![[Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition]](/images/ads/austin2021a.png)
Home Like a Shadow
College girl accompanies her new boyfriend to his decaying San Joaquin Valley home town for his mother's birthday and is pulled into family conflicts and lost dreams dating back to the Civil War.
Meghan is a cynical, worldly, disillusioned college girl who thinks she has insulated herself against almost any experience. But when her new boyfriend, Cliff, unexpectedly invites her to his mother's birthday dinner in his tiny San Joaquin Valley hometown of "Alton" California, she braces herself.
"I am not particularly worried about meeting his family, either. I know by now that I am not the type of girl parents approve of. “Slinky,” one mom had sniffed, as if that were something bad.
When they finally arrive, Meghan realizes that Alton is a poor California town, straight out of The Grapes of Wrath.
"Piles of sunbleached lumber and crusted paint cans lie about in patchy, weedy yards, as if people had once hoped to renew their lives, but gave up."
Suddenly, I ache for Cliff. Beneath his lanky, cynical pose lies this sad origin."
“C’mon in.” But Cliff opens the door only enough for him to poke his head through and glance around. After a moment he throws it wide and pulls me after him."
Meghan meets Cliff's mother Lili, and his Auntie Verna, both of them sipping bourbon from teacups and already half in the bag. Of Lili, she says:
"Her face is radiantly beautiful, but the fragile skin has been no match for the Central Valley sun. Something about her makes you want to console her."
Auntie Verna, Lili's sister, gives Meghan the once-over:
"I get a whiff of hard liquor, tobacco and perfume. Her sharp blue eyes scan me so quickly that I can almost feel the wind of their passing.
When Cliff's father emerges, Meghan sees yet another truth:
A stubby, graying man in a blue striped seersucker bathrobe hanging half open to reveal a hairy, concave chest above an ample belly. His eyebrows are thick black bolts drawn together by his scowl. His beard is about three days old."
Meghan is now pulled into the family's life. Against her will, she begins to lose the hard shell she has grown around herself.
When the father leaves for a bout of gambling, and Cliff takes off after him, Meghan realizes that it is going to be a long, long night, and that she is going to wake up the next morning changed forever.
Chris Pine
Kim Basinger
The Brothers McMullen
The Last Picture Show
I wrote the feature film, Murder in Fashion, about the killing of designer Gianni Versace by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. The film played at theatres and festivals and was reviewed in the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/movies/22murder.html?_r=0
I collaborated with producer Don Murphy (Transformers, Natural Born Killers) on the script "Fast Fade" on the life of tragic film noir actress Barbra Payton.
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!In Between The River
The Jones family moves from town to town and Katie thinks it's normal but her older brother Kyle disagrees and their mother, Judy tries to balance it as their dad, Donald hides a secret that eventually comes out to separate brother, sister, mother in different ways and seals their fates (fictional characters but certain scenes are based on real events from the author's childhood)
SETTLING THE BOOKS
A rare book dealer uses the reading of his will to seal heirs who he believes wronged him, in a panic room with no air or escape, unless they decode a mystery hidden in a centuries old book.
THE SOCIAL POLICE
Twenty years from now, an FBI agent patrols the social media This pilot streamer has it all.
LOTUS OPERANDI
This one is pure Fun.!It's a genre buster, Fosse/Verdon meets James Bond, meets All That Jazz and Cabaret! Asian American Black Belt goes undercover for the CIA, to help track down terrorists.
CURIOUS BUDDIES
It's not your mother's buddy movie.
NOCTUME'S RAINBOW
Kids and their dogs, find the rainbow bridge in a snowstorm.
CIRQUE D' ETOILES
*** Russian astronaut, thrown out of the space program, hijacks a space taxi going to the International Space Station.
Population: One
A nineteen-year-old drops out of film school in New York City following a tragic accident and returns to his small Pennsylvanian hometown, only to be confronted by an array of quirky small town folk, including his detached best friend, his alcoholic single mother and a free-spirited cross-country traveling girl.
Bloodthirsty
A motley crew of strangers trapped in a secluded London tavern must survive overnight against vicious werewolves.
Bitches with Knives
After her deadbeat ex-boyfriend steals her winning lottery ticket, a hard-boiled trailer trash girl recruits her best friend and a sexy knife-wielding assassin for a revenge plot to reclaim her rightful fortune.
