Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle and it has been a wretchedly dull week. The air here is so bad we have not been on a walk since Saturday. I am restless and bored. The Maltese is restless and boring. I listen to my novelist type away each day and long for the wide vast spaces of the open sidewalk. Today my novelist put on her shoes at the door and I was so certain she was going to put on our leashes and open the door. But alas, no matter how incessantly the Maltese barked our dreams of exploring the great outdoors were shattered. We are only allowed outside long enough to use the facilities and return. I am beginning to think there is no longer a sun. My novelist tells me to be patient, but my patience is far past the point of running out. Alas, all I can do is wait and introduce my novelist.

This is a movie you may not have seen yet. It is called Beast from 2017 and it makes a great choice for my premise series as its message is clear: It Takes One to Know One.

The movie starts out at a birthday party of the main character Moll (NT) played by Jessie Buckley. Moll has a wannabe boyfriend named Clifford (SJ) who is a detective. As a birthday gift he gives her prestigious police pin he earned on the job and pins it on her. This is a foreshadowing about who or perhaps what Moll is.

Moll’s effervescent sister upstages her at the party announcing she is pregnant with twins. Moll who is constantly berated by her controlling mother and underappreciated by her family goes to a bar and dances with a strange man named Leigh all night. In the morning, the two of them walk on the beach and Leigh attempts to force himself on her. That is when Moll meets Pascal (SP) a poacher who shoots at the guy, reloads, and attempts to fire again. The guy runs off leaving Moll and Pascal alone.

Now, normally this would be a typical boy saves girl scene. Except we need to know something about Moll: she, like Pascal is prone to violence. Her tendencies are originally shown in her reoccurring nightmares and more information about her proclivity comes out as the story continues. The question therefore is does Pascal save Moll or does Pascal save Leigh? And furthermore, why does Pascal offer to help Moll with her self-inflicted wound and drive her safely home? It is clear he’s been hunting rabbit illegally with pelts in his truck and has no problem taking a shot at a random stranger. Moll is aware this is a dangerous man but has no fear accepting his assistance.

Moll wants to see more and more of the earthy blue-collar Pascal but being from an upper-class family, this does not set right with her mother. And it is not helped by the fact that there is a serial killer on the loose in their area who likes to rape and murder young girls, one in fact the night Moll was dancing before she meets Pascal the following morning. And as far as Clifford and the other detectives he works with are concerned, Pascal is suspect number one. Especially since Pascal was arrested and served time when he was a teenager for statutory rape. But Moll though not naïve about these things is unfazed and the relationship between her and Pascal deepens so much so that she finds the courage to leave her mother’s house and move in with him.

Now the next question is how are an NT (Moll) and an STP (Pascal) the same? How does this serve the premise? They are the same in the same manner SJs and NFs end up teaching school together. NTs and SPs have common ground sensing if someone is dangerous and if they themselves are in danger. SPs and NT are acutely adept at gaging how much they can and cannot trust a person. They tend to be good at telling if someone is guilty or innocent.

This explains why student hearing boards in high schools and colleges fail. Most of them are made up of SJs and NFs because that’s what the staff mostly is. But the majority who end up in front of these boards are SPs and NTs. And by that rational most students who fall victim to guilty perpetrators are SJs and NFs as well. NFs in fact are notoriously attracted to narcissists. Thus, if It Takes One to Know One, why do schools put staff and students on their boards who have little in common with perpetrators and struggle to tell the difference between an innocent and a guilty party? Would it not be wiser to build a student disciplinary board out of the rarer members of staff and students who are NTs and SPs who are more gifted at recognizing whether a suspect is guilty or innocent?  Make it even with three NTs and three SPs with the sixth chair which moderates being either NT or SP.

Ironically, however, a lot of detectives are SJs like Clifford. So, when he pins the badge on Moll, the audience is subtly being told that these two are mirror characters. They are both detectives setting out to solve a series of crimes. And by the end of the film only one of them is going to be right.  

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and the first book in my Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!  on Amazon both in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s website at www.musicologyrocks.com The second book of the Musicology series, Musicology Volume Two, Kid! is coming in Fall 2020!

SCREENWRITINGU FREE CLASS FRIDAY: What Causes Producers to Buy Scripts?

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STREAM OF THE WEEK: THE PAUL SCHRADER DOUBLE FEATURE: TAXI DRIVER (1976)-Netflix & FIRST REFORMED (2017)-Amazon Prime

Out of the blue on Tuesday, September 15^th the AFI managed to get one of their films spot on and chose the brilliant Memento for their movie of the day which they showed as having released in 2019. The film is from 2000 and was released in 2001 which goes to show a blind squirrel can find a nut occasionally but still screw it up.

Paul Schrader has made two excellent bookend films in his career, one at the beginning and one recently. The first one he calls one of his “a man in a room” stories. It is his masterpiece Taxi Driver. If you can believe it, Taxi Driver was never nominated for Best Original Screenplay by the Oscar Academy. In fact, Paul Schrader did not receive his first academy award nomination for writing until First Reformed. Taxi Driver was nominated for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Score. Unfortunately, being the best sometimes has an unfair price. And by the way, Martin Scorsese was not nominated for his direction for this film either which itself is mind blowing. The premise for the story could be interpreted as Idol Hands Are the Devil’s Playground. This is not just in reference to lead character Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro’s landmark performance) but rather New York City entire.

If you have never seen the film, it goes like this. It is 1976. Travis Bickle (Travis means “to cross over” and was a name for gatekeepers who collected tolls at bridges) is a young Vietnam Vet who moves to New York City and gets a job as a cab driver. He suffers from insomnia and has a fascination with driving to the unsavory areas of the city to pick up and drop off customers. He is attractive, intelligent, resourceful, and introverted with a rich inner life. He also possesses an unusually astute moral compass. However, he is socially inept. And because American society rewards the socially astute no matter how stupid and bungling, there is no worse crime than being socially inept. This of course leads to Travis’s loneliness.

Travis finds himself enamored with the beautiful, educated, socially adept Betsy (the wonderful Cybil Shephard) who is working on a presidential campaign for a man named Palatine (which ironically means “entitled”) alongside her equally educated co-worker Tom (the hilarious Albert Brooks). Tom is smitten with Betsy and able to converse with her but not as able to attract her. Travis, being an ISTP senses this quickly and can size up Betsy astutely as well. He charms her into a date and the two have a quick snack on her work break at a local café. Their second date does not fare as well as Travis makes the mistake of taking her to a porno film where she quickly rejects him.

Left to his devices he eventually befriends Iris (a young Jodi Foster who deservedly earned an Oscar nomination for the role) a child prostitute and decides to “rescue” her from her pimp. The name Iris, by the way means “rainbow”.

First Reformed was Paul Schrader’s first and only Academy Award nomination. It is the story of a minister named Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke in a brilliant performance) a former military chaplain who heads the congregation of a small dwindling 250 year old traditional church called First Reformed in upstate New York overshadowed and run by the evangelical megachurch Abundant Life. First Reformed is a Dutch founded protestant church (much like the church Schrader was raised in which was Calvinist). Reverend Ernst Toller (the name means respectively a person who battles to the death and one who lures) is struggling with his faith, quite ill and drinks heavily. He has gone through an unspeakable horror in his life and is now quietly clinging onto his own as he composes a one-year journal. A young married couple have recently joined his church congregation instead of the flashy Abundant Life. They are aptly named Mary (Amanda Seyfried) and Michael. Michael is a radical environmentalist. Mary is pregnant and looks forward to bringing her child into the world but is becoming more and more concerned about Michael’s extremism. When Michael’s path takes a nefarious turn Reverend Toller slowly starts to take up his mission.

