Do you like Family Guy?
If you answered yes, that's reason enough to see Ted.
Lucky for me, I live in a town where I can see movies for five bucks. :)
This movie is about a little boy named John (Mark Wahlberg) who wishes his teddy bear could talk. Of course, John gets his wish and he spends many fun-filled years with Ted. Later, John is 35 and four years into his relationship with Laurie (Mila Kunis) and she's fed up with John's pot smoking and irresponsibility. She gives him an ultimatum: Their relationship or Ted.
I was drawn in from the start because Ted is SO CUTE! I'm a such a girl; liking fluffy things! But don't think this is a kid's movie. Seth MacFarlane doesn't skimp on the raunch and bad language. As a matter of fact, the theater was filled with 13-year olds who didn't "get" any of the 80s pop culture jokes but roared every time there was cussing or sex.
The only scene in this movie that threw me for a loop was the fight between Ted and John. The sound effects were stupid and the fight wasn't as funny to the audience because it looked like an inside joke between the cast.
Other than that, I was pleased. I knew this movie would be good because of the trailer. You can't always trust trailers because they lie, but I love Family Guy and I knew this movie would be funny.
Stop reading this and go see for yourself. :)
I really don't know why it's called "writer's block." Isn't it really just fear? Writer's block comes off as this giant monster that won't let you advance your plot, but really it's just being scared.
I'm scared right now. I'm writing my second draft and it's even harder than the first. During the first, I gave my all. I wrote even when I didn't think I could. Now I have to turn right around and do that all over again? How? Yeah, I have a bunch of notes jotted on my first draft, but the notes just look like scribbles now. Ideas that I had that I thought were good now look stupid.
I'm trying to let the story unfold without a lot of manipulation. I'm trying to listen to my characters and let them tell me who they are instead of making up their minds for them. I'm trying to realize what needs to be changed and what can stay.
I can have a million outlines and a million notes, but nothing is going to help me when I finally sit down and tackle the beast. Writing is lonely. Even with my boyfriend, John, sitting less than 10 feet away, I'm alone with my story.
He asked me a question a few minutes ago that I hadn't really thought about. He said, "Do you ever worry that a scene you wrote that's full of emotion won't come across to the average reader?"
And I was like, "Whatever, no." Or maybe I said, "Sometimes." But 'sometimes' is my stock answer for when I don't really know. But then it hit me, yes. I'm worried. I worry about everything. I'm the QUEEN of worry. I'm worried this blog post is going to come off crazy.
This is the time when writing isn't enough. I want greatness. Is that too much to ask? Greatness comes at a price. You can't just put words together and call it great. It has to evoke emotion in the people who are exposed to it. I want to do that.
I want my words to mean something. Whatever that means.
Guess what! The edits for my first draft of Undead Again are complete. All I have to do is get started on my second draft.
The ending was by far the worst part of the entire story. It was jumbled and messy and completely awkward.
I never write a second draft of anything so I'm excited to see how it turns out. I found that I repeat myself a lot. I also write things in the action that would be impossible for the audience to know. Most of the characters talk too much about the wrong things. They just come out and say who they are within seconds of meeting each other and it's stupid. No one talks like that.
The official entry date of Script-A-Thon is June 30 and I'm hoping that I'm done with my second draft by then. I want to spend all of July perfecting it and making it great. I've already made a lot of progress with John's help. He's the best. :)
I shouldn't be writing this. I should be grabbing my backpack and coffee and heading off to my 8am summer math class. Instead, I wanted to jot down really quickly about The Script-A-Thon. I'm entering.
I've always been pretty hard to beat when it came to writing in grade school, but now I get to play with the big dogs. I'm excited and surprisingly not scared at all for this. I've wanted to enter for a year but I never had any material.
Coming this June 30th, I can enter and get well on my way to re-writing Undead Again. The script needs a ton of work. I have to take a character out and put one back in and all kinds of other things. After class and homework, I'm going to be writing like a maniac!
In response to my boyfriend, John, here is a list of my top ten movies.
10.) I love this movie because it's cute and it leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy. It has a good moral about appreciating what you've got and realizing when you have something special right in front of you.
9.) Seriously, who doesn't love this movie? Even on cable with the expletives deleted, it's still scary. No exorcism movie will ever compare to this one.
8.) Some of my favorite things about this one is the non linear storytelling, over the top characters, and the wacky situations they get into. The movie leaves a lot to interpretation which I happen to like. Just Google some of the weird explanations people have come up with. It also features some of my favorite actors like John Travolta and Bruce Willis!
7.) Bruce Willis again. Yes. But what I like about this movie is the funky take it has on the future. Music is weird, people dress insane and aliens on earth is normal. Besides, any movie where earth gets saved leaves me feeling happy. :)
6.) I'm not big on sequels but the first Resident Evil movie is one of my favorite zombie movies. I think I'm starting to notice a pattern...is it the movies or the actors I like? Whatever! Although there's no "Alice" in the video game, I appreciate Milla Jovovich in this role. The suspense builds incredibly well and doesn't lose you. Even at the last scene when she's standing in the bare ruins of what's left of the city, you're in the moment with her.
