"The world is round, people." (Yes, I know it was a Woody Allen movie.)

Sometimes in the morning when neither of us has anywhere specific to be, Beefcake and I lie in bed while I read interesting news articles on my phone. This morning, I read an article about a bill in Iraq that would make it legal for men to marry 9-year-old girls and illegal for women to refuse sex with their husbands. Then I read an article about the Pakistani 17-year-old who set herself on fire to protest the release of the leader of the five men who kidnapped and gang raped her. Then I read an article about the new law in Michigan that requires women to purchase special "abortion insurance" if they think they might be raped. Then I read about Terry Richardson. And we all know about Woody Allen by now. And of course, we can't forget about Roman Polanski.

This is about culture.

In each of these cases, someone in power sanctioned this behavior. Celebrities pal around with Terry Richardson all the time. They defend Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. Governments and police forces support laws that keep women suppressed and abused all over the world. And all of that speaks to a culture that subconsciously (or in some cases, consciously) believes that women deserve what they get.

We as artists have the power to instigate change. Making movies isn't like curing cancer. It's not "important work." Or is it?

A recent study showed that the MTV series Teen Mom helps to reduce rates of teenage pregnancy.

There are no statistics to back it up, but many believe that the magnificent David Palmer, the black president on the TV series 24, helped Americans open up to the idea of a black president. It seems likely that Will and Grace made being gay a more acceptable part of our society.

Art begets change. The Jungle changed the way the government handled meat processing in this country. Look what happened to fast food menus after Super Size Me. Black Fish is already having an effect on our perception of animals in captivity.

We can make a difference with what we write. We don't have to, but we can, even if we write the silliest B movie to hit VOD.

When every black person you see on film is a thug, you are more likely to believe that black people are plotting to shoot you. When every gay person you see on film is a sexual predator, of course you believe that the gay community is coming for your children. And when every woman you see in film is a wife/mother/victim, you're far more inclined to believe that we're not capable of anything more.

This is why I write female protagonists so often. I don't write them just because I'm a woman. I write them because I want to SEE women - women I can relate to, women who aren't just running scared or trying to please the male lead.

This is why Frozen and Hunger Games were so successful this year. Girls are starved for female characters who carve their own path. And guess what? Boys watch this stuff too. Yes, boys are capable of enjoying films about girls.

One year when I was a teacher, the Big Read chose The Joy Luck Club as that year's novel. I volunteered to lead the related activities at our school. As the English teachers were meeting to discuss our plans, one of our male teachers protested teaching his students this novel. "I don't think the boys will be interested in reading a book about women," he said.

Before I could even begin my angry response, the teacher beside me handled it much more simply. She said "Why not? Girls have been reading books about boys forever and they don't complain." And in my classroom, I had no such complaints. I taught a room full of first-generation Americans, and even those without immigrant parents could relate to the parent/child relationships raised in the book. There's more to being a woman than having a vagina. We have a lot of the same thoughts and feelings as men do. And sometimes, we have a different take on those thoughts, one worth hearing.

If you're a boy who can't dare to watch a movie about a female protagonist, you're a fucking idiot.

You don't even have to write a female protagonist to have interesting women in your film. Most writers default to male. The only characters who get to be women are the characters who MUST be women. But when you change a character's race or gender or sexual orientation to something other than the default, cool things happen in your story. Your characters suddenly become more interesting.

So do this for me today: find a character you defaulted to male and make that character a woman instead. Most likely, you don't have to change anything else. Don't make her a love interest or somebody's mom or a murder or rape victim. Just make her a person. Give her some good lines to say that have nothing to do with her gender.

If we all do this in every script, imagine the difference we could make together over time. Imagine the fate of the celebrity rapist. Imagine the rape victim who at least knows that these men are buried so far under the prison that they will never touch another girl again. Imagine the woman who doesn't have to carry her rapist's baby to term because she failed to buy "abortion insurance." Imagine the women who will know it's okay to stand up to their abusers. But most importantly, imagine the courage we give to girls all over the world to become the best version of themselves.

It kind of starts with us. People all over the world watch movies. It's the easiest, most subtle way to send out messages, to influence culture. We have that power.

It's not just words, you know. It's a decision that you make every time you write: BE THE GODDAMN CHANGE.

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  Dear Powers that Be,

Stop rebooting things. Just stop it. There is nothing wrong with Point Break. There was nothing wrong with The Highlander or Total Recall or Blade Runner. Stop trying to fix things that aren't broken, or to "update" movies that don't need updating.

In fact, if you really want to be productive members of society, you will find a way to go back in time and erase Highlander Two from existence. And also stop George Lucas from hurting us. But I digress.

People are not as retarded as you think. They rejected Bucky Fucking Larson. They can still watch a movie with Patrick Swayze in it. Kids may not know who he is, but they can learn. We can show them. We can sit down with our kids and say, "Hey kid, check out this movie. It's the best movie ever made about surfing and bank robberies!" and the kid will be like "Ooh, cool, the '80s sure did have some neat movies! I didn't know Neo was an actor!" Not every movie ever made has to star Shia Labeouf.

