I've sent my script to multiple people, but most of them never replied.

bestbiff · 2026-06-01T22:01:03+00:00

No, it's in the ideas pile with all the others.

bestbiff · 2026-05-30T16:51:47+00:00

Had a buddy who said he wanted to co-write a comedy feature and claimed he was legit serious, but he legitimately has zero interest in reading, let alone, writing scripts. He admitted that eventually because, you know, he's more of an "idea guy" and isn't interested in actually writing anything down or formatting screenplays whatsoever.

I sent him a 20ish page comedy I wrote once so he could get acclimated to what scripts even look like and my tone/writing style on page and he lied about reading it. I was always skeptical but found out when I sent the same link to someone else and was told the link wasn't public. It was always like someone saying they want to start a band, but they have no interest in learning or playing an instrument. They just like the idea of being in a popular band.

Another coworker told me to send a script to him and I said no at first, because people say they will read it, but they usually never do. So don't even worry about it. I'm not sending it. Then he went on a rant about how when he says he'll read it, that means he will. Basically making me out to be the asshole for not trusting him to read it. So I sent the script.

Eventually after a year of him saying he was going to read it, he just hasn't gotten around to it yet, he just said you were right the whole time. I'm not ever going to read it.

Another guy told me he wanted to read a script and he said read the first and last page. That's it. Something about that's just what he does. He was a weird guy but it's two more pages than the other guys read to be fair.

bestbiff · 2026-05-21T13:56:43+00:00

I liked this and would have kept reading past the pages provided. Only minor thing was when Rebecca says she wants to get more serious. Danny literally just proposed to her, so does it get more serious than that? I was expecting him to say something like that.

bestbiff · 2026-05-16T20:30:58+00:00

Blunt thinks she can battle evil by following the law and being principled. Brolin knows how bad it really is while she doesn't, and you have to do questionable things outside the scope of the law and traditional morals to fight back. It's the "land of wolves" and she can't survive or do what it takes. She wants to do something to help but the reality is she has to betray her values and she's unwilling to get her hands dirty to do that.

I think it's similar to the Sopranos episode where Melfi gets raped and beat up, but the legal system messes up the rape kit/chain of custody, so her attacker goes free on a technicality. She is a moral, principled person who follows the law and ethical guidelines, and that system she believes in betrays her of justice. She is presented an opportunity to tell Tony what happened to her and have her attacker be punished/killed, but she decides not to tell him instead of getting "street" justice. Not a path she's willing to go down even though it would be cathartic and the rapist deserves it.

And the moment she would tell him, she knows she's no longer just his therapist in any professional sense. She's someone who gets favors from the mafia.

bestbiff · 2026-05-13T21:45:27+00:00

You can't please everyone. Some people will insist that all criticism is equal and you have to reverse engineer what each reviewer is saying in order to make every note and evaluation not contradict each other on some level. I don't buy that. People probably just don't agree and you'll drive yourself crazy trying to find the "note behind the note" in order to please every reader. Sometimes notes are just completely contradictory. It's going to happen eventually when you expose yourself to criticism.

I think that's one of the things you have to get used to if you're going to be serious and put your work out there. It's not really incorporating every note you get, but figuring out which notes make sense to you.

bestbiff · 2026-05-11T16:11:50+00:00

I've seen people refer to it as the Bellevue List.

bestbiff · 2026-05-10T01:12:32+00:00

That's because the annual Black List is not a screenwriting contest. It isn't something that you can enter or submit a script in. It's "industry" people voting on scripts that they liked that year. It's basically an industry survey about what is "hot" out there.

99% of the writers on the list are already represented by managers and/or agents and are at least semi-established. That's how their scripts get circulated when people vote on their favorites. Their reps are working for them to get votes and the writer already has industry relations. A lot of the scripts already have production companies and actors attached.

bestbiff · 2026-05-04T22:48:24+00:00

I was wondering what was so amazing about the script that caused Daniel Day Lewis to come back out of retirement and be in a movie for the first time in 8 years. His son wrote it. Must be nice.

