Rachel Hoffman: A Cautionary Tale

Seed of the Great One

The Great Barry Sanders...Jr?

Jimmy Fallon has created the funniest webisode

Jimmy Fallon's first ever webisode is going super viral. His webisode has overshadowed the news that Jay Leno is getting a primetime show.

Fallon is getting ready for his new late night gig as soon-to-be-host of NBC's "Late Night" and posted his first video blog. Fallon will be doing a live nightly 5-minute Web tidbit at 12:30 Eastern until his show premieres on NBC next year.

His premiere webisode last night was nothing short of incredible and It was only 96 seconds long, but he was able to jam-packed it with some hilarious comedy. The question i have is simple. Why isn't Jimmy getting his own primetime show? Seriously. Jimmy and his writers have basically reinvented the comedy wheel.

"What's amazing about his new brand of comedy is that it's so subtle, but so damn hilarious," says Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment.

Mass-killing of trapped narwhal whales okayed by Canada

I'm not an overly sentimental animal lover usually. But I can't stomach this nonsense story about how our neighbors to the north Canada has given there consent(whoever they are) to kill roughly 500 narwhal whales, a near-threatened species of whale that has unicorn-like tusks, because they have become dangerously crowded around the only ice hole in the vicinity through which they could come up for air.

Apparently, "They" figured using ice breakers to free the whales was deemed too stressful. I guess killing them en masse (and not-so-coincidentally, allowing the hunters to harvest way more than the annual quota of tusks, each of which command prices of $2000 and up) is the more humane way to go. Way to go Canada!!!!

Johnny Depp books 'Hand of Dante'

Thanks to Variety we can see that Depp will be busy for the next few years....


Johnny Depp's production company Infinitum Nihil has acquired screen rights to the Nick Tosches novel "In the Hand of Dante." The novel will be developed as a potential star vehicle for Depp.

Depp will produce with his Infinitum Nihil partner Christi Dembrowski. The company, which has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. and Graham King's GK Films, optioned the book with its own coin.

Book revolves around Dante's masterwork "The Divine Comedy," and tells parallel storylines involving Dante in 14th-century Italy as he tries to complete the work, and a contemporary storyline involving Tosches, who is asked to authenticate what might be Dante's original manuscript. Depp would play Tosches. The novel was published in 2002.

Depp, who is playing the Mad Hatter in the Tim Burton-directed "Alice in Wonderland," has a dance card that includes toplining another "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, "The Lone Ranger," and voicing the title character in the Gore Verbinski-directed animated film "Rango."

At the same time, his production company has become more ambitious, and is getting close to the starting line on its first movie.


And my favorite part of the article...
Depp will star in March as gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson in "The Rum Diary," an adaptation of the Thompson book that Infinitum Nihil is producing with GK Films, with King's company financing the picture. Bruce Robinson is directing his script. It's Depp's second turn in a Thompson tale; he starred in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

Infinitum Nihil also is working with GK Films and WB on a film transfer of "Dark Shadows" that will have Depp playing Barnabas Collins; an adaptation of "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" that will be directed by Chris Wedge; an adaptation of the Gregory David Roberts book "Shantaram" that was scripted by Eric Roth; and "The Bomb in My Garden," the Mahdi Obeidi/Kurt Pitzer book that has a script by Robert Edwards. Infinitum Nihil also is developing an adaptation of "Inamorata" that was scripted by the book's author, Joseph Gangemi.


By MICHAEL FLEMING

2009 Sundance Film Festival

SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES 2009 COMPETITION LINEUP

Yesterday the Sundance Institute announced the lineup of films screening in the competition categories for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which will take place Jan. 15-25 in Park City, Utah. I'm hoping to be in attendance at next years festival but till then i will wait patiently for the movies to come to a theater near-by. Some of the titles that jumped out at me are Joe Berlinger's Crude, Tom DiCillo's When You're Strange on the doc side Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre, Director Dana Perry's Boy Interrupted and rounding off Director Hamid Rahmanian's The Glass House

Baby Face Killer

MUMBAI, Dec. 2 --of the 10 radical Islamic gunmen carried out attacks in Mumbai India last week, There was only one, 24 year old Azam Amir Kasab to be captured by the police. Shown in this picture with an assault rifle in hand as he tiptoed through a train station, he has become the face of the three-day assault that brought the city to its knees and left at least 174 people dead. Since then, interrogations of Kasab have become the centerpiece of India's probe into one of the worst terrorist strikes in the country in years.

Like the C.I.A of old Indian police interrogators are preparing to administer a "truth serum" on the sole Islamic militant captured during last week's terror attacks on Mumbai to settle once and for all the questions of who and why?



The mystery of the man dubbed "the baby-faced gunman" has weighed heavily on India's relations with Pakistan as the nuclear-armed neighbours dispute each other's accounts of his origin.


Police interrogators in Mumbai told The Times that they have "verified" that Azam Amir Kasab, who was captured after a shoot-out in a Mumbai railway station on Wednesday night, is from Faridkot, a small village in Pakistan's impoverished south Punjab region. They say that the nine dead gunmen are also Pakistani.

Disputing that account, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan told CNN last night: "We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt it … that he is a Pakistani."

He added: "The gunmen plus the planners, whoever they are stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world."

Deep as a Ganster...

The FBI try to take down Early American Gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during there notorious crime wave of the 1930s.

No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyone in the American public who had no sympathy for the evil banks that had plunged the country into the Depression.At the time no one could stop John Dillinger.

Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Mann directs Public Enemies staring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Academy Award® winner Marion Cotillard in the true story of the legendary bank robber John Dillinger (Deep) The charismatic bank robber whose lightning raids made him the number one target of J. Edgar Hoovers fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Bale), and a folk hero to much of the public.

RELEASE DATE: July 1 2009

TOP TEN DRUG MOVIES

10. Spun - The Best Point of View Type of movie ever
9. Dazed and Confused - The best thing about high school girls is...
8. Pulp Fiction - Right in the heart
7. Trainspotting - should be #2. it was much better and bigger than the other movies
6. Blow - Blinded by the light

5. Half Baked - Your not a fish
4. Friday - It's Friday you aint got no Job
3. Scareface - The World is mine
2. Requiem for a Dream - Ass to Ass
1. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - The best of all time

Creating Stand-Out Characters Using a Specific Distinctive Trait

A very good excerpt from the Mind of Your Story March 28, 2008
In the article we will learn about

* How to introduce multiple characters in a way that will be memorable for readers

* How to choose the perfect “telling” details that reveal setting, character, and plot simultaneously

Whether you’re dealing with just a few characters or a cast of thousands, creating what I call a “specific distinctive trait” for each will help your readers remember who each character is without you having to remind them in narrative. This means that instead of writing “Jean’s sister Emma” whenever Emma appears on the scene, you can instead illustrate something about Emma that readers already know to jog their memories.

Perhaps my favorite example of a writer employing this method occurs in Susan Minot’s Evening. Because most of this novel unfolds at a wedding, it includes an ensemble of characters. Minot helps readers remember who’s who by “tagging” each character with something that will remind readers of that character’s specific distinctive trait.

This approach allows Minot to place five or even ten characters in one scene without the reader losing track. To illustrate, here are two of the characters in two different scenes. In the first excerpt, we meet these characters for the first time.

The [car] doors were open and she saw in front Buddy Wittenborn and in the driver’s seat Ralph Eastman …. When she got close Ralph caught sight of her and jumped out of the car and Buddy looked over with a lazy smile.


This second excerpt takes place the morning of the wedding about halfway through the book.

Pacing down near the pink mallow was Ralph Eastman holding a piece of paper, gesturing with his hands, practicing his toast …. When she came out of the trees she found the small round lawn occupied by Buddy Wittenborn lying asleep on his back with his bare feet crossed and with his hands folded on his chest ….


