Category: Point & Click

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Point & Click

Is it the season or am I just being mean?

  • Screen Junkies has an excellent selection of kids’ letters to Michael Bay, my favourite being:  07SEP12 UPDATE: Unfortunately the Screen Junkies image/link thingie no longer works. If memory serves, it was a child’s hand-drawn picture requesting Mr Bay explode his – the child’s – father. Guess you had to’ve read it at the time.  (Fedora-tip: The Big Picture.)
  • Ken Levine has his 2009 Summer Movies preview, with all-time classics like:
    • Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – A new spin on the single most tired premise in RomCom history — hire a leading man who is an enemy of comedy. Stars Matthew McConaughey and the lovely but not-exactly-hilarious Jennifer Garner.
    • Whatever Works – Woody Allen’s 285th movie, the 247th with the same theme: older neurotic Jew in a relationship with hot young girl who could be his granddaughter. Larry David as Woody Allen. Reviews are mixed. Middle-aged Jews love it, young girls are appalled.
    • The Time Traveler’s Wife – “Where were you last night and don’t tell me the Middle Ages, you bastard!?”

    (Fedora-tip: The Big Picture.)

  • Forget Robert Rodriguez and his Ten-Minute Film School. I give you Mark L Lester‘s Commando is the Best Film Ever (with parts 2 and 3):
    [This] film wasn’t an accident, just like Jesus wasn’t an accident. It took real vision to pull off, starting with the theme of a parent’s love for his child, and the lengths he will go to to get her back from a wily South American dictator. Also, it has explosions, and a rockin’ saxophone-driven soundtrack that really gets the people moving in their seats.
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A bit of a backlog of a collection, attributions for which I can’t remember, sorry – though a pretty good bet would be the sidebar, but.

    • There are such things as happy endings for screenwriters in Hollywood – just ask Robert Mark Kamen.
    • Thanks, I suspect, to Nick Grant of Onfilm, I have discovered The A.V. Club‘s excellent The New Cult Canon series, in particular this article about the commentary between The Limey’s writer Lem Dobbs and director Steven Soderbergh.
    • Another Kiwi screenwriting blog! Lyse Beck gives us Birds With Nuts. There’s a nice thread about Watchmen here.

And speaking of the Minutemen, after all my build–up, The Goddess and I went to see Watchmen a week or so ago. She enjoyed it; I hankered for some interpretation rather than faithful replication. Thanks to Mr Slevin I’ve read people who can say what I’m thinking much better than I could here, here and here. (And no one’s mentioned it’s been two whole decades since Tim Burton gave us Michael Keaton as Batman – didn’t that kickstart the mainstreaming of comic-book adaptations?)

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Mm. Hmm.

  • It’d be just like John August to kick-start 2009 with a short and sweet pep talk.
  • A new blog of note: TV writer Earl Pomerantz (Major Dad, Becker) is Just Thinking. (Fedora-tip: Alex Epstein.)
  • Kiwi scribe (and fellow guild board member) Mike Riddell joins the scribosphere with The Interminable Moon, about the journey his novel, The Insatiable Moon, takes on its way to the silver screen.
  • My favourites of multi-hyphenate Edward Zwick‘s ten filmmaking rules are –
    • 3.  No plan survives contact with the enemy.
    • 10. Where there is no solution there is no problem. At some point in every production, the director loses faith in the movie and the crew loses faith in the director. Somehow it all works out.

    (Fedora-tip: Movie Maker Magazine, by way of Mr Epstein.)

  • The mighty Joss Whedon has ten writing tips, my picks being –
    • 4. Everybody has a reason to live. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason.
    • 7. Track the audience mood. Think in terms of what [your audience is thinking]. They go to the theatre, and they either notice that their butts are numb, or they don’t. If you’re doing your job right, they don’t.

    (Fedora-tip: Catherine Bray, by way of Danny Stack.

  • John Rogers‘ episode-by-episode online commentary and Q&A his Leverage series is a must-read for television junkies. Favourite moment so far: an ep that [seemed] so simple. It begins with us in the writers’ room cheering “They’re on an airplane, and have to pull off the con before they land! It’s practically a bottle show!” and ends with a 70-foot replica fuselage on the soundstage. Oh, and we had to build an airplane bathroom with wild walls, because you just can’t get a camera in there.
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I’ve done my shopping. I can do whatever I like now.

Ladies and germs – happy holiday reading, viewing and relaxing.

