Other Reviews by Gary Wright 155

• 
  b.g. action
  A review of Background Action
  by Gary Wright on 11/04/2011
  Matt, I enjoyed this very much. Here are a few thoughts about things I love, and things that I think could work better. HIGHLIGHTS… The opening crosscut between Patrick's red carpet fantasy and the reality. Though I admit I had trouble following what was actually happening with the drunk who assaulted him. And it seemed strange that he was still there on the set days... Matt,
  
  I enjoyed this very much. Here are a few thoughts about things I love, and things that I think could work better.
  
  HIGHLIGHTS…
  
  The opening crosscut between Patrick's red carpet fantasy and the reality. Though I admit I had trouble following what was actually happening with the drunk who assaulted him. And it seemed strange that he was still there on the set days later - seems someone would have called the police and had him escorted away? Or if that's not what's done, wouldn't someone at least wonder aloud why the hell not?
  
  DONNY (bolting up) They got porridge!
  
  That brief moment of enchantment with the knight fixing his horse's harness in the shaft of sunlight.
  
  Falling down the manhole.
  
  The call from the producer after his audition, when he didn't get the job. I found myself wanting him to get it for, and expecting him to get it - and I realized that show business movies have kind of conditioned me to want and expect that. So I was very pleased when you withheld success from him at this moment.
  
  STONER (after pause) Wait, what? LOL
  
  Shelia's speech to the effect that "you can be the man you were - you just have to believe in him". Very nicely done, and felt perfectly organic, coming from Shelia.
  
  TERRY Don't even joke (about Aimee's serial killer potential)
  
  Patrick's sigh when Terry faints. LOL
  
  Marcia watching the old audition tape.
  
  Patrick's two lines in the horror movie.
  
  Patrick instinctively moving with the background players in the final moment, and then remembering that he's a principal now. Brilliant.
  
  THINGS THAT I THINK COULD BE BETTER..
  
  As I mentioned above, the action with the face-punching drunkard felt a bit disjointed.
  
  In leading up to Aimee's freakout, I feel you rely too much on dialogue between other characters talking about her. My preference would be that you show us more little moments like the crazy eyes in the movie theater, to put us on notice that this girl is really troubled.
  
  I like your dialogue very much - it feels on the nose to me in only 2 spots. The first is the angry phone call between Shelia and Patrick - Shelia's lines feel especially OTN, and I think you've missed a nice opportunity here to have her push a button that she knows will hurt. She could call him a hypocrite for chiding her about not treating their son as a son, since he doesn't give Terry enough time, either, and (this is the part that stings) "It's not as if you're the star of these stupid movies. Not as if anyone's going to say Oh dear, what'll we do without Patrick today? Cancel the shoot, go home everyone, we'll try again when Patrick's here!" I think if you let her be a little more cruel here, then her lovely speech about how to be the man he once was will carry more weight, and will feel better. The other OTN spot is between Terry and Patrick, and it's just Terry's one line: "You were, and still are, a big part of my life." It feels stilted compared to the rest of your excellent dialogue, and I think it could be something much more terse, like "[Thanks] For… you know… everything." Patrick's reply tells us what Terry's really talking about, so we don't need Terry to spell it out for us.
  
  I'm an actor, and there's something I do that I think would fit beautifully in this script, because I'm sure I'm not the only actor who does it. When I'm watching a performance, one of two things happens. Either I'm completely transported by it (which is what I prefer to have happen), or, as I'm watching, I replay it in my head the way I would do it. It's not a smug feeling, it's kind of painful - not nearly as pleasant as simply enjoying the performance. You establish the convention for such an "interior scene" in the opening, so I think it would be cool, and thematically appropriate, and totally verisimilitudinous (is that a word?), to have him watch a mediocre actor toss off a scene in a rather uninspired way, while imagining how he would make that scene sing if it were his to do.
  
  And finally, Patrick's speech on p.97 doesn't resonate with me at all. I wouldn't want it to be too on the nose, but I really feel something that requires real acting would be better. An impassioned plea of some kind - pleading with a jury or an executioner for a defendant's life, or talking someone out of committing suicide - something far more dramatically chewy, and thematically on point.
  
  This is a very wise script. For a guy who is near the beginning of his career (I assume, based on your profile pic and bio) you have an uncanny and very compassionate understanding of what it's like to be a middle-aged guy with a lot of regrets about the road not taken. That's the most exciting thing about it, for me - the human empathy in these pages. I like this script a lot, and I think you've got a lot more good work in you.
  
