In Theaters Today: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
In the most anticipated film of the year, writer-director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) brings his vision of George Lucas's galaxy to the big screen today with Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
The Power of Storytelling
The American Film Institute says:
"For less than the price of a movie ticket, you can bring storytelling workshops to high schools students.Text AFI to 41444 to help inspire more students with the power of storytelling."
From Book to Screen: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
For the screenplay, Cameron Crowe adapted his own book which was titled "Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story."
The film, directed by Amy Heckerling, premiered in theaters on August 13, 1982, and earned $27,092,088, becoming the 29th highest grossing movie of that year.
In 2005, the Library of Congress added "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" to the National Film Registry.
New in Print: Dunkirk
Masterclass Got David Mamet to Teach Dramatic Writing
David Mamet is teaching dramatic writing for Masterclass and all you need to join in is a pencil and a piece of paper.
"As a dramatist, your job is to tell a story. David’s dramatic writing class covers the rules of drama and teaches you how to keep your story simple by using Aristotle's Poetics as a guide.
David’s MasterClass takes an in depth look at both plot and plot structure. His class includes case studies on the plot structure of two of his award winning works, Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo. Become familiar with the essential ingredients of plot like the precipitating event, the second-act problem, how to connect plot points, and learn the structure of a three-act play.
Learn how David Mamet developed his style for writing dialogue, famously known as "Mamet-speak." In addition, David’s dramatic writing lessons also include advice on where to draw inspiration when trying to write great dialogue."
Mamet's Masterclass covers how to:
- Understand and recognize drama
- Keep your hero’s journey at the heart of your narrative
- Use the rules of writing to improve your script
- Harness your fantasies and life experiences for drama
- Create objectives for your characters
- Structure your plot
- Recognize and remove scenes that are unnecessary to your script
- Overcome writer’s block
- Convey truth to the audience
- Cast the right actors for your play
You can learn more and sign up on Masterclass.com.
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.
9 Reasons Why Writers Make Incredible Friends
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.
Trailer: Star Trek Beyond
Paramount is back with a second trailer for Star Trek Beyond that is, without a doubt, much better than the first one.
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.
Stephen King on The Dark Tower Movie
Stephen King, along with director and co-writer Nikolaj Arcel, were interviewed on Entertainment Weekly's podcast Behind the Scenes with Anthony Breznican about the movie adaptation of King's The Dark Tower.
Why Every Move Trailer Is The Same
Cracked.com breaks down the tricks of the trade when it comes to making movie trailers (and how it makes them so similar).
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.