Simple subtraction at NBC

This:



Plus this:







Equals "Layoffs loom at NBC Uni".



I concede. Mostly they're killing off news ops and shooting reporters in the back of the neck, figuratively.

But these two shows seemed so promising and, well: Ick.

Disappointed and still waiting

Maybe I shouldn't have praised the first date so much. You know what happens when the first date goes well.

Studio 60's post-pilot episode was solid and interesting, though it consisted largely of follow-on exposition. Damned good character exposition at that, but not bracing TV. So when Monday's episode slogged through soap opera - damned good soap opera - and the writerly standoff between Matty and Mr. Clean and his partner Dumber, I began to think pretty deeply ... that the Cheez-Its I was eating were the most satisfying part of the evening. I was forced to reflect on other bloggers who are saying that the inside-baseball of TV comedy can't sustain an audience. No matter how apolitical you are, when the estimable Mr. Sorkin writes that the president or his people and principles are in jeopardy, you feel it. You get it. In fact, you get cheesy salt on your fingers....zzzz. Was I nodding affirmation with those doubting bloggers or nodding off?

But the plagarism story line snapped me upright again. For the first time since the opening pilot scenes, the show raised stakes that everyone understood and cared about because they threatened Matt and Danny. They sowed the seeds of a gun-slinging showdown betwen Matty and the head writers. But then at the door, just before saying goodnight, did we get a kiss? A hand lingering low on the hip? No. We got a deus ex filing cabinet. "We own it." The material had been written by a staffer years ago. What a tease.

And is it just me, or were those 90 seconds of material just not funny? I'm not a hilarious guy, but I say, they were not funny. But Matty thought so. So, he went soft on Clean and Dumber to offer a sign of forgiveness? It seems thoroughly out of character to risk "not funny" on his show. So now I have to live with the fact that he's lost his judgment, either about comedy or people.

I'm keeping my options open. I mean, I have it on solid word from people know me well that this could be the one. You know, the real thing. But I can't tell whether Studio 60 is hot or if all that handwashing should make me wary.

Studio 60 on Sunset Strip - I'm in love again

You don't need me to tell you what's great about Sorokin's Studio 60. It's got everything we love about movies and more. But the complex and morally inconsistent characters, beautiful camera work, broad scope in sets and setting, and glimpses into the social anthropology of a world where few of us ever go (though we can hope, we strivers) promise to go on for years to come.

Here's the storytelling technique I found so simple and effective. For nearly three quarters of the show we learn that Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson) and Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) had a bad breakup. The cover story is about Harriet singing the National Anthem and Matt not showing up to support her. It smells funny. A couple of WGA awards-dinner guests say so. Harriet's still angry and maybe hung up on Matt. He's at least as angry and hurt, and angry about being forced out of the SNL look-alike. So when they finally run into each other back stage, we're ready for fireworks.

The scene stands out for it's talkiness, but it's full of drama for the thinking viewer. Matt thinks Harriet used her singing appearance on Pat Robertson's 700 Club to pander to a market of Christian-music buyers whose politics she disagrees with. Politics that Matt violently disagrees with. His view: her Christianity allows her to see fundamentalist spiritual depth without seeing fundamentalist moral paranoia and political mercilessness. Harriet has a soft spot for the dignity Christians find in faith: "That moves me." And neither of them is going give an inch.

What's makes the scene so strong is that it gives us exposition and numerous character beats: Matt and Harriet's allegiances, hard-headedness, passion, and manner of thinking. And what's infinitely refreshing to see on TV is that what characters think does matter. But what stands between these two is belief about the effect of our actions, not on PR, but on the balance of morality in the public sphere. So far at least, Matt has the last pragmatic word: "Be funny for us on Friday night, and we won't have any problems." Then he bounds upstairs, taking the high road, before meeting his partner Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) and addressing the entire cast.

The scene paid off as fireworks between Harriet and Matt, not by being big and loud, but by being about something so important to both characters that neither of them can budge. And it sets our expectations for much more to come: religion, philosophy, logical and moral inconsistency and their consequences, striving to produce great work, and discovering what you'll do for love. That's what's coming, people. Thank god for the internet. Otherwise, you'd see me drooling.

The crap factor on TV is way way down. The biggest challenge for the show is to find fresh new antagonists beyond the network suits to keep Studio 60 relevant in the new golden age of television. Anyway, I hope it's an age and not just a golden season.

Justice (TV), or, the full Bruckheimer.

I like this show the way I like Las Vegas (the show, not the place) - I guiltily linger over the gleaming surfaces. Not that the writers are any help. The thing moves at rat-on-a-wheel pace.

Last night, thirty five minutes of Justice was all I could take. I realized that it's a great bad dialog instructor. Characters announce their intentions in two modes: angry confrontation, and fleeting, reluctant vulnerability. They blurt out conflict-telegraphing lines. And, scene! There are so many effects to fit in, so many low-angle shots, so many threatening-looking blocking crosses. Let's keep it moving, you writers!

I'm betting the show will last the season, distracting viewers by its pace and good-looking bad leads (It's House in a defense law firm; thank you, Rob Long.). And because the cynicism about the trail and jury system is turned all the way up, the moral and ethical questions of Law and Order are completely off the table. Maybe we're seeing a distilled reality show specimen, the compressed version of those haphazard entries that use 'real' people. But 0nce the eye candy reaches the brain, eyes will glaze over.

Does anyone remember when The Full Cleveland meant white shoes, white belt, and plaid pants? I have been delighted by Jerry Bruckheimer's shows and movies (The Rock, Black Hawk Down, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, I could go on). The man knows how to blow things up in the most entertaining way. But the Full Bruckheimer - hard, cold, computerized, cynical, seductive, relentless and overwhelming - hey, get that stuff out of my living room.

Quickies

The general absence of opinion here comes from having read many only-okay screenplays recently. And writing a new at-least okay story of my own. I respect the contribution of the stories below, so my apologies if these limited comments sound unjustly sour.

Friends With Money
Jane (Frances McDormand) belatedly tells us that she's angry that life is going to go on more or less, well, like this. That story alone would have been fascinating to follow for 90 minutes. How satisfying it would be to watch a successful and happy woman look for an answer to her free-floating rage that everything disappoints. What I found most distasteful, when looked at as a story, is that Olivia (Jennifer Aniston; way too good looking for the role) gets something like what she sought. But everything she did should have had the opposite effect. It's a strange moral world when people get what they don't deserve.

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest
The pleasure of the last Pirates was so great and unexpected that my hopes were high. Hopes dashed. It was difficult to follow the emotional lives of all the main characters and those of new ones. The truly fascinating relationship, the unwelcome love Elizabeth (Kiera Knightly) feels for Jack Sparrow, is slapped across our faces like a flounder. And the action, which was so clever and organic to the story in Curse, certainly got contrived. When they bound onshore and climb the ruin of a church to swordfight atop the crumbling buttresses, rather than worry more, I napped.

Click
I know that other reviewers were not kind to Adam Sandler's foray into Bruce Almighty territory, but a lot of people will see this movie. Watch and learn, I says to myself. Setting aside all the Hollywoodism - smoking hot wife who clearly has not given birth, and the very broadly sketched work and family pressures - three groaners in one movie are too many. The magical figure Morty (Christopher Walken) who gives Michael Newman (Sandler) the solution to his problems because "good guys deserve a break." Morty is the deus ex machina. Repeatedly. Okay, I concede that the answer to Michael's problems, in good story form, is his downfall, but see number 3. Number 2: New rules about how the remote works generate new complications. Enter Morty to explain. Number 3: Michael wakes up from a dream the end of the second act. Cheaters.

Nacho Libre
Can I draw a generational analogy without sounding old? This enjoyable movie reminds me of a lot of hip music I hear these days. Short of propulsion, but beautiful in passages. The movie was very attractive, shots nicely composed, and action sequences perfectly executed. I've almost forgotten what happens because it's not a story of what happens, it's a series of droll tableaus. I enjoyed all of them, including the moment when Nacho steps off the bus and looks for all the world like a b-movie hero from the 70s. Keep making movies, man.

Miami Vice
I loved Collateral, but like Heat, if I had not been sitting in a theater, I don't know if I'd have waited for it to unspool to its ending. You get the impression that what the filmmaker knows about man-woman relationships is that they are supercharged with sexual power and an obstacle to getting work done. Even if he's right - lots of us have known transport and tragedy - I didn't get any feeling about the love affair between the leads. As for the breathtaking composition of the filming, the New York Times review says it better than I can.

