Netflix has got my best interest at heart. I know that now. Anytime I’m bored, or lazy or just trolling the channels looking for something fresh, there’s Netflix Streaming with a fantastic suggestion for me. Sunday’s offering: Visioneers.

I’m not a fan of “small films,” usually, because I find their story choices to be largely influenced by their aggressively poor budget. That’s just one of my filmmaking pet peeves. However, Visioneers isn’t like that all. While it was indeed a “small film,” it was well-crafted, visually inspired and has such a fresh twist on a bleak future universe that it was a total surprise delight. I loved it!

Visioneers is the simple story of a man, living in a dystopian corporate-owned tomorrow, which is only a mere hyperbolic breath from reflecting our actual reality. Zach Galifianakis stars as George, a middle-management worker at The Jeffers Company, the most influential company in the country. There it’s always a sunshiny “Jeffers Morning.” While The Jeffers Corp would have you believe everything is wonderful, there’s a palpable feeling that Big Brother is ruling with an iron hand. Under all those faux Jeffers smiles, are really worker bees not wanting to be wished into the cornfield. So they continue along searching for an ever-evasive happiness that will always allude them. Under the weight of having to pretend to be happy all the time, this society is suffering from such outrageous stress that it causes them to literally explode… It’s like Kopfgeschlagen, only with less Kevin Kline.

It was this quirky premise that caught my attention, it was the solid filmmaking that kept my attention. This movie didn’t find issue with the fact that they were small, they used it to their advantage. Since the future was close, the world so very similar, the sparse sets had a modern Brazil feel that instantly piqued my interest. In fact, the set design was fantastic. It really felt like a near modern tomorrow. It was because of this concerted visual style that it was so easy to believe this world could and probably would exist.

I’m not into Galifianakis’ man-child routine, so to see him play it straight, emotional, frustrated was compelling and powerful. Judy Greer, also known for her comedy, was delightfully dark and melancholy as his limp wife, too depressed to have her own ideas.

There was a bit of a let down for me with a couple of the sub-plots, (his relationship to George Washington, his absent son for example) but on the whole, I didn’t let the fact that it didn’t totally pay off for me ruin the entire experience. There were too many clever nuances, jokes, mannerisms and unexpected hand gestures for me to feel otherwise. This movie pretty well delivered. It was certainly worth the time it took to watch it on a Sunday morning, and it has stayed with me, like a haunting dream, since then. Plus, I’m a sucker for a movie that opens with an industrial film. So check out, Visioneers. It’s a Jeffers movie, for sure.

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I’ve been obsessed with Adam Reed and Matt Thompson since Space Ghost Coast to Coast. I basically memorized every episode of Sealab 2021. “Mustache on!” “Too bad!” They are two of the wittiest, most clever, and most irreverently funny modern animation writers around. So, when I heard they were no longer trolling the late nights of obscurity on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, but had in fact, graduated to prime time on a real network, I was so pleased for them! But, due to a series of unfortunate events, I never got to catch Archer, season 1, when it first aired. Bummer.

Enter Netflix, always saving me from myself. Archer, season 1, is now available on streaming, so I partook. I made snacks, grabbed a pal, and settled in for a three and a half hour marathon of what I was hoping was going to be genius television.  And while Archer had many fine qualities, it wasn’t the home run I was looking for.

I expected that Reed and Thompson’s gonzo attitude and edgy animation would translate into mainstream, but all going network did for them was give them anemia. There’s something about this 22-minute, plot-driven format that doesn’t quite work for me. I keep wanting the script to be sharper, the comedy to be more absurd, the action written to the act breaks. But what I got was a watered down version of all of that. The plots felt lazy to me, sort of what you expect from season 4 of a successful show, after the story editor is tired and doesn’t care anymore, not the first season. A Training Day parody as a pilot? I mean, seriously? This from the team who created Frisky Dingo’s Killface? “We can’t ever go back to Arizona!” I just kept hoping for more, and yet, every episode for me was about a B-; enough to pass the class respectably, but not enough that you should really be proud of yourself.

