MacGruber review (Movie)

7.1/10

For the longest time, SNL-inspired movies have led to a rise in heart attacks and gonorrhea. Sure, we can tip our hats to Wayne's World and possibly even Ladies Man (haha, just kidding), but 9 times out of 10, SNL movies are pure stinkers. So with such a long history of shit-storm scripts, it doesn't really make sense how this movie is any good, considering that it comes from a 30 second sketch that parodies MacGyver. Yet somehow Will Forte leading as a thick-haired and vest-wearin' MacGruber alongside his backing team, consisting of Kristen Wiig and Ryan Philippe, works on levels that are perplexing and often incredibly juvenile.

MacGruber is by no means a movie that deserves credit for being serious or even in good taste. It is the product of a childish mind with adult instincts, and thankfully, the grown-up side of the equation knows how to set a path of glory. The humor in the movie centers around absurdity and raunchiness, yet it doesn't stray into the utterly abysmal Scary Movie territory. Instead it walks the fine line between clever and well-suited parody, and just plain glue-eating and knee-slapping. But what is the parody? Well, mainly 80s action movies. For example, within the first minutes of the opening credits, after a long title sequence of words and shapes, we finally see MacGruber wailing on a saxophone, setting the tone for a movie that pokes fun at many action movie cliches -- this being the overbearing music that sets the emotional atmosphere.

The main plot of the movie centers around MacGruber tracking evil mastermind Dieter Von Cunth, (hmm, guess what that might sound like) played by Val Kilmer, who has gotten hands on a very large nuclear weapon. Of course, in a movie that focuses more on the journey and less of the destination, this overarching plot is highly unimportant to what occurs mainly throughout the movie. Even though Cunth is the main villain, MacGruber and co. are often getting into their own mischief along the way to reaching Cunth.

Most of the humor comes from either shock value or randomness. There is a pretty significant plot point that involves celery stalks and assholes, which creates a diversion necessary to gain important information about Cunth. Also, MacGruber's relationship to Cunth is a fairly hilarious and an obvious poke at the overly convoluted and super-serious back-stories that archrivals have in action movies. And towards the end of the movie, which has been pretty explosion-laden throughout, the explosions gain intensity because the growling of tigers are dubbed over them slightly enough to where you question whether or not a tiger growls as a car explodes, and then soon you realize that yes it does.

Maybe one of the greatest parts of the movie is the end, which I won't spoil because it is absolutely ridiculous. And thinking about the movie as a whole, it is something that is just absolutely ridiculous -- from MacGruber having sex with a ghost to asking Ryan Phillipe in a moment of utmost desperation "What do you want me to fuck?" in a military office. Yet somehow the movie maintains its humor level.

And sure, MacGruber is definitely a different kind of humor, something that has sprung recently in a world of YouTube videos and online comedy. MacGruber's plot and character interaction occurs in a world that is willing to except absurdity and chaos as a means to provide humor rather than building on pre-existing notions about reality. Just like a YouTube video, the movie thinks on its feet -- maybe not in terms of actual overwrought cleverness, but sheer economy. It doesn't settle for buildup and release, or often does not work with calling back on previously mentioned in-jokes. Instead it pulls a continuous line of shock and over-the-topness inside the boundaries of acceptable. However it's done, it is worth busting a gut over.

Winnebago Man review (Movie)

8.5/10
Most American documentaries basically fall between two distinct camps: Michael Moore sensationalism and the free-standing editor wizardry of The War Room. Many are political in nature, or try to raise awareness about a very serious subject -- ie, Al Gore's global warming magnum opus or the Morgan Freeman voice-over lullaby known as March of the Penguins or the tremendously depressing Indian expose called Born Into Brothels. On rare occasions do people of the documentary genre transcend the whirling buzz of BELIEVE THIS, SUPPORT THIS! and create a piece of cinema that is as eerily touching as it is maddeningly hilarious. But Winnebago Man, an almost clumsy look at a long-lost television journalist, somehow does. And for this, the documentary exists as an artifact outside the natural order.

