Has it been almost a month? Jeez, my combo of laziness and apathy sure make the time fly. Here's the problem with February: with the exception of Dread and most of Frozen, I didn't get paid to read any of those scripts. Not a single one. And honestly, I just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to read the copies of The Wolfman, Shutter Island, and A Couple of Dicks (a.k.a. Cop Out) that I've had sitting on my hard drive for months, specifically for last month. I just said, "Fuck it." When I can't muster up the enthusiasm to want to see these movies, imagine how hard it is to get me the scripts when you aren't waving a check in my face. And even that bites me in the ass. (Yeah, I just finished doing my taxes -- I always forget what a shit-ton I end up having to pay because I'm technically "self-employed" and, therefore, my pay isn't taxed until I get my 1099-MISC, fill out all those stupid forms, and shout obscenities when I see the amount I owe.)

I'll be honest: March probably won't fare much better. The majority of scripts I planned to review got delayed. Hot Tub Time Machine is the lone exception, so those of you who are into these reviews can look forward to that in a few weeks. I also read a script that's a lot like Brooklyn's Finest, but it's not Brooklyn's Finest, so maybe I'll toss that up for shits and giggles. Otherwise, I'll either be dusting off odds 'n' ends like I am today, or I'll actually produce real content. By that, I mean I'll do my Andy Rooney schtick about current Hollywood conventions that I don't like. I'll probably also talk a little more about masturbation and/or why my friends are all idiots.

Anyway, enough of my bullshit... Let's enjoy a review of a script you'll probably never read, which in no way resembles the film it turned into!

Remember the basic setup to Action? (Hint: not to alienate you, gentle reader, more than usual, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, and you're interested in screenwriting, something in your life has gone awry.) Dorky nobody writer suddenly finds himself approaching the A list simply because one of the biggest producers in Hollywood confuses him for an established writer? I had a similar situation crop up about a year ago, when I received the screenplay for Joe Ballarini's The Spy Next Door. I thought little of receiving it, because I'd been deluged with not just spy scripts but wacky, In-Laws-esque spy comedies. But something weird happened. As I often do, I Googled information about the movie shortly after finishing the coverage and disocvered, to my surprise, that Jackie Chan had signed on to star.

"Huh," I thought. "He doesn't seem like a very good fit for either of the main characters." I prepared to dismiss it, assuming they'd done some rewrites to adjust the role to Chan (after all, the draft I read was dated 2002 -- a lot of development may have happened since then), when I noticed something even odder: the plot described Chan as a spy who agrees to babysit his next-door neighbor's kids.

"The fuck?" I thought. This description had virtually nothing to do with the script I'd read, other than the title. More than that, the IMDb didn't credit Ballarini at all (nor, would I eventually learn, did the film itself) -- in fact, the only reference I could find was a USC alumni magazine interview with Ballarini in which he briefly mentions selling the script. I don't have a clue if this script went through such a long, arduous development process that it bears no resemblance to its source, or if two completely different scripts just happened to have the same title. It made me wonder if my bosses had simply requested the wrong script from the wrong people -- and that's still a possibility. I don't know all the details, and I don't have much interest in researching it.

I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but I did tell myself, "Make an effort to blog more in 2010." Careful readers will know how well that's going so far. I've just been swamped, and unlike the last time I anticipated a swampy future, I didn't stockpile a bunch of boring script reviews to autopost so I could ignore my blog. Instead, I'm making do with the hallmark of the blogosphere: infrequent posts of dubious quality. I'm starting with the promised script review of Clive Barker's Dread, a movie that came out on the 29th for an extremely limited engagement as part of the fourth annual After Dark Horrorfest (as I understand it, after the theatrical engagements it'll be shuffled onto DVD fairly quickly).

Before I get to that, though, I'd like to toss out a cautious recommendation for Adam Green's Frozen, which opened over the weekend. As usual, I haven't actually seen the movie. However, I did read the script awhile back and was blown away -- except for the part where the third act was missing. Not like it was a complete, 120-page script that simply, structurally, lacked a third act. This was a 70-page script that ended with TO BE CONTINUED... right as it geared up for the third act. What a tease! So maybe the third act is a disaster, but the first two acts are as solid as the frozen urine that soils the characters. Might be worth checking out, despite the limited release, minimal promotion, and middling reviews.

On to Dread...

Let's start with the twist ending that I don't want to ruin for those of you who might actually take the time to see this (don't worry, I'm just going to draw an analogy to a movie you've seen). Longtime readers know that I'm not the world's biggest fan of twist endings. I don't get angry at every movie that has a twist ending -- but I do have a problem with twist endings that either come out of nowhere or are too telegraphed. Twist endings require a delicate balance of elements in order to achieve an "inevitable but unpredictable" moment of surprise, instead of a frustrating mindfuck or an eye-rollingly obvious moment.

