The first Saturday of every month, from September, 2009, through to August, 2010, an electronic copy of one screenplay will be made available through this blog.

The goal is to read the screenplay and then watch the movie before the end of that month and comment on what you’ve experienced.

The more screenplays you get through, the stronger you are as a reading challenger, but you only need to do one month to consider yourself to have completed this challenge.

Of course, the more months you complete, the more chances you’ll have for winning a collection of screenplays I’ll be awarding to one random participant in August, 2010.  Read more...

November 1, 2009 – Miss Nobody has posted photos of her with the book, after a week of exams.

Soon it will be on its way to Vivienne of Serendipity.

October 26, 2009 – Now with Miss Nobody in India as of earlier this week. The book arrived and now arrangements are being made to have it sent to the UK soon. Miss Nobody’s blog post about waiting to get the book is here.

October 5, 2009 – The book reached Sharon in Australia last Friday, and now she’s posted photos on her blog at The Genteel Arsenal.
 Read more...

“Around the World in 80 Days” finally made its way back to my son and I. Vivienne from Serendipity sent it on its final leg around the world, from the UK back to Canada. I’ll be sending it on a shorter North American tour later this month as well, and will have photos up this coming week.

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The January screenplays for the Words Behind The Picture challenge are finally available, and they are the Original Screenplay for the Writers Guild of America award nominees:  Read more...

So, I’m back in 2010. And as with many other people, there are some changes to be made.

After looking at my priorities and available time, as far as the blog goes, I will be back up on the blog more consistently but less frequently. Right now for me that means one weekly post.

Cheers, and welcome to 2010!

Here is a selection of screenplay for December’s portion of the Words Behind The Pictures reading challenge. Click on the movie image to get to the related screenplay.

These are stories that take place at Christmas, but they are not necessarily Christmas movies – violence and strong language make a few of these not quite so friendly for family viewing. I can still remember my disbelief when I was sitting in the theater and saw a woman bring three young children in to see Bad Santa. At least she got up a few minutes into the show after realizing it was a completely inappropriate movie for them.

My family and I returned home this past weekend after a week away visiting relatives. When we pulled back into our driveway and opened the door to our home, we found an extra-large envelope tucked in between the screen door and the inside door.

Sharon and her family, who had received and passed along my copy of Around The World in 80 Days a little while ago, had mailed a book for my son. I opened the envelope and inside was Baby Wombat’s Week.

Daniel was very interested, and enjoyed seeing it coming out of the envelope. And he enjoyed reading it even more.  Read more...

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Alfred Hitchcock saw his film “North By Northwest” released in Los Angeles on July 17, 1959, and so began the adventure of Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who becomes ensnared in a high-stakes game of mistaken identity. Along the way he encounters Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and a nasty Martin Landau, with twists and turns taking him from NYC to a bus stop along Highway 41 for that famous cropduster scene and eventually to Mount Rushmore.  Read more...

I came across this post in a link in one of the blogs I read regularly – this is a post that shows dogs very, very happy to see their military owners back to see them again. And the last clip in the post is of military parents surprising their children upon their arrivals.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

On October 27, 1995, “Leaving Las Vegas” hit the movie theaters, and audiences followed the story of Ben, a screenwriter in an alcoholic tailspin who decides to go to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. Nicolas Cage won an Academy Award for his performance. Elisabeth Shue, playing a prostitute who connects with Ben at his five minutes to midnight, showed she had come a long way from her adventures in babysitting, getting an Academy Award nomination for her work. Mike Figgis, the director and screenwriter, was nominated as well for his directing and screenplay, adapted from the novel by John O’Brien.  Read more...

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

By the time “Four Weddings And A Funeral” made Hugh Grant a romantic comedy star, the writer Richard Curtis had tuned his comedic writing muscles through years of work with Rowan Atkinson, first through the Black Adder series, and then Mr. Bean. And it paid off for Mr. Curtis quite nicely, with an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay.  Read more...

So on Halloween night my wife and I watched “The Silence of the Lambs” in our basement, and not five minutes after it ends, the power goes out, leaving us in darkness. Now that is great timing, seeing as how the movie ended just after the scene of Clarice being thrown into darkness as Buffalo Bill uses night vision goggles to watch her stumble around in his basement.

Released in 1991 on February 14th, “The Silence of the Lambs” was not what you would expect for Valentine’s Day, but what a treat it was for movie lovers. It it wound up winning the big Oscars – Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and screenplay.  Read more...

All the little ghouls and goblins are scampering across the city now, going door-to-door and filling sacks with treats. Once again, my wife is doling out the treats with an eye to making sure we don’t run out. I know we won’t, and that we’ll once again have a store of leftover candies that we will wind up eating. We’ll probably start on that this evening, as we will be watching “Silence of the Lambs“. Not long after that finishes, I’ll be posting again to share my thoughts on the screenplay and the movie.

Also, tomorrow is November 1st, and some of you may be familiar with NaNoWriMo. For those who aren’t, NaNoWriMo is the condensed title for National Novel Writing Month.

I’m joining thousands of others in attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It is a long shot for me right now, but no guts, no glory, no novel.