For most readers, probably 90% of what we read will never be produced, but you can get a helluva education from the 1 out of 10 scripts you read that do end up produced in one form or another. The reactions range from “They made that? The script sucked?” to “What happened? The script I read was so good!” I’m sure there are readers who fear for their jobs or their credibility after a script they raved about comes out as a terrible movie, but the fact is that there are always plenty of other places to point the finger.
Almost five years ago, I had the then-rare distinction of reading a really clever and engaging script for my bosses at the time. It had a complex plot, a clever non-linear structure, some funny showbiz cameos, and some really well-executed twists. In short, it was one of the most original scripts I’d seen and also one that I would have been willing to stake my reputation on. The script in question? Richard Kelly’s Domino, the story of a former model-turned-bounty-hunter, based on a true story (sort of.)
Unfortunately there was not shortage of reasons why my boss felt that the script was an inappropriate fit for us at the time, and there were factors I wasn’t expected to know about, so the company quietly passed. I spent the next year lamenting the fact that my bosses had let such a sure-fire hit movie get away. During that time, whenever someone asked me if I’d read anything good lately, I was quick to reply that Domino was one of the best scripts I’d ever seen and that it was sure to be a hit when it came out. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but in hindsight it certainly feels like I was staking all my script-reading credibility on this movie, at least as far as my rep among my friends was concerned.
So it was apt punishment for my ego when the film came out and tanked horribly. The reviews were savage. This wasn’t just a weak movie, this was a BAD movie. Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 19% Fresh rating, and it made a paltry $22 million return worldwide on a supposedly $50 million investment. (The domestic box office was a pathetic $10 million.) By pretty much any standards, this was a failure. Clearly something had gone wrong, but what?
I saw the movie on DVD and there weren’t any drastic script deviations that I could detect. How had my instincts had been so off-base? Easy. I had forgotten about one major factor – the director. This was perhaps the most over-directed, over-edited, over-stylized film I ever had the displeasure of sitting through. The story and dialogue might have been the same, but the presentation was marred by the sort of ADD/MTV editing that critics like to rip to shreds. Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with every criticism lobbed at this film – but I still think the script was awesome.
It is pretty much an inevitability for any script reader that eventually a script they loved is going to be horribly miscast, thus ruining the entire film. The best thing you can hope for is that when it happens, it isn’t with a script being produced by the company you work for.
And if that does happen. Just let it go. You don’t write the movies, you don’t produce the movies, you don’t cast the movies. You are just the guy who reads them and helps the important people decide it’s worth their time to read them too.
Kept
About: I know nothing about "Kept" other than that it showed up at my door with a note. "Read this or die." I decided I wanted to live so I read it.
Writer: Jayson Rothwell
Review:
Have you ever gone out with a girl who's physically out of your league? And you two are moseying along. You can't believe how lucky you are. And then somewhere in the fourth or fifth week that moment comes. And I think you know what moment I'm talking about. The moment where you realize SHE'S CRAZY! Yeah. Man does that moment suck. My dad taught me an important lesson when I was a kid. If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
"Kept" starts out with CHARLIE, a mysterious businessman, sidling into a club, and noticing the jaw-droppingly hot MAXINE all by herself. He discreetly slips off his wedding ring and makes his move. They eventually end up back at her place, drink a little wine, and the next thing he knows Charlie's woken up with a headache, a mouth full of duct tape, and his arms and feet chained to a bed. It looks like Charlie found out his chick was crazy just a little earlier than the rest of us.
"Kept" keeps this old sub-genre fresh by introducing some unfamiliar elements. Such as everyone else in the apartment complex (all women who have in some way been harmed by men) is just as crazy as Maxine is. Which means Charlie must helplessly endure a barrage of psychos hell-bent on making him suffer as much as possible before his death. There's an older Asian woman who was a sex slave who keeps jars full of severed penises on her bookshelf. There's a religious woman who was the victim of family-related sexual abuse. There's a 92 year old freakshow named Bea who's killed so many husbands she's lost count. And these are the normal ones.
But Maxine's the most fucked up of all. She truly possesses an inner rage and not a lick of mercy. She's been doing this for years, videotaping all of the men she's killed and the horrible ways in which she's killed them, apparently for a movie she's making (Sundance '11?) She revels in showing Charlie the moment when all the previous men broke down. So she becomes increasingly agitated when Charlie is able to handle whatever is thrown at him. There's something different about him and she wants to get to the bottom of it.
