Insider-ish Flavor?
Three days ago ScriptShadow’s Carson Reeves posted a review of an “early draft” of Jez and John Butterworth‘s screenplay for Doug Liman‘s Fair Game, which will be playing in Cannes quite soon. Reeves says that the script doesn’t quite do one thing or the other, which I find intriguing. This sentence caught me especially: “It reminded me, in many ways, of Michael Mann‘s The Insider, which is another film that demands a lot from you.”
Here are the final three graphs:
“Whereas [the first] 60-70 pages [are] about the plot which led to the invasion of Iraq, the script [then] becomes this personal journey about how a CIA operative (Naomi Watts‘ Valerie Plame) lives with being outed. She has to go to all her friends and apologize for lying to them for 20 years. She has to explain to her kids why she’s being publicly shunned. Things like that. I suppose this won’t matter as much if the marketing for the film educates the public on Plame’s story, so that they anticipate this turn of events, but for me, someone who didn’t know anything about her, I was stuck going, ‘What kind of movie is this supposed to be?’
“Because if you think about it, this easily could’ve been four different movies. We start out with Valerie being a James Bond/Jason Bourne like super-agent, traveling the world and gaining access to top foreign leaders. Then the story shifts into this extensive procedural about the minutiae of how we gather information and the specifics that led up to the invasion of Iraq. Then the script shifts to the fallout of said invasion. And finally, it shifts to Valerie’s life after she was outed. Each one of those could’ve been explored as a full film. So having them all in the same film was a bit jarring for me.
“But those of you entrenched in the WMD scandal and in Plame’s story in particular to eat this up. It reminded me, in many ways, of Michael Mann’s The Insider, which is another film that demands a lot from you. So, if you enjoyed Russell Crowe‘s turn in that movie, you’ll want to check this out for sure. Oh, and I’d be remiss not to mention the great reveal/payoff at the end of the script. It’s truly terrifying, and will definitely make you think twice about what’s going on inside our government’s walls.
“If only this story would’ve been a little more straightforward, I may have enjoyed it. But my simple brain can’t handle all this zigging and zagging. Just wasn’t my thing.”
“If only this story would’ve been a little more straightforward, I may have enjoyed it. But my simple brain can’t handle all this zigging and zagging. Just wasn’t my thing.”
Translation:
“Does somebody have Don Murphy’s addy so I can get back to TRANSFORMER type films that are more my speed?”
Van Hel.., er, Darkm…, no, Ghost R…, The Cr…, I mean, Nightmare on…excuse me, Wild Wild, hold it, Jonah Hex trailer”>http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2010/Jonah-Hex/trailer.php”>trailer.
Fixed.
How’s Cindy Crawford’s performance?
Really, they couldn’t have picked a TITLE THAT HASN’T BEEN USED BEFORE? Especially in the last 15 years by a high profile movie? See also, CRASH and MAN WHO WASN’T THERE.
Hope everyone’s stoked about my new spec script. It’s about a hot ingenue on the party scene in L.A.
Its title? AVATAR.
And god knows without that fix, the rest of us would have been useless to our employers for the rest of day, distracted by the fact that while the link still worked fine, it just didn’t look right.
I’m sorry… what was this posting about?
(ooohhhhhh, Naomi…. Naomi….. )
Huh?
“Hope everyone’s stoked about my new spec script. It’s about a hot ingenue on the party scene in L.A.
Its title? AVATAR.”
Make the ingenue a guy and title it: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON.
Lex – normally I would be with you (although I always get a chuckle out of the unsuspecting using Netflix for CRASH and having their jaws drop when it’s the car crash fetish version), but FAIR GAME was a movie that was forgotten pretty much the week it closed. Honestly, not a single time when the book was being discussed did the “Miami exploding boat flick” cross my mind (that’s all I remember about the film).
Besides, isn’t Naomi Watts way, way too old for you so why are you even interested in this film? There won’t be a starlet with a teen boy’s body in a single frame of this movie unless there’s a pool scene and then without speaking roles so there goes the chance one of your preferred bevy will be in it.
Please don’t take anything Christopher Eads, aka “Carson Reeves”, writes seriously.
Trust me, it’s impossible once you read the high school “comedy” he wrote and tried to sell a while back.
Does the script review mention if there are a lot of scenes SET IN CRAMPED, MESSY KITCHENS?
