Yes, you too can write the post-modern script. What I'm talking about is a screenplay that itself refers to, or uses elements from the craft of screenwriting - either tacitly or explicitly or both. At it's best, the post-modern screenplay results in Adaptation. At it's worst, The Lucky Slevin. And somewhere in between, The Brick.

The Lucky Slevin is a screenwriting class in a movie. But nobody says it's a good education or a good movie. Not only does the narrator's voice immediately harken back to the golden age of noir, the voiceover also provides informative screenwriting tips. For example, the discussion of the inciting incident, something the voiceover draws to our attention, you know, just in case we're too busy listening to the voiceover to be watching the movie. And not to ignore the ACT III color commentary, when Slevin's voiceover goes to the trouble of explaining how every plotline comes to a neat and tidy resolution by the end of the film. I heard a rumour that the DVD comes packaged with Slevin Cole's Notes including a handy plot flowchart for the hard of reading. Wow, is that edgy filmmaking or what?

Tom Lazarus has a term for this "style". He calls it Morris the Explainer. His book is a lively read.

I hope they gave the production designer an Oscar. After watching that movie I went out and got myself a Bridget Riley-inspired OpArt bedspread and eBayyed myself some retro Trojans from the 1970s. No guarantees if the spermicidial lubricant on those puppies has any kill left in it, but hey, it's the seventies, sexual liberation is the word of the decade and condoms weren't so much a right as a priviledge.

Slevin: How to get your script read in Hollywood by including inside jokes that only Hollywood readers will "get", disarming their sadomasochistic need to pound your script with unwarranted negative coverage, thereby propelling your pulpy work beyond the gatekeepers into the stratospheric nether-regions of greenlightsville.