Written and directed by one of the film professors at the University of Texas (at Austin, bitches), Ben Steinbauer, Winnebago Man is no doubt a peculiar film, but it is a very touching film about Steinbauer's journey to find one of the infamous icons of Internet viral videos: the Winnebago man, aka the angriest man in the world, aka Jack Rebney. When initially thinking about the concept, it almost seems absurd. Or at the very least, silly. Why would anyone want to track down this man, made famous from YouTube and passed-around VHS tapes, who had a bad day trying to shoot an ad for Winnebago? The task at first looks pointless or at least something that will not bear much fruit in terms of a story. Sure, there is the journey, but what happens when Frodo gets to the volcano?

But strangely enough, Winnebago Man flows as a thoughtful and cohesive story about Steinbauer tracking down Jack Rebney. What begins as a brief lesson on the damaging effects of becoming an Internet viral video star--often from demeaning and embarrassing videos (think Star Wars kid)--turns into a road journey in a similar vein to Finding Forrester. Except instead of Sean Connery as a crotchety old writer, you have Jack Rebney, one of the most obscenely honest men that will probably ever grace the silver screen.

The documentary is as much as a portrait of Jack Rebney as it is a journey to find the man. Steinbauer begins his film with a detailed search for the mysterious man in the Winnebago videos. And from the start, the backstory of this man is already interesting. Rebney is completely off the radar, leaving no contact information with anyone who might be close with him. But after hiring a private investigator, Steinbauer gets a breakthrough, which begins his journey to meet Jack Rebney, who lives on a mountain in Northern California.

The relationship that forms between Steinbauer and Rebney is endearing. Rebney initially comes off as a man completely jaded with society, furious that YouTube made him into a fool and that people--idiots!--watch that dumb video of his. He has no interest in the outside world, which is why he lives secluded in the wilderness, all alone except for him and his dog. But Steinbauer's persistent prodding into the life of this man and trying to understand "who IS Jack Rebney?" gives the documentary a lot of its weight. Pulling Rebney out of his social cocoon and into the real world is a heartfelt transformation but also one filled with many laughs, because Rebney is one of the most brutally honest people you will ever meet.

And Rebney definitely has his fans. But what he doesn't understand at the beginning of the documentary is that these people who watch his videos are not all trying to laugh at his expense. Two guys that host a found footage festival annually invite Rebney to attend one of their festivals in San Francisco after showing his Winnebago video over the years--and also being huge fans of it themselves. Rebney's journey to San Francisco of course has its laughs, but when Rebney stands on stage after the people in the audience view his video, there is already a transformation. Rebney the angry and cynical old man becomes Rebney the charming and funny guy who explains that anyone in Iowa during the summer (which is where/when the Winnebago video was shot) knows how irritable people can get. And afterwards, when he stands in the lobby of the theater, he talks to his fans and they tell him how his video is therapeutic--that anytime they are having a bad day, they play it and are glad someone can be so vocal about how they REALLY feel.

It's moments like that in the documentary that make it hold more weight than a simple funny and hollow film about an angry old guy. The story is oddly linear in how all of the events unfold, which Steinbauer addressed after the screening as pure luck. His journey to find Rebney, luck or not, manifests into something that is almost uncategorizable as a film. It appeals to many emotions bla bla bla -- but really, Winnebago Man is one of the better films to come out of the indie scene this year. It doesn't take itself too seriously but it doesn't let its subject becoming a running gag. Instead, Jack Rebney becomes the odd anti-hero that you somehow grow to love.

Where the Wild Things Are review (Movie)

7.3 / 10

Spike Jonze is definitely a visual artist, and with his long reign as one of the most infamous music video directors in the 90s, it is obvious that he likes coupling visuals with music. And with his latest film, Where the Wild Things Are, there is something to be said about a movie that can almost carry itself solely through the means of visual bubblegum and a soundtrack that feels like an unsaid member of an already peculiar cast of characters. However, this adaptation of the grand masterpiece of children's literature manifests as a film that doesn't know exactly how to relate to children or adults, and instead finds an awkward middle ground. Indeed, where Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers strive hard to remember the feelings of a nine year-old, they often flounder around beautiful landscapes— uncertain of what exactly they want their audience to understand about the wild things in all of us.

