Screenplay or Everything's a Cliche

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So what if I wrote a screenplay that another modern day Cyrano de Begerac/Roxanne where the central protagonist is a girl who writes letters for other people all day (not unlike someone we know) and she starts writing these letters to this handsome big important guy, but the letters are ostensibly from her (female) boss. He starts writing back and they carry on this epistolary relationship, with him thinking he's falling in love with the boss who doesn't actually read the letters and has no idea what's going on. Anyway, there's more to the concept, but it occurred to me as I was silently congratulating myself on my brilliance that the female version of this was one in The Truth About Cats and Dogs with Uma Thurman and Janine Garofalo. I think it was phone conversations instead of letters, but the conceit remains the same. Anyway, so what, I don't care about copying and I don't care about selling out. Actually, I do care about copying. The hardest thing about this weekend's assignment was coming up with something that hasn't already been done in some movie. I'm certain that what I wrote has appeared in a similar form somewhere, even if I can't think of the particular film just at this moment in time. Watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again this weekend (which I just found out won best screenplay). Great movie, and re-discovered that David Cross has a small role in it.



What will this week bring? Hopefully only good things.

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