Author Archives: Madd_Fictional

Writer’s Rut Is A Pain In The Butt

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Calvin and Hobbes PanicWell, it is if you actually believe in it. I’ve run into more than my fair share of scribes who emphatically state that writer’s block is about as real as Santa, the Easter Bunny, or Steven Spielberg’s dinosaurs. I’m of the opinion that if it’s real to you, then it exists. But whichever side of the fence you personally stand on, there’s no denying the fact that writers, somewhere during the process of penning their magnum opus, can get stuck.

The first telltale sign of blockage is Oculos Computator, better known as The Stare. If you’ve ever experienced it, you know exactly what I mean. Hinder parked in your favorite writing chair, knuckles cracked, fingers nimble and hovering above your keyboard… when you become mesmerized by the siren song—I always hear Bali Hai from South Pacific—of the vast white void of your computer screen.

But you’re a determined writer, so you shake it off, gird your loins, and make resolute your desire to put words to paper. The problem is you can’t. That scene that’s so clear in your mind has suddenly become uncomfortable and difficult to write. Your synopsis refuses to mold itself into story form. An unbridgeable chasm has open up between you and the end of the story. The next scene (or chapter) is an empty pit of nothingness that stares back at you like the abyss and mocks your talent and very existence. Somehow—not through any fault of your own, surely—your characters have all been written into inescapable corners. But you have to write, that ache is in your bones, so what do you wind up doing? You rewrite, edit, rewrite, and edit what’s already been written instead of moving on.

That, my friend, is the kiss of death for creativity.

So, what are the workarounds? Hate to break it to ya, kiddo, but there ain’t no one surefire method. It’s like that line from the Diff’rent Strokes theme, “What might be right for you, may not be right for some.”

What’s that? You think that’s a cop out answer? You want what? Actual advice, even though everybody and their mother uses a different approach? Fine. Here are some of the more popular methods, in a nutshell:

Plot the story out beforehand. It’s akin to knowing the destination before you begin the journey. Stop whinging, you artsy bastard. Sure, preplanned structure can be viewed as limiting the creative spontaneity of your currently unwritten baby, but it’s only a suggested story path that you can alter along the way. Nothing’s written in stone—rewrites’ll drive that point home soon enough, trust me—until your work has been published.

Gender swap. As silly as it might sound, tinkering with the XX and XY chromosomes of your protagonist or antagonist actually helps change the character’s viewpoints and perspective. Or if you’re not up to playing God—who are you kidding? You’re a writer. You think you’re God, go on and admit it—try switching up your writing style. If you normally write in first person, why not give third person a go?

Dora, of Explorer fame, is keen to shout, “Swiper, no swiping!” But you ain’t her and no one’s watching, so why not rip a page from the Star Trek TV series plot device book (from Next Generation to Enterprise) and give your characters a mini goal they must accomplish and pair them up with other characters they absolutely cannot stand. Conflict is story. Just ask Moses. It was written on the back of one of the stone tablets. Trust me on this.

Don’t allow yourself to get hung up on formatting, grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and all that crap, and save editing for the very end. Right now, your goal is to transport that nagging story from the ether of your mind and plunk it firmly down on the page. You’ll have plenty of time to go back and gussy it up later.

And the simplest bit of advice I can offer any of you lazy sods who positively hates following patterns and formulas or doing any sort of precursor to writing; the quick and dirty solution to putting the boots to writer’s block is to stop waiting for your muse—she’s really not that into you and it’s embarrassing how you chase her around like a lovesick puppy—and simply write. Let your thoughts spill out and let it be awful and unstructured and nonsensical, just as long as you’re actively engaging in the process of writing. Hell, start a blog. Works for me.

Now, what are you doing still staring at this? Stop procrastinating. Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Your Writing Says More About Your Character Than You Realize

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Creating worlds? That’s the easy bit. Populating them with three dimensional characters… that’s a bit trickier. Whether you write for a living, a hobby, for sport, or just to have a laugh, you will eventually reach a point in your storytelling where you’re forced to pluck the innocent bystanders from your life and slap them smack dab in the middle of your literary dreamscape. Don’t be embarrassed. It happens to us all.

