Presidents Day Weekend – Faux President Movies

It’s Presidents Day Weekend. Great news for those with a day off because of it, which in this case actually includes me. And like we did for election day movies its time for a top 5 or 10 list.

But who cares about the actual presidents, no this list is about “Faux presidents”. So no JFK, Nixon, etc. And forget about Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore (though they’ve never even been acted out in movies) – these are previous “actual” US presidents who have had movies in which they were represented. And certainly forget about Daniel Day Lewis, playing the role of Lincoln, also an actual US president. Here are 5 that never existed, in no special order.

1) President Thomas “Tug” Benson: the late Lloyd Bridges in Hot Shots (president role was in part two). Dumb comedy, the way a faux president should be.

2) President Tom Beck – Deep Impact was a 1998 movie and Morgan Freeman played the role of Pres Tom Beck. I remember when this movie came out, the whole controversy in the US about the role of president being played by an African American actor (let alone naming his character Tom Beck!!!!). And the whole wave of “world ending” movies circa late 90’s. I didn’t like this movie, but still remember it for some reason.

3) President James Dale – Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks. Also in the 90’s (when my movie watching and influential days were at its finest). Its a Tim Burton film before it got too Tim Burton-y. Watchable if you’re in the mood to watch a movie that is “that” bad (which does happen at times). Which leads to…..

4) President Thomas J. Whitmore – Independence Day. This was on TV a few years ago. I recalled how it was a big money blockbuster back in the days, yet all I could think of was that the visuals were pretty poorly made, and movies in the 80’s were more discreet about doing imagery in a way one could still believe. This was big budget once?! However now, I’m more “glass half full”. And avid about “no budget / low budget” movies, like lo-fi music had won me over for a while…. and it helps me cue up a good choice for #5.



5) Unnamed President – Fail Safe (the 1963 version directed by Lumet, featuring Henry Fonda as the president, who I don’t even think had a name) was so lofi yet it totally captivated me when I saw it (you guessed it, some point in the 90’s). However, it was tacky in the right way. It didn’t look like anything recent, but you still watched it.

The one problem with this, is that I think a fair few movies with fictional presidents didn’t have names at all on them. As for all time “actual” president representation – here’s a score card of how many movies were about each “real” president.

Alphabet Soup – Short Film by Dead Red Eyes

Alphabet Soup – by Dead Red Eyes films.

This was the first of the two shorts we made in the last couple months and premiered on Feb 2nd in North Carolina. It’s a light hearted comedy about a day in the local Cafe where everything goes…. well, like a regular day at the local cafe.

Thanks To Everyone That Made It

Much thanks to everyone that was able to make it to our premiere of both short films (and various even shorter skits) at Nightlight in Chapel Hill last Saturday, and made the night a hit. And while Bryan and Justin did an awesome job hosting the night, their picture taking was limited. So if anyone else has photos, send them this way!

And last but not least, we can finally put the clips on the site later in the week so stay tuned…..

What to do with that Screenplay you wrote – stage 4

The proof is in the URL of this post. Write another screenplay.

And do other stuff, stay creative, stay switched on, no matter how busy you are.

That is my rationale behind this very short but hopefully meaningful post. Over the past two weeks, the only time I’ve had was minutes here and there. And if I was writing a screenplay the traditional way, I’d have a mere 2 pages. But luckily I’m working on a different way.

More info when there’s more time. And on part 5 of this series.

The Two Minute Drill – Screenplay Practice

I’m not one for New Years resolutions, but for some reason I sort of promised myself (and Dead Red Eyes) a whole list of nonsense for 2013. Here’s one I thought was worth a mention though.

Once a week I need to randomly just drop things once per week and do a short screenplay. In 2 minutes (technically I probably give myself 5 or maybe 10 though), write up a short screenplay, put in as many elements as possible, even the dreaded “MONTAGE” if I have to! Just don’t go overboard with characters and make it something that can be filmed on the cheap, as we are broke.

The first one last week was a short background piece for Beatmaster Flash that sort of serves as a character introduction. If we don’t end up using it, I might as well put it up on the site. Anyway, lets see how it goes. Anyone got any ideas for the next one?

And if you don’t know who I’m talking about- http://www.deadredeyes.com/thanksgiving-brought-to-you-by-beatmaster-flash

What To Do With That Screenplay You Wrote – Stage 3

At this point you should be well into a couple other pieces and the title should be about what to do with those “Screenplays” you have written. Friends have perhaps glanced through it, and one or two might even like it. This is the hard part now. Get it out there some more…. to strangers.

I don’t really foray much into forums, as they can be more chat than actual insight, but there are some with decent communities overall. I used to like http://www.zoetrope.com to some extent, but the well has really dried out there, and hardly anyone uses it anymore in comparison to 5 or so years ago.

Still, it was there that I learned a lot about screenwriting, by reading other people’s screenplays. And I read some pretty bad ones, from users complaining about the types of reviews that they got. This perhaps is not wise to do, but it works out well. For the most part the insight was appreciated, and it was there that I was able to refine my own craft and learn what not to do. At the same time, I hunted out some good ones, or promised to exchange reviews if they were serious. The reviews you get fall into three categories though – very very useful insight that you couldn’t pay for, nit picking about the littlest things, or they didn’t read it and made bad assumptions. Category 1 happens, sometimes.

Perhaps this is because it’s always easier to improve someone else’s screenplay than your own, because you have some sort of ties to your own. There are loads of other forums and networks where one can work on their craft, such as http://labs.triggerstreet.com/ – which I used a few years back, but have decided to give another go. It seems to be much more active than Zoetrope these days, so we’ll likely test the waters here again in the coming week or two with Alphabet Soup.