The reckless comedic spirit of Reed and Thompson’s work I had come to admire, so very much, was woefully lacking for me in Archer. All that remained of their former glory were a few snickers here, a couple of chuckles there from their well-crafted, and interesting supporting cast but that isn’t enough for me when the over-arching story is a lame-duck. While Aisha Tyler is simply adorably aggressive, and her “Noooooooope!” will live on for me as something I will say to amuse myself while in line at the grocery store, the dialogue was simply lacking the lasting impact I wanted as a whole.

Another issue for me was there is a thin line between a wink and coattail riding. Everyone with any taste loves Jessia Walter. I mean, what’s not to love? For nearly 50-years, she has miraculously turned the horrible, abusive, drunken mother into a loveable creature through her cruel jabs and honed matriarchal hatred. And in no other role was she quite so magnificent as the evil mommy dearest in Arrested Development. Playing opposite Jeffrey Tambor, the two created televisual magic as the worst parents in America. Reunited on Archer, along with Judy Greer, (Arrested Development’s Kitty) it’s hard not to draw a comparison… especially when Arrested Development is winning. Jessica Walter’s Malory reads as a light-weight Lucille Bluth and that’s just a one-note shame. Reed and Thompson took the best, nuanced, hilarious work Jessica Walter has ever done and distilled it down to a watery-gin-soaked tomb. I wanted more than just to rest on 16 and be satisfied that I get to spend some quality time with Jessica Walter, but rather wanted to be dazzled by her presence. And for me, this re-pairing of the Bluths and Kitty should be more than just Arrest Development lite, with half the calories and a 1/3 of the taste.

The bottom line, this isn’t a terrible show. It is, actually, pretty good in comparison to all the other crap currently on the air right now. And boy is there a lot of crap! But it’s sorta like when George Harrison used to put out solo work. Yeah, it’s good, but it’s not as good as what you know he’s capable of. That’s how I felt about Archer. I was totally hoping for more at every joke but was left with a caseload of underwhelmed.

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While the basic misconception is that ALL old movies either suck because they’re in black & white, or are awesome because they’re in black & white, is rampant, what Turner Classic Movies does brilliantly is expose the shades of gray in their vintage film collection. It is from studying their offerings that I realized not all old movies are gems. Some of them are, in fact, terrible, just like movies now. They lack interesting characters, plotlines that are believable, or are poorly made. These “classics” are sometimes just old timey, direct-to-dvd fodder.

Even though I find most cinéma vérité to be snotty, pretentious, and aggressive with nauseating camera work, I love the look of it. I can’t help myself!! I love the richness of the film stock. Deep blacks with depth and pain. The starkness of the white, so clean and pure, mirroring the inevitable duality of character. Basic sets, with little flair, which are lazily decorated. It’s all about talking, and lingering emotions, and long pointless walks. In today’s amped, Rockstar fuel powered world, there’s no room in modern, hysterically-paced editing, for ADD buzz killers like “feelings.” I’m such a nerd over it. It’s awesome.

So, when presented with a chance to watch some shaky-cam action from the late 50′s, like I was on Wednesday, I’m generally on-board with a Dramamine. TCM was airing Morris Engel’s, 1958, “Weddings and Babies,” a cinéma vérité film that “never got the attention it so richly deserved…” mostly because it was terrible. Robert Osborne had the MOMA curator on who was responsible for restoring “this precious cinema gem” and bringing it to us to blind our earballs with boredom.

The MOMA curator felt that it was an “important small movie.” I felt it wasn’t really all that “important.” I didn’t care about the characters, the action was little, the dialogue was overly expository and with his final product in hand, the director couldn’t secure any sort of actual distribution, even then, for his “small film;” Engel had a few showings at local theaters in 1960, which he booked and worked himself. While I applaud his “Ed Wood-esque” desire to create FILM!, Engel left me unimpressed amongst the GREAT filmmakers of the 1950′s.