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS-BABE (1995)

Kid’s movies do not get much better than this. Nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture it’s the story of a little piglet who thinks big. Babe grows up on a farm and learns much to his horror that pigs are raised to be slaughtered. But Babe dreams of herding sheep and fights against all odds to prove his worth. This is a fantastic film and if you have never seen it whether you be a child or a bitter full-grown cynical adult this film is for you. The end is so moving you won’t know whether to smile or break down into tears. An absolute must see!  

Good morning. I Gigi the parti poodle must tell you I had one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life this past week. It occurred last Thursday after my novelist posted her previous blog. We had a lovely lunch and then she packed the Maltese and me in the car as if we were going for an outing. I expected it to be like our Mount St. Helens trip, but I was gravely mistaken. My novelist instead drove us to a place we had never been, and it turns out it was a veterinary clinic. Not my usual veterinary clinic mind you. I had been driven to that one a week or more ago, but we were never called inside which probably explains how we ended up here. You can imagine my horror when a nurse came out to the car wearing a mask and escorted the Maltese and I inside. We were alone in this wretched building with no means of escape. They pulled a lot of hair out of my ears and administered drops. I was also injected with horrifying needles. The evening was a blur. Sleepiness and grogginess haunted me. The next day I was better if not a tad sore. All my novelist did was complain about how warm it had been in the car. Have you ever heard of such callousness? Anyway, without further ado here is my malevolent novelist.

When I was studying acting in New York City many moons ago we had to do a one person show. But it was not a normal one person show. We had to do three pieces of our choice which could be anything from dance to song to performance art to monologue. All three parts put together had to support a premise.

A premise is a hypothesis presented at the beginning of a story and then proven by the end. It is the most distilled foundation on which the story is written. A popular choice of argument might be “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” like in Citizen Kane. Or “All paths lead to nowhere” like in Arkansas. The one person shows each of us students did had to show an arc which proved the premise we chose by cutting and pasting piece together from different sources.

Let’s say when I was constructing my show, I wanted to do use a simple premise like Money is The Root of All Evil. I could open with Gordon Gecko’s “Greed is good speech” from Wall Street (1987). Next, I might choose my middle piece to be Corky’s monologue where she plots the heist from Bound (1996) to show the enticement of money. And then I might finish with Marge’s “A Little Bit of Money” speech at the end of Fargo to show the utter destruction money brings about. 

A film which provides an obvious premise and then proceeds to argue it well is Dead Poets Society. Carpe Diem or Seize the Day is the argument which is uttered repeatedly throughout the film. Now, before I get too far let me give you a little-known fact about personality types in schools. If you look at page 155 in, Please Understand Me: Character & Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marylin Bates you will see they did a study of school staffs. And their data showed educational jobs are dominantly held by Guardians or SJ types. 56% to be exact. And furthermore, because they are so overwhelmingly the majority, they see no reason to change their ways. Not to mention they are the most stubborn unmovable jackasses on the planet. And they always look to the past and tradition no matter how forward thinking they may claim to be.

Now the second most common group of the schoolteacher/administrator population is the Idealists or NFs at a whopping 33%. This is amazing as Idealists take up only 10% of the general population. These happy go lucky folks flock to schools like migrating birds. They are always wearing rose colored glasses and looking to change and the future. Rationals are the only group that can break up this mess if they are in administrative positions. However, they make up only 6% of the schoolteacher/administrator population. And finally, the Artisans who take up a whopping 40% of the world population only take up only 2% of the schoolteacher/administrator population.

So, when we are looking at Dead Poets Society, we are essentially watching a battle between the dominating SJs and the secondary NFs. The headmaster Mr. Nolan and Neil Perry’s father Mr. Perry are glaringly SJs. As are most of the teaching staff. John Keating the new English teacher (new=future), on the other hand, as well as his students Neil Perry, Todd Anderson, Knox Overstreet (young=future in this case) are idealists. Charlie Dalton is the one SP student who takes many tactical risks like bringing the girls to the cave, publishing an article in the school newspaper arguing girls should be admitted to the school and punching fellow student Richard Cameron (an SJ) in the face.

The story is essentially a battle between logistics and diplomacy. And while the futuristic thinking idealist students rebuild the Dead Poets Society club and idealistically attempt to live their lives to the fullest, the power in numbers of the stalwart guardians throw up roadblock after roadblock in their path to glory. And because the idealists are outnumbered whenever they try to seize the day the stakes of the battle rise until an unfixable devastation occurs and then at the very end of the film the student’s and Keating’s mantra of seize the day is put to the ultimate test.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and the first book in my Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!  on Amazon both in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s website at www.musicologyrocks.com The second book of the Musicology series, Musicology Volume Two, Kid! is coming in Fall 2020!

SCREENWRITINGU FREE FRIDAY CLASS: Get Paid to Write Screenplays

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STREAM OF THE WEEK: MY MAN GODFREY (Amazon Prime) & BLOOD FATHER (Netflix)

Granted these movies have little in common. But I wanted to feature them both anyway this week for different reasons.

The first movie My Man Godfrey is one of the best screwball comedies of all time. And it is one the AFI has not yet put on it’s list of Movies to Watch While We’re Apart. This brilliant black and white film stars William Powell and Carole Lombard who had been married in real life but divorced before making the film together. It is set in the depression era and is based on the 1935 short novel 1101 Park Avenue by Eric Hatch the story is about a “forgotten man” named Godfrey “Smith” Parke (William Powell) who may not be exactly who he seems. He lives in a city dump in New York City down by the East River in a Hooverville and by chance one night is “found” by two socialite sisters the older Cornelia Bullock (Gail Patrick) offers him five dollars to be an object to bring in for a scavenger hunt. Godfrey sees quickly what a brat Cornelia is and turns her down. The younger sister Irene who is a gentler but airheaded creature does persuade him to be the “forgotten man” for the scavenger hunt beating out Cornelia for the win. Irene is so taken with Godfrey she hires him to be their new butler in their house. The story is a wonderfully amusing meditation in how people value people for what they have as opposed to who they are. And it is an absolute must see.

Blood Father is one of those films that for some reason flew under the radar, but it is a riveting action/suspense story. It is based on the book of the same name, Blood Father written by Peter Craig who also wrote the screenplay and directed by Jean-François Richet . Link (Mel Gibson who is great here) is an ex-con and recovering alcoholic on parole living in a run-down trailer in the middle of nowhere where he runs his own tattoo parlor. He is highly skilled at his craft and knowledgeable about what tattoos mean what. This comes in handy when his teenage daughter Lydia (well played by Erin Moriarty II) who is a missing child (he has a whole wall dedicated to finding her) calls him out of the blue. She believes she has killed her boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna) in a shootout. Her boyfriend just happens to be a member of a powerful drug cartel and she is desperate for help. Link drives to LA to pick her up and the chase begins. The always fantastic William H. Macy plays Kirby, Link’s AA sponsor. An absolute edge of your seat ride. Do not miss it.  

