Interview with Bill Martell - part one

Bill Martell, as you should know by now, writes the kind of movies that air late at night on your TV, movies that star actors your recognize but can't quite place, the guys who might be the next Steven Seagal, and even a movie with Seagal. He's written over 19 produced scripts and teaches all over the place about how to create and maintain a writing career, and he does this with no representation. He runs a website with daily script tips - Script Secrets - and a blog - Sex in a Submarine - where he talks about more personal experiences. If you are not reading this stuff then you are missing out on one of the most informative sources of screenwriting education materials on the Internet.

Whenever I end up at a party with Bill I eventually corner him and chat it up, no doubt blocking his chance at meeting loose women, so it was only a matter of time before I went ahead and convinced him to do an interview. Actually it didn't take much convincing. Bill has a lot to say and he's pretty much the nicest guy I know, plus he's brutally honest.

If you've ever ended up in conversation with me at a party or anywhere, really, you know how much I love Zombie Strippers. On one such occasion Bill mentioned that he has his own version - a robot hookers from outer space movie called Droid Gunner. Of course I was overjoyed, so he brought me a copy of it. As I watched the film I began to formulate questions about how one creates a movie like this, so I asked. Here is part one of that interview.

Why, when I watch Droid Gunner, does the title screen come up as Cyber Zone?

George Lucas. Seriously. Though there are some countries where it was released as DROID GUNNER, and it was supposed to be released under that title here - the producers got a nice letter from George saying that “Droid” is his word and no one can use it without his permission. I thought this was BS - how can you own a *word*? I suggested they just put an apostrophe in there - ‘DROID GUNNER - but the producers caved and changed the title to CYBER ZONE even though there is no “cyber” or “zone” in the movie. We had all kinds of publicity and an article in Femme Fatales magazine about the film under the title DROID GUNNER... and all of the people who read the article may be still waiting for DROID GUNNER to come out. I have found through 19 films that titles often change, and often even change into titles that make no sense at all.  One of the movies that began with one of my scripts had a working title that seemed like random words thrown together - THE ENEMY OF THE INVISIBLE. Maybe it was translated into Chinese and back or something, I don’t know.

But watch the commercial for the Droid cell phone... at the end is some legal fine print that says the word “Droid” is used with permission of Lucas Film. When you get as big as George, you can own *words*.  

So weird that you are asking me about this movie - it has the lowest budget of any movie made from one of my screenplays (most are $2-$3 million HBO World Premiere Movies or USA Network MOWS or Made For Showtime movies... one is a $15m Sony Studios film with Seagal), it’s not available on DVD in the USA (though it’s a huge cult film many places - I just did two interviews with Russian movie magazines about it), and it’s stupid.  Though, it *is* my infamous robot hookers from outer space movie, and I don’t hate it the way I hate many of the other wretched films which began as my screenplays - I knew going in that it was going to be stupid, so I tried to make it the best movie ever made about robot hookers from outer space. Something my old co-workers at the warehouse would love.  We used to buy a case of beer or two and rent some stupid action movie... so I wrote the movie we’d have loved to see. Which means it must be viewed drunk!

I noticed in reading the treatment that you built a whole world for this story. How do you approach building a world? What are the key elements you feel are necessary to make it work?

The original treatment was called STEEL CHAMELEONS, a title that I have since stolen from myself for use on another script, and took place in a near future where androids were part of every day life - kind of a robot slaves. Through the course of the story we learn that these androids have developed feelings, and there is an underground railroad to get them papers so that they can live among us as humans. 

There was a period in the 90s where I was writing a lot of science fiction screenplays because it was a popular genre. For the most part, a science fiction movie is really just an action movie that takes place in the future. Sure, there are exceptions like GATACA, but mostly you have TOTAL RECALL and JUDGE DREDD and TERMINATOR and I ROBOT and MINORITY REPORT. In a science fiction script you start with what one big thing makes the world different - Apes have taken over? Food shortage plus population boom so we all eat Soylent Green? The Zombie Apocalypse happened and now you are the Last Man On Earth? There are psychics who tell the police who to arrest before they commit the crime? There is one big change, which is tied to the theme (point) of your story. That’s the concept, it is your basic idea.

But now we have to grow the world around it. Part of that will be to take that basic concept and see how it effects everything else. So if we have these lifelike androids that can pass as humans, someone is going to use them for criminal activities.  In the STEEL CHAMELEONS story, every state except Nevada has laws prohibiting the use of “Pleasure Droids” - PDs.  But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some illegal brothel in Los Angeles where you can find male and female Pleasure Droids and can have disease-free sex. Oddly enough, the whole concept of that story probably came from the herpes and AIDs sex scares - you couldn’t just have casual sex anymore, you needed a blood test on the way from the pick up bar to your swinging singles pad. The idea of some guaranteed disease free sex partners was a potential common fantasy among people who bought movie tickets. So that’s what I was tapping into, I hoped.

And once you have a class of “people” who are not given the rights and respect of everyone else, you will have groups that work to see that they have those rights - either through changing the laws or doing things that may be illegal under these laws but is morally right. You will also have the other political camp, and people and androids who are struggling in the middle. 

Once we have that main piece of the future world, we look at our current world and extrapolate what they future might be like. In another science fiction script that was made around the same time, I took two facts about Los Angles in the early 1990s (when the scripts were written) and extrapolated them into the near future:

1) The EPA demanded that L.A. have 20% electric vehicles by whatever the date was (since rescinded), so in the future all vehicles would be electric. For film purposes we would find the most futuristic looking current cars and remove the sound of the engine and add a low hum. At the time, the Dodge Silhouette van and the Saturn were my picks.

2) Los Angeles is a desert that lives on imported water... so I had your typical public drinking fountains with a place to slide your credit card.  To me, the more mundane the item you “futurize” the better. Oh, and there was no such thing as cash anymore, everything was done by debit card - that may not seem like sci-fi to you now, but when I wrote the script an ATM card was just to get cash from a machine.

Oddly enough, the things I created for these movies included the Smart Phone - called the Pippin - which was a combo phone and computer that was pocket sized and had no keyboard - they worked by voice command and had a “human” interface on the screen, you had your choice of faces/voices (kind of like your GPS). That was a simple jump from the smaller cell phones in the early 90s and the internet.  I haven’t read the STEEL CHAMELEONS treatment in ages, but there may also be guns that only the owner can fire - which just combines a fingerprint scanner with a gun, and all kinds of other small things which are part of today re-imagined for tomorrow.     

So in STEEL CHAMELEONS we have our PD s which are discovered by a female detective in the Police Department (also PD) during an investigation of a serial killer who preys on recently divorced women - like our female detective. Some of the victims have connections to the world of PD s - there’s a Gloria Allred-like attorney who defends androids and a woman involved in the Android Rights movement, etc. That way we can explore all of the “side effects” of androids as part of every day life though the murder investigation. Also helps with clues and suspects and plotty stuff.

