An Irish Writer in London

Immortality Is The Theme This Weekend.

2007-01-28T00:08:00.000Z

On a different day, in a different mood, The Fountain would have absolutely irritated and bored me. It's the kind of film that normally does my head in. As it was, seeing it today, I was mesmerised by it. You'll rarely, if ever, see a film like it. I don't feel like I can talk about it as I would most other films as it is simply unlike most other films. The biggest complaint being levelled against it is that it's self indulgent. Well that and that it makes no sense whatsoever. Is it self indulgent? I can see that argument. But for me what it's doing is taking big themes of love and death, treating them in an admittedly grandiose manner and asking to be taken completely seriously in the process. Really, more films could do with taking a lesson out of that page book. Big themes, dealt with intelligently and seriously. Even if it fails, The Fountain is trying to be about something. That alone makes it stand out. It's trying to do it in a unique way, in a unique story. Is it nonsensical? Well, I understood maybe 40% of it and am hoping subsequent viewings will bring me up to 60/70%. But it's a film for some reason I really felt, even if I didn't always understand why I was feeling what I did. I suppose in the end for me the film comes down to a story about the power of love. Done well, there's no better theme for a film. Also it's simply one of the most beautiful films I've seen in a very long time. Visually arresting, some amazing images that often last for long stretches when there is no dialogue. The Fountain is absolutely not to everyone's tastes and frankly I'm amazed it fits into my own which is why I would qualify my recomendation. But I was enthralled by it. And it confirms Darren Aronofsky's place as one of the most exciting and interesting directors working today.

The only downside to The Fountain is that it definately isn't the greatest underdog story ever told. Thankfully I saw another film this weekend that does fit that bill. Rocky Balboa. The 6th installment tells us that it's not about how hard you hit but how hard you can get hit. Well I was hit pretty hard watching the train wreck unfold on screen before me. From the opening where he sits on a deck chair by Adriane's grave, wandering around Philadelphia, Pauly in tow, going around the old places he and Adriane used to go (culminating in a truly hilarious shot of her from the first film superimposed like a ghost into a shot in the present) to the wonderfully pointless scene of him in a dog pound choosing a dog with an equally pointless character for no real reason, to the speech where he tries to convince the boxing commission to give him a licence to box and he seems to use the word "do" about 275 times. "When you gotta do what you gotta do and you wanna stop me doing what I gotta do, how can I do what I gotta do?" But it's so bad it's absolutely genius in its own way. At points it had me crying with laughter. It's just too bad Stallone isn't in on the joke as he delivers awful speeches, shuffles around amiably and clambers into the ring to prove there's life in the old dog yet. Yet maybe the joke's on me. As that music comes on, as the training montage kicks in and Rocky runs up those steps one last time, as he takes and delivers the blows against a stronger opponent, you can't help but want to punch the air and hope your arm holds there in an everlasting freezeframe. There is a reason these films have endured and there's a reason this film has been a decent success. But this is sentimental claptrap. And anyway it takes a long time to get to the fight. A VERY long time. Scene follows scene follows scene with no apparent consequence. Really if any of us tried to hand in that script on the course we'd be thrown off. And quite possibly deported. Still at least this seems to be the last one. All I want now is Rambo 4...

I also saw Blood Diamond. It's decent, probably the best film Edward Zwick has done in a long time, but it's way too long and falls between the two stools of trying to be both a serious issue film and an action thriller. Leo's lovely though. I mean he's good. He's very good. Performance wise.

Homo In The Congo

2007-01-20T02:15:00.000Z

I'm just throwing out ideas for the title of my script...

Maybe Tomorrow I'll Wanna Settle Down...

2007-01-20T01:47:00.000Z

There's simply nothing better than a person going after what they want, making something happen for themselves, regardless of what it is. So many people talk and that's all they seem to do. I don't mind admitting I'm the worst in the world for saying I'm going to do something (join a band, exercise, make another short film, edit my previous one...) and then not doing it. I'm not the worst but I'm far from the best. The person that prompted this post is similar to me in this way. Her reasons for procrastinating are different and often more genuine but we do have this in common. Anyway she's done it. She's gone. Left the humdrum and gone off to do something amazing. And I'm so happy for her, worried for her (well they are all foreigners after all) and excited for her.

Making something happen for yourself is one of the great things you can do. That may sound obvious or trite but so many people, myself included, often neglect this idea so it's worth pointing out. Going through shit, working, saving, whatever it takes, and ending up where they want to be. What's so great in this case though, is that it's so very far from the end. It's a brand new beginning. Will she "find herself?" I'm not really sure that's why she has left. Certainly self exploration is part of it but I do believe anyone travelling attempting to solely "find themselves" is somewhat doomed. I admit that's the voice of ignorance on the matter, I have never travelled significantly. And of course until truly tested, you don't know what you are made of. Tests take all kinds of forms though. And they occur in the Far East, Western Australia, Delhi, Prague and New Cross. The reasons for travelling are varied. But in this case they're the right ones as far as I can tell.

It's such a great time and though the selfish part of me misses my friend, it never fails to make me smile to think of her meeting whomever she's meeting, doing whatever she's doing, and most importantly as far as I'm concerned, knowing she has created something for herself that she has always wanted. Given herself this opportunity to do something great and maybe life changing but most of all fun. When you put the work in and reap the reward who can argue with that?

I'm so very proud of my friend today.

What The Fuck Is A Step Outline Anyway?!

2007-01-20T01:42:00.000Z

I don't have much more to offer beyond that question really. Currently we're producing our step outlines that will provide the blueprint for the entire script. They will "give us power" over our scripts. Allow our creativity to flourish under the control of a structure. But how in the name of all that's good do you write one? You must distinguish between dramatic moments and scene description, you must create set up, event and consequence for each "step" (of which there are on average between 60-100 per step outline), you must...

Oh fuck it. It's a complete pain in the tits. And I really haven't got a handle on what it is I'm doing.

How the mighty have fallen!

Out Of The Bag Baby! Out Of The Bag!

2007-01-10T23:46:00.000Z

Firstly if anyone on my course is reading this, I can only hope you won't mind my revealing my true feelings about our Tuesday session. Gone is the false modesty and deflecting self deprecation! Instead here comes the big bouncing ball of ego!

This Christmas was completely shitty. My Dad was taken into hospital Christmas Eve with what turned out to be pnemonia. He was only discharged last Saturday. My Mum was sick with a chest infection, she reacted really badly to the antibiotic and was put on a second. Only this week has she started to make real improvement. Christmas was spent going in and out of the hospital, cooking dinners, shopping, saying the same things to a million people on the telephone every day and generally getting zero time to do anything but worry, basically. I ended up staying an extra couple of days as a result. The upshot of all this was that I got no work done whatsoever on my script. The first draft of the treatment was due in on Monday of this week, to be emailed by 6.00 Sunday night. I got back from Dublin New Year's Eve, went straight out, got back to my room around 5.00pm New Year's Day and did a little work but, being quite hungover, didn't do very much. The real work began on the Tuesday.

Now, I had a pretty good feeling about what I produced. It was definately promising. Given how much time I had lost over the break, it was better than it had any right to be. Plus, many of the lessons that had been drilled into us over the last term, it felt like, were starting to sink in. But the Monday sessions (held on tuesday this week as we had a guest lecturer on Monday) are invariably very painful for one reason. You think you've done well. You've worked hard, feel like you've improved on the week before, and then have your work summarily executed by our course leader with whom you can't argue because you know he's right. So despite my good feelings about the work, the overiding feeling was, why would this week be any different? He began the session by saying we had a long way to go, our work was nowhere near distinction level, he wasn't despairing because we had produced good characters but the stories were all over the place. He then went through each of us individually in front of the group as he does every week, the idea being that we can all learn general points from specific mistakes made by individuals.

And then it came to me. And he told me it was good. That my synopsis actually read like a proper synopsis (which was interesting because I felt and still to a degree feel that I don't have my story fully yet and so therefore can't properly synopsise it), that the dramatic points were all present and accounted for, that my central character had a clear goal and a visible objective correlative and that it was well written. He then made me read it aloud to the class as it was essentially a brand new story no one was familiar with. And it got a round of applause. You have to understand, everyone gets crucified on the Monday class. It's simply how the world works. One or two others have had good Mondays. I had never had one. Until the last one. The best part was how supportive and genuinely full of praise the rest of the class was. I was so worried going in and so sure I'd be shot down that it was all a bit of a shock. We had short personal tutorials in the afternoon and when I walked in for mine, he smiled and told me I had pulled it out of the bag.

Boo-yah!

So it would appear my big gay drama in the Congo (working title The African Queen) is off to a good start, probably because I actually care about the story and in fairness because I've been turning it over both consciously and subconsciously in my head for a few weeks now so when I came to put pen to paper I had something to say. On Friday afternoon I'm going into the London office of Medecines Sans Frontieres to meet with an aid worker who has spent time in Darfur and who is actually heading back there next week so it'll be great to do some proper research and meet with someone who has lived the life I'm trying to describe.

In the meantime I'm just enjoying the fact that for the first time since I started the course I appear not only to have learned something valuable but have applied it to my work. I appear to be on the up!

Until next Monday.

2006

2007-01-01T23:46:00.000Z

A very Happy New Year to one and all!

I'm always interested in these end of the year lists that the world and his wife seem to write, summing up the cinematic highs and lows of the preceeding 12 months. So never being slow to jump onboard a bandwagon I thought, why not do something similar? 2006 was generally a good year at the cinema. It started with a bang, died in the middle and slowly picked up again. Some films, like Munich or Flags Of Our Fathers had alot of buzz but ultimately disappointed. Some were critically and commercially mauled like Lady in the Water and turned out to be really quite good. The Oscars were going along rather predictably until the retarded Crash apparently became the best film of the year. Penguins marched, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest became the 3rd film in history to take over $1 billion at the box office. It was a busy year. So here are the 10 best and 10 most miserable cinematic experiences I had throughout 2006. Some films like The New World for example, would have made the list but I'm only including films I saw on the big screen. Others like Ultraviolet or The Shaggy Dog would doubtless be on the list of drek had I made the effort to see them. Some films look too bad even for me to waste my time going to see. Anyway enough introduction. Here are the films, not presented in any particular order...

The Best.

1. Capote.

What a great film Capote is. A fascinating central character, a phenomenol central performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman and most surprisingly, a really great script. Capote is what most biopics tend not to be. Interesting. By focusing on one period of his life, rather than the standard birth to death approach (I'm looking at you Ray and Walk The Line) the filmmakers were able to illuminate Capote's key traits, fears and flaws. Very little screen time felt wasted, scenes were economical yet powerful, unshowy direction, outstanding supporting cast, a really great film.

2. Brokeback Mountain.

The big gay cowboy drama proved to be that rarest of things, a film deserving of the hype. So wonderfully understated, powerful and an important film. When Walmart bans sales of a DVD, that is saying something. Why the controversy? Simply because here was a film taking gay people, gay characters, their relationships and the treatment of those relationships by sections of society, seriously. No camp comedy foil or safe best friend of a female protagonist here. Simply real people trying to find a way to survive. And who can't relate in one way or another to that? A phenomenol performance from Heath Ledger, aching scenes between he and Jake Gyllenhaal and indeed he and Michelle Williams, beautiful cinematography and a fascinating deconstruction of one of America's greatest cinematic icons, the shepherd. Sorry, I mean the cowboy.

3. The Proposition

Bleak, bloody, brutal. This film came out of nowhere somewhat and completely blew me away. Dripping with atmosphere, its central hook, one brother must kill his older brother to save the youngest, draws you in. But after a while you forget that's why you're there as the characters and setting pin you to your seat. After a few wrong turns, it's nice to see Guy Pierce in a good role but Danny Huston steals the film with Ray Winstone not far behind him. A strangely unsettling film, it stays with you long after the cedits have finished.

4. Pan's Labyrinth

What a film. The only film this year to make me cry at the cinema for all the right reasons, it's a wonderful piece of film making from start to finish. The reason it works so well is because the real world elements are more frightening than the fantasy world little Ofelia finds herself in. The design, the cinematography, the music, the script and story, a fantastic villain, simply a joy from frame one. A great piece of imagination, though to describe it just as a fantasy film is to undersell it. A strong contender for film of the year.

5. Children of Men

I had enormous hopes for this film when I first heard about it. The central idea, women have mysteriously stopped giving birth and the population is dying, is fantastic. And though I hate Clive Owen, I was really psyched to see the film. When I saw it, I didn't think it was the classic I had hoped for. It bizzarely drops the ball at times, Michael Caine's air guitar, in fact his character generally annoyed me, Clive Owen and Julianne Moore blowing ping pong balls into each other's mouths, their whole history was totally unconvincing and Clive Owen's character was very underwritten I felt. But when the film hit, it was incredible. The opening scene, the attack on the taxi, everything in Bexhill, the film is remarkably well made, its setting of London in 2029 is totally convincing, its depiction of the treatment of imigrants, frightening and resonates with what's happening in the world today. In the end I wanted to give this film 10/10 and have it on my all time top 10 list. I'll just have to make do with 8/10 and the top ten of the year.

6. The Prestige

This was another film I had very high expectations for. Christopher Nolan makes interesting, diverse films, Christian Bale is always worth watching even if Scarlett Johannson isn't and I really loved the story and setting. Walking out I was initially disappointed because the ending which everyone had been talking about as being an incredible surprise, for me was (most of it at least) predictable from about a half hour in. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised the film was so much more than that. Two great characters, each willing to do anything to beat the other, an intricate structure of flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks, yet done with such confidence and clarity. Plus this was a film about magic. Nothing else. And I really liked that the film simply was what it was and didn't apologise for that. This really was a director working at the top of his game. Shame then that he'll be now going back to Batman...

7. United 93

Watching World Trade Center this Summer, I felt like I was buried under hundreds of tonnes of rubble. I may have even preferred that. The first film however to deal with 9/11, specifically the eponymous Flight 93 which crash landed in Virginia, was a different matter. Utilising non actors in key roles, people who were really there on the day, gives the film a more immediate resonance. But United 93 is a fantastic film for many reasons. Cross cutting between events on the ground and events in the air, in much the same way director Paul Greengrass did with Bloody Sunday, achieves an enormous level of tension. Edgy handheld camerawork, great performances, even knowing the doomed plane's outcome doesn't spoil the experience of the film. Difficult viewing certainly, but essential viewing also.

8. This Is England

I admit this is something of a cheat as the film isn't out yet. I saw it at the London Film Festival but I saw it in 2006 so it appears on the 2006 list. When it opens in cinemas, seek it out. The latest film from Britain's best film director Shane Meadows, sees many of the director's trademarks. Handheld camerawork, naturalistic performances, an uneasy mix of humour with the ever present threat of violence. This Is England has elements of both A Room For Romeo Brass and Dead Man's Shoes but is its own film absolutely. At times hilarious, at times unbearably tense, the film is seriously accomplished and had to be included on this list. And it's yet another film that uses a different time to comment on our own time, and does it expertly. Politics really seems to be returning to the multiplexes.

9. Good Night, And Good Luck

Ah Gorgeous George. Who knew he had it in him? Good Night, and Good Luck (Am I putting the comma in the right place? I'm not sure.) is a wonderfully classy, literate film. Shot in beautiful black and white by DP Robert Elswit, fantastically performed by the entire cast, especially David Strathairn, wonderfully written by Clooney and Grant Heslov (the guy who played Arnie and Tom Arnold's buddy in True Lies. How random is that?) and superbly directed by Clooney who thankfully ditches the ticks and indulgences of his first directorial effort, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, the film is relevant, gripping and expertly combines shot material with archive footage to create a cohesive whole. Clooney won Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars this year because, well, they couldn't ignore him and had to give him one of three he was nominated for. Though he was never going to win Best Director, I honestly believe a Best Screenplay award would have been way more appropriate.

10. Casino Royale

I really, really, really want to love the blockbusters of today as much as I love the blockbusters of old. Alas, most of the time they suck. So when one comes along that is in any way good I leap on it and so, completely undeservingly but hey, what are you gonna do, I offer Casino Royale as the last of the year's best films. I say it's undeserving but Daniel Craig has never been better, the pre-credits sequence is great, the free running sequence is great, the fight in the stairwell is great, the airport sequence is great, the torture scene is great. Okay it runs out of steam and ideas but it's fun and exciting and it succeeds for the most part in what it sets out to do which is
more than can be said for most films of the genre, indeed most films full stop. Bond is back. And it's only taken him 30 years to get here. I do not recognise Roger Moore as Bond and never will.

Honourable mentions go to The World's Fastest Indian, Inside Man, The Departed, Lady In The Water, Borat, Syriana, Brick, Shooting Dogs, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and The Three Burials of Malquiades Estrada.

The Worst. As always, there was plenty to choose from...

1. Match Point

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is gorgeous. No doubt about that, I could look at the guy all day long. But I defy anyone to watch Match Point and think the guy can act. It's horrible to watch, wooden, mannered, superficial and they're the good points. This film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay which, given that there's precisely nothing original in it, left me somewhat mystified. Unconvincing, boring, unintentionally hilarious, its depiction of London where everyone lunches at The Tate and emerges from designer shops carrying little cardboard bags grates on the nerves. Woody Allen apologists may say this is simply the romanticised view of London he's been doing of New York for decades. Perhaps, but at least many of those earlier films had wit, character, story. Basically, they were good. Plus often the city of New York was a character in itself. In Match Point, London is not a character, rather a trendy location offering tax breaks. If Match Point had been set in Ireland there would have been Guinness, fiddles and dancing at the crossroads. This film needs to curl up under a rock and die.

2. Superman Returns

It's now official. The Usual Suspects was a one off. Brian Singer is the greatest working one hit wonder. Superman Returns was painfully, excruciatingly, horrifically boring. If directing means sucking the life and entertainment out of whatever it is you're filming, then Singer can rest knowing he has done his job. The writers too need to stand up and be counted for providing one of the flattest, dullest, excitement and adventure free scripts for an adventure film ever written. In a Summer that disappointed time and again, Superman Returns still managed to stand out as bad. Such a non event. Here's hoping the insufficient box office prevents sequels and Brian Singer can maybe try making a film that doesn't involve alien heroes or mutant heroes. You know, something with a story. Imagine that Brian!

