The New Bond? Yeah, he'll do just fine......

Waiting....

I'm waiting for 6pm, EST. Supposed to get a call discussing what the Production company I wrote of earlier may want to do with my script. could go either way. Keep you posted............... Some hotties while u wait...........(Mandy Moore & Anne Hathaway)

Crackheads are people, too.....Funny People

As a home inspector, we see all kinds of things. Trashed houses, million-dollar mansions, etc.

And the occassional crackhead.

The seller of a dilapitated house yesterday was one I was sure. Hey, I know my crackheads, I've seen COPS enough to pick out a nice white-trash crack addict. Oh, you know, she had one tooth in her mouth (at least she could still use her TOOTHbrush, her skin looked like diarrhea, she layed about watching divorce court, etc.

I could have been wrong, until I heard her and a neighbor that came for a visit chatting about how her crackdealer wouldn't give this waste-of-life any crack because she owed him a hundred bucks - I was under the porch, listened to their whole useless crackhead conversation.

I have no tolerance for garbage like this. Go kill yourselves, please. And don't bitch to me about your fucking addiction - An addiction like this is the sign of a selfish asshole fuckwad. Either go and quit, or just keep on firing up until your useless eyes fall out.

She had kids, too, all the more heartbreaking - 3 boys as it turned out. They weren't home at the time or I would have piled them into my work van and driven them off. I heard they were 18, 16, and 12. Certainly all fucked up, not their fault, but surely to be not the best society has to offer.

There was a light switch in the basement that was tied into an outlet with a broken smoke alarm; when I turned on the switch the alarm would beep beep beep. Kinda loud but nothing major. Crackwhore flipped out upstairs "Oh my God, what's he doing? He's running the smoke alarm! What the hell is that?!" and so on, crack gibberish so I turned it off......and after about ten seconds, in need of a good giggle, I flipped the switch again.

Oh come on, it was funny. And not cruel in the least, I only did it twice more after that.

Again, no tolerance. Addictions are selfish (and weak). And especially a low-rent addiction like crack, I mean get a real hobby like booze or pot, because congratulations lady, you've not only destroyed your own useless life, but your entire family's as well.

And you better be careful or I'll flip that switch again.

The 4 Things Meme Thing

Four Films I Could Watch Again And Again:
Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Planes Trains & Automobiles, Raising Arizona

Four Places I've Lived:
Pennsauken, NJ
Riverton, NJ
Palmyra, NJ
Collingswood, NJ

So, basically, NJ.

Four jobs:
Paperman (also Newspaper Stuffer)
Ice Cream Scooper
Tower Records & Video Geek
Telemarketing Prick

Four TV Shows I Love:
Arrested Development (RIP)
Lost
Wonder Showzen
Flip This House

Four Places I've Been On Vacation:
Kitty Hawk, NC
Niagra Falls
New Hampshire
Belgrade, Yugoslavia

Four Of My Favourite Foods:
Hamburger
Flounder
General Tso Chicken/Fried Rice
Chicken Fingers

Four Blogs I Visit Every Day:
Alligators On A Helicopter
Adventures in Storytelling
One Slack
Moviequill

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now
In an executive's office, selling a script would be enough.

Four Films I'd Re-write:
Sorceror
Broken Flowers
The new Star Wars Trilogy (it's one long nightmare for me)
Lord Of War

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging
Tom Crymes (Make a frickin' blog dude)
Rob
Tamir
Fun Joel
Bonus pix, enjoy.

More Crickets

Got another e-mail for a Cricket Hill request, again off of WinningScripts, that site is kicking ass for me. I'd recommended it. This one came from an indie producer, and I'll get one right out to him, I'm still waiting on any info/news from the two companies I discussed in my previous post. I should also hear about 2 screenplay contests by the weekend.

And I hate my job.

I Come In Peace..........

"And you go in pieces."

Classic, they just don't make them like that anymore. Anybody remember that gem? It starred Dolph Lungren, man! I was over at Chris Soth's, checking out his post about good/bad titles and it reminded me about that Dolph Classic. The Alien dude is blowing shit up during the preview, saying "I come in peace" and at the end of the trailer Dolph says to him: "And you go in pieces." Perfect.

Another beauty of a title/tagline is for that not-so classic horror flick:
Popcorn - "Buy a bag.....go home in a box." Beautiful!

By the way, I updated my links section.

