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In the Spotlight
Mother of Marfa! A Film Festival
by Jaden
Marfa, Texas rose over the horizon into my view when my unconventional 
brother and his herd of exceptionally talented artist friends migrated there from San Francisco, California.
What everyone wonders is: Why on earth would you move out to Texas and why are you talking with a reversed-lisp? (Marfa is spelled with f and not th; it takes a long time to accept this.)
Marfa is said to be a microcosm of Manhattan in the way that 10% of the 2,000 town folk are art enthusiasts who open galleries, create art installations, and host performances.
Oscar winning films shot in Marfa are: There Will Be Blood (2007), No Country for Old Men (2007), and Giant (1956), a fantastic film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson.
Do you love actors like Dennis Hopper and Daniel Day-Lewis? If so, go to marfafilmfestival.org to learn more about the Marfa Film Festival that gallops May 1 - 5, 2008 in Texas. If you are spontaneous and have some extra rope, jump on a plane and rent a horse to get yourself out to Marfa for a wild and weird filmophile adventure.
Screenings in the corral are: There Will Be Blood On the Set, Night of the Hunter, True Stories by David Byrne (from Talking Heads), plus 40 other feature, short and experimental films.
While you are out there, check out the Marfa Lights at night, it is some kind of alien-science-military-astronomical-electro-thermal-automobile-mountain-quartz mystery.
Script Buzz: The Mask of Manolo by Alveraz Ricardez
by Jaden
My website and services are geared to help people make a screenplay sale in Hollywood, a Hollywood that I would like to see change.
Part of my personal life mission is to elevate people and stories that have something positive to add to the world.
With so much negativity, selfishness, violence, xenophobia, ignorance and emptiness to combat, every bit of clever positive brilliance needs all the momentum and support it can get.
We have to entertain to educate. Film is a powerful tool that can be used for good or evil. There have been stories throughout time that have moved people and changed the world forever, some making the world worse, some making it better.
As writers, we can’t all write those special stories, but we can at least try.
Alveraz Ricardez submitted 
a script to me this week called The Mask of Manolo. Knowing nothing about him, I expected the usual fledgling screenwriter with little to say and much to learn.
What I received with The Mask of Manolo was a wonderful script based on 500 years of literature, intermixed with pop culture, and psychological issues that span all humanity. All of this was presented in a rapid-fire entertaining story full of quick-witted dialog, introspective poetry, colorful relatable characters, vivid imagery, and a wacky adventure. By the title, you can guess that this adventure story has a Spanish flavor as it travels through Mexico and the south-western United States.
Alveraz’s love of literature and understanding of people is evident from his script. He also clearly understands that to reach the public, you must entertain.
For confidentiality, I can’t tell you any details about the story, but I truly hope he makes a sale with this script and that it gets made into a movie quickly because I am desperate for my friends and family to see it!
Crying by page one, laughing by page two, The Mask of Manolo is an emotional roller coaster that can help people to better understand themselves and others. Artistic and poetic, it also has potential for mass appeal. It is campy, silly, and fun, while also being profound with intellectual merit.
The best part about this script for whoever the lucky producers shall be, is that it is relatively cheap to make with potential to make a lot of money. This is a winning combo that any studio would love to have.
Wishing Alveraz Ricardez the best of luck. This is a movie I want to see!
You may learn more about Alveraz Ricardez at his kicking website:
“Zampano Films delivers lasting independent cinema. We strive to transcend the standard, indifferent movie experience and bring you independent film that is not only entertaining but innovative and engaging.”
For serious inquiries only, if you want to throw buckets of money at Alveraz Ricardez (like he deserves), you may contact him directly at:
a l v e r a z 1 (at) y a h o o . c o m
News Today is a Crock of Crap:
Searching for the Depp-Dali Screenplay Competition
by Jaden
Kindly, a friend tipped me off to this exciting news bit on the wire about Johnny Depp looking for a screenplay about Salvador Dali.
Floating on countless news websites is this:
A source said: “He’s open to working with anyone - from housewives to pensioners - if the script is right.”
A lover of Dali, Depp, Paris, and screenwriting, I looked further into it, but could not find a single word legitimizing the statement.
WHO is the “source?”
The best I could trace the statement back to is Bangshowbiz out of London — London, gossip capital of the world! Who at Bang wrote this? Who was their source?
Talk about rumors! Here we have this mystery source — probably some Parisian waitress — who overheard Depp talking casually at dinner to his gorgeous wife how he’d like to play Dali if only he could find the right script.
Is it news when one person tells one person who tells another person who tells another person something the first person overhead when she was eavesdropping on what one person was saying to another person in a private conversation?
Or is this just another piece of sensational gossip?
Today’s news is hearsay. For something to be news today, one person just has to print it and call it news. Then everyone else picks it up and reprints it.
Does anyone do investigative reporting anymore? Everyone just accepts whatever they are told. Reprint. Reprint. Reprint. All I could find was the exact same article on tons of different websites.
The Internet permits news to become a receptacle for sewage.
Gone are the days when reporters moved from their chairs! Now we just get lazy reporting from people sitting at their computer digging up dung off the Internet and reprinting it.
Where are the official entry address and guidelines for this script Depp supposedly wants? Who is going to read all these scripts flooding in from around the world? Does his representation back this statement? Anyone ask Depp or his reps about this? I’d like to hear what they have to say.
Around the world, people are now writing scripts for Depp about Dali, without ever considering the source of this news piece, or I should say, the lack of source.
According to Bangshowbiz:
Al Pacino and Peter O’Toole are being lined up to star in rival movies, Dali and I and Goodbye Dali respectively.
Depp would be perfect to play Dali, but if two movies are already in the works about Dali, is Depp really going to make the massive financial commitment to a third?
I wanted to tell my readers about how to submit for this awesome screenwriting opportunity, but it doesn’t exist! From what I can see, it is just another trashy traffic-attracting hoax.
If anyone can validate the source and Depp’s desire for this Dali script, please do! We would all love to know.
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