor is what will have the true Ellis disciples shouting “Heresy!” The comic’s consequent bloodbath has pretty much been excised. We may live in the age of Dexter, but the producers wanted to keep this caper strictly PG. And who really wants to see John McClane play a monster? The very thought is just so un-American.

Frank and Ivan share a John le Carré inspired cloak and dagger past. They reminisce about the Golden Age of the Cold War when spies were real spies. When it was considered bad form to even think about touching your target’s family. Cooper, representing the new breed, has the combined ethics of a rattlesnake, a used car salesman, and the entire Bush cabinet (minus Colin Powell of course). He’ll do anything necessary to serve Frank’s head on a platter to his bosses.

Perhaps that’s what stayed with me so long after reading Red. It’s really a throwback to an earlier era/age/style of screenwriting. It has action, but it doesn’t call attention to itself like today’s product. The sequences moves at a nice clip, but it’s totally devoid of any look-at-me-as-I-cleverly-off-someone-with-a-bednob-or-a-broomstick-or-something-else-you’ve-never-seen-before. We’re totally invested in these characters and I found myself getting gleeful as they miraculously pull their mission impossible off.

Red is different because it’s so refreshingly underwritten. You won’t get a jolt or a rush or a headache after putting it down. There’s an old showbiz axiom that admonishes to “Always leave them wanting more.” The Brothers Hoeber have deftly pulled that off. When I closed the file, I was already looking forward to Frank’s next adventure.

Even if I have to read that next adventure as a fucking pdf!

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

I’m sure the discussions that follow will accuse me of being overly generous, throwing off the Shadow’s strict script grading curve. I think it’s a great script to learn the craft from. The teacher inside me stands firmly by this high mark.

What I learned: Surely you don’t think an old dog like me can pick up any new tricks? Yes, I learned something. And, this is why I’m making Red required reading for all the young scriptors I’m tutoring. Most screenplays remind me of all the damned, superfluous notes Mariah Carrey squeezes into every fucking song she sings. Your scripts don’t need superfluous diva shit. Not every scene has to be an extravagant road trip tangent or an over the top set piece. Stop trying to light a fart or a building or a whole country on fire just to get my attention. You have my attention. So, just tell me a story.

Genre: Drama
Premise: When a dog is the only witness to a woman’s death, her husband tries to teach the dog how to talk so he can find out what happened to her.
About: Mandate Pictures (Juno) optioned Carolyn Parkhurst’s novel. John Crowley (Intermission) will direct. David Heyman of Heyday Films, and Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh of Sekretagent Productions will produce. Nathan Kahane and Tiffany Daniel will executive produce. Overseeing the project for Mandate will be Nicole Brown and Tendo Nagenda. Funny enough, Todd Phillips was once attached to the project. It’s unclear whether he wanted to veer out of comedy or not. I know that turning this into a comedy would pretty much destroy everything that’s great about it. So I’m glad that experiment is over.
Writer: Jamie Linden (We Are Marshall)
Details: 122 pages (Nov. 2006 draft)

I really loved this script. I mean, it’s not perfect. The ending gets a little…abstract. And there’s an odd tonal shift late in the second act. But there’s so much to love here. And the storytelling is top notch. Dogs Of Babel tells the tale of Paul Ransome, a man who comes home to find his wife dead. She apparently fell from the apple tree in the back yard and cracked her neck. All signs point to it being an accident. But Paul’s not so sure. There’s something not quite right about the evidence. What in the world was his wife doing up in the apple tree anyway? And how do you fall and crack your neck from an apple tree? Break your legs maybe. But break your neck?

It so happens that the only witness to this “accident” is Lexy’s dog Lorlelei, a dog, it should be noted, Paul doesn’t care much for. In fact, the dog spent more time getting in the way of their relationship than complementing it. And because Lorlelei pretty much feels the same way about Paul, life after Lexy’s death turns into a tough learning experience for both. Not only are they both extremely depressed, but Lorelei’s desired routine coupled with Paul’s ignorance regarding pet responsibility turns into a clumsy frustrating dance that neither can get quite right.

After awhile, Paul becomes fascinated by Lorelei’s ability to understand simple words like, “stay” and “lay down,” etc. He wonders, “If she can understand these words, why can’t she understand others? And if I can communicate with her, why can’t she communicate with me?” And thus Paul sets out on a journey to do something that makes no logical sense whatsoever: Teach Lorelei how to speak so she can tell him what happened to Lexi that day.

