Tom Cruisin'

MI:3 - It kicked ass, in my book. JJ Abrahms really jump started the series with this movie, and I loved every minute. His direction was smooth (and confident), the action was well choreographed, the script made sense (for a Mission Impossible movie, anyway), and all the actors rocked.

Yeah, even Cruise.

Much better than I & II, that much is certain.

Back to Cruise - the guy is a good actor, and it's obvious he gives 1000%. (Just watch him bolt through Shanghia as proof). I just wish he'd step back from the public eyeballs, and not toss every moment he shares with his Katie out there for us to see. And some opinions should be kept to himself.

You think ritalin, etc is over-used? You're right. Tons of parents/doctors use drugs like that much too quickly, and if he left it at that, he wouldn't have looked like a goof. But a blanket statement like he made to Matt Lauer last year that these drugs in every situation should be avoided, well, that made him look silly.

You want an ultrasound machine to watch your growing baby? Go for it, I just don't care and don't need to know.

Hopefully his new publicist can keep a lid on things, although I think he's gotten too comfortable sharing his every thought and life-changing event with the world.

It may have shown with the box office this weekend - MI:3 is a great action movie, and I just think if he hasn't mad some public bungles over the last year, he'd be seeing a lot more people turn out this weekend. The movie made 17+ million on Friday and is poised to make into the 50s (millions) this weekend (on par with The Bourne Supremacy's opening weekend gross), which is a decent opening, but I think would have been better if the dude just chilled out.

Back to the flick, great stuff in there. The Shanghai stuff, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge set piece, the Vatican, etc, all well done.

And the actors were great. Nice to see Ving Rhames again, Fishburne was good (and had some GREAT lines), Rhys-Meyers & Maggie Q were awesome, and I could watch Phiilip Seymour Hoffman like this any day - he was a creepy, sinister bastard. Loved him.

And Michelle Monoghan - Yum. What a beauty, she's like Liv tyler crossed with Ellen Pompeo (Grey's Anatomy chick). Only better than those 2. She's got a great look, and held her own quite well.

Saw previews for X3 (great trailer, hope it rocks), Superman (that's gonan be huge), Over The Hedge (looks fun), Waist Deep (meh), Nacho Libre (priceless) and the Break-Up (I think it'll be funny).

Also, finally saw the Wes Anderson/Amex commercial. Great spot, and it reminded me of his wonderul humor and ridiculous talent. More Maggie Q for ya.

Star Wars - September 12!!

Finally, Luca$ has gotten it together and will release the original (as in the original cuts) of his beloved Star Wars-Han-shoots-first trilogy. Sweet! I despise 88% of all the newer movies he's done, but the old ones, just like we saw 'em way back? That I can get into.

On A Roll

Quick, useless update. Cricket Hill is rolling along, been getting quite a few pages done of the Pilot over the last week, plan to be done the 1st draft by Thursday.

It's pretty neat to get into something I wrote as a feature, then expand it like this. I got right back into this family's story, getting back the character's voices, adding to their backstories, etc.

Once it's done I'll send it to my gang at the Prod Company. My main contact there and the Director who's attached to direct the Pilot will then check it out and we'll see what they think. I'm sure they'll have plenty of notes, etc. They loved the first set of pages I sent last week, so I hope the rest pleases them as well.

***Note - If this thing takes off, I'm California-bound, so you guys & gals already out there will have to help me move in to your fine state.

UNITED

Thank you, Paul Greengrass.

Not quite a void if you ask me.....

Hey gang,

Hope all is well out there. Had a conference call on Thursday regarding the first 14 pages of the Cricket Hill pilot.

Before my vacation, I had a similar conf. call with the Production Company heads, discussing the direction of the pilot. I went away (The Disney trip), mapped out the beginning of the pilot, and banged out the pages when I returned. I wrote 2 pages one night, followed by 12 the next.
I e-mailed it over, they read it. And they loved it. Thank Christ I'm on the right track. I feared them being like: "It's okay but we were thinking more like....." But they loved it, and that rocks.

Also, please go on over to The Celluloid Void and follow the progress of a short film by Aaron Coffman, he's got a short clip on a short film he's making (it's only 30 seconds, just do it). Why am I suggesting this? Cause it looks like a real damn movie, not some thrown together DV piece of shit that cost $.82 cents that too many of "filmmakers" are making (I'm guilty of it too, and there's nothing wrong with it, if that's the only way to make your movie, go for it). Point is though, after only a few seconds of seeing it, I can tell that this guy knows what he's doing. It actuallt looks like he went into it prepared. Best of luck to him.

