Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies [Paperback]

Posted on October 30, 2007 by Felix Vasquez

What’s a MITH? Not a myth, you moron, a MITH.

Well, that’s something you’ll have to find out for yourself. I had to after reading “Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies” and I wasn’t sure I’d get anything out of it.

I mean on the cover it seems cutesy, but the introduction almost suggests it’s going to tell us something we already know. Does it? Well, upon reading the first chapter, I found I couldn’t stop reading, and that’s because Blake Snyder does tell us stuff we already know, but then… he surprises you too.

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Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious [Paperback]

Posted on April 16, 2007 by Felix Vasquez

I wish “Archetypes for Writers” could have been a much better book, instructive it may be. For all its interesting tidbits about getting to understand your character, and stripping down their personalities, it also manages to truly delve into endless exposition into Arkelogy, and archetypes, and constructing practices about archetypes, and the like.

And it also manages to state the obvious. The writer knows the characters more than most people. Doy. A writer’s characters are combinations of the writer’s personality, fears, desires, and inhibitions. Thanks for reminding me. I seriously didn’t understand that. But Van Bergen’s aspirations are fascinating. She’s not only seeking to explore the notion of archetypes, but she also hopes to help the writer use this pit fall to their advantage, while re-defining the concept of archetypes and help their writing flourish.

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Anthony Spadaccini of Fleet Street Films

Posted on July 6, 2005 by Felix Vasquez

Anthony Spadaccini, a good friend, and founder of Fleet Street films recently agreed to do an interview with us to help promote his film “Emo Pill”. If you’re a consummate reader here at “Cinema Crazed”, you’ll know we’ve reviewed many of Fleet Street Films’ titles from “Unstable”, to “Monday Morning”, and one thing you’ll notice about Fleet Street is that they not only seek to entertain, but they seek out to do so while making a statement. Spadaccini and I have remained in touch for a few months, and I even have a copy of “Unstable” from him, and with his new film “Emo Pill” in production, we thought an interview seemed proper.

Many of Fleet Street’s films are dramas, but true human dramas that concern real life issues such as AIDS, murder, revenge, and our justification of crimes. Incidentally enough, most of Spadaccini’s work has either been praised or completely hated, and that’s due to the utter realism he strives for. If you’re not familiar with Fleetstreet, then it is the pleasure of “Cinema Crazed” to introduce you to the company, and to Anthony Spadaccini, a humble director whose created many very good films that have received quite an amount of feedback from viewers, and we implore you to buy his films and tell us what you think. Spadaccini fills us in on what’s going on in his life and his work, and boy is it ever a work load.

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Alex & Emma (2003)

Posted on July 25, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

No matter how hard “Alex and Emma” tries, it’s still the same package but with new wrapping. It’s another recycled romantic comedy, with more recycled characters, but only with a different twist. Kate Hudson has a nasty habit of choosing horrible films of late, and Luke Wilson is no exception. In this vapid formulaic film, Luke Wilson plays Alex Sheldon, an author who released a book and is in debt with what looks like the Cuban mafia. Two Cuban thugs break into his apartment and threaten him, but then again they just could be thugs from another mafia. So, Alex has thirty days to write and publish a book and get them their money or else he goes bye-bye (death), so he hires a stenographer. Why not a ghost writer? Someone from the publisher to help? You figure he being an author he’d be able to type fast, but he instead hires a stenographer by posing as a law agency to which we meet Emma, a beautiful (despite how hard Hudson pretends to be plain), young and uptight stenographer who is convinced by Alex to write the book as he dictates it to her.

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Finding Forrester (2000)

Posted on February 5, 2001 by Felix Vasquez

Jamal Wallace played by newcomer Robert Brown is an excellent basketball player who is recruited by a top school in Manhattan for his skills in basketball. But he is also a literary prodigy who is somewhat unrecognized. He then meets William Forrester played brilliantly by Sean Connery who is an excellent yet reclusive author who teaches Jamal the art of writing and creating a good novel. The acting in this is excellent, especially by the two main actors who play off each other very well and have an excellent chemistry together.

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