movies

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.

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.