I was completely intrigued, however, by the film making itself. Critic J. Hoberman wrote, in The Village Voice in 2008, that “Weddings and Babies is “certainly the most extensive portrait of Manhattan’s Little Italy before Martin Scorsese‘s incomparable Mean Streets.” While, Morris is no Marty, the cinematography in “Weddings” was intriguing, (as much as shaky camera work can be) and certainly was the most interesting part of the film. But that isn’t saying a whole lot.

The dialogue was mostly authentic, even though it was super expository. “I want a baby. I’m 30-years old and I don’t have much time left to have my own babies…” is a true emotion, someone in a dead-end relationship, with a loser wedding photographer, might have. However, it was the acting coupled with the scant script that really made this movie a drag. There were a few standout performances, but on the whole, it was the cinematography and set design that kept my interest.

The New York Times, film critic Bosley Crowther said about “Weddings and Babies,” which turned out to be Engel’s last feature: “Perhaps when he gets somebody with real professional skill to write him a script and he learns to hold his camera more firmly, he will give us the great American urban film.” Too bad we’ll never know what he might have achieved with some real talent behind him.

I realize that when I turn to my friend halfway through and remark “I like this movie better when they’re quiet and running through Little Italy,” that doesn’t bode well. But “Weddings and Babies” was totally worth a cursory glance, if for no other reason than to see what Manhattan, 1958 looked like. It was really beautiful in its stark simplicity and for that backward glance, I am grateful.

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Spring has sprung, the birds are chirping, the beautiful spring breezes are blowing… The Donald’s comb over all around. That magical time of year has arrived once again, NBC’s CELEBRITY APPRENTICE IS BACK!!!

All the collagen lips, misplaced egos, and outrageous crying (I mean you, Meatloaf… you big softie!!) are back and they are already tossing each other under the bus, are ready to win for their charity, and are not here to make friends! Woohoo!

With a cast of mostly people I’ve heard of: Gary Busey, Jose Canseco, La Toya Jackson, Dionne Warwick without Miss Cleo… who is still presumably in jail (call her now for a FREE tarot reading) and Star Jones to name a few, what I’ve seen so far tells me I’m in for one bitchy season… and I can’t wait!

I love this show. I love every time The Donald says “It’s Uuuuuuuuuge.” I love seeing the backstabbing, the in-fighting, and the 30-odd-teary-seconds devoted to the charity. I think it’s just nifty that each week we get to watch supermodels and singers have competing bake sales against lawyers and athletes to prove who is the biggest ball buster in New York. I love that being a master manipulater is rewarded and being a kind, gentle, loving person is considered weakness… Expose their throats! Rawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwrrr! Mmmm, I love the taste of celebrity flesh in the morning.

Only time will tell, but I feel like… unless he does something super dumb… Richard Hatch, the first Survivor winner, might have a shot to go all the way. He’s the greatest conniver television has ever seen. If not for all that shady tax stuff, he would’ve gone into the annals of television knighthood… instead he’s slumming it on Celebrity Apprentice.

And tomorrow night, The Donald is scheduled to be roasted on Comedy Central. I just can’t wait. Here’s a sneak peak of what I’m watching tomorrow:

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It all started innocuously. Just some bumpers for a show I had no interest in watching. In fact, I had so maligned Gold Rush Alaska that I had begun to refer to it as “The Real American Bearded Housewives of Alaska County.” That is until one fateful Friday, when I got sucked into a front-to-back marathon.

Discovery was re-running the whole 1st season as a day-long commercial for the “wrap-up episode,” with all that scandalous behind-the-scenes footage, too hot for TV… until now! Since I always want to start a reality show at the 1st episode, I figured I’d give it a whirl. Plus with season 2 looming, I had to know, did they or did they not strike it rich?

My categorization of this show was indeed correct; these men are “The Real Sons of American Choppers of Orange County Alaskan Gold Mines,” with their whining, back-stabbing, and glorious “mountain men” beards. But this show is, really, so much more than just that. It is the glorification of failure, as mirrored by success. It is the ultimate in meta irony. And so, I watched.