NFF: Coffee with... Saturday

Left to right (apologies for the photo quality)
Mark Levin, festival juror
Alan Berliner. Entry: Wide Awake
Henry-Alex Rubin, festival juror, director Murderball
Steven Cantor. Entries: What Remains; loudQUIETloud.
Freida Lee Mock. Entry: Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner

Saturday morning's discussion was another filmmaker free-for-all: how they did it, why chose/how they approached the subject, and a variety of other project-specific questions and answers. But the most interesting discussion followed Danny Schechter's comment (thinly disguised as a question), what are we going to do about the way we're not getting the facts from any media anymore? Schechter's In Debt We Trust showed at the festival.

For some filmmakers, the first answer was "nothing." And I agreed with them. If you choose a story, the politics are implied. The story, the shots, the editing, the music; that's the politics. Cantor's movie about the Pixie's reunion, sort-of, tour is about something else. Even Mock's movie of Tony Kushner, a loud political playwright, is a movie about Kushner the artist. But Schechter point, and Schechter, wouldn't go away.

Schechter said, for instance, that he and his partners get a lot of letters saying that their movies are good, but "not for us." If news media and government are not reliable source of fact, and movies that expose the facts are "not for" lots of distributors, what will we do as filmmakers to address the structural deafness in the populace? The old dichotomy between art and reporting poked into view almost immediately. Art's view is deep, particular, and sensual. Reporting's view is short, cold, hard, and oppositional.

Alan Berliner challenged Schechter to start a Not For Us festival to get artistic reporting into the open. Schechter in turn challenged filmmakers and viewers to take responsibility for their piece of the film making/media-making industry. Levin and Schechter agreed that the internet pay-for-priority legislation being considered now may screw filmmakers and that it is a responsibility to act. Here's an example of the effect: ABC shows could download like water over Niagra (if they paid for priority data traffic); Fred's Films movie trailer download could take all morning (if Fred didn't pay for fast data traffic).

I'm getting ahead of myself, but Jay Craven said, (not quoting but interpreting the ideas I digested), When you write the story, the theme perks out of behavior, action, juxtaposition, and spoken words. But the writer is responsible. He's got to watch theme emerge, compare it with his goals, deepen it where it's what he means, adjust where it doesn't. So many entertaining movies aren't about anything (my strong impression). It's just interesting people doing interesting things. I like many of them. But there's more.

Schechter seemed to be urging filmmakers to go beyond treating film as a commodity - artistic or otherwise. During the Friday Coffee with... event, two documentary filmmakers were very reluctant to hope or insist that their movies could change the structure of the way turtles or autistic people, respectively, might be treated. Okay, so they had just locked the festival edit, they didn't set out to make a movie about political change, they were unprepared to organize for the cause. Forgiven. But their movies are about people with problems that demand a response. Schechter was right at least this far. Stand up. Say that you want the movie to move society toward a better tomorrow. We're Davids in a Goliath kind of world - hard, cold, competitive Davids. This art should kick some ass.

Thanks, Danny.

NFF: It's the People

The whole weekend at the Nantucket Film Festival would not have been possible without the generosity of The Producer (one of my bosses at the Boston Production Company where I'm a story analyst) and the publisher of Imagine, Carol Patton. The Producer put in a call and soon I was talking to Carol, who offered me an available room at the Imagine house.

Carol is the longtime, tenacious promoter of film and production in Boston. It's thanks to her hard work and organizing, along with an army of supporters, actors, directors, and state politicians that the Massachusetts legislature voted a film production tax credit into law at the end of 2005. Sandy Goetz wrote a good summary of its effect in Imagine this month (it will be online after publication of the next issue). Thanks for your patient in-person explanation, Sandy. After years of industry struggle in the region, there's an air of hopefulness now that financial incentives help draw movies to Massachusetts and New England.

I also met Mick Hoegen, Jessica Hansen, and Fran. Mick worked on Mystic River. Jessica has appeared on stage and screen; I'd be surprised if you did not see her in something big soon. Fran, a hard-helmet deep sea diver, electrician, and SAG actor described his most recent role as "an Irish thug" on The Brotherhood (Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco's latest TV venture). Do you want to hear about the producer who's just hung out his shingle? The policitical gadabout? The conversation was always entertaining. Fran and Mick kept me out late. Thanks, men.

