My DIY film/writing school

Slept in

Dammit! My carefully calculated routine that began every day at 6am with prayer and screenwriting - foiled by a late night last night, and waking up too early when Marie left for work at 5.

So I overslept, which means no screenwriting today. Had to get right into the paying work.

However, during my lunch hour (and a half) I finished off listening to the superb director's commentary on How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days.

I tell ya, that DVD has so many special features they're just about falling off. There's a 5-minute featurette on just about everyone - from the stars to the producers to the location manager! (I guess because, like every film set in New York, "the city is a character", although I never heard that cliche used.)

Thankfully, they had a featurette about the writers, well two of them anyway (Kristen Buckley and Brian Regan, who I gather are married to each other - pretty useful when writing rom-com!). Burr Steer gets credited on IMDb, but nary a mention on the DVD. Ah well.



Great story, though. And another film, like Wedding Crashers, that uses a lot of improv. Funny, funny stuff.

Interesting seeing PG-13 How to Lose... straight after R-rated Wedding Crashers. The How To... story is just as racy (give or take) and yet manages to tell its story in a way that's safe for the wider audiences and presumably higher box-office takes you get from PG's.

Let's see if I'm talking through my ass:

How to Lose... released 2003, worldwide gross $177,085,826. Tomatometer 42% - oh dear!

Wedding Crashers, released 2005, worldwide gross $285,176,741. Tomatometer 74%.

I am talking through my ass. Don't listen to me.

Still, I liked How To Lose..., and my notoriously fickle movie-watching wife was transfixed as well. It kept her from her study, no less! :)

A couple of writerly points...

• Because Kate's character does such a dastardly thing in the central plot (snares a guy only to deliberately try and drive him away), the writers go out of their way to make her sympathetic. She's a girl with a heart of gold, helping her friend Michelle come to work in order to save her career. She's got a political conscience, and she's blocked in fulfilling her dream - which is always compelling.
• Strangely, there's not as much evidence to show us that Matthew's character is really nice. Maybe society has double standards with how we view males and females?

Okay, that's enough for today. Just one thing "of note", about NZ film Black Sheep:

• Black Sheep attracts buyers at Cannes. Congratulations!
  

posted by Simon @ 9:11 pm