Scorsese's Favorite Gangster Movies

James Cagney, “White Heat” (1949).

Director Martin Scorsese revisits 

crime pictures that most influenced him

Here are 15 gangster pictures that had a profound effect on me and the way I thought about crime and how to portray it on film. They excited me, provoked me, and in one way or another, they had the ring of truth.

I stopped before the ‘70s because we’re talking about influence here, and I was looking at movies in a different way after I started making my own pictures. There are many gangster films I’ve admired in the last 40 years — Performance, the Godfather saga, Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, The Long Good Friday, Sexy Beast, John Woo’s Hong Kong films.

The films below I saw when I was young, open, impressionable.

The Public Enemy (1931)

The shocking, blunt brutality; the energy of Cagney in his first starring role; the striking use of popular music (the song “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”)—this picture led the way for all of us.

Scarface (1932)

[Howard] Hawks’ film is so fast, so fluid, so funny, and so excitingly expressionistic. The audacity of it is amazing. It was finished by 1930, but it was so violent that it was held up by the censors.

Blood Money (1933)

Rowland Brown, a largely forgotten figure, made three tough, sardonic movies in the early ‘30s, each one very knowledgeable about city politics, corruption, the coziness between cops and criminals. This is my favorite. The ending is unforgettable.

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

In 1939, Raoul Walsh and Mark Hellinger’s classic was seen as a sendoff to the gangster genre, which seemed to have run its course. But it’s more than that. Much more. It plays like a journal of the life of a typical gangster of the period, and it covers so much ground, from the battlefields of France to the beer halls to the nightclubs, the boats that brought in the liquor, the aftermath of Prohibition, the whole rise and fall of ‘20s gangsterdom, that it achieves a very special epic scale—really, it was the template for GoodFellas and Casino. It also has one of the great movie endings.

Force of Evil (1948)

John Garfield is the mob lawyer, Thomas Gomez is his brother, a numbers runner who’s loyal to his customers and his employees. The conflict is elemental—money vs. family—and the interactions between the brothers are shattering. The only gangster picture ever done in blank verse, by Abraham Polonsky. Truthfully, it had as great an impact on me as Citizen Kane or On the Waterfront.

White Heat (1949)

Cagney and Walsh bit into this movie about a psychopathic gangster with a mother fixation as if they’d just abandoned a hunger strike. They intentionally pursued the madness of Cagney’s Cody Jarrett, a psychopathic gang leader with a mother complex. The level of ferocity and sustained energy is breathtaking, and it all comes to a head in the scene where Cagney goes berserk in the dining hall… which never fails to surprise me.

Night and the City (1950)

Desperation, no holds barred. We all loved and admired Richard Widmark from his first appearance in Kiss of Death, but his performance as Harry Fabian marked us forever. As did the rest of this hair-raising picture set in post-war London, the first made by Jules Dassin after he escaped the blacklist.

Touchez pas au Grisbi (1954)

Jacques Becker, who had worked as Jean Renoir’s assistant, made this picture with Jean Gabin, about an aging mobster who is forced out of retirement to save his old partner. The style is elegant and understated, the aura of weariness and mortality extremely powerful.

The Phenix City Story (1955)

A completely unsentimental picture by Phil Karlson that closely follows the true story of wholesale corruption, intimidation, racism, and terrifying brutality in the once-notorious town of Phenix City, Alabama—where it was shot on location… in 10 days! Fast, furious, and unflinching.

Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955)

A beautifully made picture, in glorious color and Scope, directed by and starring Jack Webb as a cornet player in the ‘20s whose professional life is infiltrated and turned inside out by a Kansas City gangster (Edmund O’Brien). This kind of situation happened over and over again in the big-band years and later during the doo-wop era. It’s also at the center of Love Me or Leave Me, another tough Scope musical made around the same time.

Murder by Contract (1958)

A highly unusual, spare, elemental picture made on a low budget by Irving Lerner—a lesson in moviemaking. It’s about a hired gunman (Vince Edwards), and it’s from his point of view. The scenes where he’s alone in his apartment preparing for a hit were very much on my mind when we made Taxi Driver, and we studied the haunting guitar score and its role in the action when we were working on the music for The Departed with Howard Shore. For me, an inspiration.

Al Capone (1959)

This sharp, spare low-budget film by Richard Wilson, one of Orson Welles’ closest collaborators, deserves to be better known. Rod Steiger is brilliant as Capone—charming, boorish, brutal, ambitious. There’s not a trace of sentimentality. Wilson also made another striking crime film, Pay or Die, about the Black Hand in Little Italy right after the turn of the century.

Le Doulos (1962)

The French master Jean-Pierre Melville, a close student of American moviemaking, made a series of genuinely great, extremely elegant, intricate, and lovingly crafted gangster pictures, in which criminals and cops stick to a code of honor like knights in the age of chivalry. This is one of the best, and it might be my personal favorite.

Mafioso (1962)

A transplanted northerner living up north with his wife and family (the great Alberto Sordi) goes home to Sicily, and little by little, gets sucked back into the old loyalties, blood ties, and obligations. It starts as a broad comedy. It gradually becomes darker and darker… and darker, and by the end you’ll find the laughs catching in your throat. One of the best films ever made about Sicily.

Point Blank (1967)

This was one of the first movies that really took the storytelling innovations of the French New Wave—the shock cuts, the flash-forwards, the abstraction—and applied them to the crime genre. Lee Marvin is Walker, the man who may or may not be dreaming, but who is looking for vengeance on his old partner and his former wife. Like Burt Lancaster in the 1948 I Walk Alone, another favorite, he can’t get his money when he comes out of jail and enters a brave new corporate world. John Boorman’s picture re-set the gangster picture on a then-modern wavelength. It gave us a sense of how the genre could pulse with the energy of a new era.

RIP Peter Falk, TV's Columbo

Actor Peter Falk, who was best known for his role as "Columbo" has died, according to a statement released by his family. "Falk died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home in the evening of June 23. He was 83. I always enjoyed the show, and have been re-watching it in recent months via Netflix streaming. The great thing about the "Columbo" show was the character himself. Falk played the unpolished L.A.P.D. detective with a huge humanitarian streak. The show always followed the same structure: Each week we'd see the perpetrator commit a murder and try to cover it up, step by step. No mystery as to who did the deed. The puzzle was figuring out how the lawbreaker tripped himself up. Columbo would without fail find the one mistake and bring the perp to justice. Better still, the unassuming Columbo would invariably be pitted against a pompous, wealthy villain who would patronize the blue-collar detective and greatly underestimate his abilities. Columbo always nailed the self-important jerk. Great stuff. Wish there were more like it.

The Bin Laden of Boston Finally Nabbed ... In L.A.

Just for the record, I had no prior knowledge of the whereabouts of James "Whitey" Bulger when he was arrested by the FBI just a few miles from my home. The former Boston gang leader had been on the FBI's most wanted list for 15 years until he was apprehended yesterday in Santa Monica. He's going to Federal Court in downtown L.A. today, maybe even as I write this. In this video, some folks from Whitey's old neighborhood, "Southie," (South Boston) react to the arrest.
This marks the end of an era for organized crime in Boston. Whitey was the last of the old guard. He was the inspiration for Frank Costello, the role Jack Nicholson played in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed." There are also several books written about the legendary criminal. An excellent read is "Black Mass: The Irish Mob, The FBI and A Devil's Deal," by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill.
Authorities will want to discuss with Whitey the 19 murders he is alleged to have committed or ordered. Stay tuned.

