My Blog

Movie Hell

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My wife dragged me to RUMOR HAS IT tonight. It’s the first time in ages I’ve seen a movie on a Friday night (usually I see bargain matinees or, during the holidays, get in free with my WGA card). Now I know why the movie business is in trouble.

Let’s talk about the theatre experience first. The movie tickets were $20. The popcorn and drink were $10 (we shared). That’s $30.  You can rent a DVD for $3 or buy one for $18…or wait until it shows up on HBO or Showtime.  I was gouged and I didn’t like it. But hey, you can’t beat the movie-going experience…the big screen, the stadium theatre, and the great sound. Like hell.

My local stadium theatre is one of the crown jewels of the Regal chain. The theatre was packed. The film was scratched (and it’s only been out a week) and the screen was stained. The woman next to me passed gas, coughed, and sneezed her way through the entire movie. The couple in front of me wouldn’t shut-the-fuck-up, even though I asked them politely, and then not so politely, to please shut-the-fuck-up.

Let’s talk about the movie. I can’t remember seeing a movie with so many matching errors. Nothing matched from master to coverage. His hand are around the cup in the master, not in the closeup. She’s got her arms crossed under her chest in the coverage, not in the master. The couple is sitting behind them in the master, not in the coverage. We’re over Shirley MacLaine’s shoulder and she’s talking but her mouth isn’t moving. AHHHHHH!  Perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed the unbelievable number of continuity and other matching gaffs if the movie wasn’t so dull. Shirley MacLaine was wonderful, and over-the-top, and cartoonish — but whenever she wasn’t on screen, the movie died.

I couldn’t wait to leave the theatre… and get away from the flatulent germ bag next to me, the loudmouth couple in front of me, and the over-priced popcorn and coke and the movie itself. Why pay $30 for that experience? Buying or renting a DVD, making my own bowl of popcorn, and buying my own coke, sitting in the comfort of my own home, suddenly seems like paradise.

Now before you write me off as a curmudgeon, I like going to movies. Or I did. But more and more often, the experience is like the one I had tonight.

Looking for the Short Cut

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Screenwriter Paul Guyot offers some great advice for aspiring writers for the new year:

A huge problem I see with people wanting to write for a living – more
screenwriters than prose for some reason – is that they are so
completely focused on getting an agent, or getting their script to a
producer or studio, or dreaming of that one spec sale that will solve
all their troubles, that they don’t spend any energy on becoming a good
writer.

…Try something new this year. Just for 6 months. Forget completely
about trying to get your scripts or books to agents or producers, or
trying to enter contests, or suck up to the rich producer/editor at the
party, or meet the "right" people.

And just concentrate on your writing. Making it better. I promise
you, on my granny’s grave, that your writing can be improved upon. That
script that you think you can’t do any more with – it can be better.
That manuscript you’ve tweak four or five times and think is your best
work ever – it can be better.

He gave this advice, and a whole lot more, in response to a question from a reader of his excellent blog. That reader didn’t take the advice very well and, basically, told him to go fuck himself, essentially underscoring the point Paul was trying to make. The reader thinks he’s owed a career simply because he can type stories in screenplay format — he hasn’t grasped the concept that being able to write actually counts, too.

But this attitude isn’t limited to screenwriters — you see it a lot with aspiring novelists who, rather than hone their craft, send their half-baked manuscripts and checks to iUniverse, lulu, and the like and expect this will lead to being a bestselling author. Too many aspiring writers these days are looking for short-cuts to success, a way to avoid all the hard work and rejection,  and there simply aren’t any.

1-800-Golddigger

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Torispellingdownpants
Back when I was doing MISSING, and it was still called 1-800-MISSING and starred Gloria Reuben, Dean McDermott was one of the stars. I liked him. I thought he was a nice guy. And he was close friends with the two writers who created the show. But one of female story editors got an immediate, bad vibe from him.

"He’s a sleazebag," she said.

I was shocked. "Did he say or do something that offended you?"

"No, but I’m telling you, he’s sleaze.  Scuminess radiates off of him. He’s going to cheat on his wife and run away with her money or something."

I shrugged off her comments as ridiculous. Well, it turns out she was mostly right. A few months later, Dean dumped his wife (Canadian TV personality Mary Jo Eustace, the mother of his 7-year-old son and his recently adopted baby daughter) and ran off with Tori Spelling, who he met on a TV movie.  Dean and Tori got engaged over Christmas.

Obviously, my friend’s sleaze radar is stunningly accurate. I may bring her along to every network or studio meeting I have from now on.

