March Oddments 2012

••• John Carter of Ishtar: I made comment almost exactly a year ago about how weird it was to be witnessing another entry in the "biggest flop of all time" contest. Now it's super-weird, because both are big-budget films by big-name directors with associations to the animation industry-- and both flops have Martian themes. The difference is budget: John Carter cost roughly double of Mars Needs Moms. The regularity of this phenomenon allows me to predict the article I'll be writing for "March Oddments 2013:" It'll be about the box-office failure of (I'm guessing) Disney's adaptation of Fredric Brown's 1955 novel "Martians Go Home." It'll star nobody, be directed by Nick (Wallace and Gromet) Park (his first live-action film) and in keeping with the trend it'll be budgeted at $500 million.

The New York Times has an unbeatable headline for the epic John Carter fail: "Ishtar Lands On Mars." I'll save you the effort of scaling their paywall and give you the gist of it: John Carter was a passion project by Pixar honcho Andrew Stanton. Because Disney wanted to keep him happy, they greenlighted everything he wanted, even though there were red flags from pre-production on (No stars, cryptic source material, somebody had already made Avatar, etc.)From the Times article and what I learned from John Lassiter speaking at the Austin Film Festival, it boils down to two big problems:

1. The collaborative Pixar production method was much vaunted at Austin as the antidote to dumb producer-based decision making. Unfortunately, this method seems to not work on live-action films. Stanton had to do expensive re-shoots on John Carter to get the film he wanted. For a front-loaded Pixar production, this is no big deal: Nothing is really final in computer animation until someone pushes the "render" button. But live action, where you need a lot of expensive equipment, craftspeople and artists to show up to help realize your revision, is another beast entirely.

2. It was, like Ishtar, a case of studio management worshiping celebrity-- in this case, the guy who had a hand in some of Disney/Pixar's biggest hits. Hollywood is unique in the entire crazy capitalist world for occasionally investing huge amounts of capital purely out of deference and admiration of talent. In fact, a lot of problem films can be traced to this, the inadvertent reversal of celebrity worship. It's supposed to go down and out, like a storm drain: When we ordinary folks become glassy-eyed at Angelina Jolie's leg or start hopping up and down anticipating the release of a long-lost Joss Whedon film*, the celebrity engine is working properly. But when studio executives start worshiping their own employees, well, the engine starts backfiring and will eventually catch fire.

••• Hollywood Echo Chamber: Managed to catch Hugo and The Artist this week. Liked The Artist better: It was fully committed to it's premise, that of being a silent film. It was even shot in 4:3 Academy format aspect ratio, end to end, admirably authentic. Hugo had a layer of "Film History 480" to it-- Martin Scorsese trying to educate all of us on the protean era of cinema. The Artist is steeped in the world it portrays (Hollywood 1927-1932) but it's all in the service of pure entertainment: at the end, unlike Hugo, you don't feel like someone is going to slap a quiz sheet and a #2 pencil in your lap during the final credits.

••• Under The Bus: Over the last few days and months I think I figured out a new and strange decision process used by the producers of compelling shows like "Game of Thrones," "Breaking Bad" and especially "The Walking Dead." This involves dispensing with The Character Shield. "You viewers like interesting characters, right? Then let's kill some of them off! You're sure to come back next season and see how we're coping with it!"

*The Cabin in the Woods. Just thought I'd warn all that, much like Eddie Murphy's A Thousand Words, when a film is delayed release for four years there may be more than one reason for it.

The 2011 Austin Film Festival Day-to-Day

Thursday October 20th - Flew in non-stop from San Jose, got a lift to David Miller's house from David himself.

The last time I was here in 2009, when John and I were finalists, I spent all my time in the AFF bubble, the four-block area centered on the Driskill and Stephen F. Austin hotels in the heart of downtown. This time I was lodging in South Austin, 6 miles from the action, and I had a car to use (and, unfortunately, pay to park). This situation, and the fact I had nothing in competition this year, gave me a somewhat more realistic take on things.

Didn't do much more that day than get my laminates and meet up with some nice folks for some drinks at the Driskill Bar, seated right next to where Joh, our wives and I celebrated our win two years ago. Left, had Tex-Mex with David and got too hammered make the first AFF late-night party.

