FrankenScript :: Lee Gabel's Screenwriting Journal/Blog

Here’s a fun family film, one sure to entertain everyone. It’s inventive, creative, whimsical and will get the imaginations of little ones going in overdrive. I saw this in the theatres back in 2001 when I was in the heyday of my visual effects career, and it still holds up well. My six year old [...]

Here’s a good family film with strong and interesting characters, both male and female. For the most part the film is completely non-violent. A non-violent Western you ask? Well this does take place in Australia, so perhaps the fact that we’re “down under” tips the western genre upside down. It’s slower paced, but great for [...]

What a sweet and good film this is. It’s a shame it never received a proper theatrical release because it’s great family entertainment with lots of life lessons and plenty to talk about afterward. The story captures the feeling of first love, and for those kids who have not experienced those feelings yet, it will [...]

Here’s a low budget film that doesn’t look like it. Every dollar is up on screen and invested in the story. The screenwriter and actor Leigh Whannell (he plays Specs in the film) stated at the Toronto Film Festival that he had a list of horror cliches posted next to his computer so he would [...]

This story begins where the first left off, and you have to be a little patient with it. The film begins with a kinetic CG flythrough of the city. It’s too long and nearly derails the film. The specialty in the first film was the parkour. There’s still lots of that in this sequel, but [...]

This film offers a great example of visual effects that help tell the story. In fact, the visual effects are necessary to tell the story, and they still stand up well today. Thankfully the visual effects merely provide a believable backdrop to the changes that the characters go through during the story. And the changes [...]