ALLIGATORS IN A HELICOPTER

Weekend Box Office #91

2008-07-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

Nice long holiday weekend. I've got my workload down to a manageable level, so I'm taking the day off today, and hitting the coast with the wife.

I also plan to see some movies this weekend --I'm falling behind.

HANCOCK (3965 theaters). This actually opened on Wednesday (Tuesday night in some theaters) and it's doing pretty well, despite the fact that occording to a lot of critics the movie takes a weird twist halfway through that's not reflected in the commercials and doesn't really work. It's gotten more bad reviews than good, but I still hope to see it this weekend, and then I'll weigh in. Figure it'll do about $66.4 million for the 3-day weekend, though it'll be interesting to see what the word of mouth is and how that affects things.

KIT KITTREDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL (1843 theaters). This must have one of the most limited audiences of any movie that has come out for a while; I'm not sure there are enough little girls thrilled about this movie to put up big numbers. $5.2 million for the weekend.

"Funny Games" Hurt My Brain

2008-07-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

So I watched FUNNY GAMES on DVD; it's a recent remake of a 1997 Austrian film of the same name.

The original is supposed to be pretty good, which probably explains how they lured Tim Roth and Naomi Watts to star in this, as a couple menaced by a pair of preppy sociopaths.

The movie remake does a few things right, but basically it's a bit too nihilistic and one-note to really work well; it would be a classic case of torture-porn, except most of the real violence occurs offscreen.

The first thing ironically worth mentioning is that, in God apparently responding to my last post about cellphones, this film actually does a good job with the whole cellphone thing.

Here, early on, one of the sociopaths "accidentally" knocks Naomi Watts' cellphone into a sink full of water, disabling it. Later on, as Watts and Roth try to dry it out to get it to work, their obsessive use of a hair dryer makes for a fairly good sequence. It feels real, as does most of the movie, for better or for worse.

Unfortunately, there's one jaw-dropping moment that doesn't feel real, that really inspired this post.

With about 20 minutes to go, and the violence escalating, Naomi Watts has a familiar thriller moment in which she is able to get her hands on a shotgun, and kill one of the bad guys.

Go Naomi.

Unfortunately, the surviving bad guy reaches into a chair, pulls out a remote, REWINDS THE MOVIE WE ARE WATCHING, and stops her from grabbing the shotgun, saving his friend. WTF?

Seriously. This happens.

Nowhere else in the movie (except for a few places when one of the sociopaths stares at or talks to the camera) is there any sense that this has any fantasy aspect to it at all; indeed, as mentioned, it's all very creepy-realistic.

Nowhere after this moment do the characters discuss what happened, or explain the remote, or use it again.

I suppose if writer/director Michael Haneke (remaking his own movie) had done a commentary, he might have tried to explain how it was a nod to the complicity of the audience in watching all the violence and blah blah blah.

It doesn't matter. It's a stupid device, that pulled me out of the film. It subverts the logic of the movie and makes me dislike it all just a little bit more.

One for my imaginary file of THINGS YOU DON'T DO IN A MOVIE.

Can You Hear Me Now?

2008-06-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

I've read a lot of thrillers and horror scripts over the last few years, and many of them come to the inevitable point where the main character(s) could really use some outside help, but are unable to summon it.

The modern-day complication is that pretty much everyone has a cellphone, which has to be accounted for so that the possibility that it can actually be used can be eliminated.

Unfortunately, there seem to only be a few ways to tackle this, and most of them have become cliched, very familiar and fairly uninspired.

Too many people fall back on simply having themain characters BE OUT OF CELLPHONE RANGE, which can work if they are in the middle of the desert or out in the wilderness. But I've read a scary number of lazy scripts where characters find they have no cell phone reception, despite being in the middle of a suburban area. The last script the characters had this problem, they were locked in a high school.

An alternative is to DISPOSE OF THE CELL PHONE, either by having it destroyed or lost along the way. But easily the most cliched scene now is the workaholic guy whose wife/girlfriend/buddy throws his cellphone out the car window, so that they won't constantly be on it for what is supposed to be a restful holiday weekend. Never mind that most people have so much info on their phones now that this comes off as an immature, stupid act that would simply serve to piss the cellphone owner off.

Occasionally the problem is a DEAD BATTERY, though this is handled in melodramatic fashion, with the battery dying at just the wrong moment.

The other one that keeps cropping up is the LEFT BEHIND CELLPHONE, usually marked by an early scene in which someone tries to call the main character, only to have the requisite shot of the phone ringing where the characters were before, but no longer are now.