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: PHANTOM BOY (Netflix)

This is a wonderful albeit serious suspense mystery about an extremely sick boy who is given a marvelous gift. Leo has a little sister who he likes to read children’s crime novels to. He reads her one last story the night before he must go stay at the hospital for chemotherapy. He tells her he has a secret talent he has acquired since his illness: the ability to leave his body and fly around the city. When he is in the hospital, he meets a real detective named Alex who is trying to stop an evil criminal named The Face who is trying to take over the city. The script was written by Alain Gagnol who along with Jean-Loup Felicioli direct the film. They are the directors for the fantastic A Cat in Paris which was nominated for the academy award for best animated film in 2011.  

Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce my novelist once again. This week we…and that, unfortunately, includes the Maltese went on a day trip out to Mount St. Helens. Because of Covid-19 we had to remain in the car most of the time except for quick breaks which we took at quiet locations. I slept in the back of the car on two soft blankets while the Maltese took the front. It was a beautiful comfortably warm day and I enjoyed…

It was lots and lots and lots of fun! I liked going to the mountain too except they do not let dogs look at the mountain.

Tucker, you stupid cur! Do not interrupt me again! No, being canines, we were not allowed to look at the grandeur of the stratovolcano, but we were able to get to the glorious parking lot where we…

I wanted to see the volcano! I wanted to see the volcano! Why cannot dogs see the volcano?!

I DON’T KNOW!!! You know how I detest losing my temper! Pardon me. The Maltese can be a bit overzealous at times. Anyway, it was a lovely drive and my novelist took pictures and…

Pictures are not the same! Pictures are not the same! I want to see the volcano! I want to see the volcano!

You are insufferable! Anyway, here is my novelist.

The best new show on Netflix right now without question is Cobra Kai. I am not kidding. Rarely does a show come along that is as fresh, unique, fun, and outstanding as this one is. I was going to start a new series of blogs about a different subject this week but I am giving that the back burner to tell you to run, not walk to your television set and get ready to be hooked!!!

Cobra Kai originally came out in 2018 on YouTube and Netflix acquired it in June 2020. Netflix is set to launch the show’s third season in 2021. This is the best news in months.

The story takes place thirty-four years after The Karate Kid and we find Daniel LaRusso’s nemesis Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) grown up, drunk and scraping by. He lives in a meager apartment in Reseda, Los Angeles and works as a handyman. He shares a teenage son with his barfly ex-girlfriend Shannon Keene. The son lives with mom and though plucky is heading down criminal lane.  

After losing his handyman gig Johnny runs into his next-door neighbor, a likable mild-mannered teenager named Miguel (Xolo Marideuña) at a convenience store where he is sitting outside eating his food and being harassed by a homeless woman (who is a reoccurring character). Miguel has gone in to purchase some Pepto-Bismol for his grandmother when he is attacked by three of his high school classmates. Using his fine Karate skills, Johnny takes down the three creeps inspiring Miguel (much like the young Daniel LaRusso) to inquire if Johnny would teach him a few moves. Johnny reluctantly takes on the kid’s request and slowly with what meager funds he has begins rebuilding the Cobra Kai dojo of his youth.

Meanwhile Johnny’s son Robby (Tanner Buchanan) decides to get back at dad by dropping out of school and taking a job working at Daniel LaRusso’s car dealership. But he quickly realizes that Daniel (Ralph Macchio delightfully reprising his famous role) is both likable and honorable. Daniel takes a shine to the kid and starts teaching Robby Mr. Miyagi’s style of Karate while in the meantime Miguel becomes smitten with Daniel’s daughter Samantha (Mary Mouser) who is no slouch at Karate either.

This show is so beautifully written it is shocking. Who would have thunk a much later afterward of The Karate Kid film franchise could be so engaging and such pure unadulterated fun? All the characters are delightful especially William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence who is fantastic as the fifty-something who rises like the phoenix and turns his life around in this comedy/drama yarn. In a quagmire of overly serious and politically correct yawn fests this one rises like cream and last week and today as well (surprise, surprise) is the #1 streamed series on Netflix. Streaming addicts get ready for a whole new batch of crack cause this one’s blue, baby!

What does this mean for writers? This means write something this good! Write a smart feel good script because the world is sitting under a ton of bricks broken and ticked off right now and it wants a massive dose of happy. The success of this show is a forecasting of what Hollywood is going to be looking for post pandemic. That does not mean write a karate movie. That means write a tale on a topic you can really sink your teeth into and elevate and lighten up the dark foreboding mood. Throw that stupid pandemic story of yours in the trash and change course! Write well my friends and stay healthy.  

My Books

You can check out my books Chicane and the first book in my Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!  on Amazon both in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s website at www.musicologyrocks.com The second book of the Musicology series, Musicology Volume Two, Kid! is coming in Fall 2020!

SCREENWRITINGU FREE CLASS FRIDAY: Profound Analysis of the movie 42:

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STREAM OF THE WEEK: THE APARTMENT (1960)-Prime Video

Obviously, the Stream of the Week is Cobra Kai. But it is good to take a break and get a movie in there as well. This is the second film the AFI Movies to Watch While We’re Apart missed. And I have no idea why.  Every weekday since March 31, 2020, no less, starting with The Wizard of Oz the AFI (American Film Institute) has offered up an outstanding film to watch each day. However, their list has quickly become hit and miss and at times mediocre and landmark cinema is showing up less and less. Last week I offered up the brilliant comedy/satire Harold and Maude and this week I’m offering up The Apartment, one of the finest films ever made about misused corporate power, sexism and open floor plan. The brilliant Billy Wilder tells his masterpiece with wit, charm, and a whole lot of smarm. It, like Cobra Kai is a Comedy/Drama, a genre of film and television which has been sorely lacking in the industry of late pushed aside to make room for superhero films, slasher movies and all-around dreck. If you have already seen The Aprartment watch it again and if you haven’t put it at the very top of your movie list.

The set up works like this: young ambitious C.C. Bud Baxter (Jack Lemon in his momentous roll) is a bachelor who works for an insurance company in New York City and is stuck out in open floor plan. He also happens to be in possession of a bachelor pad which he “graciously” lends to some of the darling middle management men who in turn use it to cheat on their wives by taking their girlfriends there to have sex with them…and occasionally drunk women they pick up in bars. Ironically, Baxter himself is a gentleman and naïve in viewing his exchanges for free motel rent as a harmless way to get a foot in the door and a wrung higher on the ladder…and an office of his own. And impress elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine in one of her best performances) with whom he is smitten. His efforts pay off and his exemplary work is brought to the attention of executive Jeff D. Sheldrake (a tour de force performance by Fred MacMurray) a subclinical psychopath who despite being married for twelve years with two sons likes to use secretaries, elevator operators, phone operators and a myriad of other women at the insurance company as his personal Kleenex. As a note the name Jeff D. Sheldrake translates into Jeff the Male Duck. Sheldrake is a surname which is thought to have been a nickname for a vain or showy person. Baxter agrees to make a duplicate key to his apartment for Sheldrake until a dire incident rips the rose-colored glasses from his eyes. 

