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Some people who can't really should teach.

Blake Snyder mentions on several occasions that he sold a screenplay to Steven Spielberg for a million dollars at one point. Impressive right?

Then he ruins it by describing his story. It was called "Nuclear Family" and involved a family who camped by a nucleur test site, gaining super powers.

I'm rather glad that failed, and then "The Incredibles" happened instead.

Blake Snyder's ideas are consistently awful. He's the scribe responsible for "Blank Check" and "Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot". I'm familiar enough with bad movies to groan at both those titles. All his ideas are about that caliber, and his comedies are especially heinous in description. His talents very obviously relate more to selling screenplays and knowing what sells.

There's a lot of good explanations on how formulas work, how to structure the three acts, what all needs to be included, etc. It's well laid out and really did get me fired up to create a good story.

The first thing that cracked me up were some of his homebrewed labels. What he considers memorable is sometimes so specific that it's basically useless for anyone else. One pitfall is called Black Vet, based on an argument with a cowriter about a show where the man was both a veteran and a vetrinarian. There had to have been a more accessible title for some of these.

The most hilarious point is his rant about Momento, which breaks a lot of the formulas. His zinger is that Momento didn't actually make all that much money.

I always find it tiresome when people discuss popularity and quality like they're different words for the same thing (hi, Avatar fans). At times the two are points on two seperate axis that comes close once in a while. It's so easy to make a list of things most artists would find repugnant that would be bulletproof if measured in popularity. My favorites would be Larry the Cable Guy and the Insane Clown Posse (who've actually made the popularity argument themselves.)

"Save the Cat" is a fun, entertaining read that teaches a surprising amount about story structure. For me, the corny perspective of its narrator is an odd enhancement. If you're not the type who watches bad movies just to snicker them, your mileage with Snyder may vary.