Sigh.

It's time to come up with some inspired ways to eliminate the cellphone logic hole. If you've got one in your script, see if you can eliminate it in some interesting, clever way.

Weekend Box Office #90

2008-06-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I've been a day late in my weekend preview for a while. But my wife has been home battling a virus, and that's a distraction.

She's doing better though.

Otherwise, I think I'm over the hump in being swamped; I still have work, but I don't feel buried under pressing deadlines.

Hopefully I'll be able to do some major digging back into my screenplay this week, though now I'm concerned about its possible resemblance to an upcoming Ricky Gervais/Greg Kinnear script called GHOST TOWN. If anyone has a line on the script, let me know.

This weekend:

WALL-E (3992 theaters). Is anyone more reliable than Pixar? This has gotten a lot of very solid reviews, and should do well. My guess? $71.1 million for the weekend.

WANTED (3175 theaters). It sort of looks like action claptrap, but reviews haven't been entirely dismissive, and I'm sure there will be people checking this out. $31.2 million.

*****

I've been wading my way through a box of DVDs, and I can report that 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS and 2 DAYS is small, European and rivetting throughout.

Meanwhile, I wanted to like BE KIND REWIND, but it just isn't really all that funny, despite an amiable tone.

The Incredible Hulk

2008-06-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Saw this yesterday.

It's pretty solid, particularly early on. I liked the way they acknowledge the origin stuff without spending a lot of time on it, while they do a good job putting Bruce Banner and his needs front and center.

The special effects are solid, and make this worth seeing on the big screen. There are some logic quibbles at times, like how this huge big green monster keeps disappearing after confrontations without no one seeming to know in which direction he went, while the fact that the final battle probably kills countless people is rather glossed-over as well.

Still, I was entertained enough.

*****

I also saw PERSEPOLIS on DVD. Animated, very different, and worth checking out.

Weekend Box Office #89

2008-06-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

Still swamped with work, which is good, because the economy sucks.

This weekend, two comedies are pitted against each other. Neither got very good reviews from today's LA Times, though. I have higher hopes for GET SMART than I do for THE LOVE GURU, which honestly just seems dumb; it might be funny, but the commercials certainly aren't convincing me.

If anyone sees either movie this weekend, pop back in and leave a comment about whether it's worth seeing. Though with temperatures around 105 here today, the air conditioning alone might make it worth it.

GET SMART (3911 theaters). This at least looks actiony, while I generally like Steve Carell, and the former Rock should also bring people in. $45.5 million for the weekend.

THE LOVE GURU (3012 theaters). Mike Myers can often make me laugh, but still... $17.8 million.

When Casting Is A Spoiler

2008-06-16T08:29:00.001-07:00

So the other night I was watching the DVD of a movie called "Cleaner", directed by Renny Harlin and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Ed Harris and Luis Guzman. It was a random arrival for my online-DVD-reviews-in-exchange-for-free-DVDs gig.

It's not a bad movie, and it does some things well. But it went straight to DVD basically because it doesn't do enough of them well enough for it to really have deserved a theatrical release, though I'm sure Jackson didn't know that was going to happen when he signed on.

And Jackson almost makes the movie work; he's very watchable, as always.

*** SPOILER ALERT -- IF YOU REALLY CARE ***

The problem is that though this is essentially a mystery, in which Jackson is trying to figure out who tricked him into cleaning up a crime scene, it is really painfully obvious for most of the film who the bad guy is going to be.

It's going to be Ed Harris' character, ex-cop Jackson's buddy and former cop partner. How do we know this?

Because it's such a nothing part that there's no reason why Ed Harris would do the movie unless he was going to turn out to be the killer.

For the first 80% of the film, Harris just occasionally wanders in, and really has nothing to do. The writer doesn't even attempt to really give him a storyline to make this seem like an Ed Harris-worthy part; he's just a minor character.

As if.

So it's distracting, because when we're supposed to be being misled into thinking that maybe Luis Guzman is the bad eye, our eye is firmly on Ed Harris throughout, waiting for him to come out of the shadows for the requisite showdown ending.

Sure enough.

This happens on LAW AND ORDER a lot too. Some B or C-list actress will pop up in a guest starring role, and initially it'll seem like they are just a family member. But of course they are always more important than we should initially think -- except we know that they are going to be the key character, so it doesn't really work.

Just once I'd like to see a really clever bait-and-switch, where we see a guy in the they-are-only-in-the-movie-because-they-are-the-bad-guy part, and it turns out that they aren't the bad guy, and in fact it is a nothing role. Just to shake up people's expectations a bit.

