Andrew Klavan Show - Do These Writers Deserve As Much Praise As They Get? Aired: 2025-08-28 Duration: 10:07 === Are They Truly Great? (03:58) === [00:00:00] All right, today we are going to take a look at some of the highly rated screenwriters and ask ourselves, are they overrated, underrated, or truly great? [00:00:14] This will be brought to you by Helix Sleep, and you can find a great Helix Sleep mattress at helixleep.com slash Clavin. [00:00:22] Now, this is a kind of interesting question for me. [00:00:24] I've done some screenwriting in my time, and one of the things I can tell you is when they say Writers, screenwriters always get angry when they say that film is a director's medium, it is a director's medium. [00:00:35] There's no question about it. [00:00:36] It is a director's medium. [00:00:38] If you take a movie seven, if you listen to the screenplay of that movie, it's terrible. [00:00:42] It's an adolescent, silly screenplay. [00:00:44] The direction is so great that the movie is wonderful. [00:00:47] The movie is really terrific to watch. [00:00:49] So I'm rating these guys on the basis of the movies that were produced of their screenplays. [00:00:56] But I really do believe that the directors had a lot to do with the quality of the movie. [00:01:00] All right, so we'll start with Aaron Sorkin, did A Few Good Men, The Social Network, Social Network Part 2. [00:01:05] Aaron Sorkin is an extremely talented writer, but I find him shallow. [00:01:10] And I find that the stuff he says, like A Few Good Men, really entertaining movie, really liked it. [00:01:15] But obviously, the reason Jack Nicholson saying, you can't handle the truth, the reason that became a meme is because he's the hero of the movie. [00:01:24] But because Sorkin is a shallow left-winger, he makes him the villain of the movie. [00:01:28] And I noticed that. [00:01:30] I saw a few good men on stage before Sorkin was famous, and I thought, wow, the guy can really write, but he's very shallow. [00:01:35] I thought the same thing on the social network. [00:01:38] But again, I find him entertaining. [00:01:40] So he's overrated and the people think he's truly great. [00:01:42] But yeah, he's good. [00:01:44] He's talented. [00:01:44] William Goldman, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, Princess Bride, very, very talented writer, and also the hidden hand behind a lot of movies. [00:01:54] He did a lot of doctoring, including A Few Good Men, I believe, and he didn't get a lot of credit for it. [00:01:59] Really, really talented. [00:02:00] Also wrote very good novels before he realized there was much more money in screenwriting. [00:02:06] I got to give him a truly great simply because of his presence in the world. [00:02:11] Butch Cassie and the Sundance Kid, probably close to a great movie. [00:02:15] Marathon Man, a really good thriller. [00:02:16] Princess Bride, iconic. [00:02:18] People love it. [00:02:19] I don't know if it's a great film, but it certainly is something delightful to watch. [00:02:23] So William Goldman, we'll put him up there with the great, his book about the movie business, Adventures in the Skin Trade, is one of the great books on Hollywood. [00:02:30] Quentin Tarantino, also director, pulp fiction, Django and Chained, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Jackie Brown. [00:02:37] Quentin Tarantino is a terrific writer. [00:02:40] I'm going to say he is a truly great screenwriter. [00:02:42] His dialogue is absolutely terrific. [00:02:46] Most of his films, I really liked the first one. [00:02:50] Reservoir Dogs, really liked Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. [00:02:54] The rest of his movies, I always feel are, you know, I think pulp fiction is really overrated. [00:02:57] I don't think pulp fiction is a great movie at all, but he is a really, just judging him as a writer, he's a really good writer. [00:03:03] His dialogue is just great. [00:03:04] Woody Allen, another guy, see, I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but I have to say he's a truly great writer-director. [00:03:11] And the reason I say that is because his true great creation is Woody Allen, the character of Woody Allen. [00:03:17] It's as iconic and memorable as Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp. [00:03:22] I don't like the character because he actually kind of elevates this really small-minded New York intellectual crowd that he thinks he's not a part of, but he is. [00:03:33] But still, it's amazing how many times his ideas have been used again in other movies. [00:03:40] And I just think he's just tremendously creative and his movies do form a body of work that will be remembered in American film. [00:03:47] So I have to call him truly great. [00:03:49] Nora Ephraim, You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, a good writer. [00:03:53] I don't know what he's underrated, overrated, or truly great. [00:03:56] Is she a great writer? === One of the Greats (06:09) === [00:03:58] Ah, gosh. [00:03:59] Some people just love her. [00:04:01] I think she's good. [00:04:02] I think she's a good writer. [00:04:03] I'll just leave it at that. [00:04:05] Joseph Mankovitz wrote All About Eve. [00:04:07] That's all you have to know. [00:04:08] Probably the perfect screenplay. [00:04:10] All about Eve may be the perfect screenplay. [00:04:12] I was called at one point to write a remake of it, and I said, No, there's nothing to remake. [00:04:17] And they said, But Jane Fonda's going to do it. [00:04:18] I said, No, she's not. [00:04:19] It'll never be remade. [00:04:20] It's like gone with the wind. [00:04:21] It's just perfect. [00:04:22] Casablanca, you can try to remake it, but it'll just be bad. [00:04:25] I don't want anything to do with it. [00:04:26] So Joseph Mankovic gets just for all about Eve. [00:04:28] Letter of the Three Wives, also great. [00:04:31] So strangely, you know, usually I never sleep, but lately, for some reason, I've been getting what for me is a lot of sleep, like five or six hours of sleep. [00:04:38] And you know what? [00:04:38] I miss-I miss my Helix Sleep mattress. [00:04:41] I used to lie awake on this mattress and think, wow, this is a really comfortable mattress. [00:04:44] Now, most of you will get on this mattress and just fall asleep. [00:04:48] And that, you know, you'll miss how comfortable it is, but it really is comfortable, I can tell you, because I've been awake on it. [00:04:53] One thing I've loved about my Helix mattress is how well it does with temperature regulation, which really eases some of those annoying middle-of-the-night wake-ups. [00:05:01] That's essential as the temperatures continue to get warm, especially where I am. 