The Ten Greatest Action Movie Montages Ever!

“Show a lot of things happening at once,
Remind everyone of what’s going on (what’s going on?)
And with every shot you show a little improvement
To show it all would take to long
That’s called a montage (montage)
Oh we want montage (montage)”

Montage, Team America: World Police

This Top Ten could easily have been populated with montages taken from one particular film series but not wanting to limit this to just clips of people getting gradually better at chasing chickens, I’ve mixed things up a little. Besides montages aren’t just employed in action films for training sequences (although they do take up six of the ten positions); they’re also a great way of introducing characters quickly and my particular favourite — suiting up scenes.

The other about a great montage is that it’s not just about what’s on the screen — music makes the montage.

10. Cobra

Stallone’s first, but obviously not last, appearance on the list is this wonderful piece of randomness from this underrated action masterpiece. As Lieutenant Marion ‘Cobra’ Cobretti, Stallone looks for leads to a serial killer by chatting to hookers while Bridget Nielsen — who I’m guessing is meant to be the “angel of the city” — does a photoshoot with some robots. Obviously.

9. Never Back Down

You can find out what I thought about The MMA Kid when I reviewed it last year. This isn’t the best training sequence ever but gets bonus points for at least being an action movie made this century that actually features a montage.

8. Rocky Balboa

Rocky Balboa on the other hand doesn’t need the bonus points. This is a fantastic training montage aided by Tony Burton’s cool opening monologue and paying tribute to the great training sequences of the past five films.

7. Kickboxer

Van Damme may be no De Niro but neither has been De Niro over the last ten years or so. And when was the last time De Niro did a jumping round house kick? Never — that’s when. Therefore bask in the feet flying glory of – Van Damme’s best-ever training montage. Warning there are multiple moments that will make your eyes’ water.

6. The Monster Squad

Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy, The Gill Man and Frankenstein’s Monster have all invaded your town — what in the name of Van Helsing’s beard are you going to do? Well worry no more because this fab montage from The Monster Squad tells you everything you need to do.

5. Commando

The best “suiting up” scene ever filmed — this is epic. Lock ‘n’ load doesn’t even cover it.

4. No Retreat, No Surrender

If you’ve never seen No Retreat, No Surrender then you haven’t really lived. One watch of this piece of genius from 1986 and it’s like you’ve taken Morpheus’ red pill — the world that you know will cease to exist. Not only does it rip off The Karate Kid and Rocky IV — bullied teenager takes on the Russian martial-artist (played by JCVD) responsible for crippling his father — but it also features the ghost of Bruce Lee playing the Miyagi-mentor role. So, yes, I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

3. Rocky II

Blood, sweat and chickens. It’s good. It is so very good…

2. Rocky IV

… but not quite good enough to beat this effort. Musically speaking “Heart’s on Fire” is not as anthemic as “Eye of the Tiger” or as rousing as Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now”,  but John Cafferty’s song certainly does the job. Yet what makes this best Rocky training sequence ever though is the cunning juxtapositioning of Rocky’s training methods versus Drago’s. Drago all science and machinery against Rocky’s nature and horsecart lifting approach. We knew the fight was in the bag for Rocky when he climbs to the top of a mountain while Drago quits with his treadmill on a level 5 incline setting. Heart’s on fire indeed! No wait. It may be my sex again.

1. The Karate Kid

Rocky Balboa may be able to beat Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago and Tommy “The Machine” Gunn but Daniel Larusso wipes the floor with him with this marvellous montage of the All Valley Karate Championship which features more moves than Garry Kasparov. Yet what really gives this montage the edge is Joe Esposito “You’re The Best” — it’s like a crane kick to the ears –  and despite yourself you can’t help but root for Daniel as he goes through Cobra Kai students quicker than a fourteen year-old with a four-pack of WKD.

Bill Martell on Theme

So last month I found myself in a basement next to Charing Cross station with The Man, The Legend — Bill Martell. Now if you’re unfamiliar with Bill I should explain why I’m such a massive fan but I’m too lazy. Besides one read of Bill’s blog or his site Script Secrets do him far more justice than I ever could because as most of you already know they are essential reading.

Apart from the draw of Bill himself, the other reason I was there, was because, for the first time, he was covering theme as part of his Script Secrets: The Big Idea course. Theme in the past has been something that I’ve been a little bit fuzzy about — I can tell you what my script is about BUT ask me about what the theme is…?

According to Bill, theme is the point of the story — the larger reason behind it. Once you know the theme you can add scenes and characters that link to it — you can put clues in. Theme connects on an unconscious level so you shouldn’t try and hammer it home to the reader. Bill then used Ghost to explain “theme” in further depth.

 

• Ghost is about a dead man not being able to tell the woman he loves her life is in danger. Therefore the central theme of Ghost is communication.
• The first scene of the film symbolically represents the theme as Sam, Molly and Carl knock down a wall when renovating an apartment — the rest of the film is about Sam breaking down the walls of communication.
• In a screenplay there are three places to find theme.

1. The major decision your protagonist has to make in the script — Sam needs to find a way to communicate to Maggie that her life is in danger.
2. The major difference between your protagonist and antagonist — Carl is a manipulator and good at communication in a negative way.Thus Carl is the opposite of Sam hence he is the antagonist.
3. Protagonist’s emotional issues or character arc – Sam being unable to tell Molly that he loves her.

• Theme can be explored in the film’s physical conflict like when Sam is unable to warn Maggie that the man who murdered him, Willie Lopez, is in the apartment.
• Sub-plots should also be used to explore theme in Ghost for example Sam complaining about having to talk with the Japanese at work or Molly communicating through her art or Oda Mae pretending she can speak to the dead.

Theme formed only a small part of the two days; Bill had plenty more film clips, tools and tips to share with us and I learnt a lot from him. He’s also a highly entertaining speaker so if you get the opportunity to attend one of his courses I would take it. And thanks to Bill I now know there’s much more to Ghost than just Unchained Melody and a pottery wheel.

The Ten Greatest Action Movie One-Liners Ever!

So you’re writing the climatic scene to your action screenplay, Rotten To The Core. The hero is duking it out with the evil drug lord at The Fruit Expo — he’s smuggling cocaine inside the Granny Smiths — when he gets hold of a bazooka and takes aim. Just when all appears lost, our hero cuts a rope sending a giant replica of a Golden Delicious plummeting down onto the villain — crushing him to death.

Now, giant fruit aside, that’s actually quite a harsh death, you could lose a bit of sympathy with the audience despite the fact the bad guy killed the hero’s family, his partner, his partner’s family, his dog and his dog’s family. So how do you keep the audience on side?

With the action movie one-liner!

After squashing the evil drug dealer, our hero says:

How do you like them apples!

Okay that’s a very bad pun. Like the worst ever. Yet in action films by giving the hero some humorous dialogue they can get away with murder.

Although one-liners are a common staple of action movies, two men (one fictional, one not) are masters at their usage hence their domination of my Top Ten.

Now the finest action movie one-liners ever (that are available on YouTube):

10. Speed

Keanu Reeves skillfully cuts Dennis Hopper “down to size” with this quip. Still doesn’t make up for the fact this film should have ended back at the airport.

9. Commando

Arnie’s first appearance in the Top Ten with a text-book example.

8. You Only Live Twice

Bond is even suave when unleashing the almighty one-liner.

7. Lethal Weapon 2

Although the line of dialogue preceeding it is legendary, Danny Glover’s less famous retort is still class.

6. Live And Let Die

That Yaphet Kotto is nothing but hot air. Snarf.

5. Total Recall

Behold the power of the one-liner as Arnie executes Sharon Stone but comedy makes it okay.

4. Predator

The only thing sharper than The Governor’s wit is his almighty large knife.

3. Hard To Kill

Steven Seagal demonstrating, how only he can, that a one-liner doesn’t have to be funny to be funny.

2.  Goldfinger

The granddaddy of action movie one-liners.

1. Commando

Nobody does it better. Apart from Arnie. From a movie full of great one-liners, delivered by an actor whose career is based on great one-liners. Here comes genius.

And proof that you doesn’t strike gold on your first go…

The Ten Greatest Fight Scenes Ever!

10. Alabama versus Virgil (True Romance)

It should be a mismatch as a sweet southern belle takes on two hundred pounds of mafia hitman but Alabama’s got two things on her side — true romance and a cork screw. In Tarantino’s original script Virgil was a nimble-footed exponent of martial arts, however someone made a wise-move by getting rid of the roundhouses and unleashing James Gandolfini. His brutishness adds to the suspense and tension as Patricia Arquette uses every object she can lay her hands-on to stay alive. Tom and Jerry be proud!

9. Toby Wong versus Advanced Model (Drive)

Mark Dacascos could have been a contender. Sadly he’s now better known for hosting The Iron Chef but watching Drive you can’t help think what could have been. If you’ve never seen Drive before, track it down. Easily the best martial-arts film to have come out of Hollywood in the last two decades, Drive was released in the same year as The Matrix. Now I admit The Matrix does a good fight scene but  Drive does awesome fight scenes and the climax is the pick of the bunch.

8.Kham versus a hotel (The Warrior King)

If Brian de Palma was to direct a martial arts scene it would be this. From a movie full of amazing fight scenes (Elephant tossing?) comes this tracking shot of Tony Jaa kicking, punching, kneeing and elbowing ass like only Tony Jaa can. Definitely the best hotel inspired violence since Basil gave his car ” a damn good thrashing”.

7. Martin Riggs versus Mr. Joshua (Lethal Weapon)

Forget Ultimate Fighting. Back in 1987, when Mr.Joshua took  “a shot at the title”  is when mixed-martial arts first broke into the mainstream. Choreography was by Rorion Gracie, one of the founders of UFC, hence Riggs successfully defending “the title” not by a punch or a round-house but by a triangle choke hold.

6. King Kong versus T-Rex (King Kong)

Over seventy years old and still pure magic. Dishing out punches like Joe Louis, Kong takes down a dinosaur however my favourite moment is at the end when Kong plays with the T-Rex’s broken jaw. In that one flash of child-like wonder Kong displays more personality than a dozen Paris Hiltons.

5. Thomas versus Thug (Meals on Wheels)

Bringing a together wonderful mixture of martial arts, acrobatics and slapstick Jackie Chan is my favourite movie star ever. When it comes to great fight scenes, Jackie Chan’s back catalogue is an embarrassment of riches. I could have picked the mall scene in Police Story, the roof-top fight in Who Am I? or the ladder fight from First Strike but I’m settling for this — Jackie’s first meeting with Benny “The Jet” Urquidez (the second is Dragons Forever). Tremendous athleticism plus comedy equals Jackie Chan gold.

4. Joe Hallenbeck versus Chet (The Last Boy Scout)

The second entry from a Shane Black script, the one-punch “knockout” is a basic staple of cinematic fight scenes but this is the heavyweight champ of them all. It also serves as a lesson to us all that if Bruce Willis asks for a light, please, just give him a light.

3. Tang Lung versus Colt (Way of the Dragon)

Forget Walker Texas Ranger. Playing Colt in Way of the Dragon is when Chuck Norris was at the height of his powers. Though at the end of the scene when he’s got a broken arm and leg yet still thinks he can take Bruce Lee, Colt displays a level of tenacity that the rest of us would call “stupidity”.

2. Indiana Jones versus 1^st Mechanic (Raiders of the Lost Ark)

No other fight scene best captures the sheer essence of a character. Want to know who Indiana Jones is? See him take on a 6′ 5″, 19 stone German soldier.

1. Martin Blank versus Felix La PuBelle (Grosse Pointe Blank)

If two professional hitmen really did go at it, I think this is exactly what it would be like. John Cusack and Benny The Jet engage in a short but brutal fight that takes each of them to their limits. Face-breakingly brilliant.

50 Things I Learnt At SWF

Okay would have churned this out sooner but have been out of commission thanks to a very nasty cold.

Anyway I’d better point out  none of the below are direct quotes. It’s more the gist of what people said and reformatted by my caffeine-addled mind.

1. All screenwriters own iPhones. I guess this is because it is an innovative piece of kit and screenwriters are innovative folk. I don’t own an iPhone. I own a six-year-old Samsung that I lost in a hotel on the first night. It was handed in.
2. If you agree to meet up at a Wetherspoons but have no idea how to get there just follow a screenwriter with an iPhone.
3. Don’t dress smart. Successful writers dress like slobs. Producers expect good writers to wear suspiciously stained clothing because they think they’re tortured geniuses. (Doug Chamberlin, Screenwriter)
4. If you ever find yourself pitching to the VP of Production UK for Warner Bros wear a Teen-Wolf t-shirt – he’ll find it cool. Doug Chamberlin may be onto something.
5. Screenwriters aren’t all alcoholics. Proven by the fact the bar at SWF only took 30 quid on its first day. Down-side of this is the next day when you do decide to get your drink on, it’s not bloody there because they’ve decided there’s no demand for it. Bar stools.
6. As delightful as vanilla chai lattes are, they are no substitute for hard liqueur.
7. Where is your compass set? You need to know what you’re overall goal is for your screenwriting career than work back figuring out all the necessary steps to get you there. (Janice Day, Screenwriter/Author/Performer)
8. “P & A” stands for the cost of prints and advertising for a film. Is expensive and increasing every year. (Will Machin, Head of Distribution – Ealing Studios International)
9. Consequently some films never see the light of day of because studios think the actual cost of P & A isn’t worth it. (Will Machin, Head of Distribution – Ealing Studios International)
10. Don’t look for representation – let them come to you when you have credits. (Rob Kraitt, Agent & Kate Leys, Script Editor/Project Development)
11. The difference between strategy and tactics is strategy is “what you want to achieve”; tactics is “how you do it”. (Julian Friedman, Agent)
12. If you encounter Dave Turner don’t mention Superman Returns.
13. Marketing needs to be at the heart of what a writer does. Even before you write the screenplay you need to know how you are going to market it. (Kate Adamson Inspirational Marketing Speaker/ Company Director – Stark Moore Macmillan)
14. Don’t force your memory stick on an agent. Yes, it may be less cumbersome than a script but agents are still not going to take it because it comes from an unknown sources and could contain viruses, spyware or god knows what else. It also sounds  like a horrible euphemism.
15. Your brilliant spec scrip is what get you’re work. Therefore it is worth paying a script-reader (cost should range from £30 to £70) for an analysis of your screenplay. (Julian Friedman, Agent)
16. Marc Price is the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Fact.
17. Don’t think you won’t succeed because of a lack of talent. Talent is 99% desire. (Janice Day, Screenwriter/Author/Performer)
18. Seventeen years later, Ghostwatch still has the power to make your hairs stand on end. Which is actually a bad thing as I’m way more hairier now than when I was twelve.
19. After watching a clip of Ghostwatch I was reminded of how hot Sarah Greene was. And I’m sure still is. Damn you Mike Smith!
20. Never go with an agent who makes you sign a contract agreeing to representation for a set period of time – you need to be able to fire them. (Julian Friedman, Agent)
21. If I’d come to SWF when it started in 2006 it would have saved me a lot of time. A lot of time.
22. There is only one acceptable currency at SWF — business cards.
23. You’ll get business card envy. Everyone else’s business card is better than yours.
24. Consequently it is impossible to swap business cards and not think of this.
25. The delegate I met with the most successful writing career also had the cheapest business card.
26. A spec script rarely sells. It’s job is to sell the writer. (Julian Friedman, Agent)
27. Never tell an agent a script is “being looked at” — it means nothing. (Rob Kraitt, Agent & Kate Leys, Script Editor/Project Development)
28. Film Four receives 50 solicited scripts a week. (Tessa Ross, Controller of Film and Drama, Channel4/Film4)
29. The prefect development process is the film develops with writer, producer and director all gaining something. (Simon Beaufoy, Screenwriter)
30. The road through the British Film industry is littered with bodies – but they’re all suicides. (Tony Grisoni, Writer/Director)
31. BBC’s Writers Room is not there to pass scripts onto other departments but to give you feedback so you can improve your scripts and get an agent. (Ben Stephenson, Controller Drama Commissioning, BBC)
32. You’ll be pleased to know that according to one Cheltenham sandwich shop – “Soup’s back”. So if you haven’t visited Cheltenham for a couple of years now is surely the time to go back.
33. Dan Turner and James Moran’’s web-thriller looks a bit fab.
34. BBC Film accept submissions directly to them if you have an agent. (Christine Langan, Creative Director – BBC Films)
35. Decide what you’re really good at then market yourself as that. Establish yourself as a brand. (Kate Adamson Inspirational Marketing Speaker/ Company Director – Stark Moore Macmillan)
36. Phill Baron believes He-Man could beat up Lion-O. But could he take Panthro? I doubt it.
37. Participant Media want scripts with global issues.(Jonathan Darby, Development Executive Participant Media)
38. When Participant Media open their offices in London they will accept unsolicited material.(Jonathan Darby, Development Executive Participant Media)
39. If you want to go to the Pentagon and have lunch with some generals it helps if you’re James Galdofini. (Armando Iannucci, Writer/Producer/Director)
40. Attending a Neuro-linguistic programming course is probably more useful than any screenwriting course. (Julian Friedman, Agent )
41. Financially, the five most important words to cinema’s business are “No outside food or drink.” (James Schamus, Screenwriter/CEO Focus Features)
42. James Schamus is not a fan of the three-act structure.
43. The hardest thing to write is the thing you’re writing now. (Steven Moffat, Screenwriter)
44. You can find the address of almost any production company on the PACT website.
45. BBC Films co-produce eight movies are year. (Christine Langan, Creative Director – BBC Films)
46. If you receive notes that you don’t agree with, it’s okay not to change things but you do have to give an explanation why. (Simon Beaufoy, Screenwriter)
47. Genre needs to be used to tell recognisable stories in different ways. (Ben Stephenson, Controller Drama Commissioning, BBC)
48. Demonstrate to people that you’re serious about becoming a professional writer – do a TAPS course, join the Writer’s Guild, attend SWF. (Julian Friedman, Agent)
49. Any writer who says he writes themes is lying. (Steven Moffat, Screenwriter)
50. I would go again.

Up

Regular readers (otherwise known as my Mum) know that my biggest gripe about your typical Hollywood blockbuster is you care nothing about the characters.

Do I care if Ben Affleck wins Kate Hudson’s heart even though he’s the hair dresser at her wedding and she thinks he’s gay? No. Do I care if hot generic TV actress, making the one movie she can fit in between seasons ,escapes decapitation in which ever horror franchise is being rebooted? No. Do I care if Jason Statham cuts the red wire or the blue wire? Okay I admit I do care – it’s Jason Statham. However I don’t feel any emotion over the jeopardy of his character because you always cut the bloody red wire!

Years spent in the multiplexes have left me devoid of any emotion. I’m like Spock — hardcore Leonard Nimoy one, not sissy boy Zachary Quinto who kisses girls and cries when his mum plunges to her death.

However something strange happened to me while watching Up.

I believe there was a neuronal connection between my tear duct and the areas of my brain involved with emotion. I cried like a baby chopping onions.

And that was just the first ten minutes.

It’s hard to describe but I imagine it’s like watching Rocky III for the first time.

Story wise Up is perfect. I know it’s a Pixar movie, their stories are always perfect but this is more perfect than most – it makes Wall-E look like Kung-Fu Panda. No scene, no character, no line of dialogue is extraneous — everything we see and hear is there for a reason. The script is so fab you don’t even notice the film is in 3-D. Usually when you watch a 3-D movie, the effect kind of takes over. But here the script is truly king — the 3-D adds to the story and not, which is the usual case, the hook which the story is forced to hang upon.

On the Bill Martell’s course (which I will eventually write up about — pinky promise) he discussed the concept of a “touchstone” — an object important to the character but also gives the audience a connection with their emotions. Up probably has the best example of a touchstone because when it reappeared at the end of the movie there was again definite moisture forming in my eyes.

I may have said in a previous post that the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay will go to (500) Days Of Summer. I still stand by that comment but the Oscar deserves to go to Bob Peterson and Pete Docter because the script for Up is truly a thing of beauty. Go see it.

