In Theaters Today: Arrival

Arrival, written by Eric Heisserer based on the story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, directed by Denis Villenueve, and starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker, arrives in theaters today.

When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team is brought together to investigate.

New On Blu: The Goodbye Girl

The Goodbye Girl, featuring Neil Simon's Oscar-nominated original screenplay, is available for the first time in high definition with Warner Archive's new Blu-ray release.

Richard Dreyfuss delivers an Academy Award-winning performance in this Neil Simon classic where romance blooms between two complete opposites forced to share an apartment in New York.

Elliot Garfield (Dreyfuss) has just arrived in Manhattan to take the acting role of his life—Richard III in an off-off-Broadway production. Ex-chorus girl Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason in her Oscar-nominated role) has just been dumped again. This time her ex has abandoned her, sublet their apartment—to Garfield—and left Paula and her nine-year-old daughter (Quinn Cummings in her own Oscar-nominated performance) without a job or a place to live.

Garfield legally has claim to the apartment, but he can't throw a mother and daughter out. So, despite Garfield's habits of chanting, burning incense and walking about naked, the threesome forms a home.

The Goodbye Girl is available now on Blu-ray.

New On Blu: The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend

Writer-director-producer extraordinaire Preston Sturges's The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend is finally available on Blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber.

Clocking in as his 38th writing credit after film classics including Remember the Night, The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, Unfaithfully Yours, and Sullivan's Travels, Sturges wrote The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend with Earl Felton.

The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend is a romantic comedy-western directed by the legendary Preston Sturges (The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels) and starring Betty Grable (I Wake Up Screaming), Cesar Romero (The Joker of TV’s Batman), Rudy Vallee (The Palm Beach Story) and Olga San Juan (Blue Skies). In this wild six-gun farce set in the old west, Grable plays a hot-tempered racy saloon entertainer named Freddie who’s as quick with a pistol as she is to kick up her heels. During a fray, Freddie accidentally shoots a judge while trying to protect her boyfriend (Romero) - she leaves town disguised as a schoolteacher and woos a mine owner (Vallee) while trying to escape persecution. Sturges co-wrote the screenplay with Earl Felton (The Narrow Margin), based on a story by Felton.

The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend is available now on Blu-ray.

BAFTA Breakthrough Brits 2016: Screenwriter Vinay Patel

BAFTA interviews screenwriter Vinay Patel as one of their Breakthrough Brits for 2016.

"One quiet night over Christmas in his technician job at the Met Film School, Vinay began manoeuvring himself around the kit room in a trolley with a boom pole for a punt and he knew something had to change. He’d always enjoyed writing, so that seemed like the most natural thing to do.

In 2011, Vinay graduated from Central School of Speech and Drama with an MA in writing and was initially attracted to the stage as a place to write and produce his own material. His first break came in 2014 with True Brits, a play juxtaposing the elation of London 2012 with the devastation of 7/7, that led to his selection for the Bush/Kudos TV writing scheme and to an original short commission for BBC iPlayer. Then, in 2015, he was unexpectedly invited to discuss joining BBC’s honour killing drama Murdered By My Father. Having written nothing full-length for television, he recalls thinking “there’s no way I’ll get it. But I met them on a Friday, and on the Monday I was announced as the project’s writer.”

As he works on his next single drama for BBC, Vinay says “I wish I’d been bolder and had the courage to write at a younger age. To anybody unsure about writing, you’ll never know unless you try!”"

Screenwriter Nicholas Martin on Florence Foster Jenkins

GoldDerby interviewed screenwriter Nicholas Martin about his work on Florence Foster Jenkins, the upcoming movie about the socialite who wanted to be an opera singer despite having a terrible singing voice.

Florence Foster Jenkins, directed by Stephen Frears, and starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, was released in August 2016.

