Petition asks Melinda Culea to read prison screenplay
More than 2000 women sign petition demanding a firm commitment from Melinda Culea (film producer) to read screenplay addressing Texas judicial system
Melinda Culea – Talent Agents
– Actress, Producer – Brotherly Love (1995), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), The Fisher King (1991), The X-Files (1993) – –
Dumbass, Urban Kings
Melinda Culea & Adam Sandler’s film company targeted by Texas petition
Will Hollywood just rollover and let prisoner’s suffer?
EXCLUSIVE
More than 2000 women have signed an open letter to Adam Sandler calling on Melinda Culea and Hollywood to take “movie action” to tackle injustice against men and women in the wake of revelations that Texas has more prisoners incarcerated than the Soviet Union’s gulag system had. Texas currently has over 290,000 inmates housed at 580 facilities.
The signatories, including state senators, professors of criminal justice, social workers, family, and inmates, call for a “firm commitment” to tackle the unjust prisons in Texas. The petition has also been signed by Beto O’Rourke, and Matthew McConaughey. These two signatories might face each other in the 2022 Texas governors election. Both have expressed interest in the job. The petitions arrived for Melinda Culea at last week.
In the open letter to Melinda Culea, the 2080 women write that they are “heartbroken for first-time drug offenders many times addicts who have received extremely harsh sentences in Texas when rehabilitation has proven a cheaper and more effective solution.” The petition goes on to say their family and friends are often heartbroken for and looking for redemption and rehabilitation for the victimless drug crimes.”
The signatories, including attorneys, professors, politicians, family members, and inmates, call on Melinda Culea for a ‘firm film commitment’ to tackle the issue of operating the Texas prison system for profit.
The petition came to light when women discovered the screenplay, a copy which was dontated to all 580 of the state’s prison and jail libraries. The existence of the petition surfaced on International Women’s Day. Women in Texas face extreme prejudice in Texas and often receive extremely harsh penalties for even a small amount of drugs, including marijuana. Marijuana is legal now in 21 states.
Inside prisons, the women are faced with such horrendous conditions… the petition demands that “filmmakers begin to take the issue seriously.” Also, the petition reminds that “even here in the USA in the 21st century citizens are not safe from government oppression.”
Actress, Producer, Melinda Culea, has not responded to the petition. Nor has responded with a comment.
Alan Nafzger/caption]
The screenplay “Dumbass” was penned by writer and retired professor of political science Alan Nafzger.
The premise of the story is that, “Adam Sandler writes letters and saves numerous women from the monotony of prison life, and later when he gets into trouble with a drug cartel they return the favor by rescuing him.”
The film would be set in contemporary, Gatesville Texas. There are four women’s prisons located in Gatesville. And of course, Texas is famous for putting everyone in prison for a long sentences for little or no reason. The number of women in Texas prisons has tripled in the last ten years, as mass incarcerations have proven profitable to not only the state but also profitable for an array of business interests.
Writer Alan Nafzger has called on Governor Greg Abbott to, “end the prison industry.”
Recently, “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak spoke out against the Texas system and put a good word in for mercy and forgiveness out on social media. “How nice for those who have lived such exemplary lives that they can express glee when others have their lives ruined by a mistake, real or perceived,” Sajak tweeted last month.
During the winter’s deep freeze, the The Marshall Project, exposed the horrible prison conditions, “Inside Frigid Texas Prisons: Broken Toilets, Disgusting Food, Few Blankets.”
The petition states, “Why don’t we have the ‘Adam Sandler’ character… sending letters to women in prison and being their friend and trying to help them adjust, giving them hope… and when they get out of prison he picks them up so they don’t have to ride the smelly bus back home… but his pickup truck is a junker, smoking and sputtering … worse than the bus. But his heart is in the right place… He’s the last “chivalrous” man on earth.”
Melinda Culea has not commented on the script, thus far. A statement is expected soon.
Professor Nafzger has made a short treatment of the project available online.
He has made the finished script available at for select filmmakers.
Adam Sandler of Happy Madison Productions has expressed interest in the screenplay.
Melinda Culea is a Actress, Producer known for Brotherly Love (1995), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), The Fisher King (1991), The X-Files (1993) and is represented by .
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The third trick to this genre is to include lots of reversals! Clues should lead to more mystery, not answer questions. Hold the final reveals as close to the end as possible. This will automatically create reversals because the audience will think one thing and the result will be something else. For example, if the police are sure a suspect killed someone and obtain an arrest warrant, then when they arrive to make the arrest they should discover the suspect died two days earlier and couldn’t possibly be the culprit! These kinds of reversals keep the audience in suspense and on the edge of their seats.
The second trick to this genre is to create red herrings. Creating other suspects takes the focus off the real culprit. Three rules: 1) make sure the suspect is a strong suspect. If the audience can eliminate the suspect then he’s not strong enough to keep the audience from guessing who the real culprit is. Remember: the audience is trying to guess the identity of the real culprit. The writer’s job is to keep them guessing and guessing in the wrong direction. After giving them one suspect, introduce another one. Keep them guessing. 2) make sure the audience has a number of suspects to keep them busy while the real culprit lurks in the shadows. The writer wants the audience to be surprised when the real culprit is revealed. 3) the hero MUST be directly involved in solving the “Who did it and why?” mystery or the red herrings are irrelevant and the plot has no through-line conflict. What good are red herrings if the hero isn’t looking for a killer? The hero must be the one who figures out who the culprit is or provide a wicked twist where the hero is the culprit!
How does the writer accomplish this? The hint should NOT be out of the ordinary. For example, in the film Along Came a Spider the female Secret Service agent tells the hero’s character what happened up to the point where the girl was kidnapped. This seems routine (ordinary) since he’s been put on the case to help her investigate. However, we later learn that this is what leads him to her (she’s the conspirator) because her timing was off and he knew she was too good to make such a mistake. This fact is in our faces the whole time, but it isn’t obvious until her identity as the culprit is revealed. The goal is to drop the hints, but keep them too ordinary to seem relevant at the time, then later use them to reveal the culprit.
The first trick to this genre is to mislead the audience. If the audience guesses who did it and why before the writer reveals the culprit, then the writer hasn’t done his job as a screenwriter! Even though the culprit shouldn’t be revealed until the end, the culprit and his motive should be in their face the entire time. In addition, subtle hints should be dropped as to the culprit’s real identity, but the hints shouldn’t be so obvious that the audience guesses it the moment the hint is dropped.
Here are some examples:
As I said earlier, Act II, Part 1 is the section of a story that will really deliver on THE PROMISE OF THE GENRE. What is the EXPERIENCE that we hope and expect to get from this story? Is it the glow and sexiness of falling in love, or the adrenaline rush of supernatural horror, or the intellectual pleasure of solving a mystery, or the vicarious triumph of kicking the ass of a hated enemy in hand-to-hand combat?
The writers just have the characters say flat out what we’re supposed to be afraid of. Spell it out. It works.
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