Here's my favorite chance encounter. While I was studying screenwriting at Emerson College, John Stimson came to describe his writing and filmmaking process using The Legend of Lucy Keyes as a model and example. Young Lucy Keyes is played by a terrific young actress who appeared on stage after the New England premiere at the Independent Film Festival of Boston this spring. Calendar pages fly in the wind to the weekend past: Before the screening of Half Nelson, at NFF I saw a captivating short called The Braggart. The young woman in the lead was extraordinary but to my memory, unknown. Then, standing in line to enter Late Night Storytelling with Bobby Farrelly and Anne Meara (I'll say more about later), I turned first left as Joe Pantoliano cut through the line leading his kids back to the car before he went in to the event the back way. Then I turned right and there stood my new favorite star: Anna Friedman. I should have recognized her as The Braggart, but the filming style and her characterization transformed her. She's a sweet, ambitious kid who has great parents. I got Anna's autograph and hoped out loud that someday she'd be in a movie I wrote. I often hear about the superficiality of this business, so it's a thrill to recognize people in this business to whom you can confidently say, "I sincerely respect what you do."

Friday 'Coffee with...' panel at Nantucket Film Festival (NFF)

What a great time this festival is. An emphasis on screenwriting, plenty of A-listers, good parties, and room for the small production companies and even screenwriters like me. Watch for more entries, in particular one on theme from a panel discussion on which Jay Craven said some very cogent things on the subject.

Aubrey Nealon. Entry: A Simple Curve.
Lizzie Gottlieb. Entry: Today's Man
Eric Daniel Metzgar. Entry: The Chances of the World Changing
Jason Matzner. Entry: Dreamland

The wide ranging discussion on Friday morning covered how the movies got made, how Canadian public funds affect production (Nealon is a Canadian), the personal and the political, and some tart, realistic comments on Indie vs. Studio. Here are some of the highlights as seen from an aspiring screenwriter's P.O.V. (me), despite having slept little the night before.

Matzner observed that there is no Indie vs. Studio, per se. There are various degrees of Indie and Studio. As you move up (or down) the scale toward Studio, you have more resources. And you relinquish control. The opposite is true at the Indie end of the scale. It was a pleasure to hear him state this as a matter of fact rather than outrage. Matzner admitted - his day job is in the story department at Universal - good projects get lost, betrayed, or abandoned.

Gottlieb candidly admitted that by making her first feature about her brother, she'd set herself bigger challenge than she'd imagined. It took her six years to film and edit, including interruptions. Material was no challenge, but finding the story she'd tell and her role in it required Solomonic decision-making. Narrative screenwriters can sympathize. After finding the story idea, what demands does this story make that bends convention to particulars? In response to a question about what her brother, the documentary subject, thought of the movie, she said, "He told me, 'It should have a montage. Many films have montages.' and the other thing he was said was, 'It should be much longer.'" And we think the A-listers like to see themselves on film.

Eric Metzgar told the kind of "I love life" stories that I relish. He and his producer met the documentary subject Richard Ogust at the airport to pick up rescued turtles. Because they are in bad shape when the turtles arrive, the men immediately left for Ohio where the turtles would be treated, driving all night. In the middle of the morning, conversation waned. The camera was off. The producer was asleep. Metzgar reported a sense of peace falling over him. He looked up and thought, "I can't think of anything better in the world." That's why any of us do this.

Nantucket Film Festival Sleigh Ride

When you're a movie story fan and an autodidact, here's what happens. Fortune smiles and you get an internship reading scripts, which is great. Everything you learn - read "teach yourself" - about story is Invaluable, but Confidential. And though it's given that the bloggers' standard editorial policy is to drop trou, I'm old fashioned in the trou department. Hence my silence.

Finding Funny Man
But that's all changing now, thanks to the Nantucket Film Festival, which opens Wednesday night. Thanks to many friends, I have a mission and a place to lay my head. I'm going to try to deliver a package to a writer/director/producer - the Funny Man - on behalf of a certain Producer.

Nantucket Rush Line
Along the way, I'll interview whomever I can find. Maybe you. Or if time, stamina, and internet connections permit, you'll find updates in a couple days.

Sleigh Ride
This is the ride you get when you harpoon the big one. You hang on and hope for death before it dives hard and fast with you tangled in its lines. A perfect comment on the filmmaking experience. But it turns out, its also a lesser known sexual position obviously first imagined by the "harpooner." As for the third definition, the less said the better.

It's not easy being green

I mean that every project reveals something you thought you'd learned but have to learn again. Okay, so I'm new. When you've rewritten a screenplay at least a dozen times, you've answered all the questions about characters. You see them pointed at the inevitable conclusion. So when the second or the tenth idea for the scene - you know dead-on how characters behave.