Support Your Local Screenwriters’ Festival

Next week I’ll be spending four days at the Screenwriters’ Festival in Cheltenham. And I’m VERY EXCITED!

Not just because I’m booked to take part in a producer speed dating session where I can pitch my script ideas; nor because I will have an audience with the finest screenwriters available to humanity — Steven Moffat, Armando Iannucci, Simon Beaufoy, to name but a very few; it’s not even because it will be four days of me getting my drink on at a ladies college. No the one aspect I am most excited about is meeting my fellow writers and ALL of us getting our drink on!!!!

This will be my first year. I never attended the previous festivals because I honestly didn’t know how important networking was for developing a career in screenwriting.  Yet what really made my mind-up about attending this year was the vast amount of positivity the Festival has received from across the Scribosphere — because if these guys found going valuable then it’s definitely worth my time and money. So I’m sure, in over a week’s time, I will be recounting my adventures in Cheltenham and advising you to get your ass there for next year because it was totally awesome.

Sadly, I received the below last night from the Writers Guild, that suggests this might be the last Festival, or at least in its current form unless a few more people buy tickets.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCREENWRITERS’ FESTIVAL NEEDS YOU

Dear Fellow Writer,

My apologies for this intrusion but I write on a matter of some urgency.

You are probably aware that the annual International Screenwriters’ Festival is set to start next week in Cheltenham, running from Monday 26th to Thursday 29^th October. It is the only festival in the world that celebrates both the art and business sides of screenwriting and that brings together both the British and international community of writers.

And it needs you.

The Screenwriting Festival’s reputation has grown from year to year as the place to hear from and meet with the cream of writing talent and key decision-makers and to network not only with fellow writers but also TV executives, agents and product-hungry producers.

This year the line-up is stellar – including James Schamus, Simon Beaufoy and a serious who’s who of writers of the great Dr. Who series. There is a new town centre venue – Cheltenham Ladies College – which boasts fantastic facilities, more space for the many popular practical seminars from lawyers, producers, agents and developers, and a greater opportunity of public engagement with the Festival.

There are Script Bites, where you get to sit round the table with the major speakers and players; Speed Dating – a chance for a one-on-one with producers and agents; and the ever-popular Pitch contest. Former winners are now seeing their projects rolling on to production – so it really does work.

However, we all know that this has been a very tough year and that television and film have been particularly hard hit. Funding, both public and private, is in short supply and, with great regret, some of the Festival’s significant sponsors have had to reduce or withdraw their sponsorship. Without this support the future of the Festival begins to look very uncertain.

I therefore urge you, if you are still undecided, if you have thought of attending but never quite got round to it, if you are wondering if it is a good investment when money is tight, or have been before and are not sure whether to come again this year: please, buy a ticket now.

If you are in a position to sponsor an individual event that would be wonderful. If cost is a major factor (and tickets, though incredibly good value for money, are not cheap) and you are working for a production company, why not ask them if they will subsidise your ticket cost? In return they will get a happier, better informed and even more eager writer. Or they might be interested in sponsoring an individual event.

There are still two and four day tickets available (not very many so don’t delay) and discounts for multiple buys. The Festival or the Writers’ Guild will be happy to put you together with other writers to take advantage of this or you can join up with other writers from your region, old writing course or other writers’ networks. Cheltenham has a great range of places to stay and details are available on the Festival website, along with special offers.

You will, without doubt, be informed, entertained and inspired by the experience, and your ticket purchase will ensure that this festival – our Festival – survives to continue the crucial work of connecting screenwriters within the business and celebrating writers and screenwriting to the wider public.

You can buy tickets from http://www.screenwritersfestival.com/ or TwelvePoint.com at http://www.twelvepoint.com/ or from The Screenwriters’ Store at http://www.thescreenwritersstore.net/index.php

I can’t promise Gordon Brown’s vision of Apocalyptic doom if we don’t rally round to help the Screenwriters’ Festival now, but I can say that its survival depends on our support.

Thank you,

OLIVIA HETREED

WGGB Film Committee

Board Member, Screenwriting Festival

People. Step away from the Argos Winter catalogue. The perfect (slightly early) Christmas gift is right here. I mean ask yourself — what would Little Billy prefer — to get some Doctor Who toys or for YOU to meet the guy who is in charge of The Daleks and The Cybermen? There’s no excuse not to go — the Festival doesn’t clash with X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. Oh and you might meet someone who wants to make your script.

So get yourself a ticket and come and see me in the bar… I’m buying!*

*I’m not reallying buying

Living The Dream

Why do I want to be a professional writer?

I don’t want an Oscar.

I don’t want to party with hand models.

I don’t even want an ivory back-scratcher.

All I want is to have meetings in pubs and call it work.

So last Friday I found myself “living the dream”, sat in a pub and exchanging script notes with the wonderful folks at AV Pictures.

A pub! That’s right I’ve finally made it!!!!

The meeting itself went very well and not just because they were buying — as usual they gave me some really useful script notes for The Perfect Guy. But you read so many horror stories about producers that every time I meet with mine, I keep expecting them to rip off their human masks and reveal their true form before suggesting I add giant mechanical spider to my screenplay.

Yet the AV guys have really helped me improve the standard of the script since sending it to them in the Spring. The notes they do give me, they always stress are just “notes” — I don’t have to force them into my script if I don’t think they’ll work because they respect me as the writer. Similarly these guys are producers and know how to get a script made so I respect their ideas and will listen to them. Which is the way it should be. It also helps that, more often then not, their notes have been arse-spankingly good.

Great notes and beer. What more can a writer ask for?

Bring It, Happy Feet…

Strap yourself down. It’s The Expendables trailer…

I don’t know about you but I think it looks rather awesome.

September’s Mega Movie Review Round-Up

September was a very good month for film.  Cinemas were packed full of quality movies like Adventureland, Julie & Julia, District 9, The Hurt Locker and I managed to miss them all! Dipping my toe into the murky pool of stand-up has been a little bit more demanding on my time than I would have like. Consequently the movies that I did manage to find the extra hour in the day to see I didn’t even get chance to review on the blog.

Until now.

Funny People

Written and directed by Judd Apatow and about struggling comedians it will come as no surprise that I bloody well loved Funny People.

Apatow’s strength has always been in creating believable comic characters and Funny People is awash with them. All of them are seriously flawed but still remain likeable even when they are being knobish like Jason Schwatzman as Seth Rogen’s room mate — a sitcom actor who gives him a ultimatium of ten days to sleep with a girl before he does.

It’s a movie that appears to divide people and to be fair to the haters it is overlong and self-indulgent, however if you’ve got Apatowian tendencies this is a treat. Yes, it has one foot firmly on the drama side of the fence and is Apatow’s most serious film to date but it is also his funniest. Funny People is so funny you could have called the movie “Very Funny People” — although that would have been a horrible title.

(500) Days Of Summer

The rarest of cinematic beasts a romantic comedy that is both romantic and comedic and it did it without Renee Zellweger, Matthew McConaughey, Reece Witherspoon, Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock or Vince Vaughn. Instead we have the skinny kid out of Third Rock From The Sun and the cute girl from Elf.

Writers Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber have created an original and wonderfully inventive  script which is my tip for Best Original Screenplay at next year’s Oscars so get down to the bookies now and have a pony, fifty large or whatever the jargon they use at William Hill.

Inglourious Basterds

To quote myself from the Funny People review above “It’s a movie that appears to divide people and to be fair to the haters it is overlong and self-indulgent…” Yes the same can be said about Inglourious Basterds but if you’re a Tarantino fan (like myself) there’s lots to like.

It’s funny, it’s violent, it’s very violent and Christopher Waltz’s Col. Hans Landa is simply awesome but it’s the moments before the storm when this film is at its best. Walken and Hopper in True Romance, Jackson and Whalley in Pulp Fiction — no one writes an interrogation as suspenseful or as entertaining as “QT” and  Inglourious Basterds boasts three such fantastic scenes.

Away We Go

Perhaps my favourite film of the month. A funny and touching (admittedly so are most) road movie that is the antithesis of Sam Mendes last film Revolutionary Road — so those wanting D.I.Y. abortions will be disappointed. This couple, refreshingly, are happily in love and remain so for the entire film. If anything the experience, of searching for a home to raise their unborn child, brings them even closer together.

Gamer

I am now convinced Crank was a fluke. While Crank 2 was cinematic insanity, writers and directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor latest effort, Gamer is simply poor.

The big problem with it is it tries to be more like a computer game than a movie. They’ve missed the point that computer games  are becoming more and more cinematic in their natures so Gamer actually feels like a backwards step. The only saving grace is Michael C. Hall who effortlessly steals the show as a megalomaniac Bill Gates-esque (Is that a tautological statement?) computer guru.  Everyone else involved just seems embarrassed.

If You See Only One Movie With “District” In Its Title This Year…

I loved the original District 13 — wonderful martial arts choreography with a first act that resembles the entire plot of most action movies.

Therefore to only discover now that its sequel — District 13 Ultimatum — is coming out next week is a bit like Boxing Day and discovering a present under the tree you forgot to open.

So my fingers are crossed that the sequel will be more exciting than a pair of socks.

William C. Martell – Script Secrets: The Big Idea

Bill Martell’s coming to London next month to tutor a two day course at Raindance.

I’m a massive fan of Bill’s. His blog, Sex In A Submarine, is a great insider view of life as a screenwriter in Hollywood while his Script Secrets website is probably the most useful thing on the net ever. And, yes, that includes the Dancing Baby.

Anyway I’ve got my tickets, anyone else going?

Columbo’s Coming To A Town Near You!

Friend/stalker of the website Thunderbadger has given me some very cool news…

Theatre company Middle Ground are doing a touring production of Prescription: Murder — Columbo’s first ever case!

There’s no confirmation yet who’s been cast as Columbo but there’s no ducking the fact Columbo is Peter Falk. Nor does anyone wants to see someone doing an impression of Falk. However the good thing about Prescription: Murder is that there is room in it for an actor to give a different interpretation. When Falk played Columbo for the first time in the 1968 film version he was slightly different from the character that would very soon become his trademark. He still had some of the familiar quirks but this Columbo was a by-the-book policeman with a much more aggressive approach to detection and therefore more similar to the original inspiration behind the character, the detective Porfiry Petrovich from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Originally a stage-play before it was film anyway, Prescription: Murder is less about Columbo and much more about the killer, psychiatrist Roy Flemming who believes he has committed the perfect murder. In fact you could argue that Flemming is the story’s protagonist with Columbo as the antagonist as he is the key source of conflict. Therefore the show’s success will hinge just as much on who plays Flemming as it will on the casting choice for Columbo.

As much as I love the Columbo movies — and as we all know that’s alotta of love — I’m really intrigued to see how the production pulls this off.

Prescription: Murder is on at Cardiff’s New Theatre from 30th March to 3rd April 2010.

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Stand-Up: The Aftermath

Just in from performing my first ever stand-up set and still wired. So I thought I’d share how it went…

Not great.

But not terrible either.

It was very much a set of two halves. The first half went down well — it got laughs — but the second half, I didn’t just crash and burn, I pretty much went all out Hindenburg. What really surprised me though was I thought the second half had the best material. But I learnt a very important lesson…

Jokes about serial killers aren’t funny.

Okay it seems obvious now — stand-up 101 — but when I was writing the set I thought it was deep fried comedy gold. However I think the audience’s deafening silence that greeted my Ed Gein routine demonstrated that I was clearly wrong. Suicide may be painless but dying on stage hurts like hell.

Second half aside though, I was able to take away a number of positives.

I’ve finally gone and got it over with — Since announcing on the blog I was doing stand-up I ‘ve been unable to actually find a place to perform. My first choice, the open mic night at the delightfully named Funky Buddha, never happened as they’ve stopped running open mic nights. Other open mic nights in Cardiff weren’t running due to refurbishments going on in the venues or organisers taking a holiday. So I’ve been kicking my heels for the past few weeks until I found out about a comedy competition at The Garage in Swansea. So in front of over fifty people I finally popped my stand-up cherry thus relieving much pent-up frustration. Yes these last couple weeks have been like being a teenager again. Though I did get more laughs that “first time”.

Realigning my material with my personality — As much as I find dark material funny it doesn’t really suit my personality on stage. I would never say you couldn’t get laughs about material about serial killers. I would definitely say I can’t get laughs with material about serial killers. From now on I’m embracing the lighter, quirkier side of life in my routine.

I didn’t totally suck — It wasn’t fab but it wasn’t jaw breakingly awful. I didn’t embarrass myself so much that I’ll have to change my name to Guy Incognito. I wasn’t chased out of Swansea by villagers brandishing burning pitchforks. I can only get better.

So to sum up. It didn’t go as bad as I feared nor was it as good as I hoped. I will be giving it another shot. I won’t be mentioning Fred West on stage again.

Sadly I can’t give you the same guarantee for the blog.

The Final Destination

Caught the fourth movie in the Final Destination series yesterday afternoon. By Thor’s hammer it was dull!

Honestly I had really high hopes for this film. I like the Final Destination movies and director David R. Ellis and screenwriter Eric Bress had made the most fun film of the series — Final Destination 2. In addition after My Bloody Valentine 3-D turned out to be a ton of fun I really thought this movie would take full advantage of 3-D technology and hit the ball out of the horror park.

How wrong I was.

But then I thought O.J. was innocent…

Final Destination movies gave up bothering with characterisation after the first movie. I think, quite rightly, they realised that if they could devise entertaingly outlandish methods of dispatch its characters then it didn’t matter if they had the depth of a baby paddling pool. However none of the deaths are as imaginative or thrilling as those in the previous movies. Well apart from the one that’s very reminescent of Chuck Palahniuk’s story Guts — that was fun.

Yet what disappointed me most is that for the majority of the death scenes it didn’t make a difference if it was 3-D or 2-D. My Bloody Valentine 3-D works because scenes were written that exploited the technology not just how people were murdered but in the suspense building up to that moment. The same thought wasn’t put into The Final Destination.

I would say save your money and go and see Avatar at the end of the year but the trailer is so underwhelming it seems as exciting as 3-D beige.

Instead I’ll say if you’re itching for a 3-D movie wait until Up opens next month cause there more originality and entertainment in its three-minute trailer than the whole of The Final Destination.

Ahhhh…. Pixar. Always good whatever number of dimensions.

My Friend Needs Help

But Simon also needs your votes. So please click those buttons.

To discover more about Simon go can visit his fab new website that I’m not jealous of in the slightest here. You’ll see why he’s being called “the New Pam Ayres”, “Cardiff’s answer to Pam Ayres”, “Pam Ayres on crack” and basically pretty much anything else involving a Pam Ayres comparison.

Admittedly he’s nothing like Pam Ayres but seriously how many comedy poets can you name?

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The Easy Sell

Over at Scriptshadow, Carson has posted a screenplay review of Black Swan, a supernatural thriller about, erm, ballet dancers.

Ballet? Movies about transforming robots you expect to get greenlit but not ballet. So how did Black Swan do it?

Is it because it’s a good script? (It is by the way)

Is it because Darren Aronofsky is attached to direct?

Is it because Natalie Portman has agreed to be the lead?

Or is it because Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have a sex scene?

Mmmmm I wonder…

INT. STUDIO CHIEF’S OFFICE – DAY

STUDIO CHIEF sits at his desk. Behind him, a shelf full
of MTV Movie Awards and framed photographs of the Chief
with a galaxy of stars like Martin Lawrence, Paul
Walker and Jessica Simpson.

In front of him a WRITER perches uncomfortably on a
space hopper.

CHIEF
So this movie. What’s the…
(pick’s up a copy
of McKee’s Story;
scans first page)
…story about?

WRITER
Set in the world of ballet,
Black Swan, uses the dance Swan
Lake–

Chief HURLS his copy of Story at him.

CHIEF
Word monkey — enough of the
techno babble. What’s “ballet”?

WRITER
A type of dancing, Sir.

CHIEF
Dancing? That thing girls do on
a pole — jiggling their fun
bags while I stuff singles into
their thongs?

WRITER
Kind of — if you think of pole
dancing as a form of artistic
expression.

CHIEF
“Artistic” what now?

WRITER
It’s the dancing done by men in
tights.

CHIEF
Batman’s a dancer? Wait what’s
the dancing where everyone wears
ballet shoes?

WRITER
Yes Sir, that’s ballet.

CHIEF
You want me to finance a movie
with prancing nancy boys!
I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon — sucked the
testosterone right out of me. I
had to drink Jason Statham’s
sweat for five weeks to get my
nuts to grow back to normal
size.

WRITER
But it’s not just about ballet
Sir, it’s a supernatural
thriller.

CHIEF
Like I Now Pronounce You Chuck
and Larry?

WRITER
No.

CHIEF
Like Marley & Me?

WRITER
No.

CHIEF
Nicole Kidman.

WRITER
No, Sir. Think Don’t Look Now…

Chief looks at him blankly.

WRITER
… Unbreakable?

Still not ringing any bells.

WRITER
… The Ring?

Nothing.

WRITER
Natalie Portman’s agreed to play
the lead.

CHIEF
Natalie Portman’s hot but way
too arthouse. Like that movie
she did with the gurning kid
from Scrubs and all that hippie
George Lucas stuff.
(beat)
No, I’m passing. Take it to the
Bruckster –

WRITER
(desperate)
She has a lesbian sex scene!

Chief SLAMS a button on his desk.

Suddenly the room is bathed in green light.

CHIEF
(opens cheque book)
Why didn’t you just say so?
Writers! You guys can’t pitch
for shit.

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

When I was a kid,  G.I. Joe (or Action Force as I knew it) were easily my favourite toys.

My Dragonfly helicopter piloted by Wild Bill would try and dodge the missile attack from the Cobra Stinger. Soldiers Bazooka, Beachhead, Sci-Fi and Footloose would battle Zartan, his brother Zandar (unlike Zarton who was the master of disguise, Zandar had to settle for being the master of camouflage), Ripper and The Baroness. And I didn’t speak to my sister for like a whole-weekend after the trauma of discovering she had drunkenly ripped off the legs of Shipwreck.

But my favourite action figure (Yes, “action figures”. I’ll get JCVD on your arse if you dare call them… dolls)  was Snake Eyes. He was like the best ninja ever. Cause not only did he have a  sword, he had an Uzi. And a wolf. Yes, Snake Eyes was the man.

I have such great memories of G.I. Joe that I freely admit I was looking forward to this film, despite some lacklustre trailers.  The toys kept me entertained for years, therefore I was interested to see if the movie could keep me entertained for a couple of hours?

Director Stephen Sommers and writers Stuart Beattie and David Elliot & Paul Lovett know it’s Team America: World Police made flesh, so play things with their tongues firmly in their cheek. How else do you explain this line by The Baroness “That red-head is starting to piss me off!”

Sommers — the man behind the first two The Mummy pictures, Van Helsing and the criminally under-viewed Deep Rising — was the perfect choice to direct. Like Michael Bay, Sommers is partial to blowing shit up, but unlike Bay, he does it with such a knowing nod and a wink it prevents the film from ever feeling like a very over-long, toy commercial.

In fact there are a couple of good action sequences. The assault by Cobra on G.I. Joe’s headquarters which includes some jet-pack  action (!) and the chase through Paris that plays like a Bourne movie if Jason Bourne was the car. But let’s focus on the important stuff. What was the Snake Eyes action like?

Played by the best thing in the new Star Wars trilogy, Ray Park,  Snake Eyes is as kick ass as a ninja with a gun should be (Although they do get minus points for the gun not being an Uzi). In fact Snake Eyes is so kick ass at kicking ass, that consequently, when anyone else is on screen they fail to kick anywhere near the same amount of ass. I did take umbrage with the fact they explained his lack of speaking due to a vow of silence rather than a result of a nasty explosion (but they do use the “nasty explosion” plot-device to explain the origins of another character, so I’ll let them off). Also he’s supposed to be the love interest for fellow G.I. Joe Scarlet and not…

I’m geeking out.

Apologies.

Snake Eyes aside, maybe I’m a sucker for a pretty girl with spectacles and a pair of pulse pistols, but Sienna Miller does a fine femme fatale as The Baroness. While Dennis Quaid and Christopher Eccleston are criminally underused which really should lead to a criminal prosecution bearing in mind this movie gives way too much time to Marlon Wayans.

