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.

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

Steve Martin, that wild and crazy guy, also wrote a few screenplays along the way, including “L.A. Story“, in which he also starred. He played Harris K. Telemacher, one of those weathermen who play up the wackiness on TV, but he’s just one more person in L.A. getting by in sunny disenchantment, until he meets Sara and falls in love. All in all, a pleasant and well-written romantic comedy.

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

“Trainspotting” was adapted into a screenplay by John Hodge from the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The film was released in theaters in 1996, and follows Mark Renton and his friends in Edinburgh, all unrepentant drug abusers, as they work hard to avoid any and all responsibilities.  Read more...

Finally, after several months of waiting, I finally have the rest of the screenplays I purchased online over the summer. I found so many screenplays, I went click-happy and kept buying them – but at prices like 75 cents a screenplay, why not? And not only that, I have another bookshelf for them, and in the photo below you’ll see this bookshelf, and all those books are the screenplays which I got my hands on this weekend.

And if you think you see some duplicates there, you are right – the screenplays on the top shelf are ones that will be given away as part of the screenplay reading challenge.  Read more...

So I was woefully unprepared for how occupied I was going to be over the past few weeks; every time it looked like time was freeing up, something else would come up. Now while it may be tempting fate to say I’m finally ready to get back to blogging, I’ll say it anyway.

“Fast Times At Ridgemont High” was Cameron Crowe’s first screenplay, adapted from his own book he wrote when he went undercover to get an inside look at what life was like in California high schools. I have not read his book yet, although I’m now going to find a copy of it to read it as well. The screenplay was a quick read, and for having so many characters it was still easy to track them all even as the story brought in multiple subplots.  Read more...

This week, Rebecca at asks about wishlists.

I keep an Excel spreadsheet for books that I hear or read about, and it has a couple of tabs. One is for books that I’d like to read myself, and the other tab is for books that seem like they would be good for other readers I know.  Read more...

September draws to a close one week from today, so if you’re thinking about reading the “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” screenplay and watching the movie, there is still time.

If you’ve already read the screenplay and watched the movie, we’ll be interested in reading what you have to say about it – once you post about it on your blog, please share the link here. I’ll have my post about Jeff Spicoli and classmates up this weekend.  Read more...

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

- p. 143, “The Trip To Bountiful, Tender Mercies, and To Kill A Mockingbird: Three Screenplays“, by Horton Foote