Blargety, Blargety, Blargety

That's the backwards sound that plays on the guys' production company logo during one of the seasons, and for awhile it was infectiously stuck in my head.

Nickelodeon Fellowship application has been mailed. Fingers crossed.

Time to start working on a new comedy spec and pilot.

Oscars 2010

Awards season is over! Congratulations to The King's Speech on its Best Picture win. My thoughts on the Oscars can best be summed up with my Top Ten list. Since there were five movies on my list that placed higher than TKS, it obviously wouldn't have been my pick. But that's okay, because Avatar didn't win last year, and for that I am still grateful.

I love Aaron Sorkin for many reasons. He's an amazing writer. He's eloquent and well-spoken. And I know his assistant's name is Laura. The reason I know that is because he thanks her every time he gets an award. What a stand up guy. Every single person who won last night (expect maybe the doc and short film people) has an assistant (probably more than one). How many people thanked their assistant (and their researcher)? Mr. Aaron Sorkin. Yep, I think that was it. From all the assistants out there, Thank You.

Best Acceptance Speech of the Evening: Luke Matheny, the NYU student who accepted for "God of Love" for Best Short Film. He thanked his mom for being Craft Services on his movie. It was the biggest laugh of the night.

But enough about the awards, it's all about who looked best. My top 5 IN ORDER:

Best Dressed: Amy Adams

Glorious. Sparkly. Perfect jewelry. Can someone lend me some emeralds?

2.) Jennifer Lawrence

Va Va Voom. The Oscars needed some sexiness this year, and Jennifer brought it. And her makeup. Oh, the makeup. Best makeup of anyone all awards season.

3.) Annette Bening

This is the dress Melissa Leo should have worn. It's age appropriate, yet fun. But I think it would look great on women of all ages. I want it. I could find somewhere to wear it.

4.) Natalie Portman

It was her night and she looked the best she's looked all season. Ditch the matchy-match earrings and she's perfection.

5.) Helen Mirren

I. Just. Love. Her.

Honorable Mention: Hailee Steinfeld

I liked her Oscar dress...

I love that she helped design it. It's lovely and youthful. I think the headband ruined it for me, much as Natalie's earrings almost ruined her look. But cheers for looking like a fourteen year old should look when she goes to the Oscars. And cheers for looking like a superstar at the SAGs.

This dress is freakin' awesome. It should look like a table cloth, but instead looks like a work of art. Way to rock it, Hailee. And the season started with this:

Pretty fabulous way to start. Thanks for a lovely awards season, Hailee, and for nailing all three of the televised shows.

Skins

The original Skins, wearing more clothes

I love well-done teen shows. I think My So-Called Life is one of the best TV shows ever and I'm a huge Veronica Mars fan. The first season of Gossip Girl was brilliant. I'm merrily addicted to Pretty Little Liars. I haven't seen Freaks and Geeks but someday I will, and I know I'll love it. Hell, I even like Glee, (although my love has been waning as of late). So I'm relieved there are now places on cable for teen shows where they don't have the extreme ratings pressure that the major networks carry.

I haven't see the British Skins, so I had no expectations. I just wanted it to be good. Pilots are hard. I try to give new shows one additional episode even if I don't like the pilot because so much info is crammed into such a small amount of time and they often don't capture the true spirit of the show. And after the first episode of Skins that's how I felt. I didn't really have a feel for the show. I knew that the lead guy couldn't act his way out of paper bag, which was disheartening. And he looks like Penn Badgley from Gossip Girl, which can be good or bad depending on your taste.

Half the episode was ADR. Maybe they were trying to fix Poor Man's Penn Badgley's performance, or they scimped on their sound recordist. Either way, it was obvious ADR. Um, sound mixers, were you asleep during the mix? The show sounded like ass. I've been to a few mixes, and the mixers are the most anal people I've ever worked with. They hear mistakes I can't hear even when they're pointed out to me. The mixers are wonderful, perfectionist dogs howling at whistles I can't hear. It's beautiful. I don't know what happened with the Skins mix.