And then, if you stop rebooting things we love, you can hire people to write new things, things that new people will love, things that add to our culture.

I'm not saying don't remake anything. The Crazies remake was pretty good. Not sure what else was. I didn't hate Fright Night. But did Fright Night NEED to be remade?  Did it really? Could someone have written a different movie in its place? Something new, something that would generate its own following one day?

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, Point Break is a perfect film. There's no way to improve upon it, and if there's no way to improve upon it, all you're going to do is fuck it up. A lot of us never recovered from the whole Greedo incident, and I'm not sure how much more we can take of the fucking up of things we love. Stop fucking up things you made us love.

With love,
Emily

In order to keep my job I had to take a series of classes that cost me $2400. After that I had to do lots of paperwork and fax things to people, so I did that.

Then I found out that I had to send some more paperwork and pay a fee before that paperwork that I already did could be processed. I very nearly lost my job because nobody told me this until after the deadline had passed and they all got their chance to yell at me.

I yelled back, for the record. I think people now run when they see me coming in that office.

Today I got a message saying that they can't process this new paperwork until I do some more paperwork that I was supposed to have done between the first set of paperwork and the last set of paperwork, only nobody ever told me I had to do that paperwork until now, when the deadline has passed. This is paperwork to get a certificate that says I completed the courses, a certificate I already have but is apparently only one of two certificates I need that say the same thing. I also have a transcript that says the same thing. Not good enough.

So to recap, in order to keep my job I have to spend $2,510, take three classes, do paperwork that gave me access to more paperwork that gave me access to more paperwork, and none of this was told to me until it was already supposed to have happened.

And at each stage of this process I am made to feel like a worthless human being. This has been going on since April.

I have already been teaching in this district for five years.

Hey, State of California, go fuck yourself.

Tomorrow, a look at this Fox suing PJ thing from a lawyer's perspective.

I have a bone to pick with Netflix. Everybody knows I love action movies; it's what I watch far and above any other genre. Yet for some reason Netflix can't recommend anything except the original Last of the Mohicans until I rate more action/adventure films.

Sure, Netflix can tell me which biological military dramas I'd enjoy, but for some reason does not thing I am prepared to handle its suggestions for action films until I've seen Undisputed 3. Nevermind the 3,000 odd movies I've already rated. No. I WILL see more Jean Claude Van Damme films or I will NOT be allowed access to more specific recommendations. I've already seen like half of them! What can watching In Hell tell you that watching Timecop can't? It makes no sense!

Why the hell are you recommending Sesame Street: Old School: Vol 1? WTF in my ratings system has made you think I'd love that, but you still can't figure out which movie with gun fights I'd enjoy?

Dammit, Netflix. Get your shit together.

I just want to make one quick point and then I have to get ready for my date.

If you are a man and you plan to write a screenplay where men troll for chicks at a bar, please do not refer to each woman only by her hair color. You give the male characters these thoroughly described appearances and personalities and quirks and clever lines of dialogue while the women are "hot brunettes" who do little more than giggle right before they spread their legs. It is unimaginative and annoying.

Stop it. Stop it right now.

We don't need a new Spiderman reboot. We just HAD that movie, it was a perfectly good movie, and we do not need to do this again. The fourth movie is dead. Let's just recast and start with a new story, or better yet, pull a James Bond and let that shit rest a while before starting up where the third movie left off. Actually, let's pull a Highlander and pretend that third movie never existed. But a reboot? We don't need a damned reboot on a movie we didn't grow up with. Stop rebooting things! There was nothing wrong with Robocop! Leave stuff that is perfectly good alone and go make something new!

Also:



In my next life I'm coming back as a guy who gets paid a shitload of money to push a bunch of other people out of work, does a shitty job, then gets to push more people out of work and never really has to deal with the consequences.

Dear Internet Grammar and Spelling Nazis,

Thank goodness you came along. If it hadn't been for your observation that the word "report" was supposed to be "rapport" it may have had no effect whatsoever on our lives. But you, ah, you have found meaning in the minutiae. This is the Internet, after all, and someone needs to police it. You, sir or madam, are a hero for your willingness to sacrifice valuable hours of your day to something nobody else cares about just so that we know you can spell better than we can.

You spend countless hours combing posts and responses to posts just so you can point out when the rest of us make mistakes, because of course you never do. You don't have anything more important to do with your life because this is the most important thing in the world. In fact, if someone makes a spelling error online, it's a far more important representation of their ability to perform their duties as a human being than anything they actually say. Because if we don't proofread our 18th post today on an Internet message board about which actress has the best rack, then we probably don't proofread our resumes either. It's the only logical conclusion to make.

So I applaud you today, Guy Who Points Out Typos, for making sure we all know you found our mistake. You're right, it IS unprofessional to make spelling errors on an online forum about homosexual monkey sex photos. Your life is truly validated each time you point that out to the rest of us. So even though the others fail to appreciate your solid work ethic, know that I see your heroic efforts and I am eternally grateful that you made sure I know I accidentally left the "u" out of "restaurant" in my post about where to eat fried crickets in Los Angeles. Had you not pointed that out, nobody would have cared. But now we all know that you do.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Occasionally Makes Mistakes

Ugh. This week blows. Someone I love almost died - actually did die for a couple of seconds, we lost ANOTHER house - the third one and our favorite yet, and the CS Open was a hot mess.