When we get to DROID GUNNER/CYBER ZONE, the only thing that remained from the STEEL CHAMELEONS treatment was “Pleasure Droids”.  After a wonderful story meeting (sarcasm) I was told to write a whole movie about robot hookers from outer space. Which is a whole new world. So, I extrapolated again - earthquake knocks California into the ocean, and Phoenix is the new West Coast (the film is called PHOENIX 2 in England), the early 90s Christian Coalition lead by Ralph Reed has turned into a major faction in the future - and the underwater mining city of New Angeles is *ultra* conservative Christian, but needs employees who will sign a 4 year contract that says they will never think impure thoughts. Phoenix and the rest of the country is divided into the poor surface dwellers who do manual labor and the wealthy people in the penthouses above the smog... I swiped that from Lang’s METROPOLIS!  Because I’m a working class guy, one of my things is to show people who do manual labor in films, to counteract the whole Hollywood thing about every protagonist working in an office doing advertizing or something. Since this film was written for my warehousemen buddies from back when I was doing forklift jousting for a living, I made the protagonist live in that surface world. Because this was a more cartoony world, things were exaggerated for humor. Then I wrote the script in 9 days, they shot the film in about 9 days, and it was on Showtime before the paint had dried on the sets.     

Oh, and the film made 5 times its production budget in foreign sales alone! It was a major financial success for the producer. In fact, almost everything I have written has made a ton of money for the producer of the films. At one point in time after CRASH DIVE when I was writing a bunch of military action things for a company called Royal Oaks, the producer handed me a script by another writer that was not getting much interest from foreign territories in pre-sales to read... and it was an action script with no action! It had, like, two action scenes in it and the rest was characters sitting around talking. And the dialogue wasn’t good enough to make the talk scenes work. So, I told the producer all of this, and he said I must be wrong because the script was from some big agency. Whatever, not my problem. The producer didn’t use any of my notes, made the film... and it flopped. They had trouble selling the film, even with a much better cast than some of the stuff I’ve written. Many people believe that it’s easy to write a genre film, but I’m sure you’ve seen many genre films that were boring or crappy or just not fun.  The writers who think doing some direct-to-video action flick is easy should give it a try and see what happens. A few years ago there was a writer on one of the message boards who was represented by one of those 3 letter agencies and loved to rub it in... only, after a couple of years of representation still hadn’t gotten any work. So he thought he’d just write a DTV action flick and pop his cherry. Except nobody seemed much interested in his script, and it ended up going to a really small company. It was made... but still has not been released! I check it out every once in a while to see if maybe it’s on DVD yet. Nope. Like that all-talk action script, it’s tough to sell a movie that doesn’t satisfy the basics of the genre. An action film needs action scenes. A horror film needs horror. A thriller needs suspense. So it really does come down to the writing - you have to know the genre and how it works and know the audience and what they look for in a movie. This should be easy if you write the kind of films you regularly pay to see. If you are just crapping out some script you don’t care about because you think you can sell it, you will end up with unsaleable crap. You have to really love what you are writing... even if it ends up being a movie about robot hookers from outer space.

Look for Part Two tomorrow, where we discuss how Bill muddles through bad notes.

Dean's girlfriend sucks

Dean Winchester is frequently comic relief on Supernatural. He's emotionally scarred but he covers it up with jokes, constant jokes. He loves to booze it up and chase women and kill evil things.

The thing is, Dean can have almost any woman he wants in the whole world, so why in the world would he ever pick someone as humorless as Lisa? I don't get that choice. His sense of humor keeps him balanced, so the woman he would choose to spend his life with, the woman who would serve as his rock in the storm, that woman should be AWESOME, like Jo was. Lisa is not awesome. Lisa is boring and unfunny, and I don't believe in a million years that a guy like Dean would end up with her by choice when he has so very many options. I mean I get that he was looking for a stable suburban life, but that doesn't mean he has to pick a chick with no sense of humor.

I mean, would it be so much to make her laugh just one time? Nobody wants to be around someone who never makes you laugh.

She theoretically broke up with him this last episode, so we'll see if she and that whiny kid come back to bore us to death.

I love this show and I hate seeing it so abused. Dean's next girlfriend better be cool.


Tomorrow be on the lookout, I have part one of an interview with the one, the only, the rock star: Bill Martell.

A strategy that as yet went nowhere

My rep is a very very busy person - they all are if they're any good - so I've been gently tapping her on the shoulder on occasion to remind her of my existence. Things in this business move remarkably slowly and even though you're tapping your foot with impatience, the people on the other end are actually busting their asses. So while my rep is busting her ass for her successful clients, I sort of wave, take her advice when she gives it, and keep writing and reading, which is the majority of her advice anyway. She's very pleasant and I'm grateful for her time, but she only has so much of it.

Every time I contact her she has the same question, have you been reading screenplays? This is very important to her, so I know I always need to be able to tell her what is the last thing I read. In fact, the best thing about being able to contact her has been goal setting. I know now that someone will read my scripts and ask what I've read, and for that reason I bust my ass to make sure she approves of my answers.

But as yet, I've just been building my script library. The networking is still my responsibility.

So I wrote a chase movie called Salvage that takes place in North Carolina, where I'm from, so I had this idea of trying to get the script in the hands of actors from the area. In researching contact information I discovered that Danny McBride, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green, who all went to school together in North Carolina, formed their own production company.

That's just terrific news, ain't it? Because even if an actor loves a script, they can't always get it to go anywhere, but the guys behind Eastbound and Down have got to have a little pull. Sure enough, if you check IMDB, this is a company that actually produces things.

I researched the company thoroughly and listened to the interview last week on KCRW's The Treatment, wrote out what I was going to say and called. I got voice mail so I panicked and hung up.

The next day I called again, this time reaching a live person. I did my pitch, thinking as soon as I said North Carolina I'd get at least a cheerful response of recognition. Nope. I got that old standard "we only accept project submitted by a lawyer or agent."

This is just wrong. People from North Carolina are supposed to be friendly and talkative and call each other "honey." I know I do. Maybe the guy who answers their phones is not from North Carolina.

Anyway, I HATE bothering people, which is why I'm not very good at the nagging you sometimes have to do around here. You should have seen what a horrible news reporter I was before I discovered teaching. I don't like being the squeaky wheel. The angry, fuck-you-because-you-just-disrespected-me wheel, but not the squeaky pay-attention-to-me-please wheel.

But Manager's name, and the name of the company she works for, gets my projects past that guy on the phone, so now I have to ask for her help. So we'll see what happens next.

So many movies

One of the great things about living in LA is the ability to see films of all kinds in the theater. I feel like I haven't taken advantage of that enough of late, so this week I'm going to try to make up for it. Part of the problem is that it seems everything happens on Thursdays for some reason, and I have to get up at a stupid hour on week days so I can't stay out too late.

But next Thursday there's a screening of 127 Hours at the Arclight and dammit I'm going to go even if it means I'll be sleepy. I don't remember if there's a Q&A but good lord I hope so. With Danny Boyle. I love Danny Boyle.

