Would anyone like to read my Project Greenlight screenplay?  It was
passed on by the four fellow contestants who reviewed it, and you can
see the assessment I have posted of their reviews at various places
below.  None of the reviews helped.  Some dwelled on an aspect of the
script I was perfectly well aware of (and was completely self-conscious
of--as one scene should have made clear, though to these readers it
didn't), but mostly they were just as I described below--lots of
complaining, little help.  They basically attacked my vision rather than
advised how I could realize it more clearly.  If anyone would like to
read it, please e-mail me privately, as I would hope to be able to make
the film (and others) some other way.  Interestingly enough, I tried to
make the mother, who was essentially based on my own mother, as
sympathetic as possible, despite what she does, and all the reviewers
considered her severely insane.  Obviously, the readers I had were the
same type of people I watched Malcolm Lee's _The Best Man_, who
considered the Taye Diggs character to be a villain, or the people I've
talked to who considered Cpl. Upham in _Saving Private Ryan_ a villain.

Scott

   The reviews came in today and I am quite outraged. Two were
completely inept and had misspellings
   in every single sentence, misspelled character names, etc. One
thought the narrator was a teenager
   even though the script specifically states he is in his twenties and
a college graduate, and most found
   the dialogue unrealisitc and the character unbelievable and
inconsistent. This convinced me that too
   many people are spoonfed conventional Hollywood comedy and melodrama,
because 90% of the
   dialogue was identical to dialogue I heard spoken in real life, and
the script is autobiographical, with
   only one scene made up. Most hated the unhappy ending, even though I
gave it a subtitle with the
   word "tragedy" in it so the readers would at least be prepared and
could decline if they didn't want to
   read it. All four passed. All complained of too many stage
directions. Several complained of the
   scene where chairs on the stage would become real-life cars in
realistic settings.

   In short, it was reviewed by Philistines, and these Philistines
determined its fate. Only one could
   compare it to any films that weren't mainstream Hollywood coming of
age films, to which my script
   bears almost no resemblance whatsoever.

   Many listed characters with brief conversations as "undeveloped
supporting characters" while leaving
   some of the major supporting characters off the list. One thought
that all the music references were to
   works by Bartok, even though Michael Nyman, Oingo Boingo, The Who,
and Pink Floyd are all
   invoked.

   I deserved better reviewers.

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