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: MR. PEABODY AND SHERMAN (2014)-Netflix

Some of you may remember the delightful two-dimensional version of this animated classic about a dog, his boy, and their lessons in history. The newer 3-D version is also charming and a bit flashier. Mr. Peabody is the father of Sherman, a boy he found as a baby in an alley. Although he is a dog, he adopted the boy and raised him as a single parent. Mr. Peabody himself was too intellectual to be adopted and so he decides to take in an unwanted child because he understands what it is like to be rejected. Mr. Peabody teaches Sherman many valuable lessons about history by transporting them to different points in time with the Wayback machine he created. All goes well for dog and boy until a smart but maliciously jealous schoolmate of Sherman’s named Penny causes things to go awry. The movie is great family fun and a true favorite of Gigi’s.  

Good Afternoon. It is I Gigi the Parti Poodle here and it has been a most distressing week. I am a Canis Lupus Familiaris of champagne taste and the true horror of Covid-19 for me is not being able to go to Salon de Gommage Chiot for my grooming needs. My novelist took it upon herself this week to give me a bath, a brushing, and a haircut. She ignored my whimpers and protestations in the bathtub while she showered down water on me and doused me in soap. That was Day One. Day Two was even more horrifying. She brushed me which was barely tolerable. And then she took out that dreadful new mini Wahl Pet Clipper and went to town on me. When I fought her and refused to have my hair clipped by that wretched device, she pulled out the full-size Wahl Pet Clipper. I now have patches that are shorter than others and my front paws are clearly more shaved than my back ones. I look a wreck. She is a horrendous coiffeur. It will take a month for me to look vaguely normal again. That said, here is my novelist.

Thirty Things I’ve Learned Being an NT Writer

1. Feeling writers will pen page after page to tug at the heartstrings and not one sentence to tug at the mind.
2. Extroverts will never believe great things get accomplished in solitude.
3. Group projects accomplish nothing but misery and subpar work.
4. You will waste a lot of time in life being around people you never wanted to meet.
5. You are never allowed to say what is on your mind especially if you are right.
6. You will always be censored.
7. NTs do think different and often own PCs.
8. Most folks love like a ditch: wide and shallow. NTs love like a well: narrow and deep.
9. Most individuals would rather drink a 44 oz tanker of juice or not drink any juice at all and berate everyone who partakes than pour juice into a 4oz juice glass and enjoy it in moderation.
10. You cannot get to the truth without entertaining ideas you don’t like.
11. Very few persons look to the future.
12. People who change the world for the better are not always good.
13. Villains always look like villains, but most people can’t tell the difference.
14. SJs and NFs should never ever be members of a Student Disciplinary Board.
15. Folks are more likely to believe what they see than what they know.
16. Those who can’t do manage others.
17. NTs view time in cross sections. To everyone else time is linear.
18. Society is more likely to condemn someone for their words than their actions.
19. It is better to be banned than boring.
20. Donnie Darko makes complete sense.
21. Walter White is the smartest smart guy in the room.
22. Those who cannot think are doomed to mimic the words of those who can.
23. Social groups are often run by psychopaths and made up of suckers.
24. Parties are dumb.
25. Law enforcement takes classes to tell me apart from a psychopath.
26. Folks will believe a lie told by someone they like but smear the truth told by someone they don’t.
27. Characters who are in your books are your friends. Characters who are not are your enemies.
28. Always do your research even if someone tells you to make things up.
29. Writers who aren’t as imaginative as you will steal and are thieves.
30. Never join a writing group where people critique your work.

My Books

You can check out my books Chicane and the first book in my Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!  on Amazon both in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s website at www.musicologyrocks.com The second book of the Musicology series, Musicology Volume Two, Kid! is coming in Fall 2020!

SCREEENWRITINGU FREE FRIDAY CLASS: The Best One Character Movie?

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STREAM OF THE WEEK: Harold and Maude-Amazon Prime

This film really should be a no-brainer but the AFI in their infinite wisdom has yet to put it up as their movie of the day, so I am going to beat them to the punch. Especially since it’s been available on Amazon Prime for a while now. Harold and Maude is one of the best and I mean the best satirical films ever made. It’s the story of wealthy cynical young Harold, a man in his early twenties who can’t seem to decide what to do with his life, so he kills himself…repeatedly. His snobbish aristocratic mother tries time and time again to hook him up with young women which he elaborately dies in front of. She even gives him a Jaguar and he turns it into a hearse. He enjoys attending funerals for fun and that is where he meets the plucky just shy of her eightieth birthday Maude. Maude is the fervor of life. She enjoys posing nude, stealing cars, and living by her own rules. Once they meet all is simpatico until a terrible secret comes to light. Harold and Maude was originally a critical and commercial failure when it was released in 1971. But it became a cult classic and turned it’s first profit in 1983 nearly twelve years after its initial release.

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: WarGames-Amazon Prime

This one’s for older kids. Filmed primarily in the Pacific Northwest, WarGames the story of your typical teenage computer hacker David (Mathew Broderick) who thinks the computer with password Joshua he has hacked into wants to play a friendly game of chess. And “Joshua” does. But what he’s really playing is Thermo Nuclear War. And it’s not a game. David finds himself on a collision course with a nuclear attack as he races against time with the assistance of his classmate Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) to find the creator of Joshua a mysterious man named Falken (John Wood). Dabney Colemen is excellent as always as government man McKittrick.  

Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to announce that my novelist’s delightful web site www.musicologyrocks.com is now live. This is a most exciting event which my novelist shall discuss in further detail. I am most delighted about the way my picture turned out on the site. I am at present rather shaggy and need to resume my more groomed appearance. My novelist has invested in a pocket groomer which appears to be less intimidating than the full-sized variant of the contraption. She has also threatened to trim my nails with a sanding apparatus which I am most certainly not looking forwards to. This is what happens when novelists finish one manuscript and are preparing another. Ah, the little burdens one makes for one’s pet. Without further ado, here is my novelist.  

The Musicology website is alive and kicking! You can now go to www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for the contestant you think will win the whole shebang! On the site there are also links to my blog here at www.gigicatchesair.com as well as links to both my books Chicane and Musicology: Volume One, Baby! There is also a little blurb about Gigi and me there as well. I will be releasing the second book in the Musicology series Musicology: Volume Two, Kid! this fall. As there is a mystery which starts in volume two, I will put up a second list of people to vote on so you can try and guess who that individual is as well.

I hope you enjoy this comedic satirical book series that takes place over the course of one season on a reality TV show!

This week’s ScreenwritingU Free Class Friday is Analysis of Warrior Nun the Netflix television show. You can register for the class here.   

STREAM OF THE WEEK: ARKANSAS-Amazon Prime

I have spent a great deal of time this week trying to figure out why Arkansas is not getting better reception. This is an excellent independent film written (adapted from the book of the same name), directed and co-stared by Clark Duke. It is difficult finding any film these days that isn’t about a superhero, a dysfunctional family or both. This one was a breath of fresh air. I was more than impressed with Duke’s work in all three categories here and I look forward to seeing a lot more of his movies in the future.

The film is about drug runners whose lives are caught in circles. These are not hardened criminals. They are not psychopaths. They are inhabitants of Arkansas who for one reason or another cannot escape…Arkansas. And so, to make a decent living they run drugs. The lead character, Kyle (Liam Hemsworth) is a smart guy with no goals. Kyle is much like Alex Reiger from Taxi. He is a drug runner. Period. He has no ambitions or desires to be anything else and is satisfied to get drunk or not get drunk and survive. When he makes a wise albeit serendipitous move, he finds himself promoted by a boss he has never met named Frog (Vince Vaughn in one of his best performances). He is teamed up with the likeable and intelligent Swin (Clark Duke) and the two of them are to move drugs across state lines. But on the way they meet a park ranger named Bright (the excellent John Malkovich) who stops their truck and tells them they have been reassigned. They will be park rangers as their cover and live at the park each in their own trailer…which are exactly alike. As they begin their life under Bright’s chipper command and are running drugs to different places in the south, Swin chances to meet a nurse named Johnna (Eden Brolin) at the grocery store and is smitten. As the two begin their romance a lose cannon named Nick (Clark’s brother Chandler Duke) who is the grandson of one of their connections throws a nasty wrench into their well-planned out situation and all their lives begin to unravel.