It was a great idea. It really was. And I'm sure those people who received their scores got some useful feedback. I've read several posts by such people who have no idea why everyone else is in a huff.

It seems that many people followed directions and submitted their scenes, got the "Congratulations!" page that told you it was submitted correctly, and then received no feedback whatsoever.

At least I know why my shit was rejected. It bullshit, but it's a reason. There are a loooot of people who got no explanation at all. As an added bonus, the response from the contest runners was downright insulting to everyone who entered. No apologies, just a bunch of reasons why it's all our fault and they ran out of time, which is also somehow all our fault.

So if you paid, entered and submitted properly and received nothing in return, you're not alone. The only credit I can give them right now is that they did indeed refund my $12 pretty quickly, almost instantaneously. But that makes me wonder. How is it that they had enough people around to refund my money in ten minutes but didn't have enough readers to get the job done in the first place?

THIS JUST IN: Apparently a lot of people who submitted correctly received their scores this morning, a day after round two began. None of these people received the 93 or above necessary to move to round 2. Coincidence? I dunno. Vanilla Chunk has a different perspective.

I love how their primary excuse was "There was just not enough time."

Whose fault was that? Hey, CS, you guys created the deadlines and hired the readers. You knew how many entries you'd have two days before the prompt went out. You also set the second round deadline, a date you could have pushed back when you realized how poorly you had planned.

And then, of course, the team was nice enough to send us all the round 2 prompt and get indignant when people were confused as to whether or not they were supposed to submit an entry. Well, gee, the instructions were so fucking clear this whole time, how on earth could anyone be confused? They've yet to issue one word of apology to all the people they fucked over. Nothing but attitude.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a Clusterfuck. For me this is definitely the nail in the coffin on Creative Screenwriting. I heard there's some other magazine with better articles and not so much bullshit and disorganization. I think I'll try that one for a while.

As a teacher, I can't really ignore this one.

It is absolutely disgusting the amount of backlash the president's speech about valuing education is getting.

Education in America is in a deplorable state and the answer is not some feel good new program or more testing or even higher teacher salaries. Hell it's not even more money. Money is nice, but money is not the best way to make your kids learn. Parent involvement is.

When parents get involved, specifically when they insist their kids make good grades and study, the difference is obvious. Kids whose parents care about their education will almost always be the kids with the best grades, and usually they're also the kids with the best behavior. But our national history has recently involved a lot of excuse making and low standards. Kids don't do homework anymore, and when they screw up in class often their parents make excuse after excuse.

So when the president of the United States, a man whose mother sacrificed for his education, a man who busted his ass to get where he is, comes on TV and tells our kids the answer to success is in hard work and setting high standards, we should all be nodding our heads and throwing text books in our kids' faces.

Isn't that why we all quote former presidents? "Ask not what your country can do for you" "There is nothing to fear but fear itself". Aren't these things we love to teach our kids? Are there not certain principles that transcend political and personal bullshit?

The president's speech amounted to "Work hard and don't allow yourself to fail". How the hell is that a political issue? At this point I think if the man commented on how blue the sky is today there would be a chorus of angry people screaming about how he's ignoring rainy cities with his blue-sky elitism.

Instead of bitching about some manufactured drama, parents everywhere should be cheering him on. They should be pointing to their kids and saying "See? If you want to be successful you have to work."

If George Bush had given this same speech I would have said "You know, the man's kind of an idiot, but for once he has a point."

But nope. We're going to just cheer on our descent into stupidity.

Since it's Saturday I'm going to break my self-imposed rule. I try hard to make this about only movies or teaching, and I really really try to stay on movies and screenwriting with minimal posts about teaching. But today, I must stray from my mission because when something like this happens you can't ignore the fact that you've got a public forum in which to express your grievances.

In February the Beefcake decided to buy a new car because at the time he drove a piece of shit sedan he had beaten into the ground over years of doing a job that involved driving all over LA and its surrounding areas, a job he has replaced with one close to home. Since he teaches a free workout class in a park every Saturday morning he wanted and SUV in which to load all his workout gadgets, and since we're both fans of the Earth and its accouterments, he decided to buy a hybrid SUV.

Don't give me any lectures about the batteries. I researched. They recycle them now.

There are 4 hybrid SUVs on the market, the most affordable and easy to find being the hybrid Ford Escape. I did some research. I found one with 50,000 miles on it at Southern California Auto Sales, which is based in Santa Ana but has a location in Fullerton on Euclid Street.

Allow me to repeat, in case anyone is interested in buying a car at Southern California Auto Sales in Fullerton, that's where it is. On Euclid Street.

