My 10 Favorite Movies of '09

This was a year, perhaps thanks in part to the writer’s strike, where the studios kept releasing exactly the kinds of movies I want to see. While I wouldn’t suggest that all of these films are among the most well made, they did the best job of pleasing me. By way of example, no less than half the movies on this list are science-fiction films. What’s even better, none of them were sequels or adaptions, to my knowledge In the last ten years, has there been so much new genre content?!! I think not!

Does that mean there is no Watchmen or Star Trek or Sherlock Holmes on this list? Indeed it does, although I enjoyed them immensely. While you may not be familiar with some of these films, I recommend them all unreservedly. Let us dally no farther. These are my favorites of the year, in no particular order:

District 9

While I have written extensively about this film already, I’ll boil my observations down to some quick bullet points. In my opinion, District 9 deals with the complex realities behind heroic action better than any American film of the last twenty years. When someone does a great thing, it’s not because they’re pure of heart, or are somehow made of ephemeral stuff. They do it simply because it must be done. Seeing a man who has been consumed by an oppressive system be torn from his world and forced to confront it with new eyes is powerful, powerful cinema. Rampaging alien powersuits are also powerful cinema, by the way! All that from a tiny little movie from South Africa? This was to be my unchallenged favorite film of the year, until I saw…

Avatar

Any story about a man who finds it within himself to evolve as a warrior by casting aside his convictions as a soldier is bound to capture my heart. When Avatar captured my imagination as well, I came face to face with all the reasons I first fell in love with the movies. I’m not out to spoil anything, so I’ll just say that I was crying when the credits rolled, and that I want to see it again as soon as possible. Did James Cameron talk a lot of trash before releasing this movie? You bet your sweet ass he did! In his shoes, could I have resisted the temptation? Hot dog, Jim! You did it! I love Avatar as much as I love Lord of the Rings.

Moon

This is a movie about a man played by Sam Rockwell who lives on the moon by himself, where he monitors all the robotic mining operations that carry on there. His only companion is GERTY, a robot played by Kevin Spacey. Some folks have likened this movie to 2001 or Solaris, but that’s only because it’s so good. Far more demented and funny, less deliberately profound and more bitingly sharp than either of those movies, Moon would be the best science fiction film of the decade, if not for Avatar or District 9. If I had to liken Moon to anything, it would be Primer.

The Brothers Bloom

Here, we have the most quotable film since Pulp Fiction! Any movie where Rachel Weitz juggles chainsaws is a must see. Any film where that moment takes a backseat to other silliness would automatically be elected president, if this were a just society. This film has a young asian woman who is always fabulously dressed, is an explosives expert, has no dialogue and is always pulling hacksaws and blowtorches out of her handbag like she bought it from Harpo Marx. With no rhyme or reason, the movie keeps taking breaks to explode Barbie dolls. Until you see it, you just don’t know what you’re missing.

Up

This is Pixar’s best film, at least in my eyes. If you don’t know why this was bound to be one of the best films of the year, we have nothing more to say to one another. If you do, I need say no more.

Up in the Air

Those who know me too well fear that I may one day eschew all deep personal connection in pursuit of an ideal I’ve created for myself. This is that story, perfectly played by George Clooney and delightfully arranged by Jason Reitman, two of my favorite people in the business.

Hurt Locker

When was the last time you saw a war movie that scared you so deeply and personally that your faith human evolution was held in question? Was it Full Metal Jacket? Was it Apocalypse Now? Hurt Locker captures some of the helplessness and terror that comes with being a soldier in a world where war has stopped being about conflict between nations. How does a soldier fight when there is no clear boundary between hostile and friendly territory? This movie keeps it’s integrity by focusing on the drama, but the world it depicts is pure horror.

Outlander

Two thousand years ago, James Cavaziel was an alien soldier transporting an alien monster. When his ship crashlands in Scandinavia, he leads a band of Vikings against the creature and inspires the legend of Beowulf. What’s not to love? While the Weinsteins tried their hardest to keep me from seeing this movie, even going so far as to put it in limited release without givin Los Angeles a print, I got my hands on it and I loved it. Why was this movie manhandled so badly? Did they sign a contract they came to resent? To me, the best thing about this movie was the scale. Ok – Vikings, spacemen, and John Hurt are the best parts of this movie, but the scale is important. Never did it aspire to deal in the fate of the world, or any such claptrap. Nope, this movie is about whether this here clan of Vikings can kill a monster before it eats them all up. Not every film needs to be about the end of life as we know it, and like Conan and other films of this kind, Outlander hit all the right notes for the story and the scope it was prepared to deal with. Lord, I wish they made more movies like this.

