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Friday, 19 February 2010 11:22

Movie Villains

The climax of our story has arrived. The road of trials has left our hero scarred and battered but still standing. The stakes are now, at last, clearly defined. Failure means the loss of their galaxy … their country … their loved one … their cat, Sabrina … or whatever treasure the characters are after. Only the villain can stop our hero from succeeding. 
 
Will good triumph over evil or will the bad guys win? 
 
The question: Do we—the reader, the audience—care? 
 
The answer: Not as often as we should.
           
Unfortunately, most of the time, the villain is a one-dimensional character that the hero defeats as if walking through a wall of tissue paper. We know the hero will win and their victory is therefore diminished. Also lessened is the pleasure in the short story, novel or film.
           
So here’s the trick. After developing a well-rounded, sympathetic and memorable hero (or heroes), create a villain that makes us afraid for that character. We want the reader to be asking how can the hero conquer or overcome this individual? We want the ending not to be a forgone conclusion. We want the audience to be on the edge of their seats as the story concludes. 
           
A well-created villain can increase the enjoyment of a story a thousand-fold. And, more often than not, when done well, will be the character that is remembered long after the tale is finished. Quick, who were the heroes who battled Dracula? Name one - just one - good guy who fought Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) in the Nightmare movies or battled Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) in the Saw series. These villains blew the heroes off the page and screen.
 
In Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry created incredible three-dimensional characters. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the company of Gus, Call, Newt, Lorena, Pea Eye and the other members of the Hat Creek outfit. I liked these people. Then the renegade Blue Duck appeared. The stakes jumped up several notches. I was suddenly afraid for the people I had come to know. It was a book I could not put down until the last page and an incredible TV mini-series.
           
My ex-wife Ann’s favorite novel is To Kill a Mockingbird. She reads it once a year. Harper Lee’s characters are wonderful and real. Who would not enjoy being in the company of Atticus, Scout, and Jem? But also inhabiting their world is Bob Ewell - a deadly snake in the midst of the Depression-era Southern garden. 
           
In William Goldman’s Marathon Man,the Nazi dentist, Doctor Christian Szell, captures Babe, our hero, and asks him, “Is it safe?” At that moment, I broke into a sweat because I knew that even if Babe survived this man, he would never be the same. Little did I realize how bad the encounter would truly be. If I had only known, I might have put the book down. Poor Babe. This is one of my favorite novels.
All right, folks, get ready. Pencils sharpened? Electronic notepads booted up? Ipods recording? 
           
Because here we go.
 
The first rule for creating an unforgettable villain is:
 
There are no rules. None. Nada. Not a one. 
 
Yep, and that’s what makes them such a cool character. Villains can follow the rules, break the rules, make up their own rules, or all of the above. They can be a force of nature; they can be man-made. They can be an authority or an outlaw. They can be utterly brilliant; they can deeply psychotic; they can be dumber than a box of rocks. Sometimes they will not have a single redeeming quality. Sometimes they will be sympathetic and even admirable. 
 
Villains only have one trait in common with other villains. They stand between the hero and their goal.
 
The shark in Peter Bentley’s Jaws, the alien parasite in John Carpenter’s The Thing, and the giant worms in Tremors are force-of-nature villains. They are straight-ahead, no-sympathy destroyers. People are lunch to them and no more.
 
“The alien from Alien (is a favorite villain),” said Allen Steele, two-time Hugo winner and author of Coyote and American Beauty. “Reproduces inside living organisms.
Has acid for blood. Can hide in almost any dark corner. So tough that, even if you blow it out the airlock, it manages to survive. And it just keeps coming at you.”
 
Because of the way they are portrayed, I would also include Randall Flagg (aka the Dark Man) in Stephen King’s The Stand, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in No Country for Old Men, the Super Posse in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the big rig truck in Steven Spielberg’s first film, Duel, as forces of nature.
Villains created from mankind’s technology may seem like a force of nature at times. The cloned raptors in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and the Robot Gunslinger in Westworld certainly appear to be single-minded and unwavering in their attacks on the hero.
 
“Unemotional and unstoppable.” The cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in The Terminator is a favorite of Geoffrey Landis, Hugo and Nebula Award winner, author of Mars Crossing.
 
“HAL (from 2001: A Space Odyssey),” wrote Daniel Blackston, poet and short-story writer. “‘He’ is more human than human, ‘his’motivations are simply exaggerated human tendencies: obedience, ambition, the surrender of ‘self’ to the state…”
 
Screenwriter Mark Sevi (Arachnid, Dead On: Relentless II, and the upcoming Trapped in Perfection); Dave Felts, publisher of SFReader and short story writer; and Blackston agreed that the replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in Blade Runner is one of the best. 
          
“Batty is not bothered by society's limits,” Sevi said. “In that regard, he's inhuman, godlike, because he won't play by anyone's rules and is never bothered by things like human morality - which, at the end of the day is self-serving and artificial anyway. But at the same time, he exhibits the all too human traits of wanting to know where we come from, where we're going and how long we have here. This simple need drives him incessantly, pushing to kill to get what he wants when necessary. He never compromises to get what he needs. This makes him compelling as hell.”
         
Sevi continued, “Plus, he completely reflects and mirrors the main character, Deckard, who, although human, is nearly a Replicant himself because he lacks normal emotional response - or it's been burned out of him. Batty is evil, frightening, uncompromising, and in perfect diametric opposition to the main character in this respect.  His quest is as personal as Deckard's is not.  And in the end, Batty expresses more appreciation for being alive than Deckard ever did, forcing Deckard to finally understand that life - all life - is a gift, not a right.  Gotta love a villain so perfectly realized.”
 