Also, this kicks ass:

Entertainment Update

Been out of the loop, caught up a bit on my tv & movie-watching:

TV:
What About Brian? - I like this show. Even though my movie Better Days that I self-produced in 2001 had the EXACT same premise, mine needed a re-write or 20 before I shot it. And better acting. And, oh nevermind. Anyway, I like the cast and the writing is good. The chicks on it are hot, which helps. Hell, I'd even bang Barry Watson like a screen door in a hurricane. Why not!?

Big Love - Best thing on TV right now. Love it. Been a Bill Paxton fan for years, hope he gets some Emmy-love. I picture Jeanne Tripplehorn scoring an Emmy nod, also maybe Ginnifer Goodwin for supporting. And Bill/Jeanne's daughter on the show is priceless (and hot). Great writing, solid direction, love it.

Everwood - Always dug this show. Still do.

Modern Men - Soon to be canceled I'm sure, but it has some funny dialogue in it.

Lost - Still love it. Too many freakin' repeats though.

Invasion - Good stuff here, and the plot keeps going forward.

MUSIC:
All-American Rejects new CD isn't bad. I love that damn Train song, "Cab." A band called Editors (from UK I thinks?) are excellent. Still listening to The Killers, Arcade Fire, Interpol & Youth Group's last CDs.

MOVIES:
A History Of Violence - I loved it, until he left for Philly. Then it kinda lost me and it ended up just being very good when it could have been excellent.

Shopgirl - I liked it. Whimsical. Took a bit for me to get into it, but I ended up digging it. Schwartzman was a hoot.

Brokeback Mountain - Finally I saw it! And my review is......Eh. It was good. NOT great. Glad Crash won. Wish Jarhead won, but anyways.... Like I said, it was good. Interesting. Beautifully shot. Performances were excellent all around, wish Heath won Best Actor, he ruled. But overall, left me unsatisfied.

The Ice Harvest - I liked this a ton. Fave scenes were with Oliver Platt & John Cusack, love to see a sequel with them. Nothing ground-breaking here but well done.

Walk the Line - Good movie. Not that I'd ever have the need to watch it again. It was good though.

Later!

Monorail'd

Got back from the World Of Disney. 100% Sunshine down in Florida. Got within 100 miles of NJ - Rain, rain, rain.

Disney still brings back memories from when I was a kid. Especially the monorail. I just love that damn thing. It's so retro-future cool.

But c'mon, 80% of their rides need a real update/renovation. Like their Carousel Of "Progress." Cool idea, they love them damn puppet-bots down there, most of their attractions have them, but their "modern" version on the Carousel Of Progress ain't all that progressed. The highlight is a voice-activated oven. I'm sure Walt would like that updated. they should unthaw him and let him know things need some work.

But I still love the place. Yeah, they took me for a great deal of $$, we stayed at the Animal Kingdom lodge and basically had giraffes, zebra and such off of our balcony view, but the kiddies loved it, so can I complain about the cost? Well, they DID have more fun on the days we took them to Cocoa Beach, so maybe.

Although the "Disney" atmosphere of perfection is a bit creepy. While we were there, a trucker broke down in front of our resort, which blocked their bus traffic. I pictured the Disney brass quite livid, and I bet good money they had him killed and his truck sliced up for spare robot parts.

We also checked out the Kennedy Space Center. Cool place. Again, $$$.

Came back with a cold though, snots & sneezing, sitting through HOURS of bullshit Washington DC traffic sucked, yeah, yeah, we shoulda flew. Tell that to the wife.

Getting the Cricket Hill Pilot together. I love this idea. At first I felt odd about making my movie a TV series, but now I see the possibilities and they are really endless.

Also, as a result of this Cricket Hill deal I've gained a new management team and made a realization - Fuck the contests! Look, screenwriting contests & competitions are important in getting work out there, but these guys totally kick ass and can do for me a million times more than a contest can do. But a win or high placement in a good contest can land you decent representation, so if I hadn't just signed with these guys I'd still be mapping out my contest route for the rest of the year.

Name the quote:
"Peace! Love! Dope! Now get the hell out of here!"

Not A Movie, but......even better!

First, I won't post until next week. Hitting Disney with the family.

Anyway, I had my conference call tonight. It went well, got to chat with some of the other behind-the-scenes people over at The Company Who Optioned Cricket Hill.

We've been kicking around this idea for almost a week now, and tonight it's official:

Cricket Hill will not be a movie. Nope. Instead, it will be a television series.

Sounds good to me. Really fucking good actually.

The plan is, using the Cricket Hill feature script as a blueprint, I will write the pilot episode, as well as mapping out 12 episodes that would all become the 1st season. The cliffhanger on Season 1 would be the main twist of Cricket Hill.

Once it's ready, they'll attach the director I spoke of previously (I spoke to him tonight; awesome guy, knows his shit, has directed a few features as well as some very high profile prime-time shows - he loves Cricket Hill and wants to do the pilot once it's ready). It was his idea to make it a TV show instead of a movie in the first place.