‘Breaking Bad’: Life and Meth in New Mexico

I finally saw the complete third season of AMC’s terrific series, “Breaking Bad,” hands down my favorite TV program of the past several years. In fact, I’ve got to say that BB might be the best thing on the tube – ever.
I hear your chiding. “Bold statement.”
Settle down and listen.
For it’s unpredictable twists, as well as the amount of heart the show displays, there are few, if any, that are better.
There’s more to talk about in this show than a mere blog posting can accommodate, from the protagonist, Albuquerque every-man Walt White’s relationship with his cohort, Jesse Pinkman, to his deteriorating marriage, and relationship with his handicapped teenaged son.
Bryan Cranston, who plays our anti-hero Walt White, achieves the near impossible (SPOILERS HERE, but if you haven’t heard, then you’ve been living in a Pakistani compound), he’s a likable guy who happens to be a meth manufacturer and dealer. It’s an incredible feat to make this work, but somehow Cranston does. This also speaks to the power of the “Breaking Bad” writers, who take hard-to-like characters and somehow make us root for them. (Another spoiler follows. If that’s a problem you should have already stopped reading.) The show’s conceit is that Walt suffers from terminal cancer. He’s got a handicapped son, a mortgage and a wife, and aside from being a high school chemistry teacher, he works a part-time job as a car wash attendant. And in economically broken America of the 2010s, he can no longer provide for his family.
We aren’t supposed to think, “So, under those circumstances, who WOULDN’T deal meth. Walt is a flawed character. He may be the dumbest genius we’ve ever seen on TV. He makes stupid choices, even though his heart is in the right place. Ultimately, we must feel sorry for his unsuspecting family.
Jesse, his partner in crime, is a former high school pupil of Walt’s, and a first-class screw-up. Together, they make beautiful music. Jesse knows the meth business – at least, somewhat – and Walt knows chemistry.
The sharpies and pros that they meet up with in the course of trying to run an illegal business are an education for Walt. Less so for Jesse, who has seen his share of drug-addled opportunists.
By Season 3, we see the transformation of Walt, from high school teacher to “gangsta.” And his mild-manner wife, Skyler, loses much of her innocence, as well.
There are too many sub-plots to discuss here, from the local drug king pin who seems to be a meek businessman, to the two strangely mute cousins who cross the border into Gringo-Land to raise a bit of hell with the locals and pursue Walt. I can only suggest that you see it, starting with Episode 1, Season 1. Immediately.

IMDB Hit Parade Names Top 50 Noirs

IMDB.com lists the top 50 films noir. The poll, it seems, is based on IMDB readers' ratings of noir titles. Some got a lot more votes than others, but apparently that doesn't matter. It's the number of rating stars the film gets. The choices are all good ones, but I'd like to have seen others, "D.O.A." for instance, make the cut. Which films do you think should have been included in a top 50 noir list?

1. 8.7 Sunset Blvd. (1950) 63,840
2. 8.6 Double Indemnity (1944) 43,265
3. 8.5 The Third Man (1949) 57,096
4. 8.3 The Maltese Falcon (1941) 57,659
5. 8.3 Touch of Evil (1958) 36,766
6. 8.3 Strangers on a Train (1951) 39,754
7. 8.2 Notorious (1946) 35,469
8. 8.2 The Big Sleep (1946) 32,415
9. 8.2 Ace in the Hole (1951) 8,418
10. 8.2 White Heat (1949) 11,181
11. 8.2 Rififi (1955) 9,629
12. 8.2 The Night of the Hunter (1955) 29,596
13. 8.2 The Killing (1956) 28,508
14. 8.2 Sweet Smell of Success (1957) 10,018
15. 8.2 Laura (1944) 15,424
16. 8.1 Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 23,601
17. 8.1 Out of the Past (1947) 11,770
18. 8.0 In a Lonely Place (1950) 7,256
19. 8.0 Night and the City (1950) 3,863
20. 8.0 The Big Heat (1953) 7,320
21. 8.0 Key Largo (1948) 16,042
22. 8.0 The Killers (1946) 6,569
23. 7.9 The Asphalt Jungle (1950) 9,372
24. 7.9 Mildred Pierce (1945) 8,281
25. 7.9 Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) 9,094
26. 7.9 Scarface (1932) 10,437
27. 7.9 Pickup on South Street (1953) 4,583
28. 7.9 Body and Soul (1947) 1,813
29. 7.9 Scarlet Street (1945) 4,179
30. 7.9 Bob le Flambeur (1956) 3,674
31. 7.8 The Set-Up (1949) 3,449
32. 7.8 Gun Crazy (1950) 3,670
33. 7.8 Thieves' Highway (1949) 1,742
34. 7.8 The Narrow Margin (1952) 2,552
35. 7.8 The Woman in the Window (1944) 3,925
36. 7.8 Nightmare Alley (1947) 2,862
37. 7.8 The Letter (1940) 4,251
38. 7.8 Gilda (1946) 9,817
39. 7.7 The Lady from Shanghai (1947) 9,007
40. 7.7 The Big Clock (1948) 2,638
41. 7.7 The Naked City (1948) 3,716
42. 7.7 Brute Force (1947) 2,553
43. 7.7 Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) 2,324
44. 7.7 Kiss Me Deadly (1955) 6,747
45. 7.7 Murder, My Sweet (1944) 4,314
46. 7.6 Spellbound (1945) 15,974
47. 7.6 Detective Story (1951) 2,309
48. 7.6 This Gun for Hire (1942) 2,685
49. 7.6 Leave Her to Heaven (1945) 3,457
50. 7.6 High Sierra (1941) 5,853

Feeling the 'Drive' To Survive

Drive"
Premiering at the L.A. Film Festival
June 17, 2011.
In "Drive," the new film by Danish-born director Nicolas Winding Refn, Ryan Gosling channels Steve McQueen's turbo-charged antics from films like "Bullet" and "The Getaway." In fact, McQueen would have been a shoo-in to play the hero, here known simply as "Driver," if the movie was filmed 40 years earlier.
There's a fair amount of burning rubber, screeching tires and gunshots -- not to mention copious amounts of blood spilled in sometimes rather gruesome fashion.
The story centers on Gosling's character, an L.A. movie stunt driver who races and flips over muscle cars as cameras roll and catch the action. At night he pursues another, but not entirely different, vocation. He's a getaway driver for stick-up artists.
A crush develops between him and his next door neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan). Trouble is, she's married. But she's got a little boy, and he and Driver bond.
Difficulties start when Driver takes on another crime assignment. This time he thinks he's going to help save Irene's husband from harm, but things don't go well, to say the least.
Among the cast are Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, who play wonderfully sleazy crime partners, and Bryan Cranston, of AMC's "Breaking Bad," who nicely inhabits the role of Driver's employer and sidekick, Shannon. He's got a dark past of his own. Christina Hendricks, of AMC's "Mad Men," makes an all-too-short appearance as Blanche, the woman who knows more than she's telling.
"Drive" lacks the richly detailed inner turmoil we sense in other recent crime thrillers, such as that between the deeply conflicted brothers-turned-robbers in Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." But for those who take their crime films with a large dose of action, that might be a good thing. "Drive" floors the accelerator -- liberally. Go for the adrenaline rush and buckle up.

--Paul Parcellin

Cast Lines Up For 'Gangster Squad'

Just when you start to think that the studios have given up on the gangster film genre, a new crime film comes along and restores your faith – at least for now.
Warner Bros., the studio with one of the most storied rosters of crime films, is behind “The Gangster Squad,” based on the Los Angeles Time’s seven-part series on corruption in City Hall and the Police Department, and the East Coast mob’s attempt to infiltrate the City of Angels.
The movie’s logline – something about the LAPD's fight to keep East Coast Mafia types out of Los Angeles in the 1940s and ’50s, doesn’t exactly shout clear, high-stakes goal. But that will likely be fixed in copious script rewrites that are no doubt taking place as we speak.
The question is, will the movie breathe new life into standard gangster faire: a detective with a dark side; cops tempted to accept graft; horror upon horror, a detective discovers his colleagues are on the take? By all accounts, L.A. was as corrupt as Chicago during this era, and crime mostly centered on liquor, gambling and brothels – oh, yes, and murder. All of this is excellent fodder for retelling the story of smog-choked L.A. of yore.
The director, Ruben Fleischer, will determine whether it’s a stylish character study with brains (“L.A. Confidential”) or a well-intentioned misfire (“Mulholland Falls”). Fleischer did himself proud helming “Zombieland.” We’ll see in August how he does with a crime comedy when “30 Minutes or Less” opens. Clearly, he’s got a knack for funny, but his directing credentials are lacking thus far when it comes to straight-ahead drama.
Still, Sean Penn is an apt choice to play gang leader Mickey Cohen. I can think of few other stars who have the acting chops and physical presence to tackle the role. Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Fernando Lara and Michael Pena have also signed on to the cast. As yet, IMDB doesn’t list which role Brolin will play.
If all goes well, “The Gangster Squad” will be unreeling at a multiplex near you sometime in 2013.

Touring Scenes of the Crime (Film) II

Here's more about familiar sites you might take in if you wander the streets of Los Angeles.
Venice Beach stands in for a Mexican border town in Orson Welles' 1958 noir, "Touch of Evil." The film begins with a close-up of a man setting the timer on a bomb. The camera pulls back to show a long columned arcade, and then the man plants the bomb in the trunk of a sleek convertible.
A man and woman, laughing and embracing, get into the convertible and cruise down a crowded night-time street in a Mexican border town.
This shot, about four minutes long, was filmed as one long tracking shot, and is praised by film critics for the tension, atmosphere and cinematic sleight of hand it displays. The car drives through the crowded streets, passing the shabby arcades with their old-fashioned columns. As it stops for traffic cops, pushcart vendors, and herds of goats, we wonder - when will it explode? Who will it kill?
The introduction of the film's hero and his new bride, walking along with the slowly cruising car and standing beside it as they clear the border crossing, heightens the suspense.
Orson Welles used Windward Ave. in Venice as the location for this shoot. The car passes the columned hotels and liquor stores on the north side of Windward, then turns onto Ocean Front Walk, passing what is now the Sidewalk Cafe, and the remains of the Mecca Cafe - by then a bingo parlor.

