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January 23, 2013

My Top 30 All-Time Favourite Films

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in 1995's "Before Sunset"
Whenever someone asks me, "What's your favourite movie?", the question always feels approximately as useful as asking, "Which one of your kids do you love the most?" Sure, I have my favourite but like I'm going to tell them. Ahem, scratch that. What I meant to say was, "How can you pick one when there are so many to love?" (Two points for good parenting.)

To make it easier (though hardly easy), I narrowed it down to my Top 30. Following that is a list of my Top 10 in each of nine categories: Drama, Comedy, Action, Family/Romantic Comedy, Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Horror, Crime/Thriller, Historical, and Animated.

My choices were based on fairly basic criteria: Was it a good story? Did it unfold well? Was the writing good? Did it keep me engaged? Did it move me? Would I want to watch it again (and again)? I wasn't concerned with whether Oscar, critics, or friends approve. These are my faves. My own. My pre-e-e-cious.

Lists like these are always flawed, inevitably missing a few, thanks to lapses in memory, and perennially subject to change as new films come out. Nonetheless, I still believe they're useful if only to get a snapshot of where my preference lied at a particular point in time, as in indicator of the types pf movies that tend to attract me, and/or also as a basis for recommended viewing. (Added bonus: They can also serve as a guide in my later years when senility takes hold and I have the pleasure of viewing these films afresh, over and over again.)

MY TOP 30 ALL-TIME FAVOURITE FILMS:
  1. Before Sunrise
  2. Magnolia
  3. Good Will Hunting
  4. Garden State
  5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (US version)
  6. Forrest Gump
  7. The Big Lebowski
  8. As Good As It Gets
  9. Groundhog Day
  10. Goodfellas
  11. Casino
  12. Inglorious Basterds
  13. Snatch
  14. The Bourne Identity
  15. The Bourne Supremacy
  16. The Bourne Ultimatum
  17. The Departed
  18. Schindler’s List
  19. The Great Dictator
  20. Leon The Professional
  21. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  22. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
  23. Blade Runner
  24. Gladiator
  25. Braveheart
  26. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
  27. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
  28. Alien
  29. Ratatouille
  30. Jaws
DRAMA (Top 10):
  1. Before Sunrise
  2. Magnolia
  3. Good Will Hunting
  4. Forrest Gump
  5. Inglorious Basterds
  6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  7. A Beautiful Mind
  8. Chocolat
  9. Glengarry Glenn Ross
  10. Network
(Runners-Up: The King's Speech, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fargo, No Country For Old Men, Dead Poets Society, American Beauty, Kramer vs. Kramer, Fearless (Peter Weir), The Virgin Suicides, American History X, Philadelphia, Blood Diamond, Slumdog Millionaire, Django Unchained, K-Pax, Crash, The Green Mile, Titanic, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Blue Valentine, Up In The Air, Ides of March, The Contender, Million Dollar Baby, Matchstick Men, A Single Man, Requiem For a Dream, I Am Sam, Lord of War, Titanic, Moulin Rouge)

COMEDY (Top 10):
  1. The Big Lebowski
  2. Groundhog Day
  3. The Great Dictator
  4. Wayne’s World
  5. Monkey Business (Marx Bros.)
  6. Adaptation
  7. Ferris Beuller’s Day Off
  8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
  9. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
  10. The Breakfast Club
(Runners-Up: Tootsie, The Truman Show, Shaun of the Dead, Coming to America, Duck Soup (Marx Bros), Horse Feathers (Marx Bros), Office Space, Anchorman, Superbad, Pineapple Express, Burn After Reading, Napoleon Dynamite, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas The Mask, Liar, Liar, Elf, The Jerk, Life of Brian, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Airplane, Zelig)

ACTION (Top 10):
  1. Snatch
  2. The Bourne Identity
  3. The Bourne Supremacy
  4. The Bourne Ultimatum
  5. Leon The Professional
  6. Apocalypse Now
  7. Skyfall
  8. Die Hard
  9. Die Hard 2
  10. Lethal Weapon
(Runners-Up: The Deer Hunter, Lethal Weapon 2, Man on Fire, The Boondock Saints, Suicide Kings, In Bruges, Goldeneye, Fight Club, Drive, Heat, Sin City, Casino Royale, The Raid: Redemption, Unleashed, Ocean's Eleven, Face/Off, Snake Eyes)

