Category Archives: Scripts

The Hunger Games: A Poetic Review

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The Hunger Games. Best-selling book series. Now a blockbuster film franchise with the highest-grossing opening for a non-sequel movie. What a lot of people don’t realize is that it liberally borrows from a lot of other (better) sources. Here’s my poem-as-a-review:

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
The predictable plot is a rehash,
And the action scenes look like poo.

My last line refers to the seizure-inducing, shaky camerawork and shoddy editing, which sadly has become standard fare for Hollywood movies these days.

This “Game” gets a score of 6 out of 10.

Drive: A Poetic Review

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I finally got a chance to watch the absorbing and very effective Drive, which stars fellow Canadian Ryan Gosling. I gotta say, I liked this movie a lot, and I thought Gosling’s performance was very underrated.

Hossein Amin wrote the screenplay (based on the book by James Sallis) with such sophistication that it actually appears very simple, while director Nicolas Winding Refn’s long takes and unique aesthetic provide such a cinematic breath of fresh air. Anyway, here’s my four-line review in the form of a poem:

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Drive was uniquely deliberate;
Sporadically violent, too.

Great Interview with Screenwriter David Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins)

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David S. Goyer, the writer of so many great projects (and some not-so-great movies), talks extensively about how he got into the industry and how he progressed as an artist — evolving from the screenwriter of a Van Damme B-movie (Death Warrant) to one of the architects of one of the most successful and critically acclaimed film franchises in recent history (Batman Begins).



Futurist Ray Kurzweil: Hollywood Gets Sci-Fi Movies Wrong

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There are some writers (“hacks!”…ahem) who pen their stories based on other people’s work. You know who they are, the scribes whose work seems derivative of other people’s movies, TV shows, novels, video games, or comics because…well…they are derivatives. Unoriginal. Hackneyed.

And then there are real writers who pen stories based on reality. On human experiences. Or in the case of sci-fi writers, on real science. Damon Lindelof has done that. He co-created TV’s Lost, produced the recent reboot of Star Trek, and has written the upcoming Alien prequel Prometheus.

It’s no surprise then that he interviews Ray Kurzweil, well known futurist, about the flaws of Hollywood sci-fi movies and other real-world aspects all writers should know about. Check it out:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/risky-business/sxsw-2012-damon-lindelof-ray-kurzweil-297218

 

On Assignment

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I’ve recently started my latest screenwriting assignment: adapting a hit online movie into a feature film script. At the moment, I can’t reveal too much about it, but stay tuned for details.

I can say that I’m quite excited about this project, as the original short movie became viral, earning more than 1 million hits and made the director quite a hot commodity with studios and producers. This high-concept video was quite action-packed, so I’m both hyped and intimidated about using it as the backbone of an equally thrilling feature film.