The Starlost

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Starlogo
"A fresh and startling exercise of the imagination, an audacious television concept." That’s how actor Keir Dullea described the 1973, first-run syndicated  series THE STARLOST in a seven minute sales pitch for the program. The pitch, which Dullea hosted with Douglas Trumball, is a fascinating little piece of television history.

Hot Sex, Gory Violence

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Newsweek published this My Turn essay of mine back in mid-1980s, while I was still a college student and writing books as "Ian Ludlow."  I stumbled across the essay again today and thought you might enjoy it:

HOT
SEX, GORY VIOLENCE

How
One Student Earns Course Credit and Pays Tuition

My name is Ian Ludlow. Well, not really. But that’s the name on my four ".357 Vigilante" adventures that Pinnacle Books will publish this spring. Most of
the time I’m Lee Goldberg, a mild mannered UCLA senior majoring in mass communications and trying to spark a writing career at the same time. It’s hard work. I haven’t quite achieved a balance between my dual identities of college student and hack novelist.

The adventures of Mr. Jury, a vigilante into doing the LAPD’s dirty work,  are often created in the wee hours of the night, when I should be studying, meeting my freelance-article deadlines or, better yet, sleeping. More often than not, my nocturnal writing spills over into my classes the next morning. Brutal fistfights, hot sexual encounters and gory violence are frequently scrawled
across my anthropology notes or written amid my professor’s insights on Whorf’s hypothesis. Students sitting next to me who glance at my lecture notes are shocked to see notations like "Don’t move, scumbag, or I’ll wallpaper the room with your brains.

Vigilante1
I once wrote a pivotal rape scene during one of my legal-communications classes, and I’m sure the girl who sat next to me thought I was a psychopath. During the first half of the lecture, she kept looking with wide eyes from my notes to my face as if my nose were melting onto my binder or something. At the break she disappeared, and I didn’t see her again the rest of the quarter. My professors,  though, seem pleased to see me sitting in the back of the classroom writing furiously. I guess they think I’m hanging on their every word. They’re wrong.

I’ve tried to lessen the strain between my conflicting identities by marrying the
two. Through the English department, I’m getting academic credit for the books. That amazes my Grandpa Cy, who can’t believe there’s a university crazy enough to reward me for writing "lots of filth." The truth is, it’s writing and it’s learning, and it’s getting me somewhere. Just where, I’m not
sure. My Grandpa Cy thinks it’s going to get me the realization I should join him in the furniture
business.

Read more

The Writing Fool

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a few writing projects.

I finished up a script based on my book MY GUN HAS BULLETS and sent it to some friends.

I wrote my outline for MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU and sent it off to the powers-that-be…now I am waiting for approval so I can start writing the book.

I wrote an article for an MWA chapter newsletter in the mid-west on writing the MONK books.

I wrote two more entries for my "Natalie" blog, which will be going live on the USA Network website in a couple of weeks.

Last night, I finished the first draft of a script based on my book THE WALK…now I am going to set it aside for a week or two and read it fresh before attempting the rewrite.

What’s ahead?

Today I’m trying to come up with an idea for my short story for Robert Randisi’s latest crime anthology, which is due in March, and once I’ve done that, maybe I’ll have an inspiration and figure out what my eighth DIAGNOSIS MURDER book is going to be about. And I’ve got a couple of more "Natalie" blogs to write…

Later next month, Bill and I start work on our spec pilot and will probably be tackling another MONK episode, this one based on my book MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIRE HOUSE.

A Good Omen for the New Year

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Book critic Oline Codgill of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has given me my first review of the new year… here’s an early peek at her Jan. 1st column and her review of THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE:

Anyone who has watched television during the past 10 years probably has at least
more than a passing knowledge of Lee Goldberg’s work. As an author, Goldberg’s
name may not come easily to mind. But as a writer/producer, Goldberg’s credits
include Diagnosis Murder, Monk, Nero Wolfe, Hunter, Spenser: for Hire and
The Cosby Mysteries. He has also written a couple of comic mysteries and
the thriller The Walk.

Credits aside, it’s always what can you do
for me today. And Goldberg does quite a lot in the amusingly hard-boiled The
Man With the Iron-on Badge. In this novel about a Los Angeles security guard
for a wealthy, gated community, Goldberg delivers a clever riff on the
traditional private eye novel, resplendent with witty and dark turns.

Twenty-nine-year-old Harvey Mapes is approached by one of the residents,
Cyril Parkus, to follow his wife. The spouse, Lauren, is so perfect that even
Harvey wonders how much of her is real.

