I want to go back to film school and write a thesis on The Traitors.
Approached lately about teaching screenwriting, which I’m still not sure you can actually ‘teach’ in the traditional sense. You just have to do it until you’re not rubbish. Will probably try anyway.
Some visual references for GIRL AT PARTY.
The simple genius of Call My Agent is overwhelming.
BAD APPLES in Deadline. I started writing it in January 2022, which doesn’t seem long enough ago, but that’s testament to Jonatan, Oskar, Saoirse, the whole Pulse team. Madness.
I’ve been working on a few projects lately, some of which are too early to talk about yet, but I’ve realised a thread running through is anti-nostalgia. I’ve always been suspicious of the sunlit uplands or rose-tinted views of the past. It’s culturally so powerful at the minute, probably because the future looks terrifying, which makes us stay still. But it seems paralysing, also, to live in the past and just recycle images and detritus.
One project I’ve been working on (more on that hopefully soon…) takes place in England in the 90s with a Gen Zer who loves the look being sent back…only to realise it’s actually properly toxic. My memories of lad culture were also stirred lately by Woodstock ‘99, which actually gave me nightmares. I think I’d buried a lot of well - trauma? - from growing up female in the Yorkie ‘Not for Girls’ Nu Metal moment.
The Kid Detective is tonally intriguing, sort of brilliant and weirdly relatable for a piece that seems to come out of nowhere.
Everyone wants my thoughts on AI.
I think I might be becoming a Boomer in a Millennial body since Children of the Stones made want to shake my stick and say ‘They sure don’t make ‘em like that any more!’ But fuck me, more ‘kids’ shows except they’re actually profound, scary and Lynchian please. Waterloo Road could never.
Recent watches include a lot of old Tales of the Unexpected. Some are a bit shit but the ones that really pop have the spirit of Roald Dahl’s original tales, particularly the ones made in the beige 70s. They get at the uncertainties and sinister underbelly of British society in a way that feels uncomfortably contemporary.
‘As Fuchsia climbed into the winding darkness her body was impregnated and made faint by a qualm as of green April. Her hear beat painfully.
This is a love that equals in its power the love of man for woman and reaches inwards as deeply. It is the love of a man or a woman for their world. For the world of their centre where their lives burn genuinely and with a free flame.’
I’m late to the party; but they found Q Lazzarus.
Writing a horror/thriller movie at the minute has gotten me thinking about both genres. Last October, deep in the creeping Covid crisis in the UK, I decided to watch a horror movie from a different country every day. I think I’m a glutton for punishment.
Some were bad, some were absolute gems. I still think about a film called Der Fan; which has everything I love…an arresting and subversive female role, European sensibilities, and pop music.