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?

You can sign up here for the free teleconference which occurs on Friday 8/28 @ Noon PST

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.

Greetings. It is I Gigi the Parti Poodle returning to introduce my writer’s blog. I am pleased to announce my novelist will be publishing the first volume of her satirical book series in August. As I am a Canis Lupus Familiaris of champagne taste I have chosen the cover for her book and it is utterly exquisite. Its magnificence will be enjoyed by all. I must say it has been a daunting week as the Maltese attempted to sneak away to a barbeque (gauche I know) at one of the fraternities at the local university. Luckily, I stopped him in time because they have been having a dilly of a time dealing with a Corona outbreak there. I am flummoxed as to what we are going to do in the fall. I am terrified they will open the schools again and then I will be stuck playing nursemaid to that foolish little lummox. Cannot stay away from those sorority girls you see. And they think he is so cute with his brown lipid eyes and silky white hair. The way they pick him up and put him in their laps. Absolutely scandalous. Without further ado here is my novelist.

If you attended last week’s ScreenwritingU’s Free Class Friday, you would know the subject was writing parts that actors want to play. Having studied both acting and writing I can tell you the first thing an actor does when he or she gets a part is take the script, go through it, and count how many lines they have. The second is count how many monologues they have. Actors are notoriously narcissistic. Dr. Drew’s Narcissism Test showed the average score of a celebrity being 18. The average American scores around 15. I scored 12. As you can see celebrity actors have big fat hairy egos.

When I write novels, I try to have all the characters no matter how big or small jump off the page. I try to write with the thought that my book could be made into a play or a film whether it ever would or not. And if it is, it needs to be actor proof. Because I spent many years studying theatre and writing, my stories tend to flow down the page with a fair amount of dialogue. That does not mean I don’t write description. It simply means my style of writing tends to be more dialogue centric. Being as I am introverted to a fault this is of course ironic. I hate talking to people and I imagine they hate talking to me. However, I like smart, sharp dialogue and I enjoy weaving it into my stories.

I also try to give actors things they might need like props and costumes. I also like to make sure each character has a unique voice they bring to the story. This became important while writing my book series which I will be releasing in August. The series is made up of an ensemble cast and each of these individuals had to have a voice that was all their own. Not just by what they said but by how they said it. They also each needed a flaw. Why? Because actors love playing characters who are flawed. This gives them something to work with, something to stand out with.

A good example is Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy. He’s a short little con artist who limps. Or perhaps Deadpool, a malformed, smarty pants, mentally unstable mercenary. Or Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction who has a serious problem with being ignored. Or Alyssa and James from The End of the F***ing World. I mean where do I even start with their issues? Actors eat this stuff up.

The first season of 13 Reasons Why did an excellent job defining the different personalities and flaws of each of the students. Each episode focused on one of the characters who had some level of involvement in the suicide of the female protagonist. Each one had a well-defined personality, a secret, and a flaw. The show also did a good job weaving in clues about the character who turns out to be the villain. I cannot in good conscience recommend the dreary disheartening second season. But I can recommend the first which is outstanding. And the novel by Jay Asher.

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 Friday’s ScreenwritingU Free Friday Class is Want To Write Fascinating Scenes?. You can register for the class here.

STREAM OF THE WEEK: ESCAPE MOVIES: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK & ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ-Amazon Prime Video

This week because it is summer, I thought it would be fun to choose a couple of movies about escaping…from prison that is. And because stream of the week choices should not always be stuffy.

Escape From New York (1981) is a gleeful tongue in cheek romp. And it has a fantastic lead character named Snake Plisskin played brilliantly by Kurt Russell. Snake is a problem child who in the future (1997 which is the future in the movie) has gotten himself incarcerated in the worst maximum-security prison in the country: Manhattan. Luckily for Snake the President of the United States has crash landed in Manhattan and has been taken prisoner by The Duke. Snake is given an option: rescue the president and help him escape or die within 24 hours. Loads of fun!

Escape from Alcatraz is based on a true story about the one and only daring escape from Alcatraz. Brilliant bank robber Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood) has been sent to the most ruthless prison in the United States where he discovers the prison is not as solid as people think. Teaming up with brothers Clarence and John Anglin and young Charlie Butts Morris slowly but surely begins to plan a fool proof escape from a place deemed to be impossible to break out of. The film is wonderfully written and offers no easy answers to the success or failure of Morris’s plan. A true classic.