After that, they'll attach a showrunner, have an TV agent on-board, and start shopping it around. Due to its subject matter & salty language, they'll hit the pay channels first (Showtime, HBO, etc).

I couldn't be more excited.

Just like a feature script situation, it might never materialize. There's always the chance of never getting off the ground, nobody picking it up, etc. I've learned never to get TOO excited. But I've never been closer to the possibility. These guys are amazing and if something's gonna happen, it'll be through this company.

And who knows, maybe one day Shawna will have me on her list of upcoming shows (just hopefully not on the likely-to-be canceled list)!!

I'll keep you all posted as things progress.

Oh. My. Holy. Christ.

"Little Man" Coming This Summer!

Random updates

Name the movie - "You're young, you got your health. What you want with a job??"

Cricket Hill's development is proceeding quite nicely. The Company Who Optioned has really taken the lead and is moving ahead on it. We've had a recent development (a good one) that I won't go into at this stage, it's way too early to say, but if it goes through I will detail it here. Fingers are crossed.

I threw another of my recent scripts, The Rave At Danny Carter's House, up on Inktip.com to see if it gets any hits. Inktip is a decent place to list your scripts, as is winningscripts.com as I've mentioned before. Both sites have gotten me read by numerous producers over the past year. Give it a shot.

Getting close to wrapping up ZUCKER, my latest script. Act 2, as many of you might agree, can be a drag, but not this time. I've actually breezed right through it, loving every damn minute of it.

And Radiohead is coming in August to Philly, which will kick ass. Have a sweet-ass weekend!

10 Verbs!

Ok, this is from the script I'm currently working on (and LOVE working on it, this thing is kicking ass) called ZUCKER. I present to you, my verbs:

Plays
Kiss
Slurping
Sits
Smiles
Swings
Dangles
Puckers
Belches
Blows
Giggles

Oh, that's 11. Interesting. I will now tag Tom Crymes, Dr. Scriptweaver, and Master Robert.

A New Blog In Town

Hey gang, just had a good talk with The Company Who Has Optioned. Good stuff, looking over the contracts tonight.

An old bud of mine has (finally) created a blogsite. His name is Tom Crymes, and his blog is called The Bag Means Your Mind. We went to high school together, got D's in Mrs. Dilworth's class (Ok, I got the D) and truly bonded when we made Eazy Reader, a short film I starred in and Tom directed, co-starring and co-produced by friends we don't talk to anymore. the flick was about Summer reading, and I played a slacker who chose to go to a party instead of doing his summer reading. then, of course, Jason from Friday The 13th (A friend of ours nicknamed "The Boob") chased me with a machete. And when he caught me, instead of killing me he shoved my summer reading book in my face. Classic stuff.
We got an A!

Then we got greedy and made a sequel, Eazy Reader 2. Not so good. Overblown, way too long, but with a higher budget, it went the way of many unnecessary sequels and tanked (within the confines of our High School anyway). there never was an ER3.

Anyhoo, check out his site and welcome him into blogland.

What's the dilly?

So, yes, Cricket Hill is being optioned. In a nutshell, Cricket Hill would be like The Royal Tennenbaums meets American Beauty, or as the Development dude from the company that optioned it puts it: American Beauty on acid.

And it has Voice Over....Ah, run! That was for you, Voice-Over haters.

The paperwork is on its way, so the option will begin shortly. What is an option, Olaf has asked. Basically, for a set amount, this company is buying the rights to Cricket hill for 1 year and in that time they are going to try to put a package together (attach a director, some kick-ass actors, etc) and gain financing. The plan is to get it made independently and get it to Sundance, which they have already done in the past to great success.

It's a good place, this company, I feel very comfortable working with them. They've got a couple features already under their belt (yes, stuff you've actually heard of), and they are going into production on another feature in 2 weeks (starring several well-known actors you've heard of), and it is some of those actors that they'll be approaching for my script.

They asked me if I wanted to direct. And I don't. Not on this one. I've directed 3 features and 5 shorts in my time, all low-low budget and with local actors. With the caliber of talent they're going to get involved on this baby, I become an instant liability. What the hell have I directed, the financers will ask. Nothing of note. And with the type of directors they said that they'll approach with it, they'll bring a lot more to the table. The directors they have relationships with have all had theatrically-released features.

Re-writes? They'll be minor. Touch-ups, basically. Not a Page 1 re-write in the least. A few tweaks here and there, and I've got no problem with that. I'm not going to be re-written, and will be on-set when the time comes.

By the way, thanks for the onslaught of support and congrats. You guys totally rock and I'll be looking forward to some of your upcoming successes!

Optioned!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Cricket Hill has been optioned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doing paperwork next week to make it official.

I'll go into more details soon.

