YMM:. Peter, thanks for being a part of the startup of Your Movie Maven.

You got your start selling movies to video stores. Actually, I believe it was working for me as my customer service rep...What is your all time favorite flick?

PS: My first job in the business of show was as your very lackluster assistant. It's amazing you even still talk to me after all the lost phone calls, missed messages and possible blown deal opportunities I cost you. I think I owe you, big time!!Wow...my all-time favorite flick. That's a tough one because I love different movies in different genres. But my fave has to be "The Big Lebowski." I've seen it almost a million times. Everything about that movie is brilliant and brilliantly funny. Visually stunning Busby Berkeley dream sequences re-imagined with a bowling slant. And, for those big Phillip Seymour Hoffman fans out there, he's spectacular as Brandt. But Jeff Bridges turns in one of his greatest performances as The Dude. I worship The Dude. We should all be that cool.

Annie Brown's Favorite Movies

Here's Annie's list:

well, of course, When Harry Met Sally.
and then there's
A Room w/ A View -- just saw that w/ my mom back in April
Sound of Music
Funny Girl
Peyton Place
Chocolat
Babette's Feast

She also wanted me to tell you that she doesn't watch many romantic movies because, to quote her, "my husband doesn't like them!"

YMM: When you start to write an adaptation, do you talk to the original source’s author first?

PS: Absolutely! When I first was hired to adapt "21" a.k.a "Bringing Down the House," I immediately flew to Boston to meet with the author. It's crazy not to meet with the person who created this world in the first place. So much additional detail comes out in these meetings which, many times, ends up in the movie. I just flew to D.C. a month ago to meet with Ed Ugel, the author of "Money for Nothing." I'm adapting his book for Tobey Maguire at Warner Bros. The book is Ed's true life story about his experiences working in the lump-sum industry, buying out lottery winners annuities, and the insanity that his life became for 7 years. Getting to sit down with the author adds so much color and context to the script writing phase. It makes the world so much more accessible, tangible and real. Otherwise, you're just one of a million screenwriters sitting in a vacuum.

Doug Brown's Under the Radar movies:

King Solomon's Mines

Cabin Boy

The Killer Shrews

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Carnival of Souls

The Long Goodbye

YMM: A movie like “21” is based on a true story. Did you have any interaction with any of the real people?

PS: I had a lot of interaction with Jeff Ma, the real life Jim Sturgess. I also got to spend time with the real Jill and Choi. These get-togethers were spectacular and Jeff Ma is a truly wonderful, fascinating guy. So much material came out of our hang-outs, much of which ended up in the film. The real Choi (Matt Lau) told me a story about being on the blackjack team, that some mornings he didn't know if he was waking up in Boston or Vegas. One time he woke up in his dorm room, picked up the phone, dialed 0 and tried to order room service. It was such a great idea that I had to put it in the movie. Unfortunately for Matt's character, I gave it to Jim Sturgess. Sorry, Matt, but thanks for the story! Also, the Miles and Cam characters and the med school ideas didn't exist in the book, but I felt it was important to strongly establish non-blackjack friends and pressures for Jim Sturgess's character as a counter-balance to Vegas. These ideas all came out of meeting some of Jeff Ma's friends and hearing about their issues the week I spent at M.I.T.

YMM: The line I the ad says, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. When you were in Vegas filming “21” what happened that stayed in Vegas? Did you get to call Lawrence Fishburne,  “Larry”? Did Spacey give you that stare that creeped everyone out in “Seven”? What was it like on the set with “Kaiser Souze”?

PS: When Kevin Spacey and the studio first hired me, Kevin had no interest in being the Mickey character, so I asked if I could shamelessly write him into the movie. He gave me that eerie Kaiser Souze stare and just smiled. I still don't know what that meant, but my blood ran cold. In the book, the Mickey character is just an older guy that run's the team. So I came up with the idea to make Kevin an M.I.T. professor who gets to be the brilliant, but cool professor. Then I shamelessly wrote him pages and pages of dialogue. Thank G od it worked! As for Vegas, my favorite moment actually came way before we started filming. Jeff Ma invited my wife and me to Vegas to watch one of his team's in action. It's 3:00 in the morning at The Palms and Jeff is playing the part of the Whale at the high rollers table. I'm standing behind him, watching on as he shmoozes the dealer, watches ESPN, chats up the cute cocktail waitress, and canoodles with the hottie playing at the end of the table. All the while Jeff knows the exact count and it's a sight to see. Suddenly, the hottie looks at him and says, "You know who you remind me of? The guy in that book 'Bringing Down the House.'" Swear to God. True story.

