OC Screenwriters Association

No one would confuse "The Octagon" with say, "The Godfather."  It is what it is.  A "B-movie" from the 80's starring a martial-artist turned actor.  It features decent action, some decent themes and a horrible voice over that supposedly conveys the main character's internal thoughts.

It's too easy to dismiss these films as being just expired, stinky cheese - relics of a film milieu that we have hopefully left behind us as we move into the brave new worlds of Uncanny Valley CGI and 3D over-the-top actioneers that look like giant, gorgeously executed video games.

Of course, there are those die-hard fans who see no disconnect in these films and rabidly declare them as revolutionary - which to some extent they were.  At the time, there wasn't anything like "The Octagon" gracing American movie screens and big action was nascent at best in any form let alone martial arts.  

I try not to go to either end of the spectrum.  I do laugh inadvertently at the bad dialog, plot devices or action but I also realize that it was 30+ years ago and these movies are going to look creaky no matter what, even as they were also creating legends like Chuck Norris. I mean, put any 1980 Buick on the screen and you're suddenly wondering how anything that big ever functioned (the term 'bulgemobile' comes to mind.)  Nevermind that the fashion, haircuts, and insanely tight pants they all wore including our hero, Mr. Chuck Norris, looks like something from a bad porn film.  As expressed, it is what it is.

Norris' movie career took off with his villainous appearance in Bruce Lee's "Way Of The Dragon."  Lee liked to pit two different styles against each other and in Way it's basically Korean/American-style karate vs Chinese Kung Fu.  The opponents couldn't have looked any different with the slight (but ripped) Lee rocking his black Chinese button-up outfit and the burly, red-haired (and hairy!) Norris in a traditional white gi.  After the epic nine minute battle, Norris is defeated and Lee heads away, dusting his black jacket off as if it was another day at the office and not this incredible fight to the death.  The scene furthered Lee's legend and created a new one in Norris.

Norris was (is) the real deal.  A student of Korean martial arts called Tang Soo Do, which become Tae Kwon Do in a Korean martial arts unification attempt, he was a champion of several real-world tournaments.  He got involved in martial arts when he served in the Air Force as an Air Policeman in Korea.  A lot of military people and cops seem to come to martial arts as a way to supplement their on-the-street skills.  Since they are likely to face some form of violence every day, it just makes a lot of sense.  Norris became a star pupil, a sensei who started his own style (Chun Kuk Do - "The Universal Way")and eventually his skills brought him to the attention of Hollywood via the Hong Kong film world.

Norris did two movies as the lead after Way started his fame, but "The Octagon" was unique in that it featured mostly martial arts underpinnings.  Norris' character's half-brother is Japanese (and a bad guy) (Tadashi Yamashita) and Norris has to face him in the Octagon in the final battle.  Even though the bad guys are mercenaries, they are being trained by ninjas which includes Yamashita as a co-founder of the school for terrorists.  Yes, terrorists who were on the minds of our culture even back then.  Ninjas (a fairly unknown concept at the time)  run through the entire film and there's a masked, mystery ninja in red (played by legendary Australian stunt man/martial artist Richard Norton) who constantly shows up to inflict ninja-type punishment on people who cross his evil bosses.  There were many legit martial artists in the film including the legendary Gerald Okamura who played the brutal trainer and who is a fifth degree black belt in Kung Fu San Soo. His IMDB page features over 55 feature films that he has either starred in or worked in as an actor and/or a martial arts coordinator as recently as this year.

Norris' character has grown up with the same ninja training (shown in flashback)  but has rejected using it unless absolutely necessary.  He's forced into a confrontation only at the end of the film because there is no other way to stay alive.

The fight sequences are just fine and stand the test of time.  Some of the ninja stuff like them climbing a building with nothing but their hands or the hiding they do in plain sight is still really cool.  And they did it for reals, yo, since there was no CGI (computer generated imagery.)

The rest of the film is varying degrees of so-so, sad, or just plain laughable like when hottie Karen Carlsen, dripping sexuality, openly invites Norris to come and see her and he says "Fair Enough."

Uh? Huh?    

A serviceable plot, characters and theme are really only redeemed by Norris' exquisite kicking and fast hands.  Here is a man in his prime with skills that make you wish you had spent more time at whatever you were trying to accomplish because you knew he did. It was overly obvious that Norris had mad skilz at the time and knew how to both throw and take a punch.

This also made Octagon unique because unlike "Billy Jack" which featured an actor with some Hapkido training (but was stunt-doubled by his sensei for most of the kicking scenes,) or "Kung Fu" which featured an actor with dance training, "The Octagon" starred a real martial artist who was already legendary in martial arts before he became an actor.  Norris was first and foremost a black belt - acting, as was proven to the dismay of film critics many times in many films, was a distant second in importance in his film career.

As an aside, since Norris kicked butt and took names in so many films and for so many years, he was transformed into a meme similar to the Jack Bauer character in the TV series "24."   I think some of them are truly funny but they also tell a tale of an actor whose films never let him be less than the hero who struggles mightily, but always comes out on top.

Some funny ones are:

• When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris is so bad he can light a fire by rubbing two ice-cubes together.
• Fear of spiders is arachnophobia, fear of tight spaces is claustrophobia, fear of Chuck Norris is called Logical.
• Chuck Norris has a grizzly bear carpet in his room. The bear isn't dead it is just afraid to move.
• When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down.
• There used to be a street named after Chuck Norris, but it was changed because nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives.
• Chuck Norris doesn't call the wrong number. You answer the wrong phone.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES ROCK CINEMACON!

LOOK OUT SUMMER – GREAT STORIES, GREAT PLOTS, GREAT MOVIES!

 April 17, 2013 Las Vegas, NV. The annual movie industry smorgasbord of film, stars, studios, directors, producers, and popcorn makers, aka, CinemaCon, the most widely attended event of its kind in the world, is in high gear in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace, and movie studios have shared product reels, stars, and their films for the upcoming summer that have rocked the thousands of attendees, with universal acknowledgement that the bar has been raised and quality writing and directing was the order of the day.

 Summer 2013 will be like no other before it. 

 Paramount Studios kicked off the event with stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson speaking to the audiences at the Caesar’s Palace Coliseum before screening their upcoming film, “Pain and Gain.” The film is directed by Michael Bey, of “Transformer” fame, and is an enormous switch from big action tentpole pictures he is known for making.

The film, Bey said, has been in his head for years, and he wanted to make a smaller picture, and smaller it was, with a pricetag of only $25 million, but the film is a tour de force of black humor and screenwriting that creates a new genre of film. Wahlberg and Johnson are trainers at a gym who kidnap a member to hold him hostage, but this film goes where no film has gone before.  Hilarious is not an effectual description for this story, it is damn outrageously effective in drawing laughs, none of which are cheap momentary laughs, but a part of a perfect story and done with lines and acting what would have made the Marx Brothers proud. This script about a pack of guys with less than a full deck of gray matter is quality, and Wahlberg and Johnson are a new dynamic duo that could surely see further adventures.

Bey also made the announcement that the next “Transformers” will feature Wahlberg in the lead and be what he feels is the best of the series. Bey said the story and script are far beyond the ones done in the past.

But Paramount didn’t stop there.  They have some of the biggest pictures of summer coming to the screen, including “Star Trek – Into Darkness,” which moves the bar beyond simple sci-fi, and brings the story and character arcs to boldly seek out and find places we couldn’t have thought or dreamed of going. It is a film that is both entertainment and a perfect display of great screenwriting, with twists, turns, and more awesome action than Magic Mountain.

Chris Pine returns as Captain James Kirk, along with the cast, but the writing in this one take this movie beyond wonderful escapism and gives us a dramatic piece of Kirk actually coming of age and the result is a profound and touching film, as well as a “Star Trek” adventure for the ages. Pine grew up loving William Shatner as Kirk, but Pine said he created his view of an early Kirk after some conversations with Shatner, who told him to create his own, and Pine is as memorable here as Shatner. Well, almost, 

but it’s only number two in the new “Star Trek” series, and how they can top this one will be question, it is brilliant, stunning, and so memorable, the way movies ought to be.

Paramount has another hilarious comedy in “Anchorman 2,” starring Will Ferrell and twice as funny, poignant, and just damn better than the first one, if that were possible. This one doesn’t take us where most sequels go, but brings in new characters, plots and good story to make this a class act instead of a one horse pony show. Ferrell is at his funniest in his own world, and instead of a contrived plot to fit around him, his fine comedic talent works this story.

But leave it to Paramount, home of “The Godfather,” to come up with perhaps the movie of the summer, “World War Z (WWZ),” a thrilling, and when I write thrilling I mean a 

pull your hair out scrape your nails thrilling film that will literally take your breath away on a journey like no other ever done on film.

“WWZ” stars Brad Pitt and is the non-stop story of hordes of zombies attacking the world. Sounds simple. But no-o-o-o-o-o way is this simple. These zombies are the 

scariest ever presented as the only mission of these non-stop hordes of monsters is to bite a person to infect them, turning one into a snarling, rabid horror. And infect millions they do, with an unceasing rage of mobs on humanity swarming the planet. The resulting infection of billions will cause you to grip the seat, the person sitting next to you, or even to run out for a shot of tequila to calm your nerves, because in “WWZ” the action and the tension soar to a gut churning level of conflict that will take your heart and soul along with it.  It is simple all right – a simply great film with characters that will tear your heart out and a story that brings us to the edge of the end of mankind.  Be prepared to hold your breath for two hours, it is that good. And it stars Brad Pitt!

Paramount was the beginning and raised the standard for others, and Hollywood seems to have realized that moviegoers want plots and characters that are moving and unforgettable. So far no formula film here, just great work reflecting perfection from directors, cast and crew, and writers. Good scripts with clever ideas and depth are the path Hollywood is on, and Paramount leads the way.

I hadn't seen "Man On The Moon" (the biopic about performance comedian Andy Kaufman) and when it popped up on my Netflix streaming queue I wanted to give it a screening.  

I had known about Andy Kaufman from his early days on "SNL" and "Taxi." To me, he had those two bright moments and the rest of his shtick left me varying degrees of uninvolved.  I'm not alone.  People tended to disagree about Kaufman's "genius" - some adored him, some were, uh...varying degrees of uninvolved.

And that can be a real problem in a film, especially when a good deal of the film is about his comedic stylings.  Stylings that worked and didn't work.  Yeah, we get to understand him a bit more through the story but honestly, there were sections that I really wanted to fast forward through.  But I'm really glad I didn't.

Played by the rubber-faced comic (but also serious actor when given the right material) Jim Carrey interprets Kaufman with energy and sincerity.  It's almost as if the real Kaufman had been given a second chance to say to the world: "This is what I was really doing - isn't this funny?"  Yes and no would be my answer.  There was a balanced approach to the storytelling with a lot of the scenes involving people and situations where Kaufman's gags went over as wildly successful but also those that hurt or bored or confused people.  But I already knew a lot of this.  I never felt all that close to understanding why Kaufman or Bob Zmuda, his off-times collaborator, thought a lot of this was funny or even amusing.  I get that he wanted to push boundaries - but why?  I was hoping the film would tell me, that's why I watched it.  What I didn't anticipate is that even with explanation, I still felt like Kaufman was not all that entertaining and I had to watch a great deal of his stuff that I never liked.

Okay, so all that aside, as I mentioned, the danger is that if you don't pursue more insight, push the film, if you don't intrigue your audience in a way that really gets them anticipating answers or actually answers all these questions, you're gonna end up with a film that's just so-so.  That was me going into the last act.  And I thought it was going to be the entire experience of the film.

Until the ending.

"Man On The Moon" is truly redeemed by its ending.  A coda, really,  - the scene that ends the film where you suddenly realize that Kaufman's whole life was about the switch that was played at the Improvisation nightclub - after he's dead.  Sudden insight into his absurdity overwhelms you - you suddenly understand his Pee-Wee Hermanish innocence and his desire to put people on despite the consequences.

It revolves around his Tony Clifton character, a boorish, no-talent lounge singer character that Kaufman played once in a while live, and who he demanded be given a NBC Special and guest appearances on "Taxi."

Everyone supposedly knew eventually that Kaufman was Tony Clifton.  We're clued in quickly when we see a scene where Clifton performs in a club and his agent (played by (producer/actor) Danny DeVito - Kaufman's real life co-star on Taxi,) who doesn't know yet, goes backstage to talk to this terrible lounge singer who Kaufman insisted get the walk-on parts on "Taxi."  He (Kaufman) reveals that he is indeed Tony Clifton, and like most things in Kaufman's life, he was/is fooling everyone.  Mildly surprised agent smiles and chuckles and books his 'second' client, Tony Clifton, on "Taxi."  The execs at NBC didn't care - they loved Kaufman's "foreign guy" Latka and would have agreed to almost anything even though the Tony Clifton character was nowhere as inspired as Latka Gravas.

Cut to later in the chronology of Kaufman's life where Clifton is on stage performing (badly) and by now everyone thinks they know that Clifton is really Kaufman so they get the gag.  But then who shows up on stage simultaneously?  Kaufman *and* Clifton.  Huh?

It's revealed right afterward that that Zmuda in makeup and prostethics played the lounge singer in this instance so shame on you, you were all fooled.  Again.

I might have shut this film down several times if Carrey wasn't so good and if I hadn't wanted to see it for so many years.  If I was in a theater, I'd have stuck it out - I rarely leave any film no matter how much it either bores or irritates me.  But I think that a lot of people who gave this film a pass (it was a commercial failure) probably did so because Kaufman, even as a look-behind-the-scenes story was irritating as sh*t at times and not funny at others.  

The biopic of comedic genius John Belushi has a similar problem in that Belushi was terribly self-destructive - but, he was funny as hell and the gags they recreated in the movie were still funny recreated years later.  Not so for Kaufman whose comedic experiments didn't play out a lot of the time and seem even more tedious recreated.  But, and this is what you realize at the end of the film, his *social* experiments did work - the ones he always used to gauge people's reactions to situations that they couldn't be sure were real or not.  That is the insight you get at the very end of the film.

The coda after Kaufman's funeral takes place at the Improvisation CLub.  Lounge (lizard) singer Clifton shows up to do his act and everyone thinks, of course, that it's Zmuda in prosthetics like before.  Except that Zmuda is actually in the audience *while* Clifton is on stage.  So the film ends with the possibility that Kaufman *faked* his death.  A lot of his fans actually thought this may have been the case since Kaufman faked absolutely everything, including what looked like a real life, bloody feud with professional wrestler, Jerry Lawler.  He even got slapped and knocked down by Lawler on David Letterman's show.  The gag, of course, is that since pro-wrestling is 'faked' a fued with a pro-

wrestler should also be faked.  It was but it was perceived at the time to be real.

Point is, when you read the truth behind the stunt at the Improvisation that closes the film, you discover that Zmuda enlisted some of his actor buddies to help him make the gag work.  He had a friend in Clifton-disguise so he could stand in the audience and confuse everyone.  To the very end, from beyond the grave, with Zmuda's help, Kaufman was joshing us.  And so was the film.

But this ending, and the actual truth behind it, made the entire movie suddenly accessible to me.  Sort of like "Sixth Sense" when you find out that the kid is seeing dead people including Bruce Willis.

We *are* seeing dead people - people whose work lives beyond the grave and makes us question what's real and what isn't lest we get too complacent with what we think we know.  

Exactly what Andy wanted us always to do.

"Andy are you goofing on Elvis?" The lyrics go.

Or us?

I'm glad this ending made me realize the answer to that question was only going to be answered by the passing of his life - which did not mean the ending of his reach and influence.

If it had ended on say a retrospective of all his bits, or his widow visiting his grave perhaps, or something equally as logical (predictable) the film would have failed me completely.  As it was, it soared in those final few minutes and subsequently when I went looking for answers online about the Improvisation gag.

Comedic genius?  Maybe.  Social genius - most definitely.

The ending of this film made me an absolute believer and made this film an entirely different experience than I thought it would be.

And in my mind, saved (redeemed) the entire film.

“Not understanding money in the movie business is like an artist who doesn’t understand paint.”  - Jack Nicholson¹

I first became a fan of Roger Corman as a little boy watching monster movies on television.  His low budget monster films captured my imagination and brought out a boyish wonder in me, inspiring me to one day become a genre filmmaker myself.  As luck would have it, I was hired in May of 2011 to produce a Corman-like creature feature film titled The Prey.  The experience in independent low budget genre filmmaking made me appreciate Roger Corman even more so.  My appreciation of Corman as a low budget filmmaker and businessman inspired the writing of this paper, which hopes to summarize Corman’s illustrious career, his business strategy and his legacy on mainstream cinema.  

Roger started in a different world in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s when he was directing movies.  The market they went for was the drive-in movie market and/or double feature . . . The strategy was to make cheap movies really fast with hotrods, bikinis, and monsters.  These films were meant for teenagers and were made with no more care or no better scripts, but filled a market that the studios ignored.3

Even though Corman had great success with genre films, he wanted to do something different than the genre fare he became known for.  He read the book The Intruder by Charles Beaumont, which dealt with the issues of race segregation in the south.  Corman wished to adapt it into a film, so he pitched the project to AIP but they decided they didn’t want to make it.  He was quite astonished because they never said no to him before.  Corman chose to self-finance The Intruder (1962) with his brother Gene Corman since it was the first film that allowed him to make a personal statement about his feelings regarding social ills of the time.  Roger and Gene cared about the project so much that they mortgaged their homes to make the film.  Future Star Trek star William Shatner played the lead role, a character that comes to the south to stir up conflict between the races.  Corman shot the film in the south since the film dealt with racism and separate but equal was the law of the land there.  At first, the general population left Corman alone to shoot since the title and his reputation made them think he was shooting a horror film.  Once the townspeople found out about the political nature of the film, they began driving Corman out of locations.  Corman was able to get enough footage to complete the picture and people would scream “communists” at the Corman brothers during the screening of the film.  Unfortunately, the picture became a wonderful commercial failure.  Gene said, “It’s the only film we didn’t make money on.  And it’s our best film1.”  Roger learned from the experience and studied the concepts of text and subtext from method acting.  From this point on he would make the text of his films be the commercial content his audiences paid to see, such as monsters and naked women, and within that he would hide the subtext, which would be the social message that was important to him.  

AIP wanted to make a woman gangster movie next and Corman’s wife Julie found the book Box Car Bertha by Ben L. Reitman.  Boxcar Bertha (1972) became the first picture Julie worked with Roger as a co-producer on and the first feature film directed by Martin Scorsese.  Corman knew Scorsese was going to be a big time director when he visited Scorsese before the shooting of the film and saw that Scorsese had sketched 500 storyboards encompassing the entire film.  After the film was finished, Samuel Z. Arkoff of AIP took over the film and released it in a way Corman didn’t agree to.  This final action caused Corman to break off from AIP and form his own company New World Pictures.  Outwitting authority had always fueled Corman, and by owning his own production and distribution company, no one could tell him how to make his movies.  Corman had a loyal audience of young people who would watch his films during the two weeks they ran at the grindhouses and then at the drive-ins.  McCain commented on Corman’s decision to form his own company: 

By the time the ‘80s came around, Corman’s business was diminishing but the advent of home video through VHS saved his business.  The major studios didn’t realize the potential of releasing their catalogues on home video yet, so the VHS landscape was his to dominate.  Corman began cranking out movies that went straight to video, spending a lot of money making sure the videos had catchy boxes.  This strategy gave his business a second life and Corman began making even more films than he had before.  The over production, and the fact the films weren’t going to be released on the big screen anyway, caused a giant reduction in production value.  The roads to the film industry for young filmmakers had changed too since new opportunities had presented themselves with the advent of music videos and commercials.  New filmmakers no longer had to go to Corman to break in.  

In 2009, Corman was invited to the Academy Awards where he won an honorary award for lifetime achievement.  The many filmmakers whom he had started were giving back to him.  Quentin Tarantino presented the award to Corman and said to him, “The film lovers of the planet earth thank you.1” As Corman made his way up to accept his award, Jonathan Demme told him, “I know when you get up there you’re gonna stick it to the man.¹” Corman accepted the award and expressed in his thank you speech, “To have success in this world you have to take chances.  Keep gambling and keep taking chances1.”   Everyone in the star-studded audience stood up and applauded the man, the legend, and the legacy that is Roger Corman.  

Sorry about the language but that is exactly the reaction I had recently while moderating a film at the Regency South Coast Village Theater.  Let me tell you about it because it further reinforces what I tell my students about this business - you just never know so never say no to anything!

First, the movie:  A terrific little independent feature called "The Mulberry Tree" written by actor and first time writer Louis Crugnali.  The logline sounds like you're going to want to get a box of tissues instead of popcorn:

A drama centered on a young man working in Rhode Island's state corrections system and his relationship with a convicted murderer who is dying of AIDS and spending his remaining days on hospital detail.

Yikes.  Pass the soft but strong paper.  And certainly some of that is true, tissue-wise, but the film is ultimately very positive and life affirming as the central character (played by Crugnali) struggles to find his place in the blue-collar world he's in.  The terrific Joe Morton plays the dying con with amazing grace and quiet charm and the stunning Daniella Alonzo plays Crugnali's love interest with as much skill as Morton but she is just a bit easier on the eyes.

Guys, I love 'ya but bring Daniella next time she's in a movie of yours, okay?  Seriously...

This unassuming, small film shouted its truth so loud and strong at various film festivals it's won several "Best Of" categories.  Everyone who saw it Friday night loved it and stuck around to listen to the men who helped birth it. 

Their distributor New Hollywood Entertainment's (NuHo) Chris Kanik was refreshingly blunt and honest about his work and the way films actually get to the screen.  Shoot anything you want, he said, then what?  You need a distributor to get your work to an audience.  I loved Chris' plain talk - truly a breath of fresh air.  Of course, Russell was equally as honest but there was always a little twinkle in his eye when he said anything - an indication to me that no matter what anyone said about the business, Russell knew from hard-won experience that there were exceptions to any rule, situation, or reality.  "It depends," he said - about almost everything.  Truth.

The experience that had me saying "No Sh*t!" was so much fun.  In introducing myself to Russell before we went on stage and he said my name sounded familiar, asked me if I was in the business.  I (humbly - ha!) mentioned that I had 19 films produced.  When we talked a bit further we discovered that he had done casting for one of my films.  We had a good fifteen minutes of reminiscing about the production which was both great and very frustrating.  And we talked about how many people and companies we had in common.  At then end of the night, we exchanged cards and worked out that we would try to get something over to SyFy channel as soon as possible.  Russell doesn't cast anymore but he's doing even better as a producer and is as busy as a Hollywood madame after the Oscars.  I don't think there's any way that he and I can't connect given my track record with SyFy and his connections on the business side of things.

What made me happiest was that I got one of my talented scriptwriting students introduced to Russell and they exchanged contact info.  If she makes it, I'm getting a cut!  No, not really - just a thanks will do.  Really.  No really.  Well, maybe a Starbucks gift card...

The amazing, wonderful, effusively enthusiastic and massively talented Lorenzo Porricelli, the Regency's general manager, was responsible for this incredible evening.  Mille grazie, paison - I had a perfect evening as usual. 

Go see Mulberry Tree while it's in the theaters!  You'll be glad you did.

Happy 2013, Everyone

Okay, so it's a little late - been busy, y'all.  And while we're at it, what happened to the website, you're asking?

We were hacked.  Not horribly, just enough to freak me out and make me want to make sure it won't happen again.  Still working on that but we seem fairly stable now.  Now if I just get Google to forget that bit of nonsense and re-index us my life would be happier.

And, yes, I am putting up a new site that will be cleaner, tighter and mobile aware.  That wasn't a lie - just not the total story.

Until then, I'm shutting down site registration for a few reasons - mainly because I need to gain better control of it and that won't happen until the new framework is up. 

You can still sign up for the newsletter and get the latest - click HERE

There will be new content coming but I'll be keeping a bit more control over that too.  I may or may not open the front page to anonymous users - not sure yet.  But until then, until all that happens, enjoy what's here, keep on the lookout for some on-the-ground stuff (like seminars) coming up soon!

So, stay focused and keep working for that dream!  We'll be right there with you in 2013 and beyond.

Thanks and all our best,
Mark, and the amazing Board of Directors for OC Screenwriters: Eric, Joe, Larry, Robert, Rudy, Toby and Victor!

P.S. Also see these pages for more info on OC Screenwriters!

FACEBOOK

LINKEDIN

TWITTER

MEETUP

 Looking for SCREENWRITING CLASSES?  Click Here

Aaron Paul isn't a large man.  Not that he's small - what I mean is that he isn't big or overpowering physically.  However, his screen persona is definitely bigger than life.  He consumes your entire attention when he's on stage  - that's why he's an Emmy-award winner for his role in "Breaking Bad" as Jessie Pinkman.

But even with the emotional electricity that crackles and shocks throughout this film there's a core of sweetness and plain honestly  that gives you hope for the future.  The car scene with Winstead's character and her male friend comes to mind - you'll know it when you see it.