*****

THE INCREDIBLE HULK made an estimated $54.5 million this past weekend, so I was friggin' close.

THE HAPPENING made an estimated $30.5 million, a lot more than I thought. So M. Night is going to get to keep making movies. Here's hoping he knocks one out of the park soon, though I think he could really use some screenwriting help, either by co-writing or simply by getting someone else to pen one of his scripts.

Weekend Box Office #88

2008-06-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

So I'm absolutely swamped with work. No time to write, no time to see any movies this weekend. Not that the reviews have been that great anyway.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (3505 theaters). The few reviews I've seen have been okay, and it'll probably do something, though I think the failed version of a few years ago knocked the bloom off this rose. $53.4 million.

THE HAPPENING (2986 theaters). I think M. Night has talent, and wish he'd stop blaming critics; the bottom line is that every movie he has done since THE SIXTH SENSE has been seriously flawed. Apparently this film isn't great, but it's supposedly better than LADY IN THE WATER, which will at least reverse his slide of every movie he makes somehow being worse than the one before. $21.1 million.

Breaking My Story

2008-06-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

So I've fallen off the writing wagon again.

I strung together about 10 straight days of at least an hour a day, but then life swarmed in and knocked me off track.

Now I'm trying to scramble back on, Indiana Jones style.

The problem is that I'm working on a new script, that I have a rough idea of the story of; it's a fairly high-concept buddy comedy. I know where it starts, I know where it winds up, I know stuff that happens along the way.

Not enough stuff, though.

And therein lies the problem. Because I've always been a writer who too-often wrote by the seat of his pants. Who just never worked out enough of the story beforehand.

Which works, if you have a zillion hours to give to writing, as I did in my single days.

My Nicholl semi-finalist script was written in the most time-consuming way possible. Literally, I wrote draft after draft, throwing out things that weren't working, and bending the story in a new direction, and then another one, and then another one.

The draft I wound up with is a solid script, but it took at least 20 full drafts, and I left endless excised sequences littered on the side of the road.

It's not the most time-effective way to write. At all.

My second-favorite script I actually wrote as a serialized treatment/story first, sending chunks to a friend in e-mails, so that when I finally typed it up the first draft was much, much closer to where it needed to be.

Since then I've tried to be outline guy, but the irony with my screenwriting group is that it doesn't really facilitate this. Because I need to come up with 25 pages every month or so, even if I'm in outlining phase.

So I knocked out a first act of this buddy comedy, and everyone loved it. The problem is that I really don't have solid concrete sequences for acts two and three, just basic ideas.

I hadn't really "broken" the story. And it really needs to be broken.

So that's what I'm working on now, just trying to figure out the basics. Who my characters are, what they want, how they are pursuing this need, what their flaws are, what their arc is, what their journey is, what conflicts they face along the way.

Figuring out how the story best serves this -- and how all this will best serve the story.

You know, basic ingredient stuff. In theory, it's much easier to figure out now than when I've written 40 pages that are ultimately not going to work.

The problem is that I write best when I'm actually in a scene, writing. That's when my mind comes up with great stuff, just being in the moment.

What I need to do is translate that to when I'm just sitting there with a pad of paper, beating out the plot.

It's one of my admitted flaws as a writer. Not taking the time to just sit down, pre-writing, and ask the important questions about my screenplay and what its basic story elements are.

So that's where I am now, a process that is cluttered by the fact that in 13 days I need to bring in another 25 pages. It'll probably be the first 25 again, reworked and hopefully setting up a story that has been worked out a lot more than it is now.

But that's writing.

********

Last weekend, KUNG FU PANDA made an impressive $60.2 million. YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN also did well, making $38.5 million.

I like Adam Sandler, though I wish he'd make better movies, though clearly there's no real economic reason to.

SEX AND THE CITY came back to Earth, dropping 62.8% in its second week, though its opening was the biggest for a romantic comedy ever, and it crossed the $100 million line yesterday, on day 11.

It'll be interesting to see how Hollywood tries to recapture this female audience (surprise! it exists!) in the future. A lot may depend on how THE WOMEN does this fall.

Weekend Box Office #87

2008-06-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

So we're getting to the point of summer in which grosses are getting tougher to predict, particularly when the movies get mixed reviews, as is the case this week.

KUNG FU PANDA (4114 theaters). It's not Pixar and it hasn't gotten raves, so I'm not sure how much adult business it will do. The commercials are somewhat funny, and I'm sure the family business will be there. Call it $40.3 million for the weekend.

