A Conversation with Mystery Man: Part 2

Here's the next and final chapter of this year's blog talk.

I'm responding to Mystery Man's post where he discusses this year's highlights.

Highlights of the year, eh?

This year I felt calm. My personal life has been a big old mess for some time, but I finally figured out this zen existence around June. So now I've been able to focus on writing instead of figuring out who the hell I am as a person. So yeah, this year was good for me. As a result I finally wrote a script I feel is worthy. It needs a bit more work, but it's got the goods.

Obviously In Bruges was a highlight for me, and I've mentioned about thirty thousand times how much I enjoyed reading Tonight, He Comes. Those were the two film experiences that genuinely blew my mind this year.

I also spent a good portion of the year putting together my own personal film school type dealy. I bought a couple of books on film history and went through the movies mentioned in the books so I could learn as much as possible. First, I read Action Speaks Louder and watched a bunch of old action films. Then I read Dark City and accompanied it up with a series of noir films. I learned a ton from doing that, so now I'm trying to figure out which genre to go after next.

I still haven't read that Darabont script, although I have it along with about 300 other scripts on my hard drive, and I'm reading Inglorious Basterds right now. I really need to read that Darabont script because that episode of South Park where Indy kept getting raped? Yeah I could relate to that episode. I need to go read that script so I don't feel so hopeless about the whole thing. It's kind of like after I saw The Highlander 2. It hurts so much. So very, very much.

This year I read a lot of spec scripts. I love having scripts available. Any time I watch something and say to myself how did they write that up? I go to my computer and find the script and there it is. So there's something new. This time last year I didn't have nearly this many scripts available to me. My favorites were The Wackness and Burn After Reading, which I find especially interesting since I felt like No Country for Old Men was not a terribly good script. The Coens like to keep you on your toes.

This year I also nursed one hell of a zombie jones. Know what? I don't think there's a book on zombie movies. Somebody should write that.

So to sum up this year: Zen, Zombies, In Bruges, lots of screenplay PDFs.

See you next year!

And good luck with your short thing. I thought Paris, Je T'aime was terrific so I'm all in favor of more of that.