One of the things I enjoy is watching a DVD and THEN reading the synopsis on the back of the case, the marketing.
Do I even agree with what that paragraph or two (propaganda) has to say?
For instance on the back of this film's case in big letters it says "SIDE-SPLITTINGLY FUNNY" and "TWO PEOPLE HAVE NEVER BEEN SO WRONG FOR EACH OTHER."
OK, I was amused at parts but my sides never split and also I did not think this was a love story.
If I had written the synopsis, I would say that this is a humorous but not so exaggerated story about how a film is made, starting with the screenplay. I loved the character of Charlie Berns as acted by William H. Macy, who in real life had his hand in this screenplay by way of his real life nephew who wrote it.
If you've spent any time at all with your laptop in a coffee house among screen writers (even when you are not a screenwriter), if you have ever walked down restaurant row on Magnolia where the Screen Writers are getting together with the People, you know that this story could very well be TRUE!
Character Berns seems to have experienced or heard about every last reality of getting a screenplay to production, and so he quickly puts into their places anyone who has any altruistic ideas.
The closest to my side getting split was when the Diedra Hern character as acted by Meg Ryan to be a unshakable studio exec who has been put on the case to keep after the screenwriter so that he delivers, goes to visit Charlie Berns at his home, which is an apartment building with one of those San Fernando Valley decayed buildings that has not only cracks in the cement and a broken pool empty of water but a dead tree in it.
Sadly this is how too many screenwriters actually live in the San Fernando Valley, when they aren't in coffee houses on Ventura or restaurant row on Magnolia writing or pitching or explaining what it is they meant to do with the story to the People.
Don't ask me how I know!
C 2013 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved
