Two or three days ago the writers of five scripts where honored as recipients of the 2024 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. A total of 5,500 scripts, from 80 countries, were submitted for the 2024 competition. Please scan the following quickie synopses of the five winning scripts and tell me there isn’t something in the water that’s causing strange behavior. Please indicate which screenplay you think will turn into the most painful film.
1. “Miss Chinatown”, written by Alysha Chan and David Zarif (Los Angeles, CA). Capsule description: Jackie Yee follows in her mother’s footsteps on her quest to win the Los Angeles Miss Chinatown pageant.
2. “Fake-A-Wish”, written by Colton Childs (Waco, TX). Capsule description: Despite their 40-year age gap, and the cancer treatment confining them to their small Texas town, two gay men embark on a road trip to San Francisco to grant themselves the Make-A-Wish they’re too old to receive.”
3. “Gunslinger Bride”, written by Charmaine Colina (Los Angeles, CA). Capsule description: “With a bounty on her head, a young Chinese-American gunslinger poses as a mail order bride to hide from the law and seek revenge for her murdered family.”
4. “If I Die in America”, written by Ward Kamel (Brooklyn, NY). Capsule description: “After the sudden death of his immigrant husband, an American man’s tenuous relationship with his Muslim in-laws reaches a breaking point as he tries to fit into the funeral they’ve arranged in the Middle East. Adapted from the SXSW® Grand Jury-nominated short film of the same name.”
5. “The Superb Lyrebird & Other Creatures”, written by Wendy Britton Young (West Chester, PA). Capsule description: “A neurodivergent teen who envisions people as animated creatures, battles an entitled rival for a life-changing art scholarship, while her sister unwisely crosses the line to help.”
“I’m glad Josh Greebaum made the doc and I’m glad I watched it, but like a lot of reality TV, it’s a tad dishonest. Harper Steele is afraid how the middle-of-the-country types will treat her, and the doc makes clear that they are actually very accepting. Occasionally in the doc, Steele enters these establishments without companion/costar Will Ferrell, but there is always a camera present. Obviously.
“That camera presence, no doubt, inhibits people from expressing their real, deep-down opinion. Often in the doc restaurant servers and others call Steele ‘sir’, and she has to correct them. But if she weren’t sitting next to a movie star, how would these people react? The camera is too strong and unrecognized a force in this narrative. Then again, would I have read a memoir titled ‘Harper Steele’? No.
“The doc made me like Ferrell a lot. There’s a sadness, though, in how often he tells Harper that she is ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful.’ Did he ever feel the need to tell the previous male version of Steele that he was ‘handsome?”
…for acknowledging in an ad what everyone has been saying since last May , which is that Francis Coppola‘s Megalopolis is more nuts than audacious. This is called “getting in front of the controversy, and then owning it.” This is a little bit like MGM marketing’s decision to acknowledge the fact that counter-culture viewers of 2001: A Space Odyssey were tripping (in some cases literally) through the lightshow finale, and adopting an audience-friendly slogan: “The Ultimate Trip.”
I am actually looking forward to liking this film, and that’s largely due to my understanding that it’s highly dismissive of typical D.C. fanboy expectations. This in itself turns me on.
Australian critic Peter Gray: “In the same way that it was quite the baffling result that 2019’s Joker ‘laughed’ its way to a billion dollar haul at the box office, Joker: Folie à Deux and all its ‘fuck you’ energy to WB fandom and mainstream appeal is a strikingly anti-audience effort that deserves praise for being so bold with its mentality, but not for its final result as a narrative we can invest in.
“Whether or not writer/director Todd Phillips has anything intentional to say or not with his off-putting psychological drama is best left to the audiences to decipher, but the fact that he’ll no doubt [attract] said audiences to theatres this weekend for a film that’s so aggressively subversive and oppositional to what the fans expect is the biggest laugh of all; and it’s the only one this taxing sequel is going to get.”
“Todd Phillips and Scott Silver deserve credit for going their own way with a canonical DC character. But it’s difficult to imagine hard-core Batman universe aficionados being thrilled by a movie that — OK, this is definitely a spoiler — would seem to wipe out an entire future for a key nemesis enshrined in comic-book mythology, rendering him a sad, broken man.”
The only voters who will explore or even casually scan special prosecutor Jack Smith‘s 165-page filing, which has been publicly released and which focuses at length upon Donald Trump‘s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, are those who are already in the pro-Harris, anti-Trump tank.
Pro-Trump, red-state bumblefucks won’t even glance at it, of course, and will hail Trump as a martyr and say that Smith’s filing is a grossly unfair attempt to influence the 11.5.24 election, etc.
