Tag: Hollywood

Burn Hollywood Burn: Is Oscar Dead?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love the Oscars and I love movies. And, in all honesty, if I had had a mentor of some sort to knock some sense into me when I was, say, 15, I would have gone into creative writing as a young man and bounced to LA as soon as I got out of college with a Creative Writing / Theatre degree. (Or something like that.)

But, alas, that’s not what happened.

Anyway — given how niche the movies the Oscars are celebrating are, we have to begin thinking the unthinkable: that the Oscars are dead. They’re now irrelevant.

I only say this in the context of what they once where. For generations, an Oscar movie was both a creative and financial success. It’s only been in the last decade or so that Hollywood has begun to grow more interested in the artistic quality of the movie and not the “double dees, double dees” aspect as SNL would tell us.

I think Hollywood should embrace this as a form of freedom. They should not televise the awards anymore, but put them on Amazon Prime or Netflix and let them be four hours without interruption.

My Novel’s Villains Aren’t Bad Enough Yet


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m beginning to slip into a groove about how to wrap up this first draft before the sun goes black, I find myself thinking about how to make the final project better.

One issue is my villains remain more “moods” than evil personified. They just aren’t up to the evil found in Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series. But I do think I’m going to do some reading to at least give my villains some sort of ideological underpinning for their dickhead behavior.

I’m getting there. I’m getting much closer.

I have a specific book I’m eyeing as I write this that I think will be the key to giving some sort of motive to my villains. And, I recently read Ezra Klein’s “Why We’re Polarized” which, in a sense, helps ME with the universe I’ve constructed. That book — despite not giving any answers to why we’re polarized –definitely was an eye opener for me as to try to make this novel an allegory about the fading Trump Era.

‘The Lady Bird Gambit’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The novel has an existential problem, in a sense. And that problem is it’s meant to be a vaguely allegorical critique of the Trump Era and the Trump Era is, thankfully, over.

And, yet, I press on for two reasons. One is what I call “The Lady Bird Gambit.” This is the idea that if you really develop character and plot — and just make something a great experience for the audience — that they’ll forgive you if you’re also leaning into “instant nostalgia.”

Love this movie.

So much has happened, in a sense, since 2020 started that I think if I make it clear that’s when the novel is set, then when I go off on subtextual rants about how insane those days were, then people will give me a pass if the story they’re reading is otherwise just a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, the other issue is MAGA-GQP-Trumplandia ain’t going nowhere. In fact, if my fuzzy understanding of novel post-production is accurate, then just about when this novel would be published (IF I SELL IT) would be just about when we have to start worrying about the fucking MAGA cucksuckers again.

As such, in a sense, I keep working on this novel because I know in the long-term I’m putting my stick where the puck will be, no where it is right now. But, also, I just love this story and I’ve gotten so far into the process that I simply can’t in good conscience give up.

You can’t edit a blank page, as they say.

‘Cancel Culture’ & Breakfast At Tiffany’s


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

How exactly does the conservative bugbear of “cancel culture” work if the easy pickings of Mikey Rooney’s portrayal of Holly Golightly’s Asian neighbor in Breakfast At Tiffany’s hasn’t caught its attention yet?

The depiction is so fucking racist that it makes what is otherwise The Perfect Movie in to a solid B+ movie. It comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really do much to serve the plot. In fact, I would go so far as to say we should either cut out that part of the movie altogether or film the movie again shot for shot with a new cast and simply change the plot as necessary to avoid that character’s existance.

The only thing I can think of as to why the movie hasn’t been “canceled” in some way yet is it’s not on any of the major streamers and, as such, it hasn’t come up as an issue.

Where Is Our Post-Trump Era ‘Network?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The wild thing about the Trump Era is that to date, on a creative level, it’s completely value free. It’s like it didn’t happen. And, yet, it fucking did happen. As such, here I am plugging away at a novel that wallows in Trump Era tropes after, well, the Trump Era is, for the time being, over.

The interesting thing is this was not the case with Watergate. There were several really good movies in the 1974-1977 era that obviously were in, their own way, a reaction to Watergate. The one that pops into my mind is Network. The movie is both timeless and representative of a very specific moment in time.

And, yet, not only did the actual Trump Era produce no such art, as far as I can tell, Hollywood is going to act like the whole thing was a bad nightmare. When I’m really delusional — and maybe drunk — I find myself scratching my chin and wonder if the novel I’m working on in itself might be the piece of Trump-related art I’m looking for.

But that’s being really delusional, even for me. No cares. And never will. I just really like this novel, even if there’s a real risk it may seem dated by the time I try to sell it.

I’m Becoming Very Methodical With This Allegorical Thriller About The Trump Era I’m Developing & Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a huge amount of momentum with this novel right now. Pretty much it’s consumed my entire life, creative and otherwise. One thing I like about where things stand is I’ve come to the point where there is a total disconnect between my mood and my copy.