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[00:05:52] Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixleep.com/slash K-L-A-V-A-N. [00:06:01] All right, Charlie Kaufman, adaptation, Eternal Sunshine, and the Spotless Mind, Bean John Malkovich. [00:06:07] Another really good writer, really entertaining, really different, really smart. [00:06:12] I can't call him one of the greats. [00:06:13] I would not call him one of the greats. [00:06:16] But he is a really good writer. [00:06:17] And, you know, to say somebody's not one of the greats, I'm very hard with that word. [00:06:20] You know, it's like they're very few great anything. [00:06:23] And I say that being one of them, so I know what I'm talking about. [00:06:25] Charlie Kaufman, very good writer, and I like his movies a lot. [00:06:28] I'm really entertained by them. [00:06:29] Robert Town, Chinatown, The Last Detail. [00:06:33] Chinatown is a great movie. [00:06:36] So I'll put him up there. [00:06:37] You know, I think he's one of the greats. [00:06:39] The Last Detail is really good. [00:06:41] Those are the only movies that we remember him for. [00:06:43] It's funny in Hollywood, especially in modern Hollywood. [00:06:46] People only write a few good movies and then they're gone. [00:06:48] Chinatown is really the only one I can see that's that's a great movie. [00:06:52] Listen, how many people write a great movie? [00:06:54] He wrote Chinatown's a great movie. [00:06:55] Robert Benton, Kramer vs. Kramer, Bonnie and Clyde. [00:06:59] Yeah, I got to put them up there. [00:07:00] Those are movies that actually, in their day, they actually were kind of tentpole movies, you know, movies that everything else swirled around. [00:07:09] I'll say he's one of the greats. [00:07:11] Patty Chaevsky, Network, Marty. [00:07:13] Geez. [00:07:14] Patty Chaevsky had this contract where nobody could ever change his words. [00:07:18] So his movies got incredibly long-winded and just they just went on and on, people explaining things to you. [00:07:24] Marty, great film. [00:07:26] Network, great film. [00:07:27] Hospital, really good film with George C. Scott. [00:07:30] Yeah, he's one of the greats. [00:07:31] There's no question about it. [00:07:32] Eric Roth, Killers of the Flower Moon, Curious Case of Benjamin Button. [00:07:36] He's a long writer. [00:07:37] He writes long, long, long things. [00:07:39] Very long. [00:07:40] I would say he's not over long or under long. [00:07:42] I would just say he's long. [00:07:44] He writes, this stuff he writes goes on and on and on forever. [00:07:47] Killers of the Flower Moon should have been a 90-minute movie. [00:07:49] Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I thought was okay. [00:07:52] It's like, he's overrated. [00:07:54] If anybody's calling him great, he's overrated. [00:07:56] Alexander Payne, Sideways Election, The Descendants, again, good stuff. [00:08:01] I really like him. [00:08:02] You know, and I don't want to take anything away from him, but those are all good movies. [00:08:06] But are they great movies? [00:08:07] No, they're not. [00:08:08] David Mammet, yes, first of all, he's a great writer because his plays are great. [00:08:13] He's written a couple of really great plays, among them Glengarry Glenn Ross, which was also a terrific movie. [00:08:18] The Untouchables is a classic movie. [00:08:19] David Mammet's a great writer, and he really is one of the top writers. [00:08:24] The Untouchables is terrific. [00:08:25] The verdict is terrific. [00:08:26] Glengarry Glenn Ross is a great adaptation of a great play. [00:08:30] Yep, one of the greats. [00:08:31] Billy Wilder, no one can touch him. [00:08:33] Just so great. [00:08:34] Some like it, Hot The Apartment. [00:08:35] Wilder also collaborated with Raymond Chandler on Double Indemnity. [00:08:39] And he directed Sunset Boulevard. [00:08:42] If he had only done Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity, two of the greatest films ever made, Billy Wilder is the king of screenwriters. [00:08:49] I mean, he is just absolutely terrific. [00:08:51] Preston Sturgis, Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve. [00:08:55] I've always thought he was a little overrated, but I really enjoy him. [00:08:57] You know, I really enjoy his films, and they are well remembered, but they don't hold up as well as you'd think they do. [00:09:03] But, you know, he's a name to reckon with. [00:09:05] Very, very good writer. [00:09:07] Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen. [00:09:11] Yeah, I got to say, Fargo, Hail Caesar, No Country for Old Men, and Blood Simple. [00:09:18] Yeah, they're great. [00:09:19] They're absolutely great. [00:09:20] Dalton Trumbeau, one of the worst people who ever lived in Hollywood, a massive communist, wrote Roman Holiday Spartacus. [00:09:25] Great writer. [00:09:26] Just goes to show you that people like me, who are both great writers and really terrific people, we're the exception. [00:09:32] Dalton Trumbeau, I think, is the norm. [00:09:34] Roman Holiday and Spartacus was just a great writer who sucked. [00:09:39] All right, I gotta stop there. [00:09:41] Very hard to judge screenwriters because, as I say, so much of the quality of a movie comes from the director. [00:09:47] It is true that a great screenplay and a great director, when they come together like Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity, you know, nothing can match that. [00:09:56] Just unbelievably great, great. [00:09:58] So the writer can be incredibly important, but the director is the main guy. [00:10:04] And some of these guys are really terrific.