JD at 2010-08-08 12:25:27:

Definitely Dune cos of all the options, it is has the most possibilities. N is the only one of the list I actually am interested in.
But can understand if we go with Bounty Hunter cos for better or worse RomComs are like staple Hollywood stuff now, and for screenwriters, they could be an "easy" paycheck!
Seems almost all top actors unfortuately want to be in one.
we could do a comparison of such an awful script with successful stuff like a Diablo Cody script.

Matt Latham at 2010-08-08 12:53:22:

Definitely Crash.

Just think: what's gonna be the better learning experience? With all the other movies, it's easy to see why they're bad. Those movies fooled no one.

Even as a person who despises Crash, I have to admit that it's effective at generating emotion. It's the only one that's not OBVIOUSLY bad, as the Oscars it won demonstrates.

It's also probably the only one that doesn't suffer from lazy writing. It is a very active and fairly well thought out script that uses plenty of techniques/tricks to get people to feel a lot while ultimately being engaged in a meaningless experience. There's a lot going on there for one to study.

Matt Latham at 2010-08-08 12:59:24:

Also, in asking the deeper question of how, why, and what for did this movie happen, all the other choices have an easy answer: it was all for the paycheck.

Crash wasn't done for a paycheck, so you can completely assess it on its own terms as a piece of art, made for the love of it.

While that doesn't give me any greater respect for Crash, I do think that it makes it the deeper, more challenging learning experience.

krantz at 2010-08-08 13:00:02:

agree w above poster, seems like crash is the best bet given it won an oscar, the other three are just terrible movies and likely easily picked apart...

JD at 2010-08-08 13:34:02:

get what Matt and Krantz are saying, but given crash is already "good" and we r supposed to be picking an awful script apart,I'd say do something awful.
It is amazing how "technically sound" a bad script could prove itself to be when picked apart.
We all agree the movies were (apart from Crash - oscar win) below par.
but are the scripts also really that terrible n more to the point, what (if anything) can we do better?
I think it would be a better learning experience, cos it's always easy to acknowledge fault in the work of others, but that doesn't mean that "under the same circumstances" we'd automatically do better.
I am assuming they all went past readers that recommended them n producers that believed they'd make a buck.
Crash might not be one's personal taste, but it can't be lumped in the group as the other atrocities (imo). Think Crash is more a finesse than raw craftsmanship problem.

Matt Latham at 2010-08-08 13:39:02:

Haha, but I do think that Crash is awful. It's a different kind of awful than the other movies, but in case I was unclear, I do think that to analyze Crash would be to analyze a bad screenplay.

chuklz at 2010-08-09 07:41:05:

The Bounty Hunter could have worked, in fact it should have worked. It has great stars, it has a great idea. It could have been fixed at a script level without spending a dime, or whatever WGA is paying these days for a re-write.

Lisa Cordova at 2010-08-09 09:44:56:

I vote Dune or Bounty Hunter (which could also allow us to discuss why Midnight run worked & BH didn't).

The idea is to discuss a bad script and learn from it. Crash would result in a debate about why some liked it while others don't. I happen to be one of those who liked it. We can always discuss Crash on a different day.

So it all comes down to why we are choosing the script. Is it to learn from a bad script OR to generate a heated debate (which can be done any other time).