FAMILY/ROMANTIC COMEDY (Top 10):
  1. Garden State
  2. As Good As It Gets
  3. When Harry Met Sally
  4. Parenthood
  5. Planes, Trains & Automobiles
  6. Big
  7. Sleepless in Seattle
  8. Love Actually
  9. Little Miss Sunshine
  10. The Birdcage
(Runners-Up: Midnight in Paris, Moulin Rouge, Definitely, Maybe, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Juno, Wedding Crashers, He’s Just Not That Into You, Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated, The Holiday, Under The Tuscan Sun, Bottle Shock)

FANTASY/SCI-FI (Top 10):
  1. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
  2. Blade Runner
  3. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
  4. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
  5. Alien
  6. The Matrix
  7. The Terminator 2
  8. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  9. The Dark Knight
  10. Pan’s Labyrinth
(Runners-Up: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Batman Begins, The Road Warrior, Jurassic Park, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 200: A Space Odyssey, Iron Man, The Dark Crystal, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, A Scanner Darkly, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Back to the Future, The Wizard of Oz, Moon, Children of Men, Donnie Darko, X-Men, Superman, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek (2009), Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, Blade, Hellboy 2, Limitless, The Book of Eli, Tron)

HORROR (Top 10):
  1. Jaws
  2. The Orphanage
  3. Halloween (John Carpenter)
  4. The Shining
  5. The Ring
  6. The Descent
  7. The Exorcist
  8. Psycho
  9. The Sixth Sense
  10. The Thing
(Runners-Up: The Birds, The Omen, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Evil Dead, Aliens, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, The Dead Zone, Jacob's Ladder, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Devil’s Advocate, Identity, Red Dragon, From Hell, Sweeney Todd, Angel Heart, Paranormal Activity, Halloween (Rob Zombie), Cloverfield, Quarantine, The Midnight Meat Train, From Dusk Till Dawn, Signs, Event Horizon, Prince of Darkness, Drag Me To Hell)             

CRIME/THRILLER (Top 10):
  1. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
  2. Goodfellas
  3. Casino
  4. The Departed
  5. The Godfather
  6. The Godfather 2
  7. The Silence of the Lambs
  8. Pulp Fiction
  9. Seven
  10. The Shawshank Redemption
(Runners-Up: The Untouchables, Witness, Memento, The Usual Suspects, L.A. Confidential, Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River, Chinatown, Carlito’s Way, The Verdict, Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Vertigo, Rear Window, Unbreakable, Insomnia, Changeling, A History of Violence, Dog Day Afternoon, The Insider, Scarface, A Time To Kill, The Pelican Brief, Conspiracy Theory, The Manchurian Candidate, Inside Man, Pride and Glory, Brooklyn's Finest, City Hall, 8MM)

HISTORICAL (Top 10):
  1. Schindler’s List
  2. Gladiator
  3. Braveheart
  4. The King’s Speech
  5. Lincoln
  6. The Social Network
  7. Sunshine
  8. Gandhi
  9. Mississippi Burning
  10. Lawrence of Arabia
(Runners-Up: Argo, Good Night and Good Luck, Saving Private Ryan, Chariots of Fire, Master and Commander, The Pianist, Elizabeth, The Hurricane, We Are Marshall, Defiance, Sarah's Key, Enemy At The Gates, All The President’s Men, JFK, Spartacus, Ben Hur, Guilty By Suspicion, The Right Stuff, Glory, Hotel Rwanda, Victory, Pollock, The Mission. Apollo 13)

ANIMATED (Top 10)
  1. Ratatouille
  2. Finding Nemo
  3. Fantasia
  4. Toy Story
  5. Wall-E
  6. Up
  7. The Little Mermaid
  8. Beauty and the Beast
  9. The Nightmare Before Christmas
  10. The Lion King
(Runners-Up: The Emperor’s New Groove, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, Fantasia 2000, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, The Iron Giant, Pinocchio, Happy Feet, Flushed Away, Chicken Run, Heavy Metal, Pink Floyd: The Wall, The Rescuers, Hercules, Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lady and the Tramp, The Secret of Nimh)

January 22, 2013

My Top 20 All-Time Favourite Film Composers

These are my personal choices based on:
  • how each composer's music affects me emotionally, regardless of what I or others think of the particular movies or other media production in question;
  • their ability to score a broad range of totally unique, totally different "soundscapes" from movie to movie, despite having an identifiable signature sound; 
  • the degree to which their music complements what appears on screen, assisting in telling the film's story.
Enjoy!

