ACT ONE, 2004 — STILL TIME TO APPLY This is the time of year in which I always panic, because we only have a handful of applications for our summer screenwriting intensives, this year in Washington, DC in May, and here in Hollywood in July. Generally, we get a flood of applications in the last week or so, but still, every year I start to worry that the flood will never come and so extend the application a week or... Read more

PIECES OF A GOOD MOVIE Pieces of April will not make it to most movie theaters around the country. Written and directed by the talented Peter Hedges (About a Boy, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), this latest film is a strictly arthouse project that would have gone by unnoticed except for a standout performance – and now Oscar nominated – by Patricia Clarkson (Miracle, The Station Agent). A prolific actress with over 40 feature film credits, Clarkson has built a reputation... Read more

JOAN REVISITED My friend and Act One alum, Dr. Pat Phalen, took me up on my request for a more complete episode analysis of the recent Joan of Arcadia “hate-crime” episode. (I hate the phrase ‘hate-crime’. Is there really any other kind? Crime is always about hating the good/God….) I was going to have Pat print her message in the comments for the original post, but that has been so clogged by the seems to me futile argument going on... Read more

JOAN BURNS CHRISTIANS AT THE STAKE Yes. I did see some of this past Friday’s Joan of Arcadia. And, yes, I did think it was an unfair caricature of a Christian of the type that we have all become unhappily accustomed in primetime. And, no, I do not feel any compulsion to defend the show. I haven’t felt any compulsion to say anything critical about it up to now, but I’m getting confused and outraged emails, so…. Honestly, I couldn’t... Read more

ROCK THE RED CARPET? Has anybody else put together the weird synchronicity of The Passion of the Christ opening the Wednesday before the Academy Awards? It’s just kind of weird that this is the first year that they moved the Oscars back to February, and then that Lent is late this year. The result is that if the movie opens huge, it will be in Hollywood’s frontal lobe on its biggest night, and hopefully, render all the celebrity preening and... Read more

MONEY WELL SPENT For most of my life, I have listened to committed Catholics malign the NEA as the source of a lot of what’s wrong with the world. It’s been right up there with the iconocalstic “enforcers” of Vatican II for popularity. More than just greenlighting obscene trash like Mapplethorpe, the NEA in the hands of the mostly leftwing creative community was perpetually spewing unfair radical politics disguised at art on PBS, on NPR, PRI and at the local... Read more

“I GET AROUND-ROUND-GET-AROUND, I GET AROUND” Visited states are in red. Hmmm…seems like I have bias against the northern prairie states. Is that what they are called? Please somebody, have a screenwriting conference somewhere up there and invite me. create your own visited states map or write about it on the open travel guide Read more

CHILLING ER’S ARTISTIC BREASTS Daily Variety reports today that as more fall-out over the Timberlake assault at the SuperBowl, NBC has ordered ER to edit out a couple of seconds from tonight’s episode in which there is a scene of an 80 year old woman’s bare breast. ER Exec-Prod, John Wells, (whom just yesterday I was praising and who now has me eating my visual words) sniffed back in affront that if the timorous network execs want the breast cut,... Read more

ROCK THE PARISH VOTE! How cool! This, my humble, unassuming blog has been nominated in the first ever St. Blog’s Parish Blog Awards! I am nominated in the category “Best Blog By A Woman.” Frankly, methinks Amy Welborn has this category pretty well wrapped up. Amen, amen, I say to you, this blog is unfit to delete Amy’s Internet Temp Files… But really, I now know what all the actors mean when they say, finding myself in the company of... Read more

PILOTS GETTING ORDERED AROUND I can’t say I got real excited reading the descriptions of the 51 drama pilots that have been ordered by the six major networks. Still, one can hope. Here are some highlights/lowlights/whatever lights of the list that will eventually mutate into next Fall’s TV season… 43 Minutes (ABC) – SWAT team handles the final 43 minutes of a major crisis in real time. And this is not 24, how? You have 42 minutes left to explain... Read more