Felts said, “In his pursuit of knowledge on how to extend his life he is unmerciful, but in the end, having accepted his fate, he delivers a message we can all use.”
Blackston added, “Very sympathetic villain, so much so that the audience can't decide who to root for in the final fight scene, Roy or Harrison Ford’s character (Deckard)…”
 
Some villains have the power of authority assisting them. Nurse Ratched with administration approval in Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) in The Adventures of Robin Hood has Prince John backing him up. Milady deWinter (Faye Dunaway) operates with the blessing of Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers. Noah Cross (John Huston) in Chinatown seems to have everyone from the police to the government to the underworld in his rich hip pocket. General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) in The Wild Bunch with his army.
 
And, of course, we can’t forget Darth Vader with the entire Empire (as if he actually needed them) behind him in the Star Wars saga. 
 
“Ever since I was 12 I have always thought that Rupert of Henzau from The Prisoner of Zenda was one of the best - handsome and with a sense of humor,” wrote Anne Perry, author of the Victorian detective novels featuring William Monk and Thomas Pitt including Death of a Stranger.
 
“I think my favorite villain is Inspector Javert from Les Miserables, because, like a lot of villains, he's absolutely certain of his virtue,” said Stuart Woods, author of Reckless Abandon and Chiefs.
 
Belloq (Paul Freeman), with the Nazi army backing him, is a favorite of Justin Stanchfield, author of Sisterhood of the Stone. “…while neither fierce nor physically menacing, (Belloq) was the perfect foil for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark … he is complicated and fully-formed. Although driven by greed and self-interest, it is a lust for discovery rather than personal gain. He shows genuine regret about leaving Marion to her fate, but none whatsoever over stealing from Indiana or trying to kill him. Belloq is, as he tells Jones, a mirror image of him, a dark reflection of what Indiana might become should he let himself stray too far over the line.”
 
“Archibald Cunningham (Tim Roth as the Scotland Marquis’ lieutenant) in Rob Roy is beautifully sadistic while acting a fop,” wrote Jay Caselberg, SF author of Wyrmhole and The Metal Sky.
 
Kate Dolan, author of Langley’s Choice; Raven Li, author of Eyes of Glass; and Vivi Anna, author of Goddess of the Dead all agreed that the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was a cool villain. Vivi added, “I thought his character was deliciously evil and sexy. He played it with such flamboyance that I couldn't help adore him, even while he ran around madly trying to kill Robin Hood. I cheered for him. If I was in those times, I would have definitely been hanging around with him, plotting evil schemes.”
 
“Sauron was perhaps the very best villain ever portrayed, for in The Lord of the Rings, Sauron was offstage,” said Dennis McKiernan, author of The Iron Tower. “He never directly entered the spotlight, hence J. R. R. Tolkien played on the fear of the unknown when he used Sauron in his epic. We only know Sauron through his use of his surrogates.”
 
Also included in this category would have to be Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lostand Stephen Vincent Benet’s The Devil and Daniel Webster. The devil inhabiting Regan MacNeil’s body in The Exorcist. John Milton (Al Pacino) in The Devil’s Advocate.
The opposite of the authority villain is the outlaw. Sometimes the outlaw is alone such as Max Cady (played by Robert Mitchum in 1962 and by Robert DeNiro in 1991) in Cape Fear. Sometimes they have handpicked people supporting them like Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) in Die Hard and Nazi spy Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton) in The Rocketeer. And sometimes they have huge organizations behind them such as all the criminal masterminds (Doctor No, Rosa Klebb, Emilio Largo, Elliot Carver, Le Chiffre) who face James Bond.
 
There is Calvera (Eli Wallach) in The Magnificent Seven; Mr. Jackson in David Baldacci’s The Winner, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in the Third Man; all of the bad guys in Elmore Leonard’s novels, and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in the Godfather trilogy.
 
Allen Steele includes in this category, “Long John Silver (from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson): an often stereotyped classic (the wooden leg, the talking parrot, etc) but still one of the best, mainly because you develop a certain liking for the guy as the story goes along” and “Ernst Stavro Blofeld (from On Your Majesty's SecretService by Ian Fleming): he's even better in the novel than he was in the movies. And he comes up with one of the most original -- and plausible -- means of blackmailing the world.” 
 
While some of the characters already named are intelligent, there are others who appear frighteningly brilliant. Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) in Anthony Burgress’ A Clockwork Orange, the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) in Dangerous Liaisons, Khan (Ricardo Montalban) in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, and James Bond’s nemesis Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger are such characters. 
 
“Dr. Moriarity (from "The Final Problem" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle),” wrote Allen Steele, “he almost killed Sherlock Holmes. `Nuff said.”
 
The most terrifying villain in this category, however, one of the most memorable ever created, is perched at the Number One villain spot on the American Film Institute’s List of 100 Years … 100 Heroes and Villains. He is a psychiatrist. He is a murderer and cannibal. He is Dr. Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) in Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs. From the moment he appears, the safety of our hero, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), is in jeopardy. Most definitely.   
 
“Hannibal Lector …very menacing, with the nightmarish sense that there is no horror or outrage at which he would hesitate,” writes Jon A. Jackson, author of Badger Games. “Plus, of course, an air of implacable competence, the feeling that he's all but unstoppable. The very stuff of nightmare.”
 
Some might argue that Hannibal Lector actually belongs to the next group of villains. A few might argue that all the characters named belong in this group. They are the psychotics.
 
In this group, we will find the touchstone of insane villains: Norman Bates in Robert Bloch’s novel and, as played by Anthony Perkins in Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho.
“(One of my most memorable villains is) Peter Lorre as the child molester in M,” wrote Larry Rochelle, author of Death and Devotion and Gulf Ghost. “(And) Mrs. Danvers as the house servant in Rebecca.”
 