  all the best,
  
  Gary
  
  read
• 
  My tail's still wagging
  A review of "Castaway Dog"
  by Gary Wright on 10/23/2011
  Marc, I enjoyed this so much. A rich, delightful cast of characters, genuinely funny running gags, deftly handled setups and payoffs which felt totally organic to the characters, plenty of great visuals, high stakes, and just enough fresh, whimsical weirdness to make it feel like a truly original universe. I was troubled by the fact that Captain Drake sounds like a salty... Marc,
  I enjoyed this so much. A rich, delightful cast of characters, genuinely funny running gags, deftly handled setups and payoffs which felt totally organic to the characters, plenty of great visuals, high stakes, and just enough fresh, whimsical weirdness to make it feel like a truly original universe. I was troubled by the fact that Captain Drake sounds like a salty sea dog when you introduce him, and in most of the scenes - but not in all of them. I think you need to take a pass through and just Robert Newton him up a little bit in the places where he sounds, uh, like a regular person. And I was very distracted and bothered by the fact that Scarling Dray only really had trouble with Ts and Ds about half the time. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered me if I were watching the movie - but because I read that very funny line in the description about her having trouble with those letters, it kept bothering me when she seemed perfectly capable of pronouncing them. I wanted you to either be more consistent with the substitutions, or work harder to use words that don't contain those letters. In fact, I think you could get some comic value out of that as a character trait - if she's self-conscious about her pronunciation problems and sometimes uses deliberately tortured phrasing in order to avoid Ts and Ds - and someone calls her on it. Maybe??? I dunno. Just spitballing. I also think there are several places where you could describe specific puppy behaviors that would be very entertaining. I would take a pass through and puppy them up a bit more. It's not a glaring weakness - you actually do it very well in many places, but I sensed a few lost opportunities here and there. You have quite a few typos and punctuation shortcomings, which I marked up in detail, along with a few more specific suggestions in the pdf of your script. I'll email it to you. If you have a Mac, I recommend opening the pdf in the application "Preview" - that makes the notes and stickies easy to read.
  all the best,
  Gary read
• 
  free wolfie
  A review of Mozart's Ghost
  by Gary Wright on 08/13/2011
  Hi Bob, I think you gotta decide which brow this comedy is aimed at, low, middle, or high, because right now it's all over the map. The concept is middle to highbrow, but many of the jokes aim pretty low. I'd like to see you elevate the tone, which means digging a lot deeper into the characters. Most of them feel like broad stroke sketches, or plot functionaries, or joke... Hi Bob,
  
  I think you gotta decide which brow this comedy is aimed at, low, middle, or high, because right now it's all over the map. The concept is middle to highbrow, but many of the jokes aim pretty low. I'd like to see you elevate the tone, which means digging a lot deeper into the characters. Most of them feel like broad stroke sketches, or plot functionaries, or joke delivery devices, rather than real people. You need real people for this one.
  
  8 - Off pitch.
  WOLFIE
  Always with the
  mocking.
  This line sounds longsuffering and Jewish to me, not Austrian or German or whatever Mozart was. Kinda Woody Allenesque. A classic Jewish-American comedy construction, but not really in character for Mozart.
  
  8, 9 - Wolfie's gentle nagging of her somehow doesn't seem Wolfie-like to me (seems more like Wolfie's dad, Leopold). Mozart should be more of an impish troublemaker. I'll be interested to see how their relationship unfolds as I read on, because I wonder if Mozart is the best possible choice for this character - or if you're using him in the best possible way.
  
  10 - You don't need this on p.10:
  Wolfie’s a ghost that only Allie can see or hear.
  Your writing (not to mention the title) make this crystal clear by the end of page 11.
  
  16 - I don't buy this sarcastic response, coming from a practicing psychiatrist.
  ALLIE
  I’m not crazy.
  DR. FELDMAN
  No, you’re a fully grown adult and
  you have imaginary friends.
  
  17 - Same with this line.
  DR. FELDMAN
  You carry on conversations with the
  ghost of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
  and you don’t find that the least
  bit troubling?
  Actually, his whole reaction to her - giving her a Bellevue card, threatening to call the police if she returns, just doesn't strike me as something a real person would do - unless her behavior were a lot more bizarre, dangerous, and frightening - like Crispin Glover taking a kick at David Letterman's head - that kind of behavior. So you need to either make his reaction more believable, or make her behavior truly wacky, frightening, and worthy of the reaction.
  
  17 - This line doesn't sound like Wolfie talking.
  WOLFIE
  If you’d just accept the fact that
  I’m here, you wouldn’t act so
  strangely.
  Ironically, considering the above notes, it sounds like something a psychiatrist would say.
  
  19 - Love this.
  Wolfie stares at Echo for a minute. He tries to kick Echo in the shins but Echo doesn’t even feel it.
  
  22 - You've done a good job of hinting at this, and you could continue to clue us in gently - you don't have to spell it out in OTN dialogue like this.
  ALLIE
  I’m sorry you got hurt in the war.
  I’m sorry it screwed up your
  career. But none of that was my
  fault.
  
  25 - This dialogue is trying to be funny, but, to me, it just seems forced into the characters' mouths, like an enormous… uh… never mind.
  JAKOB
  Ja, Ja, Ja!
  GILDA
  Shtup me, Jakob. Stup--
  
  26 -
  Wolfie shakes his head like a coked up bobblehead doll.
  Nice vivid image, but to me, "shakes his head" indicates the side-to-side "no" motion. I would use "nods" to indicate an affirmative response.
  