Then Bloodsport is showing at the New Beverly at midnight on Saturday. I fucking love Bloodsport, so I'm going to take a nap Saturday afternoon to make sure I can stay awake.

I love Q&As too, and that's the beautiful thing about The New Bev - there's almost always some kind of Q&A. For those not in LA, The New Beverly tends to show old movies of varying types - they regularly screen Pulp Fiction, but their day to day films range from black and white horror to terrible 3D porn to Back to the Future. Lots of Grindhouse pictures. The seats are squeaky and the curtains are hideous and everybody's friends. I don't go there nearly enough.

But then right when I decided I had lined up enough movies for the next week, I got an email about AFI's film fest, where you can get free passes to see a lot of movies. I am dying to see I Saw The Devil, the new film from Ji-woon Kim who directed The Good, The Bad and the Weird, which I fucking LOVED. The listing on AFI's site warns that it's super violent. Hurray!

While I was looking for tickets to that I spotted 13 Assassins. Here's the logline on IMDB: "A group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord." Dude, how can I not watch that? It's from Takashi Mike, who has directed a veritable shitload of movies.

They have a lot of other great looking films airing at AFI Fest, but I think I've maxed out my schedule. At some point I'm going to have to grade papers.

The phone trail

This year our kids are all reading the same novel, and later in the year we'll be screening the movie version for the entire junior class in our auditorium. It's distributed by Buena Vista, so I logged onto IMDB Pro and called them up.

They sent me to someone at Disney, who sent me to a recording that sent me to some woman at some other place, whose secretary sent me to some legal company, who sent me to the woman who told me it would be $75.

As my list of phone numbers grew and I kept repeating my request to each new person, in the back of my mind I kept thinking that one day all it will take is one phone call and my name. One day.

I would like to beat severely the asshole who invented this virus

I've been missing from the online social scene for a little over 36 hours because four days ago Yearbook Computer #2 came down with a case of Win32 Vitro, the nastiest virus I've ever seen, and for the last two days I've done nothing but try to eradicate it. These damn kids and their downloading of videos.

In the words of one Billy Bob Thornton, it's a global killer, and in the words of one Michael Biehn, I'm going to have to take off and nuke it from orbit.

Unless this next thing works. I've been saying that for four days - I'll give up when this next thing works. It's like a crack pipe. Any goddamn minute I'm gonna give this up and go to bed, I swear, but first, just one more hit. Just one more boot in Safe Mode and I'll have it, I know it.

Tomorrow I'm giving up and calling for backup. Seriously though.

In the meantime, check this out. It's silly fun: The Bayifier.


*Edited to add: No Mac trolling please.

It's okay to suck even though it sucks

I have trouble writing during the week, so some weeks I only get to write one day, usually Sunday. I make sure of that, actually. If I don't write any other day of the week, I always make sure I write on Sunday. I had trouble enforcing that when I was taking that stupid class for work, but now all that's over I really really hope, so Sundays are back to writing days.

Yesterday I set out to write 8 pages, but that would have put me on page 13 and I am uncomfortable with prime numbers, so I stopped on page 12. Yes that means I wrote 7 pages, which is also a prime number, which does make me slightly uncomfortable but not as uncomfortable as stopping on page 13. And yes I am completely insane.

But despite my weird OCD hangups, I cranked out seven really bad pages Sunday. So bad I wrote little notes to myself throughout that say things like "This shit is boring. Make it not suck."

Some days I sit in front of the computer and I pour gold onto that screen. my tiny - they are freakishly tiny - hands just pluck away at those keys, and what I'm left with is a magnificent series of events I can't help but reread like three times just to bask in its brilliance.

Sunday was not one of those days. Sunday was the other kind of day, the one where you know you have to write it so you write it, but you also know that everything you're writing will need to be rewritten. I hate those days. They're not so much fun.

This is probably one of the most difficult tasks a writer has to do - writing pages that suck. It's in our nature to want it to be good so sometimes we get all held up on writing and rewriting until it's just right and it takes forever to get through a handful of pages. Last weekend I only wrote three pages, partly because of a computer virus, but also partly because I rewrote those three pages three times. I need to get a move-on with this script, so as difficult as it is, this week I ignored my desperate desire to polish this turd.

Here at the beginning of the script I'm just learning these people. I wrote up back stories, but you don't really know what you're characters are going to do until you've seen what they already did. That means, for me at least, a lot of experimentation at the beginning, a lot of long dialogue exchanges where people explain shit that I need to know but shit that's not very interesting.

In the first rewrite I go back through and remove the things my characters are saying just to me so I can replace it with interesting stuff. This first draft is about getting the story on paper. The good stuff comes later, but first you have to set the framework.

It's tedious and not as much fun as writing the golden stuff, but it has to be done. I have to say to myself, "Self, you suck. And that's okay as long as you don't suck in prime numbered amounts."

The time I blew off party ettiquette

The UK has its own version of Law and Order now starring Doctor Who alum Freema Agyeman and everybody's favorite Battlestar pilot/lawyer/commander Jamie Bamber. It's a lot like our Law and Order, but with accents.

The problem I have is that each time I see Jamie Bamber I feel like an ass. I need to get this off my chest.

Be prepared for shameless name dropping.

I was invited to a screening of a Battlestar Galactica episode at the Cineramadome once thanks to a friend's awesome pull. I sat next to the lovely Jane Espenson and pelted her with questions about what it's like to write for James Marsters. Apparently just about every female actress who ever came on the show wanted to have a romantic storyline with Spike.

Anyway, Jane had my ticket to the after party and she stormed ahead after the screening where she was frequently stopped by fans. She was extremely gracious to everyone. In case you've ever wondered, she's every bit as awesome as you think she is.

At any rate, I'd talked to Mark Verheiden a couple of times at a few gatherings, and as I passed by him on my way to the party he waved me down and said hey. I smiled at him, then realized Jane was disappearing with my ticket to the party, so I kept moving even though he clearly expected me to stop and talk. I realized later what a giant asshole move that was. To Mark Verheiden. Who is just about the nicest guy ever, and also very talented and writing for shows and My Name is Bruce and about a million other things I wish I could do. And I didn't stop to talk to him because I am a moron. I doubt it has affected his life in any way, but I still think about it from time to time and slap myself in the head.

Anyway, I managed to get into the party where I stood right next to the ridiculously tall and stunning Lucy Lawless (See? Name dropping!) and my friend and I end up in a circle with Jamie Bamber. I held an intensely condensing drink in my hand, and right as my palm was completely wet my friend introduced me to him. "My hand is wet," I said. He said he didn't mind and made some kind of joke about wet drink hand.

So at this moment I could have wiped my hand on my pants and shook his hand, or just shook his hand with my wet one and gone about my business. Instead I shook his hand THEN wiped my hands on my pants. As if to say, ew, water I can handle, but Jamie Bamber hand is gross. Which is, of course, not what I meant because Jamie Bamber hand is sexy. But I could tell by his facial expression that I had just offended him beyond repair.