Evan Marshall, literary agent and author of Toasting Tina said, “My favorite villain is Ellen in the novel Leave Her to Heaven by Ben Ames Williams … in the story, she goes to obsessive, deadly lengths to keep the man she loves all to herself. To me she is a fascinating psychological study of narcissistic evil. She is also a very unusual villain, as villains go.” 
 
Jeffrey Deaver, author of The Bone Collector and The Coffin Dancer said, “… one of my favorite villains is Robert Mitchum (as the Reverend Harry Powell) in Night of the Hunter. He was truly scary and creepy in that film!”
 
This list of villains also includes: The Joker (Heath Ledger) in The Dark Knight, Stephen King’s Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in The Shining, Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) in Taxi Driver, Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) in Body Heat, Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter) in Play Misty for Me, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction, Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) in Stephen King’s Misery, and Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) in Tombstone. 
 
The final group is the dumb villains. The ones that “drying paint” has a higher I.Q. than. A small but very scary group. It would include the entire Barrow gang in Bonnie and Clyde, the two backwoodsmen in James Dickey’s Deliverance, Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wilmer (Elisha Cook) in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.
 
No matter what category they fall into, villains, as with any other characters in your story, novel, or screenplay should be as well rounded and multidimensional as your heroes. They need understanding, too. Captain Boucher, in my horror novel, The Inheritance, truly feels that the prisoners in his care deserve his punishment for their misdeeds. Kate Guthrie, also in The Inheritance, not only wants to discover the secret behind the mysterious Claiborne legacy but also to have its curse removed from herself. The vicious creatures in my novel, To the Mountain of the Beast, only kill for food. 
 
But this needs to be clear, for me anyway, while I want a little understanding for my villains, what I want most is for the reader to fear for my heroes. Near the conclusion of my thriller, Rebel Nation, one of my heroes, Cullen Davis, is told by his grandmother that he must choose between the woman he loves and his younger brother. Only one will survive. If he doesn’t choose, both will be destroyed. Hopefully, during the course of the novel the reader will believe, completely and totally, that Victoria Talbridge can do what she has threatened. Her orders will be carried out even if she were to die at that very moment.
 
So…
 
…the stakes for Cullen have been clearly defined. Failure means the loss of the two people he loves the most. Can he be smarter than his grandmother? He’s never beaten her before. Can he defeat her this time when it matters the most?
Maybe, maybe not.
 
“A hero is only as great as his villains,” said Brad Meltzer, author of The Zero
Game and The Millionaires. “That's how it works.”
 
Below, in alphabetical order, are my ten favorite villains. This list is subject to changes at any time without notice. 
 
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Psycho
Belloq (Paul Freeman) in Raiders of the Lost Ark
Calvera (Eli Wallach) in The Magnificent Seven
Archibald Cunningham (Tim Roth) in Rob Roy
Milady de Winter (Faye Dunaway) in The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers
Henry Ducard (Liam Neeson) in Batman Begins
Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) in The Adventures of Robin Hood
Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) in Die Hard
Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) in The Silence of the Lambs
Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) in Misery
 
**Original version of this article was published in SFReader April 2005.
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Friday, 19 February 2010 10:00

The Blindside

I was predisposed to like "The Blindside."  I like football and football movies; I like inspirational stories (most times) and I've always liked Sandra Bullock.  All good and as expected.

Yeah, it's over the top on sweetness at times; yeah, Bullock has her moments of scene chewing; yeah, it's "movie" football with all the bad that endgenders.  Even so this was a good, solid film about a remarkable story of how life can take us to unexpected places.

The story follows Michael Oher a supremely talented football player (he allowed no sacks in 2009) who is currently a starting offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens and how he came to that career through the strangest set of circumstances you can imagine.  

A white, upper-class Southern family, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy (Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw,) find Michael wandering the streets homeless.  They take him in initially just to give him a place to stay temporarily, and through a long series of circumstances become his legal guardians since he's a ward of the State.  They make it possible for Michael to finish high school with high enough grades to get a football scholarship to The University of Mississippi to play for the Ole Miss Rebels, the Tuohy's alma mater.  This after being functionally illiterate and a D- student.

You can slice their motives for adopting Michael any way you want - white guilt, a desire to see this  talented football player play for Old Miss - or just plain guilt at their rich trappings - it's all explored in this thoughtfull and compelling film.  Anything you might think, say, imagine as to the angles on this story are covered and covered well.  I never felt like the information was being shoved at me but it was all presented in nice increments including Oher's background at being taken from his mother at a young age because of her addiction to crack cocaine.

The screenplay never falters pacing-wise.  Dialogue sparkles with some terrific one-liners (Sean Tuohy: Who would've thought we'd have a black son before we met a Democrat?) and is delivered pitch-perfectly by the cast.  The direction is solid and at times inspired.  The acting is very good all around with Bullock seeming to have inserted herself perfectly into Leigh Anne Tuohy's spirit and sass.  Even country star Tim McGraw does a very credible job.  Kathy Bates shows up midway through to do a turn as "Miss Sue" Michael's tutor.

A fun segment was when college recruiting began and Oher was visited by  some of the big names in college coaching:  Houston Nutt, Ed Orgeron (Oher's coaches in college), Nick Saban Lou Holtz, Tommy Tuberville, and Phillip Fulmer.  They are all played by the real coaches although some of them are out of football and some now coach for different teams.  S.J., Michael's younger (adoptive) brother. is shown finagling his own set of concessions from these men in various scenes to good effect.  The actor who plays S.J. is Jae Head and he is very good in this.

