Bitter Script Reader on how not to write a screenplay

I am drowning in paperwork and red tape and bullshit, so I will turn over today's post to The Bitter Script Reader, whose post, "The Worst Query Submission I Have Ever Had to Read" is a must-read for all new screenwriters. Don't be that guy.

Why, Wolverine?

Curious to see why Wolverine: X Men Origins was so horrible, I jumped it ahead in my queue - Ahead of Wasabi even. I knew what would happen, but I did it anyway.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Okay maybe you don't, but I do. I keep watching these movies I know are going to suck ass. Hell my finger lingered over adding Tranformers 2 to my queue yesterday. Am I on crack? Maybe.

Wolverine really is about the WHYs.

Why can't Wolverine's brother Victor, who appears to have the same power as he does, be the one who gets the adamantium skeleton?

Why are they trying to kill Wolverine if he's their big new weapon?

Why didn't Stryker lock Logan up the same way he locked up everybody else?

Why did Victor kill those other mutants instead of capturing them like he did some of the mutants?

Why does Gambit sound like a midwestern frat boy?

Why is Gambit even in this movie?

How does Victor always know where Logan is?

Why was the blob not a blob until late in life?

Why does Victor wait six years before coming after his former team mates?

Why did a studio hand over its tent pole film to a director with a history of making shitty B movies and Stargate SG1 episodes?

Why? WHY?????

Supernatural lampoons your show

For the past couple of seasons, Supernatural - the only show that makes the CW worth not obliterating - has been super serious. When they started, the show had this serious plot but with lots of comedic elements thrown in, mostly due to the comedy stylings of the perfect specimen of a man that is Jensen Ackles.

But a couple of seasons ago they sent his Dean to Hell and he's been kind of pissy ever since, and then there was Sam turning into some kind of demon vampire and then the end of the world came and nobody was really laughing.

The past few episodes, however, the writers have gone back to funner times. This week's episode in particular made me giddy.

The premise, if you didn't see it, was that Sam and Dean were trapped in one television show after the next, starting with Dr Sexy, MD.

It was Gray's Anatomy. It was so much Gray's Anatomy that I'm not even sure it counts as a parody because it was so dead on. Everybody was fucking everybody else, a ridiculously sentimental soundtrack swelled, and people described these absurd surgeries for even more absurd conditions. I only wish they could have found a way to reference the fact that the guy playing the ghost character on Gray's Anatomy was also their dad.

They ended by poking fun at CSI: Miami, which of course meant they both did the David Caruso like five times. It was some excellent David Carusoing.

So if you love TV and parodies of TV like I do, go over to Hulu or Itunes or maybe the CW if it's there and watch last night's Supernatural. It was just so damned delightful I could have pinched myself.

Kudos, everyone involved, on a job well done.

The curiosity of spoilers

Warning: No real spoilers ahead unless you never finished season 2 of Alias.

Today I was reading stuff online and clicked on a link for a discussion about Ultimate Fighter. It should come as no surprise that I LOVE Ultimate Fighter, but I can't usually watch it until Thursday or Friday because I refuse to watch it without The Beefcake. Then today I forgot I hadn't watched the most recent episode and the very first sentence of the link I clicked gave me the winner. I cried out and closed the window, but it was too late.

Then again, maybe I can look really smart when we watch the show by pretending to guess what's about to happen.

Anyhow, it's just so interesting to me the sense of dismay you get when you get spoiled on the ending of any story. Today I started All Quiet on the Western Front with my 10th graders and one kid flipped to the end of the book and found out the fate of our narrator. I immediately fretted that he would reveal the ending to the rest of the class. Hell I probably would have tackled him to the ground to shut him up. Fortunately he kept his mouth shut, and the rest of the students resisted the urge to look at the ending first.

And yet when I was a kid, I always read the last page before I finished the book because I was too impatient to find out what was going to happen.

That's funny, right? It's such an interesting element of the human personality that we hate knowing the ending. We want that journey in a linear fashion, we want to earn the reveal at the end. A book almost isn't worth reading if you already know what happens.

But then you look at the latest trend in TV storytelling, one popularized by Alias, where we see a scene from the end before we see how we got there. That works too, sometimes, although often I've wished they just allowed the story to flow in chronological order so I didn't know what was coming.

Except I did love that shit when they did it on Alias, I guess because the scene they spoiled made me more curious instead of disappointed, especially the best episode that show ever had besides the pilot - the one where they brought down SD-6.

I was so into that shit and so excited about finding out what was going to happen, and yet I have that season on DVD and sometimes rewatch that episode even though I know how it's going to end. But then you have a show like Lost, which I also own on DVD and yet never watch because I already know how each episode ends. I don't know why even though I love both shows, I'll rewatch Alias but not Lost.

I just love that about people. We will go to many lengths to avoid spoilers and we get downright pissed if someone doesn't respect that voluntary secrecy, but we also like to rewatch stories we love, even to the point where we have them memorized. It's bizarre.