Dread suffers from a twist ending that's obvious from, I dunno, page 20 or so. See, it opens with a flashback sequence in which a family comes home, unaware a killer is in their house. The lone survivor is a young boy, who may or may not grow up to be one of the main characters. The way the script is structured, though, it's clear early who the young boy has grown up to be, yet it wants us to believe this is a great, unsolvable mystery. Finally getting to that analogy, it's like if Psycho opened with a scene of young Norman killing his mother. Except for that one addition, everything else is exactly the same -- first trying to make us think it's some kind of thriller about stolen money, then trying to make us think the killer is Norman's mother before the big twist that she's long dead and Norman is dressing up like her and murdering people. Would you be happy about a movie that reveals its own big twist in the first scene but still tries to make a suspenseful mystery around it?

Dread even has the semi-subtle genre switch that Psycho has. Ignoring that opening scene, it starts out as a straightforward dramedy about college students struggling to move toward adulthood. Then, it shifts into a sort of bland combo of psychological thriller and torture porn fest. The story follows Stephen and Quaid, a pair of college students who form an awkward friendship in a boring ethics class. The first act isn't much more than pretentious philosophizing from the two of them, which I bought into because the endless pretentious philosophizing I both endured and espoused during my first two years of college. It's not terribly compelling, but at least it's believable. We find out the most relevant information about the characters: Stephen is an introverted nerdy type who's tethered to routine. Quaid is also pretty nerdy, but he's more extroverted and pompous about it. Stephen is quietly in awe of Quaid's misguided confidence, and that sets up the early conflict: Stephen wants to be more like Quaid but can't figure out how to make it happen.

Quaid catches on to this and decides to teach him, starting with a prank. After a night of drinking, Quaid walks Stephen to his modest suburban home. While Quaid fixes himself a drink, he sends Stephen upstairs to his room to grab a DVD. In it, he finds a husband and wife sleeping. They wake, terrified to see someone in their house. They don't know Quaid. Naturally, Stephen panics and runs. Quaid follows, amused. He explains this was a psychological experiment on both of them: when Stephen's afraid, he simply reacts -- that's something he needs to harness to get what he wants. Meanwhile, the couple will spend years in sheer terror as a result of two harmless idiots breaking into their house. Quaid's pleased with himself, but Stephen starts to see the cracks in his personality's façade.

Nevertheless, they team up with Zooey (a hot girl from their ethics class) on a class project that seeks to study the long-term effects fear has on people. Stephen and Zooey just want to interview subjects about their greatest fears, but Quaid is obsessed with taking the research to the next level. He begins playing terror-inducing pranks on the other two, which escalate to horror-movie proportions in the third act. Can you guess who the little boy was in the opening scene? Can you?!

Dread has a number of third act problems beyond the twist that isn't a twist. I don't want to get into them with too much specificity because of spoilers, although maybe I shouldn't care because the movie's already on DVD in the U.K. and is out in theatres here. But I do care, so no spoilers. The main thing is that the script pusses out on completing Stephen's character arc. Remember, he's the one who spends most of the script afraid to go after what he wants. Stephen doesn't overcome this -- in fact, the script brings in a red-herring character to do the things Stephen is too wimpy to do himself. This really undermines the script, but it's clear the writer was more interested in a nihilistic torture porn ending than allowing the character to finally stand up for himself.

That leads me to one of the more interesting aspects of the script, though. It portrays Stephen as the protagonist because, well, it follows him around and leaves Quaid an unmysterious mystery. And, of course, Quaid is the antagonist because he's nuts, right? Well, think about the protagonist-antagonist relationship, which in its simplest form is defined thusly: a protagonist has a goal that he struggles to achieve, mainly because the antagonist hurls obstacles in his way. In Dread, Stephen has some weak, ineffectual goals (mainly, wanting to get laid), but it's Quaid who has the real goal: he's hellbent on "experimenting" on innocent people. Stephen inhibits Quaid's goal by being a total puss.

It's an interesting reversal of expectations that would have been made much more interesting if the writer hadn't tried so hard to make Quaid an enigma. If the writer had laid Quaid's backstory out in the first act, let his behavior start escalating in the second act, the trajectory from "weird, semi-depressed nerd" to "psychopath" wouldn't feel so rushed. Building a mystery out of whether or not Quaid's really crazy, followed by building a mystery out of why he's crazy, doesn't do much for the story, and it does literally nothing with the themes about how fear can either cripple a person or force them into action. As mentioned, Stephen the scaredy cat is never really compelled into action, but it's not his fear that prevents him -- it's the machinations of the writing, which lets the character down. Maybe the writer, ironically, was too afraid to have his "hero" sac up and kill the "villain," because that'd make him just as bad, right? (Hint: wrong.)

