Go Into The Story

Great Scene: It’s A Wonderful Life

George Bailey and Mary Hatch have an intense telephone conversation. Movie: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), screenplay by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett and Frank Capra, story by Philip Van Doren Stern IMDb plot summary: An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing

Toronto Film Festival

There are a couple of interesting articles about the Toronto Film Festival which begins officially today. Last week, the New York times had this article with the rather provocative title “New Goals for Films at Toronto: To Be Seen”: Set to begin on Sept. 4, the 33rd Toronto film festival

Bitter Truth #16

“A typical female is born with a million eggs. A typical male manufactures a million sperm an hour. Look in the mirror. This is the best they could do?”  © 2008 Kurt Brown & Scott Myers

Screenwriting 101 — Dennis Lehane

START WITH CHARACTERS: “The plot is just the vehicle by which the characters are revealed. You create a bunch of characters and let them start bouncing into one another. That’s how a good story happens.” KEEP ’EM MOVING: “My agents has a great line: ‘Alice was down the rabbit

RIP: Don LaFontaine

“Who’s Don LaFontaine,” you ask? Simply the talent known as “The Voice” in Hwood. Don recorded over 5,000 trailers and made the phrase “in a world where…” famous. Here he is doing his schtick in a Geico ad:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMGS7l0wT8  And here’s

Flmmaker magazine: “25 New Faces of Independent Film”

Interesting list from an article in Filmmaker magazine: “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” The list represents a fascinating cross-section of filmmakers with extremely varied backgrounds, interests, and storytelling points-of-view. And you might even recognize one talent: Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Here’

Hollywood tales

“Writers are the weak link in filmmaking right now. The scripts that sell for the most money usually have titles like Hell-bent and Back, Texas Lead and Gold, The Rest of Daniel. They’re high-concept and half-baked. I don’t hear writers say anymore, ‘I love this

Labor Day salute to the WGA!

What better way to celebrate Labor Day than honor the Writers Guild of America, fresh off a non-defeat (some would day “victory”) work stoppage against the AMPTP. Unlike ’88, where I was living in LA and had to sell my stake in a house in order to survive that

On writing

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” — E.L. Doctorow

Who knew that John McCain…

…was such a fan of Hollywood movies. By picking Sarah Palin, former Miss Wasilla beauty queen, former high school basketball player, former small town mayor, and current governor of Alaska, as his vice presidential running mate, McCain apparently turned not to Karl Rove or any other political pundit for advice,

“Tentpole” movies

Business practices ebb and flow in Hwood, but with rare exception each of the major movie studios consistently subscribes to the importance of “tentpole” movies. What are they? Big, brash, expensive movies around which a studio can build their release schedule. Typically slotted in the two big box office season

Video interview: Paul Mazursky

Paul Mazursky is an actor, director, producer and screenwriter who’s been involved with a slew of notable movies including Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice (1969), Harry and Tonto (1974), An Unmarried Woman (1978), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986). With a cinematic

Story talismans

When I wrote the original script for K-9, I had on my desk, always within eyesight, a photograph. It was a snapshot of a police dog named Sonny — the German Shepherd had been killed in the line of duty and was the inspiration for the movie. While I pounded

“Towelhead” from writer-director Alan Ball

Since we’re featuring American Beauty and its screenwriter Alan Ball today, it’s worth noting that Ball is making his directorial debut with Towelhead. Based on the novel by Alicia Erian, the indie film delves into some interesting themes: Towelhead follows the dark, bold and shockingly funny life of

Friday movie reviews

Befitting the dog days of August, this is when studios dump their garbage movies into theaters. You can tell they have little confidence in them when they refuse to screen them in advance for critics; hence, no reviews for College and Disaster Movie this week. UPDATE: The reviews are starting

Great Scene: “American Beauty”

Today’s great scene comes courtesy of writer Alan Ball and the fantastic dark satire he wrote American Beauty (1999). This is a hauntingly beautiful moment and drives home how even the most mundane events — such as a plastic bag caught up in the wind — can translate into powerful drama.

2008 Telluride Film Festival

It’s that time of year for the annual Telluride Film Festival. Started in 1974, this is one of the world’s most endearing film events. First off, it’s located in Telluride, an awesome place. Second, the lineup of movies is always eclectic and stimulating. Third, Telluride is such

LA Times (8/28/08): “Summer box office sets new record”

With Labor Day approaching, it’s time for entertainment pundits to pontificate about the summer box office season. Today, the LA Times provides a studio-by-studio analysis and at the top of the heap surprisingly is not Warner Bros., despite The Dark Knight’s $490M effort domestically, but Paramount:

The Persistent Writers’ Hall of Fame

Today is the birthday of writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832). In perusing his biography, I discovered that he worked on his most famous book “Faust” for 50 years. Thus, I’m initiating a new GITS feature: The Persistent Writers’ Hall of Fame! And herewith tap Herr Goethe as a

Bitter Truth #15

“Whenever the pilot announces a great view of something wonderful on one side of the plane, you will be sitting on the opposite side.”  © 2008 Kurt Brown & Scott Myers

Daily dialogue — August 28, 2008

“Look, mother, I want to go to work in one hour. We are the Pros from Dover and we figure to crack this kid’s chest and get out to golf course before it gets dark. So you go find the gas-passer and you have him pre-medicate this

“You know you’re a screenwriter when…”

Todd Griffin over at The Movie Quill has a fun series going on: “You know you’re a screenwriter when…” Here is his current post: You know you’re a screenwriter when — you eavesdrop in on people’s conversations and jot down what they are saying, catch phrases, cadences etc…

Spec script sale: “Bad Teacher”

Fresh off the heels of noting yesterday that little is happening on the sales front, Columbia Pictures scoops up the comedy spec “Bad Teacher”, written by “The Office” co-exec producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky: Story follows a foul-mouthed, gold-digging seventh-grade teacher who’s dumped by

Screenwriting 101 — William Broyles, Jr.

“Writing really is a process of discovery. The biggest enemy is being satisfied. When I think, ‘Oh, this is so great. They can’t change a word. They’ve got to film it exactly like this,’ that’s when I know I’m not pushing hard enough. That’s when

Daily dialogue — August 27, 2008

“Uh well, I’ll tell ya, I remember this one time — I’m in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there’s no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my