I like premises that border on the absurd because I’m fascinated to see if the writer can actually pull them off. 9 times out of 10, they’re not up to the task. But this is that one time where they get it right. What drives this story and our emotions and our hope is Paul’s devastation over his wife’s death. We want so badly for him to find out what happened to her, that we become just as illogical as he is. We actually believe that if he can just find enough time, if he can just come across the right piece of research, he’ll find a way to do it.

Dogs Of Babel is a script that takes a lot of chances and pulls most of them off. In addition to the main storyline, Linden offers us a glimpse into Paul and Lexy’s life through a series of flashbacks. Now normally I hate flashbacks. But here, they’re presented intermittently and at designated times, therefore making them feel like a natural part of the story instead of an interruption of it. They also acheive a couple of things. They introduce us to Lexy, which allows us to care more for her, ultimately driving up our emotional involvement in Paul’s search for the truth. And it furthers the mystery of her death, as all signs point to them having a perfectly healthy relationship.

The next thing Linden does is highlight a history of canine intelligence through a series of voiceovers dictated by Paul’s research. All of the stories are 100% true. And after each one, we feel a little bit closer to the ultimate goal of getting Lorlelei to communicate. For example, one of the stories involves a woman who decided to teach her dog how to type. She made a specialized keyboard that would release a treat upon tapping of the correct letter. She’d call out a letter, and if the dog got it right, he’d receive a treat. The dog got so good at typing she’d have him type out her Christmas cards every winter (via her transcribing each letter of course). There’s a haunting quality to each story. Because while each one seems to give us hope, there’s a part of it that feels desperate. The stories are magnificent in their own right, but none of them point to that Holy Grail – actually getting a dog to talk to you. Is Paul grasping at straws? Has he gone insane? Is any of this really worth it? The fact that we’re not sure is what compels us to turn the pages.

As I mentioned before, the script isn’t perfect. There’s a particularly strange choice in the second act where Paul visits a man who’s done research into canine communication. But it plays out in a creepy way that feels more like a scene out of a horror film than that of a drama. It was definitely a memorable scene, but I’m not sure it belonged here. As we get to the climax, Linden also makes some odd choices, as real-life is kind of blurred into the subconscious and deluged with flashbacks. It was hard to tell what was going on and I was terrified that the ending would be explained away in a big copout. But thank God it comes together nicely and we get the answers we’re looking for.

Had the ending been a little cleaner, this might’ve shot into my Top 10. As it stands, it still breaks into my Top 25. A great story indeed.

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

What I learned: Flashbacks are more effective if they’re a part of a larger pattern. If they’re simply there to fill in some hole you couldn’t figure out how to integrate into your story, they’ll stick out like a sore thumb. But if there’s a rhythm and consistency to them, they’ll feel like a natural extension of the story.

Genre: Dramedy
Premise: Blockhead explores what it would it be like if the real-world Peanuts Gang grew up and lived together in New York City.
About: This script got a ton of recognition about ten years ago. Just about everyone who read it loved it. For obvious copyright reasons, it never got purchased. But it ended up getting the writer, Emily Fox, a lot of buzz and started her writing career.
Writer: Emily Fox

I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of the Peanuts characters but there’s definitely a certain familiarity and nostalgia they bring to the table. Who doesn’t watch The Charlie Brown Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas specials? And with the rewarding experience I had with “The Muppet Man,” I thought another unique exploration of a childhood franchise could be fun. But man, it wasn’t until I went back and watched a few episodes of Charlie Brown on Youtube that I realized just how negative it was. Everybody’s upset or depressed about something. Nothing ever goes right. Lucy berates Charlie Brown so relentlessly, she’d probably go to jail for assault if she tried the same thing today. It’s like dissecting one disaster after another.

Fox makes one thing clear right off the bat. This isn’t your Grandmother’s Charlie Brown. No. I think I figured that out on page one when we’re introduced to Lucy getting ram-rodded by some dude from behind. Okay okay. It’s not nearly that graphic (although to say I was shocked was an understatement). But Lucy’s declaration of war on the world at such an early age has definitely had its effects on her psyche. Now 28 years old, she’s unaware that her current boyfriend, Schroeder (you may remember him playing the piano for Lucy and repeatedly fighting off her advances), is probably gay. She’s also cheating on him with her 43 year old married with children boss. She thinks she’s pregnant. And she lives with Linus, now a stockbroker, and still as cautious and pragmatic as ever (and still a virgin).

