advice for anyone



Okay, so I did read the Harry Potter. It was pretty good. Today I’m practicing understatement.

Last week Cory sent me a link to a rap video that expresses an unusual sentiment- for Cory at least, since he may in fact be illiterate, that people should make and effort to read books among other things. A few explicit lyrics so check your speakers if at work:

Something I can totally get behind. Plus I’m all for tasteless booty shakin’. Animated booty even more so.

character lovin’



I’ve found myself in an interesting situation lately as I’m working on three different stories at the same time after having worked on one story, N&D, almost exclusively for a very long time. So I’m juggling a lot more than I’ve been used to and trying to develop these three stories and characters whereas with N&D I knew the characters and most of my time and effort was dedicated in just getting the script to highlight the greatest aspects of the characters.

Cause I’ll say it again, story is character.

So with N&D I was honestly in mad obsessive love with my characters. They are as complete and as fully realized and as anything I’ve ever done and that’s one of the reasons I consider N&D to be my first, real, successful script. (Never mind the half dozen I’ve written previous). The story in N&D is very much about Max and Edison and the dynamics between the two while crazy things are going on around them and that was ALWAYS the heart of the script throughout every version. I know Max and Ed and I love Max and Ed. I can hear their voices. I can have conversations with them, hell I got silly at one point and ‘interviewed’ them about what happens after my script so I could get a handle on what needed to be in the script, you know? At any given moment, I can know what they’re arguing about, because have no doubt, they will be arguing unless otherwise engaged… And yet, they never fail to surprise me. Maybe this is schizophrenia, but they are honestly complete personalities enclosed in my head. And god, I love it! Screenwriting = Madness.

But for all the excitement and all the ideas for that I have for Max and Ed I know it’s necessary to move on. Which is where I’m a little snagged- in one of the things I’m working on now I have a protag who I realized this weekend, that I don’t especially like. Which is weird because I made the guy, right? I started him out with some of my favorite attributes and gave him some clever dialogue and defining moments. He is very different from Max and Ed and thus it’s a different kind of story. I’ve worked for a while at giving him a good solid arc and throwing him into quicksand, giving him depth- but his voice isn’t anywhere near as clear as Max and Ed were for me and that’s hurting dialogue, character dynamics, motivation, fucking everything. Realizing that I could take or leave him makes me feel like a bad parent. I can’t write a script about a character who I’m so lukewarm about- rather, I COULD, but I’m not going to. He is the bastard step-child in my mind, angry that I almost inevitably end up thinking- ‘You are not as cool as Max and Ed.’ He sulks a lot. He’s a loner. None of which lend him to being a very likable protagonist- or hasn’t yet. There is something missing in him that he’s not too eager to share with me and it’s fucking up my script, which is in turn pissing me off. He’s got to carry this script after all! If he doesn’t cut it out he’s going back to the bottom of the work pile cause the gal and company in the other new script are being just a tad more accessible and have room for more potential awesome likability.

And threatening him just isn’t getting me anywhere cause the bastard thinks he’s Holden Caufield and doesn’t give a flying fuck about me finishing my script.

Maybe it works with brain-damage…



I’ve never thought of myself as hard to please. Discerning, sure, but there are plenty of films, books and television that I enjoy without congealing into brilliant mind-bending plots with deep, dynamic characters. So I thought that the mindless action that Die Hard 4 and Transformers promised would be right up my alley.

And as much as I was looking forward to them both I just ended up bored and annoyed. What’s bothering me is that more than a few people seem to be able to enjoy these and I just don’t get it. I swear I’m not hard to please! I may hype myself up a little too often, but dammit I like mindless action! Here’s a list for you:

Independence Day
Con Air
The Long Kiss Goodnight
Passenger 57
Under Siege
Deep Blue Sea
Speed
Entrapment
The Postman
Point Break
Soldier
3000 Miles to Graceland
Tango & Cash
Lethal Weapon 4
Basic
Speed
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Waterworld
51st State
Blown Away

I consider these to be fairly typical mindless action flicks where plot, continuity and development end up sacrificed for spectacle- everything I expect from MAFs. I like all of these films, own about half of them and can quote cliché dialogue at length from more of them than I should admit. In the canon of MAFs these aren’t even the all-stars but I specifically picked these because they all score between a 5.0-6.5 user rating on the Internet Movie Database, with one exception. One scores a 7.1- Any guesses? It actually sort of surprised me. But pretend IMDB isn’t horribly skewed and say 5.0s are pretty average. SHOULDN’T I find more than a chuckle or two in Live Free or Die Hard – an 8.2!!!! Or Transformers – an 8.4?!

What the ever-loving-fuck?! Part of me insists that I embrace the popcorn flick as much as anyone else. I SHOULD be able to enjoy them. But I see a distinct void between these movies and Transformers (Die Hard 4 to a lesser extent) and I’m annoyed about it. Transformers was damn near incoherent. Just not fair.