The new screenplay, despite your preparation, planning, and outlining stumps you. The guy behaves like that, sure. So what? The guy (i.e., gal) isn't funny or anything like a man (ibid.) worthy of drama. But he was interesting when you started. You're stomach does one of those empty-bottom rolls, though you just vacuumed ounces of Smartfood. Whatever you thought you were doing, you don't get it. What was that interesting thing? You dig it out from under the dialogue.

Then again, the experience of other projects you finished tells you, yes, you're right. The guy needs to know more about his world, his fears, what binds him to others, and what is driving him away from them. You see the flaws sooner. There. You learned something after all. Something on the order of, "Yes, that is a longbow arrow sticking through my chest. Hmm? Break it or drive it through?"

You don't want to spend months rewriting a story that you could have planned beforehand. You also don't want to pretend that writing long briefs about characters is going to answer all the questions that will come up in writing. You want to be efficient. And you don't want to plan the life out of characters because experience shows that what you think they'll do when you're sketching is nothing compared to what they'll do when you write the scene. And there goes the damn plan.

As I have said elsewhere, "The trouble with being an autodidact is that you're learning from someone who doesn't know anything."

And these are the reasons - or the tail-chasing from which - I haven't posted in a while.

Let me get back to work.

Coming...Reviews and inside poop from the Independent Film Festival of Boston, which starts Wednesday (4/19).

Tromeo and Juliet

Little did I know that Tromeo and Juliet is the festering petri dish of more than a few careers. It looks like a mad, mad, flatulent, raunchy, frayed retelling of Shakespeare's love story for all time. With a great extended nude scene. And a nipple piercing on camera. And a happy incestuous ending. Murder and car wrecks, yes, but strangley, no cannibalism.

So I'm out of touch. James Gunn wrote the script for $150 and according to the guy, it was juicier and fouler in early drafts. Gunn has gone on to kick the Man in the nuts with the Scooby Doo projects and the soon-to-be-released Slither. If you have seen Tromeo, you'll see where Gunn got the idea to use a curling iron to exterminate a vampire slug. Besides my retired mother, does anyone use curling irons anymore? As I said, I'm out of touch.

Tromeo, namely Will Keenan, has gone on to a hyphenate career that includes a performance in The Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jane Jenson, who turns in a creditable performance without clothes, has become a musician. Lloyd Kaufman, still producing and directing, is also distributing Jenna Fischer's (The Office, wife of James Gunn) Lollilove, the trailer for which looks hilarious. Lloyd is the oft-cited crazy ass of this post. Keep on rockin' in the free world, L!

Lessons:
1. Really good, talented people also work on crazy-ass movies.
2. Free your mind and the rest will follow. Or, making a movie does you more good than not making one that's a wierd, crazy-ass, brainfart.

"That was awesome, dude," he lied

There's a small and fiercely independent festival in Boston. So small I often miss it. Not this year. It runs through tomorrow night.

What it is: it's about getting films made. It's about encouraging film makers. It's about giving some spotlight to the little, the credit-card funded, the erstwhile next master of gore/horror/broad satire.

What I learned: That if you're going to make crazy-ass movies to showcase you and your abilities, you're going to work with some brilliant people and some crazy ass nut jobs. Here's an example. Today, I went to a frowsy, abbreviated version of Lloyd Kaufman's 'Make Your Own Damn Movie' Seminar. The key topics came as stories and making-of shorts and stand-up riffing on the Axis of Evil formed by corporations and, well, money, which produces, he says, "babyfood" from Hollywood.

Kaufman - this is all news to me - has been making Troma films for 35 years. His new title in postproduction? Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. He wanted freedom, not money, he said in refrain. He got exactly what he wanted. But Oliver Stone, Trey Parker, and James Gunn have worked for him. Tonight I'm going to see the anniversary showing of Tromeo and Juliet. More anon, dear reader.

While Stone, Parker, and Gunn have given up 'freedom,' going to work for the Axis of Evil, they now make movies that millions see. They make movies that wouldn't be possible for a half mil, the figure Kaufman gave as typical of recent Troma budgets. "Independent" is an approach, but also an attitude, politics, and eventually a self-limiting choice. "Doesn't play well with others" becomes "doesn't get to play." No wonder Kaufman's set up his own game his own way. I just don't get all the complaining about studios. They make a damn fine product. Nobody eats babyfood forever.

