** Adventureland, Greg Mattola, August 5, 2007
Can't remember why I put this in the NetFlix queue, but there it was. When it came in I found a copy of the screenplay and read along. It took a lot of pausing as the draft I read was very different from the movie, which was much improved over the 122 page script. Nice elements, however, not so much my kind of movie.
*** Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary
I agree with Anton. The emperor has no clothes. Don't get me wrong. I enojyed Pulp Fiction, for the most part. But if I brought this script to any critique group I've ever seen or to any script consultants I've talked to, they would tear it to shreds. Too much talking, huge chunks of dialog. Confusing timeline. Strange structure.
But a great story told pretty well. The moral of this story is, if you want to do something unconventional, you better have the resources to film it yourself. And hope you're truly genius and not just a crackpot.
** While You Were Sleeping, Dan Sullivan and Fred Lebow, 1995
In the 90s, this became the official Wunderfool family movie. We've seen it dozens of times. It's nicely constructed with some great lines and some groaners. When The Woman pulled it out for Christmas viewing, I tracked down a copy of the script to read along. It's an earlier draft and it's amazing how drastically improved the final script is. I'm assuming Sullivan and Lebow did the rewrites, since imdb.com lists them as the writers. However, this as the only writing credit for them. Oh well.
** Weekend at Bernies, Robert Klane, 1988
On a recommendation from Reneau to watch this in connection with my latest project, I watched this. I found the script online and read it as I was watching. I found it amusing, but not as hilarious as everyone else seems to find it. Oh well.
*** Chinatown, Robert Towne, 1973
Chinatown is a classic, but, like many other classic things, I missed it the first time around. It's used for examples in dozens of screenwriting books, and the nefarious Mr. Polanski was in the news, so I figured it was time to see/read it.
There were some interesting differences between Draft 3 and what made it on the screen, like the scene where Nicholson and Dunaway escape the nursing home, and especially the ending, which was quite different. Towne and Polanski had significant differences on the ending and it wasn't until 20 years later that Towne came around to agreeing with Polanski's take on the ending.
The script reads a lot more gumshoe than the film looks. And Nicholson and Houston bring some menacing power to the breakfast scene that goes beyond the page. But it's clear why this was an instant classic. Towne went on to write the screenplay for a lot of exciting movies, including The Firm, MI-1 and MI-2.
Worth the read.
*** Grosse Point Blank, Tom Jankiewicz, D.V. deVincentis , S.K. Boatman , John Cusack
I'm currently reading several giant books:
Which explains why I'm not ready to offer a review this week. However, I realized that the other reason is that I've been reading screenplays, which I have not reviewed. I can fix that.
My current project has a character that could be unsympathetic (a nurse who helps in assisted suicides) and I wanted some pointers in how to make a potentially unsympathetic character more sympathetic. To that end, I found a copy of the Grosse Point Blank screenplay online and rented the movie to watch it again as I read.
I read 30 pages or so, watched until I caught up to that point, paused to read more, watched more, etc. until I got through both the movie and the screenplay in one sitting.
In case you don't know, the movie is about a professional hit man who is having a career and identity crisis. One thing I learned right away is, if you want the character to be more sympathetic, cast John Cusak in the role.
As I read the dialog on the page of Martin Blank talking to his assistant while doing a hit, I had a much more hard-nosed tone in mind. But can you imagine Cusak delivering anything hard-nosed? Exactly.
The other thing they did was make the character more accessible by making him less foreign. What do you have in common with a professional killer? Not much, I hope. But how about a guy who is conflicted about attending his 10-year high school reunion? A lot more.
I applied this knowledge to my project by showing the emotional connection between the nurse and those she assists. Before, she was a little more business-like. I think the change is an improvement. We'll see what the critique group says next year when my time slot comes up.
The other interesting thing was to note the differences between the draft I read and what was on the screen. New material, deleted material, conversations moved to other scenes. Good stuff for evaluation.
