movies

Fasten your safety belts

Maximum Z action, Bill Murray, Movie of the Moment, mystery, outlines, rewrite, screenwriting
The Thunderbolt at Kennywood Park in West Mifflin, PA

After some nice progress on fixing problems at both ends of the first act, I ventured into Act Two and was able to make some good changes there as well.  A lot of on-screen action takes place, and I want to make sure it really grabs you and doesn’t let go until absolutely necessary.  I think I was able to do that, and made it to the midpoint as a reward.

I opted to stop at another point that’s been giving me trouble. My hope is that I’ll be able to get past that and continue on to at least the end of Act Two.

I’ve noticed when trying to convert a scene from the outline to the pages that it’s really easy to say in the outline what I want to happen, but things suddenly get a lot harder to translate into something on the page. I know in my head want I want to say, but have trouble getting it out the way I want to say it.

We’ll see how it goes.

-Movie of the Moment – THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE (1997), a clever pseudo-homage to Hitchcock-style mysteries.

Bill Murray is a video store clerk who pays a surprise visit to his wealthy brother in London.  But the brother is hosting a dinner party to finalize ‘the biggest deal of his life’, so sends Bill off to an audience-interactive show, where scenes are played out throughout town.  But he intercepts a call meant for a secret agent, and follows the trail of clues, thinking the whole thing is part of the act.

Only got about halfway through it, but really looking forward to finishing it.

I was worried it would be more like WHAT ABOUT BOB?, but it’s actually smarter than you might think.  What’s really fun about it is how something is set up, followed by a payoff, but there’s also a twist in interpretation or context, thereby giving even more effectiveness to a well-structured double plotline: the one Bill sees as the theatre experience, and the one we the audience know is the actual secret agent storyline.

All that and Joanne Whalley’s gams.  What more could a film geek want?

Did it again

Maximum Z Movie of the Moment, outlines, rewrite, screenwriting, scriptshadow
Kinda, sorta feeling like this...

After days of working extra hours, thereby not being able to do much/anything on the outline, as well as agonizing over whether or not I’d be able to properly fill in some small plot holes, I sat down and started to work. Fear be damned!

Turns out I didn’t have to worry too much. I was able to make some pretty good changes. Nothing phenomenal, but slightly better than I was expecting.

Don’t know how much I’ll get done next week, since it’s the last week of summer vacation and Mom & Dad Camp will again be in session. I’ll do what I can.

It’s also helped that I read three scripts this week, including two from ScriptShadow, each of which I made a point of commenting on, and a spec from 6 years ago that was really impressive.

I didn’t realize until I was finishing that last one that it was a great model to work with if/when I ever redo my Christmas Noir script.

-Movie of the Moment – THE NAME OF THE ROSE. K and I have been watching it little by little over the past few days.

A murder mystery set in a 14th century Italian monastery, with Sean Connery as the investigating monk and a very young Christian Slater as his assistant/protege.

A little slow, but a clever premise, and fun to watch detective story tropes used throughout (primitive glasses with magnifying lenses, deducing from clues, etc.).

Only complaint – spotty sound quality, but this was DVR’d off TV, so you might have better luck on video.

Still going strong

Maximum Z Movie of the Moment, My One and Only, Netflix, rewrite, screenwriting
Yeah. Kind of like that...

Except for the very last scene, I’ve made it through a revamped outline of Act One.  I know I’ve said this before, but the scenes really do seem to move along at a somewhat brisker pace.  I also noticed how a lot of extra, unnecessary action has been cut.

There’s always this feeling of…accomplishment when I rewrite something in a completely different way. Not only does it still work, but it works better.  That’s kind of how it feels with this.

The goal now is to get the actual pages done, which may not take as long as I think. At least that’s how it seems.

Since I’m working extended shifts this week and next, my “get it done at work” mode has been severely inhibited.  I’ll try to make some progress with tightening things up for at least the first half of Act Two during that time. My editing hat sits at the ready.

-Movie of the Moment – MY ONE AND ONLY, a drama about well-tanned actor George Hamilton’s mother, before he was famous. K put this on our Netflix queue, but I had heard about it.  Renee Zellweger plays the lead, and does a formidable job portraying a beautiful woman past her prime who leaves her philandering bandleader husband (played by a leathery-faced Kevin Bacon), and takes her two teenage sons across the country, looking for a husband, or at least somebody to support her financially.

For such a specific story that you know has a happy ending (George becomes an actor), it was the literal journey the characters took that was so interesting.  For the most part, they work their way west from New York to Los Angeles, stopping wherever there may be a chance for help.  Throughout it all, Zellweger keeps the mother’s attitude positive, despite the obviousness of how desperate she’s becoming.  It was nice to see her really work her acting muscles.

Although this looked like a small production, there were several well-known actors in small parts, primarily those of the mother’s potential suitors.  Even more interestingly, the real George Hamilton never appears whatsoever. But there is a line of dialogue soon after they get to LA where George is told to get to the beach and get some sun because he’s so pale. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was intentional.

So much better

Maximum Z Captain America, Movie of the Moment, rewrite, screenwriting
sometimes it's necessary...

After some intense plotting and structuring, I re-tooled the opening scenes of DREAMSHIP so it focuses more on my protagonist.  Using the concept of as few descriptive words per scene as possible in the outline, I was able to produce a completely different yet more functional first three pages today.

I really like how they turned out.

I had to keep reminding myself that how events developed in the previous draft was not written in stone. I could knock the whole thing down and rebuild, this time letting myself feel free and uninhibited, and put it together so the end result is not only better, but significantly so.  It felt great.

I’ve got everything up to around page 16 plotted out, and may alternate between writing pages and moving ahead on the revamped outline to the end of the first act.

Believe me, this is very exciting stuff.

-Movie of the Moment – CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. Loved it! SOOO much better than GREEN LANTERN. A real popcorn adventure story.  I really liked how it never talked down to the audience.  Just a well-written superhero movie.

I couldn’t help but think that this is what director Joe Johnston was hoping for when he did THE ROCKETEER back in 1991. Wow! 20 years ago. Boy, do I feel old.

I was concerned that some parts might be too scary or intense for V, but she was a real trouper throughout. She really liked it.

Getting back to the Green Lantern comparison,CAP took the concept and really ran with it.  There was no blatant hitting you over the head with the hero’s character flaw. Maybe it helped that this had two writers, while GL had four (some of which were from TV, which also didn’t help).

Two added bonuses – loved the post-tease AVENGERS tease. Hopefully Whedon knocks this one way out of the park. The other was the silent reference to the original Human Torch at the World’s Fair. V asked what I was chuckling about, but there was no time to explain.  Maybe I’ll get around to it some other time.

Summer movie season seems to be winding down, so all that seems to remain is COWBOYS & ALIENS and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.  Would like to see the former in theatres, but will probably see the latter at home.

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.