Mission Impossible III (MovieWatch 2007 #2)

My second movie of the year was another "family-friendly" choice, which I viewed with my wife and son.



Mission Impossible III (I refuse to call M:I:3) was a movie I genuinely wanted to see on the big screen - meaning a real movie theater, and not my personal Screening Room. I have been a big fan of the film's director, J. J. Abrams, since first seeing his television pilot episode of Alias. And then he had another little TV show called Lost which I am particularly fond of. So when I heard he was directing the next installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, I was really anxious to see what he could do with a film's budget. He had maintained movie-quality television on a fraction of the coin, so what kind of madness would he unleash on the silver screen? I couldn't wait to see.



But then I started seeing Tom Cruise nearly everywhere. And I found myself, inexplicably, getting sick of him. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a fan of Tom Cruise, the actor. I have said publicly he is the most focused actor of his generation. Every choice he made in his career put him together with the very best directors alive. Kubrick. Scorsese. Coppola. Spielberg. Pollack. Stone. He worked with them all. So the respect is there. But I decided to make an admittedly small statement with my movie dollar, I choose not to see the film in the theater.



But there was no way I was passing it up on DVD.



So how well did Mr. Abrams fair on his first feature film?



Flying colors, baby. This was flat-out entertainment from opening frame to closing credits. Lean, mean and thrilling, it's

easily the best installment of the franchise. Even my wife liked it!



HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

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MovieWatch 2007 Begins!

I love to watch movies (not exactly a news flash), but I have never taken the time to actually document all the films that I watch over the course of a year. I'm going to try and change that this year. My plan is to post all the movies I watch over the next 12 months, and offer a brief review along with a recommendation to either check it out, or skip it.



So what was the first movie viewed for 2007?



The choice was tough - for several reasons. I got several great movies on DVD for Christmas this year. Including Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, the Criterion edition of John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln, starring Henry Fonda, and the six-hour Italian epic The Best of Youth (La Meglio Gioventu) (which was one of my favorite films viewed last year - hence the request for it on DVD!)



But the winner is....









Superman II - the Richard Donner Cut.



Okay, maybe this seems an unlikely choice, but my son had asked me twice (since Christmas) to see it, and I kept delaying (well, actually I was having too much fun playing with our new Xbox 360) but I finally decided it was time to watch a movie, and this was one of the few I got this year, that he had any interest in seeing.



The story behind this special edition of the 1980 sequel to Donner's original Superman, is a fascinating one. It seems that there was a lot of bickering about how much money was going to be spent on the film. Donner had shot a large percentage of the sequel while shooting the original film - including a lengthy exchange between Superman (Christopher Reeve) and his father Jor-El (Marlon Brando).



The film's producer's didn't want to pay Brando the large fee he was requesting for only about 10 minutes of screen time. So they decided they wouldn't use him, and informed Donner that was the way it was going to be.



But for the director, this was unacceptable. A key sequence in the film relied on the emotional impact of father and son facing a decision that will effect the whole world - it just wouldn't work without the father. Words were exchanged, Donner left the picture and Richard Lester took over the helm.



Now, 30 years later, the footage that Donner shot and intended to use in the film has been found, and he's been given an opportunity to finally complete his movie, his way.



And I'm glad he did.



The scenes with Brando are terrific (and not JUST because he's Brando). The movie shows its age a bit, but the overall impact is one of solid entertainment. Gene Hackman is a scene-stealer as the egomaniacal, criminal genius Lex Luthor. Margot Kidder is wonderful as Superman's crush Lois Lane, and Terence Stamp is almost unrecognizable as the evil General Zod.



The movie is a worthy follow-up to the original Superman, which single-handedly invented the modern superhero movie.



RECOMMENDED

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The Write Tools

I learned a lot of things in my high school shop class, such as hub caps make excellent Frisbees; don't put your face under an oil pan who's drain plug you are removing, and creepers + icy driveway = luge racing.

But the most valuable lesson I learned in shop class, came courtesy of my instructor's mantra; The Right Tool For The Job. He said this constantly, and I guess it worked, because whatever it is I might find myself doing (fixing the lawnmower, replacing the water filter, writing a screenplay) - if I'm struggling, I ask myself, am I using the RIGHT TOOL?

Obviously, using a hammer when a screwdriver is needed, will not give you the best results. But tools are not limited to hardware.

I first heard of the concept of a writer's tool box, when reading Stephen King's incredible book, On Writing.

