John August

flagged

Other writer sites

Resources

In the share-the-love category: A growing number of writers have websites and/or blogs that you may want to check out for more information and opinions about the craft, the business and the unreality of screenwriting. Here are a few worth perusing:

  1. Lee Goldberg has written extensively for television, and also has several novels to his credit. I haven’t read his book Successful Television Writing, but clicking through the first few pages (thanks, Amazon), I’d say he seems to know what he’s talking about.

  2. Ask Dr. Hollywood is a question-and-answer site, much like johnaugust.com. Because it’s structured as a series of very long pages, it’s not quite as reader-friendly, but the advice is helpful.

  3. Complications Ensue is a blog run by Montreal-based writer Alex Epstein, who authored the book Crafty Screenwriting. Again, I haven’t read his book, so caveat emptor. (Or for library patrons, caveat lector.)

  4. Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott’s Wordplayer has been in the sidebar forever, but in case you haven’t clicked it, you should definitely check it out. They’ve been dispensing useful advice for years. They also have open forums, which I’ve never been brave enough to try.

  5. The Artful Writer is a new site aimed at already-working screenwriters. I actually spoke with its owner, Craig Mazin, on the phone while wife was in labor. He had questions about Movable Type and CSS. Now that’s dedication.

UK Charlie teaser now up

Charlie, Projects

[Burning Puppets]Warner Bros. UK has a new teaser trailer up for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s almost exactly the same as the US version, with the addition of some burning puppets about two-thirds of the way through, right after the lyric, “A magician and a chocolate wiz.”

“What’s the deal with those flaming puppets?” you may well ask.

Well, they were always supposed to be there. In the movie, these puppets sing the catchy-yet-annoying “Willy Wonka” song, and well, things go awry. Apparently, the US version of the teaser trailer was supposed to be identical to the UK version, but when the MPAA reviewed the trailer, they wouldn’t approve the puppets being on fire. (For whatever reason. I don’t know the details, and it’s only frustrating to speculate.)

The good news is that thanks to the web, you can see the teaser as it was meant to be. See it here.

Finding the RSS feeds

Geek Alert

Stephen wrote in to say that the RSS feeds were acting up. I think I’ve addressed the problem, particularly with Firefox’s “live bookmarks” pointing in the wrong directions. (If you’re having an issue where “Live Bookmark failed to load,” delete the bookmark and make a new one.)

You can always find the right links for the RSS and Atom feeds in the cleverly-named “Feeds” section on the right. But for your convenience, here they are as well.

For Atom: https://dev.johnaugust.com/feeds/atom
For RSS 2: https://dev.johnaugust.com/feeds/rss2
For RSS .92: https://dev.johnaugust.com/feeds/rss

Copy and paste these URLs into your newsreader of choice. Or, if you’re using Firefox, just click on the tiny orange button in the bottom-right corner of the window, and select your preferred version of the feed.

Phantom of the Opera

Rant

phantomFirst off, this is not a film review. If it were, I’d write about the performances, production design, music and all all the other factors that make or break a movie. Also, I’ve met the director and co-screenwriter, Joel Schumacher, who is every bit as nice as his reputation. So I don’t want it to be weird next time I say hello to him at some event. Rather, I just want to point out some story issues that stuck out to me — things I’d want to tackle if I’d gotten the script before it went into production.

I saw Phantom of the Opera last night. This was my first exposure to it — I never saw the stage musical, nor read the book. I can say I’m glad I saw it. There were things that really worked, and things that didn’t. What was interesting, and frustrating, is that a lot of the film’s biggest issues were on the page.

Be advised that everything from this point forward is full of spoilers.

Phantom is essentially a love triangle. You have Christine, the gifted chorus girl. Raoul, the unaccountably hot viscount. And The Phantom, a deformed genius who lurks around the Paris opera house where the story is set.

Christine is an orphan, natch, who was raised by Madame Giry in the opera dormitory. Before he died, Christine’s father promised an Angel of Music would watch over her. And in fact, that’s what the Phantom has been doing. He’s the voice in the darkness who’s been giving her singing lessons. So far, it feels like Beauty and the Beast.

Here’s where the movie gets into some very un-Disney territory. The Phantom has been essentially a surrogate father to this girl, and in fact pretends to be the spirit of her father at times — and yet he wants to marry her and, well, ravage her. Don’t get me wrong: I love that it’s kind of sick and twisted. But the movie never really does anything with this idea. No one calls him on it, or points out that Madame Giry has essentially been pimping out Christine to an evil lech who lives in the sewers.

[Read more…] about Phantom of the Opera