Favorite Movies about Writers

I like some of the older movies, such as "The Bad and the Beautiful." (1952) It had Leo G. Carroll as British director Henry Whitfield, who was supposed to be Alfred Hitchcock. Dick Powell as a screenwriter/Southern novelist who was supposed to represent William Faulkner, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Every character in the film represented someone real, and while it was more about screenwriting than novel writing, I still think it's one of the best films ever made in the genre.

Alex and Emma was just bad, but I loved Finding Forrester, Wonderland, and Adaptation. Finding Neverland was very good.

Shadowlands was great.

But I also love "As Good As it Gets."

Hm, I just remembered 'Little Women.' I don't remember the film very well.. did she do much writing in it?

I've just watched again "Love Actually" - a very smooth script!
Highly recommended!

This is not a movie about writing or writers (and really it's a wretched horrid movie, but what can I say, I have a 7 year old daughter, she made me watch it. . .) but there is this fabulous bit character in The Princess Diaries. The writer who lives next door. He spends all of his time in his bathrobe and much of his time taking notes about things going on around him on a yellow legal pad. It's stereotypical in a funny way, at least to me. I could turn into that guy-- at least the scribbling down notes all the time part.

Basic Instinct

Totally bogus, but Wow! I mean, Sharon Stone! (She's supposed to be a writer in that movie.)

It's not about a writer, but a writer's childhood adventure, etc.... Stand By me

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Nobody else liked The Hours? <hr></blockquote>

The Hours is practically my all time favorite film. Other than that, Finding Neverland, and Stand by Me and Adaptation, if you count those.

Found a list on this at Amazon...

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...62-5824862

You can also check the first two lists on the right for a couple other classics of the genre.

And then there’s Angel at My Table, which I've never seen, but remembered from Siskel and Ebert.

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...2?v=glance

Angel at my Table is a bizarre and fascinating movie, but although it's about a writer, not much of it is about writing.

- Victoria

Chevy Chase! Funny Farm! He's a sportswriter who heads to the country to write his great novel and there he is, sitting down in his writing room for the first time, and he's got his coffee, and the birds are chirping, and... nothing. A great flick, with lots of wacky characters, for when you're feeling stuck.

Woody Allen's Manhattan. It's got writers in it, the screenplay is a delight, and the cinematography by Gordon Willis (The Godfather) is a wonder to watch.

Plus, every writer's gotta love the intro...

"Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion." Uh, no, make that: "He romanticized it all out of proportion.… To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles." Nah... too corny.

"Chapter One. He adored New York City. To him, it was a metaphor for the decay of the contemporary culture…” No, it's gonna be too preachy. Let's face it, I wanna sell some books here.

"Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat." I love this. "New York was his town. And it always would be."

Click to expand...

Adaption
As Good As It Gets
Barton Fink
Finding Neverland
Finding Forrester
I can't think of any more at the moment.

Just saw Duplex with Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore. Ben Stiller plays a writer who is finishing a novel with a very strict deadline. A lot of people didn't really like the movie, but Stiller as the writer is pretty accurate. I found myself paying attention during all of his writing scenes and references to his writing. His editor refers to his books as a "mid-level" (does anyone call it that? thought it was "midlist"), but otherwise pretty accurate. He also has a successful novelist friend who reads his books for enthralled audiences in bookstores.

The part that made me laugh out loud was when the old lady in the movie asked Stiller to sign the copy of his book she just bought. When he opened it up to sign, there was a big 99cents sticker on the inside cover. The look on his face when he was forced to sign next to this sticker was priceless.

Fun to watch for writers' references.

utc

There's some good and "accurate" parts about Stiller's character. Given it's a comedy, I don't mind some exaggeration. But at the end, when (*spoiler alert*) when he finished the novel in a day, at a crowded BAR nonetheless, it's a incredulous. He will have to type at least 70,000 words in 12 hours... and that's just typing. It says nothing about actually writing the story. I can't imagine anyone writing a 70,000-word story in 12 hours at a noisy bar and for it to be any good. He must be the most gifted, disciplined, single-minded writer (not to mention fastest typist) in the world. So that part really didn't work for me. Then the whole laptop thing... I just KNEW where the story was taking me way before it happened....

/vent off

But the ending is cute. I really do like the twisted, semi "everybody lives ever after" type ending. It's subversive.

Maestro,
I believe he had to just finish the book at the bar, not write the entire thing. I understood that by the time the movie started, he already had most of it written. I could be wrong and would have to rewatch the movie (and I don't really want to do that) to find out for sure.

The other big contradiction is that at the beginning of the movie, he didn't want to go to Starbucks to write his book "with those other novelists," leading me to believe he writes better alone. And (generalizing here), but some writers work better alone, and some writers work better in a crowded coffeehouse or bar. In Stiller's case, he had to focus on finishing his book in twelve hours and was able to do it in a noisy bar. I know I couldn't do that, but others might. Probably would have been better to choose a library.