Hong Kong Noir Makes French Connection

Let the bonding begin. Hong Kong is featuring a two-month-long arts festival -- Le French May. In addition to music, dance and theater, a film program titled, "NOIR - A Film Noir Retrospective Bridging France and Hong Kong," has rolled out.
The festival features some of the best French crime movies from the last decade, it also includes a selection of classics from masters of the genre such as Jean-Pierre Melville, Bertrand Tavernier and Claude Chabrol.
The highlight of the program, however, has to be "Carte Blanche to Johnnie To" -- a collection of the very best Hong Kong gangster films influenced by the film noir genre. Arranged in close association with Milkyway Image and featuring the director's own personal choices, the festival will give audiences the chance to see films like "A Better Tomorrow," "City on Fire" and "As Tears Go By" on the big screen, as well as rarities such as Ann Hui's "The Secret," Wong Tin Lam's 1960 thriller "The Wild, Wild Rose." And Tsui Hark will be introducing the director's cut of his controversial "Dangerous Encounters: First Kind," which has not screened in Hong Kong for three decades.
The festivities kicked off last night with such luminaries as Johnnie To, Jacques Audiard and composer Xavier Jamaux in attendance, who will also be conducting a special filmmakers masterclass on June 5 free of charge. The program runs until June 26.

The official website includes information about the films screening and ticketing.

Thanks to Twitchfilm.com

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Noir Served Asian, Italian Style

In a recent post I lamented that U.S. studios aren't interested in making crime films anymore, but on other shores things are different. Here's further evidence that the film noir genre thrives overseas:

CANNES - The Weinstein Company has landed one of the first big deals in Cannes this year, taking worldwide rights outside of Asia and French-speaking Europe for Dragon (Wu Xia), the martial arts film noir from director Peter Ho-Sun Chan (Bodyguards and Assassins), which premieres in a Midnight Screening here Saturday. Dragon stars Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tang Wei and features Hong Kong legend Jimmy Wang Yu (One Armed Swordsman) in his first film role in 17 years.

"The Double Hour," a spiffy new Italian film noir (see photo above), combines mystery and suspense with a love story in a twisty plot that’s worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. Viewers are kept guessing until the final denouement. The romantic leads, Ksenia Rappoport and Filippo Timi, though little known at the time, won best male and female acting awards at the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009. The Double Hour also received the Young Cinema Award at the Venice event.

The title refers to the moment on a digital watch when the minutes and hours are the same, for example 12:12. When this coincidence is noticed, the observer gets to make a wish. “It’s about the second chance or one’s capacity for grabbing that chance when it comes,” says director Giuseppe Capotondi. A Samuel Goldwyn Film release, the movie debuted in New York and Los Angeles in April, followed by a national rollout.

Thanks to Below The Line and Shockya.com

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Raoul Walsh Biographer Intros Two at Egyptian

If you live in the L.A. area you'll want to be at the Egyptian Theater Friday, June 10, when two of director Raoul Walsh's towering achievements in crime cinema, "High Sierra" and "The Roaring Twenties," will be screened. And to celebrate the first book-length biography of Walsh, Marilyn Ann Moss, author of "Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director," will be on hand to introduce the double feature. Both films are 35mm prints and star Humphrey Bogart.
"High Sierra" (1941) is the quintessential gangster romance. Humphrey Bogart plays Mad Dog Earle, an outlaw looking for one last score, sidetracked by love, hounded by inescapable fate. With the incomparable Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie. Remade twice, as "Colorado Territory" and "I Died a Thousand Times."
With "The Roaring Twenties"(1939), Raoul Walsh came bursting onto the screen in his first Warner Bros. directorial outing. This gangster tale stars James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart as World War I vets who return to an unwelcoming American society and go straight to the criminal life instead.
The script is by Warner Bros. writing team Jerry Wald and Richard Macauley, and the film was produced by erstwhile journalist Mark Hellinge.
Also starring Gladys Cooper as Cagney's saloon-owner friend and Priscilla Lane as the woman who just can't love Cagney the way he wants.

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How Do They Know About Noir?

Video gamers are taking to recent release "L.A. Noire," a game based on films noir crime stories. The game is set in 1947 Los Angeles, and its story includes the stuff that makes up hard-boiled detective fiction that inspired several decades of crime films released after World War II.
Most video gamers are younger folks -- at least that's the impression I get whenever there's a new release. The store across the street from me in L.A. has a line of teens going out the door whenever a hot new item goes on the market. So, I wonder, how does this young demographic know about, and it would seem, identify with something buried so deeply in Hollywood's past? Hell, the original films noir haven't been in theaters since their grandparents' day. Would they know Barbara Stanwyck from Lady Gaga?
Maybe that's why the Web is offering primers on film noir, such as this (click here), and this. Here's a list of noirs from IMDB. Kids will need to catch up on actors such as Robert Mitchum, Bogie, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni and Ralph Meeker (in photo above in a scene from "Gun Crazy"), to name a few.
Somehow in the arena of video games, films noir seem to communicate with a younger generation, and translate into a medium different from the celluloid fabric from which they came. Maybe that speaks to the power of the original films. They were well designed and executed. And great architecture is eternal.

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Hammer Swings Again

Although he died in 2006, Mickey Spillane has a new crime novel out featuring New York private detective Mike Hammer. Spillane wrote numerous crime novels from the 1940s until shortly before his death, including "I, the Jury" (which sold 3 million copies and launched Spillane's career), Vengeance is Mine" and "My Gun is Quick." He is reputed to have sold more than 200 million novels worldwide. Hammer, the New York City detective featured in Spillane's books, was a hard-as-nails crime fighter who preferred to punch and shoot first and ask questions later. More a vigilante that a detective, Hammer's escapades were reviled by the critics and gobbled up by the general public. Spillane's detective novels were revolutionary for their time due to the inclusion of frank sex and violence in their pages.
The new book, "Kiss Her Goodbye," is the work of Spillane and novelist Max Allan Collins, who completed the unfinished book. On his deathbed, Spillane instructed his wife Jane to give his unfinished manuscripts, notes and outlines to Collins, whom he'd been pals with for a number of years.
Spillane's posthumous novels completed by Collins include "Dead Street" (2007), and the forthcoming "The Consummata."

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Touring Scenes of the Crime (Film)

You can still see some of the hauntingly familiar locations where film noir scenes were shot in the 1930s to '50s. For instance, the rooming house at the intersection of Franklin and Ivar (1851 North Ivar Ave.) in Hollywood. Early on in Billy Wilder's masterpiece, "Sunset Boulevard," hapless screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) taps out pages and puffs Luckies at the residence. Gillis, the struggling scribe with a couple of B pictures to his credit, plays gigolo to faded silent-screen legend Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). As we all know, things go badly for the writer. But Gillis does end up getting the in-ground swimming pool he always wanted.

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AFI Picks Top 10 Gangster Films

American Film Institute members vote on which films they believe are the best. They offer a list of the top 100 films of all time as well as top 10 lists of best genre pictures. Here's the lowdown on their picks for best crime films.

AFI described gangster films as "a genre that centers on organized crime or maverick criminals in a 20th century setting. Profit-minded and highly entrepreneurial, the American gangster is the dark side of the American dream. The gangsters' lifestyles are portraits in extremes, with audiences cheering their excesses and reveling in their demise."

Nominees: Robert De Niro was the most featured actor with seven movies; James Cagney and Al Pacino were featured with five movies each.

Winners: The Godfather (1972) (# 1), GoodFellas (1990) (# 2), The Godfather, Part II (1974) (# 3), White Heat (1949) (# 4), Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (# 5), Scarface: The Shame of a Nation (1932) (# 6), Pulp Fiction (1994) (# 7), The Public Enemy (1931) (# 8), Little Caesar (1930) (see photo above) (# 9), Scarface (1983) (# 10).

