Seven & 8Mm

Rating:
Summary: Sick and twisted
Review: Andrew Kevin Walker has the ability to weave a good, mysterious storyline around the atrocities that are seen every day in the newspaper or on TV. In "Seven" the story centers around a serial killer murdering in a mosaic around the seven deadly sins and in "8MM" a private detective is on the case of a missing runaway involved in the porn/snuff film industry. Walker creates dark and bleak situations and screen villains that are menacing and actually frightening. The protagonistic struggles laid into the story, involving personal choices and morals, are always juicy. Walker's next project, Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow", is supposed to be one of the scariest movies of the decade. From Walker, I would expect it.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Screenwriting
Review: Andrew Kevin Walker is a favorite of mine. Most people wouldn't recognize his name on the screen credits, but for guys like me, we know what to expect. His brilliant talent for weaving a textured plot together is, I believe, unparalleled. This book preserves the two scripts that made him a sought-after A-list writer. I can remember when his first film was released, Brainscan. Not as dense or textured as his new stuff but still not bad. Later on he helped pen the adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel, Hideaway and did an uncredited rewrite for Event Horizon and The Game. If you are serious into screenwriting or just appreciate the mechanics of a good film, buy this book right now. It's a good bet.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Screenwriting
Review: Andrew Kevin Walker is a favorite of mine. Most people wouldn't recognize his name on the screen credits, but for guys like me, we know what to expect. His brilliant talent for weaving a textured plot together is, I believe, unparalleled. This book preserves the two scripts that made him a sought-after A-list writer. I can remember when his first film was released, Brainscan. Not as dense or textured as his new stuff but still not bad. Later on he helped pen the adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel, Hideaway and did an uncredited rewrite for Event Horizon and The Game. If you are serious into screenwriting or just appreciate the mechanics of a good film, buy this book right now. It's a good bet.

Rating:
Summary: "This Is Not Going To Have A Happy Ending"; Indeed
Review: Here is Andrew Kevin Walker's justly acclaimed screenplay for "Seven", plus his first draft script for the Joel Schumacher fiasco "8mm." The first script is pretty much intact in David Fincher's brilliant film. The result was the best scary movie of its genre of the 1990's; in my opinion, even better than "The Silence of the Lambs" because of "Seven"'s deeper, darker moral (even theological) vision. Fincher omitted a prologue and epilogue featuring Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and discarded some lines of dialogue, but essentially everything was used. "8mm" is a very different case. As Walker explains in an interview that prefaces the book, director Joel Schumacher dumbed down his script, injecting spurious, lumbering melodrama and blunting the thematic amiguities so the result was a stupid revenge fantasy. (The Nicolas Cage character is given explicit permission to do the things he does in the final act in Schumacher's movie.) To be fair, Walker's original version is so incredibly dark that no Hollywood studio would ever want to film it. It should have been an independent film. In the introductory interview Walker also discusses how he wrote the scripts and how he got an agent to place "Seven" with the studios. He seems like a smart guy who is self-aware enough to keep a check on pretentiousness in his work. I would now like to read his original screenplay for "Sleepy Hollow" and his adaptation of Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage", two other works he mentions in this book.

Rating:
Summary: "This Is Not Going To Have A Happy Ending"; Indeed
Review: Here is Andrew Kevin Walker's justly acclaimed screenplay for "Seven", plus his first draft script for the Joel Schumacher fiasco "8mm." The first script is pretty much intact in David Fincher's brilliant film. The result was the best scary movie of its genre of the 1990's; in my opinion, even better than "The Silence of the Lambs" because of "Seven"'s deeper, darker moral (even theological) vision. Fincher omitted a prologue and epilogue featuring Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and discarded some lines of dialogue, but essentially everything was used. "8mm" is a very different case. As Walker explains in an interview that prefaces the book, director Joel Schumacher dumbed down his script, injecting spurious, lumbering melodrama and blunting the thematic amiguities so the result was a stupid revenge fantasy. (The Nicolas Cage character is given explicit permission to do the things he does in the final act in Schumacher's movie.) To be fair, Walker's original version is so incredibly dark that no Hollywood studio would ever want to film it. It should have been an independent film. In the introductory interview Walker also discusses how he wrote the scripts and how he got an agent to place "Seven" with the studios. He seems like a smart guy who is self-aware enough to keep a check on pretentiousness in his work. I would now like to read his original screenplay for "Sleepy Hollow" and his adaptation of Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage", two other works he mentions in this book.

