Have you ever heard of “The Hype Man” screenwriting tip? Of course not. It’s ONLY in this month’s Scriptshadow newsletter, a newsletter that does a deep dive into the difference between good screenwriting and bad screenwriting. This newsletter includes the latest movie from one of the most innovative directors ever, a new movie from one of the most underrated directors ever, and a movie from the director of Jumanji. And you know what? The movie from the director of Jumanji might be the best one! I also review a script that reunites two Hollywood mainstays who could’ve disappeared off the face of the earth if their movie hadn’t been an unexpected hit 20 years ago. Finally, we continue to rev up for Mega Showdown this month. Start sending in those scripts!
One thing I didn’t have time to get into in the newsletter was the new season of The Bear. The Bear has been one of my favorite shows on TV these last couple of years so I’ve been super-psyched for the third season. I’m now three episodes in and my alarm bells are ringing.
One of the signs of a brilliant artist is that you’re never sure what they’re going to do next. You look at guys like Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Ruben Östlund, and every time they come out with a new movie, it’s inventive and different and unexpected.
Then you have guys on the opposite end of the spectrum. Directors like Wes Anderson, Terrance Malick, David Leitch, and Matthew Vaughn, who keep making the same movie over and over again. The movies vary in quality and can sometimes even be good, but they never give you that amazing feeling you get from a truly original artist.
Christopher Storer, who created The Bear, is in danger of creating a third variation of director, which is someone who tries so hard to be unique with each new iteration that he’s actually becoming predictable.
Storer so badly wants to be perceived as an artist that he’s lost sight of how to tell a story. The first season of The Bear was a traditional (and brilliant) exploration of running a fast food restaurant. It was so well written in part due to the irony at the top of the show – that the fast food joint was being run by a 5-star chef.
The second season was nothing like the first. Storer bucked the traditional A to B narrative structure and told 8 self-contained stories, many times focusing on individual characters as opposed to the ensemble. The season had more highs than the first but also more lows, as it was all heaped in a giant pile of discombobulation. But Storer displayed a propensity to radically experiment. For example, in the big final episode, the main character spends the entire time in the freezer.
With the third season upon us – and keep in mind I’m only 3 episodes in – I’m starting to predict what Storer will do, which amounts to anything nontraditional. A 30 minute opening montage episode of stuff we’ve already seen is a “Get real” moment for him. That’s film school nonsense. Then the second episode all takes place in one room. Another film school faux-genius choice that, when we saw it the first time on the show, it was cute. Now it’s getting annoying. And the third episode was just people running around the kitchen getting angry in real time. We already did real-time. So this is starting to feel played.
With 7 episodes left, I’m going to guess at where Storer is going next and while I don’t expect to be 100% right, I expect to be mostly right. Because he’s showing his hand. He wants to be lauded as an artist and so he’s doing as many weird film-school things as he think up.
There will probably be an episode that focuses on the clock in the restaurant and while we HEAR everything that goes on in the restaurant, we stay on the clock the entire time. There will probably be an episode that takes place from the POV of a utensil – my guess is a spoon – for the entire running time. The ending will be the spoon being thrown away in the garbage and we’ll all feel sad.
There will be an episode where everything is told backwards. So we’ll start at the end of the episode and end at the beginning. There will be an episode that takes place when Carmy was 5 years old. His grandmother will be played by Liza Minelli. And in real-time we’ll see him make his first meal (maybe Mac and cheese?) and fall in love with cooking.
There will be an “alternate history” episode where we get to see what the restaurant would be like if Carmy’s brother was still alive. We’d probably still be at the beef shop and his bro would be running the place and the episode will focus on Carmy visiting Chicago for the weekend from his big fancy California restaurant job and we see the two brothers fight the whole time. To motivate it, the episode will end with Carmy waking up from a dream.
And the final episode will probably be Richie on top of a building, thinking of killing himself, Carmy comes to stop him, and Richie gives a 78 minute no-cut monologue about how he came to this decision.
I am all for writers and directors taking risks. But if the only reason you’re taking risks is to take risks? And it’s not because you actually think it will result in a better product? That’s a waste of time. I’m being facetious with most of these episode predictions but that’s only because I’m frustrated. In the end, we want a good story. Bells and whistles only get you so far. It’s the substance that matters. The Bear? Please bring back some substance for the final 7 episodes.
If you’re not on the newsletter, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and I’ll put you on!