Friday October 20th - Made several panels. One, called "A Shot of Inspiration" with Shane (Lethal Weapon) Black and Jim (Fight Club) Uhls, was quite excellent and inspirational as advertised. Another, with some dev girl from Pixar, bombed out and went to questions after only 15 minutes. After excellent BBQ at the French Legation, waited in an immense line for the AFF screening of The Rum Diary.

Bruce Robinson (L) and Johnny Depp (R)

The film itself was fairly good, though there was something definitely wrong with it. Protagonist problems, perhaps. In the Q&A afterwards Johnny Depp is nothing short of charming and clever, but writer-director Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I) was reeling, sloppy, incoherently drunk. (All part of his bio, apparently). This threw off moderator Elvis Mitchell, who was snippy throughout the session. It didn't help that pinwheel-eyed Depp fans were asking questions like "I'm making a short film and I'm wondering, Johnny Depp, if you'd want to play God?" His response: "That sounds great, but… the research…" This debacle was the talk of the AFF for the rest of the weekend.

Attended a late-night party at Ruth's Chris Steak House. This was just as it was last year: A bunch of writers jammed into a room with free Dos Equis and 100dB conversational levels. Met a slick-haired fellow from Florida who made a film about an 18-year-old virgin stripper and, minutes later, a big-eyed young lady from Michigan who had a rather touching family story as a short in competition. Both these folks shot their films on Red One cameras in 2.35:1. See? Anybody can do it these days. Chatted up Lawrence Kasdan and met Thomas Jane.

Saturday, October 21st - My favorite moment came early in the morning at the Silver Valley Donut Shop on William Cannon Drive. The place was full of locals, Good Ol' Boys. As one fellow made for the door, his friend said "Have a good'un, Earl. Stay out of trouble."

Without breaking stride, Earl replied, "You can't tell me what to do! I might be fixin' to start something."

Typical Panel, Driskill Hotel Ballrooom

More panels at the AFF. John Lassiter gave a good talk about the Pixar writing process, which is diametrically opposed to the standard Hollywood process, where most producers are lawyers or agents-- which makes them spectacularly unqualified to give notes on writing, but do anyway. Takeaway quote: "Imagine taking a 747 from here to Tokyo-- and the pilot is a lawyer who 'always wanted to fly a plane.'"

Another Panel featured Rodrigo García, the son of Gabriel García Márquez. His talk was supposed to be about constructing complex characters but ended up being mostly about himself-- excluding the part about how his being a famous person's kid got him into the business in the first place.

After some fine BBQ at Stubb's with John and his Seattle posse, crashed for a few, then came back downtown that night for the Pitch Fest at the Speakeasy and late night party #2. This one was not quite as loud. Went back to South Austin and collapsed on the couch. David came back from a gig in San Saba at 2:30 a.m. and we stayed up 'til 5 talking old trucks (he has a '55 Panel, I have a '56 Panel) and finishing a bottle of Jack's.

Sunday October 22nd - Slept right through the "Hair of the Dog Brunch," the final party of the AFF weekend. After grabbing some migas at Casa Garcia (yum!) I made the afternoon panel-- "Endings: Good, Bad and Insanely Great," given by Michael Arndt. This guy wrote Little Miss Sunshine in 3 days, revised it 100+ times, and it won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2006, a first for a first-time scripter. He also wrote Toy Story 3, which was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2010. Arndt obviously had had a lot to teach us-- and he did. By far, the best panel of the entire weekend, almost worth the steep cost of the badge.

Driving around rural Texas in a pickup
truck in the middle of the night.

After tearing up some Texas freeways in David's 1995 Chevy pickup afterwards (so I can cross 'drive a pickup in Texas' off my list of things to do) got a ride to the airport from the finest steel guitar player in all of Austin.

Overall, and excellent weekend in the finest city in Texas. Three summary observations on The 2011 Austin Film Festival:

1. It's definitely a bubble. in the Badge Zone of the AFF, you get to meet, chat up and even pitch ideas to people high up in the industry. Just remember that when you're back in the real world, you'll never get within 2 miles of these people.

2. Much easier to see said bubble when you spend a lot of time outside it. Got to visit the Broken Spoke Honky Tonk, Barton Creek Mall (for souvenirs), The Alamo Drafthouse South and got drive-thru at R. Terry's on Lamar. Out there, where the real Texas is.

3. As fun as the 2011 AFF was, it does not beat being there with a script in competition. Doesn't even come close. Still, here and there throughout the long weekend people remembered me for our 2009 win. And that felt pretty darn good. Who knows? I might be fixin' to start something.