But what really blows her lid is that Charlie Brown and Snoopy are moving in with them! Lucy still can’t stand Charlie Brown and lets him know right away that she does not agree with these arrangements. Charlie Brown has made his way here to pursue being a writer – any sort of writer – and because he’s been a bit of a failure in life so far, he hasn’t a penny to his name. Eventually Charlie’s model younger sister, Sally, moves in as well, driving Linus all sorts of crazy, and the four of these childhood “friends” try their best to coexist in New York City 18 years after we last saw them.

The whole vibe is very “When Harry Met Sally.” The reason it ends up working is that the sexual tension between Charlie Brown and Lucy that’s existed since all the way back in the original cartoon, is finally explored. But not in the way you think it will be. Lucy is like a Velociraptor, tenacious and relentless in her belittling of anything that gets in her way. It’s actually fascinating you care about her so much because she’s such a raging bitch. But “Blockhead” benefits from this weird nostalgic curiosity that coats every scene. It may not be the most compelling drama. But you’re just so shocked that you get to see what happens to the Peanuts gang all grown up. Lucy getting banged was definitely the topper, but at one point the crew sits around smoking weed. It’s like if you somehow weaseled your way into The Jonas Brothers’ apartment and found them snorting coke off strippers. This stuff is not supposed to happen! (not that I’d want to sneak into the Jonas Brothers’ apartment. I’m purely using that as an analogy. I don’t own any of the Jonas Brothers’ music).

There are little nods to the comic sprinkled throughout. Linus will be at work with his boss giving a speech and when he drifts off, the boss’s words devolve into a repetitive “wah wah wah wahhhh wah wah wah wah.” All the catch phrases are used at least once. And there are probably a million references that I didn’t even catch because I don’t remember the cartoon that well. But the script does end on Christmas with Charlie buying a tiny little $15 Christmas tree and Lucy freaking out about it. I mean how can you not love that?

My one complaint was that Snoopy wasn’t used enough. Granted, you’re not doing Garfield or Scooby Doo with an animated dog, but Snoopy was the most memorable character in that show after Charlie Brown. You needed to find a way to use him!

This was such a trippy journey that I have to recommend you read it for yourself. Even though I know it would never happen in a million years, God would I like someone to make this film. I have no doubt it would be an instant cult classic.

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

What I learned: This is probably obvious, but just know that you can only sell a script based on someone else’s material to the company that owns that material. So if you write a Matrix movie, you can only sell it to Warner Brothers. And chances are, they don’t want your script because if they want to write another Matrix movie, they’ll do it themselves. In the case of this script, Emily Fox is basically damaging the brand name of the Peanuts characters (having sex, getting high) so not only will you have a hard time selling this for copyright reasons, but the estate that owns the rights to the Peanuts characters would never allow something like this to be made. I’m assuming Fox knew that going in. So it’s important for you to know the same thing. Selling one of these novelty scripts isn’t going to happen. But it might open a few doors.

In Bruges is one of those movies that you’re supposed to like if you’re a film nerd. Saying you don’t instantly loses you credibility. I guess I just lost credibility. I’m not sure it’s the script so much as Colin Farrell’s acting. I can never understand what the hell the guy’s saying and I don’t think he’s funny. If I need a guy to break girls’ hearts or make women swoon, I’ll hire Farrell. If I want an actor who can deliver jokes, Farrell is somewhere on the bottom of my list. But hey, people love In Bruges and I’m not going to rain on their parade. Even though I just sorta did. Today, Roger takes a look at another of McDonagh’s (the writer of In Bruges) scripts, Seven Psychopaths. If I ranked all the scripts I get requests for, this one is somewhere near the top. People love this guy. Let’s see what Roger thinks.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Black Comedy
Premise: A writer’s life is violently turned upside down when his friends kidnap a Mafioso’s dog.
About: “Seven Psychopaths” is McDonagh’s third film script. It’s his favorite unproduced script. And that’s all he’s gonna say about it. At the age of 27, McDonagh became the first writer since Shakespeare to have four plays performed simultaneously in London. His plays have been nominated for multiple Tony Awards. He won an Oscar for his short, “Six Shooter”. Nominated for Best Original Screenplay Award with “In Bruges”.
Writer: Martin McDonagh.
Details: 116 pages (undated)

Canto I.

