Script Notes by Chad Gervich - Movie Talk

MOVIE TALK: 9

Chad — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:55:12 GMT

I’ve seen a lot of movies this week, but 9, the new animated movie produced by Tim Burton (The Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch, Day Watch), is easily the most disappointing.

It’s not the WORST movie I’ve seen this week (that distinction is saved for My One And Only)… it’s just the one that most failed to live up to expectations.

Quick rundown of the story: 9 follows a band of human-like dolls (known, according to Wikipedia, as “stitchpunks”—although this is never referenced in the movie) as they fight they fight for their survival on post-apocalyptic Earth. Stitchpunks are the world’s last “living” survivors, hiding in fear from an evil mechanical brain and its legions of grotesque animal-like robots.

The actual plot begins when one of the stichpunks, 9 (stitchpunks are numbered instead of named), inexplicably come to life in the laboratory of the scientist who created him and discovers six other dolls living secretly in the ruins of the surrounding city. 9 also has with him a strange talisman he discovered in the lab… but when it’s stolen by a giant robotic dog, which also kidnaps one of 9’s new friends, he and the other stitchpunks set out to retrieve them both. What follows is a Lord of the Rings-inspired adventure as the stitchpunks attempt to retrieve the mysterious talisman and save their world.

And… that’s about it.

You get some tidbits of backstory, briefly explaining how the brain and its machines took over the world, but this movie’s biggest problem—and its biggest lesson to screenwriters—is that it’s lacking storytelling’s most important element: STORY. It has plot, a structured sequence of events, but it lacks the context it needs to give those events meaning or relevance.

I.e.—we never know what the machines want, why they’re destroying the stitchpunks, why they destroyed humanity, or what the stitchpunks want (aside from survival; what would they do to the world if they could eradicate the evil machines?).

As a result, nothing in the movie has any meaning. There are some chilling and creepy visuals… and some clever action sequences (and a nice creepy moment where the giant brain lumbers toward the stitchpunks while “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” plays in the background), but it’s hard to be interested when we have no larger context for what’s going on. We never even know, until the final moments, why the stitchpunks’ talisman is important. THEY don’t even know why it’s important! They simply know that it IS… and only at the very end of the story do we learn why it’s valuable.

We slowly get some hints to the context and backstory as we go along, but it’s hard to care about a mystery when the ultimate answer to that mystery is an explanation of WHY we should have been caring all along.

In other words… there’s no Macguffin in this movie, nothing the stitchpunks are chasing or trying to solve. The reason they’re going on this adventure… is to learn why they’re going on this adventure. And even when we get that final answer, it makes little sense. It has something to do with souls, yet the explanation is so flimsy it’s essentially a non-answer. Which is ironic, because ultimately, this movie about the soullessness of machines turns out to have no soul itself.

One other important screenwriting lesson… and something I think, as writers, we often take for granted when putting together a story (or at least, I do… and this movie reminded me not to stop thinking about it):

9, the main stitchpunk, has virtually no arc. He does not change or grow at all He starts the movie as naively heroic, determined to do the right thing because… well… it’s right, and he doesn’t recognize the dangers that will stand in the way. And at the end of the movie… he’s the exact same person, a naïve hero (I guess he’s arguably slightly less naïve because he’s now faced some monsters, but this hardly seems like an engaging arc… especially because it’s not dramatized in any way).

There were plenty of opportunities for the filmmakers to give 9 an arc… he could’ve begun as a coward and ended up finding heroic strength and courage. He could have begun as a blind optimist and ended up jaded and world-weary. He could have begun as a hero who will stop at nothing to get what he wants and ended as a pragmatist who learns some battles aren’t worth fighting. He could have begun complacent or apathetic and ended up righteous and passionate. But no… he experiences none of these emotional journeys.

…And neither, sadly, does the audience.

Anyway, here's the trailer, which-- strangely-- gives you more information up front than the actual movie does in the first hour...

Some Seriously Glourious Basterds

Chad — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:35:46 GMT

Okay, I know I'm a little behind the bandwagon on this, but I FINALLY got around to seeing Inglourious Basterds tonight, and I have to say...

THAT IS AN AWESOMELY BAD-ASS MOVIE.

I'm not usually a huge Quentin Tarantino fan... I like him, but I always feel like he recycles his same bag of tricks, and he never feel like he lives up to the hype. Pulp Fiction was good, Reservoir Dogs was okay, I hated Jackie Brown, and I only saw Part One of Kill Bill.

But Inglourious Basterds... is easily-- for me, anyway-- his best movie to date.

For those of you who don't know the story, it's a piece of revisionist history about a group of renegade American soldiers dropped into France to hunt, kill, and literally scalp Nazis.

The event at the heart of the story is the upcoming premiere of Joseph Goebbell's newest film, so like all Tarantino's movies, this is as much a celebration of film as it is its own work. Yet while Basterds is the movie most blatantly about movies, it's also the movie where Tarantino is finally applying his traditional cinematic tricks and moves to something culturally and historically larger than pop culture and film. I mean, maybe it's just a typical movie disguised in a Nazi-France costume, but it certainly felt to me like he was growing as an artist.

Also, there was lots of great violence.

Like, great violence. (The final, terrificly bloody scene is some off-the-charts wish fulfillment. And the build-up to the climax is so tense I was literally gasping and convulsing in my seat.)

What most impressed me from a screenwriting standpoint, however, was how LONG many of the scenes were. One scene, in particular, takes places over drinks and a card-guessing game in a basement bar. In this scene, which is probably 10-15 minutes, the Basterds-- disguised as SS officers-- are meeting their contact, a German actress/spy. Unfortunately, a real Nazi suspects these guys are imposters and decides to join them for a drink.

The scene that unfolds-- the men getting to know each other, playing a card game, etc.-- plays out very similarly to how it would play out if these were simply civilian strangers meeting for the first time. But because we know the SS officers are Basterds... and because we suspect the Nazi knows, too... the scene is laden with an inherent tension that sustains for it 10-12 minutes longer than any other movie would dare to try. The dialogue itself, while snappy and witty, isn't what carries the scene; it's the latent tension, the danger brewing because we know these men's secret. It's an incredible scene-- and a terrific lesson in how the right dramatic information, carefully placed, can hold an audience's attention for as long as it needs to. Not many other filmmakers could pull that off.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it... DON'T MISS IT. It's probably my second-favorite movie this year (just behind Up, which is so mind-blowingly wonderful I can't talk about it without spending another two hours at the computer).

P.S. Inglourious Basterds also deserves a nod for coolest use of a Bowie song...

6 Quick Movie Reviews

Chad — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:47:47 GMT

Every once in a while, the stars align in little ways that turn out to be AWESOME... like when A) you're off work for a week, and B) your parents are in town, so you C) get to spend the week seeing a ton of movies. This never happens... I mean, I like to see a lot of movies, but in the past few days, I've seen 6 movies-- nirvana!

I've seen some GREAT stuff and some HORRIBLE stuff, so I just wanted to give you guys the quick rundown of what I saw...

Amreeka - Not as self-important or touchy-feely as the premise might make you think, this is an honest look at the challenges a Middle Eastern immigrant and her son face when they move to a small town in Illinois. Don't be fooled by the reviews and summaries that say it's a comedy about a woman who begins making falafel at her local White Castle-- that little plot point lasts all of about 15 seconds, and it's not that funny. The script has a bit of ADD, constantly jumping about between storylines without really exploring any of them, but the performances are strong and it's just strong enough, funny enough, and poignant enough to keep your interest for an hour and a half.

Extract - Few people do a better job at revering, celebrating, and skewering middle America than Mike Judge, and while this isn't as tight or funny as Office Space or King of the Hill, it's got some great moments. Jason Bateman is terrific as the bored owner of a vanilla extract plant who hires a gigolo to sleep with his wife so he won't feel guilty about having his own affair. The plot meanders a bit, and while the B-story of a con artist trying to swindle the company never really coalesces into anything, it's still fun. And Mila Kunis is nice to look at.

State of Play - To be honest, I was ready to hate this movie... if for no other reason than it has Russell Crowe in it... who, yes, is a great actor, but is such a dick in real life that I never want to like his movies (to be fair, I've never met him in person-- he always just seems like a dick, throwing phones, beating people up, etc.). But I can't lie... I liked it. Based on a British TV series, this story of two reporters (Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams) who discover a corporate conspiracy behind the murder of a congressional aid is a solid B+ political thriller. The bad guys are never quite as evil as you'd like, the conspiracy never quite as sinister, the danger for our heroes never quite as scary... but it keeps the twists and turns coming right till the end.

My One and Only - How this turd of a movie got 73% on Rotten Tomatoes is beyond me. A biopic of George Hamilton's early years (does anyone care?), the story follows George, his brother, and their flighty mother (Renee Zellweger) as they road trip across the country in search of a new husband/father, a home, a sugar-daddy, a job, anything. The rambling script strings together a series of encounters with random characters, but never explores any long enough to become truly interesting. Most of the performances are banal at best, and mugging at worst (Chris Noth in a cliched role as an abusive military man who almost marries Zellweger, and J.C. MacKenzie as a stereotypical gay teenager). (Although I will say that Logan Lerman, who plays George, does a decent job.) Trust me on this: STAY AWAY.

District 9 - Awesome. Not only a surprise underdog movie (from South Africa), but a great piece of allegorical science fiction. It takes place in Johannesburg, where a giant spaceship has been hovering over the city as its inhabitants, ugly reptilian-humanoid aliens, have been rounded up by South African officials and dumped into District 9, a ghetto for E.T.'s. The story follows a government worker who gets infected with a chemical that begins transforming him into an alien... and his only hope of survival is to enter District 9 and find a cure. That's a pretty gross simplification, but this is smart, witty sci-fi... if you like B-movies, and lots of alien killing, you gotta see this.

In the Loop - A fast, smart, biting satire of government ineptitude, cowardice, and petty backstabbing... and how they led us into the Iraq War. James Gandolfini is probably the only recognizable actor (although Anna Chlumsky from My Girl-- remember her?-- shows up), but this British movie has nothing but hilarious performances and clips along at a speed that makes its two hours fly by.

In the Loop trailer

MOVIE TALK: The Ugly Truth

Chad — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:58:09 GMT

The best part of “The Ugly Truth,” which opens this Friday, July 24, is that its title pretty much writes the review for you.

A romantic comedy so bland and paint-by-numbers that it’s astounding it even got made (and more astounding that Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler chose it), it begins by following Abby, an idealistic, micro-managing TV news producer in Sacramento. When her news show begins failing, her station manager hires Mike, the obnoxious-yet-charming, chauvinistic-yet-honest host of “The Ugly Truth,” a relationship and dating advice show on the local cable-access channel.

Abby and Mike could not be more diametrically opposed; Abby, a “strong independent woman,” approaches dating by having a literal checklist of things she needs in a man… and if he doesn’t meet all ten, the date’s over. Mike is hedonistic; he loves chicks in bikinis, jello-wrestling, one night stands, you name it. Although these two characters despise each other, they’re forced to work together because Abby’s news show needs the higher ratings Mike’s schtick is earning.

But when Abby develops a crush on Colin (Eric Winter), her cute and perfect next-door neighbor, she needs Mike’s blunt and insightful advice to snag him. Thus, Mike becomes a kind of Cyrano to Abby’s Christian, guiding her through a series of dating set pieces: coaching her on her first date via a hidden ear-bud… helping her through a business dinner when her vibrating panties accidentally begin giving her a series of massive orgasms… etc.

Over the course of helping Abby woo Colin, Mike falls in love with her himself. I won’t bother telling you the ending, not because there’s anything remotely unpredictable in it, but because you already know where it’s going.

Now, there’s plenty of stuff wrong with “The Ugly Truth,” but to me, there’s one weakness that outshines them all. One weakness that, I believe, is the key to ANY good romantic comedy. And if done well, any other flaw in the movie can be forgiven. And that weakness is…

YOU NEVER LONG FOR THESE TWO PEOPLE TO BE TOGETHER.

And if the audience isn’t DYING for the two main characters of a romantic comedy to be together—think “When Harry Met Sally” or “Annie Hall”—almost nothing else in the story matters.

Having said that, it’d be easy to blame this problem on the actors’ lack of chemistry, but I think the problems start not with the performers, but in the script.

There are 2 reasons why the script itself never makes us want Abby and Mike to get together…

1)   We don’t see how they need each other. Or, rather, we see how Abby needs Mike—he teaches her how to loosen up, be sexy and flirty, and enjoy life—but we never see why Mike needs Abby. Sure, Katherine Heigl is pretty… but by the end of the movie, even Mike’s chauvinistic character has learned that love isn’t about looks… yet we don’t see him learn what the hell it IS about! Abby doesn’t teach him to do anything… she barely improves his show… she does NOTHING for him.

