Go Into The Story

NY Times (8/26/08): “His Wicked, Wicked Ways Go West”

Today’s NY Times has this review of an interesting new Warner Bros. DVD release, a collection of westerns starring none other than Errol Flynn. Best known for swashbuckling roles in movies like The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), it’s surprising

Spec script sale: “Easy A”

It had been such a long time since a spec script sold in Hwood, I went back through the files and discovered the last sale was on August 14th. Nearly 2 weeks! Talk about the dog days of August! But then, I uncovered something I missed: Variety reports that Screen

Hollywood Tales

“Hollywood executives really love the smell of their own urine and what they really like doing is urinating on things. And then going, ‘Hmm, now this smells really good’ and being really puzzled when the rest of the world goes ‘No, actually that smells like pee.’” — Neil Gaiman

Daily dialogue — August 26, 2008

“I am Ripper… Tearer… Slasher… Gouger. I am the Teeth in the Darkness, the Talons in the Night. Mine is Strength… and Lust… and Power! I AM BEOWULF!”  — Beowulf (Ray Winstone), Beowulf (2007), written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyAanB83Ke0 Comment Archive

On writing

“First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!” -– Ray Bradbury

Comparison: Usual Suspects and Sixth Sense

As Todd and James have commented on the ending sequence in The Usual Suspects, both the writing — how McQuarrie ‘shielded’ the clues throughout the story — and the editing effectively drive home the story’s twist. An interesting comparison is the twist revelation sequence in The Sixth Sense (1999). Two big

Video interview: Carl Foreman

Today’s special Sunday interview is with one of Hollywood’s most influential screenwriters Carl Foreman. If he had only written High Noon (1952) that would have been enough of a legacy. But Foreman also wrote Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Guns of

“The Continuous Life” by Mark Strand

In the wonderful interview series “The Power of Myth” with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, which we’ve discussed here, Campbell describes the state of the Protagonist at the beginning of many stories as being one of “discomfort.” There’s something unsettled in their life — and they are either aware

Friday movie review

Death Race (Universal) Daily Variety Hollywood Reporter (Stephen Farber) New York Times (Nathan Lee) Hamlet 2 (Focus) Daily Variety (Dennis Harvey) Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan) New York Times (Stephen Holden)  The House Bunny (Sony) Daily Variety (John Anderson) Los Angeles Times (Kevin Thomas) New York Times (Nathan Lee) The

Great scene: “The Usual Suspects”

The ‘big twist!’ Is there any movie ending more satisfying than a scene sequence where you realize the writer has totally played you, set you up to think one thing, then through the course of events in the scene, methodically let you in on the secret the writer has carefully

CUT TO:

Tomorrow morning, I leave Chapel Hill with my oldest son in tow, transporting Will to Boston where he will begin the next chapter in his life: college. Talk about a major plot point! In the life of a child and a parent, this is a huge one. Joseph Campbell talked

K-9 kicks Benji’s butt!

Well, whaddya know. K-9 is the #10 top grossing dog movie of all time. The things you can learn on the Internet! Top grossing dog movies of all time 1. 101 Dalmatians (1996) — $136,189,294 2. Cats & Dogs (2001) — $93,385,515 3. Eight Below (2006) — $81,

Bitter Truth #14

“A ‘happy drunk’ used to be redundant; now it’s politically incorrect.”  © 2008 Kurt Brown & Scott Myers

“The Eureka Hunt”

We’ve bumped around the subject of the human brain before here and its connection to the creative process. Well, the July 28th issue of the New Yorker magazine has an article called “The Eureka Hunt” that is right in my wheelhouse of interest. What happens in the human brain

Screenwriting 101 — Bruce Joel Rubin

“Often I just trust that an idea that comes to you once will come again. That’s not always true, but so much of the technique of writing is in the moment. If you watched a particular newscast or read a particular article in the paper, had a fight with

“AkCC”: Online comic book

With Hwood movie studios acquiring so many graphic novels and comic books, screenwriters need to pay attention to what’s going on in that part of contemporary culture. And so I draw our collective attention to AkCC, an online comic book created by a talented young woman named AJ Jardine.

UGO: Top 11 Highest Paid Screenwriters

Following up on this post yesterday, I did a little digging and found this on UGO.com. As far as I can tell, this list is from 2004, so there will have been some changes, but their list is as follows: #11: Gerald Di Pego (Phenomenon, Message in a Bottle)

Hollywood tales

“I worked as an intern-slash-reader at a little Paramount production company during my first semester of graduate school, and the contrast between the crappy scripts I read there and the great scripts I read for class was really illuminating. And encouraging on some level. I knew I could

Ira Glass on storytelling

We’re fans of Ira Glass and “This American Life” as witnessed by my post here. One of my cohorts at work forwarded me a link to Glass talking about the radio show’s story-finding process. It’s well worth watching because it’s a reminder that most story

Top spec script deals

If you’re lacking motivation to write today, pay a visit to this Wikipedia site and check out the biggest pay-dates in spec script history: $4 million: * The Long Kiss Goodnight by Shane Black $3 million: * Basic Instinct by Joe Eszterhas * Medicine Man by Tom Schulman * The Ugly Americans

On writing

“When you start writing, you’re 98% pure writer and 2% critic. After you’ve written for a length of time, you’ve learned a great deal about your craft, and you’ve become 2% pure writer and 98% critic. It’s like writing uphill.”  — David Westheimer

“Putting the scriptwriter in the picture”

Our friend Chris forwarded a fun essay from writer Frank Cottrell published in the New Zealand newspaper The Age. Cottrell, who has written Millions (2004) and A Cock and Bull Story (2005) among many other movie and TV projects, hit upon a bit of introspection recently: A WHILE BACK, I

Video interview: Francis Ford Coppola

“Real success only involves two people: yourself and yourself.” The money quote from this choice 1975 NBC feature on writer-director Francis Ford Coppola. The news piece takes place just after the success of The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II has made Coppola a wealthy man and now setting

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

The 26th annual Bulwer-Lytton contest is complete and the winner has been announced. But wait, you ask… what is the Bulwer-Lytton contest? From this WAPO article comes the money quote: “It’s like the Nobel Prize for Literature,” explains 2008 recipient Garrison Spik, whose day job is communications

Video interview: Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge)

For nearly a decade from the mid-80s to mid-90’s, Joe Eszterhas was one of the hottest screenwriters in Hollywood, writing scripts for a number of movies including Flashdance (1983), Jagged Edge (1985), Music Box (1989), and Sliver (1993). Eszterhas has also been one of the most controversial