The movie revolves around the nine year-old boy, Max (Max Records), who in the first ten minutes of the movie we learn feels isolated and unheard in his family, as well as easily angered by his mother (Catherine Keener) spending time with a boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo). The relationship between Max and his mother in this brief expository part of the movie has subtle moments that feel very honest--perhaps more-so than most of the other scenes of the movie--like when they talk in the mom's work room, and Max pulls at his mother's panty hose in a sort of curious manner and he tells her a sad story about a vampire than bites a large building and loses its teeth. The dichotomy between the self-centered and imaginative world of a child and the loneliness and sadness and fatigue of an adult find a brief moment of juxtaposition.

However, once Max gets angry at his mom for hanging out with her boyfriend, he attacks her and then flees his home, sailing away to a magical land where depressed, mopey, "real"-feeling creatures roam. Having never read the Irish novel-length children's story, and only being told how the book treats the transformation from reality to magical land, my understanding seems that in the book Max is sent to his room without dinner and the magical land manifests in his room. The difference between the book and the movie--and mind you, I definitely believe that books and their adaptations should stand on their own in terms of the medium they represent--presents an odd choice of revision on the part of the writers. Where Max's manifestation of a magical land, presumably through his mind in a juvenile fit of rage, serves as an explanation for how he understands the relationship between him and his mother, the movie's odyssey to the magical land confuses escapism / punishment for the mother (through running away) with learning to deal with youthful anger--such as being in one's room and mentally dealing with anger through an imaginative landscape.

Once on the island, Max meets a ragtag cast of peculiar looking creatures, all with their fair share of emotional problems. Jonze and Eggers focus mainly on the creature Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), who Max shares the greatest bond. The unity between the characters makes sense since Carol has anger issues and a destructive nature because he does not know how to deal with his emotions--which, of course, is the same case for Max. But while the setup for the relationships between the creatures and Max works, the overall execution for Max interacting with the creatures doesn't have as much as a payoff as one would hope.

Instead of clear-cut roles for the creatures, each stands as a kind of avatar for a specific set of emotions. No one creature feels like a complete or real individual, even though they are given real emotions. In addition to their stock positions in the movie, the tone and relationships between the creatures and Max never feels set in stone--it constantly wobbles from anger to happiness to anger to happiness to sadness to happiness. And even with this "dynamic" feel of the creatures, there is almost no context for the shifting emotions except the whims of how they feel about each other from scene to scene. Indeed, the almost non-existent plot doesn't help root the feelings of the characters into a tangible and intuitive way. And Max's departure from the magical land doesn't have the emotional weight that the movie gears itself for. All of the pieces are in place, the sadness, the longing, the weepy-growls, but in the end, Max leaving the island feels as scattershot as the rest of the film.

Still, there are some really great moments on the magical land. Subtle beats that don't often come in movies, and sadly aren't often in this one. When one of the creatures, KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose), describes to Max two other beings she spends time with outside of the usual group, the way she describes them as completely different is so sincere and real. Her longing to find that perfect place, with those right people actually for moment feels so concrete.

Even with the beautiful landscapes, the indie-pop OST, and the unique creatures, Where the Wild Things still leaves a void in the audience. The main substance of the movie doesn't exist and instead ideas and emotions and themes float for brief moments like dust caught in the morning light. A lot of what's left are empty spaces, splintering plot starts, and a story that never really feels to set in place. Still, gotta love those backgrounds and Karen O and the Kids, right?

Paranormal Activity review (Movie)

0/10
I, like many other people, have been conned into the idea that Paranormal Activity is a low-budget horror flick in the same vein as the Blair Witch Project or the digi-cam sensationalism of Cloverfield. Let me tell everyone right now: Paranormal Activity is a grossly overhyped and drawn out film about almost nothing. It is good marketing running loose into our lives. Never have I sat in a theater and thought how royally screwed I got by a clever viral campaign and some uppity metacritic reviews. Where most people think they are going to see a legitimately frightening tale of a couple going through odd activities and hauntings in their home, instead see a lot of domestic bickering and a door that mysteriously opens and closes in the same gimmicky fashion as a haunted house.

There is almost nothing redeeming about Paranormal Activity. From its tediously long runtime to its uninteresting main characters to its horrible technical proficiency, I cannot feel but utterly bamboozled. The movie is about a woman, Catie, and her boyfriend, Micah, who live in San Diego and have been witnessing odd activities in their home--paranormal activities! So, Micah decides to videotape their day-to-day lives in the home, and most importantly, the couple's bedroom while they sleep at night. The only time--except for one or two incredibly unimportant moments--that anything remotely scary happens is at night. And usually it consists of a banging sound, the movement of their bedroom door, or Catie standing creepily in some weird trance for like an hour and staring at Micah sleep.