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!) (1980)-Amazon Prime Video

Bon Voyagae, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!) like many Peanuts movies is a sweet little story and a great travel movie to boot. Charlie Brown, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Snoopy and Woodstock all fly to France to be exchange students. On route Charlie Brown shows he has received his first ever letter in the mail…but it is written in French. Marcie who has recently been studying French helps to decipher it. The kids first land in England and Snoopy partakes of tennis at Wimbledon but they are soon onto France where Marcie and Peppermint Patty stay at a chalet with their new friend Pierre. But Charlie Brown, Linus, Snoopy and Woodstock travel on to the place Charlies’ letter was sent from, the Maison du Mauvais Voisin (house of the bad neighbor) where a mystery begins to form.

 

 

Tell them what you did!
Okay…well…
And who you are!
Okay…my name is Tucker and I’m a Maltese.
And I am Gigi parti poodle extraordinaire. Good Afternoon. Now tell them what you did!
My name is Tucker and I got invited to a Corona party at a fraternity in Alabama. I got invited because I have a relative who was a fraternity member and I am legacy. And I thought it would be fun. My favorite movie is Animal House and my other favorite movie is Old School and if you are the first person to get Corona from going to the fraternity party you get all the money everyone throws into the pot. I thought it would be fun to go to the party and see if I could get the Corona. But Gigi…
I am Gigi.
Tattled on me and told our novelist what I was up to so my novelist scolded me and said I could not go to the fraternity party in Alabama and get the Corona and win the money. Now I am grounded.
As you should be. Without any further ado here is our novelist.

Sometimes you wonder what Oscar voters are thinking. And modern movie critics are no better. I long for the days when it was just Siskel and Ebert and not a large pool of critics, would-be critics, and an average score. Firstly, many of the critics are not as good as Siskel or Ebert and secondly, I miss the At the Movies passionate heated discussions. I doubt many critics today have as much passion about movies as Siskel and Ebert did. Although to be fair Hollywood is grinding out more and more dreck so it’s harder and harder to be passionate about film. Whether I agreed with the two Chicago film aficionados or not (and I most often agreed with them) I always respected them. I rarely respect critics now. And I respect Oscar voters even less.

Which leads me to the question what were they thinking when they screened 1917? Did they not see the same movie I did? Were they high on mescaline? Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope is a fantastic film done in one take and that was shot primarily on one set. 1917 was done in one take over an expansive amount of war-torn territory. Did they think this was easy? Did they think Sam Mendes got up one morning and said I am going to shoot a World War One film in one take, and it will be a walk in the park?

And why was George MacKay not nominated for best actor? Are you kidding me?! What more did they want this kid to do? He was amazing. His performance reminded me of Leonardo Dicaprio’s tour de force work in The Revenant. Oscars can be jackasses when it comes to the Best Actor category. They have a difficult time nominating male actors who are not pushing forty. Look at last year’s category. The youngest nomination was Adam Driver who is thirty-six.

One of the major complaints critics had of the film was it seemed like a video game. Okay, let’s think differently for a moment. Let’s just give that a try shall we. Where do you think war time video games get their inspiration? Probably from the same place Sam Mendes got his inspiration for the film: people who were in said war, and books written by people who either interviewed people who were soldiers or were soldiers themselves. So, by that rational Sam Mendes who co-wrote the script based on tales his grandfather who fought in WWI told him, really wrote out the story a video game would copy. In a sense Sam Mendes did not copy video games but rather video games copy stories like his. War is not rational. It is not a Jane Austin novel. It is unpredictable and frenetic. Telling a war story which takes place during battle therefore can be unpredictable and frenetic as well.

I do encourage you to watch 1917 if you have not already. It is a wholly different experience than a lot of films out there and that is good. Should all war films be made in the same fashion as this one? Not necessarily. There is plenty of room for Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton, The Deer Hunter, whatever. But there’s also room for films like 1917 that are not made to dive deep into a character’s psyche. Sometimes a film is about what happens in the moment and the propulsion driving it to the next moment and the one after that keeping the audience on the edge of its seat and still saying something profound about the horrors of war.