The Beefcake bought the car and we drove away, happy as Larry. He loved it. Leg room, space for his weight lifting gadgets, a quiet little engine. He donated his old car to Goodwill, which was able to get over $2 grand for it. So in one fell swoop he helped out some poor people and got an Earth friendly vehicle.

And he payed the price.

Last week the engine began making a knocking sound. At first we didn't know if anything was wrong because it has a hybrid engine, and does anyone really know what that sounds like when things go bad? So finally Saturday the knocking got worse so he took it to the Ford dealership. Because it's a Ford and there are still no hybrid mechanics in town.

So kids, if you're looking for an up and coming job, we are in need of hybrid mechanics. Every mechanic I talked to was sorry they couldn't help an appalled that the dealer wouldn't.

The Ford mechanic said The Beefcake needs a new engine. A brand new $5,000 engine. For his four-year-old car with 50,000 miles on it that he just bought in February.

Southern California Auto Sales in Fullerton told him he was "110 percent responsible" for the engine and that he should have gotten the extended warranty. They said they changed the oil, but how were they supposed to know it had an engine problem?

He called Ford. They agreed that it's a shitty situation, but they can do nothing.

He's calling the attorney general's office and writing to Ford and doing a few other things, including considering small claims court because a close family member is a corporate attorney, but in the end he may have to fork out $5 grand for a new engine for his three-month old Ford Escape Hybrid.

We were going to buy a house this year. We've been saving and saving and I've been pulling myself out of debt so we could buy a house in time to beat the cutoff for the tax credit. This was enough of a dent in our savings that it has seriously affected our housing search.

Southern California Auto Sales of Fullerton nearly cost me a house.

So if by any chance you ever consider buying your car there, don't. They have no problem selling you a lemon and then telling you to fuck off when you ask them to pay for the damaged goods.

I admit I have a snobby attitude about screenplays sometimes. If I could look at early Screenwriter Emily I'd smack her in the face for being such a silly girl. I was one of those people who jumped into screenwriting with all these ideas about selling and making money and being famous and whatnot, and reality is cold.

Some guy emailed me what I think is supposed to be a query letter the other day. I think he thinks I'm a producer because on my production company website and all my business cards it says "Producer" which is why I am one of those assholes who made a short film that's not even finished and now calls herself a producer. At the time I thought I would make a bunch of shorts and even one day make a feature. But that shit is HARD.

I still plan to make my boxing movie but it's taking way longer than I thought. If you donated I'm putting a thank you on my current film. And thank you.

Anyhow, this dude sent me a query but it wasn't properly formatted, and the fact that he sent me a letter says he's just blanket emailing anyone who claims to be a producer, and he's going to end up either scammed or dejected if he keeps on this way. I told him so, and offered to show him the ropes. I probably won't hear from him.

This one guy asked me to read his first script once. I only read the first ten pages, then told him I kept running into the same basic structure problems over and over, so he needed to fix his format issues and give it back to me so I can concentrate on the story and won't be distracted by thousands of little format notes. He thanked me very enthusiastically, and wrote me back a week later to say that he'd finished his screenplay and was submitting it to the Nicholl. I asked to read the newest version so I could give him a real critique. Never heard from him again.

Every day across America, dozens of people complete a screenplay and immediately email anyone anywhere to ask how they get an agent. And this irritates me, even though I used to be one of them. The people in a hurry.

I guess I believe that if you want to be a professional screenwriter you need to do some damn research and you need to be patient. God knows I'm all for using back routes and whatnot to get your career going - I've never PA'd in my life - but you need to at least understand what you're doing. I couldn't be a teacher without a degree and some training. You can't go be an electrician if you've never changed a lightbulb. You can't pilot an airplane just because you rode in one once. And you can't write a screenplay in 8 weeks or whatever and expect to have an immediate career as a professional screenwriter.

I wrote this the other day in a seminar:

There is something you want to do. It’s this little kernel of an idea - a screenplay idea you’ve been harboring, a sport you want to learn, a fantastic new grilled cheese sandwich you’ve been dreaming about. Everybody sits on some amazing dream. Few of us ever do anything about it.

I hear you right now in your brain. “I’ll do it eventually.” How long have you been saying that? Don’t do it eventually. Do it now. Right now.

Still here? Why? Oh I know. “I don’t have time.” Yes you do. You ever watch Project Runway? There was this contestant on that show named Katherine who raised four well-adjusted kids with her husband in a loft in New York City, and she did it looking absolutely stylish. And in the meantime, she designed posh clothes that got her on the show and eventually her own clothing line. Ever seen Kelly Rippa? Of course that might not be fair, because it’s entirely possible that Kelly Rippa is a cyborg.

I know people who write a novel by writing one or two pages a day. The other day someone showed me a book written over Twitter. The guy tweeted his novel a few sentences at a time over a year. A publisher took him on and it sold. There is time in your day. Cut out half an hour of TV. Work while you’re waiting for the chicken to broil. Plan your next move while you’re driving to work, or better yet, take the train and you can work while someone else drives.

Haven’t left yet? Okay, I get it. “I might fail.” Yeah, that’s the one that gets everybody. What if you put your life savings and your down time and all your hopes and dreams into something and then you fail?