3. Basic Instinct 2

I suppose the real question here is, what was I doing at the cinema when this was playing? A fair and reasonable question. No, I wasn't there for the sex. I thought it would be a laugh. It wasn't. At all. Sharon Stone, doing her best to tell us that women in their late 40s can still be sexy, seemed to forget that they can also have dignity. Michael Caton Jones also gave us Shooting Dogs this year, a very powerful, well made film. One can only hope that this pile of steaming cow shit was what allowed him the freedom to do that film. Why Lord? Why?

4. An American Haunting

There's an absolutely hilarious moment in An American Haunting when Donald Sutherland walks out of his house into the woods and the ghost appears, accompanied by the predictable screech of violins to try and make us jump. Instead of acting scared, running away, in fact instead of reacting in any way at all, Sutherland simply stares at it blankly and walks away as if to say, "I was in Don't Look Now. You'll have to do better than that if you want to frighten the Sutherland." One imagines that was a genuine reaction to the director's efforts at generating fear on set and not a directed piece of acting. Quite what he and Sissy Spacek were doing in this God awful joke of a film is mystifying. My mate and I were the only two people in the cinema the day we saw this. We were two too many.

5. Thank You For Smoking

There is nothing more annoying than crap films getting good reviews and this is one of those times. In every way, this film fails. It's satire is as weak as piss, its characters wafer thin, its jokes unfunny. This film is so dull that thinking about it is making me... zzzzzzzzzzz

6. Miami Vice

Even the Farrell mullet billowing in the wind while its owner drives a speedboat couldn't make this film interesting. The worst films of this year were deathly dull and Miami Vice may be tied with Superman and Thank You For Smoking as the dullest of the lot. Beautiful to look at, certainly, but cat shit with diamonds on it is still cat shit. This film made Collateral look like a masterpiece. Hell it makes one or two films on this list look like masterpieces. Foxx and Farrell look more like undercover cops than any undercover cops ever in the history of cinema. Worth seeing for the scene where Farrell takes a shower and his hair simply explodes, only to be towel dried by Gong Li a little later, as if she's towel drying her poodle. This is a sad, sad moment for one of the great modern directors.

7. The Omen/The Wicker Man

Two films in one entry is a bit of a cheat but fuck it it's my blog, I'll do what I want. The double whammy of "Let's take a classic 70s film, shit on it, shove it through the Hollywood grinder and serve it to the public", The Wicker Man and Omen remakes were simply awful. The Wicker Man may just have the edge over The Omen but it's tough to say. So utterly pointless, so badly executed, quite how these films could get it so badly wrong is almost impressive. Almost. In The Omen, little Damien is reduced to a simpering, spoilt, irritating child with all the menace of the Easter Bunny, Liev Schrieber is no Gregory Peck, the deaths are ruined and despite the film retaining the original's London setting, not one member of cast or crew set foot in old England. I know this because many of the road signs visible in the film were written in Czech. As for the Wicker Man, the most frightening thing in that film was Nicolas Cage's stretched skin and weird teeth. Dire.

8. The Matador

"Pierce Brosnan completely reinvents himself" they cried. "You'll forget he was ever Bond" they shouted. "A revelation, a great performance" they cheered. "A monkey who can't say hello convincingly and manages to ruin what few good lines the film has" I say. Another one of the bad films with generally good reviews, The Matador was a waste of time from start to finish. One of those films that thinks it's very funny and clever, the film is made all the more irritating because you just know Brosnan is loving the fact that everyone will think he's reinventing himself just because he swears a bit, grows some stubble and walks through a hotel in his underpants. Newsflash people, HE'S EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME AS HE ALWAYS IS!!! This is Brosnan, he's not the great chameleon of acting, it's Brosnan. BROSNAN! I don't care if he's calling himself Bond, Julian Temple, Thomas Crown or Larry the fucking Leper, he's always the bloody same. The Matador is tedious, unfunny shite.

9. Crank

A reviewer of the Jennifer Lopez film Enough wrote possibly my favourite review of any film and I'd like to use it now to describe Crank.

Watching it is like being bitch-slapped out of a coma.

I have nothing more to say.

10. Firewall

I was torn between about 5 films for the last spot but in the end I went with the latest nail in the coffin of Harrison Ford's career. Just when you thought Hollywood Homicide was as bad as things could get, along comes a "thriller" that offers us Ford sitting in an office chair shooting a fire extinguisher at a baddy as an action sequence. "We really must consider Mr Ford's arthritis when planning the action for Firewall. What does everyone suggest?" "How about we sit him down in a swivel chair, spin him around and have him take out a baddy with a fire extinguisher?" "Oh you're good. You're good!" Worthy also of a mention is the bit where, the kidnapped family having carried the pet dog with them all throughout the film for no discernable reason, Ford, hot on their trail, remembers in the nick of time that they put GPS in the dog's collar as he kept running away and is then able to locate them. GPS in the dog collar. Someone give that writer an award. I had alot more fun at this film than I did at any of the others on the "worst of" list but thrillers are not supposed to be this funny. The most tense bit was watching old Harrison run and fight like he wasn't 63. And with Indy 4 officially announced and ready to begin shooting in May...well who am I kidding? I'll be there on opening day. The point is Firewall blows like a starving hooker.

Honourable mentions go to Stranger Than Fiction, V For Vendetta, The Sentinel, The Da Vinci Code, Snakes on a Plane, World Trade Center, NightWatch.

And so roll on 2007. Babel, Rocky, The Fountain, Transformers... yes that's right, I'm mildly excited about Transformers. Oh who am I kidding, I can't wait! I'm not ashamed to say it. In the end I'm sure I'll end up ranting about God knows what on here throughout the year. I love it really!

It's Not Procrastination If It Really Needs To Be Done

2006-12-20T22:34:00.000Z

How long can a person avoid writing an essay on the narrative breakdown of a 30 minute section of The Remains of the Day? Quite a long time it would appear. I wonder if that can be my approach to the assignment? You know, Charlie Kaufman couldn't figure out how to adapt The Orchid Thief so he wrote Adaptation about how he couldn't figure out how to adapt The Orchid Thief... Maybe my essay is about how I couldn't write the essay and instead called pretty much everyone listed in my mobile, cleaned my bathroom and watched way too much of season 2 of House in an effort to avoid writing this stupid, bloody thing. I even wrote a post about it and made you all read it. Misery loving company and all that. Of course I go home for Christmas in a couple of days and while I'll bring some work with me, I won't get as much done as I'll need to, the few days around New Year are already pretty full, suddenly it'll be January and, with the deadline approaching faster than Mel Gibson to a boobytrapped bar mitzvah, Remains of the Day will remain undeconstructed. Is "undeconstructed" a word? Can you negativise any verb in its future imperfect tense by adding "un"? Is "deconstructed" actually in the future imperfect tense? Is "negativise" a word?

Wouldn't it be easier therefore to simply write the essay, I hear you cry. Yes of course it would. If I didn't have such a full mobile phone, a hideously unclean bathroom (that now gleams) and that darned Gregory House wasn't so witty in his angst and misery. Really folks, do watch it if you aren't already. I now however find myself out of excuses. So, for tomorrow, the alarm is set for 8.00am, the books are ready, the DVD is in the DVD player and, well I think that's all I need. Though I am getting a sudden, inexplicable and completely unrelated urge to do some volunteer work...

Stick Man and Little Chief

2006-12-16T01:01:00.000Z

I realised a few weeks ago that I hadn't posted anything on my two ex housemates. Having lived with them for so long our break up should have prompted a post before now, even though this blog is supposed to be about me in all my narcisism. Also I did only recently start blogging again. Anyway...

I lived with Kev for the last 8 years. I lived with Karen on and off for 6. We all met in Uni, at the educational wonder that is the Surrey Institute of Art and Design. Karen and I were studying the beautiful medium of film. Kev was studying animation. I don't feel like I have a huge amount of friends, (though as a little aside all but two of the people I invited to my 30th birthday were able to go and I have way more friends than I actually realised which was cool) but those friends I have really mean alot. So very much in fact. And few mean more than Kev and Karen. Moving out of my beloved flat in West London was so hard because of the sense of home we had created. Flat sharing is inherently temporary, but we had managed to prevent it feeling as such. Shared interests (Karen's football and Kev's animation aside) helped enormously. Our collective DVD collection ran into the many hundreds and as film buffs we could always rely on at least that one thing to bring us together. Be it watching something dodgy from our collection, ("I feel like something light tonight" as if we had had a Tarkovsky marathon for the previous week) or else walking to Blockbuster to fetch something equally dodgy. But the one constant was that, if we happened to be in, we would always be together in the living room, not sitting in our rooms on our own like so many people flat sharing have told me they do.

So many small pleasures but they raise a smile now when I think of them. Emailing each other during our work days to see who fancied having take away and a few beers that night (and that night could be Monday through Sunday) and invariably the emails would degenerate into the most brutal piss taking until someone got insulted or bored or, God forbid, would actually have to stop emailing because they had to do some work. Enjoying each other's oddities and idiosyncracies. Kev's flat panics, my favourite still being the day it started to rain heavily and, while I was in the loo, he was banging down the door trying to get in because he heard me pissing and somehow thought that sound was the rain getting into the bathroom. If you had seen his panic you'd know how funny it was. With Karen, well it would have to be her tendency to combine opinion with ideas and dreams to make "facts." Sprinkled in fairy dust and bearing no relation to anything in the real world, she would nonetheless tell you with such a straight face that, even though you know what she was saying simply made no sense, she would be so invested in it you couldn't help but get sucked in...! For my part, well I know I contributed many a story to our little threesome. From my naked wandering up and down the hall on a day I thought no one was in except that Karen was, to the night I, half asleep/half drunk wandered into the lounge thinking it was the toilet and pissed on the couch, to the simple fact of me not being particularly good at the practical things in life with bills going unpaid for some weeks, important calls not being made...you get the picture. My bad moods they could take with a pinch of salt, my playing the same songs on my guitar over and over again that would drive them a bit mad but which they knew meant alot to me and so would put up with. What can I say? I'm not sure how the cosmic forces aligned to get me together with the two of them but somehow and for some reason they did and I was rewarded with their patience.

This post should have happened weeks ago. And what brought it into my mind and what made me sit down and write it is the fact that, of all the things we did together, our various trips to Barcelona, to Holland and various cottages in Devon and Cornwall, settling down to watch 24, our many meals out and drinks nights with the gang, my favourite time of year in the flat was Christmas. The flat would be decorated from the end of November with the most tacky decorations we could find, not always Kev's pleasure but that was part of the fun. Karen and I pretending to annoy him with it all, Kev pretending to be annoyed. From the Christmas Tree Angel with Down's to Santa and Mrs Claus singing in the bath to the inumerable singing trees/hats/snowmen/whatever I could lay my hands on, the decorations were mercilessly camp and tacky and it was pretty funny. We would have the gang over for a Christmas drinks night and would have our own "Christmas Day" which was hands down my favourite day of the year. Exchanging presents, cooking the biggest Christmas dinner you've ever seen, sherry or port in the afternoon, beers in the evening, chat, laughs, great times with great people. This year I miss that tremendously.

But life goes on. It was me after all that had a major hand in breaking our little home up. And in truth it was probably time. Kev is now living with his girlfriend, the lovely Michelle, and they are building a life together. Karen is about to embark on a pretty wild adventure around the world as she heads for South America in January for four months and then around the rest of the world for over a year. A braver person than I for sure, it will be phenomenol. And you all know where I am and what I'm doing. We left the flat at a point that was good for each of us, even if Karen had a bit of a wait before she jets off. In the end what I hope is that I've been able to help in some way when that was necessary, been a source of comfort or advice maybe when needs be but to be perfectly honest more than anything I hope I made you guys laugh, both intentionally and unintentionally, I don't care which. I don't mean to sound like one of us is dying or something. It's just this really is the end of an era. A really special era. I had such fun living with you, you're my best friends always, and I'm alot better for knowing you.

Yours.

It Really Does Wait For No Man.

2006-12-15T23:08:00.000Z

We had our last day before Christmas today. The first term is officially over.

Fuck me, that is an insane sentence to write. Time really has sped up, there is absolutely no way this year can be coming to an end. 2006 started with so much uncertainty, so many big decisions (well I think they were big decisions!) to make. I spent the first half of the year making those decisions and sorting out the practical implications of them. The second I spent anticipating them and then living them. The point is, it feels like the year started with much uncertainty and it's ending with as much. The uncertainty of what I'm doing has never bothered me before and part of me is surprised by that. I am naturally cautious by nature and the fact that I've been living month to month financially all my life, and am now putting myself in greater debt, aswell as the inherent uncertainty of getting into the film industry at all, should have weighed more heavily. I guess the only trait within me as strong as my being cautious is the fact that I have to be true to myself. That might read a bit wanky but it really is true. The second I try and bury something or try and pretend it isn't there I fuck myself completely. I can pretend to other people no problem but not to myself. And so, I know that I want to write and if I gave up on that I'd hate myself for it and would be instantly miserable. But these last few weeks/months I'm finding the uncertainty of it all begining to get on top of me a little. By uncertainty I mean uncertainty about what I'm writing, my ability to write it, and assuming I do pull it off, the chances of the industry wanting it. As I've indicated, I really feel like this course is giving me an opportunity and I honestly feel like as long as I put the work in I really could get somewhere with it. So why the negative thoughts?

Part of it is that, once I was accepted into Goldsmiths, I felt that this was going to be me for the year. Suddenly the first term is over and a year seems like a very short period of time indeed. When I finish here I'll be 31. Does that matter? Probably not. It's not like the industry is particularly ageist. Yet turning 30 does put psychological pressure on you. Or at least it has done on me. Suddenly I REALLY want to start getting somewhere. I don't think I've changed really. It's not like I've woken up and am now suddenly all serious, my stupid jokes and love of annoying my friends replaced by social awareness and political commentary. Perish the thought! That would require some reading, if nothing else. Reading of something other than Empire Magazine. I just mean that, your twenties seem to be about trying to get somewhere, figuring out who you are etc etc and your thirties and beyond are about living that out rather than continuing the search. On the one hand the logical part of me knows that's horseshit. I don't believe you ever really stop learning or searching. Plus, if everyone followed the same path we'd be in a pretty devestatingly boring world. God that sounds like an add for Orange or something... I would honestly much rather be where I am now than worrying about getting a mortgage for example or doing alot of what it seems you're supposed to be doing at my age. That's not to imply superiority of lifestyle or flippancy towards how difficult those things are and the commitment it involves, not at all. Particularly as some of my closest friends embark on those journeys. It's just that at this present time, that's not for me. This is what I want. More than anything. To express myself through writing films, to shape the story, to have that validated by an audience and to make a living in the process. And to do that I need to learn and improve and cultivate a process and expose my soul and give it to the world and have it judged. I know how that probably sounds. I'm not up my own arse, at least I hope I'm not. I simply feel that's how things are for me. Yet, while I know it's horseshit, I don't necessarily feel that it is. I guess maybe I had just hoped to be nearer my goal by now. Starting the course gave a promise of a great push towards the goal, but I'm soooo far from having a coherent story and today we finished our first term.

My need for security is pretty strong. Along with my cautious nature and having to be true to myself I would add my need for security as significant trait number 3. That would make for the worse dating profile in the world if that's what it was! Goldsmiths, the course, living in halls, this was going to provide the security for a while. And it will. It is. It's just that today is the last day of term, bringing the post around full circle, and that has brought home just how temporary this current round of security is. Maybe that's why I've felt weird all day, why the negative thoughts have been circling like vultures and why (most tellingly) I didn't go to the pub with some of my classmates after our group meal tonight. It's funny how it takes me writing loads to finally realise what it is I want to say. This happens alot with this blog. I blather on and then I hit upon where it's all going. Or my subconscious finally allows me to understand what I'm feeling and why. It's not that my thoughts are negative necessarily. I'm simply scared tonight. Scared of how quickly time goes, scared of what I'm doing with it, scared of what this path I'm on, and the future it'll bring, holds. And in some ways, scared most of all that I live for a hypothetical future rather than for a real present. I do enjoy my life. It's not perfect. Whose is? I do feel like sometimes though I forget there's a here and now. Life won't start when I become a screenwriter. It'll be 30/40/50/whatever something years old by then. It's just a weird thing because, you simply have to put so much time and energy into writing if you're going to do it properly and that can sometimes (like tonight) make you feel like you're not living for the now. I don't know. I started this post at 11.10 and it's now 12.50 and I'm not sure exactly where I've gotten to in that time. Round in a rather large circle methinks.

All I want to say is that all day, and tonight, for whatever reason, I feel scared. And for the first time since I moved here, it's not because I live in New Cross.

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

2006-12-13T17:35:00.000Z

I had an interesting night with a friend from my course the other night. He who shall remain nameless is very bright, very incisive and generally has good ideas on a variety of topics. Though he really needs to talk less... You know who you are!! Anyway, it was one of those wonderful conversations you have at the start of a relationship where you both share some stuff and begin to forge a friendship. The trite term is a "bonding session." But this was different. As you know from previous posts I've been struggling with my script for a while now. What's the OC? What am I trying to say? Etc etc. I asked my friend if he thought I should change my story and he said that yes I should, simply because it was obvious to him what I'm writing is not what I want to really write. He proceded to analyse my central character, and by extension me, and the things I haven't really verbalised before. He did it so accurately, he completely caught me off guard, and I ended up getting quite upset. It had simply been a very long time since anyone not only saw through me but articulated it back to me like that. I don't want to go into specifics, suffice to say in the most sensitive way possible, he made me confront a few things I had been dancing around in my writing but as yet hadn't properly tackled. And that after all is one of the reasons I'm here at Goldsmiths. I wanted to exorcise what's been in my head and my heart and produce a worthwhile script in the process. Somewhere along the way that got lost. Yeah there's some engaging, some worthwhile, even some personal things in what I'm writing but deep down I've known for a couple of weeks that I've allowed myself to get steered off course. It's one of the potential negatives of the course. We meet every Monday as I've described to go over each other's work and everyone pitches in their ideas. On the one hand it's great as it offers tremendous support and you end up receiving many good ideas. The flip side is the ideas, though great, are not suited to what you originally wanted to do. And unless you have that clear in your head, it's easy to become diverted which is what has happened. Which is why I've been struggling.