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (3462 theaters). This is really sort of a weird premise, the amusing bit with him kicking a guy in the face is now overplayed, and I'm not sure the basic idea here is enough to lure bog audiences. Call it $17.7 million.

Otherwise... life goes on.

Indy 4

2008-06-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

So maybe it was because I went in with considerably lowered expectations (I have friends who hated, hated, hated this movie), but I didn't hate INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

In fact, I was entertained in a turn-off-your brain kind of way.

*** NO REAL SPOILERS ***

Though I think I can see what a lot of people don't like about this movie. It's basically just a stew, made up of bits and pieces from the other movies.

Chases, fights, fights during chases, people swinging on things, scenery-chewing one-note bad guys (Cate Blanchett won't be getting an Oscar nom for this cardboard performance), the same old plot of some Indy trying to keep some ancient object with magical powers out of the hands of the bad guys, here Russians who drive around in vehicles marked with a big red star, even when they're in South America.

Shia LaBoeuf isn't bad, and he has some good banter with Harrison Ford. But Shia doesn't have the edge that really would have made him convincing as the knife-wielding greaser tough-guy he's supposed to be; he feels more like a kid in a Halloween costume.

And if it's really a spoiler to you going in that he's going to turn out to be Indy's son, then you haven't seen any movies before. Though the movie really does fall way short in mining any real emotion out of this, or out of the reunion between Indy and Marion, or out of the fact that Indy is now rather old, even though Harrison Ford does fine in the role.

The plot is also rather silly, basically just an excuse to have a bunch of chases, even though a lot of them don't make much sense logistically.

So how could I generally like it?

Because Indiana Jones movies really aren't about logic. They're based on the old adventure serials, where wild stuff happens, and a lot of it isn't remotely convincing but what the hell, it's fun. And despite what some major critics have said, there is a lot of fun stuff here, including a well-choreographed chase through a jungle.

It's not a movie I'll likely see in a theater again or buy on DVD, though if it comes on TV I might find myself drawn in for a stretch. But for Indiana Jones fans who don't expect this to be another RAIDERS, it's certainly roughly on the level of the other two movies.

So, a soft recommendation. I'll give it a B-.

Weekend Box Office #86

2008-05-30T08:56:00.000-07:00

So I'm not going to be seeing Sex In The City this weekend. Not really because it's a "women's movie", but because the TV show never hooked me; I sampled it a few times in season 1, and I never got into it.

Though of you who do go, let me know what the male-female ratio is, because it may be record-setting. Though for you single guys, it might be a good place to pick up women.

SEX IN THE CITY (3285 theaters). Despite its apparent audience being limited to women over a certain age, I think this will do pretty well, particularly since the reviews I have seen have been generally positive. Call it $30.3 million for the weekend.

THE STRANGERS (2467 theaters). Though they probably should have released the Adam Sandler movie today as pure male counterprogramming, it'll be interesting to see if "The Strangers" can work as a date movie alternative when the guy refuses to go see Sex and the City. The LA Times review is solid, so it should do something. $16.2 million.

Look for Indiana Jones to finish number one again, though it'll likely slip to about $45 million or so for the weekend.

So Today I'm 45

2008-05-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I thought people in their 40s were old.

Hell, as a kid, most of my friends' parents seemed ancient, and they were probably in their 30s.

But now I'm 45.

I don't feel 45.

Well, in some ways I do. My body has started its inevitable decline; I don't have the energy I used to have.

But mentally, I don't feel 45 at all. Maybe a perpetual 30.

I think that now Julie Franco has retired, I'm officially older than everyone playing major league baseball. If I had kids, some could be the age of a David Wright or a Lebron James.

Scary.

On the positive side, John F. Kennedy and Bob Hope were also born on May 29. And they did pretty well.

I've always thought that one's birthday was a more-logical time to make resolutions than New Year's. It's already a transitional day, a day in which we are saying that we're a year older, and what's going on in our lives?

So I'm going to make the usual resolutions. Write more often, and with more purpose. Make more time for friends. Try to eat better, exercise more, and drop at least 10 pounds. Talk to my siblings on the phone more often.

And try to do something with my writing career before I hit 46.

Stuff

2008-05-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sort of a lazy holiday weekend. I'm about to grab an hour of work on my script, which will make it 9 straight days; it's coming together, though aside from the first third, which is largely written, thanks to my needing to knock out pages for my script group, I'm still largely in the blueprint stage on the bulk of it. Though I know where it's going.