Guess what? You might. Kyle Maynard is an amputee. He was born with no arms below the elbow and no legs below the knee, yet on April 28th he fought in his first public UFC fight. He lost. Of course he lost. But by God, the man got in there and did his thing. Think about that. No arms, no legs, but he wasn’t afraid to lose because he was just happy to get in there and prove he could hang. Are you more afraid than a man with no arms and legs in a cage match? Are you? If you don’t try you will definitely fail. And if you fail, well,. At least you know you didn’t miss out on what might have been.

Because this is about happiness. You want to be happy, right? Isn’t that what we all strive for?

You’re still here. Oh I get it. “Where do you get off?“ Well, here’s an example. Ever since I was little I wanted to learn to fight. My parents put me in soccer and gymnastics and dance and eventually band, but really all I lusted after was that little white gi those kids wear in Tai Kwan Do. I wanted to punch and kick things. I practiced by punching and kicking other kids, which is why my parents never put me in martial arts. So I was 28 years old the first time I put on a pair of boxing gloves. I had thought all these years that if you weren’t a kid you were too old to learn. But you’re never too old to learn. And now, well let’s just say you don’t want to piss me off. Because now I can punch you without injuring my hand like I did that one time when I punched that girl in the auditorium. Want to know how much joy it brings me to spar with my trainer? Only the most joy ever.

You want to be filled with joy? Screw your fear and your excuses. Go get it done. Start right freaking now.

During the whole Medieval discussion Friday there was one name that got thrown around like crazy on all the blogs: Shane Black. "Only Shane Black can write like Shane Black," on person said. The script was a Shane Black impression. It includes "The world's worst (best) Shane Black-ism." "This is from the Shane Black school of writing." It would "make Shane Black himself blush".

You know what? Fuck Shane Black.

Oh wait, that's not what I meant. What I meant was, thanks, Shane Black. Now everybody shut up about Shane Black.

Here's why Shane Black is awesome. Before he came along, writing was terse. Every now and then you were allowed to write something clever, but you'd better keep that shit to a minimum because nobody wants to remember that somebody actually wrote this thing. It's a blue print, nothing more.

Then Lethal Weapon appeared, and with it Shane Black had the audacity to write like himself. He said hi to us. He told us a story like those prose writers do.

And then people said "Oh, you can do that?" and they started to do that. And thank God they did because I can't stand writing that dry, personalityless way. I can't do it. If Shane Black hadn't come along, I never would have been able to write a good script.

Or hell, maybe I'd have been the Shane Black of my time. I guess somebody had to do it first.

So I thank him very much for breaking that barrier, for allowing us to have a little more fun when we write.

Because that's what Shane Black did. He broke through that perception that you have to be boring and dry when you write screenplays. I know, I know. Writers weren't really boring. William Goldman talked about his exquisite kick to the balls and all that. But those lines are few and far between in most scripts, and rightly so - many people go overboard with them if they think they're okay, and a lot of people don't know how to do that anyway. But Shane Black made it okay to do it if you've got it.

The problem is, no matter how much of your writing is your own, people continue to act like it's always Shane Black pulling the strings.

If I put my personality in my screenplay, I'm just copying Shane Black. And nobody should copy Shane Black. There can be only one Shane Black, so you'd better not dare to try to be like him you hussy.

Why? How come he's the only one who gets to do it? I just said he broke the barrier and allowed us the freedom to be real people when we write, but then whenever we do it everybody's all huffy about our audacity.

No offense there, Shane, but I don't want to be you. I wouldn't mind having your career, but I like being me. I write like me. I can't help it. And when I write a screenplay I'm not trying to copy you. I'm just writing my own way because you opened that door.

So I have a request for everybody. Can we please stop acting like Shane Black is the only person allowed to have asides and fourth wall break downs? Can we thank him for giving us that option and then put our own spin on it without thinking it's automatically copying his style?

Because I'll tell you a secret right now. I know all about Shane Black and his asides because everybody likes to talk about it, and I've been told several times that I have a Shane Black style of writing, but until recently I had never actually read one of his scripts. I'm not copying Shane Black. Not everybody who writes with a wink and a nod is trying to be Shane Black.

Don't get me wrong. I'm flattered when anyone makes that comparison. But at the same time, I do harbor this great fear that everywhere I go people will think "Well she's trying hard to be the female Shane Black, but I dunno. He's a lot taller and he wears baseball caps."

Mike Finch and Alex Litvak, who wrote Medieval, were probably not copying Shane Black either. They were probably writing the way they feel most comfortable. And whether you like that style or not, you should judge it on its own merits, not constantly talk about some other guy who did the same thing as if he has the monopoly on clever writing.

Yesterday the Beefcake and I went to the Wild Animal Park in Escondido. They had a baby cheetah. I love looking at cute little baby animals who will grow up and want to eat my head.

Anyway, that's where I was, in case anybody was frantically checking to see if I posted. Because I know everybody totally does.

