Advice — blake snyder

I was listening to a speaker talk to a group of us the other night and 45 minutes into it, I was looking for the door. The subject was the speaker's life and I have to tell ya, it wasn't grabbin' me. Incident after incident was unveiled, stories about the speaker as a teen, adult, and married man seemed to be of the had-to-be-there variety. And then, magically, he came to a story that tied it all together. It was a simple moment in which he realized what his life had meant. And I got it! Suddenly all the stories...

I was at a screening of Cinderella Man when it happened. In an early scene in that film, Russell Crowe, who portrays '30s prizefighter Jim Braddock, gives his daughter his only slice of bologna. "I had a dream last night where I ate a big steak," he explains to the little girl. "I'm stuffed. Can you help me out?" We are in the middle of the Depression. The little girl is starving. And Russell shows he is man enough to forego his own breakfast for the sake of his child. It's a touching moment; many in the theater are tearing...