Today in super-obvious movie news

LA Times:

Online critics name "The Social Network" best picture

I suppose this could have alternately been headlined "Today's 'to a person with a hammer, everything is a nail' news."

A few days ago, after the tag of some show like "The Middle," I witnessed the following commercials run in order (verified via my DVR):

People's Choice Awards Show promo (:15)
Critic's Choice Awards Show promo (:15)
Ad for toilet paper coyly featuring animated bears in woods (:30)
Golden Globe Awards Show promo (:30)

These first two I have barely heard of, nor have I heard of the Online Critics dealie referred to in the lede. Amazing that someone keeps creating more awards and awards shows-- it's as much of a growth industry as film festivals were pre-2008.

I wonder where it's all headed, especially when one considers the overall number of motion pictures being distributed slips a bit every year. I can see a time in the not-too-distant future when the number of released films and awards for them coincide exactly. Then we'll be in feel-good heaven where, as in elementary school athletics, everyone wins!

Some Holiday Kindness for the Coppola Kids

Alright, I've had my sights set on Sofia Coppola for a while now.

I think it was Daniel who quoted me as saying, some four years ago, that he admired my simple adage: Films by Francis Coppola's kids all suck. This was not long before the release of Marie Antoinette which, though the film has it's defenders, was mostly met with towering brickbats. So I'd like to go on record to say that I hated it first, sight unseen.

Hey: It's me, not them. I'll admit to the core of my hostility towards Sofia and to a lesser extent his brother Roman is rooted in a deep sense of societal fairness. Meritocracy is what makes America great. It's also what draws people from all over the world to work in Hollywood-- the idea that if you have the right ideas or talent, you can go far regardless of how humble your origins are and far outside the TMZ you came from. This meritocracy ironically exists side-by-side with the most outrageous bias there is: if you're good-looking you can easily get in the door and you're guaranteed at least a walk-on or two.

The idea of aristocracies should be abhorrent to every American who has even the slightest idea of why this country was founded in the first place. But aristocracies are here, and apparently thanks to some recent bipartisan legislation they're here to stay, and on their way to being tax-free-- coincidentally, just like the nobles were in Marie Antoinette's time.

So in Hollywood we have the kids and grandkids of talented artists, their careers paths pre-paved and pre-lit, all tolls paid. Sometimes it works out well-- I'll never fault Ben Stiller for riding coattails, nor is George Clooney guilty of leveraging anything more than his aunt's last name.

But the Coppola kids are another breed entirely. Sofia in particular has no problem using the medium of film to interpret the world exclusively thorough the extremely narrow definition of being Francis Coppola's privileged kid. Lost In Translation draws deeply from her personal experiences of aimlessly hanging around in a five-star hotel in Tokyo. Marie Antoinette is a gleefully shared observation about how great it is to wear pretty clothes and cool shoes and have unlimited amounts of money.

Sofia's latest, out soon, is Somewhere, which breaks from her monologue films to something closer to a biography. It's about Johnny, a jaded movie star (Stephen Dorff-- has nobody heard of the Stephen Dorff Curse?) who spends his time doing drugs and hanging out with strippers in the Chateau Marmont (hey-- another hotel flick!). He continues his downward-- albiet well-financed-- spiral, until... according the the LA Times:

Until, that is, his 11-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), is thrust into Johnny's care. The precocious preteen awakens his parental instinct and punctures his abiding self-absorption. Hmm. Kind of like the movie's director — who as a kid regularly took up lengthy hotel residencies while Dad shot movies such as "Apocalypse Now" and "The Cotton Club" and was exposed to her father's freewheeling Hollywood hubris — might have done?

So what we have here, protests in the press to the contrary, is Sofia tangentially making a film about... her dad. Roman did the exact same thing with his film CQ (2001), which is tangentially about his father's early career in the late 1960s.

Did I say I hated the films these guys make? Maybe I do, but I beginning to lose much of my animus toward the Coppola kids themselves. After reading the synopsis for Somewhere, I actually started to feel a little sorry for them. Imagine trying to make your mark in an industry where your father has produced undisputed masterpieces. Even worse: your father was able to create great art in a period in history when an auteur was given artistic freedom and studio funding-- a level of autonomy and unquestioned financial support on a scale the current generation of young filmmakers can only envy.

