Joseph Minion

Joseph Minion is an American screenwriter, director, producer, painter and sculptor. He is most known for his screenplays, starting with After Hours (The Geffen Company/Warner Bros 1985), a nightmarish screwball comedy directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette and Catherine O'Hara. Scorsese went on to win the award for Best Director for the film at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

Joseph Minion
NationalityAmerican
Alma materRutgers University
Columbia University
OccupationFilm producer, Screenwriter, Film director

Education

Minion attended Rutgers University where he received his BA and received an MFA in film at Columbia University's Film Division.[1]

Career

When After Hours was released, Martin Scorsese referred to it as his "most personal film" as well as a "life-saver".[2] Minion had appropriated certain elements in the first act of the script from radio artist Joe Frank's on-air story "Lies" and immediately admitted this upon the film's release, apologized and settled with Mr. Frank. He is also known for writing Vampire's Kiss (Hemdale/MGM 1989), directed by Robert Bierman and starring Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Beals and Maria Conchita Alonso. The film follows a yuppie New Yorker whose psychological meltdown takes the form of believing that he is turning into a vampire.[3] Nicolas Cage received a Best Actor nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards in 1987. Minion also wrote the surreal road movie odyssey Motorama (Sony Pictures, 1992) about a rebellious 10-year-old who steals a Mustang and drives it across an alternate American landscape to play an unwinnable gas station contest, starring Jordan Christopher Michael, Meat Loaf, Drew Barrymore, Jack Nance and Mary Woronov.[4]

After Hours, Vampire's Kiss, and Motorama have gained large cult followings in the years since their releases. Minion also wrote the screenplay for Bruno de Almeida's independently produced feature film On the Run (MGN Filmes 2000) starring Michael Imperioli, John Ventimiglia and other cast members of HBO's The Sopranos.[5]

In 1997 Minion wrote, directed and co-produced his final film in the Anxiety Trilogy (the first two being After Hours and Vampire's Kiss), the Los Angeles-set neo-noir Trafficking about a private eye who unravels during a spiritual crisis.[6] Trafficking premiered at the Queens Museum at the inaugural Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.[7]

Other short film and episodic television projects include Airport 2012 and The Office, which starred novelist D. B. Haney, who also starred in Minion's Roger Corman-produced feature directorial debut Daddy's Boys (written by Haney), a comedy about a widower and his three sons who rob banks in Depression-era California. He also wrote an Amazing Stories episode produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Martin Scorsese as well as a Tales from the Crypt episode directed by Howard Deutch.

Minion has been a member of the Writers Guild of America since 1988.[8]

Personal life

He lives in New York and his studio is in East Orange, N.J. Throughout his career he has taught film and screenwriting at School of Visual Arts, USC, The North Carolina School of Arts, Long Island University and NYU's School of Continuing Education.

gollark: I'm not talking about humans being bad in that sense, myself.
gollark: Ah, yes, right the second time.
gollark: Then probably "people like me lacking empathy".
gollark: Oh, cool!
gollark: You're going to blame it on capitalism. I'm pretty sure you're wrong.

References
  1. Kempley, Rita (11 October 1985). "Stuck in SoHo, And Uh-Oh: It's 'After Hours'". Washington Post.
  2. Canby, Vincent (13 September 1985). "'After Hours' from Martin Scorsese". The New York Times.
  3. Schonfeld, Zach (13 June 2019). "Truly Batshit: The Secret History of 'Vampire's Kiss,' the Craziest Nicolas Cage Movie of All Time". The Ringer.
  4. ""Motorama" Is An Underrated Surrealist Film That Deserves A Watch". The Odyssey Online. 7 June 2017.
  5. Gelder, Lawrence Van (15 September 2000). "FILM IN REVIEW; 'On the Run'". The New York Times.
  6. ""Trafficking" No Borders with "After Hours" writer Joseph Minion". IndieWire. 21 September 1998.
  7. "Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema Presents". Queens Museum.
  8. "Joseph W Minion". Writers Guild of America.
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