I just saw a sneak preview of In a World... that had a Q&A with writer/director/star Lake Bell afterwards. It's a comedy about a female vocal coach trying to follow her father into the male-dominated world of voice-overs for movie trailers. I liked it. An interesting at the voice-over world that had some fairly unique characters. People who want to see better female characters and more women writers, directors, and/or lead characters should consider checking it out. Plus, Lake Bell was very funny and personable and seems like a nice person, so you would be supporting one of the good guys. Scott, you might want to try interviewing her sometime. This event was in Philadelphia. If she is willing to come here for a sneak preview and Q&A, she might do a screenwriting interview, time permitting.

Ed, We have audio from Lake's Los Angeles Q&A that we're planning to put up prior to the movie's limited release on August 9th. I also thought it was a fantastic film.

I saw The Spectacular Now this past weekend. The movie gave an authentic depiction of the modern day teenager. I was impressed that the writers were able to give the audience an interesting spin on a coming of age story. Not like the disappointing storytelling that we've seen recently of teenage movies. It starts with Sutter's very flawed character of living in the here and now, not striving for a future, and dealing with his past through alcoholism. I think this speaks well of what most teenagers go through when they are about to graduate. This is counterbalanced with his witty and fun personality and helping nature. The criticism I had was the character arc of Aimee. Sutter was very influential in her life and both bad (getting her to drink) and good (mentoring her by convincing her to stand up for herself.) She did this at one point in the movie, but I think the writers should have paid this off a little more when she forgave Sutter after returning home from the hospital and said to the effect "let's just pretend that this didn't happen." . I understood she was enamored by him, but it made her weak. As @MysterExec would say, stop writing female characters as F*ck puppets. This scene also "broke" one of the rules of story telling, conflict. I mean Sutter got off really easy and it could have made it more of an interesting ending if the writers would have explored the conflict of that situation. Plus I think it would have given Aimee a better character arc if she stood up for herself. The only other thing that bothered me was her "paper delivery" job. I mean c'mon who reads the newspaper anymore? This is 2013, most people read it on the internet now.

Thanks for this review and glad you saw the movie. I've only read the script, so can't comment on your critique thoroughly, but certainly concur with the spirit of what you say re female characters: more and better, please!