Through their self-reflexive films, it's becoming apparent Francis Ford Coppola really left his bootprint on his kids. They're a little like trauma victims, reliving overwhelming experiences by doodling them out on the walls of their rooms, never able to truly get out of their own heads.

But time and success heals all wounds, right? Roman Coppola has carved out a decent career as a Second Unit Director-- of course, it's usually for films helmed by Wes Anderson or his sister or his dad, but it's good, honest, stress-free work. And Somewhere won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival-- Of course, the glaring fact that Sofia's ex-boyfriend Quentin Tarantino was the presiding judge should probably be ignored as a wild coincidence.

Man, That's a Lot of Nominations

For the first time since 1943, The Academy has seen fit to nominate 10 films for the Best Picture top prize. I think this is fun.

They should expand the Best Picture category to 25 nominations next year. Why not? They could briefly describe each nominated film at the beginning and end of each segment-- or they could throw out all the rules and go live for five solid hours. (And wouldn't it would be a hoot to see what all those amazing dresses and expensive tuxes will look like after being sat on for five hours?) And with a field of 25, the tipping point for a winning film goes to a hair over four percent of the votes, which would guarantee a certain amount of amusing chaos.

I am very curious as to how they are going to divvy up the screen in that moment before the envelope is torn open. Ten little boxes-- it's going to look like a security camera suite at a very expensive, very exclusive mall.

Anyway, here are the nominees, in alphabetical order. I actually saw quite a few of these: Last year, I was 0 for 5, pathetic. Because I have I'll just go ahead an annotate my take on each film's chance of actually winning:

Avatar - It's a "Hollywood Votes For Itself" sort of shoe-in. Best odds in the bunch. I am very happy to see Avatar didn't get a nom for screenplay-- it almost restores my faith.

The Blind Side - Didn't catch this one. John Lee Hancock didn't get a director nom, so I wouldn't bet on it.

District 9 - An excellent movie, and a gratifying choice. I think it has the best chance of the ones on this list-- one that did not get a director nom, that is. Which means, unfortunately, there's no way it'll win.

An Education - Didn't catch this one either. By the look of it, this film will clean up with the academy members with schoolgirl fetishes and those who are fans of "Mad Men." Director Lone Scherfig didn't get a nom, so it'll do nothing.

The Hurt Locker - An amazing movie. It's the front-runner for the "Hollywood Votes for Quality" academy crowd. It absolutely confirmed the fact that a very good film could be made about the Iraq war-- All they had to do was put away the crying towel and embrace an action-film ethos. Go get 'em, James Cameron's Ex! (And a big nod to Modesto's own Jeremy Renner, the nominated star of The Hurt Locker. I seriously thought this guy was doomed to play weasel-faced bastards, as he did in Dahmer and S.W.A.T.)

Inglourious Basterds - I saw it. It has a chance, because Quentin was nominated too. But why? For every good scene with Christoph Waltz, there is one of Brad Pitt masticating scenery. There were so many references to Pabst, Pola Negri and UFA I thought I was back in Film School and I was being graded on it. I read on several news sites that Tarantino was "due" for a major nod. If his recent output was, in terms of box-office and relevance, in any way indicative of this, I'd agree.

Precious - My Austin Film Festival Precious story: I was sitting down to a screening of Calvin Marshall and a woman-- by the look of her accessories, a very well-off woman-- sat down next to me. She had just seen Precious and gushed about how powerful and devastating it was. I had read the extensive article on it in the festival program, so I kind of knew what she was talking about. But there was something about a rich white woman telling me about her cinematic peek at soul-crushing black inner-city poverty that made me kind of ill. Precious has the best chance of any of the Indie underdogs to score an upset victory, mostly because I suspect half the Academy voters are like that woman in Austin.

A Serious Man - The Coens got their Oscar hardware two years ago, so never mind.

Up - Hey-- Isn't there another category for this film already? I quite enjoyed it, and it's so well-written and paced it deserves to duke it out in the Best Picture category.

Up in the Air - Saw it, liked it quite a bit. Strong second or third place, if the Academy had such things... Wait...

Hey, I just got a whole NEW idea! Instead of adding more nominations, how about additional Silver and Bronze Oscars in all categories? Anything to get to that magical 5-hour broadcast length...

Bad Girls at the Castro

Last night I had the opportunity to attend an evening of the eighth Noir City film festival, at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. Wednesday's theme was "Bad Girls Night." I was not disappointed.

