Grey Gardens, Emmys & Michael Sucsy

Last night I just caught a few minutes of the Primetime Emmy awards and glad to see Jessica Lange and Ken Howard win Emmys for their roles in Grey Gardens. The HBO movie also picked up the Emmy for Made-for-TV Movie. (The movie won a total of six Emmys.) It’s always [...]

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John Hughes (1950-2009)

Screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s death on Wednesday was followed on Thursday by writer/director John Hughes dying of a heart attack. Hughes may not have won an Oscar as Shulberg did but he certainly had a longer list of hit movies including;
Home Alone
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Writer Budd Schulberg (1914-2009)

Budd Schulberg the Oscar winning writer of On the Waterfront died today. And it’s another reminder of what I call the mountain-top experience. For Schulberg On the Waterfront was his top of Everest script. Released in 1954 and starring Marlon Brando the film went on to win a total of eight Oscars and is considered [...]

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Before Juno There Were Grumpy Old Men

Long before Diablo Cody wrote Juno in a Starbucks in a Minneapolis suburb, and before Nick Schenk wrote Gran Torino at Gumpy’s Bar in Minneapolis, another screenwriter from Minnesota had jumped into the scene with his first script – Grumpy Old Men.
Screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson is another example of talent coming from a small town in [...]

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Sam Shepard, Chekhov…and Al Franken

I’m up in the Twin Cities again for a shoot and happened to be driving through St. Paul yesterday when I heard the news that Al Franken was officially declared the winner of the Senate race that has been in limbo for eight months. It was a good day to be a talk radio host [...]

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From North Dakota to Hollywood

If I told you I was going to write about the most famous writer from Jamestown, North Dakota that probably wouldn’t be a good clue for most people. If I told you that at one time he was one of the most popular writers in the world and is mostly known for his westerns you [...]

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William Goldman Stands Alone

Every once in a while I pick up William Goldman’s book Adventures in the Screen Trade and flip through it. I don’t know if that or Syd Fields’ book Screenplay was the first book on screenwriting I ever read, but I remember discovering them both while in film school. Many have built on the foundation [...]

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Screenwriter Jack Lewis (1924-2009)

There will be funeral service today in Hawaii for screenwriter & novelist Jack Lewis who died on May 24, 2009.  In one of those odd coincidences that sometimes happens, May 24 happens to be when I began writing the post called Screenwriting Quote of the Day# 84 (Lt. Colonel Jack Lewis) that posted on May 25 [...]

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Screenwriter from Rochester, MN

 
Last Friday my travels took me through Rochester, Minnesota which is located just a little bit above the Iowa-Minnesota border. Rochester is, of course, known for being home to the Mayo Clinic which is one of the most respected medical centers in the world.
It is also home to the coolest Barnes & Noble Booksellers building [...]

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The Other Scott Smith

“There are an awful lot of Scott Smiths running around the world.”
                                                                          Scott B. Smith
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