The film goes to some dark places, perhaps not as deeply as some would have liked, but for me the story wasn't solely about the sickness infecting our inner cities that allows mothers to abandon their children, but rather how we are redeemed by each other.  How we can only solve these intractable problems one kid at a time.

What the Touhy's did was indeed inspirational.  I'm sure there were times where they seriously questioned their commitment to this young man - but doesn't every parent come to a breaking point anyway?  Leigh Anne Tuohy and her family are heroes for stepping in when they could have looked the other way or just dropping a bundle of cash on a charity to assuage whatever guilt they felt.  They didn't.  And it's made the world just that much better for it.  Their actions saved a kid from a horrible and loveless life.  How cool is that?

On a side note, I liked that the screenwriter took the time to show us that yes, the Tuohy's had money, but also that they worked hard for it.  Leigh Anne was constantly on the phone, making deals, berating distributors, getting better wholesale prices for her design company.  Part of this is to show that she is a driven woman and can move the stars to get what she wants but it also had the effect of showing she's no slouch when it comes to being a working mom with a busy, active family.

The ending scrolls are sad in that they tell of children from Michael's neighborhood who didn't have the benefit of the intervention of the Tuohys - their stories weren't as inspirational and feel good - in fact, most of them ended up dead.  A sobering lesson at the cost of turning away from the problems facing all children but expecially those in the inner city where life and death are realtime preoccupations.

The measure of any film based on true events for me is, at the end of the movie, do I want to read the book upon which it was based.  Yes.  I definitely do on this one.   In fact, I want to find and watch the Oprah segment that dealt with this story and had the actual Tuohy family on.

This film earned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress (Sandra Bullock.)  Both nominations are well-deserved.

See "The Blindside" and revel in the joy of this amazing true story.

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Thursday, 18 February 2010 14:06

Precious

"Precious" is a hard film to watch.  The amount of misery and unrelenting pain that this film presents is almost beyond comprehension.  Poverty, illiteracy, rape, incest, HIV, physical and verbal and emotional abuse...how could anyone cope with all that?  How does the human spirit survive after being battered by all that? It's hard to fathom.

Like of lot of stories of this type before it, "Precious" explores familiar ground and expected consequences.  What differentiates this one is the expert handling of the characters and plot narrative - it never becomes burdensome or overbearing.

Directed by Lee Daniels and written for the screen by  Geoffrey Fletcher  "Precious" is based on first-time novelist Sapphire's book "Push."  Sapphire, according to background material, was a literacy teacher in Harlem and the Bronx for seven years.  The character of Precious is a composite based on the women that Sapphire worked with for those years.

The movie version of Precious lives with her abusive mother.  She is pregnant with her second child by her absent father.  Her first child suffers from Downs Syndrome, a child also conceived by her missing father.  Precious' life is a serious of mentally and physically abusive moments from school mates, neighborhood bullies and her mother.  What is implied but never really stated is that Precious is abused primarily by a system that allows all this to happen without much in the way of regard or remedies.

And yet, for all the agony the movie presents there is a strong undercurrent of redemption and hope - especially when Precious enters a special school and is helped by a lovely teacher (Paula Patton) to learn and to explore her inner self.   This is her true journey and the story of the film - we can help and redeem each other if we just listen and care.

First time actress Gabourey Sidibe has the lead role of Precious and she is really quite amazing.  Her angry and confused mother is played by comedian Mo'Nique who is about as pitch perfect as an actress can get.  You get the feeling that everyone here is channeling an experience that, if they didn't live it, they understand all too tragically well.  I'm not sure this is necessarily just an African-American story but it is certainly a story about how poverty and the relentless drone of generational ignorance about life options can infect and carry through from parent to child.

I can't find much to fault in this story or its presentation.  The use of background narrative throughout from the Precious character ties together a spare and understated script.  There are moments of violence and explosive emotion but the story is told so matter-of-factly that the horror of what is unfolding becomes even more overwhelming.  A tribute to the light hand of both writer and director.

The ending, which is a bit predictable and simplisitic but perhaps necessarily so, could have been so much bigger, drama-wise.  Lee dials it down, dials it back to a point where you just feel like you've been holding your breath a bit longer than you should.  You exhale and everything is released.  But not like you were choking for air - just like you missed a few breaths.  It's a marvel to think that Lee avoided what would have been a natural moment for the actors to chew the scenery and instead just guided them into a soft splashdown.

The film was set in 1987.  I didn't quite understand why since nothing I could see is specific to that time period and you never really got the sense that we were actually in a different era - except that no one had cell phones or iPods.

Bravo also to the actresses in this film who dulled themselves down to play these roles. Mariah Carey goes ultra-plain  to play one of Precious' counselors.  They sweat, have armpit hair, walk around in dirty shifts, and never try to look even one bit glam.  It reminded me of how courageous actress Shirley MacLaine was in "Postcards From The Edge" when she was in the hospital.  

See "Precious."  Perhaps it's not a big screen film experience but it is a powerful and sobering one.  It makes you ache for a way to actually help people to escape this cycle of violence and ignorance so artfully and powerfully portrayed here.

People say to me all the time that they don't make films like they used - yes, in fact they do.  

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Wednesday, 17 February 2010 23:24

Oscar Shorts - A Review

This Friday, all the Oscar-nominated shorts will be shown at The Regency South Coast Village Theater (live action link / animation link) 

I was lucky enough to get a screener and was able to watch them all.

The verdict: Worth every quick minute of time.

LIVE ACTION:

The live action set ranges from a horrifying look at post-Chernobyl consequences to a goofy and lovable wannbe magician.