But just because a fictional character has a fleshy counterpart, imbued with their quirks, verbal crutches and personality tics, it doesn’t always mean they’re actually memorable.

So, how do you combat that? Dig, my friend. You need to burrow underneath the surface layer affectations and unearth the true source of their core character and examine what piqued your interest in the first place.

Even the most boring person you know can be a source of inspiration in your writing if you scratch the surface carefully enough. As corny as it sounds, we all carry within us a wealth of creativity and inspiration. Your job is to look deeper.

One of the most important parts of being a writer, aside from textual flourishes and clever turns of phrase, is the ability to see the world, both the one you’re creating and the one you live in, through their eyes. What are their views on major and minor things? Are they blessed or cursed with odd perceptions of the way the world should and/or actually works? Do they engage in activities that exist outside social norms?

Once you’ve identified these tidbits, you have the first building blocks for your memorable character’s foundation. But it’s only the beginning. You’ll need to build on this in order to make your newly birthed person dynamic.

Since you’re not creating a clone or an exact replica of your best bud or the nosy neighbor down the hall who tracks you via her peephole every time you leave or enter your front door—seriously, lady, get a life—you’ll want to take a few pages from Baron Victor von’s notebook and Frankenstein your creation up a bit.

If you do your job properly, your patchwork person will seem more believable because they contain traits your friends have that you secretly covet—we covet what we see everyday, Clarice—family member habits that absolutely drive you up the wall, as well as the little insecure bits of yourself you pray nobody really notices (FYI: they do, they’re just too polite to bring it up in conversation). Stop moaning, you’ll always be a part of the mix. You can’t help it. You’re the person you know the best. Yup, it’s true and you heard it here first.

The best thing about your ethereal Prometheus is only you will be able to see the stitches that hold the monstrosity together. To everyone else, the jigsaw pieces fit together seamlessly. But you’re still not done.

You can’t have your bouncing baby entity walking around all starkers—well, you can if you’re writing one of those 50 Shades thingies—so you’ll need to dress them with your imagination and layer in true life details like articles of clothing, substantiating them as a new independent life form while better solidifying your understanding of them.

Then, to top things off, dab them with a little Eau de real desires—just behind the ears—and spray obstacles in the air and have them walk through the mist, before you powder them down with motivations.

And voilà! Take a step back and view your bonafide multidimensional, absolutely-fictional-but-seems-so-damn-real-it’s-scary character. Now all you have to do is repeat the process several more times.

Hey, I never said this would be easy.

Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Greets The Lightning, Fears The Thunder

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Although the rough draft was completed years ago, I finally put the spit and polish touches on the official first draft of my favorite horror screenplay, “Greets The Lightning, Fears The Thunder.” And while the screenplay format might be new, the story isn’t. “Greets” first saw life as a short story written for a long-forgotten vanity press, Writerarium, way back in the Fall of 1988. It was loosely based on actual events involving my then girlfriend who suffered from a severe case of astraphobia and night terrors.

There’s a strange sense of satisfaction in breathing new life into old work that I wish I experienced more often, Most times, old stories lose their malleability, having found contentment in their original form. This work fought me a little as well, but in the end we were able to come to a suitable compromise (which is a fancy way of saying the story allowed itself to be written by me).

This draft went up for review on the Trigger Street Labs site on May 15, 2013 and the first review was:

“This is an action packed, intense thriller!

I’d love to see this made into a movie. I feel like your dialogue and script feels well developed. I feel like maybe more comic relief would break up the intense moments. But overall really well written.

Your opening scene really sucked me in and I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t tell if it was a dream she was having or real at the beginning.

i liked the flashback scenes to Africa – so you get the background story. I feel like this was a perfect way to get the information you needed about Leyna.

The ending was awesome, gives you the notion that there was more to the elements than we knew. That maybe Gordon is now a catalyst of the bird… I loved the ending.”

“Greets” then got the screenplay review treatment on June 3, 2013, by the New York City Screenwriters Collective.

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Unaltered, “Greets” was subjected to a third round of script review, this time in Los Angeles on February 2, 2014, courtesy of Write Club.

The draft was subjected to a fourth round of script review in Los Angeles on April 1, 2014, courtesy of the Malibu Screenwriting Group.