Push

Know what? This year, they did! Push is more or less a superhero movie, only instead of a good-versus-evil showdown with the fates of millions in the balance, the creators put together a Hitchcockian thriller complicated by superpowers like premonition and telepathy and heightened with weapons like telekinesis and sonic mind-exploding screaming – all set against the seedy backdrop of Bangkok! With a fun cast of game actors, a tight script, some neat effects and a scope that didn’t overreach itself, this was exactly the kind of movie I want to see more of! Plus, it was a serious superhero movie with characters I didn’t already know! How great is that?

Drag Me To Hell

What was I saying about scope? As a kid, Darkman was one of my favorite movies. When director Sam Raimi went on to direct the Spider-Man movies, I feared he had abandoned that glorious sense of dementia that comes with screwing characters over in an intimate, personal way. Boy, was I out of line! All those great filmmaking techniques and production values he’s mastered, as well as the unflappable optimism of his more recent characters, were shoved into a tight little deadite Evil Dead blender of pain in Drag Me To Hell, and the very gross concoction that emerged is easily the most gloriously entertaining movie of 2009. Skip the unrated director’s cut. Part of the fun is how Raimi abuses the ratings rules. Apparently, you can throw anything up that you want and it’s not “R” rated. Believe me when I tell you that Sam Raimi puts it to the test! Think blood can get you an “R” rating? Not nose bleeds, which is why he gives his heroine a nose bleed so bad it hoses down everything in a twenty foot radius in bright, cherry red gore. Meanwhile, people are barfing up maggots, flies, dead cats and everything else you can think of. Want more talking demonic goats in your movies? Look no further! This is the grossest movie I’ve seen that wasn’t Japanese in as long as I can remember, and it’s rated PG-13. I love you, Sam Raimi.

More than any other year I can remember, this year’s movies affected me on a deep, personal level. At the same time, they excited me creatively and inspired my imagination more than any single year on record. Usually, I don’t do these top ten lists, but how can I not?

With the studios retreating into the safety of franchise film, it’s up to independent filmmakers like us to keep films like these coming out. To all of the amazing filmmakers that made this year so special, including all the ones I didn’t mention here like Jamin Wayans with Ink, I want to express my deep, heartfelt gratitude. Thanks to you, 2009 was the most fun I’ve ever had watching movies.

Why don't executives get the vision?

Something occurred to me today, when a friend of mine tried to sell me on the vision of his film instead of the script or the source material.

When I'm financing a movie, I turn off the part of my brain that lets me write and direct. Very early into my career as an executive, I stopped having a vision for the films I was working on.

Why is that?

On the one hand, it's a defense mechanism. When I get creatively invested in a project, I tend to have very strong ideas about it. What's more, my standards of quality can be frustratingly exact. What's good enough for general audiences isn't always good enough for me, and at other times I wind up loving something that loads of people find enormous fault in. Letting a vision for the potential of the film form in my mind will probably mean being very disappointed when I face the reality of it. Better to put my ideas to bed and try to see the movie for what it is.

On the other hand, seeing the movie for what it is makes me a better executive. What is it I need to know? Obviously, I need to know whether the movie is likely to make money. If the storytelling is sub-par in the technical sense, that's a risk factor I need to be aware of. Can the team that's being assembled deliver the movie that's being proposed? Will it go over budget?

These aren't things I need my vision for. What I need is the director's vision, or enough of it to extrapolate from. While cutting myself off from a project creatively impacts my passion for the work, it also keeps all the useless distractions and judgments at bay.

Maybe studio excutives have the same problem. Maybe they should!

One coincidence. No more.

Today, my friend and fellow screenwriter William C. Martell raised a key issue in screenwriting:

"You are allowed one coincidence in a screenplay - the one that kicks off your story. After that, EVERYTHING is cause and effect."

If your screenplay relies on coincidence to make ends meet, that coincidence needs to happen immediately before the story begins.

