“Tentpoles, newbies out at Comic-Con” The Hollywood Reporter offers this early analysis of the the 40th edition of Comic-Con. What caught my eye was this: But in a departure from recent years, new properties also caught fire during the weekend. Most notably, “District 9,” a human-vs.-alien action movie based on an original
THR review: “Funny People” We’ve been tracking Judd Apatow’s upcoming movie Funny People with posts here, here, here, and here. With the “Apatow gets serious” meme, it’s really interesting to see what the reaction to Funny People will be. Well, here is the first review, from Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood
On writing “Don’t make a movie you think you should make on your way to making the movie you really want to make. Just go make the movie you really want to make… If you compromise early, thinking you’re doing something that’s clever or tactical on your way to
“‘Harry Potter’ subdued by ‘G-Force’” A gang of covert guinea pigs bests Harry Potter for the weekend B.O. crown: The 3D animated “G-Force” was the top movie this weekend, opening with $32.2 million. Last week’s №1 film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” came in a close second with an
“Key backstory truths” Following up on this disucssion, one of my current online students asked this: Re: Backstories and Actors. Stage direction regarding food prep and the smells factor well in scenes…like in Stalag 17 when Sefton fries an egg in butter and brews coffee…in front of 30 starving men. Now
Video Interview — Woody Allen Here’s a rarity: An interview with Woody Allen from 1971. At this point, he had written screenplays for What’s New Pussycat (1965), What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), Take the Money and Run (1969), and Bananas (1971). Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
Daily dialogue — July 26, 2009 “What do you… define… it’s love! I love you! I… I want you in a way of cherishing your… your… your totality and your otherness, and… and in the sense of a presence, and a being, and a whole coming and a going in a room with grapefruit, and…
Comic-Con: “James Cameron gives fans a lengthy look at ‘Avatar’” More from Comic-Con where the LA Times “Hero Complex” blog offers this report: It’s his first commercial film since “Titanic,” and judging by the 25-minute preview unveiled at Comic-Con, James Cameron’s “Avatar” will be every bit the spectacle as his Oscar-winning film from 1997.
Interview: David Johnson (Orphan) Writer David Johnson has his first movie coming out this weekend — the horror-thriller Orphan. In this interview Johnson talks about writing the script for the movie as well as some interesting notes about his background. Some excerpts: TF: A movie like this seems to stem from a history of
Daily dialogue — July 25, 2009 “It’s nice to see her enjoying herself for a change. The mood around this place isn’t good for her…. Especially an American girl. You can tell she’s been raised on promises.” — Louise Haloran (Luana Anders), Dementia 13 (1963), written by Francis Ford Coppola Comment Archive
Friday movie reviews G-Force (Disney) Daily Variety (Lael Lowenstein) Hollywood Reporter (Michael Rechtshaffen) Los Angeles Times (Michael Phillips) New York Times (A.O. Scott) Orphan (Warner Bros.) Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy) Hollywood Reporter (Kirk Honeycutt) New York Times (Manohla Dargis) The Ugly Truth (Sony) Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy) Hollywood Reporter (Stephen Farber)
Great Scenes — Bull Durham Bull Durham, written and directed by Ron Shelton, is such a quoteworthy movie, it’s hard to single out just one great scene. But if you just had to pick, the “I believe” scene has got to be it. Annie (Susan Sarandon) has invited two minor league baseball players, Ebby
Daily dialogue — July 24, 2009 “My name is Robert Hawkins. It’s 6:42 AM on Saturday, May 23rd. Approximately seven hours ago, some thing attacked the city. I don’t know what it is. If you found this tape, I mean if you’re watching this right now, then you probably know more about
Master Plots — Part 1 In a prior thread “Similar but different — Part 1,” I noted in the comments I had some background material on a variety of storylines. In this post, ten different plots courtesy of author Ronald Tobias and his book “20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them).” 1. QUEST Where the
Update: Comic-Con 2009 Comic-Con 2009 is on! And the LA Times is all over it. Plus they have writer-director David Goyer as a guest blogger. Currently directing the TV series “Flash Forward”, which he is also writing and producing, here’s the choice quote from Goyer’s first CC blog entry:
Moneyball cont’d: “Getting pregnant” This happened a few weeks back, but worth noting: “Sony still game for ‘Moneyball’”: Sony is still game on making the baseball pic “Moneyball,” tapping Aaron Sorkin to polish an early script by Steve Zaillian. Brad Pitt is still attached to star in Columbia Pictures’ adaptation of Michael Lewis’ nonfiction
“Backstory truths” In the character archetypes course I’m currently teaching online, we have some fascinating discussions digging into the lead characters in the movie Witness. One in particular who has gripped the imagination of students is Rachel Lapp (Kelly McGillis) who is the story’s Attractor. Some of the points of
Screenwriting 101 — Dale Launer “Over the next six or seven years I honed my writing skills to a point where I actually sold a screenplay: Ruthless People. It was made and became a bona fide box-office hit, and it got pretty good reviews. The reviews would often mention a scene or a moment
“Movies don’t owe anybody a living” I’ve been quite struck by people’s response to the question raised last week here about (A) how to determine if one has writing talent and (B) how to know if it’s time to move on from writing. Reading the responses, you can feel a palpable sense of
Comic-Con 2009 When K-9 was shooting back in the summer of 1988 in San Diego, I spent about 2 weeks on the set. One weekend morning, I woke up at the hotel where the crew was staying, and bleary-eyed wandered downstairs to catch some breakfast. When I stepped out of
Spec script sale: “Untitled Annie Mumolo project” The Fempire strikes again as Mandate Pictures picks up an untitled comedy from writer Annie Mumolo: Story centers on three disillusioned girlfriends in their 30s who head to New York City to celebrate New Year’s Eve like they never have before, only to be waylaid by a snowstorm. What’
Hollywood Tales “[Paul] Schrader probed the edges of Hollywood, working as a reader at Warners for fifteen dollars a synopsis and teaching himself screenwriting by working on an original called Pipeliner, something he hoped to direct. Then [Pauline] Kael called him from New York — a critic’s position was about to open
Daily dialogue — July 21, 2009 “God loves me. I know he loves me. I want him to stop.” — Jesus (William Dafoe), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), screenplay by Paul Schrader, based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis Comment Archive
“Adventures in the Screen Trade”: Screen Time I’m re-reading William Goldman’s book “Adventures in the Screen Trade.” He’s got so much insight into screenwriting in it, I’ve started to post the occasional excerpt. The first one is here and dealt with writing a script quickly. This excerpt below gets into the idea
External and Internal Worlds In the character archetype class I’m currently teaching online, a student commented about some ideas from another of my courses: “Screenplay Universe: The External and Internal Worlds”. Here’s my response: The idea of External World and Internal World is critical. It extends to everything in a screenplay — from
