Writing the block-buster movie usually means writing an action thriller. And the formula there is pretty set, and it really works.

Start with a truly monstrous VILLAIN, and not with the hero. Period. Without a villain-on-steroids, there is no catastrophe at hand that our hero needs to conquer.

That’s why the original DIE HARD (1988) was such a success. Not only because Bruce Willis played the HERO like a dream, but also because the villain HANS GRUBER (Alan Rickman) was a world-class psychopath with Einstein’s IQ. The chilling scene where Gruber meets McClane face to face and pretends he is one of the hostages is one of those classic moments that I’ll remember as long as I live.

This is the same reason DIE HARD 2 (1990) did not work that well in my judgment because its villain, COL. STUART (William Sadler) was a half-developed psycho.

That opening scene where we see Col. Stuart practice his kung-fu moves stark naked in a hotel room while watching the news on TV, is just perfect! We know we are faced with a force of nature that McClane will have one heck of a time subduing. We fasten our seatbelts. We are ready for the ride.

But later on, Col. Stuart devolves into just another mean spirited terrorist mastermind. He turns into a cartoon of himself and the soda pop fizzles out.

I’ll maintain that it is much harder to create an ORIGINAL VILLAIN than an original hero and that’s the key to most block-buster box office hits.

Consider Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991).

Lecter keeps us guessing and scaring us down to the depth of our souls until the very last second of the movie.

We know we’ll never outsmart or outrun this monster and that’s what it makes the efforts of the FBI Agent Clarice Starling so fascinating. She is trying to achieve the impossible by setting her wits and heart against those of Lecter. Without Lecter’s cosmological evil, Starling’s character arc would not be as powerful.

Remember the “horse’s head” scene in GODFATHER? Without that kind of stark cruelty setting the background, would we feel as fascinated with this family saga?

As in the case of the top-rated HBO show the SOPRANOS, we are both attracted towards the characters in GODFATHER while feeling guilty for doing so, mostly because we are aware of the monumental cruelty and violence that this family is capable of.

Our own conflicted feelings are at the heart of the “dramatic conflict” and without a good villain our emotional experience would not be as substantial. And emotional experience is what sells tickets and buys that Malibu home for the writer who can create a monstrous villain out of the depth of her basically clean soul.

That’s the HARDEST aspect of writing a block-buster action thriller. There is a clear need to create an evil-incarnate maniac yet we writers on the whole are the good guys. We basically mean well towards all creation and most of the time hanker after sublime aesthetic experiences.

This is a problem that most inexperienced writer think they’ll circumvent by writing a GOOD HERO. Think again.

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Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases and hi-tech documentation.

He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 companies for the last 7 years.

You can reach him at writer111@gmail.com for a FREE consultation on all your copywriting needs.

Please visit his official web site http://www.writer111.com for customer testimonials and more information on his multidisciplinary background and career.

The last book he has edited: http://www.lulu.com/content/263630

ELMER GANTRY is one hopping good story of a fast talking appliance salesman from the Bible Belt who, back in the days of the Prohibition and Speak-Easies, cons his way up the steps of success and transforms into a fiery preacher who can agitate the masses in every direction he wants.

He builds up a considerable following in Zenith, Kansas as the eager sidekick of Sharon Falconer, an evangelist who has more truth in her soul than Elmer. Gantry milks the whole enterprise for whatever its worth until the tragic ending when the transformation of this super huckster emerges as the principle character arc of the whole plot.

Adapted from Sinclair Lewis’s book by the same title, director Richard Brooks created a classic indictment of those revivalists who manipulate the masses for their own ends by using the Jesus’s message of love as a shield and subterfuge.

The movie was nominated for 5 Oscars in 1961 won 3 of them – Best Actor in a Leading Role for Burt Lancaster, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Shirley Jones and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium for Richard Brooks.

Elmer Gantry (played by considerable fire and brimstone by Burt Lancaster) starts his journey as a big time loser, a traveling appliance salesman in the 20s who is more successful at cracking up his drinking buddies with lewd jokes and seducing young women for one night stands than anything else. Always broke, always moving from one town to another, but endowed by the obvious gift of bombastic rhetoric, he finds his calling under the tent of the revivalist Sharon Falconer (played by the incredibly beautiful Jean Simmons).

Despite Falconer’s initial reluctance, the fast-talking fast-moving Gantry manages to win her trust to deliver his first sermon as a guest preacher which ends up as a resounding success.

Many other such sermons follow: “Sin. Sin, Sin. You’re all sinners. You’re all doomed to perdition. You’re all goin’ to the painful, stinkin’, scaldin’, everlastin’ tortures of a fiery hell, created by God for sinners, unless, unless, unless you repent” is one example to the type of delivery unleashed by Gantry in lethal dozes.