So I watched the second episode. Again, there were ADR issues, but not as bad as the pilot. Again, the show was meh. So I gave it one more episode. Same thing. The show isn't good enough to get excited about, but it has potential, and isn't bad enough to automatically cancel it out. There's some decent acting, Jesse Carere and Britne Oldford are standouts. The production seems to know Poor Man's Penn Badgley isn't very good because in a pivotal scene where he was pleading with his crush, they left her take running the whole conversation and never showed his face. Sort of hilarious, sort of sad. Anyway, I think I'm done with the show. Last week's episode has been sitting on the DVR for a week and I saw a little of this week's episode which involved putting a moose out of it's misery. Way too early in a show to be needing moose humor.

Goodbye, Skins. You were worth the try. Time to go rid my DVR of you.

A Few Notes About Romantic Comedies

Romantic comedy chat has come up on Done Deal recently. One thread asked what's wrong with romantic comedies. I commented that they aren't living up to their namesake. There's no romance. There's no falling in love. Where has all the chemistry gone? The "New York Times" had this article awhile back: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/opinion/04dowd.html?_r=1

Most people blame the recent plummet of rom coms on their formula. We all know how it ends; the couple gets together. Well, movies are all formulaic. In general, they're going to end two ways, happily or sadly. When you go to see an action movie or a thriller, you know the bad guy gets it at the end, or he doesn't. It's either one or the other.

We don't pay to see movies because of the endings, we pay for the journey. And just because rom coms have predictable endings, doesn't mean the journey has to feel tired. The journey feeling boring and been-there-done-that is a problem within the genre, but just pointing to rom coms and saying, "Ick, formula, run!" is a cop out.

People either like the genre or they don't. Which is fine. Viewers who like rom coms will continue to pay to see them because they want a happy ending. People want to see feel good movies. Why do you think The King's Speech has been so successful? Word of mouth has spread about it's excellent performances and how uplifted people felt when they left the theatre. Can't say the same about The Social Network, Black Swan, or Inception. All, in my opinion, are better films than TKS, but they don't leave you with that fuzzy warmth in the pit of your stomach.

I'm a proud writer of romantic comedies. I focus on trying to create journeys that don't feel like a road I've been down a thousand times before. It's effin' hard to create a world that has to satisfy genre expectations and feel fresh. I like the challenge. And I find it depressing every time a rom com comes out and sucks. It feels like a little piece of my favorite genre is dying.

The thread on rom com problems led to someone creating a thread asking to name your favorite rom com. This was particularly comical because you find out real fast who likes rom coms and who doesn't.

I like Shaun of the Dead (liked Hot Fuzz better) but it is not a rom com. It was listed again and again. Yes, there's a tiny romantic storyline, but if the last scene of the movie is about a dude hanging out with another dude (and they're not making out) it's a freaking bromance! And bromance is not romantic comedy.

Someone listed True Lies. If I would've been drinking when I read that I would've spit all over my computer screen. That is a person who haaaates romantic comedies. That's like me saying that My Best Friend's Wedding is an action movie because there's a chase scene in it. Hah!

For the most part, I don't watch movies multiple times. But these are the rom coms that I can (and do) watch over and over again:

It Happened One Night
The Philadelphia Story
Bridget Jones's Diary
You've Got Mail
Kissing Jessica Stein
Love, Actually
The Cutting Edge
Green Card
While You Were Sleeping
Cousins
Clueless
I.Q.

Runners Up (They're very good, but I wouldn't watch them more than once a year):

When Harry Met Sally
Peggy Sue Got Married
Moonstruck
Fever Pitch
Return to Me
Date with an Angel (childhood favorite)

I'll keep adding to the list as they come to me.

Mine's Bigger Than Yours

 
I've worked some crazy jobs since I moved to LA. Lots of interesting characters. I read an article this week that reminded me of a funny work story.

I once saw the office of an executive producer on a successful TV show. We'll call that Show A. Show A had been on for a couple seasons before Show B started. Show B was not a rip-off of Show A, but it had a similar feel, and the shows were often compared to one another. Show B usually fared better in these comparisons, at least critically.

I noticed a framed letter hanging outside of the EP's office. It was a letter to the EP, in ugly, scrawled penmanship (it could have been a ransom note) about how Show B sucked and Show A was awesome. There was even profanity. And there it was, framed for all the world to see. It wasn't a note from Spielberg congratulating and admitting to being a fan, this was some random person from Nowheresville with the penmanship of a kindergartner and the grammar of a preschooler. It made me giggle. I still imagine the EP ordering his assistant to frame and hang that letter.

