PEOPLE & NEWS
The Buzz
Billboards, blogs, and Alien Loves Predator -- oh my!

Anatomy of a Spec Sale
Julian Phillips finds himself up a Loco Tree.

Production Co. Spotlight

Lost Scenes
Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson cut some funny bits from Rushmore -- and made it funnier.

People
John Sinclair & Nova Jacobs, Mark & Adam Kassen

Breaking In
Larry Reitzer, Nimrod Antal

Why I Write
Ehren Kruger, The Ring 2

Festival Report: Sundance
The wrap-up on this year's edition of the premiere indie film fest, from the high school noir Brick to the excellent drama of The Squid and the Whale, which netted it the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. By Jeff Goldsmith

Coming Soon...
Crash
Paul Haggis's follow-up to Million Dollar Baby is a well-told tale of race relations and intersecting lives. By Yon Motskin

The Ballad of Jack and Rose
Passive moviegoers, beware! Rebecca Miller's new film may cause you to think as well as feel. By Nancy Hendrickson

Sahara
Thomas Dean Donnelly & Joshua Oppenheimer on adapting Ray Bradbury and Clive Cussler. By John Strysik

D.E.B.S.
Angela Robinson uses genre conventions to create a fresh and entertaining teen comedy. By Peter N. Chumo II

Millions
Frank Cottrell Boyce's script weaves hope, faith, and magical realism into a tale of two children and a bag of 400,000. By Yon Motskin

Winter Solstice
Joshua Sternfeld's debut is a quiet story of a father and his sons trying to hold their family together. By Yon Motskin

House of D
David Duchovny pens an autobiographical tale for his feature writing/directing debut. By Jeff Goldsmith

Palindromes
Todd Solondz dark fable follows a thirteen-year-old girl who wants only to get pregnant. By Jeff Goldsmith

Columns
The Busine$$ of Screenwriting
A Writer Turns (Briefly) Auteur
Simple answers to twelve basic questions. By Ron Suppa

Writer Beware!
Bad Agents & Problem Clients
What to do if you have a problem with your agent -- or you're a problem for your agent. By Steve Ryfle

Agent's Hot Sheet
Meet the Four Quadrants
What is this script that everyone wants to buy? By Jim Cirile

Belly of the Beast
The Naked Screenwriter
Battling one's inner demons can be crucial to landing a studio assignment. By Michael Lent

Our Craft
A Steady, Uphill Struggle?
Is it true that the level of conflict in every scene should top the one before? By Jeff Newman

The Contest Beat
Shooting for the Moon
The heads of the Nicholl Fellowships and Scriptapalooza on how your script can stand out from the thousands of entries. By Patricia B. Smith

The Final Scene
Crash
By Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco

Features
Interpreting The Interpreter: Scott Frank, Charles Randolph, and Steven Zaillian on Creating Sydney Pollack's Latest Thriller
Starting with Charles Randolph's script, director Sydney Pollack brought in two A-list screenwriters to craft this thriller about a United Nations interpreter who overhears an assassination plot (or did she?). CS talked to the three writers and Pollack himself about the origin of the project, how the script changed through time, and the process of writing a star-driven thriller for a celebrated director. By Jeff Goldsmith

Hollywood Roundtable: Specs, Pitches, & Assignments
Ten of the industry's top agents, managers, and development executives talk about the future of the features market, and how everyone from unsold scribes to established writers can maximize their careers. By David Michael Wharton

The Craft of Writing a TV Spec
What's the best way to break into writing television? Showrunners, writers, and the head of the Warner Bros. Workshop give you guidance on taking those first steps toward becoming the next Abrams, Kelley, or Sorkin. By John Strysik

The Craft of Writing the Creative Documentary
Creative nonfiction documentaries from Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me to Riding Giants and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster are pulling in audiences and box office dollars. Catherine Clinch talks to the writers behind these films to reveal what it takes to survive and succeed in this unique niche. By Catherine Clinch

The Rebirth of the American Family: Robert Benton on Kramer vs. Kramer 25 Years Later
Robert Benton's script for this groundbreaking film was the first serious examination of divorce, American style. Now, a quarter-century later, the writer/director looks back on how this powerful film came to be, how it holds up today, and how there are no villians in the Kramer family -- only parents trying to do their best by their child. By Barney Lichtenstein