While you are waiting for my next post you can check out my novel Chicane on Amazon. Also look for more information coming up about the release of the first novel in my book series I will be publishing this summer.

The ScreenwritingU Free Friday Class tomorrow 7/3/2020 is called Want Movie Stars to Play Your Characters? You can sign up for the class here.

STREAM OF THE WEEK: RUNAWAY TRAIN & THE TRAIN-Amazon Prime

As it is traveling season and but not a good time to travel, I thought it would be fun to feature a couple of films about trains.

Runaway Train (1985) is one of my favorite action adventure films of all time that unfortunately often gets overlooked. It is also an existential film to boot. Jon Voight is sensational as Manny a bank robber and longtime prisoner who after serving three years in solitary confinement devises a plan to break out of a maximum-security prison in Alaska and escape his psychopathic warden (John P. Ryan). He recruits a younger prisoner named Buck played wonderfully by Eric Roberts to help him escape. They manage to head across brutal snowy terrain and hop a train. Though they think they are bound for freedom they aren’t counting on what happens to their ride. Both men earned much deserved Oscar nominations for their outstanding work. Rebecca De Mornay is also fantastic as a railroad worker. Look for Danny Trejo as a boxer and Dennis Franz as a Cop. Don’t miss this one. The screenplay was co-written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paul Zindel. It is based on an original screenplay by the brilliant director Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa had planned to direct the film himself but never got to because of difficulties with his American financial backers.

The Train (1964) is an American French War film starring Burt Lancaster and directed by one of the most under appreciated directors of all time John Frankenheimer. The film takes place in August of 1944 where a German Colonel Franz Von Waldeim (Paul Scofield) who has a deep appreciation of art and a keen understanding of its financial value decides to load a train with hords of France’s finest artistic masterpieces and ship them to Germany. But the curator of the museum he takes them from will have none of it and calls upon French Resistance members led by Paul Labiche (Lancaster) to stop the train and return the paintings to France without damage. This of course makes the rescue more dangerous and Labiche is reluctant to take the job. But when one of his elderly engineers sacrifices his life to sabotage the train all bets are off and Labiche and his ragtag crew brew up an elaborate plan to reroute the train.

SMART MOVIES FOR SMART KIDS: Rango-Amazon Prime
Rango is Chinatown for kids. Set in the Nevada desert, Rango is a pet chameleon who gets lost when his terrarium gets separated from his adoptive family. While trying to find his way home Rango stumbles into an old western town and by happenstance destroys the towns enemy a large nasty hawk. The mayor appoints him to the position of sheriff. However, the former hawk served a purpose which was to keep a nasty gun slinging rattlesnake at bay. They mayor Rango finds out is in cahoots with the notorious rattler involving the disappearance of the town’s water supply. The movie won the Oscar for Best Animated Film in 2011.

 

 

Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here once again. My novelist is half-way through polishing the last book in her series for publication. We have been working hard to power through till the end. Many iced coffees have been drunk. My novelist has partaken of some as well. It is tough lying on a pillow and barking at strangers while she writes. I am exhausted. But the end of the tunnel is near, and the book release is drawing nigh. Without further ado here is my novelist.

Because extroverts have proven to be utterly brilliant at staying away from other human beings, wearing masks and not spreading disease during a pandemic, (ha!) I thought I would offer up one more acting exercise that is useful for writers called…The Waiting Exercise. Yes, genius this one is for you.

The beauty of this acting challenge is it is really two exercises in one. The first part is…waiting. The second part is having a secret prop on your person while you…wait. Essentially the character carries around an object no one else knows about except the actor or the character the writer creates. The writer’s choice to eventually reveal the object to the audience/reader is completely up to them. Here is how it works.

The actor picks a prop and gives it a history like the prop exercise from last week. The actor then picks a setting in which his character will…wait for someone or something such as a train station, a bus stop, an office, a drug store, a line at a post office, a movie theatre. It really does not matter. When the actor walks into the scene, they carry the secret prop with them on their person hidden from view, so it must be something relatively small unlike a 2020 ARGO FRONTIER 700 SCOUT 6X6 STK 19537 for example. Without using dialogue, the actor moves about the space and…waits.

Now, the actor needs to have a motive to…wait. It could be perhaps the secret prop in their pocket has something to do with it or not. The secret prop’s purpose is essentially to give the actor a way to gain access to the inner workings of the character. Something they can feel against their body or put in their pocket and move it around with their hand.