I saw Narnia 2 the other day, and it's generally solid, albeit not really much of a kids' movie -- it's essentially Braveheart with talking animals. A lot of combat, and a lot of death, though in non-gory fashion. But the movie cost a fortune, and it's there on the screen, and it works well enough.

I haven't seen Indy 4 yet, though I have friends who did and absolutely loathed it, and others who sort of liked it. Apparently the dividing line is whether or not simply seeing Indiana Jones in action again outweighs the fact that the plotline just isn't very good. I'll have to catch it sometime in the next week, just so I can have an informed opinion on it.

It made an estimated $151 million for its first 5 days though. So I was close.

The Sex and the City movie is rated R, partly for "graphic nudity", which I guarantee means penis. One more reason for the ladies to go, and for the guys to stay home and pretend they like hockey.

R.I. P. Sydney Pollock. I also lost my college friend Steve to cancer over the weekend, as well as my great-aunt Marge, who was 101.

Memorial Day indeed. Hug your loved ones.

Weekend Box Office #85; Also "Slipstream".

2008-05-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend, the only thing opening in more than a handful of theaters is:

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (4260 theaters). Obviously, this is going to make a fortune; reviews have generally been positive, though not all have been raves. The studio wisely released it yesterday, to help cut down on the weekend rush, while Memorial Day weekend is generally huge movie-wise (there are usually 2 or 3 big new releases fighting it out).

So it'll probably do $150 million for its first five days. At least.

*****

So yesterday I watched "Slipstream" on DVD, as part of my aforementioned decision to review 5-6 movies a month for a website, not only for the free DVDs, but to make me watch movies I otherwise wouldn't seek out.

For those who don't recognize the title, "Slipstream" isn't a big sci fi epic, but a weird little film that Anthony Hopkins wrote, and directed, and stars in. He even did the music.

Basically it's a David Lynch movie, if David Lynch had no idea what he was doing (and for those of you who don't think David Lynch knows what he's doing, watch "Slipstream".)

Basically it's yet another variation of the tale in which really weird things happen to the main character, and it turns out that it's because he's dying, or just died, or something.

Here, it means we get odd scenes with actors like Michael Clarke Duncan, Christian Slater and an overacting John Turturro, all edited by someone who seems like they were being paid if they threw in every editing trick that anyone ever invented.

So we get double exposures, shifting colors, things turning to black-and-white and back again, images suddenly being flipped, images speeding up or slowing down or repeating.

It's all headache-inducing and completely pointless.

In the commentary track, Hopkins happily states that he's not a writer (several times), and that he doesn't care if people liked the movie or not, because he was trying to make an "anti-movie".

Dude.

He also self-defensively states that he showed the script to Steven Spielberg, who only had nice things to say about it.

Which made me laugh, because come on. You're Steven Spielberg, and Sir Anthony Hopkins sends you a script to read, and it's an incoherent pile of crap. Not even Spielberg is going to tell him that.

I guarantee he simply told Sir Anthony that he liked it, while crossing his fingers and praying that Hopkins wouldn't ask him to produce the damned thing.

Or maybe Hopkins did, and Spielberg said he couldn't, because he had to go make Indy 4. And then he greenlit it, and now here it is.

See? It's all circular.

The Choices That We Make As Writers

2008-05-19T09:11:00.001-07:00

So on Saturday I went to a barbecue that was largely attended by members of my screenwriting group, people that (other than quick conversations before or after our Monday night meetings) I rarely get to hang out with socially.

So I found myself in a conversation with three other aspiring writers, good writers, who I have a lot in common with: we're all in our late 30s-to-mid-40s, and we're all in a period of our lives where, we'll we are getting better as writers, we're also in periods of our lives where we can't devote the time to pursuing a writing career that we really want to.

Or if we do, it means major changes in our lives.

One woman has been trying to devote herself more to writing, but she had to take a long leave of absence from working to really do so, plus she's got a husband and couple of kids, so even then writing is not something that can consume her days.

Another guy is just completing a pestigious masters program in screenwriting, but he had to go heavily into debt to do it. The last guy is a lawyer, who loves writing, but his job is also sucking up more and more of his time.

Devoting a lot of time to writing is really a young person's thing. It's just so much easier to do when you don't have a wife/kids/career/rent/mortgage pulling you down.

But, ironically (and I know there are exceptions, but still), good screenwriting is something that you get better at when you have these things in your life. When you have a life to draw on, when you've matured and experienced more. The things you have to juggle -- hell, the process of juggling, of dealing with responsibilities, of making choices in your own life -- make you better as a writer.

