Abba Song movie

If it is, I will.

If it isn’t, I won’t, but I might be able to let you know where it is available, unless, of course, I can’t. The law is the law and I wouldn’t want to stop a millionaire getting their royalty payment if they don’t want it posted here.

You get the picture; Blake’s influence on the world of screenplay writing has been immense. To hear of his death from cardiac arrest this week at just 51 is a bolt from the blue.

Most movie goers won’t know his name and what he did; what he brought to the industry.

His Save The Cat books have shown screen writers the world over not only many ways in which to prepare planning for the script, but also (in his second book) show how this works in tangible practice. We were due a third book from him later this year: Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble for Screenwriters to Get Into… And Out Of. I understand it is finished, but obviously his family will have a say in what happens next.

Many people have been inspired to write more due this one man’s efforts to show and teach us all how to better our skills. His books will live on for a long time and I’m sure we’ll all still be talking about his planning methods for years to come.

The best way we can honour his loss is to write, with your beat sheet by your side.

To read the review of his first Save The Cat book, click here.

Patricia Highsmith wrote good quality thriller novels. Just go look at her Google listings and search out ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, for example. However, it’s her first book, ‘Strangers on a Train’ that is on the best read list. It was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock and then a play that has toured the world. I’ve seen it twice in two different adaptations and it clings right through to the end.

Her 1962 novel, ‘Cry of the Owl’ became a French movie in 1987 – you can still get it on DVD.

Now it’s the turn of an updated version with the screenplay written by Jamie Thraves (who also directed). He’s completed a difficult task with generous results.

Julia Stiles gives the movie it’s big star name. She plays Jenni, who has her own personal stalker. What the stalker didn’t know was that Jenni was a tad more strange than he. She invited him into her house and into her life, dumping her fiancé at the same time.

The twists and turns mix between the expected and the unpredictable. The stalker’s ex wife, played by Caroline Dhavernas, while owning a serious disposition herself, teams up with Jenni’s ex fiancé to rid the world of the stalker. The stalker is now appearing like the most sane character in the whole film. Even the police officers appear to have 40 cents to the dollar.

Paddy Considine, as the stalker, is excellent. This may not be the first movie where the victim falls in love with the stalker, but we end up feeling so sorry for this stalker we want him just to leave his home, his city, his country and just get the hell out of there.

A couple of the twists are quite, well, silly. There are also a couple of coincidences (which move the film along nicely) that are just too way out to be believable. We’ll forgive them, though, as this script moves us in different directions, leaving you believing that a bad day can’t get any worse, but it can.

You’ll say you guessed the ending because it’s quite obvious, but did you really? My guess is you didn’t really expect the way it turned out. Let me know after you’ve seen this agreeable thriller.

I particularly like the acting from Caroline Dhavernas. She’s expertly playing an ex-wife, with more than a small grudge against her ex-husband. Their views of the past don’t tell the same story. The way she jokes about not wanting a divorce and then saying it was just a gag – she does want one – are riviting and sad. If ever you should meet such a person, don’t be afraid to leave the continent on the next airplane. It could save your sanity and your life.

I hope it gets a general release soon. It’s too good to go straight to DVD.

3 stars***

Much fun and entertainment arrives with this Disney movie. It’s suitable for (almost) all age ranges, which as we know, increases food sales at the cinema. Some young kids under 9 might get scared at a few anxiety driven points.

The story is far-fetched and that doesn’t matter because they make it believable and force you to show an interest in all the lead characters.

Two aliens (who look just like humans) team up with a Las Vegas cab driver (played well by Dwayne Johnson). They need to carry out some actions on earth so that it’s saved and so they can get back to their family. They’re being pursued by a guy who might have been in the Terminator.

This movie has been made before, as Escape to Witch Mountain and Return to Witch Mountain.

The screenplay is well written by Andy Fickman, Mark Bomback and Matt Lopez. They’re obviously taken the school of screenplay writing in Hollywood minute by minute standards and apply this knowledge magnificently.

I haven’t read the original novel by Alexander Key so I hope someone can tell me if this movie maintains any resemblance of the novel.

The special effects are worked in well without being too over the top. You kind of accept them as being real and capable from the Aliens, but the cab driver does become too strong in beating off the terminator impersonator when the information we’re given states that this isn’t possible.

This aside, it’s a pleasant ride through the 99 minutes with nothing to take your mind off the movie. The music from former ‘Yes’ man Trevor Rabin fits well without taking over. A sure sign that all’s well with this production.

