Inspires me in great and terrible ways.

I'm usually inspired whenever greatness is beheld... a painting, a poem... a story... even a movie.

However, when I saw (and read) Tony Gilroy's MICHAEL CLAYTON -- the writing was as strong as the directing. Same with the acting and -- I felt intimidated... as I believed this is/was as good as it gets...

To me, it was kinda the Micheal Jordon of modern films...

I had to step back and realize the league is full of players... and to each their own strengths...

Go with your own.

Right now Shane Battier of the Huston Rockets has to guard Kobe Bryant in the NBA playoffs -- and when you hear Battier speak, he treats it as a job, without fear, without intimidation, and heads onto the court trying to defend one of the game's best ever players. But he does it... head held high... to the best of his ability.

A league has a lot of players... Comparison is the quickest path to self defeat... Do not look to be better than X... but look to be the best you can be.

Write your own script. One page at a time. Then rewrite it... until its as good as it gets...

on the way home from watching In Bruges in the theater I was angry at it. It was so much better than what I'd written at the time. So I rewrote my screenplay to be as good as that. Or try, anyway.

So it intimidates, then inspires.

Great movies ALWAYS inspire me. Not sure who said this, or if I'm quoting it 100% acurately, but it's a good one to muse over,

"I see farther because we stand on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before us."

EVERY movie is a platform from which to build off. So someone has written a great movie? Okay, in the future how can it be improved upon? Creative minds see a show then their own wheels start turning on their own creations. If you're a true creative, that's how your mind works.
The two movies that really rocked my writing world were "No Country for Old Men" and "Pan's Labryinth." NEVER thought I couldn't write someting as good as either of those two movies. Rather, I let them dwell in my subconsious and then when they fit into stories I was already working on they sort of fused into what I was already doing. The same thing -- only totally different...

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

I am always inspired by great movies. Many a times I have found my plans for an evening suddenly change when I watch and awesome movie and simply must get to my computer to write something, anything.

Whenever I watch a really great movie or read a great book or poem or look at a great painting or sculpture, it inspires me. I'm never intimidated by art, I think partly because I am kind of obsessed with the notion of collective consciousness. When any piece of artwork soars to those phenomenal heights, I see it as an almost godlike expression of the collective consciousness, like the artist is somehow channeling the subconscious thoughts and feelings of the entire universe. Which is not to discredit the artist himself. I have plenty of admiration and respect for all great artists. But I don't feel as though that transcendent creative trance state is out of my reach, so I'm not intimidated.

This is great - I love the goo.

And I agree with Emily, sometimes films intimidate, then inspire. Knowing that there are writers out there that got to a level of mastery encourages me to keep going through the goo. Because if they can do it, I can do it too.

Great post & discussion. Thanks.