All the great romantic comedy couples work like a yin and yang; they complement each other’s strength’s and weaknesses. Annie grounds Alvy and helps him grow up; Alvy helps Annie break out of her shell, become more confident and able to live a life.

But that doesn’t happen in “The Ugly Truth.” It’s a one-sided relationship; and when we can’t see what one of the characters gets from the other, emotionally, it makes it very tough for us to root for them being together.

2)   The story, especially in its supposedly comic set pieces, doesn’t explore the Abby-Mike relationship, so we never feel like their relationship is being progressed. Or rather, since the main plot points—and main comedy points—aren’t illuminating or exploring Abby and Mike, we never get the fun of seeing them spar, butt heads, reach new levels of understanding and connection, etc.

The first set piece involves Abby on a date with Colin at a baseball game. Mike, a few rows away, is feeding her lines through a hidden headset in her ear. Aside from the fact that nothing Mike says is particularly unique or helpful, the whole scene feels overly-familiar, trite, and painfully uninspired. Like when a girl accidentally spills on Mike’s jeans and Mike says, “What the fuck,” so Abby repeats “What the fuck,” and Colin wonders who she’s talking to. So Mike says, “I wasn’t talking to you,” and Abby says, “I wasn’t talking to you,” and Colin wonders who she’s talking to. (I mean, come on, screenwriters Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah & Kirsten Smith—you guys can do better than this.)

The second set piece involves Abby accidentally wearing a pair of vibrating panties to a business dinner where she’s taken Colin, her date. And when the panties’ remote control falls out of her purse and is picked up by a curious kid at the next table, orgasms ensue. Firstly, the whole scenes a poor, sad man’s version of Meg Ryan’s orgasm scene from “When Harry Met Sally,” especially when another female diner watches Abby’s orgasm and says, “What in the ceviche?”

But more importantly—the scene does NOTHING to further the Abby-Mike relationship. The scene worked in “When Harry Met Sally” because the two of them were alone at a table, discussing women’s ability to fool men… and Sally’s performance not only proved her point, but it put Harry on the spot. So it illuminated their different belief systems—AND showed how far Sally would go simply to prove Harry wrong.

Yet the similar scene in “The Ugly Truth” lacks all the subtle character/relationship understanding of “Harry & Sally” and is nothing more than a soulless scene about a women having an orgasm in public.

So the lessons to take away from this, romantic comedy screenwriters:

1)   Make sure your romantic comedy characters each need—and receive—something from each other. Actors’ chemistry is not enough; each character must, on the page—and this is gonna be a poor choice of words, but I’m gonna use it anyway—fill very specific holes in the other. (EMOTIONAL HOLES! Get your head out of the gutter.)

2)   Make sure your major scenes and set pieces are somehow exploring and deepening the relationship between your two leads. This doesn’t mean they have to be visibly and obviously falling in love or showing affection—they can certainly be conflicting… and fall in love later—but it does mean we should be seeing new aspects of their relationship.

In fact, “The Ugly Truth” ends with an exchange of dialogue that beautifully illustrates all it’s greatest weaknesses…

ABBY: You’re in love with me? Why?
MIKE: Beats the hell out of me.

Exactly.

The Ugly Truth trailer

MOVIE TALK: Angels & Demons

Chad — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:04:41 GMT

Hey, guys--

So sorry I've been awol for several days... we upgraded our software, and due to some unforeseen technical glitches, I haven't been able to post!

But I'm glad to be back, and wanted to take today to talk a bit about Angels & Demons, Imagine and Ron Howard's sequel to The Da Vinci Code which opens tonight.

The movie picks up a couple years after The Da Vinci Code (unlike Dan Brown’s book, this movie is a Da Vinci sequel, not a prequel), and follows symbologist Robert Langdon as he races to unlock another Vatican-centric puzzle. This mystery takes place almost entirely in Rome, and Langdon has six hours to track down four kidnapped cardinals and stop a terrorist from blowing up Vatican City with an antimatter bomb. Like its predecessor, he must find the priests by find the hostages and their captors by solving ancient religious codes, symbols, and hidden texts. (I’m guessing we’ve all read The Da Vinci Code or know how it works…)

Well, I hated the first Da Vinci Code movie. And this made me miss it.

There are a million things wrong with this particular movie, but there was one thing in particular that it made me think about, especially from when it comes to screenwriting…

I HATE IT WHEN WRITERS DON’T THINK ABOUT THEIR STORIES FROM THE BAD GUYS’ PERSPECTIVE.

I find this happens most with mysteries and thrillers (probably because they’re so logic-based and procedural), and here’s what I mean…

Writers devise an intriguing, complicated mystery for their protagonist to solve. The clues all lead to one another. The puzzles engage the audience and make them think. It all makes sense… except for: the antagonist who perpetrates the whole thing has no logical reason to set the mystery in motion.

In other words, the mystery exists solely because the writer wanted to create fun puzzles for the hero to solve, not because those puzzles stem from the bad guy’s relatable human behavior.

This happens in Angels & Demons in two disturbing ways… (and before you read on: I will try not to give away anything major that happens in the movie, but if you’re dying to see it and don’t want anything revealed or hinted at—DON’T READ THIS)…

1) The antagonists, who are either the ancient Illuminati (an omnipotent secret organization of anti-Catholic scientists and scholars) or someone framing the Illuminati, are threatening to blow up Rome so they can either make a power grab for the Papacy… or discredit it. Either way, they lead Langdon and the police through an obstacle course of ancient codes and puzzles, trying to kill them every step of the way.

BUT WHY??? Looking at this from the bad guys’ perspective, there’s almost no rational motivation for them to do any of this! Let’s look at this from each perspective…

First, say the bad guys have gone to all this trouble simply to frame the Illuminati. Surely, there’s an easier way to destroy the Vatican than by constructing a mind-boggling mystery singling out an ancient organization.

I mean, why bring any attention to yourselves at all? Wouldn’t it be easier to leave as few clues as possible? Just kidnap the priests and blow up the Vatican. What’s the point of creating a giant red herring? And second of all, what if it fails? What if Langdon and the detectives never crack your clues and realize you’re framing the Illuminati? (Which very well could’ve happened) Then you’ve gone to all the trouble for nothing, and the group you were trying to frame never gets framed.

Not to mention… if the antagonists went to all the pains to construct this nearly-impossible obstacle course—why are they trying to kill Langdon and the cops as they try to solve it? If they don’t want the cops to solve it… DON’T CREATE IT TO BEGIN WITH! And if they DO want the cops to solve it, in order to frame the Illuminati, WHY ARE THEY KILLING THEM OFF?

Now, let’s say the Illuminati are real, and they’re actually trying to destroy the Catholic Church. This is an ancient underground society of thinkers and researchers who “worship” only science and fact. So, A) Wouldn’t they be smarter than to leave an intentional trail of clues? And B) They’re scientists and thinkers living in 2009, not 1609. Why aren’t they using computers, technology, email? They’re scientific geniuses trying to commit a crime… the LAST thing they would do is concoct some bizarre, solve-able sideshow indulging in religious symbols and rituals.

So those are the first reasons the story makes little sense from the bad guys’ perspective, and secondly…

2) Robert Langdon, world-renowned symbologist, solves this mystery in about five hours. FIVE HOURS. And we’re to believe that while it takes Langdon only FIVE HOURS to unravel half the ancient secrets of the Catholic Church…

A) No one else has been able to do this in hundreds of years,
B) These puzzles are so mind-rattling no other detective in Europe could figure them out, and
C) The criminals themselves were able to solve all these mysteries FIRST in order to “reconstruct” them for their wild goose chase.

Sorry, Dan Brown, David Koepp, and Akiva Goldsman—I just don’t buy it. I do thank you, however, because you guys have reminded me of one of the important rules of storytelling…

THE BAD GUYS HAVE TO BE AS UNDERSTANDABLE AND RELATABLE AS THE GOOD GUYS.

Bad guys can’t do things simply because they’re “evil” and the writer wants to give the hero a nice challenge. Bad guys have to do things because they’re people… with rational human behaviors and motivations… not merely puppets of someone telling a tale.

So next time you’re outlining your next blockbuster thriller, and you’re choreographing the bad guys’ moves, ask yourself: Do these moves genuinely help the antagonist achieve his/her goal… and how? Is this what you would do if you were performing this crime… and why or why not? Is there an easier way to accomplish what the villain is trying to accomplish? Is this the best way to achieve their goal?

And now, folks, to either entice or frustrate you, here’s the trailer for Angels & Demons…

A book recommendation... and a response to Dixon

Chad — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:22:58 GMT

Hey, guys--

Wanted to take a second today to give you a great book recommendation. Now, granted, I'm biased for a several reasons, but I'd urge you to check out Writer's Digest's new book, The 2009 Screenwriter's and Playwright's Market. Like TCG's Dramatists Sourcebook, it lists opportunities to which writers can submit scripts: agents, contests, theaters, production companies, conferences, etc. But the most fun part is the collection of articles and essays that come beforehand... which-- in the spirit of full disclosure-- includes my own contribution, an article called "Writing the TV Pilot," which was edited from this blog. But the other pieces are great, too... TV vet Ellen Sandler has a good piece on writing TV specs, and there's a terrific interview with my friend Rich Hatem, who wrote ABC's Miracles and The Mothman Prophecy (you can practically feel Rich's passion for writing oozing off the page-- it's great reading!).

I wouldn't say the Screenwriter's & Playwright's Market is the most comprehensive book of it's kind (and after all, it's covering both screenwriting AND playwriting, two very different mediums and businesses), but it's one of the only books that combines outlets and advice for both, making it a unique resource. Also, by having articles about theater, film, and TV all right next to each other, you start to see how they work differently and similarly, both as artforms and industries, which is interesting and valuable.

I'll put a link at the bottom of this post if you wanna order a copy from Amazon.

Also-- a quick note to loyal reader Dixon Steele, who had responded to my review of "The International." (And please feel free to disagree with me, respond back, etc.-- one of my goals this year is to get more interactive with all you guys and generate some good discussion on here!)

Anyway... I had commented that Salinger, "The International's" main character (played by Clive Owen), never seemed to have much of a personal stake in solving the movie's mystery. To which Dixon replied: "In his previous attempt at exposing the bank, it's revealed that Salinger's source was murdered along with his wife and child. This caused Salinger's 'breakdown,' which is brought up by another character (referring to his 'history'), and discussed in more detail by Owen and Naomi Watts' character. Owen's anguish was obvious and it was clear, at least to me, this was what was a motiovating force in driving him to bring the bank down."

So I wanted to say two things...

1) Dixon-- you're totally right! I had forgotten that point, but you're correct... it does mention that Salinger's wife and kid were murdered, although I don't think we ever get much detail. And yes-- this SHOULD serve as the character's motivating force throughout the movie. But that's also the problem...

2) Even though the information is planted in the movie, it's done so in such a quick, non-dramatic way that A) I didn't even remember it, and B) it never feels like it truly IS Salinger's driving force. We never see him looking longingly at pictures of his lost family. He never visits their graves. He's never haunted by their memories. We are told-- briefly, verbally, and "academically"-- that his family was killed over this case... but-- at least for me-- we, the audience, never feel the whole emotional weight of this loss.

In other words, I think you are doing a better job explaining Salinger's emotional motivation than the movie ever does. And maybe this is because you happened to pick up on a fleeting piece of information which I missed, but that's also a fault of the movie.

Emotionally, this movie "should" have been about a widower attempting to come to terms with his family's murders... and the only way for him to do that is to avenge their deaths by destroying their killer, the big bad bank. But I don't think the script delivers those emotional goods. It may touch on them briefly, but certainly not enough to make Salinger's agonizing sense of loss resonate through the story.

If his dead family is Salinger's driving force, it should permeate EVERYTHING he does. When a bad guy slips away, it should fee like he's lost his wife again. When he screws up a lead, we should feel the pain of him letting down his family. I mean, if the loss of Salinger's family is his emotional engine, there should AT LEAST be a moment, at the end of the story, when we see some emotional resolution-- maybe we see him at peace at his wife's grave... or ask a new woman on a date... or put away a memento he's been clinging to... SOMETHING to let us know this movie's EMOTIONAL STORY has had some conclusion. But nothing like that happens. We're told ACADEMICALLY, but we're not told DRAMATICALLY.

(And I'm also not suggesting that every movie beat should be blatant and spoon-fed to the audience, but come on-- this is an action thriller with big set pieces and a massive shoot-out... it's not claiming to be an introspective character drama.)

Anyway, just wanted to respond to you, Dixon... because I thought you made some great points that were dead-on... and also, for me, re-illuminated some of the film's weakness.