He and my friend got into a long conversation about Horatio Hornblower, which I've never seen, and I faded into the shadow with my now less wet hands. Jamie Bamber seemed annoyed that I was still standing there.

Had I been less of an ass that night, would my life be different? Probably not. But I'd feel less like a moron now every time I see Jamie Bamber on screen.

Realistic goals

If I could have a perfect screenwriting career, these are the things I will have done before I die:

1) Have sole screenwriting credit on a Danny Boyle film
2) Adapt that one novel that nobody seems able to adapt but that I really really want to do and would be awesome at it
3) Write the script about that one royal historical figure that would be a drama and in no way an action film
4) Have sole screenwriting credit on a successful big budget action film with a female protagonist.
5) Make out with Jensen Ackles

And that's all I have so far. I think I'm going to post them on my board, not because I'm all into The Secret, but because when I get lazy I can remember what I'm fighting for. The Beefcake has already approved the above mentioned makeout session, so I'm halfway there.

Waiting and reading and writing and waiting

The last script I wrote was about a subject which has now become trendy in pop culture, and at first I was all stoked because I figured that for once I was ahead of the game. I thought for sure this would be the script that could finally go somewhere.

But as time passes I'm getting nervous because as this topic gets trendier my script gets cooler, but as it gets even more trendier my script becomes passe.

Everything in this business moves at a damn snail's pace. I write, I read, I write, I read, I email various people, and then wait and read and write some more. People in Hollywood are always busy. Like, super busy. They also don't like to give you bad news, so you never know if the three of four people you're waiting to hear from haven't emailed because they're just too damn busy, or because they're avoiding telling you how much you suck.

Eh. Whatever the reason, I'm just going to keep reading and writing and emailing and meeting people because there's not much else I can do.

Actually I have one idea I could try, but I'm not going to talk about it until it either works or fails. In the meantime I'm just going to keep plodding along. Like everybody else around here, I guess. Let's all complain together. Who wants beer?

Netflix doesn't know me at all

I have a bone to pick with Netflix. Everybody knows I love action movies; it's what I watch far and above any other genre. Yet for some reason Netflix can't recommend anything except the original Last of the Mohicans until I rate more action/adventure films.

Sure, Netflix can tell me which biological military dramas I'd enjoy, but for some reason does not thing I am prepared to handle its suggestions for action films until I've seen Undisputed 3. Nevermind the 3,000 odd movies I've already rated. No. I WILL see more Jean Claude Van Damme films or I will NOT be allowed access to more specific recommendations. I've already seen like half of them! What can watching In Hell tell you that watching Timecop can't? It makes no sense!

Why the hell are you recommending Sesame Street: Old School: Vol 1? WTF in my ratings system has made you think I'd love that, but you still can't figure out which movie with gun fights I'd enjoy?

Dammit, Netflix. Get your shit together.

Why I didn't see Red this weekend

The Beefcake was out of town this weekend so I was planning to go to the movies by myself to see Red. Saturday I planned to write all day, and my original plan was to crank out 8 pages so I could get to page 10. Unfortunately round about page 5 I took a second to look for what theaters in the area play Korean films and I accidentally clicked on a link and got a virus and ended up spending the next 3 hours working on cleaning my computer.

Anyway, That was Saturday. So Sunday morning I planned to see Red at the local theater that charges $5 a ticket for the first showing of the day. About half an hour before the show I changed my mind and worked out instead.

Red's got 70% on Rotten Tomatoes and everybody I know who's seen it says it's fun and worth seeing, but I just decided to wait for Netflix. There are a couple of reasons for that.  The first is that I had a lot of shit to do Sunday - write a paper for a stupid class I'm almost done with, eradicate the cat pee smell from my dining room, bust a sweat in the gym. Two hours at the movie theater gets in the way of that, so it should be a film that's well worth it.

And the truth is, months ago I was really excited about Red. It looked awesome, by virtue of Helen Mirren the badass if nothing else. But in the last couple of weeks before the film came out I saw that same preview we all saw where Malkovitch's character shoots a missile with a bullet.

I don't know if that shot made it into the final film or what the context was of that scene, but that moment totally blew the appertaining excitement I'd had about the film. I'm a little tired of ludicrous shit and I just didn't want to be disappointed again.

I had high hopes for The Losers too, and the last half hour of the film just defied logic in a way that didn't work. What started as a good film became a parody of itself, and I had this great fear that Red would turn out to be the same. I think somehow the fact that a film is based on a comic book has generated the idea that they can defy the laws of physics whenever they feel like it.

The odd thing is, I liked Shoot 'Em Up very very much. Maybe it's because that movie was one huge crazy over-the-top romp, or maybe it's because I'm not as cool as I used to be when I first saw that film. But for whatever reason, I'm afraid to spend my $5 on a movie that may turn out to ruin itself with silliness.

Party time

It was fancy Hollywood party night last night thanks to the powerful influence of an awesome dude who may or may not wish to be identified here. I got to schmooze in Beverly Hills in a fancy brand new cocktail dress.

I didn't give out a lot of business cards, but I did meet some cool people. At one point I saw Jeremy Piven squeeze right by me - he is shorter than I expected and has taken up having hair - and I raised my voice so that he could overhear me talking about my forever love for Zombie Strippers. I don't know if he heard me, but he did not stop to talk about Jenna Jameson shooting ping pong balls out of her vagina. His loss.

Robert Forster was in the elevator with us although at first though I recognized him as a celebrity I couldn't figure out who he was. He kept smiling at me. Nice man.

Aaron Sorkin came by to give a speech but he didn't hang out with the crowd because they would have crowded him to death. How ironic it would be if he were killed by conversations.

Servers were passing around shots of tequila which I did not drink, because ever since Halloween four years ago when shots went down and came back up again in four different puking sessions, I refrain from anything shot related. They also passed trays of tiny sirloin burgers but the one dude and his harem of like four scantily clad girls enveloped the tray like a plague of locusts. I never did get a burger, but I did get a tiny red velvet cupcake. I lost like two pounds from not eating that day. You know how when you think you're getting a lot of food you don't eat and inevitable there will be no food, but if you do eat inevitably there will be tons of food? Yeah. It was like that.

There was one girl dressed in bright red with a cowl neck exposing her boobs and barely any material covering her hoo hah. For some reason she was interested in this little dude with red shoes. His lucky night.

I got three compliments on my dress. I have finally arrived in society.

My shoes, though awesome, squeezed the hell out of my toes all night, so to get to the bar after the party I took them off and walked barefoot through Beverly Hills. I'm really glad the party wasn't in Koreatown.

When people get drunk they really get open about the dealings they've had around town. I highly recommend just grabbing a glass of water and listening.

Neurosis

Well heavens to Betsy. Yesterday my stats took a leap up the charts, higher than when I posted about seeing Michael Rosenbaum at a party but not quite as high as that time all those Russians thought I was that hot blond actress in the mini tube dress at the WGA strike rallies.