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Foreigners Drive Noir Projects Forward

American directors don't seem interested in making many noir-inspired movies these days. Maybe some would like to but can't get the funding. Most American-made films are targeted at a younger audience, and hard-boiled fiction doesn't usually make the cut.
That's OK, foreign filmmakers are picking up some of the slack.
Case in point is Denmark's Nicholas Winding Refn, who just won the Best Director award at Cannes for his film, "Drive," a film noir he shot here in Los Angeles. The movie stars Ryan Gosling as a stunt man who makes movies by day and does robberies at night.
I'm reminded that it's often non-Americans who keep American film and music genres alive after audiences in the U.S. turn away. Europeans and Asians have remained solid fans of U.S. home-grown jazz and blues. And the same goes for film genres such as film noir and gangster movies.
I'm glad that someone still sees the value of this kind of filmmaking. Maybe overseas enthusiasm for the genre will catch on here. Let's hope.


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A Game Even Mickey Cohen Might Have Liked

"L.A. Noire" launched today. I'm not a video gamer by any means, but it's worth mentioning today's radio interview with John Buntin, author of "L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City," the book about gangster Mickey Cohen's reign over the City of Angels.
The book and the video game are similarly titled, although the game title has an extra "e" for reasons still unclear to me.
Why mention the game at all in this forum? Because the video game is said to be more cinematic than a non-enthusiast for video games such as myself might suspect. The plot also borrows story points from the AMC TV series "Mad Men," a favorite of mine.
Buntin, who I've had the pleasure of meeting at a book signing he did at the L.A. Athletic Club, got a preview of the game, which has been under heavy wraps by its developer, Rockstar Games. Buntin admired what he saw, all in all, but noted that L.A.'s skies circa 1947, the era in which the "L.A. Noire" game is set, are too pastel blue (where's the smog?), the police don't act as violently as they were capable of then and the city is not shown as densely populated as was 1947 Los Angeles.
However, developers went to great pains to portray the city accurately, poring over 1947 topographical maps of the city, collecting vintage Sears catalogs to get the colors correct -- yes, this "Noire" is in color, not black and white.
For those of us who enjoy the films, fiction and true crime stories of 1930s to 1950s L.A., it's probably a good thing that pop culture is finally catching up with the literature from the shadowy underbelly of Los Angeles. Maybe film-makers will become inspired and create something like the old movies for the big screen.

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Dead Hollywood Starlet Still Spotted at Old Haunt?

17575 Pacific Coast Highway, once home of silver screen star Thelma Todd.

Quite by accident I had the opportunity to tour a historic L.A. crime scene this week. I'd seen pictures of the place a thousand times, but I didn't recognize it until my host pointed out the tawdry historic significance of the location -- and that's right up my alley.

I found myself walking the hallways of the apartment and former speakeasy operated by 1920s-'30s screen siren Thelma Todd. The place is a sprawling art deco remnant of the silent film era located at 17575 Pacific Coast Highway. It's got a breath-taking view of the ocean.

Lucky Luciano

According to legend, Todd was a bit of a wild woman. Among the list of notable characters she associated with was notorious gangster Charlie "Lucky" Luciano.

Luciano is alleged to have pressed Todd to allow him to open a gambling den on the top level of her speakeasy. The actress balked.

Theories abound about Todd's death, and aside from Luciano, other suspects include:

- Todd`s ex-husband, Pat DiCicco, a self-described agent with underworld connections. After one too many beatings, Todd divorced him. He felt humiliated and may have sought revenge.

Slumped behind the wheel.

- Roland West, a failed director and Todd`s occasional lover. They were co-owners with West`s wife in the Malibu restaurant, Thelma Todd`s Sidewalk Cafe. The three partners lived in a duplex together above the eatery. It was an uncomfortable arrangement, and West bitterly resented Todd`s numerous affairs.

- Jewel Carmen, West`s wife. She didn`t object to her husband`s liaison with Todd, but when the restaurant started to lose money, she threatened to kill Todd for squandering her investment.

On Dec. 16, 1935 after a night of partying at the Trocadero nightclub on Sunset Blvd., Todd was found asphyxiated behind the wheel of her Lincoln Phaeton touring car inside her garage, the doors pulled shut. Her
nose was broken. The death was called accidental, but understandably doubts linger -- with no less than four suspects who could have helped her take that last big curtain call, you'd have to wonder. But the case remains unsolved.

They say the building is haunted by Todd's ghost. I peered through the garage door windows at the scene of the actress's death. It looks very much the same as those 1935 crime scene photos. I did not see Thelma's ghost -- of course, it was the middle of the day.

Maybe another visit, sometime in the early morning hours next Dec. 16 might be a better time to catch a glimpse of the departed actress's restless spirit.

Listen and watch as "Mysteries & Scandals" host A.J. Benza runs down the details of Todd's demise:

Austrian blaggard impersonates Ronald Reagan -- No, it's not Arnold.

"The Robber" promises to be a cool and slightly off-beat crime thriller with a psychological edge. Directed by Benjamin Heisenberg ("Sleeper") and starring Andreas Lust ("Revanche"), it opens in New York City on April 29 and will expand to other U.S. and Canadian cities thereafter.
The film's main character, Johann Rettenberger, was inspired by the life of Austrian bank-robber and runner Johann Kastenberger, who set long-distance race records while secretly robbing banks on the side. Widely referred to as "Pump-gun Ronnie," after the Ronald Reagan mask he wore and the shotgun used on the assaults, Rettenberger still holds the record time in the Bergmarathon, a famous race held in the Austrian Alps.
Rotten Tomatoes lists the film's genre as a "Sports & Fitness Drama." Wonder if bank robbery in a rubber mask is "sports" or "fitness"?

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Mean Streets and Sidewalks, Preminger's Bleak Vision

In Otto Preminger's 1950 hard boiled crime drama, "Where The Sidewalk Ends" (Script by Ben Hecht), Dana Andrews, as Det. Mark Dixon, lays the groundwork for "Dirty" Harry Callahan.
Much like Clint Eastwood's Fascist-leaning crime fighter, Andrews' Dixon can't play by the rules--he'd just as soon slap around crooks and wiseguys, and can't stomach the thought of honoring their constitutional rights.
Andrews gave a similarly sullen performance in another film also directed by Preminger and co-starring Gene Tierney, 1944's "Laura."
In "Laura," Andrews, as Det. Lt. Mark McPherson, obsesses over the murder victim whose case he's assigned to investigate. When the object of McPherson's obsession, Laura, mysteriously appears, very much alive, a new mystery begins to unfold, as does a potential romance between the detective and the would-be murder victim.
But in "Sidewalk," we see a more driven, haunted figure in Andrews' performance. Near the end of the film, we learn that the detective has a dark past. When it looks like the unlucky Dixon will get off the hook for an accidental killing he commits and tries to cover up, he realizes that his only chance for redemption is to turn himself in and suffer the consequences. By doing so he trashes his career and sacrifices his chance for romance with the woman of his dreams. But for him it's the only way to break from his past and begin a new life.
"Laura" is the hands-down more popular of the two films, but for its existential angst and toughness, "Sidewalk" is head and shoulders above its earlier counterpart.

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HBO's mini series based on James M. Caine novel gets high praise

Salon magazine says:
"Mildred Pierce" is a quiet, heartbreaking masterpiece. Kate Winslet's expert performance anchors a tough, smart portrait of a woman's struggle to master her life. Read the full story.

Aussie Gangster Film Side-Steps Cliches

Few crime dramas are as compelling as last year"s "Animal Kingdom." David Michôd wrote and directed the film about a Melbourne family of bank robbers. We never see them rob a bank, and except for one or two brutal scenes never a crime is committed. How's that for avoiding heist film cliches?
Michôd is after something deeper--the relationship among thieves and the police pursuing them who may be just as corrupt as their prey.
Guy Pearce does a stellar job in his understated role as the policeman who sees the crime family's youngest, J, as the lone hope for justice. The rest of the cast performs with remarkable restraint as well, especially given the subject matter -- opportunities for histrionics are at every corner, but thankfully both Michôd and the cast knew better.

Today's quote

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals."
Jim Rohn

Roger Ebert Looks Back at Cinema Classic

BY ROGER EBERT
John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath" is a left-wing parable, directed by a right-wing American director, about how a sharecropper's son, a barroom brawler, is converted into a union organizer. The message is boldly displayed, but told with characters of such sympathy and images of such beauty that audiences leave the theater feeling more pity than anger or resolve. It's a message movie, but not a recruiting poster.

Thought For Today

"If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be."
-- Goethe

How can a film's screenplay take shape in 10 seconds?

"If I decide to embark on a project, it is because the whole movie took place before my eyes in 10 seconds. Then I spent a year and a half trying to rediscover what was so special during those 10 seconds."
--Steven Spielberg

Leno Came Back To Late Night To Do This?

Here's NiKki Finke's post on Jay's late night performance these days. She truly tells it the way it is.

