WHAT HOLDS UP AND WHAT DOESN'T

We just watched Animal House for the first time in, oh, ten years, and boy that movie holds up. Brilliantly silly script, brilliant performances, great dialog ("Hey, you f***ed up! You trusted us!"), great soundtrack.

On the other hand we tried to watch Caddyshack the other day and couldn't get through it. A lot of comedies from the seventies and eighties fall flat, others survive.

What makes a movie work then and flop now? What's different about the movies that hit then and still work?

A lot of the ones that fail seem belabored and slow, while His Girl Friday's pace certainly helps it now. The Marx Brothers work great, W. C. Fields seems like an artifact of another time.

Is there any way to divide up comedies that still work and comedies that don't?

And while we're at it, did Abbott and Costello know what they had when they came up with "Who's on First"? Did they know they had a classic, or did it just seem like a gag that might be good for a few laughs?

SHE'S AN ACTRESS, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE

Kids show host Melanie Martinez has been fired by PBS because, years ago, she performed in some suggestive spoof ads about sexual abstinence. The spots were taken off the Internet by their creators years ago, but of course, you can never really erase anything off the Internet:




I guess the parents who complained are worried that their toddlers will fire up their computers and search for their favorite kiddie show host on Youtube, and win up asking for a new toy just like hers for Christmas. Or, worse, ask what the pink thing is for.

(As a parent, I find that 99% of my urge to restrict my kids' exposure to sexual content is the fear of having to explain what he's doing to her.)

Our society is such a bizarre combination of out there and prudish. You can win an Oscar for your movie about two gay guys up on the mountain, but Peter Jackson, er, Ang Lee better not ever try to make a G-rated movie, because (biology to the contrary) sex does not exist in the same universe as kids. You have to decide ten years ago whether you're going to do edgy stuff, because somewhere down the road the prudes will get you fired off your kiddie show because of something you did in an entirely different context.

If you think PBS's behaviour is as clueless as I think it is, there's a petition to sign over at Technical Virgin.

And while we're at it ... what did Paul Reuben's behavior in a movie theater in Florida have to do with his ability to host Pee Wee's Playhouse?

NOW THAT'S A PLUG!

Showrunner and author Lee Goldberg says the best possible thing a fellow can say about another fellow's book:

Alex Epstein's CRAFTY TV WRITING is a terrific new book full of great advice about the craft of episodic writing and insights into the business of television (and I'm not just saying that because he quotes liberally from me and this blog). If I didn't have a book of my own, SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING, to recommend, this is the one I'd tell every aspiring TV writer to buy.

As you might expect from someone who's run shows, Lee has many other smart and useful things to say in his book and his blog; check'em out. Lee's book and the WGA brochure Writing for Episodic TV were the two books I read down in Cape Town when I was running the Charlie Jade writing room. I got Lee's book by download, through Amazon.

Thanks, Lee!

PUSH THE ENVELOPE

This article in Scientific American talks about how chess masters perceive the board differently than novices -- in chunks, not pieces, the way you and I see words, not bundles of letters.

I think I do that, in my field. When I have a screenplay in my head, I sort of "feel" it. I don't think in terms of beats, though beats are what I write down. I think in terms of story structures. In other words I don't see a beginning, a middle, and an end; I see a beginning-middle-and-end that all go together. If you're doing it right, the end has its seeds in the beginning, and the beginning defines the end, so you can hold it all in your head more easily than if you're doing it wrong. Comedians do the same thing. Ken Levine wrote in one of his posts about how Jim Brooks would come up with entire pages of dialog on the spot. It wasn't that he was having one insight after another. He had ONE BIG INSIGHT that gave him the whole run of jokes.

The article also mentions the notion that it takes 10 years to master any craft, whether science or chess or writing; but it's 10 years of "effortful" study, not just doing it. Most people learn how to do something well enough, and then stop learning. You're not really trying to learn to drive better every time you sit down at the wheel; you're just trying to avoid another fender bender. Your mind is not really engaged.

The one thing that all expertise theorists agree on is that it takes enormous effort to build these structures in the mind. Simon coined a psychological law of his own, the 10-year rule, which states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. Even child prodigies, such as Gauss in mathematics, Mozart in music and Bobby Fischer in chess, must have made an equivalent effort, perhaps by starting earlier and working harder than others.

According to this view, the proliferation of chess prodigies in recent years merely reflects the advent of computer-based training methods that let children study far more master games and to play far more frequently against master-strength programs than their forerunners could typically manage. Fischer made a sensation when he achieved the grandmaster title at age 15, in 1958; today's record-holder, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, earned it at 12 years, seven months.

Ericsson argues that what matters is not experience per se but "effortful study," which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one's competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained student can overtake them in a relatively short time. It is interesting to note that time spent playing chess, even in tournaments, appears to contribute less than such study to a player's progress; the main training value of such games is to point up weaknesses for future study.

Are you writing like that? Writing well enough, but not striving to erase your flaws and leverage your strengths? Five years ago my character work was weak, so I challenged myself to write more character based material. Now my stuff is mostly character based, and I can't stand to even watch procedurals any more.

What are your flaws? What are you doing to fix them?

GOOD REVIEWS ALL OVER

Bon Cop is getting pretty good reviews everywhere. Here's Brendan Kelly in the Gazette. And he even mentions the writers!

JANE SAYS CRAFTY TV WRITING IS "CRAFTASTIC!"

The extremely crafty Jane Espenson, whose very craft-focused blog is my #1 blog reading, had some very nice things to say about Crafty TV Writing today.

Thanks for the kind words, Jane! And thanks for reading the book!

If you're new to the blog, please feel free to check out my Blog Fu: a selection of my favorite screenwriting posts. I'm particularly proud of my interviews of writers such as Tom Fontana, Stephen Gallagher and John Rogers.

Or, you can just browse down the page.

THE RED MENACE FOR SALE

I sold my Mustang. That's right, the one in the picture where I'm so happy. And that is how happy a Mustang convertible makes you -- if you don't have to transport your wife, two kids, and a big shaggy dog. If you have those, get a PT Cruiser.

It is, by the way, JUST FINE in the winter. They have superb heaters, these convertibles. You just need winter tires (provided). Lotta people think convertibles are only for places where it is warm and sunny all the time, but the top does, in fact, go UP, providing the exact same amount of warmth and dryness as a thin steel roof.

By the way, if you're living in LA, and sick with alienation -- get a convertible. People will talk to you on the street. Just be prepared to hit the gas if they get a little too intimate.

BON COP PREMIERE

Lisa and I walked up the red carpet last night into the Montreal Opera House and got to watch the official premiere of Bon Cop Bad Cop, a movie I rewrote a summer ago. It was fun. The audience laughed in the right places, and the thriller parts were energetic. Patrick Huard was charming and funny and Colm Feore was perfect: relaxed as an actor playing an uptight character. Watching Colm Feore play an uptight cop stoned out of his mind (they've been caught in a burning marijuana plantation) ought to be worth the price of admission.

Of course, some of the things I rewrote out of the script got re-written back into it. Some of the things I liked had to be cut for production. Filmmaking is not a perfect art. So half of me enjoyed the picture while the other half grumbled at some of the choices. I doubt there's a writer in the world who doesn't experience that watching a movie he worked on.

Everyone's big question is how the film will do. In Quebec there's been a huge marketing push, and many of the funniest performances are the ones in French. It ought to do huge business here. But how will it do in R.O.C. (the Rest of Canada)? I didn't notice ads for it when I was in Toronto. If there is an appetite for a bilingual buddy cop comedy about hockey murders, this film ought to hit big. But you never know what the audience wants until they turn out.