Is Dressing As a Giant Mug of Coffee a Good Career Move?

I'm covered in mouse turds. Who wants a hug?

I was a sucky teenager. I pretty much did what my parents and teachers told me, and only broke the rules if I was on my way to the Planetarium to see the Pink Floyd laser show. That lack of a rebel spirit had its upsides – I got into university and passed my driving test the first time. But it also almost meant a career that would have added a heaping serving of mockery to the virginity buffet that was my teenage years.

Douchebag owned, douchebag operated

It all started when I got a job as a barista at a crappy little coffee shop owned by a guy named Doug. Physically, he was not well maintained. Even his goatee had dandruff. His personality was worse – an unpleasant mix of racist jokes and questionable management directives like “mustard never goes bad, so it’s okay to still use the tub I bought four years ago”, and “I can save $20 a month if we turn off the refrigerator in the pastry case.” And there was the whole problem — whatever he asked me to do, I did, even if it meant picking fruit flies out of the custard tarts.

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My Movie Idea That Everyone Hates, Part 2

Bald Eagles2

Bald, Rug, Bald, Not Bald, Bald, Bald, Rug, Bald.

Meet Francis McTavish. He’s a likeable everyman with a beer belly and a bald spot. But what he lacks in abs, he makes up for with a cool job – he’s a geologist surveying for minerals in the rainy rainforests of Peru.

So he’s down in South America one day, when his helicopter crash-lands deep in the jungle. The pilot dies, and Francis has a nasty gash on the back of his shiny head. He uses some leaves from a strange looking plant to sop up the blood, then gets rescued.

A week later, and Francis is back at home in America. He looks in the mirror and holy shit his hair is growing back! Yup, there’s manly stubble wherever those magical leaves touched his head.
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My Movie Idea That Everyone Hates

Zach GalifianakisHave you ever wondered what happens after you die?

Specifically, have you ever wondered what happens after you die and have yourself cryogenically frozen, then wake up twenty years from now as just a head?

If so, you might enjoy my new movie idea: Like a Chicken. But if you do like it, you’re the only one. My writing partner and fellow Screenplaya hates it. All my friends hate it. And my wife said its high concept-ness reminded her of Adam Sandler’s Jack & Jill, but without the wit.

The thing is though, how many movies have a scene where an English Bulldog with a human head gets humped by a labradoodle… and not just for a cheap laugh. It’s a scene that matters.

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Why It’s Important to Lead Your Protagonist Up Sauron’s Ass

You can tell by his eyes he's totally not crazy.

There’s a concept in law called “The Reasonable Man”. The idea is that sometimes a judge has to compare your behavior to what a regular person might be expected to do. For instance, when faced with a stranger choking on a bus, would a reasonable person administer the Heimlich maneuver? (note: the stranger is on the bus, choking. They’re not choking because they tried to swallow a bus.)

In perhaps the only example where lessons from law school coincide with those learned in the trenches of Screenwriting U, we can learn much from Mr. Reasonable. In law, the more your behavior resembles Mr. R. the better. But in a movie, the more your protagonist resembles the Reasonable Man, the less chance you’re ever going to win that Daytime Emmy.

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Alternate Universe Movie Posters

In-any-era MJ vs. Lebron-style what-ifs dominate sports debate, so why not film? Case in point is this brilliant movie poster series by Peter Stults, in which iconic films are re-imagined in a bygone era. The results are clever, funny and an interesting peek into the mind of the artist. What if you could pick any director and cast to recreate your favorite movie? Continue reading

Top Films of 2011 – I Would Rewrite

Yes, I’m leading with JUSTIN BIEBER for curb appeal. Can you blame me? So while I’m at it, I might as well come clean to curating an end of year list for more-or-less the same reasons. Now that’s out of the way, I think these five films had unmet potential. Really! All they needed was a bit of love in the story department (yes, that’s a writer-centric view). Doubts? I’ll make you a BelieberContinue reading

Impossible Rooms, Indian Burial Grounds, Fake Moonlandings & Devastating Subtext

I’ve been crossing paths with The Shining lately. As you can imagine, it’s been somewhat disconcerting. I was looking for examples of artists subverting other’s work for their own purposes and hit the motherlode. There are no less than five major theories surrounding Stanley Kubrick’s contentious re-envisioning of Steven King’s classic (wait, they are both “SK”, make that six). After all, creatives generally have a “day job”, so why not put your own spin on it? Or in Kubrick’s case, potentially hide some of the most shocking revelation(s) in the history of film.

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Driven Mad

I had mixed feelings about Drive. Maybe that’s bound to happen with an ultra-violent existential B-movie heist film set in L.A. that’s directed by a Danish unicorn. However, then I saw this very-spoilery (a warning, not a criticism) animated tribute and I reconsidered the source material. It’s awesomeness made me think of how deliberate Gosling’s minimal performance, the anachronistic 80s vibe and the unapologetically blunt story were. This, in turn, made me ponder the art of writing films that are-not-quite-what-they-seem (more on that in an upcoming post). Now I’m considering buying a silk scorpion jacket or maybe not.