What can you deduce about Ralph Eastman and Buddy Wittenborn from these brief selections? Do you see how using a specific distinctive trait “on the run” helps you “see” a character?

The Telling Detail
This brings us to one of my favorite aspects of character, the telling detail. E.M. Forster notes that a novelist “may not choose to tell us all he knows—many of the facts, even of the kind we call obvious, may be hidden.” Beginning (and some not-so-beginning) writers often feel as if they must give every detail about a character, but if you do this, not only will your reader be frustrated, he still won’t see what’s in your head. I’m not saying you shouldn’t note everything in your first draft—after all, a first draft is a wonderful way to find out what you’re trying to say. Ultimately, though, it’s the telling detail, and only the telling detail, that you’ll want to hang on to. I’ve co-opted the Greek term synecdoche (sin-NEK-toe-kee), a linguistic term that means the part stands for the whole (“bread” for food; “soldier” for army), to represent how the right telling detail insists the reader fill in what he doesn’t know. A good telling detail performs double—no, triple—duty, revealing setting, character, and plot all in one tidy line.

For an example of how this works, let’s get in someone else’s car. No, wait—we can’t get in, not yet, because first we have to pick up the various books and papers on the passenger seat and toss them in the back. Okay, now we can slide in … But, no: Now we see that the footwell has become the resting place for fast-food soft-drink cups, crumpled napkins, CD covers, even a hairbrush.

Okay. What do you know about the driver of this car from what I’ve just told you? The answer is that each of you will have conjured a different car and a different driver, based on your—you guessed it—resources of experience.

Getting Inside Your Reader’s Head
My attempts to explain how a telling detail leads the reader to fill in what he doesn’t know were made much simpler the first time I drew the following on a whiteboard:

Imagine the circle is your reader’s brain. When the right detail (the arrow) breaks through, it will explode in your reader’s head so he fills in all sorts of details you haven’t shown.

In a successful synecdoche, every reader will imagine a different picture of that car based on the telling details you choose to reveal. This is a good thing, because it means you’ve captured your readers’ imaginations. It’s also why, when we readers go to the movies, we’re almost never as happy with the film as we were with the book. Unless the character the director imagines segues perfectly with our own picture (an astronomical unlikelihood), we’re destined to be disappointed.

EXERCISE
Character Walks Into a Room
How do you codify the information you receive? Think about it: So much information comes our way every day that we have to have some way of quickly deciding what goes where. When it comes to people, you may use a method you’re not even aware of, such as the Myers-Briggs personality-type indicator, astrological signs, or even ethnic or racial stereotypes. We all need such systems, though we don’t always share them with others.

Whenever my dear friend Joanie walks into a restaurant, she immediately looks around the room to see who she knows, then stops to visit with each person. However, when I walk into that restaurant (with her, let’s say), I take in the whole room—what it looks and feels like, how many people are there, if it’s smoky, if it’s hot or cold. Then, as quickly as I can without drawing attention to myself (because the last thing a writer wants is to draw attention to herself), I find a quiet corner where I can watch everyone. My husband Bob, meanwhile, will be examining the construction materials, while another friend will likely already have noted what could stand improvement.

Quick now, before you think about it, what do you know about the four people I’ve just described entering this restaurant? This exercise combines almost everything we’ve discussed in this chapter: what you know about your character, the telling detail, and the specific distinctive trait.

Now it’s your turn. Walk into that restaurant yourself. What’s the first thing you notice? How about your partner? What does he or she see? Try it out with a few friends. (I’ve asked quite a few of mine since I came up with this, and I’m always surprised by their answers.)

Then, have a character walk into a restaurant. What does she notice? What does she miss? And where in the restaurant does she head as soon as she can?

What have you learned about your character from this exercise? It may well be just the telling detail your fiction needs.

(Writer's Digest Books, 2008).

Turkey Day / Film Review : Changeling

Happy Turkey Day to All who par-take in such a wonderful food filled day. I spent the first half of the day smoking and watching the lousy Detroit Lions get there asses handed to them. I'm one who will say that you cant fuck with tradition but the Lions need to be yanked from the Thanksgiving Day line-up. Please for the love of Jah! Then I went to my sisters house on the outside of town on the edge of suburbia and fuckin nowhere. My sister went on a date last night yea but what she wasn't expecting was for this guy to just show up today around noon and invite himself to diner. He had a good reasoning behind it being he was crazy enough to join the military and he is stationed at Buckley as an "Analyst" whatever that means. And to top the night off my cool ass brother n law Chuck had some friends come over to help eat the 10 pies that my mother slaved hours over the stove last night and with them was a very sexy young lady who just so happen to have the same phone as me and me being a little slow with cell phones she helped me though a few things. All in All a good Day




Clint Eastwood's Changeling is a riveting drama about a missing boy and the undying constancy of a mother's love. Angelina Jolie excels in a powerful performance as Christine Collins, whose nine-year-old son, Walter, disappeared in 1928. Five months later, police returned to her a boy they said was Walter; Christine alleged that the boy was not her son.

At the time, the Los Angeles police department was under considerable pressure due to the efforts of a Presbyterian minister, Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), to expose corruption within the police force. Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), who heads up the investigation, doesn't particularly care whether the boy is or isn't Walter Collins; he has a publicity campaign to manage that's all about making himself look good, so he tries to convince Christine to accept the found boy as her son. When she fights back by going to the press, Jones has her committed to the psycho ward.

The movie is based on a the true story of the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders in the late 1920s; Gordon Stewart Northcott molested, tortured, killed and dismembered 20 young boys on his farm before his nephew and accomplice confesses to police what was taking place. Because the film is based on real events, we know going in how it's going to end; the film's tension rides, therefore, not in the destination but in the journey to get there. Eastwood controls the film's pacing with a careful touch, letting us feel Christine's anguish, and taking us all the way down into her dark night of the soul before granting the emotional release at the film's somewhat redemptive end.

Jolie portrays a classic tragic heroine in the film; a single mother abandoned by Walter's father, she's raised her boy alone, and he's all she has. Her reaction to Captain Jones's refusal to accept that the boy the police have brought home to her is not her son goes from earnest insistence to stark disbelief to anger. The police captain, unwilling to acknowledge the failings of his department, makes her the enemy rather than the victim, alternately painting her in the press as a negligent mother who simply doesn't want to take responsibility for her son now that he's found, or perhaps a hysterical woman with delusions of paranoia.

This is a case of real life being stranger (or perhaps, more horrific) than fiction. If a screenwriter had written a script like this that was purely fictional, audiences would find it hard to accept. It seems rather fantastic to imagine that the police wouldn't simply believe a mother who says, this is not my child. Of course she would know her own child; I'd know any of my kids in a pitch black room, by the outline of their profiles, the feel of their hair, their unique scents. It's important to keep in perspective, though, that the film takes place in 1928, during a time with corruption on the police force was rampant, women were viewed as emotional and prone to bouts of hysteria, and people could be locked in a mental hospital to get them out of the way of those in power.

Anytime a film centers on the idea of a child in peril, the dramatic tension stakes are raised accordingly, but the conflict in the film works on many levels: in Christine facing the police captain; in the captain versus the preacher; in good cop versus bad cop; and, of course, in the broader theme of Christine facing the challenges women of that time faced in society generally. Watching that very real history play out -- the whole, "there now, be a good girl, keep your mouth shut and just do as you're told" mentality, rankles me to my very core, as I expect it will to most modern women watching it.