I now feel very pressured to perform, but not in a mini tube dress.

So the other day I talked about how I got this great new idea I was so excited about, and ever since I've been world building and thinking and loving it and feeling the joy of seeing all the different directions you could take your story.

But then when I think about telling someone my brilliant idea the insecurity sets in. I'm going to get this out of the way now so later on I can just write without interruption from my brain.

What if someone else has done it and it was a shitty B movie and nobody saw it except all the people who will immediately think of it as soon as I say my idea?

What if someone with a big fancy name just finished a draft of the same idea and any minute now the trades will be abuzz with this genius new screenplay by Alex Garland or Alex Litvak or some other writer dude who may or may not be named Alex?

What if my idea is Most Often Pitched? What if everybody in town has seen this come across their desk at one point and deemed it unmakeable?

What if it's just a dumb idea? What if I can't think up good ideas anymore? What if I'm a hack who spends the next 50 years hopelessly writing script after script and throwing it into the blackhole of Hollywood while people just shake their heads and walk away?

What if all this neurosis causes a panic attack and I die right here on my couch and the cat eats my fingers while thanks to his new habit of peeing the dining room nobody notices the smell of my rotting copase'/B2gweDScccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

Validation

It's been a very exciting day. As you may already know because it's totally important, A website that likes to list stuff, called Bachelor's degree, has listed the top 60 blogs for aspiring screenwriters. I'm number 17! Weee! Apparently I talk good.

I started this blog years ago after another blogger got a book deal and I wanted a piece of that. I have yet to get a piece of that, but being mentioned on the same list as John August and Ken Levine is pretty close. Fortune and fame, here I come.

I've made friends here, and improved my craft, and the daily writing has done wonders for my ability to produce pages. I discovered that once in a meeting at work where we were all supposed to write a couple of paragraphs about something in an English workshop and my coworkers spent forever figuring out how to get started while I cranked my assignment out in no time. As I looked around I realized how forcing myself to write a daily post has made that kind of stuff easy.

Anyway, most of those blogs on that list I already read, but there were a few I'd never heard of, so it was cool to get a look at some new material, I recommend checking out all the blogs on that list. Personally, I always use the blog roll to get an inspirational jump start to my writing day. Half the battle of writing is getting that shit started.

Those Chilean miners are going to make a killing on film rights

I heard on NPR that the Chilean miners have all agreed to sign a contract that will allow them to live the rest of their lives without working. I think I was supposed to assume that meant through some sort of lawsuit, but my first instinct was to think of movie and book rights.

So that got me thinking - this will obviously be a movie at some point. So it's quiz time. Who should write it? If you were to write it, how would you approach the material? Because you have to admit, it's a hell of a story.

Also, I hope they all make it out of there okay. That's got to have been the most boring, uncomfortable two months anyone ever spent.

Ideas upon ideas upon plans

This scene appeared in my head the other night - an action scene that would be a great opening shot to a big budget film. I kept thinking about this scene until I got an idea for a character. I had an idea for what could happen to this character, but it just didn't seem very conflict heavy and I couldn't figure out how to make a story out of it.

Usually with me the story comes first, but not this time. I just kept shifting this person around, trying to find a way for them to grow-

Then it hit me. BAM. I way toying with possibilities, thinking what's the worst thing that could happen to this person? And suddenly, there it was. When in doubt, think of the worst thing that could happen to your character, and there's your story.

I've been focusing on comedy for a while and once I finish this next script I'll have two low budget projects under my belt, but I'm ready to get back to straight up big budget action, my first love. This is like Dark Knight / Tonight, He Comes territory - gritty, dark, explosiony. I've wanted to write something like this for a long time.

First I promised myself I'd crank out the current project. It's commercial, it's solid, it's sellable. In the meantime I'm going to brainstorm this new thing that I'm already in love with. It's going to require world building.

My first issue is, I know I'm going to have to make it a male protagonist. I haven't written a male lead in a while, but let's face it, if I want to write action I need to write men, and this story lends itself to a man for various reasons. It's time to face my fear.

So now I know what I'll be working on for at least the next six months, unless of course someone pays me money to do something else.

Make Undercovers better

I really want to like Undercovers. The pilot was okay - not great, not even remotely as good as the Alias and Lost pilots - but good enough that I liked its potential. But now....

These two people were spies for years before they met. They traveled around the world lying to everyone they met, doing lord knows how many morally questionable things to get the job done. Yet they don't appear to have any secrets from each other.  Their "fights" are more like cute little foreplay. They just love each other so much that they know each other sooooo well and just want to protect each other, but not at the risk of sacrificing professional respect. It's like the fucking Cleavers with guns.

And the other spy guy, the hot white guy, he used to date the wife. Now he works with the wife and husband and they all get along. He doesn't really want the wife back - he jokes about it, but he's got a lot of other irons in the fire. The husband isn't particularly jealous, sort of mildly annoyed.

Speaking of jealousy, nobody's a better spy than anybody else. There's no real competition between them.

I don't tune into shows like this to watch the mission. I don't give a shit about the mission. I tune in to watch how the mission affects the relationship of a married couple, but so far the mission doesn't seem to affect them much at all.

Give one of them a horrible secret. Make one member of the group HATE another member of the group they're forced to work with. Make one of them kick so much ass on a mission while the other one ends up looking like an idiot. For heaven's sake, give us some genuine conflict, not this surfacy cute shit we've been getting. I'd say Undercovers does not need to be Chuck, but even Chuck has constant relationship conflict. So instead I say, Undercovers, be the edgy Chuck. Please.

Snow White and the Huntsman

There's been a lot of talk this week on all the boards about Snow White and the Huntsman and the $3 million sale. And wow, that's a hell of a sale, and I'm happy as hell for writer Evan Daugherty. The pacing of the script is terrific and he's obviously a gifted writer.

But I'm not sure what made this script worth so much money. My best guess is the PG rating. Most of the retold fairy tales out now seem to have R ratings.

In Snow White, there are evil fairies who are kind of mean although not in any memorable way, which would seem kind of edgy, I guess, had Killing on Carnival Row not been about fairy prostitutes.

It's retelling of a fairy tale, but it seems like every ten minutes a new fairy tale pops up with some kind of modern take. It's so trendy to retell fairy tales that I looked on Project Gutenberg a month ago to see what kind of cool Grimm tales I had overlooked. Do you know most of them are like three paragraphs long?

The consensus among those of us who've never actually made any money writing screenplays is, we don't get it. The script has some major dialogue issues and overall is kind of predictable except in places where the characters defy logic. On the one hand, it was easy to read. I had no trouble making it to the end, and I'm somebody who regularly gives up when shit gets boring. On the other hand, I just didn't get the wow factor.

I wish I understood. Does anybody get why this script made so much money? Is it the PG thing? I'd like to understand so I too can make that much money.