1. John Williams
In my books, no one could touch Sir Boston Pops for the longest time, my earliest childhood memories steeped as they were in the soundtracks for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Superman and E.T. (Never mind Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Harry Potter, and the gagillion other megafilms his star would get hitched to over the years. I mean, just who does this guy think he is, the twentieth century's Mozart?) And while his scores occasionally resemble Eddy Van Halen's guitar licks - indisputably cool and beyond his peers, yet so convoluted as to grate on the nerves - he is still the undisputed king of the hill. 

2. Hans Zimmer
If anyone can give Williams a run for his money, though, it's this guy. Three things stand out immediately. One, he (or one of his many cohort-proteges from Remote Control Productions) seems to do the music for EVERYTHING. Movies, TV, video games, you name it. (I smell a monopoly.) Two, his ability to create entirely unique music each time out of the gate is apparently limitless. Three, he's remarkably unfettered by any specific style or genre. Don't know what I mean? Just listen to the utterly-unlike-each-other scores for Driving Miss Daisy, The Lion King, Gladiator, Matchstick Men, The Dark Knight, and The Ring, one after the other. Dude's not human.    

3. Alexander Desplat
France's best modern composer threatened to dethrone both Williams and Zimmer in my pantheon when he rifled off a barrage of soaring (and Oscar-nominated) scores in less than a decade: Girl With a Pearl Earring, Syriana, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The King's Speech, The Tree of Life, Moonrise Kingdom, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty. When I'm writing a script, searching for inspiration for my own scores, or simply want to sit and contemplate existence, Desplat is my go-to sound guru. 

4. James Horner
From Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan forward, I was a confirmed Horner-Dog. Though his liberal use of tubular bells and rise-and-fall string runs sometimes make his scores feel a little samey at times (compare Khan with Titanic and Braveheart), he's still near the top of his game after nearly four decades in the saddle. (And he has the distinction of writing my all-time favourite score for Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind.) 

5. Thomas Newman
Like Zimmer, he's done it all for a long, long time and it just keeps getting better and better, from 1984's Reckless to last year's Skyfall. Newman is a bottomless well. And again like Zimmer, he seems as comfortable with a synthesizer as he does with an orchestra. I mean, this guy did Revenge of the Nerds, Desperately Seeking Susan, and Less Than Zero, then followed up with The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, and The Green Mile before moving on to Finding Nemo, Wall-E, The Adjustment Bureau, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and TV's The Newsroom. Come on!

6. Danny Elfman
Tim Burton's fave virtuoso didn't have a clue how to write music after he left the quirly 80's band, Oingo Boingo. But he figured it out and after Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas (just to name a few Burton classics), he took on serious stuff like Delores Claiborne, Good Will Hunting, and Red Dragon before returning to his gothic fairy tale roots with Big Fish, Spiderman, Hellboy 2, Hitchcock, and the upcoming Oz, The Great and Powerful.  No other composer has simultaneously inspired me and freaked me out quite like Elfman. (Well, except maybe for Christopher Young. See #12.)   

7. Rachel Portman
It's no secret that there aren't nearly enough celebrated female composers in Hollywood. Whatever the reasons exactly, I know they're out there somewhere (Lisa Gerrard, Anne Dudley and Shirley Walker come to mind) and wish them well. At the top of the list is Portman, whose scores for A Little Princess, Chocolat, The Cider House Rules, The Manchurian Candidate, Never Let Me Go, and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan dance, play and elicit tears that could fill an ocean. I'm a kid again every time I hear one of her plaintiff violins or hopeful flutes. She just kills me. 