I always try to figure out what a director’s visual trademark is. Liman is kind of hard to peg, as SWINGERS and GO are late 90s grainy, BOURNE 1 is icy blue, MR AND MRS SMITH is FOX YELLOW, and JUMPER is CHEAP-ASS FOX SUPERHERO MOVIE CANADIAN AND GREY.
But all his movies have the same cramped, black, grainy interiors with grubby production design. Olyphant’s kitchen in GO, Vince Vaughn’s ratty kitchen in MR AND MRS SMITH, all the tight-quarters apartment fights in BOURNE, Christensen’s childhood home and Jamie Bell’s lair in JUMPER…
Always the same dark, slightly uncinematic cramped-quarters realism, contrasted with the sheen of the outdoor and out-and-about scenes.
So now when you go see FAIR GAME and Watts has an over-production designed depressing kitchen with a card table and clunky metal chairs like the kid wrestled in GUMMO, you will sit there and say “LEX with his supersonic cat eyes and sense-memory skillz has keyed me in to Doug Liman’s VISUAL TRADEMARK.”
I wonder if ANY REVIEWER EVER has made note of this. I bet Liman would be thrilled that after 14 years, one person finally noticed he actually has a recurring style.
BOW.
Going to be good, this one. Jez Butterworth is one of my favourite playwrights. Mojo is fantastic. I even liked Birthday Girl with Nicole Kidman.
I had the same impression when reading the script. Very Insider-ish. Can’t wait to see it.
Yeah, Lex, you are probably about the only one with THAT Fair Game still in your readily-accessible memory (well, you and possibly Cindy Crawford’s mole). Fun, useless IMDb fact: including TV movies, direct-to-video stuff, and alternate titles there have been 14 films with the “Fair Game” in the title, including — surprise, surprise – a sequel.
That’s not counting a few TV series which I’ve never heard of in my entire life. Apparently one which aired as recently as last year. Not that I watch much boob-tube, but is this stuff cast, shot, edited, and released straight into space via a NASA-approved time capsule, or what?
Lex, I’m not with you on the titles thing, but it does sort of remind me of something that drives me insane: PEople who knowing use famous names, even down to the nickname. The director of HUNGER (who is clearly a genius, but still) really should have known he could never be Steve McQueen. Steven or Stephen McQueen sounds fine.
The worst though is Obama’s speechwriter, Jon Favreau. Guy is like 27, which means he was 12 when SWINGERS came out. 15 years of “yeah, it’s really Jon Favreau” jokes I’m sure. Someone needs to tell him he’s Jonathan Favreau, for fuck sake.
Yeah, the problem with the titles isn’t the slightly-remembered Crawford/Baldwin film, so much as the vague generic nature of the title. It just isn’t a good title. What does it evoke? What does it mean? It should be a placeholder.
I mean, okay, ‘The Insider’ is a bit plain, but at least it makes sense for the story that it’s about. “Oh, what’s that movie about the Valerie Plame case called?” “Fair Game, of course! What else would it be called? Something that in any way relates to the story of the movie?”
Random title thought — every movie that is called “The Adventures of” anything is abbreviated on my cable to just “The Adventur…” until you hit More Info. I feel like this is going to become more common — cable companies are lazier, and people will be watching stuff on small screens anyway — and it’s time for Hollywood to lay off.
A lot of the political thrillers have boring titles. Could be a factor in their box-office disappointment. Without reading anything about them beforehand, would you really be able to say what Green Zone, State of Play, Body of Lies, Rendition or Redacted were about?
For what it’s worth, FAIR GAME was the title of Plame’s autobiography, and I’m sure they are (wrongly) assuming that has some value.
Kaned – it was obvious and easy, but damn if “Cindy Crawford’s mole” didn’t crack me up. Kudos.
WATTS POWER.
So hot.
I don’t remember a damn thing from FAIR GAME except for Salma Hayek yelling at somebody in a bank.
Eloi – I’d at least have an idea about Redacted. I’d probably argued ‘Redacted’ is closer to ‘Doubt’ where it’s still somewhat generic, but at least kind of specific to the movie in a way.
Throw in ‘Lion For Lambs’ too.
Burma – honestly, I hadn’t even thought to look at what her book was called. I think you’d agree that her book sold because of the author’s name, and I think you’d further agree that her name rhymes with “Fair Game” *and* “author’s name”. But you’re definitely right.
Does anyone know who is playing Richard Armitage in this?
Oh… right.
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