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We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script

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aspiringexpatriate
06/05/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
What if Valentine's Day were about a band of single women who tried to take down the commercial holiday through renegade street art and guerilla acts of crafty drugstore terrorism?

I'd pay money to see this.
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MissNormaDesmond
06/05/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
Okay, I hate to be all earnest here, but that "Chola" speech makes me want to punch someone in the face. It gives the impression of having been written by someone who's never spoken to a Mexican-American person who wasn't currently either serving them food, cleaning their house, or mowing their lawn. Well, maybe one time, but it was an accident -- it was actually another restaurant patron, but he was walking by and looked Mexican so she asked him for more water. I mean, what the fucking fuck?
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jrhys
06/05/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
As a screenwriter, the idea my work would be leaked and judged before/during production gives me chills. Also the plot twists and predictability were probably requested by the studio - aka the clients.
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MissNormaDesmond
06/05/09

@jrhys: Why, really? I'd think you'd prefer it to be leaked before, when it's much more likely to be your work, than after it's been thoroughly worked over by the director and studio, and might contain elements you don't approve.
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DorothyBarker
06/05/09

@MissNormaDesmond: When you're a writer for hire in Hollywood, it's almost never really 'your work', unfortunately. jrhys is too right--plot twists and predictability were surely requested by the studio. And writers who pitched something fresh(er) or distinctive just plain didn't get the job. Or even though the studio claimed they wanted something fresh, once they actually heard/read it, they gave some namby pamby, vague notes that worked it into a nice stale little bolus. The process in commercial features, unfortunately, often leads to scripts that are developed to death; butter that is churned and churned and churned and...surprise! We just made cheese.
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MissNormaDesmond
06/06/09

@DorothyBarker: I used to work in the industry, so while I appreciate your giving me a primer, unfortunately it doesn't quite make sense. The script certainly isn't going to be top-secret after it's been produced -- a movie gets made out of it, it's up there on the screen. jrhys said specifically that she didn't want to see the script leaked before production, as if that were a particularly bad time, when in fact it's the point at which it will have been least fucked with. For example, I'm sure Jonathan Lawton would prefer people to read $3000 than the screenplay to Pretty Woman.

If the issue is that maybe changes have already been made at the studio's behest, and/or by re-writers, those changes will be just as egregious post-production as they are pre-, and the writer's name will be just as firmly attached at that point. So I don't get the specific objection to the timing.
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quatrevingtquatre
06/05/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
Romcoms aren't meant to be Oscar calibre movies. They are usually fairly predictable, which is sometimes part of their charm. Lighty, fluffy, entertaining. Not that they aren't ever witty or charming or what have you. But I just haven't ever really understood the purpose of condemning romcoms for being bits pure, escapist entertaining fluff. I have a penchant for movies that make you think, or ones that involve subtitle reading, but occasionally, I don't mind a mental holiday.

Romcoms and their ilk are really no different than the reality TV shows that everyone on this site hearts so dearly.
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DorothyBarker
06/05/09

@thatonegirlsays: I dunno, I think mainstream Hollywood has so pasteurized the 'rom com'--in large part because they so undervalue the female audience--that we now simply accept them as crappy, unfunny fluff. (Seriously, they should just give up on even calling them 'com's since 90% of them are painfully unfunny.) There was a time though, when the genre was not just light entertainment, but also smart, funny, socially relevant--and even had strong women characters at the center who weren't just Vera Wang obsessed Bridezillas. They DID win Oscars (It Happened One Night; lots of them) and they were just effing GOOD; Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday, Annie Hall! Commercial Hollywood has just decided certain rom com tropes are more important to the audience than freshness or integrity or genuine humor or good story telling. It's sad, cause I have no clue how to fix it--not for lack of trying, believe me.
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quatrevingtquatre
06/05/09

@DorothyBarker:
Well, I think then that there are two different kinds of romcoms; Oscar worthy ones that defy strict categorization as chick flicks and a second category for movies like Valentine's Day. I honestly would never put Annie Hall and even my favorite guilty pleasure (Bridget Jones's Diary) in the same group. So for that second group full of guilty pleasure, high calorie fluff with happy endings and soft rock soundtracks, I'm not sure we should be expecting so much.
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MissNormaDesmond
06/05/09

@thatonegirlsays: Why would there be a problem for you in people's disliking formulaic pablum whose plot you can guess even before reading the script that's moreover stocked with characters so banal and stereotypical that they make me want to commit interpersonal violence? That sort of mystifies me.
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maybeimamazed02
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
This also sounds reminiscent of Playing By Heart. Which I wholeheartedly recommend. Not only is it interesting and well-acted, but it has an adorably sexy Jon Stewart. *swoon*
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TheGuvnah
06/04/09

@maybeimamazed02: his story with Gillian anderson is my favorite of the movie.
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snarkordie
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
Is BCooper playing the engaged guy?
For the love of god -- STOP it, Will Tippen!!!
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AuntieBee
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
The entire movie takes place in one day, and follows different people - a teenage girl intent on losing her virginity; a 30something guy who's just proposed; 20-something coworkers who've just hooked up; a still-blissfully-in-love couple in their 70s, among others - and shows what happens to them on the magical day known as Valentine's Day.

