Rotten Tomatoes' Mid-Year Report

Rottentomatoes.com just released its mid-year report, which tallies up the 25 best rated films (along with the 10 worst rated) from January through the end of June. The top and bottom ten are listed below. Personally, I've only seen 2 of the top rated, and while they were some of the "best rated films of the year" to date, I'm not sure that I would go anywhere near to saying they are some of my favorite films. I found them to be ok, entertaining, but nothing much beyond that.

And the top and bottom ten films are:

Best-Reviewed Movies
1. "Ratatouille" 2. "Away From Her" 3. "Once" 4. "Knocked Up" 5. "Hot Fuzz" 6. "Sicko"7 . "The Host" 8. "Zodiac" 9. "Waitress" 10. "The Lookout"

Worst-Reviewed Movies
1. "Because I Said So" 2. "The Number 23" 3. "Premonition" 4. "The Reaping" 5. "Norbit" 6. "Perfect Stranger" 7. "Happily N'Ever After" 8. "Are We Done Yet?" 9. "Code Name: The Cleaner" 10. "Hannibal Rising"

Just a side note... I saw "Hannibal Rising." It sucked. Massively.

Almost Motivated

It’s past two in the morning and I’m sitting before a third episode of Walker Texas Ranger. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched all that television has to offer. I’d attempt to reach the ends of the internet if it weren’t for the fact that I’m almost motivated.

I’m feeling prepped. I’m fueled up, on the launch pad, and New York is in my sights. I just need to go. Leaving the great city of Boston will without a doubt leave a void incapable of being filled. I’ll miss free laundry, Red Sox, and friends, among other things, but it’s time to go…almost time…like 2-4 weeks almost.

A few days back I turned 22. This is going to be a year that I’m looking forward to, more than 21 or any other year thus far. I have three goals for 22. 1- Move to New York. 2- Get a real job…2 ½- A relevant job. 3- Place in a screenwriting contest. I know Alexander the Great had the world in his palm at 22, but if I have those goals accomplished by 23 I will consider myself Genghis Khan.

Soon, my fellow Leaguers, we will be reunited. We’re going to do some good drinking and even more great writing.

Done with One

Sorry for my long absence. And the lack of comics. These past few weeks have been... quite the doozy. I finished a script. Well, a draft of a script. Did it quicker than I thought I would, actually, and in no small part because of the treatment I wrote for it.

You know, I used to hate treatments. Thought I'd "be a real writer and see where the story takes itself." Well that was crap. I was lazy. Some people can work quite well without outlines or treatments. I can't. Not as well. And certainly not as fast. Sure, I get hung up for the few days I spend on the treatment, but once I've got it, the pages tend to pour out.

How good is the draft? I have no idea. We have our next meeting on Monday. I'll find out then. I haven't re-read the pages, since I wanted to give the other Leaguers enough time to read it. I think it's OK, but it's not what I started out writing. I think. Frankly, I don't know, and that's neither a specifically bad or good thing.

I just don't know. And, when you write, you might not, either. Yeah, it's "just" a first draft, so it doesn't have to win any awards, but there are certain things it should do. And I think it does those. The only question is how well.

We shall see. And then, almost no matter what the verdict is, I'll be on to the second draft.

And probably the third.

P.S. Now you see why we're afraid of DOA.

...just kidding.

Love is a Many Splendid Thing

One day in middle school, I was sent to my father’s hospital for an EQ/ IQ test. The questions were pretty elementary. The female doctor was nice but passive. Young but not all that good looking. Then Rorschach inkblot test began. She flipped over the first card. It was obviously a man who committed suicide from jumping off a 15-floor building. His torso and limbs exploded on impact. Blood splattered far and wide, engulfing the picture. Twisted organs mingled with the mess. His head, hands, and feet were somehow perfectly intact, marking the five corners of his body.

“It’s a purple butterfly.” I told her.

In retrospect, I should have said bunnies.

I am currently writing a romantic comedy.