Digital twins

As I watched Social Network Saturday, I remember thinking those Winklevoss twins were fantastic, and how lucky Fincher was to find two identical twins so perfect for the role who could act so well.

My favorite line in the film: "I'm 6-5, 220 and there's two of me." Brilliant.

Turns out, though, Fincher didn't find two perfect identical twins. Those are two unrelated guys digitally enhanced. I never would have guessed. Amazing. What kind of crazy shit are they going to think up next?

Tweet me or whatever

Look, sometimes these pictures are relevant to the topic, and sometimes they just make me giggle.

Anyway, peer pressure has finally won out. I finally started a Twitter account. I remember reading an article about Twitter in a Wired magazine a couple of years ago and thinking, Why the fuck would anyone want tiny updates on your day?

I've never been good at spotting developing trends.

Anyway, I'm under the name Bambookiller because my name was taken by someone who hasn't tweeted since 2009. I don't know if I'm every going to tweet anything cool. It may all be lame shit. It may be elegant pearls of wisdom.

But I will not - NOT - get a Facebook account.

Teach

Okay so. I'll admit when I was wrong.

Tony Danza's Teach does show what it's like to be a teacher. In the pilot he doesn't have the kind of discipline issues most teachers get, but he does have the general problems aside from discipline that we all have. But it's the pilot; it looks like in future episodes he will have to deal with some discipline issues. The first week the kids are figuring you out. The second week they're testing you.

There's a scene in the preview of upcoming episodes where he walks out in the middle of class and thinks about leaving. Oh yeah, I've been there. I've cried in the hallway in the arms of another teacher while my kids sat in my room waiting for me to come back. So I guess this show is for real.

I found myself willing him advice.

I found myself wondering if they said the same things about me in my first year that they said about him. I am both terrified and amazed at how much logic and empathy the kids used when talking about him.

I heard him say things exactly like the things I have said, because much like Tony Danza, I am manic in the classroom and I still talk too much.

With that in mind, the best advice I ever got as a teacher:

-When you ask a question, wait. And wait. Eventually one of them will get more uncomfortable than you are with the silence, and they'll answer the question.

-At the end of the day, the kids should be tired, not you. Make them do all the work, even if that work is mental

-Make the kids think you're crazy. If they think you're crazy, they'll always be a little scared of what you might do if they piss you off.

Outline: Done

I spent the whole week trying to get over one scene in the beginning of my outline for the new script, which for now will be known as The First Hit. This morning I figured out how I would get over that hump, and then suddenly my fingers flew through the rest of the outline. In one hour I wrote three pages, from halfway through the first act all the way to the end. And it was fun. It's exhilarating, like I just rode a roller coaster in my head but it didn't make my stomach leap or anything. Actually it's not really like a roller coaster. Maybe a double-decker ferris wheel.

Now I'm waiting to see what my friend thinks before I send this to the Manager.

It's good to be productive.

Counting

Does everybody but me count their scripts? People always spout off how many scripts they've written, and I have absolutely no idea. 10? 15? 8? Beats me. I wrote a lot of crap that never saw the light of day before I started writing stuff I wasn't ashamed of. I didn't keep count, and I didn't even keep all the scripts. Things that sucked got lost or erased. Plus there's shorts and TV scripts.

I've given myself a number sometimes on other websites when people ask, but to be honest it was just a guess, and as time goes by that guess gets hazier.

Do you keep count? Am I alone in this?

Hawaii 5-0 and Daniel Dae Kim

Even though I said I didn't want anymore cop shows, I'm enjoying the hell out of Hawaii 5-0. I think it's because although technically I guess it's a drama, it doesn't feel super serious and fake like so many similar shows. The characters seem real, not scripted, which since they're scripted is pretty good.

And okay, Grace Park is ridiculously beautiful. And thin.

And that guy who played a sleazy asshole manager on Entourage gets to be a good dad here.

And the lead is a good lookin fella.

But the real joy of this is seeing Daniel Dae Kim looking cool. I knew he was cool back when he was on Angel as an evil lawyer who eventually got zombiefied and then shot in the head. Or was he axed in the head? I don't remember, but Gunn gave him a headwound so he wouldn't become a zombie, even though he was evil and made life a literal Hell for the team.

The point is, he was so evil and cool on that show, and now he's good and cool. He drives a motorcycle and he gets to use his real deepish type voice. And because of the shape of his forehead he always looks like he's raising his eyebrows in disbelief, as if all the white folk around him are going about this whole thing all wrong and he has all the answers.

And that is why I will continue to watch Hawaii 5-0, despite the fact that they wasted an opportunity with James Marsters. But they made up for it with Daniel Dae Kim's badassery.

You got to have friends

Last night after going around and around with my script outline so many times I completely lost focus. I couldn't figure out whether I was coming or going or whether or not my idea was any good at all or just another generic piece of crap idea.

I emailed a friend of mine, told him about the notes I already got and the ways I was throwing them around, and then we got on chat and he talked me through it. Like deactivating a bomb over the phone.

By the end of the conversation, I not only had a new direction, but I had a new title and new confidence. Once he thought of the title he refused to let me not change it, to the point where he may track me down and shoot me if I don't. In fact, his title suggestion is so good I'm not going to post it here until I'm done with the script. For now it stays The First Hit: Most Generic Title Ever.

The beautiful part was that besides the title, everything was there in my head. I just needed someone to help me find it.

Everybody needs that one friend who knows how to steer you in the right direction when you're wandering in the wilderness.

Floating in a sea of possible angles

I had this idea that was pretty cool so I started writing up an outline, then I read Horrible Bosses, which has a lot of similarities to my script, so I changed the location from work to somewhere else, which necessitated some changes in the overall story as well.

In the process, I created a whole new protagonist. I went from Emma Stone to - well, not Emma Stone anymore, anyway. Someone more wide-eyed and innocent.

I love the concept and the character I've now created, but I've spent two weeks trying to make this work to no great effect. I finally threw up my hands and asked for help, and so far the help has been helpful. Helpful help.

Whenever you ask for help on a story, everybody always has these directions they'd take it based on things they like, so one of the great tricks of taking suggestions on the idea is to know what's just someone's personal preference and what's the true direction you want to take.

And I think that in order to do that, you have to be open to anything. I always go into getting notes of this kind hoping someone will say one thing that will send me off in the right direction, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes what they say is that the idea you had needs a complete revolution and that the one element of your story you KNEW was right, was, in fact, not right at all.

So I've started toying with some of the ideas I've been given today. Part of me says "NO! That's not the story you want to tell!" and the other part of me says "But this might be an even COOLER story!" and another part of me says "You're a fucking hack and nobody wants to read your stupid story anyway!" and then another part of me thinks "Explosions is the answer. More explosions," and then another part of me just stares at my hair in wonderment of how fantastic it looks when I use that expensive conditioner.

At some point I really hope this all clicks into place, but for now I'm just floating, looking for the glue to hold the puzzle together.

House of Secrets

As part of a project at work I needed to get comic books for the kids to look at in class. It's a whole artistic thing I'm doing.

