BBC Four special on Ingmar Bergman Continuing with Ingmar Bergman day, here is a BBC4 documentary on the great Swedish filmmaker. Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Comment Archive
Video interview — Ingmar Bergman Excerpt from a documentary by Marie Nyreröd about Ingmar Bergman in which he discusses the film Smiles of a Summer Night, Bergman’s first hit movie and winner of the Cannes Special Jury Prize in 1956. Here is the entire interview documentary: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
“Spec Market Recap: 8/3/09” Courtesy of Jason Scoggins over at Life on the Bubble.com. 4 scripts out to buyers: BURYING THE EX By Alan Trezza FALCON By Albert Magnoli PURITY BALLS By Jenifer Goldson REAL MAN By Ross LaManna It’s a slow time. The fall generally gets more active. And nice to
Monthly Reader: “As Good As It Gets” — Part Two In the first part of our analysis of August’s monthly reader As Good As It Gets, written by Mark Andrus & James L. Brooks, we provided a scene-by-scene breakdown of the script, and noted two unusual aspects to the story: (1) While Melvin (Jack Nicholson) is the
Spec script sale: “Change Up” Universal picks up spec comedy “Change Up” from writers Scott Moore and Jon Lucas: The studio is keeping the logline under wraps, though it is known to be a body-switching comedy. Hm. Moore & Lucas. Names sound familiar. Oh, yeah. Wrote that little comedy The Hangover, currently at $366M
AFI: Steven Spielberg One last video from the new AFI.com video portal — Steven Spielberg’s acceptance speech for the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award he received in 1995: Comment Archive
In Memoriam: John Hughes I’ve received so many emails, phone calls, and comments about the death of John Hughes, I figured I’d post the best of the remembrances I could find online. First off, a tiny anecdote from my own past. Universal bought the spec script K-9 in January, 1987. And
Great Scene: “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” One of the most memorable scenes in one of the most memorable John Hughes movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). Here is the script version of the scene: Here is the movie version: The interesting thing about the scene is that while Ferris is cavorting on the parade float,
“A New Test for Studios: The August Box Office” The NY Times looks at potential August box office here: Is G.I. Joe a movie star? Can Nora Ephron still cook? Will Quentin Tarantino save the Weinstein brothers (or vice versa)? These and other weighty questions — weighty, at least, for folks around here — are likely to be settled in
RIP: John Hughes Another screenwriter dies — and too young. The Huffington Post reports: John Hughes, prolific director of such culturally significant films such as The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Home Alone has died suddenly of a heart attack while taking a morning walk during a
Pitch sale: “Untitled Elan Mastai project” Paramount Pictures snares rom-com pitch from writer Elan Mastai: The breakup comedy is about a young woman who gets dumped by her ostensible soulmate and refuses to get over it. Adam Goodman and Ashley Brucks of Paramount are overseeing for the studio. Mastai developed the project with “This American
“Bollywood Hero”: Flash Mob Dance Scene IFC debuts a three-part mini-series called “Bollywood Hero” airing August 6, 7, and 8 at 10PM EDT. The comedy series stars actor Chris Kattan. The network pulled off a nifty PR stunt in Times Square recently — a ‘spontaneous’ flash mob dance event. Here’s the video: If you
RIP: Budd Schulberg Per the Daily Variety: Iconoclastic writer Budd Schulberg, who penned the controversial Hollywood novels “What Makes Sammy Run?” and “The Disenchanted” and who won an Oscar for his original screenplay “On the Waterfront,” died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Westhampton Beach, on Long Island, according to his
10 Screenwriters to Watch (2009) Variety has put out its annual “10 Screenwriters to Watch” list. This year’s group is: Geoffrey Fletcher This year’s Sundance winner, “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” is Geoffrey Fletcher’s first produced feature script (under pseudonym Damien Paul). “But the irony,” he says, “is that
Writer vs. Writer Writers being writers, they like to, you know… write. Which is generally a good thing. Unless it’s a bad thing. Like emails back and forth over a dispute about creative issues…. between Judd Apatow and Mark Brazil (creator of “That ’70s Show”)… with the latter claiming the former stole
Pitch Sale: “Paths of Glory” Some GITS synergy at work perhaps? First, we post the movie Orange County as today’s Daily Dialogue and, as reported earlier, its scribe Mike White sells his spec script “Babe in the Woods” to Columbia Pics. Then on the weekend, we featured this interview excerpt with screenwriter Sheldon Turner
Spec script sale: “Babe in the Woods” Columbia Pictures nabs action-comedy spec “Babe in the Woods” from writer Mike White: The script is about a female freshman from the Midwest who arrives at Yale and becomes a target of the New Jersey mob. White has numerous writing credits including Dead Man on Campus (1998), Chuck &
John August and “How I Became a Famous Novelist” One of the really ‘good guys’ in screenwriting ranks is John August. I can say this — without ever having actually met him — because August has written some fine movies including Go (1999), Big Fish (2003), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and for several years, he has kept up
Screenwriting 101: Paddy Chayefsky “If it should occur to you to cut, do so. That’s the first basic rule of cutting. If you’re reading through and stop, something is wrong. Cut it. If something bothers you, then it’s bad. Cut it. If you can cut inside the speech, you’re really
RIP: Blake Snyder This is awful news: Blake Snyder passed away suddenly this morning, August 4, 2009, from cardiac arrest. There was no one like him. You all know that. No one more enthusiastic, more giving, more truly interested in you. He will live on in his films and his books, in the
New AFI video portal From Cynopsis: The American Film Institute has launched a new video portal on AFI.com featuring social networking features and hundreds of videos from the AFI Archive One of the clips is Alfred Hitchcock offering up his classic example of how to inject suspense into a scene — the bomb under
“Michael Moore’s ready to bust loose from documentaries” While director Michael Moore was up in Traverse City, MI to promote that city’s film festival, the Detroit News uncovered this nugget: Michael Moore, by far the most successful documentary filmmaker of all time, is thinking of getting out of the business of making documentaries. Not right away. He’
Hollywood tales “I had a meeting with this guy, I don’t remember who he was, but he was a pretty powerful fellow. I didn’t have a car at the time; I rode a motorcycle and it was broken. So my girlfriend at the time was giving me a ride to
Daily dialogue — August 4, 2009 “Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man — promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of
“Judd Apatow inks three-film deal at Universal” As Universal rolls out Apatow’s latest writing-directing effort Funny People, they also sewed up Apatow’s services for his next three directing gigs: On the eve of the release of his latest movie, “Funny People,” Judd Apatow has signed with Universal to write and direct three films. The