BY NIKKI FINKE | Saturday January 29, 2011 @ 12:03am PST
I haven't watched Leno in ages but tonight I was tipped that he did a segment on the Oscar nominations so I tuned in to see if it was worth posting on Deadline. Jeez, when did Jay stop giving a damn about generating laughs? (No wonder I keep hearing rumors he wants to quit the show after this season.) He looked bored, the show's writing was worse than ever, and not only was his monologue unfunny but the Academy Awards segment was a lamefest. Oh wait, Justin Bieber just walked out. Now this is truly a crapfest.

Hitchcock, Bombs and Anticipation

Matt Byrnes leads the Venice Beach Screenwriters group, and he's written some good stuff on the screenwriting craft. In one recent article he talks about anticipation, and how to build it in your audience.
He also co-wrote an article in the winter ScriptWritersNetwork newsletter (a downloadable PDF) about organizing a staged reading of your script. Check out the ScriptWritersNetwork website, as well as Matt's own screenwriting site, InScreenwriting for info on the Venice Beach Screenwriters.

Haggis Offers Some Sound Screenwriting Advice

"Crash" screenwriter Paul Haggis sits down and discusses the craft. He offers some of the best, most logical advice I've heard in a while.

How Are Sitcoms Written?

I'm listening to the Thursday tele-seminar by sitcom guru Ken Levine, who runs sitcomroom as well as a fascinating blog on writing sitcoms, and offers seminars that teach you what it's like to be in the sitcom writers room. Ken has cranked out episodes for many classic TV shows including "The Jeffersons," "Mash" and "Cheers." He's fielding questions from dozens of us who phoned in to listen and ask about the writing process.
Some of his suggestions for beginning writers include, always begin with an outline, rather than jumping in to writing the script right away--it's too easy to paint yourself into a corner. Makes sense to me--I'm a big believer in outlining.
Establish your story in an outline first, and figure out your act breaks (space for commercials) and, most importantly, how your story will end.
Story ideas need interesting characters--on "The Office," we see a delusional boss who is inept in performing his job and wrongly believes he's the best boss in the world.
Supporting characters must offer opportunities for conflict with the central character.
What's the one best thing people can do tomorrow to further their careers?: Continue to write. If you have one good script, don't rest on your laurels. "If you write three scripts. I'm almost certain that the third script is going to be better than your first," said Dan O'Day, Levine's writing partner.
Added Levine, "Remember, no one can stop you from writing."

The 2010 Black List ... OK, So I'm a Little Late. Big Deal!

Here's the 2010 Black List, cribbed from the L.A. Times. It's been out since mid-December, but just in case you haven't seen it, feast your eyes on its majestic splendor.

Earlier, we gave you a sneak peak at the top 10 scripts on the Black List, an unscientific but much-watched ranking of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. Every year, Franklin Leonard, a midlevel Hollywood executive, surveys his colleagues in the industry for their suggestions on the best scripts they've read and compiles the results into this dossier.

This year, some 300 executives responded, and below are their results. Many of these scripts are already in the hands of studios or indie financiers. Some are still waiting to be discovered. Regardless, the writers who land on this list hope the citation will give their careers a big boost. Read on to see what Hollywood is reading.

Click ahead to see the 2010 Black List:

49 Votes: "College Republicans" by Wes Jones

Based on true events. Aspiring politician Karl Rove runs a dirty campaign for national College Republicans chairman under the guidance of Lee Atwater, his campaign manager.

Agent: Creative Artists Agency -- Gregory McKnight, Jay Baker

Manager: Circle of Confusion -- Ken Freimann, Greg Shephard

Anonymous Content producing

47 Votes: "Jackie" by Noah Oppenheim

Jackie Kennedy fights to define her husband's legacy in the seven days immediately following his assassination.

Agent: Creative Artists Agency -- Rowena Arguelles, Billy Hawkins

Manager: Management 360 -- Guymon Casady, Darin Friedman

Fox Searchlight. Protozoa Pictures producing.

45 Votes: "All You Need Is Kill" by Dante Harper

A new recruit in a war against aliens finds himself caught in a time loop where he wakes up one day in the past after having been killed on the battlefield.

Agent: Creative Artists Agency -- Todd Feldman, Jay Baker

Manager: Management 360 -- Guymon Casady, Darin Friedman

Warner Bros. 3 Arts Entertainment, VIZ producing.

43 Votes: "Safe House" by David Guggenheim

A young man at a CIA-run safe house in Rio de Janeiro must help a rough ex-agent escape assassins who want intelligence that he won't sell them.

Agent: Agency for the Performing Arts -- David Boxerbaum

Manager: Madhouse Entertainment -- Adam Kolbrenner

Universal. Stuber Pictures, Madhouse Entertainment producing.

39 Votes: "Stoker" by Wentworth Miller

After the death of her father, a teenager must deal with a mysterious uncle who returns to spend time with the family.

Agent: ICM -- Nicole Clemens, Adam Weinstein

Manager: Industry Entertainment -- Eryn Brown

Fox Searchlight. Scott Free Productions producing.

32 Votes: "999" by Matt Cook

A gang of crooked cops plans a major heist that will require them to shoot a fellow officer in order to get away with it.

Agent: William Morris Endeavor -- Cliff Roberts, Danny Gabai

Manager: Anonymous Content -- Bard Dorros, Keith Redmon

Anonymous Content producing

31 votes: "Margin Call" by J.C. Chandor

Based on true events, the final 24 hours of Lehman Brothers

Agent: WME -- Rob Carlson, Simon Faber

Before the Door Pictures, Washington Square Arts & Films, Benaroya Pictures and Taggart Productions producing

30 votes: "American Bull ... " by Eric Warren Singer

The true story of Abscam, the FBI's 1980 undercover sting operation of Congress to root out corruption, which was the brainchild of the world's greatest con man.

Agent: CAA -- Robert Bookman, Billy Hawkins, Stuart Manashil

Sony. Atlas Entertainment producing.

28 Votes: "Argo" by Chris Terrio

The true story of how the CIA, with help from Hollywood, used a fake movie project to smuggle hostages out of Tehran during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

Agent: CAA -- Rowena Arguelles

Manager: Anonymous Content -- Michael Sugar, Bard Dorros

Warner Bros. Smoke House producing.

24 votes: "The Last Son of Isaac Lemay" by Greg Johnson

An aging outlaw convinced that there is evil in his genes goes on a journey to kill his offspring. In the process, he discovers that his last remaining son is a terrifying manifestation of his worst fears.

Agent: RWSG -- Sylvie Rabineau

Blind Wink Productions producing

21 votes: "Family Getaway" by Jeremiah Friedman & Nick Palmer

A man whose family doesn't know he's an assassin must protect them during a cross-country car chase when rival killers show up.

Agent: United Talent Agency -- David Kramer, Jason Burns, Geoff Morley, Rebecca Ewing

Manager: Mosaic -- Emily Rose, Dawn Saltzman

Warner Brothers. Mosaic producing.

18 votes: "Die in a Gunfight" by Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari

A young New Yorker falls in love with the daughter of his father's nemesis, setting up a forbidden romance reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet.

Agent: WME -- Danny Greenberg, David Karp, Mike Esola

Manager: Prolific -- Stuart Wrede

Media Rights Capital. Mark Gordon Co., Ninjas Runnin' Wild producing.

17 votes: "Better Living Through Chemistry" by David Posamentier & Geoff Moore

A straight-laced pharmacist's uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy-wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder.

Agent: ICM -- Adam Weinstein

Manager: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment -- Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone

Occupant Films producing

17 votes: "Gray Man" by Adam Cozad

American operative Court Gentry, also known as the Gray Man, races against time and teams of government assassins in an effort to save his family.

Agent: ICM -- Aaron Hart, Doug Maclaren

Manager: Gotham Group -- Jeremy Bell

New Regency. Shine Pictures producing.

17 votes: "Imagine" by Dan Fogelman

A musician in his 60s tries to live his life differently after reading an old letter written to him by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Of greatest importance to him: tracking down and reconnecting with his biological son, whom he has never met.

Agent: WME -- Danny Greenberg

Manager: Industry Entertainment -- Eryn Brown

Warner Bros. Di Novi Pictures, Carousel Productions, Jessie Nelson producing.

16 votes: "Chronicle" by Max Landis

Three Portland teens become exposed to a mysterious substance in the woods and, as a result, begin to develop incredible powers. They work together to hone their skills until personal and family problems begin to turn them against one another.

Agent: WME -- David Karp, Simon Faber, Danny Gabai

Manager: Circle of Confusion -- David Alpert, Britton Rizzio

Fox. Davis Entertainment producing.

16 votes: "Gold" by Patrick Massett & John Zinman

The true story of the biggest securities exchange fraud in United States history.