I don't know that much about comic books, but last time I went to House of Secrets in Burbank they were super nice so I went back there, and I just want to give those guys another shout-out. I'm not the first: Bitter Script Reader gave them love once, too.

When I walked in they were busy and there was a small crew doing an interview, but both employees stopped to help me find what I was looking for. In fact, the girl - I wish I got her name - spent 20 minutes combing through boxes or a stack of cheap comics that fit my criteria. She was downright ecstatic at the challenge. After I chose my stack of titles, the boss gave me a discount on them since, as he put it, I'm "doing the Lord's work" in my ghetto school.

I've been there twice now, and they never minded that I don't know much about comics. They relished it. In fact, they thought it was terrific since maybe this project might get kids interested in reading comics.

I felt it appropriate to show them a little love here today.

A lesson from Raising Hope

I like to catch the pilots every season, so I just watched Raising Hope.
First of all, I love Garret Dillahunt. I love his voice, I love his clever redneck personality, I love his bone structure, I love that he can whip in and out of comedy and drama at the drop of a hat.

Now that that's out of the way, watching this show felt like swimming in floaties.

These people are supposed to be poor white trash rednecks.  I did not believe for one goddamn second that anyone ever involved in this show actually spent any time in a white trash home. Poor people are depressing; the only show that ever made that shit funny was Roseanne, and that's only because those people were so horrible you laughed at how glad you were that you weren't them. And no, Married With Children doesn't count because that was a fantasy white trash home.

Anyway, on this show they say some white trashy things, but they do it with complete enunciation and verb agreement and their clothes are clean.

I'm all for defying stereotypes, but first you have to embrace them. There's a moment on this show where the white trash dad and the white trash mom share a moment where you get that they love each other. They've been together since high school, but they seem to be a perfect match. Now, this would be a nice twist on the stereotype except it's not surprising in the least since these people don't really seem all that white trashy.

And while we're at it, speaking with a Southern accent does not automatically make you white trash. And fuck off with the assumption that it does.
Is it wrong to hope that show gets canceled so Garret Dillahunt can spend more time doing things I like? That seems wrong, but still kind of correct.

Editing reality shows must be fun sometimes

Sometimes I love imagining the fun the editors and writers on reality shows must have assembling their cuts. Like whoever puts together Bridezillas must just have a blast watching the crazy these bitches embrace.

So I want to give credit where it's due. On this week's Ultimate Fighter I saw one of my favorite edits. The bad boy with the bleached hair and the pack-a-day habit spent his time in the van talking shit about his opponent, one Bruce Leroy. Now Bruce is a little crazy, but in that way that never hurts anyone because he's so nice. He dresses like Bruce Lee. I'll bet if you asked him enough questions you'd find out that he thinks he was Bruce Lee in his past life.

So the bad boy, Jeffrey I think, sits in the van talking soooo much shit about how he's going to make Bruce Leroy want to go home, he's gonna beat him so bad in his stupid gi and he's gonna show him what a real fight is and he's so badass and yadda yadda I'm the bad boy and I'm gonna fuck this weird kid up and send him home to mamma because he's such a loser and whatever.

Then they cut to Bruce Leroy in the other van in his black gi as he quietly points out the window and says "Look, a hummingbird."

That's one of those moments where I imagine the editor in his bay just gleeing with delight when he realized what he had.

The Zombie badwagon

I wrote my zombie script after World War Z came out, but before Zombieland. I wrote it to be a writing sample, because it requires a huge budget, and at the time nobody was making zombie movies with huge budgets except Resident Evil, and Resident Evil doesn't count because it's a video game.

I'm not saying I invented zombies, just that I wrote big budget zombies when nobody was writing big budget zombies. Except the guys from Zombieland, I guess. They probably thought up that script before I wrote mine. But whatever, I still wrote my first draft before I even knew about that script.

So anyway I wrote Not Dead Yet and it got me the attention it was supposed to. Some cool industry people read it, or at least got the opportunity to read it. Two of the people who could have done something with it may never have cracked it open, or if they did I never heard about it. But anyway, it made the rounds and got me a little attention. So I thought that was pretty good for a big budget zombie movie.

Then came Zombieland. And then Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and now Boyscouts vs Zombies and Zombies Vs Gladiators are making the rounds, and despite wanting to read those things, I also have been annoyed that I made my script have too high a budget even for big budget movies.

I was riding this wave before there was a damn wave. Which makes me think that although I am happy to have a great writing sample, I wish I had made a great writing sample that also could double as something I could sell.

Somebody got there first

I had this idea, see, about a woman who fantasizes about killing her boss, because I figured everybody can relate to that and it would be a big hit, except I'm a little late. Horrible Bosses, a comedy about three buddies who decide to band together to murder their despicable bosses, is already slated for production.

I just read it and yeah, there's a lot of overlap. So back to the drawing board.

I love the original idea, but at some point I got stuck on it taking place at work because of the aforementioned thinking about killing the boss as being relatable. But the story doesn't have to take place at work because there are plenty of other people we fantasize about killing during the day.

So I've decided not to scrap my script, but to use this as an opportunity to get really creative. I went for the obvious - cube farm frustration and an irritating boss, but this is actually going to force me to come up with a scenario that hasn't been done.

It happens to everybody eventually.

Son of a bitch

There is a new untitled comedy making the rounds that will apparently star Kevin James as a teacher who moonlights as an MMA fighter to pay for classroom supplies.

I have spent the last 8 years trying to figure out the right way to make an action star out of a teacher. I also happen to LOVE MMA. It's the only sport I give a shit about.

A teacher who fights in MMA matches to pay for classroom supplies. Dammit to hell. Why the hell didn't I think of that?

Best Week Ever

This is one of the most fun times of the year. I just ran through the TV listing for next week, just picking off all the pilots I want to add to my schedule. I try to watch all the pilots so I can decide which ones will become regular viewing. It's always fun to watch this year's crop of world building. I''m excited about Hawaii 5-O the most, I think.

Plus Ultimate Fighter is back, so it's kind of the best week ever. My money's on the tough guy who talks trash about the other guys.

What pilots are you excited about?

What are you reading?

So as it turns out, work is a lot of work. I miss vacation but I have to say that so far this batch of kids is fantastic. Some of them even know what a stanza is already. So yay.

I'm working on a new script but first I have to read the screenplay for Horrible Bosses to make sure I don't overlap that too much with one of my projects. The Manager always reminds me of this. One of her regular questions to me is "What are you reading?" I get the impression that she has dealt with a ton of new writers who never read anything. I make sure I can always tell her the latest scripts I've read and which ones I liked.

Last week I was getting ready for the start of school, but I still had time to read the remake of The Thing and 127 Hours. This week even though I'm starting back to work I'm still going to make sure I have time to read Horrible Bosses and another script I've been eager to read.

As much as I like Carson's Scriptshadow site, reading his reviews is no replacement for reading the scripts themselves.


What have you read lately? What did you think of it?