And that brings me to a program of shorts. Many of these were very solid efforts. Some great filming, editing, or acting. Good storytelling in few. Again I say, "You got your movie made! That was awesome, dude." Because you can probably get another at-bat. But I attended the shorts with TWIL, who loves me, not film. She was not entertained, delighted, fightened, or provoked to thought. She was bored and often confused. "Awesome," I lied.

So raise a light beer to everyone who made an okay movie. Because I'm glad you learned the thousand things you taught yourself. But the product. Dude! I'm totally lying. I'm thinking about the leftover Indian food in my refrigerator. Get back to work, damn it! And when you see my short, tell me the friggin' truth.

Falling in love again, never thought I would

No excuses here for not posting, but after being underemployed, a few appointments feels like a full schedule.

I love a serial killer. Do you?

Or the genre, at least. I've been doing a little research, which shows that this well-mined vein is full of great successes and failures. The obvious high point is Silence of the Lambs. I'm working on a post that extracts some of the story elements that audiences seem to enjoy and will share it after watching some more examples.

Join the fun by suggesting your favorite serial-killer thrillers. Here's the selective filmography I'm using:

Seen

Silence of the Lambs

Se7en

Sea of Love

Bloodwork

Yet to see

Murder by Numbers

Tightrope

Ted Bundy

Obviously, serial-killer thriller is a sub-genre of the thriller. Feel free to expand my horizons, keeping in mind that life is short. Don't even tell me you don't have opinions!

Bobby Moresco, we love your story

Read this story: The Long March, then the Countdown to Oscar Glory

Highlights: Bobby takes acting lessons in NYC, stinks, wants like a hungry man wants food a different future than construction, longshoreman, so he goes to L.A. His brother is murdered, so Bobby goes back to NYC, works, and writes a play about his brother's murder. Producer sees the play, Bobby goes back to L.A., works, meets Paul Haggis, then doesn't work, goes sort of broke, and writes Crash with Haggis. No one wants to make it. They make it. Now he's working. He's 54. All this because he didn't want to work construction and his wife didn't make him stop with the crazy writing thing.

Bobby, we salute you!

Quick Oscar Takes

Best remarks about why movies matter without sentimental gushing: George Clooney for best actor in a supporting role. Who is having a better time with his celebrity and making more of it in Hollywood than George Clooney? He's our Frank Sinatra with a conscience.

Best restrained comments about what movies can do for peace: Paul Haggis, right before they slammed the door on Bobby Moresco's comments about the writing of Crash.

Best Gag: Ben Stiller in green pajamas. Delivered in very Stiller manner, gambling that longer is funnier.

Best strategy for doing the job again next year: John Stewart

BEST PICTURE: "Crash" A great surprise and don't we all love a surprise at the end. Whatever else it means, it endorses spare movie making and strong storytelling. But one thing it doesn't say is that the Academy is uncomfortable with a gay love story. Please.

DIRECTOR: Ang Lee, "Brokeback Mountain" Deserved and predicted. Consider "The Hulk" buried.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Capote" Justice! There is justice in the system!

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Reese Witherspoon, "Walk the Line" The choice of Witherspoon is a crowd pleaser, but frankly right down the middle of the definition of "moderate."

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: George Clooney, "Syriana" This is the first role in years in which Clooney worked hard and succeeded as an actor. I was pulling for Dillon, but if you subscribe to the conservation of Oscars theory - that the universe knows that it can't grant awards to cast members if it's going to crown the movie best of the year - then, well, Universe to Matt: Sorry. He'll get the heat from nomination anyway. Screw you, Universe.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Rachel Weisz, "The Constant Gardener" No comment. Great performance in a frayed movie, which I couldn't see past. Heath: I love Michelle. Also, she was great opposite you in the gay cowboy movie. Keep an eye on her or you'll lose her to me.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, "Crash" Deserved: complex, clever, and weighty, even if the movie felt a little too cleverly contrived to maintain the illusion of reality.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, "Brokeback Mountain" I'm profoundly biased on this one. The story is so strong that the biggest challenge of the screenwriting (I'll live to regret saying this) lay in not messing up. These two did a great job. But Dan Futterman started with no story, built it, wrote it, and broke the biopic law (start at subject's death and flash back), and succeeded wildly. I think Capote should have one. Maybe that's just me.

ORIGINAL SONG: "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from "Hustle & Flow" While the best song was Dolly Parton's (didn't she appear in Corpse Bride), the winner in this category serves the story more than either of the others. And it's "hookie" in a way that leaves those of us who only use hip-hop in a sentence to describe what Easter bunnies do singing the refrain as we walk to our cars after the movie.