Eastwood relies largely on the strength of Jolie's performance to carry the film, playing up the bully-victim relationship to the hilt to create a sense of opposing forces crashing into each other. Jolie's mama-lioness performance is powerful -- she plays Christine as both strong and vulnerable, a woman who is both tethered to the restraints of the society in which she must maneuver, and fiercely resilient in her search for the truth about what happened to her son. Jolie's performance evokes her stylistically similar performance in A Mighty Heart; she spends most of the film wrenched in anguish that resonates to the core. In the latter third of the film, Christine undergoes a dramatic shift from the tragic woman who's lost a child to a heroine who must advocate for the rights of other women in similar situations, and one can't help but draw parallels to Jolie's own personal activism.

Donovan, as corrupt and dictatorial police captain, is infuriatingly smug, which is just as he should be for the role of a man who will stop at nothing -- not even the life of a child -- to protect his own sorry hide. John Malkovich sizzles as the preacher-with-a-cause, arcing his character nicely; Malcovitch's Brieglib starts out feeling like a grandstander, but his sympathies for Christine's plight ultimately shift his priorities. Amy Ryan sneaks in a nice supporting role as a former prostitute and fellow psych-ward detainee.

My one beef with the performances was with Jason Butler Harner as the murderer; this is a wretched, morally abysmal character, yes, but Harner kind of looks and feels like Kyle Maclachlan if he went on a really bad lost meth weekend and never came all the way back. His hysterical craziness is just a bit over-the-top and detracts from the film, but I suppose when you're playing a man who tortures little boys and chops them up with an ax, it's hard to find a middle-ground.

Regarding the other elements of the film, J. Michael Straczynski's script is first-rate; he's an excellent storyteller, and does a solid job of translating true events into a dramatic story. There's no jarring wooden dialog here, no overt exposition;

Character Discovery

I've been reading the great sceenplay writer Barry Parsons' blog on www.createyourscreenplay.com and it has a lot of very informative articles scatted throughout the site....

ONE CHARACTER IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR


Thoughts about screenwriting come from unexpected places.

During the Clinton Administration, I happened to listen to a radio interview with Gail Sheehy, who was then currently on tour touting her new book about Hillary. Sheehy made a comment about the relationship between Hillary and Bill that has dogged me ever since.

But not for the obvious reasons. Oon its surface, the comment appears banal. What Sheehy said about America's first couple was, "They know everything there is to know about each other."

I got to thinking, no wonder there's no drama in the lives of Hillary and Bill. They "know everything there is to know about each other." And the public knows everything there is to know about them.

If Bill and Hillary were a movie, the country would want to get out of the theater and go home. Two characters who know everything about each other -- the worst thing for a story.

Proven by the fact that successful screenwriters typically begin with the opposite situation. They create two very UNLIKE characters at the center of their story, a Hero and a Bonding Character, who know very little about each other.

Wouldn't you think that Bill, caught "in flagrante delicto," ought to be good dramatic fodder when his wife finds out? Not on the Bill and Hillary show. Because Hillary knows that Bill always forgets to get rid of the trash. She's expecting it. And so is the audience.

But there has to be a story there somewhere, doesn't there? Sure. The story of Bill and Hillary happened when they knew nothing about each other. When they first met. When through some event (and I'm not sure what that might have been) they were forced together.

As fascinated as I am by Presidential power, and marital infidelity, the thing that fascinates me more is the question, what is a story? "The King died, and then the Queen died." That's not a story, I'm told. But "The King died, and then the Queen, overcome by her grief, died of a broken heart."

That's a story. An old example. And one that suggests that a story needs two essential elements: events related by cause, and a situation that evokes emotion.

Some people vow that a story is always a conflict between Good and Evil. Others swear that the paradigm is David and Goliath. Still others claim that every story is a love story, or a journey, or a reworking of a myth, etc., etc. There are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of views of what constitutes a story. Perhaps they all possess a part of the truth.

This much I know. Most screenwriters build their stories around two unlike characters. The writer creates a desire in the audience to see these characters "get together" in some way, which will happen at the end of the movie, usually (the writer hopes) in an unsuspected manner.

Sometimes the two characters marry, sometimes one defeats or overcomes the other, sometimes they agree to part--there are thousands of variations, but, unlike Bill and Hillary, the major characters never start out "knowing everything there is to know about each other." You don't have to look too far to find the real life screen story in the years of the Clinton administration.

Two unlike characters? Well see, there's this President, a little bit roguish, ladies' man, plays fast and loose with the truth, and then there's this Prosecutor, by the name of Starr, religious guy, bit of a zealot. These two guys are worlds apart temperamentally, and morally. They know squat about each other, really, and the Prosecutor's out to put this President in the tank...well, you COULD write the story, except that CNN already got to it. Great ratings, so I'm told.

by
Barry Pearson

Top 10 Villains of all time

1. Tyler Durden – Brad Pitt – Fight Club
2. Hannibal Lector – Anthony Hopkins – Silence of the Lambs
3. Darth Vader – James earl Jones – Star Wars
4. Clurella De vil – Betty Lou Garson – 101 Dalmatians
5. Mommie Dearest – Joan Crawford – Mommie Dearest
6. Annie Wilkes – Kathy Bates - Misery
7. Max Cady – Robert De Niro – Cape Fear
8. Chigurgh – Javier Bardem – No Country for Old Men
9. Joker – Heath Ledger - Batman
10. Jack Torrance – jack Nicholas – Shining

Those who fell short
11. Agent Smith – Hugo Weavin - Mtatrix
12. Bill – David Cariden – Kill Bill
13. Dr Evil – Mike Meyers – Austin Powers
14. Kaiser Soze – Kevin Spacy – Usual Suspect
15. Lord Voldemort - Ralph Fiene – Harry Potter
16. Bill the Butcher – Daniel Day Lewis – Gangs of New York
17. Freddy Kruger – Robert England – Nightmare on Elm Street
18. Frankenstein Boris Karloff - Frankenstein

Film Review: Zach and Miri Make a Porno

I had my daughter today. And since i only get to see her for several hours at a time we usually check out a movie. No I didn't take to go see this movie i watched it after she left. Nothing makes me smile more than a child laughing. Any child for that matter could laugh and it would make my day. A close second to smiling is any Kevin Smith movie and he didn't let me down with this soon to be Classic.

Believe the Hype ----The movie starts out a little slow with best friends and roommates Zach(Seth Rogen)and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) pissed off about going to there 10 year high school reunion. The are reluctant about attending but both do so. Before they go Miri is changing her clothes in the back of the coffee shop that both work at full time While changing her clothes two punk kids capture video with there cell phone of Miri in a pair of big white granny panties and nothing else. The video is a instant internet sensation. Meanwhile Miri ultimate goal at the reunion is to find a old bully Bobby Long (Brandon Routh) that used to call her names and she will show him how she has turned out(and she has turned out very nice if i don't say so myself). She finds the bully to be very handsome and with some very clever Kevin Smith dialogue the two hit it off nicely while Zach is by himself in the corner drinking on a beer. Zach starts talking to a man at the bar who turns out to be s gay porn star and he tells Zach of the riches in those kinds of movies and he is also Brandon Long's gay lover.

Sooner rather than later, stacks of overdue bills comes into play as the dejected Zach and Miri make their way home and lose their water, then their power, then seemingly any rational means to erase their debt. Fearful that they will ultimately lose their apartment(This movie is filled with soon to be great one liners) they eventually decide to parlay their new found internet fame (that of the granny panties and bare ass) into dollars by making, yes, an adult feature. Zach's reasoning, which Miri eventually agrees with, is that they can at least sell it to the 850 people on their high school's alumni mailing list (obtained from the disastrous reunion). The solid understanding the two have about having sex together for the first time after being life-long friends is shot straight to hell when it turns out they can't separate those buried feelings for the sake of cashing in on their filmed physicality.

The side characters; Jay - Kenny from Kenny and Spenny and a few others are all well suited for the movie and score some laughs though out the flick. One question i have is i didn't see Kevin play any parts in the movie. DID HE?

