Reading “An Education”

Last night with a glass of wine, I read Nick Hornsby’s screenplay, An Education. It wasn’t until after I was finished that I did some research into Hornsby and found out that he’s a novelist, High Fidelity as one of his more notable accomplishments.

Inglourious Basterds… Another Script I Would Have Loved to Have Written

Yesterday I had the incredible experience of reading the script for Inglourious Basterds. I straight blew it when it was out in theaters and now Netflix is backed up for weeks, so I have yet to actually see the flick.

After reading the script yesterday, I can’t wait to watch this movie.

Up and coming screenwriters crack me up, because they’ll read a Quentin Tarantino script and dwell solely on his taboo use camera directions, constant misspellings, and formatting problems. Most feedback I’ve read from snobby, woe is me writers, consists of them jumping on the guy like he’s some bum that’s somehow wiggled himself into the industry.

Listen, fellow wanna-be’s, get over it. Tarantino is one of the best, whether or not he knows the difference between “their” and “they’re.”

The opening scene in Inglourious Basterds is seventeen pages long, consists primarily of two men talking at a kitchen table, and yet I was close to blowing a gasket while reading it. He knows how to build suspense, utilizing techniques such as Hitchcock’s “bomb under the table” (where the audience sees something coming that the characters don’t), to even the more challenging-to-write cat and mouse game of dialogue that me and 99% of those writers ripping him can only dream of creating.

If you’re enlisted as part of the grammar Nazi, don’t read Tarantino. But if you want to get a glimpse on how somebody can write a seventeen page scene WITHOUT much action and WITH ONLY two characters chatting and yet keep a reader on the edge of his/her seat, stop crying about how unfair life is and download Inglourious Basterds, here, so that one day you can possibly write something better.