She snags his suitcase and goes through it in front of him. What she finds is that Charlie is actually a killer too! A hitman to be precise. And Maxine takes delight in the irony of seeing him on the other side of the hit. The problem is that Maxine underestimates Charlie, and it ends up being her undoing. Or does it?
Besides the cartoonish nature of the script, it's a fun-as-hell read. The thing flies by. And you're genuinely interested in whether Charlie will escape or not. There are, however, three fairly big problems I had with the script. If this movie is made, I'd prefer to have one or two of them taken care of.
The first is when Maxine finds out Charlie is a killer. She doesn't even react. I mean the odds of two killers finding each other accidentally is astronomical. So when she sees Charlie has killed people, just like her, her passee reaction really hurts the credibility of her character.
Secondly, one of the things Maxine can't shut up about is men who cheat. Men who have it all. The perfect wife. The perfect house. Two children. And they're willing to risk it all by fucking some random woman - which she claims is why she's punishing him. She saw him remove his ring that night. However, midway through the script, we learn that Charlie is actually a widower, that his wife is dead. So the way the writer deals with Maxine receiving this information is to have her not understand at first. And barely acknowledge it when it becomes obvious. This conveniently allows her to continue torturing Charlie, when in actuality, if she's staying true to her character, she would've realized that she made a mistake.
The last problem I had was when Chalie escapes and decides to, a la William Wallace, get even with these bitches one by one. The way Maxine reacts to this is completely ridiculous. She turns into Hans Gruber and vows to "take this motherfucker down." Lets be real here. Maxine may be a professional torturer. But Charlie is a trained killer. That's like Kobe taking on Urkle. Give me a break.
But because the script embraces its cartoonish tone, I'm ultimately willing to forgive these things. It is a fun ride. And I'll be honest, this script gave me fucking nightmares. I haven't had nightmares about a film since I was ten and I thought that skeleton from Tales of Crypt was going to sneak into my room and kill me. I will certainly be thinking twice before going home with any super hot girls from now on. The lesson to learn from all this? If it's too good to be true...you're probably dead.
What I learned from Kept: Look for ways to create new twists on an old genre. We've seen the person who wakes up and is being held captive before. But Kept throws a few wrinkles into the equation. It's a woman holding a man captive. She lives in a complex where everyone helps her. All of this made the script unique and unexpected, essential if you want to stand out from the crowd.
Writer: Jayson Rothwell
Review:
Have you ever gone out with a girl who's physically out of your league? And you two are moseying along. You can't believe how lucky you are. And then somewhere in the fourth or fifth week that moment comes. And I think you know what moment I'm talking about. The moment where you realize SHE'S CRAZY! Yeah. Man does that moment suck. My dad taught me an important lesson when I was a kid. If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
"Kept" starts out with CHARLIE, a mysterious businessman, sidling into a club, and noticing the jaw-droppingly hot MAXINE all by herself. He discreetly slips off his wedding ring and makes his move. They eventually end up back at her place, drink a little wine, and the next thing he knows Charlie's woken up with a headache, a mouth full of duct tape, and his arms and feet chained to a bed. It looks like Charlie found out his chick was crazy just a little earlier than the rest of us.
"Kept" keeps this old sub-genre fresh by introducing some unfamiliar elements. Such as everyone else in the apartment complex (all women who have in some way been harmed by men) is just as crazy as Maxine is. Which means Charlie must helplessly endure a barrage of psychos hell-bent on making him suffer as much as possible before his death. There's an older Asian woman who was a sex slave who keeps jars full of severed penises on her bookshelf. There's a religious woman who was the victim of family-related sexual abuse. There's a 92 year old freakshow named Bea who's killed so many husbands she's lost count. And these are the normal ones.
But Maxine's the most fucked up of all. She truly possesses an inner rage and not a lick of mercy. She's been doing this for years, videotaping all of the men she's killed and the horrible ways in which she's killed them, apparently for a movie she's making (Sundance '11?) She revels in showing Charlie the moment when all the previous men broke down. So she becomes increasingly agitated when Charlie is able to handle whatever is thrown at him. There's something different about him and she wants to get to the bottom of it.