New York‘s Herb Scribnerreported the story today. The things that jilted ex-lovers will do to keep things going. Nuzzi’s lawsuit is unproven but would Nuzzi have filed it if she didn’t have the proof horses that affirm her argument and then some?
…in a family relationship film, co-written by DDL and his twentysomething, red-haired son Ronan Day-Lewis and directed by the latter. But dear God, the title of the film is so precious-sounding, so dandified, so high-falutin’and Charlie Kaufman-esque (remember Anomalisa?) that it will probably repel or elude 97% of potential moviegoers or streaming viewers out there….trust me.
It’s called Anemone, and while the word signifies a kind of flower, to most people it will probably sound like an exotic disease.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m delighted that DDL is back on the stick. I’ll probably watch Pheromone…sorry, Anemone at least two or three times theatrically. I love pretentious-sounding titles and the movies they adorn, seriously, and I’m literally humming with excitement about this one. Even though we all understand that this is purely DDL’s gesture of love and support for Ronan, which makes you wonder how good the script is.
There’s been a slight press dispute about the title. It’s almost certainly called Anemone (according to Variety and other outlets) but if you’re inclined to believe Daily Mail reporter Amelia Wynne, it may instead be called Avelyn.
If you ask me the Day-Lewis clan probably wants the Anemone title to repel or elude or at least sightly confuse. It’s their way of saying “we’re too sensitive and attuned to the invisible, spiritual beauty of life to use a schlubby common-man hot dog title, and if you don’t like our decision….well, sorry.”
There would be more interest in this film among the schmoes, trust me, if Anemone was called Flapdoodle or Manchester Soup or Sod Off, Dad! or Advanced Toenail Fungus.
Either way DDL, 67, is back in business after retiring from acting in 2017, when he turned 60.
DDL’s Anemone costars are Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green.
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman is a staunch ally of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, but in a Variety essay penned late last night he had the moxie to step back and coolly assess who performed “better” in the Walz-Vance debate. I don’t like his verdict — I think the vp debate was a draw so I don’t fucking agree with it — but his words nonetheless put a chill into my system.
I wrote last night that Walz “is a smart, decent, honorable fellow, but J.D. Vance is a taller, smoother operator with blue eyes and a nicely trimmed goatee. They’ve both indicated that they respect each other. Hell, they almost even like each other. Nobody’s doing any bitch-slapping here.
“I think the debate was a draw. Walz closed strongly, especially when discussing he Affordable Care Act and the criminal chaos of Jan. 6th. Vance did a little bit better, I think, during the first half-hour. Vance’s lying aside and attempts to sane-wash the crazy, it was a reasonable discussion for the most part. I don’t think it changes the Presidential race at all.”
“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are fighting to save America,” Gleiberman wrote. “Yes, they are, and I believe they’re the ones to do it. But the way you save America is by winning the election. And on that score, JD Vance gave an astonishingly impressive performance that was all wrapped up in the aura of a winner.
“With those piercing eyes and that perfectly coiffed hair, his FM-DJ-meets-Fox-News voice, and his absolute refusal to get riled about anything, even if it was one of his pet ideologies (like the evils of immigration), he worked the debate stage with remarkable panache.
“Vance had confidence; he had calm; he had a Mona Lisa smile that allowed him to stay above the fray. And, to my surprise, he had a touch of what Ronald Reagan did — the ability to make all his statements sound like a form of assurance. That was true even when he was selling pure malarkey.”
HE to Gleiberman: You’re basically saying that Walz is a better, more humane and highly principled man and a Minnesota straight-shooter but last night he put out antsy, nerve-jangled body and facial signals while Vance is a fucking liar who’s serving a total sociopath criminal beast but he lied in a very smooth and confident and well-coiffed Reaganesque way. So yay Vance!
Vance was mainly running for the 2028 MAGA presidency.”
Okay, Owen wasn’t actually saying “yay, Vance!” He was trying to discuss the thing that woke media never talks about: what actually wins elections. The fact that they don’t talk about this enough — and that the Republicans do — is part of the reason Kamala may, believe it or not, lose in a squeaker. Owen was trying to call the debate in a reality-based, non-woke way, and ‘yay Vance!’ has nothing to do with it.
9:05 pm: Bad camera decisions…we missed the walk-ons, the handshakes…Walz’s forceful reply on Israel-Iran is used to lob grenades at Vance. Vance replies with a generic, this-is-who-I-am stump speech, which then segues into an attack on Biden’s foreign policy.
