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July 19, 2005

Son Of A Bitch To The Extreme: Bridget Johnson Gets A Call About Her Pitch From A Producer Listening to Hoist The Black Flag

Yeahp... basically I started this moronblog as a backdoor into screenwriting.

Hasn't worked yet. For me.

But apparently someone you'd recognize working at a production company you most definitely have heard of contacted Bridget by email after the second break in the show about her pitch.

And yeah, that wasn't a coincidence. He was actually listening to the show.

So... all you guests out there who've been ducking us: Ace of Spades HQ (and Karol) gets results.

Oh, and, um, on the off-chance anyone in Hollywood is reading this stupid blog...

I'm sitting on a $300 million gross comedy. Send me an email for crying out loud. You're reading this moronblog, you can take the time to read a one-page pitch-sheet.

Grrrrrr...

But cool news for Ms. Johnson. I hope she sells one of the scripts she pitched today.

PS: Margaret Cho, if you queer this for me, I swear I will come at you with the full fury of a saber-toothed retard, a prehistoric killing machine of oversized canines and an affinity for brightly-colored mismatched sneakers.

posted by Ace at 09:24 PM

Comments

flying morondrool

Cool blog name.

Posted by: lauraw on July 19, 2005 09:33 PM

Good God! THIS is why you are anonymous???? Well, no freakin wonder!!! Producers find out your Republican and you can forget about it!

But hey! Good luck anyway!!!...;-)

Posted by: Rightwingsparkle on July 19, 2005 09:35 PM

I kind of hope it's the script about journalists trying to find terrorists.

That sounded kind of funny.

Posted by: Slublog on July 19, 2005 09:36 PM

"I swear I will come at you with the full fury of a saber-toothed retard, a prehistoric killing machine of oversized canines and an affinity for brightly-colored mismatched sneakers" ... don't be so subdued ... don't hold back ... tell us how you really (would) feel ... /TJ

Posted by: TJ on July 19, 2005 09:41 PM

Sorry for missing the show today Ace-- hey, I was busy defending the nation from communists, you can thank me later-- but if Slublog is correct in his assessment, Bridget Johnson might have room for concern.

Sounds a lot like Albert Brooks beat that concept to the punch.

Different? Yes. Similar? Sure sounds like it.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on July 19, 2005 09:52 PM

Can't even imagine why you're not famous by now. Just hang in there a little bit longer. It's coming. :)

Posted by: Dina on July 19, 2005 09:55 PM

ace: Have you sent your script to any production companies?

Posted by: on July 19, 2005 10:00 PM

But apparently someone you'd recognize working at a production company

Now I would love to know who this is. A PA we'd recognize??

Posted by: on July 19, 2005 10:02 PM

Ace,

You might want to read Conversations with My Agent by Rob Long (who was one of the writers for Cheers) - very funny, but also some good insight into making it as a screen writer in Hollywood.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452277132/qid=1121824800/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/103-0184924-9894244

Posted by: max on July 19, 2005 10:05 PM

-As if an insanely prolific writer like Ace wouldn't have completely mined all the possible veins to selling out, July 19 and max.

People, do you know where Ace is coming from with integrity?
Does he have to call Vinny Falcone to ride your asses?

The man is looking to sell out- like the wind.

A pilot looks at the runway...what the FUCK are you looking at???
I'm giving you three days- A WEEK!
Put me some fucking knowledge here.

Damn if that Anka thing isn't the answer to all life's issues.

Posted by: lauraw on July 19, 2005 10:20 PM

lauraw -

I'm sure you're right that Ace has sold and resold himself- in any event the book is more funny than helpful. Sort of like this moron drool blog.

PS What happened to hobgoblin? Did he annouce he was leaving?

Posted by: max on July 19, 2005 10:38 PM

Again, WTF is "yeahp"? Is that morontalk for "yep"?

Posted by: Bob on July 19, 2005 11:25 PM

My guess is Cedarford ate Hobgoblin.

Cannibalism is all the rage in the fatherland these days.

Posted by: HowardDevore on July 19, 2005 11:37 PM

Bob, yeahp is the middle-america, long-hanging, suspicious cousin of yep.

Posted by: lauraw on July 19, 2005 11:42 PM

PS What happened to hobgoblin?

Yeah, and where is utron?

Posted by: Michael on July 19, 2005 11:43 PM

Haven't heard from Liptstick lately either, for that matter. Do these people think that they can just drop out any time they want?

Posted by: Michael on July 19, 2005 11:48 PM

I have a cold and cutting (yet helpful) comment that I want to post in Ace's lastest whine, but I can't open that comment window - even though the number of comments keep increasing. What's going on?

If cedarfart is going to eat someone, why can't it be vonkreedon?

Posted by: max on July 19, 2005 11:54 PM

-As if an insanely prolific writer like Ace wouldn't have completely mined all the possible veins to selling out, July 19 and max.

I dunno. I use to work for a production company and the main complaint was that most of the scripts they were sent or brought to them sucked -- and they were right.

Posted by: on July 20, 2005 01:51 AM

That last paragraph painted a most disturbing mental picture of Rosie O'Donnel with British dental work.

I will bill you later for the therapy.

Posted by: Chris Van Dis on July 20, 2005 09:43 AM

Ace,

Why don't you do what many other screen writers do: submit your piece to screen writing competitions and let it get some exposure that way - many screenplays get picked up that way. It really is the best way to get in the door when you are an unknown writer.

-Industry insider

Posted by: Insider on July 20, 2005 10:27 AM

Maybe if you announced you'd be willing to switch parties? Cuz, you know, you aren't exactly a memeber of the with-it crowd. For points in a $300,000,000.00 movie, forkin' aye.

Posted by: rdbrewer on July 20, 2005 11:04 AM

Industry,

I've done that a couple of times. I just sent it in to the Disney Fellowship contest, not because I hoped it would win, but because I hope that somewhere along the line it will get passed up the chain.

I was a quarterfinalist in the Heart of Austin competition but nothing came of that.

Posted by: ace on July 20, 2005 11:40 AM

I'm sitting on a $300 million gross comedy.

Perhaps you should get off of it and try selling it?

Hey, thank you!

Posted by: pinhead on July 20, 2005 11:46 AM

What's this crap about a comedy?

I thought you were working on "Wolverines! A Musical Celebration of Red Dawn."

It'll be huge.

Posted by: Slublog on July 20, 2005 11:51 AM

See, what I really need is for someone -- let's just say some kind of "industry insider" -- to say, hey, I read your dumb blog, I can see you're some sort of chucklehead, send me your dumb script and I'll take a look-see.

Posted by: ace on July 20, 2005 11:57 AM

Slu,

I see that more as a follow-up project. You know, after I have a big commercial success, then I'll have the liberty to pursue "projects of the heart" like Wolverines!

Posted by: ace on July 20, 2005 11:58 AM

Well, thank goodness for that.

I can't wait to hear how you orchestrate "My Hate Keeps Me Warm." I'm thinking minor key.

Posted by: Slublog on July 20, 2005 01:50 PM

No screenwriting contests. Any smuck can start one, collect entrance fees, and then do what any agent will do for you.

Contact production companies or have someone pretend they are your agent/lawyer and contact them, find out if they accept scripts, and submit them.

Posted by: on July 21, 2005 09:30 AM

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What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
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TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

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Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

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[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

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Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
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