Let’s say your character is a college student. He lives in the dorm and he wants to score some Adderall from a baseball player on scholarship. The baseball player has a prescription because he was misdiagnosed with ADHD as a kid. And he is quite a con artist skilled at faking ADHD thus his ability to continue filling his prescription and selling off his meds to suckers like our hero for exorbitant prices. Our college student must go over to the baseball player’s fraternity and meet the guy there. Let’s say our hero has an inside track about the history of said fraternity and the place gives him the creeps. But he wants the Adderall because he is struggling in his physics class and he thinks he needs drugs in order to pass his midterms. So, there he is in the foyer of this notorious oversized house…waiting for the baseball player who is supposed to be there at four o’clock. Fraternity brothers who live in the house go in and out the door and make our hero uncomfortable threatened even. As he…waits, he looks around the place where he might see a neon beer sign, the fraternity’s coat of arms, a half-deflated blowup doll in the corner etc.

Now, in his pocket is his secret prop which no one knows about but him. The audience does not know either. But it should be something interesting. Let’s say it’s a flash drive and on said flash drive is something incriminating about our drug dealing baseball player. Incriminating enough the baseball player could get his scholarship taken away and possibly expelled. But the audience does not know this. Only the college student knows about the flash drive he keeps in his pocket as he…waits for the baseball player. The flash drive in our hero’s pocket may be the one thing keeping him in the room. Perhaps it gives him confidence or possibly something to bargain with should this nefarious drug deal go bad. Or perhaps it is an object which is painful for him to have. Maybe what is on the drive personally affects him or someone he cares about. Whatever it is, it affects the motivation for the college student to be in that fraternity foyer.

And that is the…waiting exercise.

I post every Thursday. That is the schedule. While you are waiting for my next blog post you can check out my novel Chicane on Amazon. Just as an update I am going to be publishing my book series on Amazon this summer. Look for information on my blog in the coming weeks for the release of the first book.

This week’s ScreenwritingU Friday Free Class (tomorrow) is Writing Scary As Hell Horror Scenes. You can sign up for it here.

 

SCREEN OF THE WEEK-UNCONVENTIONAL LOVE STORIES-BLUE VELVET & BUFFALO ’66-Amazon Prime

Blue Velvet (1986) is one of my favorite films and as a writer one of the most influential. Maybe because I grew up in the same area as David Lynch. Maybe because it accurately depicts the way it really is here in the northwest or at least how it was, even if the story is set in North Carolina. Since it is going off Amazon Prime on June 30, which is this coming Tuesday, I thought I had better feature it this week. It is the story of a college student named Jeffrey who has returned home after his father has a heart attack and finds a human ear in a field. Thus, begins Jeffrey’s odyssey through the strange underworld of his seemingly normal hometown. It would be sacrilege for me to tell you anything more.

Buffalo ’66 is a fantastic indie film. I remember seeing another movie written and directed by Vincent Gallo The Brown Bunny in the theatre and thinking it was is a superb meditation on its subject matter and I still do. Buffalo ’66 was his first full length feature as a writer/director and it is wonderfully funny, strange and tender. It is the story of Billy Brown who after serving five years in prison, not for a crime he committed but to pay off a bet he lost betting on the Buffalo Bills to a bookie (Mickey Rouke) is compelled to visit his parents (Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Houston). Along the way he wonders into a dance studio where he “meets” a girl named Layla. That is where things start to get wonderfully out of hand. Christina Ricci is magical as a powder blue tap dancer. Jan-Michael Vincent makes an appearance in a bowling alley. The film is uniquely shot in order to fill the audience in on some additional information and it works great. An absolute must see.

SMART FILMS FOR SMART KIDS-BENJI (Original 1974)-Amazon Prime

Benji is also an unconventional love story. In fact, there is a lot of love to go around in this heart warmer. Benji is a homeless mutt who goes about a small-town charming its inhabitants and surviving on both his wits and their hospitality. Along the way he meets a young brother and sister who want to adopt him. But their single father refuses to let them adopt the little guy. Benji however is not easily deterred. And when things turn dark it is up to the plucky pint-sized cocker spaniel/poodle/schnauzer to risk life and paw to set things right.