Still unaltered, “Greets” was subjected to a fifth round of script review in Los Angeles on April 20, 2014, courtesy of the Inktank Screenwriting Group.

The only reason I’m blogging about it now is because the story has been on my mind, not foremost, I’m working on another screenplay at the mo with a difficult Act 2, and “Greets” is on the back burner tempting me to pull it out of mothballs for another go-round, assuring me that is won’t give me a hard time during the rewriting process. We both know it’s a lie.

It’s a selfish story, jealous of all its siblings, and it never misses a beat to try to get my attention when I’m struggling with a scene, or a patch of dialogue. But when it has a turn at bat, it gives me the same problems as always, and never apologizes for being difficult.

Sofa Jet City Crisis

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SofaWelcome to ‘Lantic City NexGen, the newly renovated gambling mecca, where a 15 year old boy named Hofstra, on the run and desperately trying to prove his manhood, gets caught up in a private war between Buma Willys, a down-on-her-luck cyberspace gambler who’s looking for that one last big score, and Rockne Keobardi, the mob-affiliated casino owner that wants Buma dead!

I owe it all to L. Ron Hubbard. Well, not all of it, but Sofa Jet City Crisis at least.

Back in the revolutionary 80’s I discovered the Dianetics Master of the Universe’s quarterly contest, Writers Of The Future, and made it my mission to collect the contest winnings and build my sci-fi writing empire. I mean, how hard could it be, right? I had various projects in different stages of development scattered about the place, some carbon dating back to the tender age of 11 and I could have dusted any one of them off, given it a spot polish and submitted without breaking a sweat. But I was reading a lot of Harlan Ellison at the time and Mr. E. was fond of telling we silly mortals who hoped to make a career of writing to create a new story every single day. So, I was determined to create a brand spanking new tale for Mr. Hubbard’s competition.

I’m sure you can spot the road signs from here.

The original incarnation of this story dealt with a down-on-his-luck gambler betting against the devil. Convinced it was the best thing I had ever written, I happily mailed it off, sat back and waited for my check to arrive. And I waited. And waited. And waited. No check. What I did receive was a rejection letter from Orson Scott Card, another writer I admired (who doesn’t love Ender’s Game?)

Crushed but not defeated, it was a quarterly contest after all, I flung the story back on the drawing board, put my nose to the grindstone, and swapped out most of the religious mysticism for technology. I couldn’t let go of the devil, though (if I were a spiritual man, that statement might bother me).

Rejected again. Undaunted, I retooled the story, sans Satan this go-round. Rejected. So I tried again. And again. And again. A total of 12 times. 12 rewrites. 12 rejections.

Fast forward some 10 odd years and what did I discover at the bottom of my “someday story box” (a Pinocchio realm for my writing, “Someday, you’ll be a real story.”) and you know what? I didn’t hate it. At this time Peter Laird (half the creative talent behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) founded the Xeric Foundation which awarded money to creatives looking to publish their work within the comic industry. After more prodding than I’m willing to admit by then partner, Juanita Hicks, Sofa Jet took a 13th trip to Rewriteville. It was mid 90’s and I was heavily into William Gibson’s cyberpunk movement… so guess what wormed its way into the final draft? Apparently, it was the missing element because I was awarded the prize in 1997.

Special thanks go out to Adam Dekraker for lending his incredible talent to the visuals of this project.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Sleep-Shaming the Homeless

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Image © 2011 by Patrick G. Ryan www.snarkinfested.com

There’s nothing good about being homeless, not one solitary thing, though I’ve run into more than a few people who claim they’ve been living on the streets between ten and forty years and they wear it like a bizarre badge of pride. If, however, you cannot avoid being without a home, New York isn’t the worst place to be for the simple fact you will never go hungry unless that is your aim. You can’t swing a dead cat in the city so nice they named it twice without hitting a soup kitchen. Plenty of places to throw some food down your gullet. Not always the tastiest morsels but enough to help you survive another day. Sleep, however, is a whole other kettle of fish.

