“Netflix Streaming Seven Samurai, More Criterion Films” Thanks to Robert Fuller for this good news via Wired: Netflix added 35 more films from the Criterion Collection to its streaming video service on Monday. Among the films now instantly available to Netflix streaming customers (a service available on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) are Ingmar Bergman’s
Video Interview: Harold Ramis Today’s video interview is with comedy actor-screenwriter-director Harold Ramis. His writing credits include Animal House (1978), Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Ghost Busters (1984) , Back to School (1986), Club Paradise (1986), Armed and Dangerous (1986), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999), and Analyze That (2002). That’
Daily Dialogue — December 27, 2009 “Shut up and deal.” — Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLane), The Apartment (1960), written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond Comment Archive
Christmas box office record According to The Wrap: Expecting a nice surprise under their tree this year, studio distributors instead got the equivalent of a luxury car with a giant bow on it Friday, as the domestic box-office shattered last year’s Christmas Day record with an enormous $85 million haul. In trumping
July 2009: Other Stories For the last few weeks of the year, I’m going through stories I saved, but never posted. Today’s stories are from July 2009: * One of my favorite websites if BoxOfficeMojo.com, a massive database of information about movies. And in July, when it looked like 2010 would set
How They Write A Script: Charlie Kaufman So we’ve had Shane Black’s shoe box, David Lynch’s sugar rushes, and Paul Schrader’s charts. All interesting approaches to writing a script. But perhaps none as personal and iconoclastic as Charlie Kaufman. Here are excerpts from three interviews available online. The first is from Indie Wire
Uncomfortable Plot Summaries H/T to GITS reader Robert Fuller for passing along this nice bit of whimsy: “Uncomfortable Plot Summaries”. There’s a lot of them. For a taste, here are those for movies beginning with the letter “B”: * BATMAN: Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill. * BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Peasant girl
Interview: Nancy Meyers From DGA Quarterly (Spring 2009), this interview with writer-director Nancy Meyers. Meyers’ credits include Private Benjamin (1980), Irreconcilable Differences (1984), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), The Parent Trap (1998), Something’s Gotta Give (2003), The Holiday (2006), and It’s Complicated (2009). Here’s an excerpt
Daily Dialogue — December 26, 2009 “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!” — Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), The Godfather, Part II (1974), screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, based on the novel by Mario Puzo Comment Archive
“And the word was made flesh…” Today is Christmas. Around the world, worshipers are gathering to hear a story — about the birth of Jesus. There are two Gospel accounts: Luke provides the narrative about Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem, giving birth to the child in a manger “because there was no room for them
Daily Dialogue — December 25, 2009 “Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, Emporium! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!” — George Bailey (James Stewart), It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and Frank Capra, based on a story by Philip Van Doren Stern Comment Archive
“A Child’s Christmas in Wales” — Dylan Thomas What better way for writers to celebrate Christmas than to read the wondrous poem by Dylan Thomas, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” Here’s how it ends: The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills, and
June 2009: Other Stories For the last few weeks of the year, I’m going through stories I saved, but never posted. Today’s stories are from June 2009: * One of the more interesting Hwood stories this year was the strange saga of the movie Moneyball. In LA Times article, things seemed to be
Flickering Myth: Profile of writer-director Jane Campion A few weeks back, I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Trevor Hogg who contributes to a great UK-based blog Flickering Myth Movie Blog. Trevor, who lives near Toronto, sent me a note about the first part of a profile he’s posted on FM here: I
THR: Director’s roundtable Kathryn Bigelow, left, Lee Daniels, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron and Jason Reitman (Photo by Dan Busta) Another end-of-year THR roundtable, this one with some directors whose names are being mentioned for most awards — Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”); James Cameron (“Avatar”); Lee Daniels (“Precious”); Peter Jackson
“A Long Time Ago…” A holiday gift for GITS readers — and in the spirit of environmentalism, I’m ‘re-gifting’ something that was given to me in a comment in this thread posted a few days ago wherein some hearty Midwesterner took George Lucas to task for Star Wars #1. The comment is from
Question: How to approach writing comedy re jokes? Reader Question: How to approach writing jokes in a comedy script? Be funny, but not at the expense of character. GITS reader Paul Sanford sent me this in an email: That may be a good topic — joke/gag writing in comedy screenplays. It’s clear in the Splash commentary that
May 2009: Other Stories For the last few weeks of the year, I’m going through stories I saved, but never posted. Today’s stories are from May 2009: * Found a wonderful documentary here. The Way We Get By is the story of Bill, Joan and Jerry, three elderly troop greeters who spend much
Movie Trailer: “Inception” GITS reader Robert Fuller has a nose for movie news and cool sites. How cool? How about the French trailer for Christopher Nolan’s super-secret, hugely anticipated movie Inception? Some kind soul in comments provides this English translation: “What is the more tenacious parasite? An idea. A single idea
Screenwriting 101 — Stirling Silliphant “The writing is the easiest part of it. The trying period is the period of conceptualization, followed by research. This prewriting time can take anywhere from six months to ten years. But once I know everything there is to know about my characters, the actual writing of the script switches
Website for Dan O’Bannon! As most of you know, screenwriter Dan O’Bannon passed away last week. You can go here to read my post re Dan, updated with several articles on his work in Hollywood. As fate would have it, I had been in contact with his wife Diane the day before Dan
Question: Is it okay to create fictional story around an historic figure? Via email from Johanna: Hi Scott, Your blog is absolutely amazing, thorough and fun to read!! I’m writing my first screenplay and learning a lot. Could you pls advise me on the following? Is it ok (legally) to use creative license and write a screenplay based on the life
April 2009: Other Stories For the last few weeks of the year, I’m going through stories I saved, but never posted. Today stories from April 2009: * Here was an early story on the big box office of 2009. We all know how the year turned out, but there are some interesting tidbits in
Movie Story Types: Time Travel Time travel has inspired storytellers for centuries and Hollywood hasn’t slacked off in that department either. Here is a short list of time travel movies:A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949): A singing mechanic from 1912 finds himself in Arthurian Britain. The Time Machine (1960): A
Video Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell We’ve discussed some of author Malcolm Gladwell’s ideas before specific to the 10,000 hour ‘rule’ — here and here. For those interested in learning more, here is an hour plus Q&A with Gladwell in which he covers the subject matter in his books The Tipping Point