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These haven’t been as regular as they should used to be. Let’s not get overexcited and think it’s been because I’ve had more to say of late.

Warning: some old news in here (I’ve been hoarding).

  • Why aren’t I all a-jingle with news of Bad Lieutenant being remade with Werner Herzog helming and Nicolas Cage in the title role? Maybe Abel Ferrara, who directed the 1992 original, says it best with “It’s lame” and “[Herzog] can die in hell“. But then I can’t help but be swept up by Mr Herzog’s response to hearing that: “That’s beautiful!” and then, with regard to Mr Ferrara himself, “I’ve never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is. … Maybe I could invite him to act in the movie!” (Fedora-tip: Eyes Wide Open.)

  • In similar vein to Lotto’s What would you do? campaign, here’s some straight-up advice on what to do when you’re burning to make a film… and a lot of money falls into your lap. (Fedora-tip: a Headstrong Forum denizen.)

  • Check out fellow Pitch Engine contributor Gordon White‘s blog, smallscreens.com, in which he’s charting his progress as a screenwriter in the UK. (Fedora-tip: Dara McNaught.)

  • Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane is expanding his empire – o yea! (Fedora-tip: Gordon White.)

  • And finally, James Henry wonders what it might be like to do police work but with a screenwriter’s work ethic. My favourite: 4. Getting bored with writing up crime reports, so ending them with ‘and then a load of zombies arrived’.

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‘S been a while since I’ve done one of these.

  • I wish I could break down my projects like this:
… The Mentalist is no different from any of its mediocre-to-lousy brethren.  You’ve got Simon Baker as the TROUBLED HERO WITH A TRAGIC PAST, who is BRILLIANT IN A DISTINCTIVE AND UNUSUAL WAY.  He has a flirty, clashing rapport with Robin Tunney, the NO-NONSENCE LAW ENFORCEMENT GAL WHO SECRETLY WANTS TO BONE HIM SENSELESS, YOU CAN TOTALLY TELL.  She works with her TEAM OF MISMATCHED SUBORDINATES, including the BIG LUG (Owain Yeoman), the UNEXPECTEDLY FUNNY GUY (Tim Kang), and the HOT, WIDE-EYED ROOKIE GIRL (Amanda Righetti).  A baffling crime is committed, to and by rich people living someplace sunny and appealingly photographed, and involving a beautiful-yet-mutilated lady-corpse and a TAUNTING SERIAL KILLER ARCHENEMY.  One hour later, after the hero has a few opportunities to DO QUIRKY THINGS, BROOD ABOUT HIS SECRET PAIN, and DEMONSTRATE HIS UNIQUE GIFTS, guns are drawn, people are shouting authoritatively, the hero is smiling, and the case is neatly wrapped up.

For the rest of the article, click on over to Teevee.org.

  •  Over at The Rouge Wave, Julie Gray wrote up a list of writerly traits, amongst them:
    • Many writers, regardless of age, have not seen the classics
    • No new writer is realistic about breaking into the business
    • Action scripts are almost always written by men of any age

    Guilty as charged. Let’s see how you fare. (Fedora-tip: Jill Golick.)

  •  Speak of the devil – Ms Golick recently wondered aloud about a world where you only got nice notes.
  • In these uncertain post-West Wing times, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd writes how got Aaron Sorkin to script some face-time between Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and former president Jed Bartlet might go. (Fedora-tip: Dan Slevin.)
  • And over at What I Write, Sean Molloy provides some pretty detailed insights into one of his script projects (in five parts, with addenda).
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Ah, winter. That time of year when staying inside with as many DVDs as your video library memberships will allow would be So Right…

Ah well.

(Courtesy of Mr Tripuraneni, The Goddess and I have been ripping through his copy of Battlestar Galactica Season 3. Such focus might be at the expense of the excellent Mad Men but that’s what VCRs are for.)

(And riffing on things television, I’m looking forward to tonight’s premiere of The Jacquie Brown Diaries, from those freakishly talented BunkerMedia boys.)

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I wish the past fortnight’s radio silence has been because of something exciting like negotiating a development deal or meeting multiple deadlines but alas, no: on top of a raft of Real World commitments, I’ve been sick. I’ve got some bloggy goodness lined up for you (that I have to, like, finish writing first) so until then –

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Okay, the short didn’t make it into the local festival but – half a kilo of Whittakers‘ finest later – life. Goes. On.

Mm. This week, for your infotainment:

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