Ripped from the Headlines

Remake, remodel: "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the delicious taste of a reboot done right

When I go to the grocery story for ice cream, I know exactly what flavor I want. Maybe I'm flexible on who's making the flavor but in general, give me what I know I already like.

Ice cream makers aren't the only ones in on this truism; advertisers are well aware that once consumers find something to our liking, we keep going back to it. Then movie executives got on the bandwagon a few decades back and boom – we're awash in remakes, reboots and sequels.

Of course, when you're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a two-hour entertainment venture in an industry that's slowly leaking customers, original vision and story is not high on priority list.

Last week, the latest edition in how this tale plays out hit the press. On Thursday, Sony Pictures announced it would remake the 1996 supernatural cult favorite The Craft to much wailing and moaning among people who feel it's a touchstone. (Confession: I have not seen, and I have no opinion on the remake.) Then on Friday, Mad Max: Fury Road premiered after a three-decade hibernation of the franchise.

Remakes and reboots and sequels, oh my! It's easy to see why they get the studio executives excited; they're a proven favorite flavor. It's also easy to see the dismay in potential consumers, who're left bewailing "why?" And while it's less easy to see, I imagine there's a significant disappointment in the creative screenwriters whose fresh stories are buried once again under the same stuff we've already seen. Hiring writers for remakes and reboots must appeal to those who like the strictures of fan fiction: Here are your borders, your canon, and a beloved lead character. Go!

The moaned "why" is not important here. Why is easy, why was decided by the accountants who saw that Craft made $55.6 million in worldwide box office with a budget of $15 million, and that the last entry in the Mad Max franchise, Beyond Thunderdome (1985) earned $36.2 million with a budget of $10 million. (And that one had Tina Turner in a skimpy mesh dress!)

The "why" that comes next, however, does interest me. Clever writers who avoid aping the same movie again can make or break the good do-over film. And while I can't speak for Craft (though there's hope in the indie horror director Leigh Janiak and screenwriter Phil Graziadel, who worked together on her film Honeymoon), I can address why Fury Road is the best kind of do-over film possible.

There are a number of reasons to ignore Fury Road, including:

1. No Mel Gibson, perfect as the haunted title survivor. (Pretend the last decade of his behavior never happened.)

2. The Fast and Furious franchise already has a lock on two hours of racing cars.

3. Dystopic sci-fi largely has gone beyond shoot-em-ups.

4. Ain't nothin' wrong with the first three Max films (aside from the absurd replacing of Australian voices with American ones in the 1979 original).

But having seen Fury Road, there are even more reasons to go see it. Fury Road, is exactly what you want from a big, loud (very loud), dumb (not entirely dumb) summer action picture. The movement is nonstop, the dialogue is minimal but effective, and the visuals are jaw-dropping and original. It succeeds because:

1. Original director and screenwriter George Miller has remained fully in the driver's seat.

2. He's not cashing in on his creation; he's re-crafting it for a new age.

3. He understands that women watch action films – and has weighted not just his cast but his story in their direction

Was there a screenplay for Fury Road? Ostensibly yes; writers (including Miller) were deployed at some point to craft at least a skeleton of a story. But what they did best was not in the line-by-line readings, it was in the world-building of a post-apocalyptic landscape of little water, acres of sand, plenty of grinding metallic engines, and an abundance of shell-shocked, possibly insane survivors. The film is predicated on a brilliantly realized, layered world of intertwining backstories – white-faced creatures exist to serve with religious fervor underground; women are sequestered as breeders for the leader (or used as milk-producing cows); there's a determined, take-no-shit female leader (Charlize Theron) who makes a bold break for freedom that propels the plot; and there are multiple factions of differently-motorized tribes scattered around the blasted landscape. Each calls out for its own film, or at the very least more explanations and explorations, but none of those are forthcoming. You are in this story, and the story owns the viewer from the first startling moments.

And the payoff works, for the most part. Angst, loss, determination, conversion, reunion, loss, survival. Max (played ably if not electrically by Tom Hardy) is almost beside the point. Instead, for this go-around Miller has used his Mad Max creation as a Trojan horse to tell a story today's audiences will lap up like ice cream – a brilliant packaging switch that more than justifies the need for whatever this film is: reboot or sequel.