The only writer other than Shakespeare to have four plays performed concurrently in London’s West End Theatre District is Martin McDonagh. That’s an almost four-hundred year disparity between quite possibly the world’s greatest writer and a modern day Irish playwright.

One writes in manacled iambic pentameter and the other writes in an idiosyncratic language that champions casual swearing.

Both are writers who tell stories that explore the immemorial facets of honor, love, loss, sorrow, ambition, wrath and madness with jewel-like illumination.

A Shakespearean sonnet might stir the pain that hides in scars by driving a rapier through your heart, but a McDonagh murder ballad will pummel that protective wall you constructed around your soul with the butt of a gun until it creates its own entrance, turning what was once a barrier into a gate.

And that thing you call manliness that is actually a buffer between you and the world will erode in the winds of a howling melancholy and screaming black drama, leaving you with wrists upturned and your veins exposed to the world, laughing all the while.

Canto II.

Now here’s a script that exists on the other side. The side where rules are broken and where the writer’s creativity and skill create a form that, double-fisted, punches and shoots its way through the parameter walls and stretches the tethers of the tenants to the point where they snap, the story refusing to be held in such confines.

The new form might frighten you. It might scare you away. But there’s no need to run. Read it. Don’t know how? Let it show you how. Give it a chance. Like Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” or Danielewski’s “House of Leaves”, McDonagh’s “Seven Psychopaths” is a work that showcases meta-literary pyrotechnics. You learn how to read it as you go along.

But here’s the thing. It’s actually a quiet display that does not get in the way of the story. There are points, especially near the mid-point, where it teeters on the brink, where McDonagh seems to mutter fuck-all while he tight-rope walks between pretentious disaster and pure screenplay brilliance, but then he makes it to the latter side and all you can do as a reader is shake your head in wonder and nod approvingly as you skim back over the pages you just read to see exactly how he made it across.

There’s a danger that comes with playing with the rules. But your reward, if you survive the attempt, is that you may achieve something much more interesting than what would be possible by opting to play safely in the life-guarded screenplay sandbox. There’s a part in this script where it seems like McDonagh is telegraphing the entire third act, but then he reels the story back in and we’re served with something completely compelling, fun, tense, violent and heartbreaking.

If you get to the mid-point and find yourself frustrated, like I did, just keep reading.

I promise that it’s not what you think it is.

Canto III.

Here’s the story. We have our writer Marty, who may or may not be Martin McDonagh. He’s a writer. He’s a bit of an alcoholic. He’s trying to write a screenplay he has entitled “Seven Psychopaths”. Yeah, I know. But hold on. Pay attention.

Marty’s best-friend is Billy Bickle. Billy…well…let’s just say that Billy doesn’t like Marty’s girlfriend, Kaya. Kaya doesn’t like Billy. But it’s okay, because Billy is concerned with being a good friend and he’s not afraid to tell Marty that Kaya is kindof a bitch. He’s looking out for his friend.

At one point we might even get a glimpse at Billy’s diary and learn that he’s made lists on how he can be a better friend to Marty and Hans.

Hans is –-

–hold on. Sorry. I’ll get to Hans in a second.

Did you catch the “Taxi Driver” reference there? Look again. Billy’s name. Billy Bickle.

Billy actually thinks that he’s the son of Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro’s character in Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”. No, he doesn’t think he’s the son of De Niro. He believes he’s the son of the character, Travis Bickle. He thinks Travis Bickle is real.

But it’s not…it’s not something you want to ride into him for. Billy’s a sweet guy and it’s kind of painful to watch Marty get drunk and make fun of him concerning this character trait. It just makes Marty come off as cranky and mean-spirited. And Billy is an awesome friend. I would be honored to have a friend like Billy in my life.

You see, Billy is concerned that Marty is drinking too much and that’s causing problems with work on his script. And he’s not afraid to say it. As burgeoning scriptwriters, we could all use a cheerleader like this on our sides, alcoholic or not.

Now let’s get back to Hans.

Hans is an older guy, closer to sixty than fifty. He’s poor but always neatly dressed. He wears a distinctive cravat that might just be a stylistic fashion choice, or he might be using it to cover up a telling scar. He has a black wife named Myra, a victim of breast cancer who spends her painful days lying in bed at the cancer word.

