The James Bond film series turns fifty this year. There have been twenty-two movies in this remarkable cinematic line featuring the superspy character created by novelist Ian Fleming, starting with 1962’s Dr. No. and followed by From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Live [...]

Hollywood lost a lot of wonderful folks in 2010, but three of those deaths hit close to home. So before we barrel too far on into 2011, let’s stop for a minute to pay tribute to these three greats.

Master screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz passed away on Saturday, July 31, 2010.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing veteran screenwriting Tom Mankiewicz. Tom had a lot of great things to say about the art and craft of screenwriting (to read the complete interview, follow these links: Part 1 and Part 2). During the course of our conversation, Tom mentioned one of his favorite examples of effective screenwriting from scenarist A.B. Guthrie, Jr. I found it intriguing and since Tom was kind enough to share it with me, I thought I would share it with you…