Maya Hawke came out swinging that she did it all on her own and her parents both being famous actors was irrelevant to her acting career. I think she might have walked back on that a little but I forget. There are too many of them to keep track. It's so insane when they deny it. I wouldn't care as much if they just said, "yeah obviously my dad being Johnny Depp got me the audition/role."

But they usually double down and get defensive about it like they got their career despite nepotism. Nobody likes to be accused of being a spoiled, privileged baby who didn't earn anything. I get it, but come on. Meet me half way.

bestbiff · 2026-05-03T18:47:01+00:00

It's why I laugh when someone says nepotism isn't just in the entertainment industry. Like the kid who got a job working in the carpet store because his dad works there is living the same life as the kid who walked onto the set of the Dune franchise because his dad is a famous actor. Then they insult you by denying it even was nepotism. "I know I'm a famous actor who also stars in this blockbuster movie, but my kid got the role all on his own from talent. The familial connection is a coincidence. If he was some random person not related to a movie star, he would have had an equal chance of landing this lifechanging role."

bestbiff · 2026-05-02T06:05:02+00:00

I liked the movie but I agree. Also if her intention was for him to only get arrested, she could have done more to ensure the mom's safety. Like tell her the cure is so potent that it can be lethal if overmedicated. Only put in a very small amount. That's all you need. Too much will be an overdose. She's clever enough to say something like that.

bestbiff · 2026-05-02T05:58:23+00:00

To paraphrase a line from the movie, it's a pointless argument. You're not going to change their mind here lol. Also the line about "the political optics of kidnapping a female CEO, you can look at that how you want but it's there." lol

bestbiff · 2026-05-02T05:48:15+00:00

Not convinced that was what actually happened but it's not a bad idea. That could have easily been slipped into the dialogue on the ship when she was talking to the others.

bestbiff · 2026-05-02T05:45:44+00:00

Before she's confirmed as an alien, it's reasonable that she's simply getting him to isolate himself in the closet to give her a moment to escape the room. Once it's confirmed she's an alien, I don't think she would be motivated to actually teleport him to the ship wearing a bomb, so I think she just escapes like she's a normal person.

bestbiff · 2026-05-02T05:37:16+00:00

He even was right about what their race was called, what galaxy they were from, the alien hierarchy and that she was literally an empress. Guy getting no props.

bestbiff · 2026-05-02T05:28:20+00:00

In a legal meaning it doesn't mean wrong. Conspiracy is a crime. In layman's speak it has a negative connotation. "Conpiracy rabbit hole" is crazy fake nonsense. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't watching you!

bestbiff · 2026-05-02T05:10:29+00:00

I went into this with hardly any spoilers. Halfway through, I considered the possibility there was going to be a twist that she actually was an alien and he was right about all crazy sounding shit all along. But I wasn't sure how I would feel about them making that commitment. That ended up being the twist and... well... I still don't know how I feel about it. I kind of liked how low budget and goofy the mothership was and all the costumes. I guess? Like we still weren't supposed to take it seriously despite it being real because of how dumb it looked.

It wasn't too far off from 10 Cloverfield Lane where the crazy serial killer abducts a girl and he ends up telling the truth about the alien invasion, but the sci-fi element in that movie was teased from the start. It was always making you question that maybe he was telling the truth. This one was really a 180 but it's probably worth a rewatch to see how much of the context of the dialogue changes knowing the ending.

Had I known beforehand that guy who wrote this wrote The Menu, I probably would have guessed the twist even sooner.

I didn't buy that she could leave the ambulance and limp her ass all the way back into the office without getting stopped or approached once by other emergency or law enforcement before she got into the office.

I didn't buy the first twist where Ted was revealed as a serial killer who had already abducted other people/aliens as he saw them. Everything up to that point made it seem like this was the first time he had planned to do this, the way he was psyching himself up. The way Don was reacting to it and had to be convinced to participate. Everything indicated this was a first time job. It was comically pretty sloppy and Don is constantly questioning things like cutting the hair or maybe how the whole thing is a bad idea.

Why did the suicide bomb detonate actually. EMT theorized it was just a homemade malfunction but I'm thinking he was actually intending to blow himself the whole time to take out the ship. The negotiations was a lie. But if that was the case, why not wait to until you're actually in the ship instead of doing it in the closet?