He has little illusion about his
job — "I’m there to give the illusion of security. I don’t have a gun, a badge,
or even a working stapler." But this undercover assignment will give Harvey a
new view of his work. Not knowing anything about following someone, Harvey
immerses himself in detective lore — watching a Mannix marathon on TV
Land, reading detective novels by Robert B. Parker, Sue Grafton, Robert Crais —
and tries to pass himself as John D. MacDonald, the best-selling author of
detective fiction who’s doing research. Of course, it would help that he knew
what the D. stood for in MacDonald’s name; or realized that everyone he talks to
knows who MacDonald was.

When the path he pursues following Lauren takes
a dark, twisted turn, Harvey refuses to give up. Along the way he will learn
about the lives of others and about himself.

Goldberg’s penchant for
complexity keeps the story on a twisted keel, and with his background, The
Man With the Iron-on Badge should make a lively movie of the week.

Thanks, Oline!

Law & Goyim

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My friend author Rochelle Krich is steaming mad over a LAW AND ORDER episode a couple weeks back that portayed orthodox Jews in a less than flattering light.

We have an Orthodox Jewish rabbi dispensing unOrthodox theology and upholding the fiction behind the family chumash.

We have Eric, a greedy Jew who engineers the desecration of a Jewish book that results in someone’s death.

We have Barry, an Orthodox Jewish killer, all-around
louse, and frequenter of lap dancers who recants his testimony against
Eric when he learns the chumash isn’t "the one."

My father lied to me, he says. It’s all a lie.

"It"?

Greed, brazen immorality, hypocrisy, lies.

According to Law & Order, that’s Orthodox Judaism.

I saw the episode and it didn’t offend my Jewish sensibilities, mainly because I’m a bad Jew and LAW AND ORDER portrays everybody as immortal, hypocritical, and dishonest. It’s a murder mystery and every character is a suspect. For that to be possible, everyone has to have a motive. It isn’t the job of the writers to portray every racial, political, economic, cultural and religious group in a positive and accurate light — in fact, they do the opposite and on a weekly basis. They didn’t single out Orthodox Jews — if they had, then perhaps I would share my friend Rochelle’s anger.

The Single Greatest Idea for a TV Series EVER!

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I got this email from Dan yesterday:

Lee, I just came across your blog.  I know you are a busy person so I will keep
this short and sweet…

IDEA: GOOGLE GAMESHOW (I own this
domain)

1. Perhpas it wouldn’t be with google, but google is so hot, you
would think they would be interested in this
2. Essentially, this idea would
be an interactive tv gameshow/reality gameshow
3. People can play along
online for prizes
4. We would add a reality portion to this game show with
contests extending weeks at a time

(I would hope to create a little
craze like Millionaire/Reality TV Shows…even though they are on the down
slide)

These points don’t explain much…but from what you heard, does
this sound intriguing?

That is a brilliant idea for a show, Dan.  So innovative, fresh and unique. It’s got incredible potential.  It’s even better than my great TV show idea:

IDEA: MURDER COPS  (I registered the idea with the WGA).

1) It’s about two homicide detectives who are very different from each other.  (This could be in any city…though NY and Las Vegas are getting kind of overdone).
2) They solve really puzzling murders ala CSI and BLUE’S CLUES.
3) The stories are very twisty and clever.
4) It’s shot in a cool and innovative way with lots of style.
4) I see a big TV star like David Duchovny in one of the parts, maybe Beyonce, too.

(I would hope to turn it into a successful franchise like CSI or LAW & ORDER…even though there are, like, three each of those shows already).

Dan goes on to ask:

Any quick ideas on how a treatment should be written for a show like this?

Yes, Dan, I have a few. In general, it’s nice to actually have a series concept in mind before writing a treatment. Unfortunately, you don’t have a concept. You barely even have an idea.  You’d like to do a game show that people at home can play along with and that is tied in some way to Google. Come to think of it, that’s not even substantial enough to qualify as a notion.

Secondly, you may own the domain "Google Gameshow," but I suspect you don’t own Google. It’s not wise to try and sell an idea that’s based on an underlying property or trademark you don’t actually own.

Third, you obviously have no experience as a TV writer or producer,  so I doubt anyone would be interested in seriously considering your idea.

Fourth, why are you asking me about a gameshow treatment? I have never written or produced a gameshow. How would I know the answer to your question?

Fifth, if  you have an idea for a TV show, it’s probably not wise to email other writers about it, especially those with blogs who regularly ridicule complete strangers who email them their ideas for TV shows.