Kevin Smith is brilliant as he nails the comedy aspect right on the head but then Zack and Miri garner some funny feelings for each other, and then you have to try and give and hoot about their relationship, and the comedy turns into a funny rom-com.You want them to fall in love. Kevin even adds another brilliantly funny scene at the end where the audience is lead to think that for sure Zach will never get the girl.

The movie just line after line of nasty and hilarious dialogue that you can quote with your friends for the next couple of weeks.

And in closing if I've learned anything from Zack and Miri, it's that everyone should dabble in porno at least once in their life.

Quentin Tarantino's new Script

I read a article of 'Inglorious Bastards’ the new script by the man himself Quentin Tarantino that i thought that i would like to share and keep around. It was online at NYMAG.COM It has a very interesting premise behind the movie. Lets have a look at the article

------------------------------------------------------------------------
We’ve Got Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Bastards’ Script

and it is exactly as batshit over-the-top insane as we hoped.

The copy we acquired includes a handwritten cover page which we think might actually be in Tarantino's handwriting, reading, "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS." This misspelling of "bastards" continues through the screenplay, suggesting we were right when we guessed Tarantino was writing really, really fast. He doesn't even have time to spell-check if he's gonna get this movie turned around by Cannes!

The script is 165 pages long and follows a squad of American soldiers called the Bastards — a guerrillalike force who travel behind German lines in 1944, striking terror into the hearts of Nazi soldiers. The Bastards are headed by Lieutenant Aldo Raine — the role we'd imagine Tarantino is hoping to land Brad Pitt for — described by the script as a "hillbilly from the mountains of Tennessee," who has around his neck a scar from where he survived a lynching. ("The scar will never once be mentioned," Tarantino writes.) In a parallel story, Inglorious Bastards follows a French Jewish teenager named Shosanna who survives the massacre of her family and flees to Paris, where she winds up running a movie house during the Nazi occupation.

The Bastards' and Shosanna's stories intersect when a gala premiere of a Goebbels-produced propaganda film is put on in Shosanna's theater, with Hitler and most of the German High Command scheduled to attend. Both the Bastards and Shosanna launch plots intending to end the war a little earlier than anyone expected.

The script's divided into five chapters:

Chapter One: Once Upon a Time … Nazi Occupied France

Chapter Two: Inglorious Basterds

Chapter Three: German Night in Paris

Chapter Four: Operation Kino

Chapter Five: Revenge of the Giant Face

The first chapter, set in 1941, introduces Shosanna and the film's antagonist, a Nazi officer named Landa who's known as the "Jew Hunter." The second chapter introduces the Bastards and their tactics: They kill Nazis on sight, take their scalps, and — when they let one go — carve a swastika into his forehead. The third chapter, set in 1944, reintroduces Shosanna in Paris ("This whole Chapter will be filmed in French New Wave Black and White"). The fourth sets up the Bastards' attack on the theater. And it all comes together in Chapter Five, which plays fast and loose with history, to say the least.

The script is definitely the ur-text of Quentin Tarantino's career up to now; it combines his love of old movies (war movies, Westerns, and even prewar German cinema), his attraction to powerful female protagonists, his love of chatter, and his willingness to embrace the extreme — visually and in his storytelling. (The flashbacks have particularly Tarantinoian flourishes: a thought bubble pops out of a character's head to introduce one, while another is shot spaghetti Western style.) All in all, it reads like Kill Bill meets The Dirty Dozen meets Cinema Paradiso.

We wondered at times if this script was a fake, and it's still possible that it is — but if so, it's such a skillful fake that the author has even mastered Tarantino's ability to write moments that seem almost like parodies of his own tastes. Such as, for example, our favorite moment in the screenplay, with a mix of fetishism and inspired comedy that feels authentically alive. Late in chapter four, the Nazis are preparing Shosanna's movie theater for its big premiere, and Goebbels tells her that he appreciates "the modesty of this auditorium." Then he suggests sprucing the place up a bit, with a chandelier from Versailles and a couple of Greek nudes from the Louvre scattered around the lobby. A quick montage shows this happening, and then Tarantino describes the result:

We see Workers trying with incredible difficulty, to hoist the huge, heavy, and twinkingly fragile chandelier, in Shosannas auditorium, which now resembles something out of one of Tinto Brass's Italian B-movie rip-off's of Visconti's "The Damned".

If anyone is crazy enough to fund it, this movie is gonna be awesome.

Film Review: Kung Fu Panda

Time well spent.... In the movie by DreamWorks The Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black is the voice of Po, a clown-eyed, sheepishly neurotic panda of no visible athletic ability. Black gives Po a slightly abashed suburban-couch-potato sweetness.

The story starts off with Po, who works in his father's (Mr.Ping played by the very funny James Hong) noodle shop but he dreams of becoming a Kung Fu master one day. The day the great Dragon Warrior is to be named Po as usual is running late and he didnt make it in time to attend the ceremony in the Jade Palace, So he devises a crazy contraption where he ties a huge firework display to a wooden chair and lits the wick . He flies though the air landing hard in the middle of the area where the Furious Five - Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Mantis (Seth Rogen) - are showing off their Kung Fu skills. Po interrupts the ceremony where Oogway (Randell Duk Kim) who is the wisest in all in the land a giant tortoise is speaking and he decreed Po to be the great Dragon Warrior. That's when Kung Fu Panda ignites.

As Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) starts to train Po he notices the total lack of skill and he finds it quite funny - he's such a flabby sack of wrong moves that even his screwups have a bass-ackwards logic that is nearly balletic. But then being the great Master that he is Shifu figures out how to teach this hopeless case the art of kung fu. He uses a bowl of dumplings, which Po is so eager to eat that he'll scramble anywhere, at any speed, to get at them. Kung Fu Panda is light and goofy, yet the fight scenes, which are the heart of the film, are mad fun. Just about all animated movies teach you to Believe in Yourself (the rat who finds the courage to cook! The ogre who learns to love!), but the image of a face-stuffing panda-turned-yowling Bruce Lee dervish is as unlikely, and touching. TWO BIG THUMBS UP. A-

Happy Halloween

The witching hour is upon us. Several versions of Sleepy Hollow are on T.V and the Simpson's Tree House of Hours is almost on.Yea. I didn't dress up for some reason i had no motivation to spend money and dress up. Although I have enjoyed some of the costumes I have been seeing people wearing around town today. Everything from SEXY to the down right STUPID. Well be safe and enjoy the night
Italian

Splinter

The Variety had a review of this years Screamfest Horror Film Fest Winner 1st place award winner. Sounds pretty good

With: Jill Wagner, Paulo Costanzo, Shea Whigham, Rachel Kerbs.

F/x whiz Toby Wilkins' "Splinter" is a spare, effective and genuinely frightening retro-nightmare that will have teenage gore girls trooping to the movies like lurching swarms of George Romero's living dead. The socio-sexual-psychological attraction of "Splinter" -- which just won a rash of awards at Screamfest in Los Angeles -- will constitute as much of the film's draw as Quantum Creation's human sea urchins or the generous portions of blood served up by Wilkins and his makeup peeps. It's a chick flick with hemoglobin -- and a Halloween opening wasn't a bad idea, either.

Clearly out to evoke '70s horror, "Splinter" kicks off with a twist on the twisted familiar: Seth (Paulo Costanzo) and Polly (Jill Wagner) are going camping -- bad idea -- but they can't get the tent up. But hold on: It's when they get back into the presumed safety of their SUV (there's a subliminal green message in there somewhere) that they're abducted by the malignant Dennis (Shea Whigham) and his crystal meth-addled girlfriend, Lacey (Rachel Kerbs). What initially seems to be shaping up as a hostage drama a la "The Desperate Hours," however, becomes something very different indeed.