Aaron Sorkin is Teaching a Screenwriting Class

Aaron Sorkin is teaching for Masterclass:

"Learn how to write incredible screenplays from Aaron Sorkin in the most comprehensive screenwriting course he’s ever taught. In addition to both improving your storytelling skills and outlining what it takes to write incredible scripts, Aaron invites you into his writer’s room for an eight-part screenwriting case study where he and his team will script, rewrite, and break down a new Season 5 premiere of The West Wing.

Diving deep into screenwriting fundamentals, Aaron offers detailed lessons on narrative structure, character development, generating new ideas, and his signature style of dialogue. Aaron knows that great screenwriting requires intention and obstacle. He dedicates several lessons to explaining how to create conflict, raise dramatic stakes, and keep audiences watching. Designed to offer useful lessons to seasoned and emerging screenwriters, Aaron’s class can be enjoyed by writers of all skill levels."

Sorkin's class will cover how to:

- Create intention and obstacle

- Develop unforgettable characters

- Hook audiences from the opening scene

- Write compelling dialogue

- Add momentum to your scenes

- Apply and subvert the rules of drama

- Research and gather material

- Establish consistent writing habits

- Overcome writer’s block

- Pitch screenplays

Learn more or sign up on Masterclass.com.

New On Blu: Knight of Cups

New this week from Broad Green Pictures is Knight of Cups, written and directed by Terence Malick, and starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Brian Dennehy, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Wes Bentley, Isabel Lucas, Teresa Palmer, and Imogen Poots.

"KNIGHT OF CUPS follows writer Rick (Christian Bale, The Fighter, American Hustle) on an odyssey through the playgrounds of Los Angeles and Las Vegas as he undertakes a search for love and self. Even as he moves through a desire-laden landscape of mansions, resorts, beaches and clubs, Rick grapples over complicated relationships with his brother (Wes Bentley) and father (Brian Dennehy). His quest to break the spell of his disenchantment takes him on a series of adventures with six alluring women: rebellious Della (Imogen Poots); his physician ex-wife, Nancy (Cate Blanchett); a serene model Helen (Freida Pinto); a woman he wronged in the past Elizabeth (Natalie Portman); a spirited, playful stripper Karen (Teresa Palmer); and an innocent Isabel (Isabel Lucas), who helps him see a way forward."

Knight of Cups is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Video.

New On Blu: The Player

New the week from The Criterion Collection is The Player, written by Michael Tolkin (based on his novel), directed by Robert Altman, and starring Tim Robbins as a Hollywood studio executive who finds himself stalked by a screenwriter whose work he rejected.

"A Hollywood studio executive with a shaky moral compass (Tim Robbins) finds himself caught up in a criminal situation that would be right at home in one of his movie projects, in this biting industry satire from Robert Altman. Mixing elements of film noir with sly insider comedy, The Player, based on a novel by Michael Tolkin, functions as both a nifty stylish murder story and a commentary on its own making, and it is stocked with a heroic supporting cast (Peter Gallagher, Whoopi Goldberg, Greta Scacchi, Dean Stockwell, Fred Ward) and a lineup of star cameos that make for an astonishing Hollywood who’s who. This complexly woven grand entertainment (which kicks off with one of American cinema’s most audacious and acclaimed opening shots) was the film that marked Altman’s triumphant commercial comeback in the early 1990s."

Special features include:

- New 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray

- Audio commentary from 1992 featuring director Robert Altman, writer Michael Tolkin, and cinematographer Jean Lépine

- Interview with Altman from 1992

- New interviews with Tolkin, actor Tim Robbins, associate producer David Levy, and production designer Stephen Altman

- Cannes Film Festival press conference from 1992 with cast and crew

- Robert Altman’s Players, a short documentary about the shooting of the film’s fund-raiser scene

- Map to the Stars, a gallery dedicated to the cameo appearances in the film

- Deleted scenes and outtakes

- The film’s opening shot, with alternate commentaries by Altman, Lépine, and Tolkin

- Trailers and TV spots

- An essay by author Sam Wasson

The Player is available now on Blu-ray and DVD, and Amazon Video.