My advice?... Pick up a copy of the The 2009 Screenwriter's and Playwright's Market and write a script that kicks "The International's" ass!...

MOVIE TALK: The International

Chad — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:01:13 GMT

“The International,” which opens tomorrow, February 13, is first-time screenwriter Eric Singer and director Tom Tykwer’s solid and passable—if never genuinely extraordinary—political/corporate thriller. As a script, it deftly follows the steps of your best TV procedural… yet it never fully makes a genuine emotional impact (except for one incredible scene).

Basically, “The International” tells the story of Louis Salinger (Clive Owen), an Interpol agent who has spent the last several years trying to bring down the IBBC, a powerful international bank engaged in illegal arms dealing. (Singer says the idea for the movie was inspired by the real-life arms-trafficking scandal of Pakistan’s Bank of Credit and Commercial International.)

The movie opens as Salinger’s partner is assassinated after meeting a secret witness who could destroy the bank. Determined to avenge his friend’s death, Salinger teams up with Manhattan District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), and the two form a kind of globe-trotting CSI team. They bounce from New York to Italy to the Middle East, following a trail of clues, suspects, and dead bodies they hope will blow open the conspiracy and help them arrest IBBC head Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen).

I won’t tell you what clues, or detective skills, Whitman and Salinger use to follow the trail… because, frankly, it doesn’t matter. If you’ve ever seen Law & Order, you know how it works. In fact, while the movie’s first two thirds globetrot to fun places, they rarely play much bigger (dramatically speaking) than any episode of CSI or Criminal Minds… which isn’t so much a criticism as s simple observation. (I literally found myself wondering, “Um… why would anyone make, or pay to see, this movie? Can’t we watch the exact same thing at home, for free, every Thursday night?”)

And then comes the answer, late in the movie (structurally speaking, just before the second act), when the movie explodes from mere mystery/procedural to HOLY-SHIT-THAT-WAS-ONE-OF-THE-CRAZIEST-SHOOT-EM-UP-SCENES-I-HAVE-EVER-SEEN.

Salinger, along with a couple of Whitman’s New York colleagues, have tailed “the Consultant,” the IBBC’s chief assassin (played by Brian F. O’Byrne), to New York’s Guggenheim Museum, where Salinger attempts to arrest him at gunpoint. “They’ll never let you take me in,” says the Consultant. And he’s right… because before Salinger can get out his handcuffs, a team of machine-gun-toting hit men swarm through the museum, kicking off the movie’s main set piece… a massive gun battle on Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling white ramps.

Here’s all I have to say about the gun battle: IT IS JAW-DROPPING.

First of all, it’s spectacular to look at. The shots of the Guggenheim (which was recreated in almost perfect detail solely for this scene) are gorgeous, but the gunmen also SHOOT THE FUCK OUT OF THE MUSEUM… which is awesome to watch.

Second of all, it’s ridiculous… in a totally elegant, cinematic way. For instance, one of my pet peeves in movies is this: when trained shooters are in a gunfight—especially with an untrained everyman (like Salinger), and THEY STILL CAN’T HIT THE UNTRAINED GUY. It’s a double pet peeve when the untrained everyman, while NOT getting hit by trained shooters, is somehow able to squeeze off enough lucky shots to KILL THE TRAINED ASSASSINS ON HIS TAIL. And it’s a TRIPLE pet peeve when all these gunmen are practically running around in the open, with almost nothing to hide behind, and THEY STILL CAN’T SHOOT EACH OTHER.

Well, suffice it to say: ALL of this happens in the Guggenheim shootout… to a ludicrous extreme… AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER, because the whole thing is so wonderfully noisy and messy and violent and stunning that you’re willing to suspend all disbelief just to ogle it. In fact, when the movie’s over, this is probably the only part you’ll really remember. It’s like they shot the scene first, then built the rest of the movie around it.

After this, the movie wraps itself up with a sudden deus ex machina, followed by some confusing plan to take down Skarssen and an anti-climactic rooftop chase which looks like an outtake from “The Bourne Ultimatum.” To be honest, after the shootout in the Guggenheim, it’s hard to watch the movie’s quiet thirty-minute resolution.

So, what does a screenwriter take away from “The International?” Well, there are many things right and many things wrong… but I want to discuss two salient points in particular…

1) THE MAIN CHARACTER, SALINGER, HAS ALMOST NO PERSONAL STAKES. This is one of the biggest flaws of the movie… and, frankly, a dangerous pitfall for many procedurals, whether they’re movies or TV shows.

Yes, Salinger is an obsessed, determined man, but—until late in the movie when the IBBC puts a hit on him—Salinger could walk away from the mystery at any time and nothing would happen. There would be no real consequences. Sure, his partner is murdered in the first scene… but this moment is given very little emotional value. We know almost nothing about their relationship (were they best friends?... student/mentor?... old college roommates?... in love with the same woman?), so it’s tough to assign the murder any genuine emotional weight.

In fact, the partner’s murder never really weighs that heavily on Salinger. There’s one moment, early on, when he mistakenly thinks he might have been poisoned… but beyond that, his life never seems to be in any real danger (until late in the story). As a result, it’s very hard to care whether or not this character closes the case… aside from the enjoyment of just trying to solve the puzzle. (…Which, granted, can be a fun exercise… but I think true storytelling comes from investing emotionally in characters and relationships.)

So lesson #1: just because you’re writing a hard procedural doesn’t mean you don’t have to make your audience care deeply and personally about your main character.

2) NO DEUS EX MACHINA ALLOWED! (Spoiler alert: I am about to ruin a major plot twist in the movie)

I alluded to this above, but the second act break comes when one of the film’s main bad guys—elderly Wilhelm Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the bank’s “recon guru” who gathers secret intel on prospective clients, enemies, etc.—suddenly, for no apparent reason, turns himself over to Salinger, reveals the entire IBBC conspiracy, and offers to help take down Skarssen and the evil bank!

Now, this movie—like many espionage thrillers—exists in a world of double-crossing and backstabbing, but not only is this reversal totally ungrounded in the story’s preceding events… it renders all Whitman and Salinger’s sleuthing totally irrelevant!

In other words, it’s not Salinger and Whitman’s detective work that leads them to the mystery’s solution… it’s the whim of a man who’s suddenly behaving totally out of character! (The story tries to justify it by explaining, in a later scene, that as a young man Wexler was an avowed Communist, but he somehow got swept up in the IBBC’s wealth and power and forgot his Communist ideals… until now, when he’s had a sudden change of heart. Uh… okay. Whatever.)

I supposed you could argue that if Salinger hadn’t been so persistent in digging up IBBC dirt, Wexler may not have decided to flip, but the truth is… the entire “procedure” of the procedural, the process of following clues toward the mystery’s answer, has nothing to do with the film’s ultimate resolution. (I like to call this “Ocean’s 12 Syndrome.”) Had the entire movie NOT happened, Wexler STILL may have turned himself in. Or not. The point is: the key to the mystery is given to Salinger independent of his own actions.

This is simply lazy storytelling… especially when it wouldn’t have been hard to make the dots connect. (How difficult would it have been to have had Salinger learn something important about Wexler’s past and use it against him? Or give Wexler a son/daughter who gets killed thanks to Skarssen’s scheming… and now Wexler wants revenge? Or let Wexler learn Skarssen, for some reason, now wants him killed… and he must turn to Salinger in order to survive?)

So lesson #2: no dues ex machina! Every narrative dot MUST connect, especially in a mystery or procedural, where each bit of logic must be flawless and easy to follow!

Despite its flaws, “The International” is still a worthwhile movie… especially because of the incredible Guggenheim gun battle, which is worth the price of admission. If it weren’t for that, I’d say this movie is a good rental… but I can’t imagine that gunfight will ever be as beautiful at home as it is on the big screen.

The International Trailer

Coraline - A Follow-Up!

Chad — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:56:14 GMT

Hey, guys—

Thanks to everyone who posted comments or emailed me after last week’s review of “Coraline.” I always love getting feedback… and I REALLY love generating heated debate, and I have to be honest—I NEVER thought my criticism of “Coraline” would stir up as much controversy as it did! I’ll also say… I was SHOCKED that “Coraline” made as much money as it did (as of its Friday opening, it’s made an impressive $19,000,000 worldwide). The film clearly struck a chord with lots of people that it just DIDN’T with me.

Having said that, I stand by the review: I just don’t think it’s that great of a movie. And I also think it’s the kind of “non-mainstream” movie that compels people to overlook its faults and adore its strengths. I’m all for giving a movie “extra credit” for noble intentions, but noble intentions don’t outweigh successful execution. And while “Coraline” strives hard to be different… and even succeeds to a certain extent… I still think its story is remarkably flawed (for all the reasons I mentioned in the review, which I won’t go into here). And there is usually NOTHING more important than story. A movie can have dazzling visuals, mind-blowing set pieces, and complex characters… but if the story isn’t working, the rest is almost irrelevant. This has been true all the way back to Aristotle’s Poetics, and it’s true now… and, for me, “Coraline” is a perfect example of a piece that may have great spectacle, interesting characters, and compelling themes (personally, I don’t think it does, but that’s not the point)… yet it lacks the solid story to support it all.

And J. Bennett—you’re right… I did like “Paul Blart.” I certainly don’t think it’s a cinematic masterpiece… and it’s as cookie-cutter as movies come… but it WORKED. It played notes we’ve all seen a billion times, but it played them well… and sometimes [often times, even] painting by numbers successfully is more engaging and enjoyable than failing at something intending to be different. Like I said, I support noble intentions… but the nobility of intent doesn’t outweigh execution. And what “Paul Blart” may have lacked in originality, it made up for in sheer methodology. It may not have been fine art, but there IS an art to following storytelling “rules” faithfully enough to make a genuine, widespread hit… and I’m not sure that particular “art” is any less impressive or commendable than making something small, alternative, or esoteric.

Anyway, thanks again for all your notes and comments… and KEEP ‘EM COMING (I also have thick skin and love a good debate)!

Coming up this week and beyond: a review of “The International”… the kick-off of Script Notes’ first-ever writing contest… Pitch Workshop submissions… and reader questions from Russell, E. Daniels, Jessica, Dasha, and more!

Chad

MOVIE TALK: Coraline

Chad — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:11:30 GMT

Coraline, which opens this Friday (February 6), is the kind of movie critics love to praise. They’ll use words like “quirky” and “whimsical”… they’ll congratulate it on being a kids’ movie that dares to be “dark”… they’ll laud it for using old-fashioned stop-motion animation. And in their rush to appear smart or hip or highbrow or whatever they feel their praise makes them, they’ll overlook one small thing…

Coraline is underwhelming on almost all fronts: visually, narratively, emotionally. Perhaps most importantly—it’s just not that much FUN.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Coraline is famed stop-motion director Henry Selick’s (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monkeybone) movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel (props to HalibetLector for catching my error-- it's not a graphic novel, as I'd originally said-- sorry!)… and the world’s first full-length 3D stop-motion animated feature.

The story follows Coraline Jones (voiced by Dakota Fanning), an 11-year-old girl who has just moved with her parents to an old Victorian country house—known as the “Pink Palace”—in remote Oregon. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Jones (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) are busy writing a book on botany and have little time or energy for their curious daughter, so Coraline takes it upon herself to explore her new world. One day, while out dowsing for water, Coraline runs into Wybie (Robert Bailey, Jr.), an odd, slightly misshapen neighbor boy who lives with his grandmother (who, as a girl, lived in the Pink Palace). Wybie and Coraline strike up a friendship, and Wybie gives Coraline a mysterious doll that he stole from his grandmother’s house… and happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to Coraline herself!

As soon as the doll, “Little Me,” enters the Pink Palace, strange things begin to happen. Although Coraline never catches it in action, the doll seems to move by itself… and soon leads her to a secret crawlspace hidden in the walls, a passage to an alternate reality.

At first, this alternate universe looks almost exactly like Coraline’s actual reality. Her house looks the same, her garden looks the same… she even meets “Other Mother” and “Other Father,” who look just like her real parents (except for one unnerving difference—everyone in the new universe has buttons in place of their eyes). But Coraline soon discovers the supernatural wonders of this other world. Other Mother and Other Father are much more affectionate and loving than her real parents; they shower Coraline with attention, make her amazingly delicious meals, play games with her, and let her play in their magical garden of glowing plants, giant mechanical insects, and tickling flowers.

Over the next few days, Coraline is drawn back repeatedly to her alternate universe, which is a welcome respite from her drab, lonely existence at home. Where her real parents ignore and dismiss her, her Other Parents adore and celebrate her. Where her real world consists of subdued browns, grays, and dull blues, the Other World is vibrant and colorful.