Soooo...

Time for a new story. My mate offered me a potential setting and story which is really very good. It means starting over in a sense but that's okay. It has to be really. I'd much rather fail doing something I believe in than succeed with a script that was at best less personally meaningful and at worst compromised and diluted to the point of it being bland. I need to be as raw and as honest as I was the other night and I need to do that for the next year almost while I write the script. I need to remember what it is I came here to write and to have the courage of my convictions. I need to remember that I have a perspective that is unique to me and that is the greatest tool I have, indeed the greatest tool any writer has.

I've been pushed back to where I need to be by someone I'm very happy to call a friend. It's probably the most important thing that's happened on this course, indeed for a long time. The script is all about repression. And I need to open myself up and write it.

Witty Rapport

2006-12-13T01:58:00.000Z

I haven't posted a review in months. I'm itching to do one and anyway I want to post something fun so here we go! I could do Pan's Labyrinth (one of the top ten films of the year), Children of Men (a film I desperately want to put into my top ten of the year; it's at points phenomenally good, at others mystifyingly bad. Overall I'd say it's great, 8/10, I just wanted it to be a classic and I can't justify that tag) or I could rant about shite. Stranger Than Fiction for example prompted the latest walk out of the cinema. I've decided to go commercial and opt for that famous name we've been watching since 1962. You know his name, the truly hideous theme song tells us. Not quite as bad as Madonna's entry into the series, the song nonetheless sounds like a Eurovision castoff sung by an X Factor contestant. The man is of course Bond.

Casino Royale is surprisingly enjoyable. The last Bond film, Die Another Day, is simply horrible. We all know the stories of the overhaul. New Bond, old material, less hokey, more gritty. One $150 million "gamble" later and here we are. Is it gritty? Put it this way. It's as gritty as a Bond movie and a 12 rated film will ever be. The pre credits sequence is about as rough as it gets, a fight in a public toilet which depicts Bond's first kill and is admittedly pretty dirty with Bond, after crashing through walls, kneeing and punching his opponent whenever and wherever he can, eventually drowning him in a slowly filling sink. It's a refreshing start, intercut with Bond's second kill. I'm not spoiling that as it's already been thoroughly spoilt in the trailers which, having seen the film, seemed intent on showing every good moment in it. Things come grinding to a halt as that horrific song plays over arguably the worst Bond credits sequence yet, though the camp familiarity of the conceit somehow still manages to raise a smile. Once we're back in the film, things get back on track as we're introduced to the villain Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) who initially shows some promise. We then get into the film's best action sequence and what is for me one of the best action sequences of the year, the much talked about free running sequence. It really is fantastic. Wonderfully conceived, staged, shot and edited, its only problem is its lack of consequence. We have no idea who Bond is chasing or why. Why does it matter? We have no idea. Had this been the finale, had Bond spent the film trying to initially beat then capture an outstanding villain, this would have been really remarkable. The villain of the sequence, genuine free runner Sebastian Foucan, is chased down by Bond despite the former's superior athleticism. They run around a building site, go up a massive crane, back down again, through lift shafts, under saws and other dangerous equipment and the whole thing culminates in a wonderfully staged gun fight. It's very exciting and sets a high standard for the rest of the film. The next major action set piece occurs at Miami airport as Bond attempts to thwart a terrorist plot and yet again is really quite exciting. That scene was sponsored by Virgin by the way. Other scenes were sponsored by Ford, Omega, and Aston Martin. Not that the product placement is shameless or distracting. Subsequent action moments include a fantastic fight in a stairwell and a great moment when Bond drives his car off the road.

Why I hear you cry am I just talking about the action? Well do we really care about the plot of a Bond film? For those of you that do, briefly it's about Le Chiffre, international banker to the terrorists (that's the sort of job title that only occurs in Bond films) holding a high stakes poker game at Casino Royale in order to win back the terrorists' money he lost when Bond foiled their nefarious scheme at Miami airport. Mikkelsen does his best as the blood weeping Le Chiffre but his villainous potential is seriously hampered by the fact that a) he doesn't really have much of a plan other than to win back money he lost and b) he spends most of the film playing cards. Still, he's a significent improvement on the Brosnan villains, with Sean Bean and Jonathan Pryce slugging it out for worst villain of the lot. His villainy is further undermined two thirds into the film in a manner I won't spoil but for me, rendered much of what went before pretty much pointless. At this stage the film starts to run out of steam and out of ideas and the finale, a gunfight in a sinking building in Venice feels like a Brosnan castoff action moment and is everything the film has, up to that point, worked so hard to avoid. The action scenes for the most part are just over the top enough to be exciting but not so ludicrous so as to be irritating. Indeed a couple are relatively "small" and contained and are much more visceral and all the better for that. The finale is disappointingly over the top, stupid, boring and familiar. Other bum notes include Eva Green as Vesper Lynd who really struggles and spends most of the time grinning smugly and delivering her lines in a peculiar accent, a love story so unconvincing it makes Titanic seem like Gone With The Wind and some ropey dialogue even Paul Haggis can't salavge. Though thankfully the one liners and double entendre are all but absent. However the film has done so well for most of it that I found myself walking out of the cinema happy to relive the highlights and ignore the shortcomings.

And what of the man himself? The pre release vitriol leveled at Daniel Craig could not have been higher if Satan himself or maybe even Renee Zellewegger had been cast as 007. I have never been hugely convinced by Daniel Craig, even when he appears in good films, but he does very well in the coveted role. Suave but devoid of Brosnan's grease, charming without Roger's campness and totally believeable in the action stuff. You really feel that this guy would kill you or shag you depending on what was required. And if both were required then that would be okay too. This is a great depiction of the famous spy, possibly the best since Connery. The shots of him emerging from the sea in his skimpy trunks, muscles bulging from pretty much everywhere muscles can bulge from, raised a giggle from me. Dan the sex symbol by way of Dan the Mr Universe? I don't think so. Though I'd be lying if I said the loving closeups of those pearly blue eyes didn't cause a little flutter once or twice. Surely they were photoshopped?

In the end Bond is Bond. Big, loud, silly and fun. The writers and producers have gone to great lengths to trim back the silliness and for the most part succeed. There isn't even room for Q. Apart from a handy defibrulator in his car there isn't a laser pen, spiked boot or killer bowler hat to be seen. After the invisible car of the last film, that's such a relief. The thing is that this raises an interesting point. Is this "new direction" one the makers are willing to pursue? Or is it a one off and sooner or later Bond will be back in space, in the depths of Mount Etna or travelling back in time? Lets face it, every few years Bond is overhauled and brought in a "new direction" and sooner or later the new direction takes a u-turn and heads back to Roger Moore territory. I really hope the producers have more sense than that. Box office wise it has paid off. After 4 weeks on release the film has taken more than the first three Brosnan films took individually in their entire run. Audiences are happy with "serious" Bond and happy with old Danny Boy in the role. It's a good start lads. Just have the balls and the sense to keep it up.

Witty Rapport would make a great name for a Bond girl don't you think?

Me An Action Hero? In My Dreams!

2006-12-07T09:30:00.000Z

Last night I dreamed I was in a Terminator film. Or that I was in a real life Terminator saga, I'm not sure which. It was pretty exciting though. At one point Arnie was the bad guy and the liquid metal T1000 from Terminator 2 was out to protect me. I was John Connor you see. The future leader of the human resistance. Stop sniggering! I could just as easily be the future leader of the human resistance as anyone else. As long as doing that means I get to watch films, drink beer and talk rubbish online. Anyhoo, the highlight was when we were trapped in an upstairs bedroom and Arnie was coming down the hall after us. The T1000 reached out the window and stretched his arm down creating a ladder. It was less T2, more Fantastic Four, but still pretty cool. I swung down, just as Arnie came in, firing his shotgun. I think I woke up after that which was a pity as I have a feeling I was about to kick some serious arse.

I had other dreams too but I won't describe them. Hey, I've been single a long time! Stop judging me!

Go See Pan's Labyrinth!

2006-12-06T17:35:00.000Z

Now!!

The OC

2006-12-06T17:33:00.000Z

"Californiaaaaaa..."

Fuck me I hate that song and the programme it accompanies. The OC represents everything that is wrong with the world. Too dramatic? Not if you ask me. There are no words for the hatred I bear that vapid pile of shit. Though I wouldn't say no to a bit of Seth. Unless he sang that song to me.

"Californiaaaaa..." Smack!

No, as it happens I'm not talking about the Orange County. I am instead talking about a little term made famous by one TS Elliott. The Objective Corellative. Yet another reason why I'm struggling at the moment with my script is because I have no way to outwardly express my character Conor's journey. The fact I'm still unsure exactly what his journey is doesn't help. But I need that thing he is going to do. I need his lost ark, his caravan for his Mother, the English Channel he's going to swim across, the external thing he will accomplish to let us know his inner emotional journey has been fulfilled. Last week my friend suggested that he search for his own Mother's birth Mother and by reuniting them at the end, he reunites himself with his own Mother. I got very excited by this idea but the more I think about it, good though the idea is, I'm just not sure about it for my script. Another friend said to me the other day to consider what my characters are doing in relation to the objective corellative and the outward journey and if I'm having to bring in some outside thing, like his Mother's Mother, then maybe my central characters aren't working hard enough. An interesting point and one I took on board. So this week I'm searching again.

It sounds like it should be easy. Maybe if I were starting from the other way around, ie laying down characters and emotions on top of an OC that would be easier, rather than trying to find an OC for my characters. I don't know if that's necessarily true. Maybe because I've come from a particular point of view I'm just in a "grass is greener" state of mind and am convincing myself that doing anything other than what I am doing would be easier. It's hard to know. All I do know is that finding the "thing" is proving fucking tough. Maybe it's because I don't have enough story material yet? Maybe I'm not giving myself enough options? It seems so easy when you see it done well. But I guess that can be applied to anything. Making something good look easy is usually one of the indicators of something done well. I've had three coffees and made 2 1/3 pages of notes over the last 3 hours and I'm still no closer to finding it. I am now fighting the urge to join some friends who are at the pub tonight. It would be so easy to give up for the day. Sigh.

"From the wrong side to the pool side." Do me a fucking favour...

My Big Fat Gay Drama

2006-12-06T14:38:00.000Z

So what on God's green Earth am I writing?

It's great to be blogging again by the way. I had forgotten how theraputic it is! Though methinks today it's simply a diversion from a hellish writing day.

For years now I've been circling a personal story. My "coming out" story if you want to call it that. The story of my feelings for my straight mate and telling him. Telling my parents and their reaction, though they were very positive so I'd have to inject some significent oomph into it if that's the route I go. And I haven't done it for whatever reason. Starting this course I wanted to do something that was both personally rewarding and challenging. Something that would mean something to me. So of course I started to think about what that would be. 9 weeks in and I've gone through all kinds of permutations. I started with the story of a gay guy falling for a straight guy and it was all a bit Dawson's Creek. A coming out story simply isn't interesting enough and I spent weeks trying to make it work so that the coming out bit would only be step one and the character would learn he has deeper issues. I was wearing my heart on my sleeve at that point and I have to say it felt very strange to be talking about it in those terms with other people. But as I said I'm blessed with a great group on this course, highly supportive and good friends so that made it more comfortable. Somewhere along the way things changed again and currently I'm writing about a gay guy thrown out by his dogmatically religious Mother with whom he must reconcile some years later when it emerges she is dying of AIDS.

Now of course that's the very bare bones of the story. I feel like the story has great potential, certainly the emotion I wanted to create is in there, the characters are starting to get somewhere, it's just the actual story I'm missing. "He does A, B,C and D to get to E." The story, the plotting of that story, this, I'm realising, is the absolute weakest element of my writing. Each Monday we get together, people give comment and feedback and it's great. The problem is that though many of the ideas and much of the feedback is really strong and very helpful, it's all too easy to lose sight of what you were originally trying to do in the first place. That scripts change throughout their development is not only a given but the very reason scripts become great at all. Rewriting is the key. But what I feel I'm missing is the central core of what I was trying to do and this is also changing from week to week which is why I'm currently struggling quite badly. If I had a stable core idea around which stories, characters, plots could change well that would be fine. But when the actual concept changes, for me at least, the work starts to flounder. I knew vaguely I wanted to write a gay character, have an emotional drama and have it personally meaningful. Well, okay great but that's not a concept. What am I trying to say? What do I want to communicate? What do I want my characters to feel? To learn? To experience? And in turn, what do I want an audience to feel, learn and experience?

The truth is I simply don't know.

Now and Then

2006-12-06T13:59:00.000Z

I've just been going over some of the first posts I wrote back in June when I set this blog up and it makes for interesting reading. Well, at least for me. I wrote three posts on why I want to be a writer at a time I was feeling pretty down and lacked confidence. I also wrote posts on what I was doing wrong and how I realised it and how good that is. It's funny really. Back then I thought I was learning. (Back then being only six months ago but it may as well be a lifetime). Now I think I'm learning... What will I be like in another six months?!

I'm really glad I'm feeling happy. If I had embarked upon the course earlier in the year I think I would have really struggled. I really think my lack of self confidence would have gotten the better of me. The things I thought I was doing wrong six months ago, passive characters, poor structure, still apply. They've been joined by one or two other technical elements in need of work...! Serious work! But I feel like I'm being armed with the tools to actually take my stories and make them work and I guess this is the difference in where I am now and where I was then. Before I would have used my lack of progress as an excuse to not write, wind up in a crap circle of self doubt. Now, of course I still worry about whether or not I can write, I have many days where I give up in dispair thinking, it's simply never going to happen. But then I remember something I've learned, something I know now that I didn't know nine weeks ago, whatever that something is. And I think, okay, that can help me somehow.

I thought I had a point in starting this post... It seems to be drifting away from me. Much like the point of my script is at the moment. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I started this blog six months ago because I became determined to change things for myself and to make a real go of realising my dream and my goal of becoming a scriptwriter and I wanted to document it for myself. I wanted to be able to read early posts and see a change in myself. I think that change is begining to appear but maybe not in the way I hoped. I think one of the things I've learned is that I'll always struggle with issues of self doubt but I feel like if I can find a way into this story I am trying to tell then I'll be able to put it together in a way I've never been able to before. I've always known intellectually that scriptwriting is a craft that needs learning, I've just never actually properly realised that A) I wasn't learning half as much about it as I thought I was and B) you're 100% fucked without it. That may sound stupid or obvious but it's something I've learned. And what's great is that when you start to figure out what you're trying to do is all about, then that helps your confidence.

I really feel like I've created an opportunity for myself by doing the MA and I'm determined not to fuck it up. The fear I described in the early posts is back. But it's a new fear. It's the fear that I may soon be out of excuses. I have ideas. I will have the tools necessary to write them. There comes a point with every writer, it seems to me, that things go out of your hands. You learn your craft, generate your ideas, make yourself known and send your script out. After that, you've done all you can and it's in the hands of others. I feel like I'm on a path that will bring me to a point where things will eventually be out of my hands for the first time. Yes I've sent out script before, many, many times. But there were tangible, technical reasons, reasons of craft, why the scripts were rejected. That's not to assume the stories were great, I just wrote them badly. Not at all. I'm just saying that when this course finishes and I send out my work, it'll be different because the ideas will be subject to the most rigerous scrutiny and I'll have (in theory at least) given them the best shot I can. And that's great because it's what I want. And it's scary because my stories and my ideas will be realised and will have to stand on their own two feet. For better or worse.

Of course this is all contingent on my finishing my script. And given where I am with it at the moment, that's a very big "if"! I feel like as my ability to write grows, my sense of what I am writing lessens. But that's for another post. Lucky you!

Testing...testing...

2006-12-05T15:03:00.000Z

Ah my friends... I knew you'd be there waiting with baited breath for the return of your favourite Irish writer in London. And guess what? He's back!

Still no one out there eh? Still talking to myself? Oh well... It's all therapy.

What a few months its been! Turned 30 (had a brilliant party! Sooo cool!) left my beloved flat in West London and said goodbye to Kev my housemate of 8 years (8 fucking years! You might not get that for murder.) and Karen, housemate on and off for 6 years, both my best friends and that was really sad. Left sunny West London for the dark, depraved depths of East London...!! Well it's not that bad. Though it kind of is. I'm in New Cross and I have bars on my windows and the permanent sound of sirens in my ears. And of course the big thing is that I've started my MA in scriptwriting. So far I have to say it's going really well. It's fucking tough going but it's (mostly) very, very good. We have a few duff lectures of course but I'm learning a phenomenol amount and the biggest thing I'm learning is that I knew fuck all about scriptwriting before I started. Which is pretty frightening. What if I hadn't done this course? What if the redundancy hadn't come up? Pointless questions I suppose but it makes me think of fate and coincidence and determining one's own path and all that stuff. I realise that I haven't made it before now because I was kind of stumbling around in the dark, occasionally hitting something, but more often than not unable to see what I was doing or where I was going.

It's interesting because, going in to the course, I was hoping to have an advantage and in some ways I do. Sometimes I feel like I grasp ideas and concepts a little quicker because I've simply been thinking about scriptwriting and actually doing it, however unsuccessfully, for a long time. A worryingly long time in fact. But in general I am in exactly the same boat as everyone else which at first was a little hard to take. I know that may read a little egotistically but I just mean that I have lived and breathed film for so long I was hoping to have a leg up. Now however I have let my ego go and I find myself comforted by my class, my my classmates (who are truly excellent) and by the volume of information I find myself absorbing each week. Our Monday classes, in which we examine storytelling generally and our own work specifically, are always pretty painful but very, very rewarding. In a nutshell, I'm as happy as a pig in shite.

I have of course got plently more to say. But I simply wanted to write something in order to get used to posting again.

Oh nooooo! Oh Jesus Chrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiist!