If you are unable to secure a place to sleep in the overcrowded shelter system or a three-quarter house and you make your bed on the street, you quickly learn just how important a good night’s rest is and just how little of that you actually get. Veterans of the lifestyle have secured their hidey-holes and guard the location like it’s gold, others will lay out cardboard mattresses wherever they please, in doorways of closed businesses, on church steps, park benches, subway lines or even in the center of the sidewalk. But no matter how much sleep you manage to eke out at night, during the day, your body will crave the sleep it needs and it will eventually shut you down.

While there are some working homeless, a vast majority are unemployed, on benefits, disability, or supplemental security income and have to find places to spend their time in order to kill the day. No matter how strong-willed you are or how desperately you try to stay awake, eventually you will sit down somewhere and nod out, which is a big no-no in the Big Apple.

This needs to change.

Instead of having overzealous security guards make a public scene out of waking a person who closed their eyes for a moment, there should be places for people to grab a quick nap. I understand that most of the older security guards used to be in law enforcement in one aspect or another and intimidation tactics are part of their arsenal but is closing your eyes in a public place that severe a crime that a person should be forced to wear a scarlet letter?

Why must these mini-dictators get such a thrill out of sleep-shaming the homeless?

Don’t they understand the effects a lack of sleep has on the human psyche? And how that lack might affect the way they behave towards authority, the public at large, or even fellow homeless persons? Does no one understand that sometimes letting a person grab a power nap can make all the difference in how they cope with society and the day?

I know this is child’s logic. There’s no simple solution to sleep-shaming and the bigger issue is that of homelessness. I think it’s time for the thought process to turn from simply getting the homeless off the streets which means pushing the homeless from one neighborhood to another (that’s right upper east side I’m looking at you) or worst yet, processing people through Bellevue, which is almost as bad as being sent to prison due to a lack of health and safety. The adjusted goal should be to provide employment opportunities and safe, affordable housing to those who haven’t given up, who want to rejoin society as productive members, even if it requires services rendered to be bartered for room and board.

 

In the meantime, should you come across me sitting peacefully with my eyes closed, please give me a few moments rest before you disturb my peace. And by all means, try to be respectful should you need to wake me.

I may be homeless, but I’m still human. I still matter.

My Humanity Falls Piece By Piece

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Recently I was asked to write a testimonial for one of the soup kitchens I frequent and because today has been one of those tough days when I just keep rubbing up against the wrong people though I do my best to avoid them, I figured I’d post it here for easy access when I’m online seeking a distraction from the realities of the day.

Through a series of unfortunate events, I became homeless in the back half of 2012. No relatives or friends to use as a temporary support system, I hit the streets of Manhattan without a clue as to where to go, what to do, or what life held in store for me. I struggled for months to survive, spending what little pocket money I had on dollar pizzas, a slice of which I ate every other day in order to stretch out my dwindling funds.

Then one day while I was waiting in the cold for the public library to open, I met two women, sisters, who turned out were homeless like me. They were kind enough to take me to a few locations where I could get some food, which came at a most opportune time as I was down to my last dollar, and that’s no exaggeration. One of the first places they brought me to was a special soup kitchen that changed my entire experience.

Different from other soup kitchens (please understand that the words soup kitchen and ministry are interchangeable here, just as the homeless are referred to as guests), this particular ministry is a great place for guests to start the day. Both the in-house staff and volunteers who help prepare coffee and serve hot meals to the guests are both polite and friendly, which may seem like a given, but it is really a precious and special thing considering most of them make the effort to wake up that extra bit earlier and make themselves available to serve guests of varying temperament before going about their workaday worlds, when most of us find it hard enough just to simply get up and deal with the daily grind.

On my darkest days, when the world doesn’t make sense and I can’t quite seem to catch a glint of the light at the end of this expansive tunnel I’m traveling through, it’s a great comfort for me to have a place where I can be, even for a short while, where I can almost feel human again. That’s the thing people rarely consider when they think about or discuss homelessness. Not being considered a productive part of society, being ignored, avoided, shunned and ridiculed… it chips away at the soul. Bit by bit, by living on the streets, even the strongest person will start to lose confidence, humanity, and even sanity. In my experience, this ministry has helped me hold on to these vital bits of myself, while clinging on to hope as well.

