Joseph Minion
Joseph Minion
(Teaneck, New Jersey, USA)
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 Palme d'Or for Directing at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. 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. 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.When After Hours was released, Martin Scorsese referred to it as his "most personal film" as well as a "life-saver". 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. 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.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. Trafficking premiered at the Queens Museum at the inaugural Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.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 attended Rutgers University where he received his BA and received an MFA in film at Columbia University's Film Division. 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. Minion has been a member of the Writers Guild of America since 1988. He lives in New York and his studio is in East Orange, N.J.