plus! hollywood haikus
"I was Fredo? I don't think so."
Basically, I'm taking the week off. Will begin again on Saturday.
Analyze This is a very funny movie. The script is a mess, but I didn't care: I was laughing like a fool. Billy Crystal does the psychiatrist schtick great, and Robert De Niro is hysterically funny as the mob boss in need of therapy. (That's the plot, by the way: mob boss needs therapy. This movie goes for the obvious guffaws; The Sopranos goes for a dramatic portrayal of what life in the Family must be like.)
The audience enjoyed the movie so much I probably lost half the punchlines, because they were laughing at the lines that came right before. And some people were laughing at everything, regardless of the funny quotient, real or intended.
Like I said, it's not a good script: any bit having to do with Billy Crystal's personal life just lies there like a dead fish. They needed Lisa Kudrow because...? They needed the teenage son because...? The whole scene with the father who's a psychiatrist gets resolved how...?
And is it just me, or does Robert De Niro do the weirdest version of crying I've ever seen?
But I totally recommend this movie; I was laughing in a way I haven't at most movies recently.
Pooks posted some doggie haikus today she got from a humor list:
Today I sniffed
many dog assholes; I celebrate
by kissing your face.
This got me thinking. Screenplays are supposed to be as spare as possible, using as few words as possible to evoke the most meaning, the clearest picture.
Here, now, copyright 1999 Diane Patterson, an entire screenplay in haiku form:
No dialogue no
Character motivation
Cut to the car chase
Actually, I think there are several funny haikus to be dreamt up on facets of the entertainment industry. I will probably post them from time to time.
So, I've discovered I have to write in chronological order. That is, I can't write the seduction scene without having written the fight scene that immediately precedes it; I need to know what she's so angry about before he can seduce her. Knowing that she's angry about "something" isn't enough.
I decided I was going to write the end of Act 2 scene, come hell or high water.
Well, I had to write the scene immediately preceding that one first, so I'd know why the heroine feels so completely alone (though she doesn't know what completely alone is going to feel like until I'm done with her). No skipping. I wrote a bad version of the scene, but I got the general gist of it across, and now I know one version of it that won't work; that narrows it down to all the other versions I have yet to write.
And I moved on to the end of Act 2. Oy. Stomach churning. Ugh.
I've told myself I can't have any chocolate until this verkakate scene is written. This is a fate worse than death. (Since rape by savages seems highly unlikely in my day-to-day life, my personal fate worse than death is no chocolate.)
I'm squirming, trying to figure out how to do this. Hopefully, the audience will be squirming by the time I'm done.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com