August
4
Tucker Max and oh-so-witty scripters take note
[Posted by David S. Cohen]
Anne called my attention to the contretemps that has broken out over the script for Tucker Max: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell at thescriptreader blog on FilmIndustryBloggers.com.
TheScriptReader herself kicked things off with a blast at the Tucker Max script, about which she says "Holy crap, It’s terrible. I’m talking Godawful..." The extended exchange of comments that follows, which I did not have time to read entire because I have this, you know, job at Variety and stuff, seems to break down loosely into several camps:
1) Yeah scriptreader you rock, the script stinks and Tucker Max is an idiot;
2) The script is hilarious, Tucker Max rocks and scriptreader is a stinking idiot and
3) Oh what a world we live in, where a poseur like Tucker Max can get books published and movies made while we who take writing seriously labor in poverty and obscurity.
Plus some craft discussions.
Personally, like Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, (my fellow Rochesterian Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character), I'm not cool. I'm not cool enough to have read the script. Or to have known about the movie. Or even to have heard of Tucker Max, who apparently has a popular website, wrote a novel, and has now turned his book into a screenplay. I gather he has sold a whole lot of books, certainly a whole lot more than I have. Why I should find this bad, I'm still not sure. On the other hand, I haven't read that script.
However, this from TheScriptReader caught my eye:
"Opening scene: police are called for a domestic disturbance only to find that the ruckus is coming from a woman whom Tucker Max is pleasuring so well that she’s been screaming. Ok, fine, right off the bat the writer is proclaiming himself to be the best ever at sex. This writing technique, which I will call the “it’s more important to me that you think I’m cool than that you think my script is good” maneuver, is always laughable and assumed (at least by this reader) to be untrue/compensation for some physical or mental deficit."
She is not the first person I've heard complain about writers trying too hard to impress the reader.
I interviewed Gale Anne Hurd earlier this year and asked her if she has any pet peeves in the scripts she reads nowadays:
"I think one is when the descriptions, which you cannot possibly put on the screen, are written for a reader. And really don’t inform anything about the character or the plot, they’re just funny inside jokes to make it a better read. That’s kind of frustrating. You end up with something that’s better as a sample of writing than as a template for a movie. The problem is when it really is written to show the reader how smart the writer is and it really is irrelevant to the film."
So wise up, smart-aleck scripters! The whole impress-the-reader-with-your-witty-asides-in-the-scene-descriptions thing probably isn't working as well as you think.
Even if that Tucker Max script is, er, actually being made.
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I never knew you were a Rochesterian, Anne! Cheers to that (as another fellow native.) I'm going to have to take a peek at this script...It sounds...interesting...
Posted by: Jamieson McGonigle | August 04, 2008 at 06:52 PM
Dear Jamieson: Anne didn't post that, I did. I'm the Rochesterian.
Posted by: David Cohen | August 04, 2008 at 11:21 PM
Gawker.com has posted excerpts from the script:
http://gawker.com/5033233/tucker-maxs-movie-script-embarrassing-bro
and
http://gawker.com/5033356/tucker-maxs-movie-script-the-final-lowlights
Posted by: Steve | August 05, 2008 at 05:31 PM