Kissing Jessica Stein

So here we are with Kissing Jessica Stein, the third in a trifecta of films that one person or another has suggested that my script, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, reminds them of. So far this has left me feeling either embittered (my characters reminded them of that?) or arrogantly superior (fuck, my screenplay's better than that).

Kissing Jessica Stein is again, somewhat predictable, though not as much as Object Of my Affection. And more earnest than funny (though it is that in fits and starts). The truth is that there's really not much wrong with it. One or two of the triter scenes could have been replaced with more belivable dialogue, but how many films is that not true about?

(The answer? New Waterford Girl, which you have all called your video stores and put on hold, haven't you?)

It's just that it didn't sing to me the way great drama does. The way, picking something totally at random, Aaron Sorkin's best episodes of The West Wing do....the way I want my work to sing to people.

I'm also thinking about the fact that some feedback I got on my script recently said that "the dramatic shock value of the gays has decreased in the last decade."

Well, I'll tell you something. Not to make myself out to be "the noble heterosexual" or anything, but...I never made Keitha and Annabel gay for dramatic shock value. And if that's the only way I can "sell" them to even a quasi-mainsteam audience...maybe I don't want to do that.