8. James Newton Howard
Hans Zimmer's prolific right-hand man seems to have hit the sweet spot when it comes to opportunities for scoring for both high concept and high art. With over a hundred films under his belt, Howard takes his role as musical storyteller seriously, knowing exactly what to put where to maximize the full-sensory impact of the films he's connected to. For me, it all started with Glengarry Glenn Ross, but his career was in swing for a full decade before that. Then came Falling Down, The Fugitive, Wyatt Earp, Outbreak, Primal Fear, The Devil's Advocate, The Sixth Sense (and all things Shyamalan), I Am Legend, Blood Diamond, The Dark Knight (with Zimmer), It's Complicated, The Hunger Games, The Bourne Legacy. . .sheesh, I could be here all day!  

9. Howard Shore
By the time The Lord of the Rings came out, I'd been enjoying Shore's scores for years without realizing it. Very sneaky, Mr. Shore. And I call myself a David Cronenberg fan! Yes, he's laid down tracks for every one of the Canadian director's films from The Brood to A Dangerous Method, but along the way he somehow also managed to work in The Silence of the Lambs, Mrs. Doubtfire, Philadelphia, Seven, That Thing You Do!, High Fidelity, The Cell, Gangs of New York, Hugo and, of course, The Hobbit. Like Horner, he does tend to repeat himself on occasion, but few composers have been able to pull off the range of musical styles represented in his impressive, Oscar-winning resume.  

10. Ennio Morricone
You don't mess with the legend who did The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and live to tell the tale. No, I don't mean Clint Eastwood. I'm talking about the iconic Italian composer who was born in 1928, has scored for over 500 film and TV productions, and is still scoring films as we speak! (What is the musical equivalent of Viagra? Whatever it is, I'll take two.) Even his works familiar to North American audiences speak for themselves (and I'm skipping literally hundreds of movies to get there): Days of Heaven, La Cage Aux Folles, The Thing, Once Upon A Time in America, The Mission, The Untouchables, Frantic, Casualties of War, Hamlet, Bugsy, City of Joy, Lolita, Bulworth, and Malena.    

11. Clint Mansell
The former lead singer of UK band Pop Will Eat Itself buddied up with Trent Reznor in the late 90s before landing two back-to-back gigs with director Darren Aronofsky on Pi and Requiem for a Dream (the latter with the Kronos Quartet). After this, came Suspect Zero, The Fountain, Smokin' Aces, Definitely, Maybe, Black Swan, Moon, and the video game, Mass Effect 3. For sheer cool factor, innovation, and mood, Mansell makes my list.

12. Christopher Young
Few composers apply ice directly to my skeleton like Mr. Young. Here's why: Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Flowers in the Attic, The Fly 2, Species, Copycat, Urban Legend, The Grudge, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Uninvited and Drag Me To Hell. (To be fair, he's also had his fair share of solid dramas, including Hard Rain, The Hurricane, Wonder Boys, The Shipping News, and Runaway Jury.) You'd think I'd have his formula for inducing fear figured out by now. Starting with a few safe, melancholic chords designed to lull one into a false sense of security, there suddenly cascades from the darkness a terrifying barrage of discordant strings that pretty much makes you want to run for your life. Gets me every time. Gawd!

13. Harry Gregson-Williams
Two things surprised me about 2007`s sleeper hit, Gone Baby Gone: that Ben Affleck directed it (great comeback, Sir Gigli) and the haunting score by another Zimmer disciple. As with Howard Shore, I'd dug his music for some time without knowing his name in great films like Smila's Sense of Snow, The Replacement Killers, Shrek, Veronica Guerin, Domino, and The Chronicles of Narnia. He followed up Gone, Baby, Gone with The Taking of Pelham 123, Prince of Persia, and Afleck's next hit, The Town. His music was my constant soundtrack throughout film school. Great stuff to write to.

14. Carter Burwell
New York City boy and former cartoonist, Burwell's quirky scores have helped the Coen Brothers deliver cinematic goodies like Blood Simple, Fargo, Burn After Reading, and True Grit. Filling the spaces between were The Hudsucker Proxy, Rob Roy, Conspiracy Theory, Gods and Monsters, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, In Bruges, The Kids Are Alright, A Serious Man and Seven Psychopaths. And I'm just getting started. 

