The latest we hear from ScarletBlue and PresiD is that Mr. Charisma wants to be the next Vin Diesel but he doesn’t really like Vin Diesel. They gave us a list of some of his favorite films so we could have an idea of what we will be writing toward. Predator. Aliens. The Exorcist. Poltergeist. Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns. Terminator. Mr. Charisma owns a successful computer game developing company and wants to develop films that match the target audience of his games. He wants stories about tough lone heroes facing down vicious dangers. Big testosterone fests.

This is going to be interesting then. Neither Nizzibet nor I are PC gamers. ScarletBlue and PresiD certainly aren’t. I don’t know if they are science fiction/fantasy/horror fans. So far our conversations about scripts and films has stuck to more mainstream efforts – romantic comedies, suspense dramas. Mr. Charisma’s list of films fits my tastes more than it seems like it would fit theirs.

The Fast and the Furious was far more entertaining than I expected. The script had more twists and turns than XXX, was more natural in the development of characters and the characters changed over the course of the film. I’m not a car fan. The premise is (cop goes undercover in the illegal racing circuit to find out who is hijacking semis) silly. But the film is tightly knit from script to final editing so that while I was watching it I was enjoying it.

Vin Diesel is … Vin Diesel. I don’t remember any of the characters names. He’s not the protagonist. He’s the honorable rogue antagonist. There’s no actual villain in The Fast and the Furious, the question of the film is how far the protagonist, Paul Walker’s character, will go to catch Vin Diesel’s character. There are some murderous types lurking around the edges of the story in order to provide violent death and inspire more car chases but they don’t drive the story.

Gaah. Too much film reviewing here. The internet is full of film reviewers. It doesn’t need me going off on this stuff. We watched the movies to get an idea of what Mr. Charisma was looking for and to have some common ground with ScarletBlue and PresiD when we sat down to work come Saturday. Once we’ve got some ideas we can all get behind we’ll have to pick on that can get done for two million or less. With high definition digital video it’s possible to do more elaborate films less expensively than it ever has been.