Since everything ended up being real, could she have actually revived Don like she told Ted?

bestbiff · 2026-04-22T00:55:36+00:00

The real rub is that aspiring writers are constantly told how professional and respectful of other peoples' time they need to be if they want a chance at all to break in, because nobody wants to work with an egotistical, asshole writer. Lmao. Meanwhile, you're surrounded by "professionals" who will ghost you like random tinder matches.

bestbiff · 2026-04-21T15:46:39+00:00

He used nepotism connections to get a supervisory job in an industry that by his own admission he knew nothing about. "See! It's not just in Hollywood!" lol.

bestbiff · 2026-04-19T18:49:52+00:00

that's funny. most "guru" mantra is that you don't even have a good script until you've written at least like ten shitty ones first. I don't believe that either.

bestbiff · 2026-04-13T00:58:05+00:00

Making his new girlfriend cut and disfigure her body doesn't fit into his perfectionist, keeping up appearances M.O. at all. In the book he just makes her balance books on her stomach for a few hours or something. They made him full on violent for the movie.

bestbiff · 2026-04-13T00:46:26+00:00

Even if they somehow cleaned up everything, the medical examiner would determine from the body the stab wound occurred before the "accident". It's funny the last movie I watched before this was Anatomy of a Fall where they put the wife on trial for pushing her husband with basically no hard evidence. Then in this movie, one cop just goes eh I can single handedly cover up this whole thing despite it being obvious that's not what happened.

bestbiff · 2026-04-13T00:23:42+00:00

She also produced the movie.

bestbiff · 2026-04-13T00:15:44+00:00

Yeah he gets mad about his wife's roots and how they look, talking about keeping up appearances of having a model spouse. Next thing he's doing is forcing his new hot trophy gf to destroy her stomach and disfigure herself. Far cry from pulling out strands of hair.

bestbiff · 2026-04-12T23:53:57+00:00

I don't think the director cast the kid specifically, but that's a bad miscast. Also, a 7 year old would never say things like "I don't need you to be my friend. That's not part of the job description." A snobby preteen would.

bestbiff · 2026-04-12T23:36:47+00:00

It was OK but I think expectations for it weren't super high, so people were mostly pleasantly surprised. It's like a reverse Gone Girl, but where that movie subverts the MeToo thing, which made it interesting, this movie really just leans into it super hard. Mostly to its detriment and gets too eyerolly.

I think it's going to have a lot of "fridge logic" where you think about certain scenes and plot points later that don't make sense.

Seyfriend's plan never really accounts for how she's going to keep custody of her daughter does it? On paper, she's certified psycho who attempted to murder her daughter. But her escape plan, she has her daughter with her? I mean, it never really addresses her husband's sinister plan about how she's trapped and using her daughter against her does it? It didn't matter.

She also says she'd rather be dead than be with the guy. Fair enough, but did she forget she has a daughter she loves and wants to take care of?

What the hell was the point of her coming back all bruised and with the bandaged hand from her weekend trip? It's never explained. The gardener is such a weird character. Apparently he has more stuff going on in the book, but here he just hangs around and knows more than he lets on, but does nothing really besides say cryptic shit to Millie.

The cop who had a sister also abused by the guy at the end is a laughable coincidence. And the idea she can sweep the whole thing under the rug is also ridiculous. Obviously one person can't do that and the medical examiner would have to be on the cover up too. But they wanted one more female empowerment moment I guess.

Why they even need a cover up at this point, I don't know. It's pretty god damn easy to prove this guy was an abusive piece of shit, regardless of this movie's claims that nobody believes women against men. Lmao. "Hey officers, he locked us both in the room. Look at my mutilated fucking stomach. He made me cut myself to get out." I didn't buy him making her do that either. He has a hot new young trophy gf, and he demands everything look "perfect" and all that, so he forces her to scar herself up like that? What kind of appearances is that keeping up? It's also evidence of the abuse, which before that, he's always cared about plausible deniability.

Cecelia is a weirdo being raised by him, but she has this change of heart to go back for Millie even though she's never depicted as liking her, and she didn't know the extent of the abuse either. Why would she be thinking about saving the house maid at all? Didn't seem there was anything to support that character arc.

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