15. A.R. Rahman
Before this veteran, internationally-celebrated Indian composer came to the attention of North America thanks to a little film called Slumdog Millionaire, he was already dubbed "the Mozart of Madras". A master at synthesizing the sounds of east and west, his unique dramatic style earned him a gig on the critically-acclaimed (and Oscar-nominated) 127 Hours, even as he continued to score film after film in Bollywood. Slumdog continues to be one of my all-time favourite soundtracks, but don't stop there. There's plenty more where that came from.

16. Maurice Jarre
Sadly gone four years now, Jarre was another legend with a resume chock full of seminal work as influential and engaging in 1999's Sunshine as it was in 1962's Lawrence of Arabia. In between, he scored dozens of classic films including Doctor Zhivago, Gambit, The Man Who Would Be King, TV's Jesus of Nazareth, The Year of Living Dangerously, A Passage to India, Witness, Fatal Attraction, Dead Poets Society, Ghost, Jacob's Ladder, and the Jeff Bridges masterpiece, Fearless. Though hardly a classic, I must add Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, simply because I was 15 at the time and thought the movie rocked! Thank you, Mr. Jarre. You are truly missed.

17. Vangelis
With only a few films to his credit (though many more albums besides), Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (please, call him Vangelis) nonetheless changed forever the way movies would incorporate music. In the early 80s, synthesizers were largely relegated to the few New Wave bands who dared to pass them off as "legitimate" instruments and the resulting sound as "legitimate" music. You certainly didn't use them as the musical backbone for a serious, mainstream Hollywood film. Then came Vangelis' Academy Award-winning score for Chariots of Fire (1981) and electronica was off to the races. He followed up with the infinitely-praiseworthy soundtrack for Blade Runner, then receded slowly on the horizon with Mask, 1492, and Oliver Stone's critical bomb, Alexander. But not without leaving a permanent mark on film for which every composer since has been eternally grateful. 

18. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Sure they've only scored a couple of major Hollywood movies (not including Reznor`s work on Seven and Ross's on Book of Eli), but those movies were The Social Network and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo! You don't even have to be a Nine Inch Nails fan to enjoy and appreciate Reznor's genius here, although it doesn't hurt. In terms of capturing texture and tone to help convey the essence of a films' story, while at the same time presenting something we've never heard before, no one beats these guys who in their industrial, John Cage-y prime.

19. Cliff Martinez
Where has this guy been all my life? Maybe it's because his music sits so perfectly in the background, stealthily creating mood and ambiance without ever getting in the way, that I was able to overlook his music. At least until I was T-boned by his hypnotic score for 2011's Drive, (which quickly became my "Saturday Night Fever strut" music to and from school - paint can, not included). Check out any or all of the following: Sex, Lies and Videotape, Pump Up The Volume, The Limey, Traffic, Narc Solaris, Contagion, Arbitrage, and The Company You Keep.

20. Air
One of my favourite bands ever, France's Air has been pumping out masterpieces since the late 90s, including Premiers Symptomes, Moon Safari, 10,000 Hertz Legend, and Talkie Walkie. Though they've only  scored one film to date, Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, that soundtrack remains one of the coolest around.

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Honourable Mention:
Of course, I'll be pummeled by my closest friends if I don't include some of the following out of sheer respect (especially landmark composers like Bernard Herman, Jerry Goldsmith, Philip Glass, Nino Rota, and the Bernsteins). So without further ado, here are a host of others that could have easily made my list of 20 faves (by last name, not importance), but for whom there simply wasn't room:  

Craig Armstrong, Tyler Bates, John Barry, Elmer Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein, Terrence Blanchard, Ludovic Bource, John Brion, Mychael Danna, The Chemical Brothers, Bill Conti, John Debney, Ramin Djawadi, Tan Dun, Clint Eastwood, Peter Gabriel, Michael Giacchino, Elliot Goldenthal, Bernard Herman, Jerry Goldsmith, Philip Glass, Jonny Greenwood, Nicholas Hooper, Alberto Iglesias, Mark Isham, Jonsi, David Julyan, Shim Hyun Jung, Jan Kaczmarek, Abel Korzeniowski, Jesper Kyd, Paul Leonard-Morgan. Henry Mancini, Alan Menken, Javier Navarrete, Randy Newman, John Ottman, John Powell, Daft Punk, Max Richter, Graham Reynolds, Nino Rota, Garry Schyman, Edward Shearmur, Jeremy Soule, Yann Tiersen, Gabriel Yared, and Marcelo Zarvos.