Anyway, the other night we watched White Lightening, a 1973 Burt Reynolds classic about a moonshine runner who uses his special skills to take down Ned Beatty's asshole of a Sheriff. The movie was pretty good, but what was remarkably disconcerting was the presentation of the DVD.

Here's the listed synopsis on Netflix: One of the best Burt Reynolds "rednecks and cars" movies, White Lightning serves up some great auto chases through a sweaty, dirt-poor Southern atmosphere. Reynolds is a good ol' boy who runs moonshine and squares off against his nemesis, a sheriff (Ned Beatty) who has as little regard for the law as Burt does. A must-see for 1970s film buffs or action fans.

Notice how it stresses the car chases and the action and sort of never reveals the plot at all? This film starts out with a terrific scene of the sheriff drowning two boys in a lake by tying them to a concrete brick and shooting holes in their canoe. It's a really terrific way to start a film because right off the bat you get how big an asshole this guy is, and it's the inciting incident for the film so we waste no time.

Then we get to Burt Reynolds as Gator, a convict who learns that one of these boys was his brother, and he swears revenge on the Sheriff. The federal government gives him the opportunity to go after him through the moonshine trade, but Gator soon learns that the only way to bring this piece of shit down is by making him dead.

Great setup. There's a lot of emotion there, and the scenes where Gator talks about his brother are terrific. Unfortunately there aren't enough of them. They are sandwiched in between some pretty terrific car chases.

Steven Spielberg was offered this film and he turned it down because he said this would be a Burt Reynolds movie and he didn't want to become a director for hire. He was right. Here's the tagline: If You Haven't Seen "White Lightning" You Haven't Seen Burt Reynolds.

Here's my problem with it. The music that plays over the car chases is this twangy Jew's harp thing that makes everything look like a comedy moment. So this film with it's heart and dark message and whatnot is made into a dilly Smoky and the Bandit before Smoky and the Bandit existed. And with the synopsis written the way it is, I know other people would be thinking the same thing I did - woohoo, another Burt Reynolds movie about car chases and silly sheriffs! It feels like they shot the film, then tried to figure out how to lighten it up.

When this film came out it was PG. So was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Know that scene where that guy's face melts off? PG. Times have changed.

The DVD version of White Lightening, released in pan n scan, no less, is edited all to pieces to keep it within modern day PG expectations. Cuss words are dubbed. "Shit" became "Shoot." It's pretty obvious.

Then there's the ending. SPOILER ALERT. Gator watches the sheriff go over a ridge and into the water in his car, drowning him. Sort of an inactive ending for the protagonist, no? In the theater version, once the sheriff was trapped in the car, Gator shot him.

That's a completely different ending. That's like saying Han didn't shoot first. You cannot edit out an entire character development point, dammit.

But now we have a movie more friendly to the Smokey and the Bandit audience, I guess.

There really are a million ways a studio can screw a good script.

I am a yearbook adviser and tomorrow is the day we submit the entire yearbook. In the past two years at this school, there was so much gone horribly wrong in general that nobody really gave the yearbook any thought. This year, however, things have stabilized and we're preordering books like gangbusters. Before, it was the kids who made my life hell because they just didn't give a shit. This year, the kids are absolutely fantastic and it's the adults who cause the problems. So here is an open letter to all the adults who have given shit to yearbook advisers this year.

Hey you.

Yeah you, the one who keeps making demands and refusing to cooperate.

Fuck you.

I have over 3,000 kids on three tracks to place on 152 pages. I also have to include about two dozen sports, a dozen clubs, student life, baby photos, and leave room for ads and an index. I have to do this using 2 - yes, asshole, TWO - cameras, neither of which is fancy enough to take photos in that gym that is apparently lit with 8 yellow 30 watt bulbs. I have 20 kids and 4 computers. And I have over 200 faculty members who all think that whatever it is they like to think about is the most important issue on campus ever.

I'll tell you what. You let me teach your JROTC how to drill. You let me show your chorus how to warble. You let me teach some goddamn AP calculus while you come over here and handle this shit. Because if you want to do my job, here you go. Let's trade. I'm sure your job is easy, right?

Here in yearbook class we do not glue pictures to pages and photocopy them. This is not a scrap book and it is not a 'zine. It's a goddamn book. That's why they call it a yearBOOK. It takes time and coordination and organization and talent and dedication to complete. And money. Did I mention the money?

I have no money. If I undersell the books, there is no money to pay for them. If I miss deadlines, there is no money to pay the overtime. So when you decide you don't feel like waiting five minutes for my clubs editor to take a picture of your silly little honor society, no I will not push our deadline two more weeks so you can reassemble your little band of nerds. Take the picture yourself and email it to me if it's that fucking important. Otherwise I'm deleting your shit and replacing it with something interesting to look at. Our deadline is tomorrow. You probably should have scheduled your picture back in December when the subject was first brought to your attention.

