Scott Myers

Video interview: Judd Apatow

This is a pretty funny interview with writer-director Judd Apatow when he and actors Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd traveled to Australia to promote the movie Knocked Up (2007). Basically anytime Apatow is on mic, you’re in for some laughs — as noted here re the Beyond Words event

“Cannes 2009: Year of the genre mash-up”

Get ready for the new buzz phrase: “Genre Mash-Up,” this per a Daily Variety analysis of Cannes 2009: For the global film business, genre-busting may be the next big thing. Both in the Cannes Competition and in the market, auteurs are mashing art house sensibilities with pulp fiction.

Summer Movie Posse trailer reviews

A couple weeks back, LA Times entertainment blogger Patrick Goldstein teased us with this bit of business: Each year at this time, I corral a bunch of teenagers — known as the Summer Movie Posse — and have them watch trailers from 10 or 15 of the most anticipated summer movies. Well,

Interview: Stephen Belber

Today’s interview is with playwright and screenwriter Stephen Belber. Belber’s writing credits include Tape (2001), The Laramie Project (2002), and Management which has just been released this weekend: Now Belber’s enjoying another first with his directorial debut Management, an off-kilter romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and

GITS birthday suggestion #5: Great Scenes

Our final installment of suggestions for using some of the GITS resources to enhance one’s understanding of the craft of screenwriting. We’ve talked about the nearly 100 interviews with screenwriters. About reading screenplays. Tips on how to write a script. Learning about how a script reader approaches their

Fortune cookie fortune: Screenwriting advice?

From a fortune cookie today: “You do not have to know where you are going to be headed in the right direction.” Advice for screenwriting? Worthy of screenwriting mantra status?

Friday movie reviews

Angels & Demons (Sony) Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy) Hollywood Reporter (Deborah Young) Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey) New York Times (A.O. Scott) And this L.A. Times analysis of potential box office: There’s a lot less mystery surrounding “Angels and Demons” than “The Da Vinci Code.” Pre-release

Great Scene: “Zorba the Greek”

I’m going to break with tradition here as normally I include the script pages for each Great Scene, however I can’t find the screenplay to Zorba the Greek — one of my favorite movies — anywhere. Here is the IMDB summary: An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a

GITS birthday suggestion #4: A Script Reader Speaks

Only 2 more days until GITS has its 1-year birthday. I’ve been using the occasion to remind long-time readers and some of the newer ones about the many resources available here to help learn the craft of screenwriting. In the past few days, we’ve talked about

Pitch sale: Untitled Sports Comedy

Disney buys a sports comedy from producers Andrew Gunn and Charles Segars: Story centers on four friends attending a high school reunion who wind up being suckered into playing in an alumni football game. Project’s envisioned as a broad comedy. Andrew Gunn has Gunn Films and Charles Segars has

THR: Thumbs up for “Up”!

Pixar fans, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Despite concerns on the part of so-called movie ‘experts,’ it appears that Up has nowhere to go box office-wise than… well… up. Here’s the first official review — from The Hollywood Reporter: Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar

Cannes Film Festival

The 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival begins today. The Wrap breaks the entire Cannes line-up: OPENER “Up,” U.S., Pete Docter, Bob Peterson CLOSER “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” France, Jan Kounen IN COMPETITION “Bright Star,” Australia-U.K.-France, Jane Campion “Spring Fever,” China-France, Lou Ye “Antichrist,

GITS birthday suggestion #3: “How to write a script”

On Saturday, May 16, GITS turns one-year old. That combined with a recent spike in visitors to the site made me think that this would be a good time to remind people of some of the resources available here. We’ve talked about video and written interviews. We’ve

“Top 5 Most Ridiculous Move Plots of All Time”

Here’s something fun from over on Trigger Street: Top 5 Most Ridiculous Movie Plots of All Time. And per the writer of the piece Carter Swan, they are: #5. EXTREME OPS (2002) #4. OVER THE TOP (1987) #3. JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987) #2. THE KARATE KID: PART III (1989)

Spec script sale: “Gunslinger”

Warner Bros. picks up action-revenge spec script “Gunslinger” from writer John Hlavin: “Gunslinger” follows an ex-Texas Ranger who will stop at nothing to find and punish the men who killed his brother and rescue his nephew. The project is described as being in the vein of “Man on

Screenwriting 101 — W.R. Burnett

“The trouble with most film writing is that too many writers have no feel for film. They’re writing stories, they’re writing plays, they’re not writing for film. There’s far too much dialogue written — you don’t need it. You can tell so much with the camera

Writing and intimidation

In the current one-week online course I’m teaching through UCLA Extension (“Screenwriting as Scene-Writing”), GITS reader Mark Rovner made these comments after an extensive series of posts analyzing the many themes evident in the wonderful movie The Shawshank Redemption: I have kind of an existential question. A

Hollywood tales

“At times Irving Thalberg [first great Hollywood producer] seemed to hate his very dependence on writers and his frustration that he could not perform their functions. During one heated script session he said almost contemptuously, ‘What’s all this business about being a writer? It’s just putting one word

Daily dialogue — May 12, 2009

“Look, Miss Dallas. You got no folks… neither have I. And, well, maybe I’m takin’ a lot for granted, but… I watched you with that baby — that other woman’s baby. You looked… well, well I still got a ranch across the border. There’s a nice place — a

GITS birthday suggestion #1: Interviews

GITS has its first birthday on Saturday. One of the main reasons I started this blog was to create an online resource center for screenwriters, aspiring and professional. Many readers have been visiting the site for much of the year, but I’ve had a spike in unique visitors in

“Apatow’s film going a long way for laughs”

Patrick Goldstein at the LA Times “The Big Picture” blog writes a letter to Judd Apatow: As you know, I’m a big admirer of your work, in all its many permutations, going back — way back — to your TV work (“Freaks and Geeks” still hasn’t lost a step) and

Happy Birthday: Books!

From The Writers’ Almanac: It’s the anniversary of the printing of the first known book. In the year 868, Wang Chieh printed the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, on a 16-foot scroll using wood blocks. It was discovered in 1907 in Turkestan, among 40,000 books and manuscripts

On writing

“There are not many roads. There is only one road, infinitely connected, like the grooves on an old record, endlessly leading away from home and back towards home at the same time. It’s all one long journey and traveling is just what we do to stay alive… It’s

“Memos to Hollywood”

Earlier this week NY Times film critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott posted a series of “memos” to Hollywood. It’s pretty priceless. Here are a few of them: To: Every animation studio except Pixar and sometimes DreamWorks Cc: Pixar, DreamWorks From: A.O.S. You can do all

“Don’t Forget to Validate Your Parking”

GITS reader Tom A forwarded me this cartoon. One set of panels above gives you a taste of its biting humor. And evidently dog movies are hot again! Can the K-9 remake be far behind? “Don’t Forget to Validate Your Parking” is written by a screenwriter in LA: