stephen falk dot com

Often the secrets people tell me are so funny or weird or heartbreaking or sexy that I really want to share them with you all. But I don’t! But man, sometimes it’s hard being a vault.

natashavc:

First thing: Save the date right now, lovelies. FEBRUARY 23RD 9:30pm at the M-Bar in Hollywood. $10 bucks at the bar.

We got a venue and set list of super talented (and some even goodlooking) writers/performers that you probs already follow on tumblr, to regale you with short (6 min), true stories, WITH NO NOTES! The stories will be funny, surprising, rawwwww variations on a theme.

We will announce the theme FOUR DAYS before hand. The idea behind this whole get together is that New York seems to have all the fun with their COMMUNITY OF WRITERS and we have that here too, but like, WE NEVER HANG OUT, YOU GUYS! So Molls, Will and I decided we would try to right this wrong.

In the next week, we will give you the set list and give you a place formally RSVP. But for now, iCalendar that bitch!

LOS ANGELES 4 DAZEEEE!

xo

I think I was drunk when I agreed to participate in this.

katherinespiers:

He has just announced a new program whereby skinny Whole Foods employees will enjoy bigger discounts at work than their fat colleagues. Nope, not making it up. BMI-based benefits, people. Can we stop shopping there now?

fuckingbookdeal:

Some day I look forward to talking about a Writers Guild arbitration I lost this summer to the director (and now screenwriter!) Rob Reiner. It was one of the more futile, frustrating, and disappointing episodes in a blessed career nevertheless marked by many moments of futility, daily frustration, and near-constant low-level disappointment. (Yay, showbiz!)

That being said, I kind of fucking hate how Jason Reitman is allegedly (and at least by appearances is doing nothing to correct this impression) giving Sheldon Turner the cold shoulder for having won arbitration against him and received shared credit for writing the screenplay to Up In The Air.

(Codicils: Turner may be a total douche and I’m sure there is much more to the story than has been reported. Plus, full disclosure, I have a script I adapted for Universal [from a short story] currently in development at Reitman’s company and could, conceivably, go up against him in arbitration some day in the future. But honestly, more than thinking about what might come, I’m reacting out of my open wounds and whiny sour grapes from having a big-time director rewrite me and then successfully take full credit.)

Jason, I like your movie, but for god’s sake, suck it up, man. Sheldon Turner was hired to adapt the book first. (After, reportedly, the uncredited Ted Griffin.) It was not a tiny, unknown book you “found” at the “small, independent book store called BOOK SOUP.” Hell, I even read it back when it came out. But regardless, I understand you probably feel that you rewrote it from scratch and that his draft didn’t influence you at all, and it may be true, but the rules are the rules. Even the bizarre and byzantine arbitration rules state that the arbitrators must presuppose that all parties had access to all previous drafts. To act like a spoiled child, hog the mic at the Broadcast Critics Awards, and generally act like a dick does nothing to divorce yourself from the reputation directors (egomaniacs) and The Privileged Scions Of The Famous (self-explanitory) have. A group of appointed WGA arbitrators read your and Turner’s scripts (and maybe Griffin’s?) and made a ruling that he deserved to share credit with you, just as a group of appointed WGA arbitrators read my and Rob Reiner’s drafts of our project, and decided he deserved sole credit. You and I both disagree with our respective outcomes (though, to be fair, you still get writing credit, whereas I got muscled out), but I wouldn’t be dickish or mean to Rob Reiner. Don’t hate the player, etc.

Or as a commenter in this thread wrote about the dust-up put it:

Dear Jason Reitman, Smile. You are the director of 3 exceptional movies at the age of 32, you are well on your way to the mantle of brilliant directors like Cameron Crowe and James Brooks. Embrace your WGA writing collaborator, look like best friends, relish in the fact you will all be getting Oscar nominations, probably 3 for you alone. While I have no idea how much of that script you wrote, you are the director and face of the film along with Clooney (because you preceded the movie with Thank You for Smoking and Juno no one doubts your skills as a supremely talented auteur.)

If you embrace Sheldon Turner, you will both have the chance to take home Oscars next month and assure decades of 200K a week rewriting jobs. Whincing audibly when he speaks onstage at the GG makes you look like a douchey credit hog, especially considering this movie is adapted from a best-selling novel whose author by all rights should be onstage with you. So smile and pretend to be Mr. Turner’s best friend, win an Oscar, fast-track another awards-worthy flick and rededicate your efforts to sleeping with Natalie Portman.

Sorry you lost best picture to Abahdah. Way to hide how much it bothered you. Kidding.

“Mine!” “No, mine!”