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: THE NEVERENDING STORY-Netflix

The Never-Ending Story is a wonderful imaginative fantasy film for kids. Based on the book of the same name by Michael Ende it is a tale about boy named Bastian who does not fit in. He is tormented by bullies at his school and longs for a place where he can be himself and test his mettle. He stumbles into a bookstore one day and the elderly shopkeeper recommends, with warning that is, a book about a place named Fantasia. Bastian begins secretly reading the book in the school attic and finds he must enter the book’s world to save Fantasia from destruction.

Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to tell you it has been a spectacular week. My novelist has, under my tutelage of course, published the first book in her Musicology book series which is a comedy satire about reality television. It was a large project this weekend making certain both the Kindle book and the paperback were ready for publication as well as launching the web site. I must tell you the whole experience was a bit trying on the Maltese. We have not been able to go on our walks because he has been a bit under the weather. But he seems to be on the mend now and I look forward to getting out in the sunshine and leading my novelist along with my leash. Without further ado, I am proud to say here is my novelist.

Musicology: Volume One, Baby! is Alive and Kicking on Amazon! My first book in the Musicology series went up on August 11^th and is ready to peruse. The book will have a web site that goes along with the book series which will be going live soon. You can preview the website at  http://www.musicologyrocks.wordpress.com/ You can vote for which character you think will win the Musicology crown and other fun things will be added as more of the books are released. The second book in the series Musicology: Volume Two, Kid! will be available this fall. Musicology: Volume One, Baby! is available both as a Kindle book and a paperback.

The Musicology series was a whole lot of fun to write. It takes place primarily in Burbank, California and follows the host, two mentors, three judges and the contestants through one season of a reality TV show. The main character Maximillian (Max) Buckner has recently gone through his second divorce and his record label Master Lab Records has filed for bankruptcy. His buddy Devon Daniels the sleazy host of the low rated show Musicology gives him an opportunity to save his label by signing him up to mentor the Circle of Ten, the top ten contestants vying for the prize. The catch is that Devon has also hired a second mentor successful rock and roll diva Ruby Diamonds. Ruby and Max have a lurid past and had a bad romantic breakup when she dumped Max, left his record company and became a huge star.

In addition, Devon has just fired all his judges and hired three new ones, Robbie Sexton, Bonnie Lake and Dick Dandy. Robbie and Bonnie are aging rock stars. Dick Dandy is a comedian who knows nothing about music but because of his sketchy reputation he makes for good television and has been hired on as a judge. Normally Devon would have his three judges tour the country in search of talent. But Devon’s show is in danger of being cancelled. And so, he must bring in a big gun who can recognize the most lucrative talent out there and that is Max. But Devon knows Max has his flaws and he needs someone to accompany him who has a big name who can draw audience and so he hires Ruby to go along for the ride.

The idea in writing an extensive book series about a television show was that movies on the subject only have about two hours to tell a story that includes all the ins and outs of what might happen over the course of a season. And the actual shows themselves like to show the squeaky-clean version of what goes on during the season’s run. In other words, they like to package a family friendly show. My thought was to show all the filthy dirty little secrets that go on both when the cameras are on and when the cameras are off. Everything on the stage and everything in the wings. Everything while it is live and everything that happens when the show is in rehearsal and the escapades that occur when everyone goes home at night. I wanted to get to know the real side of all the participants. I wanted the R rated version and at times the NC-17 version of the show. I wanted the sex, drugs and rock and roll version of reality TV. And so, Musicology was born. And now you can experience it too. Enjoy!

I’ll post every Thursday.  That’s the schedule.  While you’re waiting for my next post check out my novel Chicane currently available on Amazon.  

This week’s Free Class Friday from ScreenwritingU is The Best Screenwriting Opportunities During Covid-19. You can sign up for it here.

STREAM OF THE WEEK: AUDRIE AND DAISY & ROLL RED ROLL-Netflix

It is with heavy heart that I recommend the two documentaries Audrie and Daisy and Roll Red Roll. Daisy Coleman, the subject of the Netflix documentary Audrie and Daisy took her life this past week. As you may know rape victims suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder which can lead some victims to suicide.

One of the most telling things about repeat rapists is half of them are psychopathic. This does not apply exclusively to hardened criminals in prison. This applies to campus rapists as well. That means fifty percent of high school boys and college men/boys who repeatedly commit rape are psychopaths too. It is also thought that rapists whether they be the half who are psychopathic or the half that are not may all have abnormal cortical and subcortical white matter integrity in their brain. In other words, rapists may have white matter abnormalities in brain regions that are involved in reward/motivation and moral judgment and are driven by sexual reward.

A psychopathic rapist in addition to having brain abnormalities with white matter also has less gray matter in the prefrontal lobe of their brain and less gray matter in the paralimbic system than a non-psychopath. This brain damage can be seen on psychopaths and rapists using FMRI software when conducting an MRI.

So, what does that mean about how you should watch these two documentaries? Try this. Psychopaths talk differently than non-psychopaths. When you watch the all the boys in these films, pay close attention to their interviews with the police. In Audrie and Daisy listen especially close to Matthew Barnett as he talks to the detective. Listen for disfluencies when he talks such as “um” and “uh”. Also listen for doubled little words like “the…the”, “and…and” etc. and subordinate conjunctions (because, so that, therefore, etc.). Then listen to the other boys give their account of the rape to the detective. You will hear at least three disfluencies from Matthew. You will hear none from the other two boys.

In Roll Red Roll listen to all the students give their testimony to the police. One of the boys being interviewed is going to stand out like just like Trent Mays does. During his interviews with the police he has a minimum combination of twenty-seven disfluencies, subordinate conjunctions and doubled words in his dialogue. He is also squirmy and twitchy. Psychopaths have a condition called HSS (High Sensation Seeking) which has to do with Monoamine oxidase A which is an enzyme encoded by the MAO-A gene. Part of the issue with having a less active version of this enzyme (which shows up as a normal atrophy in the brain) is it causes a low resting heart rate which is linked to boredom, restlessness, high risk taking and sometimes criminal behavior. Not everyone who has HSS is a psychopath, but all psychopaths have HSS. And at the end of the film you’re going to find out why this boy stands out.

It is also important to pay attention to the difference between the way Trent Mays gives his statement in the courtroom scene and the way Ma’lik Richmond gives his statement.  Trent’s texts to Jane Doe are also telling. He has no problem lying and manipulating her when she involves the police. And listen carefully to how Lead Special Prosecutor Marianna Hemmeter describes Trent Mays and his actions.

Pay close attention to both Matthew and Trent’s eyebrows. Narcissists tend to have darker, thicker more distinctive eyebrows. Not all narcissists are psychopaths, but all psychopaths are narcissists. When you watch these films, you could see their eyebrows from outer space. If you want a good example of a rapist psychopath with prominent eyebrows look at Jeffery Epstein and Ted Bundy.