Agent: CAA -- Matt Rosen

Manager: Industry Entertainment -- Michael Botti, Andrew Deane

Paul Haggis producing

16 votes: "Snow White and the Huntsman" by Evan Daugherty

A re-imagining of the story of Snow White in which the huntsman sent to kill her becomes her mentor.

Agent: UTA -- Tobin Babst

Manager: FilmEngine -- Jake Wagner

Universal. Roth Films producing.

15 votes: "Are We Officially Dating?" by Tom Gormican

A dating movie told from the male perspective about the lengths men will go through to avoid being officially in a relationship.

Scott Aversano, Andrew O'Connor producing

15 votes: "Free Country" by Josh Parkinson

The owner of a tourist mining cave kills a rich boy who finds a huge ruby. Chaos ensues when he teams up with his two dysfunctional brothers to hide the body and fence the stone with the victim's hot-headed twin on the hunt for his brother.

Agent: CAA -- Dan Rabinow, Matt Rosen

Manager: Gotham Group -- Lindsay Williams

Mandate Pictures. Rough House Pictures producing.

15 votes: "Gangster Squad" by Will Beall

Amid the corruption and chaos of 1940s Los Angeles, the LAPD's Gangster Squad works to keep the East Coast mafia out of the city.

Agent: CAA -- Jay Baker, Shari Smiley

Manager: Management 360 -- Darin Friedman

Warner Bros. Lin Pictures, Langley Park Pictures producing.

15 Votes: "Your Bridesmaid Is a Bitch" by Brian Duffeld

After agreeing to groomsman duties at his sister's wedding, Noah Palmer realizes he has made the mistake of his life after finding out that the woman who broke his heart is also part of the bridal party.

Agent: HML -- Bob Hohman, Bayard Maybank, Devra Lieb

Manager: Circle of Confusion -- Noah Rosen, Zach Cox

Skydance Productions producing

14 votes: "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith

When the mother of future United States President Abraham Lincoln is murdered by a vampire, he begins a lifelong vendetta to rid the world of the heinous creatures.

Agent: WME -- Cliff Roberts, Jeff Gorin

Fox. Tim Burton Productions, Bazelevs Productions producing.

13 votes: "Hunger Games" by Billy Ray

Based on the book by Suzanne Collins. In an America of the future, young boys and girls are forced to participate in a televised battle to the death.

Agent: CAA -- Todd Feldman, Brian Kend

Manager: Management 360 -- Guymon Casady.

Lionsgate. Color Force producing.

12 votes: "Welcome to People" by Alex Kurtzman, Bob Orci, Jody Lambert

A young man whose father has recently died is tasked with bringing $150,000 to an alcoholic sister he never knew about and her 12-year-old son.

Agent: CAA -- Risa Gertner, Todd Feldman (Kurtzman, Orci)

WME-- Cliff Roberts, David Karp (Lambert)

Manager: Mosaic -- Paul Nelson, Dawn Saltzman (Lambert)

Dreamworks. Kurtzman/Orci producing.

12 votes: "What Happened to Monday?" by Max Botkin

In a world where families are allowed only one child due to overpopulation, a resourceful set of identical septuplets must avoid governmental execution and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of one of their own.

Agent: CAA -- Stuart Manashil, Matt Rosen

Manager: EML Entertainment -- Eva Lontscharitsch

Vendome Pictures. Raffaella Productions producing.

11 votes: "The Butler" by Danny Strong

The story of African American White House butler Eugene Allen, who served eight United States presidents from 1952 to 1986.

Agent: CAA --Risa Gertner, Maha Dakhil

Manager: Gotham Group -- Lindsay Williams

Sony. Laura Ziskin Productions producing.

11 votes: "The Escort" by Justin Adler

A flight escort responsible for overseeing the safe transport of a spoiled, wise-acre child must find alternate means of getting the kid home to Boston after their plane is grounded.

Agent: UTA -- Julien Thuan

Manager: Kapital Entertainment -- Aaron Kaplan

Dreamworks. Tom McNulty producing.

11 votes: "Fun Size" by Max Werner

A high school senior is forced to take her weirdo brother trick-or-treating but loses him along the way. With the help of a few classmates, she tries to find him before her mother gets home. Meanwhile, the depraved little brother is having the time of his life.

Agent: WME -- Danny Greenberg, David Karp

Manager: Anonymous Content -- Bard Dorros

Paramount. Anonymous Content, Fake Empire producing.

10 votes: "Arsonist's Love Story" by Katie Lovejoy

A young arsonist falls for a woman in the art world, which he desperately wants to be a part of.

Agent: CAA -- John Campisi, Craig Brody

10 votes: "Looper" by Rian Johnson

In the present day, a group of hitmen is sent their victims from the future.

Agent: Featured Artists Agency -- Brian Dreyfuss

Endgame Entertainment. Gordonstreet Pictures producing.

10 votes: "Murdoch" by Jesse Armstrong

As his family gathers for his birthday party, Rupert Murdoch tries to persuade his elder children to alter the family trust so that his two youngest children by his newest wife will have voting rights in the company.

Agent: CAA -- Gregory McKnight

10 votes: "One Day" by David Nicholls

Dexter and Emma meet for the first time at college graduation in 1988 and proceed to reunite one day a year for the next 20 years.

Agent: CAA -- Robert Bookman, JP Evans

Focus Features, Film4. Color Force, Random House Films producing.

10 votes: "Perfect Match" by Morgan Schechter & Eric Pearson

Male and female roommates, both 28, who are longtime best friends and unlucky in love decide to try an Internet dating service that promises to introduce them to their "perfect match." In the process, they discover that they're each other's "perfect match."

Agent: UTA -- Rebecca Ewing (Schechter)

ICM -- Doug Maclaren (Pearson)

Manager: Circle of Confusion -- Ken Freimann, Britton Rizzio (Schechter)

Michael De Luca Productions producing

9 votes: "The 13th Man" by Enio Rigolin

An unlikely codebreaker is thrust into the role of hero when he discovers a secret code being sent through comic books during WWII.

Agent: The Kaplan Stahler Agency -- Shan Ray

Manager: Heroes and Villains Entertainment -- Mikhail Nayfeld, Markus Georg, Dick Hillenbrand

9 votes: "Dark Moon" by Olatunde Osunsunmi

Using found footage, the story explores the possibility that manned moon missions did not stop with Apollo 17.

Agent: CAA -- Billy Hawkins, Ben Kramer

Manager: Caliber Media -- Dallas Sonnier

Dark Castle Entertainment. Weed Road Pictures producing.

9 votes: "Hot Mess" by Jenni Ross

Four girlfriends make, and then break, a list of rules devised to get the guys of their dreams and discover their inner hot messes in the process.

Agent: WME -- Simon Faber, Elia Infascelli-Smith

Manager: Tom Sawyer Entertainment -- Rachel Miller, Jesse Hara

Endgame Entertainment. Goldsmith-Thomas Productions producing.

8 votes: "Everly" by Yale Hannon

The story of one woman's struggle for redemption as she fights to stay alive and unite with her mother and young daughter, all while staving off vicious attacks by a ruthless army of yakuzas who have trapped her in her apartment.

Agent: Verve -- Adam Levine, Bryan Besser

Anonymous Content producing

8 votes: "Hoof Harrington's Greatest Hits" by Dutch Southern

An aging, semi-retired hitman recalls his murderous career while trying to kill the billionaire who has put out a contract on his life.

Agent: UTA -- Tobin Babst

Manager: Energy Entertainment -- Brooklyn Weaver, Adam Marshall, Angelina Chen

8 votes: "The Impossible" by Sergio Sanchez

After a major tsunami hits a beach resort in Yokohama, Japan, a Spanish family on vacation with young children becomes separated and must find one another amid the wreckage.

Agent: UTA -- David Flynn, Rich Klubeck

Summit Entertainment. Apaches Entertainment producing.

8 votes: "Murder of a Cat" by Christian Magalhars & Robert Snow

A darkly comic noir about a guy trying to unravel the mystery around the murder of his pet cat.

Agent: The Gersh Agency -- Carolyn Sivitz

Manager: Madhouse Entertainment -- Adam Kolbrenner, Chris Cook

8 votes: "Oz: The Great and Powerful" by Michell Kapner

Based on the books of L. Frank Baum. The story of how a con artist from Kansas became the wizard behind the curtain.

Agent: HML -- Bob Hohman, Bayard Maybank, Debra Lieb

Manager: Fineman Entertainment -- Ross Fineman

Disney. Roth Films producing.

8 votes: "Road to Nardo" by Mike Gagerman & Andrew Waller

Two guys drive to Mexico to rescue their best friend who is broke and without an ID.

