Adam Volk is a wannabe screenwriter trying desperately to break into the industry and cram his hack drivel down Hollywood’s gaping maw. Each week he examines one aspect from the wonderfully demented world of screenwriting.

Imagine trying to simultaneously pass a kidney stone, ride a unicycle and put together an IKEA filing cabinet — all while being chased by an amorous 300 pound gorilla — and you probably have a rough idea of what it’s like to try and make it as a professional writer. I mean, let’s face it, as a potentially glamorous career writing is somewhere up there with canine proctologist and McDonald’s fry cook; a grinding, demanding and often frustrating experience where success is measured in rejection letters and the number of times someone calls you a talentless hack. But if Darwin has taught us anything it’s that fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and socially inept masochists become writers.

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Ahhh porn. Lifeblood of the internet, sustainer of the sexually frustrated masses, giver of both abnormally large breasts and Two Girls One Cup. Yes, whether you love it or hate it, there’s no doubt that porn is big business. Which is why it’s no surprise that Hollywood has whole-heartedly embraced the world of XXX (and no we ain’t talking about Vin Diesel). Over the years there have been numerous mainstream films which explore the seamy underbelly of silicon and sex: from P.T. Anderson’s legendary Boogie Nights to Kevin Smith’s upcoming Zack and Miri Make a Porno. And it seems that Hollywood is showing no signs of slowing down when it comes to its fascination with porn. So close the curtains, grab your three-pronged Swedish vibrator and a pop open a fresh tube of KY as Film Junk Presents…

THE TOP 10 MOVIES ABOUT THE PORN INDUSTRY

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Adam Volk is a wannabe screenwriter trying desperately to break into the industry and cram his hack drivel down Hollywood’s gaping maw. Each week he examines one aspect from the wonderfully demented world of screenwriting.

When it comes to scripts that have been circulating in the void of cinematic purgatory, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards has achieved an almost cult-like status among fanboy culture; an elusive face-melting Ark of the Covenant which — if Tarantinoites can be believed — will be the greatest thing to grace the silver screen since Vincent Vega accidentally shot Marvin in the face. Now, after nearly ten years in development and countless promises from Tarantino himself, it seems like the film is finally becoming a reality.

I recently got my filthy little mitts on a copy of the script, which was leaked onto the internet a few months back, and if the screenplay is any indication the film is likely to stir up the same kind of controversy and criticisms that circulated around Tarantino’s last outing in Grindhouse. Tarantino fanboys will love Bastards for its trademark dialogue, bizarre over-the-top violence and subtle reverence for all things pop culture. Conversely, critics who think a post-Death Proof Tarantino is past his prime will likely blast it apart as a self-indulgent exercise in masturbatory filmmaking.

******WARNING: Spoilers Ahead! ******

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When it comes to the big screen there’s almost no shortage of memorable assholes to choose from. Yet, it takes a special kind of character to piss off audiences using nothing more than their own inflated egos and ability to make snide comments about women’s asses. Enter the movie douchebag, those classic characters who blend arrogance, sleaziness, misogyny and a general air of obnoxiousness, into one despicable personality. Movie douchebags are characters that go beyond simple antagonism, achieving such levels of blatant idiocy, annoyance and moral reprehensibility that they become characters we truly love to hate. So get ready to plum new depths of depravity as Film Junk presents…

THE TOP 10 BIGGEST MOVIE DOUCHEBAGS

10. Caledon Hockley from Titanic
A douchebag is bad enough on his own, but give a douchebag money, an undeserved sense of entitlement and his own personal butler and you’ve got some serious trouble on your hands. Enter Caledon “Cal” Hockley (played by the perpetually type-cast Billy Zane). Here’s a guy who shits on the lower classes, throws around cash like he’s fucking Suge Knight and spends most of the film trying to sleaze his way into Kate Winslet’s corset. If that wasn’t bad enough the guy blackmails the retarded kid from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, indiscriminately opens fire with a handgun inside the ship and then kidnaps a little girl to secure his place on board a lifeboat. Yup, douchebag, thy name is Caledon Hockley.

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Adam Volk is a wannabe screenwriter trying desperately to break into the industry and cram his hack drivel down Hollywood’s gaping maw. Each week he examines one aspect from the wonderfully demented world of screenwriting.

As an obsessive compulsive movie geek I’d like to think that I have some abstract sense as to what’s going on when it comes to the wacky world of Hollywood screenwriting. After all, I read my monthly issue of Script and CS magazines, drool over the weekly Script Girl video updates, and pour through the daily rumours and ramblings on the interweb. Yet for all my attempts to try and stay on top of screenwriting news, one mysterious name seems to keep cropping over and over again: Justin Marks.

Yes, these days it seems I can’t do a random Google search without seeing the guy’s name mentioned in passing half a dozen times. I flip through an issue of Variety and there he is again. The very next day MTV.com is busy pimping out his latest script -– hell the guy even appeared on a panel at this year’s Comic-Con! Yes, everywhere I look there’s Justin fucking Marks! Just who the hell is this guy?

Well, as it turns out Marks has become the de facto go-to screenwriter when it comes to some of the biggest franchises in geekdom, inking major six figure deals with Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Rogue Pictures – and he’s done it all without having a single script ever produced into a feature length film. So I decided to do a little digging to see what I could find out about the enigmatic Mr. Marks. For all the positive buzz about his screenplays the guy maintains the kind of low profile normally employed by Osama bin Laden and Howard Hughes during his crazy urine-collecting phase. From what little I could find about his past, it turns out that Marks started out as a production assistant on a few films, had his name attached to a couple of shorts and spec scripts, and was eventually discovered by the wife of legendary filmmaker and geek hero David Goyer. So just who is Justin Marks?

