I was doodling around the Twitterverse this morning when I came across a very funny list of comical observations from Emmy award winning director Jon Cassar. Jon is now working on his first feature film for DreamWorks called Motorcade, an action-thriller in pre-production here in L.A. BTW, if you need a script girl...:)A little clarification here, Jon didn't author all of these. Some come from a pre-existing list that inspired him to sort of riff on with some of his own ideas in an on-going ... Read Full Story

Finally saw Paranormal Activity last night and was amazed in spite of my skepticism. After all, how scary could an amateur film that cost $15,000 to produce really be? I came away with some very distinct impressions that I'll leave with you here. If you haven't seen it yet...Impression number one...you don't need a complicated, highly structured plot to make a scary movie. Paranormal's storyline is an exercise in simplicity. When I was at Universal, we made a little film called Meet the Focke... Read Full Story

English animator/director Simon Tofield put out a new cartoon short on YouTube a few weeks ago in celebration of his first book - which is available now worldwide! Gotta love it...Here's one of the first, it's called 'Cat Man Do'My kitty actually did a version of this this morning. There's a feature film percolating here...Anybody got an idea for the script? Read Full Story

Snagged this spooky gourd from Neil Gaiman's online journal. It was carved in honor of his book-turned-film Coraline. Cool huh? I love Mr. Gaiman's work. He's got a new book out called The Graveyard Book (a great time to be promoting it, BTW) that I'm willing to bet will soon be a movie. It's about a young boy who's raised by the ghosts and goblins and ghouls in the graveyard where he lives. The question is, will he be able to meet the challenges of the "real" world? The Auteurs (the world's... Read Full Story

I heard the other day that Scott Stuber Productions recently put American Rust by Philipp Meyer into film development. Interesting. Scott gave this to me for analysis and for two days I was enveloped in one of the best written, compelling novels I've read in a long, long time. I was literally transported to another place and time. But after much consideration, I recommended it NOT be made into a film, at least not then. My argument? With the economy the way it was, most people weren't going t... Read Full Story

This is going to be short. Had a wonderful day today singing at the community center and meeting a keyboardist who has invited me to sit in with him at a club in Westlake. What fun! It's been a very long time since I did this. Nice to know I still can and people want to listen. Also had a kind of breakthrough in the script and film area of life. I have some ideas for short films which I pitched to a new producer friend this morning. Then later today I literally stumbled on a company called Ci... Read Full Story

October 29, 2009 a consortium of 53 leading coaches and marketing gurus (including Tony Robbins and Stephen Covey) will launch a 6-week webcast to help people take their businesses to the next level. Act now and get the whole thing FREE! Go here for details.Here is the panel line-up for the first webcast October 29 (8 PM Pacific):- Jack Trout, author and co-author (with Al Ries)of the business classics "Marketing Warfare,""Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind,""Differentiate Or Die," "The 2... Read Full Story

UPDATE: Spike Jonze' adaptation of Mauce Sendak's classic children's book roared into first place at the box office on it's opening weekend in the USA earning 32.7 million from approximately 5,000 screens (including 145 IMAX). Not Harry Potter numbers for sure but it's performing above studio expectations and captures four quadrants. 43% of the audience is over the age of 18, 55% female. A pretty healthy balance that will likely give the film legs. For a more in-depth look at the audience de... Read Full Story

I went to see Where The Wild Things Are yesterday and could hardly believe what an awesome job Spike Jonze did in adapting Maurice Sendak's classic children's book. Tom Hanks was involved in producing and Tim Disney (Roy's son) was head of art direction. An absolute triumph! Interview with Maurice Sendak on Spike's adaptation ...Without spoiling it for you, what I got from the film was that Spike preserved Maurice's story and vision (the look and size relationships are wonderfully wild) but h... Read Full Story

Just learned through StoryLink that Film Lab is offering some outrageously great online screenwriting and TV writing classes beginning October 19. Extremely limited. 8 weeks $400. Read Full Story