Of course, not all is as it seems in Coraline’s other reality. As she soon discovers, Other Mother is actually an evil, spider-like monster who has simply created this fantastical world in order to trap Coraline… just as she’s trapped several earlier inhabitants of the Pink Palace (including Wybie’s great-aunt), keeping their ghosts locked in limbo. And when Other Mother kidnaps Coraline’s parents, Coraline sets out to rescue them… and destroy Other Mother forever.

Unfortunately, while Coraline has all the makings of an adorable Alice-in-Wonderland-esque adventure, it falls short on almost every level. It’s not a “bad” movie, at all… it’s just a continual disappointment.

First of all: the animation. While I know critics will gush about something that’s actually “animated,” using old-school techniques and not CGI, in a world where we’ve already loved The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride, Coraline offers almost nothing new.

Secondly, its “3D-ness” is totally wasted. Much of the film, especially the portions in the normal world, have no visual elements that would make them interesting in 3-D… and when the movie DOES have segments that could look great in 3D, it fails to use it! Sure… these segments—like the madcap routines in the house of Mr. Bobinsky, an old circus acrobat, or Coraline’s final battle against Other Mother—have a bit extra depth, but depth isn’t what makes 3D fun… it’s seeing things pop off the screen, explode toward the audience, surround us and suck us into the world of the film. There are numerous times when Selick could’ve used his three dimensions to shatter that fourth wall, and he almost always chooses not to. In other words, Selick’s three dimensions remain as distant and separate from us as any regular movie.

Looking at Coraline from a screenwriting perspective, it has three weaknesses that keep it from being a truly satisfying emotional experience…

1) WHO THE HELL IS CORALINE? We never truly get to know the main character… what she wants, what she loves, what she fears, what she longs for, how she sees the world. The press materials describe her as “feisty, curious, and adventurous beyond her years,” but I’m not sure this is ever illustrated in the movie. I mean, Coraline does things… she delivers mail to her neighbors, dowses for water, explores her house… but it’s all done with a certain resigned sense of boredom. She seems to be doing things not because she lusts for life or is excited by people and things she discovers, but because her parents won’t have anything to do with her.

Similarly, we know almost nothing of Coraline’s old life. She keeps a photo of her old friends at her bedside, but we know little about those relationships. What did she and her old friends do together? Why are these friends so important? Why does she miss them? (Obviously, we all miss our old friends when we move, but HOW does Coraline miss her friends? Why these kids more than anyone else? What made them so special?) How did Coraline's old life fulfill her in ways this new life doesn’t? What parts of Coraline are now dying or missing? How would her life be different—both better and worse—if she were back in Michigan?

Coraline is ultimately a paper-thin character… and in a movie which—like The Wizard of Oz—is about an adventure that takes place mostly in her own imagination and psychology—there are few things more important than our understanding clearly who this main character is. She doesn’t need to be “complex,” per se, but she does need to be full-bodied and easily understandable… yet Coraline never pops.

2) CORALINE IS RARELY PROACTIVE. This stems directly from the first point. Because we—and, I think, the storytellers—never have a solid grasp of whom Coraline is at her core, she never has a single, driving WANT that forces her to take action. Thus, she’s RE-active for most of the story, simply responding to events and people around her. This doesn’t mean she doesn’t do anything; but it does mean she doesn’t drive the story. Rather, she bounces through it, propelled by other forces, and simply watches and wonders at things going around her.

Had Gaiman and Selick given Coraline a want—say, Coraline WANTS to go home to her Michigan life, or Coraline WANTS to make Wybie come play with her, or Coraline WANTS to convince her parents to let her help with their botany book—Coraline would have been forced to take actions that would drive the story, and all these incidents and side-roads would feel like obstacles or stepping stones on a forward-moving narrative path.

Unfortunately, even when scenes and characters are interesting—like the Other World’s magical garden, Mr. Bobinsky’s bizarre circus apartment, or the neighboring Vaudeville divas (Miss Spink and Miss Forcible)—they feel like uninspired tangents, diversions that are stalling any real story momentum.

I’m guessing, if Neil Gaiman or Henry Selick were here, they’d say that Coraline wants something like “validation from her parents,” or “a sense of belonging,” or “to explore her world,” or “acceptance.” And all of these are fine “emotional” wants—I think it’s necessary to have “emotional” wants… but it’s just as important—and maybe more important—to have TANGIBLE wants that can be physically accomplished.

(In Almost Famous, for example, William Miller wants to be considered and taken seriously as an adult [this is his emotional want]… but he has a physical want that is simple and tangible: TO PUBLISH AN ARTICLE IN ROLLING STONE magazine. If he can do this, he believes, he will be accepted and viewed as an adult. Thus, everything that happens is either a help or a hindrance to both his emotional and his “tangible” journey.)

(Also, to be fair-- Coraline does finally get a "want" late in the movie, when she must return to the Other World to rescue her trapped parents. This is the first time she genuinely takes action to achieve a goal... and the last third of the movie, once Coraline has this mission, feels like a much more solid, controlled story. It's also fun to watch the film's many disparate elements, like Coraline's oddball neighbors, come together in some creative ways during this final battle. Unfortunately, the film's sudden new sense of direction comes a bit too late to make up for its meandering first two thirds.)

3) CORALINE LACKS A SATISFYING ARC. At the end of the movie, after Coraline saves her parents from Other Mother’s evil alternate reality, Coraline realizes to appreciate what she has (or, as the movie's billboards all over town say: “Be careful what you wish for”). And sure—this is, in theory, a decent arc for her character. Here’s the only problem…

SHE DOESN’T SEEM TO SEE HER WORLD ANY DIFFERENTLY!

Coraline's parents still dismiss her. The “real” world is still nothing but grays and browns.

So Coraline hasn’t learned to see things in a new way, she’s just learned to appreciate the disappointing humdrum of her own reality! In other words, the movie seems to say, “the real world may suck, but at least it’s better than the dangerous, shitty OTHER world!”

…Which, again—in theory, is a definite character arc… it’s just not a very FUN character arc. (Which I’m sure will prompt critics to praise the movie’s subtlety, its adult themes, etc. But the truth is: celebrating boredom is still… at least for me… boring.)

The most disappointing thing about Coraline is that it could’ve been so much better than it is. I’m a fan of both Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick… and with those two imaginations working together, the movie should be transcendent. It’s not. It is tragically—like Coraline’s world itself—just less than ordinary.

CORALINE TRAILER

MOVIE TALK: Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Chad — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:28:24 GMT

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop” (opening tomorrow night) is silly, stupid, juvenile, riddled with logic holes, and rarely hilarious… yet, somehow, surprisingly endearing.

Written by star Kevin James and “King of Queens” writer Nick Bakay, the family-friendly (especially if that family is mostly boys) story follows Paul Blart (James), an overweight, hypoglycemic police academy flunkie now working as a mall cop at a New Jersey shopping center. Blart’s life has turned out NOTHING like he’d hoped or expected; aside from failing to make the police force, his wife—an illegal immigrant—ditched him and their chubby tween daughter, Maya (Raini Rodriguez) as soon as she gained citizenship… he and Maya live with his mother… he has no real friends… his dating life is non-existent… and his entire life revolves around an almost obsessive determination to be a dutiful security guard “protecting the people” of his mall.

But all that changes one fateful day… when the mall is taken over by a team of skateboarding, bike-riding burglars intent on robbing the local bank and executing a massive credit card scam before escaping to the Cayman Islands. Unfortunately, Blart—who has succumbed to a brief moment of weakness and decided to play video games while on duty—isn’t around when the burglars evacuate the mall (he has locked himself in the video arcade), so he’s suddenly the only survivor free in the mall. Thus, it’s up to him to stop the bad guys and rescue the hostages… which include his crush, Amy (the ridiculously adorable Jayma Mays), and—eventually—his daughter Maya.

What follows is a predictable, paint-by-numbers spoof of ‘80’s action movies… mostly “Die Hard,” but with a bit of “Rambo,” “First Blood,” “Heathers,” and others thrown in for good measure. It also has a healthy dose of the robbers’ extreme sports stunts (why these guys are extreme sportsmen is beyond me… they literally skateboard and bike through the entire mall) and Kevin James’ chubby-guy schtick (watching James try to sneak through the mall like a commando, goofy fight scenes, etc.)… which, frankly, serves as a nice reminder that watching fat guys do physical comedy is—no matter how much you wanna resist or deny it—ALWAYS funny.

I’m not even going to lay out the rest of the plot, because—to be honest—it’s so paint-by-numbers that you can see the entire movie simply by closing your eyes.

But here’s the thing…

I found myself genuinely liking it.

As I said to my wife afterwards… “it’s not all that funny… and a lot of it is pretty stupid (i.e., a scene where James is trapped in an aluminum air-conditioning duct and the bad guys find him because his grumbling stomach echoes through the duct)… but everything about it is just so LIKEABLE.”

Basically, the movie “succeeds” on three main points:

POINT #1: You can’t help but like Kevin James and Jayma Mays. James is a great at earning sympathy points for being the schlubby nice guy who never gets a break. And Jayma Mays does “adorable” better than anyone out there. (Seriously. If you wrote a movie and just named a character “Adorable,” she would automatically get the role. They wouldn’t even audition anyone else.)

POINT #2 (and this is the biggie): While the script never takes itself too seriously, its treatment of the main character, Paul Blart, is earnest. The first third of the movie is spent setting up Paul Blart’s desperate wants… and the strong emotional drives behind them.

First, we see how badly this man wants to be a protector of citizens. The film opens with Blart racing to finish his final police academy exam… and he’s clearly the start student, acing every test, until—inches from the finish line—he passes out from hypoglycemia. We then see him in his fallback job as a security officer, where he takes his job so seriously he gives wheelchaired shoppers tickets for “reckless driving,” talks in police lingo over his walkie-talkie, and attempts to make citizens arrest on two women bickering over a bra in Victoria’s Secret. It’s silly, sure… but it does a great job of illustrating, in visual and dramatic ways, just how much this guy believes in himself and what he’s doing.

Secondly, we see how desperately Blart longs to find a new wife. His love for Maya and his mom is palpable… and he clearly has a lot more love to give, but no one to share it with. (He even bears no hard feelings to the ex-wife who used and left him.) Even Maya and his mother want him to find someone, making us hurt for him in a superbly relatable way.

(Also, James never mugs or lets his performance talk down to the audience, which is nice—and helps him win all those sympathy points. You genuinely feel for him.)

(Another “also” – at one point, there’s a line which I LOVE… not because it’s a brilliant or beautiful line, but because it “works” so perfectly. Blart’s daughter, Maya, reminds him that he once said to her: “If I don’t have a girlfriend by November, I’ll let you sign me up for PerfectMatch.com.” (This line reminds me of a similar line from “The Wedding Singer,” when Robbie—the Adam Sandler character—is giving music lessons to Rosie—an old woman—and she says, “If I can learn to sing this song perfectly for my anniversary, my husband will know how much I still love him.”

I love these lines because they perfectly set up everything their stories require to work. They give characters specific and tangible wants: Blart wants a girlfriend; Rosie wants to sing the song. They root these tangible wants in genuine emotional motivation: Blart wants to find love, Rosie wants to let her husband know how much she still cares. They lay out what these characters need to do in order accomplish those wants: begin dating, and learn to sing. They give characters’ wants real stakes: if he fails Blart will have to do sign up for an online dating service (which he clearly doesn’t want to do), and Rosie’s husband won’t know how much she cares. And lastly, they give the characters real deadlines: November, and Rosie’s anniversary.

So in each of these sentences, an entire story is set in motion. The stories may not be as weighty as, say, “Slumdog Millionaire” or “Revolutionary Road,” but so what? Simple sentences like these give us all the info we need to relate to and root for the characters.)

Ultimately, because the storytellers don’t mock or belittle Blart—even though he’s the movie’s comedic engine—he’s relatable enough that we care about and invest in his mission (or, at the very least, we understand and relate to it). And because we care, we're willing to forgive other missteps.

POINT #3: Any movie’s pretty good if the director shamelessly blasts old Survivor songs throughout… and it’s hard not to like something with “The Search is Over” cranked through a great sound system. (I think “High on You” was a bigger hit, but let’s be honest… “The Search is Over” just SAYS so much more.) And when the soundtrack is backed up with REO Speedwagon, Bon Jovi, and KISS… DONE. Hand this thing a “Best Picture” Oscar and let’s call it a day.

So… today’s takeaway screenwriting lesson is—what? I think, if anything, it’s that much of our battle as storytellers is simply getting audiences to care about and invest in our characters. If we can accomplish that successfully, they’ll stick with us through almost anything.

Having said that… “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” is certainly no cinematic masterpiece. And between my wife and most of the critics out there (Rotten Tomatoes is giving it a sad 30% rating right now), I’m clearly in the minority. Oh well. It’s still got Jayma Mays, and maybe that’s enough for me.