Dennis is a wonderfully hateful thug, who immediately zeroes in on the intellectual Seth and makes him look weak in front of Polly, who's been driving their SUV. (Seth can't drive stick! A sure sign of weenie-hood.) But then Polly runs over some animal that looks like a road pie with spines, and Lacey starts talking to it, thinking it's her long lost dog Ginger (you knows she's a goner).

But the Thing, this spiny, splintery mass, trails our scream quartet and backs them into a convenience store. There, the proprietor has already been reduced to a bloody, needle-y mass, and the three (yes, we're down to three) fight for their lives, with all the duct tape, wire hangers and fireworks they need to keep the porcupine-ish menace at bay.

The mechanics of "Splinter" are remarkably sound -- the script moves from place to place with a minimal amount of implausibility, once you get beyond the raging-mold-spore theory by which Seth (conveniently, a Ph.D candidate in biology) figures out what's out there. The convenience store is a character all its own.

But it's Polly who's the engine of all this: She can't help but respond, however subtly, to Dennis' man of action while disdaining Seth in his more brainiac moments. Seth acquits himself admirably enough, but Wagner (yes, boys, the spokesmodel in all those Lincoln-Mercury ads), does a wonderful job of internalizing Polly's wavering allegiance to strong Seth vs. cerebral Seth, mirroring the kinds of psychosexual debates raging among the likely aud for this taut little bloodbath.

The effects, used rather smartly and sparingly, are great: The disembodied hand that chases the characters around their ersatz 7-Eleven is vaguely comical, but only because it's so terrifying. There's not a lot of explanation about where the splinters come from, aside from Seth's scientific theory about heat and cold and a monster that operates on a purely cellular basis. In an era of environmental awareness, Wilkins seems to be after a deeper, nuanced message than pure horror, punctuated by his "Kiss Me Deadly"-style ending.
More than one option

* (Person) Todd Wagner
Executive Producer
* (Person) Todd Wagner
Associate Producer, Executive Producer, Line Producer
* (Person) Todd Wagner
Actor
2007 - Edward James Olmos, Michael D. Olmos

Camera (Deluxe color), Nelson Cragg; editor, David Michael Maurer; music, Elia Cmiral; production designer, Jennifer Spence; art director, Thomas Spence; sound (Dolby Digital), David Stevens; supervising sound editors, Ben Wilkins, Jon Johnson; re-recording mixers, Ben Wilkins, Stanley Kastner; creature design/special makeup effects, Quantum Creation FX; special makeup/creature effects producer, Christian Beckman; special makeup/creature effects supervisor, Justin Raleigh; special makeup effects department head, Ozzy Alvarez; key special makeup effects artist, Danielle Noe; stunt coordinator, Jackson Burns; visual effects supervisors, Toby Wilkins, David Sosalla, George Cawoon; assistant directors, Graeme Finlayson, Buntho Lafragiola; casting, Lauren Bass, Chris Freihofer. Reviewed at Aidikoff screening room, Beverly Hills, Oct. 23, 2008. (In Screamfest Horror Film Festival, Los Angeles.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 82 MIN.

By JOHN ANDERSON
www.variety.com

Book Review: Save the Cat

I've finally started to read "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder. I was on his website blakesnyder.com today and he has a formula for writing loglines, handy if you are trying to write a query letter:

On the verge of a Stasis=Death moment, a flawed protagonist has a Catalyst and Breaks Into Two with the B Story; but when the Midpoint happens, he/she must learn the Theme Stated, before the All Is Lost, to defeat (or stop) the flawed antagonist (from getting away with his/her plan).

Example:

On the verge of another “suit and tie” assignment, a tomboy FBI agent is assigned to go undercover in the American Miss Pageant and has a complete makeover to blend in with the other contestants; but when the pageant receives a new threat, she must learn she can be a woman and tough, before she gets thrown off the case, to defeat the warped pageant organizer bent on revenge. (Miss Congeniality)

With Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Kevin Smith learns his low-brow brand of humor is no longer considered taboo.

Here is a good read from the Filmmakers.com interview with Kevin Smith


Always straddling the line between indie and mainstream films, Kevin Smith has grown a dedicated fan base for his original comedies since coming on the scene with the no-budget, black-and-white Clerks in 1994. But with his latest film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Smith finds himself entering a theatrical world in which his disarmingly sweet mixture of toilet humor, romance and pop-culture reflection is not so unusual. With Judd Apatow working similar gross-out, meet-cute strategies in comedy smashes like Knocked Up, Smith finds himself an elder statesman when it comes to humorous cinematic raunch.

In his latest film Smith has put away Jay and Silent Bob and left his Jersey roots for snowy Pittsburgh. But the most notable change is who is delivering the lines: Apatow regular Seth Rogen. One of the few actors not in the View Askewniverse who can handle Smith‘s profanity-laced fanboy dialogue, Rogen, with his everyman look, easily slips into Smith‘s usual slacker protagonist role while his writing credits in films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up give him the cred to claim a spot in Smith‘s cheerfully vulgar world.

In the film Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play best friends/roommates Zack and Miri who after having their utilities shut off, decide to make a quick buck by shooting a porno. After finding a cast (including Smith regular Jason Mewes and porn stars Katie Morgan and Traci Lords) and financier (The Office‘s Craig Robinson), all that‘s left is a porn title — Star Whores. In a hilarious montage, the team creates revealing costumes and crude sets that would make George Lucas either chuckle or gag. But when their set is unexpectedly leveled by a demolition crew, Zack and Miri are left to think up another porno idea (and title) and, in the process, realize that when friends have sex it does change everything.

Smith says the title helps turn away the curious folk who may not know what they‘re getting into. But for the most part it‘s a MacGuffin. At its center, like all of Smith‘s films, Zack and Miri is a movie about relationships.

Filmmaker talked to Smith before he premiered the film at the Toronto International Film Festival about courting Rogen, his latest tussle with the MPAA and his first foray into horror. The film opens Oct. 31 through The Weinstein Company and MGM.

I really dug the film.

Thank you. I was thinking the other day, “Man, am I ever going to be in Filmmaker again?”

I just reread the cover story we did on you for Chasing Amy before this conversation Yeah. It‘s been a while.

Where did the idea of doing this film come from?

I was meeting with Harvey Weinstein — I think we were doing Clerks II at that point — and he asked me what I wanted to do next. I said, “I‘m thinking of writing this movie called Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and he goes, “Done. Greenlit. Finished.” And I was like, “What do you mean? Don‘t you want to hear what the movie is about?” And he‘s like, “C‘mon Kevin, doesn‘t the title say it all?” And I was like, “Well, I guess you‘re right on some level.” Then ironically when we were in production Bob [Weinstein said], “I think we have to change that title, it just gives everything away. You know what they‘re doing before you see the movie!” I was like, “Bob, the title was announced six months ago and it was really favorably received online. I think it would be silly to change it at this stage in the game.” And he said, “Well, just keep an open mind, listen to this: ‘Zack and Miri Make a Movie.‘ ” And I was like, “Make a movie? Okay, Bob, that would not make me want me to see it.” A week later USA Today wrote an article in which they quoted the dude from Exhibitor Relations saying this is one of the best titles of the year and suddenly that argument went away.

And your interest in Seth Rogen came from watching the scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin where he and Paul Rudd are playing video games?

Yeah, and not so much the, “You know how I know you‘re gay?” which is adorable, but the “Fuck you!” at the end, which I thought was brilliant. I‘m watching it on DVD, sitting at my computer answering e-mails, and when Seth‘s character tells the story about seeing a chick make it with a horse my ears perk up because we just did a donkey show [in Clerks II]. Mercifully it has nothing to do with what we did but at the same time his delivery is so perfect. I was like, “I love this dude — he sounds like one of my characters. I want to work with this guy!” I thought since he plays a supporting role in that movie, I can write him a lead and then this dude will pop huge and he‘ll owe me forever. I‘ll have Affleck version 2.0! But by the time I got to writing it, I was frightened as fuck because I started seeing him on billboards for Knocked Up. I thought my plan was ruined. At that point I learned that he‘s not just an actor, he‘s a writer, so he doesn‘t need anyone to generate material for him. I thought I missed my window, but thankfully he liked the script a lot.