Hans hasn’t worked in twenty years or so, and you get the sense he’s struggling to pay Myra’s hospital bills. So he’s come up with a dog-napping scheme to help him with his financial woes. Billy helps him out. They steal dogs from people at the local park, hold them in pens and wait for the missing-dog flyers to appear. And since this is a pretty rich area, they are able to score hundreds of dollars in reward money from suddenly ecstatic and wealthy owners.

But one day they make a mistake. They nab a cute, little three-legged shitsu by the name of Bonny that both men grow pretty fond of.

Except there’s already a guy who’s extremely fond of Bonny. Namely, his owner Charlie Costello. See, when we first meet Charlie, he’s at a double funeral for some mafiosos.

That’s something else you should note. Someone has taken it upon themselves to murder members of the mafia, leaving Jack ‘O Diamond playing cards on the bodies.

Anyways, Charlie is at this funeral, and he’s consoling the mothers of the fallen men. He’s telling me, with much passion, that he’s going to crucify the people responsible for this.

Then someone arrives to tell him that something has happened to his shitsu, Bonny.

And then we truly see Charlie’s true colors.

He goes apeshit and when the Irish priest at the funeral tries to calm him down, Charlie responds by pushing him into an open grave. Yep. He pushes. A priest. Into. An open grave.

And now worlds are about to collide. People are about to die.

And it reminds me a lot of McDonagh’s play, “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”. Which is about a psychopath named Padraic, a leader in a Irish National Liberation Army splinter group, who finds out his best friend has been killed.

His best friend is a cat named Wee Thomas.

Anyways, a bloodbath ensues as Padraic returns to his old stomping grounds as he avenges the cat.

So Charlie is a bit like Padraic. His interrogation starts with the woman who was walking Bonny when he went missing. She’s chained to a chair and he has a gun in his hand. And if we weren’t sure about Charlie’s sanity already, this scene provides us with frightful and hilarious clarity.

Canto IV.

It can be argued, that when it comes to plays, that what you need is three ingredients. (1) Quirky characters. (2) Good dialogue. (3) Interesting stories for each character. And off you go.

The idiom of McDonagh’s work is that, yes, he has quirky characters. And he also has dialogue that captures a sense of madness through speech. His characters express themselves through the oddness of their expressions. And not only do they seem to have interesting backstories, the stories that they are living portraying in the present to the audience are compelling and interesting as well.

But plays are different. You can tell more than you have to show, and you can get away with it.

Cinematically, it’s wise to show more than you tell.

And McDonagh has some great stories that he shows us here. You see, there are stories within stories here. The frame device is the screenplay Marty is writing, and he needs to find and populate his story with seven characters. Seven characters worthy of the title psychopath. Seven psychopaths with interesting stories to tell.

There’s a funny bit of business that involves a hungover Marty finding an ad in the paper, a call for psychopaths with interesting stories to be used in a film being written by Marty. He didn’t put this in the paper. Billy did.

And this is how we meet Zachariah. He’s very old. He arrives to Marty’s apartment to tell his tale to Marty’s tape recorder. Marty just wants to be rid of the guy, so he goes about his business making coffee and such when he hears Zachariah reveal that he lived his life as a serial killer who travelled the country killing other serial killers.

He didn’t do this alone. He had a girlfriend and partner named Maggie.

And it’s the type of well-told tale that catches your breath. And what starts out as a story about grisly serial killers turns into a sad tale of regret and love lost.

Zachariah’s motive for coming to Marty is so that Marty will post a note after the credits roll if his screenplay is ever made into a film from Zachariah to Maggie.

You see, he’s an old man looking for the woman that got away.

And it’s a powerful, touching sequence that made me cry. And then I was laughing while crying at the irony of shedding tears over the story of a couple that offed serial murderers.

And that’s what makes this script such a joy and pleasure to experience. It’s the stories and connections and reversals that rise to the surface as a man looking for his stolen dog wreaks havoc on the people responsible.

Canto V.

The characters speak dialogue that showcases McDonagh’s ear for elliptical speech. People often speak around subjects and the truth before they finally settle on it. It takes them a bit of time to figure out how they’re going to approach a subject or something that’s bothering them. But when they finally do, it’s a moment of connection that lights up the circuits and gets our agreement and empathy.

There’s a great line of dialogue, a line that resonates still:

“I think anything made with brains and heart is life-affirming, no matter how black the subject matter.”

