1) Humor — this movie has been advertised as a raunchy, crazy comedy, but it didn’t really do that at all. There were some subtle jokes thrown in the film, which I appreciated, but the laughs just weren’t frequent enough. I found scenes where it appeared they didn’t try to put any sort of jokes in it. For screenwriters the universal rule is there needs to be at least a joke on every page. Even if it’s not the funniest joke every written, you need something for everyone included.

2) Time Travel Talk — they spend way too much time discussing the theory of time travel, or how it worked, yada yada. At this point in the history of cinema, everyone has seen a few time travel movies. We get it. Just move on. Take a cue from Coppola’s only comedy (from the 80’s) “Peggy Sue Got Married.” Just jump into the story, let the characters and audience figure out what’s going on as the story continues. Don’t stop the action so these guys can sit in a room for what felt like 5 minutes.

3) The bad guy sucked — big time. The big “rival” to Rob Corddry’s character was hardly threatening, and I never felt like the guys were ever in any real danger of not returning. Part of the problem is you don’t ever meet this character until a third into the film, which is a real problem. The script needed to take a closer viewing of Back To The Future and see how they handled Biff, introducing him as a jackass who controls Marty’s Fathers life, to the end, where he kisses his ass.

4) The whole premise of Hot Tub Time Machine is that they travel back in time. And that’s why we are in our theater seats! So why do they wait until Act 2 before they FINALLY travel back in time? Too long! Too much backstory! I want to see these guys rip apart and make fun of people in the 80’s, not bitch and moan for the first 20 minutes about their lives.

I really wanted to love this film, it was aware the premise was ridiculous and was ready to go crazy. But then they backed off by trying to instill more of a deeper meaning into the film, which wasn’t going to work. Would I watch it again? Sure, but only for the actors…

Yahoo recently posted an article of 5 steps to help your job hunt. Of course it would be more helpful if they were new suggestions I hadn’t already seen. But what’s interesting to note was the large percent of people who said they’re unhappy with their new job. Bad sign for a lot of companies once the economy turns around.

I’m glad I’m beginning my job search before college seniors graduate in the spring, although it may not make that much of a difference. With a recent job I applied for, I went through the interview process and found out later who I was up against — people with years and years of experience, and they were all fighting me over a part time job. It’s brutal out there.

With all that said, I just have to keep at it. I spent several hours today calling production offices, searching online sites, and contacting recruiters. We’ll see where all these roads lead.

For those who haven’t watched the final episode, small spoiler alert — Will Ferrell sings a cover of Free Bird with one of the ZZ Tops, Beck, and Ben Harper, along with Conan and the tonight show band. I thought it was an appropriate song, especially since it belongs to Lynyrd Skynyrd, who only got to experience a few years of success before a horrible plane crash that killed several members.

Part of Conans downfall that caused him to bleed viewers was that he abandoned his form — what made his success. He hardly brought any of the characters or skits with him to LA. He felt that those wouldn’t be kosher during an 11:30 time slot, but what only ended up happening was he alienated himself from his fan base and made a generic late night show for the Leno audience. Problem is his humor doesn’t appeal to the Leno audience. Even Conan toned down, they still aren’t into him. Perhaps he’ll be better suited on another network though, and be able to return to what made him a success — random, ridiculous skits that don’t attempt to be anything but funny.

After reading articles/books, watching lots of films, and working on my own scripts, I would think it would be easy to understand that ‘main stream’ jokes don’t work for me. As amusing as a typical Two and a Half men episode may be, I know at least half the punch lines before they even say them. I think half the jokes of a sitcom are going to contain the ’structure’ of the same joke you’ve heard a million times before. That’s why whether or not your joke succeeds, you also need to write for characters that the audience cares about, so they care to see what happens to them during the story.

Over the last year or two, whenever I hear a joke/situation that catches me off guard, I’ll write it down, and deconstruct it. What was funny about it? Was it the content of the joke or just how it was said? Having the right delivery is a huge component of selling the joke or letting it fail. By keeping track of these, I’ll eventually internalize the structure and apply them to jokes I write without even thinking about it.

Getting back to the topic of jokes that don’t work for me, it’s not that they aren’t funny, it’s just amusing. I know the jokes there, but it doesn’t surprise me. When Conan O’Brien was on ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’ he talked about this. He’d be in the writer’s room, and a fellow writer would be pitching his joke or skit, and with a dead pan face, Conan would tell him that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

But Conan also touched on another thing, improv. He feels that even the most brilliant thing written and planned out ahead of time won’t get as many laughs as something that’s in the moment.