I feel the one person who was put on this Earth to deliver your dialogue is Jason Lee, but Rogen is a close second.

Absolutely. And if I made this film 10 years ago it would have been Jason Lee in a heartbeat.

But let‘s talk about when you can‘t get the actor you want. You wrote the Miri part originally for Rosario Dawson.

Yeah, I had such a good time working on Clerks II with her. I thought she was fantastic. The whole time I‘m working on the Zack and Miri script I‘m telling her and she‘s like, “Right on.” Then I gave her the script and her one question is, “Isn‘t it close to Becky in as much like I fall in love with a loser again?” And I was like, “This is comedy in the 21st century! It‘s all about women and losers. That‘s all I‘ve ever done.” We never went to her with an official offer but it was understood that I was writing it for her. Then I found out online that she committed to do Eagle Eye, which I get — it‘s Shia LeBeouf and D.J. Caruso and Spielberg is producing, but, man, to find out that way, reading online? Suddenly we were in open territory. We narrowed it down to six names and, alphabetically, Elizabeth Banks was at the top of the list. Now I liked all the other names, but I liked Banks because she‘s always been really good in everything I‘ve seen, particularly Invincible. Seth immediately went to Banks. She was in 40-Year-Old Virgin and had gotten pretty far in the Knocked Up auditions — she had just missed it. So I met her and she came on.

What‘s it like working with someone like Rogen who can both write and improvise?

He‘s the goods and a smart motherfucker. Everyone‘s like, “Oh, he loves to improv,” but I don‘t think of it like that. I think of it more as adlibbing than improvising. Improv to me is like, “Let‘s go and make up everything.” Seth is innately gifted at finding a way to inject a line that doesn‘t derail a scene. They are what the character would say and they move the plot forward. I have never met anybody as good at that as Seth. That being said, the dude would do the script and then do the adlibs.

How did you end up setting the film in Pittsburgh?

The first draft was set in Minnesota in Saint Cloud because I wanted to go to the one place in the world that nobody would think about making porn. If the San Fernando Valley is the cradle of porn, I wanted to be in a place that‘s the opposite of that on every front. And then, I think [producer Scott] Mosier suggested Pittsburgh, where we shot Dogma. We got a huge tax-incentive break by shooting there, and I thought Pittsburgh made even more sense than Saint Cloud because Minnesota at least has the Twin Cities, and it seems a more cultured area than Pittsburgh, which is largely considered a steel town.

You have both a porn star and a porn legend in the film. How did that happen?

Seth was delighted that he didn‘t have as many hats to wear [on this film] as he normally does, but he‘s an idea man and it‘s tough to turn that off. So right away he was like, “I think for the roles of Stacy and Bubbles we should get real porn actresses.” His point was you get an adult film actress and when it comes time to disrobe you‘re hitting them up with something that is a thousand times easier than what they would normally do on a set. You can‘t ask a porn actress to do anything that‘s more outrageous than what she does in her day job. So I was looking on YouTube and I saw this clip from an actress I‘d never heard of named Katie Morgan. It wasn‘t a porn clip, it was a performance clip — the acting part of a porn. I thought, “This chick can act.” She‘s funny. So we brought her in and she was great. Traci Lords came way later in the game. We never wanted to go to Traci Lords because we thought she‘s done with porn, and even casting her in a movie that has porno in the title will never happen. She dug the script, though, and said, “It is kind of tough for me to do based on who I am and where I came from, but that shit happened 20 years ago. Maybe it‘s time to embrace it and say, ‘Yeah I did porn.‘” So we got lucky there.

You were successful to get the film down from NC-17 to an R-rating.

I read that this latest appeal is your third win. What‘s the secret?

The first one I can‘t really take huge amounts of credit for because there was no way that wasn‘t going to get overturned. This was for Clerks and it was all language-based. It was just people sitting around talking. Jersey Girl they initially gave us an R for a sequence in which Ben [Affleck] and Liv [Tyler] are in the diner talking about masturbation. I think [head of Classification and Rating Administration] Joan Graves was like, “If I had a 16-year-old daughter I don‘t think I would want her sitting there listening to this con-versation.” My point was that if you‘ve got a 16-year-old daughter she knows exactly what sex is, and she‘s not going to learn anything new about masturbation from this movie. So with that one I actually had to get up and plead my case. But with Zack and Miri I really felt like I was fucking Clarence Darrow standing up there! This is the first time where I felt like we could actually lose because they had visuals to point to. But luckily I was able cite precedents. Yes, there is a lot of thrusting in the sex scenes in [Zack and Miri], so I cited Taking Lives with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke and pointed out there‘s a sex scene between those two actors that is about as steamy as anything I‘ve ever seen in a mainstream movie. That scene is designed to titillate, it‘s erotic in nature, but our scene is comedic — it‘s a fucking caricature of sex. It‘s a caricature of a caricature because we‘re not even showing real sex. Porno sex is ridiculous and funny to begin with because nobody, I don‘t care who you are, nobody does 26 positions in 10 minutes. It just doesn‘t happen. So that seemed to work, and they overturned it 10 to 4.

The business has changed a lot since you burst on the scene with Clerks in 1994.
If you were starting out today, how do you think you‘d try to break in?

If I was starting right now I would be like, “Hey, Apatow does it.” [laughs] I would use that dude left and right. People ask me, “Man, don‘t you hate Apatow?” And I say, “I love Judd Apatow. a) He makes good movies, and b) the dude has proven that material like ours has an audience.” I have never gone above $30 million [box office gross] on any film and my stuff is kind of the same formula as his in that it is very dirty and it‘s very sweet at the same time. He has been able to punch through and prove that there‘s more of an audience out there for a movie like this than the audience that I‘ve had thus far.

Let‘s talk about your next film, Red State, which sounds like a real departure for you.

Red State is as much a 180-degree turn as you can get from Zack and Miri. It‘s not comedic at all. It‘s a straightforward horror/thriller but it‘s not a standard slasher movie — it‘s political horror. For the first time in almost 15 years the Weinsteins said no and it‘s not even an expensive movie. It‘s like a $5 million movie and they were like, “We don‘t know how to market this, we don‘t know how to sell this, and it‘s more trouble than it‘s worth.” I couldn‘t be mad, they‘ve said yes to everything else. So I can go out now and independently make it. It will be the first time we‘ve made an indie film since Clerks. But finding people to back it has been tough because it‘s rather touchy subject matter.

What‘s it about? It‘s about fundamentalism that goes to a heinous degree.

After Sept. 11 we were looking for the enemy outside and this is about looking for the enemy within. Before we discovered international terrorism on our home soil we‘ve been multiple victims of domestic terrorism. It will be very traumatic and very horrific. It‘s either going to work like gangbusters or people are going to be like, “Go back to comedy, you idiot!” It‘s going to be a real changeup. It‘s very Spartan when it comes to dialogue and it‘s not about relationships. But I gotta tell you, when people say they don‘t want to put in the money, it‘s a little off-putting but it fuels me a little more. Nothing worthwhile is easy and this is the farthest from easy, so Jesus, it must be worthwhile.

BY JASON GUERRASIO

Day After

I had a Birthday. My 32nd one to be precise. Or was it 33 I cant quite seem to remember.

Yet another year has past and I'm yet another year older. They just keep coming don't they. Relentless and without compassion.

