View From The Brig(gs): EPISODE I

As a grizzled old geezer on a desert planet once jauntily greeted: "Well, hello there!"

So, here we are all bright and shiny in 2013, full of pep and industrious resolutions for the New Year. And you've accidentally clicked on this link.  Made your first big mistake there, di'n't cha?

I was amused, flattered, and not a bit taken aback when the illustrious editors of "Forces Of Geek" asked me if I'd like to fire up iA Writer bi-weekly on my Macbook (maybe even more regularly, if you're especially unlucky) and serve as a guest columnist reviewer on this site. "Well: can I plug the movie I'm working on at any given time?" I queried, seeing an angle. They assured me I could.  Well, alrighty. Here I am.

If you're a regular to this site, you may have likely read my (ridiculously long, I realized afterwards) "Tops Of 2012" piece that FOG! asked all we columnists to submit, so hopefully you'll have gleaned a little about what's thrilled me this past year in terms of movies and other geekery. Having scratched your heads at why "Dark Knight Rises"; "Prometheus"; "John Carter"; "Skyfall"; and others don't appear in my lists, you may also be wondering what makes me tick, and what the hell you're letting yourself in for if you can be bothered clicking on me.

Yes, that cigar-chomping benevolent demon-guy

For those of you who don't know, I'm what's euphemistically termed "A Working Screenwriter". Unlike those of you out there who're industriously trying to crack what we call in more polite moments "The Business", I've earned a fairly decent living for 20 years being paid by studios to churn out material…which then mostly gets shoved into the bowels of Development Hell and forgotten about, regularly fueling we authors with postal sniper-tower revenge fantasies. (For myself, I was co-credited with a Mexican bloke who came in after me, as a hired writer on a 2004 Sony-Columbia movie about a cigar-chomping benevolent demon-guy; although my first spec screenplay sale was to 20th Century Fox, and featured the words "Alien" and "Predator" in the title. Purveyors of "How To" screenwriting books would have you believe this latter effort was better than the two filmed efforts you may have once been forced to sit through. Whatever. It was a long time ago.)

We'll natter about that glitzy, tawdry showbiz stuff some other time. Right now, it's about the editorial.


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