I know that I appear to be the only person on the planet who didn’t like this movie. Actually, I know another, so there’s at least two of us. I thought this was going to be a comedy but I didn’t laugh once. I did snigger once, which is probably why I scored it so high.

I also know that this film is a send up of a collection of other movies and film people, particularly the studio heads. Whichever way I tried, I couldn’t find it funny and I do so like to laugh . All the reviews I read told me it was a good to very good movie. Oh, how I wished it was. After all, I finally got around to seeing this movie months after its release. I wished I’d stayed at home and watched paint dry.

On a positive note, you can see where they spent the $120+ million budget. The special effects were excellent; worthy of any James Bond movie. It’s such a shame that they were wasted in this script.

The premise of the screenplay is excellent and probably very different from other pitches doing the rounds over the years. Essentially to take a group of actors and place them in a real life situation is ridiculous and therefore, comedic.

Tom Cruise completed a superb task in acting out the part of a mad (some will say ‘normal’) head of studio. He was so way over the top that I’m sure many studio heads will be searching to see if they were part of the character’s make up.

My main loathing with this movie was not in Robert Downey, Jr’s make up and wonderful transformation from an American to an Australian with a move back to being a African American, but with his new speech pattern, where at least half of what he said/mumbled was lost in the wilds of the script. I’ve no idea what he said half the time which is not a problem I ever have with African Americans. I know they thought they were clever, the directors/writers and actors, but it slaughtered the movie for me, which I found generally poor before this problem arose.

It looks like the movie will make some profit after DVD sales, but I won’t want to have a copy as a present. I’ll have to pass it on to a charity shop because life is finite and I don’t have those two hours to waste again.

1 star*

This movie is not the worst film of all time, but it tries so hard to be the worst one you could ever conceive, and it fails; there are worse ones. It’s not supposed to be a comedy at all, but any regular film watcher will be in fits at the alarming rate of impending mistakes. It is excellent film school fodder to see what you can and shouldn’t do with a movie in terms of casting, script, music, direction, camera work and editing.

Where to start? The screenplay has so many clichés and expected lines you can almost play guess the next line and be correct several times. You don’t need to know the film to be able to exactly map out the plot sequence. You just know what’s going to happen next and how it will all end. The final twist is so obvious you can’t believe they actually used it. Didn’t they ask for opinions first?

Clue; next time go to this website: http://filmandmoviemaking.com/screenplay-analysis/

If the screenwriters had spent some money getting a professional to look over their script and give a coverage report before they went into production, many of the problems may have been ironed out earlier.

The dialogue was quite awful at times; many, many times.

Here’s the blurb so you know what it’s all about:

A one-time victim who had previously suffered at the hands of her violent husband joins the police force in hopes of helping others in her situation, only to find her painful past emerging from a prison cell in director Stephen Lieb’s tense revenge thriller. Bonnie Blackwell was left for dead after being beaten to within an inch of her life by her sadistic ex-husband. Bonnie is a fighter, though, and after recovering from her injuries she quickly determines to join the Los Angeles Police Department and devote her life to the prevention of domestic violence. Her husband has recently been released from prison, however, and now in order to move on with her life this former victim must make one final stand against the man who nearly took it all.

While the film stock used is excellent (well perfect for television and download because it won’t be on at a cinema near you) some of the camera work leaves a lot to be desired. There’s a classic shot of the police lady being angry with a crook. The angle of the camera ensures that we can’t see any of the anger in the actresses’ eyes as the peak cap completely covers the top half of her face.

Music should bring the whole movie together. It shouldn’t take over. The one Roland keyboard they ordered for this job is often played at volumes so loud you can’t tell what else if happening or it varies so much when people stop talking, rather than blending in.

The foley work needs improvement. The husband was slapping the wife around the face, but the slaps looked so soft they might not even have hurt. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have hurt in real life where it’s an abysmal action by any weak person, but in a movie it’s got to look like it hurts. The foley artist that put the slaps on later must have collected his noises from someone wanting to speed up their horse just before the race finish line. Even then the number of slaps didn’t agree with the number of blows from the male actor.

Regrettably the music doesn’t match what’s going on far too often. We have scenes of a woman being beaten up by her husband but the music tells us that we’re either at a fairground or a vampire movie.

The stunt work should be good. The writer, star, producer Mimi Lesseos is a great star in the world of stunt work. She can be seen in Million Dollar Baby, The Scorpion King and Gangs of New York showing off her stunt skills. Unfortunately on two occasions where she’s helping her husband out of the building (once through a door and once through a window, it’s so easy to see the stunt man jump and make the most of his quick directional movement. It looks like he’s being thrown by cannon he moves so fast in comparison to the effort (lack of or small amount) prearranged in the throwing.

Editing could have improved the movie. I get the feeling that it was the editor’s first time with the knife and he missed by inches a few times. Scenes need to flow generally speaking, but sometimes you want a complete stop and then start again. This movie shows you how to get those two the wrong way around.

Former pro-wrestler, Mimi Lesseos wrote the story and the screenplay (with Thomas Quinn). She was also the producer and the star of the movie so we can guess it must have been medium to low budget, but low budget doesn’t always have to mean that a movie looks cheap. It can be well made while costing very little.

Direction, although the actors obviously ignored such treats, was by Stephen Leib. At times it feels like a school play being filmed where the actors don’t know when to start their lines or in fact, what their lines are. They appear to be looking for their blocking (starting positions) while wondering when to start speaking.

Mimi’s new film is called ‘Double Duty.’ I sure hope she’s learnt a lot from her involvement in ‘Personal Vendetta.’

At the end of the day, Mimi has now made a few movies and whether they’re low budget or not, good or not, she can be proud to have put so many movies together. I hope they sell for more than the one dollar I paid for my DVD. She’s been there and cut her movie. Many people may moan about the qualities of movies like this one, but they have procrastinated so much they haven’t even got past the starting blocks.

Direct from the desk of www.FILMandMOVIEmaking.com, The FAMM nominations for 2008 are in and here they are:

Please hum along to: da da da, da da da, dah

Best film/movie:

• The Bank Job
• Body of Lies
• The Dark Knight
• Mamma Mia!
• Taken

Best screenplay:

• Barry Levy – Vantage Point
• Catherine Johnson – Mamma Mia!
• David Loughery – Lakeview Terrace
• Guy Ritchie – Rocknrolla
• William Monahan – Body Of Lies

Best actor:

• Ben Kingsley – Elegy
• Don Cheadle – Traitor
• Jason Statham – The Bank Job
• Liam Neeson – Taken
• Tom Wilkinson – Rocknrolla

Best actress:

• Charlize Theron – Hancock
• Jodie Foster – Nims Island
• Meryl Streep – Mamma Mia!
• Penélope Cruz – Elegy
• Saffron Burrows – The Bank Job

Best musical:

• Mamma Mia!
• Mamma Mia!
• Mamma Mia!
• Mamma Mia!
• Mamma Mia!

Best score/music:

• Burn After Reading – Carter Burwell
• Mamma Mia! – Abba (Mostly Benny & Bjorn)
• Rocknrolla – soundtrack
• Shine A Light –Rolling Stones
• The Dark Knight – Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard

Best director:

• D.J. Caruso – Eagle Eye
• Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
• Guy Ritchie – Rocknrolla
• Phyilda Lloyd – Mamma Mia!
• Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon

Best animation:

• Beverley Hills Chihuahua
• Bolt
• Igor
• Kung Fu Panda
• Madagascar Escape 2 Africa

Best short film:

• Gone Fishing by Chris Jones

No others nominated

Special FAMM mention 2008:

• There are no nominations for this award; it goes direct to the winner and we’ll tell you why!

If you favourites aren’t mentioned, please leave a comment to say who you think should have been included and/or who you believe should win these prestigious awards. If your faves are not here, it means we were too busy writing screenplays and missed your movie choice!

The winners will be announced on January 10th, 2009.

Finally, the DVD we’ve all (well most of us) have been waiting for; the release of the Mamma Mia! movie on DVD.

Release dates vary around the world; in Australia it’s been available since 6th November, which may explain why there are so many copies available for free, out there on the internet and down the high street in those (cheating) cheap DVD sales where none of the artists, especially the screenplay writer, gets any money; royalties. Someone even had the cheek to use the contact page to offer me a copy a month ago!

I would guess the screenplay will be available online very soon as someone uses their DVD to scribe the script by use of their play and pause buttons. If you’re the first to do this or if you see a copy, please send me the link.

For a legitimate copy, the UK is releasing a single DVD whereas in the US the Mamma Mia! DVD is available as a two disk special edition.

I just have to decide whether to get one sent over from the UK or fly over and pick one up. With international postage expenditure the cost will be about the same, but with flying I could get it two or three days earlier.

DVD content:

Single-disc features
• Sing-along
• “The Name of the Game” deleted musical number
• Feature commentary with director Phyllida Lloyd

Two-disc special edition features:

The widescreen single-disc includes a bonus disc which includes:
• Deleted scenes
• Outtakes
• The Making of Mamma Mia! featurette
• Anatomy of a Musical Number: “Lay All Your Love on Me”
• Becoming a Singer featurette
• Behind the scenes with Amanda
• On Location in Greece featurette
• A Look Inside Mamma Mia! featurette
• “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” music video
• Björn Ulvaeus cameo

Many favourite websites are also listing a Mamma Mia gift set DVD. It all comes in a nice flashy box with a hardback journal for a few dollars/pounds more.

