Trailer Trash V: Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1957)

The title alone gives you the clue that this will be one of those cheesecake movies teenage males would go see before Hollywood could openly advertise that a movie had no other purpose than gratuitous cleavage shots.



The trailer is rife with sexual innuendo (the description of how gi-normous the sea serpent is enough to elicit a few immature giggles), but it features probably one of my favorite narrator lines. At about 42 seconds in:

"Turning them over to men who take pursuit in violent pleasures, pleasures that must end in the the thrust of a spear into warm flesh."

Whoa. How did THAT line ever get past censors? Is it even possible for them to not mean what I think they mean?

The Collaboration: Mexican Writing Standoff

A little while back Cake Man, Zombie, and I decided that we wanted to come together and collaborate on an idea. There are a lot of successful writing partnerships out there, and for me personally, the ability to work well with other writers is something I very much want to develop. You have to start somewhere, so what better place than a bar?

Sixty beers later I think we were all agreeing for the tenth time that we’d like to write something together. Eventually we decided to start a collaboration thread on gmail. I found this very helpful and if our collaboration trio continues down the road, I imagine that the gmail thread will be a mainstay. It’s just good to be able to click over to a record of all your ideas and see some of their little evolutions or de-evolutions, see what’s hitting chords and what isn’t. The thread also keeps things organized and it’s easily accessible for everyone involved. Flash forward another sixty beers.

We’re in a bar again, sober. We’re all supposed to have brought a page with a logline for each of our 14 possible collaboration ideas. Zombie didn’t bring his, I left mine on my printer, but thankfully Cake Man remembered. Good thing too, because that was a great meeting that probably wouldn’t have happened without the sheet. Anyway, with the ideas in front of us we talked it through, basically testing their potential as movie ideas as well as collaborative pieces. We narrowed the 14 ideas down to 3. It just so happened that we were left with an idea from each of us: my Historical Dark Comedy, Zombie’s Historical Horror/Suspense, and Cake Man’s Comedy. Thus began the Mexican writing standoff. Cue Ennio Morricone music.

We finally had our nominees. Two had to die (for now); only one would prevail. We were all open to each, but I was definitely standing by mine, and Cake Man was standing by his. I had thought that Zombie would be standing by his, making the elimination as interesting as the finale in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. But it turns out that Zombie was leaning towards Cake Man’s. If you’ll allow me to further characterize our script ideas as gunmen, the shootout played out something like this in my head.

High noon. We’re in the middle of the hottest fuckin desert, in the middle of the ghostiest fuckin town. Tumbleweed rolls by, gets snagged on a steer skull. Cake Man, Zombie, and me, triangle formation, hands inching to our peacemakers. No peace here. I’m looking to arrange a meeting with Cake Man and his maker, and he’s looking to send me to hell. Zombie is already buddy buddy with Cake Man, so I reckon he’s got his eyes set on me. I’m going to have to be faster than a whore’s prayer. That’s when the vulture flying over our heads lets out its call and we draw. Goddamn…that was quick. Cake Man has shot me the through the heart. I fall into my own grave. Zombie’s still trying to shoot at my corpse, but he discovers that his iron was never loaded. He looks to Cake Man, but finds a smoking barrel instead. Zombie gets his face shot in. Cake Man wins, walks off into the sunset.

But it’s nobody’s loss when you think about it. We’re all excited to be working together and with a good idea. But nobody really knows what to expect aside from more beer. This is our first collaboration, and we’ll keep you posted regardless of whether we’re cruising or sinking. Anybody have some advice for the collaboration rookies? DOA?

Dark Knight - Aftermath

I recently read an imdb.com article that claimed that The Dark Knight “has become one of the most mistake-ridden films of the year so far” with movie-goers catching 16 mistakes in it. Granted, some of these film flubs are minor, such as hair being out of place from one shot to the next. Some, such as an extra S.W.A.T. truck appearing during a chase scene, are more major. All that said, the cold showers I took after seeing the movie are kicking in. I still love the movie, but I’m starting to view it in another light.

Essentially, after all is said and done, I still prefer TDK over Batman Begins. However, that is for one major reason – The Joker. Had The Joker not been so devilishly fun to watch, had Heath Ledger not been so completely immersed in the character, I am not sure I would have enjoyed the film as much as the one that preceded it. The biggest difference to me between the films is that, in Begins, I felt as though Christopher Nolan was really targeting a few key themes, which were explored in depth. In Dark Knight, there was so much going on that a lot of potentially interesting themes were lost or superficially explored at best. For example, when Bruce Wayne says that he’s “seen the man [he] would have to become” to defeat the Joker, I recall thinking that I’d not seen it. Had that line been absent, I’m not sure I would have come away with a feeling of Batman’s internal struggle. Sure, he was torn by what ramifications Batman’s existence has had on Gotham (criminals, copy cat vigilantes), but the darkness he felt growing inside him eluded me.

Another point that snagged me *SPOILER ALERT* was the Gordon “death”. There’s really little way that Gordon, the police, Batman, or The Joker could have planned that incident. More so than anything in Begins, this beat seemed something thrown in purely for the audience, something that did not further the plot in any particular (or plausible) way. *END SPOLIER*

What I’m getting at – and it’s odd, because Onyx, who can barley name a bat-gadget to save his life – was defending the film against me – the Dark Knight of Queens, NY – is that, overall, I think the movie had more poorly explained plot gimmicks and superficial thematic explorations than Batman Begins did. However, Joker reigned supreme in The Dark Knight, and, due in no small part to Heath Ledger’s performance, the movie was much more exhilarating and entertaining than Begins. Of course, I’ll still see it again in theatres and buy it as soon as it comes out (not to mention the poster and t-shirt I’ll probably pick out online this weekend). I’m just being a knit-picky fan (and former film student).

