Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 317th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
2018 Independent Spirit Award Nominations: ‘Get Out’ and ‘Call Me by Your Name’ Dominate.
Spirit Awards: Indie Community Distances Itself From Hollywood — Sort Of.
Diverse Independent Spirit Nominations Boost Some Oscar Contenders, Not Others.
‘Dunkirk’ Will Probably Win Best Picture, but a Changing Oscar Landscape Could Favor A Micro-Budget Dark Horse.
How a New Oscars Rule Could Shake Up the Animation Contenders.
Oscar Myth of ‘Pure’ Movies: Why Netflix, Amazon Should Be Recognized.
Women Comprise 60% of Variety‘s 2017 Screenwriters to Watch List.
Warner Bros. Could Lose Millions On ‘Justice League’.
What Went Wrong With ‘Justice League’ At The Box Office.
Why ‘Justice League’ Is the End of the DC Extended Universe as We Know It.
Happy Death Day Breaks $100 Million As Horror Continues Its Box-Office Dominance.
What Disney Finally Gets Right with ‘Coco’.
DreamWorks Animation Campus Sold for $290 Million.
It’s Time for Pixar to Make a Musical.
As China cools on Hollywood, the movie business looks closer to home for money.
‘Netflix for indie films’ is billion-dollar opportunity.
From Ex Machina to Moonlight: How A24 disrupted Hollywood.
How ‘The Florida Project’ Cast Its Breakout Kid Stars in Target and a Motel.
Why 10 and under is Hollywood’s new golden age for movie stars.
North Carolina’s 25% Rebate and Seasoned Crews Attract Hollywood.
On Struggling To Love Hollywood When It’s So Full Of Evil.
How to Be Part of Hollywood’s Harassment Solution.
John Lasseter Taking Leave of Absence From Pixar Amid “Missteps”.
John Lasseter’s Legacy: Why the Tarnished CG Animation Pioneer May Be Irreplaceable For Disney and Pixar.
Female-Led Bids Vie to Buy Weinstein Company, Support Women.
Damon Lindelof and Mike Schur Talk Harassment in Hollywood: “No One Didn’t Know”.
Greta Gerwig Wrote Charming Letters to ‘Mr. Timberlake’ and ‘Mr. Dave Matthews’ to License Their Music in Lady Bird.
Quentin Tarantino Talks Netflix And Why He Doesn’t Like It.
The Duffer Brothers: Turned Upside Down.
Chris Miller and Phil Lord Discuss Being Kicked Off the Han Solo Movie.
‘Star Wars’: Rian Johnson Discusses The Upcoming New Trilogy.
‘Justice League’: Why Joss Whedon is Only Receiving a Credit for Writing, Not Directing.
Plot Details Revealed For Quentin Tarantino’s 1960s “Not Charles Manson” Movie.
Critic’s Notebook: Morgan Freeman’s Quiet Climb to Extraordinary.
The One Word That Causes Amber Heard to Automatically Throw Away a Script.
How Sony Nabbed Quentin Tarantino’s Manson Movie.
How the Hollywood Sign Went From Temporary Billboard to Symbol of America’s Showbiz Capital.
‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’ at 50: The Rise and Fall of a Groundbreaking Variety Show.
Reflections on Hollywood’s Infamous Blacklist 70 Years Later.
Soul Teachers: “How NOT to write a screenplay”.
How to Become a Producer.
A No-Bullshit Guide to Getting Your Film Seen in 2018.
‘Stranger Things’ Season 2 Secrets Explained.
The Duffer Brothers Recap Stranger Things 2, ‘Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister’.
‘Godless’ Team on Expanding Netflix’s Limited Series Beyond One Season.
Apple Projected to Spend $4.2 Billion on Original Content by 2022.
16 TV Shows Based on Podcasts (New, Upcoming, and Now Streaming).
Women Took Home Most of The National Book Awards This Year.
WATCH: Women in action movies: a video essay.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week
Nearly everything I’ve ever read on the subject of ‘theme’ in relation to writing has felt either confusing or impractical.
What does theme mean? How should we understand it? How can we use it in our writing?
The ironic thing is theme is incredibly important:
- Important in helping us find the focus of our story.
- Important in mining the story’s emotional and psychological depth.
- Important in elevating the impact of the events that transpire in our story.
That is why I created Core VII: Theme. And starting Monday, November 27, I will be teaching this unique one-week online screenwriting class.
The course, one of eight Core writing theory courses I have created, consists of six lectures I wrote, 24/7 message board discussions, insider tips, and an optional writing exercise to workshop one of your stories. All of those you can do on your own time, everything from downloading and reading lectures to posting comments.
Day 1: What is Theme?
Day 2: Theme as Expansion
Day 3: Theme as Focus
Day 4: Talismans
Day 5: Motifs
Day 6: Moments
There is also a 90-minute teleconference between class participants and myself where we discuss the course content and anything writing related.
In this course:
- You will learn a coherent take on theme, how it relates to the overall story, and tips on how to weave thematic material into your scripts.
- You can put to use what you have learned by workshopping one of your own stories.
Scripts we will study in the class: The King’s Speech, The Silence of the Lambs, Tootsie, The Shawshank Redemption, Bull Durham, As Good As It Gets, The Dark Knight, The Social Network among others.
When I introduced this class, the response from participants was hugely favorable, the major sentiment that this approach to theme not only clears up a confusing subject, but also provides practical tools a writer can use to work with themes in their own stories. Like this testimonial:
Your “Theme” class for writers is not just helpful, it is essential. From the personal attention to the numerous “A-Ha!” moments throughout the class, I was thrilled to simply KEEP LEARNING. How many teachers can boast about that with their students?
— Heather Thompson
So sign up now for the class which begins Monday, November 27!
I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!