Agent: APA -- Debbie Deuble, Sheryl Petersen

Manager: Circle of Confusion -- Britton Rizzio

Sony. Original Film, American Work Inc. producing.

7 votes: "Abduction" by Shawn Christensen

When a teenager who has always felt distanced from his parents discovers that he was kidnapped as a child, he is thrust into a vast conspiracy and must go on the run in order to survive.

Agent: Verve -- Bryan Besser

Manager: Caliber Media -- Dallas Sonnier

Lionsgate. Vertigo Entertainment, the Gotham Group, Tailor Made Entertainment producing.

7 votes: "Can You Keep a Secret?" by Megan Martin

After a woman spills her secrets to a stranger during a turbulent plane ride, she shows up at work to discover that he is the recently returned CEO of her company.

Agent: WME -- Sime Faber, Craig Kestel

Manager: Principato/Young Management -- Susan Solomon

Seed Productions, Laurence Mark Productions producing

7 votes: "Cinema Verite" by David Seltzer

Based on the PBS series "An American Family," cameras follow the members of a family as they go about their daily life.

Agent: ICM -- Nicole Clemens

HBO Films. Pariah producing.

7 votes: "The Claim" by Damien Chazelle

A father with a criminal past must save his kidnapped daughter, even as he fights the claim of another couple who insist the girl is theirs.

Agent: The Gersh Agency -- Sandra Lucchesi, Frank Wuliger

Manager: Exile Entertainment -- Gary Ungar

Route One Films producing

7 votes: "Crazy, Stupid, Love" by Dan Fogelman

Straight-laced, fortysomething Cal Weaver is living the dream -- good job, nice house, great kids and marriage to his high school sweatheart -- but when Cal learns that his wife, Emily, has cheated on him and wants a divorce, his "perfect" life quicky unravels.

Agent: WME -- Danny Greenberg

Manager: Industry Entertainment -- Eryn Brown

Warner Bros. Di Novi Pictures, Carousel Productions producing.

7 votes: "Get a Job" by Kyle Pennekamp & Scott Turpel

A comedy about a father and son struggling to find a job in the current job market.

Agent: CAA -- Gregory McKnight, JP Evans

CBS Films. Double Feature Films producing.

7 votes: "The Girl With Something Extra" by Terrence Michael

A young man who has been raised his entire life to believe that he is a girl comes of age as he enters high school and learns his true gender.

Agent: Original Artists -- Chris Sablan

Manager: Media Talent Group -- Chris Davey

7 votes: "How It Ends" by Brooks Mclaren

When an apocalypse strikes, a man halfway across the country from his pregnant wife goes on a dangerous and desperate journey to get back to her.

Agent: ICM -- Adam Weinstein, Emil Gladstone, Aaron Hart

The Schiff Co. producing

7 votes: "Hyde" by Cole Haddon

An allegedly rehabilitated Dr. Jekyll is pulled out of prison to help hunt a new monster who seems to be using an improved version of the Hyde serum.

Agent: ICM -- Lars Theriot, Ava Jamshidi

Manager: Anonymous Content -- Alex Goldstone

Dark Horse Entertainment, Mark Gordon Productions, Skydance Productions producing.

7 votes: "Keep Coming Back" by Michael Gilio

When an adrenaline-junkie interventionist attempts to save a troubled woman, he nearly loses everything in the process.

Agent: UTA -- Julien Thuan

Manager: Industry Entertainment -- Eryn Brown.

Fox Searchlight. Ad Hominem Enterprises producing.

7 votes: "The Last Witch Hunter" by Cory Goodman

With the population of witches and warlocks on the brink of a major explosion, one witch hunter must stop them before it's too late.

Agent: WME -- Mike Esola

Manager: Aperture -- Adam Goldworm

Summit Entertainment. Aperture producing.

7 votes: "Ricky Stanicky" by Jeff Bushell

For years, three lifelong friends have used an invented character named Ricky Stanicky to get out of sticky situations. When their wives demand a meeting with Ricky, the friends hire an actor to portray him.

Agent: WME -- Mike Esola

Manager: Smart Entertainment -- John Jacobs

Summit Entertainment. Michael De Luca Productions, Smart Entertainment producing.

7 votes: "Easy Money" by Noah Oppenheim

Based on the foreign film "Snabba Cash," a business-school student with substantial ambition works in strategy for a New York City criminal enterprise.

Agent: CAA -- Rowena Arguelles, Billy Hawkins

Manager: Management 360 -- Guymon Casady, Darin Friedman

Warner Bros. Atlas Entertainment, Ninjas Runnin' Wild Productions producing.

7 votes: "Zombie Baby" by Andy Jones

After the zombie apocalypse, a young couple unsure about whether to start a family has the decision made for them when they take in an orphaned zombie baby they don't have the heart to kill.

Manager: Alan Gasmer & Friends -- Alan Gasmer, Daniel Vang

Unnamed Yorn Co., Alan Gasmer & Friends producing

6 votes: "ATM" by Chris Sparling

Three co-workers end up in a desperate fight for survival when they stop to use an ATM.

Agent: UTA -- Charlie Ferraro, Doug Johnson

Manager: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment -- Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone

Gold Circle Films, the Safran Co. producing

6 votes: "Boy Scouts vs. Zombies" by Carrie Evans and Emi Mochizuko

A troop of Boy Scouts on their weekend camping trip must protect an island town from a zombie outbreak and save the local Girl Scout troop.

Agent: HML -- Bob Hohman, Bayard Maybank, Devra Lieb

Manager: Brucks Entertainment -- Bryan Brucks.

Paramount. Broken Road Productions producing.

6 votes: "The Ever After Murders" by Ian Fried

In a dark metropolis populated by characters from classical folklore, detectives Tom Thumb and Rachel Riding investigate a murder that brings them into contact with the city's most dangerous inhabitants.

Agent: WME -- Mike Esola

Manager: Prolific -- Will Rowbotham

6 votes: "Hovercar 3D" by Blaise Hemingway

Set in the future, an ex-con street racer has to transport a whistleblower across country in a high-speed hovercar with an army of authorities trying to stop them.

Agent: ICM -- Harley Copen, Ava Jamshidi

Beacon Pictures. Millar/Gough Ink producing.

6 votes: "Lola Versus" by Daryl Wein & Zoe Lister-Jones

A 29-year-old woman has to reevaluate her life after her longtime boyfriend calls off their wedding at the last minute.

Agent: The Gersh Agency -- Carolyn Sivitz

Manager: Management 360 -- Daniel Rappaport

Fox Searchlight. Groundswell Productions producing.

6 votes: "Prom" by Katie Wech

High school students prepare for their prom.

Agent: ICM -- Nicole Clemens, Todd Hoffman, Ava Jamshidi

Disney. Idealogy, Inc., producing.

6 votes: "Replay" by Jason Smilovic

Based on the Ken Grimwood novel. A man dies, wakes up in his 18-year-old body and has to relive his life over and over. With his original memory intact, he takes the opportunity to travel down roads he passed up the first time around.

Agent: CAA -- Risa Gertner, Jay Baker

Manager: Madhouse Entertainment -- Adam Kolbrenner

Warner Bros. Goldsmith-Thomas producing.

6 votes: "Sidney Grimes" by Brian Helgeland

A man just out of prison seeks revenge against his former partner who got him locked up.

Manager: Brillstein Entertainment Partners -- Missy Malkin

Todd Black, Billy Gerber producing

5 votes: "Alive Alone" by Khurram Longi

A London-based suicide bomber is having a crisis of conscience as he and his cell are planning an attack in the city. His female next-door neighbor, a drug addict and prostitute, has men who want to kill her after she witnessed the murder of her john. These two find solace in each other as they try to survive their respective situations.

Agent: Creative Artists Agency –- Robert Bookman, Martin Spencer

Sarah Radclyffe producing


5 votes: "The Flight of the Nez Perce" by E. Nicholas Mariani

The true story of Chief Joseph and his resistance to his tribe's relocation to a military settlement in Idaho during the 1800s.

Agent: United Talent Agency -- Charlie Ferraro, Jenny Maryasis

Manager: Circle of Confusion -- David Alpert, Britton Rizzio

5 votes: "... Jane Austen" by Blake Bruns

Two male friends angry at Jane Austen for creating unrealistic romantic expectations among women today get sent back in time to the 19th century. The only way for them to return home is for one of them to get Jane Austen to fall in love and sleep with him.

Manager: Brucks Entertainment –- Bryan Brucks

Brucks Entertainment producing

5 votes: "Hit and Run" by Owen Yarde

A young man discovers that the undertaker who recently hired him as his driver is actually a hit man for the mafia.