Quick update, my Cricket Hill script is still hanging around that company I spoke of, I had another good talk with the Development Dude on Friday, this guy is like 1000% behind it and says his people will read it this passing weekend. I hope they do, and let's hope they actually like it! He's actually been hyping it up to them so much, I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Also, since this guy wants to see this made, he's been sending it out to a few of his own contacts and one guy flipped over the 1st 30 pages, said he'll read the rest over this now-passing weekend. Hoping he flips for the rest of it. He said the 1st 30 was "funny as fuck." I pray the rest reads "funny as fuck."

The Guy Who Flipped is actually a manager for a pretty high profile management company, and although I scored a manager in the recent past, I'd go with them in a heartbeat. I like my manager, but he's more of a friend with great contacts and since he works for a HUGE director in town also, doesn't always have the time to go and sell my stuff. As for my agent, well, he blows. When a company chuckles after you mention your agent's name, it's well-past time for a new agent.

Blowin' Chunks

I hate being sick, but far worse than that is when my kids are sick.

I always try to magically suck out their sickness and put it into me, but it never seems to work. My 6.5 year old was sick first, then my 3.5 year old, then me, then the 3.5 year old again (he's sick now, seems to be an upset stomach, etc). Gave him some peach juice, that usually calms their stomachs.

And we've all puked plenty. I started at 4am Saturday morning and puked almost every half hour until 10am. It's funny how helpless one is when they are hugging the porcelain god, their stomach convulsing.

Seems like some sort of stomach bug going around. Damn bugs.

Ok, now I'm pissed......

So I'm flipping through my recent isue of Creative Screenwriting magazine, and I see an ad.

It basically says that if you have writer's block, try hypnosis.

WHAT THE FUCK??!?!!!?!

Are they out of their fucking minds?????

First of all, hypnosis is bullshit - No, please, don't send me any stories about your cousin from Tulsa who was hypnotized once and she clucked like a chicken. Your cousin from Tulsa fell off the potato truck when she was a baby, simple as that.

Here's one problem I have, you're ripping off some poor idiot writer (who's already poor as it is) who thinks they'll be cured of writer's block just by doing this. It's the same BS as smokers (getting hypnotized to quit smoking). If you want to quit, just freakin' quit, if you want to smoke, then smoke!

But not only is it a bullshit waste of money, no, I understand people trying to make a buck, even if it is some hypnotist-asshole. I'd be more pissed at the jackass "writer" who thinks they'll be cured of their writer's block by doing something like this.

Hey fuckwad, you got writer's block? Here's some ideas for you (besides NOT being hypnotized like a douche):

1. Walk around the block.
2. Watch Tv/Web surf
3. Take a nice drive

Or, and this one if my favorites for when I get some writer's block:

THINK HARDER!

United 93

Thoughts on this? Paul Greengrass made a good sequel (Bourne 2) and the awesome Bloody Sunday. But can he pull this off?

Snakes!

Shouldn't we be counting down to this epic?

Write what you know.......?

....unless you want to sell it or have any success with it.

I only say this if you're a first-timer really, eager to break into the scriptwriting world. My college film professor always told us to write what we know. And I did at first. They all sucked. My first 3-4 screenplays were terrible, bad bad bad. Their plots were something about post-college friendship.....ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Bad plot, dialogue, etc. Pointless. All bad, 100%.

But I'm glad I wrote them, it helped me get the "kinks" out. Whatever it is you're writing, if it's your first script, it'll probably suck. Maybe not, but probably. So don't get too attached.

Screenplay competitions and production companies will toss them, the autobiographical stories, that's my opinion, anyway. They're not the ones that win awards or sell for half a mil. But you need to write them.

So, do I write what I know? Well, certainly there's a part of me in my scripts, but I haven't gotten too personal in years.

And out of my successes, did I write what I knew? No.

Option #1 - 1998, a script called GOOD PEOPLE, bascially a small-town comedy.
Option #2 - 2001, it was a comedy involving porn.
Option #3 - 2002, a kids movie you could see Disney or Nick making.

The best situation to have is something like Noah Baumbach's The Squid & The Whale. He didn't write it and put it out there 10 years ago, he did it now, when he was a BETTER WRITER. And I think it really paid off.

What do you do with your 1st screenplay, that just might be about or have a lot to do with your own life? Put it away, move on or if you think it's worth a damn, maybe re-write it after getting extensive feedback. Just don't count on many people taking to it, if you get it in great shape, you might just have to go and shoot it yourself, which might not be a bad thing.

My ultimate advice? Write whatever the hell you want.