  26 - Nice!
  WOLFIE
  Back in my time it meant playing at
  the concert hall in Vienna. But
  now, I think being recorded on a
  C.D. will work.
  
  26 - Okay, end of Act One. Obviously, my earlier thought of "Is Mozart the best possible character for this?" is answered. YES, he definitely is. The unfinished requiem is a very recognizable thing, and it gives the ghost an excellent Need, to justify the haunting. Love it. Concept: Excellent!
  
  But I still have some grave character concerns - Wolfie still seems to behave like Leopold (I wonder if it would be good to add a layer - have Wolfie haunted by Leopold, who is urging him to finish his requiem, and maybe somehow preventing him from being with Constanza until he finishes it?) Part of the problem is Mozart and Jakob seem to be performing the same story function most of the time - pushing Allie to use her gift as a serious musician, rather than squander it on a small-time punk band. I would like to see more of a difference in style and function between these two guys. Feels like Mozart should be more rebellious, more of a hellion. He seems a bit staid and avuncular - like a nicer version of her dad, with better hair. That's not a very interesting difference. Mozart was the proto-rock-star. I think you gotta give him some fucking EDGE.
  
  52 - Consider cutting the rest of the scene after this:
  He gives her a nice hug and brushes back her hair.
  
  52 - This scene in Jazz Theory feels more like an excerpt from a Glee episode than an actual music class. God I hate that show.
  
  53 - This is disappointingly OTN.
  MELANIE
  As you know, my father, Randy
  Loomis, is head of Loomis Records.
  After you took such pains to make us wonder who Melanie's dad is, it would be nice to do a more elegant reveal.
  
  57 - I don't like this, because it's another example of dialogue that feels foisted upon a character without the character's consent.
  MELANIE
  Yes, sir. I’m calling it
  “Variations on a Trip to the Mall”.
  I just don't buy it. She's a student at Juilliard, I don't think you can make her a valley girl. More interesting if she has some real chops.
  
  64 - I like the reveal that the members of the punk band are all Juilliard guys. To be painfully honest, this is one of the few things in the script that I thought was funny.
  
  65,66 - Jakob and Gilda's scenes tend to be expository, shallow, on the nose, and excuses for lowbrow jokes that don't really fit in. It's as if the writers of Ghost Town had allowed Mel Brooks to do a pass through their script. Bad idea. You, the writer, don't seem to know or care who Mom and Dad are. They need your attention. One suggestion: Jakob being a musician and pushing Allie to be a musician doesn't feel right to me. I think the dynamics might improve if he were not musical at all, and didn't want her wasting her time in the arts. Will revisit this thought later, after I see how you resolve his throughline. Maybe it's important that he be a musician? We'll see.
  
  76 - This scene where Wolfie cooperates with Allie by demonstrating his ghostly music-transcribing trick is interesting, but this is what I mean about Wolfie needing an edge - he's not mischievous enough. It's a missed opportunity to ramp up the conflict in the story. I found it a little hard to believe that Wolfie would cooperate so easily, after only a moment's hesitation. What happens if Zeke doesn't believe Allie, and Wolfie refuses to help her out? Doesn't that raise the stakes for her? And isn't that a good thing?
  
  WARNING: Sweeping generalization ahead…
  
  I haven't marked specific instances of this because I've only gradually become aware of it, but generally speaking, I get the feeling that you're so fond of Allie and Wolfie that you don't want to make things too hard on them, so you tend to shield them from conflict, rather than push them into it. You mustn't do that.
  
  The Carnegie Hall thing is pretty hard to believe - how easily she gets access, and how easy it is to convince this guy that he should let her perform at CARNEGIE-FREAKIN'-HALL! Shit, if it's THAT easy, I'll pop in and do a recital there myself, next time I'm in town! I would buy the Carnegie Hall thing as the MAIN conflict of a movie, but not shoehorned into the third act like this, as a "Plan B" in case the Loomis Records contest doesn't work out. I'd find it more believable, maybe, if you skipped the big stack of hate section, and had some Carnegie Hall rep, or classical musician with Carnegie connections, discover her at the contest, and marvel at how perfectly she's managed to "copy" the "uncopyable" Mozart.
  
  So, getting back to Jakob - NO, I don't think it's important that he be a musician at all - only that he question the value of Allie's punk bands and her taste in boys. In fact, I really think it would be better if he were NOT a musician. Then why, you ask, would Mom and Dad have been in the Mozart museum all those years ago? Easy. Because Mom wanted to be there. Dad couldn't have cared less - he just seized the opportunity for a little disrespectful nookie. In fact, maybe as an Israeli Jew, he hates all things German and Austrian, including their culture, and loves to diss them whenever possible.
  
  The ending feels very first-drafty, but I think getting deeper into your characters, and making choices that rev up the conflict instead of letting them off the hook, will yield a more satisfying ending for you. read