I admit that there are a few times when it feels like some of the scenes simply exist to flog some toys. But after watching G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra I’m definitely buying myself a new kick ass  Snakes Eye figure so we all win.

Sit-Down

I will soon have another string to my bow (For those keeping score, yes, that now makes two strings); I’m trying my hand at stand-up.

“Stand-up”, why not something less extreme like cage fighting, base-jumping, or being Katie Price’s personal grindstone?

Well I’m doing it for three reasons:

1. to raise my profile,
2. to improve my comedy writing,
3. and chicks dig comedians.

So far I’ve written the routine. Read the routine. Torched the routine. Thankfully I was then saved from the task of creating a new routine as my sense of acceptance finally kicked in and I  settled for the fact that this was the probably the best I can do anyway.

Much needed work successfully avoided, the only job left now is to practice, practice, practice.

I may be mistaken but I’m more concerned with how I perform rather than with the material. My thinking is a great gag poorly delivered can bomb but an average gag excellently delivered can kill. How else do you explain the success of Patrick Kielty?

I am slightly concerned about hecklers. My mantra was going to be “If I die on stage, I’m taking the audience with me” but then I found out most venues don’t allow you bring a M-16.  Consequently I’ve decided on launching my stand-up career at open-mic night at a bar called The Funky Buddha.

Knowing my routine, any place associated with forgiveness and non-violence, can only be a good idea.

Columbo Poll Results

The results are in.

You voted in your tens (or Thunder Badger did) and I’m pleased to announce there will be Columbo posts here on the blog. Schizzle my nizzle!

However despite the similarities between myself and Kim Jong-il — we share the same hair stylist — The Columbo Effect is a democracy so if there’s anything in particular you’d like me to cover about the raincoated one in the posts let me know.

Missing A Trick

If like me your favourite horror sub-genre is evil children (The Omen, Village Of The Damned, Annie, etc…) then no doubt you’re excited about this week’s new release The Orphan.

Will it do for adoption what Jaws did to swimming in the sea?

Parents in Malawi hope so. However one thing The Orphan has going for it is this wonderfully blunt poster…

Yet if the film makers tweak the poster not only would they amp up the fear factor they’d also address something we’ve all suspected for years …

Cause deep down you know genitalia-shaped vegetables are the Devil’s food.

Top Ten ’80s Movies That I’ve Never Seen

I’ve never seen The Blues Brothers.

There I’ve said it.

Yes I know I’m a disgrace of a human being but tonight I intend to rectify this hideous omission in my film education as, for one day only, Cineworld are holding screenings.

Unfortunately it’s not just The Blues Brothers that I’ve missed out on, here are nine other great 80s movies that have escaped me.

1. Local Hero – supposedly one of the best British movies ever and I own it on DVD. No excuses, I’m just rubbish.
2. Say Anything –  I’ve always wanted to see it because it is suppose to be an excellent companion piece, to one of my favourite films ever, Grosse Pointe Blank. I was going to wait for it to be remade but I don’t think Zac Efron standing there holding an I-Pod above his head works as well.
3. Amadeus — won eight Oscars and parodied in The Simpsons yet I’ve never seen it but have watched all seven Police Academy movies. That’s right even the sequels without The ‘Berg.
4. A Fish Called Wanda — Michael Palin is forced fed tropical fish by Kevin Kline. That should be reason enough for me to storm down to Blockbuster right now and rent out the sucka.
5. Tron — in fairness this came out when I was three and is hardly ever on TV while ITV 2 shows Love, Actually every bloody week — there is no god.
6. Iron Eagle – I have the need. The need for an inferior Top Gun rip-off. Actually I need to see this movie because of this review.
7. Fast Times at Ridgemont High — Is it still worth seeing this movie if you’ve already seen (like a lot) the bit where Phoebe Cates gets out of the pool? On the other-hand I am Judge Reinhold completest.
8. The King of Comedy — before you chase me out of the village with your burning pitchforks for never seeing Martin Scorsese’s underrated gem I should also point out that I’ve never seen Mean Streets either. So chronologically speaking it would probably be unfair to watch The King of Comedy first.
9. Cinema Paradiso Red Dawn — Swayze, Sheen and the guy from The Hitcher defend America from an invading Soviet Union. Another reason why the 80s was the greatest decade for cinema ever. Fact.

Columbo Poll

It may have gone under your radar but I have “slight fondness” for Columbo. Kind of in the same way Kathy Bates was slightly fond of  James Caan in Misery.

Anyway for some time I’ve been thinking about going fully-blown nerd and writing a few essays on Columbo and posting them here on the blog. However I don’t want you guys to suffer just because of my obsession so I’ve popped a little survey in the top corner to get your thoughts on whether to stick them on the blog or not. It’s open for two weeks, so get clicking.

Don’t feel pressured to click “yes” just to make me happy. I’ll probably jot them down anyway in my Peter Falk flesh-bound journal…

Moon

Confession time.

I’ve never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I can’t get past the bit with the apes.  It’s the only film ever  made that doesn’t obey Dave’s First Law of Cinema — a movie is instantly improved by adding monkeys. However I know enough about 2001 to see its influence all over Duncan Jones’ rather marvelous Moon.

Jones and screenwriter Nathan Parker have created a very smart and very intriguing story that benefits   by never giving the audience any extra information than that known by its protagonist Sam Bell — we discover the truth of his situation as he does.

Sam Rockwell’s dynamic acting style is an excellent fit for the role Sam, an astronaut about to finish his three year mission on the moon. Meanwhile Kevin Spacey’s voice lends a perfect ambiguity to the robot GERTY whose only purpose is to “help Sam”. In my mind there has always been something sinister about emoticons (if only there was an emoticon which existed that captured my loathing towards them, I would probably finally use one) and this film does nothing to change that as they flash up on GERTY’s monitor to reveal it’s “feelings”.

What is most striking about Moon though is its look. Jones definitely has a lot of love for old school science fiction. You can’t help but think of Space: 1999 as you watch the mechanical harvesters moving along the moon’s surface. While the inside of Sam’s lunar station is so artificial, so clinical in appearance it is pure 2001.  The strange thing is the design and the effects should seem dated but they actually give Moon an authenticity and a look that’s… well alien.

Moon is is an excellent film and definitely worth a few of your hard-earned pennies, if for no other reason than you’ll never think of Chesney Hawkes in the same way again.

Happy Days

Hands over your ears and stand well back. I’m about to blow my own trumpet.

The very wonderful folks at AV Pictures have optioned my romantic comedy The Perfect Guy!

So as The Fonz would say…

This Is Just A Tribute

tribute something, esp a gift or formal statement, given or made as a demonstration of respect, gratitude, or affection

Who’s the bigger monster? All I’m going to say is Christopher Lee’s tribute didn’t involve W. H. Smith’s cash registers.

Agents vs Producers

This is me reminding you to apply tomorrow for the producer and agent speed-dating sessions at the Screenwriters’ Festival.

The competion has got me thinking though. Agents are really useful for writers  cause they get us lovely meetings. Producers are really useful too. They make our work.

But which is most useful? Agents or Producers? There’s only one way to find out…

FIGHT!

Okay so its a clip of  Ari Gold from Entourage taking another agent to school but do you realise how rare it is for agents and producers to fight?

A Further Fifteen Seconds Of Fame

I’m two for two!

Check out the second episode of Newsjack here — mine are the last two corrections of the show.

Deadline for submissions for the third show is noon on Monday so to find out more head to the Newsjack website.

Now if I could nail the sketch writing, I’d be a happy man. Although I do have this mint idea involving a dead parrot…

Drag Me To Hell

If, as the analogy goes, that a good horror films is like a roller-coaster ride then Drag Me To Hell must be a log flume — it’s tons of fun. However it would also be the scariest log flume in the world with piranhas, acid and “It’s A Small World” sung by Chris de Burgh. It’s the best horror film since Scream.

This may seem like a back-handed compliment but I frickin love Scream.

With graveyards, gypsy curses and goats Drag Me To Hell is wonderfully old school. No vengeful ghost kids or “torture porn” here. Instead Drag Me To Hell takes its cues from the terrific 1957 movie Night Of The Demon and by smartly avoiding the modern horror trends and going “classic”, the film feels fresh and original. However this is still 100% per cent pure Sam Raimi especially in tone as it perfectly straddles both horror and comedy with its comic-book violence. For all us writers working on a horror script (Which is everyone, except probably Alan Bennett)  Raimi and his brother Ivan’s screenplay is a textbook example of how to successfully create and maintain suspense until it becomes practically unbearable before finally unleashing the terror.

However if there are plaudits going, lead actress Alison Lohman is most deserving. Award season seems to favour those actors who have made “sacrifices” for their art like wearing a prosthetic nose or playing chubby. Therefore Lohman would be a worthy winner as for ninety minutes Lohman gets sort the treatment that makes going on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! look like a night at the The Dorchester.

Someone give that girl an Oscar.

My Fifteen Seconds Of Fame

Last night I managed to sprinkle a little bit of comedy dust onto Newsjack a lovely, funny topical sketch show on BBC Radio 7.

I didn’t find out until a minute before the show started hence why I uncharacteristically  didn’t plug it in advance. However thanks to the BBC now making the unmissable (and Total Wipeout) unmissable you can now listen again to it or steal it as a podcast.

Obviously listen to it all (it’s very good) but pay particular attention around 28:47 cause that’s my gag.

Newsjack are now taking submissions for next week’s show — details here!

Muscling In

Here at the Columbo Effect we’re about the scriptwriting. It’s not a forum for politics, current affairs or intelligent comment.

However for the past few weeks an anger has been boiling up inside of me….

An uncontrollable rage …

A fury that can no longer be contained…

What the frak have they done to Mr Muscle?

He use be a weedy guy in a vest and NHS glasses. Now he’s a ruddy cartoon superhero in a lab coat and shades. It’s an outrage!

Mr Muscle

Mr Cock

Re-branded, re-imagined, doesn’t matter.  The whole point of the product is that you don’t need a set of ripped guns to remove troublesome stains. Mr Muscle was a figure of irony like Henry Kissinger when he was used by Nobel to advertise their Peace Prize. Mr Muscle is supposed to look like Woody Allen not Superman.

Actually Mr Allen, if you’re reading this, why don’t you bring out your own range of household cleaning products? Paul Newman had salad dressings why not put your name to a multi-purpose kitchen spray? I’d buy it and I’m sure I could persuade my many friends to purchase it too.

Scared S. C. Johnson? Well you should be because Woody Allen could put you out of business. You claim to be “a family company” but what sort of family would choose an animated steroid junkie to be the face of their product? Don’t answer. It was one of those trick rhetorical questions, idiot. I know very well what sort of “family” you are. You’re the sort of family that the moment granddad starts to get a bit forgetful and smell slightly of wee you cart him off to the old people’s home to be only visited by you at Christmas and when the kids are doing their history projects. That’s the kind of “family” you are.

Bottom line is I want MY Mr Muscle back!

And until I get him the only thing going into my toilet is Toilet Duck.

The Hangover

As I watched the very funny The Hangover, one question kept repeating on my mind, over and over again. And no it wasn’t do I suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder? My question was:

Why don’t we make comedies as good as The Hangover in the UK?

Money? The Hangover cost around $35 million to make which admittedly would make about two hundred and ten Shiftys but would also make about one Working Title picture so I don’t think it’s a lack of finances.

Standard of writers in the UK? I think we’d all say “Hell no” to that suggestion.

We only make costume dramas, gangster movies and horrors? It would be deeply cynical for me to say so and also probably not true but I would argue that the UK film industry is scared of High-Concept.

Lack of UK stars? There are no real stars in The Hangover, Mike Tyson is the most famous person in it. Admittedly Bradley Cooper is being touted as The Next Big Thing but prior to this movie he was most famous for being saved by Jennifer Garner every week in Alias. Zach Galifianakis steals the movie as the slightly wrong Alan and is clearly now destined for Seth Rogen-ness but, his mum aside, who would have been able to pick him out of a line-up prior to this movie. Perhaps the real star is Las Vegas and with a setting like that, maybe that’s the only genuine reason for why we can’t make a comedy as good as The Hangover. Skegness just doesn’t cut it.

So why don’t we make comedies as good as The Hangover in the UK? I honestly don’t know.

Answers on  a postcard please…

24 – Season 7: Episodes 23 & 24 (SPOILER WARNING)

Here it is. Three weeks after the event and you all probably no longer care but lets pretend that you do…

Things kick off with the revelation that the investigators for Criminal Justice all look like Evil Edna from Willo the Wisp as Olivia Taylor is interviewed by three large flat screen TVs over Jon Voight’s death. Olivia though wasn’t going to break so easier.

Meanwhile Jack was breaking Tony out of custody. This has been the general trend of this season — Jack takes Tony into custody then breaks him out — Jack would have saved a lot of time if he’d just left Tony to his nefarious schemes and focused his efforts elsewhere. Special Agent Walker didn’t believe Jack would go through with it so called his bluff so Jack shot the toe off one of the armed guards which I thought was a tad unfair on the armed guard who knew Jack was serious.

Jack escaped with Tony and met up with “The Assassin of 1001 Wigs” Cara, who wasn’t wearing a wig thus making her new nickname completely redundant.  Despite losing the last canister of the bio-weapon, Tony proved again what a great evil genius he now is, he was going to make more of it by harvesting the toxins from Jack’s body! We all knew Jack’s body was a deadly weapon but still…

Aaron Pierce and Slimy Shawshank Guy conspired to bring down Olivia Taylor by getting the recording from the secret date recorder in her office. However Olivia found the device and had Slimy Shawshank Guy arrested before he could leave the White House.

Before Jack escaped with Tony, he told Special Agent Walker that Kim’s life was in danger so she rang Kim at the airport to warn her. Kim, using every ounce of her cunning, distracted her would-be- kidnappers with baby photographs until airport security arrived. There was a shoot-out. Lots of people died. Kim stabbed one of her kidnappers in the leg with a biro while the other ran off. Kim though was pursuit. Run kidnapper, run!

Olivia got the data recording back and promptly destroyed “it”. Olivia though is no Mike Novick and if only she had listened to the recording first she would have probably realised she fell for the oldest trick in the book… the old switch-a-rooney. The real recording was with Aaron Pierce.  D’oh!

While Jack was having a sample of the toxin taken from his spinal chord by some nasty scientist people, Tony asked Cara if he could meet with the mastermind behind the conspiracy Jerry Bruckheimer Guy.

Kim’s kidnapper crashed his car turning it into a fireball as she tried to retrieve his laptop. This led to the most unintentionally funny moment in 24 since Edgar Stiles ran around CTU looking for a place to hide from the nerve gas — Kim set her arm on fire and tried to put it out by flapping it up and down like some drunk doing an impression of a humming bird. Fair play to Kim she did save the laptop and gave it to Special Agent Walker so she could do a back trace thingy.

Cara managed to secure a meeting between Tony and Jerry Bruckheimer Guy just as Jack was killing all the nasty scientists with a scalpel — it truly does cut  both ways.

The final episode was a very low-key affair. No bomb to stop, no assassination to foil just Jack wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning wearing a pair of handcuffs which is also known as ” just another weekend” for Kiefer Sutherland. Jack didn’t get far before Tony tracked him down. And one mini-skirmish later — involving a taxi rank, a fork-lift truck and a flare — Tony was pistol whipping Jack into unconsciousness.

Back at The White House Olivia was begging Slimy Shawshank Guy not to grass her to the authorities. He though had something worse in mind — she was going to have to tell her parents!!!!

Handcuffing Jack to a wire fence allowed time for Tony to fess up — he is a good guy. Well technically Tony is a bad guy — he is responsible for the death of lots of innocent people — but he’s done it all so he can get close enough to kill Jerry Bruckheimer Guy. Gone In Sixty Seconds was indeed dire but he was alright in Armageddon — strapping explosives to Jack so he can blow Jerry Bruckheimer Guy up seem like an over-reaction. But Jerry Bruckheimer Guy was the man behind it all — the assassination of David Palmer and Tony’s wife Michelle.  So if you previously thought Robocop, Charles Logan, Jack’s Brother or Jack’s Dad was behind the assassinations then obviously you were wrong.

Tony, his finger on the trigger, would have detonated Jack if it wasn’t for the pesky FBI showing up.

In the ensuing gunfire Jerry Bruckheimer Guy made a run for it. Tony gave chase, shooting dead Cara — he obviously didn’t like her natural hair colour — and then gave Jerry Bruckheimer Guy a thorough good kicking. Turns out he didn’t only kill Tony’s wife but also his unborn son. Vengeance shall by Tony’s. Well it was going to be until Jack shot him. Tony who had already been shot once today already (by himself), wasn’t going to let a bullet wound stop him from his goal so tried to pick up his gun to shoot Jerry Bruckheimer Guy giving Jack another opportunity to shoot him.

Tony and Jerry Bruckeimer were both arrested. Special Agent Walker wanted to make Jerry Bruckheimer talk but didn’t think she could do what was needed. Jack then apologised for seven seasons of torture when he told her he regretted all the things that he had done but he always did what his heart told him to do — ergo Special Agent Walker should do what her heart tells her to.

President and the First Lady-Man had the conversation that all parents dread having with their children — did they put out an assassination contract on a Government witness? The First Lady-Man stood by his daughter, after all Jon Voight did kill his son. However the President chose her job over her family and had Olivia arrested. In all honesty I’d chose flipping burgers for the rest of my life over her family.

Janeane Garofalo and Chloe said a brief goodbye to one another in a sarcasm-fuelled exchanged of gratitude.

I now accept that Bill really is dead.

In hospital, Jack had a visitor — the Imam who three episodes previously Jack was ready to do very bad things to involving a pair of pliers because his heart told him to. However Jack continued his redemption by confessing he’d led a very bad life and for one moment I thought he was actually going to convert to Islam and change his name to Yusuf.

Interrogating Jerry Bruckheimer, Special Agent Walker looked to her heart and switched of the video cameras, handcuffed Janeane Gafalo and…

Well I don’t know what she did as Special Agent Walker closed the door behind her but needless to say I’m sure Jack would be proud. I just hope she doesn’t lose her job and is forced to seek alternative work in law enforcement — Walker Texas Ranger, just doesn’t work.

Jack made his peace and was ready to die but Kim had other ideas — she was going to go ahead with the experimental genetic treatment to help save her dead. While Jack slept Kim told him “… I’m sorry Daddy, but I’m not ready to let you go”.

I haven’t been so scared for Jack since Season Five finished with him being tortured on a slow-boat to China.

So what do I think of Day Seven?

Well it ended with a whimper but after bringing a character back from the dead, planes crashing in the sky, an armed-siege in The White House and all before half-way what could they possibly do? Explode a nuclear bomb? Been there done that.

Infecting Jack with the bio-weapon was an interesting  sub-plot but one I don’t think the writers fully exploited — more could and should have been made about Jack being in a race-against time to find an antidote. This sub-plot also resulted in Jack being, well, a bit-rubbish which is never a good idea for your central protagonist.

Overall I think this season has been one of the better ones (see chart below). The change in personnel on the whole has been pretty good. Wasn’t really too sure what to make of Special Agent Renee Walker when she first appeared. Fortunately she quickly established herself as no damsel in distress and her and Jack have developed a good dynamic based largely on her questioning Jack’s methods. However I think by making her resort to Jack’s methods at the end of the show thus fulfilling her transformation into the female Jack has robbed from the relationship what made it interesting.

President Taylor brought some welcomed calm and stability to the White House and unlike Wayne Palmer didn’t have you counting the seconds for Jack to come back on screen.

Changing the location of the action from Los Angeles to Washington although mainly cosmetic did seem to freshen things up. It also allowed us to finally have the opportunity to see Jack in the White House.

As positive as the changes made to 24 have been where I think the show has suffered over the last few years is a lack of consistency. Each season would establish a new bunch of I.T. jockeys and Presidential staff who it really was hard to get worked up about if their lives where in jeopardy or died or turned out to be the bad guys. Therefore, despite being a little far-fetched to say the least, bringing Tony Almeida back has been the master-stroke of this season.

