Movie of the Moment

Round peg, square hole, etc

Maximum Z 13 Assassins, Movie of the Moment, rewrite, screenwriting, Takashi Miike
Fit, damn you!

I honestly didn’t expect rewriting the first ten pages to be this frustrating.  Trying to set up the whole story in a different way than the previous version, which is more or less solidly planted in my mind, is much harder than I originally anticipated.

I jotted down some potential scenes that would work with how I want things to go. Some of them seem pretty good, but after I write them down, I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

It’s also an effort to try to incorporate story elements into these scenes that will pay off later. Always important.

Once I come up with scenes that I not only like, but feel best show the sequence of events, I’m really hoping the rest of it falls into place.  But for now, I still work on setting the whole thing up.

It’ll happen.  I’m just impatient about wanting to move on.

-Movie of the Moment – 13 ASSASSINS by Takashi Miike. Imagine the Seven Samurai (plus six) assigned with the top secret mission of liquidating the Shogun’s psychotic brother.

Not as gory as I’d been led to believe, especially considering Miike’s background, but a genuinely rousing samurai adventure story.

My only complaint – a little hard keeping track of some of the title characters. A few are more prominent than the others, so it’s easy to follow their stories. The rest? Not so much.

Apart from that, just a lot of fun. Apparently his next film is called NINJA KIDS, about pre-tweens learning how to be ninjas. I hope it’s family-friendly. V would probably love it.

That’s almost that

Maximum Z Dreamship, Eating Raoul, Fido, Movie of the Moment, outlines, rewrite, screenwriting, zombies

Except for a few tweaks and added-in details, I think the latest outline is done. Still not entirely sure the last few scenes are a little rushed, but for the most part, I like what I’ve got.

Looking at all that text makes me wonder if I tightened this thing up that much, if at all.  But my initial overall feeling is it’s better than it was before.

I’ve also been wondering about some of the set-up scenes; are they good enough?  Do they explain enough? Will the reader be able to follow along?  I’ve been guilty of writing with information the reader may not have, so I’ll have to be careful about that.

Because I think it may be time to move on to the next level:

Pages. Which I’m pretty excited about.

My s.o.p. in the past has been at least 3 pages a day. Seems doable.

Ideal situation – done by the end of August/Labor Day. Again, seems doable.

Into the abyss.

Movie of the Moment  – K and I watched FIDO, a much better-than-expected zombie flick from about 5 years ago. Imagine WWII was against zombies, and they lost. Now the living dead are outfitted with collars inhibiting their flesh-eating tendencies, so now they function in society as a kind of subservient, manual labor.

This particular story is about a loser kid who at first treats the family’s new zombie as a pet (hence the title), but soon kind of sees him as a sort of surrogate father.

Set in a well-presented 50’s setting, the film takes the subject seriously but adds equal amounts of camp.  Not as gory as you would think, but an interesting take on a subject near and dear to K’s heart.

Added bonus – comedian Billy Connolly in the title role.  He never says a word, apart from the standard grunts and growls, so his acting is all expression. Very impressive.

-I started watching EATING RAOUL, which I remember Siskel & Ebert reviewing way back when on Sneak Previews, which aired on WHYY in Philadelphia.

I knew Paul Bartel co-wrote and directed, but had only seen clips, and even those were a long time ago.

Even though I’m about halfway through, everything so far has been freakin’ hilarious. Extremely dated, especially with the whole swingers lifestyle subplot, but just a smart little comedy that still generates laughs.  Can’t wait to finish it.

-Still don’t know if I’ll get to X-MEN or SUPER 8 in theatres. I’ll try, but looks like they may be sentenced to Netflix while HARRY POTTER and CAPTAIN AMERICA get closer.

Benefit of working ridiculously early hours – catching the first show of the day at the local AMC theatres. ticket price – $6! Makes my bought-at-Walgreens-and-smuggled-in M&Ms taste that much better.

Been down this road before

Maximum Z Movie of the Moment, outlines, rewrite, screenwriting, True Grit, westerns
Seeking out the right road to a workable outline

It’s been a busy past couple of days, including lots of work on that other thing I’ll reveal next week, as well as more work on the rewrite.

Good news on the latter – hit the end of Act Two today.  Looking at the previous draft, Act Three needs to be severely streamlined. Way too much going on.  I don’t think it’ll be too hard.