Shooting up the success graph with alarming ease, Gantry moves the whole tent-based rural operation to Zenith, Kansas, an urban setting that scares Falconer’s cautious business manager. But when the town guarantees to pay the Falconer operation $30,000 upfront, the deed is done and the troupe moves into Zenith with a marching band, clowns and great fanfare.

Falconer, Gantry and their team promise to revive the fire of devotion in the souls of Zenith’s citizens and fill the empty pews of the local churches with new parishioners. In return, the local churches promise not to hold any meetings while the Falconer is in town to maximize the proceeds. Falconer and Gantry deliver precisely that and in the process their relationship moves from a professional to a very personal level.

One of the key roles in this movie is that of the Pulitzer-prize winner veteran journalist Jim Lefferts (played with great reserve and credibility by Arthur Kennedy) who is the ace reporter for the local Zenith daily.

Lefferts provides the skeptical, secular, pro-scientific counterpoint to Gantry’s high-flying Bible-thumping hellfire and brimstone rhetoric. Even when Gantry is down and vulnerable to attacks, Lefferts sticks to his own professional principles and refuses to exploit scandalous stories that may or may not be true, regardless of their impact on the circulation numbers.

As such, the Lefferts character stands as a symbol of objectivity whose vision is not clouded by the dust of fickle emotions easily kicked up by revivalism. He successfully portrays the counterpoint view that unbridled religious fervor is perhaps not the only source of morality in civic life.

Another important part belongs to Lulu Bains (played by the angelic Shirley Jones who truly gives her soul to this supporting role) who is the girl that Gantry, back in his early days when no one knew him, had a one night stand with and ceremoniously dumped the next morning without even saying goodbye, except for a cynical “Merry Xmas” he scribbles on the bedroom mirror with her lipstick while she is still sleeping .

Now years later Lulu meets Gantry again in Zenith, this time working as a girl in a house of ill repute against which Gantry launches a public clean-up campaign. As the citizens of Zenith follow Gantry’s lead in media-covered nightly raids on the speak-easy hideouts and brothels, Lulu exacts her revenge with devastating effectiveness.

Gantry’s hypocrisy bits him in the rear, but not for long. Repenting how she framed an unsuspecting Gantry in her apartment with the aid of her pimp and a photographer for hire, she recants her accusations and admits the frame up, thus restoring a reviled Gantry back to his burning pulpit. Again, Brooks allows us to have a peek into unconventional sources of common virtue.

The film ends with a spectacular scene in which total devastation visits the newly opened tabernacle that Falconer has dreamed of for so long. The end both reveals the weakness in the way in which Falconer approached her faith, as well as the way the same faith has transformed an ordinary girl from the boondocks into a truly spiritual being with healing powers.

Gantry, on the other hand although he is offered everything he ever dreamed of on a golden plate, refuses to take over Falconer’s mantle and moves on for the next thing in his life.

He turns his back to true power and even more riches and simply walks away because for the first time in his life he has discovered something in his soul that is more true and more precious than all the external power he managed to grab through a life of deception and manipulation.

The movie ends with that great note that sometimes divine love will visit us at exactly those times when we have the courage to walk away from that relentless desire to acquire the same love by force, through our own efforts and conniving.

A 9 out of 10.

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Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases and hi-tech documentation.

He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 companies for the last 7 years.

You can reach him at writer111@gmail.com for a FREE consultation on all your copywriting needs.

Please visit his official web site http://www.writer111.com for customer testimonials and more information on his multidisciplinary background and career.

The last book he has edited: http://www.lulu.com/content/263630

Stuck in a music rut?

It happens. After listening to your favorite song 1,379,614 times, you will, eventually, get sick of it.

So you find a new favorite song, all too aware that you’ll soon grow as tired of it as your previous pick.

This is even more likely to happen when you only listen to one type of music, a habit I’ve never subscribed to and have a very hard time wrapping my mind around (my mind’s not big enough to stretch that far). With all of the wonderful types of music available, why limit yourself to one or two genres?

Do yourself a favor and start branching out. Sure, you love country music, but is it really going to kill you to listen to some R&B? Or maybe you’re all about hip-hop – who’s to say you won’t find a rock song you like just as well? I’m always so impressed when I hear someone list their favorite songs – and the songs actually cover several genres. Or decades! (Yes, oldies are goodies.)

Next time you hear your fave song come on the radio (you know, the one you’ve heard over a million times), consider actually turning away from it. Head over to the station you listen to the LEAST – your new favorite song might be waiting for you.

Visit my music blog, Striking a Chord, at http://www.thepianopages.com/blog. Feel free to leave any comments, news, rants, or raves. Hope to see you there!