January 18, 2013

Write Now #3: Get Real & Study the Craft

It's my observation that there are two kinds of writers, and for that matter, two kinds of professionals in any field: Those who think they can do it completely on their own and those who feel they could benefit by learning a few things from others.

I hear from members of the first group all the time: "Come on, you don't need to go to school to become a good writer. You don't need to read books. What do those guys really know, anyway? Writing isn't some formula or technical process. What fun is that? When you sit down to write a story, you just feel it, man. The muse just hits you. You've either got the jam or you don't."

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of jam. I agree wholeheartedly that all of the bottom-line raw materials for success - talent, passion, ability and drive - reside within. Unless you want to succeed, and are prepared to put your whole self into it, you won't. And sheer determination, combined with a natural flair for writing and a ton of practice, can take a person a long way. My guess is you already know that because you've experienced it. You've written stuff that that has surprised you and that others have said is anything from half decent to bloody brilliant. And when we get that kind of affirmation and experience the rush of excitement that comes from putting pen to page (especially when we're young), there's a natural temptation to want to bask in the glow of how we did it all by ourselves.

But to stay there, to believe that we don't need a little help along the way to becoming the best writer we could be, is, to put it mildly, a mistake. Because contrary to what some of us artist types think, good writing is a science. It doesn't just come out of the ether, out of our heads, or any other body part for that matter. We can read Dostoevsky or Larrson or Picoult and conclude that they "just got it", then spend the rest of our lives trying to "get it". Trying to catch and bottle their magic by simply reading enough of their books, memoirs and interviews. But if we're really paying attention, it's only a matter of time before we realize that their genius was no accident, no product of an extraterrestrial talent they possessed but which we do not.

The simple truth is that they took the time to learn how to write. They stuck their egos on shelves long enough to realize that talent and passion only go so far. They read books. They spent time with other successful writers. They latched onto a mentor. They studied how stories work, how they're constructed, how they assemble and utilize a cast of compelling characters, and build to a satisfying end. In other words, for a time they silenced their inner artistes and became scientists and business people. They found out what works, what truly satisfies readers, and what sells. This should be good news because it means that becoming a great writer is much closer and easier than we thought.

Concluding that a person doesn't need to take the time to learn how to write is simply a classic of case of "you don't know what you don't know". Until you actually sit down and see how things like theme, plot structure, character arcs, inciting incidents, escalating conflict, and "all-is-lost" moments contribute to effective storytelling, it might seem logical to assume that good writing boils down to simply having a way with words. In the same way that Mozart just had a "way" with the piano, Tiger Woods just has a "way" with a club, or President Obama just has a "way" with people. I think you get the point.

Writing may be an art, and you may have picked up the idea along the way that art is all about guts, intuition, and mystical influences, but good art (and certainly successful, marketable art) is also an applied science. If you don't like the way that tastes, get a glass of juice to wash it down, then go buy a good book on the subject and watch your writing start to improve within days if not immediately. Then consider taking a few classes. That's what I did and I've never regretted it.

Speaking of books, here are a few that have been a massive help to me. None of them are perfect. Some of them disagree on small points. But if you pick two or three and draw a circle around the big stuff they have in common (trust me, it won't take long), I promise they'll take you places in your writing that you didn't even know existed.

1. The Anatomy of Story (John Truby)
2. The Writer's Journey (Christopher Vogler)
3. Save the Cat and Save The Cat Goes To The Movies (Blake Snyder)
4. Story (Robert McKee)
5. Inside Story (Dara Marks)
6. Making a Good Script Great (Linda Seger)
7. Writing Screenplays That Sell (Michael Hauge)
8. How to Become A Famous Writer Before You're Dead (Ariel Gore)

Best of luck!