I’ve been making a point of trying to make sure everything ties together. Seems to be working so far.

*side note – didn’t get to the movies at all this week, due to all the above-mentioned work.  Still hoping to catch X-MEN, SUPER 8 and GREEN LANTERN in theatres before it’s too late.*

I don’t know how much I’ll get done over the next week, since we’ll be visiting K’s family back East (as well as reclaiming custody of the two-weeks-absent Ms V).  I always bring my notes and notebook in an attempt to work on the plane.  Sometimes it’s productive.  Hoping that’s the case this time.

As long as I have an outline I’m happy with by the time we return.

Movie of the Moment – TRUE GRIT. I knew there was another Best Picture nominee I wanted to see.  This was it.  And it should have won. Hands down.

I loved it, despite being a sucker for a quality Western.  Phenomenal writing by the Coen Brothers. Excellent acting by all three leads, especially Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld.  I saw the John Wayne version years ago.  This is just so much better.  Easily re-watchable.

Man at work

Maximum Z Movie of the Moment, rewrite, screenwriting, writing gigs
This script ain't gonna build itself...

I’ve been pretty busy the past few days. Unfortunately, not with the rewrite.

There’ve been other tasks occupying my time, so while my brain works on figuring out story and scene details, the rest of me is taking on a few new responsibilities.

I can’t go into too much detail now, but will say they each involve getting paid for utilizing skills I’ve been honing for years.  I’ll spill more info at a later date, but that’s all I’m currently willing to say.

I was concerned that devoting time to something other than working on scripts would be a bad thing, but it may not be. Sometimes I’ll set aside a few hours in the afternoon with the intention of focusing exclusively on, say, getting to the end of the first act.  And as any writer will tell you, you can’t force creativity.  So maybe I don’t get as much done as I had hoped, but at least it’s something.

As long as I keep my notebook handy, or take a break from ‘regular work’ and give myself a few minutes to try and figure my way out of a scene, I’ll be fine.  I’m not in a rush, and this way I’m not pressuring myself to move forward.

And if these new developments take up more time than I anticipate, that’s what lunch breaks are for.

-Movie of the Moment – BEHIND THE BURLY Q, a documentary about the heyday of burlesque, as told by the people who worked in it. Written and directed by Leslie Zemeckis (wife of noted director Robert, who exec produced), this is a fascinating look at a truly unique form of showbiz.

A majority of the people interviewed are the dancers/strippers, now all advanced in years.  Each has a story of how she got into the business; some funny, most tragic. And hearing their tales of life in the trenches will definitely hold your attention (as will the plentiful footage and photos of barely-dressed beauties).

This is the kind of film that needs to be watched with a good stiff drink and the lights off.

Twice as much

Maximum Z laurel & hardy, Movie of the Moment, rewrite, screenwriting, westerns, WWII
I think I'll go....that way

O happy day.

I got to the end of the 3rd quarter of Act Two today, and it’s about twice as long as it was before. For now, that’s good.  It may be edited down when I start doing pages, but I don’t mind.

I wasn’t aiming to do as much, but I’d rather have more to work with than not enough.

I’m workin’ hard at keeping the excitement level up and the pace fast. So far, so good.  Looks like my notebook will get a good workout en route to seeing K’s family next week.  It would be nice to have a solid outline ready to go in the near future.

-Movie of the Moment – Another threesome.  ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, which I was kind of disappointed with.  It moved SO SLOW!  Lots of shots that just went on forever.  2 hours, 45 minutes; could have been at least 30 minutes shorter.  A clever story though, and a great turn by Henry Fonda as the bad guy.  I wonder if this was one of the first Westerns to portray the dirty realism that was the Old West.  Overall, I like Eastwood’s Man With No Name series better.

SONS OF THE DESERT. I’ve never been a big fan of Laurel and Hardy, but I can appreciate them. In the end, I like the Stooges and Marx Brothers better. So shoot me.  This is supposed to be one of their best. I found it…okay.

THE STORY OF G.I. JOE.  Story of a unit in WWII Italy, with Burgess Meredith as famed war journalist Ernie Pyle. Pretty routine, but otherwise nothing special. I guess after you’ve seen SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and other modern WWII films, everything from mid-20th-century seems sanitized.