Tony is a character you care about so you, therefore like myself, you probably breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out he wasn’t “really” a bad guy but deep-undercover back in episode three. Tony finest hour in 24 ever was this season when he single-handily took out the threat of a bio-weapon missile strike from Starkwood. Yet he went from hero to villain within minutes by killing Larry Moss. And you still cheered for him slightly. What I’ve loved about Tony in this season was that he was always one step-ahead of Jack, relying on smarts rather than muscle to beat him. Jack may have stopped Tony but he never defeated him, not even when he was smashing his fist in his face. Tony has become what 24 has sorely needed since Nina Myers — a great nemesis for Jack. Therefore it goes without saying that I’m so glad they didn’t kill him off. Again. Still the reveal at the end of the last episode that everything he’d done was out of revenge for the death of his wife and unborn son means that Tony is still one of the rarest of beasts. A likeable bad guy .

If there has been a negative to Tony’s return it’s that Jack just hasn’t as been as cool in comparison. It hasn’t helped that this season has also seemed to be all about getting Jack to say sorry for his past antics. For the first time in 24, it has asked of its audience to question Jack’s methods. In fact, in some scenes, Jack was depicted as a bully with his torture now, ask questions later approach. In previous seasons, I was never concerned about Jack’s actions because Jack was always right — he always interrogated the guilty party. This season Jack seemed fallible. Is this 24’s way of dealing with the Obama effect? Whatever the reason, I don’t think it’s been good for the character.

What I’d like to see in Season Eight is a return to those really good cliff-hanger endings where you can’t wait for next week. One of my favourite endings of an episode was way back in Season 1 — Jack disguised as a chauffeur driving off in a limo with a man in the back who knew where Teri and Kim were being held. I think 24 worked best when it kept things simple. What made it suspenseful and exciting wasn’t the threat of a nuclear bomb to the lives of millions of people it was about a man trying to rescue his wife and daughter.

BEST 24 SEASONS

1. Season 1
2. Season 2
3. Season 5
4. Season 7
5. Season 4
6. Season 3
7. Season 6

12 Rounds

Bored… so bored…

Even thinking about 12 Rounds reminds me that the guttering needs doing.

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen a film at the cinema that was this dull and I saw Keanu  in The Day The Earth Stood Still. When it comes to a boring movie versus a bad movie give me Plan 9 From Outer Space over Shakespear In Love every single time. Cinema should make you feel something rather than sitting there  in the dark, emotionless like Patrick Bateman. Watching 12 Rounds I couldn’t help but want to turn to the person sitting next to me and  explain to them why Huey Lewis And The News are so great.

The problem with 12 Rounds is that it is probably one of the least suspenseful movies ever made. In every round the hero, John Cena, is given a set amount of time to complete a task or his girlfriend will die. Consequently there’s always a ticking clock but for some reason it never adds to the excitement of the scene. So little time is spent on developing Cena’s relationship with his girlfriend at the start therefore why should we care if she’s blown to smithereens. Furthermore, even though Cena risks life and limb to save her (jumping out of buildings, onto speeding trams, etc.) the camera spends too much time on him when really we need to focus on the threat to his girlfriend’s life (even if it is as something as simple as a gun being put to her head) as only then will we appreciate what the consequences are of that clock ticking down to zero.  By not creating any sense that her life is at stake Cena is reduced to being nothing but a dog jumping through hoops. Admittedly they’re hoops of fire, but they’re hoops all same…

It also doesn’t help either that 12 Rounds is a mismash of set-pieces from much better action movies — Die Hard With A Vengeance, Point Break, Speed, The Bourne Ultimatum — and adds nothing original to the genre itself. Cena’s last film was The Marine, which is a bad movie but I still prefer it to 12 Rounds because at least it dared to be different and more importantly it didn’t make me think of my guttering.

Excuses, Excuses

So some of you maybe wondering where in Hades is the review of the 24 finale?

Truth is I still haven’t seen it yet as I’ve been sunning myself in Cuba and, to a much lesser extent, London. Therefore I’ve no idea if Jack saved the world or not but I have my suspicions. Review should be done by Friday so comeback for the 24 madness then.

Anyway lets talk Cuba. Drank lots and lots of mojitos, read some books (Darkly Dreaming Dexter — the TV show is better than the source material, Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell — quite simply wonderful, The Old Man And The Sea – ashamed to say I just didn’t get it but as a consolation I did enjoy Hemingway’s other great contribution to society the daiquiri) and got the first draft for my entry to the CBBC writing competion done. Sadly I also made the transition from a hip and trendy twenty-something to a cool and sophisticated thirty-something. I won’t lie it was traumatic but my lovely wife did alleviate the pain by getting me the best birthday present ever.

Anyway if you are looking for a holiday destination, I’d recommend Cuba. Did I mention the mojitos? However if you are flying with Thomas Cook and find yourself on an Airbus 330 pray you do not get seat 9J. You don’t get a row of seats in front of you, you get the emergency slide instead giving you zero leg room.  Also the person sat next to me was, to put it politely, slightly large meaning I was also squished up against the window. Overall it would probably have been more comfortable for me to send myself to Cuba in the post. In a matchbox. And when I didn’t think things could get any worse the in-flight movie was Marley & Me. Luckily on the way back I had better seat and a better movie with Milk (Sean Penn did indeed deserve that Oscar).

In London we did the tourist stuff. Went to the Tower of London (Spent the entire time trying to come up with a plan to steal the Crown Jewels. In the end, I decided it wouldn’t require too much — a small army equipped with semi-automatic weapons, a helicopter and some fake moustaches), London Dungeon (much better and more fun than I thought it was going to be) and Tate Modern ( My favourite piece was the video installation of a man wearing a monkey mask who appeared to be masturbating into a bottle of ketchup. I know Heinz’ slogan use to be “Good things come to those who wait” but still…).

We also caught A Doll’s House at the Donmar Theatre. Despite the love for Jason Statham here at The Columbo Effect I am not a big thesp but thought the play was superb.  Gillian Anderson and Christopher Eccleston were both excellent but I thought Toby Stephenson, as Anderson’s husband, stole the show with a totally dynamic performance. However the real revlation for me in A Doll’s House was the writing – a perfect balance of comedy and drama that seems remarkably relevant with a plot about dishonesty and fraud in politics. Prior to this I was unfamiliar with Henrik Ibsen’s work but I’ll definitely be hunting down his other plays.

Saturday I was back in Wales attending the Swansea Bay Film Festival as Anticipation, the short film I scripted, was nominated for Best UK Short Under Five Minutes.

And guess what?

It only went and blinking won! Much dothing of cap to director James Plumb for making this little piece of movie gold and for sharing the faith in the power of slapstick. Highlight was being congratulated by my new favourite Pfeiffer sister, the very lovely Dedee who wasn’t at all freaked out by me hanging outside the toilets — I was trying to get a signal on my mobile phone. Michael Sheen, the Festival’s Vice-President, was also there. Okay I didn’t speak to him (Dedee must have warned him not to go to the toilet) but he does seem like a bloody nice chap.

The Tinny winning James Plumb

So their my excuses for not doing the last 24 review.

And also my dog ate my laptop.

24 – Season 7: Episode 22 (SPOILER WARNING)

After the calm of last week, 24 brought the thunder.

Chloe vs Janeane Garofalo!

Kim vs The Wrong Man!!

Jack’s fist vs Tony’s face!!!

First Jack demonstrated the one thing worse than being stabbed in the throat with a large shard of glass — him shoving his fingers into the bloody wound. It was this method of persuasion that enabled Jack to  get a half-dead terrorist to ring Tony’s mobile in an attempt to trace his location. Janeane Garofalo though wasn’t able to run the trace so Chloe called her a retard. Okay so Chloe didn’t say it out loud but it was definitely implied in her tone  just because Janeane Garofalo didn’t know about some nodes. See? Total retard.

Jack tracked down Tony and after ramming him off the road proceeded to ram his fist into his nose. Again and again and again. Tony still wouldn’t talk despite Jack tiring out his punching arm on his face and thus proved again why he is now the coolest character in 24 or any show, including Happy Days. Face it. Fonzie would have given up Richie, Potsie and Ralph Malph in a heartbeat. Jack was still able to find out where the terrorist attack was taking place as Janeane Garofalo was able to succeed where Chloe had failed by getting the intel off Tony’s smashed PDA. This led to Chloe giving her a  grovelling apology. Okay so Chloe didn’t actually apologise but it was definitely implied in her tone.

Jack got to the bioweapon just in the nick of time and managed to throw it in the back of some van with a containment unit. I assume it was a containment unit, it could have been drinks chiller as they too have proved in the past to be equally effective at containing bioweapons as demonstrated in 24’s third season.

Meanwhile back at the White House, Olivia Taylor was forced to complete her Pay-Pal assassination purchase despite being a bit guilt-ridden. Trouble may be brewing on the horizon for her in the unlikely form of Aaron Pierce. He contacted the former Chief of Staff, Slimy Shawshank Guy to see if the automated tape recorder installed in his room by Mike Novick and used by Ally McBeal Guy in Season 6 to take down Powers Boothe (so it wasn’t just a handy invention for this episode) was still in operation. Yes it is.

At the airport Kim was freaked out by some scary looking dude following her and took refuge with a sweet middle-age couple who wore scarfs and tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows. But the twist was they were the bad guys! Scary looking dude was actually an FBI agent sent by Jack to keep an eye on her  — perhaps the lesson here is for Jack not to send a guy who looked like he was March’s cover for Henchman Monthly. This twist might have worked better if not for the casting of Don McManus as the husband in the couple. He’s made a career in playing apparently nice but really evil characters  in Dexter, Supernatural, etc. The twist might have also worked better if you had not seen an episode of 24 before.

Tony was placed under arrest again for the 237th time when Jack got a phone call from Tony’s partner in crime, Cara — a lady with more wigs than Sydney Bristow. Cara sent Jack footage of Kim at the airport and threatened to kill her unless he freed Tony.

Despite loving Tony’s work at the moment, hopefully Jack won’t cave.

It’s the final two hours next week and Bill’s still dead.

Welcome To The Family

Three guesses who’s just joined The Writers Guild…

Cheers to Piers and Danny for highlighting the Guild’s special membership offer as part of its celebrations for its 50th anniversary. Bargain!

For One Scene Only

I like my scenes how I like my centre forwards — short and quick.

For The Perfect Guy, I was asked to extend a short (1/4 of a page) but reasonably amusing scene involving the hero and a gym instructor. I thought the scene was fine as it is but rightly thinking my script editor knew what he was talking about I gave it a shot.

In the previous draft, the gym instructor’s character existed only to bounce a gag off but in the new scene (now 1 page) he had become a an active source of conflict for our hero and added some more comedic beats. Better, because of this antagonism, this one-scene character was now like twenty times more memorable.

The Man, The Legend that is Bill Martell has this amazing theory about character and dogs. He believes all dogs have the same amount of energy, regardless of size. Ergo a Yorkshire Terrier can run about all day and chase postmen while the same energy in a St. Bernard means it can just about stand under its own power. Now here’s the real genius…

Bill believes it’s exactly the same with characters in a screenplay.

The main character has the entire length of the screenplay to make an impression but for a minor character they may have only a few scenes therefore for them to be memorable you need to make them explode on the page.

Not literally of course. Not like the guy at the start of Scanners. Although that is what everybody remembers about Scanners, so yes like the guy in Scanners. But also think Martin Scorsese in Mean Streets, Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction, Christopher Walken in True Romanance, Christopher Walken in…

Basically just think of Christopher Walken.

End of the day your characters will need to be cast but the less screen time a role has, the harder it is to get actors willing to play to them, especially if it is some forgettable part. Memorable characters will help to sell your script. If you have a character in your screenplay who appears only once, think what can you do to make them have an impact with the audience?

Here’s how Tarantino does it…

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

In my Outlander review I asked:

“I’ll be seeing Wolverine later this week but at three times the cost to make as Outlander, will it be three times as enjoyable?”

Now,  a little later than scheduled, I can exclusively reveal the answer.

No.

It wasn’t horrible and it could have been worse. It could have been called “X-Men Origins: Storm”. But when you compare it to last year’s summer comic book movies, Wolverine simply doesn’t measure up. The Dark Knight,  Iron Man and, even, The Incredible Hulk, seem like  Justice League America while  Wolverine is All Star Family Fortunes.

Where did it go wrong?

Despite featuring a member of the Black Eyed Peas, you can’t blame the performances. Some are even good. Take a bow Liev Shreiber, Danny Huston and, the criminally underused, Ryan Reynolds. I’m not going to blame director, Gavin Hood. Although despite making the excellent Tsotsi, I wouldn’t have said he was the best choice to make a superhero movie. So with the actors and the director in the clear, that can only mean one thing, right? It’s the script’s fault.

Correct it is the script’s fault. But in this instance I think it’s harsh to hold responsible the writers David Benioff and Skip Woods. I think the finger of  culpability should be pointed firmly at Fox studios.

I know. Poor quality isn’t something you would normally accuse the folks behind 24, The Simpsons, or Fox News of but they wanted to put out a summer blockbuster in the first week of May 2009 and come hell or high-water or The Writers’ Strike, they weren’t going to miss out on that release date.

If Fox had waited until The Writers’ Strike had come to an end to enable further work to be done on the screenplay we may have been saved from the sight of Wolverine boxing a man in a fat suit, a CGI’d Patrick Stewart, Weapon XI and memory wiping bullets.

I admit there’s a degree of naivety on my part here. I realise it’s not as easy as just pushing a release date back. If Fox had, it would have probably affected their yearly profits, their stocks and if there’s going to be another season of Cops.

I’m just saying if they had waited until the script was ready, it could have been the difference between making some money (which Wolverine will do)  and a lot of money or making an average movie (if you’re being generous about Wolverine) and a great one.

But who cares about quality when shareholders need shoes?

24 – Season 7: Episode 21 (SPOILER WARNING)

Barring one car explosion, hour 21 was about as action-packed as the ITV 3 schedule.

The highlight of the first act was a  touching scene where Chloe learnt Jack was dying.  Chloe, who usually displays as much emotion as Patrick Bateman, got quite teary over Jack’s impending death. It really was quite a tender moment, so much so, I’m not going to mock it. But I will say… Bill’s still dead.

Tony didn’t kill anyone with a shower accessory this week. Instead he spent most of the episode working on his plan to have the next terrorist attack blamed on Muslim extremists. Why — when the FBI  know that Tony has the Blackwater Starkwood bio-weapon and he is part of a bigger conspiracy — I have no idea.  However it did give the writers some more material to beat Jack with. Janeane Garofalo accuse Jack of racial profiling and an imam forgave him. Both must have really stung,

The fun in this episode came from Jon Voight going on the Witness Protection Program and being given the new identity of Robert Tippet. Jon Voight though struggled to get to grips with that he would no longer be Jon Voight and didn’t realise that when his handler called him Mister Tippet he was talking to him. It all seemed strangely familiar.

Olivia Taylor proved her political credentials by successfully flip-flopping over whether to have Jon Voight assassinated over her brother’s death. First she wanted to kill him then she didn’t. I would like to think it was cause Olivia had a crisis of conscious but I think the truth is she only backed out when she learnt how much it was going to cost — $250 000. Personally I thought that was quite good value. Despite the transaction not being completed, Jon Voight and Robert Tippet went boom.

Jack, proving racial profiling works — in your face Janeane Garofalo — was able to track down the location of Tony’s Muslim scapegoat.  He was gone though, taken by Tony to the next target… the subway. The transport system not the makers of fine subs.

Three hours to go.

Every Which Way But Hollyoaks

Never thought there could be a better fight scene than Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in the Colosseum…

Then I saw Calvin and Warren in The Loft…

Nearly fifteen years old but Hollyoaks’ still got it. Throw in Ruth Gordon and an orangutan and you’ve got a movie!

24 – Season 7: Episode 20 (SPOILER WARNING)

Tonight 24 hit the home straight with this episode all about setting its stall out for the final four hours. So after two very dramatic episodes, the action went down a gear  On the plus side though there was no Kim and we got to say hello again to Chloe, Morris, Aarron and Bill.

Kidding. Bill’s still dead.

Tony finally got his hand’s on the gas canister despite Robert’s best attempts to double-cross him.  Tony was forced to kill him with a shower curtain after first disarming him with a telephone directory. Seriously.

Turns out Tony has finally moved on from Michelle’s death and is now dating the Hot Blond Assassin. However she’s actually an Above Average Brunette Assassin — I missed the fact she was wearing a wig last week. Above Average Brunette Assassin wanted to wait a few months before using unleashing the bio-weapon but Tony thought they should strike while the Government was still reeling from today’s attacks. And also because he desperately wanted revenge as Tony hasn’t really moved on from Michelle’s death.

But we live in a democracy and when it comes to overthrowing the Government you have to put it to the vote.

The name of the group that was behind the conspiracy was called… The Group.  However none of The Group know who the other members are so conduct their conspiracies like an on-line version of Dragon’s Den.  The decision was on a knife-edge but what swung it for Tony was that Jerry Bruckheimer Guy exerted almost Duncan Bannatyne level of influence over The Group. It meant all twelve Dragons were in for Tony’s pitch for overthrowing the Government today.

After Jon Voight’s suicide attempt failed , it meant Jack got a chance to interrogate him. Jack’s interrogation was a complete success and he got the truth out of Jon Voight — he knew nothing about who else was involved in the conspiracy. In exchange for this vital piece of information the President agreed to fake Jon Voight’s death and put him on the witness protection program. The First Daughter didn’t take the news of the man behind her brother’s murder getting off scot free well. In fact for one scary moment I thought 24 was going to go into Film Noir territory with Aaron Pierce as the gullible gumshoe seduced by the Femme-Fatale First Daughter into committing murder. But seeing as Olivia Taylor wanted Jon Voight dead she wisely opted for someone who could actually get the job done.

The animosity between Chloe and Janeane Garofalo over who was Queen I.T. nerd resurfaced as they got the CTU servers on-line. Jack thought went ape-shit at Janeane Garofalo because she mentioned the Bill of Rights and due to his exposure to the bio-weapon confused President Taylor with President Palmer — David not Wayne because like the rest of us he’s totally forgotten about him.

The final moment of the show was Tony threatening to put a bullet in the brain of a Muslim who The Group intended to frame with the bio-weapon attack. It could have been worse for him — Tony could got his hands on another shower curtain.

24 – Season 7: Episode 19 (SPOILER WARNING)

Let’s get it out in the open — I think I like Tony now even more than I do Jack. In fact Tony is so awesome at the moment they should change the title of 24 in respect of his awesomeness.

So in Tony this week:

There was a subtle “homage” to Michael Clayton as two professional assassins calmly killed a lawyer with almost mechanical efficiency. The two big differences from this scene and the scene in Michael Clayton though was they hid the puncture mark by injecting the poison in between the fingers and not in-between the toes and that this lawyer was a hot blond and not Tom Wilkinson. Coincidentally one of assassins was also a hot blond and by cunningly adopting a pair of glasses she was able to disguise herself as the now deceased lawyer and pay a visit to her “client”  Jon Voight.

You see Jon Voight isn’t the genius of the conspiracy, no it’s Jerry Bruckheimer Guy. That may also be  the first time that “genius” and Jerry Bruckheimer have appeared together in the same sentence in the history of the English language.

Anyway hot blond assassin/lawyer was there to make sure Jon Voight didn’t testify by giving him a choice — take a red pill or they’ll kill his family. Jon Voight took the red pill, probably because he wanted to know what the Matrix was. He may have died, there was lots of convulsing but seeing as Jon Voight hasn’t been in  a  scene with Jack yet, I think he might be alright.

Meanwhile Renee continued her metamorphosis from human kick ass machine into human crying machine once she learnt about Larry’s death. Renee what happened to you? You use to beat-up terrorists with a shovel and now you get all weepy cause Jack’s dying or Larry’s dead or because you saw a baby riding a puppy dog.