So it's a Catch-22. An endless juggling act, for people sliding into middle age, who really have to make serious choices about how much time to devote to the pursuit of a writing career, as opposed to really putting the time into the more stable career you are currently involved in, the one that might need to actually support you and young family for the rest of your life, the one that you often just can't afford to give short shrift to.

And the sad thing is that this dooms a lot of people who'd probably turn out to be pretty good writers. Because unless you can find the time to write, really write, it's all going to slip away. Like I see happening to so many people I know.

Like I see happening to me.

I've tried to screenwrite as much as I can, and I had an inadvertent aid during the writer's strike, when business was so slow that I had big blocks of time at my disposal. I didn't have to juggle, I didn't have to worry about the effect of choosing writing over work, because the work wasn't there much.

Financially it wasn't so good, but I wasn't really making a choice. The time was there. I used it. And I got some things done.

But now, I'm back in the grind, where there is always a pile of work to do, and credit card bills calling out for me to do it. And don't get me wrong -- I love reading scripts for a living.

But wow is it hard to find the time -- or the will -- to write when I've plowed through 20-25 scripts by other writers in any given week.

But this is my dilemma, and versions of this is currently being wrestled with by a lot of writers I know. There are X numbers of hours in a week, they need to be parceled out, and often devoting them to writing means being selfish, and taking them away from areas of your life that need time too.

And I respect the hell out of anyone who can make that work.

I even respect anyone who can bite the bullet, and pull the plug, and devote life to family and career and let the writing thing be a mistress that you just visit every once and a while, without much commitment.

But today's the day I start another push. At least one hour a day, every day, devoted entirely to screenwriting. Whether it is brainstorming a script, or outlining a script, or banging out pages. I did it last fall, and it was scary-effective, but then I went off the rails after awhile. 40 days? 60 days? I don't even remember any more.

But it's back on now. Because I'm not getting any younger -- hell, let's be honest, I turn 45 in 10 days. It's time to step up or drop out.

Anyhow, I just wanted to put these thoughts in play. If anyone wants to share their current juggling acts, feel free.

Scott

Weekend Box Office #84

2008-05-16T11:47:00.001-07:00

So I'm still in my combination of being swamped with work/spring funk.

I did finish a polish of my thriller this week, so there's that. Next week I'm determined to get back to the screenwriting-an-hour-a-day thing. Alogn with everything else I have to do.

Otherwise, if anyone has any topics of conversation for future blog entries, feel free to bring them up.

This weekend there's just one movie opening wide:

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN (3929 theaters). It's getting good reviews, and there's not much competition until INDY opens next week. Let's call it a whopping $79 million, but I'm probably low.

Weekend Box Office #83

2008-05-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

So I feel badly about ignoring this blog so much, but I'm still getting slammed with work, and I'm struggling with juggling everything.

Unfortunately, what's really suffering is my writing -- where it was once an hour-a-day thing, now I haven't written a word in over three weeks. Ugh. I've got writing stuff that needs to be done, too.

I don't feel like myself these days.

The good news (I guess) is that I'm not going to be tempted to see any of this weekend's releases:

SPEED RACER (3606 theaters). I didn't have high hopes for this, and the LA Times review today put a stake in this movie for me, with their comment "Vast swaths of dialogue take the place of dramatic action in which things happen, once called scenes". In other words, it's just like the last Matrix movie. Feh. This will make some money this weekend, but I don't see it being huge huge. $34.6 million.

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS (3215 theaters). I've seen the commercials, and I feel like I've seen the whole movie, and I want my money back already. $13.7 million.

REDBELT (expanding from 6 to 1301 theaters). There's just not anything here that really grabs me. $4.4 million.

Weekend Box Office #82

2008-05-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

So last night I'm reading a mediocre writing sample that was made into a dumb dance movie, and I put it down to take a break and watch the end of Survivor, to see who got stabbed in the back this week.

I turn on the TV, which is on whatever channel why wife had been watching last (Encore?) and what is on? The exact same dumb dance movie, which I'm then able to watch chunks of, and marvel at how much they changed from the script I'm reading for the better and for the worse.

If a coincidence like that happened in a movie, we'd boo at the screen.

IRON MAN (4105 theaters). The game this week is really guess how much money this movie will make this weekend, because there's really not much else out there. I'm going to take a wild stab and say $62.3 million. Closest gets bragging rights; deadline midnight tonight.

MADE OF HONOR (2729 theaters). Basically My Best Friend's Wedding with a sex change, and I feel like I've seen the movie from the commercials. $9.6 million.