I realize I probably should be pointing out specific instances but truth to tell there are so many, you’d be reading this testimonial for days. Suffice it to say, I have always been greeted with kindness and positive attitudes, even when my attitude was less than civil, and wound up meeting a lot of kind and caring people, some of whom I actually consider friends.

And not to sound unappreciative of other soup kitchens, but the several I have attended cannot hold a candle to this ministry. Compared to some of the larger soup kitchens, this one tiny building is filled with more people who make a concerted effort to help guests out with more than just the serving of a meal. People who place a great deal of importance into what they serve to guests, be it a meal, the Word, or just plain fellowship. I can’t imagine what my experience out here on the streets would be like after all this time without their existence and shamefully, I don’t think I have ever conveyed to them just how much I appreciate what they have done and continue to do for me.

Perhaps this will help them understand.

As I mentioned earlier, today has been one of those chip away days. It seems I’m surrounded by people with either anger or mental health issues and they’re all looking to pay that pain forward.

When you inhabit the same public spaces as other homeless people, a bizarre thing begins to happen. Even if you keep yourself to yourself, you will acquire enemies. You may not even know their names or faces. Grievances will be plucked from thin air and thrust upon you. You will be challenged daily. Yours must be the cooler head. The one gifted with enough foresight to see the consequences and choose the best course of action for your continued safety and freedom.

It is far from an easy thing to do.

At night, when you finally find a spot to rest, you replay the accounts of the day, wondering just how much of your humanity you’ve lost in each one of these abrasive encounters? How much of you will be left when there’s nothing left to give?

I can only pray tomorrow will be a slightly easier day.

Hopping Mad

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Hopping turnstiles is wrong, I got that, so please spare me the morality lessons and guilt trips. I won’t even attempt to justify my actions by using the outrageous price of a single ride fare as an excuse. What I would ask is that you try to see it from my point of view. When I don’t have the fare and can’t convince an exiting passenger to give me a swipe, and can’t locate a guy who knows how to bend 1 or 2 trip expired metrocards to squeeze an illegal free ride out of them, when the overnight weather prevents me from sleeping outdoors, I have to find shelter somewhere and the subway system is the last chance saloon. It’s not without its share of risks though. Plain clothes cops are hip to the deal and bust fare-dodgers on the regular.

But that’s not the point of this post. I want you to sit right back and listen to what happened to me last night:

I’m not sure what it is about me, my genetic makeup, my lot in life, or if I just give off a certain vibe, but the truth is I cannot attract good people into my life and last night was a prime example. After midnight, when a few of the remaining public atriums shut down, I begin my shark prowl, always on the move, trying to build up ambient body heat to keep myself warm. It works pretty good for a while, but somewhere around 2:00 am the temperature begins a noticeable drop and the wind picks up and the only thing I’m looking for is a place to sit and shut my eyes for a couple of hours without being exposed to the elements and risk getting sick (homelessness and a cold/flu is not a good mix). So, I hit a subway station.

Depending on my location, I try to steer for one of the few stations that have a couple of spots to cop a squat outside the turnstile area. When I got to the station, I had company. There was a woman sitting not too far away. White, late twenties/early thirties, bleach blonde, pockmarked face. A once pretty woman brought low by a hard life. If I were casting a movie, she’d make a perfect junkie hooker.

As is customary when more than one person is waiting to hop the same turnstile, I played the waiting game, you know, see who makes the first move. What I’m actually doing is feeling out whether the other person is a cop or not. Under normal circumstances either a third party will breeze in no hesitation and hop (which if it doesn’t flush out a cop usually signals the coast is clear), or one of the potential fare-dodgers will admit defeat and leave, or bite the bullet, hop and hope for the best. none of these scenarios played out last night.

I unburdened myself of my backpack and attempted to get comfortable when leather-jacketed drug whore stepped to me and demanded to know what I was doing in the station. I’m a native New Yorker, which means my first response is to ignore strangers and the their unsolicited conversations. It was none of her business and I had no desire to explain myself. Boy, did she hate being blanked, but what did I care? I ignored her some more. Then she accused me of stalking her. Now, I was forced to respond.