The evening kicked off with One Girl's Confession (1953), a crime-tinged melodrama, by Hugo Haas, a B-Movie auteur in the 1950s. He specialized in potboiling stories of fate and irony, usually featuring a bombshell in the lead role. He was an actual auteur, writing, producing, directing and sometimes starring in his films. He has been compared to Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Plan Nine From Outer Space) because of his often-lurid, low-budget dramas. This is unfair: I think he is more of an Ed Wood who managed to keep it in his pants, and thus enjoyed, for a time, a healthy relationship with the studio distribution system.

Confession is the story of Mary Adams, (played by Cleo Moore, a sort of poverty-row Marilyn Monroe) a luckless waitress who steals a large sum of money from her boss, confesses and gets sent to jail. When she gets out, she bides her time, waiting for the right moment to dig up her fortune. Meanwhile complications both professional and romantic ensue, which force her to make a drastic decision which seals her fate. Quite entertaining: it worked well within it's limited budget, and had surprisingly witty dialog.

Women's Prison (D. Lewis Seiler, 1955) is more of an A picture, featuring the likes of Howard Duff, Ida Lupino, Cleo Moore (again!) and Warren Stevens (Doc Ostrow from Forbidden Planet). The titular women's prison is separated from the men's lock-up by a wall and run by a hard-nosed warden (Lupino). The joint is full of tough cookies, but they're all good-hearted women who look out for each other-- which makes this film very much unlike more lurid Women In Prison genre offerings like Chained Heat (d. Paul Nicholas, 1983). There is sadism aplenty, however, with the hard-nosed warden tormenting her prisoners, despite the attempted intervention of the kind prison doc (Duff). As things generally go down in this genre, things in stir get out of hand eventually, and it ends in a riot, with our heroic gal cons running amok, threatening the guards with pointy scissors.

I had a fine time with the whole thing. I co-wrote a Women In Prison film (sort of) and I took some comfort seeing how enthusiastically the audience reacted to a 55-year-old genre piece. And comparing our script with Women's Prison, I can see we hit all the marks, and then some.

I'd make a qualification that it is a bit of a stretch to call these films "noir." Confession was more of a melodrama, and Women's Prison had far too many perfectly nice, reasonable characters, both had upbeat endings, and neither had the moral cynicism and air of futility and hopelessness that embodies the best noir. This isn't a knock on the festival programming: there are only so many core-noir films like The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Asphalt Jungle or A Place in The Sun, so stretching out a bit thematically keeps the whole franchise from getting stale. But they were still wonderful, rarely-seen (not in DVD!) movies.

An aside: I managed to see George Steven's A Place In the Sun a few weeks ago on TCM. An amazing, artistically done, towering example of noir, with Montgomery Clift, Shelly Winters, and a supernaturally beautiful Elizabeth Taylor. A perfect example of noir's leitmotif of hopelessness, it's sense of doom kicks off in the first scene and steamrolls non-stop all the way to the end. It appropriately closes this year's Noir City festival.

It's been a while since I've seen a film in a art house, even longer since I've attended a double-feature (though those are de rigeur at the Castro) and even longer since I've seen a movie from a balcony seat. During the break at a festival-type screening there is a lot of shmoozing and photo-ops and other sorts of activity. But what struck me was the unusual perspective of looking almost straight down over the main floor of the auditorium during the entr' acte. The Castro was built in 1922, and the interior has been for the most part left completely original: Even neighborhood movie houses made back then had plenty of sweeping, dramatic architecture. The whole place was awash in reds and golds under a proscenium and curved ceiling of Baroque magnificence. But the auditorium floor was a bright constellation of blue-white lights-- iPhones, Blackberries, Droids, all manner of 3G phones all being blazed away on by the Festival's urban, hyper-connected audience. It was beautiful in a way, like an upside-down night sky.

Back From the 2009 AFF

Good GOD, I had better post something!

Yeah, I'm back from Austin, with many, many stories to tell and pictures to show. I'll start unspooling them as soon as the crushing amount of work I blew off in order to go to Austin eases up a bit. And my epic hangover dies down.

It was an amazing weekend.