Why shouldn't it be Carl Denham who gets the map to Skull Island. If it wasn't Carl, the movie would be about some other guy who found the map and ran off in search of King Kong and fortunes untold.

In the middle of the film, even one coindicence ruins everything. For an example, let's look at the theatrical cut of Aliens, side by side with the director's cut.

In the theatrical cut, Ripley goes back to LV-426 because the company wanted to exploit her find from the 1st film. As the colony gets infested and overrun by aliens, the parent corporation realizes how badly they need Ripley. After all, she's the only one who knows what they're up against. When she meets the sole survivor, it's a little girl. That survivor could have been anyone. Because making her a helpless little girl doesn't make life any easier for Ripley it's not a coincidence. It's not useful.

In the director's cut, that little girl is the daughter of the man who first encountered the alien life form. REALLLY?!!! The first man to get impregnated and the last woman alive are related by blood? This family of rock miners is the Alpha and Omega of LV-426? What is this? Why is destiny screwing around with my marine assault survival horror action movie?

Then, we have the backstory of Ripley's daughter. You mean to tell me that Ripley meets this special chosen girl right when she's wrestling with the death of her own child? OH, PLEASE!!! JUST KILL SOME DAMN ALIENS, WILL YOU?!!

Funny enough, the theatrical cut loses none of its dramatic impact for doing away with these supposedly character-building details. By letting the characters feel more real, more happenstance, the theatrical cut allows us to believe and invest in them. Suddenly, running out of ammo seems pretty dire. Suddenly, Ripley's last-ditch effort to save Newt is one of the most heroic gestures ever captured on film.

Unless you sneak it in right before the opening scene, keeping coincidence away from your story will only make it better.

On Story Development

This week has been illuminating in several respects, and it's time to pick one and blog about it.

In Hollywood, there are two fundamental ways of looking at story. On the one hand, there's the question of what the story IS. Who is the protagonist, and what is the one overarching thing that person does from the beginning of the movie to the end? Once you know that, the twists and turns are determined by whatever it is that prevents the protagonist from just talking up to their goal and taking it.

In the eyes of an actor, that question is usually the most important thing to know about a movie. Personally, I'm in agreement. Cinema, in my eyes, is about action. Drama comes from the conflicting goals various actors are trying to reach in a scene. Whether that drama takes place in a courtroom, at the dinnertable, or in a downtown shootout is secondary to the need for it in the first place.

On the other hand, everyone thinks of certain images or scenarios when they hear a movie "idea". Some people look at a story in terms of how a screenplay meets or toys with those expectations. In a case like that, they're not looking at what a story IS. They're looking at what the story HAS.

For example, I might tell you that a given film is about the crew of a spaceship. Someone, somewhere, automatically assumes that the film has space battles in it, which it might not. Does that make the script bad, or mean that it doesn't deliver on the concept?

What about this? What if EVERYONE assumes the space battles?

In that case, not having space battles might be unfair. Yes, there is validity to considering what a story has. How a filmmaker plays with expectation, and how they satisfy it, is all part of the artistry.

With Sam Bailey, this has been an ongoing issue. When people read the script, they either love it or worry over the intimate scope. Some folks want flashbacks, and others would like to see some kind of action explosion towards the end, instead of the very intimate, personal resolution our team is moving towards.

My take on that process is that by focusing on what the movie is, we'll find other "things" for the movie to have. Our score is taking some interesting turns as a result of the quirky nature of the project, for example. Our DP is gifted at turning ordinary scenes into striking images, and our narrow scope gives the actors some strikingly unique moments.

By focusing on what the movie is, we may just be able to create a classic.

At the same time, if the audience feels as expectant over certain elements as some of our industry contacts do, they might be disappointed. We won't see Sam Bailey winning the Civil War - or even fleeing the Bolschevik Revolution. There will be no scene where Sam Bailey gets locked up for his hundred years of imprisonment inside the Vatican's torture chambers.

Because our company is the one introducing Sam to the world, I feel we can mitigate this risk by presenting him as a real person, more than as a myth. When we play with the myth, like we do with all the cults and the conspiracies we've been building, it helps to come off as crackpots. That way, the truth of his existence seems natural and reassuring.