"We don't need another hero," Tina Turner sang in the theme song to Beyond Thunderdome. And she has a point – most remakes feel like a chance to capitalize off of an established franchise and ring that cash register again. Fury pulls off a magic trick with this new edition, expanding its universe and providing several new, unexpected heroes. That it will more than make its budget back should comfort the accountants, but it's unimportant to those who care about story. Fury Road gives us the heroes we didn't know we needed.

This story originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

10 scripts, 2 Oscars: Which writers will take home the best screenplay awards?

The writer on a movie set is a second-class citizen, a vestigial remnant that might once have served a purpose but who, once filming has begun, can only get in the way. Once a script leaves the hands of its screenwriter, unless said screenwriter is also directing, they’re less useful than an appendix. Nobody wants to know or hear about the “writing” any more.

But that hasn’t stopped the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from creating two Oscars for the writing that even makes the story possible. Sharp acting, studied design and clever writing aside, all movies have to start in the same place – with a story – and so the writing of that story deserves at least a nod. Even though, on Oscar night, writers tend to be shoved all the way in the back of the theater. (They’re the ones most likely to have loosened hair pins and bow ties by the time they’re called; bless them, they’re so grateful.)

With that in mind, my hubris and expertise has surged to the fore again (as it did in August when I prognosticated which TV scripts were most likely to take home Emmys). Here, a brief look at the two important Oscar writing categories and which male scriptwriters (because there are no women nominated) will bring home a new lil’ buddy (and a whole new lease on his career) after Sunday night.

Take notes!

Writing, Adapted Screenplay
For reference: An adapted screenplay may be an original work, but it derived its inspiration (at the very least) from something else (like a memoir) that has already been written.

American Sniper (Jason Hall)
Based on the late Chris Kyle’s memoir, Sniper has been a source of contention since it was first released. Is it anti- or pro-war? That foot-on-either-side-of-the-minefield approach is likely director Clint Eastwood’s, but clearly Hall’s script wasn’t interested in seeing things in black-or-white at all times. Nominated by the Writers Guild of America.

The Imitation Game (Graham Moore)
Being nominated by the WGA is one thing; winning it gives your script a huge boost: Moore comes to the Oscars knowing the guild is on his side, and this is likely to tip the balance in his favor on Sunday. That said Imitation is a weird artefact of a script, divided in what story it wants to tell and dropping a major moral quandary three-quarters of the way through telling it. The likely winner, but not the most deserving one.

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
As the heir to the Robert Altman school of intertwined, loopy and often surreal storylines, Anderson wrote and directed his own script and probably deserves a special prize for being able to successfully adapt a Thomas Pynchon novel. Alas, Vice has a very low profile and didn’t even receive a WGA nomination.

The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten)
Or, the biopic about a Cambridge-educated scientific genius who changes the world that isn’t Imitation Game. Theory is a more coherently-told, if rambling, story about the great Stephen Hawking (based on his ex-wife Jane Wilde Hawking’s memoir) that is conventional in nearly every way. Still, McCarten’s take on the love triangle between Jane, Stephen and a family friend was done with a light hand and a firm expertise. Not WGA-nominated.

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
Here’s your dark horse outsider. A relative newcomer to directing/scriptwriting, Chazelle occupies a unique niche: storyteller/director for dark musical tales. Whiplash is roundly considered to be original and extremely well made, but is probably in the wrong category. It’s only considered “adapted” because Chazelle adapted his own 2013 short film by the same name for this longer take. The WGA recognized this and nominated it as an original; being in the wrong category for the Oscars could sink Chazelle’s chances.

Writing, Original Screenplay

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo)
Those who haven’t yet seen Birdman may sneer, and sneer rightly: At its twee, weirdly-punctuated title; at the fact that it took four people (including the director) to write it. Yet Birdman soars above those criticisms by being a kinetic bit of magical realism that was like nothing on the screen we’ve seen in years. Not nominated by the WGA, though; this may hurt its chances.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
The screenplay that took 12 years to complete should win for something. But it’s hard not to feel that Linklater let his actors form the script every time they met for a week each summer over that long span of time. It’s the Mike Leigh way to tell a story, and while it’s not wrong … it’s not exactly scriptwriting. Linklater is owed, big time. But based on the script – there’s not enough there, there. WGA-nominated.

