{"id":163,"date":"2014-07-08T11:03:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T18:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hollywood-nobody.com\/blog\/?p=163"},"modified":"2014-07-08T11:07:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T18:07:50","slug":"the-dirtiest-word-of-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hollywood-nobody.com\/blog\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"THE DIRTIEST WORD OF ALL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rocky headlands reaching out into a restless, heaving sea.<\/p>\n

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Gray-green water swelling shoreward, filling the flume between these stone promontories, crashing on the bluffs above, exploding in iridescent mist.<\/p>\n

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The mist clears and the water recedes, rumbling, rattling over the pebbled sand floor, withdrawing and gathering strength before beginning its onslaught anew.<\/p>\n

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Montana de Oro.<\/p>\n

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One of the wonders of the California coast.<\/p>\n

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The view from the bluffs overlooking the sea is a glimpse at the beating heart of the world.<\/p>\n

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And its soul?<\/p>\n

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Right behind you.<\/p>\n

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Foothills and peaks awash in spring poppies\u2014the mountain of gold that gives the park its name.<\/p>\n

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It simply doesn\u2019t get any better than this.<\/p>\n

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There are, however, those individuals who believe that anything, no matter how good, can be improved.\u00a0 One of them, a visitor from the East, toured the park and exclaimed, \u201cWhat a waste!\u201d<\/p>\n

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A waste?<\/p>\n

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The individual in question pointed to the slopes above the sea, waxing eloquent about the upscale condos that, in a better, unregulated world, could replace the poppies on those golden foothills.<\/p>\n

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He was, of course, a\u2026<\/p>\n

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Are the children tucked in bed, sound asleep?<\/p>\n

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Is the volume turned down low?<\/p>\n

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I ask because I\u2019m about to say it.<\/p>\n

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The dirtiest word of all.<\/p>\n

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The individual in question was a\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026developer!<\/p>\n

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He believed in development.<\/p>\n

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He believed that there was no piece of land so perfect that he could not develop it, improve it for the benefit of all mankind and, of course, the enrichment of his own pocketbook.<\/p>\n

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I repeat the word in all its forms\u2014develop, developer, development\u2014in order to desensitize my reader to its horrors.<\/p>\n

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Develop.<\/p>\n

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I know I run the risk of an obscenity indictment.\u00a0 But I\u2019m prepared to take that chance.\u00a0 There\u2019s simply no way I can explore the offensiveness of the word without using it repeatedly, especially here in Hollywood where the word has as much currency as the F-bomb, where we believe that no script, no matter how good, can fail to benefit from development.<\/p>\n

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I myself have been the beneficiary of this commitment on the part of studio executives and producers to improve the work of their writers.<\/p>\n

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Take, for example, The Last Innocent Man<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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My adaptation of Phil Margolin\u2019s novel, it is the story of David Nash, a brilliant criminal attorney coming off his greatest success\u2014an innocent verdict in the trial of a charismatic novelist accused of the bludgeon slaying of his wife, a man he\u2019s almost certain is guilty.<\/p>\n

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Though he\u2019s receiving the accolades of the press and the congratulations of his colleagues, he himself is in despair.\u00a0 He started out wanting to be Clarence Darrow, and now he\u2019s putting monsters back on the street.\u00a0 He just can\u2019t do it anymore, and so he quits.<\/p>\n

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Then he meets a beautiful woman who disapproves of him as much as he disapproves of himself, and she brings him that rarest of all creatures, an innocent man.\u00a0 Seeking redemption, he goes back to work.<\/p>\n

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And that\u2019s when the twists and turns begin, threatening to tangle him in the very guilt he is fleeing.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s the story of a good man attempting to come to terms with the dark side of himself.<\/p>\n

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Or at least, it was\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026until HBO began to d******* it, guiding me and several subsequent writers through revision after revision, and it became the story of a man thinking with his little head instead of his big one\u2014the cable network\u2019s sleazy attempt to rip off Body Heat<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Sour grapes?<\/p>\n

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An isolated incident?<\/p>\n

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I have a friend who returned from a d********** meeting at Tri-Star where he\u2019d received notes so destructive that he went directly to bed, curling into a fetal position for days.<\/p>\n

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Eric Roth, Academy Award winning writer of Forest Gump<\/em>, Munich<\/em> and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button<\/em>, said it best:\u00a0 \u201cI love the writing.\u00a0 I hate the rewriting.\u00a0 Rewriting, I want to kill myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m sure some of you are thinking, \u201cDisgruntled writers!\u00a0 How can we trust their obviously biased judgments?\u00a0 Every one of these guys thinks his or her work is brilliant, that every word they write is purest gold, that no one could possibly improve upon what they\u2019ve done.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to hear the studio<\/em> side of this question.\u201d<\/p>\n

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All right.<\/p>\n

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By a curious twist of fate, I can do that, for I\u2019ve sat on both sides of the table, working for the studios as story analyst and story editor before my stint as writer and producer.<\/p>\n

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In my next blog, I\u2019ll share the story of my involvement in Young Sherlock Holmes<\/em>, revealing how we at Paramount and the folks at Amblin\u2019 managed to turn a screenplay of dazzling brilliance into a mediocre and even rather silly film.\u00a0 I call it \u201cGOODBYE, COLUMBUS\u201d in tribute to its creator, one of the most successful writer\/directors in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

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In the meantime\u2026<\/p>\n

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EXTRA!\u00a0 EXTRA!\u00a0 EXTRA!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

READ ALL ABOUT IT!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Intrigued by Bronson\u2019s charges?\u00a0 Want the details<\/strong><\/p>\n

of what happened to The Last Innocent Man<\/em>?\u00a0 Read<\/strong><\/p>\n

about this and other horrors of d********** in the Dan\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

brilliant new book, CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD NOBODY<\/em>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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