On the other hand, I'm seeing this process from the other side as well. At this point in my career, I've witnessed and aided the development of a number of franchises based in rich mythology, and there's been plenty of discussion over what the film should "have in it".

Is the storyteller's job to tie those elements together, or to find the moments that are most honest to the story? In the end it depends on who's cutting the check, and which way of thinking they trust to see their investment through.

At the same time, developing a feature film seems to be more or less the tug-of-war between those two ideals.

Making Luck on Monday Morning

Reading Variety today, I was fortunate enough to spot a piece of serendipity in a news article that more or less spells immediate doom to a project one of my friends was close to getting greenlit.

Naturally, he or she reacted with frustration. At the same time, I'm seeing this as an opportunity for him or her to fast-track another project very close to this person's heart. In short, I think a lot of the infrastructure my friend was building with more conservative projects just got laid by someone else. While that means a rapid change in gears for him or her, it also means life may have just gotten a lot easier.

Immediately, I mentioned the opportunity to another friend in a position to help get this more ambitious project off the ground. Listening to my breakdown of the situation, this other friend reacted with open excitement. Suddenly, a doom and gloom situation yields an opportunity for everyone involved to do the kind of work that excites them the most!

Am I thinking about how I might be able to jump on this project as a writer? Am I thinking about what kind of money I might make if a deal gets struck? Absolutely. Not being aware of those opportunities would be a mistake. At the same time, the main point here is that two people I know can benefit profoundly from a new set of circumstances. Until these two people are able and willing to work together towards a common goal, seeing those circumstances puts me in a leadership position.

What makes me fit to lead a pair of well established film professionals?

To whatever extent "friend one" and "friend two" respect and trust me, it's because I'm using every available resource, in some astonishingly creative ways, to make great movies and share them with the world. In the end, that's all that anyone cares about.

Is this luck? You bet. At the same time, the luck is mine to exercise because I've never waited for opportunities to find me. Instead, I've been finding and exploiting good fortune in places where nobody else is looking. After years and years of practice, I've finally become competent at it. Folks can trust me as an expert.

That's how it works, guys. Nobody just gets lucky.

While I'm on the subject, one of the other things that makes me useful in this situation is that while I'm not blind to the opportunities available to me, my mind is on what's happening right now. There's no need to worry about how I'm going to fit into this project, because I'm needed right now. Keeping my focus on the moment ensures that the needs of the project determine how, and if, we all wind up working together. n other words, you've got ot check your ego at the door.

Regardless of whether this situation pans out, it's already taught me a great deal. Not bad for a Monday morning!

How is microbudget not punk anymore?

This morning, on the front page of the business section of the LA Times, there's an article about Paramount's new specialty film division. Their mission is to produce a slate of films, in all genres, for under $100,000 apiece. How this would work with the unions, with all their resources, is something I haven't really wrapped my head around.

At the same time, this is the first move we've seen since the indie boom of the '90's where the studios are taking a step towards risk. Some of these films will go direct to DVD. Some of them will be an opportunity to experiment with new filmmakers. Maybe one or two a year will get a theatrical release. While this is all very clearly an attempt by Paramount to perpetuate the success of Paranormal Activity, they're not marrying their interests to one specific genre.

In addition, they're not interested in acquisitions. For a studio, that's a first.

One thing's for certain. They're going to get plenty of script submissions, and they'll have the pick of the litter when it comes to young directors. So many filmmakers are wandering in a no-man's land of creative impulse mixed with total disinterest with industry and business. While it is impossible to coddle a director on such a tight budget, Paramount just made microbudget production accessible to all those would-be filmmakers, and even moreso all the guys who can't figure out how to get out of the music video scene.

In addition, they've just validated the living crap out of our business model for Sam Bailey and Heartsgaard. Form here on in, they'll be getting a broader audience interested in low-budget cinema. Think of it! If only one or two of their films go into theaters a year, I'm not worried about the competition. I'm much more interested in how much easier our job just got.

Indie filmmakers, pay attention. This isn't just about one more way to make your movie. This is about the most conservative factions in our business adopting a whole new way of doing business. Now that they're involved, it stops being new.

As of today, writers, directors, and actors can stop looking for agents. From here on in, the microbudget, indie, roadshow, social media approach is standard operating procedure.

What I'm saying is that if you're looking to break into film, you just got the rug pulled out from under you. If you're looking to make movies, your revolution is at hand.