2006-09-02T11:21:00.000+01:00

I'm kind of in a writing limbo at the moment. I've sent my latest (and hopefully last) draft of my horror script into the script reader for my feedback. That was a couple of weeks ago so it shouldn't take long. I've been making notes on a new script, coming up with new ideas, but I haven't been doing a huge amount that demands thinking through on the blog, hence its been all very quiet on the blog front. So with that in mind we have another film review!

Neil Labute is a director that has long been labelled a mysogonist. Now up front I'll say I don't consider myself sufficiently au fait with his work in order to be able to discuss intelligently how his latest, The Wicker Man remake, fits into his film making canon. So I shall have to limit this post to that film and its predecessor. However, there is a definite mysogonistic current flowing through the film that is difficult to ignore. Gone are the all singing, all dancing, all shagging pagans of the 1973 original. Instead we find a matriarchal colony of "sisters" led by Ellen Burstyn who, fed up with normal, male dominated society, set up a community where men are subservient, used mainly for heavy lifting and that awkward matter of procreation. Also for some reason they have had their tongues removed. Presumably to stop them nagging the women. The irony. The women on the island keep bees and produce their own honey. But when Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) arrives on the island and starts asking questions about a little girl that has disappeared, the women refuse to give him their "honey" and instead give him "sweetener." What complex psycho-sexual metaphors. The women here are liars, trapping the poor old men, turning them into slaves. On this evidence, Freud would have loved an hour with Neil Labute. The nuts and bolts of the story is essentially the same and the famous ending remains intact, though it feels like an eternity before we get there. It also feels like much of what was shot for that finale has been cut from the final film. The trailer showed Malus (who is allergic to bees) being made to wear a helmet filled with bees which was absent in the film. I had also read how the islanders now break his legs as part of a new, beefed up ending. In the film's most naff highlight, over shots of people walking we hear some cracks, some screams then we hear Cage cry out, "My legs, my legs." Either cut it out or keep it in. As it is it's just silly.

I could talk at length how the film blows it at pretty much every turn. A new prologue that gives our hero "issues" adds precisely nothing. A new epilogue is dreadful. Malus suffers flashbacks that are so pointless, irritating, devoid of any tension and offer the cheapest of cheap "scares" that I would have thrown my pick 'n' mix at the screen if it hadn't been so damn tasty. Some of the famous scenes remain, the trip to the school with the empty table and chair, people popping up behind walls with masks on, but they fail to resonate. New scenes include Cage wandering down some sort of crypt for no real reason and while down there he of course suffers another flashback. Terrifying. Yes I could talk at length about these things, but to do that would be to ignore the one truly frightening, unsettling and downright creepy thing in the film. Nicolas Cage. His hair dyed jet black, his teeth unnervingly white and seemingly filed to a point, his skin weirdly saggy at the front yet stretched at the back, his tics coming to the fore at the most random times, it's as if he, also acting as executive producer, has decided to see if he can one-up the islanders in terms of creepiness. And you know what? He succeeds. At times it's like watching some sort of reality show in which an obviously disturbed mental patient has been let loose on a simple bee keeping community. Taken in that light, it becomes much more entertaining. He spends half the film cycling around on a bike, coming over hills into frame in shots that become increasingly hilarious. By the time he mugs a sister at gunpoint for her bike, starts punching the women at random and indeed throwing a few karate kicks for good measure, the whole thing is hilarious. A sequence where he runs from some CGI bees and ends up tumbling down a hill displays a gift for pratfalls and physical comedy I'm just not sure was appropriate in The Wicker Man. Similarly when he thinks he sees the girl he's after in the sea and dives in sideways with limbs flailing, you're having a great laugh but are also thinking, this isn't right...

The original Wicker Man has dated about as badly as it's possible for a film to date but it's still a great story with some fantastic scenes, a great central character and performance from The Equalizer. Sergeant Howie was a man of dignity, an everyman we were able to become invested in. He was also of course a man of strong religious belief and a virgin. Oh how I would have loved for Nicolas Cage to try and convince us he was virgin but alas it wasn't to be. Though that said, given how weird he is in this film it may not have been much of a stretch. The original also boasts a genuinely unsettling atmosphere and of course has THAT ending. I'm not so in love with it that I went into the remake with a scowl on my face and hate in my heart. Rather I went in with a kind of morbid curiosity. In the right role, Nicolas Cage is perfectly fine, though for many he seems to be an aquired taste. With this he has become cinema's strangest performer. Rent The Wicker Man remake on DVD, watch it while pissed and in between being bored silly, you'll have some great laughs at his expense.

By the way the main character is called Edward. And the little girl he has come to the island to find is called Rowan Woodward. Genius.

Snakes on a Plane Review

2006-08-20T16:24:00.000+01:00

Ahem, well there are snakes. And they're on a plane.

Excellent.

Dear God, There's A Lady In My Water!

2006-08-13T10:08:00.000+01:00

I also saw Nacho Libre which will be a quick review so they're both in one post...

Nacho Libre is very hit and miss. Many gags fall flat on their face, indeed there are what feel like long sections without any gags at all. But then at other times I found myself laughing out loud, even if most of the belly laughs come from Jack Black doing a silly "Mechico" accent. What can I say? My comedic needs are small. Black plays Ignatio, a put upon helper at a monastery that houses orphans. Ignatio dreams of becoming a wrestler and creates his alter ego Nacho. Along with his partner Esqueleto (a very funny Hector Jimenez) they form a tag team and begin to take on a variety of oddball pairings, with varying degrees of comedic success, on their quest to become as famous as the greatest wrestler of them all, Ramses. Nacho Libre has emerged in what feels like a real dry spell in terms of comedy and as a result is very welcome. It will hardly go down as one of the great comedies but there is just enough to keep the viewer laughing and Nacho's big heart and good intentions will keep everyone onside. At times Black's mugging becomes grating, performing"silly" songs he wrote in a "silly" voice making "silly" faces as he does. He's such a big silly! But at others his gift for comedy lifts the film. Jared Hess ( director of Napoleon Dynamite) creates the appropriate chaotic tone and a good supporting cast ensure Nacho Libre will have you leaving the cinema smiling.

A quick little bit of backdrop is required next. When I first read about Lady in the Water, a bedtime story about a lonely janitor who finds a water nymph in his pool, alarm bells really started to go off. Particularly given that this was M Night Shyamalan's next film I thought that the guy was becoming a victim of his own ideas and unfortunately believing the early hype that surrounded him. Early trailers did nothing do change my mind and the reviews have been at best mixed. It was therefore really only out of a love of watching Paul Giamatti that I went to see the film, even though I was desperately trying to keep my mind open as I went in. And I'm very glad I did. Lady in the Water is that rare thing, a film that surprises you in a good way. Now I'm going to qualify that immediately. Lady in the Water is a film that many people will not just hate but I'd say, really detest. Its talk of narfs, madame narfs, scrunts and a whole host of creatures that won't be found in any dictionary I'm aware of will be an immediate barrier for some. Its optimism will be deemed calculated and mercenary, the fact that everyone in the story simply accepts what's happening on faith and there are no "I can't believe this is true" scenes will be called unrealistic. But the clue is in the "bedtime story" tag. Accept what it is, go with the story and you may find yourself imersed in a very unique film, one that is mercifully devoid of a last minute twist, one that is beautifully shot by DP Christopher Doyle and one that boasts a fantastic central performance by Paul Giamatti as Cleveland Heep. Heep is janitor of The Cove apartment block who finds himself living in a real bedtime story as Story (Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of Happy Days actor and some time director Ron Howard), a creature we are told will bring optimism and hope to mankind, appears in his swimming pool to connect with one of the building's tennants. Other people we are told have important roles in sending Story back to her world, unharmed by the scrunt that is after her. Scrunts are dog like creatures with grass for fur that makes them all but invisible when, well, when they're hiding in grass... See? Already I'm sure many of you are clicking that big X in the corner of the screen and wondering why you've given this review so much time when you could have been watching Dirty Debra's webcam.

The film is far from perfect. The building is populated by a variety of characters that aren't really characters you see, they're archetypes from stories, and each of these people will have a role to play in the film. This story within a story idea, the fact that the story we are watching is a commentary on the nature of story telling itself and the people populating it are storytelling devices works with mixed success. Shyamalan often confuses stereotype for archetype, the group of stoners for example, the traditional, conservative Korean Mother. Worse still is Bob Balaban's film critic who seems to have no other purpose in the film other than to be a way for Shyamalan to voice his dislike of film critics. It's clunky, irritating and apparantly forgetful of the fantastic reviews Shyamalan has enjoyed for much of his career. If people hated The Village Night, maybe that's because it was shite? And not because we "didn't get it?" Worst of all is Shyamalan's insistence of casting himself in roles of increasing importance. The narf is here to connect with a man whose writing will change the world. Oh Night no...oh you haven't...oh God you have... Yes the weirdly expressionless mug of the auteur/wanker takes centre stage this time in a dreadfully ego massaging piece of stunt casting that for me seriously undermined what is one of the film's many great ideas, that something you do now will have huge impact in years to come, you just don't know it yet.

Lady in the Water is a very brave film in that, rarely has someone set themselves up for such a fall as M Night Hitchberg does here. The critical backlash, which has begun in earnest, will I am sure, convince filmgoers to stay away in their droves. But this is annoying because I am equally sure that if a first time director had made this, the reviews would be very positive, telling us this is a director with imagination, visual flair, willing to take a chance and do something different. Shyamalan is all those things and crucially he is one of very few directors working in mainstream Hollywood with near total creative autonomy working on original material. Yes he has his influences that he wears on his sleeve, no his films aren't perfect, and yes the man has ego problems and issues of self importance. But in a time when studios are apparently only willing to greenlight comic book adaptations, sequels, remakes, TV adaptations or, as a last resort if there's nothing left to plunder, book adaptations, someone like Shyamalan is very important. I will stand up and say I hated The Village as much as anyone. Boring, plodding, unbelieveable, dreadful dialogue. But that twist held the kernal of something interesting for a different film. The Sixth Sense is a wonderful film, Unbreakable is let down by a weak ending but for me it's a very good film, Signs blows it completely by the end but for the most part is creepy, scary and alot of fun. The man has good ideas, puts interesting spins on old stories and themes and in the end is a good storyteller. And let's not forget his films make money. Even his considered disappointments The Village and Unbreakable made $256 million and $248 million worldwide respectively on mid range budgets. There's many a $100+ million budgeted Poseidon or Van Helsing that would kill for those returns. This film hasn't done particularly well Stateside and after the critical drubbing he received for The Village I hope he won't feel compelled to tread safer ground for his next film. Sixth Sense 2 or something

But a film must of course be judged on its own terms. As I said Lady in the Water is not for everyone certainly but if you want something a little different, a little unusual, something that takes a leap of faith, then I would recomend it. The heart of the film is Giamatti. His tender, believeable, charasmatic performance anchors the film and sells every potentially laughable moment, in a way a lesser actor could not. Great cinematography, a nice score by regular Shyamalan contributor James Newton Howard, a good pace and in the end, a good story built on a great central idea make Lady in the Water a surprisingly enjoyable film.

If you're in the mood that is.

Damn that Shyamalan. Nothing's ever simple.

Chubby Checker could do it. Why can't I?

2006-08-06T17:56:00.000+01:00

Do not read this post if you haven't seen the film Seven. I need to talk about its ending and I will give it away. It's a cracking film so don't let me spoil it now. Go no further my friends!!

Is that enough of a gap? Couple more lines methinks!

Okay here we go! I was talking with a friend the other night about Seven. I refuse to write Se7en, the way the marketing people did. I love the film and had recently rewatched it. My friend hadn't seen it since the cinema and said he loved it up until the end. The problem my friend, also an aspiring writer, had is that for him it's obvious and signposted. In the car journey, John Doe (Kevin Spacey) is taunting Mills (Brad Pitt) about how he can't wait for Mills to see the huge surprise he has planned, he says this a number of times. My mate's argument is that we've essentially only been introduced to 4 characters. Mills, John Doe, Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) and Mill's wife Tracey, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Now old Gwynny has been on the periphery of the film, we know she's pregnant, the huge surprise serial killer Doe has orchestrated will have particular resonance for Mills... so guess what the end is? The van turns up, "What's in the baaaax?" And there's a head in the box. My mate saw it coming, found it obvious and reckons it undermines all the good work the film has done up to that point. Now I definately have sympathy for that view. The film has worked so hard that it's going to be very difficult to come up with a 100% satisfying ending. For me, once I saw the guy take out the box I knew there was a head in it and it didn't take much guessing to work out whose it is. But ultimately I like the ending. I think it's brave to let the killer win. Even though he dies, he has got exactly what he wants. I like the way the use of the seven sins is resolved, in particular making Brad Pitt's character the embodiment of wrath. And, even if you've seen it coming, cutting off the protagonist's wife's head and posting it to him in a box is a pretty dark way to end a film.

But of course all conversation about that film makes me think of my own work... The problem is I am trying to make work an ending for my horror film. And my mate's comment that because we've only seen 4 characters, three of whom we're currently watching so clearly this surprise is related to the fourth, has resonance for my own ending. Viewed that way, the end is apparent long before it ever happens. Indeed viewed any way, when I read through it today I thought immediately it's signposted. It's potentially a really good twist ending. Not a twist for a twist's sake, but one that makes narrative sense, makes sense for what the story is and what it's about and puts what's gone before in a slightly different context. Not to the extent something like Sixth Sense or Usual Suspects twist endings do, but it definately gives you a feeling of, "He was fucked from the start." But in a good way. I hope. The problem is I need to have a particular character turn up in the script, disappear, then come back at the end revealed for what he really is. Currently it's badly done for a couple of reasons. The first is that he has no dramatic function other than to serve the twist which is fatal. The second is what my mate identified in Seven. There are 4 characters. This guy is coming back and if I'm following this story at all, I think I see how he'll come back.

So how do I make it work? Fuck knows. I've had a pretty good day's writing, I've improved alot of what I've written, solved another major problem that's been bugging me. But I'm on page 78 and I'm starting the last act, where everything is about to come together on what is meant to be the day of Armageddon. It can never be too dramatic. And I need to know how it's going to fit before I can properly start to write it. Our Mr Twist is about to reappear you see. So I need to come up with a convincing way of placing him in the story, giving him a dramatic function we believe then at the end reveal what he really is and what he's doing.

Fuck this is hard! But then I guess if it was easy everyone would be doing it right? Maybe I need to think out of the box.

"What's in the baaaaax?"

Crockett and Tubbs via Toni and Guy.

2006-08-05T10:10:00.000+01:00

I remember when I went to see Alexander at the cinema, quite the experience as anyone who has seen it will testify. I remember thinking that I will never again see Colin Farrell sport hair like he had in that film. Magnificent, flowing locks that were given as many opportunities to flap in the wind that could be reasonably motivated. Well clearly someone watched Alexander, thought similarly, took it up as a challenge and presented their ideas to Michael Mann during pre-production on Miami Vice. There is a 5 minute section about 40 minutes into Miami Vice that, when it is out on DVD, will be a chapter in itself and will doubtless be entitled, "The Three Stages of Crockett's Bonnet." Stage 1 is admiration. Farrell drives Gong Li to Cuba in a speedboat, for no discernable reason other than to let us bask in the beauty of the Farrell Mullet billowing in the wind against the sunset. What woman could possibly resist such a mane? None. Which brings us neatly to stage 2. Washing. Farrell and Li end up in the shower together and as the water hits the hair, it seems to suddenly fill the frame, regardless of what angle Mann shoots it from. It also seems to end up at Farrell's knees and Li tries her best to find the bizzarre follicle explosion occurring in front of her sexually attractive. Stage 3, drying. Arguably the most entertaining scene of the film, Farrell sits on the bed, Li produces a towel and in much the same way one might dry a poodle after its bath, she begins to towel dry the mullet which by this stage had me thinking that it was surely deserving of its own credit. It was, after all, the only interesting thing in the film.

Miami Vice is drivel. Beautiful drivel to be sure. One expects any Michael Mann film to be, if nothing else, gorgeous to look at. And that it is. But that is all it is. It starts off interestingly, with no credits, no idents for the production companies, no intro of any kind. We're plunged into the middle of an operation in a nightclub with Crockett and Tubbs, or as one reviewer described them, "Florida's scuzziest drug dealer and a black Fu Manchu." I'll get to Jamie Foxx's goatee shortly. This opening goes nowhere as an old informant contacts them as the latest covert operation he is involved in is going seriously haywire and our heroes leave the club to find him. The "bad guys" do "bad things" and Crockett and Tubbs now embark on the most unconvincing undercover work ever filmed as, looking increasingly like police officers with each passing second, they manage to infiltrate an enormous international drugs network, Farrell fails to teach Gong Li how to speak intelligible English, Foxx scowls and wears shades, they drive fast cars and speedboats and... yep that about covers it. The story is incoherent, with the dialogue at times impossible to understand, either growled out by Foxx and Farrell or else mangled by Li. Though when lines of dialogue were audible it made me feel like I really wasn't missing much when they weren't. "This is like gravity. And you can't fight gravity." Fuck, he's right! You can't fight gravity! The climactic gun fight, though decently staged and surprisingly gory, though all the more believeable for that given the weapons they were using, is a huge let down. Of course not every gun fight can or indeed should be like the famous one in Heat as De Niro and his crew are confronted by Pacino and his as they leave the bank. That still ranks in my top ten action sequences for sheer tension, energy, spectacle and emotional investment. However while the mechanics, location and dramatic function of the action should differ, surely some tension, energy, spectacle and emotional investment are useful regardless of the circumstances?

