Word: script
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...encounter a panoply of cinematic possibilities, whether he wants to or not. In a forthcoming book by director Mike Figgis, Downey recounts having a stint in solitary confinement interrupted by a prison deputy. "This guy says, 'I hope I wouldn't be crossing the line if I brought a script by. It's about unicorns...'" Even in prison, everyone wants to direct...
...announced last week that MIKE MYERS will get $20 million to write and star in Sprockets, a feature film based on the forbiddingly avant-garde German talk-show host Dieter that he played on SNL. Of course, Myers will have some backup. Reportedly, one version of the script for Sprockets had a role for Baywatch mastermind David Hasselhoff as a villain who, on tour in Germany, kidnaps Dieter's monkey...
High school grads Alice (Claire Danes) and Darlene (Kate Beckinsale) lark off to Thailand, where they get framed on a heroin rap. The dank, formulaic script allows few of the moral ambiguities of 1998's Return to Paradise (there the country was Malaysia, and the American prisoner sort of guilty). The tale also has little of the pulpy juice of the B-movies Kaplan made in the '70s. The only guilty pleasure is watching Danes' wildly noble emoting. Her tears are as strong as a porn queen's orgasm...
...receive an Oscar nomination as Best Actress was a labor of love for Halle Berry. Maybe too much love, as the end product is a devoted but ultimately dull hagiopic. Berry is vivacious and hungry as Dandridge, and Brent Spiner is affecting as her dedicated manager; but a flat script and uninteresting narrative (rendered in flashback as Berry flips through a scrapbook) throw ice water on the heat its subject is supposed to project...
That's all good stuff, but the best thing about Bowfinger is the way the script by Steve Martin is tooled to his own and Murphy's comic strengths. At its best, Martin's screen character is a dislocating combination of yearning and take-no-prisoners opportunism. He's like a premoral child--appalling yet somehow charming. Murphy has the comic nerve to play stardom as a form of flat-out psychosis. His sweet side surfaces in the second character he plays, Kit's brother Jiff, whom Bobby hires as a part-time gofer, part-time stunt double, full-time...