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War. Huh. Yeah. What is it good for? Well, if 70s Motown Funk Master Edwin Starr is to be believed: absolutely nothing. Yes, at first glance combining the horrors of war with fart jokes and prat falls hardly seems like the best idea, but if Hollywood has taught us anything it’s that it can take even the most unlikely of concepts and somehow make them work. Enter the war comedy: that rare cinematic sub-genre which blends both heavy weaponry and hilarity. Of course, the war comedy was been K.I.A. for a number of years now, but if the following list — and the recent box office smash Tropic Thunder — are any indication, it seems you can’t keep a good soldier down for long. So grab your M-16 and whoopee cushion and lock and load as Film Junk presents…

THE TOP 10 GREATEST WAR COMEDIES

10. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966)
If John Wayne demonstrated anything during the Cold War it’s that the only way to deal with a no-good dirty Commie is to wrap an American flag around your size-nine combat boot and shove it straight up Ivan’s ass. Of course, the alternative is Norman Jewison’s Academy-Award nominated flick The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming; a comedic look at Cold War era Soviet-American relations. Starring comedy legends Carl Reiner and Jonathan Winters along with a show-stealing performance from Oscar-Winner Alan Arkin, the film follows a group of bungling Russian sailors who find themselves in a world of trouble after their nuclear submarine runs aground near a sleepy New England town. With misunderstandings, machine guns and plenty of mutually assured laughs, The Russians Are Coming remains a classic of the genre; proof that despite their oppressive vodka-fuelled policies and soul-crushing Siberian gulags, those wacky Soviets weren’t really so bad after all.

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Back in the dark, primordial days of early Hollywood, Jack Warner, the now legendary fat-cat founder of Warner Bros. Studios, famously declared that screenwriters were nothing more than “schmucks with Underwoods” (in reference to the state-of-the-art Underwood typewriters employed at the time). And while the craft and business of screenwriting has undoubtedly changed since papa Jack’s time, the truth is that screenwriters are still generally treated like the Hollywood equivalent of a urinal cake: no matter how hard they try to keep things fresh, they inevitably end up getting whizzed on.

Okay, so maybe my horrible urinary-tract style metaphor is a little on the extreme side, but the fact of the matter is Hollywood has maintained a long and proud tradition of marginalizing, neglecting and occasionally even abusing its screenwriters. It’s a tradition which came to a head last year during the messy Mexican stand-off that was the writers strike; a situation which resulted in countless film and television productions being dropped faster than Harvey Weinstein’s last colonic. Officially, the strike was fuelled by the WGA’s desire for a slice of the increasingly lucrative new media pie, but there’s little doubt that writers were equally driven by pent up frustrations after years of mistreatment and mismanagement at the hands of Hollywood studios.

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Ahhh, stoner comedies, that potent blend of humour and hemp has delighted movie-going audiences since the first time someone lit up a joint on screen. Yes, stoner comedies have a proud history within the annals of American cinema and given the success of the recent Seth Rogen action-pot comedy Pineapple Express, it seems only appropriate to look back through the smoky haze of time and examine the very best of the best. So roll up a fatty, break out the roach clips and prepare to finally drain that rancid bong water as Film Junk presents…

THE TOP 10 GREATEST STONER COMEDIES

10. Half Baked (1998)
Like Doritos, lava lamps and zig-zag rolling papers, Half Baked has become a staple in the repertoire of any self-respecting stoner. While it’s perhaps best known as Dave Chappelle’s comedic breakout role, the film also stars Canadian comic Harland Williams and long since forgotten Saturday Night Live cast member Jim Breuer (Goat Boy, anybody?). The plot follows Chappelle and company as they decide to start selling pot stolen from the medical research clinic where they’re employed. A local drug dealer soon finds out that they’re cutting into his action and hilarity - and over the top weed jokes – soon ensue. While the film isn’t nearly as funny as Chappelle’s later work on his now defunct television series The Chappelle Show, Half Baked does have a few hilarious moments, including a drug-fuelled cameo from Bob Saget and of course, Chappelle strutting his stuff as rapper and ganja connoisseur Sir Smoka Lot.

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Hello and welcome to the first installment of Screenplay Junkie, your weekly look at the schizophrenic world of Hollywood screenwriters. I’m your columnist Adam Volk, film school reject, comic and video game geek and unabashed screenplay junkie. By day I work as a writer for a small Canadian video game developer, by night I’m a wannabe screenwriter trying desperately to break into the industry and cram my hack drivel down Hollywood’s gaping maw.

So what can you expect to see here each week? The answer is probably best summed up by the old theory that postulates a thousand monkeys working on a thousand typewriters could somehow create the world’s greatest novel. Hollywood of course, seems to have adopted this model head on and when you stop and consider some of the cinematic travesties unloaded on unsuspecting audiences, it’s not too hard to imagine chimp feces cluttering the floors of the writer’s room at most Hollywood studios. Of course, there are also some decidedly non-simian writers working in the industry. Screenplay Junkie is all about exploring the overgrown jungles of Hollywood and separating the primates from the predators when it comes to the strange world of screenwriting. Along the way we’ll check out the latest in screenplay reviews and news, take a look at some of the upcoming screenwriters in both LA-LA land and abroad and examine films both past and present from a screenwriting perspective.

Of course, a column is only as good as its readers, so that’s where you come in. Got something to say? Have a comment, column suggestion or rant you’d like to make. Feel free to drop me a line at: adamjvolk@rogers.com or better yet, post a comment here on Film Junk.

So welcome to Screenplay Junkie, the place to be for your soon-to-be weekly dose of Hollywood screenwriting goodness. Let the monkey poo-flinging begin!