In Theaters Today: The Nice Guys

New in theaters today from Warner Bros. Pictures is The Nice Guys, written by Shane Black and Anthony Bagarozzi, and directed by Shane Black, and starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.

“The Nice Guys” takes place in 1970s Los Angeles, when down-on-his-luck private eye Holland March (Gosling) and hired enforcer Jackson Healy (Crowe) must work together to solve the case of a missing girl and the seemingly unrelated death of a porn star. During their investigation, they uncover a shocking conspiracy that reaches up to the highest circles of power.

New On DVD: Best Friends

New this week from Warner Archive is Best Friends, a 1982 film written by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson and directed by Norman Jewison that stars Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn as a pair of married Hollywood screenwriters.

"After five successful years of living and working together, a couple decide to get married. But what they don't count on is how to survive the honeymoon.

Paula (Goldie Hawn) and Richard (Burt Reynolds) are a happy, successful Hollywood screenwriting team. They know and love each other, and live together. So why, already, did they get married and spoil it all?

Best Friends is a comic marriage uniting screen favorites Hawn and Reynolds, whose byplay rekindles the tradition of Tracy and Hepburn and Powell and Loy. From a witty script by Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson, director Norman Jewison serves up a delightful study of mating manners and morals. His supporting cast - particularly a formidable foursome of in-laws played by Jessica Tandy, Barnard Hughes, Audra Lindley and Keenan Wynn-also makes this perceptive charmer your best entertainment choice."

Best Friends is available now on DVD.

In Theaters Today: Money Monster

New in theaters today from Sony Pictures Entertainment is Money Monster, written by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore, and Jim Kouf based on a story by DiFiore and Kouf, directed by Jodie Foster, and starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell, Dominic West, and Giancarlo Esposito.

The DGA's 80 Best-Directed Films

The DGA released a list of what their members believe to be the eighty best-directed films since 1936, when the guild was founded.

"...this was an opportunity for the people who actually do the job to focus specifically on the work of the director and his or her team. Members participating totaled 2,189 (13.7 percent of all Guild members)."

1. The Godfather - Francis Ford Coppola

2. Citizen Kane - Orson Welles

3. Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick

5. Casablanca - Michael Curtiz

6. The Godfather: Part II - Francis Ford Coppola

7. Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola

8. Schindler’s List - Steven Spielberg

9. Gone With the Wind - Victor Fleming

10. Goodfellas - Martin Scorsese

11. Chinatown - Roman Polanski

12. The Wizard of Oz - Victor Fleming

13. Raging Bull - Martin Scorsese

14. Jaws - Steven Spielberg

15. It’s a Wonderful Life - Frank Capra

16. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - Stanley Kubrick

17. The Shawshank Redemption - Frank Darabont

18. The Graduate - Mike Nichols

19. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope - George Lucas

20. Blade Runner - Ridley Scott

21. On the Waterfront - Elia Kazan

22. Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino

23. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial - Steven Spielberg

24. Annie Hall - Woody Allen

25. Saving Private Ryan - Steven Spielberg

26. Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa

27. A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick

28. Raiders of the Lost Ark - Steven Spielberg

29. Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock

30. Sunset Boulevard - Billy Wilder

31. To Kill A Mockingbird - Robert Mulligan

32. Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock

33. The Searchers - John Ford

34. Forrest Gump - Robert Zemeckis

35. Singin’ in the Rain - Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

36. 8 ½ - Federico Fellini

37. The Third Man - Carol Reed

38. The Best Years of Our Lives - William Wyler

39. Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock

40. The Bridge on the River Kwai - David Lean

41. North by Northwest - Alfred Hitchcock

42. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Miloš Forman

43. The Sound of Music - Robert Wise

44. Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese

45. Titanic - James Cameron

46. The Shining - Stanley Kubrick

47. Amadeus - Miloš Forman

48. Doctor Zhivago - David Lean

49. West Side Story - Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise

50. Some Like it Hot - Billy Wilder

51. Ben-Hur - William Wyler

52. Fargo - Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

53. The Silence of the Lambs - Jonathan Demme

54. The Apartment - Billy Wilder

55. Avatar - James Cameron

56. The Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow

57. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - John Huston

58. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) - Alejandro G. Iñárritu