PAUL BLART: MALL COP TRAILER

SURVIVOR'S "THE SEARCH IS OVER" VIDEO

MOVIE TALK: The Unborn

Chad — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:29:14 GMT

Writer/director David S. Goyer’s “The Unborn,” which opens today, is a perfect movie to review—especially from a writing perspective—because it’s a shining example of exactly how NOT to write a horror movie… or any movie in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genre.

“The Unborn” tells the story of Casey (Odette Yustman), a twenty-something college student who finds herself haunted by a mysterious demon… and must uncover the ancient family secrets that have led to her haunting. (WARNING: I won’t give away the very end of the film, but as you read on, know that I’m about to give away the major twists and turns of the movie.)

The film wastes no time jumping right into the horror, opening on Casey—out for a winter jog—as she finds a lost mitten in the park. She stops to pick it up, noticing a spooky-looking kid standing behind her. When she looks again, the boy has turned into a dog wearing a mask. The dog leads Casey into the woods, where she finds its abandoned mask nestled in some leaves. She tries to pull it free, but it’s connected to something buried in the soil. She begins to dig… only to discover that the “something” is a jar—containing a preserved human fetus! Suddenly, Casey awakes in her own bed—the whole thing was a dream.

From this moment on, almost every scene plays out the same way… Casey spots something bizarre and visually arresting, goes to investigate, and winds up—along with the audience—getting startled by a devil-child, a grotesque monster, or something equally weird.

In the second scene, Casey is on a babysitting job when she hears strange noises in the bedroom. Upon peeking inside, she finds the little boy (her babysitting charge, not the freaky kid from the park) trying to get his infant sister to stare into a handheld mirror. When she approaches to ask what he’s doing, the kid whirls—smashing Casey across the face with his mirror! Later that night, as she heads home, she discovers another mitten lying in the snow.

In the third scene, the next morning, Casey wakes up and decides to make eggs for breakfast. But when she cracks an egg into the pan, out falls a giant buzzing ant!

Obviously, Casey is quite unsettled by these events. She tries talking to her best friend Romy (Meagan Good), her boyfriend Mark (Cam Gigandet), and her dad (James Remar), but no one believes her. Casey has nowhere to turn… until her doctor notices her off-color irises and mentions he usually only sees it in twins. Piqued, she asks her father if she ever had a twin… and he says she did: a brother who died in utero.

Casey is shocked and devastated by this news… not only that she had a twin who died in the womb, but that her parents never told her. Casey retreats to her attic, where she sorts through boxes of photos and relics from her past and childhood. We learn that her mother passed away years ago (later, we’ll learn she committed suicide in an insane asylum)… but she left Casey some unusual items—including a newspaper article about an old woman who lives in a nearby hospital.

It turns out the woman is Casey’s long-lost grandmother, Sofi (Jane Alexander), who informs Casey she’s being haunted by a dibbuk. According to Jewish lore, a dibbuk is a spirit caught between this world and the next; it’s trying to get back into this world, but in order to do that, it must possess a body. And it wants Casey’s. (By the way, Casey is way less traumatized by discovering a secret grandmother than learning she had a fraternal brother who died in the womb. Uh… SERIOUSLY? I’ve never been told I had a sibling in utero, but I don’t think I’d be that rocked by it. I mean, who cares? At the very least, I certainly wouldn’t be more blown away by that than the discovery of my LONG-LOST GRANDMA.)

So why does this evil dibbuk want Casey? Because almost eighty years ago, young Sofi and her fraternal twin brother were captured by Nazis and taken to Auschwitz, where Nazi doctors—who believed twins, because of their shared DNA, had occult powers and were doorways to the “other side”—subjected them to deranged experiments. Unfortunately, Sofi's brother died… but then came back to life, possessed by an evil dibbuk! There was only one thing Sofi could do: KILL HER ALREADY-DEAD BROTHER. (This brother, she explains, is the ghost-child Casey has been seeing.)

Ever since, the dibbuk has wanted revenge on Sofi and her descendants. The dibbuk killed Casey’s unborn fraternal twin brother. It drove her grief-stricken mother to suicide. And it now wants to kill Casey… unless she can find a rabbi to exorcise it before it possesses her. And now, Sofi tells Casey, “it has fallen on you to finish what began in Auschwitz.” (By the way, this uber-earnest line got a huge laugh in the theater.)

As Casey races to stop the dibbuk, it tries everything in its power to destroy her. It re-possesses the little boy (the babysitting kid) and stabs Romy to death. It possesses Father Arthur Wyndham (Idris Elba), a priest, and Mark… and snaps in half most of the people helping with Casey’s exorcism. And it terrifies Casey with scary images, dreams, and hallucinations (mostly involving warped baby faces, dogs, or giant ants).

So… I bet you’re already asking the maddening questions this movie doesn’t answer. I’ll list them here, but know this: none of these are the movie’s biggest flaw… so bear with me…

• If the dibbuk wants to possess Casey so it can return to this world, why does it also want to kill her? (At different times, it tries both… it’ll try to possess her… then kill her… then possess her… then kill her…) We never know what this demon actually wants—or why—so we’re never quite sure what the real threat is.

• What are the stakes of Casey being possessed? Obviously, no one wants to be possessed, but we’re never told what possession “means” in the world of this story. In fact, we never—until late in the movie—see the dibbuk do anything but give Casey creepy hallucinations, so we’re never sure of the real consequences of tangling with this demon.

• The movie posits that twins, thanks to their shared DNA, qualify as “mirrors,” making them doorways to the “other side.” But Casey and her unborn brother were FRATERNAL twins—they shared no more DNA than any other non-twin brother and sister! So how do they qualify for “mirror” status like identical twins which come from the same egg?! (And the same goes for Grandma Sophie and her brother!)

• If this demon wants revenge on Sofi and/or her descendants, why didn’t it just kill Sophie long ago? (And the rest of her family for that matter?)

• If the dibbuk wants to kill Sofi and it can snap people in half, why doesn’t it just snap her in two or throw her off a building? Why does it do nothing to her but show her scary pictures? (Sofi, at one point, says the dibbuk wants to wear Casey down, make her weak, so first destroys people close to her. Yet not only does this seem inefficient on the part of the demon, Sophie also says the demon can’t be reasoned with. But a demon with this thought-out of a strategy—even an inefficient strategy—seems pretty capable of reason to me.) (Also, why does the demon possess a little boy and then stab Romy to death? This also seems inefficient, considering the demon already has the power to SNAP PEOPLE IN HALF.)

• If the dibbuk wants to POSSESS Casey (instead of kill her), why doesn’t it just possess her? It already possesses everyone else… the little neighbor boy, Father Wyndham, an old man in the hospital, Mark… why not Casey? Sofi implies that Casey must be “worn down,” like she’s somehow too “strong” to be possessed, but we see no evidence of this. In fact, a twenty-something girl seems a lot easier to possess than strapping, basketball-playing Father Wyndham or Casey’s cool boyfriend Mark.

• What do the giant ants have to do with anything?

But like I said, none of these are the movie’s fatal flaw. In fact, all of these glaring flaws may have seemed a lot less glaring if the movie hadn’t failed to do one all-important thing. And that is…

“THE UNBORN” ISN’T “ABOUT” ANYTHING.

In other words…

Sci-fi, fantasy, and horror stories work because they’re allegories for universal human experiences. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” tells the story of a teenage girl who kills monsters… but it’s really about the cruel tortures of high school, adolescence, and growing up. “Cloverfield” is about the lengths to which we’ll go to be with our true love… even if the obstacles keeping us apart are as great as a prehistoric monster. “The Exorcist” is an adult’s perspective on a kid growing up, losing her innocence, morphing from a sweet child into something sullied, ugly, dangerous. “Cujo” is about feeling trapped and cornered by events or behaviors out of your control… and being unable to protect your loved ones from those behaviors (Stephen King would say those events and behaviors were his own alcoholism).

(One of my favorite “Buffy” episodes to cite is “Ted,” guest starring John Ritter, in which Buffy’s single mom begins dating again. Her first suitor is Ted… whom Buffy hates. Buffy’s mom begs her to give Ted a chance, but Buffy doesn’t trust him… and she soon discovers why: Ted is a deadly robot. It may sound silly, but the point is: it doesn’t matter whether you hate your mom’s boyfriend because he’s an evil machine or you just don’t want your mom giving her love to someone new… when you’re sixteen, the feelings and behaviors are the same.)

Yet “The Unborn” has no allegory. We never learn anything else about Casey, her life, or what she may be going through outside of this frightening adventure.

If we were to learn, for example, that Casey’s mother had died only months earlier… and Casey hasn’t been able to move on… the movie might be about the past’s ability to haunt and control us.

If we learned up front that Mark wanted to get married and have a baby… but Casey was terrified of marriage and parenthood… the movie’s events would feel like a manifestation of Casey’s fears, of her apprehension about growing up and becoming a mom.

If we learned that Casey’s brother had died when she was five-years-old… and he died because she left him alone… the movie would be about how buried guilt chases and consumes us.

But since we learn nothing—literally NOTHING—about Casey’s life outside the film’s sequence of events, there’s no way to give them any emotional context. They may be visually shocking, but when they don’t strike us on an emotional level… when they’re nothing more than disturbing images… they become just that: a haphazard series of images that momentarily disturb, but quickly lose their power to do even that.

So what’s the lesson we can learn from “The Unborn?”… That no matter how enticed we, as writers, may be by the visions haunting us (and I think as horror fans we often have mental libraries of horrifying visions)… and no matter how much fun we may have weaving our library of visions into a seemingly logical story… horror stories don’t begin with scary images.

Horror stories begin on deep emotional levels… levels where our emotions are so dark and powerful we can’t deal with them head-on… levels so deep we must create metaphors and allegories simply to face the feelings that live there.

(I.e., it’s a lot harder to talk openly about the shame burdening us than it is to write a short story about a murderer, racked by guilt, who hears his victim’s heart beating beneath the floorboards. And it’s a lot more painful to discuss unresolved feelings of forbidden lust and longing than it is to write a novel about falling in love with a vampire.)

I don’t mean any of this in a dorky, college-English-teacher, “write-from-your-heart” kind of way.

I mean this in a very literal, practical, “write-from-your-heart” kind of way.

This is the essence of horror, folks (and by “folks,” I mean you, David Goyer)… you are writing about something so personal, so emotional, so profound and moving that it can’t be expressed in normal words or images. In fact, the only way for you to express it is to create a fantasy world where you can work with the events and feelings from a distance. If you ultimately don’t know what those feelings and events are (like in “The Unborn”)… or if you can express them in a more direct, straightforward way… then do yourself and your audience a favor: don’t tell us a horror story.

“THE UNBORN” TRAILER

MOVIE TALK: Quantum of Solace

Chad — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:15:17 GMT

If there’s one thing the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, is not… it’s a good screenwriting lesson.

This isn’t to say it’s not a lot of other things: a collection of (mostly) cool action sequences, a solid attempt to be a genuine sequel to Casino Royale, another stand-out performance from Daniel Craig.

But as far as being a comprehensible story… it falls short. Even moments after seeing the movie, I'm not sure I could've told you what it was about or what happened. Moments are memoriable, but a narrative context in which they make sense? Not so much. ...Which is sad, because I'm not a huge James Bond fan, yet I still think Daniel Craig ROCKS.

In fact, I had to go back and read a couple other reviews just to be able to write this quick synopsis:

The story opens where Casino Royale left off, with Bond and M interrogating Mr. White (Jesper Christenen), the villain they captured at the end of the last movie. Mr. White informs them that he’s part of a secret international conspiracy that does… SOMETHING (I’m still not sure what… just bad stuff, I guess). Before Bond and M have a chance to learn more, the MI6 guards in the room open fire, and we realize Mr. White’s organization is everywhere… including inside MI6.

Using clues found on marked bills, Bond traces Mr. White to an environmental organization called Greene Planet, run by the smarmy Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who—Bond later learns—is simply using Greene Planet to do something evil. Honestly, I’m still not sure what… but it has something to do with stealing water from poor Bolivians, then selling it back to their dictator, General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio), for ridiculous sums of money.

The events along the way are little more than loosely strung together set pieces… some of which look cool, but most of which do little to further the story. Or rather, if they do—it’s tough to tell how. The story has the illusion of momentum because Bond is DOING stuff—beating people up and killing bad guys—but it’s nearly impossible to track the story from plot point to plot point.