Life itself as antagonist: Spanglish*

When it comes to comic dramas about marriage, it's hard to think of one with more realistic, adult sensibility than Spanglish. I was inspired by some of the writing in As Good As It Gets, and because I'm outlining a marriage-centered comedy myself, I watched Spanglish again. Like the other script, I found that I loved scenes and Brooks' insight into love and need. He follows characters' crises rather than stamping them into a boilerplate genre structure.

Here's what's great and strange about Spanglish: no antagonist. John Clasky, superstar chef, fights himself and wins. Review with me: John's brilliantly neurotic wife Deborah? Obstacle, distraction, disappointment: yes. Not an antagonist. His success? His restaurant manager? His sous-chef? Obstacles, yes. What about Flor, the breathtakingly beautiful Mexican house help? No. He falls for her, steps right up to the temptation to break his marriage wide open, totters on the verge, and disappointed, turns back by force of will.

John fights his heroic battle with daily life - to have time with his family, to keep peace at home, to encourage his kids, to support and forgive his deeply needy wife. No surprise, I should have known, from the man who shaped the Simpson's, where family is a bulwark against the madness of impersonal forces like work, school, money, media, etc. From time to time John Clasky takes great joy in his daily life. In one scene, he forgoes the perfect fried egg sandwich to take a dressing down by Flor. (Throughout, the edgy sense that he's comfortable at home but may be called to account at any moment is palpable.) He takes is medicine, turns a more biting accusation on Flor, and takes up that sandwich.

I have to say, I'm not sure I like it, but it's damn well done. I mean that it's easier to write and follow a story when the antagonist is clear. But that's not typical; you and me, we're not heroes. But I think Brooks thinks we are: we want to be loved, we want to be good, we want a little joy. And John Clasky takes up Thor's hammer every day and fights for it. Just like us.

Best line of the movie: "Right now, dear, your low self esteem is just good common sense."

- Evelyn Wright (Cloris Leachman) to her daughter Deborah Clasky (Tea Leoni).

* John's Critique Rubric: For educational purposes only. It's hard to make a great movie: Respek, bro! Or as the yogi says, Namaste.

'As Good As It Gets': The Second Act Stall *

Thanks to Karl Igelsias (See Our Craft, here), I took on a close reading of this script to look at characterization. The first forty pages demonstrate great characterization of complex and nearly impossible people. Melvin Udall first among them. So, thanks Karl. I think your Creative Screenwriting story is as good as self-instruction gets.

The movie left me disappointed, but I couldn't remember why. There's a nagging suspicion that the reluctant romance between Carol (Helen Hunt) and Melvin (Jack Nicholson) repelled me. So why bother with this exercise? Because the script is not the movie.

Reading it, I was damned impressed with comedy writing that avoids slam-bang of the kind of movies that make huge money fast. Incidentally, this James J. Brooks and Mark Andrus script is the seventh top grossing rom-com since 1978 (Box Office Mojo). Instead, I found clever, situational, and low-decibel stories about the timeless question: what is true love?

The opening scene is a perfect example of character exposition demonstrating the protagonist's flaws and strengths, and announcing Melvin Udall's need: this romance writer doesn't know what love is. His desire is to control his environment, and the more he stumbles into comically anarchic relationships with his neighbor and waitress, the more his world comes apart, letting real love in. (Sigh)

But the story stalled when Melvin engineers a trip to Baltimore with Carol and Simon, his neighbor. You'll remember that Simon was beaten by thieves in his own home. His treatment bankrupts him. He capitulates to his friend Frank's plan to ask his parents for money. Since Melvin made arrangements to get a good doctor on the case, Carol finally feels a bit of ease about her very sick son Spencer. Melvin volunteers to drive Simon to Baltimore so that he can give Carol a day off and try to impress her as a love interest.

During the drive to Baltimore, the script slows down. No, it pulls onto the shoulder and turns off the radio. Melvin and Carol temporarily move to the background, Simon moves to the fore with a long explanation of why his father threw him out, why he has no relationship with his mother, and why they cannot speak. It's exposition and it's late and it's all reported by Simon. Weirdly, Carol pulls over - stops the forward motion of the story - to hear Simon pull the painful threads of his life-story sweater.

