Contour At The Movies

I know I’ve been a bit lax updating movies here at Contour At The Movies lately, but I’ve been making the big push to finish up  my book for Michael Wiese Publishers, ‘My Story Can Beat Up Your Story!’ I’m having a great time writing the book, and I think that’ll show when it’s published in 2011.  Thanks also to the brave and patient souls who are reading and critiquing chapters-in-progress.

In the meantime, I’d like to share two things with you: a website and a game.  The website is by a script consultant named Dr. Stan Williams who has written a book called ‘The Moral Premise.‘  He deals extensively with the Hero’s inner need in a very complete and spiritual fashion.  Good, good stuff.  You can read his blog at http://moralpremise.blogspot.com.

While chatting this morning with my buddy, Austin-based screenwriter Alvaro Rodriguez, we invented a new game which I’m dubbing ‘Contour Keywords.’  Here’s how it’s played (two-player version):

1. Think of a movie and look it up at www.imdb.com.
2. Look up the Keywords associated with the movie (you can find Keywords listed in the menu bar on the left side of the IMDB webpage under “Storyline”.)
3. Using the first four keywords, share them with your opponent and see if he or she can guess the movie.  If they can, they get a score of 4.  If they can’t, keep adding keywords until your opponent guesses the movie.   Your opponents score increases by one point for each additional keyword.  Make sure you eliminate any keywords that are too obvious (CITIZEN KANE’s first keywords are “Reporter, Rosebud, Newspaper, and Power.”   Obviously, “Rosebud” makes it too obvious, so drop that keyword and go to the next word on the list, “Last Words.”
4. Each person picks 5 movies and players  alternate turns.  The person with the score closest to 20 (a perfect score) wins.  The loser has to give the winner a first look deal and 10% commission for a year.  Or a beer.
5. Try not to pick movies that are too obscure.  Better yet, agree on a genre, era, movie star, etc ahead of time.

I’ll start.  Name this movie: “Sequel, karate, prison fight, mixed martial arts.”

Yup,  Bloodsport 2.

– Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Overall Impression – A classic I wish I’d seen sooner.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Ted Kramer.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: balance being a single parent with his treasured career.  Personal: develop a genuine father/son relationship.  Private: realize what his priorities in life are.

Who’s trying to stop him? – Ted’s his own worst enemy, but deflectors include his ex-wife and his boss at the ad agency.

What happens if he fails? – Ted will lose his son.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan –Ted’s a ghost to his family because he puts his work first.  He barely has a relationship with his wife, and has pretty much no relationship with his son.

Wanderer – Ted figures out how to balance being a single parent and a working professional, and wrestles with why his wife left him and abandoned their son.  His priorities begin to change as his son becomes more important in his life.

Warrior – Ted starts experiencing genuine pleasure in being a real father, but when his ex-wife returns seeking custody of their son, Ted does everything in his power to build his case to win the upcoming court battle, including getting a new job in one day.

Martyr –  Ted and his ex-wife go to court, where the lawyers tear both of them apart.  Ted loses custody of his son, and while he could appeal the court’s decision, to do so would only make his son suffer, so he decides to let the kid stay with his mother.

AND, IN THE END…

The premise behind KRAMER VS KRAMER never sparked an interest for me when I was younger, but I wish I’d seen it sooner.   It’s a funny, moving movie, and Kramers Sr. and Jr. make for a great pairing.

Often, the first plot point of a movie introduces the hero, the villain or the victim (often as the stakes character).  The second plot point illustrates the hero’s flaw in relation to the stakes character.  If Kramer senior is the hero, and little Kramer is the stakes character, then what is Kramer senior’s flaw?  He’s a workaholic and never has time for his family. In contrast, little Kramer is a play-aholic and ONLY has time for his family.  These characters are polar opposites, conflict inevitably happens, and they learn and grow from each other.

Of course, the pairing of opposites isn’t anything new, but it’s always interesting to see how such dynamics play out, and valuable to learn from them when they’re done so well.

- Dan Pilditch