(I.e., at one point, Bond goes on a huge shoot-em-up-boat-chase to rescue Camille [Olga Kurylenko], a gorgeous young woman working for Greene Planet, from being murdered by Greene and Medrano. But after rescuing her, he simply drops her off at a hotel so she can run right back to Greene Planet! HUH? Why? Not only is Bond's motivation completely loopy [What motivation? Why'd he bother rescuing her? Why didn't he question her? Hold her hostage? SOMETHING?], but it renders what could've been a powerful boat chase completely impotent by robbing it of any narrative relevance! Because the scene is ultimately gratuitous, it's also ultimatly meainingless and forgettable.)

I do give the movie props for at least attempting to be a true “emotional” sequel to Casino Royale. The film genuinely tries to pick up the pieces left at the end of the last story: mainly, Bond’s broken heart, shattered by the betrayal and death of Vesper Lynd… and his desire to avenge the attempt on M’s life (Mr. White’s attempt at the beginning of this movie). Unfortunately, aside from a few moments, the story is so incomprehensible the movie never really delivers on its emotional promise.

Having said all this, most of the action sequences are fun to watch… even if the worst of them look a bit fake, and the best of them—like the opening rooftop chase and hand-to-hand fight scene—look like B-roll from The Bourne Ultimatum. (Now, granted—there’s no bigger Bourne Ultimatum fan than me… so I’m very sensitive to things that feel like Bourne ripoffs… and even a Bourne ripoff is more fun to watch than most of the other action scenes out there... and, to be fair, Quantum of Solace is edited by Bourne editor Richard Pearson.)

Ultimately, here’s what you have to realize: Quantum of Solace is not a screenplay. It’s a dance. Literally. A series of beautifully choreographed pieces… with only the thinnest of stories connecting them. But instead of that choreography being wonderful piques and turns and leaps, it’s gun battles, boat chases, and fisticuffs. When the movie is at it’s strongest, it’s when the action is so coolly choreographed you don’t care about the story; when the movie is at its weakest, you’re just hoping it hurries back to the action. (Even though the action scenes sometimes feel a bit derivative, I gotta say—I have NO IDEA how writers write these things. Like in The Bourne Ultimatum, Bond's action scenes are so intricately choreographed, so meticulously planned, I can’t imagine how they can make sense on a page and still convey the kinetic energy of how they’re supposed to look on film.)

So, today’s screenwriting lesson is: a charismatic star and well-done action sequences go an enormously long way in covering up an empty story… but at the end of the day, it’s still a strong, follow-able narrative that leaves audiences really remembering the film.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE TRAILER

MOVIE TALK: Changeling

Chad — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:47:55 GMT

Hey, guys--

Saw Changeling last night, the new movie by director Clint Eastwood and screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (former Writers Digest columnist/author!), and I have to say:

This movie is many things…

• A disturbing psychological thriller
• A restrained “little-guy-takes-on-the-system” drama
• A great screenwriting lesson
• A scathing indictment of the Bush administration

Based on a true story, Changeling begins in 1928 and follows Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a Los Angeles woman whose son, Walter (Gatlin Griffith), mysteriously disappears. Distraught, Collins goes to the LA Police Department, which has been under fire lately from press accusations of corruption, ineptitude, etc. Over the next five months, Collins becomes a local cause celebre, especially on the radio show of L.A. firebrand Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), whose mission in life is to expose and punish the corruption at LAPD. Until one day, Collins gets a call from Captain J.J. Jones, the cop handling her case (Jeffrey Donovan)…

The police have found her son, living with a drifter in DeKalb, Illinois. Yet when Jones returns Walter to her, Collins is horrified… THIS BOY IS NOT HER SON.

And this is where things get interesting.

Although Collins attempts to convince the authorities that the child is not hers, they convince her she’s overwhelmed with emotion and unable to recognize the boy. When Collins notices actual physiological and anatomical differences—the new “Walter” is three inches shorter and circumcised—the police send over doctors to “scientifically explain” the changes: trauma makes people shrink, the drifter may have circumcised the kid himself, etc. But when Collins refused to back down, Captain Jones gets aggressive, committing her to an insane asylum where the shrink refuses to declare her “healthy” unless she agrees the boy is hers.

These early scenes (and by “early,” I mean the first two thirds of the film) are the strongest part… both a Kafka-esque nightmare and a Hitchcockian thriller about a falsely accused protagonist battling against massive, mysterious forces beyond her control. Eastwood and Straczynski even seem to be embracing specific Hitchcock tropes… the cops/authority figures who won’t listen, doctors who twist Collins’ words back on her, the use of elaborate psychological explanations and treatments, etc. Even the characters actors seem to be embracing Hitchcock types: a man-boy-ish, Anthony Perkins-esque serial killer… a bulldog-ish nurse… etc.

These sections of the movie are also a brilliant condemnation of the Bush White House. The obstinate, arrogant, proud Captain Jones twists facts and circumvents laws in order to achieve his own personal motives and avoid repercussions. When he’s presented with solid evidence that “Walter” is not Collins’ son, he denies it and sends in his own “experts” to prove otherwise. He sentences Collins to an inhumane prison (an insane asylum) with no trial, evaluation, or even chance for rebuttal. He defends his actions with lines like, “Departmental policy is what I say it is,” and “This police department does not tolerate dissent, embarrassment, or contradiction.” All this time, the real perpetrators of the crime are running around free, but Jones doesn't care; he's too focused on his own crusades and bending truth to make them happen. When taken to task for his actions, Captain Jones defends them on grounds that he acted appropriately based on information he was given… and he’s not responsible for being given false information. (“Extraordinary steps were taken because we were dealing with an extraordinary situation,” he says.)

Most importantly, however (at least for our Script Notes purposes!), I was struck by how Changeling is a perfect example of screenwriting’s most basic tenet: a character with a simple, solid, tanible “want” meets an immovable obstacle… and must take action to defeat it.

Collins’ want is obvious… she wants to find her son… and she articulates this simply and clearly throughout the movie, literally saying—over and over—“I want to find my son,” “Where is my son,” "I want my son back," etc. Even when it has become apparent that LAPD is pulling strings and being shady… even when we, the audience, are hungering for the defeat of Jones and the evil cops… Collins doesn’t stray from her single-minded want: “I want to find my son.”

I think this is an important lesson, because screenwriters often think the best way to give characters dimension and complexity is to give them MULTIPLE WANTS… but this actually just confuses the story. Collins is relentless in what she’s trying to accomplish… even when Captain Jones gets his comeuppance—and lesser screenwriters would’ve said, “Okay, the bad guy is vanquished”—Straczynski knows the story can’t end until the protagonist’s want is fulfilled (or, if she doesn’t succeed, at least addressed). (To be fair, the movie’s biggest flaw is that it goes on a bit long; it has about seven endings. Still, it’s never less than riveting…)

Likewise, Straczynski’s villain—Jones and the LAPD—is equally unstoppable… and more powerful. Jones barely has to struggle to tamp down Collins when he needs to; with an entire police force and a gaggle of lapdog reporters at his disposal, he simply utters a few words and Collins gets pummeled.

It’s truly a case of “an unstoppable force” meeting “an immoveable object,” and Collins triumphs only by never giving up and chipping away, slowly and steadfastly. It’s screenwriting—and theoretical physics—at its most basic.

I know this lesson seems elementary, but I LOVE learning this, being reminded of this, over and over. I often find that when I’m blocked, or unable to break a story, it’s returning to Screenwriting 101 basics that’s most helpful… that I’m usually stuck precisely because I’ve forgotten the foundations of solid storystelling. I’m trying to complicate a simple situation… or I’ve given my character multiple/confusing wants… or my antagonist isn’t powerful enough and it’s weakening my story. And by being reminded of rules as simple as clarifying and reminding myself of my character’s one tangible want, I’m able to get see the story anew and move forward.

Anyway, Changeling opens this weekend… do yourself a favor and check it out. It’s not only a terrific movie, it’s a wonderful lesson in simple, irrefutable storytelling and screenwriting.

Lemme know what you think of it...

Chad

Changeling Trailer

MOVIE TALK: The Express

Chad — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:27:30 GMT

I tend to believe everyone has a story to tell, every life is unique, and the quality of a biography's storytelling usually depends on how you look at the life. In other words, with the right storytelling, any life can be dramatic. Or undramatic.

Never has this been more true than in the case of The Express, screenwriter Charles Leavitt and director Gary Fleder’s new film based on the short life of Syracuse University football star Ernie Davis (played by Rob Brown).

Davis isn’t the world’s most famous football player… or the world’s most famous civil rights activist… but he certainly did some remarkable things worthy of a story. The problem is:

Leavitt and Fleder do little to make the actions and events of Davis’s life SEEM remarkable; they instead tell an overly-familiar, paint-by-numbers story of a young black athlete trying to come of age and play football in the racist mid-twentieth century.

To be fair, the opening seconds of the film show promise… it begins with college football teams facing off on the line. “Ready for this, spook?” one of the white players sneers at Davis. “I’m gonna kick your black ass back to Africa.” The play snaps into action, and Davis is buried under a mound of white players… who proceed to punch the shit out of him.

This “mini-scene” only lasts a few seconds, but it’s an effective way to kick off the movie. Unfortunately, it’s the last scene with any bite for a long time… and most of the movie that follows doesn’t live up to the in-your-face violence of these opening moments. It's not a "bad" movie; it's just uninspired and tame.

The story begins with Davis as a young boy growing up in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where he’s harassed by white children… who try to beat him up but are too slow to catch him. It’s obvious Davis has incredible football skills, but he doesn’t consider putting them to use until he and his mom move to Elmira, New York, where he becomes a high school football stud. He’s also a top-notch student, and he eventually receives over fifty scholarship offers from various universities.

Meanwhile, at Syracuse University, head football coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) has a problem: his superstar player, Jim Brown, is graduating, leaving an unwelcome hole on the football team. Schwartzlander has scoured the country looking for a replacement, but he’s found no one… until he watches a film of lightning-fast Davis on the gridiron. At first, Schwartzlander doesn’t want to pursue Davis because black athletes are “too much trouble,” but with the help of Brown himself, he convinces Davis to give Syracuse a shot.

Much of The Express’s second act focuses on the Davis-Schwartzwalder relationship. Davis is a black athlete who won’t use his celebrity to ruffle feathers and speak out against racism. Schwartzwalder cares about only one thing—winning—and he’s willing to condone players’ and opponents’ racism in order to keep people happy and not jeopardize victories. Over the course of the film, both Schwartzwalder and Davis come to realize “winning” is about something more. Davis—prodded by his activist cousin Will (Nelsan Ellis)—learns he has a larger responsibility than simply scoring, and he begins speaking out against racism. Schwartzwalder also begins standing up to racism (although thinking back on it, he really only does this one significant time).

The movie’s biggest flaw is that none of the racism… or the moments when Davis or Schwartzwalder stand up to it… ever seems all that fresh, palpable, or powerful. This isn’t to diminish the evil of racism, it’s just to say that we’ve seen a LOT of movies about racism, and the racism in The Express seems… well… like “racism lite.” Not that the racism itself is “lite,” but Leavitt and Fleder give it almost no visceral impact. Sure, there’s a healthy dose of the “n-word,” and we see rednecks booing black players, and African-American athletes are told they can’t use front doors or sleep in white hotel rooms, etc., etc., etc. But we’ve seen all this before… and this time, none of it lands with any force. We don’t FEEL the pain of the racism because it’s all depicted in stale clichés.

As a result, Davis and Schwartzwalder never feel that heroic when they DO finally stand up injustices around them. Sure, it’s an important moment when Davis—who has always avoided talking publicly about race—grows some sack and tells a reporter that when he’s on the field he only thinks about football, but “that doesn’t mean he forgets the color of his own skin.” But come on… at a time when Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are taking enormous actions to overthrow the status quo, a flippant comment to a reporter feels a bit soft.

Now, I know what you’re thinking…

This isn’t the story of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. This is a smaller story, the story of a “normal” guy who takes a smaller—but no less important—stand. And historically, you’re absolutely right. Except for one thing…

In a good STORY, actions must feel huge. Enormous. GIGANTIC. This doesn’t mean there can’t be tiny actions—like pouring a glass of tea or glancing wistfully at a stranger—but actions in a story must FEEL huge. They must have massive emotional weight and impact. A storyteller’s job, after all, is to HEIGHTEN action, so the audience feels as if these characters and actions—as they’re playing out—are the most important in the entire world. And this is where The Express falls short.

If it wants to be a “smaller” story, a character study of a potential football legend who made brave choices (and all of us, no matter how “small,” should be making those same brave choices), fine—but it needs to go deeper into the complexities of Davis and his relationships. But it doesn’t do this… Davis never transcends being a righteous hero to become a full-bodied, three-dimensional character with loves, fears, hatreds, inconsistencies and hypocrisies. Neither does Schwartzwalder.

Thus, the movie is stuck in a tepid no-man’s-land… it paints by its numbers well enough to have some effective moments, but it never tackles its material hard enough to be truly powerful or special.