59. All About Eve - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

60. The Deer Hunter - Michael Cimino

61. There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson

62. The Sting - George Roy Hill

63. The Wild Bunch - Sam Peckinpah

64. Alien - Ridley Scott

65. Rocky - John G. Avildsen

66. The Conformist - Bernardo Bertolucci

67. Gandhi - Richard Attenborough

68. The Bicycle Thief - Vittorio De Sica

69. Cinema Paradiso - Giuseppe Tornatore

70. Brazil - Terry Gilliam

71. The Grapes of Wrath - John Ford

72. All the President’s Men - Alan J. Pakula

73. Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick

74. Touch of Evil - Orson Welles

75. Once Upon a Time in America - Sergio Leone

76. Unforgiven - Clint Eastwood

77. The Usual Suspects - Bryan Singer

78. Network - Sidney Lumet

79. Rashomon - Akira Kurosawa

80. Once Upon a Time in the West - Sergio Leone

Crowd Control: A Crowdsourced Science Fiction Novel

With the help of a few hundred of their readers contributing to the process, CNET has just released its first installment of Crowd Control: Heaven Makes a Killing, their crowdsourced science fiction novel.

The work, produced under a Creative Commons license, was developed using one Google Docs file that was accessed by all the contributors. The current version of Crowd Control comes in at approximately 50,000 words, and is considered a work-in-progress. 

Crowd Control takes us to Earth Version EB-2 in 2051.

The moment that would come to define the relationship of two planets across two universes was based on a lie.

"So, you're telling us that you know God? You're saying you've spoken to God, essentially?"

The host sat leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, speaking slowly, wanting to be sure to get the phrasing just right to prevent the evasive answer she anticipated.

"Sure, I know God very well," the tall woman said nonchalantly, leaning forward in response. She turned her head and shot a grin at the TV camera. Her smile telegraphed complete confidence but also betrayed a bit of mischievousness to anyone paying close attention.

"I mean, it doesn't actually call itself God, but I can assure you it is the Creator we talk about when we talk about God, or Allah or Brahma or Yahweh. Many names, same intelligent designer of everything."

Like all good lies, this one was designed to be applied broadly.

CNET has the original draft posted online "for anyone to take from or build upon."

New On Blu: In a Lonely Place

New this week from the Criterion Collection is In a Lonely Place, written by Andrew Solt based on a story by Dorothy B. Hughes, directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Humphrey Bogart as Dixon Steele, cinema's most hot-tempered fictional screenwriter.

"When a gifted but washed-up screenwriter with a hair-trigger temper—Humphrey Bogart, in a revelatory, vulnerable performance—becomes the prime suspect in a brutal Tinseltown murder, the only person who can supply an alibi for him is a seductive neighbor (Gloria Grahame) with her own troubled past. The emotionally charged In a Lonely Place, freely adapted from a Dorothy B. Hughes thriller, is a brilliant, turbulent mix of suspenseful noir and devastating melodrama, fueled by powerhouse performances. An uncompromising tale of two people desperate to love yet struggling with their demons and each other, this is one of the greatest films of the 1950s, and a benchmark in the career of the classic Hollywood auteur Nicholas Ray."

Special features include a new 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a new audio commentary featuring film scholar Dana Polan, the 1875 documentary I’m a Stranger Here Myself, anew interview with biographer Vincent Curcio about actor Gloria Grahame, a featurette from filmmaker Curtis Hanson, the 1948 Suspense radio adaptation from 1948 of the original Dorothy B. Hughes novel, the trailer, and an essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith.

In a Lonely Place is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Video.

All original content is copyright © 2010-2018 Michael Sajkowicz. All other content is owned by their respective rights holders and used respectfully and with appreciation in an editorial manner under fair use for the purposes of commentary, criticism and reporting.