MIRROR, MIRROR: Patti Cake$ and Beach Rats

First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new consultation service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00.  For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you.  I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one. 

Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay?  Check out my new e-book published on Amazon: Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, including my series of essays, What I Learned Reading for Contests This Year, and my film reviews of 2013.  Only $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r

 

and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE

 

Warning: SPOILERS

Two movies have opened recently in which the central characters occasionally gaze at themselves in the mirror, not for narcissistic reasons, but as if trying to figure out who they really are.

Patti Cake$ is a somewhat zaftig, working class, twenty something, white female who has dreams of being a rap singer. At first glance this might seem a preposterous idea, until she opens her mouth and recites one of her hundreds of poems she writes every waking chance she gets.

Then she has the power of Maria Callas, a vengeful angel laying waste to her multitude of distracters. Read the rest of this entry »