So I guess TODAY’S TAKE-AWAY SCREENWRITING LESSON IS…

Write fearlessly. And I don’t mean that in a cheesy, write-from-the-heart kind of way… I literally mean: if you’re going to write something, write it to extremes. If you’re writing a character who is cruelly racist, make him the cruelest racist ever seen in literature. If you’re writing an action-packed car chase, make it the most thrilling car chase ever witnessed. If you’re writing an angelic virgin, make her the purest character ever met. If you’re writing a grotesque torture scene, make it the most stomach-churning sequence to be put on screen. Do not be afraid offending anyone… do not play it safe… do not be afraid of “going too far.” The human heart, head, and stomach can handle much more than we usually give them credit for… and I think writers and artists often believe they’re pushing boundaries, when—in actuality—the boundary is barely being touched.

So while The Express in no way wants to be an “edgy” movie, I DO think that great storytelling—even in a family-friendly football movie—lives in extremes… and, as The Express proves, stories that refuse to go to extremes wind up going almost nowhere. Or at least nowhere very interesting.

Having said all that… there’s almost nothing better than the sound of crashing football pads… especially when that sound is cranked full-blast over an awesome movie theater sound system. Which means if the sound is good enough, almost any football movie will kick a little bit of ass.

THE EXPRESS TRAILER

Mama vs. the Maid

Chad — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:36:33 GMT

Hey, screenwriters—

Saw two movies this last week—Made of Honor and Baby Mama—that I thought made an interesting comparison of romantic comedies. Neither is particularly brilliant, but I think Baby Mama succeeds more as a romantic comedy, or relationship comedy, and I wanted to look at why.

Although there are plenty of things to pick apart in each one, I want to focus on the primary difference—the one thing which makes Baby Mama succeed in a way that Made of Honor never does. And that’s this…

Unlike in Baby Mama, we never fully believe that our main characters in Made of Honor truly, desperately need each other.

In other words, Made of Honor fails to illustrate how much Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) need/love each other in the same way Baby Mama does with Kate (Tina Fey) and Angie (Amy Poehler). Take a look…

At the beginning of Made of Honor, Tom and Hannah have supposedly been best friends for ten years. Tom is a perpetual bachelor, bedding every woman he meets; Hannah is just another single woman pushing thirty. But when Hannah’s job sends her to Europe for six weeks, Tom misses her in a way he’s never thought about… and suddenly realizes he’s in love with his best friend. Hannah, of course, is busy meeting the dashing Kevin McKidd (Colin McMurray), and when she returns with a ring on her finger, Tom realizes he must win back his best friend. But like I said, here’s the problem…

We never believe Tom really loves her... because the movie never shows us this.

Sure, we see Tom and Hannah spend time together, but we never see how much they NEED each other. Tom brings her coffee in the morning, they browse antique shops, and they go to brunch every Sunday. Yet while this is all sweet and good-natured, it doesn’t signify a super-strong BOND. In fact, a weekly brunch hardly signifies a once-in-a-lifetime relationship. I have friends I see or talk to once a week… but I also have friends I see or talk to EVERY DAY.

Not to mention: Tom’s willing to sleep his way around town until Hannah heads to Scotland… then he suddenly wakes up and he decides he loves her—which is kinda hard to swallow after the story has already established he's an impulsive playboy. Especially when he announces to his buddies: “I don’t know… I think there might be more to my relationship with Hannah than just friends,” which is quite possibly history’s most UNCONVINCING declaration of love ever.

I wish the movie had shown us a scene of them relying on each other when the chips were down. I.e., have Hannah call Tom just after her heart has been broken, and Tom races to her... maybe he even ditches a gorgeous date to go console her. Have Tom’s career be on the line and he has 24 hours to put together a job-saving proposal or presentation… and Hannah cancels all her plans to help him. Basically—show us these two characters need, want, and care for each other more than anything else on the planet.

Baby Mama does this simply and beautifully. First of all, it sets up how badly and desperately Kate wants to have a child. We see her pining after babies, trying to meet husbands, hoping to get pregnant. Ultimately, of course, she learns she’s infertile and decides to hire a surrogate mother: Angie, the world’s most inappropriate mom. But there’s one perfect little scene that sets up their entire relationship…

Kate and Angie are standing on Kate’s balcony, having just finished the interview where they’ll decide whether or not Angie is going to carry Kate’s baby. And Kate says to her (I’m paraphrasing because I don’t really remember): “I really want this. And I think you’re great. I hope you choose me, because I need you, and I think you’re wonderful, and I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life.” And Angie says: “I think you’re wonderful, too. And I think I’d be really good at this, and doing this for you would make me feel important and valued, and that’s something I don’t have anywhere else in my life.”

So even though it’s simple, direct, and on-the-nose, Baby Mama does what Made of Honor doesn’t… it bonds those characters inextricably. They NEED each other more than anything else on the planet. Thus, we’re willing to buy all the hijinx and complications throughout the rest of the story because we’re so invested in Kate and Angie’s relationship.

So I guess the takeaway lesson is this: in a romantic comedy, the ROMANCE must come before the COMEDY. If we don’t buy the romance—or the relationship between our leads—we’ll never care enough to laugh with the comedy. And I think if you look back at some of the great romantic/relationship comedies—When Harry Met Sally, Annie Hall, you name it—the movies always put the spotlight on the relationship, and let the comedy bubble up behind or around it.

Iron Man Update...

Chad — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:20:31 GMT

Marvel Studios doesn't waste any time.

After Iron Man opened at over $100 million, they've already announced the premiere date of Iron Man 2... April 30, 2010! This is less than two months before the premiere of Thor, which is scheduled for June 4, 2010.

The following summer, Marvel will release Captain America on May 6, and The Avengers in July.

(For those of you who don't know The Avengers, they're Marvel's superhero team-- kind of like The Justice League of America-- that originally consisted of Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp, The Hulk, and-- eventually-- Captain America. The Hulk's movie opens next month on June 13.)

MOVIE TALK: Iron Man

Chad — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:23:30 GMT

Before I begin this post, I need to warn you: spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen Iron Man, and you want to, be warned: I am about to give away parts of the movie. So proceed at your own risk…

Saw Iron Man last night. And all in all, it’s a fun way to spend two hours. Robert Downey Jr. is terrific—charming, funny, loveable—and there’s plenty of cool blowin’-stuff-up.

But it’s also a flawed movie, and while its flaws don’t necessarily detract from the overall experience, I think they illuminate some interesting thoughts about how comic book heroes are written… and screenplays in general.

To me, there are two main weaknesses to Iron Man:

WEAKNESS #1: He's not an underdog. For those of you who don’t know the story of Iron Man, here’s the Cliff Notes version: Iron Man’s true identity is Tony Stark, a technology genius/fun-loving playboy who’s made his money as a multi-billion-dollar arms manufacturer. (Imagine if Bill Gates ran Lockheed Martin… but was also a hard-partying ladies man.) When Tony is captured and tortured by terrorists, he realizes the damage he has been inflicting and has a change of heart, deciding to stop making weapons and instead create machines of peace. (How this plays out in the movie is a bit different than in the comics, but same idea.) So he makes a giant suit—complete with guns, missiles, jets, you name it—to defeat evil and protect innocents around the world.

Sounds good, right? Well, in real life, it would be. In a comic: not so much. (And by the way: as I say all this, know that I am NOT an avid comics reader. I know Iron Man is beloved by fans everywhere. I know the movie will make thousands of dollars and win the weekend. I even think it deserves to. I liked it. A lot. Still, I think there’s a major flaw in the concept of Iron Man, and here’s why…)

Iron Man is not an underdog. He’s rich, good-looking, funny, charming, irresistible… and just decides to become a super-hero. Because he’s a good guy.

But the best superheroes are those who are “forced” into it, or those for whom being super-powered is a burden, a curse that prevents them from being whom they truly want to be. Batman is haunted by his past and his own psychosis… the bat suit is his only escape (or his cross to bear, depending on how you look at it). Peter Parker is an anti-social geek who’s suddenly given powers… that no one can know about. Even Superman must wear a disguise to fit in to normal society.

But Tony Stark becomes Iron Man because he wants to. It’s just another of his outstanding attributes. And while you could argue that becoming Iron Man is his redemption for being a war-monger in his “previous life,” we certainly never get the sense he’s tortured by his past. Even if the story suggested this, he’s so damn loveable WE never feel he needs to be redeemed.

Having said this, we still—for the most part—root for Tony/Iron Man. But Iron Man doesn’t hold the same sense of wonder and fascination and magic as Spiderman or Superman or the X-Men. I always think one of the coolest things about those classic superhero stories is that they tap into how we all feel; they’re stories of people who don’t fit in, but the reason they don’t fit in is they each hold extraordinary gifts and abilities… and if other people could just see those special gifts, and realize how awesome they are, they’d be accepted. (This never works out, of course—as soon as their gifts are revealed, they’re ostracized… which is why they must keep their true identity secret. It’s a catch 22: the one thing that should be recognized and celebrated is the one thing they can never share.) And the genius of these superhero stories is: we've all felt like this. We all know the pain and frustration of feeling like we’re special, unique, valuable people… if only others could recognize this.

But Iron Man never lets us feel like this. It’s the story of a rich, successful, handsome, dashing, powerful guy who becomes… well… better.

And nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that Iron Man lacks some of the key scenes/sequences/moments that make superhero movies so much fun: the moments where the superhero uses his powers in ordinary, everyday situations. The moment where Peter Parker uses his spider skills to catch his falling lunch tray or humiliate a school bully. Or when Wolverine kicks ass in a bar fight. Or Clark Kent takes Lois or Lana on an extraordinary date. The moments that make us go: “Yeah! That’s exactly what I'd do if I had superpowers.”

But Iron Man never has these scenes. We never see Tony use his abilities as a normal person. Not only because his abilities are confined to a giant robotic suit, but also because—ultimately—he's not a normal person. He’s not like any of us. He’s a superhero even before he becomes a superhero.

WEAKNESS #2: Iron Man isn't about relatioships. (By the way, before you read further: I am about to give away the entire ending of the movie.) Sure, there are “relationships” within in the movie, but in the final battle of the movie, it suddenly dawned on me: Iron Man, the movie, isn’t about anything except itself. It’s about nothing more than a man who suddenly decides to become an anti-war superhero. Here’s why…

The final battle is a massive fight between Tony Stark, in his Iron Man suit, and Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), an old friend of Tony’s late father, and Tony’s partner at Stark Enterprises. Stane builds his own Iron Man suit (called Iron Monger), which is bigger and more powerful than Tony’s original suit, and these two duke it out in the movies final climax. Here’s the problem…

Screenwriters Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway never flesh out the Tony/Obadiah relationship… so the final battle means almost nothing to us. Sure, we see Tony and Obadian together, and we know there’s a history there, but this relationship should be the heart of the entire movie… so by the time the two guys are punching it out in the end, we feel like this is a relationship being ripped apart at the seams.

Yet we’re never sure what these two men mean to each other: is there relationship father/son? Two brothers? Teacher/student? Best friends? We don’t know… so there’s almost nothing at stake when they finally come to blows. (Sure, you could say Tony’s life is at stake… but since we know he’s not going to die, there needs to be more.) This was the beauty of the Spiderman movies: when Spiderman fought Green Goblin, it wasn’t just Spidey fighting a villain—he was fighting a friend, someone he’d loved and trusted. So the final fight was the culmination of all the bumps, betrayals, twists, and turns that comprised that relationship.

But Iron Man fails to give us this. We never feel the love, friendship, trust, or adoration between Obadiah and Tony. So we don’t feel the pain of either of them, especially our hero, in the movie’s climax.

This, together with the lack of Tony’s “underdog status,” combine to make a movie that’s a terrific and visually pleasing thrill ride… but has about as much heart as the metal used to make Iron Man’s suit.

Anyway, I “like” these two weaknesses because—for all Iron Man’s strengths—I think they illustrate the two elements most important to brilliant screenwriting and storytelling:

• RELATABILITY – the ability to see reflections of our own lives in a story and its characters

• RELATIONSHIPS – connections and relationships between characters that makes us care about, root, and hurt for them

Of course, Iron Man may also prove the most important rule of screenwriting: if you have an awesome star and plenty of explosions, none of the other stuff matters.

IRON MAN TRAILER

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Best Movie So Far This Year--and Maybe Since Citizen Kane

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:29:32 GMT

Okay, so I've been sitting here racking my brain, trying to think of some witty, pithy intro to talking about Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and nothing's coming, so I'm just gonna say it...

I LOVED THIS FUCKING MOVIE.

