On this podcast, rather than looking at movies in terms of two thumbs up or two thumbs down, we look at movies and we look at screenplays in terms of what we can learn from them as screenwriters. We look at good movies and we look at bad movies, we look at movies that we loved and movies that we hated.

Today we are going to be talking about the genre of movies that I affectionately like to call “The Big Dumb Action Movie,” with the latest installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise, Furious 7. And, hopefully, we’re going to be looking at Furious 7 in a way that’s valuable not only if you’re a big action movie writer, but also if you are a writer in any other genre: if you are writing a thriller, if you are writing a comedy, if you are writing a drama, if you are writing an independent film or even if you are writing an art film.

In an odd way, “big dumb action movies” and super experimental art films actually have a lot in common. That’s because they both exist in a world of expressionism. Oftentimes, when young writers sit down to write a movie, they think that most movies take place in the world of realism. But this is simply not true.

There are very, very few movies that take place in the world of realism. Most movies actually don’t take place in the world of realism. They take place in a world of naturalism, which is a slightly heightened version of reality.