Unfortunately most of the movie is not contained in the nighttime beats. Instead you see Catie and Micah bitch at each other and how they want to deal with the haunting. Yes, what could have been a scary movie where sounds and camera directions are used to create tension and atmosphere turns into a movie that oddly seems like another weekend with my parents--except I feel obligated to see out their incessant and repetitive complaints with a hope that something interesting happens.

And really, nothing does. Sure, people might herald this movie's great use of atmosphere. But I don't know how you can keep an audience in the tense world when the movie flip-flops between nighttime scariness and daytime domestic bickering. And the problem with such a formulaic movie: everybody knows when scary moments are going to happen. Nighttime becomes the parts in the movie where everyone knows the door will slam, the sheets will ripple, Catie will get dragged on her ass by thin air, and daytime becomes a recharge, a reminder that you can escape any tension you might have felt and sink back into the reality-tv voyeurism everyone is used to.

For a movie that received so much hype I wanted to go to sleep that night with all of my lights on, making sure each part of my body was covered by some part of my comforter and bed sheets, and watching at least two episodes of Family Guy. Instead I got the movie form of a rick-roll--yet, I would have much rather seen 90 minutes of continuous rick-roll video than Paranormal Activity....

Never gonna give you up,
Never gonna let you down,
Never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry,
Never gonna say goodbye,
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you....

(oh I wish you did Paranormal Activity, I wish you did.)

Extract review (Movie)

5.3/10

Mike Judge knows the banality of life. And more importantly, he knows that there is great humor to be had with simply exploiting it. The most notorious of these exploitations (perhaps beside Beavis and Butt-head) came in the form of Office Space, tackling cubicle job dullness and the mediocrity of corporate life into something universally hilarious for anyone that held a job. Nearly a decade later, Judge returns to the comedy-sphere with a similar film, Extract, which flaunts a hopeful comedy with its all-star cast about the tedium of suburbia and middle-income living, but ultimately remains a hollow endeavor.

Extract is a film that looks good in the preview because it reveals all of the great parts, which leads one to believe that movie is held together by more great parts, but unfortunately the film instead is a lot of good ideas with mostly bad execution. The plot surrounds Joel (Jason Bateman), the owner of an extract factory who wants to sell his company so he can enjoy living without work, yet a freak accident in the factory leaves one of his workers, Step (Clifton Collins, Jr.), without one of his testicles, which sparks a possible lawsuit and controversy that would make selling the plant hard to do. And to add another layer of conflict, Cindy (Mila Kunis), a thief who starts working at the extract plant so she can get information about Step and money from him suing the extract factory for his injury, is another cog on the hardly spinning wheel.

Aside from the central conflict being about a guy without balls, Joel finds his home life uneventful with his wife, Suzie (Kristen Wiig), who seems to have little interest in him. And, of course, their sex life suffers due to the disconnect between the two. While a lot of the I'm-not-getting-laid drama surrounding Joel is stale in concept, at least one funny moment happens when he tries to persuade Suzie to go to the bedroom, reminding her its Monday, which she happily proclaims it is time for Dance With the Stars. Moments like this really shine because they are comedic jabs, not prolonged or built up.

To keep Joel from going insane, he confides in his stoner/bartender buddy Dean (Ben Affleck), who is nothing more than a rehashed version of James Franco in Pineapple Express, except less awesome. Dean attempts to add a level of low-man, druggie wisdom, but ultimately feels underdeveloped. Yet, while his personality isn't incredibly unique, Dean provides Joel the necessary plan to make him happy again.

Judge really stuffs the film with a lot of star power and it is sad that most of the characters feel underdeveloped or just plain underused. Suzie's screen time amounts to hinted disdain of Joel overworking at the extract plant and making sure Joel is going crazy. Her one line is one of the largest comedic moments in the film, aside from a flashback with the male gigolo Joel sends to seduce her so he can have an affair with Cindy. Similar to Suzie's lack of presence, fucking J. K. Simmons, who when he speaks shoots comedy gold from his mouth, has like ten lines, and all of them surround not remembering names of works at the factory and doing grunt work for Joel.