Also listen to what the boys talk about either verbally or through text messages. Do they seem to focus on food, sex, money or all three? Non-psychopathic people have two layers. The first one is food, sex, and money. The second is family, spirituality, and religion (also love.). Psychopaths only have the first layer. All they care about is sex, food, and money or in other words material things. And without science or divine intervention they will never ever care about anything else.

Smart Films for Smart Kids: WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM-Amazon Prime

I am proud to choose this film for kids this week. Where The Lilies Bloom is a wonderful story about an extraordinarily strong girl. Based on the novel by Bill and Vera Cleaver it’s the story of fourteen-year-old Mary Call (played beautifully by Julie Gholson), the second eldest child of four who lives with her father in the great Smokey Mountains. But after the death of their mother their father also falls ill. Before he dies Mary Call’s father makes her promise to keep the family together and not let the oldest child Devola (a young Jan Smithers of WKRP fame) marry their land owner Kiser Pease (the wonderful Harry Dean Stanton). Mary Call is determined to keep their father’s death a secret no matter how grueling the task becomes.  This film is more than a must see. It is required viewing.

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the Parti Poodle. This week my novelist will be releasing the first book of her Musicology book series. Things have been busy around here what with my novelist putting the final touches on her book and me supervising.

I am extremely excited too! Maltese get excited about publishing books!

Brilliant. As I was saying…

Tell them about the smores!

We are supposed to be talking about Musicology: Volume One Baby!

Smores! Smores! Smores!

Alright! Good grief! My novelist likes dark chocolate so when she makes smores she likes to use a dark chocolate cacao square of Ghirardelli instead of milk chocolate. The square fits the graham cracker dimensions well. That said look for Musicology: Volume One, Baby! Releasing this week on Amazon. Now here is my novelist.

This week’s blog is going to run a little shorter because the first book in my Musicology book series, Musicology: Volume One, Baby! will be up for sale on Amazon on Tuesday August 11^th and I am busy getting it ready for the launch. Because the book has a web site listed in it where the audience votes for the contestants, readers can also vote for who will win Musicology and I will post the web site you can do that at soon. Musicology is a comedic satirical book series about a fictional reality television show. Here is the description:

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll and Reality TV, baby! In a desperate attempt to save his record label Master Lab Productions from bankruptcy, recently re-divorced music producer Max Buckner reluctantly signs on as a mentor on the abysmally low rated reality show Musicology hosted by his longtime colleague, sleazebag TV personality Devon Daniels. Max finds himself paired up with his old flame Ruby Diamonds, a former chart-topping diva who dumped Max over twenty years earlier. Devon strong arms the pair of has-beens into traveling the country on a desperate hunt to find the best and the brightest from a motley crew of singers including an Amish punk rocker, a psychopathic man-eater, a sexually aggressive grunge rocker, a virginal voyeur and a white guy with guitar. Along the way the two former lovebirds reignite their old romance until they return to Burbank, California where Ruby’s bombshell secret could unravel them all.

While you are waiting for the release of Musicology: Volume One, Baby! you can check out my other novel Chicane on Amazon.

This week’s ScreenwritingU Free Class Friday is What’s Missing In Your Screenplay? You can sign up for the class here.

STREAM OF THE WEEK: DOCUMENTARIES THAT ROCK: ZZ TOP: THAT LITTLE OL’ BAND FROM TEXAS-Netflix & WE ARE TWISTED F***ING SISTER!-Amazon Prime

Because my book series is about sex, drugs, rock and roll and reality television I thought this would be a good week to feature a couple of fantastic documentaries about the subject.

ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas is a wonderfully spirited look into the history of the band. I love the tone of this documentary. A lot of documentaries are dispiriting and unpleasant. Not this one. It is as fun as it is informative following the early days of ZZ Top sans beards to their unconventional touring show to their mega success with the album Eliminator. It’s one is a terrific ride. Just as a side note, one time I was at a Van Halen concert with Sammy Hagar and I had a seat on the far side of the stage. As I was watching the concert both Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons came into the VIP area to watch the concert. Had I had a seat in the front of the stage I would have never known they were there. A cool memory.

We Are Twisted F***ing Sister proves there is no band that worked harder than the gentlemen from Twisted Sister. Show after show gig after gig, these guys never gave up. They did concert after concert night after night year-round. And they did it all in women’s garb and makeup. You cannot walk away from this movie not respecting these guys. A high-octane documentary that proves tenacity is the best policy.

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993)-Netflix

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is a fun one is for older kids. Lots of twists in this one. Batman once had a girlfriend named Andrea Beaumont whom he loved very much. But nasty villains got in the way including The Joker (voiced by Mark Hamill how can you beat that?) and the two got separated. What reunites the two sweethearts and where the story goes from there is the subject of this animated film which is a stand-alone story of Batman the Animated Series by Warner Bros.

Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce my novelist once again. This week my novelist learned her lesson. She made the mistake of not going grocery shopping earlier in the day and was accosted by a young child (said child slapped my novelist across the derriere with the length of her arm) with a marshmallow head of a mother. Dreadful. Although children under ten do not spread the Corona Virus as efficiently as children over ten they really should not be going about in a grocery store and putting their little paws on other patrons. I know we live in an age of classlessness and abysmal manners, but we are in the middle of a pandemic. As my novelist says, “if I can see you, you’re too close”. Wise words indeed. It is a good thing I was not the one doing the shopping. Had the child touched me I would have bitten the little moppet as hard as I could. Well, enough of that nonsense. Here is my novelist.  

Since the first installment in my book series is coming out soon, I thought I would talk a little bit about writing it. Musicology, which is the name of the book series, was conceived because I wanted to write a story I could crawl into and live in. Something that would be fun and make me happy. I figured if I wrote it, it could make other people happy too. I originally penned it as one book and challenged myself to write a book with a word count on par with Atlas Shrugged or Infinite Jest in three years. And so, I did from 2012-2015. However, it is difficult to get readers to indulge in a book that long, so I thought it best to break it into a book series.

I had a couple of issues I wanted to address concerning a story of this nature. One was I wanted it to be funny. Dark and funny a satire on American television if you will. The other was I wanted to capture the entire experience of one season of a reality television show. There have been a couple of movies made about reality television: Sing, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, American Dreamz and One Chance. The problem was, as I saw it, that a movie runs too short to tell the entire story about an entire television season. Way too many details are left out. And so, I decided to write Musicology about a fictional television show and capture what goes on during the show, what goes on when the cameras go off and everything in between. And thirdly it had to be raunchy. Raunchy enough to hopefully get my book banned.

Let me tell you, I watched a lot of reality television during the three years it took me to write this book. Way more than anyone should be subjected to. There are times I love the shows and times I despise them. There is a lot of talk on these shows about having a “moment”. There are much fewer “moments” that happen than they lead you to believe. That is not to say there aren’t some but it’s usually one performer on one performance during one season. Sometimes you might get lucky and have two but the longer these shows are on the less likely it happens.

Some of these shows are better than others. The American version of the X Factor was near unwatchable and my heart goes out to those singers who competed on it. It was just a stupid show. I watched one female performer on the British version who indeed had a moment but not on the American version. And as you can see the American version was canceled.