I didn't think much of Collateral when I first saw it. A subsequent viewing on DVD did nothing to change my mind. But in the light of Miami Vice I feel compelled to revisit it. There is no denying Michael Mann's credentials. Throughout the 90s he made consistently great films, Last of the Mohicans, Heat and The Insider which is one of my favourite films of all time. He also gave us Manhunter which, despite being painfully 80s, is still a great thriller and a great adaptation of Thomas Harris' source novel. Mann wrote Heat, co-wrote The Insider with Eric Roth, co-adapted Last of the Mohicans, co-adapted Manhunter so he has a proven track record as a writer. The first little blip for me was Ali. Though certainly good, it was somehow unsatisfying. The downward spiral continued with the ludicrous Collateral and now he finds himself thoroughly swimming through the quagmire with Miami Vice. There are flashes of interest. Crockett and Tubbs are not your standard buddy pairing. Indeed they communicate very little with each other, an idea which could have been very interesting but as it is onscreen, just feels flat. The story and script simply aren't there. As I mentioned above, the film looks fantastic, shot on Mann's beloved new HD by Director of Photography Dion Beebe. He has a way of framing a shot, of capturing a moment, that is simply unlike any other director. A Michael Mann film can be recognised after a few seconds by its look and that is one of the hallmarks of a great director in my opinion. Unfortunately another hallmark is to make great films and this is very, very far from a great film. That above everything else is what makes Miami Vice so disappointing. I write this review as a genuine fan of the director.

I really want to see Mann bounce back with something special. When his visual style, his way of telling a story and the themes that interest him collide with strong material, the results are fantastic. The only thing on display here that is in any way fantastic, is the phenomenol use of what grows so abundantly on Colin Farrell's head.

Change = Success

2006-07-25T09:49:00.000+01:00

My last week at the BBC... Come Friday I'll be officially unemployed!

I veer between excitement and nerves in equal measure. I don't want to be melodramatic, people have done much bigger things than leave a job, change flatmates and return to University. But you know, everything is relative right? And for a cautious, some may say unadventurous soul such as myself, such change weighs somewhat heavily. I get so excited by the possibilities sometimes. I've been writing steadily for about a week and a half now. I hit a bit of a wall yesterday but nothing insurmountable. It's one of those bridging points where I'm at a particular stage, I know where I need to get to, I'm just not sure of how to get there. I keep writing scenes to think of ideas of working through then deleting the scenes when they're no good. That's just how I work. Hopefully it won't be long before the bridge is built and then I'll be in the home straight, I'm on page 78 at the moment. After that it's a little rewriting, another professional read, and then hopefully I can start sending it out. I really want it out long before I start the MA as I want to put this script to bed once and for all and I don't intend to make it the script I work on for the year.

I'm rambling a little bit here, this started out by my saying I get excited by the possibilities and this is compounded by my writing going well at the moment. It's always good to change, if not the direction, then certainly the route you're taking. It's just funny because the people you're leaving behind always assume it'll lead to success. Everyone here has been saying to me how good it'll be (even the cleaner this morning in her limited English, while also making sure I'm not yet 40, told me how good it is) while lamenting their own apparent lack of progress. Maybe it's a grass is always greener thing. Maybe people genuinely see potential in me and are happy to see me do something about fulfilling it. Maybe people always like the idea of changing everything to do something different, which isn't strictly speaking what I'm doing but you know what I mean. It's the romance I guess, the excitement of the unknown. And that is certainly true. It's just when people follow it up with the "it'll be great and you'll do so well and we'll see you on TV in a couple of years..." I always get a bit uncomfortable. It's the old, "You'll take me to the Oscars won't you?" that my friends do alot. I know there's nothing really behind it and the problem is mine, but that doesn't stop me hating it! Of course it's good to make a real go of something, of course it's good to make changes and mix things up. But there's nothing inevitable or certain at the end of it. Certainly not chat shows or award nominations. Though my answers and acceptance speech have been prepared. Because, well you know, it doesn't hurt to be prepared right? It's just me I suppose. I'm an odd mix of being a dreamer, of living anywhere but on planet Earth, and then of thinking quite pragmatically and logically about other things. I still haven't been able to discern how different things fall into which category. When it comes to my future, both categories house various elements. On the one hand, I live in my script worlds sometimes, I can pass whole tube journies lost in a variety of film/script related scenarios. Then at other times I think completely rationally and while I can happily dream about accepting my oscar I know that it's so far from being inevitable that I just get really awkward when people say these things.

Yes, yes I know I'm overthinking and I know people are just being nice. And then there's the fact that I don't take compliments very well. Nothing's ever easy is it? I think subconsciously what happens when people say stuff like that is that, I'm reminded of the potential that exists for me, I'm reminded of how much I want this, and I'm reminded of how I'll feel if it doesn't happen. Not how devestated I'll be if I never end up on Parkinson, but if I one day aren't simply making my living by writing films. Again, I know I overthink. And truth be told I think it's a moment of self doubt creeping in. Plus it's an ego thing. I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve a bit about certain things and anyone remotely close to me knows how much I want to write scripts so there's always that thing of, "what'll everyone think if I don't make it?" The logical part of me knows that is rubbish however and at the end of the day the only person that really matters in all this is me. I guess all I'm saying is that change can bring great reward, particularly when done in the kind of determined frame of mind I find myself in these days. Certainly without a willingness to change, no one will ever succeed at anything. And I'm happy with myself for instigating it. It's just that it won't necessarily bring about the desired result. And that's the first thing that goes through my head whenever people tell me what a success I'll be having left the Beeb and returned to college. Nothing will necessarily bring about that result. Well, nothing except writing a killer script that falls into the right hands at the right time. Come to think of it, it doesn't even have to be all that killer. But that's what I'm aiming for.

At the end of the day, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I think it's just that today is more a day of nerves than of excitement.

Nostalgia Saturday Takes a Darker Turn... With Travis

2006-07-16T23:30:00.000+01:00

No not the "Why does it always rain on me" singing band. Though their blandness would have made for a darker turn of events. No I'm talking about Travis Bickle. The geat anti hero of cinema. After the jubilation of Raiders of the Lost Ark came the despair of Taxi Driver. And I loved it.

Taxi Driver remains one of the great films. A phenomenol performance from De Niro which only makes his fall from cinematic grace in recent years that much more depressing. A great script by Paul Schrader, wonderful direction by Scorsese, a great score by Bernard Herrmann... I find that film grabs me and shakes me around for two hours, like it's a desperate parent trying to shake some sense into its child, then finally lets me go. But it's so eminantly watchable, which in some ways is a paradox given how dark the film is. I think it's De Niro's performance that's so compulsive. That anger, rage, just below the surface. Bubbling away. The script of course achieves this also and is fantastically structured. Travis expends his pent up energy and his attempts to connect with people, firstly on trying to woo Cybil Shepherd's Betsy, in one of the film's standout scenes, by taking her to a porn film. When that fails, his energy increases, his anger increases, he tries to confide in his colleague Wizard (Peter Boyle) that he's having "bad thoughts" but Wizard just tells him he'll be okay. He then turns his attention to 12 1/2 year old prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster). He tries to save her aswell as cleaning up the streets a little bit by killing all the scum he sees around her.

Driving his taxi, Travis is privy to the very worst New York has to offer. He's sickened by it, disturbed by it. Yet what's interesting is that he does this by choice. At the start of the film he is explicitly asked if there is anywhere he won't drive to or any days he won't work. His answer is the same both times. "Anytime, anywhere." He doesn't necessarily have to be surrounded by all this but his own self loathing and his abhorrence at what he sees all around him are inextricably linked. At the end of his shifts he has to "wash the cum off the back seat". He then goes to a porno theatre, comes on to the woman selling the sweets etc, and, having his advances refused, sinks low into his chair to watch the film. The link between sex and violence is ever present, both in Travis and in the city around him. When Betsy finally spurns Travis for good, he confronts her in her work place. Attempting to escort him out of the building, Tom (Albert Brooks) finds himself receiving karate gestures from Travis that, while somewhat comical, nonetheless hint that this is a person who will always react outwards rather than looking in to see how his own behaviour may have contributed to his predicament. A short time later, his passenger is a deranged man (Scorses himself making a cameo) who is watching his wife cheat on him. He talks at length to Travis how he's going to kill the man with a .44 Magnum, the gun Travis ends up doing much of his own killing with. Sex and violence, always interlinked.

So much has been written about Taxi Driver and I don't really feel I have very much new to add. Nor do I have a nostalgic anecdote about this film. Somewhat unsurprisingly I didn't watch it with my Dad and brother at the age of nine. But it's a visceral, arresting film. From the early images of the cab emerging from what looks like Hell, with the red neon and the steam erupting from city grates, to the final images of carnage Travis has caused in an attempt to make a statement, to make a difference, to in some way belong, the film never lets up. And what's interesting is that the ending allows him a chance to belong with the letter of gratitude he receives from Iris' parents that they now have their little girl back. Of course we know it's a pretty meaningless redemption. He was trying to save her, yes. But not because it was her specifically. It could have been anyone. It happened to be her because she stumbled across his cab one night when she looked like she was in trouble. Interesting also is the allusion to, but never explicitely stated idea that, Travis is a scarred Vietnam vet. His clothing indicate military background. With his shirt removed, we see a battle scarred body and of course he is more than competent with firearms. At his interview at the start of the film he tells his employer that he has been honoroubly discharged from active duty. But the film never directly links his disturbed nature with his military background. Is that the cause of his current state? Presumably not, which is why I've always assumed the film doesn't make a clear connection. Indeed, it's reasonable to assume Travis joined the military in the first place as another way to connect, to make a difference, possibly even to provide himself an outlet for his violent tendencies.

You'll never see a better portrayal of a man lost, a man searching for something, for what he doesn't even know himself, than Taxi Driver. A picture of alienation, Travis Bickle remains one of cinema's most riveting characters, written by a writer at his most raw, portrayed by one of the greatest living actors back when he still gave a shit. I had never before seen Taxi Driver on the big screen. After yesterday, it'll be hard to watch it any other way.

Nostalgia Saturday Continues

2006-07-16T22:20:00.000+01:00

What a treat. Last week it was Back to the Future the Empire was showing. Apparently continuing the trend of showing older movies, they had a truly awesome double bill this week. The second film I'll devote another (much more difficult) post to. The first? Only the film I would choose as my all time favourite if a gun was ever put to my head to force me to choose an all time favourite film. Raiders of the Lost Ark.

This might come off as one of those irritating, soundbite stories stars tell on chat shows in order to get across just how much they love films and why they were inspired to get involved and how they're not just vacant models in it for the money, but seeing as how I'm not famous or a model or indeed on a chat show I hope you'll believe the sincerity of the tale. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of those films that I just love and, as good as it is, the logical part of me knows it isn't as good as I think it is. Michael Mann's Last of the Mohicans is another such film. In the case of Raiders, I think it's that, it was the first film that switched me on to films. And here's the romantic story... I reckon this was the first time it was shown on TV. It was probably 1984/5, I would have been 8 or 9. My Mum was in hospital, my eldest brother wasn't at home (I'm not sure if he was in the States yet or not), I was at home with my brother Brian and my Dad. In our living room there's a chair and a couch that sit opposite the TV and there's a gap between the end of the couch and the wall. Well as a child, I would sit on the floor in that gap and play with my lego or cars or whatever I happened to be playing with that day. Bed time was either 8pm or 9pm, this was a long time ago so I'm a bit sketchy on some of the details. For the sake of this post we'll say bedtime was 9. So about 7.50 both Dad and my brother tell me that there's this film coming on TV that they're looking forward to watching and I can't make noise while it's on, as I would be if I were playing. My choice is simple. I put away the toys and either, A go to bed an hour early, or B sit quietly and watch the first hour of this film until 9.00pm comes and then I go to bed. Well you know what it's like when you're a child. Death by torture is preferable to going to bed early so I put my toys away and sit dutifully on the couch. Now I didn't have much of a clue of what films were, other than being vaguely aware they were long and, though I would have had neither the cognissance nor the vocabulary to verbalise this, beyond my attention span. So I sat there, sullen, ready to be bored, but unwilling to relinquish an hour of waking life. And then it started.

The jungle, cool. Who is this guy wandering around the jungle? Hey that's cool, what did he just use to take the gun from the guy who tried to shoot him? A whip? Wow. Look at this, they're in a cave and his friend's covered in spiders!! What's his name? Indianna Jones? Coool! Oh my God the whole place is collapsing around him and there's arrows flying at him and LOOK AT THAT BOULDER!!

Of course it's a great opening sequence but to an imaginative, creative, impressionable child it was mesmerising. I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing and how I was seeing it. How was this possible? Dad had explained how they use cameras to film things and that they then put it all together and I always remember thinking during the opening sequence when the boulder is after him, the camera must be in front of him in this shot. But now it's behind him... Why can't I see the camera in front of him? But I didn't have time to think as he was then outside and facing Belloq and the Hovitos. And really that just didn't cut it anyway. How was this possible? I was so excited by this thing, it couldn't just be cameras. Who was doing what to make me feel like this? Well bedtime came and went. Wild horses could not have dragged me from the couch. There was a shoot out in a bar, there was a chase around the streets of some strange looking city with really narrow looking streets, there was a bit with some kind of laser from the sun I didn't understand, then, "Snakes... Why'd it have to be snakes?" which made me laugh. There was a cool fight between Indy and this huge guy...

I'll quit the second rate Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time writing style to talk about the truck chase. That still ranks in my top 5 favourite action sequences of all time and any thoughts that it's there purely for romantic reasons were dispelled seeing it on the big screen yesterday. Here's why it's so good. It means something. It's not an action sequence thrown in for the sake of it, because it's between too long since the last action sequence and the audience might be getting bored. We've spent around 80 minutes watching Indy do what it takes to get the ark before the nazis do but he's just lost to them. They have the ark, they were going to transport it via plane but Indy scuppored that plan so now it's loaded onto a truck and what's he going to do now? This means so much to him and so it means so much to us. Of course it's an exciting sequence in its own right. The fight in the cab of the truck leading to him being thrown out and sliding beneath the truck to climb back in the back is still one of the great heroic moments in film. But what really makes it work is that we care about its outcome. What happens here matters. It's the same reason the car chase in the French Connection is so good (and is still my favourite car chase from any film). We've watched Popeye Doyle become obsessed with catching Alain Charnier and when he's speeding through the streets, risking his life and that of many an innocent bystander chasing the elevated train, we are gripped because the outcome matters so much. The truck sequence in Raiders is just wonderful. Nothing else in the three films comes close, good as they are.

I was a very nervous child. Really, this nervousness has carried into adulthood, but as a child everything would scare me. Every family has their stories they like to laugh about. In mine, it's the one about how I was in the room when Michael Jackson's Thriller was first shown. Despite my brother's warnings, I stayed put as it had been such a hyped event. Also on TV at the time, Robert Powell was playing Jesus in Jesus of Nazareth. So when Michael Jackson's eyes turned red at the start of the video, I started screaming and was heard to yell, "Turn over Jesus of Nazareth!!!" So with this in mind, my Dad and brother were quite alarmed when I was still up to see the finale of Raiders with the angels turning to skeletons, the fire shooting into the nazis and of course the famous melting and exploding heads. They may have asked me if I wanted to go to bed now as this was a bit scary but I was too invested in it. And the odd thing is I wasn't scared. I was just in complete awe of how something had managed to grip me this much for 2 hours. I was very sorry it ended and I didn't sleep much that night. I also remember visiting Mum in hospital maybe the next day or a couple of days later and all I was able to do was babble on about this film I had seen.

So seeing the film on the big screen, the way it was meant to be seen, was such a joy. I guess now when I watch Raiders all of what I've just described is still at the back of my mind. I'm reminded of the excitement of childhood discovery and the impact things have on you at that tender age. I remember the feeling I had when I saw it for the first time, and every trip to the cinema since has had accompanying it, the hope that I'll recapture that feeling. This attempt to get into film writing carries with it the hope that I'll one day have a hand in making some kid feel equally excited about a film. I know how that might read and I really don't care. Raiders of the Lost Ark holds alot of feeling and passion for me. And I do not allow myself to notice its faults. Just to bask in the unashamed glow of sheer entertainment. Of a wonderful hero, of great storytelling, of superb action set pieces. Of cinema at it's very best.

Of course this isn't the logical part of me talking. It never is when it comes to Raiders.

Man Of Steel? Patience Of Steel More Like...

2006-07-15T08:53:00.000+01:00

...Are what's required if you're going to inflict Superman Returns on yourselves. I beg you, don't do it! Stay away in your droves! Only then will they learn! Bryan Singer is the biggest one hit wonder currently working. Usual Suspects is a phenomenol film, very well directed it must be said. Apt Pupil for me doesn't work. X Men is lame, X Men 2 set a new benchmark in dull films that has only now been surpassed with Superman Returns.

The "story", such as it is, picks up 5 years after Superman 2 finishes, conveniently ignoring the flops that were Superman 3 and 4, though on more than one occasion I found myself praying for a Nuclear Man to arrive and liven things up. Superman has been away looking for his home planet of Krypton after astronomers think they have found bits of a newly destroyed planet. Now back in Metropolis, his alter ego Clark Kent picks up his old job at the Daily Planet. Old flame Lois Lane (gone from the craggy, 40 a day but spunky and believeable Margot Kidder to the offensively bland Kate Bosworth, one of an entire generation of actresses that seem to come off a conveyor belt in Hollywood) now has a new man and a son. And a Pulitzer. Clearly time waits for no superhero. Meanwhile old nemesis Lex Luthor is out of prison and seems intent on creating a continent from crystals he steals from Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the North Pole (where Christopher Reeve hitchhiked to wearing nothing but a little jacket to keep him warm in Superman 2. Fuck being able to fly, that guy's hard!) and some kryptonite he steals from a museum. Yes you read that right. The plot really is that he's creating a continent.

Things get off to a good start. Singer and co have made the smart move of retaining John Williams iconic, bombastic 1970s score. The opening of the film sees Krypton destroyed, Marlon Brando return from the grave and THAT music kick in, complete with titles reminiscent of the original film's. So far so nostalgic. But like a car that just won't start despite having $200 million thrown at it, so Superman Returns goes absolutely nowhere. And takes 2 1/2 hours to get there. It's a good 45 minutes before Superman makes an appearance, but the time leading up to it is not build up. It's not set up. It's not anticipation. It's weirdly bland, scenes come and go without any real point or urgency. Then it's as if someone shouted, "Holy shit lads this is Superman. Shouldn't we introduce him? You know, maybe have him do something?" There follows a sequence in which Superman saves an out of control shuttle attached to a 747 on which Lois is trapped. The sequence is fantastically realised but it just isn't anything new. It doesn't set the pulse racing. And worse, it is basically the only action sequence in the film. There are one or two other minor moments of action. At one point a gang of criminals are robbing a bank with a huge fuck-off canon mounted on the roof of the bank. Why? Seemingly because Singer and the writers think it'll look cool to have them fire it at Superman as he walks towards them. He then stops a bullet with his eye. Again it looks very impressive but there's nothing behind it, no emotion. In total the heroics of the film maybe add up to 20 minutes. It feels as if everyone is going through the motions of what they think a Superman film requires but they've missed the sense of fun the original films had.

