Monday, August 03, 2009

Movies I Like: It's a Wonderful Life

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There are some films we have that are respected and less loved, and some that are beloved and less respected. Citizen Kane...
1 comment:
Saturday, July 04, 2009

One-trick Pony

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"Overall theme leads to character and then on to plot" -- Rod Serling There are two things that inexperienced screenwriters talk a...
2 comments:
Friday, June 05, 2009

Yet another movie I like—The Apartment

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"The best director is the one you don't see." -- Billy Wilder Someone asked me today why I like older movies better than n...
6 comments:
Monday, April 27, 2009

My bad play and what it taught me

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“Never bore people.”-- Billy Wilder When I was in the 8th grade I was a big Star Trek fan. At that time there was no movie and no Next Ge...
2 comments:
Monday, April 13, 2009

Another Movie I Like: 12 Angry Men

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“I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost e...
2 comments:
Friday, March 27, 2009

Movies I like

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"I know a woman who looks like a bullfrog but that don't mean she's the damn thing's mother." -- Moses Pray (Paper ...
4 comments:
Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Two Questions That Drive Me Crazy

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First some backstory: When I was a kid there were no VCRs. Only rich people had them; they were still rare for the rest of us. I desperatel...
7 comments:
Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Perfect Solution

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I would like to take back the word “perfectionist.” Let’s start by assuming that perfection is something we can actually attain. For instan...
3 comments:
Sunday, October 12, 2008

Our Very Own Library of Alexandria

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The Library of Alexandria was the largest library in the ancient world. The aim of this ancient Egyptian library was to collect the world’s ...
2 comments:
Thursday, September 18, 2008

Bad Shark, Good Movie

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Back in the days before CGI, my roommate was a special effects makeup artist. At that time I had a few friends in this field. There was a...
8 comments:
Friday, August 29, 2008

The Best Writing Advice I Ever Got

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One thousand years ago, when I was a teenager, I went a sci-fi convention in Seattle. This was probably 1978 or ’79. In those days these kin...
2 comments:
Friday, July 11, 2008

Water Shortage

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Several years ago I wrote a script that had as one of its elements an army of ghosts. Everyone who read the screenplay swore it would sell...
7 comments:
Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The End

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"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop." -- Lewis Carroll Before I launch into this post I want to ...
3 comments:
Thursday, December 20, 2007

Turn up the contrast (or why we like crazy astronauts)

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I often hear people say how much they love a film because it is “dark.” They wax poetic about dark films because they feel that they are mo...
2 comments:
Monday, December 03, 2007

Theme Beats Logic

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“Don’t give me logic, give me emotion.” — Billy Wilder’s instructions to his writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond Let’s start to explore this ide...
2 comments:
Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The ultimate sophistication

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"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -- Leonardo da Vinci Da Vinci’s quote on the sophistication of simplicity has been al...
6 comments:
Sunday, August 05, 2007

The Secret of Magic

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Years ago a good friend of mine was an apprentice film editor at the same time as he was learning carpentry from his father. One day the fil...
5 comments:
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

A Genius - Part 2 (or Chaplin's Blog)

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I have said it before: The people who made films "in the old days" were better at their craft than those who make them now. I have...
18 comments:
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A Genius -- Part 1

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"I like Keaton's [films]. But Chaplin is the best of 'em all." -- Howard Hawks Charlie Chaplin was a genius. I know, I...
6 comments:
Tuesday, May 01, 2007

FLIP-FLOPS

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When I say flip-flops I don’t mean shoes. Flip-flops is the name that I give characters who are opposites, but exchange character traits. O...