The cost of living in Los Angeles is nuts. Seattle can be expensive (and was especially so back in the dot-com boom), but L.A. is a whole new league. It is for this reason that people as old as me still have housemates. And heaven forbid your tank hits empty while you’re in Beverly Hills, where gas seems to cost an extra fifty cents a gallon just to keep the riff-raff out.

Fortunately, there is a secret. My officemate took me under wing when I first moved here, and gave me valuable insight. If you are considering moving to L.A. (and I know for a fact that some of you are) then by all means, heed his words of wisdom:

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This weekend Mystery Man is hosting a blog-athon of people’s favorite screenplays. As he suggests, favorite screenplay turns out to be a tougher question than you might assume on first consideration. One’s favorite film isn’t necessarily one’s favorite screenplay. It took a while for me to settle on the right choice.

At first, my thoughts turned to my go-to “favorite” movie, The Princess Bride. That film’s tone remains unmatched, in my opinion. I’ve only seen shooting script copies, however, and there are so many “CUT TO:” directives riddling the pages that you can barely get through it. (Isn’t Goldman generally given credit for ending the practice of writers calling transitions?) Overall, Goldman has a very definite voice that gets in the way of the story he’s telling. Loved it in the novel, don’t love it in the screenplay.

My next thought was Blade Runner. If you are a writer and haven’t read this script on paper, do so. The visual descriptions are poetry. It’s a fluid read, more like a novel, and yet mostly staying this side of too many words. In the end, though, it collapses under it’s own weight a bit, and makes a better movie than a read. (That’s a compliment of course, and what a screenplay is supposed to do, but if I’m picking a FAVORITE…)

I considered Alien. See my thoughts on Blade Runner. There’s magic to be found in The Muppet Movie, but there’s also a whole lot of groan-inspiring puns, so it’s out. Good Will Hunting was a contender, but then I’d have to credit Ben Affleck with writing my favorite screenplay.

In the end, I had to choose the first screenplay ever to enter my collection: “Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption, screenplay by Frank Darabont, based on the novella by Stephen King, third draft, 2/22/93.”

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Am I the only person who finds Variety really annoying?

Last year, I had a subscription to The Hollywood Reporter. When it ran out, I took advantage of a frequent flier miles program to get Daily Variety. Hundreds of dollars worth of magazine for free. Hooray. And I do read it. I know that I have to read the trades if I want to work in the entertainment industry.

But I roll my eyes every time.

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I try not to be a bandwagon blogger. However, a few screenwriting blogs have mentioned scriptclouds, and I couldn’t help myself.

The concept is that you can enter a .txt file of a script you have written, and you will get out an analysis of what words are most frequently used. It does an oddly accurate job of conveying the feel of a story, actually. Plus, you can see if you’re overusing words you don’t mean to, or if your verbs are too common.

I decided to test it out with my TV pilot, the last script I’ve written that I consider polished. I also ran my current, half-written feature screenplay through for kicks. Here are the results:

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Holy frack, what a great season finale! Depending on how you count, there were no less than three BIG reveals and twists in tonight’s episode of Battlestar Galactica.

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There’s a webcam on the portal page in my browser, and the window rotates through various Seattle views.  At different points last week, it produced these images:

Meanwhile, here in L.A., it was sunny yesterday and sunny today.  I expect it will be sunny tomorrow, and then probably sunny for like the next century and a half.  Seriously, who needs that much sun?  Yeah, yeah, I know.  You all like the sun.  I, on the other hand, grew up in the lands depicted above.  Look at that marvelous complete absence of color!

Sigh…