Don't misunderstand me, the original films are far from perfect. At well over two hours long, they're both in need of a trim and have their share of dull stretches. But they always bounce back with something great to keep us on side. Gone is the chemistry between Clark and Lois, gone is the fantastic glint of Superman in the eyes of Clark Kent Christopher Reeve was able to deliver. And crucially, gone is the variey of action the original film had. Saving Lois in the falling helicopter, becoming a human drill to tunnel down to Luthor's layer, capturing criminals at work, sending the Earth rotating backwards to turn back time. In the second film, saving the child at Niagra Falls, all those great moments in the battles with Zod and co. Different things to mix it up, show the range of his powers and keep us entertained. In Superman Returns, the only type of heroics the writers and Singer can come up with is to have Superman continually prevent heavy objects from falling on people's heads. Indeed gone is the action, full stop. The new film is dull, dull, dull. Over serious, laboured, a masterclass in how to not entertain people. Kevin Spacey is probably the best thing in the film and he's clearly doing his best but he just isn't serviced by the script. He doesn't have one memorable line or action. Indeed none of the cast do. And what of Brandon Routh? Certain angles and certain expressions he makes are eerily similar to the late Christopher Reeve and, particularly in his scenes as Clark Kent, he seems to be riffing on Reeves' performance. He's okay in his own right, serviceable, but once again, ultimately let down by having very little to do. The visual effects are stunning for the most part. But it's strange because it just amounts to Superman flying around, going nowhere, doing nothing. But hey look, he's flying again!

Whenever the old Superman theme kicked in I felt absolutely cheated. This film and its hero does not deserve such a rousing anthem behind them. However I was very grateful for it because without it, I would have surely been asleep the whole time.

Back In The Saddle

2006-07-13T19:16:00.000+01:00

Not literally. I went horse riding for the first time about 5 years ago. It was in North Dakota with my brother and his then girlfriend and we were supposed to do a 5 day trek through the badlands. The scenery was unlike anything I had ever seen, it was so spectacular. Almost as spectacular as the pain in my testicles, arse and lower back. The 100 degree heat and the fact that we were riding on paths barely the width of the horse, 1300 feet above sea level with a sheer drop on one side, did not add to the fun! I wish I was built for the outdoors. Alas I'm not and a 5 day trek became a 1 day trek. I cannot recomend a trip to North Dakota highly enough if what you seek is beautiful scenery and clean air. Just don't go on a horse.

No what I mean is that today was the first day I did any proper writing in many weeks and it felt really nice. I wrote about 12 pages, rewrote it, repositioned scenes and deleted a few bits and pieces. It's a dark horror film, about God and the Devil, guilt and redemption and the idea that the final battle of time will be fought by 1000 souls, chosen by Satan and tormented by him until they give him their souls and end up on the side of evil. The only way to end up on the side of good is to live through the torment. The Vatican has teams of specialised priests roaming the planet searching for the chosen. When they find one, they take him or her back to the Vatican, drug them and make them live out their life in solitude, the idea being they are unable to give themselves to Satan so will end up on the side of good. Our central character, Bill, is one of these priests and one of the chosen. When he discovers he is chosen, he has to go on the run as the priests are after him to take him back to the Vatican, as well as survive the horror of the torment and patch things up with his Mother who he thinks plays a key role in proceedings. There is of course a terrible twist... Mwa ha ha ha!! It's an interesting idea I think, it's the kind of horror I like, good and evil, plenty of psychological repercussions, not much gore or violence for violence sake, and it takes itself seriously. Comedy horror is really big these days and it's fine in small doses. Shaun of the Dead is probably the best for me, Tremors is fun too, maybe one or two others, but really I prefer my horror played straight. I want to be scared, on the edge of my seat, looking at the backs of people's heads or at the exit sign, anywhere but at the screen!

I think part of why I haven't been writing is because I know that when I do write again, I'm doing so armed with new weapons to make the script really work and if it goes wrong, it won't be out of ignorance but out of plain, old fashioned fucking up! I sat down in front of the computer this morning with a little trepidation but then I remembered that I enjoy writing, that I like the story I'm working on, and that I know a little more now than I did a while ago. It's just about not making the old mistakes. Presumably I'm making all new ones instead.

But at the back of my mind all the time I was thinking, Bill is willing to do anything to achieve his goal (to find a way to stop the Devil attacking him without being caught by the Vatican), just don't ask him to do the thing he's most afraid of, ie to forgive his Mother for the wrong she did to him as a child. Hey, guess what? So far it seems to be working...

In Need Of A Broken Heart

2006-07-10T15:54:00.000+01:00

It's funny the things that stick with you. Some time ago I gave a script of mine to a friend of a friend to read. She's a producer and of course there was the initial excitement followed by the inevitable disappointment as she rejected it. Her feedback was good, honest and, for the most part, made sense to me. More interesting was what she said to our mutual friend who, unable to hold water, of course retold the conversation to me.

"She said you write well but you need to have your heart broken."

Hmm... Immediately I knew what she meant. I can write but the subject matter is dispassionate, there's no real emotional depth, none of the raw honesty and pain informed by life experiences. I haven't travelled the world. I haven't been in love. I thought I was once but I know now I wasn't. The biggest thing that's happened to me was the two or so years I spent really struggling with my sexuality. Breaking up with my then girlfriend, admitting the truth to myself, struggling with feelings I had for one of my closest friends (He's straight but I eventually told him how I felt causing some awkwardness for quite a while, awkwardness I'm thankful to say has gone), anxiety attacks, coming out to my family, dealing with it in religious, personal and social contexts. And then having my first boyfriend.

God it's all gone a bit Dawson's Creek...

My point, and hers, is that you can't fake that stuff. Only by really living can you aquire the experiences that will add depth to the writing. But what does that really mean? How do I "really live?" Do I drop everything, pack a backpack and head to Darfur? Is it really that simple? And that dramatic? I don't make huge efforts to meet people, truth be told I don't enjoy meeting new people. A good trait for a writer... But should I do that too? I know what you're all thinking, why don't I write about what I've documented above. I do want to, I do intend to. I've spoken with my mate about it and he's happy for me to include it in a script, as long as the names are changed. He's experiencing troubles of his own at the moment, troubles that are unfortunately here to stay, and that has affected me quite alot too. Without being callous or opportunistic (though perhaps any writer is inherently both. Watch Capote), I want to include that element in a script too. But I haven't written it yet because I want to do the story justice. Not just that, I don't want a straightforward document of what happened. "He was a straight laced catholic boy. His friend was a free spirit..." Who cares? I want the essence of what happened in the context of a story that is free of the constraints of my actual experiences. And I want the characters to be slightly older than I was. I keep turning the characters and story over in my head and I keep coming back to it and when it's ready I will write it.

What of the meantime? I keep writing horror stories, making up dramas and creating thrillers until my Mother dies or I get testicular cancer or I have my heart broken and then, and only then, will I start to really write anything of any significance. Is that it? I'm just not sure I believe that. I can't believe that what I write now is devoid of real meaning in the absence of cataclysmic personal disaster. How many people write scripts in all kinds of genres that don't involve such things? Surely quite a number.

Of course if it wasn't on my mind, I wouldn't be devoting a whole post to it. And of course I know that such things will inform my personality, my world view and subsequently my writing. I guess I just need to believe that my 30 years thus far have not been devoid of meaningful life experience. And going back to what started this all off, it shocked me a bit that this person called me on it because immediately I was wondering, are my scripts that transparent? Do I have that little to say? With time to reflect I don't think that is the case. But it's always at the back of my mind. Experience vs imagination. Which is the most important?

I'm in need of a broken heart. So come on fellas, do your worst. I'm also in need of a good script.

Thank You For The Wind That Shakes The Pirates

2006-07-09T12:28:00.000+01:00

What a truly awful title for this post. I will never do anything like that again.

One of the things I thought I would do when considering how to fill the blog was to write reviews of the films I see, to give a sense of the kinds of things I respond to. I am normally at the cinema a couple of times a week. Typically, for various reasons I haven't been to the cinema in three weeks! I can't remember the last time I experienced such a cinematic drought. Thankfully the drought was alleviated by a downpour this weekend. I saw Thank You For Smoking, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Pirates of the Carribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. Here goes...

Thank You For Smoking is painfully dull. From the trailer I thought it might be good but at the same time there was a sense that it may not quite happen. Understatement of the year. The script, by Jason Reitman, based on the novel by Christopher Buckley, falls flat at every turn. I really can't be arsed going into much detail. Suffice to say, not only is it nowhere near as biting as it thinks it is, it fails even at raising a smile. Gags are signposted, predictable and unfunny. Moments that attempt quirky or worse still "cool" irritate. The cast, let by Aaron Echkart, do their best but are ultimately undermined by pedestrian writing and directing. More than anything however, it's a bitterly disappointing opportunity missed. And why is it every time I go to the cinema these days I see that pesky kid Cameron Bright?

Next up and much better was The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Ken Loach's Palme D'Or winning take on the Irish Civil War. Set predominantly in West Cork in 1920, the film stars the ever gorgeous Cillian Murphy as Damien, Padraic Delaney as his less gorgeous but you still wouldn't say no older brother Teddy. Would you say no? Hmmm... I've been single a long time and maybe I'm losing perspective. A quick google picture search confirms that in fact I would say no. Apologies for the facietiousness. The film is set during the height of English occupation in Ireland when, to bring order back to a defiant population, Lloyd George, the then English PM, sent over a group of soldiers, the Black and Tans, so-called for the colours of their uniform, to suppress the population. Atrocities by the Black and Tans are well documented throughout Irish history but the English are perhaps less aware of them and it will be interesting to see how they respond to the film. Damien is a young, intelligent lad about to embark on a bright future as a doctor in England. At the start of the film, Damian witnesses a friend beaten to death in front of his mother by the Tans. At the train station about to leave Cork, he witnesses yet more violence and so he joins his eldest brother Teddy and a band of locals in the fight against the occupation. The film expertly documents the nature of the guerrilla warfare, with the Irish rebels outnumbered, outgunned and always in danger of the near psychotic retribution that awaits them at the hands of the Tans if they are caught. Weary of the violence, England called a truce and Irish delegates went to England to negotiate a treaty. The resulting treaty, which defined Ireland as a "Free State", which called for an oath of allegience to be sworn to the Crown and which partitioned 6 counties in Northern Ireland, splintered the country in two, despite being ratified by the Irish people in a national referendum. The pro-treaty group hailed it as a stepping stone to full independence, saying that they were never going to get the full independence demanded by the government in waiting. The anti-treaty side saw the treaty as a sell out of the struggle that had been raging in Ireland for centuries but which had come to a real head in the previous few years with the 1916 rising and the success of the IRA in bringing the British to the negotiating table, albeit at the barrel of a gun. There followed a bitter civil war that pitted former allies against each other, the pro-treaty side armed and aided by the British, the anti-treaty side the overwhelmed rebels of old. Brother literally fought brother and this is the route the film takes as Teddy advocates the treaty and Damien is simply unable to.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley works much better intellectually, as a slice of Irish history and as a parallel for world events today, than it does emotionally. When the film is in gear it really is excellent, thanks to a strong script by Paul Laverty, a cast on form and assured direction from Loach. A scene in which Damien is forced to execute one of his own group as a traitor is gripping and heartbreaking. The ever present threat of violence from the Black and Tans hangs over the film like a dark cloud and you're never completely relaxed as a result. Little moments light up the screen, like a simple but wonderful scene when a young messenger boy with an apparently vital message, arrives on his bike with the message lost somewhere en route. However the film is less successful in the second half. Throughout the whole film I found myself watching with a strange detachment but this was less of a problem when atmosphere and historical and intellectual argument were compensating. When the treaty is signed and Damien and Teddy are on opposite sides of the civil war, the emotional stakes should be at their highest and our emotional involvement should be at its peak. Yet the detachment remained. This isn't helped by the fact that no time is spent at the start of the film building up the brother's relationship. A love story between Damien and a local girl, Sinead, is unconvincing and the tragically inevitable ending fails to resonate as it should. This is a real shame because the film works so hard in other areas and generally succeeds. The Wind That Shakes The Barley is flawed but is generally good and worth seeing.

Finally we have Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I have to say from the start, I seem to be the only person on the planet who wasn't won over by the first film. Johnny Depp was a joy to watch, the film's highlight, one of the most diverse actors at the top of his game. The script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio was universally hailed as being witty and fun. Fun, maybe, structurally sound and (just about) sufficiently imaginative. Yet to me, the success of the humour almost always derived from Depp's performance, his inflections, swagger, the way he carried himself. The actual gags as scripted I found frequently lame. Supporting characters were horribly bland, not helped by the casting of Orlando Bloom who is wetter than the Atlantic (though I don't need a google search to confirm I wouldn't say no there. Whoa Mama...!) and Kiera Knightley, the death of acting as we know it. Geoffrey Rush did well but again because he is a great actor, not because the script was doing him any real favours. Yet I am definately in the minority and $600+ million dollars worldwide and an oscar nomination later, here we are at the sequel which for me is pretty much exactly the same, only without the surprise factor and with a ludicrous running time of 2 1/2 hours. The plot sees Davey Jones (an unrecogniseable Bill Nighy, buried under some impressive CGI tentacles) calling on Captain Jack to fulfill a bargain they struck which calls for Jack to now give Jones his soul and serve on Jones' ship, the Flying Dutchman, for 100 years. Being a pirate and a scoundrel, Jack of course tries to get out of it by locating the key to the dead man's chest which contains the beating heart of Davey Jones. Whoever has the chest, controls Jones and his terrifying digital Kraken. All manner of double and triple crossing ensues as the writer's go to great pains to give every character their own motives for getting to the chest first, with Keira Knightley's Elizabeth probably having the most interesting character development.

But who cares? Certainly not me. By the time the cliffhanger finale and surprise cast addition occured at the end of the film's 145 minute running time, my arse was aching and I was desperate to see sunlight. Yet again for me the script was lacking that extra spark required for a film like this to really fly. The visual effects are generally impressive, though by the third time the Kraken's tentacles are tearing through a ship I was completely bored. Much more interesting is the effects work on Bill Nighy and his crew of half men/half sea creatures. Little script moments and ideas like that are nice and the film would benefit from having more of them. Also deserving of mention is whatever software package that was used to digitally graft expression onto Orlando Bloom's face. A three-way swordfight atop an enormous out of control wooden wheel is probably the best set piece in the film though by the time we get to it it's too little too late. If you've read my post about Back To The Future you'll know what I think a film like this requires. Wit, character, a sense of fun and a great story. Like its predecessor, this film lacks all of those. Still, what does it matter when I've just read on Rotten Tomatoes that it now holds the record for the highest one day gross ever of $55 million. Maybe in a time when films like this rarely work, we'll accept the closest thing and I would grudgingly conceed that POTC is that. That doesn't mean however that it's any good.

When Blockbusters Were Blockbusters

2006-07-09T10:07:00.000+01:00

Aah nostalgia... Its inherent comfort (I remember when things were better...) is also its biggest danger. Were things really ever that good?

Yesterday I went to a screening of Back to the Future at the Empire, Leicester Square. Amazingly I missed BTTF when it was first released at the cinema so it was an even bigger treat to finally get to see it on a big screen in what is arguably London's best cinema. (Take that Odeon One with your big box shape and incomprehensible leopard skin seats!) As an interesting aside, the original film was supposed to be a stand alone film, it was never conceived as the first part of a trilogy. The "to be continued" was added to prints after the film had been on release for a few weeks and the studio realised they had a huge hit on their hands which demanded sequels. The print I saw yesterday was one of the worst prints I have ever seen of any film. Scratched, dirty, dialogue rendered inaudible by the hideous scraping noise, it was the cinematic equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Then at the end, as the newly converted (and surprisingly well animated) flying DeLorean flies at the screen, cutting to black to the strains of Huey Lewis, there was no "to be continued" and I realised just how old the print was.

Let's get back on track...

BTTF encompasses everything a blockbuster, or a film of that kind, should be. Fun, funny, exciting, characters you love or hate, imaginative, a great story well told. And of course, all this begins with the writing. The script, by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, is absolutely fantastic and is the main reason for the success of the film if you ask me. The first fifteen/twenty minutes sets up Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) as the "slacker" as the Principal, Mr Strickland, (James Tolkan) is so fond of calling him. Dreaming of success with his band The Pinheads, he is told by Huey himself that he's just "too darn loud" and so won't get to play in the school competition. With tremendous economy of writing we meet his family. His father George (Crispin Glover, arguably the film's best performance), weak, put-upon, bullied by his boss Biff (Thomas Wilson), never standing up for himself. His Mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson), an alcoholic, living in the past, disapproving of Marty's girlfriend Jennifer (Claudia Wells) mainly because (as we will discover later) she sees in Jennifer the mistakes she made in her youth that have led her to where she is now. Marty's siblings haven't amounted to much either, their uncle Joey is in prison, this is the quintissential family of underachievers. Marty's main friend is "Doc" Emmet Brown (Christopher Lloyd), social misfit and eccentric inventor who invites him down to the local mall at 1.15 in the morning to be a witness to his latest experiment, the now legendary time travelling DeLorean. When the Libyan terrorists from whom Doc stole the plutonium (necessary to create the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity required to fuel flux capacitor... yeah you all know the drill!) turn up for revenge, they shoot Doc dead, and force Marty to escape in the DeLorean, accelerating to the required 88 miles per hour and accidentally going back in time t0 1955. So begins Marty's journey to get back to the future, make sure his parents fall in love and learn a thing or two about himself and his family along the way.