Vance: “Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure”…WHAT? Walz furiously scribbling notes. Love that deep, raspy voice. Vance is lying and misrepresenting, but he’s younger, taller and thinner than Walz & his delivery is cool and measured. He’s doing okay. Walz is also doing well. Frank-sounding, lots of statistics, forthright delivery. And then right back to his notes.
9:17 pm: How many solar panels are being made in China, and how many here in the U.S.? Southern border immigration, “stop the bleeding”, fentanyl smuggling.
Walz: Trump torpedoed a Mexican immigrant bill “because he wanted a campaign issue to run on.” A verbal scuffle between Vance and moderators….Vance won’t stop yapping it up while the moderators are trying to adhere to structure and procedure.
Vance is really running for himself as a 2028 MAGA candidate — he knows Trump won’t be running in ’28, and he’s better at this than Trump ever has been or will be.
Frank Luntz focus group: Walz and Vance are better at digging into the issues than Harris and Trump were. Vance is a bigger liar — Walz is less combative than he could be. He’s a straight shooter, but he’s too decent of a guy to go in for the kill.
9:35 pm: Walz’s defense of Biden-Harris’s economic record is fast, vigorous and factual. Walz is reviewing his career. Travelling to China 35 years ago, but he “misspoke” about the timing of the visit. “I’ve learned a lot about China…now look, my community knows who I am…I’ve not been perfect but my commitment has been there from the beginning.”
9:45 pm: Vice-presidents don’t make policy. The vice-presidency “isn’t worth a warm bucket of spit,” as John Nance Garner once said. Vice-presidents are ceremonial figureheads. They control nothing — strictly backup.
Walz is recounting the story of the late Amber Thurman, who died due to a slowup of procedure due to the absence of Roe vs. Wade regulations.
My head is spinning. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat….ratta-ratta-ratta. I can’t keep up with all the point-counterpoint…whew. But these guys are evenly matched. Nobody’s losing or winning.
10 pm: Should parents be held responsible for school shootings? The easy availability of automatic weaponry is obviously at the root of this.
Walz: My 17 year-old son witnessed something violent close by. In Minnesota we enacted “red flag laws, backup checks.” Finland doesn’t allow these horrible things to happen. We can keep our weapons and still make this work. Sometimes it’s just the [availabilty of] guns. Death from at-home suicides. Kids getting guns and accidentally shooting themselves.
Vance is making an excellent case that despite his lies and evasions, he’s a better, more issue-oriented and mature-minded debater than Donald Trump.
Walz: Kamala Harris will stand by Obamacare (i.e., the ACA) and you will not suffer if stricken by a disese because of the pre-existing conditions clause.
Tim Walz is a smart, decent, honorable fellow, but J.D. Vance is a taller, smoother operator with a nicely trimmed goatee. They’ve both indicated that they respect each other. Hell, they almost even like each other. Nobody’s doing any bitch-slapping.
I think the debate was a draw. Walz closed strongly, especially when discussing he Affordable Care Act and the criminal chaos of Jan. 6th. Vance did a little bit better, I think, during the first half-hour. Vance’s lying aside and attempts to sane-wash the crazy, it was a reasonable discussion for the most part. I don’t think it changes the Presidential race at all.
“We may be about to enter what could be the most dangerous moment in the history of the modern Middle East: a ballistic missile war between Iran and Israel, which would almost certainly bring in the United States on Israel’s side and could culminate in a full-blown U.S.-Israeli effort to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”
Good Marrakech paragraph, posted on 12.6.10: “Everyone you run into in Marrackech is polite and calm and gentle to a fault. There’s apparently no such thing as an impolite Marrakech resident.
“Okay, I did run into a couple of ruffians on a bike on Saturday night who tried to assault me and steal my wallet — I later named them Dick and Perry — but I pushed one of them in the chest and told them both to fuck off and then ran in the opposite direction and they were good enough not to follow, so even the thieves and the roughnecks are…well, not exactly polite but accommodating.
“And there’s no indoor smoking ban. And there are no helmet laws so you can scooter down the street with the wind blowing through your hair. And the food is wonderful. And the energy in the main old-town square (Jemaa el Fnaa) is so exciting and heavenly.
“And there are horse carts all over the city, and sometimes as you’re scootering down the street you can smell horseshit, and that is a very good thing. The older you get and the more plastic and corporate the world becomes, the better horseshit smells.”
“The sickest I’ve ever been happened in Marrakech in the summer of ’76. It came after eating a dish of Couscous at a rooftop medina restaurant. I awoke around 1 ayem, weak and whimpering. I spent the next twelve hours ‘making love to the toilet,’ as my girlfriend of the time put it.