I was waiting for Three little Doves to perch on my window and wake me up with song but there were no birds no fireworks at night nothing really. Just another night.

Book Review: Creating Ficton

In Creating Fiction edited by Julie Checkoway you will learn hundreds of exercises on the craft from some of the most notable writers of today. magine having 23 professional writing coaches at your disposal - each instructor teaching the fundamentals of writing they've perfected over the years. "Creating Fiction" is the best of nationwide creative writing programs taught by respected novelists and short story writers.

Established authors offer their expertise in these informative essays. Every entry ends with related exercises pertaining to the writing elements you've just learned. In fact, you'll find over 100 writing exercises taught in expensive workshops.

These writing essays tackle the challenging aspects of your writing venture. This in-depth guide to writing covers:

* Thinking About Fiction

* Characterization

* Point of View

* Plot, Structure and Narrative

* Style and Voice

* Revising, Editing and Marketing

Every category provides a variety of essays, offering several unique perspectives to help you perfect your craft.

Book Review: Alone in a Room

Alone in a Room : Secrets of Successful Screenwriters
by John Scott Lewinski (Ingram Pub Services; Aug 1 2004) is not a how-to-write-a-script book written by , rather it is a field guide to navigating the system of being a working writer in the business, from coming up with marketable ideas, to writing alone in a room on spec before the terrifying specter of the blank page, to accepting writing assignments and collaborating with others, to overcoming the challenges of adapting someone else's work for the screen or blog. The art of comedic writing, dealing with those dreaded "notes" and how to best utilize constructive criticism, dramatic writing for TV, being professional in meetings and making a good impression, getting your work out there to the people who can say yes or no, and how to deal with rejection as well as acceptance and, hopefully, success. As "they" say sometimes success is more frightening than failure.

Reading this book, as an aspiring screenwriter myself, I felt as though the author cared not just about my fate, but about the fate of all writers, and that personal respect and shared understanding makes this book inspiring and motivating. Alone In A Room is honest to be sure, but in a way that will make your path as a screenwriter all the more easy to walk, having now been awakened to many of the obstacles you may encounter.

Review: The Midnight Meat Train

There was a time when the only books on my shelf were either written by Stephen King or Clive Barker. The King books were an inevitability, seeing how every young horror fan at birth already owns at least a one of his novels, but the Barker books were a later discovery (in jail on the book mobile)that helped guide my imagination down a much darker path, where even the likes of King never dared to tread.

I got my hands on the BOOKS OF BLOOD in my late teens and was enthralled by the atrocities contained within.The story that stood out was THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, a tale of urban decay and the horrors encountered in the labyrinthine tunnels of the New York City underground subway system.

After seeing this film I’ve only got one question to ask, "If any recent horror movie deserved a full theatrical release, it’s The Midnight Meat Train." it was truly outstanding and should be the hit that Clive Barker needed.

The protagonist Leon a young vegan who is a struggling photographer who aims to capture the down and dirty areas of the inner city life, what he believes to be "the real city". However, upon taking numerous photos of the homeless, he unknowingly captures the image of a famous Japaneses woman who subsequently disappears. This coupled with photos of a strange man who travels the last subway train every night spur Leon to investigate the disappearance of this woman further.

In his English directorial debut Ryuhei Kitamura does a outstanding job. Bradley Cooper plays Leon as he slowly slips into madness just to get that perfect shot.

AFI TOP 10 MOVIE QUOTES

I have been studding the art of dialogue latly and it got me thinking of the top movie quotes of all time. There are way to many to name so A.F.I. has created a list of the top 100 movie quotes. I have copied the top 10 and added a few that were on the list and a few that didn't make the list. Enjoy

1 Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn - Gone With the Wind 1939

2 I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse - The Godfather 1972

3 You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am - On the Waterfront 1954

4 Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore - The Wizard of Oz 1939

5 Here's looking at you, kid - Casablanca 1942

6 Go ahead, make my day - Sudden Impact 1983

7 All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up - Sunset Boulevard 1950

8 May the Force be with you - Star Wars 1977

9 Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night - All About Eve 1950

10 You talkin' to me? - Taxi Driver 1976

AND A FEW OTHERS TO NOTE

I love the smell of napalm in the morning - Apocalypse Now 1979

E.T. phone home - E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore - Network 1976

Bond. James Bond - Dr. No 1962

Show me the money - Jerry Maguire 1996

I'll have what she's having - When Harry Met Sally 1989

I'll be back - The Terminator 1984

If you build it, he will come - Field of Dreams 1989

Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get - Forrest Gump 1994

Houston, we have a problem - Apollo 13 1995

You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk? - Dirty Harry 1971

You had me at 'hello - Jerry Maguire 1996

There's no crying in baseball - A League of Their Own 1992

A boy's best friend is his mother - Psycho 1960

Say hello to my little friend - Scarface 1983

Hasta la vista, baby - Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991

Soylent Green is people - Soylent Green 1973

Striker: "Surely you can't be serious!" Rumack: "I am serious... and don't call me Shirley - Airplane! 1980

Yo, Adrian - Rocky 1976

Toga! Toga - National Lampoon's Animal House 1978

Nobody puts Baby in a corner - Dirty Dancing 1987

I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too - The Wizard of Oz 1939

Five years for weed - Halfbaked - 1998

All-righty then! - Ace Ventura Pet Detective 1994

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue - AIRPLANE! 1980

Excellent - BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE 1989

....The list could go on and on but I wont let it...

Actors union moves closer to strike vote

SAG NATIONAL TV/THEATRICAL NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE PASSES ADVISORY MOTION TO NATIONAL BOARD\

Los Angeles, CA (October 1, 2008) – The National TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee of Screen Actors Guild today passed the following advisory motion to the National Board:

“Whereas, Screen Actors Guild has been and remains willing and able to continue formal and continuous negotiations with the AMPTP and the employers, with the intention of reaching a mutually-acceptable deal; and

Whereas, the National Board has unanimously identified the core principles of new media jurisdiction and new media residuals as essential elements of any agreement in the Television/Theatrical contract negotiations; and

Whereas, preservation of longstanding force majeure protections for actors is of self-evident importance; and

Whereas, the President and Chief Negotiator have communicated this view to the AMPTP and the employers, and have requested that they return to the bargaining table to negotiate a fair deal; and

Whereas, the AMPTP and the employers have refused to change their position and have continued to refuse to meet to attempt to advance the negotiations; and

Whereas, in the opinion of the National Negotiating Committee, the AMPTP and the employers will only seriously engage in further negotiations after the members of the Guild express their confidence in their leadership by authorizing them to take all actions necessary to protect the interests of the membership, including a strike; and

Whereas, although the National Board has already unanimously delegated the authority to take a strike authorization vote to the National Negotiating Committee, in the opinion of the Committee, the strong and public support of the National Board for the necessity of a strike authorization at this time is a necessary prerequisite for its success;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the National Negotiating Committee that:

A strike authorization vote of the membership is necessary to overcome the employers’ intransigence, and the Committee therefore recommends that the National Board authorize such a vote be taken; and further recommends:
That the National Board adopt a resolution strongly supporting such an action, and recommending that the membership vote in favor of a strike authorization; and

That the National Board endorse an educational campaign advocating a “yes” membership vote, to give the authority to the National Board to call a strike only if the National Board deems it necessary and unavoidable to do so. “

Adopted: October 1, 2008

------------------------------------------


The SAG's national board, a 71-member body, is scheduled to meet Oct. 18. A simple majority is needed to approve the call for a strike vote.

The guild on Monday called for talks to resume, sending the request in a letter addressed to the alliance, The Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger and News Corp. (NWS)'s Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin.

The producers' chief negotiator, J. Nicholas Counter III, said he declined to resume talks because SAG continues to insist on terms the companies have rejected.