The premise is very simple: six, earnest, hard-working, down-on-their-luck American men, armed with a quarter of a million dollars, a limited knowledge base and an outrageously huge pipe dream, head into the Alaska wilderness to mine a gold claim. The whole season rides on one edge-of-your seat question: will they find the gold in the “glory hole” and be able to save their homes?

I’m not being a jerk. Over and over again, on every episode, “Will they make it to the glory hole?”  “Jack has gone deeper into the glory hole than anyone before.” “It’s just unsafe to have a crane that close to the glory hole. It could fall in.” You can’t write something this awesome. You just can’t.

Father and son mining duo, Jack and Todd Hoffman, and their friends from Portland, head into the wilderness and start digging. They have a plan, or what seems like a plan, but from the get-go, there’s an air of disaster that closely follows them.

They’re barely on the road from Oregon before they hit the first of many road blocks. As they get deeper into the summer, gold fever hot amongst the men, results never closer yet never farther, tempers flair, drama is heightened. The whining begins. There’s brawling, drug-withdrawals, mechanical problems, and minuscule flecks of gold teasing them to the brink of madness. It’s not meant to be all that poetic, but it really is.

The honesty and gravity of their awesome struggle to support their families during the worst economy in 80 years, is heavy on the narrator’s lips, as beautiful HD vistas of untouched land abound. And they say ‘glory hole’ like every 30 seconds. It’s a magnificent thing. What more could you ask for?

Results? Results are not on this show. Spoiler alert, they did not find the gold in the glory hole. Todd, Jack and the rest of the crew came closer than anyone ever had to the gold in the glory hole, but they didn’t find it. Winter set in, just as they got it right, kneecapping them at the finish line. They spent $250K to run around and play gold miner in the wilderness and they managed to capture about $8K worth of gold flecks. They failed in the task they undertook.

However, the gold they captured in plenty was televisual, and to celebrate they got a second season pick up. So, by the time I got to the scandalous “wrap-up episode,” knowing season 2 was a lock, I realized these men, who were once so very desperate just to do right by those they love, were not so desperate anymore.

They had joined the ranks of Snooki and Bethany and Top Chefs everywhere. They were now television stars. It didn’t matter if they were branded “The Worst So You Think You Can Mine For Gold In Alaska Housewives Living Next To An American Sarah Palin Idol,” their world was once-again stable. The gamble they took actually paid off, just not how these men expected.

And isn’t that why we watch? We watch for the drama, we stay for the “reality.”

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When my friend Zac got on Miso, and started checking in to whatever he was watching, I thought how cool!! Now finally social networking for something I care about… television! I joined up, had my Miso linked to my Twitter and Facebook, and suddenly Covermyscript was watching TV for fun and profit… the profit was in my abs, chiseled by the power of laughter. Win!

On Saturday, Netflix told me I was missing out on CBC’s Trailer Park Boys. Well, Netflix to the rescue again! What a surprise treat.

Trailer Park Boys, is like The Canadian Office in a trailer park. It’s white trash awesome! And this mockumentary series is still capturing Canadian hearts, eyeballs and dollars, after eight years. In fact, the feature film sequel out in 2010, was the highest grossing film in Canada last year. Trailer Park Boys‘ Mike Clattenburg created some of the most interesting, rich, pathologically stupid characters I’ve ever enjoyed spending time with.

The series surrounds Julian, Ricky and Bubbles, three life-long friends, who are always trying to do the right thing the wrong way. That, to me, is really what makes this show likable. It’s not a 22-minute romp on the Jerry Springer set with no rationale behind it other than sheer exploitation. Rather, it’s about “real” people who love their families and community, and go try to provide for them the only way they know how… by stealing or growing dope.

