Bobby works on oil rigs in southern California, hangs out with his girlfriend Rayette, and the two end up on a road trip to the Northwest to visit Bobby’s ill father. And while that’s the movie in a nutshell it says nothing about it.
Although Ms. S. and I are clearly not unique in the following, it is one of those things we say or transform around each other that identifies us to ourselves:
Wait, wait. I’m worried what you just heard was, “Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.” What I said was, “Give me all the bacon and eggs you have.”
So I remember teachers telling us in middle school and high school. So I still see some writers or teachers telling and retelling today. My favorite writing handbook, my old yellow copy of Writers INC, provided a good demonstration of ‘showing’ versus ‘telling’ writing. And yet for most of my adult life I’ve considered the maxim bunk.
Below: a few musings.
A couple years ago when reading some television criticism something stuck out at me that had always just floated below the surface for so long: that TV episodes and movies were structured around three acts. And everywhere I went I’d read about how this needed to happen in this act or the other, about how a particular episode conformed or didn’t, how act three was too lethargic or too quickly wrapped up.
Of course some of this was unreflected use of technical terminology. Sometimes it veered toward jargon. It was almost a shibboleth, and I was no part of the filmic tribe.
Let me tell you what I like — love? — about the almost over-achieving Sci Fi movie, “Wyvern” (2009): it’s a formulaic B-movie that hits its notes and maintains interest.
Why? I have sourdough starter. I have some apples to get rid of.
Option? Sourdough Latvian Apple Cake.
Will I do it? Not today; there are simpler ways to get rid of a few apples. But it does look delicious and relatively simple.
A: Must? No. Should? Probably.
“Naked Fear” (2007) is a nasty, overlong yet little work that can’t quite decide whether it is social commentary masquerading as exploitation or the other way around. A thriller directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Danielle De Luca, it is the story a young woman kidnapped, drugged, and stripped by a man who then lets her loose in the New Mexico wilderness so he can hunt her. What Joe Magnegna is doing in a movie that aspires to direct-to-DVD quality and looks like it was filmed on a shoestring budget is yet to be determined.
“Wrath of the Titans” is not actually any good.
It has a large (enough) budget, it has a(n over-)qualified cast, and its plot is (moderately) coherent. It is not, however, any good. It’s not even mediocre; it is inanely mundane and its greatest failing is a lack of imagination. In addition to lack of overarching story despite the presence of plot, this sin can be more relevantly subdivided into three separate domains of lack of ambition: it is not cinematic, it is not sufficiently insane, and it lacks humor.
It is tastefully bland.
Oh. My.
It’s like Feb. 14th all over again … but better!
Milk chocolate? Check. Dark chocolate? Check.