But *FINAL SPOLIER* how the hell was Eric Roberts standing in the hospital scene, when his character was dropped four stories just nights before?

Wonderful Life

I've realized recently that since graduation, my days can be divided into three types:

A) In which I write nothing. I don't even pretend I'm thinking about my script. These days I cook, I clean, I go running, I hang out with friends, I watch TV, I go to the library or read in the park, I remember to eat fruits and vegetables, I consider getting a pot of lavender or a cat. I am a normal, functioning human who is generally happy.

B) In which I write. Or at least I say I'm going to write. In reality I usually only accomplish one or two pages, five if it's a super good day. Most of the time is actually spent in self hatred, pretending to write, getting distracted by TV or the internet, and punishing myself by doing dishes.

C) In which I WRITE. These are the days I really. Fucking. Write. I don't eat, I don't drink, I hardly go to the bathroom, I don't pick up my phone, cups of half-drank tea or water surround me. Usually with consecutive days like these, I can pound out a script from anywhere between a month to a week. During this time I don't sleep: I pass out, and dream unsettling dreams.

The past few days have been C), and I finally finished my rewrite, as according to my angry vow that I will complete it within a month. I mainly sustain off of left overs during this time. On Tuesday, it wasn't until I got up to get another cup of water, did the warning signs finally reach my brain, and I realize that the food has gone sour. By then I finished half the bowl without noticing. Scenes after scenes are bulldozed through. Chunks of script are ripped out and new characters/scenes put in place. And around 11:30, I finished the script (which, might be total crap filled with spelling mistakes, but I refuse to think about it right now). By then my brain has been rendered into a lump of tofu. Electrically charged, but with no higher function than bean curd. My apartment is a mess. The dishes are piling out of the sink. I haven't ran for a while and adrenaline is at an all time low (although in the past I've been able to get adrenaline rushes from writing). I needed to vacuum. I REALLY needed to do my laundry. I can smell my trash rotting in the kitchen. I realized that I didn't pick up my grandmother's calls three times in a row.

It's funny, but I never thought I had to choose between living healthily like a normal person, or writing and feeling like there's meaning to my life. During days which I don't write, it never ceases to amaze me how much time I have to do so many things. Is that what normal people feel like? To have HOURS after work doing whatever they please? At times I feel that somehow I can REALLY WRITE and carve out an hour or two to make sure my living standards have not gone subhuman, but so far no luck. It seems that I either go all the way or not at all.

Perhaps, in a few years time, I'd be able to achieve a balance.

Trailer Trash IV: The Van

"Bobby couldn't make it... til he went Fun-Truckin' in a Van!"



Show of hands, based on what you just saw, how many of you need to see this movie?

The trailer gives the impression that the movie is short on plot, but REALLY delivers on van accessories.

IMDB offers up the following (god-awful) logline: "Bobby is a shy Los Angeles teenager who buys a sleek chevy van for himself to impress, pick up, and seduce various teenage girls to spruce up his dull life while trying to get money by drag racing other vans to finance operating it."

Hey, Cake-Man - Lose your "pizzazz"? Not "making it with the chicks"? Then it's time to buy a van. And then drag race it. The Chicks love that!

"It's Van-tastic!"

The Writing Week part 30

The big re-read!

It’s strange, as I was sitting at my computer reading through the post-Apocalyptic spec in its third incarnation, I had the most fleeting sensation of hating the words before me, not because they are dull or unmoving, but because they might still not be the final words in the final draft. The feeling passed nearly as quickly as it came, but the sense of being ready to be done with this project and the uncertainty of whether that will be the case this go around.

I like the project a lot. I think it’s something that can certainly appear on screens across the country (and, dare I say, world). Even in its first draft stage, I felt that way – but that’s mostly due to the universally low quality of a lot of movies out there. (Mine wouldn’t have been that low, I’d hope, but it would have been flawed.) With this draft, though, after so many late-night pow-wows and extended discussions over pints throughout the city, I’m not sure anymore. I doubt whether the script is working, but that’s because I’ve restructured it, which I didn’t really do in any previous re-writes. I’ve simplified some things, streamlined others (both of which I needed to do), but I worry they might have lost something vital to them in earlier drafts. I tried to play up the themes more, but in doing so, I wonder if I made them either too blatant or too separate.

All those questions, alas, are why I’m doing the big re-read. Well those, and the fact that I jumbled things around and changed this and that so much that I need to make sure nothing appears twice or lacks consistency, because I thought I’d added a scene that never made it in. This is certainly the slowest read through I’ve done. That’s probably because I’m looking at every scene, every line, every single word for things I can cut. I’m a street sweeper, and I have no idea whether the road ahead is paved or mud. Somehow, I’ve got to drive to the other end and make it spic and span. The League might just have to get out and push if I sink into a pothole.

Back from sunny San Diego...

My final costume count was 36 Jokers at Comic Con International - a whopping 27 based on the Heath Ledger Joker, and only nine of the classic look.

On the screenwriting front, Ken Levine has posted a great article on his blog about finding a perfect screenwriting partner.