The wackiest part about writing Musicology was after I wrote an incident sometimes the incident would happen in real life. Some of them were downright shocking. These scenes were supposed to be amusing fictional happenings. But they would occur in the reality television real-world kind of like The Simpson’s show which sometimes predicts events that come to fruition.

Musicology is not meant to be verbatim. It is a comedic satire after all not a treatise. It is not meant to be taken seriously but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a fair amount of research that went into it and there are certainly times when things get dark and disturbing and hopefully crawl under the reader’s skin. Maybe even transgress on them and leave a bitter taste in their mouth. But then it should.

There is also a mystery/secret in the story which starts in the second book. The mystery/secret is not solved until near the end of the series. And I am hoping readers will have as much fun with that one as I did. Musicology is releasing in August 2020 and I will post its release date soon.

While you are waiting for my next post and the release of Musicology: Volume One, Baby! you can check out my other novel Chicane on Amazon.

This week there is no ScreenwritingU class.

STREAM OF THE WEEK: MOVIES TO CREEP YOU OUT: THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975) & THE TENNANT-Amazon Prime

The Stepford Wives (1975) is still as disturbing today as it was in 1975. That isn’t to say we haven’t come a long way, baby but one must wonder how much have men really changed? It’s the story of Joanna (played by the wonderful Katherine Ross), who is uprooted by her husband from 1970’s New York where she has been working on a career as a photographer and transported along with her two young daughters (one is played by a very young Mary Stewart Masterson) to the suburbs. The town they move into is called Stepford and right away Joanna realizes something is amiss. She makes friends with two other newcomers to the neighborhood Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) and Charmaine (Tina Louise). As the women try to organize a women’s lib group in the neighborhood, they begin to realize something sinister is at play.

The Tennant (1976) also called Le loctaire is a wonderfully weird film directed and co-written (adapted from the novel by Roland Topor) by Roman Polanski. It is the third installment in Polanski’s landmark apartment trilogy following Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby.  Polanski also stars in the title role of Trelkovsky a young quiet white-collar bachelor who rents an apartment which was just left vacant by the previous tenant a young woman named Simone who threw herself out a window. Concerned for the woman he visits her in the hospital where he meets Simone’s friend Stella. Trelkovsky and Stella have a connection and he starts to see her on and off. In the meantime, he finds himself dealing with his annoying and demanding neighbors in his new digs who seem to become more and more peculiar with each run in. The original script was penned by playwright great Edward Albee but relations between Albee and the studio went south and so Polanski ended up making the film.

SMART FILMS FOR SMART KIDS-THE ADVETURES OF TINTIN-Amazon Prime

The Adventures of Tintin is a swashbuckling 3-D animation film about the famous Tintin character and his wire fox terrier Snowy who tend to be more popular abroad than in the United States. Brilliantly directed by Steven Spielberg (don’t miss the opening scene) The Adventures of Tintin finds young whip smart reporter Tintin stumbling upon a mystery surrounding a sunken ship. He meets up with heavy drinker Captain Haddock whose ancestor was onboard with in the unusual cargo when things went awry. This gorgeous looking film is well paced and full of fun and thrills.

 

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle and let me tell you it has been a harrowing week. We were out for our usual stroll my novelist and I…and the Maltese.

That’s right! I was there! I was there.

I am telling this story.

Are you going to tell them about the wolf?

Are you going to let me tell this or not?

Yes, yes! Tell them about the wolf!

It was not a wolf. It was a coyote. We were out walking on Sunday and we ran into a coyote. It was dreadful. My novelist thought it was a small deer at first and then realized it was a creature of the canine sort. It looked at us with those cold evil eyes like we were dishes served on a buffet. I hardly think of myself as a crumpet. My novelist scooped us up in her arms one in the right and the other in the left and yelled at this monstrous beast, “What are you?! Get out of here!” The coyote turned and walked away. But my novelist carried us all the way to safety. And now without further ado here is my hero and novelist.

This week I have been working on my website for my book series coming out in August. I had to create one just for this book because there is a site mentioned in my book series several times, so it became imperative to make one so that readers didn’t go to look up the site and yell “Where’s the site?!” I have owned the domain for some time now but never set it up and went live with it. I am going to add a couple of bells and whistles to it as well which I will go into more detail about later.

Beautifully written films about female friends are rare. Thelma & Louise comes to mind. Bridesmaids. 9 to 5. And maybe even Pitch Perfect. But good female buddy films do not come along often. I have read that stories with a male lead make more money or are preferred over stories with a female lead.

This is only one reason why Hustlers is a must see. The trailer is mediocre at best. The story however is fantastic and manages to walk that great tightrope of being both entertaining and thought provoking at the same time. Based on a true story covered in the article The Hustlers at Scores written by Jessica Pressler and published in New York Magazine on December 27th 2015, Hustlers is the story of Roselyn Keo (played brilliantly by Constance Wu) a whip smart former dancer at the famous Scores strip club in New York City who over the course of the film recalls her early days at the high end New York “gentleman’s club” and how she met Samantha Barbash (Jennifer Lopez who is excellent here) one of the clubs top dancers.

Both women are street smart, but their strengths lie in different areas. Samantha is the people person. Roselyn has the business mind. Together they are a powerful team. They perform for Wall Street hotshots and psychopaths alike looking for a fantasy, a vacation away from the wife. And the ladies deliver. In the early to mid-2000’s Scores was often touted on The Howard Stern show and many celebrities liked to get their pictures taken with the dancers. People were throwing a lot of money at these women. It would not be unheard of for the ladies to take home ten grand in a night. It was almost like a modern stripper’s version of the courtesans of Venice (see Dangerous Beauty). The problem was that much like the waiters in Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London cash in hand was often spent quickly. And when the housing bubble burst in late 2007 the money train left the station.

At this point Roselyn had become pregnant with her on again off again boyfriend who stuck around for a while and then a couple of years later left her and their daughter. Desperate for money she made a list of men who had been patrons of Scores her “money list” as it were and started calling around but to no avail. Serendipitously, she ran into Samantha again and found she had a brand-new bag: cooking up roofies and rolling guys through their former club. And with that the two ladies once again joined forces albeit on the other side of the law.

It is so often we see stories about men victimizing women that the ones about women victimizing men seem to pop out more. What makes this bizarre story so compelling is it is true and follows the magazine article well. Even the detectives at the police department who got calls from men saying they had thousands of dollars stolen from them by a pack of women didn’t believe them. I mean, after all, how could they expect women to cook up a scam like that? But they did and to great effect.

While you’re waiting for my next post and the release of my book series you can check out my novel Chicane on Amazon.

This week’s FREE FRIDAY MOVIE CLASS from SCREENWRITINGU is called How to Write a Contained Movie. You can sign up for the class here.

STREAM OF THE WEEK-UNBELIEVABLE-Netflix

In keeping with the theme of female buddy stories I want to highlight one of Netflix best miniseries. Unbelievable is the true story of a very competent serial rapist who appears to have started his multi-state rampage here in the great northwest. It stars Kaitlyn Dever in a phenomenal performance as the young Marie Adler who was accused of making up the brutal rape she endured. Later we meet Detective Karen Duvall (Merritt Weaver who gives an outstanding performance as well) who after coming across a few rape cases in her jurisdiction in Colorado starts to see a peculiar pattern. She enlists the help of hard-hitting Detective Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette who is equally outstanding and should be racking up awards) who is skeptical at first but teams up with Karen to figure out who this psychopath really is. The series shows how shockingly behind the justice system still is even after Ted Bundy’s reign of terror in the 1970’s. Riveting from start to finish and giving away nothing this is a taunt enthralling true crime thriller.