Agent: William Morris Endeavor –- Cliff Roberts, David Karp

5 votes: "Kitchen Sink" by Oren Uziel

A human teenager, a vampire and a zombie must save their town from an alien invasion.

Agent: International Creative Management –- Harley Copen

Manager: Circle of Confusion -– Britton Rizzio

5 votes: "O.K.C." by Clay Wold

An ambitious legal aide working for the Timothy McVeigh defense team tries to get to the bottom of what really happened during the Oklahoma City bombing.

Agent: United Talent Agency -- Charlie Ferraro, Barbara Dreyfus

Manager: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment –- Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone

The Safran Co. producing

5 votes: "Ness/Capone" by Grant Myers

The true story of young Elliot Ness taking down Al Capone.

Agent: Paradigm –- Mark Ross

Manager: Gotham Group –- Jeremy Bell

5 votes: "Point A" by Chris Rubeo

An unconventional romantic comedy featuring a 30-year-old magazine writer and the subject of his newest piece, a witty, wise-beyond-her-years teenage video blogger.

Agent: International Creative Management –- Aaron Hart, Adam Weinstein

Manager: Tantillo Entertainment -- John Tantillo

5 votes: "Paint" by Brit McAdams

A Bob Ross-esque PBS painting-show host must fight for his career when his station brings in a rival painting host.

Agent: United Talent Agency -- Blair Kohan, Geoff Morley

Manager: The Collective –- Sam Maydew

Rip Cord Productions producing


5 votes: "Paper Airplane" by Sid Karger
After sabotaging another family vacation, a travel agent who's afraid to fly battles his irrational phobias to win back his wife and daughter.

Agent: William Morris Endeavor –- Mike Esola

Manager: Madhouse Entertainment -– Adam Kolbrenner

5 votes: "Serena" by Chris Kyle

In 1930s North Carolina, George Pemberton, with the help of his father's money, owns and runs a logging operation in the Smoky Mountains. George meets and marries Serena, a strong-willed, scheming, ambitious woman.

Agent: International Creative Management –- Robert Lazar

Nick Wechsler Productions, Exclusive Media Group producing

-- Nicole Sperling

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Here's One Way To Keep Your Writing on Track

This article from the Writers Store popped into my mail box. I thought it was worth sharing.

When it comes to making New Year's resolutions, we writers aren't exactly the norm.

Most people resolve to lose weight, dreaming of the day they can hold up their "fat jeans," as if in a weight-loss commercial. We want to hold up a few freshly printed scripts and know we've created something tangible.

Others might hope to finish their first triathlon this year. We hope to finish a screenplay, a one-hour pilot, and a half-hour comedy spec.

This year, I'm gonna write more. It's a popular resolution amongst our crowd. It's a great goal, but it's vague.

Then again, maybe some of us promised to write every day. That's even better.

But just like hitting a plateau at the gym, we sometimes lose the steam that once powered a new and exciting story idea. We take one day off, which turns into two days off; eventually, we find ourselves opening up a document only to realize it hasn't been touched in two weeks – or more.

Let's say you do write most of the time, but you take one or two days off each week for any number of reasons. That's still a lot of writing. But consider this: at the end of the year, that's roughly 10 weeks, or 2.5 months' worth of days that you didn't write anything.

That's where Jerry Seinfeld's productivity tip "Don't Break the Chain" comes in.

Years ago, when software developer Brad Isaac was performing stand-up at open mic nights, he received his best advice ever from the already-famous comedian.

Seinfeld explained his method for success: each January, he hangs a large year-at-a-glance calendar on his wall and, for every day he wrote new material, he had the exquisite pleasure that can only come from drawing a big red "X" over that day.

Drawing those Xs got to be pretty fun and rewarding, so he kept doing it. Eventually, he began to create a chain of red Xs.

The idea was to never break that chain.

Not only does this approach program the body and mind to sit down and write daily – it also motivates you to continue that beautiful string of big, red Xs. If you don't write one day, you don't get to draw the X.

It doesn't particularly matter what you write. Blogs, articles, scripts, your memoir. It can be anything, as long as you're actively and routinely pushing yourself.

But let's say you're a screenwriter, and you take it a step further. You might decide that you only get an X for the days you work on your screenplays.

If you made progress on your scripts every single day for an entire year, how many could you finish? Two? Four? More? Now, imagine that you've finally gotten the ear of an agent, producer or director. If you don't break the chain for two or three years, chances are you'll end up with a script to please just about any buyer.

Learning from the pros is imperative in this business, but if you don't put their lessons into practice, it won't take you far. And while professional writers offer a wide range of ideas, they will all agree that discipline and determination must come first.

That means writing all the time. It means not believing in writer's block. It means turning off the television, silencing your phone, and finding some Shangri La that somehow does not yet have wireless internet.

First and foremost, it means making writing a major part of your life. To do that, you have to make writing a habit, just like going to the gym, eating healthy foods, or flossing - but harder.

There are countless excuses, most of them completely acceptable, which hold us back from writing. More often than not, it's our never-ending To-do lists that take precedence over our passion.

With Don't Break the Chain, writing, too, becomes a daily task that we have to cross off that To-do list. This method is a constant reminder that, if we want to succeed as writers, we must acknowledge our craft and respect the process.

Because the reality is, if you do work at your craft obsessively, you will find success. And if you do become a professional writer, you will need to write every day. Not only that, you'll be expected to prove that you can constantly produce worthwhile material, and the only way any of us can achieve that is to push ourselves tenaciously.

Who else is going to push you? For many, it's going to come down to self-determination. Your partner or parents or kids can encourage you, too. Let them know about the calendar. After you prove you can keep the chain connected for a couple of weeks, they too will motivate you not to miss a single day.
Find all the motivation you need to get started, because by teaching yourself to incorporate writing into your daily routine, you'll transform yourself into a professional.

Think of it this way: Your first day at a new job can be stressful. You might feel like you don't know where to park, when to show up, or how to answer your phone. Cut to a few months later. You've gotten into a routine. It's no longer intimidating. It is, simply, what you do.

The same idea applies to writing.

It's no wonder we tell ourselves we have writer's block some days, especially after leaving a story cold and dead for a whole month or more. Think of those big red Xs covering an entire calendar year as a fire stoking your creativity – and your writing career.

Of course, it's up to you whether you want to jump-start your career now rather than a few years down the line. If you want to do it now (a wise choice), Don't Break the Chain will get you moving right away – as in, immediately! TODAY!

The Writers Store was launched to provide writers with the tools necessary to help at any stage and in any medium of writing. That’s why we’re offering a free download of your own yearly calendar to print out.

Now, all you need is a pen – the color is up to you – and the goal to draw a big X over every single day.
Are you willing to see how much you can create over an entire year? Are you curious to find out what happens when you take a professional’s heartfelt advice and put it to good use?

Netflix Buttons Up For The TV-Internet Convergence

Netflix continues its juggernaut as the leader in the accelerating television-Internet convergence. This spring, TVs and other devices such as Blu-ray players are going to have a Netflix button on their remotes. I'd always assumed that the big networks (NBC, CBS, ABC) would become inconsequential in a few years. Now it looks like that might happen even sooner.
The Netflix button is promised to connect with streamed media instantly and without the hassle associated with some current Netflix-supporting devices. I can hardly wait.

At the urging of a friend, I finally got the courage to see The Human Centipede. Wow! Revulsion and non-stop tension galore. Just don't watch during dinner.

One Cheesy Moment Can't Ruin A Day In Hell

It's possible to like a movie despite it's shortcomings, especially if the story is delivering interesting characters, or at least putting its characters in increasing jeopardy that seems believable and logical.
Case in point is Sam Raimi's recent horror film, "Drag Me To Hell." The film places its heroine in mind-bending jeopardy, as only horror films can, and keeps the plot moving at a white-knuckle pace.
The story involves a bank loan officer (Alison Lohman) who, through understandable yet poorly conceived judgment, denies a loan extension to the wrong old woman--chaos and hysteria result.
Without giving too much away (SPOILER ALERT), there is a turning-point scene involving a key prop--the story's McGuffin, if you will. In the film's rare moment of lazy storytelling, the characters mishandle the McGuffin in such a way that it screams, "Plot Point."
What's irritating about this moment is not only that it's so easy to see through it and understand how our heroine is going to get herself out of this mess, the sloppiness takes us out of the moment and reminds us that we're watching a movie. Up to that point I was involved in the story and, best of all, not sure where I would be led next.
Still, even a cheesy moment can't sink the film entirely. This is, after all, a horror film, and they usually contain around 60 or so cheesy moments per movie. "Drag Me To Hell," by that standard, ain't doing so bad.