“But there was nothing jolting or spasm-like going on within. Those twelve hours of agony were more about laying down and surrendering to the void. Around 3 or 4 am I said to myself, ‘Okay, this might be it…I might die. But at least when I depart this awful nausea will stop, and I can merge with the infinite in peace.’”
I spoke a couple of times to Herbert Ross when I was a Cannon press kit writer. It was in the fall of 1987 when his Mikhail Baryshnikov film, Dancers, was being prepared for release. During our second chat I was asking him about something I wanted to put into the Dancers press kit, and somehow I miscommunicated my intention. Ross got the idea I was trying to debate him.
“Look, this isn’t that kind of conversation!,” he said sternly, almost shouting. I immediately backpedaled and grovelled. “No, no, Mr. Ross…I apologize, that’s not what I meant,” etc. I cooled him down but after I hung up, I said to myself, “Jesus God, that is one fierce hombre! He was ready to take my head off!”
Of course, any director who’s elbowed his or her way into mainstream Hollywood and maintained power in that realm over any period of time has to be tough as nails.
“All strong directors are sons of bitches,” John Ford allegedly said to screenwriter Nunnally Johnson sometime in the late ’40s or early ’50s. His point was that Johnson, in Ford’s view, was too much of a nice, thoughtful, fair-minded guy to cut it as a director. Directors basically can’t be too mellow or gentle or accommodating. They need to try and be reasonable and constructive about the usual problems, but they also need to be tough, pugnacious and manipulative mo’fos in order to get what they want. And if they’re too deferential, they won’t last.”
Contrast my Ross anecdote with his analysis of The Last of Sheila (’73), which he produced and directed between early ’72 and early ’73: “If you have a group of people on a ship, the ship becomes a metaphor for existence,” he said. “You can’t help it. It’s not a symbol one strives for, but it does happen. It’s not a picture about film people, it’s about people…I’ll tell you what this picture is about. It’s about civilization and barbarism. You cannot make up for the absence of civilization.”
Set on a yacht off the Cote d’Azur, Sheila is about venal, barbaric behavior, sure, but “not about film people”? Not about talented but necessarily opportunistic scrappers who are invaruably shrewd, manipulative, gregarious, clever, hungry and deceptive? Of course it is!James Coburn‘s producer character certainly meets the standard. The whole film, really, radiates the way things felt back then (pre-Watergate Nixon administration)…a certain jaded, opportunistic, defiantly anti-spiritual mindset.
Sheila is a darkly playful parlor game about seven dodgy, flinty, cynical people playing ruthless mind games with each other. It’s a glamorous vacation film, quite cynical and entirely cerebral. There’s no trusting the emotional moments, of course, because the players are such gifted liars so it doesn’t exactly radiate depth. But thanks to Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, it’s very sharply written.
The irony for me is that a character who seems like the least malicious and easily the most mild-mannered, sensible-sounding fellow on board — Richard Benjamin‘s Tom Parkman, a screenwriter — turns out to be the worst of them.
On-screen, I mean. Off-screen, the worst may have been costar Raquel Welch.
According to an 11.12.72 Chicago Tribune piece titled “Raquel Plans Suit Against Director”, there were also complaints about Welch’s behavior.
Welch announced she was suing director Herbert Ross for assault and battery as a result of an incident in her dressing room. She claimed she had to flee to London during the shoot “to escape physical harm”. Warner Bros. later issued a statement supporting Ross and criticizing Welch for her “public utterances”.
Excerpt: “Shooting the monastery sequence just off Cannes proved to be troublesome for Welch. Gale force winds and rain disrupted the night shoot, and Welch was reluctant to leave her Venice hotel for fear of getting stuck in the storm.”
Mason said that Welch “was the most selfish, ill-mannered, inconsiderate actress that I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with”.
McShane: “Raquel Welch isn’t the most friendly creature. She seems to set out with the impression that no one is going to like her.”
From an AFI catalogue: “An 11.22.72 Variety article reported that the film was made for a little over $2,000,000.
“During production actress Raquel Welch, who portrayed ‘Alice Wood,’ took a brief leave from the film to promote her 1972 film Kansas City Bomber. As her absence necessitated a change in the shooting schedule, according to the article, James Mason reportedly called her departure ‘inconsiderate.’ Her public rebuttal and subsequent criticism of the film, as well as Warner Bros.’ disapproval of her comments, were widely reported in the press.
“An 11.15.72 Variety news item reported that production was temporarily shut down due to threats by Black September, the Palestinian terrorist organization, which took offense at the number of participants in the film who were Jewish.”