So in conclusion, here is what is going to happen. We are going to put this awesome book together and you are going to help in any way you can. And if you bitch about it, I'm still going to do your page the way the kids want to do it because it is THEIR book, not yours. It's not mine either. It's theirs. And this is about them. Remember the kids? This is not about a picture you like or a kid you want to prominently feature, and it is not about showing me or your students who's boss. This is about teaching kids how to design pages, take photos, write captions, run a committee. This is not about your little group, it's about representing the whole school, and if you give a shit about your kids you will make sure they are represented in the book by doing what I tell you to do. Because when it comes to year-end memories, I am the fucking boss. So show some fucking respect, shut up and hand over your pictures or next year you'll be relegated to a tiny photo in the index between X and Y.

Sincerely,

Your Yearbook Adviser.

This is a grammar rant that could very well come back to bite me in the ass some day but I don't care. I'm an English teacher and a writer and I can't let it go without speaking my little piece.

A few days ago I read Tarantino's latest, Inglorious Basterds.

Why is it spelled like that? Because Tarantino is too important and busy to run spellcheck.

By now you may have heard about the typos. The script is riddled with them - apostrophe errors, spelling errors, misused words, awkward sentence structure - it reads like an essay written by a smart, lazy 12-year-old.

Okay first of all, Tarantino has done some amazing work. Reservoir Dogs will always be one of my top ten films of all time and Pulp Fiction is brilliant. I confess I didn't love Kill Bill. In fact I think as you go backwards in his career Tarantino's films get better. He had some great ones right at the beginning.

And to be honest, Inglorious Basterds is an interesting story. It's sort of revisionist history: A group of Americans and a Jewish French girl independently conspire to assassinate Hitler and other lead members of the Reich.

It's got its moments, but it's a Tarantino world. He loves mixed race relationships so he put one in here. A Jewish girl in hiding falls in love with a Negro man who wanders freely during the day. In occupied France. Because apparently while Jews were forced to hide, black Europeans were free to roam the streets as Goebbels talked about their glorious culture in admiring tones.

In case you're wondering, there were about 600 or so black Europeans in the occupied territories and as far as I know none of them made it to the camps. They were mostly shot and dumped into pits. It's not as easy to hide if you're black as it is if you're Jewish, and Goebbels certainly didn't think the Negros of the world were swell beings.

(And in case you're wondering what makes me such an expert, the home front during WW2 was the subject of my masters thesis. I don't know everything, but I've done a shitload of research.)

But this is Tarantino land, and the story changes history anyway, so maybe we can pretend Nazis liked black people.

There are some cool scenes in the script. There's good tension and there's a pretty cool standoff in a bar that I enjoyed very much. I'm not so fond of the ending because I feel like it sort of fizzled out a bit, but the story isn't a bad one.

No, the big problem here is the grammar and spelling. He spells gun "gunn" for instance. Basic stuff. I mean hell, he misspelled the title of his own movie.

Some have said it's no big deal. It's just spelling, the story is the important thing. Everybody makes mistakes.

Well, yes and no. Everybody does make mistakes and I usually hate people who correct minor grammar errors in others' work, but the mistakes in Inglorious Bastards are ridiculous in number. And it's a problem for two reasons.

One: for God's sake, the man's a professional writer. The least he can do is run spellcheck, just for integrity's sake. I doubt very much that Bill Goldman sends out screenplays covered in typos like this, but I guess since Tarantino has gotten older and can make anything he wants, he doesn't have to slum like the rest of us saps who are expected to make our work look professional. He can turn in his screenplay written in crayon and he'll still get funding for his next picture.

But that only works as long as his films keep making money.

It's not just about professionalism, it's also about readability. There is a scene in the beginning of the film where a Nazi officer speaks to a French family in French, but in the script it's written in English. The officer continually says "purpose" instead of "propose."

Now here's the problem: Is he doing that because his French is bad? Is that an intentional mistake? Or is this another Tarantino typo? It's impossible to tell. How are the actors supposed to know? There are places all over this script where I had to halt and go back to reread something because the words didn't make any sense.

And before anybody rushes to exclaim that this is probably just a draft Tarantino sent to his agent that got leaked, I heard from a medium level reliable source that this is indeed the version being used on set.

If this is true, it means Tarantino did not even bother to have someone proofread his script before sending it to the actors, the producers, the location manager, the thirty thousand other people who have to read and understand this script to do their jobs. So instead of taking a couple of hours to spellcheck and proofread, or pay a couple of bucks to an assistant to do it for him, or even ask a friend - hell I'd do it for free - he allowed his script to go public as a working document riddled with mistakes.

He's eccentric, see. He doesn't have to use spellcheck because he's a rich genius.

He has every right to do what he wants of course. As long as people keep seeing his movies he can write how he wants. But it's pretty rare you see a prima donna writer, you know? The least you can do is run spellcheck on your title.

This is a rant mostly unrelated to screenwriting and totally about my job.

Today is the first day back after eight weeks of vacation. Yay vacation! The kids are terrific and the school has just instituted a new tardy policy that appears to have reduced our truancy problem to a negligible amount. Yay again.

Now for the first time we have a newspaper adviser. She's in what is normally my room. I spent two years finding computers and installing software in that room so that my kids could do yearbook and now it's her room. I am in a room with one computer. One.