Oh hell, I'll give you one right now as a preview. In the Driskill Hotel, the heart of the Screenwriter's convention, I was taking a tiny elevator to an out-of-the-way meeting room for a seminar on agents with Gayla ("no, I am not reading scripts") Nethercott. There were three of us in there, then it stopped, and then there were eight of us, shoulder-to-shoulder, all badged attendees. Everyone was dead quiet, as often happens in elevators.

I had little reason to be quiet. 24 hours previous, The screenplay I co-wrote won it's category, beating about 675 others. I was in a darn good mood. So I counted everyone and dropped down to my best Don LaFontaine: "Eight screenwriters-- riding a tiny elevator... heading to a room nobody has ever heard of..."

Big laughs. Some guy looked up at me and said, perhaps seriously, "Hey, I'm going to use that idea!"

I replied "You only have a movie if it ends... in... the... same... elevator!"

I get the feeling that somewhere out there (alright, probably in LA) seven laptops are blazin' away right now.

More to come.

The Finalist Destination

Recall a few days ago, when I said we semi-finaled at Austin?

Yeah, that's right: I got the call from Alex, the Austin Film Festival screenplay competition coordinator, about an hour ago.

The Sensitivity Program made it to the final round.

This is incredibly big.

This means our humble little narrative is in the top 0.1 percent of the 4000 entrants, and there are only one or two other finalists in our category.

More later. But for now, just... Wow.

The Long Road to the 2009 Austin Film Festival

My Screenwriting History:

1984, Santa Cruz: My friend Jeff and I rewrote “Shoes,” a romantic comedy short-film script Dan K. wrote about a house painter who get mistaken for a fine arts painter. Both of us were huge Samurai film fans at the time, so we changed the setting from American suburbia to Japan during the Tokugawa era. It was called “Hakimono.” It was a cute little story.

1990, College Screenwriting Class: wrote the first act or two of a feature. It was so atrocious, I think I blotted out all memory of it. Seriously, I still feel bad for the instructor, who had to read it.

2001: the FX channel starts stripping “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” two episodes a day. I catch up on the entire series in less than two months. In a dazed epiphany, I write up a spec. (Or was it a just a fan-fic in courier with industry indentations?) Either way, out of my addled mind came “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead,” a "BtVS" episode told from a Tom Stoppard-like outside perspective. I liked it a lot, and so did every one else who read it. I was encouraged to enter it into competition so I entered it in the Scriptapalooza TV contest, along with “Three Little Fishies,” another spec in which Buffy and the gang mentally time-traveled to Sunnydale during World War II. “Rosencrantz” quarter-finaled in the One-Hour category, and was the best "BtVS" spec script showing that year.

2004: I partner up with John Harden on a short-film script, “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” It was a rewrite, but it came out as a very funny little story with a nice button on the end. He entered it in (I think) several places, but we hit in Britain: it semi-finaled in the British Short Screenplay Competition.

2007: Wrote a 10-pager called “Arrangements,” about a dying man who has an affair with his cute undertaker. I entered in the Cinemar Short Screenplay Competition in Santa Cruz, and my script won. They produced it later that year with the talented Chip Street directing, and it premiered at the Santa Cruz Film festival.

NOW: The creative synergy with John was good (we have the exact same birthday: the shared existential perspective is a big help), so we decided to try to write a feature. I came up with an idea (that's the hard part, believe me) while I was watching Lingerie Football during Super bowl halftime, and pitched The Sensitivity Program to John to co-write.

Many drafts later, it was finally ready. I hesitated consenting to send it to any competitions. It was a prodigious effort, and it needed to be polished to a gleam before it could be put out. (John is a short-film maker, and as such is fearless when it comes to film festivals.)

When it was good and ready we put it into one, and only one, competition: the 2009 Austin Film Festival, widely considered the finest screenwriter’s festival in the US.

The Sensitivity Program semi-finaled in the Sci-Fi category.

This is big.

For a little perspective, here's an excerpt from John’s press release (italics mine):

As semi-finalists, Harden and Christopherson's work has survived two rounds of eliminations and joins a group that represents the top 1% of approximately 4,000 screenplays submitted to the competition this year.

The annual competition receives approximately 4,000 entrees and only the top 10 to 12 percent move on to the second round of the competition. Fifty entrants qualify for the semi-finalist round, 20 will become finalists and six will qualify for a final award.

Needless to say, I’m goin' to Austin! We’re all booked in. So expect some cool behind-the-scenes, insider reportage at the end of October from the 2009 Austin Film Festival.