And on an unrelated topic, here's Charlize.......

Updates, etc.

I've updated my blog links, so we can all be better linked in this crazy bloggin' thang.

Well, V For Vendetta grabbed the top spot with 26 million, but they said that was behind last year's box office at this time. Does that mean we're going to be running (less $$ per weekend) behind the year where we were running behind?

Ah, Hollywood will survive. I think the Summer will be huge anyways. But I do think V will drop like a stone next weekend.

As for myself, I've gotten back onto my script, ZUCKER, I took off for a few weeks but got juiced about it again and am going to make it my next finished script. Right now I'm into Act 2 and LOVE how fast and smooth Act 1 went.

Then I'll continue working on my real estate comedy (thanks for the title suggestions) as well as a polish of a script I wrote 2 years ago called Surviving Edwards Avenue. and I changed a title of one of my other newer scripts - It was called "Heist Of the Century" now it's called "Wrong Way On A One Way."

Still waiting for April 1st, I'll find out the fates of my scripts that are in 3 contests, so we'll see.

My Development guy is eager for his peers to read my Cricket Hill script, that's where we're at, waiting for them to read it. He still loves it and is supporting it, so we'll see what happens.

A friend of mine sent me Act 1 of his new script, funny stuff. He entered his FIRST screenplay he EVER WROTE with ZERO training/schooling/anything into last year's Fade In contest. And won! (not the grand prize, but was 1st place in his category). Anyway, I wish that bastard the best, and his new script is going well so far. I've got my 3 quarter-finalists in Fade In now, so we'll see if they advance any further.

I'll end with a cool-ass posted for an upcoming Terry Gilliam movie.........

Your Assistance is Requested

Scott did it, and I will now copy him.

I'm writing a script (yeah, a new one, yeah, I'm spread too thin with the scripts I'm writing, too many ideas/half-written stories, what the hell do you want from me??????).

Anyhoo, I need a title. I've got a couple idears for one, but nothing concrete.

The plot is basically this - Real Estate Comedy. Now, I'll list a few I've been kicking around, and I may have an added title on the end like:
"The Life and Death Of A Real Estate Agent" or "The Heinous Yet Justified Murder Of A Real Estate Agent." Ok, too long, but you get the point. So far I've got.........

1. Open House
2. As Is
3. Donkeypunch

Like any of those? Any thoughts? If you give me a good one I'll make you a batch of brownies. A little Naomi Watts to inspire...........

Trash Talkin'

Annie Proulx, co-writer of Brokeback, is pissed. Sure, she's got every right to be, her movie didn't win the Best Picture Oscar, but shut the hell up already.

She's lashing out now. In a British newspaper article she says that the Academy is "out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city." Oh, get a grip.

She goes on to say that if you want "smart judging based on merit" that we should skip the Academy Awards and watch The Independent Spirit Awards. Oh, because Brokeback won that Best Pic award. What if they gave it The Squid & The Whale? Would they have been out of touch, or simply awarding the movie they thought was better?

Oh, and she refers to Crash as Trash. How creative. She's a writer??

I mean, c'mon, what a sore freaking loser. She's not even a loser since she did go home with an Oscar.

The thing is - A lot of people liked Crash. so they voted for it. Were they right? That's subjective of course, and it is one of the main problems with these awards. When I watch the Oscars, 8 out of 10 times I'll be routing for a movie that doesn't win, but so freakin what? I would have rather seen Good Night & Good Luck beat both anyway.

For her to go off on Crash is ridiculous. How about this - Maybe it got the awards it deserved - Director, Music & Screenplay (that's you Annie).

Now I'm sure people (voters) were turned off by it, as they were by Crash or the other nominees, which is unfair to any movie. But it's not like one voter makes all the decisions, each voter is going to vote for the movie they liked. And I bet good money that the vote was close as hell, since I think Brokeback had a lot of support. But if Annie's right, why would they give it ANY awards? Why would Hoffman win for best actor playing a gay man? Wouldn't they be turned off by him, too?

Annie knows better, one would think, and for her to lash out like this is just sad, lame, and unprofessional.

Hey Annie, does this mean you're going to give your OSCAR back then? Hmm??

Flickmaking Part 3 - Prep!!!

Be Prepared.

Yeah, I've said this before, but do it. And while you're prepping your epic indie flick, go re-write it again. Because it needs it. Trust me. The movies I made (3.5 features, 5 shorts, on either film or DV) could have used another re-write. Would that have made them sell to Miramax at the time? No, my shitty-ass budgets killed me there, but it would have made them better.