If you don't own this book, you should. No writer (screenwriter or otherwise) should be without it. There are many, MANY, books on writing - I should know, I've bought enough of them - but this is one of my favorites. Early on, King talks about his "writer's toolbox" and it really connected with me. I love the notion of a well-crafted, aged and oiled tool box, containing all the secret weapons of a writer.

The first thing I added to my imaginary tool box:

A bookmark to Dictionary.com

With the combination of Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedia, all in one place, this tool is unbeatable.

But how about some of the more specialized tools?

Jeff Kitchen's book, Writing A Great Movie: Four Advanced Tools for the Dramatist, helped me stock my tool box with some amazingly powerful and specialized tools. Two of them I use constantly.

• The 36 Dramatic Situations
• The Enneagram

The 36 Dramatic Situations is a development tool that was first used over 300 hundred years ago by the Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi. Jeff refers to the "36" as the Periodic Table of the Elements for writers. It basically distills all dramatic potential down to 36 situations. Some examples would be:

(#3) Crime Pursued by Vengeance

(#8) Revolt

(#15) Murderous Adultery

(#22) All Sacrificed for a Passion

(#36) Loss of Loved Ones

It's a great way to get your mind thinking about the dramatic potential of your story.


The Enneagram is a very power tool for character development.
Using a combination of modern science and ancient wisdom, the Enneagram breaks down human personality into nine distinct types. Understanding which of these types applies to your characters, can give you a tremendous amount of insight into how those characters should respond and interact with each other. It's fascinating stuff.

I don't start a script until I have identified the personality types of all my main characters. I find it an invaluable resource for fleshing out believable, three dimensional characters.

Next time I'll talk a bit about software programs I use in my daily writing.

The Last Maverick

Robert Altman, the last of the great maverick filmmakers, died Monday at the age of 81.



His unique cinematic voice spanned more than fifty years of filmmaking, and his resume includes a laundry-list of "must see" movies, including Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, and M*A*S*H. As well as some magical, smaller movies, like McCabe Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, The Long Goodbye, Cookie's Fortune and Gosford Park.

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New Line snatches The Hobbit away from Peter Jackson

It seems like greed will be the primary motivation behind New Line Cinema's decision to deny Peter Jackson the rights to make the prequel to his Academy Award winning trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.

Here in his own words is the explanation from Peter Jackson, as posted on TheOneRing.net

Dear One Ringers,

As you know, there's been a lot of speculation about The Hobbit. We are often asked about when or if this film will ever be made. We have always responded that we would be very interested in making the film - if it were offered to us to make.

You may also be aware that Wingnut Films has bought a lawsuit against New Line, which resulted from an audit we undertook on part of the income of The Fellowship of the Ring. Our attitude with the lawsuit has always been that since it's largely based on differences of opinion about certain accounting practices, we would like an independent body - whether it be a judge, a jury, or a mediator, to look at the issues and make an unbiased ruling. We are happy to accept whatever that ruling is. In our minds, it's not much more complex than that and that's exactly why film contracts include right-to-audit clauses.

However, we have always said that we do not want to discuss The Hobbit with New Line until the lawsuit over New Line's accounting practices is resolved. This is simple common sense - you cannot be in a relationship with a film studio, making a complex, expensive movie and dealing with all the pressures and responsibilities that come with the job, while an unresolved lawsuit exists.

We have also said that we do not want to tie settlement of the lawsuit to making a film of The Hobbit. In other words, we would have to agree to make The Hobbit as a condition of New Line settling our lawsuit. In our minds this is not the right reason to make a film and if a film of The Hobbit went ahead on this basis, it would be doomed. Deciding to make a movie should come from the heart - it's not a matter of business convenience. When you agree to make a film, you're taking on a massive commitment and you need to be driven by an absolute passion to want to get the story on screen. It's that passion, and passion alone, that gives the movie its imagination and heart. To us it is not a cold-blooded business decision.

A couple of months ago there was a flurry of Hobbit news in the media. MGM, who own a portion of the film rights in The Hobbit, publicly stated they wanted to make the film with us. It was a little weird at the time because nobody from New Line had ever spoken to us about making a film of The Hobbit and the media had some fun with that. Within a week or two of those stories, our Manager Ken Kamins got a call from the co-president of New Line Cinema, Michael Lynne, who in essence told Ken that the way to settle the lawsuit was to get a commitment from us to make the Hobbit, because "that's how these things are done". Michael Lynne said we would stand to make much more money if we tied the lawsuit and the movie deal together and this may well be true, but it's still the worst reason in the world to agree to make a film.