“The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn (Russian):  Even though the disaster at a Russian nuclear plant was over two decades ago, the shock waves are still being felt.  In this memorable short, we're shown how a family touched by the tragedy copes - or doesn't.

“Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström (Swedish):  funny, goofy, great spirit.  The main character is a lovable loser who only wants to succeed as a magician despite his apparent lack of skill and his father's constant disapproval.  My 2nd favorite.

“Kavi” Gregg Helvey (Hindi):  This was a solid entry but didn't have enough power to push it over for me.  The young boy, Kavi, has a terrible life but there was something lacking in the presentation.  I think a bit more length, another few scenes would have helped.

“Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey (English):  A very different and clever piece with a shocker for an ending.  Nothing in this film is as you expect it to be.

“The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson (English):  This was my favorite although it really didn't start out that way.  The opening few minutes irritated the crap out of me but slowly the film began to grow on me and I ended up smiling broadly and chuckling in appreciation at the end.

I have a hard time picking a winner in this set but I'm going to go with "The New Tenants" because it's more fully realized.  Although because it's a black comedy and there are two socially-aware entries here the Academy might go with either "Kavi" or "The Door."

ANIMATION:

The animation set is as fun and diverse as the live action set.

“French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert (French):  A cute little animation that goes to some strange and wonderful places as a stuffy man struggles to figure out how to pay his cafe check.

“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell (English, 6):  A funny idea that didn't really carry me in its execution.  I loved the little girl character and Granny was perfection but it left some things unresolved for me.

“The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia (Non-dialogue):  This one was a fun idea married to a tightly-paced storyline that reminded me of the old Looney Tunes cartoons in a very good way.

“Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin (English):  Perhaps the most clever and unusual of all the films.  I was entranced by the tapestry of this one.  The sheer scope of it was mind-bending.  I won't spoil it for you.  My 2nd favorite.

“A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park (English):  Come on - Wallace and Gromit?  How could anything or anyone compete with the incomparable Nick Park?  It's all there - the fatuous and foolish Wallace, long suffering Gromit, a villain of epic proportitions (like the penguin-chicken in "The Wrong Trousers") and the incredible story-telling artistry and craftmanship of the man who has never not won an Academy Award for his nominated work.  This was my favorite and has to be a fav going in.  Simply amazing.  How he does this time after time and tops himself is just beyond me. 

My favorite and I think the winner in this category would be "A Matter of Loaf and Death" although Logorama" is so visually stunning it might just edge out Nick Park's incredible work.

All in all, neither set disappoints and either set is worth the time and money you'd spend.

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Tuesday, 16 February 2010 17:45

It's The Stories, Stupid

Blase - that's the way I felt about the Winter Olympics.  Still grumpy from the end of football season, I wasn't caring much about the competitions happening north of us.  

Then my attention was caught by the horrible tragedy of the luge competitor who lost his life on a training run and it all became a much more sobering reality.  While I might have a terrifying paper cut or get hemorrhoids from sitting on my a** all day, there is little chance I'm going to die pursuing my dreams.  He did.  

I tried to put it in perspective, failed.  I kept watching, trying to find some sense of this, failed again.  I couldn't shut down the television.  I felt like if I did, Nodar Kumaritashvil's death would be too soon forgotten.

Still, I was underwhelmed by my brief taste of the opening ceremonies, tired of Bob Costas and his drone, defeated before I started by NBC's inanity...

Eventually, the coverage I was watching shifted to speed skating.  I was hooked by the short track speed skaters and the dramatic Korean miscalculation in the 1500m final that propelled Apolo Ohno to silver and J. R. Celski to bronze when both Americans seemed out of the medals.  

Perhaps had it been someone else I would have shrugged it off.  But I knew about Ohno - not from "Dancing With The Stars" but from the Salt Lake City games when a Korean was DQ'd and Ono was given Gold because of it.  I knew his journey.  Knew that the Koreans were his nemesis.  I remembered how dramatic that moment in Salt Lake was.  I was beginning to remember it all - how there is nothing more compelling than these stories of insane success and devastating failure where a split-second miscalculation can kill your hopes.

The silver that Ohno was awarded in Vancouver gave him six medals - tied for the most of any single U.S. Winter Olympian.  What a story - and it's only the first few days.

Then gold medalist Hannah Kearney who didn't even qualify at the last Olympics because of mental errors but never lost faith in her ultimate goal of competing and redeeming herself medalled.  Her golden run was inspirational and totally insane when it seemed as if her knees were going to pop out of her snow gear as she raced down in the moguls and finally lifted her arms in victory

Canadian Alexandre Bilodeau - who?  Exactly.  He became the first Canadian to win an Olympic gold medal on Canadian soil.  Wow.  How's that for success?  And he dedicated his gold medal to his brother, Frederic, who has cerebral palsy and is his biggest fan.  My eyes teared a bit, my heart beat for his and his brother's joy.

The Chinese skating couple who met as children in training, fell in love, retired from skating, got married, got back into skating in their mid-thirties and won the ultimate prize - gold.  What satisfaction in their faces - the long journey had paid off with their dreams coming true both personally and professionally.  

On and on and on.  But also, for every success, a dozen painful, heartbreaking failures as years of training come abruptly to a halt.  Didn't matter if it was American, Candian, Russian, Chinese - it was hard to watch and impossible to dismiss anymore.

I'd forgotten all this somehow.  Even though the Summer Olympics had been a mere two years away, I'd somehow lost the intensity of this ongoing drama of competition.   And the Winter Olympics are so much more dangerous and I'd fogotten that fact too - people die and are seriously injured out there.  They lose lives going too fast on surfaces never meant for that sort of speed.  Die for a dream.  My Lord.  Where exactly was my head at to be so dismissive of this incredible drama?

