It's Good to get Black Listed

The Black List is an annual survey of Hollywood power players in which they pick the year's screenplays they liked best. It doesn't mean that the scripts are going to be produced, although many are either in pre-production or have been purchased. Scripts that make the Black List typically are read by major talent agencies and top producers. They're also a great read for anyone who wants to learn screenwriting principles--and they give you a clear picture of what kinds of scripts Hollywood is interested in.
You can download the 2004 to 2009 lists at the Official Black List site. Elsewhere on the Web, you can download all the 2009 Black List scripts in PDF format.

Roku to you, too, pal!

I recently bought a Roku box, the gadget that lets you stream some Netflix titles to your TV set. Now that it's hooked up properly it works well, but getting it to connect with the Internet was no easy matter. The Roku people say it takes just five minutes to set up the equipment--balderdash! For me it took a couple of days and three help-desk phone calls. I get my Internet via a Time Warner cable modem, and that may have been the snag. I read some online forums about others having Roku-Time Warner problems, and I called TW in hopes of straightening things out, but to no avail. Finally someone at Roku helped me get online and before I knew it I was streaming "La Dolce Vita," "Strangers With Candy" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Roku isn't the only game in town when it comes to Internet video streaming. You can also get online content on your TV if you have a Blu-ray player or an Xbox. Some folks in the forums say it's easier to hook up the latter two devices--I wouldn't imagine it's any tougher that sorting out the Roku.

Making Enemies at The Social Network

Whenever I sit in a nearly empty movie theater, a couple of people always sit directly behind me and talk. This happened the other night when I saw "The Social Network." Granted, it was a movie house on the Vegas Strip--the Strip being a place where the greater majority of people at any given time are drunk. I turned around and gave them a hard stare and shushed them until it finally dawned on them that there were other people in the joint, and they finally quieted down.

I would have expected a rowdy audience if it were a Kung Fu movie or anything with Sylvester Stallone--but at "The Social Network"?

Please, people, do your social networking after the film's over.

The Social Network's opening scene takes place at my old watering hole, the Thirsty Scholar.

The Lookout is one of the best I'vew seen in a while -- Scott Frank writer/director.

Kiss Me Deadly is still one of the best noirs on film.

Digital ads on Calif. license plates -- because you can never have too many commercials.