Several years ago, Mark Ordesky told us that New Line have rights to make not just The Hobbit but a second "LOTR prequel", covering the events leading up to those depicted in LOTR. Since then, we've always assumed that we would be asked to make The Hobbit and possibly this second film, back to back, as we did the original movies. We assumed that our lawsuit with the studio would come to a natural conclusion and we would then be free to discuss our ideas with the studio, get excited and jump on board. We've assumed that we would possibly get started on development and design next year, whilst filming The Lovely Bones. We even had a meeting planned with MGM executives to talk through our schedule.

However last week, Mark Ordesky called Ken and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on the Hobbit and the LOTR 'prequel'. This was a courtesy call to let us know that the studio was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker for both projects.

Ordesky said that New Line has a limited time option on the film rights they have obtained from Saul Zaentz (this has never been conveyed to us before), and because we won't discuss making the movies until the lawsuit is resolved, the studio is going to have to hire another director.

Given that New Line are committed to this course of action, we felt at the very least, we owed you, the fans, a straightforward account of events as they have unfolded for us.

We have always had the greatest support from The Ringers and we are very sorry our involvement with The Hobbit has been ended in this way. Our journey into Tolkien's world started with a phone call from Ken Kamins to Harvey Weinstein in Nov 1995 and ended with a phone call from Mark Ordesky to Ken in Nov 2006. It has been a great 11 years.

This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness and rancor. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of The Hobbit go and move forward with other projects.

We send our very best wishes to whomever has the privilege of making The Hobbit and look forward to seeing the film on the big screen.

Warmest regards to you all, and thanks for your incredible support over the years.

We got to go there - but not back again ...

Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh

A new documentary We, The Screenwriter,
features some of today's top scribes, including Shane Black, Larry
Brody, and John Mankiewicz, talking about their craft, and the business
of writing for Hollywood.

Here is a teaser trailer.

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Technology and Writing

I'm a tech nut.

I love technology, and I believe that we should - wherever possible - use technology to make our lives better.

So naturally, technology plays a huge part in my writing.

My laptop computer, complete with wireless internet connection, is my primary tool; writing, research, and recreation (all work and no play makes Mike a dull boy...) in one convenient place. Software programs like Movie Magic Screenwriter, Final Draft and Power Structure help me to craft perfectly formatted and flawlessly plotted stories from my fevered imagination.

But despite my love of technology, even I have avoided some examples of it. Such as programs that promise to generate plot lines and interesting characters. No self-respecting writer should allow his tools to determine the tale he's going to tell.

That requires a little skill called storytelling. And sadly this little beauty can't be bought in a software bundle.

All the goodies and gadgets in the world can't make you a better storyteller.

That can only happen through practice.

So if I can offer one bit of advice to any new screenwriters, it's this:

Don't confuse technology with talent.

There is no easy shortcut to writing a good screenplay. Trust me, if there were, we would have found it by now.

Why Are Screenwriters Not Revered?

Why are screenwriters not revered?

It’s something I honestly don’t understand.

If you walk up to any average person and ask them to name their favorite movie, they will respond immediately. Ask them who their favorite actor is – no hesitation in answering. Who is their favorite director? Again, no problem.

But ask that same person who their favorite screenwriter is, and all you will receive in response is a blank stare.

You say, “Robert Towne? Joseph L. Mankiewicz? David Webb Peoples? David Koepp?”

You notice their skulls are beginning to expand at the temples, a pained look on their face, like their head is about to explode.

Why is that?

I’ve seen actors, actresses, and directors appear on talk shows to promote their latest films. But I can’t remember ever seeing a screenwriter on Letterman or Leno or Oprah (unless he is also a director.)

In the theater a playwright’s words are considered sacred. We would no sooner change the words of Shakespeare, than we would change the notes of a Mozart concerto. But in the world of filmmaking, the writer’s work is expected to be altered by any number of other writers, the producer, the actors, any technical advisors, craft service people - you get the idea.

Why is that?

Is it because screenwriters – by nature – tend not to be Type-A personalities? Do writers just let themselves get pushed around?

Because to my way of thinking (and I am biased) screenwriters are the architects of film. They are the ones who design the blueprints. Now yes, others will be responsible for the actual construction, but who do we praise when we look up at a magnificent building, the architect or the construction crew?

I realize it isn’t fair to compare actors and directors to teamsters, but damn it, enough all ready!

So what do you think? Is this a real problem, or am I exaggerating?

What can be done to improve things?

What are your thoughts?