So I re-evaluated my perspective and once again began to truly appreciate all the stories that I was now vicariously living.  Because at the end of the day, these people all have the same goals of excellence and accomplishment I have - to do it over and over and over again until you're so good that you outpace, outshine and out-perform anyone else in the field.

And still you can fail.  For all reasons, for no good reasons.  For vagaries of systems and weather and circumstances.

How about Lindsey Jacobellis who was a lock for gold four years ago and blew it on a hotdog move at the end of her run and had to "settle" for silver - and then came to Vancouver to redeem that failure and hit a gate and was DQ'd?  How do you deal with that sort of failure?  Amazingly so, she is, even if it's with a slightly trembling lip on the verge of tears.

What a bloody idiot I am.  It's those stories, the ones that put my life in perspective that seem to catch and hold me at every Olympics.  They're painful, joyful and everything in-between.  What they aren't is boring.  Not one of them.  Because they represent hours and hours of sacrifice and single-minded dedication to a goal.  They tell the entire human tapestry of life in a few short weeks of intense competition.

I'm full-on hooked in now.  I've dumped John Stewart's and Steven Colbert's shows into the Tivo queue so I can mainline the nightly coverage, scour the Internet for details, read the online stories of how these amazing people gave up almost everything to get to where they are.  I do get it - it's all of us out there on that hill, on the ice, in that sled or bloody and still on that icy track.

These are the stories of life; the ones I want to understand and channel everytime I sit down to write.  They mean something to me because they mean something to us all.  They are as simple as a smile and complicated as a life extinguished for no good reason.

It's the stories, stupid.  The ones you want to tell.  The ones you want to live.  The ones you don't ever want to forget.

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Tuesday, 16 February 2010 11:51

Oscar Shorts at Regency South Coast Theater

Is there anything sweeter than a good, short film?  

This Friday, the Regency South Coast Village Theater will present all the Oscar nominated short films in one place.  

In two separate shows (tickets required for both,) watch the five nominated Live Action and five nominated Animation shorts and decide for yourself who should win.

Go here for a taste of them (link) and then go to the Regency on Friday for a real treat to see them for yourself.

Animation Venue:

  • "French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert (French)
  • "Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell (English, 6)
  • “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia (Non-dialogue)
  • “Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin (English)
  •  “A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park (English) (Wallace and Gromit return!)

Live Action Venue

  • “The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn (Russian)
  • “Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström (Swedish)
  • “Kavi” Gregg Helvey (Hindi)
  • “Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey (English)
  • “The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson (English)

Regency South Coast Village Theater (website)
 

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Sunday, 31 January 2010 09:46

AOL Blocking Newsletters

AOL is apparently blocking our Opt-In newsletter.  Opt-In means you requested this information, we are not spamming you.

Until OCSWA can communicate with AOL those of you with AOL email addresses will not be receiving the newsletter since AOL has apparently decided that we are spamming you and will block your communications without regard to your wishes. 

We will post information here about upcoming events but the quickest way to find out about something happening with our org is to have the newsletter delivered to your inbox.  Perhaps you should make your wishes known to AOL and ask them not to block legit organizations, like The Orange County Screenwriters Association.

Thanks.

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Tuesday, 09 February 2010 22:10

Lady Gaga - Storyteller

Imagine you’re only able to tell a story by singing it. But then someone tells you can't  actually use any lyrics and you can chart your tale only by using the rise and fall of the chord progression to get people involved and engaged.

What am I talking about and how does it relate to scriptwriting? The genius of Lady Gaga, that’s what I’m talking about. But what does she have in common with John Sayles, Lawrence Kasdan, Phillip Kaufman or Christopher Nolan?


Gaga’s recent “Bad Romance” is an amazing song. With the current album and this song in particular she steps away from the pack and shows her full stride as a songwriter of note (no pun intended.)

Never mind the stunning music video and the somewhat intriguing lyrics. This song makes me listen in wonder at her amazing non-verbal story-telling ability. Let me break it down.

Listen here: you tube video

You might have to listen to this song more than a few times to get what I’m saying exactly but the principles will be easy enough to pull through. All I’m concerned about here is the music, not really the video or the lyrics. Just the music.

Imagine this song as a script. Structurally, you’ve got a Teaser, ACT I, ACT II Midpoint, ACT II resolution and ACT III. It’s also very high concept - it’s about a “bad romance.” Doesn’t that just fill your head with images about the anticipation of what that concept may deliver? It does mine. Who hasn’t been in a bad romance, out of control and both hating and loving it. Doesn’t the music spiral in and out of control? Listen to the rise and fall of the music - the pounding drums, the breathlessness of the song when she pulls it back only to slap you across the face again with the tough mayhem of her chords and melody line (the part you hum when you listen.)

Even at her young age, this is a mature songwriter using melody lines and chord progressions to trap you inextricably into her story. Once you’re caught, she will reprise the things that make the song work but she’ll also toss in some tonal textures that you didn’t expect, just like a screenwriter who has to use the same characters he established but has to think differently about them and can’t directly “repeat the beat” as the phrase goes.

Sidenote: Interesting, don’t you think, that strong moments in scriptwriting are called “beats.”

At the same time that the music itself is familiar and that’s good because we come to this type of music to hear familiar things, Gaga elevates it to other place we didn’t, couldn’t imagine. Places that only her unique voice could take us - and I mean that not in the vocal sense but in the songwriting sense.We each go through three stages of creativity: primitive, mechanical and spontaneous.  Gagas in that rarified orbit that we have to work years to achieve and it shows in how she tells this story melodically.