I don't really have a point, just an observation.

Thoughts on the film: Fantastic 4 Rise of the Mediocrity

Because I hate myself, I watched Fantastic 4, Rise of the Silver Surfer last night.

There's much wrong with that film and its many flaws have been brought out for all to see, but if I had to pin down the one thing that bothered me the most about the film is that it felt so contrived.

Johnny Storm somehow and for no logical reason whatsoever gains the ability to switch powers with his cohorts. Why? Because somebody thought it would be funny to watch Jessica Alba fly around on fire panicking. And then at the end Johnny uses all their powers at once, which he assumes is possible even though nothing up to that point has suggested that he can have more than one power at once, and in fact he has been losing his power every time he switched.

But okay, let's say this silly thing has to stay. Johnny gets to have everybody's power, not just his own. Know what? Johnny's a cocky asshole. Johnny would not just hand back all the powers when he's done. He'd get so excited he'd struggle at least a little before sacrificing all this power. And I'd much rather watch a hero struggle with desire for power than watch Dr. Doom sneer ineffectively while creating a nuisance.

Instead of having a real conflict within one of your major characters, it seems like somebody decided it would be cool to have a few seconds of Johnny with everybody's powers at once and contrived a story to make it happen.

But the truth is, it IS a cool idea. There are things you can do to make it an awesome story, none of which was done here.

For example, while Johnny's fucking around with this new thing he can do, The Thing - Ben - grabs Johnny and switches with him for a few seconds, during which time he jokes and giggles.

Granted, they played with this in the first film, but they didn't go far enough. Here's a guy who can't live a normal life. He can't go anywhere without being stared at, can't fit in normal sized airplane seats, can't wear normal sized clothes, will never ever fit in again. You know he has to dream about being normal; anybody would.

And for a few seconds he sees his human hands again, then has to give it back to Johnny.

Now I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about that. I'd wait until Johnny was asleep, then smack him and fly away on my new flamey rocket feet. He wouldn't mean to do it for long, maybe one night of hot steamy human love with his girlfriend where he can feel her hands on his skin, or a chance to walk among regular people without being stared at. Then he'd have every intention of going back to his life, except maybe by then he didn't want to....

Instead, Ben laughs it off and that's that. Then we get some silly plot about a character with few non-expository lines and his magical surfboard.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: CONFLICT. You have to push your characters to do things you don't want them to do - things THEY don't want them to do. Your characters have to have flaws and you have to exploit them.

If not, you're nothing but brainless entertainment.

My office

I've got some ideas on how to edit my script, but I won't be touching it for a few weeks. I usually take a break because sometimes distance can give you excellent perspective. Once you've been away from a script for a while you can look at it and say "Jesus what was I thinking?" as you read what you once thought were brilliant exchanges of dialogue.

I'm not going back to my screenplay until I'm doing it in my office. It's a tiny room - a complete square that barely qualifies as more than a closet right between the master bedroom and the guest bedroom and with a lovely view of my neighbor's driveway. But it's my room.

For the past three years I have written screenplays on my laptop in my lap on my couch. I have a desk in my bedroom, but the bed is so close that I can't put a chair in front of the desk so I have to work hunched over and leaning from the bed or standing up. So I worked on the couch. It's not exactly the most ergonomic way to work.

So I'm excited. I get a room where I can put my desk and a chair and my bulletin board of ideas and my inspiration movie posters. Well, poster. I plan to buy another one now that I have a place to put it. I'm thinking Zombieland. It will be easy to get inspired when the poster next to your head tells you to "nut up or shut up."

And I have to paint. I'm thinking a dark blue gray because I like to be at ease when I work and I already have two shirts that color so I can match my walls, and who doesn't want to match their walls?

Know what the best part is? I can shut the door.

What would you do with The Canterbury Tales?

I have a sort of challenge to issue anyone who cares to join in.

This month I'm working on The Canterbury Tales with my senior English class. I plan to do the same thing my teacher did with my class - pairs of students choose one tale to perform for the class and analyze. That got me thinking.

Aside from a French version many years ago, IMDB says every version of The Canterbury Tales has been a TV mini-series, the latest in 2003 starring Johnny Lee Miller, Bill Nighy, and Chiwetel Ejiofor among others. Netflix doesn't have this particular one available, which I think is kind of a shame because I like a lot of these actors and would love to see this version myself.

However, the truth remains that there is no real contemporary film interpretation of The Canterbury Tales. I can imagine why. It's split into short pieces with tenuous thematic connections, it has a barely-there plot, and it's unfinished.

Which is why I thought it was a cool challenge. I started thinking of ways I'd approach it, and although I never plan to actually attempt such a feat, I thought it would be interesting to see the different ways you could interpret Chaucer's unfinished masterpiece on film. It's rife with creative possibility.

So here you go. If you had a $90 Million budget and complete creative control along with studio backing and a guaranteed wide release with any cast and director you want, how would you do it? How would you structure this film so that it made sense?