Once in a while, a movie comes along, and it completely tears down the genre expectations that came with it. In the early 90s, that movie was _Dances With Wolves_ , and it took on the Western.
The film was a passion project from writer, director, and star Kevin Costner and went on to sweep the Academy Awards.
But Costner didn’t wait until the third act to show audiences he was subverting…
What’s the tightest you’ve ever gripped an armrest in a movie theater?
For me, it was 2009. I was sitting in the dark of the Regal Edgmont next to my Dad. I was there to see this hot new Tarantino World War II movie that had everyone talking.
And it was just the opening scene.
Anyway, seventeen years ago, Quentin Tarantino’s _Inglourious Basterds_ premiered at Cannes. We all know the movie…
I’ll be honest with you, I came to __Patton__ late. I was in film school, buried in Godard and Cassavetes, doing everything I could to seem like I was too cool for a three-hour war epic.
Then I had an afternoon alone, and I remember it was on TCM. I was just going to watch the opening scene, and suddenly it was much later, and the credits rolled.
I couldn't turn away from the screen because…
If you've ever sat through a script note session and thought, "I wish someone would just say what they mean," Scriptfella is your guy.
In this excerpt from one of his free live classes, screenwriting coach Dominic Morgan workshopped _How's the Pain_ , a script by writer Garrick Hamm about a terminally ill hit woman who forms an unlikely connection on what turns out to be her final job.
The…
Look, I have a ton of bias as a writer; when I put it on the page, that's the way I imagined the story. But they say a movie is written several times: on the page, in production, and then in the edit.
And it's that final edit that secures the way we'll view the movie in theaters. This is true for indies all the way up to huge blockbusters. And we have an interesting case study:…
Do you remember the first time you saw _Reservoir Dogs_? I got the VHS from my local library and waited until after my parents went to bed.
As I pushed it into the VCR, I knew I was about to be transported into a seedy world of crime...and then the opening scene still blew my mind.
I can't even imagine what it was like seeing it at Cannes, and being introduced to the world of talky…