*******

The January screenplays for the Words Behind The Picture challenge are finally available, and they are the Original Screenplay for the Writers Guild of America award nominees:

(500) Days of Summer – Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Avatar - Written by James Cameron
The Hangover – Written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore
The Hurt Locker – Written by Mark Boal
A Serious Man – Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

*******

I’ve started another course through UCLA Extension, and this one is Beginning Writing the One-Hour Drama for television. So you can expect to see some comments about TV writing in the months to come.

*******

New books that have come into my household over the past week include:

“The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood
“Extreme Vinyl Cafe” By Stuart McLean
“The Reader” by Bernhard Schlink

*******

Reviews will begin appearing again starting in next week’s post.

© 2010, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

After looking at my priorities and available time, as far as the blog goes, I will be back up on the blog more consistently but less frequently. Right now for me that means one weekly post.

Cheers, and welcome to 2010!

© 2010, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

These are stories that take place at Christmas, but they are not necessarily Christmas movies – violence and strong language make a few of these not quite so friendly for family viewing. I can still remember my disbelief when I was sitting in the theater and saw a woman bring three young children in to see Bad Santa. At least she got up a few minutes into the show after realizing it was a completely inappropriate movie for them.

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

Sharon and her family, who had received and passed along my copy of Around The World in 80 Days a little while ago, had mailed a book for my son. I opened the envelope and inside was Baby Wombat’s Week.

Daniel was very interested, and enjoyed seeing it coming out of the envelope. And he enjoyed reading it even more.

Thank you so very much, Sharon.

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Alfred Hitchcock saw his film “North By Northwest” released in Los Angeles on July 17, 1959, and so began the adventure of Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who becomes ensnared in a high-stakes game of mistaken identity. Along the way he encounters Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and a nasty Martin Landau, with twists and turns taking him from NYC to a bus stop along Highway 41 for that famous cropduster scene and eventually to Mount Rushmore.

Ernest Lehman wrote the screenplay and received an Academy Award nomination for it. In the teaser below, Thornhill is about to be dispatched permanently after being mistakenly identified as George Kaplan and kidnapped. After unsuccessfully trying to convince his captors that he is the wrong man, Thornhill is then forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol, and is then put behind the wheel of the below-mentioned Mercedes-Benz with the goal of making him another dunk driving statistic.

p. 17, “North By Northwest” by Ernest Lehman

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

On October 27, 1995, “Leaving Las Vegas” hit the movie theaters, and audiences followed the story of Ben, a screenwriter in an alcoholic tailspin who decides to go to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. Nicolas Cage won an Academy Award for his performance. Elisabeth Shue, playing a prostitute who connects with Ben at his five minutes to midnight, showed she had come a long way from her adventures in babysitting, getting an Academy Award nomination for her work. Mike Figgis, the director and screenwriter, was nominated as well for his directing and screenplay, adapted from the novel by John O’Brien.

The teaser below marks Ben’s arrival in Las Vegas; the night before this, he had incinerated a pile of his belongings in his backyard in Los Angeles – photographs, marriage certificate, divorce papers, postcards, and the like. The morning after the fire, a huge line of garbage bags together with all of his furniture were out at his curb, and he dropped off his bicycle on the doorstep for the boy next door before driving out to the desert.

- p. 36, “Leaving Las Vegas” by Mike Figgis

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

By the time “Four Weddings And A Funeral” made Hugh Grant a romantic comedy star, the writer Richard Curtis had tuned his comedic writing muscles through years of work with Rowan Atkinson, first through the Black Adder series, and then Mr. Bean. And it paid off for Mr. Curtis quite nicely, with an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay.

Released on March 9th, 1994, “Four Weddings And A Funeral” did particularly well with audiences and critics, reeling people in with its smartly crafted story of Charles (Hugh Grant) and his serial monogamist ways as he and five old friends attend the titular four weddings and a funeral. If you have yet to see this movie, put it on your list to watch some day.

The teaser below is from the reception at the first of the weddings, for Charles’ friends Angus and Laura, where Charles tries to make small talk with a rather stiff acquaintance.

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

So on Halloween night my wife and I watched “The Silence of the Lambs” in our basement, and not five minutes after it ends, the power goes out, leaving us in darkness. Now that is great timing, seeing as how the movie ended just after the scene of Clarice being thrown into darkness as Buffalo Bill uses night vision goggles to watch her stumble around in his basement.

Released in 1991 on February 14th, “The Silence of the Lambs” was not what you would expect for Valentine’s Day, but what a treat it was for movie lovers. It it wound up winning the big Oscars – Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and screenplay.

The version of the screenplay by Ted Tally, adapted from Thomas Harris’ novel of the same name, was a great read, but having watched the movie, it was easy to see where in the final version of the movie several scenes were trimmed and other scenes were completely dropped, and how most of those choices are easily defended. The details about Crawford’s comatose wife is a solid example of something that did not negatively impact the film by dropping it, or the scene with Crawford and Danielson arguing about the records from John Hopkins. In dropping those scenes, more time stayed with Clarice and her efforts to save Catherine.

Clarice, the FBI agent-in-training, is brought into Lecter’s world through Jack Crawford, the seasoned FBI veteran. And so begins two very different relationships for Clarice – the decent and good Crawford on the one hand, and the insane and malefic Lecter on the other hand. (Speaking of that, you’ll notice the very specific close-ups in two instances, when Lecter touches her hand, and when she offers her hand to shake with Crawford.) It is through her visit to Lecter that Clarice gives Crawford an in with Lecter; her vulnerability is counterbalanced by her determination and resourcefulness, and Lecter gives her the first clue to work on getting close to Buffalo Bill, which she was not even aware was the real goal of the arranged meeting.

The subsequent visit to the storage area was interesting on different levels. As she slides under the stuck door on her first investigation, she tears a painful bloody cut on the inside of her leg. Then she finds a stuffed owl, one of several bird references throughout the story, not the least is the little bird leaving its nest, and Lecter’s taunting “Fly back to school, little Starling.” And of course there is finding the head preserved in a large jar, very much like how Clarice preserves a coccoon she finds later in the story. And so the screenplay buries details like these that link up in various ways through out the story, for subplots, imagery and themes. Look for connections and you will find more, like Lecter’s mention of Belvedere in his first meeting with Clarence, which links up with the location that Clarice finally finds Buffalo Bill.

Metamorphosis was a huge theme in the movie, with the Death’s-head moth that shows up in the story, and the characters wanting to change their situations, from Buffalo Bill wanting to transform himself into a woman through his unique tailoring effort, to Clarice wanting to become an FBI agent, to Lecter wanting to free himself from the cage of prison. Even Chilton wants to make himself into something new, but as the story shows, it is not only intent but competency that drives the results for those who would transform themselves. By the end, Clarice and Lecter are bonded together by their successful transformations. Clarice has not only become an FBI agent, but she has also successfully saved the life of Catherine, and in her own way saved the innocent lamb from slaughter, putting that part of her past to rest. That is what gives the story its closure, and it allows for the free Lecter not to strain the ending of the movie. His final words about having an old friend for dinner lends promise to the vengeance he seeks against the pompous Chilton, and in keeping with much of the story, hints at the violence.

A solid story that was very well written and excellently captured on film, be sure to check this out, but be warned that it is not family-friendly fare nor for the squeamish.

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.

© 2009, A Few Minutes With Michael. All rights reserved.