It’s got a Cartoon Network Adult Swim vibe to it, which makes it all the more familiar yet inventive.  With Trailer Park Boys‘ sardonic humor, genuine heart, and the best never-ending flow of great low-class malapropisms since Voltaire, this series is one, exciting “hillabilly” adventure after another.

With 8-episode seasons, and seven seasons to watch, it took me a marathon three days to get through all the episodes, two movies and a Christmas special. While the movies didn’t have the same energy or success for me the series did, since there were so many episodes, I could just go back and re watch them again to death.

Thanks be to Netflix, you just found me my new favorite show. Follow me on Miso to see what else I’m watching.

I am a total rule breaker, a rebel, Dottie, a loner. I cut in line when I don’t feel like I should have to wait (that’s the entitled New Yorker in me). I write my emails in all lower-case because I know, somewhere in writer heaven, William Strunk and E. B. White are sharing a drink and would approve of my minor rebellion. And I live in a special Eden reserved only for those who can stomach / thrive in the smoggy entertainment industry that is Los Angeles. Nothing about me is commonplace or pedestrian; everything about me is wild, edgy and unexpected… especially my writing.

I realized, after a heated debate during last night’s #scriptchat on twitter, some writers are flat out refusing to outline and I was shocked. I am no hobbyist. Writing is my profession, and as such, when I sell my work, people expect my scripts to not only be correct, ground-breaking, and unexcelled, it also has to be worth paying for. So, how do I make sure that I not only deliver a solid product that is exactly what the story editor / producer / client wants and still get to run free through the fields of creativity?  I OUTLINE EVERYTHING!

Don’t get me wrong. Outlining sucks. I hate doing what feels like extra work for free. HATE! Outlining is boring and hard and annoying and not as fun as running through the fields of creativity untethered to such banalities as a plan. Who needs a plan when it feels so good just to write? Well, writing for pay, or any writing really is not about the masturbatory feeling of creation. If you’re lucky, sometimes you get a happy ending and that’s awesome, but that’s not usually the end goal. It’s about getting the work done correctly and excellently. And the way to ensure that happens is to outline.

I can hear all of you non-outlining writers and your myriad of excuses like a Greek Chorus: it “hinders my creativity,” “forces me into a box,” “doesn’t allow me to find new angles with my story…” Yeah, I totally get it. But without an outline, the fields of creativity turn into a hall of mirrors and you will get lost in the reflection of what your story was supposed to be, not what it actually is. It is the very rare writer who is able to wing it and churn out a salable product at the end. So, basically, not you. Not me. Not 99% of working or aspiring writers. We all must outline, so we have a basic road map of the story we’re trying to communicate or your story will literally get lost in translation.

Outlining does not, in fact, hinder anything. It in no way hampers your ability to fantasize and create inventive scenarios for your characters to live out. It forces you to do all that awesome “thinking-it-through” before you ever hit page 1. It’s a twisted version of instant gratification. Outlining affords you the chance to play with your characters without spending tedious hours churning out pages that suck and eventually get deleted. In reality, outlining will help you and your story stay focused, and if you follow a few of my tips, you’ll discover that you’re in fact freer to do all the fun writing because your foundation is solid.

There’s a few ways / steps to tackle outlining:

I generally will have the client start by writing a simple beat sheet. Just a basic shopping list of story beats: this happens, then this happens, and then that happens, etc. It’s never more than a page, but it helps them see what their story really is, the important beats, the basic ideas and characters and helps them discover plot holes, lacking character arcs, and story misfires. The simple act of “thinking-it-through” always helps the writers see what is working and what still needs work.

Then, once we’ve gone over the 1-page and talked through the story they want to tell, versus what I’ve read, and they’re at a place where I feel like their barest skeleton is solid, I ask them to expand that simple 1-page into 5. It’s then, they can add more flourish, but not too much… this is an outline, not a short story, some important or funny snippets of dialogue they don’t want to forget, and flesh out the story a bit more.