I'm too tired to think of a title

Today was the first day of school in LAUSD and I wore uncomfortable shoes because I'm trying this new sophisticated look thing, all a direct result of watching What Not To Wear at 9am while eating cereal almost every weekday of my vacation. Actually they are very comfortable shoes for traversing through the airport, but not for standing on your feet for eight hours and walking all over a high school campus. I don't want anyone to think I'm talking shit about my awesome Clarks.

Anyway, my feet hurt and I'm exhausted, more exhausted than I've been in a long time. But I feel it is necessary to share this, in case you haven't seen it yet. It's delightfully poignant:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Cops, lawyers, doctors

I decided not to go to the CBS premiere party tonight because I don't want to sit through The Defenders and Mike and Molly to get to Shit My Dad Says, especially since I have no idea if Shatner showed or not. Did Shatner show?

Anyhow, I don't know what Mike and Molly is, although I can assume from the title that it's probably cutesy and will annoy me, but I know I don't want to watch The Defenders. I love Jerry O'Connell, don't get me wrong, but I am sick to death of shows about lawyers. Comedies, dramas, procedurals, whatever. Unless somehow they make a show about lawyers in space, I'm probably not going to watch it. And to be fair, Farscape already did an episode about space lawyers so that field has been plowed.

I also don't want to watch anymore shows about hospitals. And probably not cops either. There are a bazillion different interesting jobs out there, just ask Mike Rowe. Do we really need another show about doctors, lawyers or cops? It's a bit uncreative, I think. Of course doctors, lawyers and cops all have daily cases to solve, stories that lend themselves to procedural stuff. But if you meet people and talk to them, you'll hear all kinds of interesting ideas for stories that don't revolve around a hospital or a court room.

Or at the very least, set that shit in space.

Outsourced and The Event

So, first of all, TV obsessed people, if you're going to a party with an open bar please do us all a favor and at the very least take three goddamn seconds to brush your hair.

Now with that out of the way, NBC night at the Paley Center opened with Outsourced.

I expected unfunny, possibly racist stereotyped silliness, and I got a genuinely funny, clever pilot. I liked it very much, to my great surprise.

Then we watched The Event. Eh. I was hoping for something there, but I felt like it was trying to be the next Lost instead of embracing what it was. I was frequently confused because we kept leaping back and forth in time for no real reason and with no real pattern. At one point we sat with President Blair Underwood in an office, then we flashed back directly to a scene with him in his office talking to one of the same people. How the hell am I supposed to keep that shit straight in an episode with eighty thousand other completely unnecessary flashbacks? They added very little to the story, and served mostly to confuse and annoy me. There was what could have been a cool Hitchcock moment where a character's life is thrown upside down, but just felt like a lot of similar scenes we've seen in the past. All that said, the mystery is just enough to get me to watch episode 2. I will watch, but if this shit doesn't clean up I'm out.


Then Chase came on, and even though we wanted to watch Undercovers, we didn't want to watch it enough to sit through another show about a female law enforcement officer with straight blond hair, especially since there was no Q&A.

And that was NBC.

Paleyfest time

It's premiere party time at the Paley Center again. Last year I went to the NBC party, where I discovered Community, last season's best comedy - I don't care what the Emmys say.

This time got tickets for Thursday's event, also NBC, because I want to check out The Undercovers. The Event is also screening, and Outsourced and Chase. Naturally it looks like they're saving The Undercovers for last to make sure I stay until the end. Last year I bolted when the Mercy pilot finally bored me and my friend half to death, but this year I'm going to have to sit through everything, good or bad.

Then I'm hitting up Friday for CBS and Shit My Dad Says. There's some other stuff screening, but I'm just going for the Shatner. If you haven't read his autobiography, I encourage you to look into it. He's brutally honest and hilarious.

Anyway, the Paley premiere parties are very cool events, so if you can still get tickets I highly recommend it. And if you're headed out Thursday of Friday, keep a lookout and say hi.

Why Alien 3 sucks

Aliens came on the other day. I think Bill Paxton should be in every movie ever.

I was thinking about Newt and Ripley and how much it sucked that you watched her work so hard and almost die and sacrifice everybody to save Newt, when the kid dies offscreen in the first few minutes of the third movie.

What the fuck were they thinking with that? "Hey, you know what will make people really love our movie? Let's kill off the almost potential love interest and the cute kid everyone rooted for all through the last movie right there at the beginning, and let's do without even showing it. Let's just tell everybody they died for no real reason whatsoever, right in the first few minutes so everyone is sad and annoyed right off the bat."

You can't open your story by pointlessly killing the cute kid I spent a whole movie rooting for. You just can't. I don't care what else happens in your story.

SAY HELLO

I'm having a pity party day again. I wrote like eight different posts for today and deleted them all because I sounded like a whiny bitch.

So I'll say one thing, and then I'm turning it over to you guys. I love Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. LOVE. You'd think a show about girls choosing a wedding dress would be boring, but it is not at all. I'm going to miss my daily fix when I go back to work next week. To be honest, though, I have an unnatural affinity for all wedding shows. Yes, me, girl who likes explosions and fist fights, I also LOVE wedding shows. I have layers. Girly, aggressive layers.

And that's my confession today. Now it's your turn. I've been growing over the past yearish, and some of you still lurk around and don't say hi. So say hi. Enough about me, let's talk about you. Who are you? What do you write? Do you love shows about weddings? Say hi. Even if you're like Oh, she doesn't mean me. Oh fuck yes I mean you. Say hi. It will make me feel like less of a vulnerable whiny bitch.

Please stand by

Know why the California education system is in the toilet? Because we're all too buried in paperwork and taking stupid pointless classes to do our jobs.

I might be about to lose my job because I forgot to cross a goddamn T somewhere in 2005.

Derivatives

I was driving to an appointment today listening to the radio - I still listen to the radio even though I have a CD player - and that one Kid Rock song came on. You know the song that uses the tune from "Werewolves of London" and "Sweet Home Alabama"? Every single time it comes on I think it's going to be "Werewolves of London" and then I'm all disappointed when it's not.

It reminds me of way back when Puffy first sampled "Every Breath You Take" for his B.I.G. tribute and every single time that song came on you thought it was going to be "Every Breath You Take" and you'd be all like "Aw, son of a bitch" when it turned out to be that lame Puffy song. That used to really piss me off.

When this happens, all I think about is how much I'd rather be listening to that other, better song.

I get that sometimes with screenplays too. We all love movies or we wouldn't be here, so sometimes it's really tempting to use an homage to your favorite movie in your script. I read a script once that used actual lines of dialogue from Scarface, and every so often I'll read a script where the characters spend pages of dialogue talking about movies they like or don't like. Kevin Smith got away with it because his characters were interesting, but that isn't a good idea for most new writers.

When I read a script that reminds me of another movie I love, I begin to think about how good that movie was, and all that does is make me wish I was watching that movie instead of reading this crappy screenplay.

You don't want anyone to think about better movies while they're reading yours.