BTTF's script is a model of set up and pay off. The whole thing is founded on a great central idea, what if you could go back in time to see your parents when they were your age. But far from sitting back on this central conceit, the writers run with it, piling on idea after idea and obstacle after obstacle and making each pay off wonderfully. The time machine runs on plutonium, without it time travelling is impossible. In 1955 plutonium is a little difficult to locate and the only thing capable of generating the energy required is a bolt of lightening. We know that lightening struck the clock tower in a terrible storm in 1955 so now it's up to Doc to come up with a plan based on this information to send Marty back to his own time. But when he first arrived in 1955, Marty interfered with his parents meeting. Instead of Lorraine's father hitting George with the car (he falls out of a tree because, as Marty puts it, "He's a Peeping Tom") and Lorraine taking George in and falling in love with him, Marty is hit with the car and, in a Freudian nightmare, she falls in love with him instead. Marty now has to stave off his own Mother's advances and orchestrate his parents first kiss or else he will disappear from existence. Meanwhile Biff keeps turning up to throw a spanner in the works.

The humour and tension come from well drawn characters and situations. We know George is weak, so Marty hatches a plan whereby he will take Lorraine to the dance. In the car outside the school he will turn nasty, George will come along, punch him, save Lorraine, George and Lorraine will live happily ever after and Marty's life will be saved. Except that Biff turns up, his gang drags Marty away, he starts to tussle with Lorraine in the car, George turns up and now is facing Biff. After several tense moments of Biff having the upper hand as always, George has enough, sees red and punches Biff's lights out. This is a fantastic way of resolving George's self confidence issues, his torment at the hands of Biff, and of course making more believeable Lorraine's transition from being besotted with Marty to falling for George. But things are far from over. Biff's gang throw Marty in the boot of the car owned by the band who are playing at the dance. Trying to free him from the boot, the guitar player badly cuts his hand, meaning he can't play the guitar. If he can't play, there'll be no music, if there's no music there's no dance, if there's no dance Lorraine and George won't have their first kiss and Marty will still be erased. It's another superb pay off as Marty, unable to cut it with his own band in 1985, now takes to the stage to fill in for the guitar player and ensure George and Lorraine have their first kiss, which, after another tense sequence, they finally do. At the request of the band to do something that "really cooks", Marty leads the band in Johnny B Goode, one of the film's standout sequences as he goes increasingly mad on stage, performing a ludicrously over the top guitar solo.

And all this occurs before the finale which involves the DeLorean speeding towards a cable suspended from the clock tower across the street, with a large hook coming out of it that will harness the power of the lightening and send Marty back to the future, with Doc hanging from the clock tower trying to reconnect the cables that have come loose in the storm. I realise this has been a somewhat lengthy description of a plot most people feel they know backwards but it's worth investigating what makes the film so good as it's easy to take it for granted. The script keeps piling on the tension, piling on the plot and character points that need resolving, then resolving them in creative, satisfying ways. Every character wants something and is doing something to achieve it. It's a witty script, the dialogue (for the most part) crackles well between the characters, it's based on a solid idea and each character is individual. The film of course succeeds for other reasons. The cast is uniformly fantastic, Michael J Fox, Crispin Glover and Christopher Lloyd in particular stand out. Zemeckis' direction never lets the pace flag. Dean Cundey's photography and Alan Silvestri's score are also worthy of special mention. It isn't perfect by any means. What film is? The ageing makeup used on Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas Wilson for the sequences in 1985 is really ropey. Also the whole thing is painfully 80's at times. Marty's pre-orgasm like excitement as he sees the truck of his dreams, only relieved at the end when he actually has the truck smacks of 80s materialism. Only 2 years later Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko would sum this up in Wall Street by saying, "Greed is good." On a lighter note, check out Jennifer's leggings when she comes to see Marty as he is hugging his truck. They truly belong a long time ago in a decade far, far away.

But I keep coming back to that script. It's not easy to write something that entertaining, that imaginative, that technically proficient, and make it look that effortless. The pieces slide into place with an ease that suggests there could be no alternative. But that right there is testement to how good the script is. Because there are always alternatives. Always other routes and temptations and with every turn here, the writers make the smart choice. Never afraid to write themselves into difficult situations, they always come up with a great and believeable way out. One of my favourites is how Lorraine and George were supposed to have fallen in love in the first place. George McFly is a loser, permanently bullied and doing nothing for himself. Who is going to fall for him? Yet obviously the script demands that he married Lorraine. So, as I mentioned, the writers come up with the idea of sympathy. Her Dad hit him with the car and as Doc reasons later on, "It's the Florence Nightingale effect. When nurses fall in love with their patients." And we buy it. But it's important that we're not irritated by George, frustrated by his lack of courage. And indeed we are rooting for George, we feel sorry for him and wish he would stand up to Biff. This comes in part from Crispin Glover's charming performance. But it also comes from the script. After George's first confrontation with Biff, he acknowledges his lack of confidence to his son Marty, saying he knows what Marty will say and he's right to say it. He's self aware, he's not hiding behind a persona, and we at least can respect that. Later on, we discover George is creative, he has a talent for writing sci-fi, and again this earns some respect. There is always the feeling that Geroge could be someone if he just stepped out of himself a little. This is unfortunately hammered home by characters repeating, "If you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything" in one of the script's few clunky moments. Marty will learn the same message.

Every year I'm excited by the Summer blockbusters. As I said in an earlier post, I'm a sucker for the hype and I love the promise of adventure and seeing the impossible, these films hold. And every year without fail I am disappointed 90% of the time. Is this due to my tastes changing? In part it is. I'm not a child anymore. But I loved the Lord of the Rings films. Minority Report and War of the Worlds were great (flawed certainly, but ultimately for me, very good) Spiderman 2 had some great stuff in it. And more to the point I still get as much pleasure from the blockbusters of old as I always did. Indianna Jones, Terminators and of course, Back to the Future. If things really weren't that good all the time (which of course they weren't), at least Back to the Future demonstrated, and still demonstrates, one thing. You don't need a $200 million budget and 1500 special effects shots (BTTF has something like 20) to enthrall and captivate an audience. You need flair, imagination, a great story, and always, always, always to give the audience characters to root for.

Let that be a challenge for you. It is for me.

Who is "you"?

2006-06-27T14:21:00.000+01:00

I've just realised I keep referring to "you" in these posts. "When you write like this... When you create a character..." Who are you? Are you there? Do you exist? I'd love to think I'm helping "you" whoever you are. But maybe I'm just helping me.

Either way it's all good.

I would do anything to achieve my goal. Just don't ask me to do X.

2006-06-27T14:18:00.000+01:00

Stop talking! Start doing!

I could be talking about myself but in fact I'm talking about my characters. If you take nothing else from anything I write in this blog, take this. Passivity is the single greatest block to good writing I have either had placed in front of me or have placed in front of my own self, I can't decide which. Characters must do. They can't just react. A character must drive the narrative, must make decisions that have consequences. You the writer must present your characters with choices to make and the story goes from there. Now each and every one of you out there in cyberspace are probably doing that already and are reading this thinking, "No wonder this monkey hasn't sold a script. He's a monkey. A passive character writing chimp." But I have a feeling many of you make the same mistake.

One of my pet hates is people who use bad analogies. "Life is like making a smoothie. It will only be as good as the quality of the fruit you use." AAAAAAAAAGGHH!!!! Wanker! However as someone who hates bad analogies, it is perfectly acceptable for me to use them. So here goes.

The writer is often compared to God. We are Gods of the universes we create, the people inhabiting them, the things they do and say. Taking this to be true, remember this. God, if you're approaching this from standard Western Catholic doctrine, also gives us free will. He gives us the ability to make choices. And this is exactly what you must give your characters. A story imposed on characters who are nothing more than cyphers is as obvious as testicles on a eunuch. Characters have things happen to them and then they react by making things happen. A character who talks and reacts then talks some more will not be interesting, unless that is the nature of the character and the writer is controlling him/her accordingly. Passivity due to bad writing is absolutely fatal. This is where many writers go wrong at first, me included, except that it's what I've been doing all along. I have interesting story ideas, some good scenes, maybe even one or two great ones, some interesting character ideas, but every single time the whole thing is undermined by characters reacting to events I make happen. I am as big a character as any in the film. "Hey, who's the bloke that's making all this shit happen? I wish I had the chance to do something about it." No such luck mate. Time to react to something else.It's been a huge thing for me to realise and it's taken me a long time to realise it. But the heavy lifting equipment is out, sweaty workmen are baring their arse cracks as they toil to lift it as we speak and I think soon it will be removed from my path and taken away to be destroyed.

Last year I attended a screenwriting conference in San Diego (more later) and I met a script consultant called Michael Hague. Now Michael Hague has written books, gives lectures and can easily be found in the library with a thousand others promising the secret to "Writing the Script That Sells." But if you don't know him I would urge you to seek him out. I met him after a lecture he gave and I paid a little extra for a half hour script consultation with him. It was he who made me see how I've been going so wrong. And it was in the course of the lecture he came up with the question to ask of your character, the question I have used as the title for this post. Michael believes strongly in, as he puts it, "clear, attainable goals." What does the character want and what are they doing to get it? And to create great drama and conflict work out what it is they are most afraid of and put it in their way as an obstacle to achieving the goal you have set out for them near the start of the script. "I would do anything to achieve my goal. Just don't ask me to do X" They absolutely have to solve/find/escape from/meet/kill whatever it is but they are terrified of meeting/doing/being/finding X. This feeds into motivations, characters arcs and other things I will talk about another time. But for now, if you ask that question of your characters, work out the answer, and place it as the primary obstacle in their way of achieving their goal, you'll be well on the way to creating a script that is in danger of working. I know I am! Take them out of their comfort zone, make them really work and you'll have an audience rooting for them. Even if the story demands they fail. One of my favourite films is Raiders of the Lost Ark for many reasons but that is one of them. Indianna Jones loses the ark as many times as he retrieves it again and in the end it isn't his. The point is they'll have gone out of their comfort zone to achieve something, which by the way can be absolutely anything in any genre. Think of any film that moves you. Chances are, there is a person struggling against something to achieve something.

The part of me that's been down for a while wonders how I could have spent so long not realising this. I guess you have to go through certain things to reach certain places. All I know is it's only in the last year or so I've started to understand just how passive my characters have been (because they haven't had clear, attainable goals and have instead been wandering around lost in the half baked narratives I've been providing for them) and more recently have started to understand what to do to rectify that. In the end it doesn't matter how I got here or how long its taken me to get here. The important thing is I'm here.

Babysitting

2006-06-22T09:38:00.000+01:00

My Dad is leaving my Mum for a few days to go to Germany, apparently there's some kind of sporting tournament taking place there. He's meeting my two brothers and they're going to see a couple of games. So my Mum asked me if I'd go home and keep her company for of Dad's away days. (See, I can use football teminology.) It should be nice, if a little intense. The inevitable clothes shopping trip is already planned. See what I mean? Always the baby. I'm nearly thirty years of age.

We don't spend a huge amount of time on our own which I know is very important to her. That's very important to me too, I always try and make alone time with family and friends. I'm also as nervous as her and the confidence issues are hers too. Many neurosis are shared... it's a sad day when you wake up and realise you have turned into your Mother! Bless her.

Anyway you'll have to wait for your Garreth fix for a few days. I feel like the last few posts have been getting stuff out of the way, important stuff to be sure, but setting the scene for what will hopefully be an interesting journey into the nature of scriptwriting and the way this particular scribe (I've always liked that word! And yes I do feel it's applicable to me!) works and is trying to get his stuff read. Aswell as going back to college. I need to figure out a way to let anyone who wants to actually read my work too. A friend of mine was helping me set up a website so I might get that ball moving again, put my work on it and put a link to it here.

Anyway time to go catch a flight. Stay safe.

The Beating Heart

2006-06-21T21:03:00.000+01:00

The beating heart of any film is its script. That is something I believe as firmly as... well, as firmly as any of my other convictions. Of which there are few.

Films change from script to screen of course. Sometimes the changes are cosmetic, sometimes dramatic. Some directors favour improvisation, believing the script is little more than a framework. In this instance, the script will often change considerably. Often, disintigrating schedules or production problems force changes, not always for the bad of course, I'm not coming at this from the point of view that change is necessarily bad. Simply that for a variety of reasons change occurs. But even if the script is just a framework, it needs to be a strong framework. Good directors will allow for that within their directorial approach. Lesser directors can weaken or dismantle the framework altogether. The point is that I as a writer am not responsible for what the director does during the shoot. I am responsible for providing the framework. And that is the last time I'm going to use the word "framework" in this post.

As an aside, at the risk of stating the obvious, film is the director's medium. In alot of cases it's also the producer's and the actor's. Rarely is it ever the writer's. And usually when it is the writer's, it's because he or she is also the director. Alot of people get bent out of shape by that. Maybe if I ever have the experience of having my beautifully crafted words pissed on by a director, I'll feel differently, but for now, the way I feel is quite pragmatic. There is nothing you can do to change the situation so either get behind the camera to take charge of your script as you see fit, or stop whining. If you're Akiva Goldsman the Oscar winning writer behind Batman and Robin, Lost in Space and Practical Magic (Is it just me or should that CV be rewarded with an Oscar?) then you also produce. The point of this post is to think about the script as the core of the film and from there to think about what it is as a writer you're supposed to provide.

So many writers at the stage I'm at (ie, unknown and unproduced) seem to think that by reading Robert McKee, watching alot of films and devoting some time to writing that the scripts they produce should be made into films. I don't know if this will of any use to anyone but one thing I always do is to ask myself this question. I'm standing outside the Odeon Leicester Square and a film I wrote is playing inside. A man with his last £10 of the month wanders past with a view to spending it on some entertainment for himself. He can go for a few pints, go for a chinese, rent a DVD and have a few cans, go see a different film. Can you in all honesty look that person in the eye and say that he should spend his last tenner on seeing your film? Can you say to him why out of all his options, that one is the best? Don't ask the question flippantly. If you always come to the conclusion that, yes that man should see your film, then you're either unbelieveably talented or (possibly more likely) slightly deluded. What is in this story that NEEDS to be told? Who is going to get what from it? Why will I be invested in it? What's different from what I've seen before? Is this going to appeal to anyone beyond you and your twelve mates? I've made that mistake and so many people seem to aswell. If your script is about a "cop on the edge" or a "juror under pressure" or a "gangster retiring after one last job" well maybe you've come up with an interesting variation on an old cliche or maybe you've just come up with a cliche. Why should we care? Why should our friend give his hard earned to you?

The other point to consider is that long before our friend has the chance of parting with his cash, you will have another audience to face. Directors routinely devote a year of their lives to the making of a film, often it's much more. What have you given them that's going to make them want to do that? Would you give up a year of your life to something you thought was a load of shite? Your job, in the first instance, is to ignite passion in the director and the actors and the producers. Is this story you're telling us making us turn the page in excitement? Are you giving a director great scenes he can sink his teeth into? Are you giving him visual opportunities aswell as dialogue scenes? Do those dialogue scenes crackle along, loaded with subtext and energy? Will actors think, "Wow what a character to play"? And not just your main character. If the script is the beating heart then it must be healthy and have plenty of work to do. Otherwise, from day one of pre-production through to the very last day of post, it's an uphill struggle for everyone concerned. Damage control rather than bringing to life something that's already pretty bloody good.

I've been falling short on all of the above. Reason number one I haven't made it yet. But they are the things I think every writer should be demanding of himself and his work. Because if you don't then what's the point? This world is full of mediocrity, we don't need any more. On that point, I usually go to the cinema a couple of times a week and I don't know about you, but for me the majority of films are neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad. Actually most aren't even pretty good or pretty bad. Most are okay. All right, but forgettable. Serviceable, bland and a host of other words you never want to be associated with. At least if something is absolutely dreadful it has produced an emotional response. The worst thing in the world is to have an audience sitting in apathy, neither caring nor uncaring. And given how many films fall into that bracket, it seems like the easiest thing in the world too. And you must avoid it at all costs. Be harsh with your work. Fair of course, don't give in to the bad thoughts telling you you're crap. But if you really censor your ideas, then the ones that get through will really start to excite you. And maybe, just maybe, they'll excite the people that can bring them to life.

Fuck Quentin Tarantino

2006-06-21T20:49:00.000+01:00

Just to give you a sense of who I like.

Guillermo Ariaga - 21 Gramms, The Three Bruials of Malquiadas Estrada, Amoros Peros

David Mamet - Glengarry Glenross, The Untouchables, Heist, Winslow Boy, Spanish Prisoner

William Goldman - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, All The Presidents Men, The Princess Bride

Eric Roth -The Insider, Forrest Gump, Munich (as well as the Postman and Airport 79 but nobody's perfect)

There will be many more. I'm quite tired and struggling to come up with names but I thought I should give a sense of the people that inspire me. There's one writer, also a director, who I think is the single most overrated writer in about 20 years. I've cunningly hidden his name and just what I think of him somewhere in this post. See if you can find it!

MA!

2006-06-21T20:39:00.000+01:00

The title is not, as it may suggest, an Irish boy's cry for his Mother. Rather it's the most concrete thing I've done in a long time. I've applied to various colleges to do an MA in Screenwriting. And guess what? I've been accepted into Goldsmiths on the strength of my application and interview. Given how few places there are I was pretty chuffed to get the good news. I'm still applying for one or two more but I do have somewhere to go in September once my job finishes and I leave the flat.

The pros and cons of a Screenwriting MA can be debated at length. Does every working writer have an MA? Not even close. But I have to look at things from my own point of view. Regardless of the academic merits, a year spent writing with a group of people with that level of guidance is hugely exciting and potentially very rewarding. Any contacts I make can only be a good thing and you never know, I may just learn something while I'm there too. The fact that I was offered a place was a great boost to the confidence. And it means I don't have to work for a year! Yay! Well I will have to work but at least I'll have the MA too. I'm not a big fan of work. This is something that will becomes clear as the blog progresses.

So that's the start of the plan. I have a feeling I'm underestimating how difficult it's going to be, how intense, just how much work will be involved. But bring it on!