The Company who optioned it totally rocks. Yes, I'm biased of course, but honestly, looking at the movies they've done and at their upcoming slate, I couldn't have found a better home for Cricket Hill.

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.

Go Iceland!

Check this band out, Sigur Ros. Especially check out two videos on their site - Hoppipola and Glosoli. Both are amazing videos for simply beautiful songs. Inspiring. Wow. The videos for these songs are incredible.

Surf their whole site for more info on the band.

Icelandic rock!

Update

On Friday, a producer requested one of my scripts, Shuttlecock!. He found my listing on Inktip.com and liked the synopsis. I gave it a polish over the weekend and off it went (in the mail today).

I'm waiting to hear about my Cricket Hill script, this was the one where the development dude LOVED it so now I'm just waiting to hear if everyone else did too. He requested 2 additional scripts (A Couple Of Joes (Family Comedy) and The Flight Of Barnaby (Romantic Drama) so I sent those off as well.

I've got a couple things out to some competitions that I'm waiting to hear back on, a few will announce quarter-finalists, etc in March & April. I'm hoping to still be included in Fade In when they announce the Semi-finalists in March.

I kicked ass with my new script, Zucker, all last week. I took a break from it to give Shuttlecock! a nice polish, which ended up being more involved than I had planned, but now it's in great shape so I'm happy. Then I moved over to The Rave At Danny Carter's House which I'm finishing a polish on now, then I'll go back to Zucker.

For any of you out there looking for good competitions to send something in to, check out The BlueCat Screenplay Competition (deadline is 3/1)which is run by Gordy Hoffman (yeah, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's bro) and Scriptapalooza (deadline is 3/3). Also, Austin is accepting entries.

Eye Candy

Note - this post is inspired by Scriptweaver.

Ah, Charlize & Rachel. Does it get any better?

Music That Rocks Us

I was driving today and Purple Rain popped on the ol' radio, so, as one should when they hear such an epic, I blasted it. Amazing song. Chills. And it was back when Prince made good music, as opposed to now when he seems to be writing all his lyrics using his penis.

It got me thinking (no, not about Prince's meatstick) but to those amazing, epic songs that stick with us. Like Purple Rain. Or........

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Our House
Jackson Browne's Running On Empty.
Van Morrison - Into The Mystic
U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With Or Without You, Exit, Bad, Where The Streets Have No Name, One
James (excellent UK bad, broke up a few years back) - Sit Down, Seven, Sometimes
Warren Zevon - Lawyers Guns & Money
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle, Your Silent Face, Temptation
Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday
The Monkees - Daydream Believer
The Who - Baba O'Riley
Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down
The Beatles - In My Life, Yesterday, Hey Jude
REM - Fall On Me, Cuyahoga, Superman
The Innocence Mission (from Lancaster PA) - Now In This Hush
10,000 Maniacs - Verdi Cries, My How You've Grown

And Yellow, by Coldplay. Here's the scene - It was a few years ago, my son (then around 2 years old) and his cousin were bickering as they normally do, getting out of hand. My wife & sister-in-law were chattering on about something, and then, on MTV2 comes this pretty neat video from this new band, Coldplay, called Yellow. The sound of those guitars, the haunting lyrics, and that amazing one-long-shot video along the beach floored us and we stood there (even the little ones) hypnotized by the song/video. Of course the next day I bought the CD, but anyway, it just goes to show how transending, crippling, beautiful, astounding, and just plain awesome music can be when it gets to you.

2005 - Best & Worst - UPDATED

Long overdue, here's my best & worse of 2005. There's a ton of movies missing, but hey, I've got 2 kids and I miss a lot of movies at the theater. I'm sure if I had seen some of the top contenders they'd be on here, too. I HAVE NOT seen Brokeback, Good Night/Luck, Syriana, History of Violence, and a bunch more. But, based on what I have seen.........

The Best:
1. Jarhead - This movie rocked me.
2. King Kong - Too long? Yep, but still - Wow.
3. The Constant Gardener - Powerful stuff here.
4. Crash - Wonderful.
5. Thumbsucker - Great cast, really well done.
6. Munich - It's no Empire Of the Sun, but still a great film.
7. Batman Begins - Great jumpstart, can't wait to see more.
8. Layer Cake - Daniel Craig owns this!
9. Zathura - See previous post. Terrific movie.
10. Serenity - This is what the Star Wars prequels should have been - Good story & acting, actual chemistry between the actors, etc, etc.
11. Chumscrubber - Great script & direction, and I like where the story goes.
12. Wedding Crashers - Vince Vaughn always makes me laugh. He killed me here.
13. Lord Of War - Excellent direction, eye-opening.
14. Just Friends - I laughed like every 10 seconds. Seriously.
15. 40 Year Old Virgin - Funny as hell.