A story that comes to mind when I think about my past productions is the one with the most turmoil, the debacle that was West River Drive.

The movie was personal for me, it had a lot of family strife in it that mirrored my life growing up. I felt it was important to make. I was wrong. Not to make it but how I made it.

No prep.

Well, certainly not enough.

I hired a kid (see past posts about how he would not stop looking into the camera once we called "Action!") for the lead who I thought was good enough. I was settling. Rule #1 - Don't settle.

Then I hired a girl to play his neighborhood crush/love interest. Amazing, she was actually, but funny thing is, by the time we went to shoot, this chick had grown several inches and TOWERED over my lead.
Rule #2 - Cast the shit out of your movie.

(They were both around 10 years old.)

I couldn't replace her though, her mother was doing a lot for the production (setting up some locations, etc) and as for the kid, well, I should have dropped his ass but I felt I could work around his quirks. Yeah, I was a dumbass.

So we tried to make it work, but for scheduling reasons we had a nother problem. We had to shoot a pretty big scene first that takes place at a carnival.

The scene of their first kiss. On our first day of shooting.

Yeah.

We stormed the carnival (it was actually called a grange fair) it had all sorts of rides, as well as horsies and monster-jam loving yokels, and shot it guerllia style. Which was all fine and good, except of course, for the kiss.

In the script, it's a magical moment. Life-changing for this kid....and he wouldn't stop looking at the camera. It was a situation where we had to lie and tell him we weren't shooting just to get a half-decent take out of him. Plus when they kissed it looked like 2 doors bonking into each other, absolutely no chemistry.

What was supposed to be an amazing scene ended up as part of a montage, a footnote basically.

We shouldn't have shot the movie. At all.

Another funny tale came later. We were shooting on a neighborhood street in my old hood, when the guy who was playing Grandpa decided to chat with the gathering crowd of kids that were watching. I didn't mind, I was busy with the DP setting up the scene.......until I turn to see Grandpa ATTEMPTING TO BOUNCE ON ONE OF THE KID'S POGO STICKS.

(!)

An old man. On a pogo stick.

Everything seemed to unfold in slo-mo.

It went how you think it would, he got about a bounce-and-a-half off and then down he went, into a tree & curb. Luckily we had a first-aid kit handy to bandage him up....Rule #3 - Don't hire loopy old folks.

I could write a friggin book.

Cricket Hill Synopsis

For those of you who were wondering what the hell Cricket Hill is about, here's a short synopsis............

CRICKET HILL

Back in the 6th grade, Billy was assigned to write a brief essay about his family. Billy is fifteen now, and he’s still writing! With the comic misadventures of his eccentric parents and older siblings filling the chapters of his story, Billy attempts to gain the attention of Daphne, the new girl at his high school that he has fallen head-over-heels for, as a snowbound Christmas approaches.

Happenings

Sorry I'm going to be pretty vague about the following, it's just that it's too early to go throwing names/companies around......

The Development guy at the company that requested my script called the Friday night to chat. He let me know that he was still blown away by my script and that his partners would read it soon.

They are deep into pre-production on a pretty big movie that will start shooting in April, so they haven't gotten any reading done. That's okay by me, any sort of contact/connections with these guys would be amazing. They've got a lot going on, and have some great projects already lined up. So if it takes them longer to get to mine, that's ok.

But he's still pushing the script, and we had a great discussion about the script (Cricket Hill) as well as other topics. We chatted for about a half hour. Great guy, really knows his shit. Plus the movie they are producing sounds great and has one of my favorite actors in it. So, I'd rather that they take their time and read it when they can, my fingers are crossed that they'll like it as much as he did.

I just watched a film they made last year (was at Sundance 2005). Good movie, pretty edgy.

I had a hit on one of my Inktip.com scripts the other day, I've had a few requests from their lately, but this one was pretty lame:

Patrick,
I represent (their name). I read your screenplay synopsis and thought your story looked very interesting. Our company is accepting submissions at (their lame website).We would like to invite you to submit your screenplay. Winners will receive a cash prize and be published in a book called "(Name of their lame ass book)." Our book is a new market for screenwriters to showcase their screenplays to the American public in short story format. Our first book is available at Amazon.Com. Come to our Web site and check us out. Hope to hear from you soon.

These guys can suck both of my balls. I mean, c'mon, they're using Inktip to get their lame ass contest/short story book. It's like spam, really. Bunch of douchebags.