Welcome to a new day for cinema, dear reader.

Chocolate Pasta and the Auteur Theory

Last Sunday evening at one of our too-infrequent 8 sided dinners, Chef Dave and I wound up talking about how much collaboration collaborative art really demands, and what the role of a "director's vision" should be.

Before I get into the ins and outs of my conversation with M. Dave, I need to compliment him on the outstanding meal he prepared. His parties involve each attendee bringing an ingredient that he has to work into the meal, and he actively encourages people to try and stump him. Sunday, the dishes included:

cheese biscuits topped with BBQ pulled pork and swiss chard,
blueberry chocolate sauce over whole-wheat ziti,
baked ginger garlic chicken with couscous,
stuffed banana squash,
and homemade key lime pie.

Well done Dave!

Now that I look at that menu, I think I actually understand how the conversation came up. What every film, stageplay, comic book, or game needs is a sense of play between the collaborators. Sometimes a director needs a firm hand to bring a complex, specific idea to light, and sometimes the cast and crew need a loose environment in which to experiment and discover, but either way the essential incredient is play.

Keep in mind that play doesn't have to look or feel light. Some of Mozart's symphonies and operas are broody as all hell, and martial arts is the fiercest kind of play I know. Playful perfomance is defined by looseness, openness, and an ease that allows the performer to pay more attention to the context than the work itself. Building that freedom isn't something a director can fake, and a strict, rigid vision will kill it instantly.

One thing Christie keeps telling me is how shocked and amazed she is that I'm open to seeing ways of improving our work. She calls me unattached. In the case of Sam Bailey, that's a huge compliment - because the funny thing is that I know exactly what I want to achieve. At the same time, how may opportunities will I miss if I'm not willing to listen to new ways of getting there?

In my mission statement for 8 Sided Films, I state that "great films are made by teams of talented people united by a common intent". At the same time, what good is that talent if it's not free to express itself? At it's core, a director's job is to make sure the common intent is omnipresent, and then to liberate and inspire people to pursue it together, using the very best resources within themselves. Therein lies the discovery.

Did anyone expect the chocolate we brought to wind up on pasta? Certainly not! At the same time, we were grateful it did.

Is an MBA the smart way to break into Hollywood?

With the studios growing more and more risk adverse, the corporate side of film is shrinking. Studios have been laying off, agencies are consolidating, and management companies are closing shop. On the independent end, entrepreneurs are taking more and more of the market share.

Making movies has always been abpout taking the right risks. All the work that was done in the 80's and 90's to take the risk out of film altogether is why Hollywood seems like it's falling apart today - the reality of our industry is bouncing back. All that corporate padding and middle management that arose to support a more shareholder-driven Hollywood is restructuring around the reality that while some kinds of movies can support a publicly owned company, the film market as a whole isn't driven by continued risk mitigation.

If you're looking for a meal ticket, you're going to have an increasingly hard time of it.

Do indie films really take six years to make?

As a rule of thumb, that's a pretty fair assessment. It takes years to produce your own content. At the same time, I've found that so much of that time is spent on waffling and learning curve, that the actual productive work time is much, much smaller.

I'm as guilty as anyone, and the thing it took me the longest to figure out is the need to write to my strengths. What resources do I have access to, and what kind of story can I tell on that scale? What film would I want to see that I can make really really great with the relationships and tools I have today?

Then, the question becomes how I can put those tools ot the best use, and allow the story, my collaborators, and my resources to express themselves fully. In short, how can I get a great movie in front of a great audience?

Personally, I wound up getting into the industry through film finance. Coming from the theater, it was more through an oddball quirk of fate than by design, but I saw that opportunity for what it was. Still, it took me years to figure out how to use it properly.

During that time, I helped build a film studio, so now I have resources there. I helped establish a small platform output deal, so I can get my hands on a handful of screens and use them to go wider - if people show up. If you've never distributed an indie film, anyone who has will tell you that's a mighty big "if" to bank on.

So, I dived into social media for the answers. Now, the strides and innovations I'm making in that arena in have made me a leader in my film community, and I finally have the trust to start pulling my own films and other media projects together. At the same time, I know how to use the system. With the production value I can provide, at the price point at which I'm producing, I can reasonably make my investors a good return on investment even if things go awry.