The guild wants union coverage of all shows made for the Internet, regardless of budget, and residual payments for actors on made-for-Internet shows that are reused on the Internet. It also demands protections for actors during work stoppages.

The alliance has stuck by a final offer it made June 30, which it said mirrored deals accepted by directors, a smaller actors union called the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and writers following their strike.

The producers have said the proposal is worth $250 million in additional compensation over three years, a figure SAG disputes.

As of Aug. 15, the alliance withdrew an offer to backdate the increases to July 1, and, according to its Web site, actors had lost some $21 million in increases by Wednesday night by not approving the deal.

Last month, 87 percent of the 10,300 actors who responded to a guild survey backed its leaders' drive for a better deal. The producers alliance called the survey materials "hopelessly one-sided."

Chef dies after eating 'superhot' chilli for bet

Andrew Lee, 33, suffered heart failure the morning after he ate the chilli.

Toxicology tests are now being carried out to see if the fork lift truck driver suffered a fatal reaction to the dish or whether anything else contributed to his death.

Mr Lee, of Edlington, Doncaster was apparently in perfect health and had just passed a medical at work, the opening of the Doncaster hearing was told.

Cooking was one of his main interests and he went to his girlfriend Samantha Bailey's house to make a chilli.

His father John Lee told the inquest: "He had a bet with Samantha's brother who could make the hottest chilli then went back to her house to stay."

Mother-of-four Miss Bailey called the emergency services to her home nine days ago.

Police officers were called to the house after receiving reports of a man suffering a cardiac arrest and Mr Lee was found lying on the floor.

Paramedics failed to revive him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A full post-mortem examination is underway and further inquiries are being carried out.

Deputy Doncaster coroner Fred Curtis granted a burial order and adjourned the inquest for further evidence.



By Jessica Salter
www.telegraph.co.uk

Paul Newman

Paul Newman died yesterday at the age of 83. We know that we cant live forever and life is a short gift to us and this man definitely made the best of his time here. He has been nominated 8 times for the Best Lead Actor Oscar and he has won the award 1 time in The Color of Money when he plays Fast Eddie Felson who teaches a cocky but immensely talented protégé the ropes of pool hustling, which in turn inspires him to make an unlikely comeback.

Disney, Depp return to 'Caribbean'

Johnny Depp is the main man at the Mouse House.

Depp has agreed to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" pic and play Tonto in a bigscreen adaptation of "The Lone Ranger," both produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. He will also star as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s version of "Alice in Wonderland."

The roles come after Depp helped Disney earn a combined $2.6 billion at the box office with the three pics in the "Pirates" franchise, also produced by Bruckheimer.

"Alice in Wonderland," skedded for 2010, will be shot using 3-D and performance capture technology similar to that used for "Beowulf."

Depp’s casting deals closed a full day Wednesday at the Kodak Theater, where Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook touted the Mouse’s upcoming slate of pics during a showcase event for exhibitors, media and other industry insiders.

Toons provided the company’s other big news.

Disney-Pixar’s "Cars" has proved such a major moneymaker for the Mouse House that Disney is moving the release of the sequel up a year to summer 2011.

In addition to shifting the date for "Cars 2," studio also announced that it will produce a series of animated short films starring Mater and other characters from the first feature.

Shorts will air on TV, including the Disney Channel, and in theaters in front of films.

"You’ll see them everywhere," Cook said. "We’re going to keep this ‘Cars’ thing going."

"Cars," which was released in 2006 and went on to earn $462 million worldwide, has become a runaway hit in merchandise sales for the studio. Pic will also be prominently featured at a revamped California Adventure in Anaheim; "Cars Land," a 12-acre section of the park, opens in 2011. Move of the sequel from 2012 now times it to coincide with the attraction’s launch.

Before a full screening of Disney’s upcoming toon "Bolt," Cook also touted the studio’s commitment to 3-D animation, saying the company has released more pics in the format than any other studio.

Cook even managed a playful jab at DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has long championed the format and is readying to roll out a slate of 3-D toons.

"I heard that Jeffrey may finally release his first 3-D movie next year," Cook quipped.

Disney has five live-action and animated pics set to unspool in 3-D next year and a slate of 16 in development.

Although several sequences in "Bolt" weren’t yet completed, the fast-paced pic, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios but showing off considerable Pixar touches, played extremely well with the Kodak crowd, with Rhino, a hamster going around on a wheel, generating considerable laughs.

The Walt Disney Studios Showcase has essentially turned into a splashy, ShoWest-like event in Hollywood for the company to parade out stars and screen extended clips for a couple thousand attendees in various sectors of the biz to promote its future projects. Last time it held the showcase was in 2005, also at the Kodak.

In addition to Depp, who took the stage dressed as Jack Sparrow while wearing the Lone Ranger mask, this year’s event also featured the cast of "High School Musical" plus Dwayne Johnson, Miley Cyrus, John Travolta and Robin Williams. Adam Sandler appeared in a pretaped sequence with the studio chairman. And Cook even had a conversation with the four-legged star of "Beverly Hills Chihuahua."

Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage announced a third 'National Treasure.' Although talkshow queen Oprah Winfrey wasn’t present, it was announced that she will voice the mother of the princess in hand-drawn toon "The Princess and the Frog," set in New Orleans.

Cook called the upcoming pics for the rest of this year and 2009 "the most creative slate of films in Disney history" and showed sequences from "High School Musical 3: Senior Year," "Bedtime Stories," "Race to Witch Mountain," "Hannah Montana: The Movie," "Old Dogs," "The Princess and the Frog," Robert Zemeckis’ "A Christmas Carol" and Pixar’s next pic, "Up."

During an intro for "HSM 3," Cook teased that he would sing a song from the first bigscreen installment of the runaway Disney Channel franchise but quickly backtracked.


By MARC GRASER
Variety

IFC Short : Wilfred

I want you to meet some one new to the area. Wilfred. He is 6'2 about 190 and he is a pot smoking dog. Wilfred is a hit cult series from Australia. IFC.com is the first to air this demented little gem in North America. Come by for your fix every weekday at 4:20 ET starting May 5th – 40 short episodes in all.

Episode #1 Adam and Sarah start a new phase of their relationship when he stays over for the first time...and meets her pet dog Wilfred.

Episode #2 Adam's attempts at cleaning up Sarah's yard reveal something foreboding and ominous. Also, Wilfred takes a dump.

IFC Short : Pushing Twilight

I have long had a passion for movies and music but lets face it my generation the ADD generation has fucked the whole system all up. Personally I think that we made it better but others would argue. We have the attention span of a Blue Tang. We want what we want and we want it fast. No one has the time to sit though a 2 hour movie not like they used to. So in light of that I found a cool dark and clever web series on IFC.COM. Its a lot like the movie The Game with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn but a bit darker.

Episode #1 Starts off with the story of Mason and Layla Marks, in a final attempt to save their marriage, are invited to attend a seminar of sorts. Guaranteed to work. They are asked to put everything on the line at an underground poker game. But they quickly discover that risking it all has a higher cost than they first thought. Its very The Game meets Indecent Proposal. You get the idea.

Episode #2 Dark version of Harmony Korine's Gummo and Vincent Patrick Family Buisness with a gay twist. Cole Edwards and Jacob Wright have hit a wall - their careers at a trendy restaurant no longer hold any excitement. The flame that used to burn within no longer burns. So when they're asked to create a peculiar entree (cat) for one of the city's top food critics...will they rise to the challenge..

Episode #3 Avery Ward and Madison Price think they're capable of anything - especially when it comes to men (sluts). Their confidence isn't shaken when they're asked to become exotic dancers for a night...but can they handle the fixation of a cold-blooded VIP? The lesson here is follow the rules and in a weird way never give up.