And it seems that Judge wanted to work in all of the characters, but didn't have the plot worked out. For, while he manages to create a lot of conflict in the film, which ties together surprisingly well, Judge still flounders a bit in the plot beats. When extended moments of the movie are spent with Joel arguing with a male gigolo hired by Dean to seduce his wife, there is a problem with the pacing. Also, there are a lot of flat moments in the film. Like when Joel and Dean smoke from an incredibly large bong, the moment for comedy is ripe, but Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman are not Seth Rogen and James Franco, and so the scene doesn't hit its potential (if it had any).

But really, Judge has a lot of poorly executed ideas in the film. He comes up with great concepts, but one they hit the page (and the screen) they sort of fall flat. For example, when the annoying neighbor gets on Suzie's nerves for the last time with his pestering neighbor talk of endless mediocrity, Suzie says that she and Joel hate him. This direct attack on the neighbor coincidentally happens when the neighbor has a heart attack. The next scene is immediately him in a coffin at a funeral, where Joel and Suzie, after having a rough time and not seeing each other due to fighting, make fun of the neighbor and then get back together. The quickness of the neighbor dying is funny in concept due to its surprising nature and rapidity of the scene changes, but it doesn't really work on screen. It seems too contrived. Also, Joel and Suzie talking like on a date at a funeral is funny in concept, especially since they make fun of the guy who died. But it just doesn't work. The irreverence isn't as surprising, doesn't quickly jab at the audience like a brief exclamation of joy that Dance With the Stars is on TV.

Extract has potential, but it hardly has enough steam to power itself right now. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments and a lot of moments where I kept a grin on my face. But for the most part, the film flounders and shows promise for funny, but never really hits the note. While the film is about the mediocrity of suburbia and working, it doesn't unleash the comedy in full force like Office Space. Instead, it is more refined, more casual, and less biting. After all, where is the montage of Joel beating up a forklift with Dean?

GMOs From Indiana (Screenplay)

Bio: Jay Wertzler lives, works, and writes in San Francisco, CA.

Logline: When Jamal's father, Gregory, produces genetically modified crops for his town, something mysterious happens to those who consume them. (HORROR)

PDF.

Comments --

Jay,

I’m going to ignore formatting/grammar and talk about big picture stuff –

Page 1 – description can be shortened. Aim for paragraphs of 3-4 sentences. Sometimes you’ve pulled 6 or 7. Like a bad party, arrive late leave early.

First pages -- aside from generously long description, you start off with a bang. You’ve set up a menace, your inciting incident happens quickly, by page 3. This is solid screenwriting -- capturing the interest of the audience.

Jamal. The name makes me think of Slumdog Millionaire. Intentional or not, I would consider changing it to be safe. Optional consideration: If you rename him Jeremy you can still play up the nice play of characters mistaking Jamal to Jerome.

Love interest set up early. Good. You made Lana (Smallville fan?) 19, Jamal 17, age should be a factor, but it isn’t. Perhaps work in conflict of her being older than him.

Page 4 - You cut to a science film. You don’t do this again until thirty minutes later, or 1/3 of your film. Would audiences forget? Should you write it in again on page 15 to remind audiences?

Page 6 – Set up of Gregory and Jamal’s relationship dynamic. From a few beats, I understand the character relation of both these characters. Intentionally or not, you reveal through subtext and in few words as possible Gregory’s disappointment with Jamal’s career choices. Silences and “uh huh,” speak more than additional lines could. Aspiring screenwriters take note, Jay utilizes subtext in the Gregory Study scene well.

On page 6 you write about frozen corn cobs. This is solid character exposition. Insofar, as you do a good job of setting up the Mendelson family and working in plot information. It’s small beats like this that screenwriters should consider, because they help visual the characters we’re going to follow for the next ninety minutes while working in story.

It takes you 7 ½ pages to establish –

1. Scientist death (inciting incident).
2. Jamal’s work, asshole boss, love interest.
3. Family dynamic (Gregory/Jamal), where Jamal lives, corn (GMO).
4. Set up for the creature/alien.

I’d argue you can do this in four/five. A problem with your spec is the beginning starts slow. Once we leave the movie set and move into the home environment, I’m bored. I’d trim elements from the home and move onwards with setting up the opossum element. The first ten pages of a spec script have to grapple the reader and glaze his interest. What’s a fast way to lose interest? Description. And generally, unless it’s cars blowing up or a fire fight, the bets are stacked against you.