Getting to this point has taken well over half a decade. At the same time, it was only a year and a half ago or so that I came to the realization that I already knew which story to tell, and how to get it told. If I could just find a way to build an audience, everything else would fall into place. Now, it looks likely that my film will be financed by the end of February, and we'll be shooting in the late spring. Of course, I'm prepared for plenty of contingencies.

Before last year, I was basically farting around. It's a necessary part of the process - I was learning how my tools worked, and how to apply them. Come to think of it, plenty of filmmakers never leave the farting stage. Some just get plain old lucky, and get a movie made right there in the fart cloud.

If you can find a way to take your assets seriously and use all your seeming liabilities as extra strength, you can speed that process along.

How do screenwriters break into Hollywood?

Traditionally, screenwriters write a handful of screenplays and then start begging agents, producers, and managers to read them - a process called querying. Once a screenwriter has at least three scripts that are objectively better than anything they've ever read, it's time to start sending out letters and e-mails to potential representation and production companies.

Those query letters should contain a one-sentence description of the plot, two sentences on the screenwriter's accomplishments, and nothing else. Reading a query letter should take less than thirty seconds, and feel at least as good as getting Starbucks for free. Successful screenwriters send out around twenty queries a day, every day. Anywhere from three months to four years, the rejection letters will start drifting in, mixed with a few requests to read your script.

Does that work? Not really. At least, it doesn't work as well as it did before the studios and networks closed their doors to new writers and fresh content. What's more, it was a notoriously competitive business back when those doors were open. At the same time, it's what screenwriters do. If you want to score, you've got to play the game.

Right?

My advice is to start thinking like a producer, and find ways of getting the stories and worlds you've created in front of people through transmedia exploitation. How can you use social and alternative media to build your more marketable ideas into full-bodied brands?

Get yourself an audience, and you won't be waiting 12 months to hear back. What's more, you'll be in the financial and creative driver's seat. Maybe you won't even need those guys anymore.

In my opinion, querying is just not the most effective use of a content creator's time - especially in this day and age, with nobody taking risks on new content and the franchise reservoirs running dry. Sure, we can all compete for the writer's job on Monopoly the Movie.

Or not. I'm leaving that job to someone else and finding better things to do. Writers, just keep in mind that the industry is changing. While the old ways of doing business can still produce results, they don't necessarily produce the same results they used to. To those willing to see past convention, those same changes can offer an easier, faster path to the things you really want.

Know what it is you really want, and let go of any ideas you have about how those things are supposed to be achieved. Then, you'll start seeing all the different ways you can cultivate your success and share your stories. Follow those impulses, stay open to change and new ideas, and "breaking in" will happen all on its own.

Have A-list actors become unnecessary?

This is another question I hear a lot, and the answer is no! Certainly not!

Stars are a necessary expense because foreign licensing is dependent on them. If you know the genre of a movie, the budget, and who the top four stars are, you can literally compute how much you're going to make from overseas distributors to at least one significant figure. Agents and managers know the amount of money each star is work to overseas distributors - it's called the star's "pull".

Foreign licensing and pre-sales have been a key part of film financing for decades. Until that changes, A-list stars will continue to be relevant to Hollywood.

Obviously, I acknowledge that a movie can succeed without them. At the same time, they mitigate a movie's financial risk partially because everyone agrees that they mitigate a movie's risk, which makes everyone more willing to jump on board.

In the case of a film like Sam Bailey, our financing is not dependent on foreign money and things get a lot more gray. Yes, we want to succeed in foreign markets. At the same time, the effort our cast is putting into publicising the movie domestically is what makes a successful theatrical release in the US possible. In the long term, an audience here in the States is worth more to us than some easy money at the film markets. Besides, a successful US box office means foreign distributors will have to pay us more. Because of the business model we're using, having A-list stars isn't as important as having our cast work together on the grassroots level.

At the same time, most films aren't reliant on that kind of teamwork. Frankly, most people don't want to work that hard. Until changes in the foreign markets or film's prevailing financing models force a major paradigm shift, star power will continue to shine as a driving force in film.

Furthermore, the media will keep the public's attention focused on the stars for as long as they continue to drive the business of moviemaking.

If stars are necessary to your business, why not make the most of them?