Jack was turning himself into a human pin cushion, going through syringes like Pete Doherty, in an attempt to keep the Ozzy Osbournes away. We learnt that Kim may have an ace up her sleeve though to persuade her dad to have the experimental stem cell treatment to cure him  – the revelation that he’s got a granddaughter and she’s named after his dead wife. Yes, Teri lives! Kind of. While Bill still seems to be dead.

Also on Tony, Tony shot himself in an attempt to make sure nobody would suspect him of killing Larry. Jack though, demonstrating mad Columbo skills, deducted that Larry couldn’t have been murdered the way Tony described and there must of been a second shooter who Tony didn’t see. Poor, sad, trusting Jack.  If anyone other than Tony had fed him that story, he’d of pistol whipped the truth out of them.

Despite FBI agents swarming around him, Tony brazenly conducted phone conversations with Blackwater Starkwood mercenary Robert to aid his escape with the bio-weapon canister. Then when Jack was in the vicinity,  Tony would  look  down at the ground with a naughty smirk on his face like next door’s kid pretending it wasn’t them who smashed in your window with their football.

Tony though had made a mistake. Admittedly it was nine episodes ago but it was still a mistake — when Tony warned Jack that the Candyman was going to make another attack, he told him the intelligence came by interrogating an informant called Vincent Cardiff, accidentally, to death. Turns out Vincent Cardiff was arrested crossing the border. Jack cornered Tony but suddenly got a nasty case of the shakes. He went for his syringes but it turns out Tony had swiped them. Jack collapsed to the floor and Tony escaped by walking away.

And that’s why it’s now the Tony show.

Outlander

Cause sometimes all you want to see on a Wednesday night are vikings versus aliens.

Admittedly I should have been writing up this week’s 24 review but when I heard Jim Caviezel was in Outlander — the other Greatest Story Ever Told — I couldn’t resist.

A solid script and a good cast (Ron Perlman armed with two war hammers!!!) make this superior to your typical Sci-Fi Channel monster movie,  it is pure popcorn fun. I’ll be seeing Wolverine later this week but at three times the cost to make as Outlander, will it be three times as enjoyable?

With no vikings versus H ugh Jackman action, I doubt it.

Plug

My friend Tom, and all round good egg — think Faberge meets Kinder — would like lovely people like you to join his Facebook group for his new film Secrecy.

On Secrecy, Tom gave me my big acting break. Making the giant step-up from my usual role of Party Guest No.7 to Prison Guard. Okay you don’t actually  see my face but I had a speaking part!!!! It was one line. But I like to think that without this one line, the entire story would fall apart..

The link is here and like Rolf’s Cartoon Club you can join today!

A Day Of Two Halves

Top Shelf didn’t make it through to the semi-finals of The Sitcom Trials. It was a titanic struggle — the irresistible gag versus the unmovable punch-line. And we missed out by one point. Told you I should have kept the odd pair of trainers. However The Trials have been a very cool experience and if you are interested in sitcom writing I’d definitely recommend entering next year’s competition.

Thanks to my wonderful director Katrina Thompson and her very talented cast for making sure that I didn’t suck.

As disappointing as the bitter taste of defeat was, it was washed away by a mega-tsunami of sugary goodness. I met with the production company in the afternoon and…

THEY WANT TO MAKE THE PERFECT GUY!!!!!

Still need to cross some t’s and dot the lower-case j’s but right now, yeah, I’m quite happy.

24 – Season 7: Episode 18 (SPOILER WARNING)

Last time I wrote 24 needed a shot in the arm. And this week it got an injection. Of Speedballs!

The episode itself started with a shock in the “Previously on 24” montage — Jack suffered the indignation of no longer being worthy of having his name appear. Instead he was lumped with Renee and was billed as “The FBI”.

Maybe it would have happened sooner to Jack only that “The CTU” doesn’t quite work.  It’s more likely that ever since Jack got dosed with CJD and started stumbling around the place like Ozzy Osbourne, he’s lost his hero status. However hope sometimes appears in the most unlikeliest of forms and I can’t think of any form as unlikely as the hopeless Kim Bauer.

Kim, whose career progression in previous seasons of 24 have been cheerleader to babysitter to counter-intelligence officer. Kim,  who last time we saw her was in a lock-down in CTU with 80s heart-throb C. Thomas Howell, so this time I was hoping she would turn-up with Judd Nelson. Alas not. Kim did however have a new-found love and affection for her father. Previously Kim was about as fond as Jack as Shami Chakrabarti, now she was practically begging to get involved in some highly experimental stem cell treatment so she could save Jack. Jack though wanted nothing to do with it, either because he really is a Republican and the whole  idea of stem cell research makes him really angry, or as he said, Kim had suffered enough. I think speak on behalf of the entire 24 when I say “Hell no”.  Still, I have the sneaky suspicion this may not be the last we hear about this…

Also last week I wrote the stupidest moment of the series when the President’s daughter blackmailed a journalist into not running a story by filming herself sleeping with him.

One week later and we have a new winner!

Jon Voight and CSI: Miami both wanted by the Government decided it was a good idea to go to the White House so they could hand-deliver a document outlining a plan giving Blackwater Starkwood the same power as the President. Admittedly pitching this idea in person was probably a better sell than using e-mail but I still think the threat of arrest kind of counter-balances the negatives. They were arrested.

24 though did have one real surprise up its sleeve.

Tony had been in full hero mode throughout the episode — blowing up missile silos and doing leg sweeps. Thanks to him the threat of Blackwater Starkwood doing bad shit to middle-America was removed and the FBI were able to storm in.

Tony was arrested, even though Jack tried to ask for a presidential pardon but actually forgot what he was asking for while talking to the President as he a CJD dementia hit. Still Tony was accepting of his fate for the naughty things he had done. Yet despite wanting a quiet night in the cells , Larry Moss had a different plan for him. They gave chase to a Blackwater Starkwood agent who had managed to snuggle out some bio-weapons. Cornering the agent, Larry got shot but it wasn’t fatal.

However when Tony  suffocated Larry — that was fatal.

Yes. We may have all expected/hoped this moment was coming but it still didn’t stop it being the most shocking moment in 24 history since Nina Myers showed remarkable fluency in Serbian. Tony can’t be evil. He just saved the Earth with a leg sweep!

Bill may still be dead but it looks like Tony really is a bad guy. Or is he?

I don’t know. My entire belief system now lies in flames.

The only thing I do know is that the last six episodes will be cracking.

London Calling. Again.

You’ll be delighted to know I was able to replace the odd-pair of trainers I wore on my previous visit to London.

Yes, they were lucky. But  I’m too self-conscious to stroll around in the knowledge that my shoes don’t match. It would be like watching an alternative opening sequence to Saturday Night Fever –  John Travolta suddenly has a crisis of confidence over whether people can tell by the way he walks that he’s a woman’s man and trips over on his shoe laces and smashes his teeth on the kerb. Well I’d be like that, but even less cool.

Thus booted with the new, but dull matching brown, Caterpillar trainers I’ll be hot-footing across London tomorrow.

In the afternoon I’ve a meeting about The Perfect Guy redraft that I’ve spent recent weeks giving a thorough good thrashing.. Then it’s off to the West End to watch Top Shelf in the quarter finals of The Sitcom Trials.

So if you’re going to the Leicester Square Theatre too, keep an eye out for me. I’ll be the one in matching shoes.

Crank: High Voltage

Crank: High Voltage has to be the most over top action movie since Over The Top.

Is it rubbish? Or is it bloody brilliant? I honestly don’t know cause Crank: High Voltage defies normal film critique because it is simply monkey riding a dog insane. It makes the first Crank seems understated in comparison. And if you’ve seen the first Crank then you’ll know what an incredible feat that is.

The only thing I do know is there has never been a movie like Crank: High Voltage at the cinema. And I doubt there will ever be again.

Until Crank 3.

Party Time! Excellent!

Finished the re- draft for The Perfect Guy last night. Blood, sweat and other bodily fluids not suitable for print were  shed over the last three weeks.

So as a reward, I’m off to the cinema…

Happy Chev Chelios Day!

Step Brothers

When it comes to the Judd Apatow comedy factory, which camp are you?

Are you a fan of the colon comedies — Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story — full of outrageous slapstick and even more outrageous dialogue?

Or is your tent firmly pitched up on the more serious side of The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall where the protagonists grow emotionally whilst trading dirty one-liners?

I think the problem with Step Brothers is it sits somewhere awkwardly between the two.

Yes it has its fair share of lunacy but there is no one as crazy as Brick Tamland. And despite featuring two man-boy heroes who finally decide to grow-up, neither character is as realistic as pothead and father-to-be Ben Stone.

Maybe it’s not really a problem.

Perhaps Step Brothers gives you the best of both Apatowian worlds.

But I think when you watch a comedy you have certain expectations of the laws that apply in that universe due to the tone of the humour. So for example, in the world of Anchorman we don’t bat an eyelid that a dog can talk to a bear but we’d choke on our popcorn if this happened in Superbad. But if there was a dog in Step Brothers that spoke bear, I honestly couldn’t tell you if this would seem out of place or not.

But despite struggling to decide upon its tone, Step Brothers is still a good comedy.

Cause some stuff like “Man-gina” is funny whatever camp you’re in.

Laws

Attending a recent master class by Sharman McDonald, writer of The Edge of Love, I had a theory of mine confirmed.

Sharman was explaining that because she now has total freedom to write because her kids are all grown-up, she actually gets less writing done.

I believe this is a universal truth about writing.

Think about it.

You know when you have that great idea to take a day-off to get some writing done but somehow by the end of it you’ve still only managed to get the same amount of work completed as you would in your usual evening slot? Well that’s due to Dave’s First Law Of Procrastination – “The more time you have available, the less you will actually write.”

To demonstrate the irrefutable scientific evidence behind this Law here’s a graph.

I have also come up with Dave’s Second Law Of Procrastination. It states that “An absolute zero amount of writing will be achieved if it coincides with Diagnosis Murder”

The Strangers

Bryan Bertino, writer and director of The Strangers, understands that the scariest thing about stalk n’ slash movies is the stalking. So what we have here is an eighty five minutes exercise in how to make an effective grown-up horror movie by slowly piling on the tension.

When I first heard about The Strangers, I thought it was scarily a bit too similar to Ills (Them). Both movies are suspenseful tales about a middle-class couple finding themselves in peril when their home is invaded by unknown assailants but the significance difference between the two is how and why the couples are victimised.

The Strangers uses the now common (and to be honest, slightly tiresome) plot-device of making the antagonists’ actions motiveless. However what it does offer is a chillingly simple insight into the victimology. Liv Tyler asks why us — “Because you were home” — comes the reply.

Yet my favourite moment in the film is when “help” finally arrives for the couple and suspense switches to irony so dramatic it’s practically a moment of black comedy.

However what ultimately lets The Strangers down is the script’s lack of character development spent on the couple. So like the eponymous horrors of the film not caring who they terrorise, similarly we don’t really care about the victims either resulting in their screams falling on deaf ears.

Top Shelf

I’m coming to the West End, Baby!

Next February, my sitcom Top Shelf will do battle with thirty-one others in the comedy Thunderdome that is the Leicester Square Theatre.

I’ve been selected by Every 1’s a Critic for showcasing. What’s great about this is, apart from the obvious bonus of being staged in front of an audience and (fingers-crossed) some lovely industry types, is my script should improve in leaps and bounds through the developmental process.

In other words, if the director or actors have any great ideas I’ll be able to steal them and take all the credit.

At the moment that’s all the information I have but prepare to be beaten senseless by my club of self-promotion once I know more.

Grindhouse

Completely original and unadulterated entertainment.

Obviously I’m not describing RocknRolla. No this weekend, I went to a new film night in Cardiff showing the strange and sleazy world of Grindhouse cinema and, oh yes, it was good.

You see I don’t ask much when I go to the cinema, like everybody else, I just want to be entertained. And the key to entertainment is to give the audience something they’ve never seen before. The trailers shown at Sunday Sinema may have been over thirty years old, but compared to the vast majority of generic offerings down at your local multiplex they were like a breath of fresh air.

Which brings me back to RocknRolla.

Now I’m not a Guy Ritchie hater. This may be because I have never seen Swept Away and Revolver.

Alternatively it could be because I think Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is actually quiet an entertaining caper movie and found the sheer machismo of Snatch rather fun.

Nor do I think Ritchie needs to do stretch himself beyond the mockney gangster genre — if you can do one thing adequately — why change? Police Academy was perfectly amusing for five sequels before they ruined the formula by shaking it up and giving them a mission to Moscow. So it doesn’t bother me that RocknRolla is a return to the only genre that Ritchie has any success at. No, my problem with RocknRolla is that Ritchie doesn’t offer the audience anything new.

Okay to give Guy his credit, he has added one thing new. This film has a woman in it! But apart from that there’s nothing new.

In fact as cinematic progression goes this is a backwards step as the story is less involving, than Lock Stock… and Snatch. In both those films the central protagonists find themselves in dire circumstance at the end of the first act and is the catalyst that plunges them into even murkier waters. In RocknRolla there is no real conflict driving our heroes actions, they simply float passively from one scene to the next. Or put in Robert McKee speak — the film lacks a powerful force of antagonism. The characters are only in any real danger by the middle of the second act and by that time it’s too late for us to give a shit.

Grindhouse cinema on other hands understands conflict. It knows there is no more stronger force of antagonism than a psychopath with a power tool.

However of all the trailers that I saw for films with such catchy titles as Torso, Eyeball and amongst all the nudity and bloodshed, my favourite was this… The Thing With Two Heads.

What struck me was the presence of Oscar winner, star of Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder and, most impressive of all, two Columbos (Death Lends A Hand and The Greenhouse Jungle) — Ray Milland. I’m sure at the time, most of Hollywood went “Ray, what the hell are you doing? You‘re better than this. You‘ve been in two Columbos!”. However I think Ray Milland was a visionary. Because what was considered as a cheap B-Movie in the 1972, you can easily imagine being remade as a “hilarious” buddy-movie with Martin Lawrence and Robert De Niro in 2009.

So this weekend you could see RocknRolla or you could join me for a double-bill of Strip Nude For Your Killer and What Have They Done To Your Daughters.

Who knows? You may even see something different.

Addict

I’ve been tagged with the following challenge by everyone’s favourite scriptwriting nun Elinor…

Find a song that sums up what you think it means to be a writer and post the lyrics on your blog and why you’ve chosen it. NB: It doesn’t have to be your favourite song, it just has to express how you feel about writing and/orbeing a writer. It can be literal, metaphorical, about a particular form or aspect of writing – whatever you want. Then tag 5 others to do the same(reprint these instructions).

I tend to go through phases with writing where for months either I don’t do much (cause I’m high on the joys of procrastination) or alternatively it’s all I’m doing. During the latter period when it’s not possible to write (cause I’m at work, in the car, girlfriend has hid all the vowels from my keyboard); I can’t stop thinking about it.

So when I’m in the mood, writing’s an addiction.

“There she goes
There she goes again
Pulsing through my veins
And I just can’t contain
This feeling that remains”

(The La’s, There She Goes)

Redbelt

You know THE scene in Glengarry, Glen Ross.

Ed Harris asks Alec Baldwin “What’s your name?” and gets the answer “Fuck you, that’s my name!”

Yes, it is a great scene but I think it could have been better. Cause wouldn’t it have been even more awesome that after Baldwin’s brutal retort, he turned to Jack Lemmon and yanked out his spinal cord?

That’s what I wanted from David Mamet’s latest film Redbelt — sledgehammer dialogue mixed with… Well, mixed with mixed-martial arts.

Alas Redbelt is not quite as much fun as watching Alec Baldwin go all Mortal Kombat on an office full of real estate agents. One reason for this is that Mamet has no idea of how to choreograph a fight scene. His direction lacks energy. A problem when you make a movie about Jujitsu – a martial art based on the principle of using an attacker’s energy against them. But what Redbelt does have going for it is Chiwetel Ejiofor. His dignified performance, as an honourable martial arts instructor, carries the movie.

I can imagine Redbelt alienating some audiences. If you don’t like the works of David Mamet or martial arts films then this movie won’t convert you to either. But, like me, if you are a fan of both then Redbelt is well worth seeing.

Time Travel

Last night I had the considerable pleasure to be in the audience of Maurice Gran, Ashley Pharoah and only Blink(ing) Steven Moffat!

They were all appearing in Cardiff as part of a BAFTA Writers event on Time Travel in TV Drama & Comedy.

From my rambling notes, here’s what I’m able to decode:

Ashley Pharoah (co-creator and writer of Life on Mars)

Life on Mars took eight years from coming up with the original concept and making it onto the screen. Asked to come up with a new show, Pharoah and fellow co-creators Matthew Graham and Tony Jordan obviously thought about a cop-show and got thinking about their favourite of the genre The Sweeney. This led to them thinking about what a modern-day policeman would make of the actions of Regan and Carter and from there…

Originally the show was meant to be a comedy.

The setting of 1973 was chosen because that was the year Bowie’s Life on Mars came out and they loved it as a title.

Gene Hunt was never originally meant to be such a key-character. He developed, as often is the case, in later drafts as the character started to take a life of his own. Pharoah argues that because the battles against sexism and homophobia today have largely been won, you could get away with Gene Hunt expressing these traits and still be likeable but if they portrayed him also as a racist the audience would have been unable to connect with the character.

Pharoah believes one of the keys to the show’s success is the mixture of the tried-and-tested appeal of the Police Procedural genre and the time-travelling element or what he calls the “weird shit”.

Maurice Gran (co-creator and writer of Goodnight Sweetheart)

The idea behind Goodnight Sweetheart came about when Gran’s writing partner, Laurence Marks, remarked that there were some streets in London that hadn’t changed since the war. Gran replied “There’s a show in that”. The decision to make the comedy a love story came about as a necessary decision to explain why the main character would keep going back into the past. Without a reason for him returning, there is no series.

Gran thought the time-travel element helped to structure the episode. They always knew the A-Story would be set in the past while the B-Story for the episode would take place in the present. The setting, of World War 2, also helped to give the show an external framework — with the war lasting six years, they aimed to make the show last for six series. This gave the show an exciting dynamic where they knew how quickly they could pace the story.

As Goodnight Sweetheart is in essence a comedy about adultery, you need to make the character sympathetic and to help you do this you need an actor who the audience will naturally side with hence Nicholas Lyndhurst being the only name on their list.

Steven Moffat (Head Writer for Doctor Who)

Has been a fan of Doctor Who from when it started in the 60s because it was “fundamentally more exciting than any other show”. Therefore when he heard Russell T. Davies was bringing the show back, he dropped him an e-mail reminding him of him his existence. Davies told him that if the show made it past six episodes, he’d ask him to write a script.

His tip for creating frightening monsters is that they should be based in reality, something that children could potentially encounter thus increasing the scare factor.

The reason why Blink was so light on action featuring The Doctor was partly out of necessity. Due to the demands of the shooting schedule, midway through a season they have to shoot two episodes at the same time. Therefore in a season there will be a Doctor Who episode where The Doctor is not the focus of the episode (Love & Monsters, Turn Left). Moffat made a great point that one of the reasons that Blink is so terrifying is because the hero who every week saves the world is hardly in it, thus increasing the sense of peril.

His method for making a story exciting is by attempting to end each scene with an “Oh My God!” moment.

He knows when he’s got a good Doctor Who story because it’s when he “pisses” a good film idea against the wall.

Dirty Unfunny Scoundrels

My Hotmail account got hacked last weekend. Worse, they sent emails to everybody in my address book!

I only discovered this when I received an email at work from myself and thought I was having a Total Recall moment. A foolish thought I know, because Commando is quite obviously my life story.

Logging into the account, I found it had indeed been hacked to send out an automated message.

I was miffed.

Yes, this was partly due to having to close down an email account that had served me well for ten years. But what really pissed me off was the hackers hadn’t even bothered to send out a message pretending to be from me of a humorously embarrassing nature.

It wasn’t about Viagra.
It wasn’t about penis pumps.
It wasn’t even about Scandinavian Dwarf porn.

It was white goods.

A message was sent out informing people that “I” had found a great website where they could save money on electronics.

Where’s the comedy in that? Couldn’t they at least have tried to send a message that would have made my grandmother ashamed to look at me over Sunday lunch?