Rating:
Summary: It concerns only Seven
Review: It is surprising to read the screenplay after having seen the film several times and exploited it in class with senior high school students. There are fundamental differences and the screenplay does not center the story the same way as the film. The screenplay is definitely centered from beginning to end on Somerset and not on Mills, or even on the couple Mills-Somerset. The question that comes up then is not whether Mills is going to flunk or not, but whether Somerset is going to leave the police and the City or not. The first and last scenes of thes creenplay have been cut off. Apart from that the differences are essentially details, but as I said before, the perspective is different. The numerous and long stage directions are also interesting because they give more meaning to the visual details, and they also explain better why some details are there, but not always. It does not tell us why the apartment of the 3rd victims is number 303 and Doe's apartment is 6A. But there we can easily find the connection, and the symbolism. But Mills is shown as an angry and ambitious man who does not have the patience it takes to cope with the perverted world in which we live, or die. Mills is definitely angrier and he reacts more violently in the screenplay. We also find out that the stage directions explain his character better than the way Brad Pitt plays it. Brad Pitt appears to lack some depth and not to be able to show the psychological complexity that we find in the screenplay, whereas Morgan Freeman is a lot better. That's probably why the film was decentered from Somerset and centered on the couple Mills-Somerset, not to put Brad Pitt in a secondary position. One element though in the screenplay is to be criticized : the metronome used by Somerset to recapture his balance at the end of a day, to erase the noise of the city, to come back to some regular rhythm and to go to sleep is definitely overused. Once is enough to understand. Three times is too much. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.

Rating:
Summary: It concerns only Seven
Review: It is surprising to read the screenplay after having seen the film several times and exploited it in class with senior high school students. There are fundamental differences and the screenplay does not center the story the same way as the film. The screenplay is definitely centered from beginning to end on Somerset and not on Mills, or even on the couple Mills-Somerset. The question that comes up then is not whether Mills is going to flunk or not, but whether Somerset is going to leave the police and the City or not. The first and last scenes of thes creenplay have been cut off. Apart from that the differences are essentially details, but as I said before, the perspective is different. The numerous and long stage directions are also interesting because they give more meaning to the visual details, and they also explain better why some details are there, but not always. It does not tell us why the apartment of the 3rd victims is number 303 and Doe's apartment is 6A. But there we can easily find the connection, and the symbolism. But Mills is shown as an angry and ambitious man who does not have the patience it takes to cope with the perverted world in which we live, or die. Mills is definitely angrier and he reacts more violently in the screenplay. We also find out that the stage directions explain his character better than the way Brad Pitt plays it. Brad Pitt appears to lack some depth and not to be able to show the psychological complexity that we find in the screenplay, whereas Morgan Freeman is a lot better. That's probably why the film was decentered from Somerset and centered on the couple Mills-Somerset, not to put Brad Pitt in a secondary position. One element though in the screenplay is to be criticized : the metronome used by Somerset to recapture his balance at the end of a day, to erase the noise of the city, to come back to some regular rhythm and to go to sleep is definitely overused. Once is enough to understand. Three times is too much. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.

Rating:
Summary: well - written book....
Review: It's the most surprising and tragic story I've ever read.
I've read this book 2 times and watched the film.Although I'm not a christian,the seven deadly sins are the most serious sins...Only
God can forgive us.The city always described as a mess,noise,gloomy,desperate and violence,and the weather had been raining,dark,mist and cloudy.But in the end,despite of cruelty story,the weather was brilliant.I think it's very ironical.
Somerset has got 7days until he retires and doesn`t want to see any criminal.After he found the body of "the fat man" ,he knew, it wasn't going to be easy.Finally he decided to stay to fight the fight in the city.

Rating:
Summary: Seven
Review: This is tragic but amazing story. In this story Mill`s wife does very important role. She hates cities, and she doesn`t want to have a baby in the city.
Through the story the auther uses the contraction between city and country. To be honest he doesn`t like cities. The people in the cities have many sins, for exampled,greed,gluttony,wrath,envy,sloth,pride and lust.he tries to show that to live in cities means to commit sins.
The auther wants to make people reflect their life. For example the man who is described as the symbol as 'gluttony' is, I think normal man or the man who is everywhere. However the auther tries to describe him as the man who is really sinful man. To be fat or gluttony is absolutely sinful.
However, to be honest, I cannot understand the ending. What did Doe want to do? If he kills six or seven men, is it connected to something? I think his crimes is for only his sitisfaction, so it never has influence. From the begining to the ending, only Doe knows everything and only he knows what would happen next. Without doubt this crime is only understood by Doe, but this story is expressing America.

Rating:
Summary: a must-have for film writers and film-lovers
Review: Two outstanding, cool screenplays in one book. I was a big fanof SEVEN when it came out and was happy to read it in scriptform. It's still really powerful. I was also surprised to see how amazing the script for 8MM was-the movie directed by Joel Schumacher s**ked. I am a screenwriter myself, and found this book really inspiring.