Phone Home. Blog #1

When I started reading A Boy's Life it seemed very similar, as if I had been told the story before. I haven't seen E.T. since I was a child so it took me until around page seven or eight to notice that this is indeed E.T. and when I did I immediately remembered random a few very detailed parts of the movie. I remembered Elliott getting drunk from E.T. drinking beers and Elliott floating in the principles office. I remember Gertie (Drew Barrymore) teaching E.T. to say 'Be Good'. But most of all I remember that E.T. likes Reeses Pieces! Because for some reason they couldn't use M&M's when the movie was made.

This is the first screenplay I've ever fully read and for the most part it was enjoyable. I think because I haven't seen the movie in such a long time it allowed me to really get into the story on paper, if I had just recently watched E.T. then it would of been very difficult to get through the screenplay version.

I didn't think the use of 'we' would make much difference but it pulled me a little out of the story, like the scene or shot was still outlined and she just didn't go back to fix it. Also her details on how she wanted the shot set up without there being anything visual in front of me made it feel a little incomplete.

Discussion Questions:

1. Did anyone else get the feeling from details about specific shots that Melissa Mathison wanted to direct A Boy's Life?

2. In Intuition (Weston) on page 79 Weston interperates Sean Penn's statement to 'Pacino doesn't map out his character's emotional life in a connect-the-dots fashion. Instead he springboards off some intuition about the character's inner nature, and then lives and behaves spontaneously, moment by moment, in the world created by that intuition.' As either a director or a writer which do you think would be better for your actors to do, map out the characters emotional life? or go off the character's inner nature?