Because Quaid is the true protagonist of the story, it simply feels like his character doesn't have the proper development. Whatever the protagonist/antagonist relationship, the script focuses on Stephen as the main character. Keeping the point of view with Stephen limits our understanding of Quaid, and the audience's inability to empathize with whatever Quaid's going through is the source of all the script's problems. When the writer finally reveals the essential information late in the game -- well, as mentioned, it's no surprise, which makes it all the more frustrating that he spends so much time trying to hide it. Quaid will never be the true hero of the story, but his character drives the narrative. Obfuscating his personality does the script no favors -- in fact, it's the script's fatal flaw.

I will reserve judgment, though. Producer/writer/director Anthony DiBlasi has had varying success bringing other Barker stories to the big screen (by which I mean the giant plasma TV on which you watch your favorite direct-to-video content), ranging from the meh The Plague to the pretty good Midnight Meat Train. I have no doubt DiBlasi remains faithful to the source material, which contains a lot of Barker's trademark grim atmosphere and unsettling imagery, but like many of the adaptations I've reviewed, it's the sort of thing that probably works better as a short story than a film.

This week's attempt at a script review put me in an awkward position. You see, I haven't read any of the scripts that are opening. A few weeks ago, I read some bad intelligence telling me Gavin O'Connor's Warrior will be out this Friday. Turns out, that's not the case. I guess it's coming out way the fuck in September, and I really don't want to be reviewing scripts more than a week or two in advance of their release. So, instead, I'm writing one of the many promised non-review articles that I've been too lazy and/or busy to get done.

Something's been bugging me for the past few months. I got used to writing development notes, which outline a script's strengths and weaknesses while offering suggestions for ways to improve the script. (That way, Your Boss -- who, if you're lucky, will read maybe one out of every ten scripts he or she forces you to read -- will have something reasonably intelligent to say in his next meeting. It's an elaborate charade, and everyone knows that his or her notes are coming from some borderline-retarded, caffeine-addled reader, yet nobody ever says a word.) On some level, you deal with marketability, but everywhere I've worked, they're surprisingly concerned about making the script as good as possible. In other words, they've already convinced themselves that they can sell the product -- so now, the challenge is making the product great.

The Book of Eli tells a pretty straightforward western story: one taciturn man shows up in a town controlled by a power-hungry madman. Captain Taciturn (hereafter known as Eli) has something the madman wants, and the madman is confounded when Eli won't give it up immediately. He's not used to a fight, but a fight is exactly what Eli intends to give him. Does any of this sound familiar?

The amazing thing about The Book of Eli is that it uses genre tropes so damn effectively. It paints a startling, "a few years after The Day After" nightmare world, but aside from that, it's your standard western plot. More than anything, it shows the importance of developing characters. Audiences are much more willing to go along with a plot they've seen before (and what plot haven't they seen before?) if the characters within that well-worn storyline breathe new life into it.

Here we are in the world of Daybreakers, in which vampires have become the majority (after some sort of viral pandemic) and the few humans left (5% of the total world population) are hunted for their delicious blood. After establishing this offbeat world and its central conflict -- that vampire numbers increase while the "food" supply dwindles -- the writers focus on hapless vampire hematologist Ed Dalton. He works for a pharmaceutical magnate, Bromley, who farms humans to provide blood for vampires. Ed, who's conflicted about using humans, has the moral-balancing task of coming up with a feasible substitute that can sustain vampires without requiring them to kill humans.

One night, Ed comes upon an erratically driving car, which narrowly avoids hitting his sunlight-proofed Escalade. The car's on the run from the police, because it's filled with humans (including AUDREY, the de facto love interest). Ed surprises the humans by allowing them to hide in his Escalade while he lies to the police about where they ran off to. Once the police get a safe distance away, the humans leave -- but not before Audrey notices Ed's work ID badge, which identifies him as a hematologist. Ed continues home, where younger brother FRANKIE has returned from military service (in this world, the military simply hunts for human camps). It's Ed's birthday -- which Ed deems meaningless, considering his immortality -- so Frankie surprises him with a premium bottle of 100% human blood. Ed and Frankie argue about the righteousness of killing humans to feed on their blood.

Before the argument can get too heated (though it does get heated enough for Frankie to smash the bottle against the wall), they're attacked by a "subsider" -- a freakish sort of vampire who feeds on other vampires (and/or themselves). This is the sort of world they live in. Frankie and Ed dispatch the subsider. After the police sweep the scene, they discover the subsider was actually a neighbor who disappeared. Ed is incredibly disturbs and feels increased pressure to come up with a substitute. Later that night, Audrey sneaks into Ed's house, announces that the vampire world is falling apart (citing, among other things, the opening scene -- a child vampire committing suicide after deeming an ageless body pointless). Ed tells Audrey he can't help her, but she gives him a note with a meeting place and time. After Audrey leaves, Frankie hears the commotion and wonders who it was. Ed says it was nobody, but Frankie is quietly suspicious.