After we review that, see how it’s working, discuss tweaks if necessary, I send them back to expand their 5-page outline further to 30-ish pages. I say “ish” because this isn’t an exact science. Some writers who are honed and in practice can deliver a solid feature outline in 20-pages, some are gabbier and need 40-pages. But 30-pages is a good number to shoot for. In this pass, I ask the writer to really tell the whole story (without florid language), scene by scene. 30-pages is enough to develop your characters’ emotional pathos, embellish your sub-plots, and still allow for dialogue quips, etc.

Then (and here’s my trick) what I do, and what I instruct my clients to do, is take that solid 30-page outline, and pop it into the script. Since you’ve been so painstaking in setting forth your story, you can use your outline as the basis of your first draft, building out your script from there. It always seems to the clients “God! Why is she such a sadist?!” until they realize, that they never have to stare at a blank screen. You’ve immediately got 30-pages of your script done, just by popping in the outline. It removes the pressure of facing that white page, with only FADE IN:. It’s a cheap trick, but it’s a good one. By then, you’ve already got a leg up on expanding your 30-pages into 90 or 120, but no more, because my bladder can’t take anymore 3-hour movies.

When you write from within the outline, you know which scene is next, where to plant the misdirection and how to heighten the tension, because you’ve already planned for it. But let’s say, now you’re into draft 1 and you think, “Eh, this isn’t working.” You’ve at least got your 1-page list of scenes, your 5-page outline and your notes to reference, which makes plot changes way easier to implement and keep track of, especially if it’s a major shift. You need to remember all the stuff that builds around it, and fix whatever is impacted by it. How are you supposed to keep track of all those balls in the air, if you forget one? Outlining will help keep your writing on the ball.

Writing without an outline can be fun and dangerous, but rarely yields successful results. Why not expend that same level of effort and enthusiasm by furiously typing in a constructive manner? Then, you will be free to run through the fields of creativity untethered by banalities… you’ll be able to have your script and write it too.

Photo courtesy of regrifters.com / Photo Credit – Jon Shaivitz

I had a funny experience recently and I thought I’d share. A client Skyped (add me, I’m CoverMyScript.com) to do a consultation, wanting to run their idea past me before they launched into the great beyond of outlining, to see if I felt like their idea had merit. So I listened to his pitch, and it was indeed a terrific idea for a terrific movie; Harold and Maude. I told the client, you and Hal Ashby sure do have something there.

The client was puzzled, who was this Hal Ashby? Was he another client or a Hollywood writer? I was like, duh?! Harold and Maude?

“Hello?!” I said. “This movie has been made already and perfectly. So unless you own the rights and are doing a remake, you just pitched me a 40-year old movie.” The client couldn’t believe how he had never heard of it, because it did indeed sound awesome to him and immediately went to watch it on Netflix.

So, he books me again, two more ideas. This time he pitches me the “Invaders” and “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” episodes of The Twilight Zone, with no changes or differences. I would swear that it was plagiarism, had he not been so appalled when I told him, that he, like M. Knight Shalamalanadingdong had ripped off The Twilight Zone. I rolled my eyes so big, I’m sure they caused an earthquake somewhere.

This is now three times this guy has pitched to me, and three times they were ideas that had already been done and done brilliantly. He had refused any black and white movies or television because they were in black and white and therefore must be boring. I was alarmed and immediately set him straight. Everything comes from something and most everything comes from The Twilight Zone. I don’t mean literally, I mean the television program.

But his pop culture education was so woefully lacking, not only had he never seen an episode, he was unable to realize he was accidentally stealing the best produced ideas out there. I told him, when he crumbled under the annoyance of having to think up more produced stories to pitch to me that he should just watch The Twilight Zone and see all the stories that have ever been written. Because in their 5 seasons, they had maybe 6 bad episodes among 156, and almost every one of their stories was an original gem that many others have, in one way or another, ripped off. Better to know what’s been done, so you’re not treading over hallowed ground thinking you’re a genius. Or at least that’s what I told him.