It was a deliberate choice. I concede that the writers needed the information and the moment to contrast with Simon's decision not to beg for cash and instead turn for home. But Simon's confessional doesn't reveal enough about any of the main characters to have spun down the story momentum. While it puts pressure on Melvin to get Carol to pay attention to him, not Simon, Melvin doesn't reveal new traits or resources to do so. And the script doesn't regain its stride until the three return to New York.

As a side note, "things happen" to Simon, but it is Melvin's story. Simon's dog incites Melvin to dump it down the trash chute. Simon is beaten nearly to death, but Melvin calls 911. Simon is driven to financial ruin, but Melvin drives him to Baltimore. Simon loses his friends. Simon travels to Baltimore. Melvin responds, or is trapped into responding, to each of these. Dramatically, they are dependent. There's no story without Simon. There's no inner conflict without Melvin. It turns out that the movie left me cold because these two characters together make one man, but they don't form the kind of bond that shows us they recognize it.

I'm going to subject myself to the movie again, but in the meantime, fans of the script or movie should get out your flensing knives. Agree or disagree?

* John's Critique Rubric: For educational purposes only. It's hard to make a great movie: Respek, bro! Or as my friend the yogi says it, Namaste.

When Software Works, You Just Want to Kiss Someone

Can I kiss someone at Sage? Okay, frankly, not just anyone, but maybe a cute developer who looks something like Diablo Cody, more or less?

I used to use Pluck, the newsreader plug in, in Internet Explorer. It was light, clean, versatile, and gave me lots of control over how I displayed, read, and deleted new feed entries. Then I discovered Firefox. Totally turned my life around. Well, things were slow just then.

Pluck for Firefox is a different animal. You may like it. Good. Feh. I gave up the control I so love and have been bereft until last week. Enter Sage, which is everything I loved about Pluck, but made for Firefox. Easy to use, lots of control, easier than ever feed detection. Me likey!

And it's great with shallots and white wine as a marinade for chicken.

Taking it Outdoors

The Banff Mountain Film Festival annually brings two nights of adventure movies to nearly 185 locations around the US. It's a crunchy, boho pair of nights that allow you to see, for example, a guy ski off nutty vertical drops and land in deep snow, more or less on his tale. Last year a pair of German climbers scaled Eiger using equipment identical to that of the first successful climber to reach the summit. And before that, extreme trampers, who filmed themselves hopping fences and doing stunts on backyard trampolines.

The stories often stink. Which is liberating, really. The movies focus on, say, experts doing their near-death-defying thing, or carving vertical powder where no ski as ever broken the surface. Last night an eighty-year-old Pole paraglided into the valleys outside Grappa in Italy. Is he mad or is he mugging? The footage just isn't there to show us . And since their feats can't be our feats, the story could answer the question, "Why?" But few do.

A long "mountain culture" documentary, The Magic Mountain, fails to show us, after 50 minutes, who the sacrificing subject of the movie is. She started an NGO in the Lahdak province of India after seeing the poverty during a mountaineering trip. And you know, it's up to the audience to decide. I thought she was running from family, from Western society, from any conception of competition and success. And if the footage is any indication, for all the good she plainly does, she has no clue who she is either. I'm grateful this saintly promo showed us that she may also be nuts.

Happy Valentine's Day in Production

Love is like this: You do it for free, but it costs you plenty. You lose your innocence and learn things you will be glad of, but first you feel creepy and you feel glad much much later. You think you'll never be good enough. Then you accept that you're not good enough. Then it's not you, it's her (or whatever). You're right. But you can't help yourself because it's good and getting better, better than anything so far. So you show up one more time, feeling tenative but hoping to feel that bouyant, this-could-be-perfect, "we could see the clouds separate" again and actually touch the ineffable. Yeah, love is like that.

Turns out, so is having an internship at a small production company, which I've recently landed. Folks asked me not to say much about what goes on there, so I won't. I'm reading and commenting on scripts, though this falls short of coverage - very informal place.

I'm encouraged. Because now that I see other scripts in development, I think that my work doesn't suck. Is good ever good enough? Now I know the answer: No. And I understand how important, crucial it is to love and champion your work. I haven't sat in full gale of a screenwriter on a mission. But I can see how "good" can be transformed into "potentially great" with a big ration of love and umph behind it. But great should still be great on the page. I don't think I've seen it yet. Deep, fresh, and bubbly; I'm looking forward to seeing that. Okay, so I haven't lost my innocence entirely, have I?