This Time, It’s Personal


Lars Von Trier hates women, or so the body of evidence that is his movie catalog would suggest. Maybe that’s why he’s down. So to speak to his issues, he makes a movie about  depression starring an actress who has admitted to suffering from it. And just to make the point larger than, well, life ‘Melancholia’ takes the form of a rogue planet about to wipe out all, well, life. Aside from the startling coincidence that his apocalyptic opus was released as the largest asteroid since 1976 was flying between Earth and the moon, the film made one point abundantly clear to me. Write what you know…and nothing else. Continue reading

Let’s Do the Timewarp…

…again? Can’t say that I’ve ever done it. I *have* seen a version of the movie/musical…performed by actors in velociraptor costumes making a point about the sustainability of cycling or something (yes, this was on the West Coast). I just think they wanted to advocate the trans-sexual dinosaur lifestyle, then again, who doesn’t? However, what’s truly mind/gender-bending, is looking at a blog you jammed on took a hiatus from in 2009. A few highlights from the last 3 or so years: Continue reading

Let the Write One In

ltroiF**k Twilight! Now that I have that out of the way, Let the Right One In is probably the best film I’ve seen this year. A subtle, elegant and evocative movie is a rarity, let alone one in the WTF Swedish romantic vampire genre. Plus any pic that can keep me enraptured on my iPod Touch on a crowded flight to nowhere is doing something right. LTROI worked on so many levels – thematic, allegorical, character study, sexually-ambiguous love – but I won’t muddy/bloody the waters with a review. I think that the true measure of a great film is how it challenges me to up my own game. Wanna know how this one did? Read on.

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Top 10 Movies Predicting Unfortunate Pop Cultural Movements

zoltarAs geeks so often love to remind us, movies and TV shows have accurately predicted a lot of our current technology. Yes, a Star Trek communicator pre-dates a Motorola Razr by 40 years, and the non-holographic version of Minority Report’s touch screens are now on your iPhone. But really, who gives a f**k? All that proves is that the nerdy industrial designers of today used to all be sci-fi loving ‘indoor kids’ who had their first wet dream after watching Barbarella on late-night Cinemax. As a screenwriter, I’m less interested in guessing the next neato gadget, than predicting, or even shaping, the very culture we live in. As a result, I’ve compiled a list of films that did just that, albeit in really annoying ways.
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Why I Suck at Online Dating (But Get By as a Writer)

mctiernan_predator_posterYou’re a caveman (I don’t need to say caveperson since political correctness has only been around for 0.000000000000001% of human existence). Your ability to effectively categorize sh*t is everything. Is that shadow moving in the woods tasty prey or a nasty predator? Is that berry fire engine red (granted you don’t know what a fire engine is since the whole flame thing is pretty new) because it’s delicious or deadly? Despite the body hair, protruding forehead and inability to really get your jokes, will that female humanoid bear you healthy Australopithi-babies or leave you for that asshole Uggghh and take you for your cave and wheel? Fast forward to now. The world is essentially stable (unless you’re living in the majority of it that isn’t). You don’t really need to filter your world into boxes, but you do cause it’s hard wired. Knowing this can help you to write screenplays, but if you’re like me, it probably won’t get your ass laid.

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Perception Compression Theory or How to F**k with Time for Fun & Profit

Monica MatrixI’ll admit it, maybe I was tripping balls a bit inebriated. Actually, I’m admitting nothing, NOTHING. But, despite the fact that the first movie was superior in every regard, Silent P and I were blown away by The Matrix Reloaded. We couldn’t stop talking about the Zion Burning Man Rave scene, the dead heat of Bellucci as Persephone, that sick car chase (come on, you know it), even the stupid babbling architect. What did it mean, how would the series end, what were the philosophical ramifications? It was too much. Then, as we slid down the twinkling streets and I gazed into pulsating clouds, it hit me – we had been tricked. Not by Keanu’s “acting” but by what could be most important secret to making movies…whoa.
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The Protagonist Paradox

Say AnythingIt’s a high school movie (not High School Musical, cause that’s bullsh*t). The unsung hero likes the abnormally pretty girl with character who is generally saddled with the handsome, mean-spirited Alpha…you know, captain of the football team, leader of the pack, etc. of the etc. The protagonist has a beautiful soul, some extraordinary talent and is actually kinda cute himself come-to-think-of-it. It’s just that the object of desire can’t see the hero because of the shadows cast by her radiance. But we know better and root for him. Why? Because he is us. More accurately, he is our perspective since we all experience life as the hero. Too bad in any story there can really only be one (f**king) protagonist and, let’s face facts, it most likely ain’t you.
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