I attempted to convince her that I couldn’t care less about who she was, where she was going, or what she was doing, but these things are really indefensible. Just how do you prove you’re not stalking someone? She insisted I was hired by someone (she never mentioned whom) to follow her. When she saw I wouldn’t be moved, she began berating me with every stereotypical insult a woman could hurl at a man. I was ugly, smelly, a loser who couldn’t get any pussy, yadda yadda yadda. Strange thing is, I wasn’t insulted. I just stood there and stared at her, head cocked to one side like the RCA/Victor dog staring at the victrola. I was trying to consider whether she was crazy or not, but I noticed something odd: as close as she got to me, she never touched me. All her threats of bringing me down low until she forced me to leave the station and she never once invaded my personal space. Also, whenever people came up to the turnstile she turned away and her attack toned down a bit.

It was clear she simply wanted to hop the turnstile but needed to chase me away. I’m sure in her world, psycho bitch clears the room pretty damn quickly, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I was tired from walking for two hours and sleep was nipping at the edges of my consciousness. Probably not the smartest move. I could have left the station and waited for the next train so she could hop in privacy, but simply I plugged my earbuds in and went back to ignoring her.

I can’t tell you what new batch of insults she hurled my way because The Pretenders drowned her out but I can say I’ve never seen a person turn that shade of red before. Seeing how unaffected I was, I guess she decided to up her game. As the next train arrived she made an unexpected lunge for my backpack. My assumption was she intended to sling it over the turnstiles, forcing me to either pay the fare or hop first. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and psycho-leather-clad-prozzie-smack-heads. Her hand never touched the bag because I shoved her away. Wasn’t even aware I did it. I was on complete automatic, protecting my bag. It’s the last of my worldly possessions and nobody touches it without a fight. She was a tiny thing, 90 lbs. soaking wet, and she was more than a little shocked that the shove moved her back so far.

I unplugged the earbuds and the verbal assault was going full force. She swore on her family’s life that she was going to make me leave. I told her she could rant all she wanted, as long as she didn’t touch me or my belongings. She made another half-hearted attempt of grab my backpack and I was forced to put it back on (the thing weighs a ton and my back was aching). Then it dawned on me: in shoving her, I physically touched her, which was technically an assault. And just like that, my mind began traveling down a path that did not bode well for me. What if she claimed I attacked her? Attempted to sexually abuse her? All because I wanted to find a place to sit and recharge my body and brain for a few hours.

Again, I should have left. If this were a movie and I was sitting in the audience, I’d be screaming at the screen, “Just walk away, you moron!” What did I do instead? I dug into my pocket for my iPhone that hasn’t had service in over three years and pretended to call the cops. She dared me. This woman was so committed to her cause that she was going to call my bluff. As I had begun the stupid charade, I engaged in a mock telephone conversation with a 911 operator. She stood her ground… but the yelling stopped. She paced the station as I told the imaginary operator where I was and relayed the entire interaction. She was actually going to make me play this through to the end.

When I began to describe her, the sluice gate of insults started up again and I held the phone out in her direction. “Can you hear her? She’s crazy. I’m afraid someone might get hurt or worse.” And that was the clincher. Leather Tuscadero pivoted on her studded boot heels and left the station, cursing all the way.

I got extremely luck that time, I’m well aware of it. Maybe next time I’ll have the common sense to just walk away.

I doubt it, though.

Until next time, I sincerely hope I don’t see you on the breadline.

Project Greenlight Review

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I’ve never been much for reality programming, even before studios got busted for reenacting events and creating fake situations for content, forcing them to minimize their liability by coining the term assisted reality, but when HBO first announced a show focusing on first-time filmmakers being given a chance to write and direct a feature film… I was hooked. Aside from being an aspiring filmmaker, I’m also the type of guy who loves all those wonderful DVD featurettes showing the behind-the-scenes goings on from tv and movie sets, and in most cases, find them to be far more interesting than the actual movie itself. The added value to Project Greenlight is it ran an online script contest, which meant I could actually be a part of the show, if my screenplay survived the brutal peer review stage.

It didn’t.

But I was still very much interested in the show. I can’t describe my disappointment as I watched winner Pete Jones stumble his way through shooting Stolen Summer, a humdrum period piece snorefest about a Catholic boy who tries to help his Jewish friend get into heaven. Had I not watched the tv series, I wouldn’t have bothered seeing this film even if it played on the insides of my eyelids.