I would like to go back to my magical realism roots. So far I beat-sheeted Amelie, Science of Sleep, When Harry Met Sally, Eternal Sunshine, Stranger than Fiction. I watch Law & Order SVU as a reward, and sometimes just to calm my nerves before bed. The characters are coming out quite well. I have both ending and beginning, along with majority of the details. Specifics of the plot points need to be hashed out though. For inspiration, I am re-reading James Tate’s surreal poems. I finished Five Men Who Broke My Heart last night. Next are Foreign Babes in Beijing and Twenty Love Poems and One Song of Despair. There are moments which I just sit on my bed, and hold Hunting Humans: The Rise of Modern Multiple Murderer in my hands, turning it around and around. I haven’t opened it since this project took the comedic turn.

Part of the project was to prove to myself that I can write a happy ending. For a decade plus I was a Barbie-playing, wedding-planning, dress-wearing girl, who snuck love notes into boys’ desks during recess. I still want a kitten. To grow my own herbs. To invite my girlfriends over for champagne and home-baked cupcakes. There’s no reason why I can’t write about two people falling in love without half the cast dying horrendously. A script can sustain itself without someone walking down the alley and suddenly feel a machete run down their back softly.

I told Zombie there aren’t even dead people in this script.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” He replied.

So will I, Zombie, so will I.

My Review of Transformers

Just saw Transformers last night, and immediately had to record my overwhelming feelings about the movie via Sony Cyber-Shot and Microsoft Paint.

In Summary:

Hear My Song

I would be a liar to say that I didn't wonder, from time to time, just where the hell this whole thing is going. I'll hear from friends that are having plays produced, or see a kid that I went to school with having a pretty big part in a legitimate movie and I wonder just what on earth I'm doing. There are levels of completion, steps to success, and with nothing quite finished and no completed project on the horizon, I wonder if I'm actually accomplishing anything.

It's gorgeous outside, and the sun's spilling into my bedroom. The breeze is gentle and smells clean. It feels like the kind of day in which success can be relished, but for me, I wonder if I will ever make it to that point.

It's a fear - a fear of failure, a fear of mediocrity. A fear of being anything but significant.

And yet, just when it feels like it should be crippling, when I can't quite figure out where it should go, I hear a tiny voice in my heart that gently urges me to keep going. Keep writing. Three pages here, five pages there. Laughter, tears, joy, triumph. All the roads are different - length, composition, the obstacles thereon. On days like this, my mind mingles with memories that I associate with my earliest passions of writing. My old muses make my heart heavy, and I wonder if the answer to the future lies somewhere in my past.

My heart, however, will have none of this. Just a few more pages. Help your characters succeed. Make their passions yours. Breathe life into them. Take your passion and compassion, and empathy, and fears and roll them into words that matter...

...even if only to you.

I know it's tough right now, but this too shall pass. Soon this will all be a punchline to a very, very, funny joke.

Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing, writing, writing...

"Just lie in my arms and I'll tell you the things that you know but forget. The lies no one ever could sell you...I know that it's hard, but don't give up yet."

To Get Feedback or Not?

The League recently had its second meeting. By the time our unofficial deadline for submitting stuff for feedback rolled around, I was done with the first act of a new screenplay I'm working on. So, I was faced with a decision--did I want to email my act out to everyone for notes or not?

Ultimately, I decided not to. For a few reasons. First of all, Captain Undead remarked that it's often difficult for him to give accurate feedback if he doesn't know where the rest of a script is going. If I only sent out my first act, I would have had to include a pretty coherent outline of the rest of the story, which I didn't have written at that point. Some of the other leaguers felt the same way that the Captain did, so that was one reason I opted not to show my work yet.

But also, I knew that there were really two other reasons, or two sides of the same coin, which deterred me. On the one hand, I knew that if I got great feedback, and everyone seemed to love what I was writing, I would preoccupy myself with making sure that the rest of the project was just as good, to the point that I would either get a swelled head or worry that I was faltering, and wouldn't be able to just write the thing. On the other hand, I knew, too, that a lot of negative feedback or indication that I was severely missing my mark would send me back to the drawing board, revisiting all of act one without progressing and just getting that first draft written.

No, the League will see my draft when it is complete, all three acts, with the end credits closing out the last page. Until then, it's just for me to see.