- I'm halfway through a first half rewrite for Northbridge. Director Lynne came down from Vancouver and we met up in Seattle a couple of weeks ago to plot out the first half of the story. She's coming down in a another two weeks for notes on the second half. It'll be good, whatever it turns out to be. Lynne has a killer story editor brain and we'll for sure make it into something special.
- The heist movie I'm writing with Sean is at page 77... a couple of more weeks and then we'll be ready to start rewriting. ("Writing is rewriting," Lynne reminded me.)
- I've had a few phone conversations with a Hollywood exec about The End of the World (as she knows it) and I'm working with him on coming up with a new outline and then I get to tackle a rewrite. (!!!)
- I came in first place for the first round heat in the nycmidnight.com short story contest. Proof is here. And in case you missed it, the story is posted here. The final round is Saturday... wish me luck.
- Elliot found actors and a camera lens, so it looks like "The Black Hole in the Kitchen" will go into production sometime in the near future.
- I spent three hours of my life watching Forrest Gump, err, Benjamin Button age backward.
2009-03-10
Crazy Town...
Again, things are snowballing and gaining momentum...
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3 comments:
Ben Button was a complete waste of time. If you ever write a movie that boring I'm going to tell people you were adopted.
Way to go on everything else though! Pretty soon you'll be having dinner with Andy Dick.
The thing about Benjamin Button is if you take out the backwards aging, the rest of the story is cliche. Guy loves girl since childhood, grows up, goes to war, etc...
The idea of him aging backwards has no meaningful effect on the rest of the story except for the occasional "hey, aren't you kinda old?" It did draw some interesting parallels between old age and youth, though.
Maybe my expectations were a bit too high after Zodiac.
I think Hollywood grabbed hold of Benjamin Button and wouldn't let go. Every time they went back to present day New Orleans I couldn't stand it... I think the movie could have been shorter (and better) if they started with his birth and went from there and forgot the whole flashback bookend bullcrap. How's this:
Ben gets born the same day as Cate Blanchette, in the same hospital, etc... that sets up the fated connection and then it makes more sense that their lives intersect in the middle.
Also, they needed to address his aging backward syndrome. How come this wasn't brought up the movie? "Ben, seriously, you need to see a doctor about this."
"My goodness, you're right. I should get myself checked out. Maybe I can take some vitamins and make it better."
I suppose the heart of the issue was that he was never really concerned that he was aging backward--he had the Forrest Gump aw shucks attitude about it when it could have been a lot more interesting.
So if you want to see a good movie get Synecdoche, NY in your Netflix. Now that is a real movie.
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