YMM: With “Drowning Mona”, you got Danny Devito and Bette Midler together,  any stories from the set you can share?

PS: "Drowning Mona" was such a wacky experience. It was my first real movie that I'd gotten made and I got to spend a lot of time with Danny DeVito. We're both Jersey boys. He is truly one of the all-time great mensches in Hollywood. He and Rhea are amazingly sweet, kind people who literally took my wife and me in. But then Danny has always said he likes to collect people from New Jersey. Whaddyagonnado? My favorite part of that movie has to be the Yugos. I occasionally moved furniture for a company in North Jersey from 1990-1994 and one of our jobs was moving the Yugo corporate offices out of Ramsey, NJ. It was on this move that I learned about Verplanck, NY being a test-market for Yugos. You never know where ideas are gonna come from. We had 11 Yugos during production. 10 of them broke down. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.

YMM: “Be Cool” is generally credited with showing that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson can act. What was he like on the set?

PS: The Rock was so good in "Be Cool." But there's no way he's human. He just can't be. Nobody is that good-looking, shredded, talented, successful and nice. My wife was with me during shooting one night and The Rock had to change shirts on set. So he took off his shirt and I don't think I've ever seen my wife get flustered like that. I introduced him to her. Afterwards, my wife said, "He seems really nice. What'd you think?" I thought about it for a second and said, "I don't think I've ever felt so Jewish."

YMM: What’s next on the horizon for you? More adaptations or something original?

PS: Driving my daughter to pre-school and taking my kids swimming is on the immediate horizon. That's what tends to keep my sanity. Aside from that, right now I'm finishing writing the re-make of the iconic hockey movie "Slap Shot" for Universal. I've never had so many people hate me for writing something they haven't seen yet. It's such a classic film and fans of the original feel like I'm grave-robbing or something. But I think the movie will be really fun and will capture what it's like to play minor league hockey in 2008. We haven't set cast yet, so I'll keep you posted as it all goes down. After that, I'm adapting "Money For Nothing" for Tobey Maguire, as I mentioned earlier. It's a terrific story and I'm so excited to be writing this for Warners. I've re-teamed with producer Mike DeLuca, ex-President of New Line and Dreamworks, who produced "21" for me. And, somewhere in between all that, my wife and I are writing and Exec Producing an hour-long TV pilot for ABC that'll be directed by our producing partner, Barry Sonnenfeld. I've also pencilled in a nervous breakdown sometime between October and November...which should be fun.

YMM: Before I let you go, anything you can tell aspiring screenwriters that isn’t taught in film school?

PS: YES!!! Okay, first of all, take this with a grain of salt from a writer who never went to film school. However, write write write. Just write. Even if you don't know what to write, write that you're stuck or have no idea what to write about. Sounds crazy, but get your pen to start moving or your fingers to start typing. Also, buy Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones." It's not a scree nwriting book, but it's the best book on writing I've ever read. Also, Stephen King's book on writing is pretty genius, too. Most importantly, WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. For new writers that means, write your story. Even if you don't think it's that riveting, no one can tell your story as well as you. Don't try to figure out what's hot in the marketplace. Most of the times when you try to write what seems like the trend, by the time you finish your script, the trend has long been over. Lastly, and this is something I do pretty frequently, experience the places and the people you want to write about. Perfect example is "Slap Shot." They've had many writers on that re-make and when I read their drafts, my first comment to the studio was, "None of these guys have ever visited Johnstown, Pennsylvania.: None of them have ever spent time with the real Chiefs." The writers most likely researched the town and team online and it was very obvious in the writing. So I told the studio that if they hire me, they have to send me to Johnstown for a week. One of the best experiences I've had as a writer. I turned in my first draft of the script and the studio immediately got the movie and the characters. They said the new script feels like they just spent 2 hours in western Pa. Okay, I'll shut up now.