Honorable Mentions - Sky High - Fun family movie. The teachers deserve their own spin-off.
Also, The Weatherman - What a gem of a movie, directed by Gore Verbinski. Cage scores, and I really liked the script on this one.
The Worst -

**A Lot Like Love - A Lot Like Shit
**Son Of the Mask - I looked up diarrhea in the dictionary and a picture of this movie was next to it. The movie would have been saved, however, if the Tripod Aliens from War Of The Worlds made a cameo and started vaporizing.
**Elizabethtown - Ugh. I love Cameron Crowe. Orlando can be really good. Kirsten Dunst is yummy. But this movie sucked balls. A nice enough concept, but it fails all over the place. Liked the name of the band in the movie though - Ruckus!
**Sith - Yeah, it had some good scenes, but the more I think on it, the better ideas & F/X in the Star Wars prequels are likely thought up by ILM and not Lucas himself. It was the best of the prequels, but that's like saying I'd rather have Cancer than AIDS.
**Kingdom Of Heaven - Kingdom Of Boredom. They took an amazing, fascinating topic and completely drained it of all passion. Orlando Boom's knight was in mourning - so was I, for my 2+ hours back.
**Broken Flowers - I wanted to LOVE this movie. I love Bill Murray, and I thought this was a cool concept. What a waste of a movie. Jesus Christ. Filled with pointless scenes, unrealistic, boring dialogue. And that ending? I thought it might at least pay off at the end. Did I need some Hollywood happy ending? No, but SOMETHING, man. I like Jeffrey Wright as the neighbor, but besides him, this was a complete waste of time. Pointless.

Overlooked, award-worthy performances - Peter Sarsgaard - Jarhead
Also Joan Allen in the Upside Of Anger (Costner was great in that, too).

Movies that were fun/good - War Of the Worlds (yeah, it ended with a fart but there was some excellent stuff before it), Mr. & Mrs. Smith - Brainless? Sure, but a good popcorn movie.

Zathura

I'm late on the bus for this, just bought the DVD for the kids, but DAMN what a terrific, SMART movie. Wow. Great on all levels, but the real stand-outs are the kids (THESE kids are PERFECT) and the script. It feels like it was written by these kids (in the way they speak to each other).

"Go get me a juice box, beeyotch." My six year old's favorite line. The movie is filled with great, real dialogue by these kids.

The F/X are good and all, and the story is neat, but the kids rock. The older sister is spot-on in her role, the middle kid certainly gets it right, and the youngest boy is also perfect (yeah, he's cute as a button and all, but not annoyingly so).

Dax Shepard is also terrific as The Astronaut, and Tim Robbins is fun as the Dad (a small, but well-written part for him). It's really cool that the movie rests on these five shoulders (no other cast) - and most of it is on the two brothers.

It's a shame when a movie like this gets practically ignored and stuff like Harry Potter & Chicken Little rule the box office. Not that they are bad, but Zathura is a real stand-out, and among my favorites of 2005.

You can't quit Bert & Ernie

I thought this poster made a better poster for Brokeback. Short post tonight. I've finished tweaking my script White Gold and I think it's ready to go out for some critique. I'm happy with it, it's fun and could be shot ultra-low budget if desired. I was going to work on a drama next, but when I came up with a newer idea (It's called ZUCKER) everything just sorta fell into place (story, characters, the outline, etc) so I had to jump on it and strike while the inspiration was there! I thought of huge chunks of dialogue and scenes while listening to Weezer's latest, Perfect Situation. Great song, it'd be perfect for the end credits.

F'n Snow!

I used to love snow. Loved it! now that I have to shovel it, I despise it. Despise it! Especially THIS MUCH! 12+ Inches!? C'mon!

On the brighter side, the development guy at the company I sent Cricket Hill off to LOVED the script. I like when people LOVE my stuff. So, he's going to send it forward and see what his peeps think about it. My fingers are violently crossed. He also wanted loglines of my other scripts so I sent him 13 of my best.

We'll see what happens. The guy was super nice, smart, and what the hell, he loved my script! Of course we know how these things can go, his other guys might not like what he sees in it or something like that. It's happened before, not with Cricket Hill but my script The Money Shot. If you scan back a month or two of postings you'll see my posts on that. Basically, the guy who read it loved it but the other guys wanted a lot of changes, which I would have done, but there was no $$ offered, and they wanted a page 1 re-write.

Anyway, hopefully this won't go down that road. At the very least, it'll be a good contact to have - They've produced a slew of projects and have some amazing ones coming up in the future that are actually going to see theater-time!

I'll keep y'all posted.

Titles

What comes first? The title or the story? For me, most times, it’s the story, I‘d say 80% of the time (or I‘ll think of a plot and the title comes seconds later). But there have been times when I came up with a cool title, then the plot came later. This happened with my scripts Under Indiana (currently writing, it’s a crime drama) as well as Headshot (horror/comedy) and The Sex Scene. With The Sex Scene, however, I realized that title was a bit lame (although it IS about a film crew attempting to shoot a sex scene) and came up with another one - White Gold. It’s just catchier.