I was working on my drama, You Will Miss Me When I'm Gone but it was too damn depressing so I had to take a break from it and work on 2 of my comedies (Zucker & The Nine Lives Of Dalt Stickle.

Waiting to hear back from the company that requested Shuttlecock, they've had it for about a week so I'll give them another week before I bug them. In a few weeks I'll start to hear about the contests/competitions that I've got some scripts out to.

Not much else is going on. Music-wise, I tried to listen to Arctic Monkeys but they just didn't do it for me. I do like the new Franz Ferdinand and a new band called She Wants Revenge.

Saw Proof on DVD. ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.




Still awesome - Better Off Dead.
"He's skiing on one ski!!!!"

Summer Box Office 2006

This Summer Box Office could be HUGE. HUGE!!! The largest grossing in years. Mark my words. They'll talk about it for years. And then Summer 2007 will suck balls.

So, like I said, this Summer? Huge! Unless the big guns of Summer suck, which they tend to do. But let's say they don't.............

1. Superman - If it's good, this thing will kill. $480+ million
2. Pirates 2: Looks terrific - $375 million





3. Cars: Pixar + Summer Release + Nascar = $350 million



4. The DaVinci Code: Hanks, Howard, Huge book, Pissy Catholics - $275 million
5. MI:3 - JJ Abrahms knows what he's doing $240 million






6. X3: Will open big like the 1st 2, then drop (like the 1st 2) $230 million.






7. Poseiden - Day After Tomorrow-ish, hopefully better $200 million.
8. Over The Hedge - Animated, pre-Memorial Day, should do like Madagascar and hit $180-190 million.
9. Click - This could be funny, and if the Longest Yard did what it did, this will do $175 million
10. The Break-Up - Click & this will be the Summer date movies (ok, so will Pirates, but these come out first). This will do $150 million, maybe a lot more if it's actually funny/good.
11. Monster House - could be much higher. Depends, this will come after mid-Summer, after Over The Hedge & Cars, it needs to be AMAZING. Let's say $120 million, could be less or A LOT more.
12. Miami Vice - Could have some hardcore stuff in it, the Miami-type crowd will dig it. $100-120 million.
13. Talledega Nights (Will Ferrell Nascar) - $90-100 million









14. You, Me & Dupree - Not sure how I feel about this one. Doesn't seem like anything new, might do $80-90 million.
15. Fast & Furious 3: More Furiouser - I like Lucas Black, but did he have to make this? I say $80 million with a sigh.
16 School For Scoundrels - Sleeper $80-90 million
17. The Omen: might be good for a scare, or it could blow. $80 Million
18. Super Ex - Luke Wilson/Uma, Funny concept, but might get lost. Let's say $70-80 million.
19. Nacho Libre - I want this to make a Billion, but it'll be more like School Of Rock numbers and do $80 million, tops.
20. Lady In the Water - Eh. It's about a janitor & a sea nymph at an apartment building pool. I heard the "twist" and it ain't all that twisty. Not that there even needs to be one. I like M. Night, but can't see it doing much, unless I'm wrong, and I could be. But I'm not. $70-80 million.

More from X3:

NEXT Year's Oscars will go to.................

Ok, '05 is done. Now for 2006. yeah, it's early, and I commented on this a few posts back but I looked at the months ahead and I have some guessing. Here it goes......

Up For Best Picture from 2006?


Flags Of Our Fathers (Eastwood directed WW2 epic)
Dreamgirls (musical w/ Jamie Foxx & Eddie Murphy)
Running With Scissors (Annette Bening stars, directed by creator of Nip/Tuck)
Marie Antoinette (Directed by Sofia Coppola)
The Good Shepard (Directed by DeNiro)

They may be the top films nominated, and if people aren't sick of giving Paul Haggis (he wrote it) & Clint Eastwood awards, they might win. But Running With Scissors has a American Beauty vibe and it could sneak in. I'd bet a lot of $$$ that Annette Bening will WIN an Oscar for it. Or if it's any good Dreamgirls could start sweeping like Chicago did. And maybe Eddie Murphy could grab a best supporting nomination.

But there are plenty of other movies that could step in if any of the above suck-ass or simply bomb. Such as All The King's Men, The Fountain (picture above), The Prestige, The Departed, Zodiac, Breaking & Entering, or Stranger Than Fiction.

Other Best Actresses might be Angelina Jolie for The Good Shepard, Bryce Dallas Howard for Lady in the Water, Kirsten Dunst for Marie Anntoinette, and Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada.