She snags his suitcase and goes through it in front of him. What she finds is that Charlie is actually a killer too! A hitman to be precise. And Maxine takes delight in the irony of seeing him on the other side of the hit. The problem is that Maxine underestimates Charlie, and it ends up being her undoing. Or does it?
Besides the cartoonish nature of the script, it's a fun-as-hell read. The thing flies by. And you're genuinely interested in whether Charlie will escape or not. There are, however, three fairly big problems I had with the script. If this movie is made, I'd prefer to have one or two of them taken care of.
The first is when Maxine finds out Charlie is a killer. She doesn't even react. I mean the odds of two killers finding each other accidentally is astronomical. So when she sees Charlie has killed people, just like her, her passee reaction really hurts the credibility of her character.
Secondly, one of the things Maxine can't shut up about is men who cheat. Men who have it all. The perfect wife. The perfect house. Two children. And they're willing to risk it all by fucking some random woman - which she claims is why she's punishing him. She saw him remove his ring that night. However, midway through the script, we learn that Charlie is actually a widower, that his wife is dead. So the way the writer deals with Maxine receiving this information is to have her not understand at first. And barely acknowledge it when it becomes obvious. This conveniently allows her to continue torturing Charlie, when in actuality, if she's staying true to her character, she would've realized that she made a mistake.
The last problem I had was when Chalie escapes and decides to, a la William Wallace, get even with these bitches one by one. The way Maxine reacts to this is completely ridiculous. She turns into Hans Gruber and vows to "take this motherfucker down." Lets be real here. Maxine may be a professional torturer. But Charlie is a trained killer. That's like Kobe taking on Urkle. Give me a break.
But because the script embraces its cartoonish tone, I'm ultimately willing to forgive these things. It is a fun ride. And I'll be honest, this script gave me fucking nightmares. I haven't had nightmares about a film since I was ten and I thought that skeleton from Tales of Crypt was going to sneak into my room and kill me. I will certainly be thinking twice before going home with any super hot girls from now on. The lesson to learn from all this? If it's too good to be true...you're probably dead.
What I learned from Kept: Look for ways to create new twists on an old genre. We've seen the person who wakes up and is being held captive before. But Kept throws a few wrinkles into the equation. It's a woman holding a man captive. She lives in a complex where everyone helps her. All of this made the script unique and unexpected, essential if you want to stand out from the crowd.
Extract
About: This edgy comedy - the third from Mike Judge - supposedly stars Ben Affleck. I must be the bearer of bad news however. Affleck is not the one who gets his balls chopped off.
Writer: Mike Judge
Poor little Mike Judge. The marketing campaign for possibly the funniest movie ever had exactly one laugh in it, and from a character who didn’t even have a minute of screentime (“My “oh” face”). About 12 people showed up to Office Space before it became a phenomenon on home video. Then a thousand years go by and we hear rumblings about a second Judge film set in the future! Cool! However when the film is released, it is done so without even a POSTER! I have seen many things in my life. But I have never seen a studio so dislike a film that they didn’t even spend money on a poster. Idiocracy was no Office Space but it was fun. The problem with the film was that we didn’t know what edit we were watching, the studio's or Mike's. All I remember thinking was, "Mike Judge is never going to make another movie again."
But the movie Gods have smiled down upon us. "Extract" or, as it should be called, “The Ball Chopping Off Movie", is about a man, JOEL, who’s on the verge of selling his Extract company for a cool mil, when a factory accident “extracts” one of his worker’s balls. Just when it seems like the worker is fine with the insurance settlement, in comes CINDY, a super hot con girl, to encourage him to sue the company. Joel goes from potentially having it all, to potentially losing everything.
It's in the first few pages that we see why Judge is such a master. His character despcriptions couldn't be better if he had drawn you a sketch. Here's one of STEP, the poor soul who gets one of his testicles severed. How bout this description?
“Talking to Hector is STEP, a short, beady-eyed Charles-Manson-looking guy with a beard and mustache. Step is in his forties. He makes everything he says sound as macho and important as possible.”
Here is a completely unique character, someone I’ve never seen before, and yet I know exactly who he is. Who does this better than Judge?
It's all fucking hilarious. And Judge adds a dearth of memorable characters. Joel's annoying neighbor who never takes no for an answer. His best friend Dean who thinks every problem can be solved with a pill (and has access to all of them). The 40-something factory worker still holding onto his dream of being a rockstar. It's the kind of stuff that makes you jealous when you think about your own comedy scripts.