I had never thought of it that way but I can see his point. As you watch something unexpectedly unfold, it catches you off guard. It’s like when you’re hanging out with your buddies, and somebody cracks a joke and everybody gets a huge laugh. If you go home and write that situation out on paper, it’s probably not that funny, which confuses people because they figure if they’re funny in person, they can write funny too.

On Monday we attended Conan O’Brien’s very first taping for the Tonight Show. It was fun being part of history and getting a nice souvenir hat. That being said, I didn’t realize how much waiting was involved, between arriving & the taping started we were waiting for 4 hours. Not to mention we were by far not the first ones to arrive. Too much standing around to do it often, but for a once in a lifetime opportunity… it was worth it.

Twitter really does seem like the new ‘it’ thing. Before it was building your own web page, then blogs, and now Twitter. Unfortunately Twitter still has a ways to go with dealing with the growing pains that other similar services have fought, that is, poor content and spammers. But the people who stick it out and continue to be active will make visiting the site worthwhile.

Later this month I’ll be traveling to LA for some sight seeing as well as begin to figure out my plans for moving, but in the mean time I’ll see about putting up some more content on this site.

I watched a trailer for another cookie cutter teen comedy, I Love You Beth Cooper. I had a couple ‘heh’s, but that’s about it. The whole shock humor genre is on its way out, and some recent teen flops (Sex Drive, College) are the flare. I think American Pie really led the charge, which was released 10 years ago! Although to give it credit, the story/characters were much more interesting and genuine then the million imitations we’ve come to see since it’s release.

You can tell the comedy tide is shifting, when Judd Apatow’s latest film is not like anything he’s done. He’s already been there, done that with 40 Year Old Virgin/Knocked Up/Superbad. It’s time to no longer only appeal to the lowest common denominator. Judd has been somewhat of a trend leader with the resurgence of R-rated comedies, so it’s interesting to see him lead off in a different way.

Just my two cents on it all; I’m sick of seeing movies greenlit who’s plot is as paper thin as its characters with jokes that were written by 8-year-olds, for 8-year-olds.

Another minor complaint I had was with the lead actor, Jesse Eisenberg. It felt like he was trying to perform in a role that Michael Cera practically invented — and had the charisma of a wet mop for the first half of the film. He let people kick him in the balls, no retaliation, and seemed like he was on prozac the whole time… just floating along.

That’s with the entire film does — just floats along. It’s not a bad film and I don’t regret watching it, but there are no big twists and it sticks pretty close to the predictable formula. When you see the ads on TV for this ‘comedy’, just remember, they’re using the Greek definition: a story with a happy or cheerful ending.

One thing I was reminded of by the film is how many successful movies give the audience a glimpse into a foreign world. In the film, Paul Rudd is a real estate agent, as well as a huge ‘Rush’ fan, which is a passion he shares with Jason Segel. These details aren’t thrown in for the sake of it, but instead played upon and paid off later while also making the characters stand out.

Whether it’s a foreign ‘world’ to us, or we just learn new and interesting things, it’s always nice to have some details in a movie to give it a unique flare.

For starters, I think it’s time for a period of selling off. I’m talking about the big six. When people talk about Hollywood Studios, they’re more often referring to Warner Bros., Fox, Disney, Sony, Paramount and Universal. What’s happened is studios are now owned by huge conglomerates. Universal/NBC is owned by GE, Fox by News Corp, Sony… duh, Disney… double duh, Paramount owned by Viacom, and Warner Bros. by Time Warner.

Your asking, so what, why does it matter they’re owned by a bigger company, more exposure right? Well lets look at it this way. When GE sees profits shrink up in their Aviation/Industrial/Railway division (pick one), they need to divert funds from other segments of their company to help things out. As a result, Universal is forced to layoff. This doesn’t only occur at Universal as you can imagine. Not only do people lose their jobs, but fewer projects are getting the green light as they make cut backs. Variety has reported that 2011 will see a cutback of films being released. Granted, the credit crisis is one factor in the equation, but doesn’t help nonethless.

In my opinion, I think it would be better if the studios went back to being independently owned. Despite the economic recession, box office sales are doing just as good as any other recent year, so why not take advantage of the market? Allowing a company to be judged solely on the performance of its executives/talent/products is the only way to do business, instead of just lumping it together with the other unrelated (losing) branches.