Also, a script I wrote a while back, Food Fight, happened that way. Actually, it came together when myself and a buddy of mine noticed our local supermarket kept changing its name. We pictured an internal struggle, a "food fight" of sorts. My script’s plot is a bit different (it’s about 2 supermarkets in the same shopping center that go at it).

But the one title I’m super proud of comes from a script I wrote (It’s one of my quarter-finalists at Fade In).

Here’s the logline: “Desperate for money after his financial aid is discontinued, Kenny and his fellow college buddies decide to secretly make an adult film and sell it for a quick buck.” And my title?

The Money Shot. C’mon, it’s perfect!

How about you guys/gals out there? Ever come up with a kick-ass title that you just HAD to write?

Hoo-ray

Quickie update - No love from AAA competition, not even a consider. Nothing from Zoetrope. Still waiting on Script Magazine/Benderspink contest.

BUT! I'm a quarter-finalist for Fade In Magazine's contest. I'm pretty happy about that - I sent a script there last year and got nowhere, I sent 3 in this year (Jablasco, The Money Shot & The Rave At Danny Carter's House) and all 3 are quarter-finalists.

Now, it's still early, so I'll hold off on the parade down my street, the scripts have to get through 2 more rounds (semi's & finalist rounds). And I'm certainly not the only multiple quarter-finalist (I think 2 people had 4 scripts listed!) and I'm in with about 400 other scripts, but considering they got around 2000 scripts, I do feel pretty damn good today about it. I mean, it's a big contest and they've had a lot of success with past finalists/winners getting their scripts made, etc.

Anyway, we'll see. I should know if any of the 3 will move on in March. That would blow me away. Fingers and toes will be crossed.

Also today, a producer found me on inktip.com and requested 2 of my listed screenplays (The Money Shot (comedy) & Headshot (horror comedy)) so I'll send them off to him and see what he thinks.

Now only if the Seahawks won this week would be perfect!

Script Update

The poster's got nothing to do with my post, it's just funny.

Here's my update, a mixture of good news/bad news......

Putting the finishing touches on my new comedy, WHITE GOLD. It's done, I'm just going through it, removing typos, punching up the funny, etc.

Got word from the AAA competition, and it's a bust. No quarterfinalist for me. Waiting to hear if I'm a "consider" which bascially is like saying I was almost a quarterfinalist, so it's better than nothing, but not much better. We'll see.

Also got word from Zoetrope. Nada. They told me to pound sand. I'm not to surprised by this one though, I sent an older script that I liked, but the more I thought about it after I sent it, it needed work and I should have sent something else.

My Rave At Danny Carter's House screenplay ain't setting the world on fire, but based on some terrific notes by Scott The Reader, I'm gonna fix her up a bit and she'll be ready to go. It did place as an honorable Mention in December's Comedy Screenplay Competition, which isn't too shabby. But not a win, darnit. I'll be sure it's ready for Scriptapalooza, Austin, and Philip Seymour Hoffman's brother's screenplay contest, Bluecat.

I did have request for a script, however, thanks to a listing on WinningScripts.com. they requested Cricket Hill, so I sent that baby out this morning.

Now I'm waiting to hear from Fade In (I heard they'll announce on 2/6) and Script Magazine's last contest (Benderspink) - they said it'll be within the 1st week of February.

Over the next week I'm gonna go fiddle with The Nine Lives Of Dalt Stickle and my new epic, The Battle Of Thunder Hill. When I'm not in the mood for funny, however, I'll be working on Under Indiana, a new crime drama that is coming along nicely.

Now go write somethin' dammit.

Copycats?

Okay, now, I can't be the 1st to notice this, but somebody is copying from somebody here, and it's between Pixar/Disney and Dreamworks Animation. Listen up.

I'm not going to go into release dates or anything, just the movies:

Pixar - A Bug's Life (adventure with ants)
Dreamworks - Antz (adventure with ants)

Pixar - Monster's Inc (loveable monster guys)
Dreamworks - Shrek (loveable monster guy)

Dreamworks - Madagascar (animals get loose, etc)
Disney - The Wild (animals get loose, etc) See poster above.

Pixar - Cars
Dreamworks - I swear I read they were working on a Route 66 movie.

Over the Hedge - Dreamworks
Open Season, Barnyard, ah fuck it.

See my point though? It just seems like somebody is swiping these ideas, sure this happens all the time in Hollywood, but most of the general plots for these movies are pretty much exactly the same.

Nominations, yo!

Not many surprises with the big nominations, a few that I like, I hope Clooney takes a statue for Good night/luck and he deserves one for Syriana. Then again I'd love to see Matt Dillon win for Crash. Giamatti should already have one for Sideways.