For example, let’s take a look at your first page. 95% description. You tend to write elegant prose, “chalk slams against the cold surface with a harsh finality,” not terse description. You’re writing a screenplay, not a novel. Your first six lines of descriptions could be shortened to one –

Test tubes. Micropipettes. A hand scribbles equations on a board.

I’d argue you get across the same idea of your six lines with the revision of one line.

Moving to page 5. Description is overloaded.

You could start with this –

A farm. 1920s. Down to the cinderblocks.

A biplane sits on the dirt runway.

Jamal parks his truck, exits, turns towards some cows

JAMAL
Hey ladies.

I’d work on creating as much white on the page as you can. I’m usually critical of description, so I’d like to take a moment to point out description that is necessary and that works. Page 11, “the soil is darker, fresher,” this is important set up for the shit about to go down. Good.

Screenwriters could learn from your choice of action verbs. Saunters/moseys/trudges/snakes/etc.

Page 15- I’m being picky here, but here’s the correct way to format a phone conversation –

INTERCUT GREGORY/JAMAL --

GREGORY (V.O.)

(on phone)

Greg here.

JAMAL

(on phone)

Dad, I’m coming home early. We sold out.

GREGORY (V.O.)

(on phone)

That’s great news! How much cash?

Etc. After the intercut, it’s important to set up location or the whereabouts of Gregory. Here’s an opportunity to make whatever Gregory doing visually interesting. We’re writing for the screen, so if we have Gregory sweeping the porch/doing the dishes/smoking pot, etc. for the audience to visualize while he’s on the phone. Just nab in description after one of their lines. (V.O.)’s indicate which side we’re looking at while the parenthetical remind the reader what’s happening in case they skim description or just forget.

OR (handling phone dialogue)

Establish both locations:

INT. MARKET – DAY

Jamal opens his phone. Dials.

INT. FARM- DAY

Gregory washes the dishes. Answers the phone.

BEGIN INTERCUT

JAMAL

Dad?

GREGORY

Yes?

We don’t want any reason for a script reader to reject our submission. Improper formatting may be one. Let’s avoid it.

Moving on.

Page 18-23. You do a good job with foreshadow. Love the “goddamn method actor” line.

Lana and Jamal go from innocent flirting (she doesn’t even know his name on page 10) to making out pretty quick (page 24). I’d recommend building this connection more. For example, you spend a lot of time at the farmer’s market and Jamal planting seeds. I’d trim down some of these scenes and have a solid one or two page scene of Lana and Jamal connecting. You start with them running away from a crazed farmer shooting at them. Why not talk about that later? Have Jamal approach Lana with “you been shot at lately?” Then they giggle and laugh and build all the subtext for your big kiss on page 25.

The scene with Jamal and Lana flying is cute. I love it. Everything after they “hook up” I buy (the flicking of dirt, tomatoes); I just don’t buy them building towards a “hook up.”

Conflict. Conflict. Conflict. Where is it? Page 30 and I’m not sensing urgency or strife.

I’ve noticed you write “[insert character’s] eyes widen.” This is interesting because I run into this problem all the time. How do you describe to the reader that our characters are interested/shocked/surprised? We can’t write emotion as screenwriters we have to use visual cues to represent emotion. I’m going to list out a list of important descriptions I find useful –

1. Takes a deep breath and…
2. Brow furrows…
3. Eyebrows knit...
4. Grinds his/her teeth…
5. Jaw drops…

Lana loses her ear. In District 9 (spoilers!), they utilize a similar technique in Wikus’ transformation from human to prawn (alien). He begins to lose fingernails, an arm, etc. I bring this up because you have a similar thread here. Lana loses her ear, her fingers, etc. This is good, stomach lurching story-telling. In District 9, the audience squirmed when Wikus began to change. I think you’ll enact a similar response.

Shopping carts doubling as weapons. Always awesome. Nice job setting up a chase sequence in the grocery store. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like you get the Hollywood-sized punch you could have out of the chase sequence. This is the one of the more exiting sequences viewers will be treated to 45 minutes in. I’d work on extending the chase from grocery store to car. Maybe have a crop-eater attack them, and Jamal has to defend their lives. As writers we’re always trying to throw a many obstacles as possible in front of our protagonists. Your story is lacking conflict. Ramp it up with chase sequences.