See, the thing is, I'm poor. I have two mostly dead-end jobs, and I paid way too much to go to college. You might think I'm irresponsible, and you're right. But in my defense, I didn't take on more student loans to go to law school. (Okay, arguably, that's a bad decision, because there may be a bigger payday at the end of that road, but who knows? All I'm hearing from that community is that attorneys keep taking bottom-rung administrative jobs because there are too many of them. So I might as well stick with the bottom-rung administrative job I have and not take on more debt. Especially since I'm more interested in the education than practicing law.)

Huh, that turned into a rant. Anyway, I've received more e-mails than you'd expect (that's right, more than zero) from people requesting to "give back," because apparently I've helped them with my half-cocked rants and acerbic wit. I never really thought that was necessary, but then I realized I both like and need money. So if you want to donate, I've set it up so you can...

If you don't like getting nothing for something, I'm also offering some of my writing for sale. It's all explained here.

As for the coverage service... Well, I've received many more requests from people wanting me to read scripts than wanting to hand me money. Honestly, I love reading scripts, and I love helping people (or trying to), but it's gotten to the point where I just can't keep doing it for free. So, if you like my reviews or my musings on craft and you'd like me to look at one of your scripts, check out the new coverage service.

• The Muppet Man -- A dreadful script that manages to dramatize much of Jim Henson's life without ever providing any insight into what drove him to create.
• The Social Network -- A quick, compelling read thanks to Sorkin's ease with generating conflict and suspense almost entirely through well-written dialogue. The script also wisely focuses on Mark Zuckerberg and the other people involved in the foundation of Facebook more than the story of its founding.
• The Voices -- A flat-out great script -- funny, insightful, tragic, and brilliant. One of the best scripts I've ever read. If it can make it through development unscathed, it'll be one hell of a movie.
• Prisoners -- Too much intricately plotted story, too little anything else.
• Cedar Rapids -- A mild-mannered but genuinely funny comedy. As a frequent visitor of Cedar Rapids, it's nice to see a story set there that doesn't condescend to what idiots assume "flyover country" responds to.
• Londongrad -- One hell of a dull docudrama, telling an interesting story in a remarkably lifeless way.
• L.A. Rex -- A convoluted yet hackneyed look at policing in South Central L.A. Full of everything you'd expect and little you wouldn't (I didn't see the pit sequence coming, so they have that going for them): gangsters with ties to celebrities, dirty cops, a veteran partnered with a rookie.
• Desperados -- A bland but genial comedy that suffers from an overdose of Idiot Plot.
• The Gunslinger -- Dull Country for Old Men
• By Way of Helena -- An historical drama that manages to combine three of my favorite subjects (religious battles, post-Civil War America, and hunting men for sport) without making any effort to make the subjects compelling
• The Days Before -- A sci-fi comedy that gets off on its own cleverness, which is particularly irksome because the script is not as clever as it thinks it is. It's pretty much just Independence Day with a darker edge and time travel.

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "A man who possesses a time travel device uses it to go back in time to prevent an alien invasion."

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "A Texas Ranger and his wife move to a frontier town to investigate the disappearance of Mexicans in the area, and soon find themselves caught in the cult of personality that rules the area."

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "A tough ex-Texas Ranger has unfinished business with the Mexican gangsters who tortured his brother to death, and when they kidnap his brother's young son, he comes after them with everything he has got."

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "After a woman sends an indignant email to her new beau, who's gone radio silent postsex, she discovers he's comatose in a Mexican hospital and races south of the border with her friends in tow to intercept the email before he recovers."

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "Based on the author's book of the same name. A young gangster goes to work in the LAPD as a mole investigating a crime against the head of the Mexican mafia but learns more about justice than he expected from his seasoned partner."

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "Based on the book by Alan Cowell. The story of the life and subsequent poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom."

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Comically Long Logline (provided by The Black List): "After his co-worker dies from auto-erotic asphyxiation, an emotionally stunted insurance salesman from small town Wisconsin takes the man's place at the division insurance convention in Iowa City, IA, only to find himself coming out of his shell as he bonds with his fellow conventioneers and gradually uncovers a money laundering scheme involving his employer."

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Comically Long Logline (provided by The Black List): "After his six-year-old daughter and her friend are kidnapped, a small town carpenter butts heads with a young, brash detective in charge of the investigation. Feeling failed by the law, he captures the man he believes responsible, holding him captive in a desperate attempt to find out what he did with the girls, whom he's convinced are still alive. But the further he's forced to go to get the man to confess, the closer he comes to losing his soul."