I knew this was going to happen so I began to work on the problem last April. I typed up a journalism program curriculum and Newspaper Adviser lady signed it. That's all she did. I submitted it to lots of people and nothing happened. So I came in during vacation one morning and she and I met with the principal where I stressed my need for computers and the principal talked mostly about the newspaper.

As we left the meeting a colleague said we should submit the proposal the following Monday at a committee meeting where the committee is trying to figure out how to spend a bazillion gazillion dollars they evidently have lying around. So I said Yay and then I said oh wait because I was to be in Puerto Rico at that time. So I asked Newspaper Adviser if she would go to the meeting and give them our proposal and explain that we need computers desperately. And she was all "Oh sure! No problem!"

I got into my new classroom Friday where there is still one functioning computer. One.

I went next door to Newspaper Adviser and asked her how it went with the committee and was I getting my computers.

"Oh I could't go," she said. "I have class that night."

And of the computers I obtained and installed software on in her room - the ones I begged borrowed and stole - one of them doesn't work because one of her students stole the mouse. That means she has been letting them use the computers with no supervision.

I don't really know what I'll do in yearbook class today because I have no computers and I don't know how long it will be until we have them. Maybe my students and I can all sit around and stare at each other and discuss what it's like to watch deadlines zoom by.

At the school cooking class last week they made these awesome nectarines filled with amaretti and baked. I thought I could reverse engineer the recipe and make my own because I'm a pretty good cook.

I think I'm gonna be sick now. Note to self - next time ask the damn cooking teacher for the recipe.

While I was making and then eating my unfortunate stuffed nectarines, I watched this week's Eureka. Whoa.

SPOILERS AHOY

The love triangle has been getting old. This season began with a glimpse of a possible future with Jack and Allison in love and building a family. But that future is not to be, because she's back with her ex Nathan. And in every episode it was becoming kind of a stagnant situation. The only way to push the story forward is for something in that dynamic to change - a new love for Nathan, a new love for Jack, or somebody has to leave. It ain't gonna be Jack.

I can see why they let Nathan go, but I did not see that coming at all. But one of the big challenges is how to let someone like that leave the show. They hinted last year that he might leave and go to another city, but that didn't happen and I'm glad that didn't happen. Because when you're working on a sci fi show where people are constantly getting fried or eaten or obliterated by their own creations, eventually one of the main characters has to get it. You shouldn't waste a good opportunity to kill somebody.

And hell, on a sci fi show you can always make up and excuse to bring them back.

What was great about this particular death is that it genuinely moved me. Nathan pulled a Spock maneuver and was every bit as logical about it. And he went out with a smile. I also liked that these two guys didn't need to say anything - they both understood the score.

When Jack tells Allison what happened, he also needs to say nothing. There's lots of unspoken stuff going on here. I mean, really, considering they were using the oldest sci fi trick in the book - the time loop - they really made it work.

END SPOILERS

Compare that with Smallville. One thing that always bugged me about the first three seasons of Smallville was that nobody important ever died. They kept almost killing Chloe, but after a while that threat was kind of useless because you knew they wouldn't actually kill off one of their leads.

But then they got rid of Pete. Remember how they got rid of Pete? He mumbled something about his mom and moved to another state.

On a sci-fi show. About Superman. He moved away.

Now I know they're pros and they make a crapload more money than me and I would kill to have their jobs, but I can't help but feel like they wasted a perfectly good opportunity to kill off a major character, which would have showed us what they were willing to do and given Clark a new outlook on mortality and his place in the world.

Joss Whedon killed off one of the leads in the middle of the first season of Angel. After that, all bets were off. You knew anybody was game, and it made the suspenseful moments much more powerful.

You really can't be afraid to kill people if you want to make us feel something. Thanks, Eureka, for continuing to be awesome.

People.

Stop buying tickets so damn far in advance.

I went to see Hellboy2 on Friday night at the Grove. I'm not gonna go into detail, but overall I thought it had some great action scenes and looked beautiful but the relationships between the characters seemed forced.

Anyway, Officer Beefcake and I got some tickets to Hellboy and wandered around. We ate and then we started to wander and that's when we came upon the line. The Hellboy line. And it was loooooooooooong. And it was at 10:40. And it was currently 9:50.

Really? Who the hell started getting in line over an hour early for the 10:40 screening of Hellboy? What is wrong with you people? You're at the mall - wander around and contribute to the economy a little.

And now I want to go see The Dark Night this weekend but it would seem some of the more nerdy set bought their tickets while they were still in the womb so I'm not sure I'll be able to see it. And I want to see it opening weekend because ignoring spoilers for an entire week will be virtually impossible. I dunno. Maybe I can go on a Tuesday at 3:30 or something.

It's not like it's a concert or something. There are multiple showings for multiple days, but people still get all antsy and buy the tickets ahead of time. I like to be a little more flexible. What if I'm sleepy? I reserve the right to flake on seeing a movie at the time I had originally planned on seeing the movie. And I can't successfully do that if you bought your seat at the Arclight four years ago.