Season Two rolled around and this time the contest was split into two categories: writing and directing. I didn’t bother submitting for either category, but because I was still fascinated by the behind-the-scenes aspect, I watched Erica Beeney’s script, The Battle of Shaker Heights (a 17-year old WWII reenactor decides to put his battlefield knowledge to work in real life against his high school enemy), win with Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle landing the coveted directing prize. I figured the showrunners learned from the previous season’s debacle and made the effort to put together a superior show this time around.

Sadly, this was not the case.

The show was such a stinkpot, it got booted from HBO and found a new home on Bravo for Season Three. This time the genre was horror, and a script titled Feast by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, won with winner John Gulager as the director. Even though I thought this season was particularly horrible, Feast (folks trapped in a bar, fending off creatures trying to eat them) turned out to be the most lucrative product the show produced both in box office and DVD sales (hell, it even spawned two sequels).

But the writing was on the wall and the show disappeared into obscurity… or so it seemed.

Nearly ten years after the last season, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck resurrected the series, this time focusing on comedy with a ready-to-shoot Farrelly brothers script on hand. All the mix needed was a first-time director. Once again, my thinking was, come on, it’s been ten damned years since the last run surely the producers have gotten their act together and they wouldn’t bother exhuming a turd and try to pass it off as art, would they? So, out of curiosity (and a bit of hopefulness) I tuned in.

And was pleasantly surprised. The pilot opened with Matt and Ben confessing that the Project Greenlight series had nearly wrecked their careers and their friendship. Great! Now, maybe we would get to go behind the behind-the-scenes to get the scuttlebutt on what really transpired on the show. Maybe this time the Good Will boys would open up and speak candidly about what went wrong with the past seasons and address how the current season would travel more in the true direction of the show’s original vision.

But that never came.

I watched with anticipation as the semi-finalist directors were whittled down and the finalists faced the interview process with a judges panel that included Matt and Ben and a line producer the press would soon come to know, Effie Brown. Each one of the contestants were pleased as punch to be there, expressed an eagerness to work on a Farrelly brothers script, discussed what they could bring to the project… all except one, Jason Mann. From the moment he walked into the interview room, Jason acted like he’d rather be anywhere else in world. He showed no real interest in shooting a comedy, stating in no uncertain terms he’d much rather shoot his own screenplay (a feature length version of the short that landed him a finalist position in the contest). Way to talk yourself out of job there, buddy, I thought.

I will never learn.

By swimming against the supposed stream of the show, Jason made himself a controversial figure, and since this was a reality TV show and we all know these assisted reality shows thrive on conflict, guess who won the contest?

What followed next was a series of staged Hollywood fights (indirect confrontations) where new kid on the block Jason did end runs around all the seasoned professionals. The squabbling and inability to resolve any of the preproduction hurdles led to the quitting of the Farrellys and the fake deliberation over whether Jason got to shoot is own screenplay. Yeah, I called it. It was a setup. The intention was to shoot Jason’s screenplay from the get-go. It was also the worst job of creating drama I’ve ever witnessed. I mean, these guys shoot fantasy-as-reality everyday and are able to elicit rage, instill happiness, or bring audiences to tears, so why the blazes couldn’t they make this scripted nonsense look and feel more authentic? If you’re going to go carny, go full out. I’ll gladly be a rube as long as I can’t see the puppet master manipulating the strings.

And Jason Mann was such and uninteresting and one-dimensional character they had to beef up Effie Brown’s role, putting her at odds with everyone (especially Matt Damon) as she fought for gender and racial diversity. Noble causes, both. Too bad it was wasted on this nothing project. This will be the first time I won’t bother viewing the finished product, The Leisure Class. I’m done. I’m out. Project Greenlight and I are parting ways for good.

I give Project Greenlight, the entire series, Zero Homeless Shopping Carts, but trust me when I say it’s me, Greenlight, not you. I’m the one who hung all the extra tinsel on you, expecting you to live up to my expectations instead of accepting you as you truly are. You’re a second rate reality show that hasn’t been fully thought out and you deserve a viewer with indiscriminate tastes. Truly my bad.

See ya at the concession stand.