SMART FILMS FOR SMART KIDS: RACE FOR YOUR LIFE, CHARLIE BROWN

A few weeks ago, I recommended the Peanuts film Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown and Don’t Come Back. This week I am going to recommend one that is even better. Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown is one of the top three Peanuts movies and it is a whole lot of fun. The kids get shipped off to summer camp where they run into a trio of nasty boys and their ill-tempered cat. In order to triumph over the bullies, the gang enlists in a raft race only to find the villains have a few unsavory tricks up their sleeves. A classic kid’s film.

 

 

 

 

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle and I am proud to announce I have joined a timed writing group and am busily working on my memoir…
I’m in it! I’m in it!
Introduce yourself, imbecilic cur!
I am Tucker the Maltese and I am in Gigi’s memoir!
Okay, yes, yes. Tucker the Maltese is in my memoir. I must tell you I got the idea to write my memoir when my novelist decided to become active in an online timed writing group. I therefore have joined as well. My rational on composing my great work is simply I have lived a rich and fulfilling life and my experiences need to be shared with the masses. My exquisite prose will thus make the world a more cultured place. That announcement out of the way, here is my novelist.

I am closing in on the publication of the first installment of my book series and things are getting exciting! There’s going to be a couple of extra bells and whistles surrounding it that are going to be a hoot and I’ll be sharing them with you in the coming weeks. This series is the most fun I’ve ever had writing anything and I hope it will be entertaining for the reader as well. I wrote it for the audience to have a blast. Who can’t have a blast with a comedy about sex, drugs, rock and roll and television?

That said let’s talk about a book every writer should own. I never thought I would ever say this…ever. But Stephen King’s On Writing is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I chose it as one of my books for the library’s reading challenge this year where you must read ten books in one year each one fulfilling a different category. I was apprehensive at first because I am not a big pop fiction fan and even less of a horror fan. However, On Writing is one of the most insightful writing books I’ve come across. Maybe the most insightful.

I agree with just about everything Mr. King had to say in the book from writing and reading books being your best teacher to taking out adverbs and finding more concise ways to make your sentences pop. Writers can be indulgent. That is not to say they are all narcissistic. However, they can get wrapped up in their own world and lost in a sea of overwritten schlock. Writers can forget we are not here to just write about our own little worlds. Our main goal is to entertain (and occasionally inform) an audience. The smoother and more accessible the story the better. I am not certain however, how Mr. King is able to do his writing sessions listening to heavy metal (I work better with near silence). But hey, obviously it works for him and who am I to judge? The man is worth half a billion dollars.

I appreciated (like many writers will probably appreciate) him saying that writing groups and writing classes are not as useful as one would like to believe. I agree wholeheartedly with him. My only exception would be timed writing groups and getting up and reading your work in front of an audience where you are not critiqued. For myself I think those can and do help writers. But those groups where you read and listen to other writers and everyone critiques one another I find those to be daunting if not dispiriting and I do believe one should steer clear. They are just social clubs and they suck. I’ve been in them and never got anything positive out of them. I didn’t even like who I was in them.

However, this does not include universities. If you want to be a writer, you should go to and graduate from a university. That said I think colleges should take note of the comments in the paragraph above. From my own experience (and maybe things have changed, or other colleges do it differently) there is way too much reading your writing to other students and the professor and having your work torn to shreds. Who does this help really? No one. It’s just a cesspool for covert narcissism. Providing positive feedback for what does work in a writer’s story is more useful to the writer than constantly focusing on what doesn’t. Because now you know what is working and you have a springboard to go forward. Or just having the writer read their work out loud to an audience helps the writer hear what is working and what is kafuffle.

On Writing is also beautifully written and accessible to non-writers. Whether or not you are a Stephen King fan or whether you are a writer this is a book worth having on your e-reader or bookshelf.

While you are waiting for my next blog post and the release of the first book of my new book series you can check out my novel Chicane available on Amazon.

Tomorrow’s Free Class Friday offering from ScreenwritingU is Analysis of The Godfather. You can register for the class here.

STREAM OF THE WEEK: MOVIES ABOUT NEVADA-HARD EIGHT & LEAVING LAS VEGAS-Amazon Prime

I am proud to recommend both these incredible films as this week’s streaming choices. I thought films about Reno and Las Vegas would be great summer film choices.

Hard Eight (1996) is Paul Thomas Andersons first full-length feature film and it is my all-time favorite of his. Set in Reno it is the story of Sydney (brilliantly played by Philip Baker Hall) an aging professional gambler who “stumbles” upon young John (the wonderful John C. Reilly) whose mother has recently died. John needs six thousand dollars to pay for her funeral and went to Reno to try and win the money gambling but ended up losing instead. Sydney offers him his assistance as a gambler. At first John is reluctant but having nothing to lose takes Sydney’s proposal and learns the tricks of the trade. But after a couple of years they meet a cocktail waitress named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) forcing Sydney’s sketchy past to be revealed.

Leaving Las Vegas (1995) is one of the most beautiful love stories ever filmed. Set first in Hollywood and then in Las Vegas it is the story of Ben Sanderson (Nicholas Cage in his much-deserved Oscar winning role) who is a Hollywood writer and a drunk. Ben’s wife has left him, and he is spiraling out of control. When he is fired from his job, he decides to move out to Las Vegas…and drink himself to death. Watch how beautifully Cage makes the decision to commit suicide by shifting his final check from one hand to the other. He throws out and burns most everything he owns including a child’s bike. Pay close attention to the bike which is both in the book and the film because it is the reason Ben has decided to kill himself. Most people miss it. Ben reaches Las Vegas ready to complete his mission when by chance meets a prostitute named Sera (Elizabeth Shue in the role that should have won her the Oscar. I am extremely bitter about this by the way. Susan Sarandon won for her role in Dead Man Walking that year but should have won for Lorenzo’s Oil  (1992). Elizabeth should have won here for her brave and flawless performance) and unexpectedly falls in love. John O’Brien who wrote the novel Leaving Las Vegas (one of my favorite books) committed suicide by gunshot wound two weeks after he found out the book was going to be made into a movie. His father said the novel was his suicide note.

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: THE KARATE KID (1984)-Netflix

The Karate Kid was Elizabeth Shue’s second major motion picture and it is a classic. It was directed by Academy Award winning director John G. Avildsen (Rocky (1976)). Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and his mother Lucille move to California to start life anew. They move into an apartment building with an eccentric Okinawan handyman named Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita in his Oscar nominated performance). Daniel starts attending the local high school and finds himself smitten with a cheerleader named Ali (Elizabeth Shue) who happens to be the ex-girlfriend of wavy blond-haired Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). Johnny, as it turns out has a black belt in karate and is the star pupil at the brutal Cobra Kai dojo. Johnny is none too pleased with this scrawny new guy sniffing around his former squeeze. So, and he and his karate buddies start beating him up on Halloween…until Mr. Miyagi sees the fight and hands the Cobras their asses. Impressed with Mr. Miyagi’s extraordinary skills Daniel attempts to employ him as his Karate Master. Mr. Miyagi in turn puts Daniel to work painting fences and cleaning windows.