AND (spoiler alert) I guess we all knew that somehow his laptop would get destroyed before he submitted his ms. AND his editor would be unforgiving about his missing the deadline. I suppose in real life, after getting "fired" from the publisher, a writer would suck in his breath and rewrite the whole thing from memory and submit it to a different house (or have his agent do it--I would think that Stiller would have had an agent, successful that he was). However, in the end he did take his experience and write a book about it, so it still had the Hollywood happy ending.

Drew Barrymore as his wife was very supportive: the kind of wife that writers hope to have. I liked her portrayal,
seemed realistic.

utc

I agree about Drew Barrymore's character. IIRC, Stiller's character had only started his new novel as the movie begins. I could be wrong. And he also had major writer's block. I think that's why I find his last 12-hour sprint incredulous. And yes, the unforgiving editor bit is kind of ridiculous, too, especially since we are not led to believe that he had been anything but a "cooperative" writer. I mean, do book editors really have that kind of "12 PM on Friday the 13th or else" strict deadlines? But it could happen and it is a dark comedy, I guess.

But yes, it did have a happy ending for Stiller, so that's good.

This film just occurred to me: Almost Famous. A thinly veiled autobiographical look at early 70's rock criticism, it's about Cameron Crowes start in the field at the tender age of 17.

Especially noteworthy is the scene between the main character and fellow rock critic Lester Bangs (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) where Lester gives rambling advice at 2 something something in the morning while spinning records in the background.

- Anatole

Maestro,

(Spoilers of Duplex ahead)

I rewatched parts of Duplex. Near the beginning of the movie, Drew Barrymore tells the old lady upstairs that Ben Stiller is "almost finished" with his novel. Stiller also states that his deadline is (I think) in three weeks.

This suggests that he was probably 3/4 of the way through, and perhaps had maybe less than a hundred pages left.

And the old lady bugged him so much, and her TV kept him awake at night, that he napped during the day when he wasn't doing chores for her. So, he leaves the house and starts writing at Starbucks where they show him several times typing away. He probably spent at least a week and a half doing this, and should have been nearly finished when he writes for twelve straight hours at the bar.

Chances are that he was reading and editing during the last few hours, somehow concentrating despite the noise of the crowd around him.

Is all that possible? I think so. If his laptop hadn't been destroyed, and he had been able to hand it in, it still would have required editing. But at least it was finished on time.

One part of the movie I found unbelievable is that they were somehow able to sell everything in their apartment in two days and make $25,000 to pay the hit man. Unless they combined their furniture sales with their savings, but by this point I think they were strapped for cash.

Fun movie, though.

utc

utc, must have missed it. I really thought he was just starting on his new novel. We will never really know how many words he had left to write, but my guess is, even if he just typed it out, it would take a while to bang out 10,000 words. Anyway, it just sounded incredulous to me.

And you're right, the $25,000 sale was also incredible. But I tried not to dwell on that one since it was "necessary" for the plot to move along...

'Iris' about Iris Murdoch

Well, if you want to talk about a writer under stress or pressure, until it contributes to his death, we would have to include AMADEUS (not sure on this spelling)

Triceratops

LOVED 'Her Alibi' - such a humorous portrayal of a writer.

Basic Instinct has its redeeming qualities, Jim is right on that.

Romancing the Stone is hilarious. It was a childhood favorite and I still watch it every blue moon. I probably have most of the dialogue memorized; I know I have every scene down pat.

As Good As It Gets was an exceptional comedy; almost everything Nicholson touches turns to gold.

:rollin

THE FUNNY FARM....without a doubt the best for good chuckles.....i re-watch it at least three times a year.....




:rollin

My favorites include:

Romancing The Stone - Me too!!!! I still watch it every chance I get and I have almost memorized the whole movie!

The Shining - Saw that in the movie theatre when it first came out - scared the pahdookie out of me.

Never Been Kissed - Drew Barrymore plays a newspaper writer who goes through major changes. Very cute.

Somewhere In Time - Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. Reeves plays a playwright who travels back in time to meet a famous actress in circa 1912 - if I remember the year correctly. Another one I watch whenever I can and remains one of my all-time favorites alongside Romancing The Stone.

I Remember Mama - an old b/w starring a VERY young Barbara Bel Geddes who grows up to be a writer and her debut story is about her mother. A very touching movie.

House, with William Katt. A blocked writer is hard-up against a deadline; to get solitude to finish, he goes to a house that is, unfortunately, haunted. Hijinks ensue. Great booksigning scene. Happy ending: He finishes his novel.

Two TV shows:

X-Files: Jose Chung's From Outer Space

Millennium: Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense

(Includes a classic booksigning scene, and the wonderful line, "On my honor as a writer!")