Today, I want to know who was the first movie writer whose work you intentionally sought out.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
Movie screenwriters are obviously very important, but it sometimes takes a while to fully UNDERSTAND that as a movie fan, so I was wondering when you first decided, “Hey, I want to see more work from THAT person.”
My pick would probably be The Princess Bride, written by the amazing William Goldman, who obviously wrote a TON of great movies, so it worked out nicely to seek out his other movies.
How about you folks?
And feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at brian@popculturereferences.com!
It’s complicated because I think the first real answer is Woody Allen, who’s a writer/director, but to be honest, it was more the writer side of him that interested me (this was the late ’80s / early ’90s) but, at the same time, that’s hard to judge because I think his directing plays a big part in anything he does.
So if we’re doing it purely based on a writer, then I’d probably say Richard LaGravenese, because The Fisher King knocked my socks off when I saw it– the dialogue was stunning and I loved the twists it took and the bravura of it and I saw a lot of movies purely because LaGravenese wrote it (and later he would also direct them). Sadly, I don’t think any of them were quite as good as The Fisher King! But my loyalty held true!
Woody Allen
I think W.D. Richter after Buckaroo Banzai for the whole shaggy-dog stoner take on action genres.