For those of you unindoctrinated to the genius work of Rod Serling, he wrote the bulk of the episodes for The Twilight Zone, a series of his creation that ran from 1959-1964, after coming off a successful career as a movie-of-the-week writer for TV series like “Playhouse 90″, “Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, and “Armchair Theatre”. Seriously, check him out. Read his work. Soak it up. He was one of the most prolific television writers ever. In fact, his episode “Requiem for a Heavyweight” is considered by most to be better than any boxing movie ever, including Raging Bull and On The Waterfront.

Find the script, read it. It’s fantastic. And it holds up incredibly well for a 50-year old script. Actually, it’s got a lot of similar themes to the current true story “The Fighter,” starring Mark Wahlburg and Christian Bale.

I’m not going to launch into a diatribe and chronicle Rod Serling’s whole career, because there are hundreds of books, articles and interviews on him everywhere. Go seek out his writing or if you’re too lazy to read, add The Twilight Zone to your Netflix queue. It’s worth it to watch the best serialized television ever created… even if it’s in “boring black and white.” Had we not been skyping, I would’ve smacked him with a copy of Metropolis. Fool.

The Social Network patois is annoying! Which part? The part where they…talk too much and say so much and so fast and it’s all so precious. My head hurts from The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin‘s 2-hour amped, surprisingly deposition laden romp about people writing code and backstabbing over fraternities that are really study clubs, chicken abuse and big bucks.

I listened to the opening scene: a break-up we’ve all had, a scene we’ve all written. A generic college bar, a guy and girl who can’t get it together. Harsh words exchanged at such a fast rate that it felt less like real life and more like the characters were waiting smugly with their barbs just to step on each other’s words. They weren’t talking like people, or characters really, they were using the writer’s own voice. And when everyone sounds the same, it’s a lot of shouting down a boring crowded hallway of clones.

Opening your characters to new voices while keeping them in stead with their peers is the way to properly craft a character. Besties will have common phrases, while so will criminals, generally not the same ones, but each person and the way they speak is unique and special and to just steamroll from one line to the next isn’t right, because it doesn’t give the actors a chance to emote, to relate, or to create the necessary pathos needed to care about the characters. Or to borrow a phrase from Tyler Durden, Sorkin is just letting his characters “Wait for their turn to speak.” He doesn’t give them the space to deeply interact. It’s like a boxing a hanging bag: boom boom boom boom. Rhythmic repetition but a slamming beat over and over.

Those characters weren’t connecting, they were reciting lines like every Sorkin character ever recited a line before them, well, but sounding like Sorkin himself, hyper, clever and geniusly aggressive. And maybe, if I play devil’s advocate for a second and give Sorkin some credit, and say he was setting up the pacing, the energy of the film, the characters as unlikable people through this opening scene, well he did that in spades. Except nothing about any of it endeared me to any of them. Because they were so go-go-go in the exact same way, my heart was thumping, due to the non-stop, rapid-fire, pseudo-genius-ease. I found the dialogue exhausting. I walked out and wished for aspirin for my aching head.

This whole movie felt like each character was hanging around the craft service table just waiting for their chance to deliver their lines perfectly. I LOVE David Fincher. He’s a God and his filmmaking is incredible. It was exciting, off-putting, confusing and while I felt the ending lacked some of the resolution I was looking for, I felt it was artful and worthy. It was beautifully shot, the pacing was excellent and the match reveals worked brilliantly.

However, the writing drove me mad! I tried to get lost in Fincher’s cinema, but I can’t help it. I can’t stand Aaron Sorkin’s “coke binge patois”… every character sounds like the same genius who has been up all night doing blow. And while that’s fun for some, it gives me a headache, especially when no one has their spoons out willing to share.

To be fair, Sorkin isn’t the only one whose writing I find challenging for this exact reason. Sitting through aggressive, same patios is exhausting, not because the writers themselves are not super-genius talented; they’re characters, every one of them, are a one-trick ponies and I want more.