Brokeback will still win best pic and director (oh, and adapted screenplay), but the Crash victory at the SAG awards says that it's not 100% of a win for the Brokebackers. Wish history of Violence got a little more love, Jarhead, too. The Constant Gardener as well, but Weisz should get her Oscar. As good as she is, I'd love Michelle Williams to swoop in and steal it, James Van Der Beek would be all like, Whoa! Even better would be an Amy Adams win.

Hoffman will win for Capote, but it'd be nice to see Heath surprise, or Terrence Howard.

Revenge of the Sith got all the nominations it deserved, although the FX were good so it should have gotten a visual effects bone thrown at it. The Konger should win for the FX.

Wallace and Gromit will and should win. I wonder if next year if they'll still only have 3 slots open for Animation, since there's like 10000 animated movies coming out (including Flushed Away, Cars (one of these will be the likely winner next year), Open Season, Ant Bully, Barnyard, Meet The Robertson's (Disney), Ice Age 2, etc, etc).

Reese will win and that's okay by me.

Managed!

Just landed me a manager, so I'm happy about that. He's a good guy with good connections, so we'll see where it goes. I still have my agent, I like the idea of having both and certainly don't mind getting a lesser percentage if I sell something. Because if I sell something, well, I'll be a happy dude out here in NJ, plus it'll mean that I sold something!

I've put the finishing touches on my latest script, WHITE GOLD. It's a comedy about the last day of shooting an independent movie, when things that have been going smoothly start to fall apart, people are bailing, etc. And one of its main focuses is the filming of the most important scene in the movie - the sex scene. It'd be Rated R in its current form, it's filled with profanity, sexual situations (could be shot tastefully of course, or not), and more profanity.

I love Living In Oblivion, The Big Picture, movies like that. It's got nothing to do with them plot-wise, only in that the main characters are trying to get the thing done, and shit goes wrong.

It's a fun script, and can be shot VERY CHEAPLY (1 location, just a handful of characters). I'll comb through it a bit next, weeding out typos, etc, and throw it up on Inktip.com and see what happens. Some decent script competitions are coming up so I'll throw it at a few of them.

I also finished a re-write that I'm very happy with, my script called THE MONEY SHOT, another comedy. This is the one that was almost bought a few months ago by wacky Canadian producers but they never bit (basically everything they loved about it they wanted to change. Odd, those Candians). It was optioned back in 2002 by an independent producer (he was working with Barbara Streisand's company at the time (Barwood) but optioned it on his own. Never went anywhere, the option ran out and I NEVER EVER heard from him again. New Manager guys loves it so he's gonna try to package it somewhere.

This upcoming week I should find out about my Zoetrope competition entries (sent them 2 scripts) as well as my Fade In entries (I sent 3 there). Fingers crossed!

Still Good

Titanic is still a good movie. I caught the "good parts" on HBO in the middle of last night (boat sinking). Amazing stuff. Sure, some of it looks a bit dated F/X wise, but it holds up mostly.

You know why this movie still works? Cameron knew what the hell he was doing. Now, is this a perfect flick? No, it's got its awkward moments, silly moments, etc, but I'll tell you one thing - I'd buy the love story of Jack and Rose WAY BEFORE the bullshit we had to sit through in the Star Wars prequels.

It just goes to show that Lucas should have sat back and produced the Prequels instead of doing them himself. He can't write, and he sure as hell can't direct anymore. How do you cast such fine actors (Neeson, Sammy Jackson, etc) as they did and breath absoultely NO LIFE into them???? "Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo." Fuck Naboo!

Back to Titanic. The best parts? The sinking is awesome in how Cameron did it, but my favorite moments are much quieter.

I want to break down and cry like a little bitch when that band continues to play that old, sad melody while Cameron expertly cuts to some goings-on of the ship, namely a beautiful old couple cuddling in fear in a bed, their last moments of a likely long, amazing life together Then the next shot is of a mother reading a story to her two wonderful children. I know these are all just actors but it was one of those instances where I FELT for them on-screen, I pictured the fear and agony that would follow for these characters.

Just a look back at a still-good movie. It gets slammed since it's the biggest movie of all time and all, that can happen when you gross over 2 BILLION dollars worldwide, but you know what, it's still pretty damn good.

Flickmaking 2

Had a good response from my last post about making a movie. Since a bunch of y'all are out there about to do so, I thought I'd throw some info your way.

We made Better Days in 2001, and although the movie wasn't all that, most of it went very smoothly.

I'll just cover two things today. One is:

Your Screenplay.

1st, go re-write it. I'm sure it needs another pass or 12. Then read it again. give it to a friend to rear (preferrably someone who knows SOMETHING about story, characters, etc. NOT your mother). Gather your cast or at least some friends who won't piss all over the dialogue and do a reading. Have someone read the descriptions, it should NOT be you. Your job is to sit on your ass and listen.

