Congratulations to 3pages winners Brent Hartinger for Dead Enders and Rick Gershman for Rick Goes to the Doctor.

The competition was fierce, the decisions were difficult, the bloodshed will be remembered for decades — okay maybe not by you, but we have the scars to prove it, and all of our decisions are final.

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition and made those decisions so difficult.

And –

Big congratulations to the winners Brent and Rick.  Yay yay yay!

3Pages winners win a 2012 class from AFW:  2012 class schedule.

The 3Pages comedy scene writing competition is entering it’s final hours before closing. 

3Pages is comedy scene writing competition for screenwriters.  Anyone may enter but I’m figuring Shane Black and Frank Darabont should maybe give new kids a shot.  The prize is a $375.00 online screenwriting class from the Academy of Film Writing.  The deadline is midnight tonight, Pacific Standard Time.

For more info, click the link above.

3PAGES is a comedy scene
writing competition
for screenwriters. 
Anyone may enter.
The prize is an AFW class.

Interested?  Click the above link and read on —

The Misogyny Machine That Rules Hollywood Comedies

Some days I wake up thinking that things can’t be really as bad as I think they are, then, I see a story like Tad Friend’s piece in this week’s New Yorker on Anna Faris and the state of Hollywood comedies for women and I think, wow, it’s even worse that I thought it was.

Friend’s piece Funny Like a Guy (hidden behind a paywall) is an overview of Faris career to this point. But what it does—I believe intentionally—is lay out how bad it is for women in comedy. And Friend is able to get people on the record to talk about the misogyny and sexism that is pervasive in this world.

I’ve been hard on Anna Faris because of Observe and Report and The House Bunny, but after reading the piece I have a much better appreciation of her. Part of the problem is that comedy is very hard for women today. I grew up on the comedy of Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Madeline Kahn, Gilda Radner and Lily Tomlin among many others. There was no problem with women being funny and self-deprecating in the 70s and 80s. These women were funny not just to women, they were funny to everyone and men and women went to see their movies together.

But comedy has clearly changed as has movie going has changed and now we live in a world where men won’t go see anything that stars women especially in comedies —

[click the above orange link to continue reading]

Date Rape Gets Mainstream Film Release

by Melissa Silverstein on April 9, 2009

I have pretty much ignored the new Seth Rogen film Observe and Report coming out tomorrow. I saw him on the Daily Show earlier this week and all Jon Stewart talked about was his weight loss, and on SNL last weekend they made fun of the fact that he is in the second mall security guard comedy this season. Yes, you read it right. This is the second mall security guard film.

Over the last day I’ve started to notice some disturbing posts about the film and date rape. So I forced myself to watch the trailer and there for all the world to see is Seth Rogen raping the passed out Anna Faris (a woman who is supposed to protect from a streaker.) She is clearly not able to make a conscious decision, her eyes are closed and there is a trail of vomit on the pillow. She is being raped but since it’s a comedy they can mitigate it by giving Rogen a moment where his brain goes huh maybe she’s unconscious and stops pumping briefly only to hear Faris shout out something like “Why are you stopping motherf***er?” Like that makes it ok. Passed out screaming implies consent. Bad premise.

I’m just wondering what some guys will think about when they come out of this film. We all know there is so much sexual violence perpetrated against women that having a film like this treat this epidemic so lightly is shocking.

And how can a film like this get an R rating? Depicting sexual violence as a comedic vehicle is just not ok. Seth Rogen used to be a stoner schlub and now he’s a stalking, date raping mall security guard. He’s going to play a super hero next in one of the comic book movies so his career is on the fast track.

Both Rogen and Faris have been offering excuses for the film and with all due respect Farris needs to seriously consider her career because funny and stupid (The House Bunny) is one thing, but making fun of being raped is in a whole different category.

To her credit even Faris thought the script would be toned down:

…when I read the script, I thought, “Well, this is Warner Brothers. This is a studio movie, so this is all gonna be softened up. It’s a comedy, right?” So when we were shooting it, even the date-rape scene—or as I refer to it, “The Tender Love-Making Scene”—I just thought, “We’ll shoot it, but it’s not gonna be in the movie. I don’t have to worry about that one.” And yet there it is. (H/T Tiger Beatdown)

[click the above orange link to continue reading]

ArcLight Presents…GHOSTBUSTERS

After losing their academic posts at a prestigious
university, a team of parapsychologists (Dan Aykroyd,
Bill Murray and Harold Ramis) goes into business as
proton-pack-toting “ghostbusters” who exterminate
ghouls, hobgoblins and supernatural pests of all
stripes. An ad campaign pays off when a knockout
cellist (Sigourney Weaver) hires the squad to purge
her swanky digs of demons that appear to be living
in her refrigerator.

Rating: PG

Running Time: 108 mins

Genre: Comedy

Director(s): Ivan Reitman

Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver

CHICAGO—According to an alarming new study released Monday by the University of Chicago, children raised in households where alcoholism is present are at a significantly greater risk of writing and performing a one-man show than those who grow up in a more stable environment.

The study found that males raised by alcoholic parents are 40 percent more likely to someday force their friends to attend a self-penned theatrical production about their life experiences, and the same painful behavior is eight times more prevalent in women over the age of 30 who have alcoholic fathers than those who do not.

According to the report, of the 250 one-man shows that premiered last month, three quarters of them, including Pops, A Life, and Youngstown, Ohio 1976, were directly linked to a relative who abused alcohol.

“Children who have an alcoholic parent or grandparent can start displaying one-man show warning signs as early as 12,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Richard Lowden, told reporters. “And once these kids develop an interest in theater and start working on impressions of their alcoholic family members, it’s a path to disaster.”

“To see them throw their lives away by performing an hour-and-a-half-long monologue for 15 people in a tiny black-box theater is just plain sad,” he added. “Tragic even.”

[click the above orange link to continue reading]