On my way out the door (I've taken a job as a film reporter for the Hollywood Reporter), I'd like to call an unsolicited moratorium on some industry tropes that have grown mealy and stale.
Vampires. There is no permutation left to explore -- novelists, screenwriters and comic book artists have sucked all the blood out of this particular archetype.
"But at the end of the day . . ." Why do so many people in the film industry use this phrase? What does it even mean, at the end of the day?
The mild-mannered husband is actually an international spy/assassin/superhero! This perpetual wish fulfillment from male screenwriters that we are all really masked crime fighters, secret agents and hired killers is trite and childish. But since an accurate portrayal would encompass nothing but narcotized resentment couples counseling, maybe it's the only option.
"The city is a character." Right. Meaning the actual characters you created are thin enough to pick locks. It's not just screenwriters who abuse this one. All you junior studio executives offering input during notes meetings have to come up with something more inventive than, "Can you make Miami more of a character?" Unless, of course, there's an actual character named Miami.
"High-concept." This has always been a self-aggrandizing misnomer that flatters a creative team and audience that know better. Let's be accurate: These screenplays should be called "concept-only."
Bloggers claiming to be real journalists. If this comment offends you, then you're precisely who I'm talking about. Having a megaphone in your hand doesn't make you a director. Any more than having a laptop and Final Draft makes you a screenwriter.
"It's really a western." People use this to shorthand a film's plot structure and to lend the story some mythological-nostalgic weight. But, c'mon. Even westerns aren't westerns anymore.
"The next 'Rosemary's Baby.' " Studios and producers still in search of a horror blockbuster that's "supernatural with a thriller element, but really scary, like 'Rosemary's Baby,' " need to give up (especially those who say this despite having never actually seen the movie).
Come to think of it, let's ban encouraging or describing any creative endeavor as "the next . . ." How about we all agree to aim instead for "the new?"