5.) Halfway through and I was so torn what to put here but Pleasantville wins. Why? Because it's direct commentary on American society. Views on women's roles, race, relationships and sex all get neatly stacked into this movie. Plus, Fiona Apple covered "Across the Universe" for this movie which is a huge plus.
4.) If Freaky Friday grew up to be a twister murderer, you'd get Face/Off. The idea of switching bodies with someone always seemed like it would be cool...until I saw this movie. What sells it is that John Travolta's character actually starts to feel sympathy for his enemy after being forced to live with his face.
3.) I usually hate being tricked by movies but when you find out the "bad guy" is actually trying to save the world, it makes you go, "OMG, BRILLIANT!" I was told this movie wasn't worth the disc it was burned to but I was pleasantly surprised after watching it! The only thing that gets me is the weird background scene where a blimp or plane-like object is headed straight for the Twin Towers.
2.) I've loved this movie since I was a kid! What is it with me and violence? I had a crush on Ray Liotta too. I knew the story was good even back then.
1.) I pledge allegiance to Jurassic Park. When this movie came out on VHS, my mom bought me a copy and I watched it every single day without fail. I have this movie memorized. I could recite it to you complete with dinosaur sound effects. I love dinosaurs and I love this movie. Fuck the sequels though. :)
The verdict is in. My script is crap. In fact, it's what crap wants to be when it grows up!
Just kidding, it's not that bad. However, I do have a lot of things going on that just don't seem to mesh well together. My boyfriend gave me some sound advice on Undead Again. I have ways of making it better that won't cause me to tear my hair out. I've never done this before, so it's a little weird for me.
If anybody wants to join me on this little screenwriting adventure of mine, feel free! Here's some stuff I learned as I went along.
1.) Keep Writing.
Sometimes the story gets weird. Sometimes you veer off on some road that you didn't mean to. Sometimes you add in characters or change people's names halfway through. Don't worry. No matter how gruesome it gets coming out, you can always go back and shape it later. I learned this lesson the hard way when I would always try to go back and polish the first half of an unwritten story. I ended up never finishing. Every good story used to be crap. The difference is the writer took the time to finish and then edit.
2.) Try to write everyday.
This one sucks because everyone is busy. We have lives and jobs and some people have kids and life gets hectic. Sometimes I would go home tired after work and only get a page out. I can usually pound out about 12 or 13 pages of anything a night if I'm not tired. But don't beat yourself up over it. One sentence is better than no sentence at all.
3.) Ask someone known for brutal honesty to read it and give you feedback.
I don't feel like I need to pay hundreds of dollars to some writer at a workshop to tell me my writing is trash. I'm pretty sure you've seen movies that could have been improved "If only they had done [INSERT MODIFICATION HERE]." My point is, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what a good story is. Pick someone honest to read your script. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.
4.) Print out a copy of your script and make your notes directly on it.
Reading it from your computer screen does nothing for you. You need the actual pages in your hand so you can feel their weight. No matter what shape your script is in, you've created something and you should be proud. Accomplishing something so big makes you feel confident, at least I do. Write in the margins, highlight, cross-out, add and subtract whatever you need to make your story shine.
5.) Most importantly...
If you don't remember anything else I've written here, please remember this:
This is YOUR story and no one can tell it except YOU and no one can tell it the way YOU can. Don't get all caught up in comparing yourself to other people. You exist for a reason!
According to various sources like the Bible and my college drama professor, there is no new idea. Everything you can ever think of has already been thought of. This is because humans are smart.
Anyway, I want to make new videos for my channel because I truly miss it. I was thinking about things I could do like little skits and things but everything seems so overdone.
Is anyone else sick of parodies of songs? I am. If I hear one more, "Call Me Maybe," parody, I'm going to scream! I could just my weird self, but I feel like I can do more than just be my weird self. I was thinking about reciting monologues that I've memorized, trying different accents and even doing scenes...with myself. That almost sounds dirty, haha.
Aside from writing, waiting around to finish school and work, there isn't a whole lot of constructive things for me to do. I could easily waste an entire day (and night) watching Desperate Housewives...but I'll try not to do that.
One idea that I've been toying around with is filming a documentary. I would call it, "When Fame Costs A Fortune." It would be about scam artists who are out to take advantage of people who are trying to make it in entertainment. How do you know someone is for real? Everyone says, "A real agent will never ask for money up front." Yes, we KNOW that. But I feel like it's one of those things that people say to try and cover up the fact that they're liars. If you have to pay for audition, that's just insane and plain wrong but I've heard of people doing this.
What if you wanted to apply for a job at McDonald's and they said, "In order to get the application, you have to pay $25." People would shit themselves and McDonald's would end up in the national news!
It's just a thought. I have no idea what it takes to make a documentary. Perhaps I should research it... :)