The common thread here is that when every character in your script sounds the same: the grocery man, the teen slut, the butcher, the baker, and the gun runner, your script won’t read right. The best writers are writers who are able to have a total consistent voice that is their own, while imbuing their characters with their own voices and patois. For example, I might speak differently with my bestie at a rave than at a holiday dinner with the folks, but if my folks and everyone at the party sounds the same, and everyone in every scene after does as well, it looses its charm. But in movies like this, with very important writers, the WRITING IS WHAT MATTERS. Don’t make everyone sound the same. Give the characters the respect they deserve to be their own people. You put so much effort into creating them, make them the special individuals they are.

Yes, the story is important, but one part of the screenwriting process that is so neglected are the characters’ voices, and if you’re unable to craft them so that they’re different enough to live in the same world but “be their own people,” then for me your movie isn’t a success. I’m not lambasting Sorkin. He’s a genius and talented and he and I know it. I just wish he didn’t write all of his characters the same and at the same level of clever genius, studio exec or janitor. It makes them all seem dumb in their shining brilliance.

Oh and a little shoutout to Justin Timberlake trying to act. He’s so cute. I wanted to pinch his cheeks every time he earnestly tried to deliver a poignant line. Aww, Justin. Keep at it buddy, you’ll get there. I hear you’re the voice of Boo-Boo.

This is the story of how I rediscovered my two very favorite movies. As my first two blu-rays I got Fight Club and Goodfellas, uh duh, because I’m not retarded. I got this crazy, awesome TV. I’m finally in stead with young 20-something men or the paunchy mid-life crisis sect in terms of my electronics level and I wanted my two favorite movies to christen my new PS3. (I was a good girl this year.)

So along came Tyler Durden, restored, remastered, sparring whilst sweat slowly dripped off his glistening abs in glorious 1080i. It wasn’t my first night at Fight Club, but I came to fight; well after talking through the first 20 minutes about how incredible it looked, so much so that the movie had to be restarted, because I hadn’t watched it for seeing it. I know. I must’ve been a boy in a past life.

Every shot, every extra detail, every camera trick was so familiar, yet so new and plainly visible, my brain exploded with possibility. When I was a kid, I only ever saw The Wizard of Oz on a 12 inch TV, that is until we got one of those giant rear-projection monstrosities and a laser disc player, when I was in high school. When I saw it I was like “Holy shit?! That’s what this movie looks like?”

This was the same experience. I saw details of the Paper Street Soap Company I never noticed, because my TV was so terrible. Bottom line, get the blu-ray. It’s your turn to fight.

Next Goodfellas, what a treat! Marty at his best, and the filmmaking was the star. Every shot, every camera angle, pure pristine planned perfection.

I sat around most of my freshman year at NYU, in all black, smoking ditch weed from Washington Square Rastas, and arguing which was a better tracking shot Goodfellas or The Player. To be fair, I don’t have The Player yet on blu-ray, nor am I still smoking from the Rastas (it was mostly dirt anyway), but this was like watching God himself in cine-motion. Forgive my gushing, but that tracking shot was worth the price of the blu-ray alone. Details I’ve never seen; jokes I never noticed.

For the love of God, I mean, his father is wearing a patterned wife-beater when he smacks Henry in the beginning for not going to school “IN MONTHS! MONTHS!” I never could see that level of detail before on my tragic massive tube TV.

So, what have I learned from my two new blu-rays? That A) THEY’RE AWESOME! and B) They’re great movies. I can’t believe the level of detail that I was now able to see. It so heightened the tension that for the first time, I winced a little while Billy Batts got his beating to Atlantis. It was so real, it was like I was there. The gore was palpable and terrifying and I was in love again. I hit rock bottom and I was reborn, scarred and shipped off to egg noodle and ketchup obscurity. I, like Dorothy, was always home, and suddenly I could see how fantastic it is.

Dear Tyler and Henry, my heart still belongs to you. Now get into the blu-ray ring. No shirts, no shoes and the first guy to tap out, the fight’s over.