Polish/Re-write.

Also, send it to another writer. Or a coverage service. Or Christ, I'll even read it. Just don't take your script into production before it's ready. I've done it more than once. Never again.

Better Days should have had another draft or two before we put it into production, that much I know.

Actors
You probably can't afford to pay them so you'll have them sign a deferred payment contract which basically says when the movie starts making $$, they might see something. Most actors understand these contracts, and they understand they probably will never see a nickel. But you'll give them food, screen credit of course, and a copy of the finished film for their reel. I've had some actors ask me for their unedited footage. This is an insane request.

There are zillions of actors out there and a zillion places to list your movie to request headshots. I get them by the boxfull every time I put out a search for actors/crew.

Break the script down and get your actors to inform you on the days they can't make, etc. Then make your schedule of shooting days and get it to them ASAP.

Try not to have your actors come back for every shooting day. I'd try to lump some of the actors' scenes together so I can get them in and off the project. One less actor to worry about, plus if they are there for free, their time may be valuable.

This depends on a lot of things though and might not always be possible, it's also a good idea to do the same thing around a location. You only have that diner location for a limited time? then take all those scenes and shoot them all at the same time if you can. this is where a script supervisor excells, make sure they are taking pictures of the actors so you know how people looked, what they are wearing, etc.

The actors will not likely remember.

Always have food nearby. The actors & crew need to be fed. If not, they WILL talk about you, your production company, your shitty movie, etc, and word will spread about you.

At the audition, have some donuts or bagels. On set, I ALWAYS have a nice cooler with plenty of waters and fruit (apples & bananas work best) for people to munch as we go about the shooting day. When everyone gets on-set in the AM I'll have donuts, bagels, muffins. And coffee. Dunkin Donuts sells a box of coffee. My gang loved that.

For lunch it's nice to have sandwiches, or hoagies. Pizza is okay, but not for every shooting day. Try to mix it up a bit. Another thing I like to do is take the cast and crew to a decent place (not too expensive, but a nice joint or someplace with a lot of variety on the menu) and just let them order whatever they want. This should be done when you have your core group together, at least all your leads and crew. Usually (if they're polite) they won't order the lobster but at least by taking them out once or twice, you're showing them that you give a shit. And in return, they'll give a shit.

That's it for now. My main points for today? Feed your cast & crew, and go do another re-write.

FILM, BABY

So, digital or film, what's it gonna be?

Scott the Reader recently posted about the release of Bubble, to be released simultaneaously on DVD, in theaters, etc. This is supposed to be some revolutionized release and they are trying it with this art-film. So, when it bombs, will they say this type of strategy won't work?

Well, roll the dice a little, people. This movie wouldn't make 9 cents anyway (combined DVD & theater gross) so how is this a good test of this strategy? Why not try it on a movie like this Summer's Superman. Then we'll see. Oh, they won't? Why? Oh, because the theatrical release won't make as money. I think it's a neat idea, and might be good for these smaller releases, but it's not gonna change anything with how studios release movies unless they up the ante and send something like a Superman or X3 out like this. And if I was them, I simply wouldn't.

His comments then veered into what's better - Film or Digital.

What do you guys think? Is digital the wave of the future? Will it bury film? I hope not. Film is a beautiful thing. I think they can co-exist, but can you picture a movie like Glory or Lawrence Of Arabia or Saving Private Ryan shot on digital? People that love digital swear up and down about it, saying how CLEAR the picture is. Well, to me, that's its problem. Give me a nice grainy film anyday. Although I am for digital projection and love digital sound.

How about you guys? Thoughts on this? Film? Digital?

Revenge is a dish best served cold.......

Finish that quote and I'll give you a dollar.

Screenwriting Update:

I'm almost finished WHITE GOLD, a comedy about the last day of filming on a low-budget movie. This will likely be the next thing I complete. I'm at the home stretch! I love the home stretch!

Been tinkering with a few ideas and beginnings of screenplays, but I haven't "committed" to a particular one yet. Usually, after I hit page 30+ I consider that committed. One such script I'm committing to is UNDER INDIANA, my first drama in over a year. For 2005, it was comedy all the way. I'm also working on a new comedy called THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY.

How are the contests going? Shitty, thus far. I heard back from So You Wanna Be A Screewriter. They might as well have sent back a tape with laughter on it.

Just heard from AAA competition. I sent 2 there. I went 0 for 2. How did I place 2nd out of 3000+ scripts in the Austin Film Festival in 2003? Fluke? Maybe. Seems so long ago now. Who knows. But I still have confidence in the other screenplays I have out to other festivals & contests, as well as the newer scripts I'm working on. Only a matter of time, right?