Best Actors could be Jamie Foxx for Dreamgirls, Sean Penn for All The King's Men, Matt Damon for The Good Shepard, Brad Pitt for his Jesse James movie, Will Ferrell for Stranger Than Fiction (that could grab a screenplay nomination, too) or Jude Law for Breaking & Entering.

Other Best Supporting? Casey Affleck or Sam Rockwell for Jesse James. And if The Departed is decent, Nicholson is guaranteed a nomination & win.

Maybe For Your Consideration could jump into the fray. Or Man About Town. Or Brick. The 1st trailer for Apocalypto didn't do anything for me, but maybe it's too early to tell. Maybe Rocky Balboa. Nah....well, you never know.

And animated? Jesus, there will be a lot to choose from. By the end of the year, we will have had: Doogal, Hoodwinked, Cars, Ice Age 2, Flushed Away, Monster House (pic below), Open Season, Barnyard, Happy Feet, Foodfight (this is the title of a 7 year old script of mine, by the way, dammit!!!), Curious George, The Wild, A Scanner Darkly, Ant Bully, Over The Hedge and Meet The Robinsons. Who will win? Not sure, but I would guess that Cars (Pixar), Flushed Away (guys who made Wallace & Gromit) and Monster House (motion-capture like Polar Express) will be in the running.
Monster House, directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Oscar 2005 - A Review

Jon Stewart? Great Job.
Crash? Awesome.
Clooney? Yes!
Reese? Sweet!

Go Reese!

Finally saw Walk the Line, Reese is lovely in it. Phoenix rocks, too. Best of luck to them on sunday!!

Contest Update

Still waiting on some contests/competitions. I'm waiting to hear about Fade In's next announcement (should be around April 1) to see if my 3 scripts that are currently quarter-finalists (Rave at Danny Carter's house, The Money Shot & Jablasco) will move on or be left in the dust. Either way they made the top 400ish out of over 2600 screenplays entered which is cool. We'll see if they make the cut!

I also have the following out at these competitions:

Find The Funny - Rave At Danny’s - Notification on 4/1
Page One - Nine Lives Of Dalt Stickle - Notification in Spring
American Accolades - Rave At Danny’s
IndieProducer - Cricket Hill - Notification on 4/1
Scriptapalooza - The Money Shot & The Rave At Danny’s
BlueCat - The Money Shot, Cricket Hill - Notification in July

As you can see, April Fool's Day will be a big ol' stressful day. I could either be drunk with joy if some of these advance, or drunk with thoughts of suicide as I lay in the middle of my street, naked, and obviously in the fetal position.

Contests coming soon that I'll likely enter, and you should too:

Austin - I was there on their dime in 2003 (Cricket Hill was a finalist (top 3)) in the Comedy category. Amazing, amazing festival. Go. It's best when it's paid for, but if you've never been there, GO! So many terrific panels, seminars, and other awesome writer's to meet.

The Writer's Network These guys have great contacts and really seem to care about the screenplays and making them as solid as possible.

Page International Screenplay Awards: Decent size contest, they're cool because they give a grand prize plus prizes in sub categories (such as Action, Horror, Drama, Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi) which is nice so you're freaky horror epic might not get lost in the shuffle.

We'll see what else comes along. I certainly don't enter all the contests out there, and I can't wait for the day when I don't have to send out to so many. My manager and agent have been passing some of the my stuff around so we'll see what comes of that.

Point Brokeback!!!

Click HERE for a hilarious Brokeback spoof. Classic.

I love seeing those "should win" "will win" columns, so I figured I'd throw my 2 cents out there.

Supporting Actress - Weisz seems to have it locked up, but I think it might be close. I've love to see Michelle Williams or, even better, Amy Adams pull off a surprise.

Supporting Actor - Love to see Clooney take it, but if Dillon got it that'd be okay, too.

Actor - Seymour Hoffman's got it, but it'd be awesome if Ledger or Howard swiped it.

Actress - Gotta go with my Reese Piece.

Director - Ang Lee will go home with it, but again, I'd like to see Clooney get it. Lee makes terrific movies, but Clooney's got a damn good eye.

Adapted Screenplay - Brokeback.

Original Screenplay - Wouldn't mind if any of these won, but it'd be awesome if Noah Baumbach snuck in and got it. I've been a fan since Kicking & Screamng.

Best Pic - Brokeback will get it, sure, but it'd be something if Crash upset.