Watch the time codes as you listen. Everything I’m saying here is directly applicable to screenwriting - any storytelling really:
 

Teaser: 0-0:14
 A promise of what’s to come. Sets the tone, establishes what type of song (movie) we’re going to see.

ACT I: 0:14-0:46
 Setup. Paving the musical road.
 
ACT II: 0:46-2:44
 Deepening and explaining. Sit back and relax for a few minutes ‘cause it’s about to get rocky on the fall out of midpoint.

Midpoint: 2:45-3:19
 Build to this moment (false climax) and then decline away from it.

ACT II: 3:20-3:59
 Faux resolution/reprise -
 Reprise the theme but raise the stakes as we back to the beginning but complicate the chord progression with some new sounds (new images and plot lines.)

The Calm Before The Storm: 3:40-4:16
 Build for ending - unreal suspense
 
ACT III: 4:17
 Climax. Ultimate battle.
 Kick it in the ass and race for the ending.
 
 Coda/denouement: 5:01-5:08

Storytelling is conflict/resolution, ebb and flow. It’s pretty obvious in the great music and art and stories of any generation. Gaga doesn’t succeed by accident with her amazingly catchy and infectious music that is so perfectly crafted. She may not sit down and plan it out like Paul Simon does but she is using exactly the same principals of songwriting that we use in storytelling.   

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Friday, 29 January 2010 13:49

Show, Don't Tell - Unless You Have To

 Static scenes. Ugh - the big “tell” that indicates to any producer that you are a rank amateur. What causes them? How do you fix them? A few simple techniques can make all the difference.

 The preponderance of scenes that take place at a sit-down restaurant that I see in student scripts is amazing. The inexperienced writer rarely grasps that putting two people at a table and having them talk is probably the most static, unimaginative setting you can put on paper (unless you write it like the orgasm scene in “When Harry Met Sally”.)

 How to make those scenes less static using several techniques is simple.

 Resist the urge to use a talking head in anything - that’s really a television technique, not a great film technique. If you have to have a scene like that, and most times you can figure out a different way to go to get the information out, then put it in an elevator or something moving. Anything that moves is better than anything that doesn’t. They’re walking, they’re shopping, they’re picking up trash on a roadside as part of their court-enforced community service - anything else but sitting in one location works.

 If the restaurant is the only place you can do this then insert some event that causes the reader/audience to be slightly on edge. How about trying to catch a waiter’s attention - everyone knows how frustrating that is and it creates a level of suspense under the surface of the scene. Spill something on someone and have that character wait to blot it up. We all hate that the liquid is seeping into the clothing or tablecloth or whatever and will subconsciously urge the characters to do something about it thereby distracting us from the static nature of the moment.  

 sopranos final sceneOr - how about the last scenes in "The Sopranos?"  How suspenseful was that?  I was crawling the walls waiting to see what happened.  Imagine putting some necessary exposition into that context.  Wow.

Alternately, how about setting that restaurant scene in a park (picnic) or a standup roach coach or one of those walkup fast food stands where you can sit on a stool. It’s an eating/talking scene but it’s outside where you gain all the excitement and visual interest of the outdoors.

 Now I’m really not talking about suspenseful or action moments here. I’m talking about what I call “housekeeping scenes” - those moments when you really have no choice but to deliver on exposition - housekeeping.

 Like, for example, the moment in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where the Army people come to Indy looking for Ravenwood. Absolutely necessary and deadly static. To accomplish the scene, Lawrence Kasden, the writer, put four people in the scene to lower the narrative weight of one or two characters doing all the talking. Kasdan gets across a lot of historical and present-day information about Indy, the Ark, etc. in that scene by rotating who delivers the information and when. He takes that heavy-weight information and parcels it out between four characters in the room thereby reducing the narrative load that each character has and keeping the scene as visually interesting as possible. A simple but effective technique. He also had Indy draw on a blackboard and showed cool drawings from a ancient-looking Bible that helped deliver some of the information visually.

 The best delivery of dry exposition I’ve ever seen is from the first “Terminator.” The scene takes place just after the nightclub shootout where Sarah Connor has just witnessed Reese, the good guy, apparently shotgunning another man, the Terminator. Reese - TerminatorShe is then dragged to a police car by this apparent madman and they are then pursued by the Terminator and a slew of cops. While being shot at by the Terminator and all the cops, and having to hold onto Sarah because she wants to bolt out of this car and away from this maniac, Reese tells her (us) the entire backstory. She doesn’t believe him of course but we do because we’ve seen the entire story so far. Tons of exposition, easily digestible and excitingly delivered. Simply brilliant.

 Another really cool moment that I’ve never forgotten is from the movie “Truly, Madly, Deeply” called the thinking man’s “Ghost” written and directed by the late Anthony Minghella. In it, the main character, a woman meets a man late in the movie who she is truly madly deeplyromantically interested in. It is very late in the film and we need to know some things about him but the writer does not have the normal amount of scenes to bring us up to speed. What he does is masterful: the male character suggests that he and the female character hop while telling each other about themselves. It’s a beautiful distraction while we’re being given the necessary information.

 Another problem is that visual storytelling is really under-represented these days. Hitchcock said you should be able to turn the volume off and still be able to follow the story. I wrote a script once where the lead actor asked me to reduce his lines by about 30%. I cut out hundreds of lines of dialogue and didn’t miss one of them. A real lesson for me going forward - show it, don’t tell it. And when you absolutely need to tell it, remember that we’re working in a visual medium and write accordingly.

 Good luck. Be inspired. Do good work.
 

