To paraphrase Mel Brooks, tragedy is when I fall down and twist my ankle, comedy is when you fall in an open manhole and die. Either way you look at it, writing comedy for the screen is about as easy as pulling teeth from a studio exec with a mouthful of arugula. Local screenwriter and Hollywood consultant Aubrey Horton can help, though, and to that end is offering a free lecture — “How to Write a Funny Screenplay” — at 3pm, Sunday, Sep. 12 at the Guadalupe St. Barnes & Noble. In addition, Horton will teach a pair of screenwriting workshops later this fall, one four-week class and one eight-week. Call 835-7639 for information… Another fabulous aGLIFF has come and gone, but the winners of that fest’s first screenplay competition will be basking in the glow of their much-improved résumés for years to come. Congratulations to finalists Mysti Rubert (St. John), Jiivanii Dent (A Tender, Searching Light), and Jim Suthers (Cabin Fever), and winner Shannon Halwes (Mi Casa Es Su Casa). You supa-stars, you!… More screenplay madness: A call for entries has come in from Screenplayoff, an international screenplay competition based in Austin. Billed as “the first competition that allows screenwriters to follow their scripts all the way through the judging process,” the screenoff, uh, playoff, um, competition utilizes its own Web site — http://www.screenplayoff.com — to track submitted scripts through various tournament brackets, after which the final 64 survivors compete head-to-head in a battle of blood and guts and verbiagiastic glory. Fifty dollars gets your script in the running, and prizes include $5,000 cash (to film that sucker, should you choose to go indie). Deadline for entries is Jan. 3, 2000, and if that isn’t enough, Harry Knowles of Aint-It-Cool-News will be judging the championship match. Check the Web site or call 589-6480 for more information… The Texas premiere of For Love of the Game, a baseball drama starring Kevin Costner, will be held on Thursday, Sep. 16, at Bass Concert Hall on the UT campus. Costner will be in attendance to recognize UT head coach Augie Garrido, who served as technical adviser on the project. Tickets to the screening go for $20, $35, and $50 and are available by calling 477-6060. The $500 and $2,500 tix include a cocktail party and dinner; call 475-7581 for that info. This week sees the Alamo Drafthouse embark on another one of its increasingly common displays of programming genius; their Cannibal Film Festival features six toothsome flicks, among them a brand new print of Umberto Lenzi‘s infamous Cannibal Ferox, restored and remastered by Sly Stallone‘s son Sage. Also on the bill are the HK atrocity Human Meat Pies, Paul Bartel‘s classic black comedy Eating Raoul, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro‘s Delicatessen, Francesco Martino‘s Dr. Butcher, M.D., and George Romero‘s genre cornerstone Night of the Living Dead. Vegans beware: Alamo owner Tim League promises genre-specific vittles to boot, including handburgers and human sweetbreads… Femme-centric film group Reel Women will hold their next meeting at 7:30pm, Wed., Sept. 15, at GSD&M, featuring screenwriter Lindy Laub (For the Boys, They Come at Night)… Finally, congratulations are in order for local filmmaker Bob Ray, who managed to attract porn star and legit thesp Ashlyn Gere (The Lethal Squirt, Captain Butt’s Beach, Space Above and Beyond) to last week’s gala premiere of his feature debut, Rock Opera. Truly, dude, you rock.
This article appears in September 10 • 1999.