The 22 Most Interesting Movies of the Next 4 Months

2008-05-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Not necessarily good, mind you, just interesting. On my radar.

IRON MAN (May 2). They've cast the hell out of it with Oscar nominees, but word is that it's a little uneven. A "maybe".

SON OF RAMBOW (May 2). This is supposed to be funny, and moves that rise out of the festival circuit to get decent releases are usually pretty solid.

SPEED RACER (May 9). On this list because it'll probably be huge, but the commercials make it look like a video game for hyperactive 9-year-olds, so unless it gets great reviews I'm gonna skip it.

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS (May 9). Oh, hell no.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN (May 16). I read the books as a kid, and liked the first movie well enough, so I might check this out if the reviews are solid enough.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (May 22). Hell yeah. Though I'm not enough of a geek to actually wait on long opening-weekend lines to see it; I hate lines.

SEX AND THE CITY (May 30). I watched a couple of episodes when it first come on, and then tuned out. Ladies, you're on your own.

THE FOOT FIST WAY (May 30). A weird little low-budget movie, but the buzz is good.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (June 13). They are trying to reboot after messing up the first one, and Ed Norton's presence should be interesting. Another movie that is going to depend on the reviews and word-of-mouth for me, though.

THE HAPPENING (June 13). Hopefully this is the movie in which M. Night reverses his downward trend. It's hard to see how it can be any worse than LADY IN THE WATER.

GET SMART (June 20). I like Steve Carell, so I'll see it, unless word comes that they screwed it up.

WALL-E (June 27). It's Pixar, so I'll see it.

HANCOCK (July 2). The screenplay (originally called "Tonight, He Comes") was supposed to be great, while Will Smith has taken few missteps. One of the more likely films I'll check out.

THE WACKNESS (July 3). Though I've never smoked pot, I can enjoy a good funny pot movie.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH 3D (July 11). Because it's the next generation of 3D technology. And it'll be the first time that Brendan Fraser was ever three-dimensional in anything.

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY (July 11). Interesting because Guillermo Del Toro is directing it.

THE DARK KNIGHT (July 18). It's a shame that Heath Ledger's death is going to cast such a pall over this film, which no one will be able to watch the same way.

THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE (July 25). Apparently it's a stand-alone movie that isn't going to deal with all of the weird ongoing stuff that the first movie tried to wrestle with. Which is good.

CHOKE (August 1). Sam Rockwell starring in a script based on a Chuck Palahniuk novel.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (August 8). Because it looks funny, and because Seth Rogen hasn't done me wrong yet.

TROPIC THUNDER (August 15). This is supposed to be good dumb fun, and with a cast including Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise in a fat suit, there's certainly potential.

HAMLET 2 (August 22). Another apparently-very-funny movie that has sprung from the festivals.

Notes From The Swamp, and Weekend Box Office #81

2008-04-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

This is the longest I've ever gone without posting. I've just been beyond-swamped with work this week, and certain areas suffer because of that.

Not that I'm complaining, because I need the money.

Still, hopefully in the next few days I'll put up a nice big post about the summer movies coming out.

Until then, new releases:

BABY MAMA (2543 theaters). Early reviews for this have been good, while they've done a smart thing by having a bunch of different trailers with a bunch of different jokes, leaving the impression that there's a big well of funniness to draw from. Will lose a lot of young males to HAROLD AND KUMAR, but should do a solid $14.6 million.

HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUATANAMO BAY (2510 theaters). I think the plot was a major misstep here; I think any other storyline would have drawn a bigger audience than tossing them into Guatanamo Bay, which isn't inherently funny. At all. Still, it'll do okay. $12.7 million.

DECEPTION (2001 theaters). Generic title, no real story hook, and a cast (Ewan McGregor, Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams) that doesn't have much drawing power isn't going to add up to much of an audience. $3.9 million.

Weekend Box Office #80

2008-04-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

Another weekend, another bunch of stuff that'll be on DVD in a few months anyway.

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (3151 theaters). I guess this is a serious film, though every time I see the commercial, for some reason it seems like it is about to spin into a comedy but doesn't. Jackie Chan and Jet Li both have a lot of fans, so maybe this will make a little something. $11.7 million.

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (2798 theaters). The reviews I've seen have all been pretty good, so this might click. $15.2 million.

88 MINUTES (2168 theaters). The hook is interesting, but this has been on the shelf for a while, and apparently has already been released on DVD overseas for almost a year. And word is that it isn't good Pacino. It'll be interesting to see if Pacino's name is enough to bring people in; he's made a lot of crap over the last 5 years, though the upcoming thing with DeNiro looks interesting. $7.7 million.

EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED (1052 theaters). This is a Ben Stein documentary about how intelligent design theories are being crushed by those nasty science people. It's not supposed to be vary good, though it may play well in the middle of the country. $2.8 million.

This Blog Post Is Rated R For Graphic Nudity

2008-04-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

So I watched WALK HARD the other night, which was funny in spots, but should've been a lot funnier. What really intrigued me going in, though, was the fact that it was partly rated R for its "graphic nudity".

Even as a married man, the promise of "graphic nudity" in a Hollywood film just sounds fun.

Unfortunately, what should have occurred to me is that actual female nudity is no longer considered "graphic", unless they are doing something that they never do in Hollywood movies.

No, in today's world, beware (or be intrigued, depending on your predilictions), "graphic nudity" pretty much just means one thing:

Penis.

Not even strong, erect penis. Just penis.

I was amused the next day (yesterday) to find an article in the LA Times, about Judd Apatow and his determination to make penis mainstream.

Apparently there's a long, long scene in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL in which lead actor Jason Segel has his junk hanging out throughout.

You might not want to bring the kids.

*******

Last week's blog post soliciting scripts for my friend got me almost 50 responses asking for his e-mail address. Plus he posted other places on the Internet as well.

So he's deluged. If you sent him something, be patient. I'm helping him out with some reads, but I'm getting swamped too.

*******

I brought the first 25 pages of my new comedy into group this past Monday, and people were laughing throughout, telling me that it's the best thing I ever brought in.

So there's that. Though then I learn there's a movie currently filming with a similar premise. Hopefully different enough so that it won't be a problem, but still, hell.

*******

At the box office last weekend, PROM NIGHT made a solid $20.8 million. STREET KINGS made a semi-surprising $12.4 million. SMART PEOPLE eked out $4.1 million.

STOP-LOSS has only made $10 million in its first 17 days, despite a lot of good reviews. So put your Iraq War drama back in the drawer; doesn't look like they'll be making many more, at least until it's over and we get some distance.

Weekend Box Office #79

2008-04-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

I realized I've only seen two 2008 movies in theaters so far. One was 27 DRESSES (because my sister and her husband were extras, though it wasn't THAT bad), the other was THE BANK JOB (which was good). Everything else was catching up on 2007 releases.

I'd like to get out to the movies this weekend -- I have literally seen nothing that is playing in the 16-screen theater that is the closest -- but at the same time I just can't get wildly excited about anything out there.

PROM NIGHT (2700 theaters). I feel like I've already seen it from watching the commercials, and it wasn't that good. Plus movies like this shouldn't be PG-13. Still, $15.7 million.

STREET KINGS (2467 theaters). I feel amazing apathy toward this movie, which got a bad review today in the LA Times as well. I think it could easily tank, though it'll probably scrape out about $8.2 million.

SMART PEOPLE (1106 theaters). Interesting cast, and I'll see Ellen Page in anything, though the posters make it look like it is about Scrabble competitors (it isn't). But the screen count is low, and there's no real hook. $3.9 million.

A Friend of Mine Is Looking For Scripts

2008-04-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

Actually, he's working for a guy who is looking to finance movies in the $2-$6 million range (though probably on the lower end of that to start). And they are actively looking for scripts, WGA or non-WGA.

This is the criteria they want, aside from the low-budget thing:

-- Age 17-24 demographic.

-- Commercial genres and high concept hooks, but executed with an art-house sensibility. The sort of thing a studio would be afraid to make, but will be fast to copy when it becomes successful.

-- They ARE interested in smart thrillers, R-rated comedies, or coming of age stories (with some sort of commercial hook).

-- They are NOT interested in biopics, period pieces, or non-human characters (monsters, ghosts, aliens, etc). They are also not interested in torture porn, slasher films, or scripts that rely on cats jumping out of closets because they don't have any legitimate scares.

-- It would be helpful if the script breaks typical cinematic conventions in some way, for example non-linear storytelling (like PULP FICTION, MEMENTO or GO), unreliable narrators (THE OPPOSITE OF SEX, FIGHT CLUB, THE USUAL SUSPECTS) or general cinematic weirdness (though more along the lines of Charlie Kaufman than David Lynch or David Cronenberg).

-- Attachments are okay, but they aren't interested in just being financiers; they want a say in the creative end of things.

If you have a good script that fits the bill, e-mail me (my e-mail addy is in my profile) and I'll give you the contact info for them.

They seem very legit, and it could be a solid opportunity for the right writer/script.