It's Wednesday, and you know what that means -- time for The Write Stuff! This week Cinematical spoke with screenwriter Captain Mauzner. Mauzner has an interesting perspective on screenwriting because he's written two major films based on true events and actual people. He co-wrote 2003's Wonderland -- the story of the infamous "Wonderland Murders," which starred Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes. And he wrote last year's Factory Girl, the tale of Edie Sedgwick (played by Sienna Miller), Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce), and a Dylanesque "Musician" played by Hayden Christensen. We spoke about Mauzner's scripts, process, and the trickiness of writing scripts based on fact.

Cinematical: Are you working on anything right now?

Captain Mauzner: I am working on something right now, yeah. I'm adapting a book. It's a small book, it's called The Food Chain, by Geoff Nicholson. A friend of mine runs a small company and I'm adapting it with the hopes of directing it. It's kind of about food, sex, and cannibalism. Revenge, food, sex, and cannibalism.

Cinematical: Well, alright!

CM: It's a little dark comedy. It's fun. And what was nice about it was -- I've written so many things and a lot of them are true life stories, and they all seem to be about kind of deplorable human beings. And I think that my comfort zone is really kind of in the dark side -- the drug addicts, the deviants. And I think that as I've kind of gotten older and left that world myself, I guess you could say I've become less and less interested in it. You see these movies like Wonderland and Factory Girl and you could say "oh, they're like an argument against doing drugs." But I know for myself, there's always a glamorizing element to it. And as much as you want to say this is the downfall of these people, which it is -- and obviously there's nothing glamorous about the drug lifestyle, or the party lifestyle because it does lead to bad things. But just the act of writing about it or making these the main characters or trying to explain these people, I feel like that somewhat glamorizes it, or at least in my mind it was very glamorous. I had a very romantic notion, at like 14-years-old I discovered Bukowski and I was kind of off to the races. So I think that as I get older I'm ready to move on to maybe something light and happy. My family's always like "Why can't you write something that we can take Grandma to?"

Cinematical: So do you find when you're writing about drugs and debauchery, that you're not looking to condemn it and point a finger, you're just looking to present it and let the audience decide?

CM: Absolutely. I'm not looking to condemn it at all. I'm not looking to be moral about it. I believe in experimentation. I believe in doing kind of what you want and not having anybody else tell you what to do. I think that my fascination with it is always the "why." Why do people do this? I think that's kind of the fun of being able to do those kind of things is that you can live kind of vicariously through these people, and try to figure out the "why" without being judgmental.

• Bruce Bennett (1906-2007) - Olympic medalist-turned-actor (pictured) who played Tarzan in an Edgar Rice Burroughs-produced serial in the '30s, during which time he went by his real name Herman Brix. After changing his name he co-starred in Sahara, Mildred Pierce, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sudden Fear and Love Me Tender. He died of complications from a broken hip February 24, in Santa Monica, California. (Independent)
• Walker Edmiston (1926-2007) - Actor and voice artist who appears in The Green Berets, The Beach Girls and the Monster and the 1966 remake of Stagecoach. He provided his voice for Bullitt, Start the Revolution Without Me, Wholly Moses!, Dick Tracy and The Andromeda Strain, as well as for the animated films The Down and Dirty Duck and The Great Mouse Detective. He died of cancer February 15, in Woodland Hills, California. (Variety)
• Dennis Marks (c.1935-2007) - Gaffer for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He died of a brain tumor February 24, in Techachapi, California. (Variety)
• John O'Banion (1947-2007) - Singer and actor who appears in Borderline and The Judas Project. He died after a long battle with frontotemporal dementia February 14, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• Meryl O'Loughlin (c.1935-2007) - Casting director for He's My Girl, Frozen Assets and Tremors II: Aftershocks. She died of complications from ovarian cancer February 27, in Santa Monica, California. (Variety)
• Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (1917-2007) - Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who appears as himself in Garbo Talks, The Venice Project and the documentary Huey Long. He was a member of the jury at Cannes in 1964. He died of a heart attack February 27, in New York City. (NY Times)
• Mark Spoelstra (c.1940-2007) - Folk musician who appears in Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. He died of pancreatic cancer February 25. (Recordnet.com)
• Henry Troyat (1911-2007) - French author who wrote the source novel for Dmytryk's The Mountain and who co-wrote the scripts to The Sheep Has Five Legs, for which he received an Oscar nomination, and Gangster Boss. He died March 2, in Paris. (AP)
• Al Viola (1919-2007) - Musician who played mandolin on the score for The Godfather and who can also be heard on the soundtracks to Blazing Saddles and West Side Story. He died of cancer February 21, in Studio City, California. (NY Times)
• Sam Williams (?-2007) - Actor who appears in Shaka Zulu, Victor/Victoria and King Solomon's Mines. He died February 28. (Mail & Guardian)
• Darlene Wilson (c.1962-2007) - Actress and dancer who appears in The Guru and who choreographed Exit. She died March 2. (Playbill)

Sometimes damage control can be as much as buying the distribution rights to a film. This almost seems the case with The Weinstein Co.'s picking up of Todd Haynes' arty Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There. But could it actually make Bob Dylan more upset?

The singer-songwriter is already portrayed in one upcoming movie distributed by the Weinsteins -- whether or not anybody involved with Factory Girl admits that Hayden Christensen plays Dylan, the consensus is that it is obviously him. Now, he's going to be portrayed by six more people, including Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. This second film, which has Dylan's approval, will be released by The Weinstein Co. sometime later this year.

Dylan is currently unhappy with the Weinsteins because of Factory Girl, which he has only heard may be defamatory to his character. It doesn't seem likely that he could reverse his feelings now that I'm Not There is in the enemy's clutches. Do Bob and Harvey think the deal will please Dylan, or do they mean to use it as leeway in any legal issue brought on by Dylan? Or could this be totally unrelated to the Factory Girl controversy?