What a complete waste of everybody’s time and resources. None of my friends would have fallen for the scam anyway. They would have known immediately it wasn’t a genuine message because they know I would never send them an email about money saving advice on refrigerators.

But if it had been a message about the best deals on Scandinavian Dwarf porn…

Death Race

I did mean to post this before I went to Vegas, so apologies for the delay. I don’t even think Death Race is on at the cinema anymore, but without spoiling the review you’re not exactly missing out.

Regular readers will know that there’s a lot of love here on the Columbo Effect for Jason Statham. This affection is not so much because Statham is a great Hollywood action hero, more he’s the only Hollywood action hero.

And also Crank rules!

Yet even I have trouble defending Death Race.

Listing everything that’s bad about this movie is like shooting fish in a barrel… with a rocket launcher. But my real problem with Death Race is it represents everything that’s wrong with Hollywood – it’s safe.

Yes there’s blood and gore in Death Race and thanks to today’s cutting edge special effects you can see what it looks like when a man is hit at 100 mph by an armoured plated Dodge Ram. But I don’t want to see a psychotic prisoner get eviscerated by a car, I want to see a bunch of sweet old-people mowed down. What else was CGI invented for?

Death Race 2000 may be over thirty years old but it’s still edgier than Paul W. S. Anderson’s remake which is about as subversive as a Vauxhall Corsa.

Anticipation

Here’s a link (unfortunately it won’t let me embed) to a short film written by myself but made flesh by the Mario Bava of Cardiff, James Plumb. To quote Jim, it incorporates our “two favourite obsessions: violence inflicted BY children and training montages” and it’s just won the Judge’s Choice Award at The 8^th Annual Meniscus Film Festival.

Screenwipe Of The Gods

Did you catch episode 3 of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe last night?

If your answer is “no” – STOP EVERYTHING!!!!

Get to a computer now; hit “play” on the BBC iPlayer and staple them eyes open.

Like visiting the Mount Olympus of writers, Charlie interviewed Paul Abbott, Jesse Armstrong & Sam Bain, Russell T Davies, Tony Jordan and Graham Linehan! Covering every aspect of scriptwriting from dialogue to writing action and even the naming of characters, it was fifty of the most educational, inspirational and (not bloody surprising) funny discussion of scriptwriting you’ll ever see.

Arse-slapping-fantastic!

Writer’s Room Roadshow

Wednesday night the BBC’s Writersroom rolled into the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff.

Due to the theatre we were in being needed for a performance, Paul Ashton’s presentation took place at a break neck speed but he did a good job at dispelling myths — readers are all freelancers in the industry and are not work experience trainees — and expanding on the theme of the Perfect 10 that he is currently blogging about.

Paul stressed that it is important not to think of the Writersroom as a means of getting your script to screen but a way of getting your voice and flair out there — the script is your calling card. Therefore the aim of Writersroom is simply to discover new talent.

When it comes to sending in script into Writersroom it was advised not to include any gimmicks with them. Paul gave some examples that made you fear for the sanity of your fellow writers in their desperate attempts to grab the readers attention (A hose?!? Who in the name of William Goldman could possibly think wrapping a hose around a script is a good idea?).Similarly it was recommended to keep covering letters simple. At the end of the day the script should speak for itself.

On average, the Writersroom receives 10 000 scripts a year. Of that number, 75-80% of scripts are not read beyond page ten. That means over 7500 scripts are sent back without any feedback because they failed to hook the reader. The importance of the first ten pages is simple – 10 minutes is about the amount of time a show has to hook in its audience otherwise they will flick over to another channel or radio station. That is why Paul is currently blogging on Writersroom about the Perfect 10 – ten areas a writer needs to master in their script that will get it into that top 25%..

As mentioned at the top, there was time constrictions placed upon the talk so Paul was forced to rattle through “The Ten”. As a consequence under some of the headings there is little written about them so for a better insight check Paul’s weekly blog or get yourself down to a roadshow — next stop Hull on the 7th of January.

1. Medium and Format

• Choose the right form – in a cover letter do not put I can imagine this as a TV show or a radio play. Think what medium will best do justice to your story.
• Script = blueprint
• Say what you mean, mean what you say. Make your intentions clear. A common response to negative feedback is “The reader didn’t get my story” however it is more likely that the script did not express it.
• Write what an actor can show. Show don’t tell – keep character descriptions brief.
• Don’t direct from the page – avoid camera directions.

1. Get the Story Going

• Hook the attention, hit the ground running.
• Show characters in action. This means drama and not a James Bond opening sequence. You understand people by seeing what they do.
• Don’t preface, set-up, introduce.
• Beware exposition/backstory

1. Coherence

• Know your world and story.
• Know your genre and tone. Genre is what gets people into the cinema, follow its conventions and then break it. Avoid throwing a bunch of genres together.

1. Character is Everything

• Vivid and compelling on an emotional level.
• Want to spend time with them.
• Active journey, goal, obstacle, dilemma. Avoid passive and reactive characters – ask “What do they want? What stops them from getting it?” and then you have conflict. Furthermore ask “What do they want in this scene/tomorrow/next year?” Add reversals – have them realise what they want isn’t what they necessarily need.
• World through their POV. Great sitcom characters have a narrow world view. Conflict occurs when something happens outside it.

1. Emotion

• Stories matter on human level.
• Explore concept via character. Characters first, not concept.
• Make the reader/audience have an emotional response.
• The Squelch Effect – if you can make the audience laugh till their sides split, scared until they sweat, sad that they cry. If you can make them feel a physical response you’re onto a winner.

1. Surprise

• Cliché/predictability kills story.
• Finite number of archetypes.

1. Structure is Key

• John Yorke spends thirteen weeks teaching structure to the Writer’s Academy.
• Begin it in the right place.
• Story must be going somewhere.
• Be clear about form and format. Formulaic isn’t a dirty word but the challenge is to add things to it that make it unique.
• Structure can be taught.

1. Exposition and Expression

• People don’t tell each other things they already know in obvious ways.
• Good dialogue expresses character.
• Bad dialogue simply relates/explains.
• Don’t write on the nose – subtext

1. Passion

• Does it keep you up at night? (I hope the “it” is writing)
• Are you compelled to write?
• Don’t try to be expedient — what the Writersroom want is a great script that could only have been written by you.
• Don’t try to second guess.

1. Be Yourself

• Individual, distinct, original voice.
• Write a script that no other writer could have written the way you have written it.
• Don’t be sub-anybody.

The final but most important message that we were left with was that the Writersroom wants our scripts but not before they are ready. I think if your script matches the ten points above you’ve got a good chance of getting your reader to page eleven.

The Perfect 10 blogs published so far…

Session One

Session Two

Can I Borrow A Pencil?

It’s finally happened. — I’ve turned into Columbo.

When I first started along this crazy highway called scriptwriting I use to jot ideas in a notebook at home. Not surprisingly seeing as I spent most of my time out of the house, I would forget a lot of what I’d come up with by the time I got back. Consequently I bought a dictaphone to record my ideas but I soon discovered its one major disadvantage… you look like a knob.

The Dictaphone now gathers dust in a cupboard.

After that I tried using my mobile phone to record my ideas but I still felt self-conscious talking into it . When people see you talking on a mobile and hear you say “Maybe he could rip out her tongue and send it to her parents?” you tend to get strange looks. And when I wasn’t recording sitcom ideas it was even worse.

One writer I know doesn’t bother recording his ideas down. His view is that the good ideas will stick, so he uses his memory as a sort of filter system. The times when I have good ideas are few and far between, so I wouldn’t want to risk it. Especially by relying on my brain.

Therefore I’m now in the little notepad club. Small enough so that I can carry it at all time but big enough that I can make meaningful notes on plot-points, gag-ideas, overheard conversations, etc. And best of all I don’t look like a knob.

Okay — I look less of a knob.

The Perfect Christmas Gift For The Very Special Screenwriter In Your Life

If today was the day you decided you wanted to become a screenwriter you MUST buy Making It As A Screenwriter by Adrian Mead. The book tells you everything you need to do to succeed.

If you are a screenwriter and are still waiting for your first real break you MUST buy Making It As A Screenwriter by Adrian Mead. The book tells you what actions you still need to adopt to succeed.

If you are a screenwriter and you’ve sold a couple of scripts but still have to rely on the income from your office job you MUST buy Making It As A Screenwriter by Adrian Mead. The book tells you what final steps you need to take to succeed.

If you are Russell T Davies you MUST…

You get the picture.

Making It As A Screenwriter by Adrian Mead is an extremely useful guidebook for whatever stage of your writing career. And at only £7.79 with all the proceeds going to Childline, I strongly recommend that you put it at the top of your Christmas list — regardless if you’ve been naughty or nice this year.

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon is a very cool movie about a journeyman boxer from Philadelphia who gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he gets the chance to fight the heavyweight champion of the world.

Okay Frost/Nixon isn’t Rocky but the film deliberately plays on the boxing analogy. Michael Sheen’s David Frost is portrayed as the fighter punching above his weight and Frank Langella’s Richard Nixon is the Count of Monte Fisto, Apollo Creed.

Yet although Frost/Nixon sets itself up as an underdog story, it also goes to great pains to show the similarities between the two central characters. Both Frost and Nixon hope the interview will restore them to their former glory; the former status as a celebrity in America and the latter a place of power back in Washington. As a consequence both characters are shown suffering humiliation with Frost grovelling for advertising sponsorship from a weed killer manufacturer after being rejected by all the blue chip companies and Nixon’s indignation at having to give an after dinner talk.

The two performances are great but the real key to the film’s success is Peter Morgan’s script. Like Aaron Sorkin, Morgan is capable of deftly balancing political drama with broad comedy. However where the script really succeeds is the verbal sparring between Frost and Nixon that makes a series of interviews as exciting as any boxing match — despite the lack of a scene of Frost chasing a chicken around a yard.

The screening I attended also included a live televised Q & A with Peter Morgan and Michael Sheen at the Curzon Theatre, London. Unfortunately I, and the rest of the audiences in 36 cinemas around the UK, watched the first half of the interview without sound. Fearing that Morgan might give an epiphanic scriptwriting insight I rang the Curzon to explain to them that I was in a cinema in Cardiff and couldn’t hear the interview. Unsurprisingly I was greeted by confused silence by the Curzon’s box-office. Luckily sound was restored soon after. So here are the very few titbits I was able to pick up:

• Morgan came up with the original idea in 1994 but didn’t have the courage to write it until 2003. What attracted him to the story was the clash of characters; Frost the playboy versus Nixon the misanthrope.

• Morgan deliberately avoided spending time with Sir David Frost so not to shape his perception of the character.

• Sheen loves working with Morgan because it is a very “fluid experience”. Morgan will sit in a room with a laptop during readings and will do rewrites there and then — responding to the performances. Morgan admits though not all actors are like Sheen and are not as approachable with notes.

Frost/Nixon opens on January 23^rd and has one of the best scripts I’ve seen in a long while so would definitely recommend you go see it. Strangely though, if you would rather see Michael Sheen battle vampires than former American Presidents (I admit it’s a tough call), Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans opens the same day. Yet I doubt even the presence of a PVC clad Rhona Mitra can match the excitement of watching two men talk.

Meme

Elinor tagged me with the following meme:

‘When it comes to writing, what do you know you’re good at, and what aspect of writing are you worst at? (Procrastination is not permitted as either part of the answer.)’

I know it’s not very sexy but I am fairly solid on structure. I think if you gorge yourself on film and TV (like I do) structure comes naturally.

My Kryptonite is definitely dialogue.  In particular serious dialogue, hence I avoid drama like Bush ducking shoes. I just don’t have the ear for it. This sucks as accordingly, unlike other aspects of writing, good dialogue can’t be taught.  However I have developed a few coping strategies to help cope with this grave affliction.

I always try to limit the length of my dialogue  — anything more than four lines and I know I’m going to be in a world of pain. And so will the reader.

Thanks to Jez, I’ve recently adopted the Tony Jordon strategy where I go through my script with a red pen and take out as many words as possible but still have my dialogue make sense. By taking out the fat I find my dialogue does become punchier, more naturalistic  and most important of all… less crappy.

I find script readings to be an  incredibly useful tool in weeding out bad dialogue.  It’s important though to get hold of some good actors to take part cause sometimes dialogue fails because of the poor delivery. Needless to say,  that if you do manage to get a McKellen to read your lines and he can’t get a tune out of them THEN you’re in trouble.

Transporter 3

If you’ve ever seen any of  the previous Transporter movies you know they are stupid yet extremely  fun. Transporter 3 breaks the mold by being stupid yet extremely annoying.

Franchise writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen have abandoned their winning formula of cramming as many over-the-top action scenes as possible into the script and instead have opted for a love story subplot… Does Jason Statham’s face say romance? No Jason Statham’s face screams I’ll tear off your head if you touch my car. And that’s what the audience wants to see otherwise we’d be watching Orlando Bloom.

Even if Statham was in the “mood”,  I don’t think a girl who squats and takes a leak in the middle of a supermarket is really his type. Yet, disturbingly this is one of her less annoying traits.

Wining constantly throughout the film with an Ivan Drago accent she is quite frankly the most irritating movie character ever. The fact that someone this aggravating could have come to exist  must surely be the result of a drunken one-night-stand between Jar Jar Binks and Short Round from Temple of Doom. Yes, she really is that irritating.

Less irksome, but only just, is Oliver Megaton’s direction.  He has the amazing nack of a filming an action scene in such a way that he manages to suck all the thrill out of it. Awesome name though.

Death Race was a frustrating watch but I didn’t dislike it. I  dislike Transporter 3 and that is something I never thought I’d say about a Jason Statham film. But I’m sure this is just a blip.

Statham returns as Chev Chelios in Crank 2: High Voltage later in the year and is part of the dream cast of  The Expendables (Stallone, Li, Lungren, Rourke).  Very soon  Statham’s going to be back doing what he does best — breaking heads in a stupid yet extremely fun way.

24 – Season 7: Episodes 1 & 2 (SPOILER WARNING)

Season Six was bad.

So bad.

Yes there was lots of “holy shit” moments but who cares about explosions when you don’t care about who’s being exploded? Apart from Jack and Chloe none of the characters had any real depth so it was really hard to give a damn about events at CTU or the White House. The other problem was the overall arc of the series. What was great about Season One was over the twenty-four episodes Jack had one simple goal  — to rescue his wife and daughter. Season Six didn’t have that. It had lots of tiny missions that were introduced almost as quickly as Jack completed them or plotlines that would  disappear then reappear a few episodes later. Things had to change.

Season Seven is here and guess what — things have changed.

There’s a new President and new White House staff. CTU has been disbanded. The Chloe equivalent character is now played by Janeane Garofalo… “Dammit Janeane Garofalo!”.

But best of all — Tony’s back!

Tony Almada, who was last seen being given a lethal injection by Robocop in Season Five, is indeed alive. This shouldn’t be any real surprise as Tony always had healing abilities that make Wolverine seem like a haemophiliac. In Season Three Tony got shot in the throat but still came back to work and finished his shift. But I always knew Tony was alive and it had nothing to do with Carlos Bernard’s name appearing in the opening credits nor Carlos Bernard giving magazine interviews about being back in 24 and nothing to do with Carlos Bernard appearing in trailers for the show — I just knew.

But however hokey you view Tony going all Lazarus there’s no doubt it’s good for the show. Even cooler Tony’s now a bad guy so gets to hang out with the wonderful Nick Chinlund  — The one in Con Air who took “the bunny” out of the box. Tony also has an evil plan. We know it’s an “evil plan” because it’s the same one they used in Die Hard 2 involving planes where lots of innocent people and also Colm Meaney died.

The TV movie, 24: Redemption, may have been the most exceptionally mediocre thing this side of Keane releasing an album called Beige. The one good thing was it allowed for certain plot-points to take root so we can hit episode one running. And we do hit it running. The real time element which stopped seasons ago using the same measurement of time as the rest of the Universe has now gone for good. So a computer programmer can be  kidnapped, his finger nails ripped out and yet is still capable of chucking together a load of components to make a device that can disable air traffic control all within the opening ten minutes of the show.

What I enjoyed  about the first two episodes is how restrained things are. No big explosions — just a car crash at the start and a near collision involving two passenger planes. Hell, Jack doesn’t even hurt anyone in the first episode, just threatens to stab an informer in the ear with a ballpoint pen. Compared to the Bauer who shot dead an informer and then sawed off his head in the first episode of Season Two and it seems that Jack’s mellowing in his old age. Normal service though had resumed by the end of the second episode with Jack killing two terrorists (one by bullet, the other used as a shield of meat) and getting into a fist fight with Tony. Jack wins.Tony may be a bad guy but Jack’s a badass.

Day Seven may only just be dawning but the early signs are good.

Bride Wars

Last week I took a friend — who doesn’t do action films — to see Transporter 3. I admit I may have owed them big but making me see Bride Wars? That’s an disproportionate response.

I like high concept. And Bride Wars has a great high concept comedy idea — two wedding obsessed best-friends end up booking their marriages for the same day. It just executes this hook in a very bad way.

It  has a very strange character arc where the two main protagonists go from positive to negative. Kate Hudson’s character is initially a non-nonsense lawyer who is incredibly good at her job but has as much sentiment as a Terminator. By the end of the film she discovers her emotions but has lost her professional credibility — so the message here is you can’t be both a successful female lawyer and a human being.  Meanwhile Anne Hathaway’s sweet-natured but submissive teacher develops a “spine” but as a consequence becomes incredibly unlikable.  Like Robert Mugabe “unlikeable”.

Bride Wars also uses a  ” get out of jail” plot device that there was no hint of prior to the start of the final act to give the movie its happy ending. Maybe this was a result of the Writer’s Strike and they had to rush out the script? Regardless I’m with McKee when it come to deus ex machina. It’s like a writer can’t come up with a logical yet satisfactory ending to their work so just throw down on the page the first thing that enters their head –

Damn.

Got to leave it here folks. There’s a talking bear at my door who needs his Pinto giving a jump start.

Location, Location, Location

Regular readers may have wondered whatever happened to my high-concept horror Generation aXe.

Truth be told it has become another victim of the Credit Crunch. I worked out from just planning the kills that Generation aXe was going to require a lot of different locations. And if you was a producer, in this difficult financial climate, which horror script would you develop the one with 5 locations or the one with a 167 locations?

Therefore I have put Generation aXe on hiatus for a while to work on a new horror script — that only has one location!

You may be able to take my job, my savings and my house but you’ll never take away my creative freedom — in your face Credit Crunch!

24 – Season 7: Episodes 3 & 4 (SPOILER WARNING)

Being a big liberal softie the joy of 24 has always been watching Jack interrogate. We would have known IRAQ had no WMDs if they’d sent Jack instead of Hans Blix to  speak to Saddam.  Consequently with the FBI getting nowhere with interrogating Tony they of course turn to Jack. In fairness Jack starts off fairly gently until Tony says  “Every second you spend helping the Government you are spitting on Teri’s grave.”. Jack’s not impressed.However it could have been worse, Tony could have said “Rocco Deluca and the Burden suck”.

However it is all part of Tony’s genius plan to get Jack close enough to him so he can whisper an old CTU emergency code in his ear. It works — Jack gets so close to Tony to get the best leverage to rip his head off his neck.

Jack uses the code and we discover that Tony is indeed working deep undercover with…

CHLOE! YAY CHLOE!

Oh and Bill’s back.

Bill has always been the dullest head of CTU. He’s no George Mason who was so wonderfully slimy you’d swear he was made of ectoplasm. Nor is he a snivelling bureaucrat like Ryan Chappelle who must have secretly admired the irony that Jack was forced to execute him just because the President told him to. However like Tony, Bill is now a darker character believing that the ends justify the means and personal grooming is no longer an issue.

Episode 3 went back to basics, kept it simple and delivered more excitement than the whole of Season 6. Jack did all the things that we love him for  — choking out and hogtying his new partner, the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker, and pistol -whipping the head of the FBI.

But best of all there was a cyber-smackdown between Chloe and Janeane Garofalo. Garofalo showed game but there was always going to be one winner.