Page 43-46 – Crop-eaters. Jamal’s walking through town to find his manila envelope. He’s disguising himself as a crop-eater to avoid certain death. As an audience member, I’m unclear on how dangerous the crop-eaters are to non-crop-eaters (humans) at this point. I’m unsure if Jamal not disguising himself would result in death. You need to set up a scene earlier (or in the grocery store) of another human character getting mauled to death/clubbed/staked/however they kill, because I need to understand what the crop-eaters do with people they don’t like. Then, I’d get behind Jamal, and hold my breath hoping he makes it out alive. You do this with Winston, perhaps move that scene to earlier?

Page 52 – Varying sentence structure. You start four paragraphs with the name “Jamal.” As writers, I think we can strive to be more creative. I’d work on using descriptive verbs to vary up the way paragraphs start. For example –

1. Slowly, Jamal regains footing and continues…
2. Looking over the fire and plumes of smoke he sees…
3. Gently, he repositions Lana…
4. Trudging through dirt, Lana on his back he holds her legs with one arm…

You can often even cut out he/she/character name by capitalizing a verb. It may read choppy, but it varies sentence structure.

Line suggestion: “You grow some damn good lettuce, son.” to “You grow some killer lettuce, son.”

Page 62 – We’ve got conflict. Now, the crop-eaters have projectiles. This raises the stakes extremely well. I’m scared for Jamal.

Page 63 – “You are what you eat.” Snappy.

Page 69-71 – You handle the science exposition pretty well. It’s hard in screenplays to get that right. It’s short, concise, and to the point. Congrats.

Page 71 – “I risked thousands of dollars, your future, my career—all for those results. And for what!” Bad. This sounds very much like a, clichéd, bad TV show/B movie line of dialogue. As pivotal as this plot point is in your screenplay you should handle this line more carefully. Suggestions –

• “My life’s work…Gone.”
• My career’s gone downhill…and for what?

These aren’t spectacular. Trying to get the ball rolling…

Why doesn’t Lana attack Jamal? This needs to be addressed. All the other crop-eaters have attacked Jamal.

I’d be careful of having the plane’s propeller chop up crop-eaters. This happened dramatically in 28 Weeks Later and comically in Planet Terror. A lot of my friends hated when it happened in 28 Weeks because they’d seen it as a joke in Planet Terror.

Overall, you’ve essentially written a clever spin on the zombie genre. Your movie builds with a rom-com element then shifts into territory of a zombie hack ‘n’ slash. The main problem with your script is the lack of conflict. Your climax is overloading the conflict, but aside from that, it’s far and few between.

Let’s think about the best zombie movies. Look to what they do right.

Dawn the of Dead (remake).

1. Inciting incident – Zombie girl bites parents.
2. Act 1 climax – Ana is overwhelmed, cries.
3. Midpoint – Kenneth kills Frank.
4. Act 2 climax – babies!
5. Climax – reinforced van + chainsaws

28 Days Later.

1. Inciting incident – animal activists release plague.
2. Act 1 climax – They find other survivors.
3. Midpoint – Frank dies.
4. Act 2 climax – military base.
5. Climax – Jim goes Rambo.

Both of these movies have something similar. The midpoint is a death (Frank twice?!). I’m going to plot your movie for reference.

GMOS.

1. Inciting incident – scientist dies/goo plague set up
2. Act 1 climax – Lana eats infected corn
3. Midpoint – Lana loses her ear
4. Act 2 climax – Winston dies
5. Climax – escape from Gregory

Both 28 Days/Dawn have conflicted packed into the first 45 pages of their script. They keep throwing obstacles in the way of their characters, and for the most part, GMOs has a very rom-com element that affects the horror. Ultimately, it depends on what type of movie you want.

As for rewrites, I’d work on Jamal getting Lana as part of the conflict. In rom-com’s the love element becomes the conflict. You need to make Lana harder to get. That would help your first 45 pages. Then, after Jamal secures Lana and she eats the corn it truly becomes a sad story.

If you want to move towards a more conventional zombie story, it may help your marketability. The love interest may set it apart. 28 Days handles the Jim/Selena element while maintaining the post-apocalyptic/zombie conflict.