Foxcatcher (E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman)
A big misfire. Slow-moving and dreary, starring Steve Carell’s prosthetic nose. Director Bennett Miller really thought he was on to the next Capote (in which he was also directing an Oscar-nominated script by Futterman) and then found whatever gems his script kept hidden buried under turgid directing and performances (save for Mark Ruffalo). Nominated for reasons unknown by the WGA.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (screenplay by Wes Anderson; story by Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness)
You want your quirk? Wes Anderson delivers your quirk. He may be pushing his limits in terms of just how sweetly off-the-wall he can be, but no question that director/writer Anderson knows how to move things along on charm and style. As the WGA winner this year, Budapest is largely considered to have this in the bag.

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)
There’s a good chance you missed this film, but it’s never too late to seek it out. Darker than the inside of a goth’s closet during a blackout, Nightcrawler was also pointedly satirical about the way the greed for ratings has turned the newsgathering game into a blood sport. Gilroy wrote and directed his own script with a firm, clear hand but this one tended to fly under most peoples’ radar. Worthy, and WGA-nominated, but hasn’t really a solid chance.

This article was originally published at Curiosity Quills.

Imitation of Life: Why Hollywood doesn't tell stories of female pioneers

At some point while watching the “Imitation Game,” probably when Benedict Cumberbatch was not actually on the screen, it occurred to me: Joan Clarke deserves a movie of her own.

 

 

For those who haven’t seen “Imitation Game,” which is good but more serviceable than great - Joan Clarke (played by Keira Knightley) is the sole woman on the team of cryptologists who are assigned to break the Nazi code, which changes every night and can only be interpreted via the Enigma machine.

As we see in the movie, Clarke (who was a real woman with a fascinating history), not only has to be as smart as her colleagues, she also has to outsmart her parents - who in the 1940s still believe in a woman’s reputation. As in so many other instances, the woman’s story is just as powerful as the man’s, only she has to do it while hobbled; if not by heels then circumstance.

I want to see Joan Clarke’s story. She lived until she was 79. She befriended a closeted gay man (Cumberbatch’s Turing) and believed they could make a marriage of the minds work - it would free her to pursue her love of mathematics, and it would give him the beard he needed not to face the fate he ultimately did - in England at the time, homosexuality was a crime. She was a numismatist. She was paid less than the men. She was, by all accounts, a pretty awesome lady.

And yet, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see her story. Not just because Turing’s tale trumps it (and was so recently told) but because she was a woman. Most women who get big flashy nomination-ready roles play the supports in the story - even when they’re lead actresses, even when they’re up front as protagonists. This year’s Oscar nominees are props for others - as wives, as heads of households holding it together; or they’re damaged by loss or mental issues. They are rarely creators of action, of plot, of story.

Even the woman who played Clarke despairs about the incredible paucity of female stories out there. “There are very, very few stories told,” Knightley told me when I spoke to her for the LA Times’ Envelope (full article here). “Thank God, they’re finally doing a movie about the Suffragettes - some of the most seminal female figures of the 20th Century. It’s amazing there hasn’t been a film covering that whole political movement.”

Well, one film comes to mind right away: “Mary Poppins.” Where the mother of the family is in fact a Suffragette, and is roundly considered a figure of fun because of it.

“It’s still female voices that are very often missed out on, completely,” she continued, and pointed out a new exhibit at London’s Tate Museum specifically devoted to female artists. “It’s not that there weren’t many famous female artists,” she said. “We just haven’t heard of them. Very often in every section of culture women are lost; every actress will say the exact same thing to you. We’re all looking for these interesting, inspiring, complex creatures … but they’re very difficult to find.”

Part of this is the box, of course. What box? The box of expectations. Part of the attempt to understand why the most powerful movie of the season, “Selma,” failed to score more than two Oscars (yes, it did get a berth in the Best Picture slot, but it had a distasteful tokenistic feel in light of the director, Ava DuVernay, being overlooked). Films featuring black characters and actors tend to only do well at the Oscars when those black characters and actors are victims: “12 Years a Slave,” for example.