I mean, there's nothing groundbreaking or insightful about saying the the Judd Apatow camp is a pretty brilliant comedy machine. (Apatow just produced Forgetting Sarah Marshall; it was directed by Nicholas Stoller.) I loved The 40-Year-Old Virgin... and I loved Superbad... and I thought Knocked Up was the best of the three.

But Forgetting Sarah Marshall may be the best yet.

Or, maybe I'm just so amped up after seeing it I only think it's the best yet.

But either way-- it's an awesome freaking movie.

The story: After being dumped by his girlfriend (Sarah Marshall, played by Kristen Bell) of five years, a broken-hearted Peter Better (Jason Segel, who also wrote the script) heads to Hawaii to try and flush her out of his system. But no sooner has he arrived at his resort, than he discovers that Sarah has also come to this resort for her own bit of R&R... with her new boyfriend, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Afraid he'll look like he's running away, Peter decides to tough it out and stay at the resort, which means he must get over Sarah... while constantly running into her and her ultra-cool new man.

Even though Judd Apatow just produced Sarah Marshall, his fingerprints are all over it... and he and his cronies certainly have down pat the male-skewing-romantic-comedy formula. Like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, this follows a can't-get-his-shit-together guy who learns to grow up and, basically, be a man... and it hits all the same beats that Knocked Up laid out for it. It opens with a montage of Peter, an aspiring composer, slacking in his messy apartment... it has the guy-works-feverishly-to-grow-into-a-better-person montage... and it has plenty of sensitive-but-not-emasculating guy moments (as well as just enough full frontal dick shots to make you laugh and squirm).

But I think Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a more moving movie than Knocked Up. It may not, ultimately, be a better movie, or even a funnier movie, or even-- I can't believe I'm gonna use this word-- a more "important" movie... but it might be (at least tonight, while I'm totally loving it) a more moving movie. Here's why...

Knocked Up sets up a totally believable situation most people have thought about and dreaded... then nails it with dead-on emotional (and comic) accuracy.

But Forgetting Sarah Marshall takes us into a situation we've all been in before... so while it may not have as gigantic laughs or dramatic highs as Knocked Up, the pain feels deeper, more real, more relatable.

In other words, many of us have imagined and feared what it would be like to be in Ben Stone's shoes and find out we knocked up some girl after a one night stand... but we've all actually suffered through a painful breakup and the inability to get over someone.

And that's the genius of Apatow and his filmmaking buddies: they know exactly how to take agonizing, gut-wrenching emotional situations and turn them into comedies that are not only hilarious, but also amplify the characters' pain.

Then again, the genius of Forgetting Sarah Marshall may just be that is has the jaw-droppingly awesome Mila Kunis.

Either way, this is the first movie in a long time that reminded me why I love movies, which is a pretty damn good feeling. I'll probably go see it again this weekend, making it the first movie I've seen twice in theaters since The Bourne Ultimatum (which I still believe, years from now, will be looked upon-- along with the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's statue of David, and Van Halen I-- as one of mankind's greatest artistic achievements. And for those of you who disagree with me... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Matt Damon kills a guy with nothing but a book and his bare hands! What more do you want from a movie?!).

Next up here at Script Notes, I'll answer Corey Nolter's questions for his 9th grade research paper. Until then, here's a little Sarah Marshall...

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL TRAILER

WHAT NOT TO WRITE: Vantage Point

Chad — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:12:00 GMT

Hey, screenwriters—

I just want to say this up front: my wife made me go.

Okay, that's a lie.

She definitely wanted to go more than I did, but the truth is: I kinda wanted to see it. At least, I had wanted to see it… before it got nothing but horrible reviews. In fact, the best thing I heard about it was from a friend who saw it and said, “I dunno… there are probably worse ways to spend two hours.”

I’m talking about Vantage Point, the Pete Travis movie which came out a couple weeks ago and was universally panned. And rightly so. The movie’s pretty horrible, although to be fair, it’s an interesting premise that you really want to work. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t.

Basically, Vantage Point is the story of an attempted presidential assassination-- and the investigation of who’s behind it-- as seen from multiple perspectives, a la Rashomon. So it replays the same events multiple times, each from a different character’s point of view… illuminating a bit more of the story and a few more clues each time.

I won’t go into all things that are wrong with the movie because it’s a LOT… the least of which is Forest Whitaker’s ridiculous overacting. The guy practically narrates everything he does on screen. If his phone rings, he says to himself, “My phone’s ringing… need to see who it is…” If he spots someone mysterious through his video camera, he says... “Hm… that’s weird… I wonder if he should be there…”

However... I did think Vantage Point was a perfect example of one of the biggest mistakes to avoid when writing a mystery movie, which—at its heart—this is. Here’s the problem…

The posters, billboards, and marketing campaign for the movie were all based around the question/tagline: “Can you solve the puzzle?” (Check out the trailer below.) Which, sure, is simply a marketing tool.

Except that it’s not "simply a marketing tool"…

…because “can you solve the puzzle?” suggests that what makes this movie fun, like any mystery, is that YOU—the viewer or reader—are trying to solve the mystery along with the story’s heroes or detectives (in this case, Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes).

And it’s right. That’s exactly what should make this movie fun.

We love mysteries, whether it’s Sherlock Holmes or CSI, because we enjoy participating in the puzzle-solving. Which means the storyteller has one very important job: to lay out clues that track logically from one to the next, so when everything adds up in the end, we—the audience—have that amazing “aha!” moment that all great mysteries have. That “oh-my-God-I-should’ve-seen-that!” moment. Or the “oh-of-course-it-all-makes-sense!” moment.

This doesn’t mean we should be able to solve the mystery before the hero. It simply means that we need to be able to feel like we could, and that when the solution is finally unveiled, we can flip back through the clues in our head and see how it all fits together.

But Vantage Point never attempts to let you try and solve the mystery. Why? Because it purposely and shamelessly withholds clues. For instance…

Characters continually see clues we’re not allowed to see. I.e., at one point, Agent Barnes (Dennis Quaid) is watching a playback of the assassination on Howard Lewis's (Forest Whitaker) camcorder. As he watches the screen, his eyes go wide, he says something ominous like, “Oh my God—that’s it!” and races off. We don’t find out till much later, in a different person’s “story,” what he saw. Which is not only frustrating as hell, it’s a cheap shot on the part of the storyteller. We realize that the solution to the mystery is right in front of us, but we’re unable to solve it—or have the fun of trying to solve it—not because it’s a complex, intriguing puzzle, but because the storyteller is willfully withholding information… and sharing it with other characters right in front of us!

Also, each mini-story (each time we see the event from a new perspective) ends in a cliffhanger. At one point, for example, one of the main characters steps out to confront someone and says, “Bet you didn’t expect to see me alive, did you?”… but before we see who he’s talking to, the mini-story ends and we move on to someone else’s perspective. And while cliffhangers are supposed to be maddening and suspenseful, they should be maddening and suspenseful because we’re so emotionally invested in characters, relationships, and events that we’re dying to know what happens next… not because we’re angry at the filmmaker for not giving us information that's clearly right in front of our noses.

So while these moments are frustrating in and of themselves, the bigger problem is that we’re constantly aware that the filmmaker is not giving us the promised clues, so we’re never allowed to try and solve the puzzle… which is not only a complete betrayal of the marketing campaign’s promise, it’s a betrayal of the promise made by all mystery storytellers at the beginning of the mystery. Which is: “I, the storyteller, am going to create a mystery so complex and intriguing you can’t solve it… but we promise to play fair along the way, giving you all the clues and tools you’ll need to solve it.” In other words, "we'll do our best to outsmart you, but we'll at least play fair."

After all, you can’t have a great “oh-my-God-I-should’ve-seen-that-coming!” moment if there’s no way you could've seen anything coming.

It’s this flaw that makes Vantage Point such a dismal failure. I think mystery audiences are willing to forgive a lot of things—bad acting, lame characters, etc.—if the mystery is compelling and they feel like they’re actually able to participate in the solving.

But by refusing to play fair, Vantage Point immediately sets its own course for self-destruction.

So, the lesson to take away from this: IF YOU’RE WRITING A MYSTERY, YOU NEED TO PLANT CLUES FAIRLY AND HONESTLY ENOUGH THAT YOU AT LEAST GIVE THE “ILLUSION” THAT YOUR PUZZLE IS SOLVE-ABLE.

Coming soon… thoughts on Forgetting Sarah Marshall…

VANTAGE POINT TRAILER

WHAT NOT TO WRITE: Leatherheads

Chad — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:27:36 GMT

Hey, screenwriters--

Today's post is brought to us by Martin Scorsese's new Rolling Stones IMAX movie, Shine A Light. (Okay, not really, but it looks incredible, so do yourselves a favor and check it out.)

And while I haven't seen it yet, I can only assume that it will rock hard... which will help to wash off the stink for those of you who go see director George Clooney's new movie, Leatherheads... which I just saw last night. (So see Leatherheads first, then Shine A Light... so it's like you get dirty and then have a nice, warm, comforting shower...)

While I don't want this blog to turn into a movie review site, I do think it's helpful to look at movies and talk about their screenwriting qualities... and you often learn more by looking at bad movies than good ones, because you see all their mistakes.

So, let's talk about Leatherheads (and I won't give away any actual plot details, just in case you decide to actually put yourself through it)...

Leatherheads is a 1920's love triangle set against the backdrop of the newborn professional football industry. It follows three characters: Dodge Connelly (George Clooney), an aging pro football player for Minnesota's ailing pro football team, the Duluth Bulldogs; Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski), a college superstar-- and World War I hero-- who's drafted by Connelly to revive the dying Bulldogs; and Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger), a scrappy Chicago reporter determined to "cook Carter's goose" by proving he's not the war hero everyone thinks he is.

Of course, both Connelly and Rutherford fall head-over-heels for Littleton... forming a (supposedly) dramatic love triangle that's at the center of the film. Here's the problem...

It doesn't work.

There are a myriad of reasons that keep the film from working: it's a pastiche of incongruent styles and tones (screwball comedy, dry social commentary, contemporary romantic comedy), it flits from theme to theme without ever being sure what it wants to say, etc.

But today I want to talk about one major script flaw that prevents Leatherheads from taking off...

It never takes the time to define its core relationships.

The key to pulling off this kind of romantic comedy/love triangle is illustrating the love between all three people involved... and getting the audience to care for all of them. We need to see the attraction between Littleton and Connelly... we need to see the attraction between Littleton and Rutherford... and, perhaps most importantly, we need to see the bond and friendship between the two men, Connelly and Rutherford.

In Leatherheads, the relationship between the two men is most important... but it's given the least amount of time. The entire plot is driven by the partnership of Connelly and Rutherford... the fading veteran and the arrogant upstart. Yet we know very little about the two men's relationship. Are they father-son? (Not literally, of course... but in the context of their relationship.) Are they brothers who love and hate each other? Best friends? Business rivals? Teacher-student?

Because we're never sure, we don't know what's at stake when the woman-- Littleton-- drives a wedge between them. The destruction of two "brothers'" relationship is tragic and dramatic. So is the break-up of two best friends. But two guys who just like the same girl is just... well... two guys who like the same girl. Thus, we're never really invested in caring about how these two men will solve their battle for the same woman, because it never feels like anything tremendous will be lost or gained.

Secondly, the script never fully articulates the Littleton-Connelly or Littleton-Rutherford relationships. We know both men find Littleton attractive... but what does Littleton see in each of them? Sure, she has some pseudo-witty repartee with Connelly... and she needs to cling to Rutherford to get her juicy newspaper story... but we're never sure what emotional need each of these men fills in Littleton. How does each satisfy her, emotionally, in a different way? And likewise, what emotional hole does she fill in each of them?

Because we never know, we have no idea what each man will lose if he loses this woman. As a result, we have no idea why each even bothers to pursue or fight for her. Does Littleton make Rutherford want to discover his wild, uninhibited side? Does she make Connelly want to settle down and become a responsible family man? We don't know... so we have no idea what each man stands to lose, personally, if he loses Littleton.

Likewise, we don't know what Littleton will lose if she loses one of these men. Does Rutherford provide her with a sense of security and warmth? Does Connelly give her excitement and adventure? And by picking one over the other, what is Littleton gaining and what is she sacrificing? We never know, so there are no stakes in her dating or giving up either.

So, Lesson #1: If you're writing a romantic comedy, we need to know why your characters desperately need each other... and we need to know what they'll lose if they lose each other.

And Lesson #2: If you're creating this kind of love triangle, we need to be invested in all the relationships... which means each relationship needs to be clearly enough defined that we understand why it's important to the characters... and what they'll lose if the relationship dissolves.

The best way to learn these lessons, of course, is to go see Leatherheads. Unfortunately, it'll be a two-hour, ten-dollar lesson (and neither is refundable), but if you're writing a love-triangle/romantic comedy, it just may be worth it...

Chad

LEATHERHEADS