Actually, it sounds more like 200 Cigarettes than Love, Actually, but without the 80's and Elvis Costello, and of course, the awesome.
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DorothyBarker
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
Honestly--and this is a sad comment on my own sad life--I'm less horrified as a woman that this movie is getting made than I am as a writer who didn't get the gig. Unemployment trumps social/cultural concern. Fuck. Me.
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maybeimamazed02
06/04/09

@DorothyBarker: No, I hear ya. I'd totally write shit like this if given the chance.

One of the many reasons I lovelovelove Tom Lennon is that he and his posse totally work the system--they write/direct stuff like Night at the Museum, make a shitload of money, and use it to fund their own stuff.
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WaltzingMatilda
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
Nope, nope, nope. The only ensemble, rag tag, following charcters on the single day of an over-hyped holiday film that needed ever EVER to be made was 200 Cigarettes. End of story. I mean, it had Elvis Costello, fer chrissakes. Unless this VD movie has Burt Bacharach making a cameo as himself, it's dead to me.
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LaMorena
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
Needs zombies. And more cowbell. Then I'd see it.
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battleaxonista...is a humorless bitch
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
"...petite round CHOLA"

Oh, for the fuck of shit. Why don't you have 'Papi Chulo' blasting in the background while she talks, in case the stereotype doesn't stick hard enough?
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DorothyBarker
06/04/09

@battleaxonista...is a humorless bitch: hearted for the phrase 'oh for the fuck of shit'. brill.
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Birthday Girl
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
In all honesty, I know several women who would easily qualify as "financially successful workaholic" types. The majority of them are married and a lot of them have children (i.e. my mother).

I don't like the idea that women who are dedicated to doing well professionally can't be successful in their love lives. First of all, it's blatantly false. Second of all, I think it discourages younger women from being career oriented.

How about a female movie character who is professionally and personally successful for a change? That's a movie I would see.
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maybeimamazed02
06/04/09

@Birthday Girl: Thank you. Even for the five years when she was technically a SAHM, my mother was definitely a workaholic. She worked part-time at my aunt's clothing store and did a bunch of PR stuff gratis, basically building up her resume for whatever gig she took on next.

And you know what? She was (and is) a great mom.
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andBegorrah
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
This site has some of the best tipsters. Hey, readers! I'm posting a comment about eclairs and 12-year-old scotch and James McAvoy! Just sayin'! I'm posting about it! In case there are any super secret connections you may have, you know, just sitting around, going un-tipped.
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DinaRonson : Elizabeth Cady Stanton
06/04/09

@andBegorrah: How about Daniel Craig coming to B'way? I won't go to the play, but sure as shit hope I see him reading the paper in the park wearing those Bond swimming trunks.
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randomnessish
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
What if Valentine's Day were about a band of single women who tried to take down the commercial holiday through renegade street art and guerilla acts of crafty drugstore terrorism? Hmm?

Can someone make this? Please?! I'd gladly pay $12 to see that.
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DinaRonson : Elizabeth Cady Stanton
06/04/09

@randomnessish: First rule of Valentine's Fight Club is:
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YourScreenplaySucks
06/04/09

In reply to We've Got Mixed Feelings About The Valentine's Day Script
CHOLA:

I was hot like jalapena, sexing him

up whenever he wanted. I would

have done anything for that vato,

but still he whored around.

I've been laughing about this for the last 2 minutes. I only wish it finished with petite round CHOLA saying "Aye, caramba!", throwing off some gang signs, and then reaching up & plucking a banana and some grapes off of her hat.
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DinaRonson : Elizabeth Cady Stanton
06/04/09

@Your Screenplay Sucks: I can't hear Chola w/o thinking about early Gwen talking about wanting to look like one. Pre Harijuku, certainly.
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maybeimamazed02
06/04/09

@Your Screenplay Sucks: Gawd, that is so offensive.

It only came out for like a day, but the film Nothing Like the Holidays was a wonderful, funny and well-acted portrayal of a Latin American family.
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Little Green Frog (Wise Latina)
06/04/09

@Your Screenplay Sucks: I'm Mexican. I can haz part in biiig moooovy???
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Little Green Frog (Wise Latina)
06/04/09

@Little Green Frog: Wait, wrong language. I used LOLCatz instead of L. A. Chicano:

Orale bato, whaz happenin'?
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