That box transfers to women as well: Take a woman out of what’s considered her expected, traditional roles - wife, mother, daughter, victim - and give her a story to propel, well, then there’d better be a man standing right behind her or, better yet, let’s just tell the men’s story. It’s what people what to see anyway, right?

Poor Joan Clarke. A name almost lost to the ages, overshadowed by the genius of Alan Turing. He didn’t ask to overshadow her. History did that. Storytellers did that. The movies did that. All is not lost; of course, there are women out there doing good female stories - Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore, DuVernay - but it is a very small drop in a very large pond.

But here’s one larger rock worth considering: “Suffragette,” starring Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter and Carey Mulligan is written by a woman: Abi Morgan. And it is directed by a woman: Sarah Gavron. (Due out: later this year.) So, we start. And hope. And watch for the hobbling heels they’re still undoubtedly wearing - visible or no.

What’s your favorite female-centric film? Let us know here.

This article was originally published at Curiosity Quills.

It’s a Terrifying, Asphyxiating, Not-So-Wonderful Life After All

“It’s a Wonderful Life” aired again on TV recently, as it does pretty much every year around Christmastime. And whether you’ve actually watched it or not (and I do recommend you give it a chance), you probably know the story of George Bailey, whose life is upended one Christmas Eve when a big deposit from his bank goes missing, he contemplates suicide, and learns what his world would have been like without him around.

It’s a cracking film, made by the brilliant Frank Capra, who appears to have had pixie dust in his pocket, and it expands mightily on the short story that inspired it, “The Greatest Gift.” And like many great films it succeeds in large part because multiple generations have been able to interpret it on their own terms.

But this essay is not here to sing the praises of hearth, home and the beauty of having community rally around you. This is about why “It’s A Wonderful Life” is actually a horror movie.

Stay with me now.

In horror movies, good people (or at least mostly-good people) are assailed by forces beyond their control. They may or may not escape. Mostly, they don’t – or if they do they’re haunted for the rest of their lives. Everywhere they turn, the forces amassed against them are bigger, smarter, and more determined than they are, a combination that brings them down in the end.

Back to George Bailey, resident of a sweet little town called Bedford Falls. From the moment we meet him, we know he’s destined for greater things. He’s a good guy with a big heart who saves his brother (at a physical cost to himself), then saves his employer (a grief-addled pharmacist who writes the wrong prescription) from giving out medicine that would have killed someone. That’s three lives Bailey has in his “win” column before he even hits adulthood. If anyone should go out and become a world leader, it’s George Bailey.

That’s what he wants to do, too! As an adult, we first see Jimmy Stewart as Bailey ordering a giant suitcase that’ll carry all of his belongings while he goes around the world. And later on, he tells his future wife Mary, “I know what I’m going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that. I’m going to shake the dust of this crummy little town off my feet. I’m going to see the world then I’m going to build things.”

Oh, George. In a horror movie, never express your hopes and dreams. They will then be enumerated so they can be taken from you.

Bedford Falls is a nice enough town, but young folks don’t really want nice. They want adventure, they want to spread their wings and take on the world. George, however, is doomed not to get that chance. Here’s the sequence of events that read like doors closing on his face:

Dad, who started the town’s Building and Loan, the only business in town somehow not under the thumb of the evil, wealthy Mr. Potter (think “The Simpsons’” Mr. Burns), has a heart attack. George, apparently the only competent human being in the town, has to take over the B&L and gives his college money to his brother Harry, with the promise that Harry will return and take over in four years.

Harry – the kid who owes his life to his big brother – returns with a fiancée and a better job offer with his future father-in-law and George again defers his dreams to let his brother go.

Stuck in town, he re-connects with local chick Mary. Yeah, they had a nice evening out a while back but since she’s become a little too Overly Attached Girlfriend, turning a passing phrase of his into a needlepoint portrait. Never mind, they get married and start having kids. Which in and of itself is not a bad thing – but it digs him in deeper rather than paves a path to his escape.