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Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:04

New Book from O.C. Writer

Why Begins With W

www.TimeCapsuleMurders.com 

Check out our new book, rapidly climbing the Amazon hit parade, both domestically and internationally. A scintillating satire on murder, mystery and the mayhem of being a teenager.

"Sam Spade (with overtones of Holden Caulfield) meets a young high school detective of today. Hard-boiled slang is replaced with pitch-perfect teen speak, but all the good old-fashioned sleuthing is there, too. This is a detective novel that teens will eat up. It's definitely a can't-put-it-down-once-you've-started novel. Trust me!"

-- Barbara Brooks Wallace, Two-time EDGAR ® Award Winner, Mystery Writers of America

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Monday, 18 January 2010 10:35

Human Target

I was certainly predisposed to want to like "Human Target," Fox's latest brain-candy entry. I have been a fan of the lead actor, Mark Valley, since he headed up the superb and under-appreciated, quickly canceled "Keen Eddie" which also stared a funny and terminally-cute Sienna Miller.

Valley has massive comedic chops (and a marvelous deadpan delivery) and was and is physically able to deliver on any action moment the "Keen Eddie" producers threw at him. These talents are in ample display in "Human Target" the adventures of a private bodyguard who appears to be just that much better than everyone else in the business. We know this because his first client won't take "no" for an

answer when she's turned down by his...booker? Agent? Adrenalin Dealer?  Action Pimp? - the also under-appreciated Chi  McBride late of the much-lamented-canceled-after-two seasons "Pushing Daisies." We also know this because in the opening gambit, Christopher Chance (the Human Target) takes down a crazy hostage-taker with aplomb (and that deadpan delivery) after warning him not to talk about doing something but just do it - and then he shoots the man who is also wearing a bomb belt, killing him and blowing up the entire building.

Welcome to "Lethal Weapon," the series. Crazy is as crazy does.

In the first ep, he's hired to protect the gorgeous designer of a bullet train. She claims to  have no enemies, has no idea why someone would to want to try to kill her (the killer plants sheets of plastic explosive in her car but they find it.) The whole protections adventure will take place on said bullet train while it is hurtling at nearly 200mph toward a tunnel.  Hmmm.  There's a joke in there but I wouldn't even touch it with your review.

The trick, and you knew there would be one, is that the brakes to said train have been fried from some gobbledy-gook the writer dreamed up and they can't possibly tolerate another use once they've been engaged. As they approach "Dead Man's Curve" (I'm making that up) the train's wheels will explode and all will die. Unfortunately, I'm not making that up.  Now it strikes me that if this train had cost the billions of dollars they said it did, there would have been some testing of these brakes - a lot of testing - and perhaps a recognition that they can be fried in exactly this manner. But that's just me. Again, we're  not dealing in any sort of logic no matter how hard the producers try to convince us of that. Add to this hero-up-a-super-fast-tree scenario, there's an assassin on the train also stalking them to kill them while they're hurtling toward certain death in 20 minutes. Ticking clock indeed.

In the end, we discover the all too mundane truth - the train designer's husband has discovered her affair and wants some money or something so he decides it's easier to kill her than just get a divorce - and of course, Mark Valley has to put his crack staff (Chi McBride and the insanely good Jackie Earle Haley ("Little' Children" "Watchmen")) to find this out. You would logically keep this information about an affair secret from the person you're paying a King's ransom to protect you.  Especially since you've stated very clearly that you have no reason to assume anyone would want you dead. Honestly, even Bill Clinton would have mention this to The Human Target - that's his job. And even the dullest street cop would have looked to the husband first. At least make this semi-believable. Eliminate the husband after doing due diligence but give us that moment.
 
I know "Human Target" cannot be viewed with your real-world glasses on. You have to slip on the alternate dimension ones where people can jump out of bullet trains using cargo covers and seat belts, shake off point blank shootings with Kevlar vests, survive bomb blasts that destroy buildings (I guess no one appreciates that the blast concussion alone would have shattered this guy's internal organs) and in general take more physical abuse than any dozen human beings can tolerate. Not the point, don'cha know that?  Chance is having fun being a Human Target and so should you be, damnit. Do not even try to make it make sense. Like the idea, for example, that he won't take any money - for some oddball reason - and will only take swag in trade for his troubles. Is this an IRS thing? Did the writer have guv'ment problems? Just another quirky trait that is designed to make us shake our collective heads and smile?  Probably.

I'm on the ledge with this one. At some point you just get tired of the eye-candy, adrenalin-laced action, and preposterous scenarios. It's like car alarms - people look up initially and then, as the alarm continues, we all ignore the noise and go back to our lunches. Mark Valley and his supporting cast are superb. The action is gorgeous, feature-class, balls-to-the-wall great. But I so wanted to spend a bit more time with Jackie Earle Haley and his quietly creepy character.  "Now I'll take the beating," he says to two muscle goons who come to shake him down.  "That's all you've been authorized to do.  But afterwards, some night, I'll sneak into your homes and kill all your family."  Then he procedes to tell them everything he knows about them which is a lot.  "Your employer has a hard drive that he thinks is secure.  It is not."  Wow - now that's fun.  Perhaps if I had just not had this hurtling train scenario in my face constantly I could have enjoyed this show more. Maybe ramp up to that, give me a little more time to slip into the hot water after dipping my toe in.

The producers perhaps need to trust the characters and the actors more.  They are both compelling and infuse this nonsense with some much needed depth.  I can hope as the series progresses, the characters will expand, the stories will settle down, get just a bit more logical although again, it's really not about the steak - it's about the sizzle. And Mark Valley, The Human Target, has enough beef cake and charm to make anyone feel like they're eating steak when it's really just tarted-up, form-molded hamburger. 

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Page 16 of 19

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