Lessons in writing

I'm glad I took Wally Conger's advice and watched Aeon Flux a second time, this time watching along with the commentary by screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. It's a fascinating 90 minutes spent with a couple of guys who think they wrote a really good movie, and the compromises the suits made in the script over the objections of the writers and director Karyn Kusama.

At the very least it's a great commercial for the director's cut, if we ever get to see it. They do a great job of painting a verbal picture of what the film could have been - and what the film actually was before the corporate editors went to work. I wouldn't mind spending more than a couple of hours with the story they describe, but someone "up there" wanted a 90-minute action flick for the attention-span-challenged MTV generation.

At the most Hay and Manfredi offer all sorts of advice for would-be writers about such keys as how to pace a story and the importance of investing "minor" characters with humanity. I very likely will purchase this DVD and review the commentary when it's time to sit down and take my next stab at The Great American Novel.

Have I mentioned that even with the various slashes and burns that little minds ordered, Aeon Flux is a pretty darn good little movie? OK, just checking.