But wait: The honeymoon! Yes! He can see the world on his honeymoon with good egg Mary! But no: As they’re leaving town there’s a run at the banks and … you guessed it. The only way the Building and Loan can stay afloat and out of the hands of Potter is if they use their honeymoon money to keep it afloat.

Score: 3 lives saved, 2 bundles of cash doled out to ungrateful others. George Bailey: Zero trips out of Bedford Falls.

George, as you may guess, never leaves town. This is what happens to the non-survivors of a horror movie.

But this is before the movie’s real darkness descends! George has to live with the terrible doodle-headedness of Uncle Billy, who mislays a huge deposit (which Potter scoops up, never to be returned) that leads George to thoughts of suicide on a snowy bridge, prepared to end it all.

Capra isn’t done going dark: George is shown what life would have been like in Bedford Falls if he’d never been born. Welcome to Potterville, a lively town of whorin’, drinkin’, fightin’ and one dowdy librarian named Mary who apparently in all quantum universes that ever existed could only be happy if there was a George Bailey around. So she’s single, and sad (because: single) and freaks out when he approaches her on the street. It’s an uglification of the Bedford Falls we’ve been seeing (even if it is a bit more exciting) and that’s about where we reach the terrible truth of it all:

George, you ain’t getting out, even if you die.

I’m not alone in these thoughts, mind: Dan Seitz at Uproxx noted something similar in 2012 (and also brought up that in the original script kindly angel Clarence faced off with Potter and scared him into having a heart attack).

And in 2008 Wendell Jamieson wrote in the New York Times: “ ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife. It is also a nightmare account of an endless home renovation.”

So this year, watch this well-written, ultimately terrifying film with some fresh eyes. Hide your kids. Put away your needlepoint portraits. And settle in to watch a good man get defeated, all while being convinced that he’s living a “wonderful life.”

Your mileage may vary, of course.

This post originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

Wherein Bradley Cooper has a question for Sean Penn

Life rarely melds together this neatly; if there wasn't video/audio proof of this Louis C.K/Bradley Cooper/Sean Penn connection, I'd have to think the following video was a hoax.

 

But it goes to prove that you never know where life is taking you next, that one day the handsome nobody in the front row asking the award-winning actor on stage about one of his roles could someday become ... Bradley Cooper.

Awesome.

And, because I'm thinking of "American Hustle," here's Jennifer Lawrence doing some amazing karaoke on Santana's "Evil Ways." Enjoy your Friday.

 

Sweating the details: Notes on "August: Osage County"

Movies are fantasy. We know this. We know that normal people living normal lives don't look like George Clooney or Angelina Jolie (though we can better imagine they might look like Jennifer Lawrence, who is accessable and beautiful), and we know the lives they are living on screen are a kind of heightened reality.

And yet the details, the devil lives in there, and I am here to rant for a moment about movies that skimp on the details. Specifically two, and they're related a bit.

Went to see "August: Osage County." It's not a great movie, but it's a very good one, and has this to offer it: For the first time ever, I actually liked Julia Roberts in a film. She's one big ball of pissed off and even though she has a big bulgy vein in her forehead and a mouth the size of Katniss' Everdeen's bow, I dug the angry JR. This is new for me; bear in mind that I cheered silently at the end of "Steel Magnolias."

But back to the movie. The title itself tells you two things: It is August, and we are in Osage County, Oklahoma. If that wasn't enough to set the scene, you get several references to how darned hot it is (including a story about a parakeet that dropped over from the heat). There's even a shot of a LED screen announcing it's 108 degrees. It is hot. Julia even has to stand in front of a fan, because mom Meryl Streep won't put on the A/C.

 

Get it? Hot. Boiling. Wretched.

But nobody sweats. Not a drop. The best you get is a kind of sheen, the kind ascribed to pregnant women. There's a light glow on people that suggests that at any moment they might pop a bead. But nobody sweats. At one point, Julia has come home from a funeral and is standing in front of that fan, fanning herself with the panels of her cardigan.

Her cardigan.

