"Big Nothing" starring Simon Pegg and David Schwimmer. This was a very odd movie. It's basically about Pegg convincing Schwimmer to go along with him on a scheme to blackmail a priest for a boatload of money. Then a cute blond girl gets in on the deal. Then everything starts going wrong. They go to the priest's house and Pegg is held up at gun point, Schwimmer messed something up and gets to the house and sees the priest on the ground and with no signs of Pegg, drags him and dumps his body in a septic tank. Then it turns out he wasn't really dead, then they find more dirty secrets, then a cop shows up, then the girl shows up, etc etc etc. It's basically, what I like to call a snowball movie. There's no real plot per se, it just keeps escalating and moving along. It's all cause and effect. Much like movies I have made. In fact, this was so reminiscent of things I have done in the past, I even started to notice lines and jokes that I've used in scripts. I'm not sure if that says good things for me or bad things for this movie, or both. But it's pretty much the kind of movie you would expect a recent college graduate to make...if they could get Simon Pegg and David Schwimmer. It's actually an interesting role for Pegg, who's just a sleeze ball douchebag, and good at it. Either way, it's the perfect "if it's ok TV on a Saturday one afternoon I'll keep it on while I do something else" movie.
"Countdown" starring Tank Girl and the London brother that wasn't in Mallrats. Also, it was just on. It's about a 30 something white male, London, who threatens to blow up a large chunk of some city and Tank Girl, Lori something, is the edgy female cop who's going to take him down. I've started to really pick up on this one aspect of movies - whether they sound like movies or whether they sound like people. This sounded like a movie. It's something I was taught, subconsciously, but pick up on. Like a guy who's supposed to be a crazed, genius uni-bomber asking a cop "so what do you think love is", is just, well, a little...dumb. Don't see this movie, it's not even witty. Nor does it have Simon Pegg.
"Lucky Number Slevin" starring Josh Hartnett in a bathrobe, Bruce Willis is a miscast role, Ben Freaking Kingsley playing a rabbi and Morgan Freeman being evil. Nothing bad right? Eh...kind of. It's a pretty standard gangster type movie. Josh Hartnett gets mistaken for his friend and then has to kill someone and owes Kingsley a lot of money. Mobsters, guns, Lucy Liu for some reason, and eh I guess quirky clever dialogue. It's a lot of that for about 75 minutes. Then there's about 15 minutes of action. Then there's about 30 minutes of explaining this whole big twist. Basically, here's what probably happened: the writer said, I have this cool idea for a story but I want to seem really smart, so I'll just make everything in the entire movie seem like it was building up to this one twist. That's all it is. You can watch the last 25-30 minutes and get the same experience as watching the whole thing.
See, it's all about where you want to start your movie. Do you want to write it for a character? For a story? Or for one gimmick? Big Nothing seems like there was no goal in mind, like it was written on the fly, again, like I wrote. Slevin seems to be written just to seem smarter than it actually is. It reminded me some of Smokin Aces, in that there's no real reason for the plot to unfold until the last 10-15 minute "explanation" section of the movie. I'm not sure when that became part of the 3 act structure, but it should be removed fast. So I've looked over my list again and I'm still not sure which one I want to start. After relooking, I have one core thing I want to get at in each one...I think. Instead of picking numbers at random, which served its purpose of making me rethink all my ideas, I'll give a brief theme for each and then ask you, the reader, to see which one intrigues you the most.
1. Drama, character based, dark.
2. Horror, creepy.
3. Drug movie, NOT Requiem.
4. Romantic comedy, my way.
5. Revenge movie.
6. Drama, character based, no plot.
7. Poker movie, road movie.
*8. Crime, thriller.
Ok, now, give me something to do.
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