1 June 1998

 x The Paperwork.
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Fresh Content

Some new links for toi.
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..previously on the Paperwork

Index of days
Dramatis personae
Glossary of terms

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I said I'll show mine if you show me yours, and I will...except for which journals I check daily. I'm chickening out because I still get asked which journals I think are the good ones. Hey, I'm no arbiter, 'kay?

However, I can heartily recommend the Archipelago ring, and not just 'cause I'm in it. In fact, given some of the journals that are in there, I haven't the slightest idea of how I made it. But that's neither here nor there.

So I'll show you the other sites I check daily (and sometimes hourly):

  • Wordplay forums
    Wordplay is the best site around for the screenwriting tips and advice, hands down. The forums are where the Great Unwashed (inc. Yours Truly) chat about what's on the site, the Biz, what we're doing, etc.

  • The Well
    The Well is a closed environment, where the elite meet and greet. And they let people like me and Ceej in too. What's especially great about the Well is that
    1. most of the people are literate and have something to say;
    2. you can't hide behind multiple pseudonyms;
    3. I'm co-host of the Screenwriting conference.

  • Jon Carroll
    A columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle. The only reason to buy the Comicle. He is hysterically funny and satirical.

  • Salon Magazine
    Insightful, topical, well-written. You can usually find something to enjoy, or that makes you furious, or just something to make you think.

  • Cybersleaze
    My daily dose of gossip...when she remembers to update, that is.

  • Daily Dish
    The gossip column from the New York Daily News.

  • Ain't It Cool News
    Gossip about stuff in production, reviews of sneak previews, news about the Industry.

  • Coming Attractions
    Information about movies in production.

And here are the sites that I have to check in on at least once a week:

  • Pathfinder
    The Time-Warner megaoverlord site. Has most of the articles from the Time/People/Sports Illustrated oeuvre.

  • Ted Casablanca's Gossip Column
    Lots and lots of gossip.

  • Film.Com
    Reviews of movies. New reviews are posted every Friday, when the new movies come out.

  • Real Astrology
    The best astrology column out there, bar none. (Of course, Darin thinks that "best astrology column" is an oxymoron.)

But enough about me. What do you think of me?


Here are some of the sites readers sent me that received multiple votes, and not even from the people who run the sites:

Journals that people are tuning into daily:

  • Dear Jackie Robinson
    A journal, and yes, this site still exists, but I'm not going to tell you where it is without permission, because Beth had some problems with weirdos and crackheads.
  • Scoop
    A journal.

  • Cerebrations
    A journal.

  • Life in a Box
    A journal. "(no archives, if you miss it, you miss it)"

  • Deb's Daily Dose
    A journal.

  • Imbroglio
    A journal.

  • Under the Pink
    A journal.

  • Off Centre
    A journal.

  • Caveat.emptor
    A journal. "Alex isn't updating as much as he used to."

  • Honeyguide Web Log
    Updated every day (or even more frequently) with stuff the web author has found out there.

  • Robot Wisdom
    Another list of stuff the author thinks you might want to take a look at, updated daily.

  • The Daily News From Iceland
    You never know when you're going to need to hear what's going on in Iceland.

And now a few strange daily sites that a reader told me about:

Kymm's sites that are not updated nearly often enough:

Nevin scared me with: Women Behind Bars. (I don't want to know how he found this.)


I watched Nixon today.

No wonder Oliver Stone doesn't have a career any more. The real wonder is that Anthony Hopkins still does.

Nixon is incoherence masquerading as a TV docudrama. What the hell Stone's point was is beyond me, but perhaps the phantom Cubans who hang over this story have the answer.

Anthony Hopkins was a big problem with the movie, mostly because a)he can't do an American accent, dammit and b)he didn't have a character. His Nixon isn't complex--he's just bizarre. Maybe the man really was, but that doesn't make for compelling drama.

The direction and the editing were overblown and self-indulgent--the mixed footage types and strange angles worked well with Natural Born Killers, but here they felt out of sync and showy here. They didn't serve the purpose.

The biggest problem, however, is that Stone expects we remember the minutiae of Watergate and Vietnam. The script skips over explaining to us who Haldeman and Erlichman were (I know they were involved with Watergate, and I know one of them was Chief of Staff, and that's about it). That we know what role John Dean played at the White House, and why his talking to the Watergate Committee was so devastating.

I know you might remember the Ins and Outs of Watergate like they were yesterday--I was but a tot. The whole thing was presented as fait accompli, and I would have been interested to see what happened and why. We don't get to see that. Exactly what did these people do wrong? Sigh.

And just what was supposed to be going on down in Key Biscayne with Bebe Rebozo, anyhow? (The character was called Trini Cardoza in the movie--why, I don't know.)


Career Notes

One of the things I decided was that I was not going to get too involved in my script without knowing the ending. So today I worked on the ending, to make sure I have an ending that I find satisfying.


Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Day off from running.

The Paperwork continues...

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Copyright ©1998 Diane Patterson