After escaping the clutches of the nefarious FBI we learnt that although Tony was undercover,  the death of Michelle had turned him slightly bad. But Tony still decided to draw the line at killing innocent Americans using the Die Hard 2 plot.

After only two hours in his company, The Tao of Jack appears to have rubbed off on Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker who no longer has any concerns about going all Guantanamo Bay on a suspect’s ass if they aren’t willing to talk. She’s still no Chloe or Nina Myers but neither is she Audrey Raines and we should all be thankful for that.

The only downer so far to Season 7 is action in the White House isn’t that engaging. However I am enjoying the slow-burning sub-plot of the First Lady-Man (If anyone does know what the correct title is for the male equivalent of First Lady please tell) investigation into the death of his son, even though it has made me realise how old I am now. Cause you know you’re getting old when you look older than the Secret Service agent assigned as protection.

Episode 4 ended, naturally, with Jack trying to break into a panic room. Obviously I don’t know what happens next but it’s a fair assumption to say that if Jack was in the Jodie Foster film Panic Room, the movie would have only been five minutes long and like a hundred times better.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D

My Bloody Valentine is an above average slasher movie but throw in some 3-D and you have one incredibly fun movie.

When it comes to  slasher films it is hard to bring anything new to it. Say what you will about Scream but it did breath fresh life into what was, at the time, a very tired sub-genre. Thanks to the REAL-D technology My Bloody Valentine achieves the same thing and without a hint of post-modernism.

3-D has obviously come on along way since the days when I use to put red and green sweet wrappers over my eyes and gave myself a headache. In My Bloody Valentine blood drips, limbs fly and pointy things, well point,  all  seemingly right in front of your face however best of all… no nausea.

Without giving anything a way here, I do have some issue with the ending of My Bloody Valentine so if any of my peeps would like to discuss it further lets take it to the comments. This aside, if you want to escape Oscar movies and fancy 101 minutes of pure entertainment go see My Bloody Valentine — it’s what 3-D cinema was invented for.

24 – Season 7: Episode 5 (SPOILER WARNING)

So how do you break into a panic room?

The fiendish solution  is you don’t — you force the people inside the panic room to break out. How? Let’s just say Jack’s gas is silent-but-deadly.

Schoolboy humour aside, nothing really happened in the fifth hour. Jack only “killed” one person and by my obvious usage of quotation marks you know that wasn’t even a real kill.

To prevent blowing his cover, Jack was forced to “execute” the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker. He’s used this technique before on Nina Myers when he “killed” her but not before handing her a bullet-proof vest. In hindsight Jack probably now regrets this act of generosity with Nina shooting his wife dead and all. Jack though has obviously learnt his lesson as he  didn’t bother using protection this time and opted to go with the visual illusion of perspective. Okay so he perforated her ear-drum but the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker was at least still alive and able to watch Jack and Tony bury her alive.

Things we also learnt this episode were:

• That the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker’s boss Larry Moss lurves her.
• Ridiculously young Special Agent murdered the First Lady-Man’s son and is now going to kill him too but will still maintain the correct social decorum whilst making it all look like a terrible accident.
• I.T. jockeys Janeane Garofalo and Milo-lite don’t actually do anything.
• President Taylor and her Chief of Staff don’t actually do anything.

To conclude, for eventfulness this episode was up there with such legendary episodes as when Teri got amnesia or Kim got stalked by a cougar.

Fingers crossed Jack will actually kill someone next week.

The Best Way To Start The Day

You know in films when someone flicks on the TV something cool is always on  but in reality if you turn the TV on it’s more likely to be Loose Women?

Well this morning when  I flicked on the TV this is what greeted my eyes – - one of the most iconic moments in TV history.

So much better than a bowl of Frosties.

Development Heaven

On Friday I had my first ever development meeting with a proper production company — they had chairs in their office and everything.

After all the horror stories I’d read about development meetings I expected the worst — large dollops of frustration, inane notes and stale biscuits. Instead it was the exact opposite experience. And they had Jaffa Cakes. When me and my fellow co-writers left the meeting we felt positive, had better ideas and a clear understanding of what was expected from us next.

Wow. The system works.

24 – Season 7: Episode 6 (SPOILER WARNING)

Episode 7 kicks off with two contrasting pieces of exposition.

First a lack of.

The Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker is rescued from her shallow grave by Chloe and Bill in what I’d describe as the very definition of the nick of time — they have to give her a shot of adrenalin to revive her. We learn through Chloe and Bill’s conversation that Jack had contacted them telling them where she was. How Jack managed to do this with the eagle-eyed Emerson watching his every move we are not not told but I’m guessing Bill and Chloe just followed the trail of bodies.

Next came way too much exposition.

In episode 4 it was revealed that Emerson was on the look out for potential recruits who would have a grudge against the American government and got to Tony, again,  just in the nick of time after Robocop gave him a lethal injection. I bought that. Just. For some reason the writers decided to cover this topic again and we learn that it was never Robocop’s plan to kill Tony — he wanted to use him against Jack hence missing his vital arteries when stabbing him with a nine-inch needle.  Sometimes a writer can provide the bare minimum and the audience themselves will fill in the plot holes themselves. Here we were given way too much info and were just left thinking “Yeah, right”.

During this conversation Tony also confesses he and Emerson “are like brothers” because Emerson listens to him. This is probably to create a bit of tension when Emerson puts a gun to Jack’s head and you “wonder” who Tony will shoot. One gunshot later and Emerson is bleeding out of his neck proving that Tony doesn’t rate brotherly love that highly. Though to be fair to Tony, when he got shot in the neck he went back to work after a couple of hours so he probably assumed Emerson would be okay. Emerson though didn’t have the same work ethic and promptly died.

One criticism of last season is that the sub-plots moved too fast; this season they’re moving too slow. Jack spends pretty much the entire episode hanging out in a warehouse and getting people to trust him. First he explains to the Motobos that handing them over to Dubako is “the only way” to restore peace to his country. Next he explains to the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker that shooting at her and burying her alive was “the only way” to save her life.   I would argue that Jack is fairly passive in this episode but he does take-out a bad guy with a sniper’s rifle. However Tony does best him in the killing stakes at a ratio of 3:1. And one of those kills was like a brother to him.

In other matters…

Dubako shows his respect for the President by crashing two passenger jets into each other over the White House. Personally I think she would have preferred the Red Arrows to do a fly-over. While the First Lady-Man spent the entire episode coming out of his neuro-muscular paralytic drug stupor. This lead to many close-ups of the First Lady-Man making his hand into a fist like George McFly just before he punches Biff in the face. This though was just a cunning ruse. First Lady-Man just threw the ridiculously young Special Agent over a balcony.

Next week Jack gets out of the warehouse. Hopefully.

Looking For My Ari Gold

“…If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can get an agent“

Ripping off classic 8os TV intros aside, I’ve been getting my scriptwriting groove on for a few years now and I love it.  I really do. There’s just one thing I wish I could change about it. One teeny, tiny, thing — I’d like to get paid. As fun as this writing lark is, I  think it would be even more fun if people would throw large wads of cash at me to do it.

So armed with Adrian Mead’s damn fine book Making It As A Screenwriter and the invaluable The Writer’s Handbook I spent last Tuesday plaguing London’s literary agents and here’s a few things that I learnt:

1. Acts Of  God – I’d booked Tuesday off a few weeks ago for the expressed purpose to spend the day contacting agents. However I would say that if you can avoid make enquiries on the day of the worst snow storms in eighteen years you’ll find your chances vastly improve of someone actually picking up the phone.
2. Love The Phone – In Making It As A Screenwriter, Adrian writes about “Phone Phobia”. I wouldn’t say I was quite as bad as that (I don’t need cognitive therapy) but if it comes to the choice of ringing a stranger who could actually benefit my career or sending an email into the void and hoping for the best — I’d take the void.  Fearing though Adrian may have some crazy voodoo powers and would know that I cheated, I rang up complete strangers. And guess what? It was okay. Everyone I spoke to was polite, helpful and some were even friendly. Best of all I did not bust into flames.
3. Avoid The Busy Season – I delayed contacting agents until I’d got a body of work together that I was happy with and it just so happened I achieved this at the start of the year. Unfortunately my timing was rubbish. I was told there would be a delay in getting back to me because they got swamped by enquiries in January. Bloody New Year’s Resolutions!!!

Punisher: War Zone

When it comes to casting comic book heroes Hollywood occasionally gets it right. But for every Robert Downey Jnr as Iron Man there is Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher or Thomas Jane as The Punisher. But believe me — Ray Stevenson is The Punisher.

I’m unfamiliar with Stevenson’s work in Rome but very much enjoyed him taking on Nazi zombies in Outpost however his take-on Frank Castle is one of the most brutal anti-heroes in cinema history. And that’s a problem with Punisher: War Zone — the hero is by far the nastiest character in it.

If The Punisher was killing pedophiles and rapists  you would take less umbrage with him committing the odd beheading but the bad guys are so cartoonish it is at times like watching someone decapitate Elmer Fudd. For example Dominic West’s performance as Jigsaw is pure Jack Nicholson’s Joker — played with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Tonally it is a complete mismatch against Stevenson’s Punisher.  Meaning when The Punisher is dishing out justice you could argue the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

At times Punisher: War Zone also feels like two seperate movies — The Punisher battles with guilt and questions the righteousness of his mission after killing an undercover FBI agent — and — Jigsaw wants to kill The Punisher. The former is really interesting but it is rushed through because equal time is spent on the other plot-line. This means Jigsaw is the real driving force in the film resulting in The Punisher always being reactive rather than proactive. This we all know is a bad thing! Even Thomas Jane’s Punisher was proactive.

Yet despite these faults I still enjoyed the movie. I often use The Columbo Effect to rant about how the 12a certificate has killed the action movie genre. The Punisher: War Zone is certainly no 12a action movie and for that reason alone it should be worshipped as a false idol and showered in your hard-earned cash. And until Crank 2: High Voltage crashes onto our screens in April watching Stevenson’s Punisher blast someone in the face with a shotgun should tide you over.

24 – Season 7: Episode 7 (SPOILER WARNING)

The seventh hour almost had it all.

A raid on the bad guys’ hideout. Heroic self-sacrifice by middle-management. Amusing Chloe-style quips from Janeane Garofalo. The First Lady-Man becoming the new Kim Bauer. Tony turning down an invite to the White House. And my favourite 24 sub-plot the introduction of the duped love interest. Anyone want to take odds against Colonel Dubaku being killed by his waitress girlfriend when she discovers the truth?

The only thing absent from this episode and missing from the last few episodes is Jack having any real conflict to deal with. 24 is at its best when Jack is forced to take the path of most resistance. When he disobeys orders, makes the tough decisions and barks out “I’m gonna need a hacksaw”.

So here’s hoping when Jack meets the President next week he’s going to tell her to shove her orders up her arse.

He’s Just Not That Into You

The things we do for love.

It’s Oscar season and the cinema is full of great films which I still haven’t seen however it’s Valentine’s Day and my wife wants to see He’s Just Not That Into You so I comply knowing that I can catch Friday The 13th later in the week. Besides I always need another reason to remind myself why Valentine’s Day sucks.

The strange thing is though I quite enjoyed it. I found Ginnifer Goodwin’s Bridget Jones-esque romantic, to be a sweet and amusing character. The heart of the film, she learns how to understand if a man is “into you” under the tutelage of a confirmed bachelor played by the always watchable Justin Long. And guess what? Romance ensues between the mis-matched pair.

Now you may have noticed that in the above paragraph I emboldened the word “quite” (Not subtle I know but then again neither is most romantic comedy). If I had a solid 90 minutes of the above it may have given me that warm and fuzzy feeling unfortunately He’s Just Not That Into You is actually an ensemble piece that left me cold and nauseous.

The key to  a successful ensemble piece is to make all the characters engaging to the audience but regardless if it was Jennifer Aniston splitting up with Ben Affleck because he doesn’t want to get married; Bradley Cooper caught in a love-triangle between his wife Jennifer Connelly and his mistress Scarlett Johansson who is also the object of Kevin Connolly’s unrequited affections; Drew Barrymore wondering where her storyline is … I didn’t care. I tried to but the characters were so thinly written it was hard to come up with any reaction to their situations other than doing one great big yawn.

Oh and a final note  to the makers of romantic comedies — it would be very much appreciated if from time-to-time you would actually insert the “comedy” component to the movie. Thank you.

24 – Season 7: Episode 8 (SPOILER WARNING)

The best episode of the series so far? Probably. An impressive feat considering the episode  was Tony-less! However this gave 24’s lesser characters a chance to shine.

Milo-lite who I never write about because he’s not interesting actually became interesting. He’s having an affair with some skank in the office even though he’s married. Yes, MARRIED!

Dubaku took time out from destroying America to deal with the more pressing matter of going to see his girlfriend’s interfering cripple of a sister and cap her ass.

The Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker continued her descent into Jack-style maverickness by threatening a mother and child. To make the mum talk she terrorised the young infant. Unfortunately we never saw what exactly she did to the child that made him scream in terror but it must have had something to do with looking upon her disturbingly perfect visage. But what really made this episode rock was the large dollops of suspense.

For what felt like the first time in a long while, 24’s constant ticking clock seemed to actually mean something. Jack had an hour to locate the First Lady-Man and save him from being sent piece by piece to the President by Dubaku. Dubaku obviously isn’t a great user of Amazon, otherwise he’d know it’s cheaper to send the First Lady-Man all in one go.

The use of the deadline provided added excitement to an episode which saw Jack use Larry Moss’ 4X4 as a battering ram, have a knife fight and spout macho dialogue that was more punchier than Floyd Mayweather (It made me spend a lot of the episode laughing like a giddy school girl. My favourite was Jack’s response to President Taylor asking why should she trust him — “With all due respect Madam President, ask around.” Boo yah!). Yet despite finding the hideout and doing what Jack does best — sending terrorists straight to Hell — he still couldn’t prevent the First Lady-Man getting a bullet in the gut.

If only Tony was there.

For Your Consideration

Here are the links to download all* of this year’s Oscar nominated screenplays…

Best Writing (Adapated Screenplay)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Screenplay by Eric Roth. Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord

Doubt

Written by John Patrick Shanley

Frost/Nixon

Screenplay by Peter Morgan

The Reader

Screenplay by David Hare

Slumdog Millionaire

Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)

Frozen River

Written by Courtney Hunt

Happy-Go-Lucky

Written by Mike Leigh

In Bruges

Written by Martin McDonagh

Milk

Written by Dustin Lance Black

WALL·E

Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon.
Story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter

So who’s going to win?

*Okay I’m a cad and a rotter. I can’t find In Bruges to download anywhere so I’ve included a link to buy it.

24 – Season 7: Episode 9 (SPOILER WARNING)

What was the best moment of the episode?

• The return of Morris O’Brian
• The return of Aaron Pierce
• Chloe mocking Larry Moss’ I.T. network
• Dubako’s girlfriend learning he was the lesser known Rossini opera — “The Butcher of Sengala”
• Us learning that Milo-lite was the mole
• The Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker catching sight of her slightly too pretty face smeared in blood
• Office Skank
• Jack waving a Beretta in the face of a woman in a wheelchair
• Milo-lite and Janeane Garofalo calling each other ” little bitch”

Yep. Definintely the last one.

Reversing The Fish Out Of Water

Catch Script Girl’s report this week? No — well do it now.  It’s okay I’ll wait.

Watched it? Lovely stuff. Anyway the bit that got me thinking was the Martin Lawrence film Back To America. Weird I know because it’s a Martin Lawrence film but what particularly interested me was how the plot is just Coming To America but reversed. Then I realised how with any fish out of water movie there’s probably a good script that could be written simply by switching the protagonist and the setting around.

My favourite fish out of water movie is probably Beverly Hills Cop — Axel Foley, a streetwise Detroit cop, goes to Beverly Hills to investigate the murder of his friend. Is there a  film in reversing this plot? Well Nat Maudlin thought so when he wrote Downtown. Starring Anthony Edwards, it’s about a cop who patrols an affluent precinct but after his partner is murdered he’s sent downtown to work a tough crime-ridden area.

Rush Hour 2 reverses it’s original plot by making Chris Tucker the fish out of water when he goes to Hong Kong to visit Jackie Chan. Then Rush Hour 3 takes the super mental next -step where both are taken out of their respective comfort zones by setting the action in Paris which I guess means it must be a fishes out of waters story.

Game time.

Below are the plots for five fish out of water films reversed. Can you name them? Winner gets to lord it over the scribosphere for probably about five minutes.

1. A cop has two days to go undercover into a prison and solve a murder.
2. An American cop goes to Russia to track down the killer of his partner.
3. A man wishes he was a boy. The next day he finds that he’s 12 again.
4. A rich Beverly Hills socialite loses everything and becomes a prostitute but finds love. (Good luck pitching that romantic comedy!!!)
5. A man falls for a mermaid and follows her to Atlantis to win her love.

The Sitcom Trials 2009

My sitcom Top Shelf is entering the comedy Thunderdome that is The Sitcom Trials next Wednesday, 11th March at Leciester Square Theatre. If you are thinking of going tickets can be purchased from here.

I will be there so if you do attend, and promise not to go all Mark Chapman, please come up and say “Hi” and shower me in praise about how funny and great you thought Top Shelf was. People who want to tell me how much I suck or are clutching a copy of Catcher In The Rye you can ignore me.

24 – Season 7: Episode 10 (SPOILER WARNING)

Last night’s episode was brutal. By the end of it a whole lotta love laid bleeding as Dubako’s girlfriend caused their car to crash. She died, he didn’t. Then Milo-lite shot Office Skank by catching her off- guard when she was at her most vulnerable — being skanky.

In between these two events the relationship between Jack and his protegee, the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker hit a rocky patch as the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker pulled a gun on Jack when he tried to stop her from rescuing Dubako’s girlfriend. Nor was she impressed when Jack threatened to find Dubako’s son and do Jack stuff to him. However it was probably when Jack shoved his hand inside the still-alive Dubako and removed a hard drive from his abdomen that the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker realised Jack wasn’t Mister Miyagi material.

The hard drive contained the names of everyone in the Government who was part of  “The conspiracy” and somewhere on the list it said “Milo-lite”.  Thus Milo-lite got Office Skank to delete the hard drive and then framed her for being solely responsible. This involved him shooting her dead and then shooting himself in the arm (I’m guessing in the fleshy part, just missing the bone). Round about at this moment in the episode I felt the “Milo-lite” moniker was no longer doing him justice and he should be upgraded to Milo-extra but then Chloe managed to recover the files off the hard drive. Milo-lite then tried to leg it. After Jack and Tony successfully escaped from FBI headquarters, Milo-lite probably thought he had the skills too.  But it proves what an utterly incompetent job he did that even Larry Moss was able to catch him.

Now long time followers of 24 are probably aware that Jack has always been somewhat emotionally stunted. Yet in this series, he has reached such stunning levels of insensitivity he’s like The Terminator and Ari Gold combined.  You can’t blame Jack really. In the line of duty his wife was murdered,  he’s gone through heroin addiction, hacked the arm off his partner, shot his boss in the head, faked his own death, had his daughter disown him, held captive by the Chinese for a year, his father killed his brother, the second woman he has ever loved was traumatised into a catatonic state and the Government still put him on trial. Yet after the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker breaks down, guilt-ridden over the death of Dubako’s girlfriend, Jack demonstrates why he never passed that Samaritans exam by telling her you get use to it.

But then the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker did something that no character in the history of 24 has ever done and lived…

She smacked Jack twice in the face and hit him with a zinger about the death of Teri.

If it was1992 and I was a character from The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, I would probably say “I know you just didn’t do that!”.

Oh, what the hell.

I know you just didn’t do that!

The only place where you could feel the love in this episode was at the White House where Bill has become very quickly bezzie mates with the President.  She’s having a word with Senator Clarence Boddicker to go easy on Jack just because Bill asked her to.  Get ready for next week when Bill borrows Air Force One to get a six-pack and a pizza.