Please add your own reviews within the comments section.

The bottom line: buy it and wear it out. It’ll be a top seller and top of DVD charts all over the world. It’s still running at my local cinema complex, after all this time. I might just go and see it again on the big screen before I get the DVD for the small screen.

It could be the most given Christmas present of 2008!

Your antagonist is usually a person, because it’s easier for your hero to be struggling against someone they can physically fight with, talk with and understand the differences between them. They don’t have to be human, though. They can be an alien, they can be the sea, they can be a house, but you will need to see them/it at some stage so your audience can get confirmed proof of defeat.

The level of conflict must increase as your writing continues. At each stage the task must be harder; the battle must be longer, the conflict more difficult to overcome than the previous set. Racking up the level of conflict is a screen writer’s target ensuring that it reaches a mighty crescendo at the end of your film.

There can be a number of challengers that wish to ensure the status quo is not maintained. They must always have one person/alien/tornado that is much worse than the rest. The first few can be there for training purposes so your hero learns to overcome stronger and stronger challenges.

As your protagonist manages to find a way to win small battles, the antagonist will be searching for ways to keep the hero’s goals in the distance by placing more and more obstacles in the way.

The best antagonist has a nice side to them somewhere. The audience will want to find some part of the anti hero that they can link to, to believe that the adversary could change, if shown the way, to be a thoroughly decent fellow.

When writing your conflict, you’ll need to find a large enough difference that can be maintained throughout the entire movie. So the conflict must be believable in the sense that if it doesn’t look as though it’s a big enough challenge, your reader will give up and your script won’t see the light of day any further with that person.

The hurdle must always look like one that can be beaten, but you must spend almost your entire screenplay acting as though your hero can’t find a way to beat it.

If you are able to have both lead opposite characters in scenes across your movie, the actual conflict, rather than perceived conflict will have your reader wanting to throw punches for you. If you don’t let the two be seen together, then the sense of a showdown will need to be enormous for the reader to believe you’re going against a challenge of a lifetime.

Remember, the higher the hill, the greater chance of a reader meeting you on the other side.

Need help getting your screenplay ready to show to a reader, producer, studio or agent? Check our screenplay analysis service first. No second chance to make a first impression!

That motivation has already been provided by the writer of the screenplay. If the writer has constructed correctly, the actor will know the character arc of their performance and will understand what the character has to do to travel their journey through the film making process.

It’s the motivation for the actor to do something to get them from this scene to the next that sets the tone for the movie. The writer needs to show what the character ‘wants’ and what they ‘need’ as they’re potentially two very different plans of action.

What they want may take them down various roads with dead ends awaiting them. What they need may not be revealed until close to the movie’s end, but will eventually be so clear cut, they’ll wonder why they didn’t see it all along.

The conflict between your hero and your antagonist will set the motivation for both teams to win their goals. The theatre ticket purchaser will know that there can only be one winner, but do you have to win at all costs?

The motivation must ramp up as the film progresses. The obstacles must get harder and harder to overcome. The motivation must increase as the end comes into sight. The obstacles must appear almost impossible as your lead becomes embroiled in harder and tougher opponents.

When writing your screenplay you must look at all of the elements that have brought the character to where they are today. What makes them tick? What makes them get through from day to day? You need to assess where their final targets are. This will provide the motivation that you’ll need to write into your character’s actions and dialogue as they meet each challenge knowing that they’re motivated by the need to achieve a set target to move along.

If you want to study motivation; read stories about people who became millionaires or billionaires by working hard at building their business up from scratch. Read how Olympic swimmers devote hours every day in training just for the opportunity of shaving a tenth of a second off their previous best time. They’re motivated to get that gold medal, but it’s also the small steps they must take on the way that push on their targets to the biggest objective of all.

A lack of motivation will slow down your script and help your reader place it in the nearest trash can. If you don’t need to root for your stars, then why are you reading? You certainly won’t want to watch an actor who meanders along with no real intention in life.

You need to remember that motivation is relative to where the person started from. An overweight child may strive to play for the school football team, while a school star footballer will expect to go on to play for their national team. We all have our targets, we all have our motivation and luckily, we’re all different, as are your characters.

Need help getting your screenplay ready to show to a reader, producer, studio or agent? Check our screenplay analysis service first. No second chance to make a first impression!