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Title: Overrated
Review: The idea of Syd Fields book is very tempting: One formula for everything; once you know it, writing is bliss. Alas it is not true. Creativity still means being creative. After I read this book I asked myself: 1) If Mr. Fields knows so much about scriptwriting how come I never heard of scripts written by him? 2) Did he really read the script of CHINATOWN? Don't get me wrong: I agree CHINATOWN is a great movie, but the *script* ... okay, it is obviously well crafted, but by no means overtowering everything else. Despite all this it is helpful to read the book. Because producers and other "important" people browse books like this and believe in the magic of "plot point", paradigm et. al. It helps when you at least have an idea what they talking about.
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