Not even halfway through the season and Jack has already alienated everyone around him. Well not quite everyone. Good , old, dependable Tony returns to tell him there’s a major threat coming. Even though Jack doesn’t want to get involved with Tony, cause he’s gone all Fonzie, he knows the only place there is for him is with a fellow outsider. Call me sentimental but it reminded me of the last line of Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run.

That’s right Jack and Tony are tramps.

In Bruges Screenplay

After short changing you the other day with just a link to where you can buy Martin McDonagh’s Oscar nominated In Bruges screenplay, here it  is to download.

Many thanks to TJ for supplying. We salute you.

Watchmen

I’ll keep this exceptionally brief as the Redbull is wearing off.

Watchmen is a nobel failure. Remaining faithful to  the comic book it suffers in translation to the big screen because the narrative lacks the clear focus required. It is good fun, but if you’re not a comic book fan, the movie is going to probably feel like quite a shallow experience.

A bit like this review.

24 – Season 7: Episodes 11 & 12 (SPOILER WARNING)

After they killed off  my favourite character, Office Skank, last week I obviously thought this double-bill would blow. How incredibly wrong I was. It was quite super.

You knew things were off to a good start when  the Candyman finally popped up to order an assassin to kill the hospitalised Dubako. Then the shit got serious — Jack put on a shirt and tie.

Using the shirt and tie, Jack’s plan was  to gain entry into the White House to interrogate Clarence Boddicker’s Chief of Staff so he could discover what exactly the “threat” was that Tony had learnt about. However first he visited Bill to see his fancy new office that he somehow had been given in the three hours that he’d been at the White House.

Bill told Jack that he’d had a word with his new best friend, the President, and she was now going to intervene in his case. Jack showed his gratitude by choking out Bill. But it was okay, Jack was doing this to protect him. To some this may seem strange but seeing as Jack had previously saved the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker’s life by firing a gun next to her eardrum it kind of made sense.

Jack then got Chloe to delete Clarence Boddicker’s Chief of  Staff’s name off the list of conspirators so Jack could interrogate him before the FBI got to him.  Janeane Garofalo though was totally onto her but Chloe managed to buy herself some time by insulting her. Janeane Garofalo took this slight so badly she yanked a memory stick from Chloe’s computer WITHOUT clicking on the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon!

Question. How do you let someone know that you want to chat with them?

If you answered “Taser them” then you and Jack share similar communication skills. However his “chat” with Clarence Boddicker’s Chief  of Staff didn’t go that great. Just as he’s about to discover what the “threat” was, White House security only go and blow the bloody doors off the room and arrest Jack.

Chloe too got arrested at FBI headquarters as Janeane Garofalo grassed her up to Larry Moss. However it was at this moment I realised what had been bugging me about Janeane Garofalo’s appearance — bespectacled and dressed all in purple, she looks like Thelma from Scooby Doo if Thelma stole Daphne’s clothes so she could cop off with Fred.

The dialogue in 24 has been wonderfully hard-boiled over the last few episodes and this was more of the same. Not surprisingly Jack  had the best lines. When Clarence Boddicker told him his actions were “reprehensible”, Jack replied “And you sir are weak”. Stick it to the man, Jack.

The President’s Chief of Staff, Slimy Shawshank Guy proved his worth by giving  Mike Novick levels of counsel to the President. Only took you 10 hours, with hundreds of innocent civilians dead, but well done Slimy Shawshank Guy for getting into the game.

Away from the White House, the increasingly capable Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker had tracked down the Candyman’s headquarters. As the Candyman took off in a boat, she displayed an amazing mixture of agility and clumsiness as she leaped aboard but dropped her gun into the water and got her mobile phone wet. On the boat she found a number of complex building plans of the terrorists’ target but luckily for her she was able to tell what it was as the Candyman also had a very nice charcoal sketch of the White House.

Meanwhile locked in a cell, Jack tries to persuade Bill to torture the information out of Clarence Boddicker’s Chief Of Staff. Bill declines, saying he’s not that guy. You suck Bill. Even the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker tried the Way of Jack  for a couple of episodes before deciding she couldn’t live with herself. You couldn’t even be arsed to give it a go — would it have been so hard to punch a guy in the throat?

Prior to this season airing, there had been talk about the U.S. Army asking the makers of 24 to tone down Jack’s interrogation tactics as he was a bad role-model for American soliders in Iraq. Although to be fair to the show I don’t recall an episode where Jack Bauer degraded prisoners and forced them to make a human pyramid. Still the writers of the show do seem to be wanting the audience to at least question the appropriateness of Jack’s methods.

With a small army, The Candyman breaked into the White House. Surprisingly they opted against Jack’s shirt and tie technique and instead went for the more conventional frog man approach. Aided by a man on the inside who reacts to an offer of Chinese takeaway, when he wanted home cooking, by stabbing a co-worker with a screwdriver.

Candyman’s assault on the White House was probably the most exciting action sequence 24 has ever done. It was so thrilling I thought screw you guys and put my pen down and stopped taking notes. The only thing disappointing about it was former Secret Service agent Aaron Pierce. Despite being in all 7 seasons of 24, fans of the show have never seen Aaron Pierce in action, however I long suspected that Aaron in action would be a thing of beauty. Like a ginger John Matrix. Turns out Aaron Pierce has the reflexes of a sloth. Despite having the jump on a terrorist, he still managed to get shot.

Jon Voight, with a sidekick from CSI Miami, turned up near the end of the episode to advise Candyman that if he wanted the President he should threaten her daughter. Luckily for the President, her daughter was in safe hands. Protected by Aaron Pierce. Bugger.

So the episode ended with Jack and the President captured by the Candyman. And me desperately wanting more.

Larging It In London

Wednesday I went to London.

As my life goes it was fairly exciting stuff. I had a meeting with a production company about a film script and my comedy Top Shelf was being performed in the Sitcom Trials.

Obviously to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible I did all the necessary prep — researched the company, re-read my scripts and bought new shoes.

I made it to the production company with an hour to spare so disappeared into the nearest pub. I stuck to Diet Coke fearing that the slightest drop of alcohol would make me as comprehensible as the Incredible Hulk on  a sack full of crack. The meeting went exceptionally well and hopefully (fingers crossed, touch wood, sacrifice my first born)  I can tell you all about it in a month’s time.

Next stop was Leicester Square Theatre. Yet I nearly didn’t make it. Walking through Leicester Square I noticed a crowd of people gearing up for the film premiere for Monsters Vs Aliens with Kiefer Sutherland expected on the red carpet. Dilemma. Do I see my comedy or do I see Jack “I’m gonna need a hacksaw” Bauer?

I saw my comedy. I’m positive I made the right decision. I’m positive. But there’s never a day that passes that I don’t wish I had decided differently. However if I had jumped the fence they probably wouldn’t let me write the blog in prison.

It was a brutal comedy slugfest. The three other sitcoms were all universally tremendous and I wasn’t sure if we’d make it through. But the judges voted us second so make me up a big plate of joy with a large dollop of huzzah on the side, we’re through to the next round!   Obviously I would like to say it was all about the writing but I’d be a big fat liar. My director Katrina and her cast did an absolute top-notch job of milking my script for laughs until the comedy udder was well and truly dry.

The strange thing about watching your work performed is you can never predict what gags will get the biggest laugh. Unless you have a guy getting kicked in the nuts. That’s a given. My favourite gag in the script got a very small chuckle (in retrospect it was probably me who made it) while another line, which I have no memory of thinking up, totally killed.

After the performances I went off to the pub and felt proper showbiz hanging out with the cast who weren’t just jolly good actors but jolly nice folk too.

I finished the day as I hoped I would at the start of it.  Hugging a kebab and watching BBC 3’s Snog, Marry, Avoid? on a friend’s floor.

London had been good.

However  back in Cardiff;  I was climbing the stairs at work when I noticed something about my “new shoes”. They didn’t match. I’d bought and worn to a very important meeting an odd pair of  shoes.

Edjit!

24 – Season 7: Episode 13 (SPOILER WARNING)

The following takes place between the hours of nine and ten pm…

With my wife pretending to be all cultured by going to the theatre, I thought I’d do this post 24 style and write it real-time as the episode happens. So get ready for incoherent ramblings.

Last week I lost respect for Jack in the way he gave up without a fire-fight. However it turns out he had a cunning plan all along and it involves gas and a stray bullet from a henchman. I know a henchman who can’t shoot straight, absurd. But it’s so crazy it might just work.

In case the President didn’t realise that Candyman was serious, despite storming the White House and taking her hostage, he shoots some random staffer in the head to prove he’s serious.

The Vice-President appears to be a complete tool. It’s like watching an alternative universe where Sarah Palin actually got in…

and oh my god Bill just appeared to blow himself up in an act of heroic sacrifice.

The FBI are now raiding the White House. Jack’s killing people. Even Aaron “I put the Special in Special Agent” Pierce is killing people. Jack just emptied an entire round into the Candyman.

Bill’s not moving. I think he maybe dead. Like really dead. Not Tony or Jack dead. Proper dead.

Despite Bill saving the President’s life and the fact they were best friends for two whole episodes, she seems to be taking it really well by not even acknowledging the fact.

Fortunately Jack is showing Bill the proper respect by staying with the body. Then the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker comes over and Jack’s like “Bill who?”. Bros before Slightly Too Pretty Hos Jack!

Jack gets arrested for the millionth time this season.

Jon Voight still has a plan.

I still think Bill may be really dead.

Slimy Shawshank Guy gets Jack released for the millionth time this season. Jack looks like he’s going to get another go at Clarence Boddicker’s Chief Of Staff. Charge up the taser.

The President wants her daughter to join the White House as a special adviser despite Slimy Shawshank Guy not being too keen on the idea cause she’s leaked information in the past. He could have a point. Slimy Shawshank Guy also fails to tell her that Jack’s going to do a spot of interrogation. She’s gonna be pissed if it backfires. I’m sure it won’t.

Larry Moss suspends the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker. Why do we always hurt the ones we love.

Quinn is sent to silence Clarence Boddicker’s chief of staff and kill Jack. We know he’s good cause Jon Voight says he is and we then get a demonstration of his remarkable killing prowess as he kills a bed-ridden eighty year old man with a heart condition.

Aaron Pierce cements his reputation as 24’s ultimate ladies man. With the notch of a First Lady on his bed post, he’s now working his charms on the First Daughter. It’s a whole lot of ginger wrongness.

Jack promises not to lay a finger on Clarence Boddicker’s chief of staff and he doesn’t. He just talks Bauer at him which to be fair is enough to scare anyone shitless. But Jon Voight was right. Quinn is good. He releases some nerve gas that turns Jack into a drooling vegetable and frames him for killing Clarence Boddicker’s chief of staff.

Fearing arrest for the millionth and one time, Jack goes on the run.

And Bill really is dead. Really.

24 – Season 7: Episode 14 (SPOILER WARNING)

Last night was one of those episodes where 24 sets up the pins again after it had knocked ‘em all down during the siege at the White House. Not much really happened apart from the Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker was arrested while Chloe was released after Morris gave-up Jack’s location to the Feds. Jack was with Clarence Boddicker learning that an American private military company, Blackwater Starkwood,  had been working with Candyman to develop bio-weapons. However Quinn showed up before the FBI, killing Clarence Boddicker, and then went after Jack with an assault rifle. Jack had a JCB. Jack wins. And Bill still seems to be dead.

Okay. So like lots happened but rather than write about the episode I wanted to use this space to write an apology.

Dear Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker,

When you were introduced thirteen episodes ago, I instantly dismissed you as a bit dull. A bit vanilla. A bit Audrey Raines. I thought you were a two dimensional character whose only purpose to the storyline was to be a damsel in distress.

I realise now I was wrong.

You don’t need Jack or anyone else to save you. You can kill terrorists with the best of them. Consequently over the last 14 hours, where I’ve watched you beat a man with a spade, I admit I have grown quite fond of you Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker.

Maybe it’s because you gets to kick almost as much ass as Jack, maybe it’s because you get to spout almost as much over-the-top macho dialogue as Jack or maybe it’s because I am secretly attracted to you almost as much as I am to Jack. Whatever the reason, I think you are a nice addition to 24’s supporting character. Obviously I still prefer Tony or Chloe but if there was an anthrax attack and there was only one gas mask, I’d want you to have it rather than Janeane Garofalo! She wears too much purple!!!

Anyway I’m sorry for calling you the “Slightly Too Pretty Agent Walker” simply because I thought your features were so attractive they verged on oddness. From now on in my blog I  promise to call you Renee.

Yours

Dave

P. S. If you are the new Nina Myers please shoot Kim.

Going Dark

I’m currently entangled in the thorny tentacles of demonic hellspawn otherwise known as the redraft therefore, apart from the weekly 24 update, things are going to be a bit quiet on here for the next month.

But here’s some miscellaneous musings…

Confessions Of A Shopaholic

l admit it. I’m a sucker for a redhead. Amy Adams, Dana Scully and Nicola, the coffee Revel of Girls Aloud, all turn me into a slobbering wreck. Therefore despite Confessions Of A Shopaholic being a bit rubbish, I quite liked it because of the saving grace of the scarlet bonce of Isla Fisher. Hair fetishes aside, I still would of  enjoyed Isla Fisher’s performance anyway because she is a rather good actress whose comedic talents deserve a better script than this.

Richard Herring

Caught Richard Herring’s The Headmaster’s Son in Cardiff last week. There are only a few dates left on his tour but if you can go, definitely do.  It’s wonderfully funny.

Sitcom Trials

Top Shelf is in the quarter finals taking place on Wednesday 22nd April at the Leicester Square Theatre. Please come along and chuckle in the right places so to impress the judges. Especially if you have a gawfaw that would put Brian Blessed to shame.

BBC’s College of Comedy

As well as the redraft, I’m knocking ten pages together of a new sitcom to apply for a place at the College of Comedy.  Deadline for applications is Friday 24th April. Hopefully I won’t get expelled for being unfunny behind the bike sheds!

I’ll get my coat.

24 – Season 7: Episode 15 (SPOILER WARNING)

Tonight’s 24 was like a lovely mixture of all my favourite films.

Not surprisingly, I was reminded of The Shawshank Redemption when Slimy Shawshank Guy got that crazy look in his eye again. It’s the same one he had when he learnt Andy had stolen all his money and then painted the wall with his brains. However this time Slimy Shawshank Guy didn’t reach for a revolver, worse he resigned! 24 has always had a history of Government Officials handing in their notice at the first sign of trouble. So Slimy Shawshank Guy was responsible for Jack escaping and “killing” two people — who cares? It’s not like he did anything really wrong like his wife watching two pay-per-view porno movies and him “mistakenly” claiming it back as part of his personal allowance.

Then things went all The Omen as it turns out the Antichrist is in the White House cause if you were to gaze upon the scalp of Olivia, the President’s daughter, I’m sure you would find the number of the beast. Turns out Olivia is leaking secrets to the media. And probably wants to bring about the End of Days.

Amidst all the Government intrigue, Jack and Tony were going all Tango & Cash to stop Blackwater Starkwood from getting their hands on the bioweapon. To do this they needed the help of Carl, a security guard so hapless he might as well have had it printed on his forehead but he’d probably spell it wrongly anyway. Yes Carl was that hapless. So much so, Jack and Tony couldn’t even be bothered to feign optimism when they sent him out to meet the mercenaries from Blackwater Starkwood to discover where the bio-weapon was. Despite Carl fitting the profile for a heroic death — a devoted husband with twins on the way — Jack started to shows signs of a conscience and came to his aid. This lead to my favourite bit of dialogue of the episode –  with Carl’s would-be assassin in Jack’s cross-hair, Tony told him if he took the shot it would be “Two against ten.”. But Jack, as sure of his marksmanship as ever, replied “Two against nine.”

Jack saved Carl and then took a page out of the Indiana Jones playbook by hijacking the truck carrying the bio-weapon. Tony played his part too by being all Marion Ravenwood and getting captured.

Jack had the bio-weapon in his possession for at least a minute before Blackwater Starkwood took it back. Worse, Jack got exposed to it so I’m guessing the next few episodes are going to go all Crank.

Sadly there wasn’t enough time in the episode for a homage to Weekend at Bernies with Bill but you can’t have everything.

24 – Season 7: Episode 16 (SPOILER WARNING)

The opening of the episode was definitely one for the ladies or biochemists. Jack forced to strip down and get a good hosing after being exposed to the bio-weapon. But any random viewer who had just tuned in probably thought they were watching When Celebrities Go Mental 18. As a a few years ago, the sight of Kiefer Sutherland naked on a highway was probably a frequent occurrence.

Anyway bad news for Jack — he tested positive. Worse it turned out to be a form of Creutzfelt-Jakob disease. Yes, like cheese, you can now get CJD in a can.  Symptoms of CJD include dementia, jerky movements and a lack of co-ordination.

Speaking of  Aaron Pierce. Snarf.  The new acting Chief of Staff for the president, her daughter Olivia, thought it would be a great idea for Aaron to be assigned to protect her. Despite Aaron being shot in the arm, the wrong side of fifty and rubbish at the whole body-guarding lark.

Bill is still dead and Renee took the news of Jack being infected like you would expect someone would after knowing a person for only 16 hours, she went a bit weepy.

Meanwhile Tony proved to be a massive success in his new position at Blackwater Starkwood  as a punchbag. Mercenaries were queing up to have a go.  And then just as Tony looked like he was being promoted to the role of  firing range,  Jon Voight’s not-so-trusty right-hand man, CSI: Miami stepped in and saved him.  CSI: Miami motives for changing sides was he wasn’t prepared to do time for Jon Voight. I think this fear of prisons was based on him confusing Midnight Express with Jon Voight’s Midnight Cowboy.  Idiot!  Anyway CSI: Miami managed to get an immunity deal with the President (Doesn’t everybody?) in exchange for telling the FBI where on the Blackwater Starkwood compound the bio-weapon was.

As the FBI suited up for the raid, we witnessed probably the second saddest moment ever in 24, Larry Moss telling Jack he could not come along on the mission because he was infected. In a split second when Jack, to all intent and purposes, was told he’d never be able to kill or torture again, you saw a man lose all sense of purpose.

The FBI raided Blackwater Starkwood but found the air hanger it was empty. CSI: Miami really was Jon Voight’s trusty right-hand man! The whole betrayal shtick was just an act to buy Jon Voight some more time in another hanger on the other side of the compound. I knew no one could confuse Midnight Express with Midnight Cowboy. Worse,  things then went all Zulu as Tony, Larry Moss and the FBI were surrounded by a horde of mercenaries all with much bigger guns.

And where was the one man you’d want in a fire fight?

Back at FBI headquarters probably wondering if there’s any point in living.

Let The Right One In

Still grappling with the re-write for The Perfect Guy so I’ll keep this brief. But as a treat to being chained to my desk for the past couple of weeks, this morning I went to see Let The Right One In.

And what a treat! A wonderful horror movie which is more about friendship than vampires. Easily my favourite film of the year so far. Unfortunately Let The Right One In will probably only be at the multiplexes for just this week, so put the Hot Cross buns down, step away from the Cadbury’s Cream Egg and go see it.

24 – Season 7: Episode 17 (SPOILER WARNING)

Last night’s episode wasn’t vintage.

You see Jack’s still stuck in FBI headquarters with a nasty bout of CJD. The whole  paralysis thing obviously means he’s not doing much.  Which is a bit of a problem when he’s your central protagonist.

Even more frightening is that there may be an experimental cure but it involves stem cells and his daughter.  It may save Jack but who will save  us from a genetically mutated Kim?

Not Bill because Bill still seems to be dead.

Worse without Jack in the field only two people died this hour. Tony snapped someones neck while Jon Voight, going more bonkers than usual, smashed the head of Blackwater Starkwood’s board in the face with a decanter and threw him off a balcony.

Then there was the stupidest moment of the series when the President’s daughter blackmailed a journalist into not running a story by filming herself sleeping with him. So yes he could no longer publish “Threat of WMD Attack” but now had an even bigger story in “I Banged The President’s Daughter”.

The final scene with Jon Voight forcing the President to abort an air strike at the last second really wasn’t very exciting. So much like Jack, 24,  needs a shot in the arm and fast.