More Giant Robots!

Looks like Transformers may be getting some competition in the awesome giant robot market. According to hollywoodreporter.com, Lawrence Kasdan is set to adapt Robotech, the epic sci-fi animated series from the 1980s.

For those of you not too familiar with the Robotech series, you and I are pretty much in the same boat. I got my giant robot fix from the Transformers. Although I’m not a Robotech historian, I do have some fond memories of the series over the course of a month back in 2007 when I was crashing on my brother’s couch.

My brother’s roommate recently got the complete Robotech series as a birthday gift. I use to believe there was nothing he could consistently watch more than The Simpsons, but I was wrong. From what I got from the few dozen or so episodes I watched is that humans have this beef with aliens involving a power source called protoculture. Hot shot pilot Rich Hunter is far better at blowing bad guys up than he is with recognizing and dealing with the affections of his commanding officer Lisa Hayes. Is that about it?

Like I said, I’m not the Robotech expert. I’ll let Zombie chime in to fairly represent the series. All I know is that sometime down the line we’ll be getting some super sleek, mach 10, giant robot action. I’ll watch it, not for the giant robots, but because it’s the only way I know how to thank Lawrence Kasdan for Wyatt Earp.

You can read the original Hollywood Reporter article at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ia3b683089f36e7ebb3a620eb11dacda3

It's here!!!

For all you who lives in New York, or near New York, it's almost time for

The 7th New York Asian Film Festival!!!

June 20-July 6
Presented by Subway Cinema
http://www.subwaycinema.com/

I'm not hired by these guys. I've actually been waiting for this for months, and am very excited.

A good amount of them are big-budget hit movies in Asia, rather than the usual art house movies played in festivals. And probably because they are big-budget, star-casted movies, I will admit that I've been disappointed before, the same way Hollywood movies can disappoint. I've also walked away from films thinking 'wow, they've poured more money than God in this movie, and it's worth every fucking cent.' Some of these movies really left me in a floaty daze, and wonder why I left Asia in the first place.

Another reason to see these movies is that if you decided in the last minute, 'meh, I'll just stay at home, it's not a movie kind of night', you probably won't be able to find a lot of them on DVD in the states. So unless you own a region 2 or 3 or 6 DVD player (or just have the player "fixed"), you won't be able to actually watch a lot of them if you miss it. And even then some don't have english subtitles.

Also, pre-order tickets. I've been turned away from sold-out shows with tears too many times.

You know you're a film nerd when...

... you're playing Grand Theft Auto IV and you spend a good chunk of time re-enacting scenes from There Will Be Blood in Liberty City's bowling alley...

Actually, that probably says more about me than "film nerd"...

Sigh.

The Writing Week part 23

It feels so damn good to be writing again. Amazingly good.

I finally decided to really, actually, honestly start re-writing my post-Apocalyptic script. Like I anticipated, bringing my computer on vacation with me (sadly, the vacation ends tomorrow night), has almost forced me to be productive. I've nearly finished my re-write this week (and should do so completely by Wednesday, at the latest). Now, I've said it before and I'll do so again: I detest rewrites.I fully acknowledge that everything I write needs them. But they are just very much not mu cup of tea.

This week, though, I've been making some good headway. I've been making decisions that I tried my darnedest to avoid in the past, because I've come to realize something; writing on a computer allows us the luxury of never really committing to anything put down on the page. Like Zombie was saying with his Frankenstein script folder, we can patch things together from previous files, create new documents, and store everything we write. No change is permanent.

And that's the philosophy I've embraced this go around. Admittedly, there are some things I've done with this re-write, which I'm not sure if they are improvements, so much as changes. On the other hand, there are other things I'm very happy with and glad that I finally had the balls to do. There still might not be enough distance between me and my first draft, but there's certainly enough for me to make some elementary, yet necessary improvements to the script.

Now to just distance myself enough from draft two to see the weak links in that one.

Sliding in to home...

I'm within five pages of my projected end. I know exactly what is supposed to happen and how it will happen. At long last, a finished draft is so close I can smell it.

But why won't my fingers type anymore??

Been moving at a brisk pace all weekend despite the blistering heat and an air conditioner that doesn't work quite as well as I could have hoped for. I got a solid three hours of writing in this afternoon and I should be happy with the number of pages I finished, but... five more and I'm done. I just want to barrel on and kill this damn thing, but I'm afraid I might be worn out for the night.

The plan is to head to the living room, lay on the couch with a cold beer and try to find something brainless like Cops or Die Hard With A Vengeance to watch. Chill out a bit. Decompress. Recharge.

Then I'm going to end this son of a bitch.

The Writing Week part 22

I know what you're thinking: "Where's Cake Man's writing week? I sure do hope he's ok." (In all seriousness, I know none of you are thinking that.) Other than a few impressive scotch induced hangovers, I''m still here. I actually spent the better part of the last Writing Week in Colorado visiting a friend of mine. The break - during which point I read two Leaguer's scripts but did no actual writing of my own - was exactly what I needed.

I came back feeling refreshed (if not a little leery of being back in a metropolis after spending days with mountains being the only things taller than the trees). I've since started tackling my post-Apocalyptic spec again, which is a great feeling, because I was off of it for so long. In fact, I'm going on vacation again tonight (gotta use those vacation days before I lose them to a new fiscal year), and am bringing my computer with me. I normally tell myself that a notebook will suffice for writing when I'm on vacation, but I'm not letting myself use that lie anymore. I don't write in notebooks. At least, I seldom do. I tend not to like doing it and get far less done. Bringing the computer, lugging it 240 miles back to Arlington, Virginia is proof positive that I plan to work on this script again. If the computer's there, I have to write, right?

I'm excited to get back into this (and any) project again. Being in Colorado was a jolting reminder that the great outdoors are where I'm most comfortable. City life has its perks, sure, but I prefer expansive sky and endless greenery. The only way I know to attain that is through success as a writer. Sure, it's probably a long way off, but it's even longer if I'm not, you know, writing.

Trimming The Delicious Fat

I recently finished a draft of an action script, and after receiving notes I am seeing what should have been obvious at the time. My sidekick character has a habit of overshadowing my protagonist. It’s not the worse problem to have. At least I have a protagonist, and you better believe that there are scripts floating around good companies that barely have one. Anyway, I don’t think my problem is that my protagonist isn’t interesting. It’s just that my sidekick is a real bad ass, probably the first supporting character I’ve had that I might write an entirely new script around. But until that script comes, to the chopping block I go.

Take away from my sidekick, add to my protagonist. Add a little muscle, trim a little fat. But what if the fat is delicious and chewy and flavorful? We’ve all been there before, pondering the fate of a line that we cherish, considering where else we might put that half page of golden wit. Sometimes we ponder and consider so much that we make the wrong decision.

I confess that I have recognized in past and current scripts solidly written lines and pages that did not benefit my script, and rather than cutting these tumors I forced them into a draft. I even tweaked small scenes around them for the worse in the hopes that it made the fat seem more like muscle. This is always a terrible idea. It doesn’t matter if your buddy really digs your scene. It doesn’t matter if it’s going to be the line that makes the trailer. It’s hard enough in screenwriting to recognize what isn’t needed in our scripts. When you see something in your script and you know it shouldn’t be there, chop it off. You can put the trimmings in a separate file like Zombie does and eventually use all the scraps to create a screenwriting abomination.