November 18, 2009

Stogie Joe’s Holiday Wish List

All I want for Christmas is…

• For Avatar to be James Cameron’s best movie since another one word A-title, Aliens. Hope you brought your A-game, James. We’ll know soon enough…

• For every focus group, exit poll participant and mall-walker they ask to profess total ignorance of the board game, children’s toy or toilet paper the studios want to turn into a movie. If it’s brand recognition they want, let’s just stop giving it to them.

• For Dexter to stay this good until the end of the season. And for Rita to just move in with the guy next door and take the brats with her.

• For NBC to put dramas back on at 10 p.m. and move Jay Leno and Conan back to their original timeslots. Nice try, guys.

• For the rights-holders to turn over the Terminator franchise to Joss Whedon. But more Firefly, less Dollhouse, Joss.

• For Dane Cook to never try to be funny again.

• For The Office to actually be funny again.

• For Robin Wright to become an A-list actress (and stay away from Sean Penn for at least six months).

• For the 2010 spec market to yield more than like, one sale every two hundred days.

• For none of the Academy Awards’ 10-deep list of Best Picture nominees to be Transformers 2 (this wish I might get, though I’ll have to wait until nominations are announced Feb. 2).

• And finally… for all you aspiring writers to get better, sell scripts and love what you do.