The problem with the movie is that it peaks too early. The height of the story is the moment when Joel realizes his wife is cheating on him, he might go bankrupt, and that he’s not going to have sex with Cindy. The tension is built up beautifully to that point. But from then on, everything deflates like a punctured balloon, of which you can actually hear the air escape.
It’s too bad because Extract was fast becoming my favorite script of the year. That’s not to say it still isn’t hilarious. And since Judge is the director, I’m sure he’ll be tweaking it right up to production. But nothing is ever as interesting as when those three things come to a head.
The only other knock I have is that Judge tends to make his leads huge pussies. And I understand that's a theme he's exploring here. But at a certain point you wanna grab Joel by the shoulders, shake him, and scream, "Stand up for yourself!"
The ultimate irony, of course, is that Judge has lost his balls somewhere along the way too. He's the one who keeps letting these producers and studios walk all over him, and as a result we get movies without posters. It could be that this script is a reflection of that, and if it is, well then I'm sorry, but we won't be seeing Judge stand up anytime soon. I hope he does though. And Extract could be the movie that gives him the clout to do so. Cause it could be a classic. Even with Ben Affleck in the lead.
[ ] trash
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
[ ] trash
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned from Extract: Don’t be afraid to tell us who your characters are, even if it takes a few extra lines. “Handsome and likable” doesn’t cut it for all your leads. Sorry.
My thoughts on Christian Bale's breakdown
Okay, all I know is that Bale was in the middle of a shot, and supposedly the D.P. - who was not in the shot - started fiddling with one of the lights behind him. Bale then unleashes a verbal tirade. And of course now it's heard all over the internet. Who's wrong in this situation? I'm sorry, but the D.P. is wrong.
Why would you be fiddling or even looking at lights DURING A SHOT unless you were going for some sort of effect (which apparently wasn't the case)?? People are calling Bale a diva but do you know how difficult it is to get into character for an intense scene after you've been waiting around for 2 hours for them to set everything up? It's really fucking hard. The idea is you create an environment that gives your actors the best opportunity to give a great performance. A.D.D. perfectionist D.P.s roaming around the back of a shot while film is rolling is a fucking amateur thing to do. The D.P. is retarded if he doesn't know this. And to be honest, he does sound a little autistic.
I'm not saying Bale doesn't have anger issues. But anyone who's been on a film set knows they're pressure cookers. You're always racing against the clock. Thousands of dollars are being spent for every minute that goes by. Half the time you're doing something that nobody's ever done before and that nobody knows how to do. It's intense. And I can see someone cracking when Jeff the Retard D.P. just has to check his scrim to make sure it's fastened correctly.
This does not hurt Terminator at all though. Terminator is a badass franchise. So if one of the actors in the film does something badass, well then good. It's a fucking Terminator film. That's how it should be.
As a side note, this totally changes the game. Between this and the infamous David O. Russel breakdown, true divas are going to be a lot more careful with how they treat people on set. And ultimately that will be a good thing.
Why would you be fiddling or even looking at lights DURING A SHOT unless you were going for some sort of effect (which apparently wasn't the case)?? People are calling Bale a diva but do you know how difficult it is to get into character for an intense scene after you've been waiting around for 2 hours for them to set everything up? It's really fucking hard. The idea is you create an environment that gives your actors the best opportunity to give a great performance. A.D.D. perfectionist D.P.s roaming around the back of a shot while film is rolling is a fucking amateur thing to do. The D.P. is retarded if he doesn't know this. And to be honest, he does sound a little autistic.
I'm not saying Bale doesn't have anger issues. But anyone who's been on a film set knows they're pressure cookers. You're always racing against the clock. Thousands of dollars are being spent for every minute that goes by. Half the time you're doing something that nobody's ever done before and that nobody knows how to do. It's intense. And I can see someone cracking when Jeff the Retard D.P. just has to check his scrim to make sure it's fastened correctly.
This does not hurt Terminator at all though. Terminator is a badass franchise. So if one of the actors in the film does something badass, well then good. It's a fucking Terminator film. That's how it should be.
As a side note, this totally changes the game. Between this and the infamous David O. Russel breakdown, true divas are going to be a lot more careful with how they treat people on set. And ultimately that will be a good thing.
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