Film incentives are rightfully the buzz around Texas right now with the next session of the Legislature just around the corner. But they're also getting some national attention, including as a "pork" addition to the government bailout of the mortgage biz. It seems a national fix for film incentives, primarily aimed at equalizing the playing field with Canada, made it into the bill's language: According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine, it will "extend and modify temporary expensing rules (they were to expire at the end of this year) that are meant to discourage the flight of TV and film production to Canada and elsewhere by expanding the number and type of deductions that can be taken in the year of production.

I've already resorted to numbering. Bad sign. 1) I didn't say that junkies make less meaningful characters – merely less interesting characters. Sure, there are variations from character to character – in what drove him to drink or to drugs, in what prize possession of his mother's he'll hock for that next fix – but the frame of the addict-writer-narrative-arc is depressingly monotonous.

It's a Seventies/Eighties flashback in Lakeway where the independent comedy Code Enforcer is in the middle of a 21-day shoot with Erin Moran and Eddie Mekka starring. You remember Joanie "Shortcake" Cunningham, Ritchie's lil sis on Happy Days, but may have a harder time recalling Mekka, who was Carmine "The Big Ragu" Ragusa, the singer/dancer on Laverne & Shirley. Greg Dorchak and Steve Cauley started writing Code Enforcer, a tale of a homeowners' association gone wrong, while working on another film. Since both writers live in subdivisions with home owners' association, they had plenty of experience to draw on. "There are a lot of new subdivisions going up all across the country – and most of those are governed by HOAs of some sort. Some lines in the script were taken directly from real situations," Dorchak says. "It was impossible to put everything I wanted into this story; it would have been 300 pages long." Steve Cauley and Greg Dorchak are the co-writers and producers, with Cauley directing and Dorchak performing.

Point two: not all addicts are junkies. Take Paul Giamatti’s character in Sideways. He’s a classic failed-writer-with-an-addictive-personality. Unlike heroin users, however, all of his habits are legal, socially acceptable, and even expected from a single, middle-aged man whose life has fallen apart. There’s nothing a junkie can say to someone that justifies his/her addiction to heroin, no explanation beyond the main one: that heroin is their lifeblood. But what makes Miles so brilliant is his literary ability to justify his addictions and paint them not as outgrowths of his failure as a writer but as minor, even poetic, indulgences of the intellectual class. He deflects questions about his alcoholism by assuming the role of the pompous wine connoisseur; he justifies his self-obsession by painting himself as a grand, tragic figure in the Hemingway mold (even going so far as to crib Hemingway’s words when describing himself); he sees his romantic failures not as a manifestation of his fear and self-loathing but as cruel punishment administered by fickle Gods out to destroy him.

Dear Kim, These one-month intervals are killing me. Raised from a pup to be contentious, I never know what to do with myself when you and I aren’t fighting online. Actually, I do: fight with you offline. If any readers out there are skeptical that the Film Fight format is just a gimmick – an artificial disputatious environment between two otherwise agreeable souls – you’ll be happy to know that Kim and I spent a good chunk of last week railing at each other at birthday parties and other social functions. I don’t know if we were just getting ourselves back into the holiday spirit, or if we actually disagree that strongly about the value of a clean house or the relative virtues of my romantic philosophy, but few punches were pulled and fewer apologies were offered. (Though I have to say that Kim, in the spirit of Yom Kippur, the just-passed Jewish day of atonement, did offer one. Being Jewish myself, and having suffered through endless hours reciting the Kol Nidre over the course of my life, I know that asking for forgiveness during the High Holidays gets you precisely nowhere, so I didn’t take the bait. Still I thought it was a sweet gesture. And one she’ll regret very soon.) No, you can rest easy knowing that we don’t just play Film Fighters on TV. Witness, for example how quickly Kim went for the jugular this time around. No pleasantries, no niceties, no build-up. Just straight to Permanent Midnight. What kind of friend would force a friend to defend Ben Stiller first thing in the morning? No friend at all. And I won’t do it.

In addition to the spectacularly blocked Bart, Barton Fink also features an addict writer who can't write, John Mahoney's Bill Mayhew (a composite of Fitzgerald and Faulkner). Here Barton is arguing with Tony Shalhoub's producer character, Ben Geisler, about Mayhew. It's a funny exchange, but also, I think goes to the heart of my argument – that block can be creatively freeing (à la "I'm going to write myself into the script I'm adapting!"), while addiction is a creative dead-end – the writer as defined by addiction alone. Ben: I thought you were going to consult another writer on this.
Barton: I've talked with Bill Mayhew.
Ben: Bill Mayhew? Some help. He's a souse!
Barton: He's a great writer.
Ben: A great souse.
Barton: You don't understand–
Ben: Souse!
Barton: –his pain because he can't write–
Ben: Souse! Souse!

A good – if not entirely sporting – place to start a discussion about being pro-writers’ block is with the anti-addiction argument. So… why do I hate junkie-writer movies so? (And I do – I really, really hate junkie movies.) Because junkies are joyless and, even worse, one-note. Yes, writers with block have a certain sameness to them, too – mostly a lot of staring glumly at the blank page, the monitor, the typewriter – but the fun stuff happens when the writer gets up from the page, the monitor, the typewriter, and does some living instead. When the junkie writer gets up from the page, he goes straight to the nearest dealer. Injects drug of choice. Spectacularly fouls up career, health, hygiene regimen, relations with family and family. Rinse and repeat.

Greetings all, and welcome to another Film Fight. If you’re new to the Fight, then I’ll direct you here to read all about the rules of engagement. Rules might be a misleading word, though – honestly, Josh and I are sort of making this thing up as we go along, which is why our topics grow more amorphous and ungainly every month. Hence… Writers in the Movies! (dunh-dunh-dunh) What do we mean by this? It’s a good question. A couple of weeks ago, when we were scratching heads over what we were going to brawl over next, it occurred to us that the Austin Film Festival will be kicking off this week. AFF is unique in that it was one of the first (if not the first?) conference in the country dedicated to the art of screenwriting. And I suppose I should preemptively put it out there – because I suspect Josh will use it against me anyway and I’d rather cut him off at the pass – that I have a half-dozen scripts gathering dust in a drawer, which is why the topic is especially near and dear to me, and also why I will no doubt casually, annoyingly drop screenwriterly words willy-nilly in an attempt to intimidate Josh.

Josh Rosenblatt and I have just a couple more days to cram for the next Film Fight throwdown – Film Fight III: Writers in the Movies lands Monday! – but if you're hankering to show us a little love rightthisverysecond, then mosey on over to our myspace page and make us a friend, eh? See you on Monday.