Subscribe to the newsletters from https://www.withoutabox.com and http://www.moviebytes.com/ – they’ll tell you what’s going on out there, and what festivals are happening, where to enter short films, screenplays, etc, and how other people felt about the contests (in MovieBytes’ case, and they’ve been around for a long time).

That’s right, Screenplay contests. There’s going to be a point in time, where you’ll have to set foot in these. But which ones are legit? Read around. Some are more obvious than others, and some cater to certain niches, so take time to do some research on each – especially when most of them are not free.

Here are some of the more well known ones (which can also mean more competitive), that will get your name out there.

Nicholl Fellowship – http://www.oscars.org/awards/nicholl/index.html (average of 6-7,000 entries per year)
Page Awards – http://pageawards.com/
TrackingB – http://www.trackingb.com/
Final Draft – http://www.finaldraft.com/products/big-break/
Sundance – http://www.sundance.org/programs/screenwriters-lab/
Script Pipeline – http://www.scriptpipeline.com/
BlueCat – http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/
Writers on the Storm – http://writerstorm.com/
Cinestory – http://www.cinestory.org/
Zoetrope – http://www.zoetrope.com

They can also be local festivals such as:
London Independent (based in the UK) – http://www.londonindependent.org/
Richmond Film Fest (VA/NC area) http://themixshorts.com/
Gotham (NY) – http://www.gsiff.com/

In fact its useful to find some ones near you and thus be able to attend them should you be considered. Sooooooo….. start scoping them out and see how you fare. But only do so until you’ve polished up your work and gotten free feedback from the likes of people you know and free member places like Trigger Street and Zoetrope – along with seeing what’s out there. Yep, part of getting your screenplay out there is putting in some work beyond writing up your magical idea. That’s what they kept telling us at least! And yes, we have entered some of the ones listed above.

Next part to come soon…… thanks for all the feedback so far.

Best New Years Eve or New Years Day Movies….Not Really

Got a few minutes here, so while I’ll spare our movie premier and DRE’s new years resolutions for the next post when its 2013, I wanted to use these few minutes to do a top 5 of new years eve and new years day movies. I thought about this and well, I couldn’t think of much.

While Harry Met Sally is popular with many, it’s not on my list. Sorry, I don’t know why people love this movie so much. It is however better than “New Years Eve” which despite its cast, I couldn’t watch for more than a minute! So lets keep it simple.

I do like The Hudsucker Proxy – which was filmed in North Carolina (one of our main locations) might I add. This is one of the more overlooked Coen brothers’ movies, and its also an underrated Tim Robbins movie. However, this does not compare even remotely to one of my favorite movies of all time.

Eddie Murphy in Trading Places of course, wishing a “Merry New Year” to you.

Top 10 Worst Christmas Movies

Merry Christmas everyone! Long time, no post. Blame Time Warner, who I’m still waiting on (and can’t switch from, as they are the ONLY option here). Anyway, despite that, its been a good laid back holiday today. Back to work tomorrow though, working on plans for Dead Red Eyes in 2013, now that we’ve got to kick it up into the next gear. Our goal in mid October 2012 was to get things started, finish a screenplay and do a couple of short films. Those are done, and will be online soon (already submitted to various places in the meantime), along with ongoing commentary on how they progress.

Back on this site/blog though, I realized that a top 10 list for Xmas movies had not been made. However, everyone does that. So, lets resume grinch mode and pick the worst 10. And picking sequels is too easy, so there’s a no sequel policy on the first 5. Here we go…..

Worst Ten Christmas Movies:

1) Jingle All The Way: Ah-nold the working class man vs Postal worker Sinbad. Oh man, this movie is horrendous. It’s that movie that you watch because it is THAT bad. At least that’s the excuse you should go with. Even Phil Hartman can’t save this Xmas bag of coal. Am pretty sure Sinbad hasn’t done a movie since.

2) Jack Frost: Michael Keaton, reincarnated as a snowman. What I want to see is that moment where Keaton sees the script and goes “wow, this is great, I can’t wait to act in this”. Evened out the Batman and Beetlejuice roles I guess.

3) 8 Crazy Nights: I couldn’t even watch this whole thing, even on TV. It was that bad. It was like waking up from a bad hangover and saying to yourself “what did I do last night”. The “last night” being one where I liked Adam Sandler movies. Around that time, say 2002, I couldn’t ever watch any of his movies since. That is the effect it had.

4) It’s a Wonderful Life / The Family Man: Believe it or not, I’ve never seen more than 30 seconds of this movie. And people out there LOVE this flick. But Justin strongly insists I put this in my list. Will have to ask him why and get back to you on that. In the meantime, I nominate The Family Man. This movie plot-wise is the same thing, and it has Nicolas Cage doing his same style of acting that he does in every movie. Other than seeing him be a jackass, no reason to watch this.

5) Christmas With The Kranks: Tim Allen may have gotten away with the “no sequel” policy, but this makes the top list. I have to admit though, I haven’t seen most of this one either, so I’m going on other people’s strong recommendations on this. What, you think I make the lists by myself and watch crappy movies all day?

6 through 10) Christmas Sequels: Run them down….

Ernest saves Xmas, Home alone 5, (there was a 4th part!? I was going to write 3, but have been informed that a 4 and a 5 was made!), The Santa Clause (3 of those I think). And even though it’s technically not a sequel, 4 Christmases is enough to dampen any positive viewing spirits for the holidays. That’s more than enough right there. Back to my holiday, have a good one!