Posts by Jerry Baker

Not really.

The only thing that comes to mind would be the Sundance Institute program held during the Sundance Film Festival (www.sundance.org). However, that’s specifically geared toward script development for projects intended to be produced within the local region.

Somewhere out there on the internet, there’s a precise breakdown of the entire admissions process, complete with reading lists and all the other technicalities you might need. When I say online, I’m referring to www.usa.gov

The reality is that for most people, the real headaches don't even start until after they've actually been accepted into the academy. To put it bluntly, it’s a bit like playing the lottery. If your number comes up, you win the grand prize: a spot in the program. Depending on where you fall on the spectrum of masochism versus sadism, that prize can feel just as much like a sentence as it does an achievement.

Then there's the lingering possibility that because of the changes brought about by the Bologna Process (yes, we're still dealing with that), they might overhaul the enrollment criteria themselves. They had to change the degree structures—at least according to the official paperwork.

The end finally arrived. I suppose there was supposed to be some profound, subtle message tucked away in there, but when a movie is built entirely out of clichés and archetypes rather than actual characters—you know, the usual suspects like the junkie, the street dealer, the mid-level pusher, the kingpin, the recovering addict, the widow, the old lady—it struggles to carry any heavy artistic or auteur-driven weight in those final minutes. If there truly was a point to be made, why didn't it manifest earlier in the story?

Instead, the plot just twists and turns in circles until, suddenly, nothing. It just vanishes.