Does she take it off? Does she display bare arm and aim those pits at the fan? Hell, no. Later on, she's shown in multiple layers and long sleeves. It's hot! It's 108 degrees! Birds are dying! Does she disrobe in any way to indicate that fewer layers might bring about some relief? She does not.

And in this case, I don't mean to pick on Julia specifically; no one in the film sweats. Not even when Crazy Mom Meryl makes the men put on their jackets when dining at the table. When Margo Martindale fans her back and complains that there's sweat there, and Chris Cooper should check out how sweaty her back is, there is no sweat.

This killed me. For frack's sake, whoever was in charge: No A/C and 108 degrees means sweat. This is a detail that should be in this film. It should have been a slippery puddle of sweat in that film, and it didn't even come close to truly being even moist.

Secondarily, and this is a wider net I'm casting here: I love long hair on women in the movies; I'm not a pixie-haircut kind of gal and have never had my hair that short. So because of that, I'm keenly aware of the 89 times during any given day when you have to get your hair out of your face. Whether with a hairclip, a braid or just a ponytail, that stuff in your eyes gets annoying. It also gets hot. Yet for some reason, in the movies, at times when it seems most important -- like times of huge stress or danger -- the ladies never think to pull their hair back. It just hangs there. And it ticks me off. This is another "Osage" violation: At any time, does Julia Roberts pin her hair up so it gets off of her neck, instead of laying flat against her head like some kind of awful wig? No? Ding, ding!

There's probably someone out there who can explain that this is all part of a master plan by director John Wells. I'm not so sure. So please note, filmmakers (none of whom are listening): If it's hot, people sweat. Keep it real. And if it's hot or you've got a woman in serious danger, let them pull their locks back. Everybody wins.

And I can stop sweating over it.

Going, going "Gone Girl": Read it now

I'm a little late to the party, but I can't recommend highly enough Gillian Flynn's terrific "Gone Girl." I ran through it in about ten days (which considering my schedule is pretty swift) and though it'll sound like a cliche, hadn't felt a book emotionally yo-yo me like that in, well, almost forever.

If you haven't yet read it, I won't do the whole spoiler thing. But suffice it to say it takes place in alternating first-person viewpoints of two halves of a marriage: Nick and Amy Dunne. Flynn's terrific at searing, then cauterizing the wounds two people can inflict on one another in the course of a relationship and then a marriage, and the way she describes how they both tried so hard to be someone else when they met -- that by the time they were well married and were their actual selves, they were virtual strangers.

This sounds very literary and interior, and in some ways it is, but the essence of "Gone Girl's" plot is when Amy disappears on the morning of their 5th anniversary, and the consequences for everyone around them. The twisty way Flynn gets us there, and shifts our loyalties from one spouse to the other, is simply brilliant. Two other things make me instant Flynn fans: She's a former entertainment writer who made it as a proper novelist (aspirational!) and that she subverted my natural tendency to skip to the end.

Now, I don't literally skip to the end of books, that's an odd behavior I've never understood. I don't mind knowing where the journey is heading thanks to the jacket flap copy, but I really don't want to know where we end up until we're there. But at the start of "Gone Girl's" initial plot kicker I started trying to figure out what was going to make this more than a normal thriller, what was going to vault it above the usual whodunit and whydunit and so forth. And while some of my early expectations were proved right, I really could never have known where "Gone Girl" was, well, going until right before the very end. So thank you for that, Ms. Flynn.

Mre than one person commented on the fact that I was carrying the book around, telling me alternately that it was terrific and that Reese Witherspoon had the option for the film. I'm not sure I see her as Amy -- I see more of a Jessica Chastain type -- but that's all ephemera. Go read "Gone Girl, immediately.

Related articles

Guest Post: Gillian Flynn Chicago Discussion of Gone Girl

Cast The Movie: 'Gone Girl' Edition

22 Rules for Storytelling

In lieu of anything significant from my pea brain today, how about a list from Emma Coates, the story artist at Pixar?

22 Rules for Storytelling

Terrific advice there, including:

"Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone."

and

"Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience."

Terrific stuff. I'm a huge fan of Pixar, and only part of it is the beautiful artistry -- I'm drawn in by the well-told stories. Check it out!

Type it, and the words will come. Trust me on this.

