Steven Hartman
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Take 5: Writing lessons from the Christmas Rom-Com 'Hotel for the Holidays'
Holiday romantic-comedies are a big business. These films appear on multiple cable channels and streaming services with each one trying to maintain originality while also having to play off similar tropes. Hotel for the Holidays is a new light-hearte...
Screenwriting lessons from Spielberg’s Origin Story: ‘The Fabelmans’
What was Steven Spielberg like before he became Steven Spielberg? In the new film The Fabelmans, Spielberg tells the true story of what drove one of the best filmmakers in the history of the industry to become the person he is today. This semi-autobi...
Take 5: ‘She Said’ shows how two reporters started a movement
What does it take to break a story? In the film She Said, two journalists at the New York Times take on the challenge of exposing systemic sexual assault in Hollywood by going after the notorious producer Harvey Weinstein. Based on the article by rep...
Take 5: ‘Devotion’ and the art of adapting a true story
Devotion takes place in 1950 at the beginning of the Korean conflict, also known as the ‘Forgotten War.’ In some ways this is true. Rare is the movie that highlights this tumultuous time in our history with the most recognizable example being M*A*S*H...
Take 5: Writing a Coming-of-Age Story in ‘Armageddon Time’
Armageddon Time is a coming-of-age story that follows Paul Graf (Banks Repeta), a sixth-grade boy, who struggles with finding his place in the world during the generational shift from the 1970s into the 1980s. Paul not only begins to learn that his a...
What ‘The Santa Clause’ franchise can teach us about story
Over the course of the last 28 years, Tim Allen has donned the red suit and appeared on the big and small screen as Santa Claus in the Disney IP The Santa Clause. Built on the premise that a corporate toy executive is legally bound to become Santa, t...
Take 5: A hero must rise in ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’
In the latest Marvel Studios film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the citizens of Wakanda are mourning the loss of their king while facing the powerful forces of a new enemy from below the sea and the world powers interested in the Vibranium found w...
Adapting ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and the evolution of the war movie
Author Erich Maria Remarque would have never wanted the films based on his highly-acclaimed 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front to be considered adventure films. On the first pages of the great novel, he even writes that death is not an adventu...
Take 5: ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ scares off nostalgia for a new generation
Nostalgia is big business. The biggest movie of 2022 continues to be Top Gun: Maverick, which swims in nostalgia. Some of the most highly anticipated TV series to stream this year have been A League of Their Own and Cobra Kai, so it's no wonder that ...