Bone Tomahawk Review

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Set in the Old West, Bone Tomahawk opens with two bandits (Sid Haig and David Arquette) murdering a camp of sleeping men, who decide to take cover in the high ground upon hearing the approach of horses. In the process, they desecrate a bizarre burial ground and are beset by troglodytes. Arquette manages to escape and inadvertently leads the cave-dwelling cannibals to the small town of Bright Hope, where they abduct several townsfolk. The town sheriff (Kurt Russell), his elderly back-up deputy (Richard Jenkins), an educated gunslinger (Matthew Fox), and the crippled husband of one of the kidnap victims (Patrick Wilson), ride out on a hopeless rescue mission.

Marketed as a western/horror this plays out more as a straightforward western that happens to contain a few scenes of graphic violence, which is in no way gratuitous given the nature of the story. But you can’t really go by my insensitivity towards screen gore as I cut my teeth on horror films as a wee lad.

The casting is near perfect. Kurt Russell proved he’s still the man as he struts his stuff, which really should come as no surprise since he demonstrated his cowboy chops in Tombstone. Patrick Wilson once again held his own. A reliable actor, he took on the role of the average man who suffers injury and setbacks, yet stepped up to the plate when the situation called for it (in fact, his nickname should be Clutch, because he always comes through). Richard Jenkins? What can I say about the man besides he tossed himself into the role of the well-intentioned back-up deputy with his usual aplomb. Never a disappointing performance from this man. Even the smaller roles were well cast. Sid Haig and David Arquette as the bandits, Sean Young as the mayor’s domineering wife, Lili Simmons as Wilson’s doctor wife. Yup, not a bad performance in the lot… except for Matthew Fox.

I make no secret of my dislike for Mr. Fox, who has never really impressed me from his Party of Five days, through his six-season stint on Lost, up to his roles in Vantage Point and Alex Cross. He’s a wooden actor with limited range who took the role of the town badass (more educated that the rest of his posse-mates and the killer of more indians) and turned it into something rather dull.

If I’m honest, I approached this film with some hesitation. I read an early version of the screenplay while the project was caught in preproduction hell and my greatest movie viewing downfall is knowing the story beforehand. It’s the same with books. I can read a book or screenplay after I’ve seen the film with no problem, it’s the reverse that spoils the experience for me. I have friends that will read the screenplay for a film they’re about to see, only up to the third act so the movie still holds a surprise for them. I’ve tried this trick and it still doesn’t work.

I mentioned the above because I wanted to like this film better than I did. While I definitely do not hate it, I can’t really rave about it, either. For me, there was something missing from the screenplay I read, a touch of character development that I hoped would have been addressed in a subsequent draft. The story opens with a graphic and bold introduction to this world, which sets the bar high, but then it’s followed by a slowly drawn out series of events. And make no mistake, I have no problem with a film setting its own pace, and I’m not calling this film boring by any means (it is peppered with its fair share of violent scenes) but usually with slower paced projects the script takes advantage by establishing its characters a bit better to create empathy should some unfortunate event befall them later on. But because we’re dealing with stoic cowboys, old-fashioned manly men, that doesn’t quite happen, which may be rightly so, but I think it’s a shame. It affects the film’s rewatchability factor for me. And I know the screenwriter is more than capable of handling this because there are other dialogue interactions between townsfolk, quick, sharp exchanges that lets you know just how characters feel about each other and relate to one another. It’s a minor quibble, but one that nags at me.

So, should you spend your hard earned and see it? If westerns are your thing, sure, why not? This directorial debut of screenwriter S. Craig Zahler features solid performances, the violence is swift and brutal, the dialogue has an authentic ring to it (one interaction between Wilson and Fox: “If you make any flirtatious remarks in my wife’s presence… they’ll be a reckoning.” They just don’t make warnings like that anymore) and as mentioned before, it’s a simple story told simply. No complicated twists or story logic problems to cause you to scratch your puzzler as you leave the theater.

And hang around for the closing theme song, co-written by Zahler, “Four Doomed Men Ride Out.” It’s a hoot.

Bone Tomahawk gets 3.5 Homeless Shopping Carts for a solid, straightforward story and believable performances.

See ya at the concession stand.