Ha! See! We have won. My show is better. This note proves it.

And so it did.

The Fifth Taste

I've been dreaming of Umami Burger ever since the last time I went there. One would assume I was craving the signature Umami Burger or one of the many sophisticated beef or turkey burgers on the menu.  But, no. I fell in love with the Earth Burger, a veggie burger made from ground up mushrooms and edamame. The patty is tinted red with beet juice and has the texture of raw ground beef. Truffle ricotta makes it extra special. Nope, this isn't vegan. I find this burger to be a very carnal experience.

I used the flash so the red from the beets would show.

I am not a vegetarian but I'm always trying to find meat alternatives. I'll try any veggie burger that says "homemade." I'm not going to a restaurant to pay for a Boca Burger, but I'll keep a box in my freezer. Along with Umami, Hugo's has my other favorite veggie burger.

Hubs sticks with the beef. He appropriately got a Manly Burger. I had a bite and it was great.

Manly Burger

The onion rings are special, too.

They're made from tempura batter and the baking power or soda or whatever it is makes them puffier than your usual onion ring, but they're still very crunchy. Hubs isn't a huge fan of onion rings and he suggested we order them again, so you know they're good.

Service at Umami can be frustrating. We waited for our food longer than it took to eat it, and we eat sloooow. Go at an off time and eat a snack before you go.

Thick Skin

Having thick skin is a necessity as a writer. I always want my writing to improve with each draft and absorbing others' criticism is vital. I know I've improved at taking criticism, but it's taken time and practice. The more I write, the more confidence I gain in my writing. The more criticism I get, the thicker my skin grows.

Sometimes throwing yourself to the wolves works, too. I got a jump start with the thick skin when I was in college. I took a poetry workshop and I loved it so much I decided to do a poetry minor. That meant lots and lots of workshops. For the first few workshops I had the most amazing instructor, Maureen Seaton. She's an amazing poet and an incredible human being. The only acceptable criticism in her class was the constructive kind and even if comments were negative, the vibe was always nurturing. In her class, when you offered feedback, your first comment always had to be positive. It's something I always do when I critique any one's work; lead with something positive. That way you always start off on the right foot. And after people here something complimentary I feel they're more receptive to what needs work.

I wrote about very personal subjects during these workshops. I think there was a lot of baggage I needed to expel, and in Maureen's workshops I felt safe enough to write about my love, hate, shame, grief. Everything. The same students and I had been through so many workshops together by this point, I felt close to them. I looked forward to what they were going to say about my work. I even had a poem published. I thought I was the next Adrienne Rich.

Near the end of my poetry minor, Maureen got offered a better job across the country and left. I took my advanced workshop with the head of the poetry department. He's a well-regarded poet who runs a successful literary journal. He was a nice enough guy. Most of my old colleagues were in this larger class, but there were a lot of new faces. The new guys were poetry majors. They had been in the advanced workshop with this instructor for two years. But I wasn't intimidated. I knew I was talented. Maureen had believed in me, so would my new instructor. Well, not so much. The feedback was all negative. I know poetry is subjective, all writing is, but my work was not well received. And I sat and watched as the language poets would write down random words all over the entire sheet of paper and the students would ooh and ahh over the white space on the paper. I puked in my mouth a little. I was still writing about subjects near and dear to me. One student called one of my poems "trite." It's the worst word you can hear as an artist: your work is trite. You may as well have just spat on my soul.

The whole vibe of the class was awful. It was negative and competitive. This was poetry. There is no reason to be competitive. There is no money to be made. Again, this is poetry. I felt the students were being nasty just for the sake of being nasty. My favorite comment was a snotty, "This is like a Billy Collins poem." Okay. Billy Collins was the Poet Laureate of the country at the time, and this opinion was given with a negative connotation. A number of my classmates nodded in disdain. I almost laughed out loud. This was like sneering, "This is like an Brian Helgeland screenplay." Even if you don't love his work, you have to respect his success. There is no way to negatively compare a screenwriter to Brian Helgeland. That would be insane.

So, I guess that's my best advice; take a poetry workshop, write about personal subjects and have your babies ripped to shreds. You might cry a little after class. Your love of poetry may wither and die. But you will have thick skin. And then you can start writing screenplays.