Writer/director J Blakeson
He made I Care a Lot and he's on today's pod
J Blakeson (creator, Culprits; I Care a Lot) discusses creating his inadvertent signature film with The Disappearance of Alice Creed, why a law abiding citizen writes crime stories, finding the "what if" in a pitch, why he dislikes Final Draft, and more.
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Some Other Stuff!
Noah Lloyd runs a good newsletter in which he posts long-form interviews with professional writers. I’d enjoyed his chats with friends-of-The-Writers-Panel Matthew Federman (co-creator of Blood and Treasure) and horror author Paul Tremblay (The Cabin at the End of the World), so I was flattered when he asked to interview me. We had a lovely conversation about a range of topics including my first spec scripts, writing in different media, my favorite Writers Panel guest, and, finally, someone asks me what I’m watching. You can read the whole thing here. (We also argue about the quality of the movie Hook. I am correct about it).
I watched a couple of good movies that I want to recommend!
Scrapper (2023) is a warm and charming British movie about a 12-year-old girl who is living just fine thank you on her own after her mother’s death. Then, the father she never knew shows up to ruin everything. Lola Campbell carries the first third of the movie; you’re so with her and the independent life she’s built for herself that when Harris Dickinson (whom you know from Triangle of Sadness) arrives, you’re actively rooting against him. First-time director Charlotte Regan more than earns the connection the two make by the end of the film. Watch it on Hulu and Paramount+, I believe.
The streaming service Mubi was running a $1-for-3-months special, so I signed up, since they have a lot of independent and foreign language films I can’t find elsewhere. Among them is Between the Lines (1977) a super low-fi dramedy about a dying indie newspaper in Boston. It’s the kind of movie you could never get made anymore. Nothing much happens; you just kind of bask in the vibes of this group of friends/lovers/rivals falling apart. And it’s all vibes. I haven’t seen any of director Joan Micklin Silver’s other movies except for Crossing Delancey, and I’m eager to dig into her work.
The cast is a murderer’s row of “household faces,” including John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Jill Eikenberry, Joe Morton, Michael J. Pollard, and more. Bruno Kirby is amazing in it, but the movie just manages to get stolen by Jeff Goldblum, who lights up every scene he’s in.
Okay, that’s all I have for you. Hope to have time for some crafty newsletters soon, and maybe even some cool (?), interesting (?), fun (?) things to announce!
Today I watched the one movie Joan Micklin Silver produced called On The Yard, starring John Heard and Thomas Waites (in his first movie; this was also James Remar’s first, I believe. Both re-teamed the following year for The Warriors.).
Again it’s one of those 70’s vibe movies: it is a prison movie and follows the standard incidents, but there’s something a little off-kilter about it. It’s a decent watch with a good supporting cast (inc. Lane Smith and Joe Grifasi. David Clennon - Palmer from The Thing - also crops up.)