The Great Big Why - part 3

2006-06-21T16:59:00.000+01:00

But there's light at the end of the tunnel. If you make it past the first paragraph that is.

Since January I've been feeling alot of fear. I have two housemates, one I've lived with for eight years (Bert and Ernie eat your heart out), the other on and off for six. It's absolutely fantastic, we're very close and I love them dearly. I've been with the BBC working a highly dull job for 5 years. The only plus point of this job has been that it's shift work which has allowed me alot of free time to write but has also allowed something of a rut to creep in. I never thought writing could become part of a rut but it has. I work, I meet my friends, I watch films, I write. It's become part of a routine rather than a serious pursuit. I write but I don't finish much. I haven't seriously worked on a new idea in two years, I've been re-writing old ones. And I know exactly why this is. Fear. Fear of not making it, fear of discovering I'm simply not good enough to cut it. But because I write I can fool everyone, including myself, into thinking I have purpose.

Before Christmas, a round of compulsory redundancies was announced at the BBC and I was going to be affected by it. The unions negotiated that all people who didn't want to leave would be found alternative employment. My boss is moving to a different part of the archive department (archiving is where I work) and we get on well, I'm (reasonably) conscientious and I have half a brain so he took me aside and assured me that I could come work for him in the new archive project. This is where the new fear kicked in. I knew I was being given a chance to change things. And I knew I had to take it. So as compulsory redundancy effectively became voluntary, I opted to leave the BBC. To do what? To relocate to the States. Drastic, sure, but I don't do things by half measures. I thought my brother could help get me a Visa and I started looking into applying for colleges in LA. I announced to my flatmates that I was instigating the break-up that is of course inevitable in shared house circumstances and they made their alternative plans. Karen is off travelling the world, something she had been planning for a long time anyway, and Kev is moving in with his girlfriend. But I can't get a Visa for the States and I had missed the round of college applications for 2006 for international students. Looks like I'm staying here. But without a job and without my most important and immediate support network.

And THIS is the light at the end of the tunnel. I must change things. I want to change things. I want to write with passion and have the courage and the confidence to back it up with action. I feel I have the answer to where my writing has been going wrong (another post coming soon!), I have made my alternative plans for what to do when the flat disbands and my job finishes (the very next post!) and I have had more script ideas in the last couple of months than I've had in two years. I'm rewriting an old idea as I said. But it's genuine, rewarding rewriting. I'm having it read by a professional script reader whose feedback is superb. The script is on the verge of being in the best shape it has ever been in. The fear I mentioned at the beginning of the post? It's a different fear, born from the fact that I think I have a real chance. It's the kind of fear I imagine someone about to bunge jump experiences. I'm asking the right questions, thinking the right things, tackling the things that need tackling. Including answering a little question that's been in my head of late. Why film writing?

Happiness comes from within. It must do. If I'm unhappy, selling a thousand scripts won't make a difference. Selling a script represents my struggle with my lack of self confidence. It's an external expression of an internal feeling. What's been wrong with me of late is that the self doubt has begun to win. I've been feeling like I'll never make it which has made me feel doomed to be at the mercy of self doubt for life. What I've started to do is take control again. To remember how I started on this path at all, and to remember that it's a path I want to be on. There are things I can do in order to write well which will increase my chances of success which will boost my confidence. Whatever innate ability I have, whatever determination I have, they must be coupled with learning the craft of writing. I have been ignoring that. I've always imagined myself succeeding, not out of arrogance, but because I can write and because I'm determined and therefore am somehow owed success. Of course this isn't the case. And now I'm understanding that my lack of success is because I haven't been learning the craft as well as I need to and not because I'm just crap. The Hynes family stubborness is good for something. Its made me determined to sort through all this crap and to come out the other side the winner. At times like this I'm grateful I have it.

I'm really scared. But I'm really excited. And for the first time in a long while I'm proud of myself again. And I've started this blog as a way to document the change and as a reminder to myself of what I've promised myself. Success. Not success for success' sake or material reward, not because I think something external can bring me happiness, but because I owe it to myelf to make the most of my talents, my passions and my dreams. And I will not allow the self doubt that wants to take over, to do so.

That's why.

The Great Big Why - part 2

2006-06-21T15:59:00.000+01:00

5 blogs in and I'm writing sequels already...

I can throw around stuff like, "Thing is, career wise there was nothing else I wanted to do. There never has been", or "Film is my passion" until the cows come home. Indeed I've said stuff like that so often it doesn't have much meaning alot of the time any more. But in my mind, that doesn't answer the question, why. Why film writing particularly?

The surface answers do contribute towards answering The Great Big Why. Of course I have a passion for film, I've been mesmerised by cinema for as long as I can remember. Why writing specifically? Well I've always had a flair for writing. When I was 12 a school reading test gave the result that my reading age was that of a 17 year old. I don't think my parents have ever been more proud. I remember my first attempt at writing a book. I was about 10 or 11 and I wrote 15 A4 pages of a story concerning 2 brothers who solved crimes with their father, Fintan. This of course was completely independent from that fact that at that time I was reading The Hardy Boys books about two brothers who solved crimes with their father... Fenton. To this day I wear my influences proudly on my sleeve. I guess crossing a flair for writing with a love of film gives you a film writer. Voila! Let's all go home and have a cocktail.

I suppose in the end I don't believe anything happens accidentally. I don't mean that existentially, this isn't turning into a post about the Divine. I mean that people control circumstances much more than they consciously realise or understand sometimes. I have a lack of confidence that is worse than anyone really knows. I don't have much faith in my abilities alot of the time and I'm sure this is why I struggle with simple things. Rather than potentially look the fool, I won't get involved. I don't want to be seen. But there is a functioning brain in this head. There is also drive, ability, understanding, creativity and a questioning of all things. When you add all those things up what do you get? A person who wants to create and control but do so invisibly. Ie become a writer. Is that too simplistic? More pop psychology? Perhaps to a reader. To the one who has to consciously and subconsciously orchestrate the little bits to align in just the right way so as to maintain a comfort zone with an impenetrable exterior and the veneer of confidence, it's not simple or "pop" at all. Not one bit.

Then there's the successful siblings. Ah yes, family. The source of our greatest comfort and greatest distress. My family is cursed with stubbornness like you couldn't imagine. I believe mine isn't the worst of the five of us. Of course that could just be the stubbornness talking. They will argue and shout and dig themselves into trenches that make the Somme pale by comparison. Me, well I'll feel it, I'll be absolutely certain of my own position in my head, I'll know I'm right. I just won't always say it. It depends on the circumstances. This means, from my own point of view, I've had to struggle for identity within the family. Big personalities will always ensure that is the case. I always thought writing success would tick many boxes. Assert my individuality, assert my own success and my position as Martin and Brian's equal and assert myself as an adult in my parent's eyes, rather than the baby. A scriptwriting career is a pretty difficult thing to accomplish. That's why I want to accomplish it, because it will achieve those things I just mentioned. But I guess more importantly, it will, in my mind, prove that I'm good at something worth doing, and that not many people can do. And that's why I don't want the fallback my Mum and Dad wanted for me through conventional education. In my eyes, falling back to something I'm not this committed to is tantamount to failure. And why am I so committed to it? You in the back nodding off, why am I so committed to it? Aside from a genuine love of cinema and a desire to create? Because I'm in this circle of self doubt. Round and round I go. I want to write because I think I can and I think it'll sort some things out but I don't really believe I can so I'll never make it and these things will always be wrong.

What's most frustrating is that, when I'm comfortable, I get glimpses of the person struggling for dominance against the other person paralysed by self doubt. The one who says things that make sense, who knows a little bit about some things, whose priorities are sound, who has friends that care about him and once in a while, even rely on him. I like that person. He needs to show himself a bit more.

The Great Big Why - part 1

2006-06-21T14:09:00.000+01:00

I remember the day I left College...

Let me back up a tad. Before coming to England, I spent two years in Ireland at University College Dublin, where my eldest brother also went before emigrating to the States. I was doing an Arts degree which involves choosing 3 subjects from a large pool of subjects, languages, arts and humanities predominantly. Mine were English, Psychology and Sociology. I never settled at UCD. I'm not the most outgoing of people and Arts is (or was at that time anyway) one of the most popular 3rd level courses UCD offers as it's a good general degree for people unsure of what they want to do exactly. This meant I was in a class of 500 people. No word of a lie. 500. You would sit down in class, (a huge amphitheatre capable of holding that many people) meet someone then never see them again! When you're less than outgoing around people you don't know this is simply overwhelming and intimidating. Coupled with the fact that I knew exactly what I wanted to be doing but wasn't doing it, it made for a less than enjoyable time. Sooooo, after 2nd year I quit.

Now both my parents are highly intelligent people but came from circumstances that didn't permit education beyond the age of 12. For what I've always supposed were reasons of unrealised ambition (is that classic movie pop psychology or what?) growing up, education was hugely emphasised in our house. Martin, the eldest, has a PHD and Brian has an MA. Yes there is something of an age gap. Martin is 41, Brian 39 and then there's me bringing up the rear at 29. Mum still tries to tell me I was planned. Both my brothers are two of the most intelligent people you'll ever meet, academically successful and subsequently professionally successful too (just don't ask me what they do) and all this due in no small measure to Mum and Dad pushing them into 3rd level education and struggling and making enormous sacrifices to fund it all. So when I came along, there was little doubt I would follow a similar path. Indeed, for my own part I knew I wanted to go to college, the only question was to do what? Flash forward to the end of 2nd year when my feet are itchy and I'm really fed up.

So I announce that I'm leaving UCD. Mum literally turned grey, I mean ashen. She had to take to her bed...!! Dad was slightly more composed and asked what I intended to do instead. I told them I would work for a year, save money and apply to every film school in Ireland and England I could find. I did just that and was accepted into Surrey Institute of Art and Design. Mum and Dad always felt I should have a backup, "in case the film thing doesn't work out." Of course I see their point. Trouble is, career wise there's nothing else I want to do. There never really has been. And, scary though it often is, walking a tightrope with no net to catch you can only give you better balance. From their point of view, it was like me saying I wanted to play for Chelsea or to fly to the moon. Working in film is about as attainable. This is all compounded by my two brothers following more traditional academic paths. They've had 9 years to get used to the idea which they have, though I know they worry. Still if it wasn't that it would be something else. They are parents after all.

Not plot, not character, not explosions or CGI whatsits, but story

2006-06-21T11:30:00.000+01:00

When in doubt, blow it up. Not sure how to link one scene to the next? I find a slow motion shot of a helicopter against a sunset usually does the trick. You see my friends I get alot of slagging about being Hollywood Boy. How I will always favour an explosion over a conversation. I understand the origin of the joke. I'm a sucker for visual effects! I love a good stunt. Check out my DVD colection and you'll find among others, Con Air, Terminators 1-3, The Rock, Lethal Weapon 2, The Matrix and Matrix Reloaded, which I bought only for the fight sequence between Keanu Reeves and the Merovingian's henchmen that leads to that phenomenol car chase. 21 minutes of enjoyable material in a 2 1/2 hour film. Where did it all go wrong boys? But I submit that this reputation does me a disservice.

The key for me is story. What is this film about? Who is doing what and why should I give a shit? Never mind giving £12.50 (Damn you Leicester Square and your inflated prices) and two hours of my life. The joy of watching a good plot confidentally reveal itself is a rare treat. Usual Suspects, Narc, LA Confidential, Memento, cinematic highlights for this reason. Great stories, populated by interesting characters. Often times people differentiate between plot driven films and character driven films and this is certainly true if you differentiate "plot" from "story". The story is what your film is about, the plot, the mechanics holding it together, making it work. It might be easier to differentiate plot driven films from their character driven counterparts but it's impossible in my opinion to seperate character from story. Venture further along my DVD shelf and you'll come to Remains of the Day (dir James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro). A character driven film more than a plot driven film certainly. But the most important thing for me is that it's a great story. And for any story to be great, it needs a great plot and great characters. Interesting people doing interesting things in an interesting setting.

And that is what I'm about. It's what I want to achieve across a range of genres. Will some of those stories require CGI and a pyrotecnics team to make them work? Fuck yeah! Some won't, it just depends on the story. But to state in one sentence what it is I want to do, I want to create great stories for the cinema. Everything else is dressing.

Of course it doesn't go unnoticed that the majority of films in my collection and that I watch at the cinema hail from our star spangled banner singing friends across the Atlantic. I accept without protest that this does nothing to help my cause. I think though this is because I'm drawn to films that move. I'm not, repeat not, talking about action. Car chases, gun fights, battles...though I do love a good battle...no Garreth! Stop it! That's three viewings of Derek Jarman's Blue as penance! Review the films listed above, the list that begins with Usual Suspects that is, not the one that begins with Con Air. Each of them moves in some way. People are doing, going, solving, and character is being explored in the context of a story that's moving. And this is why alot of European cinema doesn't appeal to me, speaking in the most ludicrous of generalisations of course. A recent example is Hidden, or Cache to give it its French title (dir/writer Michael Haneke). Critically acclaimed, the friend I was with (another aspiring writer and cinephile whose knowledge of cinema is actually terrifying) loved it. Me? Well, there was definately alot I admired, an interesting story, some great scenes, one or two shocking moments, good performances, yet somehow I wasn't engaged. It's as if the overall point was "hidden."

That's not to say if a film is slow I switch off. Remains of the Day as I've mentioned, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Son's Room, Take My Eyes, slow, slow films but gripping. I recently rewatched Chinatown and had forgotten how slow that film is in a sense. But again, it absolutely pulls you in and you're hooked. Why? Because they move. They go somewhere. They don't stand around dressed head to toe in black, puffing on a filtered mint cigarette, sipping a decaf, soy latte, procrastinating on the meaning of life.

Of course I'm being facietious. But only slightly...

Great stories that do something and go somewhere. That's what I want from a film and what I want from my writing.

Though I did use the phrase "the fight sequence between Keanu Reeves and the Merovingian's henchmen that leads to that phenomenol car chase" worryingly casually. Perhaps I protest too much...

A Preface Becomes A Post

2006-06-21T11:11:00.000+01:00

I was going to start my next post with a qualification, confident as I am in my own beliefs. But I've decided it warrants becoming a post in its own right.

Many of you will know most or all of what I'll be posting about writing screenplays over the coming weeks, months, years, who knows? I don't consider myself an expert. If I was, I'd be writing this from my jazuzzi in the Hollywood Hills. But I do have alot to say about the topic. Maybe some of it will help someone else on a similar path, maybe the things I do right, the mistakes I make, the things I've learned will be of some use. And maybe with enough time and with me successfully staving off my innate urge to procrastinate, there'll be some measure of progress to follow. Or maybe it'll all be the most foul smelling variety of horseshit.

It's just there's alot of people who claim to be experts on a variety of topics. Pretension abounds. And all I want to do is make a record of something. Expertly of course.

A Writer's Life For Me

2006-06-21T09:19:00.000+01:00

Having flirted with the idea of creating a blog for some time now, I've come to the conclusion that the only way this will be interesting both to write and to read is if there's a theme. Random posting, "Today I ordered a pizza and scratched my arse for a bit" simply won't cut it so here's the deal folks...

For as long as I can remember I've loved films. I've never been into sport, I play the guitar and enjoy music as much as the next man. I enjoy travelling but never really have the means to do a huge amount and I've never had that desire, it seems is a prerequisite of being a member of my generation, to take a year out and backpack around South America or India or fill in the country. I am interested in politics but am happy to switch off from it. Computers/technology/gadgetry leave me a bit cold. I used to read voraciously but these days I go through phases, (currently I'm in a "not reading" phase). But films... Tron is the first film I ever saw at the cinema. There may have been more in between but the next one I remember is Return of the Jedi. To this day my single biggest regret came the day my eldest brother Martin said to me, "So Gar, would you like to go see Indianna Jones and the Temple of Doom..." (surely there's no adaquate way of balancing that equation? Surely that's not even a choice? What 8 year old doesn't want to watch Indianna Jones swing through a group of bad guys into a mine cart?) ..."Or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?"

A little aside here, I'm gay. While I only realised it (relatively) late on, I wonder if the signs were there at an early age? Even that explanation makes little sense however. Harrison Ford was undeniably handsome and charasmatic in his youth...And boy could he swing into a minecart. Still, I chose that stupid cow and her seven singing dwarves. Hi-ho my arse.

Films are my passion and at the age of 21 they became my pursuit.

A brief history of Garreth - At the age of 21 I moved to England (I'm originally from Dublin) to go to film school in Farnham, Surrey. I graduated at the age of 24, ready to make film, and was handed my BA in Film and Video Production. This is like someone being ready to handle radioactive waste and being handed oven gloves. I moved to Surbiton where I lived for a year. This was a difficult year spent figuring out what the hell to do with my life now that the bubble of college had burst, and coming out to family, friends. (Panic attacks, counselling, anti depressants... the stuff of another post!) I then moved to West London and after a few months temping began work at the BBC. In my eternal optimism and enduring naivety I thought, this will give me my break. 5 years later, on the verge of taking voluntary redundancy, it might as well have been KFC.

In all that time I've been writing scripts. Some good, many bad, some seen through multiple drafts, some barely a scene old. All written with the fervent belief that, "this will be the one." A few minor successes along the way, finalist at a Hollywood writing competition in 2004, more than a couple London production companies requesting more of my work on the basis of a script sent in, and last year BBC Films had a script of mine under consideration for development. They eventually turned it down. But nothing tangible. The simple truth is the reason I haven't made it yet is because I haven't been good enough.

And so now here I am. Staring down the barrel of 30, no closer to achieving my dream on the outside, but with a change of heart on the inside. A renewed vigour that can only be created by the reminder of mortality the dawn of a new decade brings! But this is not a bad thing. Things are about to change. I can feel it. And I thought, why not share the journey? If you're interested at all in becoming a writer of any kind then I hope maybe even some of my ideas, thoughts and experiences will be useful to you. Some posts will hopefully be interesting to many, some only to a few, many perhaps only to me.

All this of course assumes there's anyone out there at all reading this. Fitting, given my pursuit...