As I told M Sunday night around 12:15 am (so okay, it was early Sunday morning), it's easier than breaking rocks to get paid to cover the Oscars from the comfort of your own home office ... but six hours in front of the TV and computer screen ain't for wusses, either.

We got home Saturday evening from a lovely week away (Turks and Caicos islands, more on that likely at some point), spent Sunday puttering around with necessary things like laundry and marveling at the apartment, which has now been painted off-white, and then around 6pm I settled in to write up blog entries about the Oscars for one of the outlets I work for.

Again, this is easier than coal mining, and easier probably than a lot of other folks' jobs. (I'm not going to grumble too hard that it was the first year in about five that I wasn't able to have an Oscar party.) But here's the writing aspect of it: No such thing as a writer's block when you're under the gun like that. Over the course of the six hours I watched, digested, researched, wrote, checked, added photos/video/links (the usual producing stuff) to six posts and sent them out into the ether, crossing my fingers I hadn't missed something totally obvious. This while instant-messaging with a room of around 7-10 folks and tying up loose ends here and there. There's zero time to think about "does this word work with this word?" or even put much finesse on your blog entry openings. You just do, you just work, you just ... write.

It's so easy when writing for yourself, with no particular deadline but your own, to whimper and whine that the words won't come, that you're stuck and you won't sound good. The fact is, if you sit down and make the words come, they will come. Type it and they will come, even if only in 500 word chunks. They may not be brilliant, they may not be quite right, but they will be there for you to clean up later on.

And still, easier than cracking granite.

P.S. Hurrah for Adele and "Argo"!

Sci-fi/fantasy will eat itself (or) HBO's bid for literary success

Just returned from the sci-fi convention Arisia, up in the surprisingly temperate zone of Boston, in which I spent several hours on panels talking about sci-fi/fantasy films and TV. (I also sold a book, but that's for another post.)

Lesson learned: It is possible to get about 20 people in a room to talk about nothing but "Game of Thrones," "The Hunger Games" and the "Alien" universe for an hour and fifteen minutes; it probably would have been possible to stretch each session to twice their allotted lengths. If there's one thing genre fans love to do, it's parse the work. Interestingly, there was extended discussion in both cases on whether the films/TV series adhere to the books (in the case of both "Game/s" series)? If not, why not, and were those changes acceptable to the fans? ("Alien" didn't originate out of books, but thanks to "Prometheus" there was plenty of discussion about canon on that point too.) Answer: Most deviations are unwelcome, if understood.

But what struck me was a comment from the audience indicating that George R.R. Martin, author of the "Song of Ice and Fire" books ("Game of Thrones" is just the first) is writing his final installment of that series in tandem with the TV show's development, and has apparently commented that the show is influencing what he's planning on saying. That's extraordinary -- not so much that a writer is influenced by fandom, but that a massive book series conceived pre-TV adaptation is now being changed, however subtly, by the adaptation itself. J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" books finished amidst the adaptations of her works, but she always maintained she had the whole thing plotted out ahead of time -- but was she also influenced by the time she got to "Deathly Hallows" by the image of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry by then?

I've got mixed emotions about the influencing. On the one hand, it's probably slight in each case. On the other hand, it's undoubtedly been done before and we just haven't heard of it. On yet another hand, fandom in sci-fi/fantasy is elastic and self-referential and fans themselves often go on to become the creators of the next bodies of work, so this may be nothing new.

But it feels problematic to me. TV and film are different media from the written word, and while adaptations of movies into novels do exist (and can be compelling) I personally prefer the idea of a work being completed independently from its adaptation. Surely Martin knew what he wanted to do with the books before HBO came knocking -- why in any way adjust that view now that there's a cable network involved? I know it sounds very high-minded, but it's hard to shake. I keep thinking of the classics, and how outside forces naturally shaped other literary masterpieces, such as Dickens' work (he was paid by the word, no wonder his books are so big) -- but this new development feels like its the books that are getting compromised. There was a band in the 90s called Pop Will Eat Itself. In the case of "Ice and Fire," I wonder just what is eating what.

Not that any of it will keep me from tuning in and opening the next book. I'm hooked on both.