The Bucket List stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward determined to complete everything on their "Bucket List" -- a list of things to do before they "kick the bucket." The film, directed by Rob Reiner, was just named one of the Ten Best of the Year by the National Board of Review. Cinematical spoke with the film's screenwriter, Justin Zackham.

Cinematical: You sit down to write The Bucket List, do you ever dream that you're going to get Rob Reiner to direct, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman to star...

JZ: Of course not! I'd have to be an idiot! Not even close. I wrote it with Morgan Freeman's voice in mind, somehow thinking maybe I'd find a way to get it to him. But no, nothing like this.

Cinematical: And how did you get it to these huge names? What were the steps that brought this movie to the screen?

JZ: I went to film school at NYU. I did a TV pilot that I wrote and executive produced in New York with Paul Sorvino years ago. And then I came out here (Los Angeles) and was dicking around for a while. I made Going Greek, which was a very sort of crappy fraternity comedy that I did back in 2000. I wrote, produced, and directed, and that took so much out of me that I spent another couple years dicking around. And then I just sat down one day and wrote my own "Bucket List" just to kind of get my head organized. On that list was like "Get a movie made by a major studio, marry the perfect woman," all that kind of stuff. A lot of the stuff on there wound up in the movie. I had always fantasized about going to the Pyramids, the Great Wall, I've always been sort of obsessed with the whole notion of Everest. All those things were on it, and I just stuck it on a bulletin board.

About a year later, I just came up with this quote one day, a line that's actually in the film -- "You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you." Stuck that up on the bulletin board. And then another year went by before I had the idea "What about making this into a script?" And I thought if it were about me, at the time I was about 34, it wouldn't be that interesting. So I decided to make it about two guys who had lived a full life, and they only have a few months left, and suddenly there's a ticking clock, and the things that do have real importance, at least in their minds. The story really became about the one thing neither of these guys puts on their list but is the thing they most want. And that's a best friend. I have this ridiculous process, and I wrote the actual script really quickly, in about two weeks.

Tomasina is forty years old, she's unmarried, and she wants a kid. She was pregnant once, years ago, but she had an abortion. Now, she doesn't want a man, she just wants a little bundle of cuteness that she can call her own -- someone to spend their life with her. Once she makes this decision, she sees men as "walking spermatoza," and schemes to inseminate herself with the sperm of a married friend. As do we all. Anyhow, this is the plot of Baster, the latest story to get a feature adaptation.

Variety is reporting that Josh Gordon and Will Speck, the pair behind Blades of Glory, are in final negotiations to direct the film, which is based on the short story by Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides). Allan Loeb (Made of Honor) penned the screenplay, and Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, of Little Miss Sunshine fame, are producing the feature. Speck says: "We were so attracted to this project because of Allen's script. Because he works in every genre -- comedy, drama -- he really understands character arcs." Does this mean we will be getting both a funny and serious look at semen and turkey basters? While I'd pay to see that, I'm thinking this'll be more on the Blades of Glory level of cinema. How about you? Are you up for a rousing flick of baby madness and sperm basting?

It was a great Simon & Garfunkel song, and now Little Miss Sunshine producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa are teaming with director Seth Gordon on a feature film titled The Only Living Boy in New York for Columbia Pictures. Berger and Yerxa have had a successful year in indie land; they also produced Little Children which, along with Sunshine, combined for seven Oscar nominations and two wins (both for Sunshine). With a script from Allan Loeb (Things We Lost in the Fire), pic is being described as a coming-of-age drama about a recent college graduate who is seduced by his father's mistress.

As a director, Gordon crashed onto the scene this past January when his documentary King of Kong was all the rage at Slamdance. Picturehouse will distribute the pic, while New Line snatched up the feature remake rights to produce the film as a narrative with Gordon attached to direct that as well. The Simon & Garfunkel flick (which is what I'm calling it, because I'm sure that song will be all over this bad boy) sounds interesting (if you like stories about a father and son shacking up with the same gal), but I am dying to see King of Kong. I don't know, there's just something about watching a group of video game fans fighting to break world records that gets me all fired up to dust off the old Playstation 2 and take on a new adventure.