Your movie ends strong. The oppurtunity for a sequel ripe. Congrats, Jay, I’d love to see rewrites on this spec.

Readers: feel free to criticize my comments or the script. Round table is the best type of table.

Synecdoche, NY review (Movie)

10/10
Charlie Kaufman is one of the greatest writers of our modern era. His tight, diverse and often mesmerizing tales that examine human nature blend between metaphysical musings and the great character driven drama. He breaks the confines of cinema, making the two-hour feature film full of complex story elements and stunning visuals. That is to say, Kaufman has mastered a young art form with Synecdoche, New York, a story of a playwright and director who, after plodding through a failed marriage, tackles his largest project: writing and directing a play that encompasses large elements of his own life; essentially, he recreates his life through a sprawling pseudo-city and large cast of actors.

Of course, Synecdoche, New York is not an "easy" film. And thankfully so. Kaufman's atypical plot structure for the movie allows it to engage Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, the playwright and director, with keen insight. Namely, the movie moves through time as if years could be easily compressed into mere seconds; for example, one moment, Hoffman stands in his driveway at a seemingly young age with his daughter and then the next scene he is balding in his old age. Yet, where these flighty time changes could come off as abrupt and annoying, Kaufman uses them to explore his characters. One notable example: Hoffman goes to the dentist and learns of his degenerating gums, the following scene is the dentist saying that his gums got worse, then the next scene is Hoffman receiving gum surgery; in a mere 15 seconds the audience learns of Hoffman's poor hygiene, but more importantly, Hoffman's laziness and poor self-respect.

But Kaufman hits on larger themes through his storyline than simply character faults and quarks. Namely, he addresses people at large and how we act in social settings. Indeed, characters in Synecdoche, New York feel timeless because time is mixed so even over many decades that it is hard to get a complete emotional handle on their growth; however, the expansive timeline provides an alternate look at people, one that is often overlooked in film. Namely, we see Hoffman go through his life as the same person, his character arc never completes itself with much change. Throughout the entire film Hoffman does what people tell him to do, acts in ways that please other people, which often causes him more grief. His missteps and lack of confidence play out through the entire film. He is searching for himself in every other place that he is not currently in residence, which causes him to run in circles between different women and different ideas of happiness.

Yet, Synecdoche, New York oddly sways between absurdity and realism. While Kaufman engages his characters with a realistic touch, his settings and character interaction can be quite the opposite. One funny instance of his absurdity comes from an assistant that works at the play theatre with Hoffman; the assistant purchases a house (or imagines that she does?) that she sees on fire when driving home from work. Later in the film, after Hoffman has his final love affair with the assistant, she dies from smoke complications via the never-ending fire in her home.

But even with such elements, which give the film a whimsical tone--mostly to lift its weighted theme of death and inaction--the realism shines through like many of other Kaufman's films. That is to say, Hoffman's lack of self-confidence and inconsistent vanity (hence, his gum disease yet fear that a scar will form from a minor blow to his forehead) show the complexities of human nature. Hoffman fears loneliness yet flees the women in his life in order to find himself--people are always searching for themselves!

And for once, Kaufman lets a film admit that people never find themselves who are always searching, who are never content being the being that they are being. Indeed, Hoffman ends the movie in his gargantuan life-size stage play of his own life after all of the actors die, wandering the desolate streets of a fake city in a warehouse, still incomplete. It is by no suprrise though. How can anyone find something so slippery? The self. It is a ironic, for a character who remains the same through many of his mannerisms and behavior and outlook on life, he still cannot find a reconciliation between his self and the self he eagerly tries to find. And this complexity that Kaufman addresses through Hoffman's character is only an example of the movie's overall detailed structure.

As a result, I feel no shame in saying that Synecdoche, New York is a modern masterpiece, that it's a film that explores the complexities of human nature in a unique way, that it finds the funny moments within a life that overall might be summarized as inconclusive or sad. Kaufman knows that the parts make the whole and he takes little details and blows them up into proportions that make sense, proportions that show how people make great pain out of details and the superficial qualities of living. Kaufman doesn't allow his characters to sway into happy-ending territory or find a nice conclusion or resolution or understand themselves much better than they started. They only allow their characters to grow and deflate and expand and he reminds us that we are frail and fear change in ourselves even though we seek it so much all of the time.