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Fun Joel's Screenwriting Blog

(OR EL DUDERINO IF YOU'RE NOT INTO THE WHOLE BREVITY THING)

-- On Screenwriting and Related Topics

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Location: Los Angeles, CA

I moved from NYC to LA in October, 2003. And though I still think NYC is the greatest city in the world, I'm truly loving life here in the City of Angels. I'm a writer, reader, and occasional picture-taker.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Then, Now, and Soon

Just wrapping up the Labor day weekend (for my American readers), and I don't know about you, but I didn't labor too hard on it. But I won't say it was neglected either. I did get some work done. And I'll also set up what's on tap.

Let's see...

Looks like the 9/11 essay I wrote for the local paper will be published next week. Did a little revision work on it over the weekend. I'll get y'all the details when it goes up.

Did some coverage work, and I have more of that to do over the next few days, both for Walden, and for a private client (which you should know by now that I do).

Went to see The 40 Year-Old Virgin last night, with some friends. I thought it was really funny, and fast paced enough to overcome the dangers of a primarily one-joke movie. I'm not saying it is a great film or anything, but it was very enjoyable, and I laughed a lot. I will say that the ending, which I thought was hilarious, offers a good lesson. When you have a title that is, as I would call it (and do, in my upcoming scr(i)pt mag article), a "logline title," you know that everyone sees the climax coming (no puns intended). Thus, in order to avoid an anti-climax, you need to at least be surprising in how you show it, if not in what you show. So here they at least went BIG to get some hearty laughs. And I think it works well.

This morning I had a little meet-up with Bill, from over at Disc/ontent. At the screenwriter/blogger gathering, I told him I was interested in picking his brain a bit, since I had written a direct-to-DVD type horror script, his area of expertise. So we traded scripts and agreed to give each other feedback. This was actually perfect timing for me, since now that Hell on Wheels is over in Michael Lee's court, I am planning to work on the revision of my horror script now, during this next week. I would've started on it last week, but I had those other writing deadlines. So I hope to get a lot done on that before the end of the week. Bill had some good feedback for me, and I'm going to have to mix it all with the other feedback I've received, figure out how much revision time it is worth my spending on a script of this nature, and then determine a course of action.

I think that about sums up the screenwriting-related elements of my weekend, tonight, and the week ahead! Hopefully I'll get to see The Constant Gardener at some point as well, and will update you.

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4 Comments:

Blogger Scott the Reader said...

I saw 40-Year-Old Virgin tonight, and liked it a lot. I thought they did a great job balancing the laughs with keeping the characters real and making their thematic points.

Of course, I'm dreading the tide of bad adult sex comedies that are going to be flowing in now...

9:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was also really impressed with Steve Carell's performance. In addition to going "big" like he did in Bruce Almighty or stupid like he did in Anchorman, he also did subtlety really well.

And it will not surprise you to know that I thoroughly enjoyed the last sequence in the movie.

6:18 PM  
Blogger Cunningham said...

Glad I could help, Joel. Thank you as well for the feedback on my stuff...

8:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i agree with you on 40-year old virgin. great, wacky, bizarre ending. i thought it was a sweet film. it has its flaws, but it's still better than most big comedies coming out of studios these days.

11:41 PM  

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