It’s not like when I first started developing and writing this thing when if I full of passion I somehow thought that made for better copy, when, in fact, I think the more dispassionate you are, the better copy you produce. Even though, as that screenwriter once said it helps to “hate….a lot” when writing, it also helps to be very clear eyed and methodical about what it is your goal for each individual scene is.

I’m pretty much awash in scene structure porn right now. I’m wallowing in a number of books that are really helping me take things to the next level on a scene by scene level.

I hope — hope — that I can knock out some sort of first draft soon rather than later. Then I take a break of about a month and turn around and do it all over again…then I start soliciting my beta readers.

That, at least, is how you’re supposed to do it.

Of Novel Scene Structure Or, ‘Don’t Be A Hack’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m really getting into the specifics of the structure of novel scenes these days. I’ve begun to stabilize the beginning of the novel to the point that I can take a deep breath and start to look at some of the nitty gritty things that I have ignored to date.

One thing is — structuring a scene can be hard work.

For one, not all scenes are the same. But because a lot of struggling writers — like me — have no idea what they’re doing, they turn to people who seem to have some “reveled truth” about how to write a novel.

There is no reveled truth, by the way.

Anyway, I’ve begun to cobble together my own ideas of how to structure novel scenes. And to me, the key thing is not to be a hack — there are scenes and there are sequels and sometimes there are things that just barely fit the concept of what you’re told a “scene is supposed to do.”

But, in general, I would say you need some sort of “change” in the unit of measure known as a scene. Though sequels are a different thing altogether at times.

I’m really getting out of my comfort zone with this novel, which is good.

Notes On ‘Scriptnotes’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really enjoy the “Scriptnotes” podcast, but I do have some…notes. My chief beef is the very strength of the podcast is its weakness — it’s two very accomplished, successful and knowledgeable guys talking about what it’s like to be be two very accomplished, successful and knowledgeable guys.

As such, sometimes they are rather….patronizing…to the serious concerns of people who are just starting off in the business. The show seems more for people who actually have a career in Hollywood than someone who aspires to have a career in Hollywood.

But you can’t be all things to all people.

I guess I’m suggesting that there’s a market for a Scriptnotes for extras who aspire to be screenwriters. Or something. A program that takes novice screenwriter’s concerns about IP theft seriously, that kind of stuff.

Yet, in general, I find Scriptnotes interesting. I sometimes feel like a street urchin with my nose pressed against the glass of the podcast as they talk about their careers, but lulz.

Why Hollywood Needs More Movies Like ‘Greenland’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Greenland was a good, but not great, movie. But there was one specific aspect to the movie that I have to give it credit for — it wallowed in the tacit conservatism of a regular dude put in extraordinary circumstances trying to keep his family safe.

It was CIS comfort food on a creative level and I think we need more of that kind of stuff if we, like, don’t want the United States to buckle and a second American civil war break out. I’m being serious — a lot of regular old center-Right people I know are really beginning to seethe with rage over “woke” “cancel culture” and the idea that a major Hollywood movie is simply tells a heteronormative story is a change of pace.

I’m all for representation in art — I’m going way out of my way to do just that in the novel I’m working on. But I also find it amusing that even in the genre I’m working with, there are some tropes that if I flip them or toy with them cause me to end up in, well, some pretty heteronormative territory without even thinking about it.

The point is — there’s plenty enough room in this world for all God’s chillins. I love the liberal democracy I live in right now and I’m growing nervous that if the center-Left doesn’t get its act together we’re even more fucked than we might be otherwise.

Remember, all the CPAC cocksuckers need is to get their golden orange god (or someone like him) elected ONE MORE TIME and that’s it. We live in an autocracy for the rest of my life.

We’re fucked. We’re all so totally fucked.

Half-Assed Review: ‘Greenland’ & The 10,000 Year Old Story


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I went into “Greenland” blind. As it opened, I thought maybe it would pass what I call the “10,000 year old story” test. This is the following test: could this story be told in some form 10,000 years ago?

It, at first, passes the test.

Man comes back from the hunt. Has problems with his wife. His kid is sick. The world is changing and the story is about how he protects his family in the context of that change.

Then things went crazy with “Greenland.”

The story was soooo contrived and leaned so heavily on zombie movie tropes (even without zombies) that I couldn’t bear to finish watching. Here’s what I would have done:

Greenland SHOULD have been about:

Act I
The lead up. At the end of the first act, the world ends and our Hero is now living underground inside Greenland.

Act 2
Hero and family have to get used to living in this new world.

Midpoint: His son, now an adult — rebels against the strict rules of under-Greenland meant to keep humanity alive (or something)

All is Lost:
His is exiled onto the Aboveland

Third Act
Hero and wife go searching for son.

They go through some adventures but finally discover him.

Turns out, the surface, while a struggle to survive on, is beginning to recover.

Our hero becomes the leader of Aboveland.

Or something.

But the Greenland I saw was a good movie…but not my kind of movie. Way, way, WAY too contrived.