Living in the Bible Belt, people like to make me feel weird.

Sometimes they ask me, “How can you like that? It’s not uplifting.”

Like this one time I was watching David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels”, and after it ended, my roommate, who had been grading papers in front of the flat-screen, she says, “That wasn’t very uplifting, was it?”

And she scowled at me and told me it was a terrible, terrible film.

Not totally pleasant, yes, but it was totally captivating. It had things to say. Things about grief that spoke to me, calmed me as a person who was going through his own grief. But she clocked out and chose not to believe that it had things to say.

Why?

Now I’m a guy that likes somber, melancholy, dark fairy tales dripping with sparkled chiaroscuro and luminous tenebrae…I like stories with swearing and guns and knives and people behaving badly.

And you know, people will look at me and say, with a straight-face, that there’s no value to such stories. No artistic, humanistic, or moral merit.

Well, what a shitty stance that’s more a matter of taste and bias then it is of criticism. Than it is of giving a story a chance.

And it frustrates me, because I’m a person that tries to find the beauty and truth in everything. I want to say, didn’t you pay attention? There’s light here, there’s gem-like soul-stirring stuff going on here, and sometimes you need some of the darkness to accentuate the light, the life. It’s like alchemy, chemistry. You need the vile stuff, the dark stuff, to cull out the light.

Canto VI.

Because I’m going to tell you right now, there are multiple moments in this story that violates Stuart Beattie’s screenplay axiom: “Never kill the dog.”

Animals die in this thing.

And so do people.

Life is hacked to death with a machete. It melts in pools of acid. Flare guns are shot into mouths, bullets bounce around inside bodies. There’s fisticuffs and bloody physicality. Men break up with women. Women and men both die tragic deaths.

And I don’t really think there’s any bias or prejudice betwixt the things that die in this script.

Canto VII.

But there’s men professing love for each other. It’s not homosexuality. It’s the manly Romantic friendship found between two males in Victorian times and literature. You know how people would snicker in the theater during “Lord of the Rings” whenever Frodo and Sam gazed at each other? How people mistook that for them being hard and wet for each other?

There’s that except it’s not two dudes who want to fuck each other (it wasn’t in Tolkien either).

It’s a sense of honor, of loyalty, of friendship.

It’s also a meditation on Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”. Chinks in the armor and macho exteriors that lay bare the insecurities, the tenderness, the red-beating hearts of these characters. Push past through the posturing and physicality to see these men naked, offering their beating hearts in outstretched supplicant hands.

There’s writer as warrior.

You fight for the time and dedication to write, and sometimes you lose the simple pleasures of life in exchange. If you’re in a relationship, it’s a hard juggling act. Because writing has become your mistress, and your stories have become your children. You have to decide, who is going to be the wife, and who is going to be the mistress? Your writing? Or your mate?

I think there’s a sacrifice that comes with choosing a path as a writer, with things like logophilia or cinephilia. When you’re so haunted and obsessed with words and images you find the rest of the world passing you by as you lose yourself in the loop. Sometimes it’s out of your control.

And sometimes when you’ve worked months or years to complete something, you’ve shed friendships and jobs. You’ve opted not to settle on a straight career path and a yuppie life because you’re working something minimum wage while you live in a ratty apartment with Good Will décor as you spend the majority of your time writing.

A lot.

Like Seven Samurai, these guys uphold their honor to each other, their friendships for the greater good, but it’s the warriors who ultimately lose. They have lost their lives and Marty has lost his friends. As Kambei muses, “Again we are defeated.”

Because in the end, Marty has even lost his girl because his writing is important, and she is, after all, a fucking bitch.

And with Marty alive, life-sustaining work has prevailed over war, left all warriors (Billy and Hans and the others) as the defeated party.

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

What I learned: When you’re someone like Martin McDonagh, you don’t compromise. People don’t tell him, “That’s a great first draft.” He has the confidence and the stubbornness and the belief in his own work to say, “We’re shooting it my way and we’re not going to change a fucking word.” And you know what? That’s what’s gonna happen. If you’re going to last in this business, you have to believe in yourself. You have to believe in your scripts. The moment you lose belief, the moment you quit and give up. It’s over. Otherwise, how are other people going to believe in you? Are you writing for a paycheck? Or are you writing because you need and have to tell stories? Are you writing a story to tell it to other people, or are you telling it to yourself?